See You at the Toxteth

by Peter Corris

  We were on her little balcony, drinking coffee and looking out towards Victoria Barracks. ‘You’re very serious all of a sudden, Cliff. Is it that hot?’

  ‘It is, if he can back it up. If he can’t, it’s defamation city.’

  ‘Not our problem right now. What did you think of him?’

  ‘What I’ve always thought—corrupt, devious.’

  ‘And the minister?’

  ‘I wanted to wipe my hand after we shook.’

  She nodded. ‘Me too. But he makes a good character in the book. How about the cancer?’

  I shook my head. ‘Don’t know enough about it. He’s lost some weight and the beard ages him. I’d like a couple of medical opinions, but we’re not going to get them.’

  She leaned back in her chair and drew in a breath. She was barefooted, wearing a halter top and loose pants, and her shoulders were tanned and shapely. Her nipples showed through the fabric of her top, and her toenails were painted red. There had been some chemistry between us I’d thought on our first meeting and it was fizzing now.

  ‘Do you sleep with your clients?’ she said.

  I reached over and twisted her cane chair towards me. I lifted her feet from the floor and let her legs stretch out in my direction. I gripped the arms of her chair and slid it closer.

  ‘No. But my client’s more the publisher than you, right?’

  The floor was pushing up at my back through the thin futon. I rolled over onto my side, propped, and looked down at her. She was one of those women who look younger and prettier after making love. Her hair fanned out on the pillow and she smiled up at me with her eyes, her mouth and everything else. The manuscript lay on the floor beside her. Great security, although neither of us had given it a thought for a while.

  ‘Nice,’ she said. ‘I like older men.’

  ‘Thanks a lot. Why?’

  ‘They usually don’t look as pleased with themselves as younger blokes. More grateful.’

  ‘I am.’

  She pulled me down and kissed me. ‘You’re welcome.’

  We showered together in a stall that could barely hold us. We dressed and went for a walk. When we turned back into her street, she said, ‘What’re you thinking?’

  ‘Why can’t the publisher keep it all under wraps?’

  ‘Doesn’t work that way. People in-house have to see the manuscript: the lawyers, the possible editor. It has to get accepted by a board with a few members. Input from what they call the media liaison arm these days. Word will get out.’

  We went into the house and she opened a bottle of wine. Something was niggling me about the whole business and I tried to sort it out as I drank the good dry white. Melanie did some work in her study and I wandered around looking at her books. Some were obviously by her clients, judging from the multiple copies, others were more familiar. I took down a bestselling sports autobiography and what I’d been searching for hit me. I fumbled and almost dropped the book.

  Melanie looked up from her desk. ‘What?’

  ‘Who’s the ghost writer?’ I said.

  She stared at me. ‘I assumed … Shit.’

  ‘Andy Piper couldn’t write stuff like that to save his life. It’s hard to tell from the outline and the chapter headings, but you have a look at the stuff he handed over today. I’m no judge of literature, but this reads like at least pretty fair journalism to me.’

  She grabbed the envelope from her bag, slid the pages out and began reading. I put the sport bio back on the shelf and drank some wine.

  ‘You’re right, Cliff. It’s rough and it’ll need editing, but this is from an experienced writer.’

  ‘Piper hasn’t mentioned anyone?’

  She shook her head. ‘He wouldn’t have to, necessarily. If he made a private arrangement with someone for a flat fee, it wouldn’t have to involve me or the publisher.’

  ‘Wouldn’t come cheap, a ghost writer?’

  She put the manuscript back together neatly. From the way she handled it, it had taken on a new meaning for her. She drank some wine.

  ‘Depends on who it was and his or her circumstances. Writers don’t make much money, even the good ones. Especially the good ones. I’ve steered through a few as-told-to jobs. Ten thousand and a share of the royalties and Public Lending Right’ll do it mostly.’

  ‘Andy says he doesn’t have any money. Gave it to the sect.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘So he’s either got someone doing it for free or he’s lying about being skint.’

  ‘You’re getting me worried, Cliff.’

  I went over and stroked her frizzy hair. ‘Didn’t mean to. It’s more my problem than yours. Either way, what it means is that he’s got someone he trusts, apart from you and me.’

