Saving Billie

by Peter Corris

  Back in my place at Glebe, I took off the dinner suit and went through the pockets. I’d shoved the card the woman had given me in with my keys and it was crumpled. I smoothed it out. It identified her as Louise Kramer, feature writer on the Sydney News, a paper I’d never heard of. It carried her work and mobile phone numbers, and her email address. I put the card aside and made a mental note to check on her with Harry Tickener, who knows everything worth knowing about journalism and journalists in Sydney. She’d shown a lot of courage fronting Clement like that and I liked her feistiness. I thought I might give her a call and ask how her arm was. She was on my mind as I went up to bed—thirty-five or thereabouts, no wedding ring, black Irish looking with the pale skin, dark hair and blue eyes. Why not?

  As it turned out she paid me a visit in my Newtown office later that morning, making her one of the earliest clients in my new set-up. When the renovators moved in on St Peters Lane, Darlinghurst, where I’d had my office since I’d got my PEA licence, all us low rent types moved out. I worked from home for a while, didn’t like it, and took over an office in Newtown at the St Peters end of King Street. St Peters cropping up again was a coincidence but I liked it and took it as a good omen. Gentrification hadn’t reached there, at least as far as commercial space was concerned, and the office was one floor up at the front overlooking the street. The stairs were sound, if narrow, and not well lit, and the windows facing King Street were grimy. But who needed to watch cars and buses and trucks go by?

  My office had room enough for a desk, a chair each for me and the client, a couple of filing cabinets and a bookcase. There was a small alcove off it where a coffee maker sat on top of a bar fridge, sharing a double adaptor. A phone-fax and computer and printer needed a power board to run from the single power point in the office. I’d been there for three quiet months. Parking was a problem. So far the government’s terror alerts hadn’t brought me any business.

  There were two other offices on this level. One unoccupied and the other bearing a stencilled sign that read ‘MIDNIGHT RECORDS’. So far I hadn’t seen anyone go in or out, but maybe that figured. Toilet at the end of the hall with washbasin and tap. Pretty basic. Some clients like it, thinking that low overheads mean low fees; others take fright. Louise Kramer wouldn’t have taken fright in Pamplona running the bulls. She plonked her backpack down on the floor and sat in the clients’ chair. My coffee maker was emitting the croak it does when the brew is ready.

  ‘Is that drinkable?’ she said.

  ‘Usually. Want some?’

  I fixed her a mug with long-life milk and no sugar, like mine, and watched her try it. The spiked hair of last night was flattened down and she wore jeans and a V-necked, long-sleeved cotton top, sneakers. All business. The earrings and necklace had gone, of course, but her makeup was carefully applied and she was bright-eyed, close to hyper.

  ‘That’s good, thanks. I live on this stuff. You?’

  I shrugged. ‘Plus alcohol, adrenalin, carbohydrates.’

  ‘I did some quick research on you, Mr Hardy, and I’m puzzled by your presence at that party.’

  ‘I told you, I was filling in for a friend.’

  ‘Mmm, I wonder if I believe that.’

  ‘Look, Ms Kramer—’ I waved the card I’d put on my desk to get the phone number—‘I’m pleased to see you looking so up, but I’m puzzled by your presence here. How’s the arm, by the way?’

  She touched her upper arm. ‘Bloody sore, but it would’ve been worse if you hadn’t stepped in. That bastard Thomas grips like a bolt cutter.’

  I drank some more coffee, not knowing how to play this. ‘You talk as if you know him.’

  ‘I know of him, like all Clement’s functionaries. He was a steward at Randwick until he got sacked for doing things he shouldn’t. He got the grip from controlling horses.’

  ‘Interesting,’ I said.

  ‘Meaning, again, what am I doing here?’

  ‘You’re drinking my coffee with enjoyment apparently, and saying interesting things. I’m not busy, as you can see. I’m not grizzling.’

  ‘Like I say, I’ve looked into you. For someone in your game you stack up pretty well. I’m thinking of hiring you.’

  ‘Well, we’d both have to think about that. You’d have to believe me that I was a fill-in at that event and I’d have to know what you’re on about.’

