Authors: Peter Corris
‘Yes, now, searches have been made here, at Mountain’s house and Miss Fong’s flat.’
Erica coughed on her next draw. ‘What about Max?’
Grey looked puzzled. He opened his jacket with his free hand and smoothed his vest over his light paunch. ‘There was no-one there.’
‘My dog.’
He smiled; he didn’t like to be puzzled. ‘Ah, yes, the dog was drugged, subdued. Nothing was found.’
I heard the fridge door open and close.
Maybe Peroni’ll get drunk and cause a distraction,
I thought. Maybe he’ll break a glass, cut himself and bleed to death. That’d only leave two men and two guns to contend with.
‘What are you looking for?’ I said.
Grey’s smile faded. ‘I believe you know that—a tape and a video film.’
‘We haven’t got them. Mountain must have them, and we don’t know where he is.’
‘Miss Fong?’
Erica shook her head.
‘That’s disappointing, very. You have a reputation for being persistent and resourceful in these matters, Mr
Hardy, and Miss Fong has spared no expense. I find it difficult to believe you. You have the advantage of knowing his friends and habits, Miss Fong. You have police contacts, Hardy. He is a semi-public man. I can’t believe that you have come up with nothing.’
‘You know what we know,’ I said. ‘I can’t see what you hope to get out of this stuff with the guns and those clowns.’
Erica looked at me angrily. ‘You both know more than I do. Who are these crims? What’s this about tapes and videos?’
Grey buttoned his jacket again and sucked in some breath and stomach. He had an odd mannerism of stretching up, as if he’d been trying to make himself taller since he stopped growing at fourteen. ‘Crims,’ he said. ‘Yes, as Miss Fong observes, they are crims. And you know crims can usually find each other. One or another can be made to talk or be bought. But Mountain is a different story; he has no criminal connections, none of any use anyway.’
I nodded, on the theory that he might be the sort of man who likes to be agreed with.
‘Added to which,’ he said slowly. ‘I lack local knowledge. I do not live in this city.’
‘That’s your bad luck,’ I said.
‘I happen to think otherwise, but there we are. But I pride myself on being a good judge of character, Hardy. I believe you know things you won’t reveal.’
‘That’s a professional manner I cultivate,’ I said. ‘Good for business.’
Grey frowned and moved the gun. Erica threw her cigarette butt at the fireplace and missed by a mile. ‘He doesn’t know anything. He doesn’t!’ She moved closer to me. ‘He’d have told me. There’s no point in killing him or beating him up.’
‘Touching.’ Grey sat down on the arm of a chair and flesh spread out on either side of his bottom. As I looked at him, taking in useless details like the ring with the big
red stone in it that he wore on his left hand and his highly polished shoes, I suddenly realised that he was right. I
did
know something that I hadn’t realised I knew until then. Another line of enquiry. I tried to blank the thought out in case Grey could read facial twitches and movements of the eyes. But he just pushed up with his polished shoes and levered his bum off the chair.
‘I agree. No point in using force. Hardy’s reputation for stubbornness exceeds that for intelligence. It wasn’t an intelligent move to go to that coffee bar, was it, Hardy?’
I shook my head. ‘Not as it turned out. Felt right at the time.’
‘Besides, I’m a businessman and I don’t think I could watch a man being tortured. And those two louts out there would probably make a mess of it.’
I tried to keep my voice steady. ‘Probably.’
‘And,’
he emphasised the word with a slight movement of the gun, ‘I don’t want Hardy damaged because I want him to go on looking for Mountain.’
‘He will,’ Erica said.
‘Exactly, but from now on he will be looking with a view to handing him over to me when he finds him.’
I saw it then and I didn’t like it.
‘He won’t do that,’ Erica said quickly. ‘He’s promised me he’ll help Bill. We’ll give the car back and try to keep Bill out of trouble.’
‘Noble,’ Grey purred, ‘but it won’t be like that.’
‘Why not?’ Erica snapped.
‘Because we’re going to take you away with us, my dear. And contrary to what I’ve just said, I’ll give some thought to sending you back to Hardy in pieces in order to keep him keen. And if he finds Mountain he’ll notify me or I’ll kill you. You value Miss Fong’s life more than Mountain’s, don’t you, Hardy?’
‘Yes,’ I said.
‘N
O
,’ Erica said.
‘Oh, yes. Hardy is being sensible; that’s something else he’s known for.’
‘It sounds as if you’ve been doing some work on me.’
‘Don’t flatter yourself. It didn’t take long and there wasn’t anything subtle to find out.’
He wasn’t trying to bait me, he was just stating the facts as he saw them. He was a man who dealt in facts. I was dealing with a few myself, trying to think of some way to head off this hostage strategy. This time Grey did seem to read my mind. He raised his voice while keeping the gun steady.
‘Come on, you two. We’re leaving!’
Flabby came into the room and gave me a look that suggested he hadn’t forgiven me for the battering I gave him in the car park. Peroni strolled in with a glass of wine in his hand. He took a sip and then emptied the almost full glass on the carpet. The gesture marked him as the one who’d done over the house before. His face was creased in a smile showing his bad teeth and the fact that he enjoyed this sort of work. He tossed the wine glass in the fireplace where it broke. Erica jumped, and Peroni’s grin widened until it changed into a wince of pain. He put his hand up to touch the puffiness around his jaw where it had slammed into the side of my car.
‘You don’t look so tough now,’ he said.
‘I was angry at the time.’
‘Aren’t you angry now?’ He stepped up close and thrust his face forward so that I could smell his bad breath. He slapped me hard with his right hand; I rode back a bit, but the slap stung.
‘I want a free go,’ Flabby said.
