The Big Drop Read online

  We started down a steep and long flight of steps. I could see the water gleaming out ahead and heard the big surf crashing on the beach. About half of the houses were in darkness and the whole area was quiet and still apart from the sound of the sea and a few night birds calling. Halfway down the steps Salmon stepped over the rail and took a look into the blackness.

  ‘Shoulda brought a torch,’ he muttered.

  ‘Don’t you know the way?’

  He glanced at me sharply. ‘Sure, but it’s been a while.’

  We pushed through the bushes following a rabbit track until a squat shape loomed up in front of us. Salmon had taken his jacket off because the path ran slightly up and it was sweaty work on a mild night. He fumbled in a pocket and pulled out a bunch of keys. He handed me the jacket.

  ‘Wait here, Hardy.’

  I stood in the shadows holding the jacket and feeling like a five hundred dollar-flunky; then I remembered that it was a thousand dollar-flunky and felt better. Salmon went up some wooden steps and took a long time selecting a key and getting it into the lock. Then he opened the door and took a long time turning on a light. The jacket felt heavy because there was a .45 automatic in one of its pockets. It was a long time since my army days when we practised stripping guns in the dark but I found I could still do it. I kept an eye on the light in the cabin while I ejected the bullet from the chamber, turned the top bullet in the spring-loaded magazine around and effectively jammed the thing as tight as a seized piston.

  When Salmon came out of the cabin he was carrying a small canvas bag and wearing a look of satisfaction. I handed him the jacket.

  ‘Want me to carry the bag?’

  ‘Sure.’ He gave me the bag and we pushed our way back to the path. The bag felt full of something but light; maybe it was toilet tissue for his trip.

  Back at the car, Salmon shrugged his jacket on and took the bag from me. I looked up at the starry sky out to sea.

  ‘Nice place,’ I said.

  ‘Yeah.’ He was waiting impatiently for me to open the car.

  ‘Changed a bit in the last year or so though.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  We drove back to Erskineville in virtual silence; it was an easy drive which gave me plenty of time to think. As far as I knew, nothing had changed much in Whale Beach for years—the affluent and trendy locals wouldn’t permit it.

  Salmon stowed the bag away in the bedroom and we had a Scotch before going to our respective beds.

  ‘What time’s your flight?’ I was contemplating another Scotch, mindful of the hardness of the sofa.

  ‘Eleven in the morning.’

  ‘All fixed up?’

  ‘Yeah. Goodnight, Hardy, and thanks,’

  I couldn’t sleep. I lay awake thinking about it and trying to figure what was going on. I felt sure things weren’t what they seemed but that didn’t take me far. I dozed and jerked awake with the same doubts and confusions crowding my mind. I didn’t care about Harvey Salmon one way or another; as far as I knew he hadn’t ever killed anybody, and in the world of organised crime his speciality was more in the organisation than the criminality. Still, I didn’t like being so much in the dark. Around 7 a.m. I called Harry Tickener, who writes on crime and politics for The News. He was grumpy about being woken up so early and I had to keep my voice low which made him even grumpier.

  ‘What can you tell me about Harvey Salmon, Harry?’

  ‘At 7 a.m. nothing.’

  ‘Come on, I need something. I know what he looks like, six foot two, fourteen stone; what about habits and so on?’

  ‘Shit, Cliff, I don’t know. Wait’ll I get a cigarette. Okay . . . Well, fourteen stone’s a bit heavy. I can’t think of much, except that he’s a tennis nut.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Tennis, played it all the time, had his own court and that.’

  ‘Thanks, Harry.’

  ‘Any other time, Cliff. Not 7 a.m.’

  He rang off and I put the phone down carefully. I was trying to digest the information when my flatmate came through the door wearing striped pyjamas and pointing the .45 at me.

  ‘Heard you on the extension,’ he said. ‘Careless.’

  ‘You’re not Harvey Salmon.’

  ‘No, but I’ve got this and you’re still going to do what I say.’

