Peter Corris - The Big Score

‘What… where did you get that?’

I told him. He held out his hand for the baton and I passed it over. He examined it and let it slip from his hands. It clattered against the desk on its way down. He retrieved it, thumped the desk with it, turned and swiped at the filing cabinet. He moved towards me, suddenly energised, and swung. I ducked, gripped his wrist, twisted and the baton fell free. The momentary strength left him and he sank into the chair, breathing hard. He scrabbled a pill from his shirt pocket and held it up. He gasped, unable to speak. I rushed to fill a cup with cold coffee. He gulped the pill down, gripped the edge of the desk and fought for control. When he was composed I pointed to the baton.

‘You recognise this thing?’

‘Yes. It belongs to my stepson.’

Sanderson’s stepson, Nathan, worked for a security firm. They weren’t close, had little in common, but he’d never thought that Nathan was anything other than honest, if a bit thick and prone to violence on the football field. He’d shown Sanderson his baton and the nicks he’d filed in it for the number of heads he’d cracked. The notches hadn’t meant anything to me, but to Sanderson they stamped Nathan as the owner of the baton.

Between us, we put it together. The home invaders had worn balaclavas and tracksuits and one of them hadn’t spoken a word. Nathan would have known about the safe and suspected that it held a lot of money. He’d heard his stepfather rant about taxes enough times to doubt that the money could be traced. Somehow, through his association with a security firm, Jerry must have got a sniff of the involvement of Nathan or someone like him. Nathan or his associate got wind of Jerry’s interest and took care of Jerry and came after me. Jerry must have let slip my name somewhere along the line.

We sat and looked at each other. Sanderson’s colour was bad and I hoped he wasn’t going to have another cardiac episode there and then-didn’t look as if he could stand many more.

‘The one who tried to hit you with the baton-what did he look like?’

‘It was too quick and too dark to tell. Middling in every way’s my impression, but that’s all it is.’

‘And how did you say you dealt with him?’

‘I kicked him in the face and he went arse over tit down the stairs.’

Sanderson nodded.

‘What does that mean?’

‘He rang his mother the other day. She asked him why his voice was funny and he said he had a broken jaw that he’d got from an intruder with a baseball bat he’d run up against.’

‘I have to go after him,’ I said.

Sanderson’s smile was a grimace in a death’s-head face. ‘He flew out to South America yesterday. Holiday, he said, but with that amount of money…’

I met Zack Fowler again in the Novotel bar and told him what I’d found out.

‘Get Interpol onto it,’ he said.

‘No chance. The only evidence is the baton and you can bet Sanderson wouldn’t testify to it. It’s a dead end, Mr Fowler. I’m sorry.’

‘Poor Jerry. It was to be his big score but he struck out.’

‘It happens that way sometimes, but you’ve spent too much time in the States. Jerry would have said he made a duck.’

Theo Baldwin phoned me from Silverwater Correctional Centre and asked me to come and see him. Said he’d arrange for me to pay a visit even though I wasn’t a relative or a lawyer.

‘Sounds as if you’ve got some pull,’ I said.

‘You know me, Hardy. Always working the angles.’

‘You’ve got yourself a right angle now.’

‘One of your crummy jokes. Excuse me while I split my sides. Seriously, this is important.’

‘It’s a bit of a drive and my car’s heavy on petrol. Call it most of a morning. At my going rate you’re up for a few bucks.’

‘I can arrange to pay you as if I were a free man.’ Theo was always good with grammar.

‘You were supposed to have no assets.’

‘So was Alan Bond.’

‘Will they let you sign a contract with me?’

‘We can work it out. Make it eleven am tomorrow.’

It was too intriguing to pass up. Theo Baldwin had been sentenced to five years for fraud. He’d run insurance scams, a phoney investment consultancy, a dodgy mortgage brokerage and various online fiddles. A lot of people were out a lot of money and, when he was convicted, Theo’s assets were found to be nil and there was no compensation available. But Theo was a charmer and his contrition convinced a soft-hearted judge and resulted in a light sentence. He’d almost done his time and, with his undoubtedly good behaviour, would be out in a couple of months.

I’d met Theo via a client of mine who’d come through a bit of trouble as a professional tennis player-injuries, a drug suspicion, a doubt about his commitment to winning. A gambler had tried to pressure him to throw a game and he wasn’t interested. He was seriously on the comeback trail and didn’t need the aggravation. Theo was the go-between, the honest broker, and I persuaded him to get the gambler to lay off. He claimed not to know what was really going on and I gave him the benefit of the doubt. After that we ran into each other here and there and had a drink. I wasn’t really surprised when the law caught up with him, but it takes all kinds, and he wasn’t the worst. Most of the people he’d conned had been greedy.

I drove out to the gaol and went through the routine of surrendering almost everything I had about my person. I walked past the sealed-off exercise yards where they kept the Asians, the blacks and the whites away from each other. The interview room was Spartan, with plastic tables and chairs and a guard keeping watch. Theo was in prison greens-jumper, tracksuit pants, sneakers. Despite the sloppy dress he still managed to look like the con man he was-closely shaven, sleek hair, bright teeth. He was about forty and stood about 180 centimetres-looked younger and taller.

He was conducted to a chair by a guard and made it look as if the officer was his aide-de-camp.

‘Hello, Hardy,’ he said. ‘You’re looking well.’

‘Why do I take everything you say with a grain of salt?’

He shook his head. ‘Eliminate cliches and well-worn phrases from your pitch. They don’t build confidence.’

‘You’d know all about that. Why am I here, Theo?’

He leaned back in the cheap chair as if he was the CEO of something big. ‘I’ve written my memoirs. Sensational stuff.’

‘I bet.’

‘I mean it. You don’t think I could’ve got away with some of the stuff I did if I hadn’t had help, do you?’

‘I never thought about it. Help?’

‘Insiders, in the insurance firms, car dealers, importers. I name the guilty men. Plus a few of New South Wales’s finest who took a cut. And a pollie.’

‘Sounds like waffle to me.’

‘I wish you’d keep the lousy jokes for the right audience. This book lifts a lot of lids that people thought were jammed down tight.’

‘Okay, suppose I accept that. What d’you want me to do?’

Theo glanced around to make sure the guard was well out of earshot. ‘They wouldn’t let me use a computer so I bashed it out on a typewriter. One copy. I had no carbon paper-does it still exist? I pretended I was writing a dirty joke book-I’ve got a million of ‘em. The screws were amused. Anyway, I gave the typescript, which was pretty rough, to one of the guards to smuggle out and get to an agent. I mean, this book needs careful treatment-legal vetting, fact checking, a lot of editing. The guard I gave it to hasn’t been seen here for a couple of weeks. I can’t find out what happened to him. And I haven’t heard anything from the agent I had in mind. I want you to talk to them both. I know how forceful you can be.’