Man in the Shadows

by Peter Corris

  I squatted down in front of him and tapped the barrel of the gun on his knee. ‘You don’t seem so brain damaged now, Mr Greenway.’

  ‘Be . . . be careful with that.’

  ‘The safety’s on now. I think it’s time we had a little talk.’

  I helped him up and he hobbled to a chair. I pulled out the comfortable-looking chair from behind the desk and sat opposite him about a metre away. He rubbed his knee with his right hand; that hurt his forearm so he stopped rubbing.

  ‘You really worked me over,’ he said.

  I bent my head and moved it stiffly. ‘Know what? I took a first class rabbit killer from one of the hospital guards. We’re not quite even yet.’

  ‘How did you find me? I mean, I’m glad you did but . . . ’

  I put the Nomad on the desk and swung it around so that the muzzle pointed at his chest. ‘Me first, mate. What’s this all about? Why did you come to me with that phony story and the phony job?’

  He grinned. ‘Took you in, didn’t I? With the lobotomy act?’

  ‘I’m getting impatient. This gun’s probably illegal and Dr Smith at the hospital wants to throw the book at you. You could be in serious trouble.’

  ‘It wasn’t a phony job. It isn’t. I’ve got a client. Look, I got into this game a few months ago. I’ve handled a few small things—down around the lost dog level, you know? It must have been the same for you when you were starting.’

  I looked at him; he had a good tan; he was wearing loose white cotton pants and a striped shirt; it wasn’t warm in the dark flat but he was sweating. I didn’t say anything.

  ‘Well, this was the first real job. I didn’t think I could handle it on my own and I’d heard about you so I thought I’d enlist your help.’

  ‘Thanks a lot. So far I’ve been coshed and had my licence threatened. I’m really enjoying your case.’

  ‘You’ve had five hundred dollars too.’

  ‘How much have you had?’

  ‘Two thousand.’

  The mention of the money seemed to give him confidence. He eased out of his chair. ‘I want a drink. I’ve got some beer in the kitchen. How about you?’

  ‘Okay. But don’t get any ideas about pissing off. You’re an easy man to find.’

  He walked unsteadily down the passage to the kitchen and came back with two cans of Reschs Pilsener. He popped the cans and handed me one. ‘How did you find me?’

  I took a sip and told him in as few words as I could manage. I felt I needed to watch and listen to him a bit more before deciding what to do. He nodded, apparently respectfully.

  ‘Pretty good. I thought you might be that good. I was giving you a test.’

  ‘Shit, you’ve got a nerve. Okay, cut the charm. Let’s hear about your client.’

  ‘I haven’t met him, it’s all been done by telephone. He wanted photographs of that set of inmates at the hospital. The ones who exercise at that time. It seemed like a two man job to me, so I . . .

  I waved the beer can. ‘Don’t go into that. I might shove this down your throat. Did he say why he wanted the pictures?’

  ‘No. He sent me the money though. Cash. I needed it.’

  ‘If you’ve got any brains at all you must have known it was fishy.’

  ‘Haven’t you ever done anything fishy? Especially at the beginning? How did you get started?’

  I could remember enough fishy things not to want to go on with that subject. ‘I had contacts,’ I grunted. ‘From when I worked in insurance.’

  Greenway tipped back his head and poured down most of the can. ‘So did I. Actors. I was hired to beat up a guy and get a girl stoned and willing. I was hired to steal a script.’

  ‘Did you take the jobs?’

  ‘I tried for the script. I got the wrong one.’

  We both laughed. ‘One time I . . . ’ I stopped. I didn’t want to get into comic reminiscences. I put the beer can on the desk next to the gun. ‘Go on.’

  He shrugged. ‘I was desperate for something . . . real. Otherwise I’d have to give this away, like I have with writing, acting . . . everything. So I got the photos. I’m supposed to get another thousand when I hand them over but I haven’t been contacted yet. What d’you think I should do?’

  ‘What’s the voice on the phone like?’

  ‘Muffled. Obviously disguised.’

  ‘Who told you where to break through the fence and when to do it?’

