Peter Corris - The January Zone

‘What developments?’ January said. ‘D’you mean…?’

A man moved at the back of the room; a tall, pale-eyed man who looked as if he shaved every hour on the hour and had his hair cut every day. He seemed to twitch as he heard the question and January’s response. January saw the movement.

‘I mean about the Senate hearing,’ the reporter said.

January recovered fast. ‘He knew it was in the wind.’

‘But you haven’t told him it’s definite.’

January smiled. ‘He’ll know,’ he said. ‘I wouldn’t be surprised if he knew before I did.’

The lights switched off and the cameras went away to a paraplegic ward or a toxic chemicals spillage. The print men moved in for their meal. Weiss got in a question or two which I didn’t hear but January seemed to field them satisfactorily. I was looking at the tall man with the washed-out eyes who was now in a huddle with a couple of others I hadn’t seen before. They weren’t reporters. I’ve made a study of reporters-they work in all weathers, don’t sleep enough and get a lot of colds. They have flaky skins and bits of tissue stick to their clothes and bulge their pockets. They wear cheap clothes on the job because they’re constantly catching taxis, hanging their jackets over chairs and spilling coffee and ash. These men were telephone artists, limousine riders and users of ensuite bathrooms.

I cut Trudi out of the herd of staffers, journalists and hangers-on. I nodded over at the best-dressed bunch.

‘Who’re they?’

‘Party people. The enemy-if they ask you anything, lie.’

‘The one with the ghost eyes doesn’t seem to think too much of the Minister.’

‘He hates him. Francis Hogbin’s his name, he had a shot for the seat himself. Oh oh, got to go into the routine.’

January had broken free of the reporters and was moving towards the Party men. He gestured for Trudi to join him and I drifted along as well, ignoring an urgent signal from Sammy Weiss. January had wine and soda in his paper cup; Trudi had nothing; I had a can of beer; Hogbin had whisky in a glass.

‘Francis,’ January said, ‘good to see you. Ben, and ah…?’

‘Tim Donnelly,’ the other man said.

January’s arm moved as if to embrace Trudi but stopped as if he thought better of it. ‘Get you a drink, Tim? Trudi, could you…?’

‘No, Peter, we’re going.’ Hogbin knocked back his few drops of whisky. A prominent Adam’s apple bobbed in his close-shaved neck. ‘You’d be Hardy, would you?’

‘I would,’ I said. ‘Most days.’

‘Went well, didn’t you think?’ January said. He smiled at Trudi. She smiled back professionally, with just a touch of sexual chemistry. I thought they were doing very well indeed.

‘Yes,’ Hogbin said. ‘I thought you kept your ambitions nicely in check.’

‘Well, we all have to do that, Frank.’ January switched the smile across to Hogbin. ‘At one time or another.’

Hogbin nodded curtly and the three of them swung away towards the remaining journalists.

‘He gives me the creeps,’ Trudi said.

January’s hand no longer hovered near her back. ‘He gives me nightmares.’

‘Minister?’ Sammy Weiss had crept up on my blind side.

January’s smile was automatic. ‘Yes?’

‘This is Sam Weiss, Peter,’ I said. ‘Freelance.’ That gave January time to adjust, after that, I figured, he was on his own.

‘I know Sammy,’ January said. ‘What’re you working on?’

‘Bombing,’ Weiss said.

January spoke too quickly. ‘Nothing new, is there, Cliff?’

I shook my head. Weiss reached into his pocket and pulled out a glossy photograph, large postcard size. I caught a glimpse of Karen Weiner’s face, raised and happy-looking, as Weiss presented it to January.

‘Do you know this woman, Minister?’

My first reaction was to ram him up against a wall again, but it would have been the wrong move. January had the situation sized up now and, like a good pro in the ring, he was dictating the pace. He smiled, took a sip of his drink and drew his brows together in puzzlement. ‘No, I don’t believe so. Who is she?’

‘You had a drink with her the other night.’

January was moving now, not hastily but enough to put Weiss off balance. He grinned. ‘I wish I had a vote for everyone I’ve had a drink with, Sammy. See you again. Trudi, could you come and have a word over here? Excuse us.’ And he was off, sliding smoothly across the room, holding Trudi by the arm, and looking like an important man, not without the common touch, but with things on his mind.

‘Shit!’ Weiss said.

‘That’s about the first thing you’ve said in a while that I’ve understood, Sammy. Exactly what are you referring to?’

Weiss put the picture away. ‘There’s a story here. I can smell it. Hardy, you have to…’

I backed off and shook my can. Empty. ‘Sammy, we’re even. You got me across a table with Tobin and I got you in a room with January. Evens. In fact, you win because that guts of a brother-in-law of yours ate and drank up $60 worth.’

‘You’re on expenses,’ Weiss said sourly.

‘That’s right, I forgot. As I said then, we’re even.’

That was it for Weiss. I’ve seen them-a dried-out drinker only has so much social and nervous energy in him. If he expends it in a rush the way Weiss had, he either goes off the wagon or he retires to lick his wounds and do something else. I got another can of beer and waited until Trudi and January had finished their business. The hard-core had settled in: Gary seemed to have plenty of staying power and a few around him, journalists, a sound man who had got left behind somehow, and assorted party-sniffers who had drifted in, had that ‘let’s-kick-on’ look to them.

I saw the signal pass between Gary and Trudi and suddenly everything was movement. Gary grabbed a couple of bottles and shepherded his new-found mates towards the stairs. Trudi and January followed and I followed them. A few lights were turned off and an urgency to leave took hold and drove everyone to the street.

A car was waiting for January. Gary and the good-time group appeared not to notice as the Minister slipped inside and was driven away at speed, as the tabloids would say. I was left standing on the footpath with Trudi Bell beside me.

‘I hope you don’t have to go back upstairs and wash the glasses,’ I said.

‘Nope. I set the alarms and locked the door behind me. You’re the security expert, didn’t you see?’

‘Nope.’

‘Some expert.’

The street was still busy but the pace had changed. People strolled rather than rushed and the buzz from the pub was steady and keyed-in for the evening. Some of the shops were still open-the coffee bars, the health food store and an old place that still carried the pre-war sign ‘Mixed Business’-but there were dark windows and doorways and gaps along the kerbs where the shoppers’ and shopowners’ cars had been. ‘Well,’ Trudi said. ‘How’re you feeling?’ I took hold of her upper arm. It was firm with a long muscle that flexed and relaxed under my touch. ‘Like company,’ I said.

Trudi Bell didn’t have a car. I drove to Lilyfield and she told me to stop opposite a row of houses set high up on the west side of the street. From that elevation the view would be over the old concrete viaduct that emerges at different places through the suburb, across the canal and some scruffy parkland, clear across factories and houses to the city.

‘I can walk to the office from here,’ she said. ‘Good for the calf muscles.’

I stood on the footpath and opened the tricky passenger door of the Falcon. ‘I get the feeling that muscles are important to you,’ I said.