Peter Corris - The Big Score

‘The fucker was recording me,’ he said. ‘I know about this stuff-the clicks and that. I swear I was being recorded. What’s all that about?’

Recording him fitted the scenario. I was sick of him, sick of the whole fantasy world he and his kind lived in. I told him to take a pill and get some sleep.

‘What the fuck are you talking about?’

‘I’m tired. I’ll see you in the morning and explain. Just be assured that your darling wife is in no physical danger.’

He was drunk and energised perhaps by some illegal substance and he ranted at me but I cut him off. ‘It’s more or less sorted, Bruce,’ I said. ‘Calm down. See you tomorrow at ten. Sleep.’

Haxton was dishevelled, unshaven and hungover when I arrived. The day had turned grey and cold and wasn’t helping his mood. For all that had happened he was still preoccupied with his profession.

‘Couldn’t shoot for shit in this weather, even locations,’ he said as he ushered me in. The place was a mess of glasses, a bottle or two, Budweiser cans, a pizza box, newspapers and ring-bound scripts. The kitchen smelled of burnt toast and spilled coffee. Haxton cleared a dressing gown from a chair for me and offered me a beer.

‘Got any champagne?’

‘Celebrating, are we?’

‘Yes and no.’

‘Tell me.’

I gave it to him the way it appeared to me. His normally pale face became flushed under the stubble and his hands shook as he poured himself some vodka, not bothering about me or the tonic.

‘That dirty bitch. Those dirty bitches. That fucking modified voice sounded like a man. They’ll go to gaol for this. See how they like it with the bull-dyke screws.’

‘You’re not thinking. From what I’ve learned it looks as if Cassie knows you haven’t got much money but wants to bleed you for whatever you’ve got or are going to get. Okay. I understand that. But what about this Emily hyphen-something-something? What’s in it for her?’

Haxton’s face was a mottled mask of rage. ‘She wants co-director status on the picture. She’s a grasping, ruthless, ambitious… I’ll finish her in the business.’

‘No you won’t. Don’t forget she’s got tapes of you being willing to negotiate over your wife’s kidnapping. It’s all shit of course, but the American media’ll give it a tremendous play. There isn’t any evidence that Cassie and this woman are behind it, but you can bet the National Enquirer’d love it.’

Haxton groaned. ‘What can I do?’

‘Play along, Bruce. Give them what they want for now. That’s show biz.’

‘She’ll bleed me dry, Cassie will, and the other one…’

‘Get yourself an LA lawyer. They can work miracles, we’re told. Think of OJ. Meanwhile, how about a cheque for my retainer and expenses to date?’

‘You bastard,’ he said. ‘What did you do?’

I leaned forward, took the glass from his hand and tipped the contents out on the floor. ‘I called in a favour from a friend and fronted up to an ex-SAS guy ten years younger than me. Then I took a loaded pistol from a bikie and threatened to blow his head off with it, Dirty Harry style. How’s that for a night’s work while you were scoffing pizza and getting pissed?’

‘Okay. I’ll write the cheque.’

‘Nothing personal. Sorry, that’s another of my crummy jokes, Bruce. Make it out to cash on the movie account,’ I said.

I’m dying, Cliff,’ Kevin Roseberry said.

‘Says who?’

‘The doctors and me.’ He tapped his pyjama-clad chest. ‘I can tell.’

‘Doctors have been known to be wrong,’ I said. ‘Even you’ve been wrong once or twice, Kev.’

Kevin Roseberry was seventy-five but looked older. He’d been a lot of things in his time-wharfie, boxer, rodeo rider, boxing manager. When he won two million dollars in a lottery he hired me, who’d known him just as someone to drink with in Glebe, to get a blackmailer off his back. It wasn’t hard, the guy was an amateur, easily persuaded of the error of his ways. Kevin and I became friendly after that. He bought a big terrace at the end of my street, held some great parties. Now he was in a private room in a private hospital and I was visiting.

‘I’ve been wrong heaps of times, but not now. The big C’s got me and they reckon I’ve got a month at the most. No kicks coming. After the life I’ve led I was thankful to make it to the new century, let alone two years in. I’ve got that doctor you recommended onside.’

‘Ian Sangster?’

‘He’s a good bloke. He’s put me onto another quack who knows the score. I’m going home next week and he’s arranged for a nurse who’ll know what to do.’

I nodded. That’s exactly what I’d want for myself-not that it’ll ever happen.

Kevin used to be big but he’d wasted badly. Even his craggy bald head looked smaller. His voice was still the hoarse bark it had always been and his eyes were bright under the boxer’s scar tissue. He pointed to his bedside cabinet. ‘Let’s have a drink.’

I opened the cabinet, took out a bottle of Teachers and two glasses. I poured two generous measures and handed him his. We raised the glasses in a silent toast to nothing in particular.

‘I’ve got a problem,’ he said. ‘Who to leave my bloody money to.’

‘I could take some of it off your hands. Just say the word.’

‘Funny. You can tell jokes at the wake. No, this is serious. You didn’t know I had a kid, a daughter, did you?’

‘Never saw you with a pram.’

‘Yeah, well it was all a fair while ago. I didn’t treat the woman well and I never had much to do with the kid, nothing in fact. Back then, it was work, fights, the rodeo circuit, grog and more grog. You know.’

‘You’ve got the scars to prove it.’

‘You bet I have. The thing is, I’d like to help the kid and her mother. It bloody worries me, Cliff. I’m on the way out and I’ve been a selfish bastard all my life. I don’t believe in any of that religious crap, but I’d like to go with a sort of clean slate if I can. Does that sound nutty?’

‘No, Kev. It sounds like a decent man trying to do a decent thing. Nothing wrong with that.’

‘Good. Thanks. You helped me once and I want your help again. I want you to contact the girl and her mother and tell me how things stand with them.’

‘Meaning?’

“Well, last I was in touch with Marie, and this is nearly ten years back, she wanted nothing to do with me. Warned me not to try to get in touch with the girl. This was just before I came into the money, but I had a bit and I wanted to know if Marie and Siobhan needed anything. Marie said she was doing fine, so I backed off and I thought, fuck her. But now things are different. The house is worth the best part of a million. I blew a fair bit on horses and having fun, but there’s still a couple of hundred grand left. It’s invested and brings in a decent amount. Now if Marie’s doing well that’s fine, but Siobhan’s in her twenties and I don’t see why her mother should still speak for her. Shit, she might have children, my grandchildren. The money could be useful for them if not for… you see what I’m getting at.’

‘Why can’t you get in touch yourself-ring up or write?’

Kevin shook his head and the loose skin on his neck was grey and mottled. ‘I tried. I rang the last number I had but the people I spoke to had never heard of her. I didn’t know what else to do and I’m too crook to go hunting them up. But that’s your game, isn’t it-finding people?’

‘Part of it. I can give it a shot, Kev, but people can move a long way in ten years. Women marry and change their names. How old would Marie be?’

‘Twenty years younger than me, mid-fifties. I met her when I was managing a middleweight who fought Jimmy O’Day. She was some kind of cousin or auntie or something of Jimmy’s. A good bit older, Jimmy started real young. She was at the fight and afterwards we got talking and that.’