Dunbar Case

by Peter Corris

  Hector unbuttoned his jacket and relaxed. Good technique to ease the tension. He was right, he knew what he was doing. Joseph was still tightly strung. ‘No,’ he said, ‘he wouldn’t believe a message coming from us through our normal channels.’

  ‘I can understand that. I suppose Jobe Tanner’s your father. He threatened to kill Twizell.’

  ‘Well, that’s part of it,’ Hector said. ‘Dad was upset because of what Johnnie did to Kristie, but we don’t feel that way.’

  ‘Kristie’s a slag,’ Joseph said. ‘She deserved what she got.’

  ‘Nice,’ I said.

  Hector shot his brother an angry look. ‘I wouldn’t put it quite like that but you’re right. It’s not nice. We’re not nice people, can’t afford to be.’

  ‘I won’t argue with that.’

  Joseph growled and tried to swipe me with a backhander. The numbness in my arm had eased off. I caught his wrist, twisted and he had to fall off his chair to prevent his wrist being broken.

  ‘Stop it!’ Hector snarled.

  The driver had come forward and looked ready to join in but he stopped when Hector spoke.

  ‘Back off, Rog. Let him go, Hardy. There’s no need for this. Let’s keep it civilised.’

  I laughed and released Joseph’s wrist. I got to my feet and turned towards Rog. ‘I owe you one, mate. Want to have a go?’

  ‘No one’s having a go,’ Hector said. ‘Calm down, all of you. Let’s have a drink.’

  He had a briefcase by his chair. He opened it and took out a bottle of vodka. Not my favourite but a drink just then seemed like a very good idea.

  ‘Find some glasses, Rog, and, Clem, you’d better go and see a doctor. Get your ribs strapped up.’

  ‘I could do with a drink myself, Hec,’ Clem said.

  Rog rummaged in a cupboard and came up with some plastic glasses.

  ‘Not too elegant,’ Hector said, ‘but a drink out of your boot’s better than none at all.’

  He lined five glasses up on the arm of his chair and poured them half full. ‘Just the one for you, Rog, you’ll be driving Mr Hardy back to his car.’

  Rog and Clem knocked back their drinks and left the building. Hector handed me a glass. ‘Cheers.’

  The three of us drank. It was good, smooth stuff. Hector poured another three generous measures. ‘We’re not going to have any more trouble here, are we, Hardy?’

  ‘Depends on what happens when you stop being all hospitable and tell me what message you want me to deliver and why.’

  ‘Fair enough. First, we don’t intend to kill Johnnie or hurt him in any way. Second, tell him that we’re willing to offer him protection and assistance when he goes for the money.’

  I found myself repeating what Twizell had said to me. ‘That’s very vague.’

  ‘He’ll know what it means.’

  ‘I don’t suppose you’ll tell me what it means—just to help me be more convincing.’

  ‘You’re an irritating man, Hardy. A little of you goes a very long way.’

  ‘I’ve been told that.’

  Hector nodded. ‘I’m sure it’s one of your techniques, part of your stock in trade, as it were.’

  He was right there. I finished the drink and stood. ‘You’re out of your mind, Tanner. I’m leaving. If Rog comes anywhere near me I’ll put him in hospital.’

  His voice had a whip-crack quality. ‘You’ll do as I say.’

  ‘Involve myself in a criminal conspiracy with a few wannabe gangsters like you? No chance. I’ve got a job to do and I’ll do it. Just that.’

  He shook his head mock-sadly and took a mobile phone from his pocket. ‘There’s 385 grams of high grade cocaine in your motel room. One call and the cops’ll be there with the sniffer dogs. I’ve checked on you, Hardy. You’ve done time and been suspended and had your fucking licence lifted. You got it back on a technicality. You walk a fine line. I bet there’s quite a few cops who’d be happy to see you go down—again.’

  He had a point. My reinstatement as a PIA came about as a result of a technicality and there were people who were unhappy about it.

  ‘Supposing I don’t go back to the motel?’ I said.

  Hector sipped his drink. Joseph smirked. ‘There’s always your car, your house, your office, your daughter’s flat, for that matter. We’ve got a law and order government now, I’m happy to say. Might be a bit hard to convict, you might hang on to your licence if things went your way, but it wouldn’t do much for your business.’

