The Big Drop Page 3

  P. I. Blues

  Nothing was going right; I hadn’t had a client in two weeks and I hadn’t paid a bill for a month. That’s the way you have to look at it in this game—it’s clients balanced against bills. If it ever gets to be clients balanced against bank account I won’t know what to do. My ex-wife, Cyn, once told me that I was a private investigator because I didn’t have the character to starve in a garret. Maybe she was right; anyway she didn’t stick around to starve with me and make it romantic.

  My mind was running on romance when the phone rang—maybe this was it.

  ‘Hardy Investigations.’ I realised I was crooning like Kamahl. ‘Hardy speaking,’ I said gruffly.

  ‘You sound like two different people.’ The voice was young, female and educated, a winning combination for someone who is more or less the opposite.

  ‘Not really, I was thinking about two different things at once. I can do that sometimes. How can I help you, Ms . . .?’

  ‘You can help me by thinking about just one thing—how I can get my ex-husband to pay me the two hundred thousand dollars he owes me.’

  ‘It sounds well worth thinking about,’ I said.

  ‘She said you’d be interested. She also said you were good at your work.’

  ‘She being?’

  ‘Kay Fletcher.’

  ‘Aha.’

  ‘She said you’d say that too. I’ve got a letter from her for you.’

  ‘Did she tell you what I’d say to that?’

  ‘No. She didn’t know. Will you see me?’

  Kay Fletcher was a journalist I’d had a brief affair with a few years before. She was based in Canberra then and had moved on and up to New York since. We’d clicked well at first, and then her ambition and my inertia pulled us apart. I’d thought of her often but had not made contact beyond a letter and a card.

  My caller’s name was Pauline Angel, and I asked her to come round to my office from her hotel in Double Bay. That gave me time for a quick shave and brush up, and a clearing of the rubbish off the desk and a general rough dusting with a copy of Newsweek.

  She was everything her voice had promised; there was New York stamped on her clothes and the city had brushed her Australian voice a bit. I put her age at around thirty, which would have made her a few years younger than Kay and a few more still younger than me. Her class was middle, her intelligence was upper. She handed me the envelope and I put it away in a drawer.

  ‘Aren’t you going to read it?’

  ‘Not until I’m wearing my silk pyjamas.’

  ‘I’m not sure I like that remark; it’s cheap.’

  ‘You don’t have to like it. I’d be embarrassed to read the letter in front of you—I might laugh or cry. Tell me about the two hundred thousand.’

  ‘Ben and I split up a year ago, in New York actually. We had an apartment near the park and we sold it—Ben sold it, but it was in both names. I signed the papers. Just over four hundred thousand dollars. Jesus!’ She got a cigarette out of her jacket pocket and lit it. I passed an ashtray across and tried to concentrate on the two hundred grand rather than a few cents worth of cigarette smoke. I didn’t find it easy.

  ‘You’re legally divorced?’

  ‘Sure. Ben’s married again. But we didn’t make any legal arrangements about a settlement or anything—it was just understood that the money’d be split fifty-fifty.

  ‘No two people understand the same when it comes to money. He won’t divvy?’

  ‘He says it’s all gone. I don’t believe him.’

  ‘Gone how?’

  ‘In a shares deal; it’s absurd, he’s an architect, he doesn’t know about shares.’

  I could have told her about some people who didn’t know about shares until they found out the hard way, but I didn’t. In my experience, people who’ve lost a lot of money usually have a fair bit left. I took some of hers from her, got her address and the details on the husband, and promised her I’d look into it and report quickly. At one hundred and twenty-five dollars per day—that’s the least I could do.

  It was a nice day for a drive, particularly for a drive to Watsons Bay. The address Ms Angel had given me turned out to be for a house overlooking Camp Cove and therefore the city and other expensive and expansive views. I stood outside it for a minute, looking down past the house at the view—that was free and no-one tried to stop me.

