by Peter Corris
Saving Billie
( Cliff Hardy - 29 )
Peter Corris
Peter Corris
Saving Billie
PART ONE
1
It wasn't my kind of work, but I was doing a favour for a friend. Hank Bachelor, who'd given me some help in recent times, had got his Private Enquiry Agent licence and was scratching a living at whatever he could pick up.
'It's a sort of security job, Cliff,' he said on the phone. 'At a party.'
'Bouncer,' I said.
'No, no, this is a high-class affair. Top people; charity function. Politicians, media types, the glitterati.'
'Shepherding drunks to the dunny. Calling them taxis. Seeing no one nicks the silverware.'
'Yeah, maybe a bit of that. Come on, Cliff. I'm sick as I can be with this virus and I need to stay in tight with the firm that hired me. With you as a substitute, licensed and all, I won't lose any brownie points.'
Hank is an American who has embraced Australia in every way but still uses American idioms. I agreed to stand in for him at the Jonas Clement charity evening in Manly out of friendship, and curiosity about Clement.
'You'll have to wear a soup 'n fish,' Hank said.
I groaned. 'I hate those penguin suits. They make me feel like… a penguin.'
'Women like 'em. There'll be some babes at this shindig, believe me. You might get lucky.'
So I hired the gear from a place on Parramatta Road opposite one of the university colleges and not far from my house in Glebe. I walked there, getting as much exercise as I can these days to keep the flab at bay. I'd been there before.
'Still a forty-two long, ninety-three round the tummy, Mr Hardy?' the outfitter said.
'I think so.'
Stick-thin himself, he ran the tape over me. 'Best to check, some of our clients do tend to expand. Hmm, ninety-four centimetre waist. Not bad for your height and…'
'Don't say it. You're only as old as you want to be.'
'Interesting philosophy. Single or double-breasted? Two piece or three? Cummerbund or not?'
'Make a wild guess.'
Wearing the suit, with the studs and the dopey bow tie, I presented at Jonas Clement's Manly mansion at the appointed time and showed the hiring firm's credentials with my name substituted for Hank's and my PEA ticket. A man with a solid build and an aggressive manner looked me over as if he'd like to drop his shoulder and bullock me down the sandstone steps. Clement's house was on the water and hard to get to-a matter of parking where you could, tracking down a brightly lit laneway and going through a gate, where one set of steps led up to the house and another led down to a garden and recreational area near the water.
'Not sure about this,' he said, examining the pass.
'I'm filling in for this other bloke. With him you get youth and polish, with me you get experience. Maybe Mr Clement could decide.'
He handed the pass and licence back and gestured for me to go down the steps. 'Mr Clement has got better things to do. You go down and keep an eye on things. Circulate but don't annoy anyone. Watch out for-'
'Drunks and light fingers. I've done this sort of thing before.'
'Don't get pissed yourself.'
'What's your name? Just so I know who to come to if there's any trouble.'
'Rhys Thomas, one of Mr Clement's assistants.'
'Any relation to Dylan?'
'Distantly, and not proud of it, smartarse.'
One to him. I went down the steps and paused where they turned. The view out over the water was the kind that put another half million on the value of a property. They tell us the harbour's full of heavy metal, strontium 90 and whatever, and I suppose it is. Doesn't stop it looking like perfection on a clear night with the lights shining on it.
I tore myself away from Sydney at its best and reached the bottom of the steps where a marquee had been set up over a lawn the size of a bowling green. A portable dance floor was waiting to be shuffled on but the bar was already doing light business although it was early and there couldn't have been more than twenty people around. Two barmen were doling out the drinks and a couple of waiters were circulating with trays.
Three max, Cliff, I said to myself and plucked a glass of white wine from a tray.
Hank had told me that about a hundred guests were expected and from the look of the ice buckets full of bottles and the portable fridges and the bottles of spirits lined up, they weren't going to be thirsty. Away to the left a trestle table about four metres long was laden with food and three young women in cocktail dresses were standing ready to ladle out the potato salad and smoked salmon. A few of the early twenty were eyeing the tucker but no one wanted to be first hog to the trough. I nodded politely to a few people and tried to look as if I belonged.
I sipped the wine. A dry white-that's about as close to identifying a wine as I can get. Crisp, a pundit might have said. I moved out from under the canvas and looked up at the house. It rose from its manicured garden like a medieval fortress-sandstone rising three levels. A flagpole was just visible and an evening breeze was just strong enough to cause its flag to flutter, showing you quick flashes of stripes and stars.
