Dead Man Switch

by Tara Moss

  ‘When did you last see Adin, Maurice? Can you remember what he said, what he was doing and how you parted company?’ She stopped and flashed one of her professional smiles. He seemed to like that. ‘It’s important.’

  He considered something for a long time, hands in his pockets. His brown eyes flicked from place to place. ‘I don’t know . . .’ he finally mumbled.

  Billie waited out an awkward minute, the boy now staring at his shoes. With an inward sigh, she slipped him a shilling – did it as smoothly as a magician. He recognised the feel of it immediately and it seemed to jog his memory. Funny that.

  ‘Look, lady, I haven’t seen Adin, just like I told Mrs Brown, But I think I might know where he’s been.’

  ‘Go on,’ she encouraged him, offering another smile.

  ‘Last time I saw him, he was hanging around The Dancers.’

  The Dancers? That was a club off George Street, near the Trocadero. It was a far smaller and more exclusive joint than the Troc, and the cream of Sydney society liked to wine and dine there and catch the acts that came through. They had some international performers and a nice little dance floor, and there was a fair bit of glamour about the place. It had white tablecloths and waiters in bow-ties and was the sort of joint where judges and gangsters might be spotted in the same room together. It was strictly for the high end of town. Unless a lot had changed since she’d last been there, it wasn’t for the likes of kids with baby pompadours and tough-guy aspirations.

  Billie got an inkling as to Maurice’s reluctance to mention the club. ‘I’m not here because Adin might have been taking grog, Maurice. And what you imbibe is not my business.’

  His shoulders dropped a touch. ‘His old woman doesn’t know. She wouldn’t like it.’ He said the words with a shake of his head.

  Billie was sure he was right about that. But even if she didn’t find it hard to imagine Adin having liquor at his age – plenty of kids not much older than him had been shot to pieces at Normandy or worked to death on the Burma railway, but a dash of spirits was somehow off limits – she was having trouble imagining where a kid would get the kind of money needed to get about in a joint like The Dancers. Even if he had a dinner jacket, and a fine one at that, he likely wouldn’t have got far at that sort of club.

  ‘Look, it’s not my kind of joint, but Adin was keen as mustard. We made it in the door one time, and ended up out on our ears in minutes; we barely got up the stairs, but he was obsessed. Dunno why. He kept wanting to go back in. The doormen knew we didn’t have a brass razoo . . . There was no foolin’ ’em.’ He paused. ‘Well, there was one guy who seemed sympathetic, but it was pointless.’ He scuffed at the footpath with one loafer. ‘Yeah, like I said, not my kind of joint.’

  ‘Someone was sympathetic?’ Billie prompted him.

  ‘One of the doormen. Adin spoke with him.’

  ‘What did this doorman look like?’

  ‘Ahhh, long face.’ Maurice pulled at his chin. ‘Very skinny young bloke,’ he stressed. ‘A wog, I think. About yay high.’

  ‘I see,’ Billie said, ignoring the slur. ‘Do you know what triggered Adin’s interest? A girl, perhaps?’

  ‘Maybe, but like I said, I dunno.’ He shrugged, and she felt a stab of annoyance. The Dancers had some glamorous acts, but if Adin was interested in someone it was more likely one of the cigarette girls. Perhaps he’d made a connection, or was trying to.

  ‘How long ago was this?’ Billie asked.

  ‘Last weekend. I left him to it. Had a bit of a falling out over it, to be honest. I didn’t want to keep hanging around there getting snubbed like some lowlife when we could get into the Troc, no worries. I ain’t seen him since.’

  Same with the rest of his friends, Billie thought. But he had gone home, because he’d only been missing two days, not six. ‘Is it usual for you two to have a “falling out”, as you call it?’

  ‘It wasn’t as bad as all that; I just didn’t like being turned out on my ear. Who needs it? Why The Dancers?’

  ‘Why indeed?’ she agreed, wondering who or what was so special about the place that would attract the interest of a boy like Adin Brown. ‘Maurice, can you think of where Adin might be now?’

  He shook his head emphatically. ‘Miss, I don’t know.’

  ‘If you had to guess his whereabouts, what would your guess be?’

  He shrugged again. ‘I wouldn’t like to guess, lady.’ There was worry behind his eyes and she was inclined to believe him. Some of his bravado had fallen away. Beneath it was a young man anxious about a friend. Again, a set of curtains moved, and he seemed to notice or at least feel the prying eyes. He straightened, not wanting to be seen as soft. ‘Nah, I don’t know nothin’,’ he declared.

