by Peter Corris
‘To you. Two weeks ago. I haven’t heard from him in two weeks. Now, would you please go away!’
‘Mrs de Vries, have you ever heard of a woman named Carmel Wise?’
She pushed back some of the tumbling fair hair and looked hard at me. Some colour came into her pallid face. ‘Yes, I’ve heard of her. Jan’s lover, she is.’
‘This is important, Mrs de Vries. Could I come in? I think we need to talk.’
‘I haven’t talked to anyone for two weeks. Only the children. Are you a policeman?’
‘Not exactly.’ I showed her my licence. She examined it and then my face. For a woman of her size, a man with a surgical eye patch can’t be too frightening. She stood aside.
‘Come in.’
The passage was a sea of newspapers, magazines and children’s toys and books. We picked our way over and through it and went into a living room where a party had been held. There was a glass on every level surface, bottles, cans, overflowing ashtrays, paper plates with food clinging to them and the sickly sweet smell of stale, trapped, over-used air. She flopped into a chair, just missing a paper plate with cheese dip on it.
‘We had a party. At the end of the party Jan told me he was leaving me. And he left. I haven’t …’ She waved her hand at the room.
‘I thought you had children?’
‘Two. They are staying with friends.’
‘So should you.’
She shrugged; her big, loose breasts moved under the stained white dress. ‘I have no friends here.’
I looked around, stalling for time and wondering how to handle it. The room was big, the windows were big, the carpet was deep and through a door I could see a sunny sitting room with a polished floor. A load of washing had been dumped in the middle of the floor. It was an upper income house and should have been filled with sounds like Mozart on the hi-fi and the buzz of the home computer; instead it felt like an army barracks after the regiment has pulled out.
‘Mrs de Vries …’
‘Barbara.’ I was sure now the accent was American. ‘Well, Mr Detective, what do you want with my husband?’
There was a slightly mad air about her, as if she’d built a sort of crazy shelter for herself. She kept tumbling and untumbling her hair. She was tilting but she hadn’t fallen; I thought she could take some direct talking. ‘Carmel Wise is dead. She was shot.’
The hair flew everywhere and her hands slapped hard against her cheeks. ‘Oh, my god! Jan …?’
‘No. Not by him and he … he’s alive as far as I know.’ The words pushed ideas around in my brain. Why not de Vries? Because of the bag of Beta tapes. Why is he hiding? Because he knows what killed Carmel?
‘What happened to Carmel?’
‘You knew her?’
‘Oh, sure. Jan brought her here. I could see what was going on. She wasn’t the first and not the worst either …’ She broke off and started gnawing at a knuckle. I told her the story in outline. She interrupted a few times and we established that the party had been held two nights before Carmel was killed. Barbara de Vries hadn’t read the papers or watched TV in that time and she hadn’t done much since. When I’d finished, the knuckle was red raw. She nodded sympathetically a few times but when she spoke it was all direct self-interest. ‘If she is dead, perhaps he will come back to me.’
‘Would you accept that?’
‘Of course. We Pennsylvania Dutch women will accept anything.’
‘Could you tell me a little about yourself and your husband? I’d like a photograph of him if you have one.’
She stood and tottered out of the room. When she came back she handed me a colour snapshot. It showed a stocky man with a drooping moustache and dark hair hanging over his forehead. He looked about as Dutch as Michael Spinks.
‘He doesn’t look Dutch,’ I said.
‘Yes, that’s right. But he is and I’m not.’
‘But you said …’
‘Pennsylvania Dutch. That’s what we’re called at home. But I’m German by descent. Jan’s people were Dutch but he is a 100 per cent American.’ She said it with an ironic smile. There was more colour in her face and lips now and she looked as if she could be a good-looking woman in better circumstances.
‘Forgive me for being blunt, but what’s he doing here, then?’
Again the smile. ‘A job. There are not so many jobs for 100 per cent Americans anymore.’
She told me that Jan de Vries was a graduate in film from somewhere and a PhD from UCLA. They had met when he was attempting to run a small, independent film distribution company. He had hired her as a secretary and things had gone on from there. The company failed and Australia offered the best job prospects.