  ‘He did. My client. Look, this is a few weeks ago. I didn’t do anything for a while. I thought it over even after the money arrived. Then I checked on the place—went out there, talked to a girl who’d been . . . ’

  ‘Annie Parker.’

  That startled him. ‘Right. How’d you know? You’re better at this than I thought.’

  ‘No I’m not. She came to see me this morning. She needed somewhere to duck into for a bit. Why’d you drop her? She took it hard.’

  He said he was sorry but he didn’t look it. ‘She was a junkie. She’d been on the street in her time. I was scared of AIDS.’

  ‘So you pissed off, like from Selwyn Street.’

  He crumpled the empty beer can. ‘You don’t know what it’s like! People wasting away around you, dying.’

  ‘Especially if you’re bi?’

  ‘Yeah.’ Something about the way he spoke the word told me he was lying. He was a master liar but there was something showing just then. The tough, selfish facade showed a crack.

  ‘You and Annie could’ve had a test. Checked yourselves out. Why didn’t you try that?’

  The crack opened; he rubbed his eyes and pushed back his hair. Suddenly he looked older, less vain. ‘Annie had the test. She was okay. I was too scared to have it. Still am. I pissed off because I was scared that if I showed up positive . . . well, I could lie and maybe give it to Annie. If I told the truth she’d drop me, wouldn’t she?’

  ‘Maybe not. Anyway, you might be clear.’

  ‘I’ve been around, Mr Hardy. Want another beer?’

  ‘Why not?’

  He brought the cans and we sat drinking and not talking. I was thinking: Life had got more complicated since the time when we worried about VD. My two cases of crabs seemed laughable. They were talking about condoms again. If I’d had to invent a brand name for condoms it’d be Fiasco. Try Fiasco condoms, you’ll never . . .

  ‘Are you going to talk to this Dr Smith?’ Greenway said suddenly. ‘To get yourself off the hook?’

  ‘No, not yet at least. You’re not quite the arsehole you pretend to be. You’re in trouble and you’ve paid me for a couple of days. I can stick with it for a bit.’

  ‘Doing what?’

  ‘Doing the things you should have done. Finding out a bit more about the hospital. That’s the first thing.’

  ‘What else should I have done?’

  ‘Talked to Annie. Where’s your phone?’

  It was in the bedroom. I sat on the bed and dialled my number. Greenway stood, long and tense in the shadow by the door. After many rings the phone was picked up.

  ‘Annie? It’s Hardy.’ I heard a groan and a sigh, sounds of despair.

  ‘Annie?’

  ‘What’s wrong?’ Greenway said.

  I hushed him with a sharp movement of my hand. ‘Annie!’

  ‘I can’t,’ she whispered. ‘I can’t . . . ’ There was a crash and another groan and then a long, deep silence.

  9

  I cut the call off and immediately dialled for an ambulance. I gave them the address and the details. I mentioned the doorkey but told them to kick the door in if they had to. I dropped the receiver and moved towards the passage.

  Greenway made as if to block my path but he thought better of it and stepped aside. ‘Wait. I’ll come too.’

  I didn’t wait. I charged straight out and headed down the stairs; I could hear Greenway behind me. He caught up by the time I reached the car and I let him in. I lost seconds fumbling for the unfamiliar spare key and I swore about it.

  ‘Wha
t?’ Greenway said.

  ‘Never mind.’ I started the car and revved it savagely. ‘What were you doing back there?’

  He buckled on his seat belt. ‘Putting the phone on record in case he calls.’

  That was grace under pressure I supposed, or just cold-bloodedness. I concentrated on driving, took some chances and made good time on the freeway and down through Surry Hills to Central Railway. Greenway sat quietly. He ran his hands through his longish hair a few times and betrayed the sort of agitation that he’d suppressed on our first meeting.

  ‘Have you got the gun?’ I asked him.

  ‘No. Think we’ll need it?’

  I let the ‘we’ pass. ‘No.’

  ‘How did she sound?’

  ‘You know her better than me. She sounded more stoned than she could cope with.’

  ‘God. That.’

