Peter Corris - The Big Drop

‘Got a gun?’ Salmon asked.

‘Yeah. Got the money?’

‘In the flat. Let’s go.’

We left the glasses on the desk and went out of the office and through the bar. A couple of the drinkers looked at us but not with any particular interest that I could detect. Still, it’s never too early to start doing a job well. Teresa had got to Wednesday in the TV Week; we went past her and out to the street. Salmon looked up and down it nervously.

‘Where’s your car?’

‘Here’s where you start living like a free man. It’s about half a mile away.’

We walked down Margaret Street which was fairly busy with shoppers and strollers and turned into a quiet side street. Salmon didn’t seem furtive but he wasn’t introducing himself to people either. I noticed that he had a reasonable tan and not a gaol pallor and I asked him about it.

‘I did some gardening.’ he said.

‘I’m surprised they’d let you grow anything.’

He slowed down and gave me what passed for an amused look; the downward drooping lines of his face squared up a little. ‘You’d be surprised what grows inside.’ He patted down his wavy hair with a brown hand.

When we got to the car he hesitated.

‘What’s wrong?’

‘What year is it?’ he said.

‘What does it matter? It goes.’

He got in. ‘It goes with the flat anyway.’ he muttered.

He directed me through the streets to one of the less grimy parts of Erskineville and we pulled up outside an ugly block of red-brick flats. I remembered that Harvey Salmon’s address used to be given as ‘of Point Piper’ but he approached the building unconcernedly.

‘It’s not much,’ he said. ‘Cops reckon it’s all they can afford. They reckon they’ve got a couple of the flats in the block so it’s safe. What d’you reckon?’

We went down a narrow concrete path to the back of the block and a narrow set of concrete steps that was flanked by a rickety wrought-iron hand rail. Salmon got a bright shining key out of his pocket and unlocked the door. The flat was one of three with doors giving on to a skimpy walkway: no balconies here, no window boxes even.

Inside, the decor was nondescript, new but not very new, and bought from a catalogue rather than according to anyone’s taste. I told Salmon to stay by the door while I checked the rooms: the small kitchen and smaller bathroom were empty, so was the bedroom. There was no one in the toilet. Salmon motioned me into the kitchen with a head movement. Out there he opened the fridge and got out a bottle of Reschs. I shook my head; he opened the bottle, poured a glass and drank it straight off. He poured another.

‘The place could be bugged.’ he whispered. ‘What d’you reckon?’

That was twice he’d asked me, it was time I reckoned something.

‘Let’s not talk,’ I said. ‘I’ll look around for bugs. Does the TV work?’

‘Think so.’

‘I’ll watch the tennis. When’re you going out?’

‘Tonight. Sevenish. Think I’ll have a kip.’

I cleared my throat and held out my hand.

‘Oh, sure.’ He reached into the breast pocket of his jacket and pulled out a wallet. He took out five hundred-dollar notes that looked as if they had plenty of company and handed them to me. I put the money in my jeans, peeled off my jacket and draped it over a chair and turned on the television. John Fitzgerald was serving to John Lloyd, 15–40. Salmon didn’t even look at the picture. He scratched under his arm and went into the bedroom. I heard the springs groan as he flopped on the bed. Lloyd was at the net but he hadn’t put enough snap into his volley and Fitzgerald lobbed over him: 30–40. I made a couple of cups of instant coffee in the kitchen and slept through a doubles match for an hour. Salmon came out and showered and we were set to go at 6.30. Before we went out the door he handed me twenty dollars.

‘Expenses,’ he said. ‘Petrol, drinks and that.’

‘Thanks.’ I’d been on the job for about three hours and I hadn’t done much that was very different from what I did when I wasn’t working-except collect five hundred and twenty dollars.

The first stop was a pub in the Cross where Salmon claimed to know a lot of people but they didn’t seem to be around that night. We had a couple of drinks and he scratched up a word or two with a few blokes who didn’t seem especially keen to talk to him.

‘Just killing time,’ he said as we hit the street again. ‘This is the real business of the night: Lulu.’

I nodded politely; we were walking along Darlinghurst Road and there was a car cruising a few yards back and I was sure I’d seen one of the window-shoppers earlier in the night.

‘You’ve got your tail.’ I said, Salmon shrugged. A street girl wearing an open-weave top through which her nipples protruded and a mini-skirt that showed her meaty thighs, ambled out across the pavement and gave us the word. Salmon shook his head; I examined her closely but I was pretty sure she was the real thing and not policewoman somebody.

‘Tarts,’ Salmon said. ‘Wait’ll you see Lulu.’

We went into a strip club opposite the 50-flavours-of-ice-cream shop. Salmon showed a card and twenty dollars to the man inside the door and he took us through the smoke to a table down near the stage. I looked around to check for danger spots but I hardly needed to because the place was exactly like a dozen others I’d been in. Maybe I had been in there, it’s hard to tell. There was a bar along one wall, maybe twenty or thirty tables, with just enough room for the drink waiters to squeeze between, grouped in front of a wide stage. The stage was covered by a black curtain that had trapped smoke and dust and dreams for too many years. Salmon ordered a double Scotch and beer chaser for himself and I settled for a single Scotch. It was cash on the barrelhead, of course, and he paid from that big roll that made me more nervous than anything else I’d seen.

After a while the show started and there’s nothing to say about it except that it was slow and third or possibly fourth rate. The girls had dead eyes and their bodies seemed to come to life only spasmodically. Lulu was marginally more interesting than the rest if only because her enormous breasts looked real and when she glimpsed the wildly enthusiastic Salmon across the footlights she smiled with genuine invitation.

‘Wasn’t she great?’ Salmon said. He waved for another drink; a few more and all he could hope to use those great tits for was a pillow.

‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘She seemed to like you too.’

‘That’s a hell of a woman, Hardy.’ His voice had got slow and grave. Oh God, I thought, a slow, grave drunk. They’re possibly worse than the lighting ones. At least you can tap the fighters on the nose, mop up the blood and put them to bed. He leaned forward across the table and whispered through the smoke haze and din of people talking loudly and drunkenly. ‘Rang ‘er up this morning. She’s got a place behind here. I’m goin’ back there in an hour, want you to keep an eye out.’

‘Okay, but you’d better lay off the booze or you’ll be wasting your money.’

‘No money!’ His voice went up suddenly. ‘No money!’

‘Okay, okay. Take it easy.’ Slow and grave and fighting-the very worst kind.

At the appointed time a waiter beckoned to us and we got up and went through a small door at the end of the room beside the stage. The passageway was dark and there were a couple of rooms off it, one of which was framed in bright light. Salmon gave the waiter some money and he went away. Salmon steadied himself against the wall.

‘Been a long time,’ he said.

‘Mmm?’ I was trying to see the end of the passage in the dark. ‘Need any help?’

‘Funny. You just squat down there somewhere and wait for me.’ He waved at the blackness ahead and knocked on the door. It opened and Lulu put her sequined breasts out into the passage where they would have prevented over-taking. Up close her skin looked coarse and heavily powdered but she still had the genuine smile.