‘With what? We’ve got no grounds to call in the police against Morris. We’ve got nothing on him.’
Wes acted as if he hadn’t heard me. He shook his head and pointed to the phone. ‘C’mon, you must have cops you can trust. You can arrange something.’
‘I don’t and I can’t.’ My own feelings of guilt about the gun made me testy. ‘How about this? D’you want me to get in touch with Nickless and have him accuse Clinton of kidnapping and extortion? We could probably get the cops in on that.’
‘No, of course not. Why can’t I just turn up there and say it’s your father and…’
I’d told Wes about his son’s masquerade but he seemed to have forgotten. ‘Can’t do that. He’s supposed to be an Aborigine, remember? How’d he explain things to Morris? That’d put him right in the shit.’
‘So you’re saying we have to do it ourselves? We have to front up to this Morris character and try to get Clinton away from him.’
‘Right. Ordinarily, I’d tackle it myself with another pro or two, but I’m somewhat incapacitated. And normally the last thing I’d do is involve a client directly, but I reckon you’d have more influence with Clinton than anyone else on the planet, if we can just get at him properly.’
‘Given that Angela Cousins is dead,’ Wes said quietly.
‘Yeah, that’s right. Look, I have to assume Morris has a couple of other guys with him, especially if he’s waiting to do a big drug deal. But you must’ve been in some fights, Wes.’
‘Uh huh, very few. You look like this, the drunks and even the racists, they pretty much leave you alone.’
‘Must have done your National Service when you were in England.’
He suddenly looked older and sadder, which was not what I was hoping for. ‘Yeah, I did it. In Northern Ireland.’
‘Perfect,’ I said.
I told him about the set-up at Ryde-the size and operation of the gate, the height of the fence, the floodlights, the kind of neighbourhood. He listened intently. It seemed that he’d got rid of all doubt; now he was totally committed. He absorbed the information instantly and I could sense him processing it the way a military field officer does, the way I’d done myself in Malaya but a long time ago and with varying degrees of success.
‘Houses next door?’
I racked my brains. I hadn’t been planning on anything like this when I’d been there. I hadn’t been planning anything and a few minutes later I was in cloud cuckoo land. I tried to visualise the houses on either side and couldn’t. All I could see was the trees, then I remembered.
‘Corner block. House on the other side much the same as the others in the street. No brick fence. I think.’
‘You think. Okay. What about the fence along the open side?’
Open side. Military terminology. Encouraging. I tried, but I couldn’t stay with him on it. ‘I don’t know. Didn’t notice.’
‘That could be good. You’d probably have noticed something formidable. Right, well, this sounds fairly satisfactory. You see, if this Morris hasn’t got any real idea of security or any military experience, he’ll assume all you need is something impressive and high-tech out front. That’s bullshit. Any piece of territory has points of vulnerability right around the perimeter. Well, I’ll ring Mandy and tell her I’ll be a bit late. Oh shit, you are thinking of doing this tonight, aren’t you? You’re up to it, are you, Cliff?’
Of course I was. After a couple of Ian’s pills and a shot of whisky and with the cosh in my pocket and the illegal Colt. 45 automatic I keep for emergencies coming along with me for the ride.
‘Sure.’
The night had turned cool, enabling me to wear a light jacket with a pocket big enough to hold the Colt. I gave Wes the directions and we took both cars. The pills helped; I could feel the pain in my side when I shifted gear and turned the wheel but somehow it didn’t seem to matter. We drove down the side street and inspected the length of Morris’ property. Wes had overestimated my powers of observation-there was a high cyclone fence running from front to back. We stopped further down the street and went into a huddle.
‘Depends on the neighbours now,’ Wes said. ‘He controls the space in front and down that side. He doesn’t control the back and the other side. Let’s take a look.’
The cyclone fence only ran a metre or so across the back; after that it was a standard paling job.
‘Easy,’ Wes said. ‘Over into the other place and then over the back fence.’
‘Wes,’ I said. ‘I can’t scale any fences just now and anyway, I just happen to have a pair of bolt cutters in the car.’
He turned on me angrily, the first sign that he was on edge. ‘You’ve been pissing me about, man. Letting me do the military bit.’
‘No. We’re going to need all the experience we can muster. You were dead right. This fence is his Achilles heel.’
That soothed him. He grinned. ‘I like to work with a man with a classical education.’
‘Penguin Classics,’ I said.
He chuckled. ‘Doesn’t matter. Okay, let’s check that the fence isn’t wired up, which I doubt because any stray dog could set it off, and cut a hole big enough for you to walk through.’
We did that and pushed through a few scruffy casuarinas. I was glad to see Wes hanging on to the bolt cutters as a weapon. That meant he was taking the danger seriously. I showed him the cosh as we crouched in the shrubbery at the side of the house. He nodded sceptically. I didn’t show him the gun. It was a while since I’d done this sort of thing and I was nervous. I’d never done it with a broken jaw, cracked ribs and stoked up on codeine and alcohol.
‘No dogs,’ Wes said. ‘That’s good.’
I hadn’t thought about dogs at all. That was very good.
The house was brick with a covered verandah running all the way around on the lower level and a deck at the sides on the top storey. At a guess, six bedrooms. There was an in-ground pool at the back, off to one side, balanced on the other side by a sizeable carport. There were lights on in the house and I could hear music playing; or maybe it was from a TV set. We crept around to the carport and found the Tarago and a Holden Commodore of the kind Greg Norman advertises.
As we stood there a car pulled up at the gates and the intercom sounded. A staticky exchanged followed and the gate opened as the floodlights came on. A taxi backed away and a tall, slender woman wearing high heels, a short black skirt and a pink satin blouse strutted towards the house. Her blonde hair bounced on her padded shoulders as she reached into her purse for her mobile phone.
‘She’ll keep someone busy,’ Wes said.
‘Yeah. He’s so excited he’s forgotten to close the gates.’
We both got a better look and Wes said, ‘Oh, Jesus.’
She was slender because she was young, very young. The heavy makeup couldn’t disguise the fact. All her movements had a coltish awkwardness, sexually attractive I guess, to some.
She knocked, went into the house and the floodlights died.
‘How d’you see it?’ Wes said. He was rewarding me for the bolt cutters.
‘Two options. We sneak in, try to cut Clinton out somehow, or we do a diversion down here- drive a car into the pool or torch one, something like that.’
‘Which d’you favour?’
I stared at the house. I fancied some lights had gone on and others off but I wasn’t sure. We had no idea of the layout in there-stairs, doors, lights, furniture.
‘Diversion,’ I said. ‘Chances are it’s Morris in the sack. If there’s anyone else apart from Clinton we can assume what we like-man, woman, tough, weak, who knows? But Clinton’s the muscle. If there’s something going on down here, he’s supposed to front up.’
‘Agreed.’
‘I warn you, he’s not going to be happy about our interference with his little plan.’
‘Bugger his plan. I’m his father.’
I guess that’s the way fathers can look at things if they choose. I wouldn’t know. There was very little light coming from the house and it was easy to sneak about in the carport, keeping in the shadows. The Commodore was locked. It carried a sign saying that it was protected by a Viper Car Alarm. Wesley pointed to it. I nodded and hunted around in the garage for something to throw. I rejected a screwdriver and a bottle as they are likely to bounce. A hefty shifting spanner seemed like just the thing.