  He didn’t tell me his name but he told me about the deal over the next few hours as he packed his bags and we waited to go to Mascot. As he understood it, an elaborate arrangement had been arrived at between Salmon and the State and Federal police. Salmon wanted two things—a new identity and a new life in South America (that was one) and a chance to pick up a bag of money from Whale Beach. The Federal police wanted information; the State cops wanted convictions. Harvey Salmon was released on licence in return for certain information; he didn’t trust the police and he knew about a look-alike who was doing time in Grafton jail for fraud. The deal was that the look-alike would move around Sydney for a few days under police protection so that the real Salmon could get an idea of how effective that might be.

  ‘What about the bag of money?’

  ‘Salmon was dead keen to get hold of that. The State cops okayed it; the Federals don’t know about it.’

  ‘Why would the cops make a deal like that? Salmon’d sung already.’

  ‘Not the whole song.’ Harvey Salmon said. ‘He keeps the last few notes until he gets his tickets and the bag at the airport.’

  ‘What d’you get?’

  ‘Some money and my freedom.’ He grinned. ‘And Lulu. Christ!’

  ‘You can go back for more.’

  He shook his head. ‘Deal is, I leave Sydney for good.’

  ‘Tough.’

  ‘Yeah, now give me that gun you flashed outside the club.’

  I gave him the gun, he took the bullets out and put them in his pocket before returning it. That made two inoperative guns and quite a relaxed atmosphere as far as I was concerned.

  ‘What do you know about the cops who were tailing us?’ I said, just to pass the time.

  He grinned again; he was getting more relaxed by the minute and if he kept on grinning he might turn from a sad spaniel to a happy kelpie. ‘I’d guess they were State boys the other night.’ he said. ‘Didn’t care too much if Salmon got roughed up. They would’ve been the Federals last night; they’re not supposed to know about the money, but they couldn’t follow Neville Wran down Macquarie Street, anyway.’

  ‘Probably right. Whose idea was it to bring me in?’

  ‘Mine. I heard about you from Clive Patrick.’

  ‘Is he in Grafton?’

  ‘Yeah, copping it sweet. Be out pretty soon.’

  I nodded and thought it over. I could take over now; the .45 was a liability and I was sure I had more moves than whatever-his-name-was. But I thought I might as well see it through.

  ‘What about the other five hundred dollars?’ I said.

  ‘At the airport—after the swap.’

  I drove to the airport. He checked a suitcase through to Rio having collected his ticket and an envelope at the desk. He had a smaller bag as cabin luggage which was about the same size as the bag he’d collected at Whale Beach.

  Pan Am flight 304 to Rio de Janeiro was on time and would be boarding in an hour. He got his seat allocated and was heading for the baggage security check when things started to happen. First, a tall man stepped in front of us and showed us his face. He had a long, droopy sort of face, baggy eyes and was built on leaner lines than my companion.

  ‘I’m Salmon,’ he said. ‘Let’s have the bag and the ticket.’

  The false Harvey Salmon was looking nervous; he fumbled in his jacket for the ticket and seemed to be playing for time. Two men detached themselves from a knot of people looking at a flights monitor and strode over to us. They were big, wore expensive suits and had short haircuts. One of them gripped the real Salmon by the arm. ‘Would you come with us, sir?’

  Salmon gave the man a tired smile. ‘It’s okay. I’ve
got it here.’ He tapped his breast pocket.

  ‘Just come along, sir, and you too, please.’ He looked sternly at the impostor and me and fell in behind us like a sheep dog. I thought he’d be a pretty good heel snapper from the smooth confidence of his movements.

  ‘Along here.’ The man holding on to Salmon steered us across the floor and behind some shrubbery to a room marked ‘Security’.

  ‘What is this?’ Salmon said. He got shoved firmly inside for an answer.

  The room contained a desk with a chair drawn up to it and a row of chairs over by a big, bright window. The sun was shining in and throwing long shadows from the divisions in the window across the pale carpet.

  ‘We’re police,’ the arm-holder said. ‘If you and Mr Salmon would just go over there and sit down, please.’ He struggled to frame the polite words and to keep his diction smooth. Under the barbering and suiting there was a very rough customer. Salmon looked alarmed and angry; he moved his hand towards his pocket again.

  ‘I’ve got it here.’

  ‘I’m sure you have.’ the cop said. ‘Sit down.’

