Wet Graves

by Peter Corris

  “I’m hoping you can tell me something about Brian Madden that’ll help me to find him.”

  She blew smoke over my shoulder. “I wish I could. If I had any ideas I’d have acted on them myself by now.”

  “Despite your … situation?”

  “Yes. My situation, as you call it, is not all that tricky. My husband knows that I’ve been having an affair. He doesn’t know with whom, and he doesn’t want to know. They’re the terms we struck. It works all right I’m not housebound, no kids. I could’ve … looked …” She waved the hand with the cigarette in it, more emphatically than theatrically. “But I didn’t know what I could do. I thought about trying to contact the daughter, going to his school. But …” The hand waved again, indicating lack of direction.

  The waitress brought the coffee. I put a spoonful of raw, granulated sugar in mine; she didn’t take sugar, but she still stirred the cup with the spoon—the gesture of an ex-sugar user. She drew solidly on her Marlboro a couple of times and then stubbed it out. I waited for the waitress to spring up with a fresh ashtray, but a few new customers drifted in and took her attention. The coffee was a bit weak but acceptable. “Sane, balanced, contented people don’t disappear for no reason,” I said. “Either they fall victim to some random, senseless force or there’s something in their lives, their backgrounds, that … removes them from the scene.”

  “You mean, makes them run away, change their names?”

  I shrugged and drank some more coffee. “That sort of thing. You haven’t tried your coffee. It’s okay.”

  “I don’t want it. I want another cigarette.”

  “Fight it.”

  “Know all about it, do you?”

  “Not about moderation, just quitting.”

  She drank some of her coffee. “I couldn’t, not possibly. Well, I hadn’t ever thought about Brian in the way you say, about a random act or a reason for disappearing. I don’t know what to think.”

  “You can’t recall anything he said, or anything you overheard, or half-heard, that suggested some problem in his life? Past or present. Some … disorder? What about his marriage? Any threads?”

  “No. He spoke about his wife a few times, but there was nothing to suggest that it wasn’t just a sad event in the past. Normal, almost.”

  I nodded. That was the word I had hit on when looking through the flat. “What about the daughter?”

  Suspicion flared. She lowered her cup. “She hired you, you said.”

  “It’s been known. You hire someone like me, but you don’t give the real reasons.”

  Dell Burton shook her head. “Nothing. He’s a nice, funny, warm man. Good in all sorts of ways. Good for me.”

  “You’ll have to forgive me, Mrs Burton. This is where it gets personal, and I have to be blunt. If you walk out, I won’t try to stop you.”

  “You’re softening me up in advance.”

  “Maybe. I can see that you’re an intelligent, sophisticated woman. Perhaps a bit selfish.”

  “That’s fair.”

  I put the coffee cup between her and the question. “Why didn’t you leave your husband for Brian Madden?”

  She lifted her cup. We were like two fencers, feinting. “He didn’t have any money.”

  “Your husband does?”

  “Lots.”

  “I don’t believe you. I don’t think that’s the reason. Why?”

  She put the coffee cup down and lit another cigarette. I didn’t say anything. Like the government that collects taxes on the stuff, I could see the benefit. “You’re right. There was something strange about Brian. Nothing sinister, like you’ve been suggesting.”

  I wasn’t aware that I’d been suggesting anything sinister. Maybe that feeling I’d had in the flat was seeping through. “Tell me,” I said.

  “Brian wasn’t completely grown up. I know he’d been widowed and raised a child and held a responsible job and so on, but there was something boyish about him. Attractive, you understand, but …”

  “I see.”

  “Not very helpful?”

  “I don’t know. I’m all at sea when it comes to psychology. Have you any idea why he was like this?”

  “Was?”

  “Is.”

  “Not really, unless it’s that he lived in the shadow of his father, who was one of the chief engineers for the harbour bridge. I gather that there was some pressure on Brian to become an engineer, but he wasn’t interested. His father was a strong personality, apparently. I suppose being a builder of the bridge was a pretty big deal back in the thirties and forties.”

