blouses blossomed around the parking bays and in the office, and the place seemed to wear a new air of optimism. I walked into the office with the folded account in my hand, wanting to explain the circumstances, but wanting to meet Terry Reeves about as much as I wanted to meet Pol Pot.
Things had changed a bit. Terry’s office was now a walled-in box. That was probably the idea of some security consultant; there seemed to be more screens around too-TV monitors and VDTs. Terry wouldn’t like the changes, but maybe he didn’t have any choice. His secretary was parked outside his office behind a big desk with an intricate-looking telephone system. In her quick glance I read approval of the new arrangement and disapproval of me. She held out her hand for the paper I was carrying.
‘Mr Reeves isn’t in,’ she said.
‘Cliff Hardy.’
‘I’m sorry, Mr Hardy, he really isn’t in.’
I handed the account across. ‘This is my account for the work I’ve been doing for him. I understand the Audi has been returned?’
‘Yes.’
‘I’d like to look at it, please.’
She looked doubtful. ‘I don’t know…’
‘I don’t want to dismantle or drive it, I just want a look. It’s important.’
She wasn’t going to budge. ‘What would you be looking for?’
‘I don’t know, anything that might have been left in it.’ I opened my hands. ‘Evidence.’
‘I see.’ She picked up her phone and dialled the workshop. If the CIA had had her, Chris Boyce would still be flying falcons. She spoke briefly into the phone and looked up at me. ‘Are you interested in body damage?’
‘Only to me.’
She tapped her pencil impatiently and I nodded. She spoke again and looked up. ‘There isn’t any. They’re sending up everything they found. Mr Reeves asked for it to be kept.’
‘Thank you.’ She motioned me to a seat and I sat down feeling grateful that Reeves’ old investigative habits were still with him. The secretary got on with her phoning and filing and ignored me; I was very low on charisma for the employees of Bargain Renta Car. After a while a man in orange overalls came into the office and put a plastic bag on the secretary’s desk.
‘Thanks, Ken.’
Ken winked at her and went out. She pushed the bag across the desk and I reached for it. Inside was a tattered copy of the Melbourne Age, a half-empty bottle of Suntory whisky and a glossy, folded pamphlet. The secretary’s eyes widened as I unfolded the pamphlet; mine probably widened too. It was a catalogue of sadomasochistic ‘love aids’ available from the I’ll Be Bound boutique in the Cross. Whips, light and heavy; leather constraints of various kinds; chains; velvet and silk garments designed to define areas of interest. The stuff was superbly photographed and the whole production had a streamlined, high-tech gloss. The chains gleamed against velvet folds; the whip ends lay on smooth, soft leather. There were lavish bedroom scenes in which the faces and bodies of the active and passive participants were taut with pleasure.
The secretary got up and came around her desk for a better look. She gazed over my shoulder at a picture of a black man with an enormous erection and wearing a white mask who was shackling a couple who were in a contortionistic oral embrace.
‘God,’ she said.
‘Turn you on?’
‘I don’t know.’
I folded up the pamphlet and put it in my pocket. She was breathing hard but still at her post. ‘I don’t know that you should take that away.’
‘I’m old enough,’ I said. I put the paper and bottle back in the bag. ‘Here, you can give this to Ken.’
22
The Falcon sometimes won’t start unless you jiggle the key in a certain way, and I sometimes forget to jiggle the key if I’m not concentrating on starting the car. The starter motor was whining and the engine wasn’t firing as I tried to remember the phrase Lambert had used of Morgan Shaw. ‘New interest’, that was it. That resolved, I jiggled the key and the car started.
The I’ll Be Bound boutique was one floor up above a doctor’s surgery in Bayswater Road. It was elegantly appointed, all deep-carpet and muted-light chic. The goods were on display in discreetly under-lit glass cases with heavy un-chic locks. The staff consisted of two people, rail-thin with deathly pale faces, wearing black tights and jumpers and dark make-up, who could have been of either sex or neither. I blinked in the gloom and one of them approached me and asked if he or she could be of any help.
‘I don’t know,’ I said. I pulled out the pamphlet and put it down on a glass case, covering a red and black silk nightie and knicker set that would be no use at all on a cold winter night. ‘Can anyone get hold of one of these or are they for special customers only?’
The person swivelled on a medium heel and pointed at the counter which I could scarcely see through the gloom. ‘They are over there. Anyone can come in and take one.’
‘I see.’ I peered at the counter and saw something above it that looked like a cross-bow before I realised it was a double dildo with ribbons. There was a stack of the pamphlets beside a silk top hat. ‘Yes, I see.’
A man wearing a yellow jump suit came into the shop and the attendant’s black-rimmed eyes flicked across to him. ‘Is there anything else, sir?’
‘No, thank you.’
‘Look around. You might see something you like.’
I felt my way across to the counter; a woman came out from behind a curtain wearing a leather vest with holes in it that allowed her breasts to poke out. She looked at me.
‘What d’you think?’ she said.
‘Great,’ I said.
The other attendant sniffed; I grabbed another copy of the pamphlet and groped my way back to the stairs.
I stopped in Glebe to buy the sort of shampoo and aftershave that would go with a swinging party in Pymble. Driving home, I tried to remember the last party I’d been to. I recalled a couple Helen and I had dropped in on for an hour or less, and one good one that had celebrated the birthday of an FM disc jockey neighbour. We’d all got drunk and sung the songs of the sixties. I doubted there’d be much Buddy Holly sung in Pymble.
I cleaned myself up, ate and drank something and tried to feel professional. It was hard without a client. I re-read the Mountain synopsis, or bits of it, but there was no indication of what Morgan Shaw’s ‘new interest’ might be-it could have been sado-masochism, it could’ve been stamp collecting. The cat followed me around the house. Every time I turned around it was there, looking at me. I fed it and it still followed me. I put it outside and it jumped up to the window and looked in at me.
‘I didn’t cut your balls off,’ I said. ‘It happened long before we met.’ The cat seemed satisfied with that; it stretched out to sleep in what was left of the afternoon sun.
At 3pm Dr Holmes telephoned me. ‘Mr Hardy,’ he said. ‘Something rather strange has happened.’
‘You’ve seen Mountain?’
‘No, no. A cheque has arrived covering the cost of all his sessions to date, including the last one which he missed.’
‘No letter?’
‘No-a cheque in an envelope. There’s a strange air of finality to it. I thought I’d give you a call to see if you’d learned anything further.’
A strange air of finality, I thought. It sounded like something to take to the ESP consultant in my corridor.
