Peter Corris: The Big Drop

‘I don’t know why you paid us a visit this afternoon, Hardy, and I don’t want to know. Some mistake, I assume. We don’t want trouble and I’m sure you don’t want trouble. Am I right?’

‘Don’t want trouble,’ I said dumbly.

‘Good. That’s all there is for you if you go out there again-or if you write or phone or interfere in Mr Angel’s affairs in any way. Clear?’

‘Mud,’ I said.

‘Don’t try to be smart, you’re not smart. He stepped closer and tapped the side of my head with his shoe.’ Be careful, or you’ll end up even dumber than you are now. I’ll say it again-clear?’

I nodded, and felt a momentary return of the black hum.

‘Good, I hope we don’t ever have to meet again.’ He opened and closed the door in a fluid motion, and I lay on the carpet for a while trying to think of all the things I knew that other people didn’t know so I could check that my brain and personality were undamaged. It didn’t take long and it didn’t make me feel good. I got up and staggered first to the bathroom and then, with a wet, towel-draped head, to the kitchen. I drank some wine, and it tasted like turpentine so I had to go quickly back to the bathroom again. The second time the wine stayed down, and even began to taste quite good by the third glass.

Sitting there aching and getting drunk, my mind naturally began to run on failure. I tried to think of the cases I’d abandoned for one reason or another. There were a few, given up because I’d been lied to in the first place or because the trouble I was looking into had happened too long ago. I could only think of one given up because I’d been scared, and then I was scared of the police and the politicians and only someone with concrete brains wouldn’t have been scared. I was scared now and I didn’t like it. Emptying my pockets to get into a more comfortable drinking posture, I turned up Kay’s letter. I smoothed it out, poured more wine, and read it.

Dear Cliff,

I’ve thought of you often, wondering how you were and whether you’ve had any regrets about us. I got your letter, but it didn’t say much and I was gung ho after some story or other at the time.

I’ve calmed down a bit and I’m considering an offer from a Sydney paper. Good offer and Sydney’s the only place in Australia I’d want to work. Don’t know what you feel about me but I’d love to see you again. Don’t feel threatened for Chrissake-just telling you I’m thinking of coming back and I’ve got no ties.

I hope you can help my friend Pauline who’s a peach who made the bad mistake of marrying a lying shit. She’s worth helping, Cliff; I did a bit when she made the break but she needs brains and guts now on the money matter, and that’s you in my book. If you can get the money for her I’ll be confirmed in my feeling that you’re a prince.

See you soon, I hope. love,

KAY

It made me think of the few nights I’d spent with Kay and the many nights I’d spent without anyone, and I wanted to see her very badly. My head started to hurt less and I started to feel angry-maybe it was my pride coming back. I had a few days worth of Pauline Angel’s money and an incentive-more than enough motivation. I drank some coffee, showered, put some healing ointment on my head and a cap over it, and went back to work.

A few phone calls deepened the mystery-Ben Angel was an architect all right, but he didn’t seem to do much business. He was an American who’d acquired right of residence on Australia through his marriage to Pauline. He’d opened an office in Sydney and there was talk of big contracts, but so far it was just talk. I couldn’t get anything about his career in America at such short notice except the suggestion that his name might originally have had a few more vowels and consonants in it. Mrs Angel II was more accessible-she worked at a TV station as a PR person. My informant was a journalist who happened to know that Tolley Angel was hosting a small party at the station that evening.

‘Tolley?’ I said.

‘That’s the name she goes by.’

‘How would I spot her?’

‘Look up, they tell me she’s six foot two.’

I drank some more coffee and went out wearing my cap and poplin raincoat and trying to look French. The TV station was on the north side, and I drove into the parking area as if I belonged.

There weren’t many of the minions cars around but the executives’ spaces were pretty well filled with Mercs, Volvos and the like. I tried to guess which of the cars would be Tolley Angel’s; and had settled on a black Porsche when she came out of the building-that is, a six-foot-two brunette with an executive briefcase and about a thousand dollars worth of clothes on her back came out. She seemed to be in a hurry, because she almost ran to a silver grey BMW and took off with spinning wheels and spitting gravel. I followed her, blowing smoke.

The BMW wound down through Lane Cove towards the city. It wasn’t hard to follow because she drove well, signalling early and making her moves decisively; it was a pleasure to watch her drive. She stopped in Drummoyne in a street that didn’t have anything in particular to recommend it and when I saw a middle-aged man in fashionable casual clothes come bouncing out of an ordinary looking house, jump the low fence and grab her as soon as she got clear of the car, I was so surprised I nearly leaned on the horn. They hugged and kissed enthusiastically, and then he escorted her back into the house with his arm around her so tightly she could hardly walk. She wasn’t protesting. I was parked a few cars away; the light was poor but the film in the camera was fast. I got the whole show, frame by frame. After a scarcely decent interval she came out of the house, alone; the front of her dress was unbuttoned in manner not dictated by fashion and her hair had escaped its modish arrangement and was hanging loose. She reached into the car and pulled out a wrapped bottle: I snapped her-dress, hair, bottle and all-and felt like the second-assistant pimp.

She went back into the house, happy and jaunty and somehow I didn’t think she’d be out soon. I didn’t feel like hanging around to see if she did up her dress right or what the brand of the wine was; I drove home and started on some wine of my own. My head was hurting and not only from the earlier beating; I had one of my periods of self-dislike at what I did for a living. I believed in people doing what made them feel good and I didn’t like fingering them because other people didn’t like them doing it. There’s no remedy except to grow another skin and push on. I used the Council rate roll to identify Tolley Angel’s lover-Claude Murray and the telephone book gave me his trade-screenwriter. Call it prejudice, but the hyphen made me feel just a little better. I took a glass of wine and a biography of Scott Fitzgerald to bed. I read for a little while, thought about Kay and then I slept.

Pauline Angel was living in a friend’s house in Balmoral close to the beach and not too close to the neighbours. The house was set on a bigger block of land than is usual in those parts, and the grass and the white paint and the palm trees on either side and in front gave it a feel of the Raj, which would be pretty easy to take in most moods. I went up the steep path in front to the wooden steps that led to a high verandah, running the width of the house. The air felt cleaner just those few metres up. I’d phoned, she was expecting me and there was a pot of tea and milk and mugs on a table in the open. I accepted the tea and repressed the shudder.

She was going to have to nice tan soon, but the strain in her face was beginning to eat at her good looks.

‘Nice place,’ I said. ‘Your husband has a pretty nice place too.’

‘Ex-husband. Has he? I’ve never been there.’