‘Jan is a radical,’ she said. ‘We came here in 1975.’
‘Not such a good year for a radical,’ I said.
‘Not at the end, no. Jan was furious about it.’
‘How does he feel about now?’
‘More furious still.’
‘What about you?’
‘I was a secretary, then I was a wife, now I am a mother. That is the trouble. Oh,’ she tumbled the hair again, ‘it is good to talk. Thank you. I feel better. Would you like some tea? The kitchen is a mess too, but I could …‘
‘No, thank you. I have to go.’ My hour was almost up. ‘You have no idea where your husband is?’
She shook her head. ‘I don’t know where they went to do it.’
‘When did you last hear from him?’
‘On the morning after he left. He telephoned to ask if the children were all right.’
I was checking through my mental list, the one that covers what people do when they flit. ‘Did he take his passport, Mrs de Vries?’
The idea was a new one, but she shook her head quickly. ‘No. I saw it just now when I got the photograph.’
‘How did he sound on the telephone?’
She considered it as if for the first time. ‘I was so mad. I never thought he would leave me.’
‘He said he was leaving to live with Carmel?’
‘Live? I don’t know. Live? I am not sure.’
‘What, then?’
‘He spent all the time at the party with her. Then he said he had to go with her. Something like that. I had drunk a lot. We fought. He said he had to go. Go, I said. Go!’ She was crying now but she stifled it and wiped her face with her hands. ‘I must pull myself together.’
‘I’m sorry. How did he sound on the phone?’
‘He sounded frightened.’
‘Frightened of what?’
She shook her head. I asked her if she wanted me to send someone over to help her but she refused. She said again, as if she liked the phrase, that she’d pull herself together. I thought she could do it. She said I could keep the photograph; I gave her a card and the usual spiel about calling me if anything happened or if she wanted help. She thanked me a couple of times. Before she let me out she kicked off her sandals; I expect she rolled up her sleeves as soon as the door was closed.
The taxi was waiting. I sniffed at the kid a bit for alcohol as I got in but all I smelled was tobacco. ‘Glebe, you said?’
‘Right.’ I gave him the address and settled back to think about what I’d learned from Barbara de Vries. Suddenly I got a stabbing pain in the eye and I gasped.
‘Hey, you all right?’
‘Yeah. Just the eye. I need to put some drops in it. Could you stop a minute?’
He pulled over and I got to work on the patch. He turned off the meter and helped me by holding the bottle of drops and producing a tissue. ‘How’d it happen?’
‘I was running away from some people who didn’t mean me any harm as it turned out. Thanks. That’s good.’
‘What line of work are you in?’
I told him.
‘Yeah?’ He fumbled for a cigarette, remembered and stopped. ‘That’s tremendous!’
‘Let’s get going. It’s not really tremendous. It’s mostly like what you’ve just seen me do—visit people.’
>
‘I see the gun too.’
I grunted. ‘I haven’t used one in a long time. How’s the Dostoevsky going?’
He flicked the meter on, started up, checked the traffic and pulled out in a series of smooth, easy movements. ‘Finished it. Great! How d’you get into your business?’
‘By bad luck. What’re your plans? Taxi driving must interfere with your reading.’
He laughed. ‘Yeah, it does. Everything does. Oh, I dunno. I’ve done a few things. Ran a lawn-mowing business for a while. Lotta work, not much dough. I sold it. I’ve got an interest in the cab. Not much but it’s better than nothing.’ He put his right hand across his body. ‘Scott Galvani’s the name.’
‘Cliff Hardy,’ I said. We shook quickly. ‘You’re kidding—Scott Galvani?’
‘No, dinkum. My parents, they’re Sicilian, but I was born here. They reckoned Scott was a true-blue Aussie name.’ He laughed. ‘Maybe they were right.’
‘Maybe.’ I glanced into the back seat and saw several paperbacks in a half beer carton. ‘You buy them in job lots? the books?’
‘Sort of. I carry a few around, never know what I’m going to read next. Think I might try Gunter Grass. What d’you reckon?’