  ‘What’s to stop me agreeing and then not delivering the message?’

  ‘We’ll get a reaction from Johnnie when you do. No question about it.’

  Joseph must have thought he’d played second fiddle too long. My guess was that he’d done it from infanthood. He was wearing a nice suit as well, after all, if a bit less classy than Hector’s. ‘Stuck for words?’ he said. ‘That makes a welcome change. You’ve got no real choice, Hardy. And what’s your problem? You deliver a message, walk away and never hear from us again, right, Hec?’

  Hector didn’t like not being the spokesman. Didn’t like his brother very much, possibly, but he played along. ‘Right.’

  I sat down. ‘How about another drink while I think about it?’

  ‘Why not?’ Hector filled my glass. I held it up and then poured it slowly out onto the dusty cement floor.

  ‘You prick,’ Joseph said, half rising from his chair.

  ‘Easy,’ Hector said. ‘Just as a matter of interest, what were you seeing Johnnie about?’

  I stood and moved towards the door. ‘It was about money. Maybe a more attractive offer than yours.’

  Hector didn’t react but my reward was a worried frown on Joseph’s face. I opened the door and looked back. Hector waggled his mobile phone at me. He wouldn’t unravel under pressure as quickly as his brother, but he was probably the more dangerous of the pair.

  I had no idea where I was. I walked down the lane. No sign of Rog, Clem or the station wagon. I went towards the loudest traffic noise and walked until I reached a small shopping centre. I located a taxi rank with one cab waiting. I got in and swore when I was asked where I was going. My mind was on Tanner’s threat. Bluff or for real? I told the driver to take me to the gaol car park. My manner discouraged any friendly chat he might have had in mind. We didn’t exchange a word the whole way.

  7

  Motel rooms aren’t hard to break into. The room keys aren’t complicated and, with a bunch of people who don’t know each other circulating about, things don’t get noticed. Whoever had been in my room hadn’t tried to conceal the fact; quite the opposite. Lying on top of Lord Jim was a disc of silver foil about the size of a ten-cent piece. I unwrapped it; maybe the white powder was coke, maybe it wasn’t. I didn’t care. I flushed it down the toilet. Then I made a thorough search of the room and my belongings in case there was a second stash which would have been a cunning thing to have done—and Hector Tanner was cunning personified. There wasn’t. I made a cup of instant coffee and sat down to think.

  There was no point in going to the police and accusing the Tanners of deprivation of liberty and making threats. They’d deny it and I had no evidence. I could do as they said, give Twizell the message and get on with the job Wakefield had hired me to do. That went against the grain: I was being threatened and blackmailed. I’d been used to threats ever since I’d got into this business but blackmail was something new. I felt in my guts that if I gave in to it I was finished.

  The first thing to do was buy some time. I rang the gaol and arranged to see Twizell again. I assumed the Tanners’ contact would let them know that. The next step was to find some way to neutralise the threat. The Tanners were based in Newcastle and I had contacts there—a PIA named McKnight who I’d worked with in the past, and Marisha Henderson, a journalist on the Newcastle Herald who’d been a friend and colleague of Lily Truscott. I rang and arranged to meet Pete in his office at Hamilton that evening.

  While Pete was wary, knowin
g that I needed something from him, Marisha sounded genuinely pleased to hear from me.

  ‘Hello, Cliff,’ she said. ‘Hey, it’s been too long. What’s up?’

  I told her I was going to be in Newcastle that night and wanted to talk to her about Novocastrian matters.

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Bad guys.’

  ‘Right up my street. Dinner?’

  ‘Has to be later.’

  ‘Come to my place. How long are you in this shithole for?’

  ‘Don’t know. I thought you were glad to get the job in Newcastle.’

  ‘I was. Now not so much. Anyway, we can talk about it. I hope you’re still drinking. Not one of these born-again teetotallers, are you?’

  I said I wasn’t. She gave me the address. A mental picture of her formed as we finished the call—tall, slim and energetic with a slight and attractive overbite. Lily had said she was my type and she was, but at the time Lily was all I needed.