  “I suppose. I guess fathers have to do something.”

  “Mmm. Mine made a lot of money. What did yours do, Mr Hardy?”

  “Nothing to be ashamed of,” I said. “That’s all you can tell me, Mrs Burton?”

  “That’s all. What d’you think can have happened to him?”

  “I don’t know. I’ll have to keep digging—try his colleagues, try to get at his bank accounts.”

  “That’s … ugly.”

  The rich tend to think that their money is beautiful, but that it’s ugly for others to look too closely at it. I decided that there was something a bit hard about Mrs Burton. Perhaps I let that show. In any case, the rapport between us dissolved. I told her that I’d let her know if I found anything useful. She nodded and put her cigarettes away. We could have been discussing a stolen car. She forced a smile and walked away, her firm, disciplined body steady on her high heels. I didn’t think Louise Madden would like her much. I didn’t myself, but Brian Madden had and that was what mattered. My trip to the north shore hadn’t worked out so well—I’d turned over some of the physical and personal residues of Brian Madden’s life, but I didn’t feel that I knew the man at all.

  I’d made some notes while I was in Madden’s flat—I had the name of a travel agency he’d used when he’d taken a trip to New Caledonia a few years back, also the name of a Queensland resort he’d stayed at for a week during his summer vacation. The registration number of the Laser was in my pocket along with the names of a solicitor, a doctor and the high roller, Henry Bush. Threads to pull, and I pulled them through the rest of the afternoon. I called at the travel agency and phoned the resort and got what I expected—nothing. Brian Madden had done just the one bit of business with them. From the secretaries to the doctor and solicitor I got appointments. In return for a modest financial consideration, I extracted a promise from a contact in the Department of Motor Transport to make available all recent information on the Laser.

  When I rang Henry Bush’s number I got his answering machine: “Hi there! This is Henry Bush. Sorry I can’t talk to you right now, but I will pronto if you’ll leave your name and number after the yodel.” A high, trembling Swiss yodel tickled my eardrums. I was so surprised I hung up without leaving a message. That must happen to a lot of people, I thought, maybe that’s why he does it. Anyway, he didn’t sound like the kind of man to commit murder for ten bucks.

  All this took me through to six o’clock and left me in the Crown Hotel in Norton Street, Leichhardt, where you can get a glass of red or white wine for a dollar and the use of a public phone in the bar. I bought my first drink of the day at 6.01 and moved away from the phone. I felt I’d put in a reasonable sort of a day on the Brian Madden case and could now turn my attention to Rhino Jackson. The Crown is right across the straight from one of the gambling places Jackson was reputed to protect. And if he wasn’t there, I had a good chance of finding someone who knew where he was. But I was fairly confident of finding him; Jackson was a gambler as well as a protection-provider, and gamblers are addicted to the atmosphere of gambling. No other kind of air can sustain their life.

  As I drank the glass of one-dollar red I reflected that everything I knew about Jackson would be known to the police. But in looking for a missing witness you’re not necessarily in competition with the police—it depends how hard they want to find him, or her. Sometimes they want to very badly and then it’s t
he SWOS force and the sledgehammers on the doors at dawn; sometimes they don’t and all that happens is that a few questions get asked and a few forms get filled in. Until I learned more from Parker and Sackville, I had no way of knowing how hard the police were trying. With me it’s different—I’m always trying hard, usually for the money and in this case for my skin.

  I thought about another glass of wine but settled for a light beer and then went across the street to the Bar Napoli, where I had the wine and a lasagna to blot it up. It being Wednesday night, the place was pretty quiet. I go there often enough to consider myself almost a regular and I saw a few people I’d seen there before, which tells you you’re a regular. But it’s the kind of café you feel comfortable in whether you’re a regular or not. The people serving the food and coffee will talk to you if you want or leave you alone—your choice. You can read or look at the nicely framed paintings, drawings and photographs on the walls. These are by people known to the management and are for sale. I once saw a customer buy a painting.

