by Peter Corris
What the critics have said:
‘Corris' story is clever, his asides wry, his language rough but whimsical. Once more Corris captures intonations of speech and nuances in gestures adeptly; that gift (and cunning similes) are the hallmarks of a thriller craftsman.’
The Canberra Times
‘Corris's book is tight without losing its humanity—professional without being slick. Hardy as well as being tough and wise, is also determined, resilient … Amid the footslogging, the action, the beatings Hardy receives, the twists and turns of the ingenious plot and the strongly characterised cast there is nightmarishly grim descriptive writing …’
The West Australian
‘Cliff Hardy is … as Australian as two-up and Fosters.’
The Australian
Peter Corris
HEROIN ANNIE
and other Cliff Hardy stories
GEORGE ALLEN & UNWIN
SYDNEY LONDON BOSTON
© Peter Corns 1984
This book is copyright under the Berne Convention.
No reproduction without permission. All rights
reserved.
First published in 1984
Second impression 1984
Third impression 1984
George Allen & Unwin Australia Pty Ltd
8 Napier Street, North Sydney NSW 2060
George Allen & Unwin (Publishers) Ltd
18 Park Lane, Hemel Hempstead, Herts HP2 4TE
England
Allen & Unwin Inc.
Fifty Cross Street, Winchester
Mass 01890 USA
National Library of Australia
Cataloguing-in-Publication entry:
Corris, Peter, 1942- .
Heroin Annie and other Cliff Hardy stories.
ISBN 0 86861 399 1.
I. Detective and mystery stories, Australian.
I. Title
A823.’3
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 83-72896
Set in 10/1l pt Century by Post Typesetters, Brisbane.
Printed by Wing King Tong Co Ltd, Hong Kong.
For Jim Hall
Contents
Marriages are made in heaven
Heroin Annie
The luck of Clem Carter
Silverman
Stockyards at Jerilderie
Blood is thicker
Mother's boy
Man's best friend
Escort to an easy death
California dreamland
Marriages are made in heaven
‘You're cold, Cliff!’ Cyn banged her fist on my desk. ‘That's your bloody trouble, you're cold? She was close to tears the way she always got when we argued. They weren't tactical tears, but they were part of the reason that I nearly always lost the arguments.
‘I'm not cold’, I said. ‘I'm warm-hearted, a loving man. I'll take you out tonight.’
‘I don't want to go out.’
‘Okay, we'll stay home. I'll cook.’
The telephone rang. We were in my office where I answer the telephone, open the door and type the letters myself, because there's no-one else to do it.
‘Hardy Investigations. Warm-hearted Hardy speaking.’
‘Your heart's as warm as Bob Askin's. Cut out the bullshit, Cliff, I've got a job for you.’ It was Athol Groom, who works in advertising and agenting; he sometimes drinks where I sometimes drink.
‘Terrific, Athol’, I said. Athol deals in people with soft jobs; Cyn calls him a pimp, and she made a face when I said his name. ‘What sort of job?’
‘Come down here and I'll tell you.’ He gave me his address.
‘How long do you reckon this'll take?’
‘How the hell do I know? All day, all night, all week. The longer the better as far as you're concerned, isn't it?’
‘Yeah, I guess so.But I've gone up to seventy-five a day and expenses.’
‘Shit. All right. Just hurry, she'll be here soon.’
‘She?’
‘Selina Hope. Hurry.’
I put down the phone and stood up; Cyn moved away from me as if we were in a slow ballet.
‘A job’, I said.
‘It's always a job, what we need is a talk-tonight.’
‘I don't know, love.’
‘A minute ago you were going to cook some slop for me, drink two-thirds of the wine and that.’
She was looking very nice that morning, my wife. Nearly as tall as me, she was straight and slim with honey-blonde hair. She must have come directly from the architect's office where she worked because she still had draughtsman's ink on her fingers. She saw me looking, and her fine-boned, handsome face went hard.
‘Cold’, she said. ‘Selfish and cold.’
