‘Hold on,’ I said, following him with Wes drifting off back to Clinton’s room. ‘You’re part-Aboriginal yourself, aren’t you?’
Morris smirked as he pulled on a T-shirt and jeans. He rubbed his neck and worked his shoulders. ‘Yeah, but see, this guy doesn’t know that. But, hey, if Bindi wanted to know who supplies the stuff at that university, I could’ve told him. Be happy to.’
‘Who?’ I said.
‘Yes, who?’
I turned. It was Clinton, standing just behind me in the passageway and holding my gun pointed straight at Morris.
‘Clinton!’ Wes’ voice was filled with alarm. He didn’t forget his military training though, and turned out the light in the room behind him.
‘Stay back, Dad!’
‘You wouldn’t shoot me, son.’
‘No. But I’ll fucking well shoot Stan if he doesn’t tell me what I want to know and I just might shoot Hardy as well for fucking interfering.’
Morris laughed. Despite everything that was wrong with him he had some guts. He came out of the bedroom, turned off the light, and stood in the doorway.
‘You’re a crazy bastard, Bindi. Sure I’ll tell you. Kinnear, Teddy Kinnear. He’s the man you want.’
Clinton reached up and smashed the overhead light with the pistol. The area was suddenly completely dark and Clinton was just a rush of fast-moving air as he bolted down the stairs. Wes and I collided as we both went after him and I yelled as my ribs took some of the impact. Wes lost balance and fell on the first stair, tumbling heavily to the landing. Above us in the dark, Stan Morris laughed again.
24
By the time we’d collected ourselves and made it to the front door we knew we were too late. The roar of an engine and the protest of tortured tyres told us that Clinton was away again.
‘I can’t believe this,’ Wes said. ‘I had two chances at him and screwed up both times.’
I was rubbing my ribs and feeling for the bottle of pills. I needed them, and the whisky if possible. I yelled to Morris to bring it down. He came down with the bottle and the phone in the passage rang. He answered it as I took a swig.
‘Yeah, well you nosy old cunt, I’ll tell you what you can do. You can get fucked!’
He slammed the phone down and snatched the bottle from my hand. ‘Neighbour-old cunt.’
‘So you said. You realise you left the gate open after your playmate arrived.’
Morris wiped the neck of the bottle on his sleeve and drank. ‘Shit.’
‘He came back to beat information out of you, you know. You’re lucky we were here.’
‘That’s a laugh. I wish I’d never seen you or him and you can get out right now.’
‘Just a minute,’ Wes said. ‘Do you know where this Kinnear lives?’
‘Not a fucking clue. Out west somewhere, that’s all I know. Look, I’d tell you if I knew. It’s nothing to me.’
‘I believe him, Wes. Hang on, let me think. I know the name.’
Wes rubbed the slight bruise on his cheek where Clinton’s punch had caught him as if it was a way of maintaining contact with his son. I repossessed the bottle and hoped the pain-killers and whisky would stimulate my memory. They didn’t. I knew I’d written the name down and I mentally flipped through my notebook.
‘Got it! He used to be the university basketball coach. His assistant’s taken over. Clinton must know him and he probably knows where he lives.’
‘He’s irrational.’ Wes said. ‘He could kill him. We have to stop him.’
Morris was listening, interestedly but unsympathetic. ‘You’d better call the cops. But not from here.’
Wes shook his head, ‘We can’t. Put the police up against an armed black man looking the way he does? That’d be signing his death certificate.’
I caught the last few words as I went through the door. I took the steps as fast as I could and hobbled back towards our hole in the fence. Wes caught me at the carport.
‘What the hell are you doing?’
I handed him my keys. ‘Just get to the car and get it started.’
He didn’t argue. He had the motor running when I reached the car. I climbed in, said, ‘West,’ and reached into the glove box for my notebook. I located Kathy Simpson’s number and punched it in, hoping she was home.
‘This is Kathy.’
‘Kathy, this is Cliff Hardy, remember me?’
‘Yes, Mr Hardy. How are you?’
‘Okay. Now this is terribly important. Have you got an address and telephone number for Ted Kinnear, the old basketball coach?’
‘Not here. It’d be at the desk at the gym.’
‘Is it still open?’
‘Yes, there’s a game on tonight.’
‘Kathy, this is literally life and death. It’s to do with Mark and Clinton and Angela and all that. I have to have that number and address. Can you ring the desk and get it and phone me as soon as you have it. Here’s the number.’
She was up to it. ‘Just a minute, I’ll write it down.’
I gave it to her and tried to think if I’d covered everything. ‘Last thing. Have you any idea where he lives.’
‘Parramatta,’ she said. ‘I think, but he’s sick and… ‘
‘Quick as you can, Kathy.’ I rang off and let out a slow breath. ‘Parramatta, Wes. Somewhere in Parramatta.’
We drove for a while and I felt the codeine and alcohol take effect. I took out the Colt and checked the action.
‘I’m glad you didn’t pull that out when Clinton was pointing the gun at Morris.’
‘I didn’t even think of it.’
‘Good. Don’t!’
I put the gun in the glove box and drummed my fingers on the dashboard. The phone rang and I snatched it up.
‘Mr Hardy. I’ve got what you want.’
She gave me the phone number and address and I thanked her abruptly, rang off and called the number.
‘This is Ted Kinnear. I’m not in at the moment but I won’t be away long. Leave your name and number and I’ll call back.’
‘What?’ Wes said.
I scrabbled through the dog-eared, broken-spined Gregory’s for the street. ‘Good news. He’s out. Gives us some time.’
We drove in silence for a while and I could feel the tension building in Wes. He drove too fast but skilfully and I tried to think ahead to what we might be confronting but there were too many imponderables. I reflected that, like most of the important moments in my life, this one was impossible to plan for and all I could do was play it out by instinct and experience and hope for good luck. I wondered if Wes felt the same and doubted it. He’d plotted his life’s moves with shrewd intelligence and, besides, he had a hell of a lot more at stake here than me.
‘D’you want to call Mandy, Wes? Give her some idea of what’s up?’
‘No. I want to be able to tell her that Clinton’s with me and he’s safe and everything’s all right.’
‘Okay,’ I said but I thought, I hope to Christ you can do that.
