The bike roared off down the street and we lay locked together like lovers on the grass with the rain falling on us.
Charlie had crashed into the bougainvillea that wound around his front fence. He was bleeding on the face and hands and his skin had a sickly pale tinge under the yellow light.
‘You see?’ he moaned. ‘What did I tell you?’
We disentangled and I picked myself up. I was unhurt but my trousers, shirt and jacket were a mess. Charlie’s expenses were mounting. Dry-cleaning these days costs a bomb. ‘Just remember to tell them in the office that your uncle played prop for Country versus City,’ I said.
I ushered a very shaken and bleeding Charles Marriott inside his house. He had state-of-the-art security magic beams, alarms and connections to one of the leading security outfits. Inside he was about as safe as a man can get.
The house was unremarkable otherwise, apart from his workroom, which had computer power to rival NASA’s. Confirming what he’d said, there was a bookcase full of books on ornithology. Apart from computer manuals, there wasn’t much else to read in the house.
Charlie cleaned himself up in the bathroom and produced his firepower, a single-shot. 22 rifle.
‘I have to admit it’s just a deterrent,’ he said. ‘I haven’t got any bullets.’
‘Just as well. Are you okay now?’
‘Yes.’
He looked it, and that puzzled me a little because most people find being shot at a traumatic experience. I did. But it takes people different ways and maybe he had stronger nerves than most, despite his erratic history. Or perhaps because of it. He was a strange one. I was surprised that he mentioned Steve going under the train just the once.
I said, ‘You’re snug as a bug here, Charlie. I’ll push off and collect you in the morning. What time?’
‘Seven.’
‘Jesus!’
‘When you’re at the cutting edge you have to start early, Cliff.’
‘Okay. And we’ll be a bit more careful about coming and going in the future.’
I drove home in the rain with a few things about Marriott bothering me. He hadn’t thanked me for saving him from getting shot, but maybe in the modern world you don’t dispense gratitude when you’re paying. He was subject to mood swings and there was an instability about him that was troubling, but what did I know? Computer freaks had to be crazy by definition. It was a paying job in a lean, post-GST time and I’d stick with it for as long as I could.
I picked him up at seven sharp the next morning and he seemed to be in good spirits, although the cuts on his face and hands were raw and he favoured his left side as a result of my tackle bruising his ribs. I’d checked the street over carefully and kept an eye out on the drive.
I parked in an allotted space under the building and we travelled in the lift up to the floor Solomon Solutions occupied. The sixth, all of it. By 8 am it was a hive of activity with screens glowing, printers chugging and phones ringing. Charlie introduced me as his uncle Cliff, a possible investor, to several of the underlings and they looked about as interested as the American people had been in the Gore/ Bush election.
I hung around for a while in Charlie’s office while he dealt with emails and phone messages and kept an eye on the door marked Stefan Sweig. I didn’t see one for Mark Metropolis. Neither had showed by the time I took myself off to the nearby shopping centre for coffee and the food I hadn’t felt like at 6 am. I waited for the lift to take me back up to the sixth floor. It arrived and among the couple of people stepping out was a tall redhead wearing a suit with an Ally McBeal skirt and the legs to do it. I stepped into the lift but couldn’t help myself watching her as she walked towards the entrance. A young man in a striped shirt, granny glasses and jeans joined me in the lift and did the same.
‘How d’you like that?’ he said.
‘Who is she?’
He looked me up and down-grey in the hair, leather jacket, Grace Bros strides, Italian shoes but old-and smiled pityingly. ‘That’s Amie Wendt, Stefan Sweig’s squeeze.’
Charlie manufactured some excuse to fly to Melbourne and I went too, all on the company account because I was a prospective investor. Business class. We both had a couple of drinks but didn’t talk much. Charlie read Business Week and I struggled with the quick crossword in the Age, which I’d bought to catch up on the Melbourne news. It struck me how similar it was to the Sydney news, all except the football and the weather.
We hired an Avis Commodore and drove to Hawthorn, where Charlie said Rog was working as a waiter while finishing his law degree.
‘Stayed in touch, has he?’
Charlie nodded. ‘In a manner of speaking.’
It must have been a strange manner because when we walked into the smart cafe, all potted plants and smoked glass, the tall young man with the curly fair hair wearing a long apron dropped the tray he was carrying. Glass shattered and a fat man emerged from the back of the place to make angry noises in Italian. The people at the three occupied tables looked up interested, as if it was a floor show.
Charlie went into action. He shepherded the man, who had to be Rog, towards me.
‘Don’t let him run off,’ he said. He took out his wallet and laid what had to be at least a hundred dollars on the fat man. They negotiated.
‘You’re Roger, right?’ I steered him to a table and pressed him down onto a chair.
‘Who the hell are you?’
‘Doesn’t matter. I’m working for Charlie.’
‘What does he want?’
‘He wants you to come back to Sydney and help him with some legal problems.’
‘You can’t be serious.’
‘He is, and so am I.’
Rog was a transparent type and I could almost see the cogs turning and the gears engaging. He’d been frightened at first, that was clear. Now he was calculating. Charlie joined us.
“lo, Rog.’
‘Charles.’
‘Charlie, Rog, I’ve loosened up. I’ve made it sweet with your boss. No problems.’
Rog didn’t speak.
‘I could use your help. Stefan’s on the warpath.’
Rog shook his head. ‘I like it here. Plus I’m enrolled at Monash and-’
‘I’d make it worth your while. Consultancy. You could transfer to Macquarie, say, and you wouldn’t have to wash dishes.’
‘Fuck you, Charles.’ Rog sprang up and walked away. I made a move to go after him but Marriott shook his head.
‘What did I tell you? He’s terrified of Stefan.’
‘I could do with a coffee. You?’
‘Latte.’
I went to the counter. A young punk woman was attending the espresso machine and she was wide-eyed at the goings-on, though trying not to show it.
‘A latte and a flat white.’ I slipped out one of my business cards and passed it across with a ten dollar note.
‘Give the card to Rog when you get a chance, would you?’
She loved it. ‘Yes, sir,’ she said, and put some extra zip into flying the machine.
We sat over the coffees longer than they deserved. Charlie said there were business things he could attend to in Melbourne for a couple of days and that being out of reach of Stefan and Rudi had to be good. I agreed.
‘Get to know the town, Cliff,’ he said. ‘I’ll book us into the Lygon Lodge. You might want to open a branch office one of these days.’
He was taking the piss and I didn’t like it but I let it pass.
Melbourne had improved since I’d last been there. It looked and felt better-more light, less shade. The people looked happier.
Rog rang me on my mobile on the second night.
‘Are you alone, Mr Hardy?’
I was tempted to use the Jack Nicholson line from Chinatown but I resisted. ‘Charlie’s off schmoozing to some people about digital something or other. You can talk to me, Rog.’
‘Can I?’
‘You must want to, and I know there’s something wrong about Charlie.’