‘Out of my depth,’ I said. ‘You turn here. You know Glebe?’
‘Sure. I live in Leichhardt. Look, Cliff, what case’re you working on now?’
‘I told you, it isn’t like on TV.’
‘Still. You have to get around, right?’
‘Yes.’
‘And you can’t drive?’
‘Not for a while.’
‘You need an assistant.’
‘No.’
‘Come on. A driver, call it.’
‘Why would you want to do that?’
He scratched his dark, whiskered chin. ‘Call it work experience. I’m thinking of going into the security business.’
‘It’s overstocked.’
‘I’m multi-lingual. English, French, Italian … well, Sicilian.’
‘What else?’
‘I’m a wrestler. Would you believe it? I’m a top-notch wrestler and you know how much money there is in wrestling?’
‘How much?’
‘Zilch. Come on. Cliff. You’ve gotta go out again tonight, right?’
‘Why d’you say that … Scott?’
‘You didn’t look happy coming out of that house. You looked thoughtful. Like you said, you visit people. I bet you’ve got someone to visit tonight.’
He pulled the cab up outside the house. The Falcon sat where Rolf had parked it. Helen’s Gemini was behind it. I was tired and hungry and thirsty. I needed a rest and a drink and some time to think. And I had to go and see Mrs Wise. ‘Okay,’ I said. ‘When can you knock off?’
‘Now. Let me help you in and I can meet the Missus.’
‘I haven’t got a Missus.’
‘Who’s this at the door then?’
Helen came to the gate. She was looking spectacularly good in a red shirt and jeans. Scott Galvani broke the taxi driver’s record for getting out and assisting a passenger—not the world’s hardest record to break. He helped me to the gate.
‘You look terrible,’ Helen said.
‘I’ll be right. Helen Broadway, this is Scott Galvani.’
‘Hi’ Galvani said.
‘Hello. Are you going to pay the fare, Cliff?’
‘Hey, hey, don’t worry about it,’ Galvani lit the cigarette he’d been waiting for.
‘What?’ Helen said. ‘Free rides?’
‘I’ve got to go out again later, love. Scott’s going to drive me. Might need a bit of help.’
‘You can’t afford a driver.’
‘Hey, I’ll work for free.’
‘You must be good,’ Helen said.
19
SCOTT Galvani came into the house. Before we knew it, he was cooking spaghetti bolognaise, scooting down to the bottle shop for a flagon of red, and generally being entertaining and helpful. He let Helen try out her Italian on him and he praised her efforts.
‘Six months there, really workin’ at it, you’d be like a native.’
‘What I wouldn’t give,’ Helen said.
This is getting out of hand, I thought. Bondi is one thing, Palermo is another.
The spaghetti was terrific. Galvani washed the dishes and didn’t sing in the kitchen.
‘He’s nice,’ Helen said.
‘He’s persistent.’
Over coffee I talked about the Wise case and Galvani nodded.
‘I read about it. The video girl.’
‘That’s crap! There’s something else behind it. Marjorie Legge or Phil Broadhead or someone like that.’
Galvani whistled. ‘That’s heavy.’
‘It could be. I’ll back off fast if it is, don’t worry.’
Helen glanced at me. Galvani was smoking filter tips and she had just lit her Gitane. The smoke was hurting my eye but I didn’t want to spoil her pleasure. I grinned at her but Galvani frowned. ‘I don’t get you, man.’
‘I just want something to satisfy her father. I’m not out to clean up Sydney.’
‘Oh, right,’ he said.
I drank coffee and thought about what I had to work with. It wasn’t much. Essentially I had to find Jan de Vries and find out why he was frightened.
‘Why is he frightened?’ Helen said.
‘Who?’
‘Jan de Vries.’
‘Are you a mind-reader now?’
‘It’s the obvious question.’
‘Yeah,’ Galvani said.
‘Look, Scott, I’m not sure this is such a good idea, you tagging along. I might get a line on de Vries tonight from the mother.’
‘Hope so,’ he said.
‘I haven’t got any worker’s compensation policy or anything like that.’
‘I’ll sign a waiver.’
