Peter Corris - The Big Drop

He grunted and tried to kick me in the stomach, I leaned against the wall to make him miss and then felt the breath go out of me and a pain begin in my foot and travel up my leg. He’d turned the missed kick into a stomp faster than the eye could see. I backed off and kept by the wall. He came after me in a fast shuffle and I didn’t know whether to watch his hands or his feet. He lowered his head as if he might try some butting as well and that was a mistake; I used my much longer reach to get a fistful of his thick greasy hair. I yanked it like pulling weeds and he squealed and flailed his clublike arms. I kept clear and bore down hard; it would have scalped him if he hadn’t gone down with the pressure. I got behind him, laced my fingers into the hair and bent him back in a kneeling position so that my knee dug in half way down his spine. I dug in hard and he screamed.

‘Come here!’ The girl jumped as I snapped at her: she looked as if she’d been about to run out the door. ‘Your friend’s in pain,’ I said. ‘Where’s May Kangri?’

‘Heavy,’ she said.

The man on his knees spoke in a voice that sounded like heart-broken sobbing. ‘She’s at Rush-cutters Bay, on a fuckin’ boat. Let the fuck go.’

‘Where at Rushcutters Bay?’

‘Marina, next to the fuckin’ yacht squadron.’

‘Name of boat?’ I eased back on the knee.

‘Poppie, Pansy, somethin’ like that. Shit!’

‘When did she go aboard, Captain?’

‘Yes’d’day.’

I let go the hair and pushed him down flat on his face. He lay there gasping and I stepped over him and round the girl. She was still blinking as if she’d stepped out into the noon sun.

‘Excuse me,’ I opened the door. ‘Polite, see? I’m sure your friend could get the hang of it if he tried.’

‘Piss off,’ she said.

‘What’s the matter with you people? Why’re you so bloody aggressive?’

She sniggered. ‘Wait’ll you meet May.’ Then she slammed the door in my face.

Back to the water I need never have left had I only known. That’s the story of a private eye’s life; as often as not the trail ends where it began, that’s when there turns out to be a trail at all. This sort of thinking occupied me on the trip to Rushcutters Bay and it either made me tired or made me realise that I was tired already. It had been a week of long drives and late nights on matters personal and professional, and if I’d been Nero Wolf or Whimsey or someone like that I wouldn’t have taken Kangri’s job on grounds of exhaustion. But I needed the money.

It was close to 7 o’clock when I arrived, the butt end of a mild March day, and the light was almost spent. Beyond the water the city skyscape rose up, jagged-shaped and erratically lit. A half-turn and I could see clear across the water to North Sydney.

It’s a wonder there isn’t more theft, vandalism and arson on tied-up boats because the security at the average marina is lousy. There was virtually none at Rushcutters Bay. The marina was flanked by closed shops that sold nautical gear, a clubhouse and a slipway with boats drawn up high and dry for servicing or whatever they call it. A weatherbeaten old pipe-smoker leaning against the timber office at the end of the wharf took an uninterested look at me as I stepped over the loose chain and headed for the boats. Maybe it was the patch-pocket jacket that did the trick.

There was only just enough light to read names by; some I had to squint at, a few I had to guess at. There was no Pansy but a Tall Poppy was bobbing near the end of the better lit stretch of wharf-the part which provided light, water, power and would get cable TV when it came.

It was a sleek white boat with two masts, furled sails and a lot of glass and brass and pale yellow rope scattered about. I went to the edge of the planking and called down, feeling slightly silly at talking loudly to a boat. A light came on near the stern and I heard a scuffling noise and a few muffled giggles. A woman’s head appeared through a hole in the deck followed by her upper body and legs. She stood up against the night sky and looked to be about seven feet tall. It was an illusion; as she moved closer I could see that she was only six feet tall-long and willowy with cropped dark hair. She was naked apart from a few gold chains around her neck; the chains glinted in the marina lights and her skin, which was about the same colour, gleamed.

‘Yes?’ she said.

‘Are you May Kangri?’

‘Yes. Who’re you?’

‘My name’s Hardy, I’m a private detective, working for your father.’

She was close now, just a few feet below me on the deck; her body was about perfect as six foot, golden female bodies go. She had the slightly flat face of her father but I wouldn’t have taken many points off for that.

‘Who told you I was here?’ Her voice was without warmth, almost hostile.

‘The guy at Royal Street.’

‘Fuck him.’

‘Don’t blame him. He didn’t want to tell me, I had to persuade him.’

That seemed to interest her; she looked up and her breasts moved and the movement rippled down her body. I tried to keep from gaping.

‘You persuaded him. Did you use a gun?’

‘No. I pulled his hair a little.’

She laughed, again without warmth but even she couldn’t manage to laugh with hostility. A voice called from behind her, a female voice, American.

‘May, who is it, honey?’

‘A man,’ May Kangri said.

Another head poked up, a blonde one this time, and it was followed by a body wrapped in a towelling dressing gown. The woman was about twice May Kangri’s age-which I guessed to be middle-twenties-and what she lacked in beauty she made up in aggression. She marched forward, elbowed the girl aside and glared up at me.

‘What d’you want, mister?’

The naked, golden body moved, swivelled and one hand came crashing against the side of the blonde woman’s head; she staggered and the combination followed-a sweeping leg that scythed her down like wheat and crashed her to the deck. She lay in a crumpled heap and May Kangri delivered a modest kick to her exposed backside.

‘Don’t be bossy with me, Candy. I won’t take it.’

Candy got up stiffly; tears were running down her swollen face and she limped off towards the hatch. The action had put a light film of sweat on the golden skin and I was finding it hard to keep my professional detachment. She smiled up at me, white teeth in a flat, brown face. I’d rather have gone up against the guy in Royal Street again.

‘What’s Daddy’s problem?’

‘Why don’t you put some clothes on and we can have a talk?’

‘I’m not wearing any clothes today. Talk quick, I’m easily bored.’

‘Something valuable’s been stolen from your father’s house-a scroll. Do you know anything about it?’

‘That ancient, creepy shit? No, what would I know about it?’

The interview wasn’t turning out to be one of my best. I felt like a combination of perv and head-shrinker. I went direct. ‘You seem to be a forthright young woman, Miss Kangri. You didn’t pinch your father’s scroll either for money or to rub his nose in the shit?’

She gave the laugh again, this time with a bit of contempt in it. I felt pretty sure she’d be good at contempt. ‘No, I didn’t. I don’t need money. Candy’s loaded and I’m going for a trip around the world with her on the yacht. We’re off tomorrow. Wanna come?’

I grinned, shook my head and backed off. She turned around and sauntered off towards the stern; she moved well, like her Dad. Somehow I didn’t think that stealing the scroll would be her style of spite-she’d be more likely to burn the house down.

That left me with no obvious leads and the slightly defeated feeling that goes with that situation. My hand was greasy from contact with the Darlinghurst stomper and I walked down a few steps from one of the stagings on the marina and had a wash. My face was hot and I dabbed it with the cool salt water. It was dark now and cool with a nice breeze coming off the water, but the park at Rushcutters Bay is no place for a clean living man to hang around in at night. I drove down New South Head Road, ate some fish somewhere, drank a fair bit of white wine and went home to sleep on it.