‘That’s all. He didn’t come-no phone call, nothing.’
‘I read about it. The cops say they’ve got no leads.’
She flicked ash; she was perking up a bit. ‘Same here.’ She opened her bag and took out a roll of notes and put them on the desk.
‘Nine hundred bucks. It’s the money we were going to shoot through on. Kev’d beat the shit out of me if he knew what I was doing, but I want you to find him.’
I looked at the money, thinking a lot but not saying anything. Cathy stubbed her cigarette out in an ashtray alongside the cash.
‘Look, he’s guilty, he’ll get-what? Ten years? He’ll serve-what? Six? That’s not too bad. I can wait. On the run he’s likely to get killed, and then I’d kill myself.’ She grinned at me, finally showing some of the spark that made her one of the most popular whores in Glebe. ‘You’d be saving two lives, Cliff.’
I grinned at her. ‘When you put it like that, how can I refuse? But seriously, Cathy, it’s bloody dangerous. Harbouring’s a serious charge. One of them’s dead, the cops won’t really mind if they take out another couple.’
‘I know. Just do what you can. He might’ve decided it was safer to go another way, he could be clear. I just want to know something.’
‘All right.’ I took the money; I didn’t have any qualms about the way it had been earned-hell, I’d worked for doctors and lawyers; all manner of professional people.
‘Where do you start?’ Cathy said.
‘With whoever it was gave you the nod about Kevin’s break.’
That pulled her up short-it touched on the code of Cathy’s world: don’t name names, don’t describe faces, don’t take cheques. I waited while she lit up again.
‘No way around it, love. It’s the only way in.’
‘Kevin wouldn’t like it,’ she blew smoke in a thin, nervous stream. ‘Well, it was Dave Follan.’
She told where and when Follan drank, which was better than getting his address. I told her I’d stay in touch with her and report everything I learned straightaway. She came around the desk on her high heels, put her behind in its tight denim on the desk, leaned forward to give me the cleavage and kissed me on the cheek.
‘That’s like having fish fingers at Doyle’s.’
‘What?’
‘Never mind. I’ll do what I can, Cathy. But I tell you one thing, you contact me if Kevin gets in touch with you. I don’t want him wandering around with the wrong ideas about me.’
‘He’s a sweet guy really.’
‘Yeah.’
She left and I leaned back in my chair and thought about Cathy and Kevin. I’d known them both in Glebe since they were kids. Kevin wagged school, stole things and played reserve grade football where he learned to drink and fight. I saw him play for
Balmain a few times; I saw him in a police line-up and then I saw him in a car that belonged to someone else. I was working for the someone else at the time, so I had a talk to Kevin. His ideas about property were loose; he was apologetic but unfussed about the car. I took it away, and we parted with mutual respect.
Cathy’s path to the game was the usual one-good looks, lazy parents, bored teachers, boring schools, no skills, good times. She was at it by fifteen, and nine years later the marks on her were plain. Cathy had seen and touched it all; raw life and death had pushed and shoved her. She’d pushed back with good humour and a generous heart and very little else. She once told me she’d never read a book, and had watched TV for seventy- two hours straight when she was stoned. Her pimp-who I didn’t know was a pimp at the time-hired me to protect him from another pimp. It all got messy and I ended up protecting Cathy. Then she met Kevin and he took over all the work.
When you want information about crims, talk to the cops, and vice versa. They spend half their lives on the phone to each other. I called Frank Parker and asked him what he’d heard about the escapee Kevin Vincent Kearney.
‘Not a thing.’
‘His best girl’s anxious.’
‘So she should be. Is she willing to help us catch him before he does something silly?’
‘Not exactly.’
‘It was a sweet deal of a break, Cliff. In retrospect the van driver reckoned there could’ve been half a dozen cars on the roads blocking him and slowing him down. They had a nifty little jigger to cut the hole. That all takes money, and there’s only one way to pay that sort of money back.’
‘Yeah, I know.’
‘Our ears’re open, but there’s nothing yet. What’ve you got?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Cliff, leave it alone. It’s bound to be sticky. Do a few compo investigations, do a few arsons. Leave it alone.’
I grunted non-committedly and hung up.
In prison, men talk about escaping all the time. They talk about escapes that succeeded and those that didn’t. They pool the knowledge, share the wisdom-the result is that they all do the same things when they’re on the run and they mostly get caught. They talk endlessly about cars, which is one of the mistakes. Did you ever hear of anyone being apprehended in a taxi or a train? They steal cars and drive them in the dumb way they do everything else and they might as well be carrying a sandwich board-ESCAPEE AT LARGE.
Kevin was hooked on Volvos; he claimed they were safe, but no car was safe with Kevin at the wheel. Time was when a Volvo in Glebe would have stood out like a camel on Bondi beach, but that’s all changed. Even so, it didn’t hurt to cruise a few of Kevin’s haunts-the gym off Derwent Street, the card room under the Greek restaurant in St John’s Road, the Forest Lodge video outlet where Kev and the girls sometimes made their own movies-just in case there was a Volvo around that didn’t belong. There wasn’t, but it filled in the time until I could go looking for Dave Follan at the Glebe Grenadier.
The Grenadier is the sort of pub the Vicar warned you about-it smells of smoke and spilt beer and a good time. It used to serve counter lunches that would stop a wharfie but they cut them down when the weight- conscious professionals moved in. But there’s a bus stop outside, a TAB next door, no stairs to the pisser-nothing will ever drive the old-timers from the Grenadier.
I ordered a beer and looked around for the pub’s social secretary-the man or woman who would know everyone who came and went and the colour of their socks. He was leaning his belly against the bar and watching the pool players. People slapped him on the shoulder as they passed and he greeted them by name without even looking at them. He was the man. I eased up to him with money in my hand ready to order.
‘Good pub,’ I said.
‘Usta be, too many bloody trendies now.’
The clientele looked pretty solidly working class to me, but I respected his judgement.
‘Dave Follan’s a regular here, isn’t he? He’s no trendy, Dave.’
‘Need more of him.’ He finished his schooner and I gave the barman the signal as soon as his glass hit the bar. I finished too and ordered a middy. He lit a cigarette in the small space between drinks.
‘Ta.’ he sipped. ‘You a mate of Dave’s?’ He looked at me properly for the first time; his eyes were lost in the beer fat and his small mouth was overhung by a whispy ginger moustache. He wore no particular expression and it was impossible to guess at his thoughts.
‘Sort of,’ I said. ‘Wouldn’t happen to know if he’s coming in tonight, would you?’
He reached over the bar and poured the rest of the schooner into the slops tray. When he turned back to me he was holding the empty glass like a weapon. ‘I would happen to know. I’m Follan, and I don’t know you from Adam, mate. What the fuck d’you want?’
After the Hardy foot, I thought, try the Hardy charm. I grinned at him. ‘Let me buy you a beer, I got off on the wrong foot then.’
He wasn’t having any. ‘You certainly did. What’s your game?’
‘Cathy told me you gave her the nod about Kevin’s break.’