  It was 3pm and I had a four-hour plus drive ahead of me. I checked out, paying for two nights, and headed north after topping up the tank and washing down a couple of No-Doz with black coffee. I headed north-east, picking up the Bells Line of Road, keeping a close watch in the rear vision mirror for the first stretch, but there was no tail. I paid a toll for the short run on the M2 and got onto the Newcastle freeway. I played a series of CDs, mostly blues. Hummed along or sang when I knew the words. I was tired from the meeting with Twizell, the confrontation with the Tanners and having to concentrate on the driving, but the caffeine kept me alert.

  Pete’s office was in a block on the site of a building more or less demolished by the 1989 earthquake. The façade had been preserved. It was well situated but modest, suggesting that Pete was making a living but not getting rich. He was an ex-policeman, invalided out with a pension after being shot. He was ten years younger than me but looked every day of his age. He got slowly and stiffly to his feet as I came into his office.

  ‘How’s it going, Pete?’ I said.

  ‘Up and down. You?’

  ‘Okay.’

  I sat and we exchanged small talk for a minute or two. Pete’s hair was thinning as his body thickened. I knew that he was divorced and that his wife had taken the two children interstate. There were signs of work being done in the office but not a lot. The last time we spoke, Pete had told me he missed the bustle of police life but was still heavily dependent on the force for the jobs they threw his way. He’d had some funny stories back then, but he was much less chatty now.

  ‘I’ve run up against the Tanners,’ I said. ‘Hector and Joseph.’

  ‘Be thankful it wasn’t Jobe.’

  ‘I’ll keep that in mind. Joseph’s not much, but Hector’s got something about him. Would you agree?’

  He grunted but didn’t say anything. For what seemed like the hundredth time I sketched the job I was on, the message I was supposed to deliver and the threat that came with it.

  ‘Couple of questions,’ I said. ‘Do they have the resources to plant coke the way they say—the supply, contacts in Sydney, good break-in people?’

  Pete nodded. ‘They do.’

  ‘I need some leverage against them.’

  ‘Why not just do what they say? No skin off your nose.’

  I didn’t answer. He looked at me and sighed. ‘Of course—you’d reckon they’d own you.’

  ‘Something like that. Hector mentioned my daughter. That made a difference.’

  ‘Hardy the hero.’

  ‘Hardy the pissed-off. You’ve worked here a long time, Pete. You’ve got an in with the cops; you know the scene. You know the informers. Shit, operators like the Tanners’ve got as many enemies as friends, maybe more.’

  ‘That’s true and I’ve been one. But the smart thing to do is stay clear of them. What they’ve threatened you with is nothing compared to things they’ve done.’

  ‘Like?’

  He shook his head. ‘You don’t want to know. I can’t help you. It’s a good thing you didn’t mention the Tanners when you rang. I wouldn’t have been here.’

  ‘That bad?’

  ‘That bad. In fact I’m worried about you coming here. You asked about contacts—they’ve got ’em, all over.’

  ‘Jesus, Pete, you used—’

  ‘I used to have more balls.’

  I got up. ‘I’m sorry.’

  I wasn’t quite sure what I meant when I said that. I had a mixture of feelings. But Pete took it in the worst way. His sagging face went red and a tic started in his cheek. He knotted his hands together on the top of his desk to stop them from shaking.

  ‘You pity me, right? Fuck you.’

  I moved towards the door. I heard him suck in a deep breath.

  ‘Cliff.’

  I turned back.

  ‘Don’t say you weren’t warned.’

  ‘About who in particular?’

  His troubled voice sank to a whisper. ‘About every one of the fuckers. They’re a volatile lot. I doubt that any one of them trusts the other.’

  ‘Not unusual in a crew like that.’

  ‘Yeah, but if anyone tells you Jobe’s a spent force, don’t believe it.’

  ‘Sounds as if you—’

  ‘Just an observer.’

  My nod didn’t mean I believed him.

  I’d thought my session with Pete would have taken longer. I thought he might have filled me in with some details about the Tanners, might even have taken me to meet a useful person or two. I didn’t anticipate that he’d be so reluctant to help. I was there so briefly I could’ve had dinner with Marisha but she’d have made other arrangements by now so I had time to kill.

