Peter Corris - The Big Drop

I stepped in and began a quiet prowl of the rooms. There was a lavishly stocked kitchen, a couple of opulent bathrooms and several bedrooms, big and small. One of the smaller ones was interesting-there were heavy webbing straps attached to the bed frame and slots for the ends of the straps to lock into. It looked newly installed, and a bit too practical for bondage fun’n games.

The signs were that three or four people were using the house but the place was as silent as the grave. I found the reason for that at the end of a passage on the side of the house away from the pool. The heavy padded door and glowing light above it meant recording studio.

Out by the pool again and round the back, bent low. I fetched up by the window into the studio and lifted an eye up to the bottom inch of the glass. Sport Gordon was there in his cut-off T-shirt along with another muscle man who was sitting at a console like the one in Annandale. Tim Talbot was hunched over a guitar, strumming hard and looking scared. He stopped; the console operator swore and flipped switches. Gordon took two steps and whacked Talbot across the face with a half-closed hand. Talbot’s head jerked back on his thin neck.

I ducked down and scooted back into the house. Sound studio doors don’t have catches, they just swing in, silently and smoothly. I took out the gun, pushed the door open and went in, side-stepping equipment and cables. Gordon recognised me and shouted something that was inaudible over the music. I told him to shut up and I gestured with the gun at the switch flipper. He cut the sound. Talbot had blood trickling down from his mouth and was the colour of old mortar.

‘Get up,’ I said. ‘We’re going.’

‘Like fuck!’ Gordon bullocked forward and I brought the gun up to level at the bridge of his nose. I didn’t move back.

‘Rock stars die young,’ I said.

Talbot threw the guitar down, shot up out of his chair and rushed under the gun. He bolted through the door, yelling, tripping on cables but staying upright.

Sport Gordon threw a good punch that got me on the shoulder and loosened my grip on the gun. But he didn’t have the combination and while he was getting set for the next one I clipped him with a light left on the ear. He yelled and covered it with his hand; I chopped him across the throat and he covered that with his other hand. Maybe he was thinking of his precious vocal chords. The other man didn’t move.

I ran out of the studio, jumping the cables, and skidded out onto the tiles beside the pool. I heard the car engine start, then the turning tyres screamed across the concrete and there was a bang as the sports car clipped the gate. It was heading up the hill as I reached the street. I belted along to my car and got it started and into a U-turn before I realised I still had the. 38 in my hand. I threw it behind me and settled down to follow the Mercedes that was fifteen years younger, 50 kilometres an hour faster and driven by a madman.

Talbot took streets that would lead to the short freeway and the city. He took the turns fast and tight, and terrorised any cars that looked likely to check him. I followed as closely as I could which wasn’t very, but I still managed to keep moving through the wake of stopped cars and irate drivers he left behind him.

He could drive all right, at least at first; at times all I had to keep in sight were his flashing brake lights. But something started to get to him and the Merc was weaving as it came off the freeway and roared down beside Centennial Park. I crowded up behind him after he hesitated at the Oxford Street turn. He dropped a gear and ripped past a taxi and through a red light.

He’d been shitting on the speed limit for more than ten minutes and still there were no flashing lights or sirens. It couldn’t last. We were howling along through Paddington but there was no chance he could keep up the pace or the style further down. I flattened the accelerator and drew up beside him near the barracks; he glanced across at me and I thought he looked puzzled. He dropped off the speed a bit and I coat-of-painted him, sending the Merc screeching off half-left up the hill into Napier Street which is leafy and quiet.

He was a fast-reacting driver; he saw the barriers early and threw the car into a skidding, turning stop that tortured the steering and the tyres. He almost made it, too; but the right front light collapsed against a post and the engine stalled. I shoved the Falcon through a U-turn and jumped out. He was sitting bolt upright, staring straight ahead and fanning his sweating face with his hand. I yanked him out and half-carried him to my car. He struggled briefly and I almost broke his arm ramming him into the back seat. A few lights had gone on in the houses and I thought I could hear a siren in the distance. I got started and went into the maze of blocked-off and one-way streets until I thought it was safe to emerge and head for home.

I worried all the way back to Glebe about leaving him over the back with the. 38 floating around somewhere, but he stayed still and quiet, apart from doing a bit of muttering and groaning. I hauled him into the house and stuck him under a shower while I made coffee. I had a quick whisky while the coffee brewed and felt pretty pleased with myself.

He came out with a towel wrapped around his thin hips and plopped down in a chair at the table. I poured him some coffee.

‘Thanks.’ He eyed the Scotch and I added a bit to his mug. He took a few sips, wiped some drops of water off his face and started to look a bit better.

‘Who’re you?’ he said.

‘Hardy, private investigator. Vance Hill hired me to find you.’

‘That shit.’ He drank noisily. ‘Still, thanks, I’ll just finish this and I’ll be off.’

I shook my head. ‘No, I’m delivering you to Hill.’

‘Be buggered you are.’ He half-rose from his chair but I reached over and pushed him back.

‘Use your head. How did you like being strapped to the bed?’

‘Not much,’ he muttered. ‘Why can’t people leave me alone?’

‘You’ve got what they want. Look, son, I don’t want to heavy you but this needs straightening out.’ I dug into my jeans pocket, pulled out Ro Bush’s card and slapped it on the table. ‘She’s got your interests at heart hasn’t she?’

‘Ro? Sure.’

‘We’ll talk to her as well as Hill, don’t worry. Gordon was trying to pinch your song, right?’

He finished his coffee and I poured some more along with whisky for both of us. His fingers were long, thin and strong, like Con’s without the tobacco stains. He looked tired and washed-out. A bit of a talk, another Scotch and I was pretty sure he’d sleep for ten hours.

‘The song, yeah. Shit, I wish I’d never written the fuckin’ thing.’

‘You did write it, did you?’

‘Bloody oath. Sport’s shitting himself. You saw all that crap he’s got-swimming pool and all? He’s got debts up to here. Solo, he’s shit.’

‘How much did he get out of you?’

‘Bugger all.’ He grinned showing surprisingly good teeth. ‘I just couldn’t remember how it went. God, I’m tired.’

I put him in the spare room and locked the door, but he was still asleep when I woke up. We walked Lo Annandale through the cool morning air and he filled me in a bit more on what had happened. He’d done some drinking and dope smoking after he’d stormed out of the studio, but nothing hard. Gordon picked him up a few days later, got him drunk and made him the prisoner of Bellevue Hill.

‘Wouldn’t be the first time a song changed hands for a bottle. Or some smack. That’d have been the next thing.’ He whistled tunefully and grinned at me. ‘I’d had a lot of bourbon and practically no sleep when you barged in. I just saw the door and went. Wonder what Sport’ll do about the Merc? Probably owes a bundle on it.’