The January Zone ch-10

by Peter Corris

  We stood outside the waiting room watching the light traffic in the lobby. The servicemen predominated over the civilians and men predominated over women. They all looked busy; they all looked important and most looked worried. Billy Spinoza came through the doorway. I suddenly realised that his was the first dark face I’d seen in the place. He was wearing a rollneck sweater and a checked jacket-tough guys don’t wear ties.

  ‘Ms Bell, Mr January, Cliff, shall we go?’

  ‘Have you got a car, Mr Spinoza?’ January said.

  ‘No, sir, not right now. Have to be careful with cars in my line of work.’ He steered us towards the door.

  ‘Why’s that?’ Trudi said.

  ‘It’s just another thing they can wire. Fact is, there hasn’t been a single bombing or bugging in a taxi cab yet. We appreciate that.’

  It was dark outside but the afternoon warmth was lasting. Spinoza collared a cab that was dropping a much be-ribboned officer at the building and he ushered us into the back.

  ‘Where to, brother?’ the driver said. He was darker than Spinoza with a shiny bald head. The photograph of him above the sun visor must have been taken years before when he still had a fringe of grizzled grey hair.

  ‘The Strip, I guess. What would you folks like to eat?’

  The driver flicked the meter on. ‘Creole?’

  ‘Yuk,’ Trudi said.

  The driver smiled. ‘Chinese?’

  ‘How about Australian?’ I said.

  ‘Say what?’

  Spinoza pulled at his tuft of beard. ‘We’ll eat Italian. The food’s okay but more to the point we’ll get good visibility.’

  ‘That again,’ Trudi said. ‘Tell me.’

  We told her as we drove to Georgetown. She listened in silence, asked for my descriptions of the men in the car again and then sank back in the seat. ‘Prohibition’s over, isn’t it? Let’s get a drink.’

  After the grey wasteland of the administrative buildings, putting foot on the Strip was like arriving on another planet. The neon and the traffic noise and the music seemed to blend into a roar of sound and light. We three Australians were edgy and tired and Spinoza was tense, but something about the place revived us. It wasn’t quite a good feeling; it was almost as though the world’s problems were too big and this was a place to come to forget them for a while, until they reached out and snuffed you.

  Spinoza directed us through the streams of people on the pavement who were milling around briefly, forming groups and breaking up and staying compulsively on the move. Cars crawled along the street, parked, honked and were honked at, moved on. There was flow between the road and the pavement. I saw a man park almost in the middle of the road, walk to the kerb; hand his keys to another man and take up the conversation as his car was driven away. The road and pavement people were all of the same tribe.

  The restaurant, which was named Dino’s or Mario’s or Luigi’s, had red and white tablecloths but they were striped not checked and the bottles in which the candles stood didn’t have wickerwork around them. Spinoza had a quiet word with the supervisor and a couple was moved away from a table in the corner. They were smiling and I watched as the cloth was changed on the table and they were re-settled. A bottle of wine arrived for them and was uncorked with a smile and a flourish. Then we sat down.

  ‘Okay?’ Spinoza said.

  We were in a corner; no doors behind us or to the side, a clear view of the entrance, the serving door and the door that led to the conveniences. I could even see through a window into the small carpark at the side. ‘Fine,’ I said.

  ‘Double vodka,’ Trudi said to the drink waiter. ‘Scotch and ice to my right and beer for the gentlemen opposite.’

  ‘Mineral water,’ Spinoza said.

  The waiter looked enquiringly at me. ‘Light beer,’ I said. ‘I love a compromise.’

  January was rubbing his eyes and massaging the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger.

  ‘They say you shouldn’t eat when you’ve got jet lag, Peter,’ I said. ‘You should have a salad.’

  ‘I’ve never had jet lag in my life,’ January snarled. ‘I want osso bucco and a litre of red wine. God, I’m going to make them sorry for this.’

  ‘You’ll be sorry if you drink a litre of red wine here, sir,’ Spinoza said softly. ‘But what d’you mean, if I may ask. The threats…?’

  ‘No, I’m talking about that prick who thought I was a South African.’

  The drinks arrived and Spinoza sipped his mineral water. ‘That is a considerable insult,’ he said. ‘Cliff, do you…?’

