The Undertow Page 8

  Budget flying is okay for short trips but I prefer business class with the majors when a well-heeled client is paying. I wasn’t going to load the expense account for Frank, but I found he’d given me a cheque for five thousand, which was over the top. He’d been jumpy, thirsty, distracted, nothing like the Frank I knew. I hoped he wasn’t headed for a crisis of some kind. He’d handled plenty of professional crises in his time, but personal ones involving family are a different matter.

  The plane battled against headwinds all the way and ran into heavy turbulence over the Gold Coast. The sideways lurches and stomach-dropping free-falls matched my pessimistic mood. I was by the window and had given up on Anna Funder’s Stasiland, fascinating though it was, because I couldn’t keep the book steady enough to read. When I saw lightning flashes not too far away I began to get that this-could-be-it feeling. I’ve had it before. I wouldn’t say your life flashes before your eyes but, in my case, I do tend to conduct a bit of a life review along ‘I did it my way’ lines. It stops the instant of touchdown.

  As predicted, the air was steamy in Brisbane, as if the whole city was waiting for the storm cell to reach it and break. Despite the heat, everyone was hurrying to go about their business, and I could feel the tension around the carousel as we waited for our bags. Seemed like a hundred mobile phones were glued to a hundred ears. My bag came off early, and I beat some competitors to the Avis desk where I hired a Pulsar.

  I drove out of the airport, which they’ve had the sense to locate at a distance from the city, under a sky the colour of bruised blood plums. I’d booked into the closest motel I could find to Glendale Gardens, in Brunswick Street, New Farm—a good spot near some shops and cheap in the off season. I was on the second level looking down towards the river. I’d unpacked my bag and cracked a Fourex from the mini-bar when the storm hit. Had I wound up the window on the Pulsar? I hoped so, but I certainly wasn’t going down to check in this. The hail came first, golfball-sized, pelting the roof and the small balcony but melting immediately on the warm surfaces. The rain followed. It lashed down, driven by a stiff wind that bent the trees, shredding the ones with leaves.

  Dry and warm with a drink in hand, a storm is a bit of pleasant drama to watch. Not so much fun if you’re out in it as I have been plenty of times. The gutters ran, filled, overflowed and water washed across the roads. The few cars still moving threw up skeins of water, bonnet and roof high. Thunderclaps shook the building, or seemed to, and the lightning flashes flickered and darted across the sky like artillery.

  A knock came at the door and I tore myself away from the show to answer it. The very gay young man who’d checked me in was standing damply with his umbrella half open.

  ‘Oh, Mr Hardy, just checking. Did any water come in through the balcony door?’

  ‘Not a drop.’

  ‘Good, good. Luckily, you’re on the right side of the building, but just making sure. One of the other rooms is awash.’

  ‘Pretty dramatic, isn’t it?’

  ‘I suppose so. Your satellite TV reception could be out for a while. Hope you weren’t watching the cricket.’

  ‘Never do.’

  ‘Really? You look like a sportsman.’

  ‘Boxing.’

  ‘Oh, well, glad everything’s all right.’

  I went back to the window, and as quickly as it had arrived, the storm passed. The clouds rolled back and the sun shone through, producing a rainbow and causing steam to rise from the wet roads. All in all, it was one of the best receptions I’d ever had on arriving anywhere. I drained the can and scored a hit in the wpb. Good start.

  When the sky was totally clear I grabbed the umbrella and went for a walk down Brunswick Street, past the shops and on to the park that ran alongside the river. It was a nice park—big, not fussy and with plenty of Moreton Bay figs, the way a Brisbane park should be. There was a wide cycle and walking path around the perimeter that probably ran for close on two kilometres and the walkers and joggers and cyclists and rollerbladers were out already, splashing through the patchy shallow puddles and squelching through the thick layer of leaves blown down by the storm. A woman in running gear pushing a pram was moving along at a fast clip, passing the slowcoaches.

  I’d more or less memorised the map and found my way to Glendale Gardens easily enough. The street was upmarket— apartment blocks interspersed with big houses and a couple of high-rent commercial buildings. The Lubitsch place was in one these—a pale blue structure, three storeys, set at the highest point of the street. The front suites on the second and third levels would have a nice view out over the park and the river. Lubitsch was in suites 12 to 14 and it was a fair bet that he’d be up there in front. When you’re at a prestige address you want the best position.

