The Dying Trade

by Peter Corris

  I suppressed an impulse to laugh. “Do you mean it was obscene?”

  “Yes, horribly so. I had to burn the letters.”

  “Were they obscene too?”

  She started to look nervous again. “No, not at all, just awful.”

  “Why did you have to burn them then?”

  She plucked at the bedcover, shredding some of the raised nap and balling it in her fingers. “I meant that, well, the filthy language and the letters came from the same person. So I burned the letters.”

  “You think the phone calls and letters came from the same source do you?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “Why, of course?”

  “They must have.”

  “Tell me one, just one, of the objectionable phrases in the phone calls.”

  “I can’t, I couldn’t say it.”

  “What were the letters about? The same thing?”

  “No—sickness, decay, death.”

  “Come on Miss Gutteridge, one phrase from the calls.”

  She glared at me, bunched her fists and hammered them on the snowy bedcover. “Fucking capitalist!” she screamed in my face.

  There was a silence that seemed to let the words hang in the air forever. Then she started sobbing and Brave moved in with all systems go. He took her hands and clasped them inside his while murmuring comforting, animal-like sounds in her ear. He swayed above her like a mesmerised snake putting the music back into the pipe. She regained control very quickly. I knew that this kind of command over another person was extremely difficult to obtain and incredibly costly to bring about in time and effort. There was no short cut to it and I wondered why Brave had made an investment of this order in this pathetic woman. There was no time for on-the-spot investigation. At a nod from Brave, Bruno moved forward and took my arm just above the elbow. His grip hurt like a dentist’s drill on a nerve.

  “You’ve had your time, Hardy,” Brave said. “I hope you’re satisfied with what you’ve done.”

  If that was supposed to make me feel sorry for the woman it didn’t work. Her problems were mine only in a strictly professional sense, but I had to stay with them. At this point I had to assume that Bryn had hired me for reasons other than those he’d stated. That isn’t unusual, but you have to sort the real reasons out fairly quickly if you don’t want to be the meat in the sandwich all the way. I had to fire a shot in my own war.

  “Goodbye, Miss Gutteridge,” I said. “I hope you know what you’re doing.”

  “Out,” Brave hissed the word like a jet of venom and Bruno swung me round and we trotted out of the room like big Siamese twins joined at the shoulder.

  We made the same turns in reverse and Bruno shooed me into the room I’d surfaced in before. I sat down on a chair near the desk and started scooping my things up and putting them in my pockets. Bruno stepped forward and a puzzled look spread over his face as he tried to work out whether he was supposed to stop me or not. He couldn’t tell and he couldn’t think and hit at the same time. Not many muscle men can and it gives the weaklings a fractional edge sometimes. I made a cigarette as the Italian hovered in the middle of the room looking like a discus thrower turned to stone in the middle of his wind-up.

  “Don’t worry, Bruno,” I said. “I’ll wait here for your master and in a little while you’ll be able to go off and do something about your face.” That gave him something to think of. He put a hand up to his face and pressed gently. “Harder,” I said, “maybe there’s something broken.” He worked his jaw and grimaced. I might have been able to get him to give himself a karate chop but there was no challenge in it. The door swung open and Brave walked in. He sat down primly behind his desk and the first colour I’d seen in his face appeared—high red spots in his cheeks like daubings on a clown.

  “You’ve been very troublesome, Hardy,” he said, “and achieved very little, I should imagine.”

  “Why should you imagine that?”

  “I won’t fence with you. You are a nuisance, plain and simple. A blunderer into delicate situations. The question is, how to be rid of you.”

  I wanted to bring his dislike of me up as high as it would go.

  “A blunderbuss,” I said.

  He registered it like a deep internal pain.

  “As I understand it,” he said slowly, “a private detective is without any authority and credibility if he is without a client.”

  “You’ve read too much Chandler,” I said.

