Until Inquiry File got wind of it and investigative reporters started to poke around with microphones and video cameras, camping on his front lawn, hanging outside his workshop, peering through the glass doors into his office, some bitch screaming questions at him three days in a row. He had rounded on her finally, shoving her to one side, clamping his hand over the lens of the camera. Dont touch the equipment, she squawked. Dont touch me or Ill have you up for assault.
Stolle had never felt such huge, useless rage. Hed been unable to get his words out. Hed wanted to smash the camera to dust, flatten the fairy cameraman, tear the clothes off the bitch with her questions, questions, questions.
So now he was Stolle Investigations. He didnt advertise. He ran a discreet business, installing security gear for cocaine kings, tax dodgers, bent union bosses and bikie gangs, finding missing persons, supplying bodyguards, anything for a buck. He even had a TAFE College diploma.
The main problem was that he ran a large staff of part-timers and a couple of full-timers, and they all cost money. Hed bleed his customers where he could, spin the job out over three days when it could have been done in two, charge for travel and faxes he hadnt made, but what he needed more of were clients like this Brisbane woman. He could smell more work there if he played his cards right. The fee didnt bother her, forty-five bucks an hour plus expenses, plus she was offering ten thousand bucks bonus if he could deliver Wyatt to her before the end of October. He looked at the calendar. He had three weeks.
The door to the outer office opened and closed. Stolle leaned back and waited. His secretary was out on a job, store detective at a mink show in the city. He heard a knock.
Its open.
The man who came in had the appearance and manner of a minor executivedark suit, plain white shirt, silk tie. He was about forty, thin, a hollow look to his face and not an ounce of humour in his bones. He said, Is your name Stolle?
What can I do for you?
I said are you Stolle?
If this was going to go anywhere Stolle had to admit to being Stolle. He nodded, and repeated, What can I do for you?
The words tumbled out. I heard you were the best person for what Ive got in mind.
Oh? Whats that?
The man sat uninvited and folded his arms as though to rein in powerful emotions. Theres this matter, this person, that needs fixing, if you know what I mean.
Stolle pulled his chair toward his desk, using the movement to press a switch with his knee. The switch was connected to a voice-activated tape recorder in his top drawer. The microphone was the tip of a pen in a jumble of pens and pencils in a jar next to his in-tray.
Go ahead.
Ill pay ten thousand.
To do what?
The man waited for a while. She has to go. I dont care how long it takes. Five thousand now, five on delivery.
Youre not making yourself very clear.
My wife. The property division has all but ruined me.
I still dont understand.
You want me to spell it out? Kill the bitch for me, okay? I dont care how long it takes, just do it. I heard you were the one to do it.
Stolle reached for his pad. Name and address?
Jesus, youre not keeping a file on this?
I cant start until I know who and where, now can I?
Stolle said it sarcastically. The man seemed to shut down in the face of it. Eventually he muttered his name and address and the name and address of his ex-wife. Stolle made a show of writing these on the pad and putting the paper into his pocket.
Now, he said, I want you to listen to something.
He opened the drawer, pressed rewind, pressed play, and their voices swelled from concealed speakers, filling the tiny office. The mans face suffused with anger. As he came out of his chair, Stolle waved an automatic pistol at him. To reinforce the point, Stolle drew back the slide, jacking a round into the chamber. It was an oily click, sharp and nasty. Sit down. Youre also on camera.
You bastard.
Youre the one who wants to kill his wife, Sunshine. Give us your wallet.
The man tossed a fraying wallet across the desk. As Stolle guessed, there was big money in it. Not the five thousand upfront fee the man had mentioned, but seven hundred and fifty dollars good-faith money. He pocketed it, tossed back the wallet.
This is as far as it goes, he said. I keep the audio tape, the videotape, insurance in case you do anything stupid. I also know where you live. Take my advice about the wifegrin and bear it. I did.
You bastard.
Only the one payment, and youve already made it. Im not greedy.
The man got up. He looked paler, weaker. Maybe hell get his courage back and try knocking her himself, Stolle thought. He could warn her. Then again, it was nothing to do with him.
The man stopped in the doorway. He looked compressed and dark again. Was that bullshit, what I heard, that you get rid of people for a fee?
Stolle rocked back in his chair, grinned, laced his fingers behind his head. Youll never know.
Five
In fact, Stolle had carried out four contract killings in the past three years: an errant wife; a junkie who'd got a company directors daughter hooked on crack; an investment banker whod developed a conscience during a Royal Commission; an armed hold-up man suspected of killing a cop. Two had looked like accidents-the banker, the junkie. The wifes murder had been attributed to a burglary gone wrong, the gunmans to an underworld score settling.
The point was, Stolle did referral killings only. His clients didnt know who had been hired and he never met them face to face. When he was wearing his private investigators hat, he liked to meet his clients. He liked the fact that they needed him, and there was always something more than the cash in it for him. But he wasnt interested in meeting clients when he was wearing his killers hat. He wasnt interested in their fear, greed, anger, their banal motives.
It was satisfying work, but he wasnt making a career out of it. Four jobs in three years was about right for him. The background research, the wait for the right moment, the swiftness of the hitall those things were satisfying but they were no match for the singular, prickling sensation he felt in his nerve endings when he was doing what he did best: tracking somebody.
He didnt even have to be in the field to experience it. A lot of the work was spent sitting on his backside, reading faxes, leafing through files, peering at computer or microfiche screens. When rumours first surfaced that things were crook in the National Safety Council, hed been hired by an investment company to do a background check on John Friedrich. He discovered that there was nothing on paper for Friedrich before 1975. He reported back to the client, the client pulled out of a deal with Friedrich, and Stolle earned himself a handsome bonus.
Most of his work entailed finding a spouse, a lover, a creditor. There was a standard approach and it worked eighty-seven per cent of the time. He started at the end: where was she last seen, and who was with her? He handed out pictures, he talked to family, friends, enemies, hotel and motel staff, taxi drivers, bus drivers, reservation clerks. He looked at passenger lists. If that failed, he followed the paper trail: credit card receipts, parking fines, passport applications, travellers cheques. If people changed their ID, he dug deeper. There was always a bureaucracy somewhere that had what he needed.
