The Big Score

by Peter Corris

  ‘You sent him off nicely. Isn’t that enough?’

  ‘No. I haven’t told you anything about my business, have I?’

  ‘I’d have got around to asking you.’

  ‘I run a freight company that operates here and in Europe and the United States. Not huge, but big enough and profitable. When I got started with a few trucks I ran into trouble with a competitor who wouldn’t play by the rules. Jerry rounded up a few blokes he’d met inside and it got sorted out. But Jerry was up on charges again at the time and I didn’t do enough for him: I was battling, short of time and money. He went away for a long, hard stretch and I prospered. As far as I could tell he didn’t hold it against me, but I felt I’d let him down. That’s why I made the caravan park offer. I didn’t want to look patronising or superior … But Jerry threw me with his claim to have the price. Does any of this make sense, Hardy?’

  Of course it did, almost too much sense, and I felt obliged to tell Fowler what had happened between Jerry and me. It didn’t reflect well on Jerry—given the price Zack had named for the mobile home, Jerry obviously was going for the whole bundle and planning to cut me out—or on me for not coming down harder, telling him to leave it alone. Over another couple of drinks I laid it all out.

  Fowler listened intently, forgetting his drink. When I finished he shook his head.

  ‘That’s Jerry all right. Too proud to accept charity from me but ready enough to diddle you out of your share of the reward. He was my brother and I was fond of him, but he couldn’t lie straight in bed.’

  ‘Perhaps I’ve wronged him. Maybe when I was lukewarm about his proposition he decided to just go it alone.’

  ‘I’d like to think so, but I doubt it.’ He took a small notebook from his coat pocket. ‘When did he come to you?’

  I told him and it became clear that Jerry had spoken about having the fifty thousand Sanderson had on offer before he spoke to me.

  ‘I’m sorry about that,’ Fowler said. ‘I was starting to feel encouraged that you knew something of what he was up to. That means you wouldn’t be starting from scratch. But now you know that he intended to cheat you I suppose you’re not inclined to help.’

  With the scotch working, I smiled at him. ‘Mr Fowler, you don’t imagine that I approve of all the people I work for, do you? Let alone like them.’

  ‘Then you’ll do it?’

  ‘Got your cheque book handy?’

  Knowing that Jerry had planned to cut me out of the deal made it easier in a way. I could be objective about the job and not feel any obligation to him. The other thing was that I was in the loop already, although I hadn’t told Fowler about the attack on me. I wanted to sort out who had me in their sights and I figured I might as well get paid while I was doing it.

  A while back I’d done some work for a bookmaker named Tim Turnbull. A missing daughter case that didn’t turn out too badly for all parties. I’d stayed vaguely in touch with him and had backed a couple of his tips successfully. I phoned him and arranged a meeting.

  Tim lived in Paddington in a three-storey terrace with all the wrought iron, white pebbles and native garden you could wish for. He’d demolished a smaller house beside his own to provide garage space with a swimming pool and a lavish entertainment area. Tim’s parties were legendary.

  I penetrated the layers of security and Tim led me into his den-cum-bar. The chairs were deep and comfortable, the bookshelves held a mix of racing books and hardback best-sellers, and the bottles of liquor were seductive in the subdued concealed lighting. It was mid-afternoon.

  ‘What’ll you have, Cliff?’

  ‘Light beer.’

  ‘Jesus, a couple of hundred grand’s worth of booze and you want light beer.’

  ‘If you have it, Tim.’

  ‘Smartarse. Of course I’ve got it. No one drinks seriously anymore.’

  Tim was out to prove his point. He gave me a stubbie of Cascade Light and a glass and let some cognac glide into a crystal balloon for himself. I sniffed the air.

  ‘What happened to the Havanas?’

  Tim, forty pounds overweight with a purple nose and florid complexion, scowled. ‘Had to give them up. Doctor’s orders.’ A reminder of this injunction damaged his sociability. ‘What can I do for you?’

  I spun him a line about a client being unhappy after his dealings with Charley Sanderson. I said I wanted Tim’s opinion of Sanderson and how heavy he was likely to come down on anyone who got in his bad books. Turnbull had started out as a runner for his father’s SP book and he knew a bit about the rough side of the game. He seemed to enjoy letting his mind work along these lines.

