Taking Care of Business ch-28

by Peter Corris

  I was beginning to think I’d come back to the Super-bowl-they provided forks as well as chopsticks, which I’d never learned to use. I dug into the food. ‘There’s a watchdog, isn’t there?’ I said as I lifted a forkful towards my mouth. ‘Some acronym or other.’

  Di Maggio took a slug of wine. ‘Yeah, ASIC. Not known for its sharp teeth, am I right? And suppose Sentinel goes into receivership, where do you reckon a bunch of private investigators will rate in the creditor list?’

  I could see his point. Our trade has a bad reputation which is only partly deserved. I ate some of the shredded chicken and salty fish and found it tasty. The wine was good as well. I didn’t overplay it, just let a few beats pass.

  ‘Not high,’ I said. ‘Maybe ahead of the cleaners.’

  Di Maggio moved his bowl, glass and eating implements aside, clearing a space in front of him as if he was going in to bat.

  I couldn’t help myself. ‘Stepping up to the plate, Scotty?’

  He gave me a bleak smile. ‘You’re not the first guy to crack wise at my expense like that. Joe was a great-uncle of mine, as it happens, and I played bush league ball for a time. I was offered a try-out for the show but I turned it down. Know why?’

  Chastened, I shook my head.

  ‘The chewing tobacco gives you cancer of the soft palate and the shoulder damage makes it so you can only fuck on the bottom. You like fucking on the bottom, Cliffy?’

  Underwood, knowing about my shortish fuse, was alarmed. ‘Easy, Scott. Cliff didn’t-’

  ‘It’s all right, Charlie,’ I said. ‘I’d like to hear what you have to say, Scott.’

  Truce. Di Maggio nodded. ‘Sentinel owes us a lot of money. Hartley’s trying to establish itself here and my ass is on the line. That’s my stake. Charles and Colin are in big time. Darcy’s got a different problem. As well as them owing him already, he’s got an offer of work from Sentinel that he’s considering. Good money. Does he or doesn’t he?’

  I wasn’t going to be able to finish the food even if they left me alone for half an hour. I shovelled in another couple of mouthfuls, took a swig of wine and put the fork down.

  ‘Okay,’ I said. ‘Supposing you’re right and Sentinel’s on the nose. Why d’you need me? What they owe me’s peanuts relatively.’

  Di Maggio jumped in. ‘What you have to understand, Cliff, is that we’re working a strategy here. Everyone has a role. Colin’s looking into what kind of new business Sentinel’s writing.’

  I nodded. ‘That’d be right. He’s a master of entrapment.’

  Hart sneered at me. ‘Fuck you, Hardy. I beat that charge.’

  ‘Charles is looking at the directors and-’

  ‘Bugging,’ I said.

  Di Maggio shrugged. ‘Whatever. Darcy here-’

  ‘Is watching the wives. Don’t tell me. I know.’

  Travers leered and waved his chopsticks. Two of his three chins wobbled. He was a sleaze, probably not above a little discreet blackmail if he thought he could get away with it. It was an unholy crew and I was feeling more and more uncomfortable. ‘And you, Scott?’

  Di Maggio spread his hands in a Latin gesture a la Brando in The Godfather. ‘Coordinator and… banker. To answer your question, Cliff-we need you for the media contacts.’

  ‘Specifically Harry Tickener,’ Underwood said.

  Harry was an old mate who owned, edited and wrote a lot of the copy in The Challenger, a journal of independent opinion which he somehow managed to keep going despite lawsuits and slim revenue. His nose for a story was acute and his investigative skills were razor sharp. I lifted my glass, ‘Harry Tickener.’

  For a minute I thought they were all going to join me in the toast. Charlie almost did but held back just in time.

  ‘Enough with the jokes, Cliff,’ di Maggio said. ‘This is fucking serious, and we’re talking serious money.’

  ‘For who?’

  ‘For all of us, you included. Didn’t I say I was the banker? You help us liaise with Tickener and you’re in for a slice.’

  ‘I don’t follow.’

  Di Maggio leaned back. ‘Let’s lighten up. What about a real drink all round? On me. Hey, let’s exchange cards.’

  He had that American bonhomie that grates after a while but is hard to resist at first. The others all drained their wineglasses, pushed their bowls away and produced their cards. I held out just a little longer. ‘What about Harry?’

