18
I located Tania at one of the banks of poker machines. She was smoking, playing her machine but also deep in conversation with the woman I’d seen her with earlier. I eased between them.
‘’lo, Cliff. How’s it going?’ Her smile was wide, her voice was loud, she was on the way to being drunk. ‘Tania, you’ve been terrific but you’re going to have to make your own way home.’
‘You’re dumping me. You get your pictures?’
‘Shush. Yes, it’s going okay. It’s just the way things have worked out. I can’t tell you more than that. Sorry.’ ‘’s all right.’ ‘Have you got the taxi fare?’ ‘Have I got taxi fare? I’ve been winning here, haven’t
I, Jude?’ She leaned back to look around me. ‘Cliff, this is Jude.’ Jude was lean and dark, Aboriginal. She flashed white teeth at me and laughed. ‘Hi, Cliff.’
I said hello and kissed Tania’s cheek. She didn’t pull away and she’d barely paused in her button pressing throughout the conversation. Jude whooped as a shower of
coins cascaded into her tray. ‘Hey, Cliff, stick around, you’re bringing me luck.’
‘Quit while you’re ahead.’
‘He’s no fun, Tania.’
I headed back to where the serious gambling was going on.
Wendy’s party had moved to another table and the crowd had moved with them. I kept my distance, but the signs were she was still making waves. I worked my way around until I could get a frontal view of the man I was privately calling Shottie. He was close to 190 centimetres and a hundred kilos with long, dark hair in a short ponytail. Some flab but not much, sideburns. He moved to catch hold of a waiter, and my identification of him was confirmed; just as you can identify footballers and tennis players in action on television before you see their faces, his movement stamped him as the man I’d seen jogging down the fairway in Wollongong.
I scouted around for somewhere I could lure him to, to isolate him. The toilets wouldn’t do; there were bound to be surveillance cameras. Likewise any of the doors leading to administrative areas. I wondered about the fire stairs, but they seemed to be the special concern of a security guy whose eyes never left the door. It looked as if the car park was the only possibility and there was a certain irony in that.
It was a tricky manoeuvre. I wanted him to spot me and think I hadn’t noticed. But I also wanted to see exactly what he did. I thought it out and made my move. Shottie was getting bored with the roulette and was looking over towards a blackjack table where the female dealer was a redhead. The uniform of white shirt, black trousers and vest suited her creamy complexion and statuesque figure. Shottie had been drinking solidly and the redhead was getting to him in a big way. I drifted past his field of vision, timing it precisely. I mimed raising my glass and fingering the few chips in my hand, but the mirror to my right let me keep him well in sight.
He saw me and reacted by emptying his glass and bending down to mutter something to the other guy attending Wendy. I caught the conspiratorial nod and then I lost visual contact as I moved beyond the mirror. I picked it up seconds later in another reflection as I went towards the exit. Shottie was coming after me at a fast clip, but this time I was ready for him and he didn’t know it. And he was drunk or close to it and I wasn’t. He was younger and bigger, but I fancied my chances.
I swerved and went to the nearest cage to redeem my chips. It gave me a chance to confirm that he was on my trail. I put the notes in my wallet, took out my keys and, weaving just a little, jiggled them as I walked. I went out past the sprouting water and down the ramp leading to the escalator to the car park. I was well ahead of him, stepping off at the bottom, at a guess, just as he stepped on. I crouched behind a pillar. He came at a fair clip down the escalator and was a fraction off balance when he hit bottom. I made a fist around the keys and, with my weight moving forward, drove a right into his kidneys. The breath went out of him and he sagged. I kicked his right knee into hyper-extension and he yelled and went down hard. His head bounced on the concrete and his flailing left arm cracked against the pillar.
Pumped up, I dragged him behind the pillar and held him from behind with his right arm up behind his back. He was young, heavily muscled and strong. He resisted as much as he could but he was winded and hurting in too many places.
‘Give it up,’ I said close to his ear.
‘Fuck you.’
I wrenched the arm and dislocated his shoulder. ‘Want to try for the other one?’
‘No.’
‘Okay, who put you on to me with the shotgun?’
‘Fuck you.’
I increased the pressure. ‘What was that?’
‘You’d better do the other arm,’ he said through clenched teeth, ‘because if I tell you anything I’m dead anyway.’
‘Can’t argue with that.’ Keeping the good arm tightly locked, I reached inside his jacket and pulled out his wallet. His driver’s licence identified him as Matthew Lonsdale with an address in Wollongong. I unshipped my mobile and dialled a number.
‘I want to leave a message for Detective Inspector Farrow.’
‘Can I have your name, sir?’
‘No. Tell Farrow he should look for a man named Matthew Lonsdale in connection with the murder of Adam MacPherson.’ I read Lonsdale’s address off his licence. ‘Farrow should go to that address now and he might find a sawn-off shotgun-’
Lonsdale wriggled frantically and I gave his battered arm a twist. ‘At present Lonsdale is in Sydney in the company of a woman named Wendy Jones who is staying at the Novotel on Darling Harbour.’
‘Sir, I request-’
‘Lie there!’
‘Sir?’
‘Not you.’
I gave Lonsdale’s knee a tap with my foot, moved away and spoke the description and registration number of Wendy’s BMW into the phone in a low voice. I told the call monitor where Lonsdale was at present and cut the connection.
Lonsdale rolled onto his back and looked up at me enquiringly, his face twisted in pain and fear. I rubbed behind my ear where his shotgun had broken the skin. I showed him the spot of blood on my finger.
‘Remember this morning? I’d say we were even, but you probably wouldn’t agree. ’Course, I didn’t have to wade through a shitty creek.’
He stared up at me, expecting a kick or worse, but I walked away.
My attack on Lonsdale might not have been the smartest move to make, but at least I’d learned something. Wendy Jones was certainly a player in whatever was going on in the Illawarra, but she wasn’t the major player. Her behaviour suggested that she was out for a good time in the here and now, not a long-term planner. And Lonsdale’s statement that he’d be killed if he revealed who’d hired him to heavy me carried weight. Someone, somewhere, had a lot at stake.
But my actions had put me in the firing line for whoever that was and would also make me a target for the police. If I was going to be of any use to Elizabeth Farmer I had to stay clear of both those forces as best I could.
Smartest way was to get home, pack a bag and find a bolthole. I had a mobile phone and a laptop computer for communication and allies of a sort in Aaron De Witt and Tom Purcell, the undercover guy. If I’d jarred something loose in the Wollongong operation they might help me identify it.
I shot a quick look back at Lonsdale. He’d struggled to his feet and immediately collapsed. I took the escalator down two levels to where I’d parked the Falcon. On the way I cursed myself for not checking whether he had a mobile phone. If he had, his mate could be on the way. I roared up the ramps and got clear of the car park as fast as I could. I made the Glebe Island Bridge in good time and not too soon because I saw the blue lights and heard the sirens of cop cars heading for the casino.
I relaxed when I got clear of Darling Harbour and that was a mistake because I opted for the wrong lane and got caught in a traffic snarl on Victoria Road. A bus had hit a car and the traffic was banked up to the Rozelle turn off. Like a few other drivers, I attempted to work my way around the jam. Too many with the same idea. The traffic thickened and almost stopped. Still some movement, but so slow.