  I walked back to the motel, stopping to buy a bottle of wine and check out the eateries. Plenty to choose from. I’d been hoping the walk would give me some idea of how to tackle Lubitsch, but nothing came. Except this: he was obviously doing well, had acquired a lot, and while that can be a plus it can also be a minus because what you’ve got you don’t want to lose.

  12

  I’d given Frank the phone number of the motel and he rang me when I got back from dinner.

  ‘Got you,’ he said. ‘I’ve been trying for a while.’

  ‘What’s up?’

  ‘Have you got any grog to hand? As if I need to ask.’

  I had a third of the bottle of white wine left from my meal at a Spanish joint. ‘Yes,’ I said.

  ‘Pour it.’

  I did. ‘Hate to say it, Frank, but you sound a bit pissed.’

  ‘I am, Hilde is as well. We’re well into our second bottle of champagne and thinking about a third. Peter’s been in touch.’

  I had a drink. ‘That’s good.’

  ‘He’s in love.’

  ‘That’s better.’

  ‘Yeah, and his girlfriend’s pregnant with twins. Hilde’s over the moon. They’re coming back soon. Shit, I’m rhyming. I am pissed.’

  ‘That’s great news. When did this happen?’

  ‘Hilde told me when I got back from meeting you.

  Then Peter phoned again.’

  ‘I see. And have you . . .?’

  ‘Of course I have. Hilde was afraid I was hiding cancer from her or something. She’s relieved and she’s fine about it. I mean about the boy possibly being mine. She says I should find out for sure.’

  Yeah, I thought, and what about your attraction to Catherine Heysen? But I said: ‘What effect does all this have on the investigation?’

  ‘I haven’t thought it through yet, but I want you to go on. If Heysen was railroaded I was partly responsible and I’d like that cleared up. I owe it to the kid whoever’s son he is.’

  ‘And if he’s yours you’ll want to help him get out of the shitty business he says he’s in.’

  ‘That’s right, and the same goes if he isn’t. We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.’

  Frank didn’t usually speak in cliches and his voice was slurring. He put Hilde on the line and I made all the right noises. Too many times I’d had to tell a person someone they loved was dead. At those moments the misery fills the air like a mist. This was the opposite and, through the wine and the remains of her German accent, I could hear happiness in every word Hilde spoke.

  That left me alone in a motel room with two-thirds of a bottle of wine inside me and garlic on my breath. I stripped and had a warm shower followed by a cold one. I cleaned my teeth till my gums ached, made a cup of instant coffee and settled down with Stasiland. I was tempted to ring Lily, but that wasn’t the deal.

  I presented myself at the Lubitsch clinic dead on time— shaved, shampooed, neatly dressed and with my documents in hand. The giggling receptionist was a youngish blonde with a lively manner. She was good to look at, had a pleasant voice and was adept at putting people at their ease. Handy talent. She gave me a form to fill in and I did it with a mixture of fact and fiction. I gave my profession as securi
ty consultant, owned up to a few minor operations, mostly to repair injuries, and ticked the ‘facial’ box in the question about ‘areas of concern’. I wrote truthfully that I was a nonsmoker but less truthfully that my drinking was limited to ‘occasional social’.

  The receptionist looked the form over and gave me one of her toothpaste advertisement smiles. ‘Dr Lubitsch will see you in a few minutes, Mr Hardy.’

  I nodded and sat in a chair that allowed me to look out a window. She went away with the form and came back quickly to resume her place behind the desk where she must have been doing something though it was hard to tell what it might have been. As I’d suspected, the clinic was on the top level and the view was all I thought it would be. I picked up a couple of the magazines from the rack, but the view was more interesting. I got an eyeful of the river and watched one of the big passenger catamarans churn past. A buzzer sounded and the receptionist stood.

  ‘This way please, Mr Hardy.’