  That all changed when I reached the gate which was a high, solid, metal-bound piece of hardware set on massive hinges in a wall that looked thick enough to withstand artillery. I banged with the heavy knocker and heard a bell ring inside—nice trick. Then I noticed a bell button on the wall and I pressed it, but it only got me more bell, not knocking. I felt disappointed, and was ready to be critical when I heard footsteps approaching the gate. Heavy footsteps, big-man footsteps. The face that appeared when the well-concealed panel in the gate lifted wasn’t one you’d make suggestions to about the doorbell. The face was big and broad to start with, and ugly to go on with—heavy, dark brows under a crew cut and everything underneath, the broken nose, scarred eyes and thin, battered mouth saying TOUCH.

  ‘Yes sir?’ The ‘sir’ came out strangled, as if it was a word in a foreign language he’d just recently learned.

  ‘Is this Mr Angel’s residence?’

  ‘Yes.’ His hands, well out of sight, moved quickly; he brought a camera up to the aperture in the gate and quickly snapped my picture. Probably not one of my best with my mouth hanging open. ‘What d’you want?’ he rumbled.

  ‘Never mind.’ I ducked aside and walked off, feeling like idiot of the month.

  It was late afternoon, time to drive my humiliation home with me to Glebe and give it a drink and do some thinking. As it turned out I didn’t get the chance to drink or think; I walked up the overgrown path to my terrace house and the house fell on me; then the ground turned to thin air and all sights and sounds turned into a roaring black hum.

  When I came out of it I was lying on my back in the passageway inside the house. The peeling wallpaper and tattered carpet isn’t too good at the best of times, and wasn’t nice to regain consciousness with. Neither was the man who stood with his back to the door looking down at me. He looked about eight feet tall but that could have been because I felt about three feet at most myself. He could have been the cousin of the guy at the gate in Camp Cove; he wasn’t quite as dark and ugly, but definitely was of the same stamp. He was a bit more articulate.

  ‘I don’t know why you paid us a visit this afternoon, Hardy, and I don’t want to know. Some mistake, I assume. We don’t want trouble and I’m sure you don’t want trouble. Am I right?’

  ‘Don’t want trouble,’ I said dumbly.

  ‘Good. That’s all there is for you if you go out there again—or if you write or phone or interfere in Mr Angel’s affairs in any way. Clear?’

  ‘Mud,’ I said.

  ‘Don’t try to be smart, you’re not smart. He stepped closer and tapped the side of my head with his shoe.’ Be careful, or you’ll end up even dumber than you are now. I’ll say it again—clear?’

  I nodded, and felt a momentary return of the black hum.

  ‘Good, I hope we don’t ever have to meet again.’ He opened and closed the door in a fluid motion, and I lay on the carpet for a while trying to think of all the things I knew that other people didn’t know so I could check that my brain and personality were undamaged. It didn’t take long and it didn’t make me feel good. I got up and staggered first to the bathroom and then, with a wet, towel-draped head, to the kitchen. I drank some wine, and it tasted like turpentine so I had to go quickly back to the bathroom again. The second time the wine stayed down, and even began to taste quite good by the third glass.

  Sitting there aching and getting drunk, my mind naturally began to run on failure. I tried to think of the cases I’d abandoned for one reason or another. There were a few, given up because I’d been lied to in the first place or because the trouble I was looking into had happened too lon
g ago. I could only think of one given up because I’d been scared, and then I was scared of the police and the politicians and only someone with concrete brains wouldn’t have been scared. I was scared now and I didn’t like it. Emptying my pockets to get into a more comfortable drinking posture, I turned up Kay’s letter. I smoothed it out, poured more wine, and read it.

  Dear Cliff,

  I’ve thought of you often, wondering how you were and whether you’ve had any regrets about us. I got your letter, but it didn’t say much and I was gung ho after some story or other at the time.

  I’ve calmed down a bit and I’m considering an offer from a Sydney paper. Good offer and Sydney’s the only place in Australia I’d want to work. Don’t know what you feel about me but I’d love to see you again. Don’t feel threatened for Chrissake—just telling you I’m thinking of coming back and I’ve got no ties.