  I ate my food slowly and made the wine last. The television was turned to SBS for the news and a sports roundup and then Bruno, the proprietor, turned it off and settled down with cigarettes and a short black to talk to his pals. The TV wouldn’t go on again unless Bruno said so, which meant until there was a soccer match. That was fine with me. I read some stories in the Sydney Review, a give-away tabloid that seems to be subsidised by upmarket wineries and boutiques. I got a few laughs and a few yawns for free. Two dawdled-over coffees took me past eight o’clock, which was still way too early to actually find Rhino Jackson behind a wheel or a poker hand. Before leaving I had a quick word with Bruno and we came to an understanding.

  I took a walk around the back streets, making the dogs bark but drawing comradely nods from the other nocturnal strollers.

  By 9.15 I’d run out of streets and was sharp and dear-headed. A plane passed over, low down and with landing lights blinking, as I reached into the car and took out the licensed and totally legal Smith & Wesson .38 automatic. As I put the weapon in the pocket of my leather jacket I had the thought that ninety-nine per cent of the people I’d seen and spoken to since I’d arrived in Leichhardt would have disapproved of me carrying it in their suburb. I disapproved myself, more or less, but there was that dangerous one per cent who thought and acted differently. It was still too early to find Jackson playing games, but it wasn’t too early to ask around, politely.

  Four doors down from the Bar Napoli is another coffee shop in which very little coffee seems to get drunk. It’s small, crowded with tables, has a big flashy espresso machine and they work hard at creating a busy atmosphere. The TV is always on; La Fiamma and other papers and magazines lie about, and there’s always at least one table with coffee cups and full ashtrays sitting on it. They sit there for a long time. Also sitting for a long time are a succession of men who smoke, watch the TV with one eye and the street with the other. In Australian they’re called ‘cockatoos’; I don’t know what they’re called in Italian.

  I went past the Bar Napoli and gave Bruno the sign. Then I walked into the other place and nodded to the man sitting near the door. There were no other customers but there was a guy sitting on a stool behind the bar. He was dark and thin, not more than twenty years old, and he was reading an Italian soft porn magazine with deep concentration. I bought cigarettes I wouldn’t smoke and a cappuccino I wouldn’t drink from him and put two twenty-dollar notes on the counter. He made change for one of the twenties and I pushed it and the other note towards him.

  “You know me, don’t you, mate?” I said.

  He shook his head.

  I pointed at the door. Bruno stood there, all five foot three and fifteen stone of him. He nodded and the man behind the bar scooped up my money. His accent was straight inner-west Sydney. “It’s too early,” he said.

  “I’m looking for someone.”

  “Who’d that be?”

  “Rhino Jackson.”

  “Haven’t seen him for a fuckin’ month, the bastard.”

  “My sentiments exactly. I’ll go up and watch for a bit.”

  He shrugged and went back to his tits and bums. I pushed past a couple of empty tables and went up a set of stairs placed so far back from the light in the room that you couldn’t see them from the street. I made out that I could hardly see to climb them; I hung on to the rail and almost stumbled on the first landing. It occurred to me that it wouldn’t hurt for the porn freak and anyone else to think I was half-drunk or half-blind. No one worries about a blind man; no one presses warning buzzers. I pushed open the door at the top of the stairs and walked into the room where they sold plastic chips and scotch rather than cigarettes and cappuccino.

  I’ve been in dozens of such places in my time and, although they all smell the same and share a certain look, each one has something distinctive about it. Some look fixed and established, as if they’ve been there since Federation, others look as if everything could be wheeled out the door and the place turned into a carpet display centre inside thirty seconds. This one specialised in European sporting motifs—there were photographs of boxers, cyclists, soccer players and others on the walls. Most of the sportsmen were Italian, but there were some Yugoslavs among the water polo players and some Austrians among the skiers. In a glass case was a soccer ball signed by a couple of dozen people; an unsigned pair of boots was in another case.