  I made myself unpopular with other drivers down Broadway and Glebe Point Road. The ambulance was standing outside my house when we arrived. The white coats moved around on the footpath and I could see my neighbours’ faces at their fences and windows. I stopped in the middle of the street and walked to my gate. One of the ambulance guys held the gate closed against me.

  ‘I live here,’ I said. ‘I called you.’

  ‘Mr Hardy?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  He wrote something on a sheet of paper attached to a clipboard. ‘Is the young woman a relation?’

  ‘No, a friend. How is she?’

  ‘I’m afraid she’s dead, sir. The police’re on their way.’

  I was aware of Greenway standing behind me. The Bondi colour had drained from his face. I drew him away towards the car. ‘Can you drive?’

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  ‘Okay. Just park the car down the street a bit, put the keys in the glove box and get lost. There’s no need for you to be part of this. I’ll get in touch with you as soon as I can.’ I gripped his arm and propelled him towards the car trying to look like someone giving and receiving support. ‘No fancy ideas either. Just do as I say!’

  He nodded, got into the car, started it and edged forward. I went back to the house and no one stopped me from going inside. Annie was lying on the floor in the living room. The telephone, with the receiver off, was buzzing beside her head. She was wearing my towelling dressing gown and nothing else. The dressing gown had fallen open revealing her pubic hair and one small pale breast. Her hair was wet. The right sleeve of the dressing gown was pushed and rolled up almost to the shoulder. There was an indentation and bruise in the soft flesh above the elbow and a puncture mark in the taut skin just below the crook of her arm.

  She’d showered and scrubbed her face. With no make-up and the strain gone, with her wet hair drawn back she looked innocent, like one of the young swimming champions of the fifties. I looked at her and tried to figure out how old she was. Twenty something, not twenty-five, not that much.

  The cops found the syringe and sachet in the bathroom along with the belt that had been used as a ligature. They put these things in plastic bags and also bagged all the contents of Annie’s pockets. They put her clothes in a bag and they put her in a bag too and took her away. I gave them a statement: when I’d first met Annie and how; why she was in my house; what she’d said. I gave them as much of the truth as I could and they appeared to believe me selectively.

  The detective in charge, a heavy, thorough type named Simmonds, asked me if there had been any heroin in the house when I’d left it that morning.

  ‘No,’ I said.

  ‘How can you be sure?’

  ‘I didn’t have any and neither did she. I searched her stuff while she was asleep.’

  ‘So she went out and scored?’

  ‘Or someone came by.’

  ‘Which?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  His shrug said it all: another dead junkie, who cares? Just as long as she doesn’t have a famous name—as long as she doesn’t sing or dance or act and isn’t somebody important’s wife or daughter. Annie was none of those things. Simmonds didn’t give me a hard time.

  But it’s one thing to walk into a strange house and find a dead junkie and look for the quickest way to file and forget it and another to try to read the signs of what really happened. There were damp patches down the hallway to the front door but none beside the spare bed upstairs where Annie had dumped her clothes. The belt that had bit into her upper arm was hers. Annie had gone to the door after having her shower but she hadn’t taken the belt from her pants unless she’d done it before she went to the door. Why would she? She didn’t have any smack.

  So someone had given her the smack and fetched the belt for her. A friend? Some friend. I wasn’t well up on the price of heroin and it really didn’t matter because from the quick look I’d got at the money the police had bagged it seemed that Annie’s twelve bucks were intact. I was sifting this through when there was a loud knock on the door. Feeling ridiculous, I got the .38 from its hiding place and went to the door. The outline through the misted glass panel was long and slope-shouldered.

  ‘Greenway?’

  ‘Yes.’

  I opened the door. ‘I thought I told you to piss off.’

  ‘I did.’ He shouldered past me. He was wearing a light cotton jacket over his striped shirt and I could see a bulge in the pocket. The Nomad, no doubt. I waved him on and we went through to the living and eating space at the back of the house.

  ‘I saw them take her out,’ he said.

  ‘Yeah? Then what did you do?’

  ‘I caught a cab home. He called. I’ve got his voice on tape.’

  10

  GREENWAY brandished the tape and looked around. He noted the phone, with its receiver replaced but obviously not in its usual place on the bench. He put the tape in his pocket.

  ‘Where was she?’ he said.

