Peter Corris - Wet Graves

I stepped over him and took out my. 38. I was pretty sure the guy on the floor hadn’t been reaching for cigarettes. A door faced me at the end of the passage; it had a glass panel in it and a face appeared there. I pointed the gun and the face vanished. Another door was positioned to open into the space I’d seen from the porthole-the room behind the velvet curtain. What the hell? I thought. I’ve flattened one of them and I’ve got a gun. I’m tough. Someone’ll have to talk to me. I opened the door and stepped over the bulkhead.

The room was dark. Then, suddenly, it was flooded with light. I was half-blinded and things happened in a fast blur: a man rose up from the floor, pointed a camera at me and took a series of pictures. Someone came from behind me and chopped the gun from my hand with a blow to my upper arm. I swung a punch with the other hand and the photographer got a shot of that, too. The punch ended in the empty air and I lost balance. It only took a good shove to deck me. I went down hard and felt solid boots hit me in the ribs on both sides, with near-precision.

“Not the head.”

I recognised the voice and turned my face towards it but a hand ground my nose and chin down hard into the carpet. My arms were brought together behind my back and I heard the snap of metal on metal.

“Jackson?” I mumbled into the carpet.

“Right first time, Hardy. Why is it you’re always on the floor when we meet?”

I tried to scramble up, and a strong arm helped me by pulling on the handcuffs.

“Easy, Arch,” Jackson said. “Don’t mark him. And watch his feet. He’s a tricky bugger.”

A short, strongly built man pushed me back against the wall. He grabbed a heavy swivel chair and used it to pin me there. I spat grit and fluff from my mouth and, with my vision more or less restored, I looked around the room. It was set up for very private card games-antique table with an expensive cloth, adjustable chairs, shaded light. There was a bar, smaller and less fancy than in the other room, but equipped for most tastes. The men in the room came in a variety of shapes and sizes: Rhino Jackson had changed a lot in the twenty-five years since he’d given me the quick count. He had been slight then, with quick, jerky movements. He was more like thickset the last time I’d seen him, a few years back, and since then he’d put on flesh uniformly from his neck down. The extra weight gave him a solid, immovable look. His tightly curled, gingery hair was now almost entirely grey. I didn’t recognise the photographer, who stood fiddling with the camera, or the guy Jackson had called Arch, the one who’d applied the handcuffs. The other man in the room, sitting at the card table with a cigar going, was Barry Tobin, formerly Detective Inspector Barry Tobin of the New South Wales police.

I’d had two run-ins with Tobin, both unpleasant. On a scale with my best friend at number one and worst enemy at number ten, Tobin would come in at around eight.

Tobin was gross, no other word for him. Not very tall, he was ninety per cent blubber. The dark hair he’d been so vain about when he was young had gone, and the chief colour in his face was ruby red. But-unless the food and brandy had done to his brain what it had done to his body- he was smart.

He puffed on his cigar and tapped it carefully into an enamel ashtray on the table, taking care not to get ash on his three-piece suit. Still a dandy. “You were pretty easy to flatten, Hardy,” he said.

I blinked. “Eye problem.”

“I know, I know. Let’s have a look at the pics.”

The photographer handed him some Polaroids. Tobin held them towards the light. He laughed; the sound came out breathless and strangled. “Look at this, Rhino. He’s blinking like Dicky Harrison. Remember Dicky, Rhino? That flasher we used to pick up and have some fun with? He used to blink like that. Always pissed, of course. Are you pissed, Cliff?”

I shook my head. Tobin always loved to hear himself talk.

“Can’t have that,” Tobin said. “We’ll all have a drink in a minute.”

Jackson opened the door and looked into the passage. “Christ, he did a good job on Kenny. Did you get that?”

The photographer nodded. “Bet your arse. Show you in a minute.”

“What the hell is this?” I gave the chair a shove but paleface shoved back.

“Easy, Arch,” Jackson said. “Gently with him.”

“You’ve met Arch before, Hardy. Realise that?”

I looked at Arch but didn’t recognise him. “In church, maybe?” I said.

Tobin smiled. “Love a joke, don’t you? No, he turned over your dump in Darlinghurst. Gave you a tap on the head, I understand.”

“And pinched a photograph.”

“That’s right. Someone told us you had a picture with Rhino in it. Relic of the old days. We thought it’d help hook you if it went missing. Smart?”

I didn’t reply. I could’ve said something about my damaged pizza but I hadn’t the heart. It was smart. I was hooked.

Jackson said, “Let’s go up to the wheelhouse Barry.”

Tobin heaved himself from the chair.

“If you mean the ponced-up cockpit with the dials and switches, you’ll never make it up the stairs,” I said.

Tobin gave voice to another of his half-asphyxiated laughs. “I’ll make it up, Hardy. Question is, will you make it down?”

The photographer went away; Arch moved the chair, and he, Jackson, Tobin and I went out into the passage. Arch picked my gun up off the floor before we went. The man I’d knocked out was stirring but looking very sick. Tobin touched him on the shoulder. “Go and get a drink, Kenny. You did fine.”

“Shit,” Kenny said. “Do I get another go at him?”

“We’ll see,” Jackson said.

“Pity about the Porsche,” I said.

Tobin paused before easing himself through the next doorway. “What?”

“I think I totalled a Porsche out there. Did some damage to a Merc too.”

Tobin’s face flushed to the colour of a ripe plum. His breath came in short spurts as he fought for control. “That’s just a matter of money. That can be put right.”

Arch prodded me forward and we went through the door, along the passage and up the steps to the wheelhouse. We went slowly because Tobin took it one step at a time. I could hear sounds coming from the other side of the houseboat and from onshore-a couple of engines running, some urgent talk and the clink of glasses.

“Sorry to spoil your party,” I said.

Tobin stopped. Answering me gave him a chance to catch his breath and also to hear the sound he loved, that of his own voice. “Party’s not spoiled, Cliff. Dismiss that thought from your mind. We’ve got very good people on the job out there. They’ll smooth things over.”

“What thoughts should I have on my mind? Apart from hoping your ticker gives out next step?”

“Oh, you might think about Beni Lenko and Didi Steller and the mystery witness. Yeah, try those thoughts on for size.”

“That won’t take long. I don’t know anything about them.”

Tobin didn’t reply. We trooped through to the wheelhouse, which looked even more elaborate and digitalised when Jackson turned on the light. Then he pointed to a chair bolted to the floor in front of one of the devices with dials and switches. “Put him in the chair, Arch. Cuffs through the back. That’s it. You can take a break now, mate. Call you if we need you.”

Arch left. “Not a great talker, Arch,” I said.

Tobin wheezed as he sat down out of kicking distance to my right. He pulled an ashtray towards him and shaped the end of his cigar. Jackson stood on the other side of the room. He fiddled with some switches. “Arch doesn’t need to be a talker, Hardy, but you do. I asked you to think about Beni Lenko and Didi Steller.”