toilets. That’s gotta be where he went. Probably had a big shit first so he wouldn’t make such a bad mess on the footpath.’
Tough guy. He kicked the starter, pulled down his visor and roared away. The crowd started to break up. I approached the cop who was guarding the main entrance, supervising the journalists and the TV crews that had arrived. I showed him my licence and said I had business in the building. ‘Nothing to do with this,’ I said. ‘At least, I hope not. I was going to see Peter Wilson. Who was it that fell, or did he jump?’
‘Name of Clark,’ the cop said. ‘I think you’d better come back another day.’
‘I suppose you’re right. It’ll keep. Thank you.’
‘You’re welcome,’ he said.
Chatswood, aka New York City.
19
I hadn’t had the interview, but that didn’t stop me having the drink. The bar called itself a tavern and I wouldn’t have cared if it had called itself a cantina as long as it had dark beer on tap. I drained the first middy more or less straight off and took the second away into a dark corner where the noise of the television didn’t penetrate and there was a solid partition between me and the pinball players.
The older I get the less I believe in coincidence. It offers explanations that are too easy. Things are mostly connected, although the nature of the connection can be mysterious to the point of being unknowable. I was sure that Julian Clark’s death was connected to his difficulties with gambling and with Ken Galvani. Didn’t matter whether he jumped or was pushed, there would be a connection. The trouble with this line of thinking was that it raised the question of a link between his death and my intention to see him. I felt that such a link existed, but I didn’t have the faintest idea of how it operated. One thing was certain- with two deaths racked up, the stakes had to be high, much higher than some competition about what design was chosen for the casino.
I sipped the second beer and considered my options. Being on the inside probably put me in an ideal spot to find out more on the extent and nature of Ken Galvani’s interest in the casino. I could work on that. But Joe Galvani had suddenly moved to centre stage. He was the link between the two deaths. I left half of the drink in deference to the law, and went back to my car, sucking in air and trying to swing my left arm as high as I could and practising taking it up behind my back. Must have looked strange, but the pain-controlled rigidity seemed to be easing.
I got moving and punched in the Greenwich number. Just as the call was answered and I asked for Joe, a truck shot past me, its big wheels were over the line and seemed to be threatening to tear off my side vision mirror. I swore and swerved and heard a very offended woman on the other end of the line.
‘I beg your pardon.’
‘I’m sorry. Is he there?’
‘No, I’m afraid not. He has been ill for several days and is at home. Perhaps you’d care to call back tomorrow.’
She hung up. I tried to remember where Joe lived. I’d been there once with Scott to a barbecue. It was at the time I was between women and Scott had thought to line me up with one of his cousins. I couldn’t remember her name. Gold crosses around necks tend to put me off although Scott had assured me it didn’t mean anything. A mental image of the tiny cross brought back the address-Ryde, near the Field of Mars reserve. I stopped, checked the Gregory’s, and swung off the highway and began the run down to the river. I became conscious of the other car soon after making the turn. When I’m in the Falcon, I check automatically for anything unusual in the traffic, but unfamiliarity with the Commodore had thrown me out of the habit.
It wasn’t that I knew the tan Honda Accord was following me, it was just a sense that the car had been in the traffic longer than it should have been. I didn’t do anything different, that isn’t how it’s done. I kept to a level speed and concentrated on trying to let the Honda make a false move. I still had the map open on the passenger seat and I saw that there was a four-way intersection coming up at the river. I turned hard right-two options rejected. The Honda slowed slightly but came after me. I increased speed wondering what to do. Not close enough for me to see how many in the car and no way to judge the intent. I was on a narrower road with bush growing closely on one side; on the other a high cyclone fence enclosed a nursery. Good spot for establishing that I was being tailed, bad for everything else. I needed people, traffic, cover, and the road was empty.
The Honda moved up closer as I passed the nursery, hoping for houses and getting instead another high fence-a research facility of some kind. I could see now that there were two men in the car. I picked up speed but the Honda was going to be faster. I still had bush on one side, no bends, and up ahead I could see yellow-and- black barriers, aluminium sheds and scraped earth-roadworks, another carriageway being constructed. The tan car was almost alongside me; the windows were tinted and I could only see shadows. I was sweating and gripping the wheel as the Honda pulled out and began to turn to cut me off. I let it go, touched the brake and then floored the accelerator. Now I was the one on the outside and the Honda was slowing down, the driver realising he’d screwed up.
I rammed him, not hard, just at the door pillar, catching it perfectly. The Honda shot through a wooden barrier splintering it as the driver fought for control. I concentrated on getting the Commodore back on a straight track but I saw the Honda out of the corner of my eye, bumping and throwing up dust as it ploughed through the bed of the new road. The work must have been suspended, because there was nobody about- maybe a stop-work meeting was on. I wasn’t out of the woods. The driver had lifted his game; he had the car under control and was heading back towards the road. I’d spent too long watching. Then the Honda wobbled and lost speed as its wheels dropped into some kind of a shallow trench. Broken axle territory. It stopped. I wasn’t more than thirty metres away. A man jumped from the car, levelled what looked like a military carbine, and pumped bullets at me. A window cracked and I heard two rounds tear through the body of the car, entering and exiting. I hit the gas. Not heroic, but if there’s a way for an unarmed man to get the better of one with an automatic weapon I don’t know it. Pity really, because I recognised the guy with the gun-Baldy from the park in Rozelle, and he had one score against me already.
The directory had fallen to the floor. I was unsure of where I was and had no idea of how to get to Joe Galvani’s. I just wanted to keep moving. I became aware of a scraping sound and I pulled into a quiet street and got out to look. I’d crumpled the front panel when I’d hit the Honda and it was rubbing against the tyre. I kicked and pulled it clear. There were two bullet holes in the back window and the back seat had some small pieces of glass on it where the bullet had punched through. I examined the interior and found that the slug that had broken the window had lodged in the dash a few centimetres from me after passing through the seat. Close.
That set me thinking about the timing of Julian Clark’s death. It had happened within two hours of my finding out about his role in the scheme of things. That couldn’t be accidental. It wouldn’t be the first time that someone had lost their life after coming within the scope of one of my investigations. It wasn’t something I liked to think about but I had to. How could it happen? I hadn’t spoken to anybody. I’d just sat in the car, read the transcripts, listened to the tape, made a few phone calls- the car!
Finding it didn’t take long-there are only so many places you can plant a bug in a car and get good reception. The motor noise and the electricals are the problem. This was a state of the art number, located in the roof near the interior light. The fabric where it had been inserted was invisibly mended, almost. I thought back over the phone calls, trying to remember who’d I rung with what results. What names had been mentioned? Clark. I hadn’t got through but I’d announced my interest in him loud and clear. Joe Galvani? I hadn’t got through the first two times and when I had the chances were the passing truck had blotted out the sound. I dismantled the car phone, not being tender with it, but found no device there.
Unpleasant hi-tech thoughts. Then I wondered just how much hi-tech I was up against. I crouched down and stuck my head under the car, locating it almost immediately. The transmitter. Good planning. They knew the car they were looking for and the area to find it in but took no chances. I was about to pull the thing out when I had second thoughts. If they had a backup car they could be here, homing in on the signal pretty quickly. Best to be sure. The short street ran into a grid with a good number of outlets. I could hear the hum of fast-moving traffic but it was a fair way off. Once your quarry was out of that street, no telling where he was. There were houses on
