Peter Corris - Man In The Shadows

The gunman knew it too; he sighted on my chest and gestured for me to drop my hand. I did it; at that range he couldn’t miss.

‘Well,’ he said, ‘what’s this?’

Another man edged cautiously from a room off the passage. The gunman was medium-sized and wide with a bald head and an almost immobile face. The second man was younger, not out of his twenties. He had long dark hair and a slack, shocked expression on his face. He said, ‘Shoot him,’ so I liked him less than the other who could’ve shot me but hadn’t tried.

‘This isn’t the bargain basement, sport. I don’t do it in job lots.’

‘Come on,’ the dark one said. ‘He seen every thing. You’ve gotta… ‘

‘I don’t have to do anything. Look at him. The man’s carrying a gun. He could be a cop. Or he could be someone I can talk to.’

‘That’s right,’ I croaked.

‘Shit! You just want more money.’

The gunman kept his pistol, which looked like a silenced. 22, very steady. ‘That’d help,’ he said. ‘Let’s get out of the hall. We can sit down and you can use the phone.’

We went through to the big living room which was dark because all the curtains had been drawn against the light and the heat. The gunman didn’t seem to have any trouble seeing; he gestured for me to sit in a chair in the corner and for the other man to use the phone.

‘Hey, don’t give me orders. Just kill him.’

‘You don’t have the clout to order a kill, friend.’

The dark man picked up the phone and hit the buttons. He waited, began to speak and stopped. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Ten minutes, but tell him it’s important.’ He read the phone number slowly and clearly and hung up. ‘We gotta wait.’

The gunman smiled; until then his face had been so still I was surprised he could do it. ‘Why don’t you make us a drink, Charley?’ he said.

‘Fuck you. And my name isn’t Charley, it’s…’

‘Shut up, you bloody amateur. Charley’ll do. Get us a drink, unless you’d rather hold the gun?’

My eyes had grown used to the gloom; it was a big room with a bay window and some low, unobtrusive furniture. The hi-fi looked good and new, so did the TV and VCR. The gunman sat three metres from me and out of the way of all distraction. He saw me judging distance and angles and shook his head. Charley came in with two drinks, whisky and ice.

‘One for him, too.’

‘What the fuck for?’

‘You’re paining me, you know that? I didn’t like having to bring you along in the first place and I’m liking it less. Just do as I say. It might help him talk. By the way, sport. You might put the gun on the table here. Easy.’

I took out the. 38 and put it on the coffee table. I had to lean almost out of my chair to reach it. The gunman would have had to get up to take it but he didn’t bother. He gestured for me to sit back. Charley returned with a solid Scotch and I took a drink thinking that the odds had shrunk from short to hopeless.

‘Name?’

‘Hardy.’

‘Cop?’

I shook my head. ‘Private. Partners hired me to look into the card business.’

He nodded. ‘Anything to trade?’

I shook my head again. I was thinking about throwing the glass and risking a. 22 in the body, but the precise way Hayward had been plugged deterred me.

‘This is a big operation,’ Charley said. ‘The trump won’t want any loose ends.’

I jerked my thumb at the passage. ‘Is that what he was?”

‘Yeah. He was leavin’ tracks.’

I drank some more Scotch and sneered at him.

‘Big operation my arse,’ I said. ‘Hitting a department store for a few thousand. Fake credit cards. That’s not big, it’s medium at best. I think our friend here better worry about getting his fee.’

‘He’ll get it,’ Charley said. ‘This is really big. Three dead men.’

‘I make it two, Lean and Hayward.’

‘I was countin’ you, arsehole.’

‘You talk too much,’ the gunman said contemptuously. He sipped his drink. ‘Why don’t you just tell him all you know while you’re at it?’

Charley threw his Scotch straight down. ‘Why not? He’s dead when the phone rings. You think the Partners stuff is small time? You’re right. But it’s a practice, you dumb arsehole, and it’s not the only one.’

Suddenly it all made sense-the thorough testing of the data base, the relatively small yield. ‘Practice for what?’

‘I wouldn’t,’ the gunman said. ‘I don’t want to know.’

‘Screw you. For when they bring in the Australia Card. We’re gonna be ready to crack it wide open. We’ll get millions out of it before they know what’s fuckin’ happened to them.’ He smiled triumphantly but his face still looked unambitious and dumb.

‘Who’s we?’ I said.

The phone rang. I finished my drink and looked at the gunman who put down his glass and indicated that I should do the same.

‘Yeah,’ Charley said into the phone. ‘He’s here.’ He listened and then extended the phone to the gunman. ‘Wants to talk to you.’

The gunman got up in an easy fluid movement, kept the pistol on me and took the receiver. He listened, said ‘Understood,’ and handed the receiver to Charley.

‘What’d he say?’

‘He said to make it a double. Sorry.’ He shot Charley in the head. I moved like a twelve-year-old, springing from the chair, hitting the floor in a diving roll and grabbing my. 38 from the table all at once. I heard the. 22 crack and I got one shot off that went into the ceiling, but by then I was almost behind a high-backed chair and the gunman was facing a heavier calibre gun and a more desperate man. He fired once at the chair but he was already on the retreat. He was quicker than me; by the time I was clear of the chair and had hurdled Charley’s body, the passage was empty apart from the slumped body of Kent Hayward. The door was flapping open. A face appeared in the opening, a woman.

‘Hey,’ she yelled.

I said, ‘Call the police.’ Then I looked at Hayward and the gun in my hand. I tried to look reassuring but she covered her face with her hands and shrank back. ‘No, don’t bother,’ I said. ‘I’ll do it myself.’

The bodies brought Frank Parker, who listened quietly to what I had to say while a forensic man bustled around the room and the uniformed cops dealt with the ambulance, the other residents in the flats and sundry spectators. I gave Frank everything, including Monty Porter’s name and his connection with Hayward. I told him what Charley had said about the practice run for the Australia Card, as close to word for word as I could recall it.

‘They’re starting early,’ was all he said.

‘Think you’ll be able to tie Porter in with this guy?’ I pointed to the chalk on the chair which marked where Charley had died.

‘What d’you reckon? Describe the killer for me.’

‘Thirty, maybe a bit more; bald head, maybe shaved; brown eyes, maybe contacts; five nine… ‘

‘But maybe he had lifts in his shoes. Maybe his teeth were false. No, nothing’ll tie up to anything else. Well, your clients’ll be happy. You’ve given them Hayward. End of story.’

‘You might find out he owed Porter money.’

Frank laughed. ‘Porter hasn’t got any money. Not a cent. How he lives in a two million dollar house when he’s so poor beats me.’

‘Will you tell the Federal people about this?’

‘I’ll tell them. It’ll take me a couple of days to write the reports. Then you know what’ll happen? They’ll issue a statement confirming the high integrity of the Australia Card.’

I shrugged. ‘Who cares?’

Frank looked at me. ‘Not very public-spirited.’

I watched the forensic guy put my. 38 in a plastic bag and label it. I thought about the statements I was going to have to make and the forms I’d have to fill in to get it back. Bureaucracy. ‘I don’t want a bloody Australia Card,’ I said. ‘When I want another card I ask the dealer.’