Peter Corris - Man In The Shadows

‘You all right?’ I said. ‘I understand you’ve got a key to this place. You can show me the way. I was only here once at night.’

‘I’ve never been here. I never used his stupid key.’

‘Got it with you?’

We walked along a pebbled path and skirted some freshly planted silver birch trees. I had a vague idea of the block Byron was in. Pauline produced a key from her bag. ‘A8,’ she read from the tag. ‘He said it’s got a nice view. I swore I’d never come here.’

I looked for the block numbers. ‘Why?’

‘It’s a mistake. We’re finished!’

‘I doubt it.’

I got my bearings and we went up a steep set of concrete steps that took us to a sloping walkway leading to the upper level of the block. Kelly’s flat was at the end, the most elevated and with the best view of the water, the ships and the container dock. I gave it a glance while Pauline handed me the key. I had my Smith amp; Wesson. 38 under my arm and I got it out before I opened the door.

‘What’s wrong?’ Pauline said.

‘I don’t know.’ I unlocked the door and pushed it open. Nothing happened, no shouts, no shots, no cries of welcome. I edged in half a metre, keeping close to the wall, and looking and listening hard.

There was nothing to hear and only some scuff marks and wet stains on the polished wood floor to see.

‘Byron!’ Pauline shouted.

Nothing. We went into the flat. It was sparsely furnished and scarcely lived in. The big room that served as a living and eating and music and view-absorbing space was neat except for an overturned chair, a coffee table pulled askew and a shattered Swedish upright lamp. I stood there and looked at the signs while Pauline rushed into the other rooms.

She joined me beside the broken lamp. ‘What’s happened?’ she said.

I bent and examined the stains on the floor. They were dark, wet, fresh. ‘He’s been taken.’

‘Taken?’

I pointed to the faint, irregular dust marks. ‘He was hit. Showed some fight. Maybe hit a couple of times. They rolled him in a rug.’

‘They? Who?’

I followed the marks and stains back down the passage to the door. The stains stopped at the door; there was a flattened bush ten metres directly below in the garden. One shoe lay on the freshly cut grass. Pauline bent over the rail to look.

‘No,’ she said.

I held her as her legs went rubbery and helped her back into the flat. She was crying hard and rubbing her clenched fists in her eyes. I put her on the couch and went to the phone which was on a table by a sliding window. The balcony outside gave a view of Sydney to gladden a real estate agent’s heart. The water sparkled, the boats looked clean and the bridge was a noble arch. There were trees growing down to the water in some places and even the industrial bits looked dignified. Not what Captain Arthur Phillip would have seen but not bad. I put my gun down and lifted the phone.

I heard it as the phone responded to the punched buttons. A faint feedback; a hum so soft you wouldn’t hear it if you were breathing hard or scratching your nose. The phone in the flat, which the late Fuller, who was tied in to the Albion Reef development, had procured for Kelly was bugged. I looked back down the passage towards the door and wondered how many people had keys to it besides Byron and Pauline. I could spend some time and money on it, probably come up with some names, but I knew that Michael Parsons had had his last briefing and Pauline had had her last fight and I’d had my last drink with Byron Kelly.

Henry Quinn was a burly man with grey curly hair and a face that had been shaped by good days and bad nights, booze and a fair amount of self-admiration. He looked a lot like Norman Mailer and he was aware of the resemblance. A shelf in his study carried a large photograph of Mailer and hardcover copies of the books, from The Naked and the Dead to the latest best-seller. There are people who say Mailer isn’t subtle; that’s nothing compared to Quinn-there were no other books in the study.

Quinn leaned back in his leather chair and swilled the brandy in his glass. ‘You see it, hey? The likeness? Boy, have I had some fun with that.’

It was midday; I’d refused Quinn’s offer of brandy and was drinking beer. ‘Have you read the books?’

‘No. Never had the time. But lemme tell you. I’m on a plane see? An’ these up-country types’re lookin’ at me and I know what they’re thinkin’. They’re whispering an’ then one of ‘em gets up the nerve to talk to me. Know what I say?’

I shook my head. I didn’t want to know but he’d called and said he had a job for me and that he’d pay for my time from the minute I’d said ‘Hardy Investigations’ into the phone. So he’d paid for me to drive to Cronulla and to drink with him in his penthouse with its northerly ocean view on a beautiful summer day. I owed him a hearing.

‘I say: “I’m not who you think I am,” and they’re hooked, see? After that they eat outa my hand and I sign anything they give me. Sign it Norman M. It makes their day. Hah, hah.’

I shifted uneasily in the chair-too deep, too soft, more like marshmallow than leather. ‘So Mailer’s threatened to punch you or have you punched and you need protection. That it?’

‘Nah, nah. Him’n me’d get on fine, I’m sure. I’m a Brooklyn boy myself, well, Jersey. Close enough. Nah. I got a wife problem. I had three.’

‘I think Mailer tops you there.’

‘Right, right. And I never knifed one neither, though God knows I woulda liked to. But now, I wanna bury the hatchet. Get the girls all together on Christmas, have a few drinks, a few laughs. Show I’m a big guy. Hell, I’m thinking of gettin’ married again an’ I’d like a clean slate.’

‘Where are they all-Reno?’

‘What?’ He looked disconcerted for the first time but he recovered fast. He laughed and shook his head so that the curls floated around. It was a much practised movement. ‘Nah, nah. All Aussie girls. I been here since ‘56. Came over for the Olympics. I was on the US boxing team, light heavy.’

‘How’d you do?’

‘Lousy, got disqualified for gougin’ in the first fight.’

‘You was robbed, I suppose?’

He grinned. The sun had moved and with some more light falling on his face I could see that he’d had a lot of work done on his teeth and some on his nose. Maybe he’d given the surgeon the picture of Norman to work from. ‘Nah. I went for his eye all right. We played it a bit rougher Stateside. But I liked the country an’ the people so I came back. Went inna business.’ He waved his hand around the room with the View. ‘Did okay.’

‘Mm. Well, the wives…?’

‘Can’t locate one of ‘em-Shelley.’ He reached behind him, took a large, glossy photograph from the top of the bar fridge and passed it to me. ‘ Good looker, eh, mate?’

His phony Australian accent was excruciating but Shelley fitted the description. She was a brunette in her twenties with bushy, wild hair, slanted eyes and a generous smile. ‘Got the other wives lined up, have you, Mr Quinn?’

‘Call me Henry. Man drinks with me, works for me, he calls me Henry. Secret of my success. Yeah, Francine an’ Dawn are all set. They’re bringing their guys along, no, Dawn is. Francine’s a lezzie though you coulda fooled me at the time. Know what I mean? Hah, hah.’

It was December 20, not long to find someone for a Christmas party. On the other hand it was about as long as I’d care to work for Mr Quinn. ‘A hundred and fifty a day and expenses. Half up front.’

Quinn nodded, reached for his wallet and extracted notes. ‘Give you a grand now, another grand if you find her, quits if you don’t. This is important to me, Hardy. Serious. So I’m putting up serious money.’