‘You’re going to walk into my house carrying your dirty weekend bag?’
‘Has to be that way. I’m sorry. Are you worried about your reputation?’
She slung her own bag over her shoulder. ‘Who gives a shit?’
We went through the gate and up the path towards the house. ‘You haven’t been back since the break-in, have you?’ I pointed to the bushes by the verandah. ‘That’s where I ripped my shirt getting up.’
‘Sue me,’ she said.
We went inside. Felicia prowled through the house, noting the results of the search-the disturbed rooms, the broken window in the kitchen. I gathered up the sheets she stripped savagely from the bed and put them on top of the gar-bag in the laundry basket that stood in the second bathroom beside the washer and dryer.
‘Finished, have you?’ She stood in the doorway, still holding her coat and looking at me as if I was the one who had desecrated her house.
I tugged at a sheet to give the laundry basket a natural look and didn’t answer. The telephone rang and she grabbed it. She listened, sighed and tapped her foot.
‘All right,’ she said, and hung up.
I watched her as she paced the floor like a nervous parent. ‘Piers Lang,’ she said at last. ‘I gather you and he had a little talk?’
Her expression was fierce. I didn’t reply.
‘I can’t stay here,’ she said. ‘I want to go to Redfern.’
I looked at her. She was standing with her legs slightly apart as if balanced to throw a left hook. It wasn’t the right time for me to offer her the comforts of my overpriced, undermaintained terrace. ‘That’s a good idea. I’ll drive you.’
‘I don’t care whether you think it’s a good idea or not. I’m going. My car’s in the street. I’ll drive myself. And you can go to hell.’
I didn’t argue. I left the house after getting the registration number of her white Camira and making sure she had my home and office numbers. I checked her car over carefully for signs of interference, found nothing and drove off. I parked at the top of the street and waited until she left the house and got into the car. The Camira had stood idle for a good few days and she had some trouble starting it. I wondered if it would become a farce-me giving her a push. But the car started. She drove away fast and recklessly and I followed her, taking precautions. She parked in Chalmers Street and got out of the car, carrying her bag. She banged her knee and swore. Then she moved stiffly, tight with anger or sorrow or both. I would have liked to comfort her.
It was late in the day and I was tired. The embryonic beard was itchy on my face. I wanted a shower and a shave; I wanted a big drink and a house that didn’t leak and smell of mould. I wanted a woman who didn’t lie to me more than I lied to her and didn’t change her mind and mood in ways I couldn’t fathom. And I wanted to find Kevin O’Fearna.
22
I slept badly. I fancied I could hear burglars and arsonists and graffitists working their way through the house. I woke up a lot and had a few drinks. I finally got some sleep around dawn and felt like hell when I woke up at ten. The milk was sour and the bread was stale. I drank black coffee and scribbled notes in my notebook. Most of the notes ended in question marks. I went into the bathroom and looked at the beard. Not too bad, I thought, Bit of grey. Distinguished, intellectual even. Maybe if I kept it, I’d have some good ideas. I had a shower and began to feel better.
I drove in to Darlinghurst; the evidence I’d kept under the car seat and then under my bed I locked away in the office safe before I phoned Athena Security. The personnel manager was interested to hear from me. Yes, they were still recruiting. Yes, they valued experience. He only stopped saying yes when I said I’d need to talk to Eleni Marinos in person before I could consider joining the firm. He said he’d have to get back to me on that.
Call number two was to Michael Hickie. I asked him to find out all he could about Athena Security and its links, if any, to Riley’s outfit.
‘That’s your line of territory,’ he said.
‘I’ll be working on it, too. I’ll look into people and you can look into money.’
‘I’m interested in people too, you know.’
‘Don’t be,’ I said. ‘Most aren’t worth the trouble.’
‘You’re low. Having trouble with Felicia?’
I grunted.
‘Barnes said she was trouble, but worth it.’
I grunted again and hung up. I’d had to quote the number on my operator’s licence to the Athena bloke and, in the process of locating it, I had strewn the contents of my wallet across the desk. I looked at the credit cards and the meagre amount of cash and the creased driver’s licence and suddenly felt small and isolated. My only backup in the office was an answering machine; my only means of transport was the Falcon; I had an illegal Colt. 45 and a properly licensed Smith amp; Wesson. 38 for firepower. No helicopters, no armoured vans, no shotguns. Who was I kidding? This was too big for me.
It was midday and I was dry. Well, that’s what a cask of red wine is for. I poured a small one, swallowed it along with some pride, and phoned Detective-Inspector Frank Parker of the New South Wales Police, a body whose motto is, ‘Punishment swiftly follows the crime’. Two years ago Parker had married Hilde Stoner, who had been a lodger in my house. They now had a son whom they had named after me.
‘Parker.’
‘Hardy.’
‘Gidday, Cliff. How many favours can I do you? Just ask.’
‘Christ, what’s got into you? Did your shares goup?’
‘What shares? No, your namesake took his first steps last night.’
‘Bit slow off the mark, isn’t he?’
‘Piss off. Twelve months. Bit above average.’
‘That’d be right. Hilde okay? Good. Look, Frank, I’ve got a bit of a problem.’ I kept it vague, but intimated that I might have evidence connected with a major crime or possibly a series of crimes. I don’t why I said that, probably because cops say it.
‘I hear you went bail for O’Fear,’ Frank said. ‘Is there a connection?’
‘Could be. Are your people still interested in fingerprints and microscopic fibres and that sort of thing? Or do you just wait for the crims to blow each other away these days?’
‘Spare me the mordant wit, Cliff. What do you want?’
‘A talk. After work today, in the bar at Central Railway?’
‘Are you catching a train somewhere?’
‘No, I like the atmosphere.’
‘Are you okay, Cliff?’
‘Is anyone? See you around six, Frank.’
I had some more wine, which I sipped slowly while I looked out at the blue sky through the grey-brown window. I plucked at my near-beard but didn’t feel any brighter. I poured another glass of wine, and when the phone rang I reached for it, lazily, thinking it would be the man from Athena. I lifted the receiver and two men walked into the office without knocking. One of them was big and one was small. The small one held a gun that looked like a. 357 Magnum Colt, the one with the short barrel. It made him seem a lot bigger than he was. He gestured with the Colt for me to hand the phone to the big man. I didn’t do it, so the big man punched me in the face. I dropped the phone as I rocked back in my chair. He picked it up from the desk.
‘Right,’ he said into the receiver. ‘We’re here.’ He replaced the receiver and sat down in the hard, unpadded client’s chair. The lack of comfort didn’t seem to bother him. The small man leaned against the wall beside the half-open door; he held the gun in such a way that a ten-centimetre movement would train it on my chest.
‘I think it’s time we stopped pissing around, Hardy,’ the big man said. ‘I’m Stanley Riley.’
I rubbed my cheekbone where the punch had landed. He had pulled it so that the skin hadn’t split and I’d been more surprised than hurt. Expert stuff. He was well over six feet tall and beefy with it, although his well-cut grey suit concealed the flab. His face had that plain, fleshy, stamped-out-of-the-mould look you see on prison guards and ex-footballers. He had heavy eyebrows and a deep dimple in his chin that wasn’t cute. His mouth was a thin, hard split in the lower end of his face and his eyes were wide apart, bland and innocent.