  ‘Is there anything else you can think of? Anything unusual that happened in the past couple of weeks or so?’ She watched him as he frowned. ‘Did he talk about a girl, perhaps? Or something else? Did he act strangely on any occasion?’ she ventured.

  ‘Well . . .’

  Ah, there is something. ‘Anything might help,’ she stressed, and slipped him another shilling. That frown of his eased up a touch, but only a touch.

  ‘Look it’s probably nothin’, but there was this thing at the Olympia,’ he said. ‘The milk bar. Something with the paper. He went wild when he saw it.’

  How peculiar, she thought. ‘What did he see in the paper, precisely?’

  Maurice shrugged. ‘That I don’t know, precisely or otherwise. It could be nothin’, but somethin’ in there sure seemed to set him off.’ He shook his head.

  ‘But if he went wild he must have told you what it was about?’ Was the boy fishing for yet more coin? ‘You don’t know, or you won’t say?’

  ‘Listen, lady, I honestly don’t know. He just went into a fury and ripped the page out of the paper and pocketed it. He didn’t show me what it was. Really cut up, he was. I thought it weird at the time.’

  Now that could be something, Billie thought. ‘What did he say? I want every word, if you can recall them.’

  ‘Nothing I want to repeat to you.’

  ‘I can take it,’ she said, and gave him another smile. If this kid thought he was more worldly than she was, he had another think coming.

  Maurice hesitated, noted the smile, and his eyes stayed on it for a moment. ‘Okay, lady,’ he finally said and let off a long trail of expletives. ‘Something like that, give or take.’

  ‘I see. What day was this? Think hard, now, kid. You’ve got a pocket full of my coin.’

  ‘Maybe Thursday last week, though I can’t swear to it.’ He squinted for a moment, thinking. ‘Yeah, probably Thursday last week.’

  ‘Do you remember which paper it was?’

  ‘The Truth, I think. Or the Sydney Morning Herald. Not sure.’

  ‘This was at the Olympia?’ She pointed in the direction of the milk bar at the end of the street. ‘And he tore the page out, is that right?’

  Maurice nodded. Billie thanked him – though he ought to thank her for the shillings he’d collected – and reminded him that he had her card and should contact her if he thought of anything else. She did the smile. He looked her up and down one more time, wagged his chin at her, affecting a cool manner, and turned away, pulling a comb from his pocket to smooth his hair as he walked back towards the house he shared with his mother.

  Billie turned on her heel and ventured the extra block down Northumberland Avenue towards Parramatta Road and the Olympia. At last she’d got something.

  She stepped out and paused, passed on the corner of Corunna Lane by a smiling man in black with a stiff white clerical collar riding a bicycle. He dipped his head to her, and she returned the gesture from her place on the footpath. She watched the cycling rector pass, stepped on to the main road and focused on the strip of shops and the Olympia Theatre. It wasn’t hard to find the milk bar. The local kids were drawn to it as flies were to honey. Several children, some still in school clothes, with scuffed knees and unkempt hair, played
around the footpath outside under the awning. The Olympia was famous for its milkshakes, Billie had heard. It would doubtless be a popular place, particularly in summer.

  A man with dark hair slicked back from his forehead, wearing slightly shabby but elegant pants and shirt, topped with a white apron, emerged from the milk bar as she approached and shooed the children away from the entrance. ‘Time to go home,’ he told them firmly, but kindly. ‘Go on.’

  ‘Kids!’ The man spoke with a pleasant accent Billie guessed was Greek and she followed through the concertina timber doors of the milk bar. A bell tinkled as they crossed the threshold. ‘Latch-key kids,’ he added. ‘Those factories let their parents out too late. After school they all come here.’ He threw up his hands, a potent gesture that seemed to sum up a widely felt frustration with the ways of the world.

