house. I woke up a lot and had a few drinks. I finally got some sleep around dawn and felt like hell when I woke up at ten. The milk was sour and the bread was stale. I drank black coffee and scribbled notes in my notebook. Most of the notes ended in question marks. I went into the bathroom and looked at the beard. Not too bad, I thought, Bit of grey. Distinguished, intellectual even. Maybe if I kept it, I’d have some good ideas. I had a shower and began to feel better.
I drove in to Darlinghurst; the evidence I’d kept under the car seat and then under my bed I locked away in the office safe before I phoned Athena Security. The personnel manager was interested to hear from me. Yes, they were still recruiting. Yes, they valued experience. He only stopped saying yes when I said I’d need to talk to Eleni Marinos in person before I could consider joining the firm. He said he’d have to get back to me on that.
Call number two was to Michael Hickie. I asked him to find out all he could about Athena Security and its links, if any, to Riley’s outfit.
‘That’s your line of territory,’ he said.
‘I’ll be working on it, too. I’ll look into people and you can look into money.’
‘I’m interested in people too, you know.’
‘Don’t be,’ I said. ‘Most aren’t worth the trouble.’
‘You’re low. Having trouble with Felicia?’
I grunted.
‘Barnes said she was trouble, but worth it.’
I grunted again and hung up. I’d had to quote the number on my operator’s licence to the Athena bloke and, in the process of locating it, I had strewn the contents of my wallet across the desk. I looked at the credit cards and the meagre amount of cash and the creased driver’s licence and suddenly felt small and isolated. My only backup in the office was an answering machine; my only means of transport was the Falcon; I had an illegal Colt. 45 and a properly licensed Smith amp; Wesson. 38 for firepower. No helicopters, no armoured vans, no shotguns. Who was I kidding? This was too big for me.
It was midday and I was dry. Well, that’s what a cask of red wine is for. I poured a small one, swallowed it along with some pride, and phoned Detective-Inspector Frank Parker of the New South Wales Police, a body whose motto is, ‘Punishment swiftly follows the crime’. Two years ago Parker had married Hilde Stoner, who had been a lodger in my house. They now had a son whom they had named after me.
‘Parker.’
‘Hardy.’
‘Gidday, Cliff. How many favours can I do you? Just ask.’
‘Christ, what’s got into you? Did your shares goup?’
‘What shares? No, your namesake took his first steps last night.’
‘Bit slow off the mark, isn’t he?’
‘Piss off. Twelve months. Bit above average.’
‘That’d be right. Hilde okay? Good. Look, Frank, I’ve got a bit of a problem.’ I kept it vague, but intimated that I might have evidence connected with a major crime or possibly a series of crimes. I don’t why I said that, probably because cops say it.
‘I hear you went bail for O’Fear,’ Frank said. ‘Is there a connection?’
‘Could be. Are your people still interested in fingerprints and microscopic fibres and that sort of thing? Or do you just wait for the crims to blow each other away these days?’
‘Spare me the mordant wit, Cliff. What do you want?’
‘A talk. After work today, in the bar at Central Railway?’
‘Are you catching a train somewhere?’
‘No, I like the atmosphere.’
‘Are you okay, Cliff?’
‘Is anyone? See you around six, Frank.’
I had some more wine, which I sipped slowly while I looked out at the blue sky through the grey-brown window. I plucked at my near-beard but didn’t feel any brighter. I poured another glass of wine, and when the phone rang I reached for it, lazily, thinking it would be the man from Athena. I lifted the receiver and two men walked into the office without knocking. One of them was big and one was small. The small one held a gun that looked like a. 357 Magnum Colt, the one with the short barrel. It made him seem a lot bigger than he was. He gestured with the Colt for me to hand the phone to the big man. I didn’t do it, so the big man punched me in the face. I dropped the phone as I rocked back in my chair. He picked it up from the desk.
‘Right,’ he said into the receiver. ‘We’re here.’ He replaced the receiver and sat down in the hard, unpadded client’s chair. The lack of comfort didn’t seem to bother him. The small man leaned against the wall beside the half-open door; he held the gun in such a way that a ten-centimetre movement would train it on my chest.
‘I think it’s time we stopped pissing around, Hardy,’ the big man said. ‘I’m Stanley Riley.’
I rubbed my cheekbone where the punch had landed. He had pulled it so that the skin hadn’t split and I’d been more surprised than hurt. Expert stuff. He was well over six feet tall and beefy with it, although his well-cut grey suit concealed the flab. His face had that plain, fleshy, stamped-out-of-the-mould look you see on prison guards and ex-footballers. He had heavy eyebrows and a deep dimple in his chin that wasn’t cute. His mouth was a thin, hard split in the lower end of his face and his eyes were wide apart, bland and innocent.
I pointed to the gunman. ‘And what’s his name?’
‘He doesn’t matter.’
‘Hear that?’ I said. ‘You don’t matter.’
The gunman had a dark wispy beard, a wall eye and a scarred, puckered left cheek. He looked through me towards the window but it was hard to tell where he was really looking. He reached out and put the Colt on top of my filing cabinet. Then he reached into the pocket of his windbreaker and took out a single cigarette. He lit it with a disposable lighter, blew smoke and reclaimed his gun. He didn’t speak.
I picked up my Vegemite glass and drank some wine.
‘A cheap private investigator,’ Riley said. ‘Drinking cheap plonk.’
‘Cask wine and French brandy,’ I said. ‘The effect’s the same. What’s on your mind, Stan?’
‘You are. I’m wondering how to stop you causing me any trouble.’
‘Now how could I cause you trouble? A cheap…’
‘You’ve been phoning around. Trying to set up a meeting with Marinos, poking into my business affairs and talking to the police. I’m worried.’
‘You’ve been listening in. That’s illegal.’
‘Everything’s illegal these days, Hardy. A while ago I could’ve just neutralised you-got your licence cancelled, got you a few months on remand, bored it up you. But with this new mob coming into government… it takes time to make the right contacts.’
‘Psychic, are you? The election’s a week away.’
‘It’s in the bag.’
‘I must get a bet on,’ I said. I had the Vegemite glass and could reach the telephone. Not very potent weapons. The. 357 Colt would make a lot of noise but there weren’t many people in the building to hear it, and probably none who would care.
‘You’ve really been poking around, Hardy. You mentioned fingerprints and fibres. I reckon you’ve got the bits of the shotguns.’
I didn’t say anything, tried to keep my face neutral.
‘Gary here got careless,’ Riley said. ‘That’s why I brought him along. He’s itching for a chance to make up for his mistake.’
‘You’ve made a lot of mistakes, Stan.’
‘Well, I’ll just have to set things right, won’t I? Starting with you. The shotguns’re ashes and lumps of metal now, all except for the bits you’ve got.’
‘There’s some photographs too. I don’t know how many copies.’
Riley plucked at the hole in his big chin. He must have found it hard to shave there and a couple of bristles were annoying him. ‘I’m not too worried about photographs. I might do a deal on the negatives if you’ve got them.’
‘Deal?’
