Peter Corris - The Coast Road

‘Jesus,’ Tania said as she took it in. ‘Whose idea was this?’

‘Probably a committee and based on a study of the sort of thing that most numbs the mind.’

She shot me a look. ‘Liz said you weren’t dumb.’

‘Thanks.’

‘Sorry, that sounded patronising. I just…’

‘You just expect someone in my trade to be thick, physically good, but thick.’

‘I said I was sorry.’

‘It’s okay. What we do is, we get some chips and have a bit of a play. Then I drift around and take a look at this and that.’

‘Is your plan really that vague?’

‘No, I’ve got a miniature camera and I’m going to take pictures of who she’s with-if she shows. Have to be careful. It’s not something the management’d like. D’you know how to play blackjack?’

‘I’ve seen the Bond movies. How does a girl get a drink?’

Strange to say, we really got into it. We placed our drink orders with the circulating waiters and lined up at the blackjack tables and roulette wheels over the next hour and a half. I won and she lost, then she won and I lost. Way it goes. Tania struck up a conversation with another woman and they went off to play the pokies. I drew the line at that. I did it a bit in the old days when you could kid yourself pulling the lever took skill, but the button pressing doesn’t do anything for me.

As I moved around, I registered the security guys trying not to be registrable in their smart suits and short haircuts. One or two of them looked me over closely, but I kept checking back with Tania and they evidently decided I was harmless. I helped the impression along by acting as though the drink was getting to me whereas in fact I was going very slowly on spritzers. The crowd built up steadily so that by midnight the noise and the smoke and the joy and despair were at a high level, and that’s when Wendy Jones made her entrance.

No other word for it. She sailed in with a big, dinner suited guy on either side. She’d got the hair tamed and turned to platinum. Her red dress was short and tight and low-cut and the white silk jacket wasn’t designed to conceal anything. Light bounced off the jewels in her teeth when she smiled and she smiled a lot. They ordered drinks, loaded up with chips, and headed for a blackjack table. Palming the camera and mostly hidden by one of the Parthenon-type pillars, I got off a few shots of the threesome.

I kept behind them after that and hung around on the fringes of a group that formed around a roulette wheel Wendy had evidently decided to make her own. She installed herself with one of her retainers sitting beside her while the other stood at her back. She had a full glass of champagne and a packet of cigarettes and a lighter to hand. Her piles of chips wouldn’t have disgraced Kerry Packer. She started to play and people started to watch and follow her because she was betting and winning big. The game is essentially boring, only the money makes it interesting, and the more money, the more interesting it gets.

I began to wonder why Wendy hadn’t opted for the high roller rooms where the sort of cash she was laying out now was more acceptable. Then it became clear. From what I’d been told, the gambling in those rooms is cold and clinical, almost mathematical. No audience, no performance, no drama. That wasn’t Wendy’s style. She played to the crowd, smiling broadly with her glinting teeth when she won and ordering more bubbly, and groaning and seeking sympathy when she lost. It was a good show and the casino wouldn’t object as long as she didn’t raise the stakes too high, because the people playing off her were mostly losing.

With her chips piled high, a fresh cigarette alight and a full glass to hand, the time came for her to make an important bet. There was a lull, almost as if the whirring pokies had fallen silent for a second, the muzak had died and the glasses had stopped clinking. The guy standing behind Wendy spoke loudly, as though the background

noise was still high.

‘Lay it on, Wendy!’

The croupier called for bets, Wendy slid her chips forward, the wheel spun, the noise mounted again, but I was frozen back in that momentary lull. The voice I’d heard was the one that had come from behind me that morning, accompanying the bite of the sawn-off shotgun behind my ear.

I located Tania at one of the banks of poker machines. She was smoking, playing her machine but also deep in conversation with the woman I’d seen her with earlier. I eased between them.

‘’lo, Cliff. How’s it going?’ Her smile was wide, her voice was loud, she was on the way to being drunk. ‘Tania, you’ve been terrific but you’re going to have to make your own way home.’

‘You’re dumping me. You get your pictures?’

‘Shush. Yes, it’s going okay. It’s just the way things have worked out. I can’t tell you more than that. Sorry.’ ‘’s all right.’ ‘Have you got the taxi fare?’ ‘Have I got taxi fare? I’ve been winning here, haven’t

I, Jude?’ She leaned back to look around me. ‘Cliff, this is Jude.’ Jude was lean and dark, Aboriginal. She flashed white teeth at me and laughed. ‘Hi, Cliff.’

I said hello and kissed Tania’s cheek. She didn’t pull away and she’d barely paused in her button pressing throughout the conversation. Jude whooped as a shower of

coins cascaded into her tray. ‘Hey, Cliff, stick around, you’re bringing me luck.’

‘Quit while you’re ahead.’

‘He’s no fun, Tania.’

I headed back to where the serious gambling was going on.

Wendy’s party had moved to another table and the crowd had moved with them. I kept my distance, but the signs were she was still making waves. I worked my way around until I could get a frontal view of the man I was privately calling Shottie. He was close to 190 centimetres and a hundred kilos with long, dark hair in a short ponytail. Some flab but not much, sideburns. He moved to catch hold of a waiter, and my identification of him was confirmed; just as you can identify footballers and tennis players in action on television before you see their faces, his movement stamped him as the man I’d seen jogging down the fairway in Wollongong.

I scouted around for somewhere I could lure him to, to isolate him. The toilets wouldn’t do; there were bound to be surveillance cameras. Likewise any of the doors leading to administrative areas. I wondered about the fire stairs, but they seemed to be the special concern of a security guy whose eyes never left the door. It looked as if the car park was the only possibility and there was a certain irony in that.

It was a tricky manoeuvre. I wanted him to spot me and think I hadn’t noticed. But I also wanted to see exactly what he did. I thought it out and made my move. Shottie was getting bored with the roulette and was looking over towards a blackjack table where the female dealer was a redhead. The uniform of white shirt, black trousers and vest suited her creamy complexion and statuesque figure. Shottie had been drinking solidly and the redhead was getting to him in a big way. I drifted past his field of vision, timing it precisely. I mimed raising my glass and fingering the few chips in my hand, but the mirror to my right let me keep him well in sight.

He saw me and reacted by emptying his glass and bending down to mutter something to the other guy attending Wendy. I caught the conspiratorial nod and then I lost visual contact as I moved beyond the mirror. I picked it up seconds later in another reflection as I went towards the exit. Shottie was coming after me at a fast clip, but this time I was ready for him and he didn’t know it. And he was drunk or close to it and I wasn’t. He was younger and bigger, but I fancied my chances.

I swerved and went to the nearest cage to redeem my chips. It gave me a chance to confirm that he was on my trail. I put the notes in my wallet, took out my keys and, weaving just a little, jiggled them as I walked. I went out past the sprouting water and down the ramp leading to the escalator to the car park. I was well ahead of him, stepping off at the bottom, at a guess, just as he stepped on. I crouched behind a pillar. He came at a fair clip down the escalator and was a fraction off balance when he hit bottom. I made a fist around the keys and, with my weight moving forward, drove a right into his kidneys. The breath went out of him and he sagged. I kicked his right knee into hyper-extension and he yelled and went down hard. His head bounced on the concrete and his flailing left arm cracked against the pillar.