“So, Mr Hardy, she’s arranged. We understand each other. Now you show a little trust and take another ride in the truck.”
I was expecting tricks, double-crosses, anything, but this looked a little too obvious.
“Why?”
“You don’t know where you are. I want it that way.”
He sealed it by handing me my gun. Then he turned away and he and Adio got into the Fiat. There was no question of argument. Carlo and the other hood had an unsatisfied look about them that I wasn’t anxious to test. I climbed up into the back of the truck. Its doors closed. I heard a heavy sliding door being opened and then we were bumping over a rough surface for a while before getting onto a road. I checked the pistol – empty breech, empty clip. We drove fast for what felt like an hour and then cruised to a stop. The doors swung open and the lights of the night flickered outside.
“Out,” said Carlo.
I got down and stood uselessly in the middle of a small lane running between two high factory walls. The Italians didn’t speak. They shepherded me over to the left-hand wall and motioned me to press my face into it. I did and waited for the sap or the kidney punch. Nothing happened. They got back into the truck and drove off. I didn’t even get the licence number. I turned around and stood with my back against the wall and waited until the sweat running down my chest reached body temperature. I started walking and found that I was in Annandale, quite handy to home. I hailed a taxi and was there in a few minutes.
I used a key I kept hidden under a half brick behind a pot plant to get inside the house and smelled the familiar odours, even if a bit stale. From habit I’d picked up the newspaper and taken it with me. A glance at the date reminded me that I had no idea of the time. It was two a.m. This whole thing had started a bare forty hours ago and I’d already covered a lot of territory for Tarelton’s money. But there are no prizes for that. As of now the trail was cold. It was time for some brain work. For that I needed help. I found some stale tobacco in the house and rolled a couple of cigarettes. I got a flagon of wine and a soda syphon out of the refrigerator and sat down with an ashtray and a glass. After finishing the cigarettes and lowering the level of the wine considerably the pattern of things still eluded me. I seemed to have two different problems on my hands.
One was Coluzzi and the fight game. Well that was nasty with the knives and all, but there was nothing much in it for me. I’d have to discuss aspects of that with Harry Tickener. And I still worried about the marijuana farm. Maybe there was some connection between Coluzzi and the mess Noni Rouble was in. That had two sides to it – a black and a white – and I was sure they were connected. There was something up there in Macleay, some time back and involving money, only money. A pale, flabby, violent man had been told to forget about it. I didn’t think he would. I was beginning to get a feeling for what that money trouble might be, and I didn’t think it concerned a map to Lasseter’s lost reef.
That was as close as I got to clarity. I thought about the list of great black fighters who’d come out of the game with nothing to show for their scarred eyes and broken hands and slurred speech. I thought of Jimmy Sunday and Penny Sharkey, and I thought about Harry Tickener again.
I finished the drink and went upstairs. I got out of my pants and shoes and sweater and sprawled on the bed pulling a blanket over me. The light was on but it didn’t bother me a bit.
12
The telephone woke me. I caught sight of the clock as I rolled over to grab the receiver – six-thirty a.m. I put my head back on the pillow and tried to unscramble reality and dreams. I grunted into the mouthpiece and it sputtered back at me like a firecracker. I sat up.
“Easy, easy. James?”
More sputtering and incoherence on the other side of the wire.
“Stop it,” I yelled. “Shut up, take a breath and give it to me clearly.”
A pause, a long one, then the actor’s voice came through, still with a note of panic but under control.
“Noni’s been kidnapped. I’ve just got a note.”
“At six-thirty?”
“I couldn’t sleep, I was up early and found the note taped to the door.”
“What does it say?”
I heard a rustle over the line and then James’ voice, shaky, reading.
“We have got the girl. Five thousand dollars gets her back.”
“Is that all?”
“Yes.”
It didn’t figure. Ted Tarelton could raise twenty times that. Why hit James? My silence made him panicky again and he almost stammered, asking if I was still there. I said I was.
“What should I do?”
“Can you raise it?”
“The money? Yes, just.”
“Will you?”
“Yes of course, of course.”
“Stay put. I’ll be right over.”
I hung up on him, jumped up and took a quick shower. I was pulling on some clothes when the phone rang again. I made a bet with myself and won. Madeline Tarelton.
“Mr Hardy? Just a minute. My husband wants to speak to you.”
I heard a click, waited and then Ted’s rich voice came in.
“Hardy? My girl’s been snatched.”
“I know. You got a note?”
“Yes, how…?”
I told him how and asked him to read out the note. It was the same as James’ except that it asked for a hundred thousand dollars and said a contact would be made at five p.m. the following day. Ted’s voice vibrated a bit and the idea occurred to me that he’d be on the Courvoisier a bit earlier today. I promised him I’d be over as soon as I’d seen James. He wasn’t too happy about that, claiming an employer’s rights but I soothed him. He seemed impressed that James had said he’d raise the five thousand, as if it was a bride price. I suppose it was, in a way. My cool competence was dented a bit by having to ask Ted for James’ address. I’d forgotten that I didn’t have it, but he gave it to me without seeming to take it amiss.
My perfectly good car was sitting in the Newcastle airport parking lot and it was raining again. I got a taxi to James’ place in Darlinghurst. It was a terrace house with a door that let straight out unto the street. It was painted white and had some new iron on the roof but it hadn’t been made over into anybody’s dream. A yellow Mini with a cracked rear window, taped up, was parked outside. I knocked at the door and James opened it with a buzzing electric shaver in his hand. Half his face was shaven and half not. He looked terrible. He ushered me in and started to gabble. I reached out and clicked off the shaver. That shut him up.
“Let’s see the note,” I said.
He went out to the kitchen and I followed him. The house wore the same look all the way through, pleasant enough but as if no-one cared. He pointed to a piece of paper on the table and I picked it up. The words he’d read out were printed across a cheap piece of notepaper in capitals. A black ballpoint pen had done the writing and there were no idiosyncrasies in it that I could see. Across the back of the paper, which had been folded in three, was a strip of cellulose tape. James resumed his shaving, wandering about the little room stroking his jaw. He was wearing drill slacks and an orange-coloured thing I think is called a shaving coat. He would. I waited until he’d finished shaving and turned the motor off, then I told him about Tarelton’s note. He ran his hand over his smooth face and frowned where he found a missed spot. I pushed the shaver out of reach and leaned on him.
“How soon can you get the money?”
“Today. I’d have to see my family’s lawyer, but I’m sure it can be arranged.”
“Good. Do it. Don’t tell anyone else.” I started for the passage but he came after me and caught me by the arm.