‘A’ on the sides and inspired confidence. The guards wore silver jackets, which the men in the game I knew-ex- cops, ex-soldiers, ex-footballers- wouldn’t have liked. But maybe they had a new breed of armed guard these days. Maybe they were art school graduates or had degrees in communications. All the more reason not to amalgamate.
I phoned Barnes Enterprises and got Anna Carboni.
‘You’re better?’ I said.
She sniffed. ‘No, but I’m back. I’m glad you called. Bob said you mightn’t be needing that work I was going to do after all.’
‘Yeah, sorry, that’s right. Sorry to deprive you. of the overtime.’
‘Don’t worry. I need the time in bed more than the money right now. Does that mean you know what happened to Mr Todd?’
‘Not really. Is Bob there?’
I waited, fiddling with the new dressing on my cut hand. The cut had healed well. I tried some more of the coffee and couldn’t decide whether I liked it or not. When Mulholland came on the line, I asked him if O’Fear had been there that day.
‘No,’ he said. ‘I understood he was going to your place last night. What’s up?’
‘Nothing. I’ve… lost track of him. Did he get anywhere with those logs?’
‘He said it must’ve been a pretty tight run. Fifteen to twenty kilometres the round trip.’
‘Anything else?’
‘No. Hold on… Anna’s waving at me.’ I pushed the coffee aside. ‘She’s miffed,’ Mulholland said. ‘She reckons he made a hell of a mess searching the office.’
‘But did he find anything?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Did he take anything away with him?’
‘Look, brother, I was busy. He called a cab. Said he was going to your place. He went. I wasn’t keeping tabs on him. I just don’t know.’
‘Okay, I’m sorry. I know you’re busy, Bob. A couple more questions. Did Barnes ever have any dealings with Athena Security?’
‘I think so. I don’t know the details. Michael Hickie’d know more about it.’
‘Right. What about Eleni Marinos? Did Barnes ever mention her?’
Mulholland said the name and there was a pause. I heard muttering. When he spoke again his tone was cautious, guarded. ‘Anna tells me he knew her before he was married,’ he said.
‘Knew her?’
Mulholland’s voice was thick with impatience. ‘Sometimes I wonder how you gubbas ever got past the Blue Mountains. Barnes and Eleni Marinos had an affair. Serious, Anna says.’
Michael Hickie’s secretary, Jenny, was still in a job. She told me that Hickie had gone to play touch football.
‘It’s the middle of the morning on a working day,’ I said.
She giggled. ‘That’s when they do it. Michael… Mr Hickie, and some of his friends. He calls it, ah… rebellion as relaxation.’
‘Where do they play?’
‘Waverley Park. I’m sure you’d be welcome. They’re always looking for extra players.’
It had rained overnight and the morning was fresh and clear. The traffic moved well along Bondi Road, and I had no trouble locating the cluster of professional men’s cars near a corner of the park. Out on the grass a group of men huddled, broke apart, ran, jumped and fell. I parked, walked closer, and Hickie spotted me.
He waved. ‘Hey, hey, Hardy. We’re a man short. Want a game?’
I was wearing jeans and sneakers and a clean white shirt, but I had an old T-shirt in the car. The players wore shorts and rugby shirts, tracksuit pants and singlets. I looked them over carefully- no giants or obvious psychopaths. I signalled ‘Yes’ to Hickie, jogged back to my car and changed.
The next forty-five minutes I spent throwing and running and slipping over on the damp turf and laughing. It was a good-natured game among men who were past their physical best but not giving up without a struggle. They ran hard; some of the body contact was accidental, but not all of it. I was faster than a few, heavier than a few others and I held as many passes as I dropped. Hickie and I were playing on opposite sides and we had one heavyish collision. I thought he could have avoided me, but he didn’t, and he came off slightly second best. No ill- feeling. I finished the game well and truly winded, mostly as a result of a last mad dash, and with a slightly bruised shoulder despite the soft going. I remembered games I had played as a kid-under blazing skies on grounds baked rock hard, and in blizzards and ankle deep mud. They were tough games-I’ve still got a scar where some teeth went through my right ear. Back then, as kids, we were proving something to the world. Now we were mostly proving things to ourselves.
After the whistle, Hickie introduced me properly to the men who had been Dave, Ben, Russ, etc., for the purposes of the game. They smiled and wiped away sweat and most of them drove off, but Ben produced a cold six-pack of Heineken, and we leaned on the bonnet of his Celica for a spot of mateship.
‘Ben’s a surgeon,’ Hickie said.
I recalled Ben’s precise throwing and catching.
‘You’ve got the hands and eyes for it,’ I said.
Peter Corris
CH12 — O'Fear
Ben tilted his bottle. ‘Yep. Long may they last.’
The other stayer, whose name I didn’t catch, tossed his empty at Ben, who plucked it out of the air effortlessly. ‘See you,’ he said.
We chatted while Ben drank the spare bottle. After he’d gone I wiped myself off with the T-shirt. Hickie was tossing the ball from hand to hand.
‘You didn’t come here to play football,’ he said.
‘No, but it was fun. I’ve got questions.’
We squatted on the grass.
‘Have you seen or heard from O’Fear since yesterday?’
‘No.’
‘What d’you know about Barnes’ dealing with Athena Security?’
Hickie wiped sweat from his face and drank from his bottle. Ben had had two, mine was long gone, but he still had an inch or more left. ‘That’s a bit tortuous. Athena’s a strange concern, a bit mysterious. They approached Barnes for an investment, then for his custom, and eventually made him a takeover offer.’
‘How did he react?’
‘He considered the investment and using their services. Then he had ideas of going into security himself, so he backed off. He had a high opinion of their operation, though.’
‘What about the takeover?’
‘I think he’d sooner have lost a leg.’
‘Do you know anything about Barnes’ relationship with Eleni Marinos?’
Hickie nodded and finished his beer. ‘It was a very hot affair. Before he met Felicia, but not long before. I don’t know the details but Barnes ended it. It was a very rough patch for him. He drank a good bit and… you know…’
Of course I knew. Anybody who had been through the relationship mill knew only too well. The indecision, the resolutions and the turnings-back. Sheer hell and we keep on doing it because, as Woody Allen says in Annie Hall, we need the eggs. Lucky are those who don’t need the eggs. Or maybe they’re not lucky. I helped Hickie tidy up the bottles and the cardboard wrapper and the soft drink cans. We stowed the rubbish in a bin and stood together, looking across the grass in the direction of the sea.
‘How’re things with Felicia?’ Hickie asked. He rubbed his shoulder, which must have been sore from our hard bump.
‘She’s still at the coast. I haven’t got any good news for her.’ I didn’t tell him about the new slant I had got