  The Olympia was a narrow space, its name proudly picked out in coloured terrazzo on the floor just beyond the entry. The ceiling, Billie noted, was made up of ornate panelled plaster. A few neon signs were up on the walls, and a glass-fronted stainless steel counter faced the wooden tables and chairs dotted around the green, red and yellow tiled floor. It was a cheerful place, colourful and stylish, though it appeared a touch worse for wear, like much of the rest of the neighbourhood. Some of the mirrors and the green vinyl covers of the stools had begun to crack. In places the chrome had lost its polish, though not for lack of care if the busy proprietor was anything to go by. He was already polishing again, his calloused hands pushing a cloth over surfaces, seemingly cleaning up on autopilot while his restless eyes surveyed his domain. He’d have to be eagle-eyed with so many unaccompanied kids trailing in, Billie thought. Bold dares and light fingers were childhood rites of passage.

  The sparsely stocked shelves held boxes of chocolates, bright gumballs and a couple of basic sundries; rationing had made its mark. Billie turned her eyes to the proprietor again. He was working alone and wasn’t quite the young soda fountain assistant – or ‘soda jerk’ as the Americans were fond of calling them – you saw in the upscale city joints. His glossed hair was the colour of a raven’s feathers, but under the lights he looked older than she’d first assumed.

  ‘What can I get you, miss?’ he asked.

  ‘I’ll have a soda, please,’ she replied, and slid onto one of the stools. She felt the slightly cracked vinyl fight with the weave of her skirt. ‘Keep the change,’ she added, as she pushed her money across the counter.

  ‘Soda coming up,’ the man said and busied himself.

  ‘You’re not from around here, are you, miss,’ he remarked, and she let that ride for the moment as she spotted a stack of Hollywood and entertainment rags and a single newspaper at the end of the bar. It was today’s copy of the Truth. She recognised the front page. Her heart sank a little when she couldn’t see any other papers, except for the current Sydney Morning Herald. She noticed the owner filling her glass with a lot of ice, but that wasn’t entirely unwelcome on a warm evening.

  ‘You know that movie The Killers?’ the proprietor asked, placing the drink in front of her. ‘I ain’t seen it yet myself but I’ve seen that actress in all those rags. What is her name? Ava something. You look like her.’

  Billie knew she was no Ava Gardner – if she was she sure wouldn’t be running a humble Sydney private inquiry agency and watching her mother sell heirlooms to pay the rent – but it was one of those compliments a lot of men fumbling for a pick-up line had come up with lately, and she had to admit a fair resemblance was there in her even features and long neck and limbs, and the way she wore her dark hair long and parted on the side, though Billie’s locks flared red like a flame when the sun hit them. For a moment she’d thought Maurice was going to go there, too, with his quip about the pictures.

  ‘Thank you kindly,’ Billie said. From this gentleman, the compliment was sweet.

  ‘She’s pretty, isn’t she? Now, in my younger days . . .’

  Billie cut in before he got too carried away with his nostalgia. ‘I wonder, would you happen to have any old newspapers out the back? I’m packing up, you see. If you don’t need them anymore, I mean. I would be most grateful.’

  He peered at her. ‘Moving into the area?’ he asked, a touch puzzled. Admittedly she wasn’t dressed for packing up a house.

  ‘I’m helping a friend, actually,’ she responded, lies falling easily from her lips. She could lie about unimportant things, she’d found. That kind of creativity was second nature. Good for the work. She took a sip of her cool soda and again flashed that winning professional smile she’d learned to use years ago.

  ‘Well,’ he said, ‘we have some out the back. You’re welcome to them, though they might have got a bit damp in the rain last night.’ He came around the bar and led her to a back door, on the other side of which were heaped boxes, cartons and a messy pile of newspapers, perhaps two weeks’ worth.

  ‘Thank you, that will help a lot,’ Billie said, and sincerely hoped that would be the case. Checking through the papers would be no cup of tea, but it was worth a shot if what Adin had got steamed up about proved to be relevant. There were worse things than pawing through damp paper.

  ‘Okay, pretty lady. You’re welcome to them.’

  He gave her three brown paper bags to carry them in then excused himself as the bell tinkled and a customer entered the shop. Billie searched through the papers for those dated from Tuesday the previous week and shoved them into the bags, bundling them to her chest so the papers wouldn’t fall out the bottom. She called her thanks to the proprietor, then bobbed and weaved her way around the children still playing on the footpath and made for the tram.

  CHAPTER THREE

  ‘How did you find out?’

  He opened his eyes – at least he thought they were open, but they felt hot and swollen, his eyelids not moving as eyelids normally did, but staying in place, barely lifting despite the urgings of his throbbing brain. He could hardly see, making out only movement and darkness, but he recalled a smile as thin as a knife blade. The smile that went with that voice.

