White Meat ch-2 Read online

  White Meat

  ( Cliff Hardy - 2 )

  Peter Corris

  Peter Corris

  White Meat

  1

  I’d seen him a couple of times on the flat at Randwick racecourse – six foot four and eighteen stone of expensive suiting and barbering with jewellery and shoe leather to match. I’d given him some of my money and he’d put it in a bag. I hadn’t liked him much but it’s hard to like people you lose money to. I suppose we’d exchanged twenty words, not more, on the course, so I was surprised when he rang me at the office.

  He was lucky to catch me. I had an appointment that afternoon and had called in to check the mail on a whim – private detecting is slow in the winter and I wasn’t expecting any notes in invisible ink or bundles of currency. Turned out it wasn’t just luck. I thought briefly about ignoring the phone but couldn’t do it.

  “Hardy?” The voice was rich, pickled in Courvoisier. “Ted Tarelton, I’ve got a little job for you.”

  “Good, I’m free. Tomorrow do you?”

  “Today’ll do me. Now!”

  He could take my money but not my pride.

  “Sorry Mr Tarelton, I can’t make it, I’ve got an appointment.”

  “I know, with Tickener in Newtown. I heard. That’s why I called you, you can kill two birds with one stone. Get over here first, you’ve got time.”

  I hung onto the receiver and thought. Tickener had called an hour ago asking me to meet him. He didn’t say why and he’d been secretive about the whole thing. But Big Ted knew. Interesting.

  “All right. Where’s ‘here’?”

  “Paddington. Armstrong Street. Number ten. Make it quick.” He hung up. We hadn’t discussed fees or anything like that but then that wouldn’t be Ted’s style. Eighty dollars a day would be a flea bite to him and my expenses wouldn’t come up to his cigar bill. We also hadn’t discussed the job but I’d never heard that Ted was a villain so he probably didn’t want me to kill anyone. Maybe he’d lost a horse.

  I could have walked to Paddo at a pinch and it would have been good for me. Also the car wasn’t going too well and it would have been good for it. To hell with doing good. I drove. Armstrong Street was long and curvy and you could see Rushcutters Bay along most of its length if you stood on tiptoe – that meant the view would be fine from the balconies. And balconies there were plenty of. Almost every house in the street had been restored to its former glory with glistening black iron lace standing out against the virgin white paint jobs. The gardens in front were deep for terraces and there was enough bamboo in them to build a kampong. Number ten was really numbers ten to twelve; Ted had belted down a three storey palace like his own to give himself some garage space. Two great roller doors faced the street beside his garden like giant sightless eyes. Say two hundred thousand all up.

  I parked the Falcon between an Alfa with some dust on it and a spotless Volvo and went up to wipe my feet on the mat of number ten. The gate swung open in a way you could never get them to in Glebe where I live, but I thought I could see a small chip out of one of the ornamental tiles on the steps. The bell was a black button set inside several concentric rings of highly polished brass. I pushed it and something deep and tuneful sounded inside. While I waited I picked lint off my corduroy coat and brushed down the pants that almost matched. A quick rub of the desert boots against the back of the pants legs and I was ready.

  The heavy panelled door was opened by one of those women who give me short breath and sweaty palms. She was thirtyish, about five feet ten inches tall and she wore a denim slacks suit over a white polo neck skivvy. Her hair was black and it hung over her shoulders, framing a long olive face with a proper arrangement of dark eyes, strong nose and wide mouth. Her lip gloss was plum-coloured like her eye shadow. If she was carrying an extra pound or two it didn’t look as if it’d get in the way.

  “I’m Madeline Tarelton,” she said. “You must be Mr Hardy.”

  “That’s right, Madeline Tarelton. I don’t suppose you’re his niece, going spare?”

  She smiled understanding. “Wife. Come in.”

