‘You won’t need them. Stay where you are, Anton. This is as good a place as any to talk.’
He kept his eyes cast down, staring at his long white feet. ‘What about?’
‘Claudia Fleischman, Julius Fleischman, why you’re lying-all that.’
‘How did you find me.’
‘As Joe Louis said, you can run but you can’t hide. Now I know she hired you to protect her from her husband and she went to bed with you. Who paid you to lie about it?’
‘You wouldn’t shoot me.’
‘You’re right. I’ll put this in your mouth and put your finger on the trigger and you can blow your own fucking brains out. Then I’ll arrange all your little playthings around you. What d’you reckon they’ll think?’
He lifted his head and I could see blood flowing back into his pale, frightened face. His shoulders straightened as he summoned up courage. ‘I don’t believe you.’
I was ready for that. I grabbed his hair, pulled hard and twisted until his scalp was strained. His mouth flew open and I rammed the pistol in, bearing down on his tongue. I kneeled on the bed, pinioning his right arm. I grabbed his left hand, bent it far back and brought it up near his mouth. ‘I’ll do it,’ I said. ‘You’re left-handed. It’ll look right. No bruises, no cuts. You’re just one beat away from it.’
He went slack and I gradually eased back on all the pressure points. ‘It’s simple,’ I said. ‘Tell me the truth and you’ll be okay.’
‘You’re wearing a wire,’ he gasped. ‘It’s them. They’ll do me for perjury.’
‘No wire.’ I lifted the polo shirt. He saw the long white scar running across the left side of my chest, courtesy of an irate wife-beater and a barbed wire fence a few years back. I guess the scar and the taste of the gun oil convinced him.
‘What you say’s true,’ he whispered. ‘I lied. I had to.’
20
Anton Van Kep wasn’t very bright. He’d worked for Fleischman as a driver, gofer and a standover man as business problems required. He disliked his employer, who he described as a shit, and when Claudia asked him to protect her from Fleischman and offered money and herself, he accepted.
‘Despite what you might think, I mostly like women in bed,’ he said. ‘When it’s one-on-one, you know.’
I shrugged. ‘I don’t want to know. Make it quick, your minder’ll finish his tennis soon. Where did the cock- and-bull story about helping to kill Fleischman come from?’
‘Blackmail, sort of. Yeah, blackmail.’
‘Of you? Who by?’
‘I don’t know. After Fleischman got shot a guy came to see me. He showed me some pictures, stills from a couple of the movies I’ve been in. Well, you know what they’d be. Me with another bloke and some kids. No mask. I don’t know how he got them. He reckoned Mrs Fleischman would be charged with the murder and I’d be charged with.. something
‘Conspiracy.’
‘Yeah. He told me what I had to say about Mrs Fleischman. I did it.’
‘Come on, you put yourself in for ten years gaol? I find that hard to believe.’
He lifted his head and looked at me with red-rimmed, moist eyes. ‘I’ve got a rep as a tough guy. That’d be fucked if the pictures got around. And how long d’you reckon I’d last inside if I went up for.. you know. But that’s not the real reason. This guy said the pictures would go first to my mother. She’s old. Seeing stuff like that would kill her. She’s had enough shit in her life from me without that.’
Very strange territory. My mum had died fairly young when I was in my twenties. She was a good-time girl who refused to believe that port, cakes and pies and staying up all night and sleeping all day was bad news for diabetics. Her kidneys collapsed. She had loved my sister and me in her way, but she wasn’t around much. She was warm and funny and I loved her too, but I wouldn’t have gone to gaol for her. Still, it was possible. Van Kep had never served time, didn’t know what it was like. Besides, he was dumb.
He must have sensed my scepticism or maybe it was just the pistol. ‘I got a phone call the day before the cops arrested me. Same bastard. He said there wouldn’t ever be a trial. He said I’d never have to lie in court and I’d get the negatives as soon as it was all over. It’s true. You have to believe me!’
With all the craziness that was going on in this case, I almost did. The implications were worrying, though. Never come to trial-why? There were only three ways that could happen-the charges could be dropped or the accused could die or jump bail. The first was unlikely and I didn’t care for the other two. Van Kep must have calculated he had time to clean up after his fun and games, but I sensed that time was running short unless the tennis players were engaged in a best of three with no tie-breaks in the third.
‘I’d like to see some evidence of all this,’ I said. ‘Like the photos.’
‘No! You want to blackmail me as well…’
‘Listen, Anton, you disgust me. I don’t ever want to see or hear you again, but I need some proof. I’m betting that someone like you would be just a bit turned on by photos like that and you’d keep them. Show me.’
He sniffed and looked at his gold watch that sat on a low chest of drawers beside the bed. Todd’ll be back soon.’
‘I’m your big worry at the moment, not Todd.’
‘I have to get rid of the roaches.’
‘So hurry up.’
He opened a drawer, took out a plastic wallet stuffed full of photographs, riffled through, selected two and held them out. I’m an old hand at diversion and distraction. If I’d been him, this would be the moment to make a move. I gestured with the. 38.
‘Drop them on the floor and lie back on the bed.’
There was no fight in him. He did it. The photographs only needed a glance-much the same stuff as on the video.
‘Okay,’ I said. ‘I believe you. Last thing- tell me about this bloke who heavied you. What did he look like, sound like, how old- all that.’
He collected the photos and put them back in the wallet. He looked tired and drained and I was feeling much the same. He needed some prompting; accurate observation and character analysis weren’t his thing, but the description I ended up with was Harvey ‘Haitch’ Henderson to the life.
Anton Van Kep was as glad to see me go as I was to leave. There was a shadow of despair across his pale, narrow face and the few traces of make-up left behind made him look like a clown who’d strayed out of the circus and couldn’t find his way back. I walked back through the handsome gardens clutching my papers, hiding behind my sunglasses, feeling like shit. The tennis game had finished and the two players were brooming the lines and rolling up the net like good boys. Van Kep’s minder looked chipper; he’d probably won the match, but he’d scored zero out of ten for the job he was supposed to be doing. I could’ve disposed of his client without any troubles at all. That made me wonder how serious the protection was intended to be and what that might imply. I pushed the thought aside as too complicated. I needed to see Claudia.
There were many more cars when I got back to the parking area-a couple of Mercs, a Holden Statesman or two, Saabs and Audis. The Nissan Patrol looked like a rough country cousin beside all that citified polished duco. I started the engine and prepared to back out carefully so as to avoid the Saab parked perilously close on my right side. A white Celica soft top skidded to a halt in the middle of the car park. The driver pivoted expertly and slid the car into a narrow space not far from me. I almost scraped the Saab as I ducked my head and tried to turn away. The driver of the Celica was Wilson Katz.
I pulled out slowly and reversed away into a deep shadow cast by some tall Norfolk Island pines. Katz alighted and paid no attention to me or anything else. He was wearing a business suit but carrying a Nike sports bag. He might have been going to Mrs Kent’s conference, but it looked as if he had a gym workout afterwards in mind. I studied him closely as he went up the steps into the clubhouse. His shoulders drooped and his face was knotted with concern. He was a big, fit, sophisticated man in early middle-age; he had money and still had most of