I patted her arm, there were no tears which was good. I went out.
Athol's pimping shop was in Double Bay on a steep hill. I ran the back wheels of my old Falcon into the kerb and let it sit there in a way which says to the world, ‘This car has a faulty handbrake’; but what can you do? Athol's decor was dominated by photographs, mirrors and magazines. The pictures were blow-ups of models with impossible cheek bones doing mysterious things amid shadows. The magazines were glossy, and the mirrors are fine if you're a five foot nine clothes horse with the right angles and planes. When you're a thin, six foot, thirtyish man with untidy dark hair and Grace Bros, clothes, they're not so good. A lacquered, Sassooned brunette pressed a buzzer when I told her who I was, and Athol hurried out.
Athol Groom is one of those men in the fifties who plays squash and eats nothing so as to keep his waist down; he likes a drink though, and that slight thickening won't be denied. He has a glossy moustache, and hair and teeth to match, but he's not a phoney.
‘Good to see you, Cliff, how's Cyn?’ I took Athol home once, and after one look at Cyn he tried to persuade her to take up photo modelling. She laughed at him.
‘All right. What's going on?’
The brunette looked at her appointment book and spoke up crisply. ‘Mr Blake is due any minute, Mr Groom.’
‘Right, right. Come on, Cliff, you're a bodyguard; come and meet the body.’
We went down a corridor past more photographs and into Groom's office. A woman was leaning back against the big desk combing her hair. It was worth combing, a great blue-black mane that rippled and flowed under the comb strokes. Its owner had the standard tall, thin, flat body; but with a face to haunt your dreams forever. Her skin was darkish, almost olive; she had jet black eyebrows, dark eyes and a wide, wonderful mouth. Her nose was nothing much, just exactly as straight and thin as it needed to be.
‘Selina’, Athol said, ‘This is Cliff Hardy. Selina Hope, Cliff.’ We nodded at each other, but I was listening to Groom's voice; this was his handle-with-care, this-side-up voice. I gathered Miss Hope was a hot property.
‘We've got a little problem here, Cliff. There seems to be some creep hanging around Selina's flat, following her and such. Was he there this morning, love?’
‘Yes, I think so.’ I expected an exotic accent of some kind to accompany the face but there was none, just good, clear, educated Australian.
‘You think’, Athol said sharply. Maybe he was thinking about my fee.
‘Easy’, I said. ‘Miss Hope's said the right thing. When someone's watching you it's a feeling you get more than anything else. Sort of corner of the eye thing. Is that right?’
‘Yes, exactly.’ It's not often I say just the right thing for a beautiful woman—I'm usually considered somewhat blunt—but I did it this time. She smiled at me as if I'd won the pools. But there was some relief in that smile too—she'd been scared.
‘Okay’, Athol said. ‘Well, we all know about the weirdos in this game. It's probably some freak who's seen Selina in a bra advert and can't
sleep. A few strong, silent looks from Cliff and he'll give it away. It's a pity the London job fell through though, that would've been the best cure. Next best thing is to keep busy. I've lined Selina up for two jobs today, Cliff, and I want you to stick close, and see her home. Okay?’
‘Sure.’
‘Off you go.’
I followed Selina to the back exit; she was wearing a black jumpsuit, caught tight at the ankles and loose pretty well everywhere else. Her walk was a spectacular strut that made the hair bounce on her straight shoulders. We walked across to a bright blue Mercedes sports car and she tossed me a set of keys. I threw them back.
‘I'm a column gears man’, I said.
She laughed and unlocked the car; I couldn't find the seat belt, couldn't fasten it and couldn't push the seat back. She helped me with one hand and put in a cassette with the other—we took off to a roaring of guitars and electric piano.
Over the music and traffic noise I asked her about the London job. She told me that she'd been booked to be snapped outside the Houses of Parliament with a peer of the realm for a Scotch whisky advertisement, but the peer had died.
‘Tough luck.’