  But I wasn’t listening; I wasn’t even drinking. I was looking out into the carpark and I knew what had disturbed me before but wouldn’t quite rise to the surface. The white Volvo with the red stripe I’d seen at our first stop had been in the carpark at the second stop and here it was again, pulling into a parking bay right outside.

  ****

  16

  I muttered the information to Spinoza as I got up from the table.

  ‘Could be a feint,’ he said. ‘I’ll watch the folks. Think you can handle it?’

  I nodded. His signal to the restaurant supervisor must have meant ‘Give this man the moon’ because he leaned his ear up to my mouth and looked ready to clear the place if need be.

  ‘Quick way to the carpark?’ I said.

  He didn’t waste time talking; his hand gripped my arm and he steered me past tables and out through the kitchen to a set of heavy perspex doors.

  ‘You can see it from here, buddy. We got a guy parks the cars.’

  The Volvo owner was dark, heavy-set, with thin hair and a green face, but that was just the neon light above the building tinting him. He didn’t want his car parked by anyone. He wanted to leave it where it was. The car parker, a young black man wearing whites with a bow tie and a white cap, didn’t want him to do that but saw reason when Green Face gave him some money. I slipped out of the kitchen and ducked low behind the cars, moving forward to cut him off before he got to the door of the restaurant.

  I got a quick look at the Volvo on the way-no one else in it. Green Face moved slowly; he was either furtive, hesitant or careful. He was built wide and strong; his suit was baggy and he wore scuffed suede shoes. He kept one hand in his pocket I took out the. 38, took four long steps and swung a kick in behind his right knee. His hands flew in the air, both empty and clawing at the wall for support. I hooked at his ankle and watched him fall.

  He hit on his side and rolled over onto his back. I bent down and put the gun in front of his face where he could see it.

  ‘Stay there,’ I said, ‘and you won’t get hurt.’

  His voice came out in a strangled whine with a lot of Australian vowels. ‘I am hurt!’

  All that stuff about Americans ignoring muggings in the street is true; we were only feet away from the main throroughfare; several people stared at me as I bent over a fallen man threatening him with a gun, but no one stopped. You can’t count on it absolutely, though. The carpark attendant came out from behind a car with a gun bigger than mine in his hand.

  ‘Hold it there,’ he said.

  ‘You hold it.’ I eased back a little but remained businesslike. ‘This is official. It’s okay.’

  ‘The hell it’s official,’ the man on the ground said.

  ‘Have I touched your wallet? Am I trying to take your car keys? And if I wanted you to be dead that’s how you’d be.’ I was reasonably sure he wasn’t armed and not just because he spoke with an Australian accent. His jacket was open and he wore no harness; if he had a gun in his sock it’d be my own fault if I let him get it. I slid the safety to ‘on’ and put my gun away. ‘Would you please,’ I said to the attendant, ‘go inside and get a message to Mr Spinoza that everything’s all right. You can see that it is, can’t you?’

  ‘I guess so.’ He uncocked the big gun.

  ‘Don’t go!’ Green Face who was now White Face wriggled on the ground.

  ‘I’m Peter January’s sec
urity man,’ I said.

  He groaned. ‘Shit! Okay, it’s okay.’

  ‘You done made my night, mister,’ the car parker said. ‘Spinoza, was it?’

  ‘Right.’

  He backed away and headed for the kitchen door. The man on the ground tucked his left leg back and levered himself up. I watched him but didn’t help. He propped himself against the wall and we inspected each other.

  ‘Why the hell did you do that?’ he said.

  ‘You made me nervous following us the way you did. Who are you?’

  ‘I’m Don Carver. I’m a reporter.’

  ‘If you want an interview there’s a procedure.’

  Carver brushed dirt from his shirtfront. ‘I don’t want a fucking interview. I wanted to observe the bastard. Do you realise where you are? Cameramen sue tennis players for millions in this country-for busting a camera.’

  ‘The tennis players sue back,’ I said. ‘Well, you’ve got your story. You can tell them the Minister’s got good security.’