  I followed her down a hundred yards of polished cedar planking in which the nail marks were black the way they always are – something to do with chemical reaction between the metal and the wood I suppose. I’m sure it’s no problem. A cedar staircase ascended to the stars on the left before we reached a living room with an acre of Persian carpet on the floor and several tons of brass weapons and shields on the walls. Ted Tarelton was sitting on a silk upholstered chair reading a form guide and making sure that his cigar ash hit the enamelled dish at his side. He raised an arm in greeting, which I could understand, given the effort it would have taken to lift the whole carcase. He pointed to another chair done out in flowered silk and I sat down. Madeline murmured something about drinks and moved off with a rustling of denim and a light tapping of high cork heels.

  “You met Madeline,” Tarelton asserted. “Married her two years ago. She fixed up the house.”

  I nodded and rolled a cigarette and waited.

  Tarelton folded the form guide this way and that and put it down on the chair beside him. He picked up his cigar from the tray and took a long pull on it. I lit my smoke and breathed some of it in and out and waited. After some tapping of cigar on dish and fiddling with the form guide Tarelton looked directly at me.

  “I want you to find my daughter.”

  “OK,” I said. “Is she in Newtown?”

  Tarelton gave me a sideways look to see if I was kidding him. He decided I wasn’t and displayed some of his intelligence.

  “Oh that. No mystery. I rang one of my mates on The News to get a line on a good private man. He heard Tickener talking to you and told me about it. I remembered you from the track.”

  I nodded. “Newtown?”

  He put three big fingers into a pocket of his tweed waistcoat and pulled out a card. He flicked it across to me with the practised gesture of a card player. It had been white but was white no longer, closer to grey. It hadn’t been folded but it hadn’t been pressed inside the family Bible either. The words “Sammy Trueman’s Gymnasium” were printed across the card and an address and a phone number were in the opposite lower corners.

  “I found this in with some of Noni’s stuff,” Tarelton said. “It seemed out of…”

  “Character?”

  “Yeah. Out of character. That’s after this James bloke tells me she’s missing.”

  “Hold on.” I drew on the cigarette and wondered if I’d heard right when I thought drinks had been mentioned. “Let’s get it clear. You’ve got a daughter named Noni and she’s missing. How old is she? How long’s she been gone?”

  “Twenty-five. Been gone a week, I think.”

  “Who’s James?”

  “Saul James. An actor she… lives with.”

  “She’s on with him?”

  “Yeah. In a funny way, seems to me.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “Well, Noni’s my girl from my first marriage. Her mother died eight, ten years ago. I didn’t see her for most of her young life but she came to me when Ingrid died. Finished school and started acting. That’s when she met this James. She moved out and set up with him a couple of years ago. I only see her from time to time. I pay a lot of her bills though.”

  The cork heels came clicking again and Madeline’s husky voice broke in.

  “Too many.”

  “Yeah, well, she’s my kid and I can afford it.”

  Mrs Tarelton was carrying a tray with three tall tinkling glasses on it. They were amber and had little bubbles rising through the liquid. Looked for all the world like Scotch and soda to me. I accepted one and looked at the gargoyle clock on the mantel – eleven o’clock, quite late. br />
  Tarelton sipped his drink and then put it on the arm of the chair beside him. Madeline frowned so he lifted it up and held it close to his body like an undischarged grenade.

  “Well, I got this bill to do with Noni’s car and I phoned James because I wanted to talk to her about it. Hell of a lot of money. She wasn’t there. James said she was with us but we never saw her at all around then.”

  “How often did you see her?”

  “Once in a blue moon,” Madeline chipped in. “When she wanted money.”

  Tarelton sighed. “Right. Turned out James thought she came over to stay with us regularly, every month. That’s what she told him and he believed it. You’d reckon he’d ring or make contact some way but he says he never did. He sounds like a silly prick to me.”

  “Don’t be coarse Ted.”

  “Well he does. What sort of man lets a girl go tripping off for a week a month and doesn’t check on her? Bloody idiot.”

  I didn’t want to be coarse but I had to agree, it sounded odd. A lot of things could go on in a week a month over a couple of years.

  “When did you speak to James?”

