Peter Corris - The Big Score

‘Well, he’ll have to return the money.’

She laughed bitterly. ‘No chance. He flew out for God knows where the other day. Left me a note.’

Theo had struck again.

The note was word-processed, the ultimate in anonymity and much less messy and time-consuming than cutting out letters from a newspaper or magazine. It read: ‘We have your wife. If she’s worth half a million to you call now!’ A mobile number followed.

‘I was shocked,’ Bruce Haxton said. ‘I rang the number without hesitating. What else could I do?’

‘What happened?’ I asked.

‘Nothing, or almost nothing. A voice just said to wait. Shit!’ His mobile rang and he turned away to take the call.

Haxton was an Australian film director, a successful one, with a batch of Hollywood movies to his credit, and a couple of Oscar nominations. He was back home scouting locations for a film to be shot in Sydney, although, from what I’d read of it in the papers, it was actually set a thousand years in the future on another planet. I’d met him when I was doing a bodyguarding job for an actor in one of his earlier pictures. The actor, Lance Hartley, was a paranoid, coke-addicted nightmare, more in danger from himself than anyone else, but the job paid well. Haxton and I had got along under difficult circumstances then, and we’d stayed vaguely in touch-had a few drinks, went to a Kostya Tszyu fight together on his complimentary tickets- like that. He’d called me in his hour of need.

‘No chance,’ he said to his caller and hit the end button. He let out a long sigh and it was impossible to tell whether it was for his kidnapped wife or some other matter.

Haxton was forty plus, tall and lean with a prematurely grey head of hair and beard. He wore a sloppy outfit that probably cost more than my entire wardrobe, and the laces on one of his Nikes was undone. Possibly an affectation, but more likely a sign of stress. Stress was his middle name, but after a few beers he relaxed and could be good company.

He popped a Nicorette and chewed without enthusiasm. ‘The thing is, she’s not worth half a million. She’s not worth a buck and a half, to quote Sinatra. God, Cliff, I’m losing my mind. I need a drink. You?’

‘Sure. Beer. Thanks.’

It was mid-afternoon. He’d told me he found the note pushed under the door of the house he was renting in Rose Bay when he’d got up in the morning after a very late night. He’d made his immediate response, stewed for a while and then called me. We were in the back, where the sitting room, kitchen, sunroom and deck flowed into each other. He built himself a solid vodka and tonic, opened a Budweiser and poured.

The house was a million dollar dream, so quiet, comfortable and well appointed it was boring. The traffic noise was a distant, soothing hum and if planes passed over they were well aloft and infrequent. We sat around a table, just above a courtyard with every brick and plant in place. Haxton worked on his drink while still chewing. He looked around and his shake of the head spoke volumes.

‘I grew up in Blacktown. How about you?’

‘Maroubra.’

‘Beachside. Brilliant, but you know what I’m talking about. Fibro, dunny out the back.’

I nodded and drank expensive, imported beer.

‘I married Cassie after my first movie won a couple of AFI awards and got me offers from LA. Guess what her job was on the picture?’

‘I’m betting she wasn’t the writer.’

He snorted and took another pull on his drink. ‘I always liked your one-liners. You know how things were back then. What was it, ten years ago?’

‘Pre-Howard, anyway.’

‘Yeah. Everyone was screwing each other. Cassie was the props girl. She was on with the DOP who said he was training her. In advanced fellatio, it seemed to me. I wasn’t complaining, mind you. We got it on and got married. I can’t remember why. It was never good enough to commit to or bad enough to quit. We sort of came and went. She didn’t really want to leave LA for this trip but she did, out of boredom probably.’

He finished his drink and got up to make another. He told me that they’d only been back for ten days and that Cassie had spent most of the time catching up with old friends and shopping. They’d spent four of the ten nights apart with no questions asked. He had no idea who she’d been with. They were together the night before last. She went out the next day and didn’t return. That didn’t worry him because he had what he called a ‘dinner meeting’. He came back to the house late and found the note in the mid-morning.

‘You’re getting around to saying that you’re not going to pay. That right, Bruce?’

‘Jesus. It’s like a scene out of one of my crappy movies. Moral dilemmas and all that ethical shit mixed with sex and money. In this case it’s straightforward. I can’t pay even if I wanted to-which I don’t-because I’m broke.’

I swung my head from side to side, taking in the glass, the chrome, the cedar decking, the hot tub.

‘It’s all on the budget,’ he said. ‘And don’t worry, your fee’ll be covered in the same way. I took this shitty job on because I need the fucking money. Only reason.’

‘How come you’re broke?’

‘You haven’t kept up. The last two pictures were flops. Went straight to DVD and didn’t do any business even then. It costs to live in LA. The mortgage and car leases you wouldn’t believe, and you have to keep up appearances in this game. Look like you’re down and you’ll be there.’

‘I’m flattered that you called me, but really it’s a job for the police.’

He shook his head. ‘No way. There’re still a few holes to fill in the picture’s budget and if word got out that I’m under this sort of pressure the whole thing could fold. I can’t afford bad publicity and I certainly can’t afford to let it get out that I’m broke. You see the bind I’m in.’

‘Plus you don’t care about her, one way or the other.’

‘Hey, I don’t want to get her ears in the mail or anything like that. Shit-movie talk again. What do you think I should do?’

‘I guess, when they get in touch, negotiate. Buy time.’

‘I suppose I could sell something, raise a hundred grand at a pinch.’

That’s the thing about the rich. When they say they’re broke they don’t quite mean it the way most people do. I was willing to take the job on even though I knew the people involved were flaky and the outcome was very uncertain. Just sitting tight waiting for a kidnapper to make contact didn’t appeal to me though. There had to be more I could do.

“You say you don’t know who she’s been spending time with, Bruce, but you must have some idea-some names, some suggestions. Let’s get proactive here, as they say.’

He gave it some thought as he worked on his drink. Then he left the room for a few minutes, returning with a notepad and some cards. ‘I found these in the bedroom-a few places she seems to have gone to.’

He handed them to me while he scribbled on the notepad. The cards were for a Double Bay wine bar, a disco at the Cross and a Thai restaurant in Newtown. The woman got around. Haxton tore off the page and passed it over.

‘That’s a few of the people she used to hang with and she mentioned them casually when we were together here. She scribbled down some cell numbers by the phone that seem to relate to a couple of them. That’s the best I can do.’

I examined the list-two men and three women; mobile numbers for one of the men and two of the women.

‘These blokes-friends or lovers?’ I asked.

‘Don’t know, but don’t rule out the women-Cassie swings both ways.’

I put the cards and the sheet in my pocket. ‘It’s a place to start. What you have to do is keep your mobile charged. That’s how they’ll contact you. You have to play it as hard as you can. Just get a response and buy some time.’