Saving Billie ch-29

by Peter Corris

  They both looked at me. Luckily, I thought I had an answer but I wasn't going to tell them, particularly Lou, just yet. 'There could be a way. I'll have to work on it.'

  Lou tried to grill Sharon about Billie's state of mind- her memory, her grasp on reality-but Sharon wasn't forthcoming. Eventually Lou gave up. 'Keep me informed, Cliff. A bit better than you have so far, if I may say so. And I'll see what I can do about the money.' She gave Sharon a nod and I showed her to the door.

  'Don't get distracted,' she said as she walked out. I stood at the gate and watched her until she was safely in her car and driving away. All part of the service.

  Sharon was quietly swearing. 'I wish I hadn't had those cigarettes. I gave them up years ago and that burst has brought the craving back. Haven't got any, have you?'

  'No. I could go out.'

  She shook her head. 'No, just have to see it through. I didn't care for your client.'

  I started to clean up the mugs and glasses. 'I noticed.'

  'She's not the kind of woman other women trust.'

  'I'm with the other women.'

  'You don't trust her?'

  'No. For one thing, probably minor, her retainer cheque didn't clear. And she's holding things back.'

  'What things?'

  'I don't know. People who hire private detectives think they have a problem. Usually they have a couple of problems, sometimes ones they don't know about.'

  She thought that over as she drank the last of her wine. 'You ought to write a book on it.'

  'No way.'

  She yawned. 'I'm tired even after that kip. Probably the wine. Hey, the curry was good.'

  She helped me clean up and stack the dishwasher, not that there was much to stack. Lou's bottle went into the milk crate that forms the halfway house to the recycling bin. I jiggled the cask. 'We hammered the red a bit.'

  'Yeah. Well…'

  It was one of those moments that could've led to something intimate, but we both realised it wasn't the time. I jumped in with practical points.

  'Before you go up, is there a neighbour anywhere near your place up there in the sticks?'

  'Yes. Why?'

  'It'd be a good idea to give them a ring in the morning and ask them to keep an eye on the place. You can come up with some story about a nuisance. One of your students or something. Would the neighbour cooperate?'

  'She'd love it. D'you think…?'

  I was thinking a number of things. Whether Lou, despite my warning, had told Mr X, and whether he had a significant finger in the pie. What Big John Manuma's motives were. But I reached out and gave her a chaste kiss on the cheek.

  'No. Just being super cautious. Goodnight, Sharon.'

  It was a comfort to have someone sleeping in the house, even if the person wasn't a lover or even a friend. Back when I had a mortgage to service, I'd tried having tenants to help with the costs. It hadn't worked too well, partly because the first one I had, Hilde Stoner, had been so good the others didn't measure up. Hilde had married a cop named Frank Parker and the two of them were my best friends. I hadn't seen them for a while and promised myself a night out with them when this case was done.

  But as I lay in bed I thought that could be a long way off. There were loose ends everywhere and my feeling that Lou Kramer hadn't been anywhere near straight with me had strengthened. I needed that information about her BMW-driving friend. I drifted off to sleep with thoughts of how I used to come awake with the smell of Hilde's coffee wafting up the stairs. Hilde was one of those people who made good coffee, using the same equipment and grounds I did to produce my bitter brews.

  11

  Sunday, bloody Sunday. I couldn't get in touch with my

  RTA contact to check on Lou Kramer's mysterious dinner companion and I couldn't act on my idea about springing Billie from the God squad. I went for a long walk around Glebe. Sharon slept late and the door was still closed when I got back with the crappy papers and good croissants. I was sitting in the back yard turning over the pages when she came down. She wore old tracksuit pants and a faded T-shirt.

  'Pretty daggy,' she said, fingering the hem of the T-shirt. 'Could she spare 'em?'

  'Didn't want you to outshine her. Coffee's hot, croissants are by the microwave.

  'Very Glebe.'