  He glowered at me. He had the sort of bulky body that won’t respond well to tailoring. His clothes were expensive but they hung around him awkwardly. His hair was precisely trimmed but it still looked thin and scruffy. He wasn’t a happy man. ‘There’s no news in that. He’s always had thugs around him.’

  I moved closer to him and brushed more dirt from his jacket. ‘Something just occurred to me-January has had the odd threat since he got here. Now you turn up skulking around and you clearly don’t like him. I could put two and two together.’

  ‘That’s rubbish.’

  ‘So you say. Maybe I should have a word about you to the security boys here. Would that cramp your style at all, Carver?’

  He stopped glowering and looked uncomfortable. ‘I was just doing my job.’

  ‘Me, too. You want to take a look at him before you go on your way?’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  He eased himself painfully away from the wall and limped along after me. I took him into the carpark, nodded to the attendant, and we looked in through the window.

  Peter January had his arm around Trudi’s shoulders. He was telling a story and Trudi and Spinoza were laughing. Light danced on the glasses on the table and on the bottle as the waiter poured January some wine. He smiled at Trudi and she touched his shoulder to draw his attention to something. I felt Carver stiffen beside me.

  He sniffed noisily. ‘Who’s she?’

  ‘Assistant,’ I said.

  ‘There’s always someone. Nothing’s changed. Well, I’ve seen all I need to see. What’s your name?’

  ‘Smith,’ I said. ‘I suggest you get in your Volvo and go home so you can work for your Pulitzer prize.’

  He sniffed again and limped off towards his car. I watched the tail-light blend into the traffic and I headed back to the kitchen. The attendant touched his cap as I passed. I settled down at the table and drank my beer which had gone flat. January and Trudi were eating; Spinoza looked at me.

  ‘Trouble?’

  ‘Not much.’ I poured some wine and drank it. Spinoza was right, a litre of it would have been bad trouble. ‘I have to stop doing this. It’s no way for a man to earn a living.’

  January stopped chewing. ‘Doing what?’

  ‘Beating up journalists. I just had a run-in with Don Carver.’

  January dropped his fork onto his plate. Some sauce splashed over his shirt. ‘Shit! What did you say? You beat up Don Carver?’

  ‘He’ll have a sore leg, that’s all.’

  ‘What other journalist have your beaten up lately?’ Trudi said.

  ‘Sammy Weiss.’

  ‘That slug.’ She drank some wine and shuddered.

  ‘I’m not following this,’ Spinoza said.

  I reached for bread in the hope that it would improve the wine. ‘It’s all to do with the Minister’s reputation,’ I said. ‘He has to keep up this front of being a womaniser so no one’ll suspect he’s gay.’

  ‘Hardy, watch it!’ January said.

  Trudi laughed. I suddenly realised that I was jealous. ‘Don’t worry, Peter,’ I said. ‘When Carver looked in Trudi was nibbling your ear. He got the right message.’

  ****

  The party went sort of flat after that. We finished the meal; I didn’t eat anything and drank a bit too much of the wine. Spinoza didn’t drink anything. At one point he slipped out and I gather he spoke to the carpark attendant because when he came back he nodded to me approvingly.

  ‘Neat,’ he said.

  We took January and Trudi to their next meeting which was in a condominium apartment near the Watergate hotel. I stayed in the car with Spinoza and we drank some very good and very strong coffee from a take-away joint.

  ‘You don’t look much like a citizen of the lucky country right now,’ Spinoza said.

  I swilled the last inch of coffee. ‘We were the lucky country for about 24 hours in 1972.’

  ‘How’s that?’

  ‘We got a new government that did good things. 24 hours, maybe 48. It was all downhill after that.’

  Spinoza looked out over the lights strung up high over the bank of the Georgetown Channel. ‘Luck sure is spread thin. But your man’s doing all right. He’s got past a bombing, I hear, and then there was that little freeway incident. Mind you, he’s going to be exposed tomorrow.’

  ‘They haven’t told me.’

  ‘He’s going to this big function in Georgetown-sort of liberal affair-anti-nuclear, pro-Third World, free range eggs thing. Lots of people and very hard to screen ‘em.’

  ‘Great. I still haven’t looked at your mug shots.’

  ‘We’ll do it tomorrow-after this thing is over. He does the Senate after that, right?’