  I drove into the city centre. Newcastle wore a rundown look and I recalled reading that a plan to spend millions on a revamp had fallen through and that the money men, local authorities and the state government were still trying to thrash out a deal. It looked overdue; road markings were faded, the buildings were rust-stained from leaking guttering and everything seemed to need an injection of money and ideas.

  I found a parking spot and had a meal in the first decent-looking eatery I came to. Fish, as recommended by my cardiologist and generally my preference anyway. A half-bottle of white wine to go with the food and wash down the necessary pills. Service was slow, which suited me. I read some Conrad and scribbled some notes. Black coffee to finish.

  I bought a bottle of wine at a pub, programmed the GPS and followed the directions to Redhead on the coast a bit north of the city. Marisha’s address was a block of flats on the road that ran along the beach. If she was up high enough and in front she’d have a view across the road, the dunes and the beach straight out to the South Pacific Ocean.

  It was just after nine o’clock when I buzzed her flat. She released the door after telling me to come up two flights. I went up slowly—you don’t want to arrive on a woman’s doorstep puffing. She had the door open waiting for me. No ceremony. She stepped forward and wrapped her arms around me. I hugged her and felt a surge of feeling that’d been missing for a long time.

  She hung on to my arm and pulled me inside. I hadn’t seen her since Lily’s wake when she’d been one of the most distressed people there before she became one of the drunkest. She hadn’t changed much—still looked as though she could do a triathlon the way she used to. She seemed reluctant to let me go and I wasn’t struggling. I waved the bottle of red.

  ‘Good one,’ she said. ‘Let’s crack it and drink a toast to Lily. How are you?’

  I knew what she meant. The name had to come up and she’d done it in the best way possible.

  ‘Healed,’ I said.

  ‘Jacket off, have a seat, I’ll open the plonk.’ She looked at the label. ‘Shit, that set you back a bit.’

  I put my jacket on the couch on top of a pile of newspapers and magazines—the room was pleasantly untidy, a bit like Marisha herself, who wore a wrinkled skirt and a shirt half tucked in, half out.

  ‘My client, you mean.’

 
She unscrewed the cap on her way to the kitchen. ‘Yeah, I heard you were working again. Having fun?’

  She came back with two glasses, put them on the coffee table in front of the couch and poured. Then she sat in a chair across from me but not far away. She raised her glass.

  ‘Lily,’ she said, ‘from two who loved her.’

  We drank.

  ‘I asked if you were having fun.’

  ‘It’s a good question. I haven’t thought about it.’

  I was having trouble thinking about anything except her smooth olive skin, dark eyes and the way her overbite gave her a smile all her own. I drank some wine to stop from staring at her.

  ‘Some of it’s fun,’ I said. ‘Some of it’s a bit like what you do—talking to people, finding things out.’

  She nodded, still smiling. ‘But there’s a difference. I haven’t been shot ten times.’

  ‘Nowhere near ten.’

  We drank and didn’t talk for a minute. I pointed to the curtains drawn across floor to ceiling windows. The flat was at the front of the building. ‘Must be a great view.’

  ‘You don’t want to talk about the view, do you, Cliff?’

  ‘No.’ I finished the wine, stood and moved towards her. She put her glass down and I took her hands and pulled her up and towards me. She came smoothly and we kissed as if it was something we’d rehearsed. She tasted of wine; she smelled of the sea.

  ‘You’ve been swimming,’ I said.

  ‘Every night.’

  We kissed again. We pressed close. I was getting hard.

  ‘Lily said—’

  ‘I know. She told me. She said I was your type.’

  ‘You are.’

  ‘Come on, then.’

  We were both eager but not impatient. We took our time and discovered what pleased us both the most. Then it became urgent and we fucked vigorously. After we finished we lay wrapped together in the semi-darkness. She ran a finger down the pale spots that marked where they’d split me open.

  ‘I heard about this but I forgot about it just now. Didn’t seem to cause you any trouble.’

  ‘It doesn’t. Mind you, if we’d done that, say, a day or two before the heart attack, you’d have had to heave me off and give me CPR.’