  She took my hand and brought it down to close over her left breast. ‘And what do you think about that, you detective you?’

  ‘Interesting,’ I said.

  Over the next few days I dealt with routine matters. Melanie and I talked on the phone a few times and exchanged some emails. She’d keyed in Piper’s manuscript.

  ‘That’s a lot of typing,’ I said.

  ‘I’m a gun typist.’

  On Friday she rang to tell me that the contract with Bradley Booth, the publisher, was being signed as we spoke, and the advance would be electronically deposited in her account.

  ‘Have you cleared the extra expenses with the publisher?’

  ‘Yes. Bradley’s excited about the book.’

  ‘That’s good because those costs cut in big time now. I’ll send you my contract with Piper by fax, Mel, and leave you to sort it out with the publisher. Probably won’t be able to see you till this is over. Better security for you.’

  ‘Put a rocket up the writer, whoever he or she is.’

  I rang Piper. He gave me the address of a flat in Edgecliff. The block was middle-range expensive. The upkeep of the building was good—clean stairs and landings, smoke detectors, fire extinguishers. I rang the bell at Piper’s door and could feel him looking at me through the peephole. He opened the door. He was in his shirt sleeves and had a pistol tucked into the tight waistband of his pants.

  ‘G’day, Hardy. Come in. What did you think of my book?’

  ‘What makes you think I read it?’

  ‘A snooper like you? No risk.’

  I let that pass and allowed him to shepherd me down the short passage into the flat. The room we entered was big and light. At a guess there were three bedrooms, two bathrooms and a kitchen. Not bad for a man who’d given his all to Jesus. The big balcony, accessible through full-length sliding glass doors, worried me. I was about to say something about it when a man came in from one of the other rooms. He was a replica of Piper, thirty years younger—not as fat, dark hair, no beard.

  ‘This is my son, Mark,’ Piper said. ‘He’s helping me write the book. Mark, this is Cliff Hardy.’

  Mark Piper looked as if he could’ve done a fair enough job of protecting his father himself. He wore a loose T-shirt, jeans and sneakers. His forearms were tattooed and there was nothing effeminate about the ring in his left ear. His manner was wary and his look close to hostile as we shook.

  ‘Nice place,’ I said to Andy.

  ‘Mark’s. He’s by way of being a bit of a journalist.’

  ‘I don’t like the look of the balcony.’

  Piper smiled. ‘Out of bounds for me.’

  They had it pretty well set up. Mark Piper had an iMac in one of the rooms and was taping Andy’s recollections. The father slept in one room and the son in with his computer. The other bedroom was for me and for Reg Lewis, an ex-army guy I’d hired to spell me. Food was on tap from a local restaurant. No alcohol and no smoking. No women. Monkish.

  Over the next few days we settled into a routine. Piper spent some time taping, not that much, and Mark tapped his keyboard. I stayed awake while they slept and slept when Rex Lewis was on duty. Andy insisted on going out to bible study in Lewisham on Friday night and hymn singing in Marri
ckville on Sunday. I had to sit in on these sessions. I wasn’t converted. Andy and Mark weren’t good company. They watched a lot of cable and commercial TV.

  The news broke in a gossip column in one of the tabloids on Tuesday: ‘A spokesperson for publishing giant Samson House confirmed that disgraced former New South Wales senior policeman Andrew “Black Andy” Piper is preparing his “tell-all” memoirs for publication. Piper is reported to be suffering from terminal cancer and to have found God. Sceptics remain sceptical; the guilty men and women aren’t sleeping well.’

  Sunday rolled around and I got behind the wheel of Piper’s Mercedes ready to drive him to wherever the Reverend Dr Eli Jacobsen was selling his snake-oil. The car, not new, not old, was a pleasure to drive.

  ‘Where to?’ I asked.

  ‘I fancy a drink.’

  I almost lost control of the car. ‘A what?’

  ‘You heard me.’

  He’d been swallowing variously-coloured pills several times a day, every day. ‘Are you allowed to drink with all that medication?’

  He didn’t answer for a few minutes, as if he was chewing the matter over. He wasn’t. ‘Nobody tells Black Andy what to do,’ he said.

