Peter Corris - The Empty Beach

‘What’s the stick for?’

‘I hurt my leg. I barely got up the stairs and it pains me just standing here.’

‘You might attack me with it.’

I laughed. ‘You’d beat me. I can hardly move without it, but I’ll leave it out here if it worries you.’ I leaned the stick against the wall and got out my licence, letting her see some money sitting in there with it. ‘I’m a private detective. You can call Detective Frank Parker at College Street headquarters to check me if you want to. I don’t attack women.’

It was her turn to laugh. It was a good Sydney sound that suggested she’d had more good times than bad so far.

‘I suppose it’s all right.’ She unfastened the chain. ‘My boyfriend’s due in half an hour, anyway.’

‘Thanks.’ I limped into the hallway and steadied myself against the wall.

‘Get the stick, for God’s sake.’ It wasn’t a bad voice she had; very contemporary, using the rising inflection, but not on every group of words. I got the stick and went down the hall into the living-room. The apartment had big windows which were making the most of the afternoon light. The fittings were good but unremarkable, except for a very nice Persian carpet. There was a big TV set and a lot of silver-banded hi-fi equipment. No books. A gold steering wheel was mounted on a block of wood and the whole thing was about nine inches high, standing on top of the TV set. She saw me looking at it.

‘He’s a racing car driver, my boyfriend.’

I nodded and eased myself down into the chair with the most padding.

‘I didn’t catch your name.’

‘Cliff Hardy. I’m interested in John Singer. I can’t tell you why.’

‘That’d be right,’ she said. She got a Benson and Hedges Extra Mild out of its box and lit it with a gold lighter. ‘What do you want for the fifty dollars?’

‘Tell me about how he went off you.’

It wasn’t polite and she didn’t like it, but I wasn’t going to get anywhere by being too polite with Sandy. The eyebrows and the way she smoked and moved told me that she was a long way from being a kindergarten teacher. She was a woman who’d been valued and who had accepted the going rate. She frowned and tapped ash off the Benson and Hedges.

‘Peggy told you that?’

‘Yes.’

‘How’s Peggy? I haven’t seen her for a while.’

I opened my hands. ‘She’s okay, I guess. Won a bit on the horses, she said. Drinking Bacardi.’

‘That’s her drink when she’s got money.’ She stood and leaned over to crush out her cigarette. She was medium tall with a good figure; her breasts under a black V-neck sweater fell forward heavily when she leaned down. Nothing heavy about the rest of her; she was trim-hipped and snappy as she turned towards a door. ‘Want a drink?’

‘No, thanks. Don’t stall me. Are you going to talk to me about Singer or not?’

She went out of the room and I heard drink-making noises. ‘How do I know she’ll get the money?’

‘I said I’d give it to you if you wanted it.’

She came back carrying what looked like a gin and tonic and sat down on a couch opposite me. She sipped the drink. ‘No, give it to her.’ There were a lot of things in the order-affection, disappointment and disgust as well. She worked on her drink and got another smoke going. Mother’s girl.

‘I liked John,’ she said softly. ‘He was good to me. I was in a bad way when I met him.’ She pointed a long, elegant finger at the Persian carpet. ‘Going down fast, you know? He fixed me up, we had a flat, went out a bit. Good times. He was very, very smart, the smartest man I ever met.’

‘How do you mean, smart?

‘Like, he figured everything out in advance. He’d say, we’ll do this and this and then this’ll happen. And it always did. We had a bit of trouble getting clear of Mac. Have you heard of him?’

I nodded.

‘Well, he had a sort of hold on me, but John outsmarted him.’

‘I get it. How long were you on with him?’

‘A year, bit less.’ She raised a finger to her mouth as if she was going to bite the nail, but pulled it away sharply and took a drink instead.

‘What happened to him?’

‘He just went limp. He wasn’t the same, wouldn’t talk, no more jokes. He seemed to spend all his time thinking.’

‘What about?’

‘No idea. He hardly talked to me at all. I thought Marion was giving him hell about us.’

‘Do you know that for sure?’

‘No. But what else could it have been?’

‘Was he sick?’

‘He was never sick. Fit. You know?’

Fit, I thought, fit, rich and smart. So what went wrong?

‘Peggy said he was impotent.’

She laughed, a touch brutally, as if she had to toughen herself up to talk about this subject. ‘I bet she didn’t say that. True, though. He couldn’t do it. He gave me a car-I’ve still got it- and some money. He paid three months on the flat and that was it. He didn’t explain. I called him everything, but it made no bloody difference.’

‘Did you ever travel with him?’ I asked abruptly.

‘Sure. Queensland… ‘

‘I mean overseas.’

‘Japan once.’

‘He went to the States, didn’t he?’

‘Couple of times. No, I didn’t go.’

The shadows were lengthening on the carpet, deepening the dark blues and reds, and a deep bronze patch glowed in the fading light. A shaft of sun through the clouds and through the window caught on the ornament on top of the TV and made it shimmer. The golden wheel seemed to turn slowly as the light caught it.

I peeled off fifty dollars and put them on the arm of the chair. Mrs Singer’s bill was going to be high. That makes me think of the hospital account, and maybe it was that which caused my knee to give a severe twinge. I bit my lip.

‘You all right?’

‘Yeah. Have you got any painkillers? I left mine at home.’

‘You don’t want a joint? Great for pain.’

I smiled. ‘You’re a drug fiend, too?’

She had her handsome face ready for a friendly expression, but it dropped away. ‘What d’you mean, too?’

It had slipped out. I was so used to needling people, catching them on the raw, that I’d said it automatically. She wasn’t living in a flat with a Persian carpet and five thousand dollars worth of woofers and tweeters on the money John Singer had given her two years before. But it was no business of mine.

‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘Have you got a pill?’

‘I’ll see,’ she said coldly. She walked out and I heard her banging cupboards and drawers. The knee was stiffening and getting sore; I got the stick and stood up to loosen it. I hobbled over to the television set and picked up the ornament. It was trophy time again. Every man should have at least one trophy. I used to have one at home myself, a little job: ‘Runner-up High Schools 4 x 220 yards’. I ran third leg and lost some ground that the fourth man made up. A long time ago.

The doorbell rang and Sandy ran through the room and down the hall. She didn’t seem to be worried about her boyfriend finding her with a strange man and fifty bucks in a neat pile on a chair arm. I looked again at the plaque mounted on the ornament, unshipped my. 38 and got it ready to shoot. The front door closed and when they got into the living-room, I had it pointed at his chest. I tossed the mounted steering wheel across at him.

‘Hello, Tal,’ I said.

Talbot Brown, winner of the Philadelphia Stockcar Grand Prix in 1976, used both hands to catch his trophy. He hugged it to his chest and spoke in his soft accent.

‘Boy, oh boy. Are you in trouble.’

I raised the gun a fraction. Sandy jumped and drew closer to Brown; for a second I thought she was going to slip in behind him. ‘I’d say you were in trouble, Talbot,’ I said. ‘I still owe you a few from last week.’