  He looked puzzled for a second but didn’t let it stop him. “I think that’s so,” he went on, “and therefore you represent no problem at all Mr Hardy, none at all. Show him out Bruno.”

  Bruno and I did our dancing bears act down corridors and through doors and in five minutes I was walking down the path towards the gate. The night air hit me hard and I gave my attention to finding a chemist for my head and a bottle shop for me.

  CHAPTER 4

  The Green Man and Joe Barassi’s All Day All Nite Pharmacy at Drummoyne put me back together. I washed down two red Codrals with a couple of hefty slugs from a half bottle of Haig. I looked at the wound on my head in the mirror of the Green Man’s washroom. It didn’t look too bad, the blood had stopped seeping and I managed to clean the area up with damp paper towels. Whoever had hit me had known his business and had chosen to give me a purple heart rather than a posthumous medal of honour. I felt vaguely grateful to him and had another nip out of the Scotch bottle for him.

  The traffic flowed easily over the Iron Cove bridge. People were all in the cinemas and pubs and there was little competition for me on the drive home to Glebe. I wasn’t up to shuttling the car into the courtyard so I left it outside the house with a steering lock on the gearshift which would hold up a good Glebe car thief for about two minutes. My head throbbed and a little laser of pain stabbed over the right eyebrow but I decided to try and make some sense of the night’s play before I let another Codral and some more whisky sing me to sleep. I sat in a bean bag with a tall Scotch and soda on the floor beside me. I rolled three cigarettes and set them in the grooves of the ashtray the way Uncle Ted used to. Uncle Ted had a good war, sent back hundreds from the Tobruk two-up games and survived. I’d survived high school, two erratic years at university and Malaya to become an insurance investigator—long hours, high mileage and pathetic incendiarists. The work had coated my fingers with nicotine, scuttled my marriage and put fat around my waistline and wits. The deals and hush-money made divorce work seem clean as riding a wave and bodyguarding noble and manly. Suicides and Svengalis were a different thing though, and I wasn’t sure that I was up to coping with them. I was on the third cigarette without having any inspiration, when the phone rang.

  I heaved myself out of the bean bag and put the receiver somewhere near my face.

  “Mr Hardy?” A woman’s voice, drunk or panicky.

  “Yes, who’s this?”

  “It’s Ailsa Sleeman, I found your card. I didn’t know what else to do. I’m frightened.”

  “What’s happened?”

  “It’s horrible. Bryn just called me, I don’t know why me, I suppose he just doesn’t know anyone else . . .”

  “What’s happened?”

  “It’s Giles. He’s been shot. He’s dead.”

  “When was this?”

  “I don’t know. Bryn rang me about an hour ago. I’ve been trying to reach you since then.”

  “You sound frightened Miss Sleeman. Why?”

  “It’s hard to explain. Impossible over the phone. It’s to do with Dr Brave who you seemed interested in this afternoon. I’m afraid of him. I need help, perhaps protection. I’m willing to employ you.”

  That was a switch. A few hours ago she was willing to forget me like a bad dream. This would give me two clients on the same case. I wasn’t sure it was ethical, it had
never happened to me before. But if Bryn meant me to proceed with the investigation maybe I could work out a package deal. If Brave could carry through with his threat, I’d lose Bryn as a client so it would be convenient to stay with it on La Sleeman’s behalf. I was hooked on the Gutteridges now, and I felt that I’d got into some kind of conflict with Brave that had to be seen through. I needed a bit more to go on though.

  “I’m interested Miss Sleeman,” I said in my deliberate voice, “but I need a little more information. Did Mr Gutteridge mention Dr Brave?”

  “Yes, they’ve had a quarrel.”

  “OK. Can you come in to my office in the morning?”

  “Tomorrow?” The panicky note was back, “I thought tonight . . .”

  “Miss Sleeman, I’ve driven a hundred miles today, been lied to, had two fights and lost one badly. I’m out of action until 9 a.m. tomorrow.”