  ‘So, where?’

  He heaved a sigh. He looked heavier and seemed more tired than in recent days. ‘Clovelly Cove Hotel,’ he said. ‘I’d like to look at the water. Won a surf race there once.’

  ‘I know you rowed, didn’t know you swam.’

  ‘You don’t know a lot of things, Hardy.’

  We parked close to the pub and walked to it with Piper in the lead, moving purposefully. I was hot in drill trousers, light shirt and cotton jacket to cover the pistol, and he must have been sweltering in his buttoned-up double-breasted suit. If he was, he didn’t show it. He plonked himself down where he had a good view through the plate glass out to sea. Pretty safe. From that angle only someone on a boat could take a pot-shot at him.

  ‘Get us a schooner of Old, Hardy.’

  Maybe it was a test to see if I’d get pissed on the job. Maybe he’d just had all the piety and healthy living he could take. Or maybe he’d ring the Reverend Eli to come and save him from sin at the last second. I bought the drinks—a middy of soda and bitters for me—and took them to the table.

  He didn’t hesitate, took a long swig and pointed at my glass. ‘What’s that piss?’

  ‘Don’t worry about it.’

  ‘I won’t.’ He drank deeply and leaned back in his chair. It creaked under his weight. I hadn’t noticed him eating more lately but then, he was a messy eater and it wasn’t something to watch voluntarily. He looked fatter though. Schooners of Old would help that along nicely.

  It happened very quickly at first, then seemed to slow down to half speed. The man walked into the bar, headed towards the taps, then swivelled quickly and took two long steps in our direction. He was only a few metres away when his hand came up with a gun and he fired three times. The shots were shatteringly loud. Piper grunted and toppled back. My gun was in my hand and I shot twice as I saw his gun swing towards me. I hit him both times, and his arms flew out and he went down and back as if he’d caught a knockout punch.

  The bar erupted into shouts and swearing and breaking glass as some of the patrons stayed rooted to the spot and others headed quickly for the door. I put my pistol on the table in front of me and drew in a deep breath. My eyes were closed and the cordite smell invaded me and made me cough convulsively. When I recovered, I found Black Andy Piper standing beside me, finishing the last of his drink. His suit coat was open, his shirt was unbuttoned and the Kevlar vest under it was an obscene grey-green colour.

  ‘Knew I could rely on you, Hardy,’ he said. ‘Give the cops a call on your mobile, eh? It’d look better from you.’

  It was a total set-up, of course. Charles ‘Chalky’ Whitehead was a former friend and associate and later bitter enemy of Piper. He knew that a no-holds-barred account of Black Andy’s life would point the finger at him for a number of crimes, including murder. Piper, without his henchmen and gone soft on religion, was too tempting a target for Whitehead to resist. He wasn’t the brightest and when he’d tracked us to the hotel he didn’t ask any questions, just came in blasting. He’d have lined up a rock-solid alibi beforehand.

  Black Andy needed to get rid of Whitehead, who was competing hard with him for control of some lucrative rackets. He had someone planted in Chalky’s camp who got the word to him where he’d be and when. I did the job for him, legitimately. Whitehead died before the ambulance arrived.

  The police made noises about suspending my licence, but the facts were clear, with plenty of witnesses. The cops weren’t serious; no one was unhappy about Whitehead being out of circulation.

  Piper had no intention of publishing a book. He paid the advance back to the publisher, including Melanie’s commission. He tried to pay me for my services but I told him where to put it. He reclaimed the partial manuscript from the publisher and from Melanie, threatening to sue them unless they complied. They did. What happened between him and the Community of Christ I never found out and didn’t want to know.

  My affair with Melanie petered out and died when she asked me if I wanted to write my memoirs.

  DEATH THREATS

  From Taking Care of Business (2004)

  The young man sitting across from me was the colour of teak and looked about as tough. There was no fat on him and he’d slid snake-hipped onto the chair as if he was flexible enough to sit there and bend his legs up around his head if he’d wanted to. He was wearing jeans and a polo shirt and his forearms were sinewy. His handshake was that of a heavyweight although he had the build of a welter, light-middle at most.

