Saving Billie ch-29

by Peter Corris

  The people had thinned out before, presumably going home for lunch. Now the public space was filling up again, with kids kicking a soccer ball around, shoppers carrying plastic bags from the supermarket and others gathering for a meeting of some kind at the primary school. A couple of 180-centimetre plus teenage boys whizzed around on bikes so small their knees were up under their chins as they pedalled. One of them could've been Billie's boy.

  I drove back to the street and parked where I could keep the unit in sight and not be seen myself. There were several cars parked nearby, more than was common in the area. The police car cruised up and parked in front of me. One of the cops got busy checking on my registration; the other got out and walked back towards me.

  'Could I see your licence, sir?'

  I handed it to him and he went back to the car and conferred with his colleague. He was young, unimpressed by the Falcon, unimpressed by me. I got out and stood by the car so I wouldn't be peering up at him. He handed back the licence.

  'Spotted you around over the past hour and a bit, Mr Hardy. Would you tell me what you're doing here?'

  I took out the folder with my PEA licence and showed it to him. 'I'm working.'

  'Doing what?'

  I shook my head. 'I'm not causing any trouble.'

  'You better not. If you're still here when we come around again we'll cause some trouble for you.'

  Fair enough. The fight outside the protection centre, the shutdown bottle shop and the graffiti suggested that the area was volatile with its racial mixture and poverty. They didn't need the likes of me. He hitched the belt holding all the equipment they carry these days, went back to his car and they drove off.

  I still had no idea what to do and now I was under time pressure. A minute later a car pulled up outside the unit. The man who got out made the Hilux 4WD look small- John Manuma. Seeing him at full stretch for the second time, I realised he was as big a man as I'd ever seen anywhere. It made me even more reluctant to tackle the place.

  Manuma stepped over the gate, marched up to the front door and went straight in. He stayed for less than five minutes, stalked back to his car looking angry, and drove away. Could he be an ally despite our earlier encounter? I doubted it. Then she came out. Billie. Had to be. She had the platinum hair, the short skirt and skimpy top, the legs, the stacked-heel sandals. She shouted something back at the door of the unit as it was slammed shut, then she spun around and went towards her car. With a snarl on her face and her shoulders thrown aggressively back, she reminded me of Mike Carlton's description of Rose Hancock-all tits and teeth.

  Her car was a white VW Golf. She slung her shoulder bag inside, got in, gunned the motor and took off, burning rubber. I was glad to be up and running after all the indecision. I let her get well ahead and followed, feeling guilty about being relieved I hadn't had to front the vigilantes, but confident, at last, of making some progress. She kept up a steady speed just above the limit, looking as keen to leave Liston behind her as I was. She slowed down through Campbelltown, observed the signs and the limits, and was easy to follow. I spared a brief thought for Tommy as I passed the railway station but nothing more. He'd done okay and, as it turned out, I hadn't put him in jeopardy.

  The Golf picked up speed. Not Billie's kind of car, I would have thought, but she drove it well, asserting herself but not dangerously. For no good reason other than what I'd been told about Billie, I expected her to take the highway to the big smoke. Not so. She headed down the road to everywhere south of Sydney and I settled back for a long drive. Fooled me again. We reached the old town of Picton. It's funny the things that come back to you. I remember having to do a school project on country towns and Picton was one that fell to me. All I remember is that it was named after a general who got killed at the Battle of Waterloo. At that age I was more interested in battles than economics, still am for that matter. So I don't remember what got Picton established. Mining probably, and dairying-always safe bets.

  She pulled in at a pub. Thank you, Billie, I thought. Thank you very much.

  She got out, hoisted her bag onto her shoulder, and went into the pub. It was old style with a balcony running around the front and sides one floor up and other remnants of the original structure not ruined by probably several phases of renovation. It looked welcoming. I followed her into the bar and saw her heading off to the women's toilet. Maybe she was just paying a visit for that purpose. I hoped not. I ordered a light beer and was relieved when she came out, ordered a gin and tonic and took the drink through to an outside area where she could smoke. She lit up and settled down at a table with a view across some paddocks to the hills.