  She nodded. ‘I believe you.’

  ‘That’s a start.’

  She drew in a deep breath. ‘I’m writing a book about Clement. An exposé.’

  ‘What’s to expose?’

  ‘A hell of a lot. Know how he got his kick-start capital?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘He puts it out that he got it speculating in stock in the dot com boom.’

  ‘Sounds possible.’

  ‘But he didn’t. I’ve searched the records.’

  I shrugged. ‘They can run and they can hide.’

  ‘Not from me. He got his start from some huge brokerage fees arranging loans. One was from the Niven-Jones bank, which was run by crooks, to Blue Rock Mining. As everyone knows, they went bust. There were a few others like that, but the really interesting one is from Tasman Investments to Peter Scriven. Twenty-five million, five million brokerage.’

  That got my attention. I didn’t follow the financial news but everyone able to watch TV had heard of Scriven. He’d been one of the media moguls of the nineties who’d slowly got in too deep and had skipped the country owing tens of millions and ruining many small businesses in the process. He’d left scores of employees high and dry and what he owed the tax office would put a dent in the current account deficit.

  Louise Kramer enjoyed watching my reaction. ‘I reckon he helped Scriven get away and got well paid for that, too.’

  I finished my coffee. ‘Hard to prove. Scriven’s vanished.’

  ‘There’re others around who know things. If I could get some details from one person in particular, I could pull the plug on Clement.’

  ‘Sounds personal.’

  She drained her mug and put it on the desk where it made a ring to join all the other rings. ‘No. Professional.’

  ‘Was last night professional? Taking him on at his party? What did you have to gain?’

  ‘When word got around that I was doing this book, Clement at first tried to buy me off. Offered me a job and all that. When that didn’t work he threatened me and the publisher. Legal bullying. Followed by more direct personal stuff.’

  ‘Like?’

  ‘Slashed tyres. Heavy breathers. Creeps hanging around. I put my head down and got on with my research. Just in case he might’ve thought I’d gone away, last night I was showing him I hadn’t.’

  ‘Well, it’s very interesting, Ms Kramer, but—’

  ‘Lou.’

  ‘Okay, Lou, but I can’t see how I can help. I use the finance pages to wrap the fat from the griller.’

  ‘Ever hear of Eddie Flannery?’

  ‘Of course. Private investigator, or was until he got delicensed.’

  ‘Right. He worked for Clement as a bagman, fixer, minder. Got himself killed a few months back. Took a tumble down the McElhone steps at the Cross. I reckon Clement had it done because Flannery was blackmailing him.’

  ‘Any proof?’

  ‘I had it, sort of, but I lost it. I got on to Flannery’s de facto wife, Billie Marchant. She told me she knew about some of the things Eddie had done for Clement and that she had proof Clement had Eddie killed. She was going to tell me more but she got scared and took off. That’s where you come in, Mr Hardy.’

  ‘Cliff.’

  She nodded. ‘I want you to find Billie Marchant so I can talk to her again. I need to know that inside stuff about Clement’s business.’

  I sat back and thought it over. I’d known Eddie slightly back in the days when there were more independent PEAs than now. Most work for corporations these days and spend their time on keyboards. Like me, Eddie was ex-army and one of the old school, from the t
ime when surveillance was done personally rather than by programmed cameras, people carried cash that needed protecting, and car insurance scams were all the go. Unlike me, he was as crooked as they come, and after several warnings he lost his licence. I hadn’t heard anything of him recently and didn’t know that he was dead.

  ‘If Clement’s as ruthless as you say, he might’ve got to Billie as well.’

  ‘I don’t think so. When I talked to her she implied there was someone else inside Clement’s organisation that had it in for him and was tipping her off. I think that person told her to lay low.’

  ‘Any idea who that could be?’

  ‘No. I’m working on it.’

  ‘She could be anywhere—England, the US, South Africa, the Philippines . . .’

  Lou dug in her bag and came up with a packet of Nicorettes. She released one and popped it in. ‘I quit when I started on this book. Knew if I didn’t, I’d smoke myself to death in the process.’