  ‘Charley’s a wimp,’ he said. ‘Wouldn’t have the guts to come down hard.’

  ‘What about getting someone to do the business for him?’

  ‘Nah. He’s afraid of the law. That’s one of the three things he’s afraid of.’

  I had to play along. ‘The other two are … ?’

  ‘His missus. A real dragon. Keeps him on a very tight leash. She’d be afraid of what might happen if he got into bad company like that Rivkin. Charley’s wife likes to move in respectable circles. The other thing he’s afraid of is going broke.’

  ‘Any risk of that?’

  Tim looked around the room, at the wood panelling, teak bookcases, chromium and glass bar—signs of wealth too solid ever to be lost, you’d think, but he said, ‘It can all go down the gurgler really quick if things go wrong.’

  ‘That’s interesting. Not that this business my client’s pissed off about is that big a deal, but what would Sanderson do if his finances collapsed?’

  Tim swilled his brandy and took a sip. ‘He’d wriggle out of it somehow.’

  I finished my beer and got up. ‘Thanks, Tim. This is all between us, of course.’

  Thinking about the old days and getting a sniff of a competitor’s problems had restored Tim’s good mood. He got to his feet and clapped me on the shoulder. ‘I remember how you played things so sweetly when I had that trouble with Kirsty. You protected all our arses. Whatever you say’s okay with me.’

  I was flying by the seat of my pants, but I had to start somewhere. I could have trawled through some of Jerry Fowler’s mates, or people I knew in what they’ll probably soon call the criminal industry, to try to get a line on who might’ve knocked over Charley Sanderson’s stash. That would have taken time and expense. An approach through Charley Sanderson himself, stamped by Tim Turnbull as unlikely to have anyone killed, seemed the better option.

  Big bookmakers are on the web with office phone numbers supplied. I made contact and arranged a meeting with Sanderson by posing as a journalist wanting a story. My mate Harry Tickener, who runs the Searchlight web newsletter, would cover for me. Searchlight operates on a shoestring and its motto is ‘We name the guilty men’. It does, too, and Harry has all his minimal assets protected from libel suits.

  Important people, or people who think they’re important, don’t make same-day appointments, even if they’re publicity prone like Sanderson. My appointment was for late morning the following day.

  I’m not a keen or constant punter and I couldn’t have named more than one or two horses then in the news. I bought a couple of papers just to acquaint myself with something of the racing scene and went in to the office. No assailants lurking.

  I looked through the papers and then picked up the baton I’d left on my desk. It was about 70 centimetres long and retractable, the top half sliding into the bottom section which had a rubberised handle. Portable. It was ceramic and weighed about two kilos. It had four or five notches filed into it near the top. I slapped it against my palm quite softly and it hurt. I looked forward to returning it to its owner—the hard way.

  For two men in the same profession, Tim Turnbull and Charles Sanderson couldn’t have been more unalike. Where Tim’s lifestyle fitted the image of the ‘colourful racing identity’, Sanderson’s was more like that of a chartered accountant. Tim’s operational centre was somewhere
in his grand pile, Sanderson’s was in a Randwick office complex. Sterile was too warm a word for it. I was shown by a neatly dressed and scrubbed female secretary into a room that had all the personality of an empty stubbie. No books, no bar, just a desk and filing cabinets. It only lacked an eye chart on the wall to feel like a medical office.

  Sanderson was a grey man in a grey room. He wore a grey suit and he barely acknowledged me as I walked in. Then he surprised me.

  ‘You’re not a journalist,’ he said.

  ‘How d’you know that?’

  ‘I’ve met too many of them over the years. I never saw one who looked like you. You’ve got the half-decent clothes but not the look or the manner.’

  ‘What’s the manner?’

  ‘Stealthy. You don’t look stealthy. Have a seat and tell me quickly what you want before I have the security people up here.’

