Peter Corris: Casino

The tunnel had none of that impact. It was like being on a conveyor belt. I felt as if the smooth tarmac would carry me through to the other side whether I drove the car or not. I found myself speeding up to get through it more quickly, and when I emerged into the light I was exceeding the speed limit by twenty Ks. Dangerous to muck around with the forces of nature like that. I eased back and began to think again of what I might say to Julian Clark. Nothing helpful came to mind. Come to think of it, my record with architects wasn’t so hot. Cyn had been an architect, probably still was, as well as happily remarried and a mother of two.

They say you can buy anything in Chatswood and it’s probably true. Costs you, though. I put the tape and the transcript in my pocket, fed a parking meter a block away from where Clark’s office was located and decided to eat and think first. I was charged enough for a salad sandwich to buy two loaves of bread and a couple of lettuces and tomatoes in Glebe. Virtuously, I drank mineral water, promising myself something stronger when I’d finished with this tricky interview. I strolled through the buying shoppers, who didn’t seem to know that there was a recession on, and the lookers who clearly did.

As I approached the steel and glass tower I saw a clutch of police vehicles parked near the entrance. There were a hundred or more people clustered outside the building, some of whom seemed to be upset. The cops were trying to control the crowd and comfort the distressed. I couldn’t get close enough to see what was going on. I circled around and found a similar scene at the back-a hysterical woman, cops under pressure, talking urgently into their car radios, looking edgy. I returned to the front and pushed through close to the section of pavement that had been roped off. An ambulance was drawn up with its wheels over the kerb and the white coats were clustered around a shape on the ground.

‘What happened?’ I asked the person standing next to me, a tall man in his shirt sleeves. His arms were tanned but his face had lost all colour.

‘He jumped from ten floors up. I was looking out the window and I saw him go past. Christ, it was horrible.’

‘Who is he?’

He shook his head and moved back through the crowd. The paramedics had evidently got the go-ahead to move the body. I couldn’t see much but I heard gasps from the people closer in when they got a clearer look at the jumper. The police shouted for the crowd to move back and leave a path for the ambulance. Most stood rooted to the spot and a young constable advanced threateningly. I looked around for the person who seemed to be taking it most calmly and found him in a motorcycle courier who was leaning against his bike, smoking a cigarette.

‘What’s on the tenth floor, do you know?’

‘Yeah, I know. I go in there all the time. You a reporter?’

‘No, I just had a business appointment in the building and I wondered…’

He blew smoke. He must have been all of nineteen years old but violent death didn’t worry him. ‘All architects up there. This guy must have come from the Clark, Perkins amp; Welsh office.’

‘Wells,’ I said automatically.

‘Hey, that’s right. That where you were going?’

‘No. Who was he?’

He dropped his butt on the ground and put the heel of his boot on it. ‘Heard some dude say it was one of the bosses. Fucker probably deserved to die.’

I squinted up at the glistening pile. ‘I don’t see any broken windows.’

He mounted his bike and kicked the stand away. ‘Nah, you can’t break them or open them, ‘cept in the toilets. That’s gotta be where he went. Probably had a big shit first so he wouldn’t make such a bad mess on the footpath.’

Tough guy. He kicked the starter, pulled down his visor and roared away. The crowd started to break up. I approached the cop who was guarding the main entrance, supervising the journalists and the TV crews that had arrived. I showed him my licence and said I had business in the building. ‘Nothing to do with this,’ I said. ‘At least, I hope not. I was going to see Peter Wilson. Who was it that fell, or did he jump?’

‘Name of Clark,’ the cop said. ‘I think you’d better come back another day.’

‘I suppose you’re right. It’ll keep. Thank you.’

‘You’re welcome,’ he said.

Chatswood, aka New York City.

I hadn’t had the interview, but that didn’t stop me having the drink. The bar called itself a tavern and I wouldn’t have cared if it had called itself a cantina as long as it had dark beer on tap. I drained the first middy more or less straight off and took the second away into a dark corner where the noise of the television didn’t penetrate and there was a solid partition between me and the pinball players.

The older I get the less I believe in coincidence. It offers explanations that are too easy. Things are mostly connected, although the nature of the connection can be mysterious to the point of being unknowable. I was sure that Julian Clark’s death was connected to his difficulties with gambling and with Ken Galvani. Didn’t matter whether he jumped or was pushed, there would be a connection. The trouble with this line of thinking was that it raised the question of a link between his death and my intention to see him. I felt that such a link existed, but I didn’t have the faintest idea of how it operated. One thing was certain- with two deaths racked up, the stakes had to be high, much higher than some competition about what design was chosen for the casino.

I sipped the second beer and considered my options. Being on the inside probably put me in an ideal spot to find out more on the extent and nature of Ken Galvani’s interest in the casino. I could work on that. But Joe Galvani had suddenly moved to centre stage. He was the link between the two deaths. I left half of the drink in deference to the law, and went back to my car, sucking in air and trying to swing my left arm as high as I could and practising taking it up behind my back. Must have looked strange, but the pain-controlled rigidity seemed to be easing.

I got moving and punched in the Greenwich number. Just as the call was answered and I asked for Joe, a truck shot past me, its big wheels were over the line and seemed to be threatening to tear off my side vision mirror. I swore and swerved and heard a very offended woman on the other end of the line.

‘I beg your pardon.’

‘I’m sorry. Is he there?’

‘No, I’m afraid not. He has been ill for several days and is at home. Perhaps you’d care to call back tomorrow.’

She hung up. I tried to remember where Joe lived. I’d been there once with Scott to a barbecue. It was at the time I was between women and Scott had thought to line me up with one of his cousins. I couldn’t remember her name. Gold crosses around necks tend to put me off although Scott had assured me it didn’t mean anything. A mental image of the tiny cross brought back the address-Ryde, near the Field of Mars reserve. I stopped, checked the Gregory’s, and swung off the highway and began the run down to the river. I became conscious of the other car soon after making the turn. When I’m in the Falcon, I check automatically for anything unusual in the traffic, but unfamiliarity with the Commodore had thrown me out of the habit.

It wasn’t that I knew the tan Honda Accord was following me, it was just a sense that the car had been in the traffic longer than it should have been. I didn’t do anything different, that isn’t how it’s done. I kept to a level speed and concentrated on trying to let the Honda make a false move. I still had the map open on the passenger seat and I saw that there was a four-way intersection coming up at the river. I turned hard right-two options rejected. The Honda slowed slightly but came after me. I increased speed wondering what to do. Not close enough for me to see how many in the car and no way to judge the intent. I was on a narrower road with bush growing closely on one side; on the other a high cyclone fence enclosed a nursery. Good spot for establishing that I was being tailed, bad for everything else. I needed people, traffic, cover, and the road was empty.