  We sat, not side by side but a few seats apart. Salmon had broken out in sweat. The second cop put the bag on the desk and opened it. He nodded and turned to the impostor.

  ‘Good. Got your ticket?’

  The look-alike nodded and the cop carefully extracted a bundle of notes from the bag and passed them to him. ‘Harvey Salmon’ counted them, separated some and walked over to me. He held out the money; I sat still and he dropped the notes in my lap.

  ‘Thanks, Hardy. I’ve got a plane to catch.’ He didn’t look at Salmon; he turned and walked out of the room. Salmon stood up and rushed across to where the policeman was zipping up the bag.

  ‘That’s mine,’ he yelped. ‘We had a deal. I get the money and you get the names.’

  The policeman shook his head slowly and his smile was as cold and cheerless as a Baptist chaplain. The second cop moved in behind Salmon to do some shepherding.

  ‘You’ve got it wrong, Harvey,’ the bag man said. ‘We wanted the money and no one wanted the names. No one wants you either.’

  The other cop nudged Salmon. ‘Come on.’

  ‘No!’ Salmon spun around desperately and looked across the room at me. ‘Help me!’

  The cop swung the bag in his hand and smiled again. ‘He’s done all he can. Harvey Salmon’s flown to Rio. Come on.’

  Salmon sagged and one of them grabbed him and held on hard. I sat there with an empty gun in my pocket and five hundred dollars in my crotch and watched them leave the room.

  Three days later I sat in the home of my friend, Detective Sergeant Frank Parker, and told him about it. The telling took a bottle of wine and set up a strong craving for one of Frank’s cigarillos. I fought the craving; no sense losing all the battles. Frank listened and nodded several times while he smoked and poured the wine.

  ‘It’s pretty neat.’ he said when I finished. ‘Must’ve been a lot of money in that bag?’

  ‘Where would that have come from d’you reckon?’

  Frank leaned back and blew smoke up over my head. ‘Let’s see, I’d say it would have been grateful contributions from people Salmon had kept quiet about. Mind you,’ he gave me the sort of smile you give when you read a politician’s obituary, ‘that’s not to say that some of their names wouldn’t have been on the final list he was going to hand over.’

  ‘Jesus. I still don’t feel good about watching him being carted away to be cancelled.’

  ‘Nothing you could do. Describe the man in charge, Cliff.’

  ‘Big,’ I said. ‘Six one or two; heavy but with a lot of muscle; smart suit; fresh everything—shave, haircut, the lot. Looked like he’d still be good at breaking heads and that he learned not to say “youse” and “seen” for “saw” not so long ago.’

  Frank nodded and drew in smoke. ‘He’s an Armed Robbery “D”. Henry “Targets” Skinner. His turn’ll come.’

  Tearaway

  ‘He’s a tearaway, Cathy,’ I said. ‘You know it, I know it, everybody knows it. The best thing you could do would be to forget him. Get out of Sydney; go to Queensland. Kevin’s caused you enough misery for a lifetime, it’s all he’s good at.’

  ‘He never hurt anybody,’ she said stubbornly. ‘Never. Not anyone!’

  ‘Just luck. He carried a gun—he pointed it, he never fired it but that’s just a matter of luck. One split second can change all that and make him a murderer. That’s still on the cards.’

  I thought I had to be hard on her, but it turned out I was too hard. She’d come to me for help; she tramped up the dirty stairs and down the gloomy corridor and knocked on my battered door and all I’d done was cause her to drop her head onto my desk and cry buckets. I never did have much tact—a private detective doesn’t use it much—but this wouldn’t do. I came around the desk and gave her a tissue and made her sit up and swab down. Her boyfriend, Kevin Kearney had broken out a police van two days before. Kev and his three mates were on their way to their trial for armed robbery. One of them was shot dead twenty feet from the van; Kevin and the other two had got away. He hadn’t contacted Cathy which was probably the first good turn he’d done her.

  When she’d stemmed the flow and got a cigarette going, Cathy filled me in on the shape and structure of her distress.

  ‘He got word out to me that he was going to run. I got a car and some money and we were going . . . she stopped and looked at me hesitantly.

  ‘Call it Timbuktu, Cathy,’ I said. ‘What does it matter?’