  I sat in a well-worn chair and looked at him more closely. He was bald and freckled; he wore rimless glasses and his shoulders were narrow in the padded suit jacket. He looked as though he’d made a decision to remove colour from his person, his surroundings and his life. Except for his eyes behind the lenses. There was something alert, almost predatory about them. No red glow like in those of Anthony Hopkins’s Hannibal Lecter, but not dissimilar. This wasn’t a man to fool with and I wondered how Tim T had got it so wrong.

  ‘I’m a private detective,’ I said.

  ‘Why am I not surprised? I’m a busy man, Mr Private Detective. What do you want?’

  He had me on the retreat, feeling for the ropes. I could take it on the arms like Ali against Foreman, or come in swinging. I decided against the Ali option.

  ‘I’m wondering if you had anything to do with Jerry Fowler’s murder.’

  ‘Who’s Jerry Fowler?’

  I studied him. It was a critical moment. If he genuinely didn’t know who Jerry was I’d eliminated one of the ‘possibles’. He’d put the question neither too quickly nor too slowly. Delivered it flat, with all the appearance of ignorance mixed with indifference. I had to make a decision and I made it.

  ‘Jerry Fowler was a small-time crim of my acquaintance. He came to me a few days back with a story about you having been robbed of a certain amount of money and offering a reward for the identity of the people who robbed you.’

  I was watching him closely and he didn’t react beyond a blink and a slight tightening of the jaw, which could have meant something or nothing. ‘Story’s not right,’ he said. ‘I haven’t been robbed of anything.’

  ‘Half a million, hidden from the ATO.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I’m not sure I believe you.’

  He tried to hold my gaze, couldn’t, and looked down at his empty desk as if he thought something useful might appear there. ‘Believe what you please. I’d like you to leave. I’m busy.’

  After a pause I shook my head. ‘You’ve overplayed your hand. Do you know the meaning of the word disinterested?’

  That caught his vanity. ‘Yeah, I’m disinterested in everything you have to say.’

  I stood. ‘You’ve got it wrong. Look it up. It means uninvolved, having no stake in something. You’re not disinterested in this, Charley. You’re up to your balls in it.’ I dropped a card on his desk. ‘I couldn’t care less about you or your stash or any reward. I cared about Jerry. Get in touch when you’ve thought it over.’

  I walked out, nodded to the secretary and left the building. I thought I’d accomplished something, but I wasn’t sure what.

  The answer came before I reached my car. My mobile rang.

  ‘This is Sanderson. We have things to talk about. Come back.’

  I wasn’t going to let him get away with that. I told him I had other matters to attend to and that if he wanted to talk he could see me in my office that afternoon. He didn’t like it but he agreed.

  I’d left the Falcon in a multi-storey car park—the kind where bad things happen in movies. I was watchful and I had my pistol and the baton in a light satchel that I kept unzipped. Quick-draw Hardy.

  A man stepped down from a huge fire-engine red 4WD parked next to my car. Big guy, dark suit. I dropped the satchel and took the baton in one hand and the pistol in the other. He threw his hands in the air.

  ‘Hey, hey, what’s the problem?’

  His pale, flabby face was a mask of innocence. His car keys dropped from his hand and I could see that he was shivering. But you never know. I kept the pistol pointed at him and put the baton on the ground as I picked up his keys.

  ‘If you want the car, take it. Just don’t hurt me.’

  There was a sob in his voice and tears in his eyes. I threw the keys about twenty metres. They clattered against another car. I picked up the baton and the satchel and put the weapons away.

  ‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘My mistake.’

  He stood rooted to the spot, his hands still half raised. I unlocked my car, reversed out and drove away. A quick glance in the rear vision mirror showed him slowly walking to recover his keys.

  I knew I’d overreacted and I wasn’t happy about it. I hadn’t even come close to shooting the guy or bashing him, but I should have read the signs earlier—the face and figure, the car. No one intent on mischief drives such a distinctive vehicle. Not for the first time I reflected that I needed a break, a holiday. Maybe Lily and I could go to the Maldives, snorkel in crystal-clear water, eat and drink whatever they ate and drank there, send postcards.