  I hope you can help my friend Pauline who’s a peach who made the bad mistake of marrying a lying shit. She’s worth helping, Cliff; I did a bit when she made the break but she needs brains and guts now on the money matter, and that’s you in my book. If you can get the money for her I’ll be confirmed in my feeling that you’re a prince.

  See you soon, I hope.

  love,

  KAY

  It made me think of the few nights I’d spent with Kay and the many nights I’d spent without anyone, and I wanted to see her very badly. My head started to hurt less and I started to feel angry—maybe it was my pride coming back. I had a few days worth of Pauline Angel’s money and an incentive—more than enough motivation. I drank some coffee, showered, put some healing ointment on my head and a cap over it, and went back to work.

  A few phone calls deepened the mystery—Ben Angel was an architect all right, but he didn’t seem to do much business. He was an American who’d acquired right of residence on Australia through his marriage to Pauline. He’d opened an office in Sydney and there was talk of big contracts, but so far it was just talk. I couldn’t get anything about his career in America at such short notice except the suggestion that his name might originally have had a few more vowels and consonants in it. Mrs Angel II was more accessible—she worked at a TV station as a PR person. My informant was a journalist who happened to know that Tolley Angel was hosting a small party at the station that evening.

  ‘Tolley?’ I said.

  ‘That’s the name she goes by.’

  ‘How would I spot her?’

  ‘Look up, they tell me she’s six foot two.’

  I drank some more coffee and went out wearing my cap and poplin raincoat and trying to look French. The TV station was on the north side, and I drove into the parking area as if I belonged.

  There weren’t many of the minions cars around but the executives’ spaces were pretty well filled with Mercs, Volvos and the like. I tried to guess which of the cars would be Tolley Angel’s; and had settled on a black Porsche when she came out of the building—that is, a six-foot-two brunette with an executive briefcase and about a thousand dollars worth of clothes on her back came out. She seemed to be in a hurry, because she almost ran to a silver grey BMW and took off with spinning wheels and spitting gravel. I followed her, blowing smoke.

  The BMW wound down through Lane Cove towards the city. It wasn’t hard to follow because she drove well, signalling early and making her moves decisively; it was a pleasure to watch her drive. She stopped in Drummoyne in a street that didn’t have anything in particular to recommend it and when I saw a middle-aged man in fashionable casual clothes come bouncing out of an ordinary looking house, jump the low fence and grab her as soon as she got clear of the car, I was so surprised I nearly leaned on the horn. They hugged and kissed enthusiastically, and then he escorted her back into the house with his arm around her so tightly she could hardly walk. She wasn’t protesting. I was parked a few cars away; the light was poor but the film in the camera was fast. I got the whole show, frame by frame. After a scarcely decent interval she came out of the house, alone; the front of her dress was unbuttoned in manner not dictated by fashion and her hair had escaped its modish arrangement and was hanging loose. She reached into the car and pulled out a wrapped bottle: I snapped her—dress, hair, bottle and all—and felt like the second-assistant pimp.

  She went back into the house, happy and jaunty and somehow I didn’t think she’d be out soon. I didn’t feel like hanging around to see if she did up her dress right or what the brand of the wine was; I drove home and started on some wine of my own. My head was hurting and not only from the earlier beating; I had one of my periods of self-dislike at what I did for a living. I believed in people doing what made them feel good and I didn’t like fingering them because other people didn’t like them doing it. There’s no remedy except to grow another skin and push on. I used the Council rate roll to identify Tolley Angel’s lover—Claude Murray and the telephone book gave me his trade—screenwriter. Call it prejudice, but the hyphen made me feel just a little better. I took a glass of wine and a biography of Scott Fitzgerald to bed. I read for a little while, thought about Kay and then I slept.

  Pauline Angel was living in a friend’s house in Balmoral close to the beach and not too close to the neighbours. The house was set on a bigger block of land than is usual in those parts, and the grass and the white paint and the palm trees on either side and in front gave it a feel of the Raj, which would be pretty easy to take in most moods. I went up the steep path in front to the wooden steps that led to a high verandah, running the width of the house. The air felt cleaner just those few metres up. I’d phoned, she was expecting me and there was a pot of tea and milk and mugs on a table in the open. I accepted the tea and repressed the shudder.

