‘What’ll you tell him?’
‘I’ll think of something. Deal?’
It took a while for him to answer and that was encouraging. You don’t change the habit of a lifetime in an instant if you’re serious. Eventually he thumped himself on the side of the head as if to drive the idea home and nodded. ‘You’re not a bad bloke for someone who knows bugger-all about golf. Deal, and thanks.’
I phoned Joel a week later at Walker’s and got him after Mrs Walker answered.
‘Hardy here, Joel. How’s things?’
‘Okay. Brett was shitty with me about something, but everything’s much better now. Real good in fact.’
‘Fine. I see you’re playing in Canberra next week.’
‘I’ll kill ‘em. How’d you get on? I haven’t had any more trouble.’
I told him I’d found out that a retired footballer with mental problems had been responsible for the spraying and the clipping. I said he’d gone off his medication and had harassed some other Aboriginal sports stars, but he was back under treatment.
‘How’d you find all that out?’
‘Professional secret.’
‘Geez, that’s another load off my mind. Thank you.’
‘I’ll send you a bill. Keep swinging.’
WHATEVER IT TAKES
It’s a Richo situation, Cliff,’ Corey Bannister said.
I got his drift. ‘Whatever it takes.’
‘That’s right. Whatever it takes.’
Bannister was a lawyer defending one Larry Hardiman on a murder charge. Hardiman’s alibi, in the person of Kerry Pike, had gone missing. Bannister had wangled a continuance of the trial, but unless he could produce Pike, Hardiman’s chances looked slim. I knew Pike, if you can call having had a fist fight with someone behind a hotel knowing them. In Pike’s world and mine, I guess you can.
‘The thing is, he respects you. You beat him.’
I shook my head. ‘The smart money called it a draw- we both had busted noses and three broken ribs.’
‘You had him down.’
‘I forget. Someone must’ve been holding me up.’
‘I need him, Cliff. Top dollar for the job. Go up there and bring him back and you can take the rest of the year off.’
‘Hardiman’s got that kind of money?’
‘No comment.’
I had a certain amount of respect for Bannister, none for Hardiman, and a very limited cash flow with the bills mounting. For a private investigator, being hired by a lawyer is gold. ‘Okay,’ I said. ‘Standard fee and expenses…’
‘Plus bonus.’
‘If you insist. Where’s “up there”? Tell me it’s not New Guinea or Ambon.’
‘Nimbin.’
‘Cool,’ I said.
We did the contract stuff; I got the subpoena and a retainer and drew on it. I caught a plane to Lismore. I didn’t shave for a couple of days, and by the time I was ready to drive out of Lismore-having met with Elsie, the woman who’d given Bannister the tip about Pike, at the Gollan Hotel and hired a battered Land Rover from a Rent-a-Wreck-I was whiskery. My hair is greying, wiry and still thick. Unkempt is no problem for me.
I took the road north, passing through places with names like Goolmangra, and admiring the lush country even after the dry winter everyone had been telling me about. Elsie said that Pike lived on a couple of acres out of Nimbin but came in for supplies and a beer every other day. I didn’t expect to find him on the first day and I was right, but I spent my time sussing out the town which I hadn’t seen for many years. It seemed to have gone downhill, to have become more seedy, and the people likewise, from the way it had been. I was surprised, though, at the respectability of the pub and the supermarket and at the way the straights and the ferals seemed to get on together-a sort of uneasy truce.
I ate lunch in the pub, struck up a few conversations, visited the marijuana museum and refused quite a few deals in the street. I spent another night in the Lismore motel with a pizza, the TV and a bottle of Rawson’s Retreat, and was back in Nimbin by late morning in time to see Kerry Pike pull up outside the supermarket in his old Holden ute. Pike had lost weight and grown a bushy beard but he was easily recognisable by the way he walked-head up, a screw-you strut.
I watched him buy groceries, toss them into the ute where he had a Rottweiler tied in the tray, then tracked him into the pub. I sat opposite him out on the back deck and reached across to take a chip from his plate before he lifted his fork.
‘Gidday, Kezza,’ I said. ‘Remember me?’
Pike had a long jaw, a flat nose and pale grey eyes, giving him a fishy look that had led people to make jokes until they felt his knuckles. The beard was gingery so the fishy look was still there. The chilly eyes narrowed.
‘Jesus Christ, Cliff Hardy.’
‘The same. Eat up. Good chips.’
‘The fuck are you doin’ here?’
I passed the subpoena over so that it sat across his scarred, clenched fists. ‘I’m here to take you back to Sydney for the Hardiman trial. You’re hereby served, sport.’
‘How d’you reckon to do that?’
‘Whatever it takes. Shoot your dog. Cuff you now. Talk to the police.’
Pike surprised me then. He took a slurp from his schooner and dug his fork into a chunk offish. He impaled some chips, carried the food to his mouth and chewed vigorously. He swallowed, took another drink and built an even bigger forkful. Watching him made me hungry and impatient.
‘Kerry,’ I said. ‘It’s going to happen, one way or another.’
He pushed a mound of chips onto a napkin and eased it across towards me. I’d come in with a middy of light and he touched his glass to mine. ‘That’s okay, Hardy. I’ll come back, but there’s some business here I have to attend to first.’
I couldn’t help myself. I took a chip and a drink. ‘I dunno…’
‘Just listen.’
He told me that he’d left Sydney because of some massive gambling debts to some very heavy people.
‘These guys aren’t fussy, they’ll take an eyeball on account. Know what I mean?’
‘Sure.’
He dropped his voice, although there were only two or three other people on the deck. ‘In a few days I’m going to get enough money to clear it. I’m talking about a couple of hundred grand. Then I’ll come back with you, quiet as a lamb. Play along and everything’ll be sweet.’
I looked at him closely. He was lean and tanned and there was impacted dirt under his fingernails. ‘I think I can guess,’ I said. ‘The answer’s no.’
‘A bit of a crop. What’s the harm? My guess is you’re on a big earner. D’you want it or not?’
‘I’m going to get it.’
‘I don’t think so. Take a look, Hardy. I’m not the slob you belted behind the pub and I’ve got friends in town. Have a go here and I reckon I could take you. Even if I didn’t you wouldn’t get far with me once the word got out. Make it easy on yourself. Three or four days. A week, tops.’
I ate chips and drank beer while I thought about it. The confidence in his tone, his lack of interest in the beer, the absence of the cigarette that used to be ever-present, convinced me that he was telling the truth. He’d