  I did some routine stuff in the office, drank coffee, tried not to think how much I’d have liked a couple of glasses of wine. I used the baton as a paperweight—I was starting to get used to having it around. I was standing by the window looking down into the street when Sanderson arrived in a white Mercedes and found a park on the far kerb. He waited for a break in the traffic and crossed quickly and anxiously, moving his head from side to side. He stumbled a little on gaining the footpath. He was a clumsy man with a lot on his mind.

  He was breathing hard when he made it up the stairs and was grateful to sit down, no matter how plain the surroundings and uncomfortable the chair.

  ‘I’m not a well man,’ he said. ‘Heart trouble. I’m in line for a transplant.’

  ‘Should be out in the fresh air doing something healthy that you like, not sitting in offices.’

  ‘I like sitting in offices. Let’s get down to it. I asked around about you, Hardy. The word is you’re fairly honest.’

  ‘Is that the best I rate?’

  ‘In your game it’s pretty high. You had it right. I was robbed. Close to half a million that I was keeping from the tax hounds. Looking around, I don’t imagine you go out of your way to pay tax.’

  ‘I pay as little as I can get away with.’

  ‘Right. Well these bastards who broke in threatened me and the wife and took the money. I couldn’t make too much of a song and dance about it because of the tax angle and because my wife had no idea how much it was. She’d give me hell if she knew.’

  ‘So you put the word out that there’d be a reward for information.’

  ‘I did. I spoke to a couple of people. I told them that I had the serial numbers of the notes and that I’d do a deal with the bastards. And that there’d be something in it for whoever pointed me in the right direction.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And nothing. No feedback.’

  ‘Do you have a record of the serial numbers?’

  ‘What fucking good would it do? I’m not going to let the banks know I’ve got all this loose cash, am I? But I thought these people mightn’t know that. I thought the possibility of the money being traced just might induce them to cut a deal.’

  ‘So either the people you used to get the word out didn’t reach the right ears or the ones who grabbed it don’t believe it can be traced and have got on with spending it.’

  ‘Right.’

  He looked old and sick but it was hard to sympathise with him unless he’d been hoarding the money to make a donation to the hospital after his
transplant. I doubted it. I told him that Jerry Fowler had somehow got wind of the robbery and the reward and had a line on the perpetrators.

  ‘But he got killed,’ I said. ‘They got a line on him first.’

  Sanderson shook his head. ‘That’s rotten. If I’d known something like that was going to happen I’d have just cut my losses.’

  ‘Would you?’

  He looked at me, his pale, glittering eyes hard behind the lenses. ‘Probably not.’

  ‘That’s what I thought. Well, I’ve got a client who cared about Jerry Fowler and is willing to spend some money to find out who killed him. I’m going to try, but I’m not optimistic.’

  ‘If you do find out, will you tell me? I’d make it worth your while.’

  ‘I’ll bet you would.’

  ‘Would your client want to … proceed legally?’

  ‘That’d be a complication for you, right? I don’t know.’

  I could see Sanderson’s brain working, trying to figure out how he’d cope if the matter was to be played straight. What deals might he strike with cops, lawyers, the tax office? I didn’t like his chances and neither did he. I picked up the baton just to have something to do while he went through the options. The action caught his attention and his already pale face lost more colour.

  ‘What … where did you get that?’

  I told him. He held out his hand for the baton and I passed it over. He examined it and let it slip from his hands. It clattered against the desk on its way down. He retrieved it, thumped the desk with it, turned and swiped at the filing cabinet. He moved towards me, suddenly energised, and swung. I ducked, gripped his wrist, twisted and the baton fell free. The momentary strength left him and he sank into the chair, breathing hard. He scrabbled a pill from his shirt pocket and held it up. He gasped, unable to speak. I rushed to fill a cup with cold coffee. He gulped the pill down, gripped the edge of the desk and fought for control. When he was composed I pointed to the baton.

  ‘You recognise this thing?’

  ‘Yes. It belongs to my stepson.’

  Sanderson’s stepson, Nathan, worked for a security firm. They weren’t close, had little in common, but he’d never thought that Nathan was anything other than honest, if a bit thick and prone to violence on the football field. He’d shown Sanderson his baton and the nicks he’d filed in it for the number of heads he’d cracked. The notches hadn’t meant anything to me, but to Sanderson they stamped Nathan as the owner of the baton.