'Don't worry,' a tall man who'd come out to join me said. 'There's an Aussie flag a bit further around.'
'That's good,' I said. 'Patriotism plus. Are you the host?'
'No way.' He was in immaculate evening clothes, drinking champagne. He glanced down at his empty glass and moved away.
Jonas Clement owned a city FM radio station and a couple of regional stations. He had a stud farm at Camden and substantial interests in a number of racehorses and a successful football club. What distinguished him from other merely rich men was that he did a stint as a shock-jock on his own station. His politics were far right and I'd been told his hero was American humorist PJ O'Rourke, whom he didn't equal in wit, although some said he gave it a good try. He was ardently pro-American and this evening's event was a money-raiser for American families who'd lost sons and daughters in Afghanistan and Iraq. The right would be out in force and I wasn't expecting to have too many stimulating conversations.
The crowd came in with a rush soon after 10 pm and the barmen and waiters and food servers got busy. A five-piece band started up the kind of white-bread music five-piece bands play and the noise level rose steadily.
I did a patrol of the house, at least the lower level. There was a kitchen that looked like a set for a TV cooking show, a tiled toilet with a urinal and four stalls, a pool and ping-pong room, a spa and sauna, and a room about the size of a squash court with hooks all around it for coats. There was a women's powder room. Pink.
Clement styled himself as a sportsman-probably why I kept thinking of his affluence in terms of sporting arenas. To add to the image there were sporting pictures on the walls here and there, but the impression I got was of someone trying too hard.
The party was in full swing by the time I got back to the marquee. Hank had said the punters were paying two thousand per head to be there and the joint was packed, so the take was probably good for a few prosthetic limbs and skin grafts. The men were all dressed as I was, except that some wore white jackets and they no doubt owned the clothes. The women were uniformly expensively turned out in dresses and trouser suits and other creations difficult to describe. They varied from comfortably upholstered matrons to rail-thin creatures who looked as though they lived on mineral water and celery sticks.
The combo was playing something reminiscent of Barry Manilow and the dancers were making the best of it. As so often happens at events like this, there were two outstanding dancers. The woman was a brunette in a red dress. She swirled about, showing an extreme length of very good leg. The man was built and moved like a gymnast and every s
tep they made was in perfect synch. Most of the other dancers stopped to watch, and some of the women looked daggers at their men who were showing excessive interest in the legs.
The barmen and waiters were hard at it and a lot of the calories on the food table had been transferred to the guests. I took my second drink and Thomas, the man who'd quizzed me on my arrival, appeared at my shoulder.
'I told you not to drink.'
'You told me not to get drunk. I won't. You also said to circulate and look natural. That's what I'm doing.'
He smelled strongly of alcohol himself and something stronger than wine. 'Keep your eyes open. Mr Clement's going to make a speech soon. There could be demonstrators.'
'What, getting past you? Never.'
'You're pissing me off, Hardy, but for your information they came up from the water one time. Worked their way up from one of the other houses.'
'What was the occasion in aid of? Aboriginal land rights?'
I was sorry as soon as I said it. Hank needed this gig not to be a fuck-up and I wasn't helping. I turned towards
Thomas to say something conciliatory, but he'd gone. Failing an invasion from the water, it looked like being a quiet night. Fine by me.
There was a stirring among the guests that signalled a significant moment and Jonas Clement appeared almost magically on the bandstand as the musicians let out a quiet riff and fell silent. Clement looked to be in his late forties; he was tall and well built with a full head of dark hair greying at the sides. He had a tan and white teeth and he wore his evening clothes as if they were something to relax in. The woman standing beside him was tall and blonde and everything else she should be. She stayed slightly behind Clement, but he reached back and squeezed her hand before stepping up to the mike.
The tall champagne drinker who'd commented on the flags earlier spoke next to my ear: 'Ten to one, he clears his throat. Common touch. Unaccustomed as I am… like hell.'