  ‘Billy Sunday advised me to get in touch with you, Mr Hardy,’ he said.

  I nodded. ‘And how is Billy? Haven’t seen him in a while.’

  His lean face fell into sad lines. ‘Not the best. You know how it is with us blackfellas; fifty’s old. And Billy hasn’t exactly taken care of himself. Crook kidneys.’

  ‘Sorry to hear it. He could handle six blokes at a time in his day. Joel Grinter, did you say your name was? How can I help you?’

  ‘D’you follow golf?’

  ‘No. I’ve heard of Greg Norman and Tiger Woods. That’s about it.’

  He smiled and his face came to life. Very young life—he couldn’t have been much over twenty, but he conducted himself as though he was older. ‘That’s a start. I’m a professional golfer. Rookie year. I’ve won once already and had three top tens.’

  ‘You’d be making a quid then?’

  ‘Yeah. Doing all right. Plus Lynx are making noises to sign me up. That’s where the real money is.’

  ‘Good for you. It’s a better business to be in than boxing. You can keep all your marbles.’

  ‘Right, if I can stay alive. I’ve been getting death threats.’

  He told me that he was from Canungra in Queensland, had won a scholarship to the Sports Institute in Canberra and had been a top amateur. Now he was staying in Sydney with his coach, one Brett Walker, who lived in Lane Cove. He was due to play in a tournament at Concord, starting tomorrow. After he won his first event in Queensland some months back, he got a new car.

  ‘Nothing flash. A Commodore. Some mongrel wrote “Golf is a white man’s game” with a spray can down one side. Bloody hard to clean up. That’s pretty funny seeing that a black man is the best in the world and another black man is in the top ten.’

  ‘Who’s that?’

  ‘Vijay Singh. Fijian Indian. He’s won two majors. Anyway, I figured it was Queensland, you know—rednecks, ratbags …’

  ‘But?’

  ‘But the other day I got this.’ He lifted his hip, took a newspaper cutting from his pocket, and passed it across to me. The article was from the Telegraph and was about him. It was fairly standard sports stuff, with a photograph of him hitting a shot and sketching his background and career and touting him as the future of Australian golf. But not according t
o the person who’d drawn a gun on the cutting in red with a bullet travelling towards Joel Grinter’s head.

  ‘I’ll admit it scared me,’ Grinter said. ‘Put me off my game. I played lousy in the pro-am.’

  I looked blank.

  ‘It’s a game you play a day or so before the tournament. There’s a little bit of money up and businessmen and such pay to play with the pros. It’s supposed to be a fun day, but I was looking over my shoulder every second shot. I was in the trees and the sand more than I was on the fairway.’

  ‘I get the idea,’ I said. ‘I don’t blame you. But don’t you blokes have a management arrangement with some mob or other? Don’t they lay on the security?’

  He looked troubled. ‘Yeah, that’s right. And there’s a couple of management companies after me to sign with them. I haven’t decided who to go with but they might shy away if they hear about this. Lynx, the one I like, might not be as keen about me. It’s not like with Elvis—you can’t sell golf gear using a dead man.’

  ‘I guess not. So what d’you want me to do?’

  ‘Find out who’s behind this and stop them.’

  ‘Big ask. I thought you were just going to hire me as a bodyguard.’

  ‘That, too.’

  I smoothed out the news cutting on the desk as I thought about it. The death threat probably wasn’t serious, just some nutter, and bodyguarding usually isn’t a long-term commitment. I thought about Billy Sunday and his crook kidneys and how he’d saved me from having the shit beaten out of me some years back. ‘You’re on,’ I said. ‘We have to sign a contract and you have to pay me some money. I’ll knock the rate down on account of Billy.’

  He pulled out a cheque book and shook his head. ‘No way. I’ll pay my whack.’

  I had no idea what his golf earnings were but a new Commodore doesn’t come cheap so he could probably afford me with room to spare. We did the paperwork and he took on that look people do when they’ve hired a detective. Nothing’s been done or achieved, but they feel better. I took out a notebook and poised a pen. ‘Okay, Mr Grinter …’

  ‘Joel.’

  ‘Joel. What does your coach think about all this?’