  All true enough, but what I really wanted to know was whether she was serious about her proposition and alarm, or was just feeling lonely for the night. She could be one of those rich people who think they have everything they need behind their high walls but occasionally have to send out for some help. Or she might still be in touch with the world outside. I also felt a need to do some talking on my own territory after the lies I’d been told so far. There’s something truth-inducing about a hard chair and a smell of phenol in the hall.

  “All right,” she said. Her voice was steadier, no drink in it. “I’ll be in at 9 o’clock. You will help, Mr Hardy?”

  I told her I would, made sure she had the address right, made a few reassuring noises and she rang off. The phone rang again almost as soon as I’d put it down. I let it ring a few times while I visited my drink and finished my cigarette. I took Bryn’s cheque out of my wallet and spread it out in front of me. It was one of those big, friendly cheques from a big, friendly chequebook. I’d hoped to collect a few more. I picked up the phone.

  “Hardy? This is Bryn Gutteridge.”

  “Yes?”

  “A dreadful thing has happened Hardy.”

  I had to decide quickly whether to let him tell it or to tell him I knew what was up and judge his reaction. The first way seemed to leave me more cards.

  “You sound upset. Take it quietly and tell me.”

  “Giles has been shot. He was in the car, going on an errand for me . . . and someone shot him in the head. He’s gone.”

  “I’m sorry Mr Gutteridge. You’ve called the police?”

  “Yes of course. They’ve been and gone. They were very considerate. I was surprised.”

  I knew what he meant but I wasn’t surprised. The Commissioner would have got in on this quickly and he’d have kept the public lavatory prowl squad well out of it. “Do you want me in on this?”

  “No!” Sacking people was second nature stuff to him. He did it with no embarrassment.

  “The police will be prying into my affairs. That’s enough. When this is over I’m going away, perhaps for a few years.”

  “I see. What about your sister?”

  “I’ll take her with me. We’ll get out of this. Drop the investigation Mr Hardy. Thank you for . . .”

  “For what? Just for interest, when did you decide to let the investigation drop, before or after Giles’ death?”

  “Oh God, I don’t know. Before, I think. I’m not sure. Why does it matter?”

  “It matters to me. What did Dr Brave say to you when you saw him this evening?”

  “I didn’t see him, he rang.” He broke off confused and annoyed with himself for replying. “This is no longer your affair, Hardy.”

  I didn’t have much of his time left. “Did he threaten you?” I said quickly.

  “I’m hanging up Hardy. Send a bill.”

  “You’ve overpaid me. Have this for free—Giles’ murder and the threats to your sister are connected. You can’t run away from it.” He hung up.

  That left me with Ailsa. I took another pill and finished my drink.

  I went to bed. The street was quiet, no dog races so my head was spared the roar of punters’ Holdens and the purr of the bookmakers’ limousines. It was too hot for the street fighters and gutter drinkers to be out lending the area colour and Soames must have had the music down low. I drifted off to the quiet hum of my fan. I slid into a dream in which Ailsa Sleeman, standing tall, reached down for my hands and lifted them up onto her massive breasts.

  CHAPTER 5

  I woke with a headache that was partly due to the crack I’d taken the night before. I looked out of the window across the rusting roofs of Glebe. The sky had a dull, leaden look—the day was going to be hot. A Sahara wind was already whipping the ice-cream wrappers and other crap along the gutters. I made coffee but it was bitter and I swilled it down the sink. About the only good thing I’ve ever heard of Mick Jagger is that he likes scrambled eggs and white wine for breakfast. I made my version of scrambled eggs, piled a glass up with ice and topped it up with hock and soda. I put the drink down fast, made another, and took it, the food and The News out to the courtyard, feeling better every minute.

  The paper headlined the hunt for Costello, the police expected a breakthrough hourly, and there were pictures of beefy guys in shirt sleeves heavying honest citizens. Giles’ departure from this vale of tears didn’t get a mention. I ran my eye hopelessly over the cryptic crossword and consoled myself with the meteorological report—hot, high winds ahead of a thunderstorm. I skimmed the paper again and was surprised to find an idea forming in my mind. I let it take shape for a few minutes and then gave it another drink in case it went away hurt.

