turned on the news and put my feet up. The phone rang and I was positioned so I barely had to move a muscle to answer it. It was Wilbur.
‘Not listening to MacMillan?’ he said.
I hit the mute button on the remote control. ‘No, I’ve got the TV on. Different lies from different sources.’
‘Cynic. You have heard him though?’
‘Sure. He’s a prince.’
‘He’s a prick. But he’s a money-making prick.’
‘For now,’ I said. ‘He’s a nine-day wonder. People’ll get tired of him.’
‘Someone’s so tired of him already they’re threatening to kill him.’
‘That’s par for the course, surely. Nuts threaten the newsreaders, the actors in the commercials…’
‘Right. MacMillan’s hate mail started after his first broadcast. He laughed about it. But this one’s got him worried. He wants protection.’
‘No,’ I said.
‘Top dollar, Cliff. Expenses paid within reason. Charlie goes to some nice places. You could meet a girl or two. He takes a break in a fortnight. That’s all it’d be.’
‘I hate him,’ I said. ‘I’d end up helping the threatener.’
‘Flat rate,’ Wilbur said. ‘Five thousand, plus expenses.’
‘You bought me. Starting when?’
‘In about fifty-five minutes, when he goes off air. Pick him up at the studio. I’ll have a cheque ready for you.’
‘Don’t push it, Wilbur,’ I said, ‘or I’ll do my best to convert him to Buddhism.’
I’d expected a thorough briefing from Wilbur, but he’d left early for his regular poker night, so all I had to do was collect the announcer himself and a thousand-dollar cheque at the studio in Pyrmont. Charlie MacMillan had a big, mellow voice but it came out of a scrawny, undersized head and body. He dressed in thousand-dollar suits and held himself very erect, but he was still a runt. We had our first disagreement straight off.
‘I’m not riding in that,’ MacMillan said, eyeing my utterly reliable, if slightly elderly, Falcon.
He pointed to a white Merc sitting at the kerb. I could see the red alarm light blinking inside. MacMillan tossed me the electronic gadget that turns the alarm off. I tossed it back and he fumbled the catch. ‘Don’t be dumb,’ I said. ‘If there’s anyone out to get you, why make it easy?’
He looked ready to argue, then he shrugged. ‘There is someone out to get me, make no mistake about that. Maybe you’re right. Drop the keys inside. Someone’ll run the Merc home. I’ve got places to go.’
I wanted to tell him to run his own errands, but five grand is five grand, and if Charlie took a set against me I wouldn’t get it. I gave the alarm-stopper, the keys and the message to the doorkeeper and we piled into the Falcon. He directed me to a block of flats in Arthur Street, Surry Hills. Security door, no parking. Good place to keep a woman on the fairly cheap. I escorted him to the door. A female voice answered when he buzzed. MacMillan winked at me.
‘How long?’ I said.
The door clicked and he pushed it open. ‘Depends. Say an hour.’
My office was only a couple of blocks away. I could have gone there and checked on the mail. Or I could have slipped across to the Brighton and chewed the fat with a couple of the cops who were sure to be there. Instead, I bought a can of light beer and a packet of peanuts and sat in my car watching the lights in the second-floor window. A few people came out of the flats, a few went in. Others entered the restaurant across the road. A quiet night. The loudest noise I could hear was myself, crunching the nuts. A woman came out of the restaurant and, just for a second, I thought it was Cyn. It wasn’t, too young. Mind games. Cyn wouldn’t have been a bit surprised to find me drinking beer and eating peanuts in my car while looking up at a bedroom window.
Fifty minutes and MacMillan came out, not exactly zipping his fly, but almost. He smelled of whisky and baby oil, not a pleasant combination. I started the motor. ‘Home is where?’
‘Nowhere,’ he said. ‘Wherever I finish up. Let’s go to the Skin Cellar. Have a good time.’
The Skin Cellar was a dive on Darlinghurst Road which featured toxic air, watered drinks, fat strippers and third-rate crims. MacMillan tried to big note himself through the door, but he had to cough up ten bucks for himself and ten for me, just like everybody else. We were there for three hours during which time he had ten drinks, chatted up several less-than-keen women and got the brush-off from a couple of minor hoods. The only guy who talked to him was a stringer from one of the tabloids, a fact Charlie was apparently too drunk to realise.
I got him out into the relatively fresh air and the cool night, absence of noise and the darkness seemed to hit him like a brick. He sagged against the car. I asked him again where home was and he just shook his head and mumbled. I’d started out by disliking him and had moved on through despising to contempt. But what could I do? I bundled him into the car and took him to my place. He unzipped himself and pissed all over the pot-plants on the front porch, which was better than doing it in the hallway. I eventually got him to take two aspirins with a glass of water. In the spare bedroom, stripped, with a wet towel beside him on the pillow, he was one of the drunkest, most pathetic specimens to have inhabited the spot. And that’s saying something.
MacMillan was one of those people who don’t suffer from hangovers. He was up at seven, cooking scrambled eggs, banging pots and pans and whistling in the kitchen. He turned on the radio- commercial station pap. I like the news and 2BL. I slouched into the kitchen and changed the station.
‘Hey!’ He spooned egg expertly out onto a plate.
‘Hey, yourself,’ I said. ‘Any coffee?’
‘I drink tea in the morning.’
‘You would.’ I made coffee and watched him eat-four eggs, three slices of toast, lots of butter and two sugars each in his three cups of tea. And he wouldn’t have weighed sixty kilos, wringing wet. He seemed brimful of confidence, nothing like the burning-out wreck of the night before.
‘What’re you staring at?’ he said.
‘You. Why so chipper?’
He wiped up egg with a bit of toast. ‘Got confidence in you, Cliffy,’ he said, chewing. ‘You’re all right.’
‘Call me Cliffy again and I’ll cut your vocal chords.’
Tough guy stuff. He loved it. I despised myself. But it kept him buoyant through the morning and afternoon while he did the things radio personalities do-checked his phone messages, read the material his researcher had prepared for him, met with a couple of his sponsors. I had to admit it, he put in a full day, and he did it on cups of tea, mineral water and a couple of salad sandwiches. He seemed to get a bit nervous after the sun went down, scrutinised the street and traffic, hunkered down in the car. But he was in the studio again by 8.30 with a thermos of coffee and some yoghurt. No wonder he was ready to howl by eleven.
I sat in Wilbur’s office and shared a bottle of red with him. Wilbur listened to MacMillan’s opening spiel, which was something about who was really calling the shots in South Africa, before cutting off the feed.
‘I met fish I liked more,’ Wilbur said. ‘What d’you make of him?’
I told Wilbur about our night and day. ‘He seems to be two different people, day and night, sober and drunk. He’s genuinely frightened though. When did the death threats start?’
‘Day one,’ Wilbur said. ‘Show you.’ He opened a filing cabinet and took out two folders, one thick, the other thin. He passed the thin file across. ‘This is just the written stuff. We get a few over the phone and on the board when he does the talk-back segment. Use the delay switch, but there’s a few tapes you could listen to if you like.’
I nodded and poured some more red. The eight or ten letters were written on a variety of stationery, some typed, some handwritten in pencil, ballpoint, ink, Texta colour. They basically denied MacMillan the right to hold the opinions he espoused. A couple argued against racial differences on scientific grounds. Two letters threatened MacMillan’s life if he continued to broadcast, although they were vague about how the execution would be carried out.
‘What’s in the other folder?’ I asked.
‘Messages of support.’ Wilbur dumped the heavier folder in front of me. Unlike most of the brickbats, the bouquets were all signed and carried addresses. A few were typewritten or done in the copperplate they taught in