  “A week ago – no, four days – and she’d been gone for a few days then.”

  “Tried him again?”

  “This morning. Nothing.”

  “All right. What about the card?”

  “She left a bundle of clothes here for some reason on her last fleeting visit,” said Madeline acidly. “Ted looked through them and found the card.”

  “It’s rough country,” I said and reminded myself of just how rough by taking a long swallow of the drink. Not too much of that brand in Newtown. “Did James know anything about this connection?” I flicked a fingernail against the card.

  “Yeah, strangely enough he did. He said she’d mentioned a boxer a couple of times, guy named Ricky. It was some sort of joke with them apparently. I don’t get it.”

  “I think I do.” Madeline moved off her chair to stand in the middle of the room between her husband and me. She stood well and Tarelton seemed to get uncomfortable from just looking at her; he started fidgeting again and crossed and uncrossed his legs. I couldn’t blame him.

  “I think Noni and James had an understanding,” she said, “- what’s called a sophisticated relationship, if you know what I mean.”

  “I think so,” I agreed. “It’s going to make her hellish hard to find. Too many trails to follow.”

  Ted decided to take offence; he had to do something. “That’s crap,” he barked. “Noni’s a bit wild but…”

  “You wouldn’t know, Ted,” said Madeline. “Let Hardy here find it all out.”

  The bookie sat back in his silk chair, picked up his Scotch and downed half of it. “Right, right,” he muttered. He was half a foot taller than her and twice her weight but she had him on toast. I finished my drink and stood up.

  “Could I see this bundle of clothes?”

  “Why?” Tarelton growled.

  “Just to form an impression. I’ll need a photograph too.”

  Mrs Tarelton set her barely touched drink down on a coaster on a darkwood table. “Come upstairs. She has a room, her things are there.”

  I followed her up the stairs to the second storey. The shag pile was so deep I felt I needed snowshoes. Her jacket came down just below her waist and I had an almost irrepressible desire to slide my hand into the pocket stretched tight across her left buttock. I fought it down. We went into a room at the back of the house which looked down onto a leafy garden. There was a low narrow bed and a few bits of pricey furniture. Otherwise it was a rather bare room, not welcoming to anyone.

  Madeline opened a couple of drawers to show me an array of female clothing. I ran an eye over it. Expensive stuff, not hippy – dressy. She opened a built-in cupboard and reached down a cardboard box. She flipped a few things inside it over and came up with a six by eight glossy photograph. It showed a girl in her early twenties standing in a street. The passers-by were washed out and the girl dominated the scene. She was shown full-length and looked to be tall with a high waist and long legs. It was hard to tell because she was wearing an enveloping cloak over a long dress.

  “Some kind of publicity shot,” said Madeline. “Good likeness though.”

  I looked closely into the picture. There was no sign of Ted’s fleshy features in the face. This was a tight, bony structure with high cheekbones and a Slavic look. A strand of what looked like blonde hair was draped across the face.

  Madeline drummed her fingers impatiently on the chest of drawers as I examined the picture.

  “You’ll know her if you see her,” she said tartly.

  “You don’t like her?”

  “She leeches on Ted. Doesn’t give a… damn for him. Still, you’d better find her. He’s in a state about it.”

  We went downstairs. Tarelton had finished his drink and the cigar was dead in the tray beside him. He was reading the form guide again. I told him my fee and he brushed the matter aside. Then I told him I needed a retainer and he reached back to his hip pocket. He stopped the action and produced the wallet from the breast pocket of his jacket. It bulged and he detached four fifty dollar notes from it without a thought. He handed them to me.

  “This do?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Get on it, eh? Newtown, I don’t get down there much these days.”

  You wouldn’t, I thought. You’re a long way from the SP book in the lane beside the pub and the sly-grog joint at the weekend. You’re in the silk department but the price is high.

  “I’ll be in touch,” I said.