  ‘Who else knows?’ the voice came again, heavily accented and menacing.

  The voice hit him like a slap with every question – ‘Who – Else – Knows?’ – repeating the words with cold, firm precision so close to his ear that his brain seemed to throb with each syllable. He recoiled from the sound each time, pushing back against the creaking chair to which he was tied, until it started to tip backwards and an unseen set of hands put it straight again. In a moment of blissful silence, a pause between the words, the sound of something like a whimper came to his ears and it took a moment to realise that it was coming from his own throat. His stomach ached as if he’d been trodden on, and though he recalled being hit, he could not precisely remember where it had happened or how much time had passed. He knew he’d been in the boot of a motor car. But when?

  Head shaking back and forth, he tried to respond. ‘I did not tell . . . I did not . . .’

  ‘I grow bored,’ the voice said, again so close to his ear it felt like a painful touch, and following it came the pressure again, as something, a finger or something colder, pressed into his temple where he’d been injured. Harder, ever harder.

  He screamed.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Billie took the small elevator up to the second floor of Cliffside Flats, her home in the leafy suburb of Edgecliff, leaning against her door to balance the bags of newspapers while she fiddled with her keys. Once inside her flat, she dropped the bags to the floor with a sigh of relief and rubbed her aching biceps. She couldn’t wait till the blasted petrol rationing was lifted. Her perfectly lovely car was sitting unused in the garage at the base of the building. What a crying shame that was. She hung her trench coat on the hall stand, slipped off her shoes, and noted with a vague sense of fatigue that the big toe on her right foot had begun to push through her stocking.

  Blast.

  She also noticed a piece of paper, neatly folded down the middle, which must have been sli
d under her door. She reached down and took it.

  I NEED TO SPEAK WITH YOU.

  Billie recognised the handwriting as that of one of her valued informants, Shyla. She had an idea of what the note was about, and on that line of inquiry she’d so far come up empty-handed. Instinctively she re-opened the door, looked down the hallway in both directions and closed it again, disappointed. Shyla had not waited around. The problem was, this particular informant couldn’t be reached through the telephone exchange, didn’t have a card or address of employment that she’d chosen to share with Billie, and had not divulged her personal address. Shyla would reach her again when Shyla was ready, Billie supposed.

  Billie padded over to her small kitchen, filled the kettle, struck a match and lit the stove. Tea would help. Tea always helped.

  What was it that enraged Adin? And is it relevant? If there was a page missing from that stack of newspapers, she’d have a pretty good idea, she hoped.

  She slid her hatpins out and took off her tilt hat, ruffling her hair. Lost in her thoughts about her new case, Billie absentmindedly removed her ivory blouse and reached down and undid the smooth button of her skirt and the three little snaps disguised in the fold of the fabric beneath it, slid off her skirt, then sat down to unclip her right stocking. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. So many damned clips, but she supposed the things wouldn’t stay on straight otherwise. She carefully rolled the damaged nylon down, undid the ties on the thigh holster for her Colt and placed the whole thing, little gun and all, gently on the table top. Then she undid the left garter clips. One. Two. Three . . .

  Mrs Brown’s son is certainly missing and she’s certainly distressed about it. That much rings true. But why is he missing? Is there a clue she’s leaving out? Billie sensed there was some element Mrs Brown was withholding. If so, she wouldn’t be the first. In the initial meeting, clients often held on to information they perceived to be sensitive or embarrassing. But if this case was anything like previous cases, the truth would out. Often the information would have been helpful to Billie’s work if offered at the start, but she knew a bit about human nature and it was not human nature to pour out every bit of detail to a stranger – not unless you thought you’d never see them again. It had been that way during the war: the nearness of death and the constant movement of anxious people far from home could make any meeting an intense and intimate confessional. But once everyone returned to the places they knew and had come from they tried to make nice and to get on with their mouths shut. There was still gossip, lives were still complicated, but details weren’t offered up as easily, not without the lubrication of liquor. It might be something as simple as a now regretted argument that had triggered Adin’s departure, or something unsavoury the boy was into that wouldn’t reflect well on the family. Or something about the family itself, Billie mused. But there was something, the little woman in her gut told her, some key detail left out. Perhaps a second meeting might see Mrs Brown more forthcoming. Perhaps her husband would be able to shed more light on the case.