Peter Corris - The January Zone

‘What now?’ I pushed my chair back and stretched.

‘We wait. The brain sucks in the pictures from the film, does a sort of identikit on your pathetic descriptions and tries to get a match with the zillions of pictures it has on file.’

‘Of Americans?’

‘Of everybody.’

‘How long will it take?’

He yawned. ‘Shit, it could be minutes. You got anything at home like this?’

‘If there is they haven’t told me about it. What is this place exactly?’

‘It’s a clearing house, a memory bank, a filing system, whatever you like to call it. They’ve got army records here, prison and police records, immigration…’

‘Tax?’

He grinned. ‘Ain’t nobody saying.’

‘What about intelligence files?’

‘That’s what you think, huh? That this is some kinda spook plot against your boy? Ours or yours?’

‘Who can say. They probably don’t know which side they’re on themselves half the time. I’m sorry if I’m offending your professional pride.’

‘That’s all right. Speaking of professional pride, couldn’t you have found something less dangerous than a bottle to throw?’

‘I didn’t have time to take off my shoe.’

Heseltine approached us with a fistful of photographs and computer print-outs held out in front of him like the infant Jesus. ‘Would you draw me up a chair, Mr Hardy?’

Spinoza hooked a chair with his foot and flicked it into place. Heseltine sat down. ‘Thank you.’ He glanced at Billy and they exchanged grins. ‘You think we fooled him?’

‘He was all ready to write a report on unstated racial invective within the US Security Services.’

Heseltine laughed and took off his glasses. The eyes were very pink but had lost their furtive look. ‘Have to have some fun in this fuckin’ place,’ he said. ‘You should see Billy with the South Africans.’

‘And you should see him with thah British,’ Spinoza said.

‘Very droll,’ I said. ‘You Yanks have such a great cultural mixture to play around with. You know why we call you Yanks, don’t you?’

Spinoza spread his hands. ‘Man’s getting anxious. What’ve we got, honky?’

Heseltine stifled his laugh by putting his glasses back. ‘Some, not a hell of a lot. Positive on one of them-the blonde guy at the party.’

‘Political meeting,’ I said.

‘You could’ve fooled me. Well, he’s Arthur Udino, Italian.’

Billy peered at the glossy print Heseltine held. ‘Looks about as Italian as me.’

‘That’s his ace in the hole, or one of them. He’s aka James Swanson, George White, the list goes on.’

‘I’ll bet,’ Spinoza said. ‘So what’s his field of activity?’

‘Hard to say. He’s not a real heavy; it’s more like he’s happened to be around when heavy things are going down. Like today.’

‘Yeah,’ Spinoza said, ‘but around in what capacity. Sight-seeing? What?’

‘Contracts for the supply of military equipment,’ Heseltine said. ‘In his time Arthur’s been known to help people who want to supply guns to other people to get their ideas across.’

‘What people?’ I said.

Heseltine rustled his papers. ‘Various. It wouldn’t help you to know. And it’s just that that’s the kinda area he hangs around in.’

‘Great,’ I said. ‘What about the electrician?’

Heseltine shook his head. ‘Nothing on him and nothing on your descriptions. But we went around you a little there and might have got something.’

‘Don’t keep it all to yourself,’ Spinoza said.

‘A description of the guy who mugged the

Australian near the hotel fits Mr Hardy’s ah, rough impression of one of the men in the car.’

‘I was wondering whether to shoot out a tyre or jump onto their bonnet,’ I said. ‘Which one fits?’

‘The stocky one. It’s not positive but he was seen in town and he’s a car and street specialist. He doesn’t kill people.’

‘Oh, good. I’d love to meet him. Who is he and is there any chance?’

‘Hot shot, eh?’ Heseltine said. ‘Sorry, you’re not likely to run into “Sunny” South.’

‘“Sonny” as in Liston?’

‘No, man. As in bright an’ clear. When he was seen he was seen leaving. Now, I don’t know if the two are connected or what. Like I say, “Sunny” isn’t a killer but…’

Spinoza spread his hands as if he was going to receive a pass. ‘He made a death threat on the phone.’

‘That’s a long way from trying to put a few thousand volts through a man.’

I got a feeling now that the faked antagonism between the two was shifting towards something real. Spinoza looked almost embarrassed and Heseltine fiddled with his papers defensively.

‘You may as well tell him, Mr Heseltine, sir,’ Spinoza said.

‘Tell me what? What’s “Sunny’s” field of activity, to coin a phrase.’

Heseltine was happy to answer that. ‘Communications.’

‘You mean he talks to people?’

‘No.’ Spinoza looked around the room. It was full of white coats and white shirts and blue suits. If he felt anything like me he wanted to see some T-shirts and sneakers and smell sweat.

‘Where’s my goddamn coat?’ He stood up in one easy movement, retrieved the coat from the chair and slung it over his shoulder. ‘What you should know, Cliff, is that South works for some of the corporations here. He’s a sort of advance man who, ah, clears obstacles.’

‘Obstacles to what?’

Heseltine coughed as if he was about to start a lecture. ‘To installing the right kinds of communications facilities. The kind that can’t listen in when they’re not invited and the kind that we can listen in on if…’

‘We?’ I said.

‘The USA,’ Spinoza said. ‘The land of the free.’

‘I don’t quite get it. You mean this guy has got some protection? I don’t care. I’m not Dirty Cliffy. I don’t want revenge.’

‘You’re missing the point, Cliff.’

Heseltine carefully removed a strip of paper along the edge of one of his sheets; he slid a broad, pink thumbnail along the serrations. ‘Hell,’ he said. ‘We use “Sunny” ourselves. Sometimes.’

They had January and Martin in General Hospital and Spinoza drove me there in the white Mercedes. His driving was as skilled and purposeful as ever but he seemed to be off in the clouds ‘mentally’, as the sports commentators say.

‘Are you confused?’ I said. ‘Have you got a loyalty problem or something?’

‘Shit, no. I can do the job.’

‘What is the job?’

He shot me a sidelong look, maybe to see if I was checking my gun. ‘Don’t get paranoid, Cliff. The job is to get January in and out in one piece. So far, we’re doing all right. I give you a lot of the credit.’

‘Thanks. But it’s going to be harder if some of the people on our side are really on their side, if you follow me.’

‘I don’t think so. “Sunny” is a freelance, really.’

‘Why’d you get so upset back at the lab then?’

He laughed. ‘Heseltine’d love you for calling it the lab. Well, this development does make it a little harder to choose the right people to see your party from the hospital to the hearing and onto the plane.’

‘Let me know when you’ve worked it out.’

‘I will. And there’s one other thing.’

‘What?’

‘Do you realise that you’re the only member of the target party running around loose at the moment?’

I laughed. ‘Target party! You sure do talk funny.’

‘You think this is a joke?’

‘No, I don’t. The trouble is, I feel out of my depth. I don’t know this place like I know Sydney. I just don’t have the feel for it. I don’t even know what this road’s called, and these bloody alphabet streets…H Street, I Street. It makes me feel… vulnerable.’