  I followed her down a passage. She knocked at a door, pushed it open and ushered me in. The room was large and light, probably one of the largest and lightest in the building. Its occupant was sitting behind a big steel and glass desk, studying my form. He half stood, then sat down heavily in his leather chair and gestured with his head for me to take the other chair.

  I’d decided on a direct approach. I ignored his instruction, locked the door behind me and went to his desk. I flicked the off switch on the intercom and disconnected the phone. He rose and I pushed him down hard. Lubitsch may have been a big man twenty-odd years ago when Roma Brown knew him briefly, but he’d shrunk vertically and expanded horizontally. He was twenty kilos overweight and his belly pushed out his spotless clinician’s coat. He wore a crisp white shirt under it with a dark tie and dark trousers. He was bald, apart from grey fluff around the sides, but at least he hadn’t committed the Belfrage-style comb-over.

  ‘What the hell d’you think you’re doing? You must be mad.’ He reached for the switch on the intercom and I rabbit-chopped his wrist.

  ‘Shut up, sit still and listen and you won’t get hurt.’

  ‘What do you want? There’s no money here.’

  ‘I said listen.’

  I told him that I knew he was Karl Lubeck and that he’d worked doing illicit plastic surgery with a Dr Gregory Heysen who’d been jailed for conspiracy to commit murder. Also that he’d taken files from the doctor’s office to conceal their activities. And that he’d subsequently profited from the money that had been paid to the murderer of Dr Peter Bellamy before becoming the pimp for a woman named Pixie Padrone.

  He was already pasty-faced from spending too much time indoors, but he went still paler. Had a shot at bluffing, though.

  ‘Preposterous,’ he said.

  I took a camera from my pocket, raised it and took a photo of him there in his chair with the fear in his eyes and his mouth slack.

  ‘What . . . what’s that for?’

  I studied the image on the screen and nodded. ‘Pretty good. The media’ll want a picture when I tell them what I’ve just told you and provide proof.’

  I looked around the room with its black filing cabinets, bar fridge, teak bookshelf, framed degrees, photographs and paintings. ‘You can kiss goodbye to all this, unless . . .’

  He sighed but seemed to recover some poise. ‘How much?’

  It seemed too quick and too easy a surrender, and I remembered Belfrage saying that Lubitsch would take reprisals. It wouldn’t do to underestimate him, flabby though he was. He’d come a long way and showed resourcefulness. But maybe his best days were behind him.

  ‘I don’t want money, doctor.’

  That’s when the poise left him completely. He coughed and spluttered and his wan face turned red. He shuddered and fought for breath. His chest heaved and the soft flesh covering it shook like jelly. I know I can look threatening but this was something else. He was having a panic attack. I grabbed him, pulled his tie loose and popped the top button on his shirt getting the collar open. I pushed his head down between his knees.

  ‘Stay there and breathe.’

  I opened the bar fridge, got a bottle of mineral water, filled a glass and brought it to him. He was getting some air in painfully. I lifted his chin and gave him the glass.

  ‘Sip it.’

  He clutched the glass in shaking hands and did as he was told. The flush slowly faded from his fat face and his hands steadied. ‘Who sent you?’ he whispered.

  ‘We can talk about that,’ I said. ‘When’s your next appointment?’

  He looked at his gold watch. ‘In forty minutes.’

  ‘That’s long enough. Tell me if I’m right. You’re still doing things you shouldn’t and they don’t always go right.’

  He nodded and took a couple of gulps of the water.

  ‘Okay, now that’s the sort of thing I want to talk to you about. If you come up with the right answers I just might be able to put your mind at rest. No questions, just answers. Why did you take Michael Padrone’s file along with the others?’

  ‘Pixie . . . Patricia asked me to.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘She said there were things in it that would make it worse for him.’

  ‘How could things be worse? He’d confessed.’

  ‘She said he’d done other things he’d told the doctor about and that if it came out he’d have a hellish time in prison for what little time he had left. Why are we talking about this?’

  ‘I said no questions. What happened to the file?’

  ‘She destroyed it and I destroyed the others.’

  ‘Did Heysen have the same sort of problem you’re facing—dissatisfied clients? Could one of them have framed Heysen? Hired Padrone to kill Bellamy and lie about who hired him?’