Clement cleared his throat. 'Ladies and gentlemen, friends… it's so good to see you here tonight supporting this brave and worthy cause. My wife Patty and I are hoping to raise enough money to…'
I tuned out after he got on to the need for laws to punish what he called traitors here and overseas, and moved to where I couldn't hear him as clearly. Most of the crowd was paying rapt attention, but there were a few cynics intent on drinking, like the one who'd picked Clement's mannerism so accurately. A couple of the men and a few of the women were clearly drunk and having trouble standing, let alone listening. One guy was busily cracking lobster claws and couldn't have heard what was coming over the microphone anyway.
Hank's remark about there possibly being some available women at the bash came back to me and I looked the group over with that in mind, not optimistically. That's when I spotted her. She looked and moved differently from the other guests. Not that she wasn't dressed appropriately. She wore a dark blue dress with a black jacket and had the requisite jewellery. Dark hair, fashionably spiked. She was medium tall and athletically built, marking her out from the models and the well-fed wives. More than that, she was slowly moving through the crowd towards the bandstand and there was purpose in her movement. At a party, especially a well-fuelled one like this, people move differently than they do at work or in the street. She looked as if she was working. In that context it seemed threatening and I headed in her direction, pushing people aside.
Clement was winding up and I could hear him again.
'And so, thank you, each and every one, from the bottom of our hearts and I beg you to reach to the bottom of your pockets. Donation letters are on the way. Tell your secretary to expect one and put it at the top of your pile. Thank you, thank you.'
He finished. The dark-haired woman got there before me and grabbed the mike.
'Mr Clement, do you have any comment about your connection with American arms manufacturers who supplied weapons to rebels in Sierra Leone and-'
Rhys Thomas was there in a flash, but not before Clement hissed 'You slimy bitch' audibly. Thomas jerked the microphone from the woman's grasp and shouted to the musicians to start playing: they did, loudly. Thomas's grip on the woman's arm was vice-like and she was wincing with pain. I moved in quickly and dug into the nerve in his shoulder so that he let go. 'There's a guy filming this back there,' I hissed. 'Want to make it look worse?'
Clement, momentarily nonplussed, recovered quickly when he heard me. 'Let her go, Rhys. She's nothing. You,' he pointed at me, 'get her out of here.'
She was still gasping from the pain of Thomas's grip and let me escort her back past the musicians towards the steps leading to the house. By the time we'd gone up a step or two she'd recovered and resisted.
'What the fuck are you doing? There was no one filming.'
'I know, but he could've paralysed your arm. Let's see it.'
She slipped off her jacket and her bare, lightly tanned arm showed a redness that would probably become a deep, dark bruise where Thomas's meaty hand had been.
'Jesus,' she said. 'You're right.'
'Better get moving. Thomas'll be looking for the video maker. He'll be very pissed off when he doesn't find him.'
We went up a few steps and she gave a short laugh. 'No, not to worry. You can video with a mobile phone. He'll never know. Still, I made my point.'
'You did. Is it true?'
'You bet your life it's true.'
We'd reached the top of the steps with the gate in sight. She dug into her handbag and took out a tape recorder. 'I've got that prick on tape and also what I said to him. Good copy.'
'Journalist?'
'And author to be. Well, you'd better get back to work. You're a minder if ever I saw one.'
I was reluctant to let her go. She had an attractive intensity and a voice that made you want to listen to her. 'You could be wrong about that. I'm just filling in for someone.'
'You don't work for Clement?'
'I'd rather spend the rest of my life at a Kamahl concert.'
She laughed. 'That's a good line.'
'I stole it from somewhere.'
'I guessed that. Never mind.'
'I'm Cliff Hardy.'
She took a card from her bag and handed it to me, turned quickly and walked away. I had a weird feeling she was going to flutter her fingers at me without looking back, like Liza Minnelli in Cabaret, but she didn't.
2
Thanks a lot, Cliff.' Hank's voice on the phone the — L next day was still full of wheeze and huskiness. Since Hank, like many Americans, was incapable of irony, I had to accept that he meant it.
'I understand Clement thanked you,' he said. 'Not personally. He sort of conveyed his thanks. I think that's how he does things.'
'Anyway, I'm still on the books with those people so I owe you.'
I'd gone back to Clement's party and continued on with my uneventful duties. I got some black looks from Thomas but one of Clement's minions had told me the boss was happy with what I'd done. I had another drink on the strength of that and called it a night as the party was winding down around 1.30 am. I'd had my three drinks and managed a couple of sandwiches and chunks of cheese as blotter so I reckoned I was all right to drive home.
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 morni
ng, 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 'MIDNIGH T 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.