money was a good thing. If he’d offered to help out of the goodness of his heart I wouldn’t have trusted him an inch. But a hundred thousand tax free made sense. He had my mobile number and I had a number he said would reach him. I was digesting the meal and reloading the gun as I sat in the car. It suddenly hit me how suspicious this would look to an observer and brought home to me that the car itself was a hot item.
I drove to the garage in Surry Hills where I have it serviced and booked it in for a thorough check-up, telling them I’d be out of town for a while and to take their time. I hired a Mitsubishi 4WD because you never know where you’re likely to have to go in this business, and drove to my office. I circled the area carefully a couple of times making sure the police hadn’t posted a lookout and also checking that Black Andy hadn’t given me a tail. In all likelihood, Carmichael and Hammond had gone there after Glebe and then just put out a call on the car. They’d have other things to attend to, but the murders and the escape of my client’s husband and the whereabouts of the client herself would put the matter high on their list. They’d keep checking and O’Connor would only be able to keep the lid on her disappearance for so long. I’d made this point to Piper and he’d just nodded indifferently as he detached something from his renovated molars with a toothpick.
I parked at a one hour meter in William Street and went up to the office. I seldom carry the pistol but it was a comfort as I mounted the stairs in the half light, all the stairwell gets in the afternoon. I didn’t expect trouble here, and that’s exactly when you should be ready for it. I could hear some of my fellow tenants going about their businesses, legit and semi-legit. Stephanie Stargazer bailed me up as I put my key in the door.
‘Ho, Cliff. A bad karma day?’
‘Why d’you say that, Steff?’
‘You look tense. Give me your details and I’ll lay it all out for you, free of charge.’
For years I’ve resisted giving her the stuff about the time and circumstances of my birth, most of which I don’t know anyway. I could get them easily enough from my sister, who flirted with this bullshit years ago and got the drum from our mother before she died. But Mum would have made it up if she’d felt like it, and from the way she drank it was unlikely she’d have remembered accurately. Dad, in the way of dads in those days, was absent from the event.
‘Steff,’ I said, ‘When I’m less tense I’ll give you all the dope you need. Right now, I’m going in to deal with my problems and play “My Sweet Lord” and burn some incense for poor old George.’
‘He died happy.’
‘Ten years too early. Look at Paul and Ringo. They gave up smoking, like me.’
Steff did a stylish turn of her ninety plus kilos in her purple kaftan with the mirrors in the skirt and jingled her bracelets. ‘You’re a hopeless case.’
‘You love me, though.’
‘I’ll do a reading on that. See you, Cliff.’
I opened the door to the familiar musty smell. Once, the mail used to be brought up and dropped through the slot. Not now, and I’d forgotten to check the box downstairs. The answering machine was blinking so there was a message. But the bug was still in place. Did it matter?
The first message was a harmless one from a would-be client who’d have to wait. The second was from my daughter Megan to tell me she was touring with a theatre company in Queensland and was just saying hello. That was her second hello in a year. Our relationship was warming up. The last was from Carmichael, as I’d suspected. It was just to let me know that I was in trouble. I already knew that.
I unscrewed the handset the way Hank Bachelor had, and removed the device. I had no idea how the monitoring worked, but I imagined that it took sophisticated equipment at a listening post. Warren North, aka Frank Eastman aka Phil West, had more to worry about now than my phone calls. The more I thought about it the more difficult his situation looked. He’d miscalculated if he thought holding Lorrie would scare me off, and if he thought it’d control Master he’d made an even worse mistake. By now he must know that Master was on the loose and angry. The plan for getting the heroin into the gaol system was shot. I hoped North was under enough stress to impair his judgement and not enough to cause him to wipe the slate clean.
I phoned Bryce O’Connor and got his secretary. She was the person I’d bullied before and when I told her my name she gave me his mobile number.
‘He said he was anxious to hear from you.’
‘That’s nice. Did he say where he’d be?’
Her tone indicated that she was less than happy. ‘I think he was going to Mrs Master’s home or her office.’
Good. O’Connor was on the job. I dialled the mobile number. It rang for a long time before he answered. That didn’t worry me. Maybe he disliked the device as much as I did and fumbled with it, hoping the ringing would stop.
‘Yes?’
The voice was recognisably his, but only just.
‘O’Connor, this is Hardy.’
‘Ah, Hardy. Yes. Good.’
‘We need to talk. Where are you?’
‘At home.’
‘Your office said you were at Mrs Master’s office or her house.’
‘Ah, I was. Now I’m at home. Yes, we need to talk.’
‘What’s wrong? Are you drunk? Did the police give you a hard time?’
‘… I have had a drink or two. The police? No, not so bad. You’d better come here, Hardy.’
‘Where’s here?’
‘My flat… apartment.’
He rattled off an address in Kirribilli. A trip over the bridge or through the tunnel in late afternoon traffic wasn’t something to look forward to, but O’Connor sounded rattled and I needed him to be able to function when the moment to raise the money came. If it came. I told him I’d be there as soon as possible and hung up. One good thing about the shabbiness and smell of my office is that, while I’m usually glad to get there to deal with business, I’m never sorry to leave it.
The other side of the harbour wasn’t my stamping ground and it wouldn’t hurt to be there while Carmichael and Hammond were on the lookout for me. Given what Frank had said, I thought I’d want to contact them when the time was right. But not yet.
The Mitsubishi handled well and I decided to take the bridge for old time’s sake and because I haven’t yet sorted out the options at the tunnel exit. The traffic was thick but it flowed well and I was across in that semi- foreign land sooner than I expected. I worked my way through to the address O’Connor had given me and it wasn’t really Kirribilli at all but North Sydney. Why do they do it? To be able to say they live in the same suburb as the Prime Minister? That’d be enough to keep me away.
The four level apartment block was set in a garden that would have looked better a few months back, before the big dry. It was still pretty enough, with carefully tended native trees and shrubs and white stone paths with a couple of judiciously placed benches giving a nice harbour view. I could see the blue sheen of a swimming pool through the obligatory fence. The lucky well-heeled residents would be paying top dollar for every plant, bench, tile and litre of water. Security, too. An underground garage could only be accessed by remote control. To get through the gate set in a high wall that was sure to be electronically monitored, you had to stand where a camera, well up out of reach and protected by a heavy grill, could count the hairs in your nose. I buzzed O’Connor’s flat-number two.
His voice came over the intercom, flat and slurred. He was on the piss all right. ‘Hardy… Come.’
The gate swung in and I went up a path to the main door where I went through it all again. Then it was along a carpeted passage, past some enlarged photographs of the building itself and the views it commanded from different angles, to the door of number two. Quite a stroll. These weren’t your little one-bedroom numbers. For the first time the thought occurred to me that O’Connor might have a family. Why else would you need an apartment this size? But then I couldn’t imagine kids growing up in a place like this, pool or no pool. It had the dead feel of too much money and not enough life. It was status living and super secure. Just right in the age of the War against Terror.
I ignored the bell, guessing that it probably chimed something soothing inside, and knocked hard on the door. Even before it opened I had the feeling that things weren’t right. A man like O’Connor doesn’t take half the