  She came out with a mug and a croissant on a plate. The sun was well up and it was getting warm in the small space. I bricked it years ago, not well, and weeds spring up in the cracks. Helen Broadway, a girlfriend from the last century, had installed a low maintenance garden and it was holding on pretty well in the face of the water restrictions and my neglect. You can just see glimpses of Blackwattle Bay through the apartment blocks and smell the water when the wind's right. This morning it was, and my patch wasn't a bad place to be.

  Sharon turned over a few pages uninterestedly. 'You haven't pressed me about Sam.'

  I shrugged. 'No need just yet. I take it you can get in touch with him when and if we have to.' 'Right.'

  'He's with good people?'

  She filled her mouth with pastry and nodded.

  'Kooris?'

  Another nod. 'I think that's right about us having a bit of Koori in us. Billie and I aren't blondes, not by a long way, and we darken up good in the summer. There was a photo of Mum's mother hidden away in the house and I found it and asked mum. Grandma Jackson was dark. She had the look. Mum was ashamed of it and Dad was a real racist so it wasn't talked about.'

  'So Sam's got it on both sides?'

  'Yes. We had a brother, Joe, and he was pretty dark. He got arrested for a minor offence and he hanged himself in the lockup.'

  'That says something.'

  'I'd like Sam to get a proper education and do something useful in Aboriginal affairs… if he was interested.'

  It was about the longest and most personal statement she'd made when sober, and it seemed to do her some good. She ate another croissant and used her mobile to check on her daughter and the neighbour. She said yes and no a few times and laughed twice.

  'That's fine,' she said as she closed the phone. 'But I have to get back by tomorrow night. I can get a train to Campbelltown and Sarah can pick me up.'

  'Should be all right. Check again with the neighbour tomorrow. Lou's authorised me to give you a hundred dollars.'

  She raised an eyebrow. 'As much as that?'

  'I can up it a bit if you'd like.'

  'No, that's fine. Can I use your Mac to check on my email?'

  She did that and asked me what I was going to do next.

  'I'm a bit stymied,' I said. 'I need to check a rego number with my RTA contact and follow up this idea about getting through to Billie, but I can't do either of them today.'

  'Pity Craig's not here.'

  'Craig?'

  'My daughter Sarah's boyfriend. He could probably hack into the RTA computer. Nothing much he can't do in that line.'

  'Handy bloke.'

  'In more ways than one. He plays football, swims, trouble-shoots for various computer people. He drives a Merc.'

  It was getting warmer in the yard and the sun was high and strong. 'Why don't we go to Bondi for a swim?' I said. 'Bet you haven't been there in a while.'

  'What? In my bra and knickers?'

  'Pick up something down there.'

  'You're on.'

  We drove to Bondi; Sharon bought a swimsuit and left it on under her clothes. The beach and the car park were busy but I found a spot. We went in a couple of times and we lay on the sand with the other lucky citizens of Sydney.

  'You've got a proprietorial look,' Sharon said. 'Raised here, were you?'

  I pointed south. 'Maroubra. Spent a bit of time here though. They reckon there's a better city beach in Rio de Janeiro, but this'll do me.'

  'Yeah.'

  I could see what she meant about her skin. It had that underlying smoky look that would darken quickly in the sun. 'Don't spend much time kicking down doors and shooting people, do you, Cliff?'

  'As little as possibl
e.'

  She tapped the side of her head, Poirot-style. 'The little grey cells?'

  'Not much of that either. More patience and persistence.'

  As the sun dropped the day cooled quickly and we decamped and fought the traffic back to Glebe. Sharon prowled around, taking books from the shelves and putting them back. Checking the CD holdings. 'This is getting to me,' she said. 'I want to go home.'

  'Give it till tomorrow. Ring your neighbour first thing and your daughter and then you can go.'

  'I could go now.'

  'You could. Wouldn't if I was you.'

  'I suppose you're right. What's on telly?'

  She made a big omelette and we ate while watching the news and a few other forgettable programs. She picked out a book-Stephen Scheding's The National Picture, his account of trying to locate a lost, and possibly nonexistent, painting of George Robinson and the Tasmanian Aborigines. She read the blurb and looked at me.

  'Have you read this?'

  'Yeah.'

  'Why?'