  I pointed.

  ‘The word in the street was accidental overdose. Is that right?’

  ‘No. At least not without some help.’

  We went through to the kitchen which was dim now that the afternoon sun was low in the west. Greenway leaned against the sink while I made coffee. ‘Was Annie . . . what happened to her, connected to this other business?’

  ‘Your case, you mean?’

  He nodded.

  ‘I don’t know. Do you? I see you’re carrying your gun. Does that mean you’ve got some ideas?’

  He shook his head.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘Guns usually mean no ideas. Have some coffee and let’s hear the tape.’

  The voice was slow and deep; the background noise was an intermittent hum: When I can talk to you in person I’ll give you instructions for the delivery of the photographs.

  We played it through five times. I drank two cups of coffee. Greenway kept glancing at the place where Annie had died as if he wanted to see her there and bring her back to life. ‘I thought of changing my message,’ he said, ‘leaving something specifically for him. But I decided that was being too clever.’

  ‘Good. You were right. Same voice, no difference?’

  ‘The same. Can you make anything of the background noise?’

  ‘That’s for the movies. I haven’t got voice-printing apparatus either and I can’t tell a southern Hungarian accent from a Romanian.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I know it’s a mess. I didn’t know what I was doing.’

  I felt guilty for the sarcasm. ‘All right. It happens. We have to work out what to do. Where to look for him.’ I got a bottle of brandy which Helen had left behind. It was from her husband’s tiny vineyard, Chateau Helene, and it wasn’t bad. I put a shot in my third and Greenway’s second cup of coffee. It was after four o’clock; that’s late enough when there’s been a death or a birth or a marriage or a horse has won or lost. I felt like working on the bottle itself, Greenway sipped moodily; booze wasn’t one of his problems.

  ‘Have you ever had a phone call from someone who seems to know you but you’ve never heard of them?’ I said. ‘J
ust a quick call that leaves you puzzled about how the caller got on to you or even got your number?’

  ‘Mm, I suppose.’

  ‘This is a bit like that. You have to sit down and build up a story that hangs together. Like—well, he must’ve known so-and-so and got my number that way.’

  Greenway grunted, unimpressed. I finished my coffee and poured some more brandy into the cup. I added the few drops of coffee that were left. ‘That’s what we have to do,’ I said. ‘If we assume whoever hired you got to Annie somehow and killed her, or helped, how could that be? What circumstances make that possible?’

  We both stared at the walls for a while. Greenway sighed; I drank my spiked coffee.

  Greenway shrugged. ‘I’m sorry. Nothing comes.’

  ‘Try this: Mr X was watching you from the minute he made the approach. He saw you come to me, saw us go to the hospital and followed me back here. Then he saw Annie come here. He’d seen you and Annie in company before and figured she must . . . ’

  ‘Must what?’

  ‘It gets harder here. Must . . . know something, or have seen something. So he waited until I left and made a move. He used the smack to talk his way in.’

  ‘Well, it fits,’ Greenway said slowly. ‘But where does it get us?’

  ‘If we knew what he wanted from Annie we’d be on our way. Assuming it’s about the hospital, did she tell you a lot about the place?’

  ‘Not much. She didn’t like talking about it. I just checked on the routines a bit, you know. That was all I wanted.’ Suddenly he straightened up from the slump he’d been sitting in. The look of tiredness and semi-shock left him.

  ‘What is it?’ I said.

  ‘Annie kept a diary! She said she could look in her diary when I asked her about something, some little thing. I said it didn’t matter.’

  ‘It matters now,’ I said.

  Annie had arrived without bag or baggage and she certainly hadn’t had a diary on her. So she’d left it, presumably with what she’d called her ‘stuff’ with ‘those creeps’. All I knew was that she’d tried to score in ‘the flats’ and some hoods in a red Mazda had given her a bad time. I told this to Greenway who nodded. ‘There’s a source in those flats down by the water. What’s her name?’ He snapped his fingers in the first theatrical gesture I’d seen from him since our first meeting when he was doing nothing else but. ‘Barbara-Ann. She’s got a straight front as a caterer but she deals in a pretty big way.’