  ‘Well, I heard about the break on the news. Christ, I nearly died when they said one of them’d been shot. But . . .’

  The cigarette wavered in her hand and she looked ready to cry again.

  ‘It wasn’t Kev,’ I said gently. ‘Go on.’

  ‘That’s all. He didn’t come—no phone call, nothing.’

  ‘I read about it. The cops say they’ve got no leads.’

  She flicked ash; she was perking up a bit. ‘Same here.’ She opened her bag and took out a roll of notes and put them on the desk.

  ‘Nine hundred bucks. It’s the money we were going to shoot through on. Kev’d beat the shit out of me if he knew what I was doing, but I want you to find him.’

  I looked at the money, thinking a lot but not saying anything. Cathy stubbed her cigarette out in an ashtray alongside the cash.

  ‘Look, he’s guilty, he’ll get—what? Ten years? He’ll serve—what? Six? That’s not too bad. I can wait. On the run he’s likely to get killed, and then I’d kill myself.’ She grinned at me, finally showing some of the spark that made her one of the most popular whores in Glebe. ‘You’d be saving two lives, Cliff.’

  I grinned at her. ‘When you put it like that, how can I refuse? But seriously, Cathy, it’s bloody dangerous. Harbouring’s a serious charge. One of them’s dead, the cops won’t really mind if they take out another couple.’

  ‘I know. Just do what you can. He might’ve decided it was safer to go another way, he could be clear. I just want to know something.’

  ‘All right.’ I took the money; I didn’t have any qualms about the way it had been earned—hell, I’d worked for doctors and lawyers; all manner of professional people.

  ‘Where do you start?’ Cathy said.

  ‘With whoever it was gave you the nod about Kevin’s break.’

  That pulled her up short—it touched on the code of Cathy’s world: don’t name names, don’t describe faces, don’t take cheques. I waited while she lit up again.

  ‘No way around it, love. It’s the only way in.’

  ‘Kevin wouldn’t like it,’ she blew smoke in a thin, nervous stream. ‘Well, it was Dave Follan.’

  She told where and when Follan drank, which was better than getting his address. I told her I’d stay in touch with her and report everything I learned straightaway. She came around the desk on her high heels, put her behind in its tight denim on the desk, leaned forward to give me the cl
eavage and kissed me on the cheek.

  ‘That’s like having fish fingers at Doyle’s.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Never mind. I’ll do what I can, Cathy. But I tell you one thing, you contact me if Kevin gets in touch with you. I don’t want him wandering around with the wrong ideas about me.’

  ‘He’s a sweet guy really.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  She left and I leaned back in my chair and thought about Cathy and Kevin. I’d known them both in Glebe since they were kids. Kevin wagged school, stole things and played reserve grade football where he learned to drink and fight. I saw him play for Balmain a few times; I saw him in a police line-up and then I saw him in a car that belonged to someone else. I was working for the someone else at the time, so I had a talk to Kevin. His ideas about property were loose; he was apologetic but unfussed about the car. I took it away, and we parted with mutual respect.

  Cathy’s path to the game was the usual one—good looks, lazy parents, bored teachers, boring schools, no skills, good times. She was at it by fifteen, and nine years later the marks on her were plain. Cathy had seen and touched it all; raw life and death had pushed and shoved her. She’d pushed back with good humour and a generous heart and very little else. She once told me she’d never read a book, and had watched TV for seventy-two hours straight when she was stoned. Her pimp—who I didn’t know was a pimp at the time—hired me to protect him from another pimp. It all got messy and I ended up protecting Cathy. Then she met Kevin and he took over all the work.

  When you want information about crims, talk to the cops, and vice versa. They spend half their lives on the phone to each other. I called Frank Parker and asked him what he’d heard about the escapee Kevin Vincent Kearney.

  ‘Not a thing.’

  ‘His best girl’s anxious.’

  ‘So she should be. Is she willing to help us catch him before he does something silly?’

  ‘Not exactly.’

  ‘It was a sweet deal of a break, Cliff. In retrospect the van driver reckoned there could’ve been half a dozen cars on the roads blocking him and slowing him down. They had a nifty little jigger to cut the hole. That all takes money, and there’s only one way to pay that sort of money back.’