  She was going to have to nice tan soon, but the strain in her face was beginning to eat at her good looks.

  ‘Nice place,’ I said. ‘Your husband has a pretty nice place too.’

  ‘Ex-husband. Has he? I’ve never been there.’

  ‘Yeah, it’s got better security than this—high wall, peep hole, bodyguard . . .’

  ‘You’re joking!’

  ‘I’m not.’ I lifted the cap and fingered the back of my head which was tender; a little blood came off on my hand and I showed it to her. ‘One of the bodyguards paid me a visit. He warned me off with a blunt instrument.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘Neither do I. Mrs Angel, you told me your husband was an architect. I’ve met the odd architect but I never met one who employed muscle. How well did you know him? How long were you married?’

  She drank some tea, and looked out across the palm tops to the water like a castaway hoping to see a sail. ‘We were married for four years, he was away a lot. He travelled all over the States on business. He did work for all kinds of big companies. He didn’t talk about it much. I was busy too; I was studying at City College.’ She pulled a self-mocking face. ‘I was studying ceramics, God knows why. Do you know New York?’

  ‘I’ve been there—wouldn’t say I know it.’

  ‘Well, you know what a crazy place it is. It was all foreign to me and Ben was born there, he seemed to know it so well. I didn’t know how marriages worked there, he told me ours was fine and I believed him. That sounds crazy doesn’t it?’

  ‘Not really. It sounds like New York, though.’

  ‘The truth is I didn’t know him very well. No, I didn’t know him at all.’

  ‘Kay says he was a liar, what’s that mean?’

  ‘In the end I found out he had another woman living in an apartment just like the one we were in, and not far away. I don’t think he was travelling as much as he said he was.’ She finished her tea and lit a cigarette. ‘Maybe he never travelled at all, or just across a couple of blocks. I don’t know. I loved him, he was great fun. I just can’t understand what happened, why he went . . . so strange about the money.’

  ‘The place I saw was a half-million dollar job, would you expect him to have that sort of money?’

  ‘No, but I don’
t know what he’s been doing for nearly a year now. He could have made a lot, but why not give me my due?’

  ‘That’s the question. Could it have anything to do with his new wife?’

  She shrugged and stubbed her cigarette out; it wasn’t her favourite topic. ‘I don’t know. All I know about her is that she’s good-looking and she’s got a silly name.’

  I grunted and she made an effort to jolt her out of her absorption in her problems.

  ‘I’m sorry you were hurt,’ she said. ‘Kay said you were very tough.’

  I smiled. ‘I am.’

  ‘She said you were nice, too. She’s very fond of you. You haven’t drunk your tea.’

  I got up from the wicker chair that had been cutting into me. ‘She should have told you I hated tea. You’ve said a lot of interesting things, Pauline. I’m beginning to get a picture of Mr Angel. I’ll be getting back to work.’

  ‘Be careful.’

  ‘I will. Kay says she’s coming back to look Sydney over soon.’

  She smiled the smile that would look so good without the strain. ‘Yes, won’t it be great to see her?’

  ‘Great,’ I said.

  That pleasant thought made me sloppy. I ambled back down the path and strolled to my car, mentally rehearsing what I’d say to Kay. I put the key in the lock and suddenly there he was, looking at me from the other side of the car; also looking was the business end of an automatic pistol.

  ‘You don’t listen, Hardy,’ he said. ‘Looks like you’ll have to be shown what to do.’ His dark eyebrows almost met across the top of his face as he crinkled his eyes in the bright sun. He looked like a gorilla, but the gun made him the zoo keeper.

  ‘Leave this bomb where it is. You’re going for a ride in a real car. Move!’

  He gestured at a black Fairlane on the other side of the road. The man sitting at the wheel had his gun pointed at my spine.

  ‘Bags I drive,’ I said.