  ‘Yeah. Tell me, Billy, do any of your people ever go over to the other side? I mean to the mob, terrorists or whatever?’

  ‘Sure. Some of the best and smoothest. The work’s much the same, the money’s better and the life expectancy isn’t much worse, if any.’

  ‘Thanks. I’m really looking forward to tomorrow.’

  ****

  17

  The first person I saw the next morning looked worried and guilty-it was me, in a mirror, and I didn’t have to be a detective to know why. I hadn’t sent Helen her postcard. My stomach felt off after the bad red wine and I didn’t want any breakfast. I was in the corridor intending to go to the lobby where I remembered they had a gift shop. I bumped into Martin and immediately felt better because he looked worse than I did.

  ‘What happened to you?’ I poked the button to call the lift; Martin was shaking, polishing his spectacles and not looking up to the job.

  ‘Got drinking with some of the press boys last night.’

  ‘You don’t look the type.’ We got into the lift and had the chance to examine both our images in the mirrors. Mirrors don’t lie: he looked much worse than me.

  ‘I’m not really. A couple of beers down the Canberra Rex on Friday night’s my speed. Bit of wine with dinner. I don’t know how it happened.’

  ‘I daresay there’s more sin here than in Canberra. Don’t worry, you’ll recover. You can have a hair of the dog at this Georgetown bash. You going?’

  We arrived at ‘R’, which meant the ground floor, and he stumbled leaving the lift. ‘That’s not the worst of it. They cancelled another meeting with the Minister this morning.’

  ‘That’s not bad news for me.’

  ‘It is for him. He feels he’s getting the cold shoulder.’

  ‘What did he expect? Excuse me, I have to buy something. Where are you going?’

  ‘For a walk, to clear my head.’

  I thought of telling him to be careful and then cancelled the thought. He was over 30 and he had a job in Canberra; he could look after himself.

  I bought a postcard of the Washington monument at the news-stand and wrote on it that I’d tried to contact her and that I missed her and that if she didn’t phone me in Sydney when I got back I was going to come up to Kem
psey and fix it so that she and Michael and me and the kid all had our say. I got stamps at the desk and mailed the card to the radio station where she worked. Trudi came into view as I was dropping it in the box.

  ‘Helen?’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘What’s happened to you? You got all shirty last night?’

  I hadn’t spoken much after we’d left the restaurant. I did the strong, silent stuff with Spinoza and said goodnight to Trudi and January in the hallway.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘It’s crazy. I had no right but it’d been a hard day. I was sort of jealous about you and January. Jet lag. Dumb.’

  She squeezed my arm. ‘That was dumb. I’m more interested in Spinoza. C’mon over to ye olde gifte shoppe.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I wanna get a diamond-studded collar for Gunther.’

  I hadn’t noticed but the gift shop was that sort of place. There were trinkets with thousand dollar price tickets on them; $500 gold lighters, Cartier watches for three grand. I did notice the wiring of the glass cases and the uniformed guard who stood by the door with what looked like a Colt Frontiersman on his hip.

  ‘Bit rich for the blood,’ I said.

  Trudi peered at a case. ‘It’s got diamonds from one to 12.’

  ‘Not very big ones. What time are we due at Georgetown?’

  ‘Bit after 11.’ She’d washed her hair and smelled fresh and good. The fine eyebrow lines were still enticing. She fluttered her eyelashes. ‘Think Spinoza’ll be there?’

  ‘Hiding in the shrubbery. You won’t see him.’

  ‘We’d better get organised. Peter’s having a last brush-up of his speech with Bolton. He’ll want to talk to Martin too. Have you seen him?’

  ‘He went out for a walk.’

  ‘You’d better get him, Cliff. I think Peter’ll want to talk to us all before we go.’

  She squeezed my arm again and left. I nodded to the big guard with the big gun and we went out onto the street. Nothing to the left; I looked right, saw the crowd of people clustering on the footpath a hundred yards away and broke into a run. The crowd parted as I came pounding up. My jacket was open and my gun was showing; I had my operator’s licence in my hand. It didn’t mean a thing here but it caused people to move back and let me see what had drawn them.