  ‘Good move.’

  She got the gum going. ‘No, Billie wouldn’t leave Sydney. Couldn’t. Born and bred here and she’s done everything low-life Sydney you can think of—stripped, whored, used and sold drugs, done time, informed—you name it. And I know something about her no one else much knows.’

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘Are you willing to take it on?’

  ‘It’s expensive, Lou, and there’s no guarantee of success.’

  ‘Look—’ she leaned forward—‘I know that. I got a decent advance for this book and I can afford to pay you. At least for a while.’

  ‘What if you have to cough up to Billie?’

  She knew she had me and she smiled. ‘I’d negotiate with the publisher. C’mon, Cliff. Like you said, you haven’t got anything much else going on. I don’t hear feet on the stairs. The phone hasn’t rung. I bet you haven’t got a whole bunch of exciting emails to answer.’

  I got a contract form out of a desk drawer and slid it across. ‘I’m in.’

  ‘Good. You’ll be deductible, too.’

  ‘How’s that?’

  ‘Everything a writer does is deductible. If you play golf and write about it, you can deduct your membership fees.’

  ‘What if you play poker, bet on the horses and write about that. Can you deduct your losses?’

  ‘That might be iffy. Where do I sign?’

  I had her work and mobile phone numbers and email address on her card. I gave her my card with the same information and my address in Glebe. She gave me her street address and wrote me a cheque. I took notes on her investigation so far—Billie’s last known address, her car registration, description when last seen and habits. Billie smoked as though the world was about to be hit by a tobacco famine, drank as if prohibition was coming back, and was known to take every mind-altering drug in the pharmacopoeia.

  ‘Given that,’ I said, ‘she could be dead.’

  ‘No way. Tough as an old boot. Forty if she’s a day and, like I said, doesn’t look anything like it with a bit of makeup and the light in the right place. And, to repeat myself now that you’re really listening, there’s something else I know about her that I suspect not many do and you should.’

  ‘She bungy jumps?’

  ‘I hope you’re taking this seriously, Cliff.’

  ‘My way of taking things seriously is not to take them too seriously until I have to.’

  She thought that over, chewing hard, and nodded. ‘Okay. Billie’s got a child. A son.’

  ‘Eddie’s?’

  ‘I doubt it. From what I hear and from photos, Eddie resembled a chook.’

  That was true. Eddie was sharp-featured with a noticeably small head.

  ‘This child—teenager by now, I guess—was on the way to being well built and good looking.’

  ‘Billie’s genes.’

  ‘And black.’

  Lou told me she’d got into a drinking session with Billie and that Billie had passed out. Lou snooped and found the photo—taped to the back of the middle drawer in a dresser—of the child standing beside Billie. The photo was faded and had been much handled. The boy appeared to be somewhere in the eight to ten age range and from Billie’s clothes she guessed the picture to be a few years old.

  ‘You pulled out all the dresser drawers?’

  ‘Bugger you. This one was loose—it came free.’

  ‘Have you got the photo?’

  ‘No, it . . . it seemed so personal. I re-stuck it.’

  ‘Background?’

  She shrugged. ‘Nothing identifiable to me.’

  ‘Nothing scrawled on the back? Like, “Me and Jason, Bondi, 1998”?’

  She looked at me as though she’d like to tear up the cheque. ‘You don’t believe me?’

  ‘I’m wondering how you out-drank a hard doer the way you say Billie is.’

  ‘Let me tell you something about myself, Mr Hardy.

  I’ve knocked around small time and country newspapers for twenty years. I’m thirty-eight with two failed marriages. I’ve survived cervical cancer and I’ve got a mortgage I struggle to pay. This is my shot and I’m giving it everything I’ve got. I out-drank Billie Marchant because I had to.’

  ‘Okay. Sorry.’

  ‘For your information, there was something on the back of the photo. It was scribble, but it looked like B and S.’

  ‘Eddie’s middle name was Stanley.’

  ‘I didn’t know that.’

  ‘There you go. We’re a team. Neither of us knows everything.’

