Peter Corris - White Meat

“No, I’m not going to give up but it’s not going to be easy. I must know where she’s likely to run when she’s in trouble. That fat queen out there implied she’d taken off before. Where to?”

James was shaking his head and opening his mouth to speak when the door flew open.

“I resent that,” Clyde squeaked. “I belong to a noble brotherhood which roughnecks like you wouldn’t begin to understand.” His plump face creased into a plummy smile. “But I understand all about little Noni. Jamie here barely knows her name.”

“Shut up Clyde,” said James. “You don’t know a thing about her.”

“Oh yes I do.” Clyde sang the words in a near falsetto. “Are you a policeman?”

I told him who I was and what I was doing. James protested but Clyde hushed him and I didn’t back him. Clyde rested his chin in the palm of his left hand and sat that elbow in the other hand.

“Little Noni now, she’s a naughty girl. You wouldn’t believe the things she does and the people she does them with.”

“Maybe I would,” I growled. “I’m just back from her hang-out in La Perouse.”

“Ooh yes, loves the noiros does our Noni, the blacker the better.”

I shot a look at James. He was nursing his empty coffee mug, just taking it. Clyde was enjoying himself immensely.

“Why do you take it Jamie? What do you want now?”

“I want her back with me.”

Clyde cackled. James sounded defeated, beaten hollow by something he couldn’t understand. I understood it in part. My ex-wife Cyn had affected me the same way. I kept crawling back, signing cheques, waiting up till dawn and hoping everything would come right. It never did and I felt sure it wouldn’t for James. But no-one else can tell you that and you can only see the end when you get there on your own. Still, I didn’t want any part of Clyde’s baiting game. I stood up with my coat open and let him see the gun.

“Cut out the crap. Tell me something useful or piss off.”

He recoiled and his jowls shook. The plummy malicious smile dropped away.

“Newcastle,” he muttered. “She lived in Newcastle and she knows the heroin scene there.”

“This true?” I asked James.

He shrugged.

“It is, it is!” Clyde squealed, “and she has an uncle there named

… Ted or something.”

“Bert,” said James wearily. “Bert, and he’s in Macleay not Newcastle. I remember now, she lived up there when she was young.”

Clyde looked deflated at James’ knowledge. He changed posture and waved his hands about as if he was trying to think of an exit line. He didn’t find one and I jerked my chin at him. He went out and left the door open. I closed it and noticed for the first time a photograph pinned to the back of the door. It was a glossy postcard-size print with the Capitol theatre showing behind a woman. She was wearing denim skirts that looked like cut-down jeans with enough material whittled away to show the beginnings of the cheeks of her buttocks. She had on a blouse rucked up and tied under her breasts, striped socks pulled up calf-high and high-heeled sandals. In the black and white picture her hair looked as fair as a wheatfield and the set of her body dared you to touch her. Anyone with the juices still running would want to.

I put my hand on the door knob and pulled the door open. James started in his chair.

“Where are you going?”

“Newcastle, first off.”

“Now?”

I had no one waiting up for me and the paper boy stayed his arm if he saw one uncollected on my doorstep.

“Why not?” I said.

A private detective leads a throw-away life for much of the time. Some men in the game overplay this by sleeping on couches in their offices and never changing their underwear. I don’t go so far; I’ve got a house in Glebe with reasonably civilised fittings and I sleep in a bed more nights than not. But some cases don’t let you go to bed on them and this was looking like just such a one. The Tarelton girl was running from one piece of trouble to another and there was no time for packing the matching pigskin luggage. I didn’t have too much to go on except that she and the car would stand out in Macleay like Gunsynd in the Black Stump Cup. She could become detached from the car but it would take a lot of work to tone down her eye-turning image and she was probably too vain to do so. Half the people I’d met that day seemed to come from Macleay or thereabouts and the place was fixing itself in my mind as a destination, a source and an answer.

I made two calls from a box outside the theatre. The first got me a sleepy-sounding Madeline Tarelton who said nothing while I gave her a sketch of events. She refused to wake Ted and wouldn’t or couldn’t confirm that Noni had an uncle up north. Just on spec I asked her what name the girl went by.

“Rouble, Noni Rouble.”

“Professional name?”

“No, her mother’s. She took it back when she broke up with Ted.”

“When was all this?”

“Years ago. Look Mr Hardy, this is scarcely the time… you should have got all this information from Ted this morning. Do you know your job or don’t you?”

“Sometimes I wonder,” I said. “I agree with you. Just an outline will do. Noni didn’t live with your husband for how long?”

“Oh most of her childhood.”

Where did she live?”

“Somewhere north. Really Mr Hardy…”

I apologised again, told her I was going north and called off.

The second call was to police headquarters in the hope that Grant Evans was on duty. He was and not too happy about it. He wasn’t working on the Simmonds killing but had heard the talk about it; so far the cops had nothing but questions.

“Like what?” I asked.

“Like who was the blonde and what was that snooper Hardy doing at the scene?”

“And like, where’s the kid’s car?”

“Yeah. Can you help a little on some of these points? Hate to press you.”

“Quite all right. Maybe soon. Thanks Grant.” I hung up in the middle of a curse from him and it occurred to me that most of our telephone conversations ended like that. Lucky we were friends.

I drove through the city and over the Harbour bridge. Theatergoers clogged the roads and the drizzle had started in again making for slides, swearing and crumpled mudguards. I crawled along like a link in a slowly moving chain and failed in every attempt to jump a light mid get a run. On the north side the traffic moved faster and I could have got into top gear. Instead I pulled into a garage for petrol and a check on the oil and water. I used the lavatory and the smell of the greasy food in the place’s snack bar reminded me that I hadn’t eaten for ten hours. I bought a hamburger and a carton of chips and ate them as I drove. The Falcon groaned a bit under the unaccustomed load of the full tank, but nothing dropped off and when I’d made it to the beginning of the tollway I felt confident that she’d go the distance.

Since they put the tollway in, the drive to Newcastle is easy. The only danger in driving it at night is falling asleep at the wheel. I warded this off by taking quiet slugs from the Scotch bottle, letting (he liquor jolt me but not taking enough to get me drunk. My head was aching and the whisky was good for that, too. I should have been asleep in bed. Instead I was driving a tollway at night and drinking whisky. Mother wouldn’t approve. Father wouldn’t approve. But then Father never did approve. Funny thoughts. Maybe I was drunk. A few cars passed me but neither the Falcon nor I was feeling competitive and we couldn’t have done much about it anyway. The road was slippery and I swayed about a bit and got bored by the dark, indeterminate shapes whipping by. I wished I had a radio. I wished I had new tyres, but I stayed loyal – I didn’t wish I had a new car.