‘Would have been a good trip.’ She dipped a shoulder and flicked the Merc around a bend, changed down and surged up a hill.
‘Have you worked in London before?’
‘London, Paris, New York.’ There was pride in her voice but no conceit. I decided I liked her.
‘Have you been getting any other harassment—phone calls, letters?’
‘Not a thing. Just as you said, a glimpse of someone, a feeling …’
‘You don't know what it's about?’
‘Not a clue.’
I didn't like the sound of it; a good tail, one who just leaves that feeling, is a professional, not a sex-starved creep. Professionals work for money and the people who pay them have reasons. We drove down to Woolloomooloo near the docks; there was a fair bit of traffic and activity and she glanced around nervously as she locked the car.
‘Do you have the feeling now?’ I asked.
‘Not sure.’
‘What are you doing here, an ad for overalls?’
She laughed and we walked towards a dingy-looking warehouse. ‘You'll see.’
We went up some steps and in through a mouldy door. If the place was a nightmare outside, it was a dream within. The carpet was deep, the walls were white and the lighting was costing someone a fortune. The huge floor area was partitioned off into dressing rooms and elaborate, stylised sets. There were cameras and light fittings everywhere.
‘Not overalls’, I said.
‘Soft drink, I believe. Come on.’ She led me through the maze of equipment and props, and we wound up with a photographer named Sam, his assistant and a few cases of soft drink. Sam was a Levantine; squat and heavy with a floral shirt unbuttoned to show his virile chest and stomach. All of it. His off-sider was an anorexic blonde who whisked Selina away and took me out of camera range. I asked for a sample and got a bottle of Diet-Slim cola which tasted like rusty water with saccharine added. Selina came out wearing a super-formal dress, and proceeded to drape herself around some Swedish furniture while sipping tall glasses of the beverage. I got bored with this and wandered off in search of a phone. I found one behind a jungly set which was being sprayed with insect repellent by Livingstone and Stanley. I dialled the number of the terrace house in Glebe where Cyn and I practise wedded bliss. She answered in a tone that told she was keeping her head of steam up.
‘It looks as if I'll be home tonight.’
‘You'd better be. We really need to talk, Cliff. Where are you? In some pub at the Cross, I suppose? Pissing on?’
I was still holding the Diet-Slim; I looked across to a set that featured a silver-grey Rolls Royce—a woman in a fur coat was getting out of it and smiling up at a guy in a dinner suit.
‘Yeah, something like that’, I said.
‘I'll see you tonight.’ She hung up and I skirted the jungle, a schoolroom and a torture chamber back to where Sam had Selina reading while sipping: the book was The ABZ of Love.
Sam clicked away and the blonde moved lights and Selina smiled and smiled until I wondered at her patience. The money would have to be good. Eventually they called it a day and, after kisses all round, Selina climbed back into her jumpsuit and we were on our way.
‘Lunch?’ I said.
She shook her head. ‘Not for me, but I'll watch you.’
It was lunchtime, and things were quiet outside as we moved towards the car. Suddenly there were hurried sounds behind us, and I heard a whooshing noise and felt one side of my head tear itself loose from the middle. I crumpled, heard the sound again and my shoulder caught on fire. I went down further but managed to grab a pair of legs and pull. I looked up and saw a big guy in blue overalls pulling Selina towards a car. She screamed once and he hit her, and she was quiet. Then a knee came up into my face and I slammed down hard on to the footpath.
It all took about fifteen seconds: I was going to lunch with a beautiful girl and then I had a bleeding face, dented shoulder and no girl. And I'd be missing lunch. I brushed aside the few people who tried to help me and staggered up to Forbes Street to hail a cab. My ear and nose were bleeding and my clothes were dirty, but the Sydney cabbie is a brave soul. I gave the driver Groom's address, and mopped at the blood. My entry at the agency sent people fluttering and bells ringing: Athol came out quickly and hustled me off to wet towels and a large Scotch. I told him what had happened while I cleaned up.
‘Did he hit her hard?’