  My eye was throbbing. I swallowed a couple of painkillers with the last of the middy and ordered another. I bought a packet of chips at the machine and munched them slowly, trying not to be too obvious about watching the woman. Five or six people were in the bar minding their own business. A television set was tuned to the races and I looked up at it from time to time, pretending an interest. With my glass half empty I ordered a gin and tonic, surprising the barman.

  'For the lady,' I said, pointing.

  He nodded, more interested in the races.

  I had another good, long look at her as he prepared the drinks. Tommy had said she'd looked ill when he'd seen her. Must have made a quick recovery because she looked healthy now. Back straight, head up. What she really looked was angry. She flicked ash from her cigarette without caring where it went and sipped her drink without apparent pleasure.

  'Shit,' the barman said, and I gathered his horse had lost as they mostly do.

  I took the drinks through to the outside sitting area and reached over her shoulder to put the gin down in front of her.

  'Hello, Billie,' I said.

  I moved around to face her and she looked at me as if I'd just tipped the drink down the front of her top.

  'My name's not Billie,' she said. 'And who the hell are you?'

  8

  It took us quite a while and another drink to get it sorted out. Her name was Sharon Marchant, and she was Billie's younger sister.

  'I know we look alike,' she said after a few preliminary exchanges, 'but we're not twins. I'm taller; she's thinner.'

  'I've only seen a photo that goes back a few years.'

  I said I'd followed her from Liston, showed her my credentials and gave her a carefully constructed version of the reason for my interest in her sister. I implied that money could be a factor, but didn't say how much or how it might be earned. She listened, smoking, drinking. Then I asked the obvious question.

  'So what were you doing in Liston, Sharon?'

  She wasn't about to jump into anything. 'Have you got the number for this client of yours?'

  'Sure.'

  She took a mobile phone from her bag and raised an eyebrow. I read off the number from Lou's card and she dialled it.

  'Hello, Ms Kramer? My name is Sharon Marchant. I'm Billie's sister. I understand you talked to her not so long ago-that right?'

  There aren't many things worse than being excluded from a conversation that interests you intensely. I fiddled with my glass.

  'Okay. And you've hired a man named Cliff Hardy to help you?'

  The painkillers and the alcohol had cut in. I was feeling competent, in control, and let my gaze wander to the horizon. Maybe the painkillers were having a mind-altering effect because I was suddenly aware of what had been nagging at me since I'd reached Campbelltown. The sky was immense, the horizon far distant and human problems seemed less important than they do in the enclosed environments of the city. Careful, Cliff, I thought, you've got a living to earn.

  Sharon closed her phone and picked up her glass. 'She wanted to talk to you but I said she could do it on her own dime.'

  'My mobile's in the car. I kind of dislike it.'

  She shrugged.

  I guessed her age at around forty but she was carrying it well. Her figure was firm and her face, though lined, was still taut where it mattered. Those
Marchant genes had to be good. 'Well, I'll tell you why I was in that shit-hole. Billie's there. She's shacked up with this Tongan arsehole, Yolande.'

  'I've heard of him. Some kind of vigilante?'

  'I dunno about that. He's a God botherer, like a lot of them, and he's trying to get her off stuff.'

  'Stuff?'

  She raised her glass and took a pull on the cigarette she'd puffed on throughout the phone call. 'Fags and booze, speed-you name it. She got desperate and called me and I went there. Shit!'

  She ground out the cigarette. 'They're praying over her when she's asleep and reading the Bible at her and singing their hymns and it's driving her crazy. I tried to get her to come away with me and I reckon she was almost ready to even though she's in a mind-fucked fog, and then that big bastard arrived.'

  'Manuma.'

  'Right. He's got them all under the thumb. Shit, I don't know what to do. She's my sister and I love her, but… I know she's trouble. Fair killed our mum.'

  'What about the boy?'

  She almost dropped her lighter on its way to the cigarette in her mouth. 'You know about him?'