  There were about twenty people in the room. A six-handed card game was going strong in one corner, and there were three playing and a couple watching at a baccarat table. Two roulette wheels were yet to attract players and another baccarat dealer was giving himself a hand of patience while he awaited customers.

  Four men were rolling dice under the eye of a large character who slightly resembled one of the photos on the wall—the one of Primo Camera. His dark, hooded eyes followed me as I moved around the room. I stopped at the bar and bought some chips and a scotch and soda. This seemed to comfort Primo, who went back to concentrating on the rolling dice. There was a little talk, not much, some drinking and cigar-smoking going on, not much. The place was just warming up, like a car with the motor running but no gears engaged.

  I took my chips to a roulette wheel and lost them in fairly rapid order.

  “Bad luck,” said the croupier, a small, sleek-haired character starting to look old before he was thirty.

  “Have you seen Rhino Jackson lately?”

  He inspected the end of his spatula and picked off a piece of fluff “I didn’t think you were a serious player. Cop?”

  “No. Who would I talk to about who comes in here and who doesn’t?”

  The croupier grinned. “Not me, that’s for sure. Why don’t you try him?” He jerked his head at Primo.

  I wandered away from the table with my drink and thought about that. I had the distinct feeling that talking wasn’t Primo’s long suit and that, if I insisted, he’d roll me down the stairs just to keep his wrist in practice. I was on the point of buying more chips when a party of a dozen or so, including four or five women, came in. Immediately the place seemed to pick up a glow. The noise level went up, people starting buying drinks and jostling good-naturedly for position at the tables.

  I had to queue for my chips. The door opened and Lou Campisi walked in. Lou had been a jockey until he grew too big, then he played League for a while but he proved to be too small: his middle-sized physique had done the dirty on him twice. It might have embittered some men but Lou took it in his stride. He went energetically into SP bookmaking, race-fixing, supplying illegal drugs to football players and scalping finals tickets. Anywhere there was a quick, soiled dollar to be made out of racing and football, Lou was on the spot. He was also an associate of Jackson’s. They probably discussed electric saddles and quick counts, ring-ins and tank jobs together. I bought my chips, fifty dollars’ worth this time instead of the previous ten, and moved away quickly so that Campisi wouldn’t see me.

  Watching an addicted gambler play is a bi
t like watching an alcoholic drink. You know they enjoy it up to a point, but that point quickly passes and simple need takes over. Campisi was drinking steadily and losing. He made several trips to the chip desk and his original plunging style gave way to a more cautious approach. All this meant was that he lost more slowly. Towards the end he started to get a bit desperate, he had a winning run at baccarat, but it soon petered out, and I moved in on him when I calculated that the two chips in his hand were his last.

  “Hello, Lou,” I said. “How’s tricks?”

  He turned his bleary, loser’s eyes on me. “Lousy. Who’re you?”

  “You remember me, Lou. Cliff Hardy. I helped to unfix one of your fixes a few years ago.” Three years before, to be precise, when I’d been employed by a horse trainer to find out who was bribing his riders.

  “Push off, prick,” Campisi said.

  I showed him my stack of chips. “Lose the ones you’ve got there and then come over and see me. These could be yours.”

  “I’m winning, cunt.”

  “You’ll never win, Lou. You just play. Go ahead, play.”

  He placed the chips on the red and lost. I’d moved back to watch him. He went through his pockets, first for chips, then for money. He came up empty. A woman at the roulette wheel gave a shriek as her ball dropped in. Campisi wet his lips and looked around for me. He saw me, hesitated, lit a cigarette and came across.

  “You got some kind of a proposition, Hardy?”

  I moved across to the wall furthest from Primo, and Campisi followed me. ”Yes, there’s something you could help me with, if you’ve a mind to.”

  Another squeal from the roulette table where a knot of people had gathered. Campisi glanced across. “Wheel’s running hot.”

  “You could get in on it.” I clinked the chips together.

  “What do you want?”

  “Information. Solid, factual information. The kind that checks out or I come back and point out to you that you made a big mistake.”

  “Sure. Sure. You’re tough. What d’you want to know?”