  Madeline walked me to the door and I smelt some kind of apple fragrance on her as she moved. She opened the door and was bathed in a beam of ruby light from the stained glass pane above it. She knew it too. She always stood just there when the light was like that. I said goodbye and headed for the torn leather and faded duco and the clutch that slipped.

  2

  I met Harry Tickener outside Trueman’s gym in Newtown. We crossed the street and had a beer in the bloodhouse opposite while we waited for Trueman to open the place up for the afternoon loungers. Tickener had put on a bit of weight since I’d first met him a year ago on the Gutteridge case, and I ribbed him about it. It didn’t worry him.

  “I’ve been living better since I got off the errands and into the real stories. Even got an expense account of sorts.”

  I put my money back in my pocket and let him pay for the drinks. We sipped the beer and he told me about the offer he’d had from another paper which he turned down. I told him about a few of the less dull jobs I’d had recently. Private detecting is mostly about missing people who may or may not turn up, guarding people and money and putting asunder those whom God hath joined together. I’d been doing a bit less of the latter lately which suited me fine although I never knew when I’d have to go back to it as my mainstay. The new divorce laws were cutting down on the old in flagrante delicto stuff somewhat, but there were always people around nasty enough to want it that way.

  A clock above the bar, old enough to be the missing link with the sundial, struck two and we let the barman take our glasses away and mop up our puddles. Outside a fine rain was falling and we turned our collars up and dashed for the doorway across the street.

  “Why did you bring me out in this?” I asked him. “I was drinking at home, you could have come over.”

  “You said you were interested in fighters,” he sniffed. A drop of moisture that wasn’t rain hung off the end of his long, thin nose.

  “You’re getting a cold Harry, you shouldn’t be out. Yeah, I was interested in fighters, when there were some.”

  Tickener blotted his nose with a tissue. “There’s one here, I want to get your opinion on him.”

  “Why? And why the hush-hush?”

  “Might put some money on him next time he’s up, might do a story on him.”

  “Well, your security’s lousy and I thought you were above all that now, the sports page?”
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  I told him about Tarleton’s grapevine but he shrugged it off.

  “I like to keep my hand in. Come up and have a look at him.”

  We went up three flights in a building which had probably served a dozen different purposes since it was built in the middle of the last century. There were signs that it had been a stables on the lower level with living quarters above and it had been a sweatshop factory and a rooming house at different times and probably a brothel. Now the ground floor was a dry-cleaning plant; the second floor accommodated a dental technician and a small instant printing joint that looked dodgy. The top floor was taken up by Sammy Trueman’s gym.

  The room was about a hundred feet square and neon lit because the grimy, cob-webbed windows let in practically no light. A bank of lockers stood along one wall and a partitioned-off section contained a changing room, a toilet block and Trueman’s office. The ring was in the middle of the room on a metre-high platform. The canvas was stained with sweat and blood. Incongruously the ropes were new, bright yellow, and the padding over the hooks and post tops was pillar-box red. In one corner a battered heavy bag hung from a hook in the ceiling and a punching ball on a stand stood a little to the left. The light bag in the opposite corner was red and shiny like a tropical fruit.

  A big man, thick in the waist and shoulders, with a neck like a bull and frizzy white hair on his head and arms, came out of the changing room, plodded up to the bag and began pounding it. He danced a heavy one-two, one-two on the thin canvas mat. The noise was like a tattoo on a snare drum played a bit slow. Sweat started to roll down his pink shoulders and seemed to trigger off all the latent odours in the place. A stink of liniment, resin and cigarette smoke blended in the air, asserted itself and then faded to become an atmospheric background. A dark-skinned youth limped out, took a rope off a peg and started skipping; he had one slightly withered leg and he was clumsy on every second swing.

  Sammy Trueman had been a useful lightweight in the years after the war when that division was in the doldrums. He held the Australian title for a short time and lost it to someone whose name I forget. It doesn’t matter because Jack Hassen came along soon after and cleaned them all up. Sammy kept enough of his dough to get a long lease on the gym. He kept the equipment in reasonable shape and he’d trained a few boys who did alright without ever making headlines.