Peter Corris - Heroin Annie

‘Volvo’, she said.

‘That’ll do, I’ll take that and head up to Queensland and get lost. Want to come along, Cliff?’ He was jocular but there was a desperation in it, as if he was screwing himself up to do something.

‘No thanks, Clem’, I said. ‘Listen, have you ever shot a man?’

‘No.’

‘It’s not that easy.’

‘I’ll manage. Now shut up, I need to organise this.’ He looked around the shed obviously picking the best cover assuming that Riley would come up the track. There wasn’t much doubt about what was best-the plastic-covered cars were at right angles to each other in the middle of the shed; anyone down behind them would be protected on two sides. Dorothy and I would be off to one side, out of the line of fire from the track or the direction of the house, but with all that machinery around bullets could ricochet. I felt I had to make another try.

‘Give it up, Clem, you’re just going down for the second time. He might have help. All the odds are against you.’

He ignored me and settled himself behind the cars with the box of ammunition beside him. He wriggled to get himself comfortable and then turned back towards us.

‘One sound out of you two, and I’ll shoot you. Got it?’

Dorothy bit her lip and shot an anguished look at me. I nodded and she did the same. Clem eased himself up to look down the track when two shots sounded clear and sharp. They hadn’t carried into the shed and I squinted out past the cars; the VW sank crookedly like a wounded buffalo.

‘The VW’, I said, ‘front and back. He doesn’t want you to go to Queensland.’

Clem said nothing, then he tensed himself, lifted the rifle a little and let go two rounds, working the bolt smoothly; he mightn’t have shot men but he knew his rifle.

‘Get him, Clem?’

‘No.’

‘Can you see his car?’

‘No.’

‘Probably left it well back. If he’s any good he’s disabled it.’

Clem turned on me fiercely and his head lifted up above the car. ‘Will you shut up, Cliff, I…’

A bullet whined off the bonnet of the car and two more whanged into the metal body. Clem dropped down and knocked over his ammunition. Dorothy was sobbing quietly in her chair and Clem’s lips were moving silently. ‘Listen, Clem’, I said urgently, ‘you’re an amateur at this and I once did it for money. You’ve got to go out and get him. You’re pinned down as it is, he can call the shots.’

‘You said he might have mates.’

‘I was trying to persuade you to run, it’s all different now. I don’t think he’d bring anyone in on this. He wants you out, clean.’

‘Well, you tell me, if you’re the professional.’

‘Go out the side there, get across to the house and work around behind him. Try not to kill him, Clem, they’ll let you rot if you do.’

‘What’s the odds.’ He put a handful of bullets into the pocket of the jeans and wriggled across to the side of the shed. He took his time, moved back and deeper into the shadow thrown by the post and then he snaked across towards some bushes by the house.

‘Dorothy’, I hissed. ‘Are you okay?’

Her answer was a sniff.

‘Quick, get the pliers off the bench.’

She sat frozen in the chair like an accident victim.

‘Dorothy, move! There’ll be bullets flying everywhere unless I can stop this! Move!’

She got up and stumbled over to the bench. ‘Pliers’, she said.

‘Right, to cut this wire. Quick, give them here.’

She got them and I hacked at the wire with my left hand; I lost a bit of skin in the process but having the use of both hands again was like being given a million dollars. I bent low, and scuttled across to where Clem had left the Smith amp; Wesson when he went back for the rifle. I held it and looked at it, and wondered what the hell difference it made. The girl was standing by the bench; she wiped the hand that had held the pliers on her blouse and left a dark, oily stain on her right breast. She glanced at it and giggled, she was close to hysteria. I took her arm and herded her across to the shed to a point nearest the house. There was no sign of Clem or Riley.

‘Get across there and ring the police. The window’s broken by the door, you can reach in. After you’ve phoned, stay there; you’ll be safe.’

She ran across to the porch and made it into the house. I breathed out and turned my attention back to the track in front of the shed. The light was just starting to fade and a slight breeze was moving the trees and bushes. I took the. 38 off safety and crouched down behind a post at the front of the shed. After ten minutes or so Riley came into view, working his way along in the scrub towards my corner of the shed. He would have been invisible from behind the cars. He looked back down the track and froze, I ducked behind a packing case and then he came on. He was doing it slow and careful and he held the short, stubby carbine lightly and ready for use. He was a big man, over six feet with a full belly and a wide, pale face. His hair was dark and thin; he wore grey slacks and white shirt, the dark hair made his thick forearms look almost black. There were big sweat patches under his arms. I waited until he had got up to the post then I tossed some sand out onto the track. He turned at the sound and I came up and put the. 38 in the nape of his neck.

‘Put the rifle down Riley, or I’ll blow your head off.’

He stood stock still for a second, I jabbed him with the muzzle and he bent and put the rifle down. He was standing there, full frontal, six feet high and three feet wide when Clem stepped out of the scrub thirty yards away. He lifted the. 303 and sighted.

‘Clem, don’t!’ I yelled.

‘Move away, Cliff, I’m going to kill him.’ He moved a bit closer stiffly, with the rifle still up. Then from behind Clem a woman’s voice screamed ‘No!’

Clem swung back towards the sound, I stepped away from Riley to look and saw a small figure running up the track. Then Riley bent smoothly, picked up the carbine and fired a short burst. Clems head flew apart and he pitched backwards still holding the. 303. The woman ran up the track screaming and screaming and then we heard the sirens.

Riley gave me a lot of the credit. He said he couldn’t have shot Clem in self defence if I hadn’t created the diversion. Dorothy told the cops I’d been tied up, how I got loose and that it was me who sent her to call them. A doctor treated me for abrasions to the wrists; my gun hadn’t been fired. I was clean.

Riley told his story pretty straight; he said Clem had phoned him, told him he was holding the girl and demanded money and a car. Riley came to try to talk some sense into him and Joannie for the same reason. He said Clem had fired twice at him with the. 303 and that checked out. They were a little concerned about a private citizen possessing an M1 but hell, he’d been shotgunned hadn’t he?

I cleaned up in town and the police drove me back to where my car was. I drove slowly back to Sydney along the coast road. I thought of well-padded Riley with all his problems solved, and I thought of Clem’s wife, a neat, dark little woman who’d stood still and said nothing. And I remembered Clem telling me that he thought she was pretty.

If I hadn’t been so busy worrying about money and my carburettor-the sort of problems that beset your average private detective in the spring-I would have taken note of them out in the street. The car I did notice-a silver Mercedes, factory fresh. But then, that’s not an impossible sight in St Peter’s Lane. We get the odd bookie dropping by, a psychoanalyst or two, the occasional tax avoidance consultant. I also saw a man and a woman in the car, nothing discordant about that really, as I went into the building and up to my office to move the bills and accounts rendered around