  'It's a detective story, sort of.'

  'Bullshit.'

  'Sharon, I read to amuse myself and fill in the time. That's all.'

  'Fill in the time-that's sad.'

  I shook my head. 'Nope. Some of the time's full to overflowing.'

  She nodded, touched me on the shoulder, and went up the stairs.

  The swim had done me good and the bruise and contusion around my eye were healing up nicely. I hadn't had the company of a woman in a relaxed friendly fashion lately and I'd enjoyed it. For all its uncertainties so far, the Lou Kramer/Jonas Clement case was having an upside.

  I got on the blower early. The RTA employee who risked her job for me, and no doubt quite a few others, gave me the details on the BMW. It was owned by Top Fleet Ltd and leased to the Oceania Securities Corporation.

  'Car pool,' I said. 'Dead end individual-wise.'

  'I'll walk the extra mile for the extra smile.'

  We were both on pay phones, and if anyone out there or in there was picking us up then democracy as we know it is dead.

  'Walk.'

  'Registered driver is Barclay Greaves, 34 Ralston Place, Manly. Usual. Over and out.'

  She likes to think of herself as some sort of undercover agent in the service of God knows what. Why not? We all have to get our kicks.

  I'd never heard of the company, nor of Greaves, but it was at least interesting that he was apparently in the big money game and lived in the same neck of the woods as Clement.

  Rudi Szabo's boxing operation is a complex affair. He trains and manages fighters and promotes fights. You might think this would also promote conflicts of interest and you'd be right in spades. But conflicts of interest are an integral part of the boxing game. Way back in the bare knuckle days, the connections of fighters took side bets on their opponents and boxers themselves did the same. In the modern era, managers have sacrificed one fighter in order to promote another as a regular manoeuvre. Whatever tricks and tradeoffs remained in the much-reduced boxing scene in Australia, Rudi was a master of. And worse-throw in loan sharking and receiving. He employed people like the Maori ex-footballer Steve Kooti, whose name had come up as a counsellor at the Liston community protection centre, to collect debts and punish competitors. Luckily, Szabo owed me a favour because I'd happened to save one of his genuinely good fighters from getting into a cut-glass brawl in a Rockdale pub.

  I drove to Rudi's establishment in Marrickville-a failed supermarket he'd converted to a gym and offices. It was close to the municipal swimming pool, so Rudi had the use of an extra training facility for free. Rudi had no listed numbers and didn't give the unlisted ones out-you wanted him, you went to see him. I parked and went through the automatic door to the reception area, which just managed to present a businesslike front with a guy behind a desk and a few meaningless framed certificates on the walls. I gave the guy my card and said I wanted to see Rudi.

  'What's your business?'

  'Rudi knows me, and my business. Tell him I'm collecting on the favour I did him.'

  He went away, came back quickly, and took me down a short passage to an office that was within earshot and smell of the gym. The unmistakable sound of a heavy bag being hit and the equally recognisable tang of sweat and liniment were in the air like smoke and the click of balls in a pool room.

  Rudi met me at what would've been the door to his office if it'd had a door. It didn't.

  'Good to see youse, Hardy. Come on in.'

  Rudi is a first generation Australian about whom nothing verbal of the previous generations of foreigners lingers. He looks like a Serb or a Croatian or whatever his antecedents were, with the thickset physique, aggressive moustache and balding bullet head, but he speaks broad Australian.

  I shook his meaty hand and took a seat while he put his big bum on his desk, closer to me and higher than he would have been on a chair behind it. I guessed that this was one of his managerial negotiating positions.

  'You done me a good turn with Ricky that night. I said it, an' I meant it. So what d'you want? Tickets? No problem.'

  'Information. You remember Steve Kooti, used to work for you in an

  … executive capacity?'

  The hooded Balkan eyes suddenly brightened as if the brain behind them had just processed a lot of information and gone on the alert.

  'Stevie? Yeah, sure. What?'

  'Tell me about him.'

  'Why?'

  'Look, Rudi, I'm not interested in past history. I don't care what he used to do for you when he was one of your frighteners. I want to know what changed him and what you make of him now.'