  I showed her the photograph.

  She got the cigarette lit, inexpertly. 'How did you get this?'

  I told her. It seemed to make her take my presence and interest in her sister more seriously. She flattened out a corner of the photo that had got bent. 'She'd love to have this back, I'm sure.'

  'Why would she leave it behind?'

  'She overdosed accidentally on some bad shit. Yolande packed her up and moved her to his place. She's been there ever since, under… what d'you call it? House arrest. Getting the Jesus treatment. What she needs is proper stuff-detoxification, counselling and that.'

  'Is this Yolande the boy's father? What's his name by the way?'

  'Samuel. Sam. No, not Yolande. That's only been going on for a couple of years. Sam came along, oh, fifteen years ^a g°{

  'Before Eddie?'

  She blew smoke. 'You do know a bit, don't you?'

  'I knew Eddie. He was in the same game, but he played by different rules.'

  'Eddie,' she said. 'What a loser. To tell you the truth, I don't think Billie knows who Sam's father was. She had a thing for black blokes at the time.'

  'Black as in?'

  She shrugged. 'Kooris, mostly. We both went that way for a while. We're said to have a touch of it ourselves, would you believe?'

  'Plenty do, they say. A lot more than know it or admit it. But you've dodged the question. Where's Sam now?'

  All of a sudden, the initial wariness she'd displayed was back. 'Look, you've bought me a couple of drinks and showed you're caught up in something involving Billie. But I don't know anything about this Clement you mentioned. Why d'you want to know about Sam?'

  I took off the sunglasses and let her see my eye. 'My client, Lou Kramer, the woman you just spoke to, claims that Clement had Eddie Flannery killed because he knew something about Clement's business and tried to make a quid out of it. Clement found out I was working for Lou and I copped this for my trouble. Lou thinks Billie might know what Eddie knew and, if she does, she's in danger. The kid makes her vulnerable if Clement gets wind of him. Does any of this make sense?'

  'I need another drink.'

  'You'll be too high to drive.'

  'I can walk. I live here. Get me a drink while I think this over a bit.'

  I kept my eye on her while I got the drink, wondering whether she might do a runner. But she sat, apparently doing what she said-thinking. I glanced out of the window at my car and thought Lou Kramer must be frantically trying to call me on the mobile. Given the way she'd been playing things I didn't mind the ball being in my court for a bit. I put the drink down on a coaster near the ashtray.

  'Not having one?'

  'I'll be driving.'

  'You're going to have to tell me a bit more about this woman you're working for.'

  I'd been very sketchy on that and a few other matters and now I filled in some details.

  'How much money's she making out of this?'

  'I don't know, but a good deal. Clement's a high profile figure, a big poppy. When they come down there's always a lot of interest. Plus he's got connections to other people who're even more interesting than him.'

  'Like?'

  If I mentioned Peter Scriven and the lost millions she'd know who I was talking about-every news magazine in the country had run articles on him and his face was as familiar as Ian Thorpe's. But I wasn't quite ready to go that far, talking that kind of money, which, anyway, Lou had said wasn't her main interest. I pushed some chip fragments around the wet table top.

  'Look, Sharon, we're fencing here. You're playing Sam's whereabouts close to your chest and I'm inclined to do the same from my end. How about you tell me a bit about yourself, your connection with Billie and Sam and Eddie, and we can take it from there.'

  She was half drunk by now. 'You're a careful type, aren't you?'

  'Middle name.'

  She sighed and suddenly looked tired and every day of her age. She fiddled with an unlit cigarette and went into a rambling account of her life, almost from day one to now. Connected narrative wasn't her strong suit and the grog wasn't helping. She and Billie were only two years apart and they'd been very close as kids. Both tearaways, drop-outs, broken home products. In her twenties Sharon had slowed down, married but it didn't last, had a child, gone to art school and now earned her living as a children's book illustrator and giving painting lessons. Billie had stayed on her original track with Sam being about the only good thing that had happened to her.

