I showered, applied some antiseptic cream to my scraped shoulder, put on a tracksuit and sneakers and went for a walk. The apartment development at the end of Glebe Point Road was just about ready for the well-heeled owners to move in on their water views. I turned off and did a long circuit through Jubilee Park, over the bridge and back up around Harold Park. The pub has gone and I wondered how much longer the pacing could continue. It seemed like time was passing it by. Up the Wigram Road hill and back home. A couple of kilometres and forty-five minutes of time out. I didn’t think about Frederick Farmer or Adam MacPherson or Wendy Jones or Marisha Karatsky.
There was a message with an attachment on the computer from Purcell. The message asked me to scrub the whole lot once I’d looked at it. The attachment was a photograph of Wendy Jones in the company of a gang of bikies. She was in the middle, astride her bike, and looked completely at home. At a guess she was in her mid to late twenties. Her face was arresting-high cheekbones, bony nose, thin lips. The quality wasn’t good enough for me to tell the colour of her eyes below heavy, dark brows. Her hair was mid-blonde, drawn back in a bikie ponytail. Slap on the makeup, change the colour and arrangement of her hair, put her in a dress and she could be transformed. But I wouldn’t have any trouble recognising her-the photo was sharp enough with the light coming in from the right direction to show that she had a winking jewel implanted in both of her front teeth. I could hear Purcell laughing.
Dr Farmer called to confirm that Tania was a starter. At 10 pm, in my only dark suit with a collar and tie and well-shined shoes, I parked outside the bijou terrace in Newtown. Dr Farmer ushered me in and introduced me to Tania Vronsky. She was the woman I’d seen in King Street- medium height, short blonde hair, an athletic body. She wore a black silk dress with a cream jacket, medium heels.
We shook hands. I said, ‘Ms Vronsky’ and she said, ‘Mr Hardy.’
Elizabeth Farmer snorted. ‘It’s going to look bloody funny the two of you walking around calling each other Ms and Mr. His name’s Cliff.’
‘Hello, Cliff. Thanks for the invitation.’
‘A pleasure, Tania.’
‘Let’s have a drink,’ Elizabeth Farmer, who’d obviously already had a few, said. ‘Put you both in the mood.’
She had a bottle of champagne open and the glasses ready. She poured, a little unsteadily. ‘Good luck,’ she said as she handed the drinks around. ‘Tell me all about it after, darling.’
In the car, I said, ‘She’s not too happy about this, is she? D’you want to back out?’
‘Shit, no. I love her dearly, but sometimes she’s too clingy. This is a godsend. I need some space. Just a bit. For now.’
I started the car. She leaned back and sighed. I drove in silence for a while, threading through the traffic towards Broadway.
‘D’you think you could stop so I can get cigarettes, Cliff? It’s another no-no at home, but it’d be in character in a casino, right?’
The casino was part of a complex on Darling Harbour. I’d been to a Van Morrison concert in the entertainment centre nearby and I’d eaten in one of the associated restaurants, but I’d never been inside the real money-spinner, the casino. I’d been in others though, and knew what to expect- over-the-top bad taste decor and an arrangement of lights and mirrors that made you think you’d entered another universe. I wasn’t wrong: the entrance had lights in the floor and spouting water up glassy walls. Inside the look was something between a tropical island and an Arabian tent- glass, steel and plastic thrown together with a few million watts. Pink dominated, followed by yellow and pale blue.
‘Jesus,’ Tania said as she took it in. ‘Whose idea was this?’
‘Probably a committee and based on a study of the sort of thing that most numbs the mind.’
She shot me a look. ‘Liz said you weren’t dumb.’
‘Thanks.’
‘Sorry, that sounded patronising. I just…’
‘You just expect someone in my trade to be thick, physically good, but thick.’
‘I said I was sorry.’
‘It’s okay. What we do is, we get some chips and have a bit of a play. Then I drift around and take a look at this and that.’
‘Is your plan really that vague?’
‘No, I’ve got a miniature camera and I’m going to take pictures of who she’s with-if she shows. Have to be careful. It’s not something the management’d like. D’you know how to play blackjack?’
‘I’ve seen the Bond movies. How does a girl get a drink?’
Strange to say, we really got into it. We placed our drink orders with the circulating waiters and lined up at the blackjack tables and roulette wheels over the next hour and a half. I won and she lost, then she won and I lost. Way it goes. Tania struck up a conversation with another woman and they went off to play the pokies. I drew the line at that. I did it a bit in the old days when you could kid yourself pulling the lever took skill, but the button pressing doesn’t do anything for me.
As I moved around, I registered the security guys trying not to be registrable in their smart suits and short haircuts. One or two of them looked me over closely, but I kept checking back with Tania and they evidently decided I was harmless. I helped the impression along by acting as though the drink was getting to me whereas in fact I was going very slowly on spritzers. The crowd built up steadily so that by midnight the noise and the smoke and the joy and despair were at a high level, and that’s when Wendy Jones made her entrance.
No other word for it. She sailed in with a big, dinner suited guy on either side. She’d got the hair tamed and turned to platinum. Her red dress was short and tight and low-cut and the white silk jacket wasn’t designed to conceal anything. Light bounced off the jewels in her teeth when she smiled and she smiled a lot. They ordered drinks, loaded up with chips, and headed for a blackjack table. Palming the camera and mostly hidden by one of the Parthenon-type pillars, I got off a few shots of the threesome.
I kept behind them after that and hung around on the fringes of a group that formed around a roulette wheel Wendy had evidently decided to make her own. She installed herself with one of her retainers sitting beside her while the other stood at her back. She had a full glass of champagne and a packet of cigarettes and a lighter to hand. Her piles of chips wouldn’t have disgraced Kerry Packer. She started to play and people started to watch and follow her because she was betting and winning big. The game is essentially boring, only the money makes it interesting, and the more money, the more interesting it gets.
I began to wonder why Wendy hadn’t opted for the high roller rooms where the sort of cash she was laying out now was more acceptable. Then it became clear. From what I’d been told, the gambling in those rooms is cold and clinical, almost mathematical. No audience, no performance, no drama. That wasn’t Wendy’s style. She played to the crowd, smiling broadly with her glinting teeth when she won and ordering more bubbly, and groaning and seeking sympathy when she lost. It was a good show and the casino wouldn’t object as long as she didn’t raise the stakes too high, because the people playing off her were mostly losing.
With her chips piled high, a fresh cigarette alight and a full glass to hand, the time came for her to make an important bet. There was a lull, almost as if the whirring pokies had fallen silent for a second, the muzak had died and the glasses had stopped clinking. The guy standing behind Wendy spoke loudly, as though the background
noise was still high.
‘Lay it on, Wendy!’
The croupier called for bets, Wendy slid her chips forward, the wheel spun, the noise mounted again, but I was frozen back in that momentary lull. The voice I’d heard was the one that had come from behind me that morning, accompanying the bite of the sawn-off shotgun behind my ear.