‘’Fraid so. You neglected to tell me about the casino deal.’
‘Uh,’ he said.
‘Sounds pretty important to me. Now, did I or did I not help you to clear up two murders?’
‘One. We never even opened a file on Leon.’
‘One, then, but a good one.’
‘Okay. It’s a little difficult… ‘ He broke off and his voice had nothing of the special, concise, on-top-of-it-all Frank Parker tone. I guessed the reason.
‘Your colleagues are in the room and you can’t just shoot the breeze about casinos. Right?’
‘Right.’
‘We’ll play it the way we played it before, only I’ll ask the questions. Now, there was some sort of deal about the casinos that involves the constabulary. Yes?’
‘That’s so.’
‘All I know is that they open and close. Let me guess; the deal takes in McLeary and Ward?’
‘That’s two out of three.’
‘Singer?’
‘Right.’
It gave the thing some shape and structure at last. The casinos were big money, very big, and big people were involved, political people. It was reasonable to suppose that Singer, Ward and McLeary had the go-ahead from the cops in some way. But what way? Deal, deal, deal, I thought. What do deals involve? Time.
‘Are you still there, Hardy?’
‘I’m here. The deal is for one operator to have an open go for a period of time.’
‘Exactly right.’
‘Whose turn is it now?’
‘Moot point.’
‘Who’s doing it now?’
‘Singer.’
‘How long is the agreed period?’
‘Two years.’
‘So Singer’s overdue to bow out?’
‘Right again. We’re talking about the wife.’
‘Thanks, Frank. You’re a real pal.’
‘Don’t get too smart, Hardy. It’s tricky country.’
‘Just where do you stand on it, Frank? I know you’ve got judges playing blackjack and shadow ministers putting their shirts on the red, but it’d help to know what your considered attitude is.’
He spoke slowly and it was obvious that he’d thought it over many times. ‘Pending legalisation,’ he said, ‘I’m for a little rationalisation.’
‘Am I to understand that there’s been trouble at handing-over time in the past?’
‘Absolutely.’
‘I think I can help you.’
‘This conversation never happened.’ Good old Frank. He’d extend his neck an inch or so but he wouldn’t stick it all the way out. He was right, of course; banks and insurance companies employ lots of ex-cops who’ve spoken out of turn.
‘We have an understanding,’ I said. ‘See you soon.’
Double Bay is hilly; very bad for a man with a crook leg, very good for property developers. It’s also good for hairdressers, couturiers and people who sell tiny pictures widely bordered by snowy white paper and enclosed in the slimmest of frames. A lot of media people living there kid themselves that they can walk to work in town. Usually they drive. The cars of Double Bay are a study in themselves. On a car-for-car basis, Japan and Germany won World War II and neutrality paid off big for Sweden.
Robbins Road goes up and down dramatically in a couple of hundred yards. The taxi dropped me at the end of the road and I discovered the first law of walking with a stiff knee-it’s a hell of a lot easier to walk uphill than down. Swinging the stiff leg up, you can sort of place it gently; coming down the grade you tend to thump it into place. The jar goes up the bone to the knee and the nerves do the rest. So you tend to go downhill crabwise-very slow and undignified.
Number eighty-one was a newish block, a modish five storeys with some nice shrubbery around it. There would be no change out of eight hundred bucks a month for a flat. I went up the path hoping to find flat two on the ground floor, but it was one flight up. I was sweating and gritting my teeth when I got there. Life’s a gamble, but I hoped like hell Sandy was at home. The door was a sophisticated job with an unpickable lock; kicking it in wasn’t on just then. As I pressed the buzzer, I wondered about Sandy: Singer had dropped her just over two years before when she had been eighteen. That made her twenty or so now. Twenty can be nursery-school callow or as hard as Ilse Koch.
The woman who answered the bell was Peggy cast back twenty years. She had thick, lustrous red hair, thin, arched eyebrows and a face that would have made John Singer feel years younger than he was. One of the eyebrows went up with practised slowness.
‘Mmm?’
‘I’ve just come from talking to your Mum in the Royal Oaks. I gave her fifty dollars and she gave me your address. I’ll make it up to a hundred for her or give it to you if you’ll give me half an hour of your time.’
She looked at me curiously through the eight-inch gap allowed by the security chain.
‘What would Peggy have worth fifty dollars?’
‘I’ll tell you if you’ll open the door.’
She was a careful lady; she looked me over from top to bottom. I was still wearing a heavy bandage around my ear and the top of my head. Peggy hadn’t commented on it, but I suppose she was used to people falling over and hurting themselves. That plus my hospital pallor might give me an air of fragility that would encourage Sandy to let me in. I leaned heavily on the stick for emphasis.
‘What’s the stick for?’
‘I hurt my leg. I barely got up the stairs and it pains me just standing here.’
‘You might attack me with it.’
I laughed. ‘You’d beat me. I can hardly move without it, but I’ll leave it out here if it worries you.’ I leaned the stick against the wall and got out my licence, letting her see some money sitting in there with it. ‘I’m a private detective. You can call Detective Frank Parker at College Street headquarters to check me if you want to. I don’t attack women.’
It was her turn to laugh. It was a good Sydney sound that suggested she’d had more good times than bad so far.
‘I suppose it’s all right.’ She unfastened the chain. ‘My boyfriend’s due in half an hour, anyway.’
‘Thanks.’ I limped into the hallway and steadied myself against the wall.
‘Get the stick, for God’s sake.’ It wasn’t a bad voice she had; very contemporary, using the rising inflection, but not on every group of words. I got the stick and went down the hall into the living-room. The apartment had big windows which were making the most of the afternoon light. The fittings were good but unremarkable, except for a very nice Persian carpet. There was a big TV set and a lot of silver-banded hi-fi equipment. No books. A gold steering wheel was mounted on a block of wood and the whole thing was about nine inches high, standing on top of the TV set. She saw me looking at it.
‘He’s a racing car driver, my boyfriend.’
I nodded and eased myself down into the chair with the most padding.
‘I didn’t catch your name.’
‘Cliff Hardy. I’m interested in John Singer. I can’t tell you why.’
‘That’d be right,’ she said. She got a Benson and Hedges Extra Mild out of its box and lit it with a gold lighter. ‘What do you want for the fifty dollars?’
‘Tell me about how he went off you.’
It wasn’t polite and she didn’t like it, but I wasn’t going to get anywhere by being too polite with Sandy. The eyebrows and the way she smoked and moved told me that she was a long way from being a kindergarten