  'Certainly couldn't call Eddie that,' she said, 'or Yoli. I got Sam away from Billie a few years ago. I know where he is, she doesn't.'

  'What about your child?'

  'She's fine. I was lucky. Her dad's supportive, sort of. She's in her first year at uni. Flats in Campbelltown, comes home a lot.' She raised her glass, snapped the cigarette in half with her other hand and dropped the pieces into the ashtray. 'You probably won't believe me, but this is the most serious drinking and smoking I've done in years.'

  She hitched at the neck of her top. 'And I don't normally dress like this. I'm usually in pants and T-shirts, and Billie can't stand to see it. She reckons I'm just proving I've got some qualifications and a real job and that all she's ever been any good at was screwing. So I bought the fags and tarted up, went blonde again even, to try to get her approval and get her away from that place. Didn't work.'

  I was finding her impressive and credible, but that alone put me on the defensive. I couldn't count the number of times people, women in particular, had presented one face to me only for me to find that they had quite another. And she'd presented two quite convincing faces already.

  'Look, Sharon, why don't I drive you home and you can get some coffee inside you and straighten up. I'll call my client and talk a few things over with her. I think there's a way forward from all this.'

  She nodded and looped her bag onto her shoulder. 'And you'll want to see some of the books so you can see I'm not lying.'

  I grinned at her. 'Wouldn't hurt.'

  'Suspicious bastard.'

  I reached for the cigarettes.

  'Leave 'em,' she said.

  Sharon went to her car and retrieved a few folders and a cloth bag, locked the Golf and got into my Falcon.

  'Don't spend up big on maintenance, do you?'

  'It's what's under the bonnet that matters. You wash 'em, they just get dirty again.'

  We buckled up. 'Where to?' I said.

  'Keep going and I'll tell you. I'm out of town a bit, in the hills.'

  A bit turned out to be the best part of ten kilometres with a good deal of it on a narrow, climbing, twisting dirt road. I wouldn't have fancied her chances of staying on it unless she could carry her liquor a lot better than it seemed. The hill country had a soothing effect on her and she gradually looked more comfortable, less strained. I'm a coast man myself, trees don't do a lot for me unless they're N
orfolk Island pines fringing a beach, but I had to admit the quiet had an appeal. I wound down the window a bit further and sniffed the scents of an Australian bush summer in the making.

  As if she was reading my mind she said, still slurring a little, 'Where d' you live?'

  'Glebe.'

  'Jesus, I lived there a while back. Couldn't hack the pace and the stink now.'

  'Where did you grow up?'

  'Liverpool-worse.'

  'I spent some time there when I worked for an insurance company.'

  'Your lungs must be lead coated. Righto, round here and you'll see a track leading off to the right. Careful now, it's narrow and there's a sort of ditch you have to creep over.'

  I slowed down and made the turn. The ditch gave my suspension a workout and then we were climbing steadily again with the trees and scrub close on both sides, almost brushing the car.

  'I found this old miner's shack a few years ago. I'm leasing it now but hoping to-Oh, Jesus!'

  The shack was in view in the middle of a small clearing, but so was a 4WD, parked right by the dwelling. Massive John Manuma was standing with his back to the car and arms folded, looking straight at us.

  9

  I hit the brake hard. 'What the hell does he want?'

  Sharon had sobered at the sight of him. 'The same as you-Sam, to put pressure on Billie.'

  Manuma must have recognised my car because he came forward, bent to pick up a solid bit of tree branch and snapped it to a handy length over his knee.

  'Oh, God,' Sharon said. 'Back up! Go!'

  'No chance.' The track was narrow and trees grew close in on both sides. There was enough space, just, but not the time to do a three-point turn and I didn't fancy reversing at pace on the loose dirt. I left the car in neutral with the motor running, reached into the glove box and unshipped the. 38.

  'What're you doing?'

  'Sit still. It'll be all right.'

  I got out and let Manuma see the gun. He was about twenty metres away, swinging his waddy. I raised the gun and sighted on his huge chest.