  Di Maggio waved his hand at the nearest waiter. ‘He’s got an exclusive lock on the story when the time’s right. His circulation goes up. He goes on teevee, as you call it, for solid fees. Might even be a book in it. Cognacs?’

  We drank brandy and they pressed me. Di Maggio implied that he’d be looking for a solid bonus if Hartley could recover all it was owed by Sentinel and he hinted that some of this money would come our way. I watched him carefully and from little signs I had the feeling that he had more at stake than he’d let on. Maybe his job was on the line, maybe it was something else. I didn’t much like the smell of the scheme and didn’t feel like coming on board. I paid for my share of the meal and told them I’d think about it. The Australians weren’t happy but di Maggio was gracious. ‘Sure, take some time.’

  Even on a Wednesday night, city parking is no fun so I’d caught a bus in. After I left the restaurant I ducked into a doorway and kept an eye on the exit. From long experience I’ve found it useful to learn who leaves with who after a meeting, or whether all parties go their separate ways. Di Maggio emerged first and caught a taxi almost immediately. Probably wise, he’d had his share of the drinks. Darcy waddled out next and from the direction he took I guessed he was making his way towards the nearest parking station. Maybe he’d eaten enough to blot up the alcohol. Charlie Underwood and Colin Hart came out together, deep in conversation. Charlie had lucked onto a parking space close to the restaurant and they stood talking beside his car, a Commodore Statesman with all the trimmings, before getting in and driving off. That was interesting in itself, but what was even more interesting was that as they left I heard an engine start up. I kept out of sight and watched a dark blue Mazda pull away and follow the Commodore at a discreet distance as it made its first turn.

  Walking, I’ve found, helps me to think, so I decided to walk home. It was a fine night. I walked down Goulburn Street, crossed the Darling Harbour walkway and made my way up through Ultimo towards Glebe. I couldn’t help remembering how it all used to be, with the sprawling goods yards and the factories and the early opening pubs. In many ways it’s better; I’m glad the ABC has its new building and I like the Powerhouse Museum. The fish market is fun and I’m told Glebe High School does some cutting edge stuff. I miss some of the scruffiness and am trying to keep it going in my own way with my ungentrified terrace house down near the water. ‘You’re on a nostalgic and totally unproductive, negative ego trip,’ my last girlfriend, Tess Hewitt, had said. She was probably right but I didn’t care.

  Women I’d known and the past I’d lived through filled my mind. I realised, as I approached my street, that I hadn’t done any productive thinking about the Sentinel matter and Scott di Maggio’s dubious proposition. Worse than that I realised, as I turned the corner and a car cruised off in low gear, that I’d been tracked on foot and by car all the way home.

  It’s a fair step from Goulburn Street to the bottom of Glebe Point Road and the walk, plus the food, wine and brandy gave me a good night’s sleep. I woke up late with bright light all around the edges of the window and a bladder crying for relief. But I lay there a while, thinking. It was perverse of me, but the fact that someone had followed Charlie and Colin from the meeting, and that I’d picked up a tail as well, intrigued me and made me more interested in what was going on with Sentinel.

  By the time I’d got up, pissed, showered, shaved, dressed and eaten breakfast the post had arrived. An overdue rates notice reminding me of the interest accruing, an uncomfortably large credit card bill, car registration papers and an invoice for my gym
fees amounted to shovels digging me in a deeper financial hole. The only other letter was hand-addressed in unfamiliar writing. Bad-temperedly, I ripped it open.

  Dear Cliff

  Funny way to address your father but I can’t think of anything better. I don’t like to ask you for money but I’m going to anyway. I know it wasn’t your fault you didn’t contribute anything to my first twenty years of life and you probably squared up by getting me out of the shit I was in but… I can’t think of a way to finish that sentence.

  I’ve got a scholarship to study acting in New York. They tell me I can get work there waitressing or hooking (joke), but I need the fare. Hope you can help, love (yeah?)

  Megan

  It rocked me. When my ex-wife Cyn was dying she told me about the child she’d had. I was the father. The child had been adopted but had come looking for her mother. I’d extricated Megan from some dangerous company and we had had a wary, distant relationship in the two years since. She’d never asked me for anything before. I put the letter down with the unpaid bills and felt myself leaning towards what I’d come to think of as the Sentinel proposal. It was mostly the money but partly the interest generated by differences I’d observed between di Maggio and the others and the tails I’d spotted last night.

