January’s hand no longer hovered near her back. ‘He gives me nightmares.’
‘Minister?’ Sammy Weiss had crept up on my blind side.
January’s smile was automatic. ‘Yes?’
‘This is Sam Weiss, Peter,’ I said. ‘Freelance.’ That gave January time to adjust, after that, I figured, he was on his own.
‘I know Sammy,’ January said. ‘What’re you working on?’
‘Bombing,’ Weiss said.
January spoke too quickly. ‘Nothing new, is there, Cliff?’
I shook my head. Weiss reached into his pocket and pulled out a glossy photograph, large postcard size. I caught a glimpse of Karen Weiner’s face, raised and happy-looking, as Weiss presented it to January.
‘Do you know this woman, Minister?’
My first reaction was to ram him up against a wall again, but it would have been the wrong move. January had the situation sized up now and, like a good pro in the ring, he was dictating the pace. He smiled, took a sip of his drink and drew his brows together in puzzlement. ‘No, I don’t believe so. Who is she?’
‘You had a drink with her the other night.’
January was moving now, not hastily but enough to put Weiss off balance. He grinned. ‘I wish I had a vote for everyone I’ve had a drink with, Sammy. See you again. Trudi, could you come and have a word over here? Excuse us.’ And he was off, sliding smoothly across the room, holding Trudi by the arm, and looking like an important man, not without the common touch, but with things on his mind.
‘Shit!’ Weiss said.
‘That’s about the first thing you’ve said in a while that I’ve understood, Sammy. Exactly what are you referring to?’
Weiss put the picture away. ‘There’s a story here. I can smell it. Hardy, you have to…’
I backed off and shook my can. Empty. ‘Sammy, we’re even. You got me across a table with Tobin and I got you in a room with January. Evens. In fact, you win because that guts of a brother-in-law of yours ate and drank up $60 worth.’
‘You’re on expenses,’ Weiss said sourly.
‘That’s right, I forgot. As I said then, we’re even.’
That was it for Weiss. I’ve seen them-a dried-out drinker only has so much social and nervous energy in him. If he expends it in a rush the way Weiss had, he either goes off the wagon or he retires to lick his wounds and do something else. I got another can of beer and waited until Trudi and January had finished their business. The hard-core had settled in: Gary seemed to have plenty of staying power and a few around him, journalists, a sound man who had got left behind somehow, and assorted party-sniffers who had drifted in, had that ‘let’s-kick-on’ look to them.
I saw the signal pass between Gary and Trudi and suddenly everything was movement. Gary grabbed a couple of bottles and shepherded his new-found mates towards the stairs. Trudi and January followed and I followed them. A few lights were turned off and an urgency to leave took hold and drove everyone to the street.
A car was waiting for January. Gary and the good-time group appeared not to notice as the Minister slipped inside and was driven away at speed, as the tabloids would say. I was left standing on the footpath with Trudi Bell beside me.
‘I hope you don’t have to go back upstairs and wash the glasses,’ I said.
‘Nope. I set the alarms and locked the door behind me. You’re the security expert, didn’t you see?’
‘Nope.’
‘Some expert.’
The street was still busy but the pace had changed. People strolled rather than rushed and the buzz from the pub was steady and keyed-in for the evening. Some of the shops were still open-the coffee bars, the health food store and an old place that still carried the pre-war sign ‘Mixed Business’-but there were dark windows and doorways and gaps along the kerbs where the shoppers’ and shopowners’ cars had been. ‘Well,’ Trudi said. ‘How’re you feeling?’ I took hold of her upper arm. It was firm with a long muscle that flexed and relaxed under my touch. ‘Like company,’ I said.
9
Trudi Bell didn’t have a car. I drove to Lilyfield and she told me to stop opposite a row of houses set high up on the west side of the street. From that elevation the view would be over the old concrete viaduct that emerges at different places through the suburb, across the canal and some scruffy parkland, clear across factories and houses to the city.
‘I can walk to the office from here,’ she said. ‘Good for the calf muscles.’
I stood on the footpath and opened the tricky passenger door of the Falcon. ‘I get the feeling that muscles are important to you,’ I said.
‘You’ll see. We’ve got the steps to climb first.’
My calves were aching when we got up to her place which turned out to be a loft behind a big sprawling house. The loft would once have had narrow slit windows but now it had big expanses of glass to let the view in. We climbed still more steps, narrow wooden flights up to a door at the end of the building.
‘What do you think?’
I clung on to the handrail. ‘Air’s thin up here.’
She laughed, dug out her key and we went in. She flicked a switch inside the door. The loft was spacious and spare. There was a pot belly stove up one end near a small refrigerator and microwave oven on a bench. A lot of cushions lay about and there was a table tennis table at the other end. The big windows looked out to the city. The viaduct was a dark, exotic shape back-lit by the suburban lights.
Trudi threw her keys into an earthenware pot and stomped around turning on more lights.
‘Like it?’
‘It’s great.’ Along one wall there was the sort of divan that folds down to make a double bed; a couple of light wooden room dividers lay on top of the divan. She saw me looking.
‘That’s my bedroom. I can move it to wherever I like. I’m going to make a toasted sandwich. Want one?’
‘Thanks. Where’s Gunther?’
‘He’s away being minded. I lined it up with a friend when I knew I was going to the US. Otherwise he’d be scratching the door down by now. D’you like dogs, Cliff?’
‘I’m not sure. Way back, when I did divorce work, they could be a bit of a nuisance when I was sneaking around a house. I haven’t met too many angry ones lately.’ I wandered around looking at the posters on the walls-movie themes and characters, some nice ones from a San Francisco exhibition of relics from Egyptian tombs-and the books. Her clothes hung on a metal rack near the divan. The pop as she pulled the cork from a bottle of wine made me start.
‘You’re edgy,’ she said. She poured some wine and beckoned me across to the bench.
‘Yes.’ I drank some of the dry white and suddenly felt hungry. Trudi diluted hers with soda water and I wondered if she’d picked that up from January.
‘Food won’t be long. Why’re you edgy?’
‘I don’t know. Who d’you play table tennis with?’
‘Anyone who’s good enough. Do you play?’
‘I can. Is that what you meant about muscles?’
‘No, I’ve got some weights and an exercise bike. Keep ‘em in a cupboard so’s not to scare off the men. What do you do for exercise, Cliff?’
‘Bit of tennis, some swimming, that’s about all.’
‘What about Helen?’
I took a long drink. ‘Who told you about Helen?’
‘Peter. He was sort of in love with her before he met Karen. Lucky for you; he hasn’t missed many he’s aimed at.’
‘So I gather. Helen plays tennis and swims. She does other things in the country-chops wood for all I know.’
‘Sounds like you’re getting sick of the arrangement.’
‘Peter’s really filled you in, hasn’t he?’
She touched my arm. ‘Don’t get pissed off. We’re just talking. It sounds good to me. Better’n anything I ever had.’
‘You’re doing all right. Good job, good place, you could take your pick of the men…’
‘I do.’ She took a gulp of her drink. ‘Let’s eat. Stools are under there. Just yank ‘em out and we’ll sit here.’