‘I don't think so. Why?’
‘That face is just pure gold. I don't like to think of it being knocked about. What should we do now?’
I pulled a bit of loose skin off the ear and started the blood flowing again. ‘Call the cops’, I said.
He shook his head. ‘I'd rather not. You've got no idea what people are like in this racket. Any police trouble involving Selina and her career could be finished just like that’ He snapped his fingers. ‘The face has to be a pure image, untainted, see?’
‘Not to mention your commission.’
‘Right. There must be something you can do.’ He was reproachful; I could have said that a bashing and an abduction were very different things from a loitering perv, but I didn't.
‘Give me a bit of time on it. If I can't come up with anything pretty quick you'll have to get the cops. Where does she live? Who're her friends?’
He told me that Selina shared a flat in Woollahra with another girl, and gave me the address. He didn't know much about friends. I got to the flat quickly; my leg gave me trouble on the stairs, but never let it be said that Hardy gives in to pain. I forgot about the leg when I saw the flat door hanging on one hinge inside a shattered frame. I looked straight into the living room—torn paper, ripped and crumpled fabric and carpet made it look as if a small bomb had gone off inside. I took a few steps past the door and stopped when a woman came into the room. She looked at me and screamed.
‘Easy, easy’, I said. ‘I'm a friend, you must be Jenny.’
She nodded; her face was white and her hands were flying about like frightened birds. ‘Who're you?’ she gasped.
‘Cliff Hardy.’ I produced some documents, thinking that they might help bring some order to the chaotic scene. The woman started swearing and I poked around in the debris while she visited terrible things on unknown persons. I gathered that she'd walked in on the violated flat just before I did; the telephone had been ripped out of the wall—the only departure from a cool, thorough bit of searching. No book, and there were a lot, was undisturbed; all lined clothes had been slashed; drawers had been tipped out and the contents sifted and all edges stuck or otherwise fastened—carpets, furniture, pictures, ornaments—had been lifted and inspected.
She picked things up and dropped them helplessly. ‘Why?’ she said.
‘It's to do with Selina. Has she been in trouble lately? Been seeing any strange people?’
> ‘Strange? No … but she said there was a perv hanging around.’ Alarm leapt in her voice and eyes. ‘Is she all right? Where is she?’ She seemed to notice my injuries for the first time and drew the right conclusions. ‘Something's happened!’
‘Something’, I said. ‘I'm not sure what. Selina's been grabbed by someone, not a perv. How close are you to her?’
‘Oh, we're … friends. I worked in TV, and I met her while she was doing a commercial. We got along, and she needed a flatmate. Grabbed? What does that mean?’
‘I wish I knew.’ I bent down and picked up a photograph from the floor. It had been detached from a frame and the backing had been cut away. The picture was a studio portrait of a self-satisfied looking guy with good teeth and ringletted brown hair.
‘Who's this?’
‘Colin Short, Selina's boyfriend.’
‘Athol Groom didn't tell me about a boyfriend.’
‘He doesn't know. Selina keeps him a secret.’
‘Why?’
She began making piles of the dismembered books. ‘He's a photographer. A model isn't supposed to be on with any one photographer. Shit what a mess. Why would anyone do this? What do they want, money or what?’
I squatted and helped her with the books. 'they were looking for something. Selina ever mention a hiding place?’
‘Come on, we're grown-up people.’
‘Where does Short live?’
‘He's got a sort of studio just around the corner. If I could find the address book … She rummaged around in the mess and came up with a notebook. She read out the address and I wrote it down. ‘He phoned this morning, as a matter of fact.’
‘What did he want?’
‘God, why are we doing this? Something should be done!’
‘Believe it or not, this is doing something. What did Short say?’
‘He just wanted to know if Selina got away okay. She was supposed to go to London the lucky …’ She broke off and looked contrite.
‘Don't worry’, I said. ‘I know what you meant. How did Short take the news that she wasn't going?’
‘Seemed upset. He kept asking me was I sure.’