  I knew that Megan was working front of house at a fringe theatre in Surry Hills. I’d meant to get along to one of their plays and hadn’t made it. I rang the place, got an answering machine and left a message for her that I’d help and could have some money for her within twenty-four hours. What did a return air fare to New York cost? I rang Qantas. Three and a half thousand economy for a ticket allowing a one year stay. How long did you need to study acting? Throw in five hundred mad money. Four grand. I didn’t have it but I thought I could get it.

  I rummaged in the leather jacket I’d hung over the stairwell post and found the cards. The Hartley Agency’s card was surprisingly modest-no Tommy gun. I rang di Maggio’s number and got a female intermediary.

  ‘Cliff Hardy for Scott,’ I said in my hardest tone.

  ‘Just a moment.’

  Di Maggio came on the line within seconds. ‘Cliff. Glad you called. Thought you would. I primed the switchboard.’

  I registered that but made no comment. ‘I’m in,’ I said. ‘With a condition.’

  ‘Name it, mate.’

  Like most Americans, he couldn’t get the accent or the rhythm right and I mentally deducted points for his even trying.

  ‘I need four thousand up front.’

  ‘You’ve got it. Give me your account number and it’s in there electronically as of ten minutes from now.’

  I gave him the number but I couldn’t help thinking that, even for a hotshot American outfit, this was a bit too slick. Still, money oils the wheels.

  ‘Thanks, Scott,’ I said. ‘Well, I’m off to see Harry Tickener.’

  ‘Ah, Cliff, can I ask what brought on the rush of blood?’

  I let a moment go by. There were things he possibly didn’t know-like the tails on the people leaving the meeting-and things he probably did, like the state of my finances.

  ‘No.’

  He chuckled. ‘No problem,’ he said, and this time he got the cadences exactly right.

  Harry Tickener kept his Nikes up on his desk and examined the uppers while I said my piece.

  ‘Are they paying out on policies?’ he asked when I’d finished.

  ‘Dunno.’

  ‘Interesting,’ he said. ‘They’re pretty big. A lot of things’d suffer if they went belly up.’

  ‘What about their directors?’

  Harry smiled. ‘Probably haven’t got a bean to their names.’

  ‘You could find out, couldn’t you?’

  ‘Yeah. More to the point, if they’ve made any rearrangements lately. You said there were some other private enquiry agents in this with you. Would you care to name them?’

  ‘Not at this stage.’

  ‘Reputable?’

  I made a so-so gesture.

  ‘What’re you doing in bed with people like that?’

  ‘I have my reasons, Harry. You said it was interesting. Interesting enough to look into?’

  ‘Sure.’ He grabbed a pad and pen and jotted down some notes. ‘I’ll get back to you when I know anything. And there’s no one else sniffing?’

  ‘As far as I know.’

  ‘What are you going to do?’

  ‘Sniff,’ I said.

  I went to my office and phoned Bryce Carter at Sentinel. I got his voicemail, persisted with the switchboard operator, but got no further. I left him a message enquiring whether he’d got my report and when I might expect to be paid. I attended to a few inconsequential things. He phoned within the half hour.

  ‘I have your report, Mr Hardy. It seems satisfactory.’

  ‘Not what you were hoping, I guess.’

  ‘Hope doesn’t play much of a part in this business. You’ll be paid within thirty days, which is our usual practice.’

  ‘I’m pressed for cash. I wonder if I could see you to talk about that.’

  Listening to the irritation in his tone was like striking sand in an oyster. ‘Mr Hardy, I’m aware that a mistake was made in commissioning you, but-’

  ‘Yeah, you meant to get the Hartley Agency.’

  ‘Nevertheless-’

  ‘Listen, Bryce. I could make trouble for you. Bad blue on your part-employing a one-man outfit and not the corporate, suck-up good boy. Know what I mean?’

  ‘No. I-’

  ‘I didn’t play along, did I?’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

  ‘I think you do. We should talk.’

  I was bluffing, flying blind, but the silence on the other end of the line told me I’d hit a nerve. I pressed harder and Carter agreed to meet me.

