'What d'you want?' she said. 'I haven't got any money.'
'He has.'
'He gambled it all away and then he was killed. Please leave.'
'You identified him.'
'Yes.'
'Someone claims to have seen him alive.'
'Go away.' She reached into her bag for her mobile phone. 'I'm calling the police.'
'I'm working with the police.'
A look of sheer terror came into her face. She dropped the phone and buried her face in her hands. 'Go away. Go away, please.'
There was nothing else to do. She kept her face covered and her hands were shaking. I picked up Malouf's card and replaced it with one of my own. It was long out of date in describing me as a PEA, but at least it had my contact details minus the office number.
'I'm sorry to distress you,' I said. 'You can contact me if you need any help.'
She shook her head, keeping it low, and began punching numbers on her mobile. I left the shop and went to a coffee place on the other side of the street. I sat inside by the window and had a clear view of the travel agency as I worked on a watery flat white. Troy came back looking depressed. It was a miserable moment for everyone.
After about thirty minutes a car pulled up outside the travel agency. It parked illegally, but neither the driver nor the man who got out of the back seat seemed to care. He went into the shop. I paid for my coffee and took up a position where I could get a good view of whoever left the shop but couldn't be easily seen myself. I had a state of the art mobile phone Megan had bought me. I hadn't mastered all its functions but I knew enough to enable me to zoom and get a good set of pictures.
I had the camera to the ready when the man came out of the shop and I caught him as he moved towards the car. He stopped and lit a cigarette before he got in. He was stocky and dark, wearing a well-cut suit and an unbuttoned, double-breasted overcoat. I recognised him: he was the man who'd joined the Wong brothers, May Ling and Miles Standish in the North Sydney Chinese restaurant.
9
I downloaded the photographs onto my computer and sent them as an attachment in an email to Chang, asking him if he could identify the man. Chang phoned me almost immediately.
'I'm sending someone to see you,' he said.
'Really? Why?'
'He'll explain.'
'Come on, Stephen. Who are we talking about?'
'My 2IC, Karim Ali.'
'You know what I mean. Who's the bloke in the photos I sent?'
'It's not something to talk about over the phone.'
'Give me the name or I won't be here when your guy calls.'
'He's Selim Houli. You don't want to know him. Watch out for Karim, he'll be there soon.'
He hung up. I went to my notebook and saw the name I'd transcribed from Standish's list: Selim Houli was one of the gamblers who was said to have taken serious money from Malouf. According to Standish's notes, his club was the Tiberias in Darlinghurst Road. I Googled it while waiting for Chang's offsider.
The website for the Tiberias Club featured audio and video on its attractions. Its cocktail bar was a shimmering light show with barmaids in fishnets, g-strings and nipple pasties serving customers wearing expensive clothes and jewellery and having a wonderful time.
There was a small dance floor with no more than twenty tables arranged around it in front of a small stage. A button click brought the scene to life with jazzy music playing and three men and three women performing a routine that stopped just this side of actual sexual activity in all its many and varied forms. It was only a brief sound and movement bite, but it was skilfully shot with effective lighting and the performers were top class. An expert, expensive, erotic production.
Static again, the site provided details on provisional and actual membership, the club's privacy policy, restrictions on photographic and recording devices and strict rules about insobriety. The floor show must have been on a loop, because it came on again without me activating it just as I heard the doorbell ring downstairs.
I went to the door, looked through the peephole, and saw a dark-faced young man with a serious expression. I opened the door.
I've been hit quite a few times in quite a few places, but the blow that came at me then was faster and more surprising than anything I've experienced. It drove the wind out of me, collapsed me at the knees, and seemed to blind me, all in an instant. Then time slowed down. One second I was standing and conscious and the next I was floating towards the floor. I tried to throw out my arms to shield myself against the fall but I couldn't move them. I didn't even feel the bump.
When I came out of the fog I was sitting in a chair in what I sensed rather than saw was a darkened room, with plastic restraints around my wrists. I could hear something disturbing the air but couldn't make out what. It was as though my senses had all been diminished; I couldn't see, hear or smell properly.
It's said that 'Gentleman' Jim Corbett was paralysed by Bob Fitzsimmons's punch that robbed him of his world heavyweight title. I'd never believed it but I did now. A kind of paralysis had made me useless back in the doorway of my house and something similar, but even more debilitating, was happening now. What's that noise? What's that smell? Why cant I see?
A light came on and I lifted my hands to shield my eyes from it. At least I could move and close my eyes. The noise stopped and I realised it had been music, coming from not so very far off. The light swung away and I opened my eyes. A man I recognised as Selim Houli was sitting opposite me about a metre away. He was smoking a cigar.
'Mr Hardy,' he said. 'How do you feel?'
I was in my shirtsleeves and I tried to scratch at my upper left arm where I felt a pain, but the restraints stopped me.
'Yes,' Houli said. 'A small injection to tranquillise you.'
For a second I wondered whether I still had the power of speech. As it came out my voice was a raw croak. 'I can put that on the list of the laws you've broken.'
He laughed and expelled aromatic smoke. 'Oh, that's a very long list indeed, depending on your point of view.'
I said nothing and concentrated on getting myself back together. Houli was obviously someone who liked to talk and talkers often do themselves much more harm than good. As my vision cleared I looked around the room. It was a sort of storage space with boxes and furniture stacked up. The two chairs we were sitting on had clearly been brought in for the purpose. I had a sense of it being below ground level. Nothing social went on down here normally.
Houli looked to be in his forties with thinning dark hair and a five o'clock shadow. He wore the suit I'd seen him in earlier at Bondi Junction with the jacket unbuttoned. White business shirt, discreetly striped silk tie, gold watch and a gold half-crown on one of his front teeth. He was olive-skinned with dark patches under his eyes. He flicked ash from the cigar onto the cement floor.
'You told Rosemary Malouf that you believed her husband was still alive.' 'Did I?'
'Don't be foolish, Mr Hardy. You're in a very dangerous position. I urge you to cooperate.'
'I'll do my best.'
'Have you seen Richard Malouf?'
I didn't answer.
'Have you spoken to anyone who has seen him?'
