happened?’
‘Come off me bike, what d’you reckon? What do youse want then?’
‘Nothing.’ Crabbe activated the safety on the gun and handed it back.
‘Hold on,’ I said. ‘Mr Corbett, I’m a private detective looking for Cassie Haxton. I understand you-’
Corbett may have been a cripple but there was nothing wrong with his lungs. He threw back his head and let out a roar of laughter.
‘Bugger me. Cassie. You want me to tell you about her?’
‘Anything you can.’
‘Take a while. Come in. Truth is I’d be glad of the company. You’ve got no fuckin’ idea how many people avoid you when you’re crippled. Got anything to drink, Tom?’
‘I think there’s some rum in the car.’
‘Why don’t you go and get it while
‘Cliff Hardy,’ I said.
‘… him and me get comfortable.’
Corbett swung the chair around and I followed him into the flat-just a sitting room and bedroom as one space and a kitchenette tucked in a corner. If Corbett was selling dope as Crabbe suggested, he wasn’t doing very well at it. He looked as if he could have been passably handsome at one time, but confinement in the wheelchair had put flesh on him and blurred his looks. He sported a bikie ponytail, but the hair was thin and receding at the temples.
I heard the door close and Crabbe came in with a half-bottle of Bundy. Corbett had things arranged so as he could reach them. He got ice and a carafe of water and some glasses from the bar fridge and set them out on a battered pine table.
‘Pour us a strong one, Tom, and youse can have what you like.’
Crabbe obliged, half filling a glass and adding two cubes of ice for Corbett and making us two heavily diluted versions. Corbett took a long slug.
‘Jesus that hits the spot. These legs are fuckin’ useless but they hurt like hell sometimes. Nothing like a bit of Bundy to dull the pain. I remember when-’
‘We don’t need any of that, Ben,’ Crabbe said. ‘When did you last see Cassie?’
Corbett laughed. ‘That means when did I last fuck her-same thing.’ He brought his left fist down hard on his knees. ‘Before this. That’d be when I was in LA. She was hot, like always, and she reckoned she was going to take that stuck-up prick Haxton for fuckin’ millions. Crazy bitch had this plan-that what youse want to hear about?’
‘Yes,’ I said.
‘Cost you.’
‘How much?’
I moved around the table, reached under the blanket and grabbed the pistol Corbett had tucked down beside him. I checked the load, jacked a shell into the chamber, and pointed the gun at the side of Corbett’s head.
‘You’re depressed, Ben. Drinking hard. It all got too much for you not being a king of the freeway. You ran yourself off the road one last time. It’s easy to arrange.’
Corbett lost colour. ‘You wouldn’t.’
‘I would,’ I said. ‘I’ve done it before.’
Corbett shot a desperate look at Crabbe, who shrugged. ‘He’s a hard bastard and there’s a lot of money at stake. But he doesn’t seem to want to share any of it with you.’
Corbett steadied himself with another belt of rum. ‘All I know is, she had this idea to show him up as a cheap bastard and then blackmail him. Said she’d lop an ear off like that fuckin’ mad painter if she had to.’
I cleared the magazine and breech and put the gun and the shells in Corbett’s lap. ‘Did she say anything about having an accomplice-a helper?’
‘I know what an accomplice is, you prick. Yeah, some dyke who has it in for Haxton.’
Crabbe and I left Corbett the rum and we drove back to Newtown, barely exchanging a word. He backed carefully into his parking bay.
‘Has to be Emily-Jo Taplin,’ he said.
‘You mentioned a female producer in uncomplimentary terms.’
‘Got it in one.’
We stood in the street and I thanked Crabbe for his help.
‘I can handle it from here,’ I said. ‘Don’t quite understand it but I expect I will.’
We shook hands. ‘I believe you. That was nice work of yours back there with Ben. Very scary. Have you ever offed anyone like that?’
‘No.’
‘Good bluff. Can I ask you to let me know how it works out? Could be very useful.’
I agreed.
If this scenario was the real one, and instinct told me it was, it seemed to me that the pressure was off. Wouldn’t hurt to let Haxton stew a bit, and Cassie wouldn’t come to any harm. I went home to sleep and to think about how to play out the last act-the whole thing now seemed like a bad movie script. The modified voice was a clue, suggesting that Haxton knew the real voice. Can that modification make a woman sound like a man? Why not?
I drove home. It was a night sans Lily, which is okay as long as there aren’t too many and they’re well spread out. There was a message from Haxton on the answering machine. He complained about my mobile being off and said the caller had been in touch again.
‘It’s fucking weird. He asked how I’d feel about a hundred grand and I said okay. Then I got a bit pissed off and said things about Cassie that I shouldn’t have. There’s something else. Ring me.’
So much for a good night’s kip. I called him and told him I had the mobile off because I was dealing with dangerous characters. A true egotist, he didn’t even register what I said.
‘The fucker was recording me,’ he said. ‘I know about this stuff-the clicks and that. I swear I was being recorded. What’s all that about?’
Recording him fitted the scenario. I was sick of him, sick of the whole fantasy world he and his kind lived in. I told him to take a pill and get some sleep.
‘What the fuck are you talking about?’
‘I’m tired. I’ll see you in the morning and explain. Just be assured that your darling wife is in no physical danger.’
He was drunk and energised perhaps by some illegal substance and he ranted at me but I cut him off. ‘It’s more or less sorted, Bruce,’ I said. ‘Calm down. See you tomorrow at ten. Sleep.’
Haxton was dishevelled, unshaven and hungover when I arrived. The day had turned grey and cold and wasn’t helping his mood. For all that had happened he was still preoccupied with his profession.
‘Couldn’t shoot for shit in this weather, even locations,’ he said as he ushered me in. The place was a mess of glasses, a bottle or two, Budweiser cans, a pizza box, newspapers and ring-bound scripts. The kitchen smelled of burnt toast and spilled coffee. Haxton cleared a dressing gown from a chair for me and offered me a beer.
‘Got any champagne?’
‘Celebrating, are we?’
‘Yes and no.’
‘Tell me.’
I gave it to him the way it appeared to me. His normally pale face became flushed under the stubble and his hands shook as he poured himself some vodka, not bothering about me or the tonic.
‘That dirty bitch. Those dirty bitches. That fucking modified voice sounded like a man. They’ll go to gaol for this. See how they like it with the bull-dyke screws.’
‘You’re not thinking. From what I’ve learned it looks as if Cassie knows you haven’t got much money but wants to bleed you for whatever you’ve got or are going to get. Okay. I understand that. But what about this Emily hyphen-something-something? What’s in it for her?’
Haxton’s face was a mottled mask of rage. ‘She wants co-director status on the picture. She’s a grasping,