  Sentinel Insurance occupied several floors of a tower block in North Sydney. I was passed along by a couple of desk jockeys and finally admitted to an office that had the stripped down, bare look favoured by the modern executive. Too efficient to need much paper, too busy to harbour distractions, like paintings or books. Bryce Carter was thirtyish, buffed and polished in dress but worried in manner. He waved me to a seat and went back behind his desk.

  I got in first. ‘What’s going on here?’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  I rubbed the side of my nose. ‘I can smell an outfit that’s in trouble. Like this one.’

  ‘That’s absurd.’

  ‘A man like you, with all this behind him, shouldn’t make elementary mistakes. How come you did?’

  He shrugged, but stiffly. ‘A slip. You shouldn’t complain. You-’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ I said. ‘I think you took your eye off the ball. Or maybe it wasn’t a slip and you were doing what you were told. You’re a worried man, Bryce.’

  He stood and touched a button on his console. ‘You’ll receive a cheque in due course. There’s nothing more to say. If you don’t leave now someone from security will compel you to leave. Let’s be civilised about this.’

  ‘Okay, let’s.’ I got up and strolled around the room. ‘Nice office, this. Enjoy it while you’ve got it.’

  He was head down and ignoring me but it was an act and not a very good one. I went out, closed the door behind me and reopened it immediately. He was stabbing buttons on the phone. I gave him a wave and closed the door again.

  My car was in a station a couple of blocks away. I went down the ramp feeling for my keys and remembering the days when they used to get the car for you. Labour intensive. The light was poor and I was slow to adjust to it, courtesy of an old eye injury. I squinted, searching for the car.

  I heard nothing, saw nothing, but the blow to the back of my head filled the world with bright lights and noise before everything went silent and dark.

  A rushing sound, a feeling of movement, a stab of pain, then nothing more. A cough, my own, brought me to the surface. I tried to swim back down but I coughed some more and sneez
ed and jerked with the convulsions to find myself tied up hand and foot. That woke me up. My mouth was foul and my head felt as if it had been filled with cement. I coughed and spat and my eyes blurred so that I had to work out where I was by smell and feel.

  I was lying on a sun lounge and the metal supports were digging into my back. It was night and I felt close to the stars. Crazy feeling. I blinked to clear my vision and worked out that I was on a balcony jutting out from an apartment in which dim light was showing. I swivelled my head and stared out through the railing a metre away. I could see lights in the far distance. Then a plane passed overhead and I felt uncomfortably close to it. I was somewhere up high, very high.

  I wriggled but my hands and feet were strapped to the lounge by heavy cord and tight knots.

  Someone has to see me here, I thought. Someone up higher. I tilted my head to look directly up. There was nothing higher. I was on the balcony of the penthouse. A chill went through me as I thought about it. Must be a hell of a long way down. I wouldn’t say I was afraid of heights, but mountaineering and rock climbing have never appealed to me. Nor abseiling, hang-gliding or skydiving. I tried to dismiss such thoughts and work out what must have happened.

  The back of my head hurt but not as much as if I’d been coshed. A hit to the nerves at the base of the skull then, expert stuff. By going to see Bryce Carter I’d expected to stir the possum somehow but I’d evidently frightened it from the tree. I thought back over the encounter with Carter. It was my remark about his employing me not being a mistake, being something deliberate, that had triggered his reaction. Why? There had to be some connection between Sentinel and the Hartley Agency, or maybe just between Carter and di Maggio. I let that idea run around in my head for a while. I could see certain possibilities… then another plane roared over and I was jerked back to my present situation. First things first, Cliff.

  I looked around the balcony, straining my eyes in the faint light from inside and from the stars. I could make out the shapes of a couple of garden chairs, a low table of some kind, some pot plants. The balcony was tiled and had a retractable roof. It looked to be divided into sections marked off by trellises. I tested the cord against the frame of the lounge. I was securely trussed but the frame was light. I could rock it from side to side. Without quite knowing why, I did this until it tipped over and I was lying face down on the tiles with the lounge on top of me like a tortoise shell. I rolled and slid my way to the nearest trellis and, pushing hard against the plastic slats, bullocked myself up into a standing position. I edged along and looked over the rail. It felt like a hundred storeys up and I quickly moved back.