  That relaxed him. He got off the desk and moved around to his chair. He didn't move in the loose way ex-athletes do, he moved stiffly, like a man used to carrying heavy things. Rudi had started out as a builder's labourer.

  'Silly cunt got religion. He ran into some religious freaks and they grabbed him. Dunno how. I've always been a Catholic. Doesn't get in the way of nothin' if you don't let it. But this mob Stevie took up with-can't do this, can't do that. Can't take a piss without thanking God for giving you a prick. Tried preaching that crap to me and I told him where he could put it. In the old days an insult like that and he'd have left me under this desk. And I mean under. But now it's, "Bless you, brother". Bullshit.'

  'He's tied in with some people out Campbelltown way. A community protection outfit. Know anything about them?'

  'Coconuts?'

  'Islanders, yeah.'

  'I've heard of them. There's a few around. I'm told they've got things going.'

  'Like?'

  He shrugged his beefy shoulders. 'Insurance scams, immigration scams. Shit, I dunno.'

  'Doesn't sit too well with praising the Lord.'

  'That's fair dinkum for some, just a bloody front for others-the smart ones.'

  'What category would Kooti be in?'

  'Dunno. I'm fast losing interest in this, Hardy.'

  'Fair enough. One last thing-d'you know how I can get in touch with him?'

  He smiled, showing a couple of gold-filled teeth, opened a drawer in the desk and rummaged in it. 'Gave me his mobile number in case I wanted to discuss admitting Jesus to my life. Know what I said?'

  I shook my head.

  'I said, "Sounds like a Mex Bantam. Has he got a left hook?" I thought that was funny. What d'you reckon?'

  'Pretty funny.'

  He pushed a drink coaster across the desk. 'Here you go. I don't need it. We was havin' a drink-I was, he wasn't.'

  I took the coaster, pocketed it and stood. 'Thanks.'

  'We square now, Hardy?'

  'Sure. Will I say hello from you when I talk to Steve?'

  'Okay. Maybe he could put in a good word for me with God.'

  'Do you believe in God?'

  'Sometimes-when one of my boys gets up off the floor and kayos the other guy.'

  'You're all heart, Rudi.'

  He waved his arms, embracing the room, the smells, everything. '
Look, I own this place. Got a block of units in Earlwood, a nice home in Strathfield with the missus and the kids, holiday place in Thirroul. Of course I believe in God.'

  'How're you going to vote?'

  'How do you reckon?'

  12

  I drove to the office and did a web search on Oceania Securities. It had a website that told me about as little as it could. Investments… consultancy… portfolio management-that kind of thing. The office was in St Leonards. There were no details given about Barclay Greaves and a web check on him turned up nothing. The Sydney Morning Herald database did better. A couple of stories on Greaves came up. He'd been a consultant in a big company merger that had threatened to go bottom up and he was credited with righting it. He was described as forty-six, married with two children, a former tax office heavyweight turned merchant banker turned big-time fixit guy. The article implied that his consultancy fee took a decent bite from both of the merging companies. Good one.

  The other piece dealt with his involvement in a New Zealand land deal thrown into doubt by a couple of the parties suddenly coming under fire for tax transgressions. Oceania Securities had arranged amnesties and compromises and the deal had gone through satisfactorily. This item revealed that Greaves was a lawyer with degrees from the universities of Melbourne and Chicago. It was unclear whether he was a New Zealander or an Australian. He described himself as an Australasian to the reporter who'd managed the briefest of interviews,

  That was something to chew on. Clearly he had some connection with Clement and not an altogether happy one from his behaviour on party night. Was he backing Lou Kramer's work in some way? He looked like a possible source for the extra money she might need to lure Billie, but what would his motive have been for that? True love? I doubted it.

  Given the apparent scale of his operations, I was surprised Greaves hadn't attracted more press attention. But I suppose that just as those who seek it can get it, those who don't want it can avoid it. I had a contact at the Australian Financial Review, a former editor in fact, who now had gone back to investigative work as any dinkum journalist would. I rang her and put the question about Greaves.