  I shaved, took a shower and put on my other suit which is said to be lightweight but always makes me sweat like a pig if I move at a pace above a royal stroll. I was already hot when I slipped into the car. The radio aerial had been broken off just above the mounting and was lying in three pieces across the bonnet in the shape of the mark of Zorro. I swore and swept the pieces into the gutter. Insurance was supposed to cover things like that, but how do you insure yourself against insurance premiums? The car started cheerfully and I moved off towards the city.

  I reached my office, two floors up above St Peters Street, close to 9.00. The Cross, or what’s left of it after the developers had their way, is just a block north. The whores were already at work, not doing any business among the winos squatting on the pub steps, but keeping in practice. My office opens straight into the corridor, no ante-rooms for people to wait or die in. I inherited it from a clairvoyant who fell under a train. The desk was covered with astrological signs and cabbalistic symbols in inks of various colours—I never had the nerve to rub them out and confined my own doodling to the blotter.

  The knock came at exactly 9 o’clock. I sang out that the door was open and she came in slowly and tentatively like a schoolboy coming into the head’s study. She wore a light blue mottled smock over tight flared white trousers. Her fine breasts complemented the tailoring of the smock and that length of lean thigh in white denim was something to see. Her low-heeled sandals vaguely matched her tooled leather shoulder bag and there wouldn’t have been much change out of three hundred dollars for the set. Yesterday she’d been wearing a scarf or something over her head. Now I could see that her dark, reddish hair was cut short, almost cropped. It lay on her sleek head like a burnished metal cap. She wore yesterday’s sunglasses, or maybe she had a few pairs the same. A cigarette came out of her bag almost before she hit the chair and she was one of the fastest people with a lighter I’ve seen.

  She took a quick look around the office which in colour scheme and layout is more like a railway waiting room than anything else. She didn’t react to it one way or the other, which probably meant that she’d been in worse places, maybe much worse. She drew hard on the cigarette.

  “It must have seemed strange to you,” she said, “telephoning like that l
ast night.”

  “It did, but when people need help they do strange things.”

  “Can I take up some of your time, Mr Hardy? I have a long story to tell. I’ll pay you of course, starting from now.”

  “Before you start spending money I’d like to know why you’ve changed your mind about me. I was a fly on the wall to you yesterday.”

  “That’s a fair question. Yesterday I was having a bad time with the man you saw. I’m sorry, it made me testy. Today I need help and I’ve been thinking. I don’t like Bryn Gutteridge, but he’s a good judge of people. If you’re good enough for him you’re good enough for me.”

  She acted on the “if you have to ask the price you can’t afford it” plan and that was all right with me. I nodded reassurance on the point, rolled a cigarette and settled back to listen.

  “Today is close enough to fifteen years to the day since I gave up being a dancer. I wasn’t bad, I can still do a bit. I’m pretty fit.”

  “Yes,” I said, “you look fine. Put 90 per cent of people to shame.”

  “Well, I gave up dancing and that sort of life, theatre and so on to get married. I married a man named Bercer. I was twenty-four, he was fifty-nine, I was poor, he was rich. It’s an old story and there was nothing very different about it except that it worked out all right. He was nice to me. I liked him and for about three years I thought I’d done the right thing. I read a lot, went to plays I wouldn’t have given a thought to before. I improved myself.”

  “You did a good job,” I said, “but then . . .?”

  “But then I met a man more or less my own age. I fell for him and we had an affair, a pretty hot one. He was married and I handled it all very badly. I got upset when I couldn’t have it all my own way when things went wrong. James, my husband, didn’t suspect that I was being unfaithful but he was worried about me and sent me to see a doctor, a counsellor . . .”

  “Brave.”