‘Hardy, Cliff Hardy.’ I think I gave my full name because I wanted to hear her say it.
‘You’re supposed to laugh, Cliff. God, it’s a double joke really.’
‘I’m sorry, you’re going to have to explain it to me.’
She shrugged. ‘He was good, as I say. With a bit of luck and persistence he could’ve got good parts, made a success. I’d have been pleased for him and pleased for me.’
‘But he gave up acting?’
‘Threw it in.’ She smiled and showed those excellent teeth again. There was a chuckle with the smile this time. ‘So that joke was on me. I hardly made a cent from him. The second joke’s sort of on you.’
‘How’s that?’
‘Gareth gave up acting to be a private detective.’
7
She really laughed then. The flesh on her upper body shook and quivered and tears ran from her large, green eyes. ‘I’m s.. sorry,’ she said. ‘It just struck me as funny. God, I’m losing my grip. You must have noticed that the phone hasn’t rung and no-one’s called since you arrived.’
‘It hasn’t been long,’ I said. ‘You’re probably in a rough patch.’
‘It’s nothing but rough patches.’ She wiped her face and rearranged it into something like a smile. There was a charming, witty woman in there somewhere behind the blubber. ‘Ah, well, I can always go back to voice-overs.’
‘Is that what you did before agenting?’
‘Yes, and after acting. After I got too fat. I suppose everyone was something before. You were something before you were a private eye.’
I didn’t want to get into that. I’d been a happily married organisation man; sometimes it sounded good. ‘Yeah. Have you got an address for Greenway?’
‘Are you going to cause him trouble?’
‘He’s caused himself trouble already.’
‘What’s be done?’
‘You could call it… impersonating a lunatic’
She clicked her tongue. ‘Gave you a performance, huh?’
I nodded.
‘Told you he was good. Impersonating a lunatic, what a part. Well, I don’t owe him anything.’ She pushed her swivel chair back and swung to her left. Her hand on the file card drawer was narrow, long-fingered and white. I’d heard there were people who made a living from having their hands and feet and ears photographed. I thought maybe she could do that as well as voice-overs, but I didn’t say so. She pulled out a card and read off the address, ‘1b Selwyn Street, wait for it-Paddington. He shared with someone. No phone. Can you imagine that? An actor with no phone? I had to send him telegrams.’
‘I can’t imagine a detective with no phone. D’you think he was serious about that?’
‘He showed me the ad he’d put in the paper.’
‘What paper?’
‘The Eastern Suburbs Herald, I think it was. It was something like Sherlock Enquiries, no, that’s not it. Greenlock Enquiries. Private. Confidential. That sore of thing. Greenlock, you see?’
‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Holmes. Jesus. Did the ad give the Paddington address?’
‘Sorry. Don’t remember.’
‘When was this?’
She consulted an appointments diary on her desk. ‘Three months ago. January 7.’ The phone rang and she almost snatched it up. She crossed her fingers and looked at me. I crossed my fingers too. She lifted the phone. ‘Fanshawe Agency. Roger, how nice. Yes, I think so. Bruno? He’s available I think.’
I mouthed ‘Thank you’ at her; she showed the first class teeth in a wide smile and I left the office.
It was uphill from the ‘Loo to Darlinghurst and I was sweating when I reached my car. I drove to Selwyn Street where there were no parking places. I circled the block without finding a space so I double-parked outside number 1b which was a tiny terrace in a row that had been crimped and cutied like a poodle. A solid knock on the door brought a response from the balcony above me.
‘Yes? What is it?’
I backed out onto the footpath. A young man in a singlet and jeans was leaning over the railing. Sunlight glinted on one long, dangling earring.
‘I’m looking for Gareth Greenway.’
‘He’s not here.’
‘This is the address I have.’
‘He moved out when I learned that I had it.’ There was a bitter edge to his voice; he sounded like the people I used to interview who’d let their insurance lapse before the fire that wiped them out.
‘What?’
‘What d’you think? AIDS. Gareth’s not the caring and sharing type.’
His hair and beard were dark stubble over thin, tightly stretched skin. Bones protruded around his neck and along the tops of his shoulders. He was deeply tanned but he still looked sick.
‘When did he go?’
He shrugged and folded his arms. The upper parts of his arms were fleshless, thinner than the forearms. ‘A couple of months back.’
‘D’you know where he went?’
‘No. Bondi someplace. That’s all. Have you got a cigarette?’
‘No. Sorry.’
‘Doesn’t matter.’ His skull-like face went back into the gloom.
Sometimes I wish I’d get a case that would take me west, to Broken Hill. As it is, I always seem to be heading east, down to the sea. I drove to Bondi Junction where the office of the Bondi Tribune is located. Hilary Fanshawe thought the paper Greenway had advertised in was an Eastern Suburbs rag and it seemed likely that he’d put the ad in a few papers in that area.
Everything is new in Bondi Junction and seems to be getting newer. Some of the people are old but they look as if they belong somewhere else. I had no trouble getting permission to look through back numbers of the paper. These sorts of papers are grateful for any interest shown in them. A bright-eyed young woman took me to a room which was glass on three sides. I was the only reader and everyone who walked in the corridors on all sides looked at me. No chance of making any sly excisions.
I found the ad in the issues for the first two weeks in January. Greenlock Enquiries-discreet amp; determined. Negotiable rates. At least he didn’t claim experience. I wrote down the telephone number that accompanied the ad, thanked Bright Eyes and left feeling that I’d earned lunch and possibly dinner.
I had a sandwich and coffee in the mall and then I phoned my home number. No reply. Greenway picked up his phone on the third ring.
‘Greenlock Enquiries.’
There was plenty of background noise in the mall to help and I deepened my voice a bit and spoke slowly. ‘Mr Greenlock, I… ‘
‘No, no. My name is Greenway. Greenlock is just the name of the agency. How can I help you?’
‘Mr Greenway. I have a matter. I need some help.’
‘Yes. Mr…?’
‘Barton, Neil Barton. I’d like to see you. Are you free now?’
‘I am. The address is Flat 3, 12 Curlewis Street, Bondi. Can you find that all right?’
‘Is it near the beach?’
‘Very near. A few doors away. My office is above a supermarket.’
‘I’ll find it. Thank you. Thirty minutes?’
‘That’ll be fine.’
I hung up feeling slightly foolish about the charade. Neil Barton was an uncle of mine, an old Digger. I hadn’t seen him for twenty-five years and his name just jumped into my mind. Weird. I found myself thinking about tricks of the mind and psychiatry as I headed for Curlewis Street. I was looking forward to talking such things over with Gareth Greenway. At the back of my mind was some concern about Annie. I told myself that was foolish-she’d been handling herself in a rough world for a long time and she was a survivor, like Uncle Neil, who’d come through Tobruk and other tight spots.
Number 12 was a large groceries and fruit barn with a two-storey cream brick structure behind it. There was a side entrance flanked by four letter boxes with Greenway’s number above one of them. A card was Scotch-taped to the inside of the fruit shop window at eye leveclass="underline" Greenlock Enquiries, G. Greenway Enquiry Agent, Unit 3. I went along beside the building to a double doorway; the doors had glass panels but they were dirty and smeared. Only one of the doors opened and that let very little light into a lino-covered lobby. Flats 1 and 2 were on this level. A flight of stairs led up into more darkness.