  ‘Easily. I suspected so at the time, which is why I . . .

  made myself scarce.’

  ‘Names.’

  ‘It’s a long time ago.’

  ‘You don’t forget people like that. Especially when you’ve cut into them. I want a list of names of possible candidates for what you just admitted could have happened. You’re almost out of the woods, doctor.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Get your gold pen out of your pocket and write.’

  ‘I don’t understand. This is twenty or more years ago.’

  ‘You don’t have to understand. You just have to write.’

  ‘They’re probably all dead.’

  ‘That means you remember the names. Write.’

  He took out his pen, pulled a pad towards him and scribbled.

  I said. ‘Capitals.’

  He printed. I took a closer look at the things on the walls—expensive prints of paintings; degrees and diplomas, some American in the name of Lubitsch; photos of the doc when he was less fat with National Party politicians and a gaoled former police commissioner. One showed him standing proprietorially beside a slim blonde woman with a face stretched and frozen like Peggy Lee’s. Her hands, holding a glass and her sequinned bag, were claw-like. Had to be Pixie.

  ‘There.’ He clicked the pen, tore off the sheet of paper and pushed it across the desk. I looked at it long enough to see that it was legible. One name jumped out at me but I didn’t give him the satisfaction of reacting. I folded it and put it in my pocket.

  ‘That’s it,’ I said.

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘You’re repeating yourself. I’m not interested in anything you’ve done since the eighties. Your present problems are all your own as far as I’m concerned.’

  ‘Can I believe that?’

  ‘I couldn’t care less. I would’ve liked to meet Pixie but I guess I’ll just have to pass on that. You’re going to be ready for your next victim. Might have to slip your tie up to look your best.’

  ‘The photograph?’

  ‘Insurance.’

  He recovered fast. ‘You bloody hoodlum. You threaten me . . .’ His fleshy face took on a malevolent glow. ‘In fact you could us
e my services.’

  ‘Do you know what Marlon Brando said when Kenneth Tynan wanted to interview him? He said he’d rather be boiled in urine. That’s how I feel about letting a plastic surgeon anywhere near me, especially you. Good morning, Dr Lubeck.’

  ‘Get out!’

  ‘I’m going. I’ll give you one thing—remember Roma Brown?’

  He did. He remembered it all.

  ‘I didn’t find you through her, by the way, but she did say you were good in bed. Doubt she’d think much of you now. Do you want me to give her your respects?’

  The look on his face almost made me feel sorry for him. Almost. I suppose we all have regrets about old loves—missed opportunities, betrayals, yearnings, ecstatic moments that live in the memory. Lubitsch had been there, and I had a sense that things with Pixie/Patricia now weren’t what he wanted. Good.

  13

  I walked back through the park, promising myself a jog there if I had time. I stopped for coffee in a kind of pavilion under the Moreton Bay figs and thought to myself that I’d done pretty well. I took the piece of paper from my shirt pocket and examined it. Three names, two completely unfamiliar to me. Inventions? I didn’t think so, the man had been too frightened. The coffee was good and a light breeze was blowing pleasant smells around under the canvas. I had a second cup and took my time over it.

  I paid, left a tip, skirted the cycle path and took another route past a shrubbery and garden bed towards the motel. A man stepped from the shadows and blocked my way. A big man, very big. He wore jeans and a leather jacket over a T-shirt and he tucked away a mobile phone as he confronted me.

  ‘You’ve got something I want,’ he said.

  ‘What would that be?’

  ‘A camera and a piece of paper.’

  ‘Buy your own and look in a bin, you’ll find plenty of paper.’

  He advanced to within a yard and held out his right hand. ‘Give.’

  That was a mistake—an extended arm is vulnerable. I grabbed his wrist with both hands, jerked and twisted. He let out a yell and swung wildly at me with his left fist. He was no southpaw, the punch was slow and awkward. I stepped inside it and hammered my right fist into his ribs hard and twice. He grunted and bent over. He was game though and tried to do something with the arm I’d mistreated but it was all out of whack, possibly dislocated at the elbow, and his effort was feeble. I grabbed his right wrist again and put downward pressure on it. He almost screamed and sank to his knees to ease the strain and the pain.