Peter Corris - The Big Score

I kept well hidden and he didn’t see me. No chance of that really-the paintings, and presumably their position and the prices, were all that interested him. After he left I checked the catalogue. Items 12 and 13 were Imbroglio and Lassitude by Thomas L Matthiesson. The notes said Matthiesson was a renowned abstract artist who’d exhibited in Paris, London and New York.

The paintings were for sale at two hundred and fifty thousand dollars each. The attendant, who apparently doubled as a saleswoman, approached me because I’d been standing in front of the pictures for several minutes and paying close attention to the catalogue.

‘Superb, aren’t they?’ she said.

I nodded. ‘Superb.’

‘Bound to appreciate.’

‘Why’s that?’

‘Oh, dear old Tommy’s on his last legs. He’ll die any day and a dead artist fetches more than a live one, generally speaking. Are you interested?’

‘Yes and no,’ I said. ‘Thank you.’

She looked puzzled but still gave me a bright smile. ‘You’re welcome.’

I phoned Carlson and told him what I’d learned.

‘That’s great work. I’ll let Mrs Morgan know. She’ll be very pleased. Send in your account, and thank you.’

Three days later he phoned and asked me to come in for a meeting with Mrs Morgan. That was a turn-up.

‘What’s wrong? I thought she’d be pleased to be getting a hundred thousand.’

‘She’s pleased as punch, but she’s not getting any money. She wants to explain it herself, to both of us. I don’t know what’s going on.’

I went to Carlson’s office in Coogee. He told me that, although Mrs Morgan was living in a flat above a shop nearby, she was always late for their appointments. She arrived and apologised. She was a nice-looking woman, in her late thirties at a guess. Casual in jeans and top, a bit ill-kempt but in an attractive way. She couldn’t stop smiling and I couldn’t help liking her and being pleased she was happy, without having the faintest idea why.

‘I’m a picture restorer,’ she said, ‘that’s my job.’

I nodded. ‘Okay.’

‘I went to that gallery to look at the Matthiessons. I know about paintings-Australian pictures anyway. They’re fakes. I happen to know that the original of Imbroglio is in private hands in Brisbane. Don’t know about the other one but it’s a fake, too. The tones and the brush-work are wrong.’

‘That’s a pity,’ Carlson said.

She laughed. ‘No, it’s great. Ralph and I fell out a long time ago. One of the reasons was his resentment at my doing the course that got me into this line of work. I don’t make that much money but I love it, just love it, and I’m pretty good at it. Ralph hates what he does and he’s not good at it anymore. When he decided to hide that money he must have enjoyed the thought of doing it this way. The art world’s full of crooks and shysters. Someone would have told him how to work it on the quiet.’

‘He’s deprived you of a lot of money,’ Carlson said.

She shook her head. ‘You keep saying that, but I would only have gone for thirty per cent, as with the rest of the assets. I wanted to be fair but he tried to dupe me and I can’t help a bit of malice. Poor Ralph, he’s blown the lot.’

Jerry Fowler came up to me in the pub on a cold winter night. He was drinking rum and smelled of it.

‘Cliff, my man, I’ve got something you’ll be interested in.’

At that moment I was mainly interested in my pint of James Squires-first drink of the day and it was well after six. I was feeling proud of myself for my restraint. Something to boast about to Lily when I got home while we had a few more. Quite a few.

‘What would that be, Jerry?’

‘Money, of course. What else is there to be interested in when you come right down to it?’

That was Jerry’s philosophy all right, plain and simple. He’d been in and out of gaol for most of his life-worked up from car theft to B amp; E to small-time holdups. No violence, no drugs as far as I knew. He was a Glebe character who always returned to the suburb when he was released. He’d picked up a lot of history from his father and grandfather, who went way back, never living more than a stone’s throw from Glebe Point Road. I enjoyed Jerry’s stories and I liked him. I switched off when he got onto cricket, a passion I do not share. There was no harm in him. He was about seventy, on the pension, doing other bits and pieces, and just getting by.

‘Money’s good,’ I said, ‘but what about family, friends, health, sex?’

‘Money’ll buy you most of them. Seriously, I’ve got something to talk over with you and I can’t do it here. Where’s your office these days?’

That was a surprise. I hadn’t figured Jerry as the appointment-making type, but his whole attitude seemed to have undergone a subtle change in a more serious direction.

‘Newtown,’ I said.

‘What’s the address?’

I reached for my wallet. ‘I can give you a card.’

His voice was a hiss as his eyes darted around the bar. ‘Don’t give me a fucking card. We’re just a couple of old mates talking.’

I drank, he drank. I told him the address.

‘Nine o’clock tomorrow,’ he said. He finished his drink, slapped my arm and walked out. I turned away and looked across at the pool players. You don’t watch an old mate leave a pub after a casual conversation, even if you can scarcely contain your curiosity.

Gentrification is spreading along King Street in Newtown like a grassfire. An African restaurant recently opened next door to the boarded-up shop my office sits above. Renovation and rent rise are inevitable and not welcome, because my business is shrinking as the private enquiry corporations with HQs in LA and NYC take over. For as long as it lasts, the office has the right feel for me-plain, reasonably clean, functional and cheap.

Jerry was precisely on time, meaning that he was waiting outside the door when I arrived a couple of minutes late.

‘Time is money, Cliff,’ he said. ‘I oughta know, I did the time for the money I stole.’

I’d heard it before but it was still worth a laugh. I opened the door and ushered him in.

‘I can make coffee, Jerry. No milk though.’

He shook his head. ‘I don’t want coffee, mate, I want your ear and your help.’

I sat behind the desk and he took the client’s chair. ‘Okay, you’ve got the first, the other depends.’

Jerry cleared his throat to make his pitch. ‘Charley Sanderson had a… home invasion. Three guys broke in and tied up Charley and his wife and got Charley to give them the safe combination. They took a little over half a million in readies.’

Jerry still uses old BBC cop show slang, which is one of the things I like about him. He paused to pull out a pipe and stuff it. I’ve never minded the smell of pipe tobacco and I pushed an almost clean ashtray towards him for the several matches I knew it would take him to light it.

Sanderson was a bookie, a big one. His reputation was better than some, not as good as others. I hadn’t picked up anything about the robbery in the media and I told Jerry so as he struck matches and puffed.

‘You wouldn’t,’ he said when he had the pipe drawing. ‘Reason’s obvious.’

‘Sanderson’s readies aren’t something he’s ready to declare.’

‘This is serious stuff, mate-half a million.’

That was one too many ‘mates’ for comfort. Jerry and I weren’t that close-a few drinks, a few pool games, chats about the boxing, such as it was, and the history of Glebe.

‘Get to the point, Jerry.’

‘Sanderson’s offering a reward for anyone who can… help. Fifty grand.’

Jerry is nothing if not an actor, probably from watching all that TV in gaol. He let the figure hang in the air like a balloon while he cast a look around my basic fittings. ‘How does that sound, Cliff? Twenty-five thou.’