  She stopped chewing long enough to smile and the rough moment passed. We talked it over for a while. She was going to carry on her research in the financial Sargasso Sea of Clement’s business dealings and I’d tap some sources in the PEA game, the cops, the crims, the prison system, hunting for Billie.

  ‘I wonder who she was hiding the photo of the boy from?’ I said.

  ‘Maybe Eddie. Maybe Clement. But it means he was important to her, that’s for sure. Billie doesn’t take any trouble over routine things. Find him and you might find her. From the look on her face in the photo she wouldn’t want to let him go, so I don’t think she’s in Manila.’

  ‘Where did you meet her?’

  ‘A flat in Liston, out past Campbelltown in case you don’t know. The address I gave you. It wasn’t hers. I went back and asked about her but the people there were new and not welcoming.’

  ‘The photo could still be there. For safekeeping.’

  Lou shrugged. ‘More likely she took it. But you could try.’

  We shook hands and left it at that. Looking for people is more interesting than serving summonses, repossessing cars and bodyguarding suits. I was glad I’d saved Lou Kramer from the clutches of Rhys Thomas.

  Financially, my head was above water but not by much. The rates, phone and power bills, and insurance costs came in regularly and my income was sporadic. Still, I was a volunteer. I’d had plenty of opportunities to work for the big investigative agencies, mostly American based, and always turned them down. It wasn’t the suit-wearing and the possibility that they’d be tied in to Hallburton or the FBI, although those things counted, it was the freedom to say no that I valued most. No to the political apparatchiks sniffing for dirt, no to the welfare zealots looking to entrap their ‘clients’.

  3

  Back when I was giving lectures at Petersham TAFE in the PEA course, I told the students my first rule was: check out your client. Although I was impressed by Lou Kramer and believed her, I still followed the rule. Harry Tickener, who worked on and edited and was fired from a variety of newspapers, now runs a web-based newsletter entitled Searchlight Dot Com. His office is in Leichhardt near the Redgum Gym where I go for workouts most days. I rang Harry and told him I’d be visiting.

  I went to the gym and put in a solid treadmill, free weights and machine session. The Redgum is a serious place. As Wesley Scott, the proprietor and chief trainer once said, ‘This isn’t a lycra gym.’ Many of the members are athletes— swimmers, footballers, crick
eters and basketball players—and some of us older types are ex-cops, ex-army, ex-something or other, trying to stave off the effects of age and stay flexible and strong. It works, according to the amount of time you spend at it. I’m somewhere in the middle range—the despair of the true believers who go there five or six times a week and really sweat, respected by the slackers, who attend irregularly and struggle to lift what they lifted last week.

  I turned up at Harry’s door a little after eleven with two large takeaway flat whites from the Bar Napoli.

  Harry has stripped staff back to himself and two others and he was alone in the office when I arrived. Bald as an egg, homely and cheerful, Harry wears sneakers even with suits because he has foot trouble. Today he was in jeans and a T-shirt with his Nikes on the desk in front of him.

  He mimed lifting a weight, ridiculous with his pipestem arms. ‘Good gym?’

  I clenched a fist. ‘Bracing. You should try it.’

  ‘My dad lifted a coal pick about half a million times before silicosis got him. I’m against physical work. Who was it said the best thing about being working class is that it gives you something to get out of?’

  ‘I think it might’ve been Neville Wran, but your father was a funeral director.’

  ‘So, he lifted coffins. Same thing applies. Let’s have that coffee. No cake? Oh, no, you’re too figure conscious these days.’

  I took the lids off the coffees and handed him his, several packets of sugar and a plastic stirrer. ‘I don’t eat anything until the evening meal most days and then as little as I can. Gym in the morning; long walk in the afternoon or evening. Lost ten kilos. I break out from time to time, but that’s the routine.’

  Harry shuddered. ‘Spare me. What about the grog?’

  ‘Don’t want to waste away. I take in a few calories there. Of course, as we now know, red wine’s good for everything that ails you.’

  I perched on the edge of his big desk; Harry poured three packets of sugar into his coffee, stirred vigorously and took an appreciative sip.