‘Did you read that or see it on TV?’
‘What’s the difference? When do we go?’
Galvani went to the toilet and Helen put on a jacket. ‘Think I’ll go over to Ruth’s,’ she said. She kissed me and I could taste the French tobacco and Australian wine. ‘You’re an idiot to go out with an eye like that but I know I can’t stop you. Tell you what, though, I’m glad you’ve got him along.’
Something bothered me on the drive to Leo Wise’s house in Bellevue Hill. In fact the worry had started back when Scott asked me which car I wanted to take, the Falcon or the taxi.
‘The taxi, I think. Nobody looks at a taxi when it’s parked.’ But who cares who’s looking? I thought. As I say, it nagged at me as we drove. Scott took it easy out of consideration for my damaged state and he kept the chatter to a minimum. It was a cool night; I had on boots, corduroy pants, a thick shirt and a light jacket. I had the gun under my left armpit. What I’d really need, if there was any trouble, would be a cricketer’s helmet with visor. Scott had pulled a sweater on over his T-shirt. I could tell that he wanted to smoke but he chewed on a toothpick instead.
‘Here it is. Not bad!’
I pointed ahead and he let the taxi roll on past the house. It was big and white, behind a high white wall. Inside the wall there’d be a tennis court and swimming pool. Inside the house there’d be a miserable woman.
‘What do I do?’ Scott asked.
‘I told you it wouldn’t be exciting. You wait.’
‘Can I put the light on to read?’
‘No.’
‘What about the radio?’
‘Softly.’
‘Okay, Cliff. Good luck. You want me to honk if there’s any suspicious characters around?’
‘No. Run them over.’
There was an intercom by the front gate. I buzzed and got Leo Wise’s voice, distorted by the device. ‘Yes.’
‘Cliff Hardy, Mr Wise. Can I come in?’
‘Push the gate,’ he said. There was a bleep from somewhere and the gate gave easily. I walked up a flagstoned path, bordered by flowers, to wide steps in front of the ho
use. There was a bright light over the front door but the house was so wide the sides of the building were in shadow. It had two storeys, with a wide balcony supported by wrought iron pillars running across the front and around both sides. Windows from the upper level let out onto the balcony; all those windows in the front were dark.
Leo Wise opened the door before I could knock.
‘Evening, Hardy,’ he said. ‘You look different with the patch. How is it?’
‘Evening, Mr Wise. No good for horse riding or swimming, otherwise okay. How’s your wife?’
‘Composed.’ I went into a sort of lobby with a high ceiling but no candelabra. Wise beckoned me towards a set of carved wooden doors off to one side. ‘Would you like a drink or something, or do you want to see her straight away?’
He opened the doors and we entered a study-cumlibrary. It was furnished with restraint—comfortable chairs, a writing desk and bookcases. It had cost a lot of money to keep it that modest.
‘I’ll see her now, if that’s all right.’
‘Yes it is. Have a seat. I’ll get her. I might go off and do a few things on my own if you don’t mind. Moira finds me inhibiting sometimes, or so she says.’
‘She knows what I’m doing?’
‘More or less.’
He went out through another door; I sat down and picked up a magazine. I looked at it without absorbing anything which is how magazines usually affect me.
Moira Wise came into the room and I started absorbing. She was taller than I’d expected, slim and dark-haired. She smiled and the effect of the large, dark eyes and slightly gapped teeth was devastating; she was dimmed by sadness and miles away from beautiful but I felt I could look at her all night. I started to rise but she stopped me.
‘Stay there, Mr Hardy. Leo told me about your eye. Getting up must be painful. I’ll sit here.’ She sat in a chair a few feet away and crossed her legs. She was wearing a black blouse and a white skirt, medium heels on plain black shoes. Once again, money spent on a tasteful, quiet effect. She cocked her head slightly to one side like someone correcting a small squint. ‘You’re not what I expected.’
‘Oh, how’s that?’
‘I expected someone bulkier, like … Robert Mitchum.’
‘You’re a movie fan too, then?’
‘Yes, I think Carmel got that from me. What do you want to ask me, Mr Hardy?’