I could feel blood from where my teeth had cut the inside of my mouth. ‘I wouldn’t if I were you,’ I said. ‘You’re too slow. I could cripple you while you were shaping up.’ I jerked my head at Grey. ‘It’s really the other way around—he needs me more than he needs you.’
‘True,’ Grey said crisply. ‘Miss Fong is coming with us.’ He went to the hallway door and gestured with his gun. We trooped into the hall and Grey looked at Erica’s bag. ‘Handy. We’ll take that along. You can leave the liquor and cigarettes though. I’m a teetotaller myself.’
Erica looked desperately at me. I tried to look determined and resolute which is easier to do when you’re not the one being carted away.
‘Leave her the creature comforts, Grey. The smart hi-jackers keep the hostages happy.’ I lifted the bag, zipped it up and handed it to Erica. ‘Play along, love. He’s more bark than bite. I’ll do everything I can. How do I reach you, Grey?’
‘You have an answering service?’
‘Yes.’
‘I’ll leave messages, give you telephone numbers and instructions. You’d better take this seriously, Hardy.’
‘I do. And you better understand that I’m not the only friend Miss Fong has in the world. There are some Chinese around who’ll eat these two and you as well if anything happens to her. If you let Peroni touch her you can say goodbye to your balls and his.’
‘I’ll bear it in mind.’ He nodded to Peroni who opened the door and they backed towards it so that I was facing two guns.
‘Leave the Colt,’ I said. ‘I might need it.’
Flabby looked reluctant, but Grey’s sharp nod made him set it down just inside the door.
‘Your car is disabled, Hardy. Stay where you are for a minute or two and think. Do the work you’re supposed to be so good at. There’s no reason for your little friend to
come to any harm.’
Erica’s face was a mask of anger and fear; Peroni and Flabby went out and Grey followed, still keeping his little flat gun ready. He slammed the door. I stood in the hall and listened to car doors open and close. A well-tuned engine started and a car purred away.
I stood there for what seemed like hours but was probably only a few minutes. The cat came in and rubbed itself against my leg which meant that it wanted food. I opened the front door and looked at the Falcon parked across the road. It had no obvious list, so the disablement was probably mechanical. They’d closed the gate; Grey would probably have wiped his feet on the mat if I’d had one.
Under stress we revert to the old patterns. I re-plugged the phone and rang Grant Evans, gave him a description of Grey, and asked him to check it through as many computers as he could.
‘He said he wasn’t from Sydney,’ I said.
‘Lots of people aren’t, you don’t seem to grasp that. Getting sticky is it, Cliff?’
‘It’ll do.’ I considered telling Grant about Erica and decided against it; if I needed a policeman on hand I had Frank Parker. Grant knew better than to pump me for more information.
‘I’ll get back to you if anything comes through. Anything else I can do?’
‘Yeah. Keep a job as bottle washer open at the vineyard. I think that might be the kind of work I’m fit for.’
The idea that had come to me while Grey was accusing me of extra knowledge was simply that if Mountain was writing again, he might get in touch with his agent. It wasn’t much of an idea but it was something. The other one or two writers I knew phoned their agents almost every day as if they expected them to wipe their noses and smooth life’s stormy passage. Mountain seemed to make
his own rules, but there was a chance he might conform in this way.
I phoned the Brent Carstairs Agency and at the mention of Mountain’s name I was put through at wire-melting speed to a Mr Lambert.
‘L’mb’t here, y’s?’
A New Zealander, hardly a vowel to his name. ‘My name is Hardy, Mr Lambert. I’d like to talk to you about Bill Mountain. I’d say from the way they put me through to you that you’d be interested.’
‘Most certainly, Mr Hardy. Where is he?’
‘Hold on, why the interest? When I phoned a week ago some girl told me he was on holiday; she sounded as if she was just about on holiday herself. Why’s everyone so keen now?’
‘I’m afraid I can’t discuss that,’ he said sharply.
‘You’d better discuss it. If you want to find him with all his typing fingers still attached, I’m your best bet.’
‘I can’t take that on faith. Who are you, exactly?’
‘I’m a private detective,
exactly.
I also know Mountain slightly. I also know that he’s writing again.’
Mr Lambert said: ‘Mmm.’ If you wanted caution he was your boy.
‘I’ll give you a sample. He’s been to Marseilles and Nice recently, very recently. He’s got inside a very dirty world that ninety-nine per cent of writers just read about in the papers. He’s in danger. Do we talk?’
‘Yes. Can you come to my office at once, please?’
The last literary agent I’d talked to had wanted me to follow his client day and night and report on her doings. He’d been careful not to touch anything I touched, and he had never once said please. The way Mr Lambert sounded, he might even say thank you.
The Falcon hadn’t been disabled at all, another of the light, classy touches of Mr Grey, like returning my gun. I drove to Paddington through traffic that was light and good-tempered, unlike myself. I was feeling sour and
under pressure—hostage-taking was one fashion I could do without. The agency was in one of those cute, twisting little thoroughfares off Oxford Street that are always one way in the direction you don’t want. I worked my way to the right end and back up the street to park as close as I could. The street featured tall terraces with nose-in-the-air iron lace and fences with all the spear tops intact. There were offices that used to be houses and houses that used to be shops.
The agency office presented a lot of timber and lead-light glass to the street as if it was pretending to be an English pub. I pushed open the stripped and varnished timber door and walked into a carpeted space that was all soft lights and good taste. It looked more like an upmarket bookshop than an office; the walls were lined with the best-sellers and instant remainders of Brent Carstairs clients. There was a rogues’ gallery of writers’ photographs with a heavy emphasis on those who had won awards and those whose works had made it to the large and small screens.
The only worker in sight was sitting at a desk in the deep bay window at the front of the place. She was wearing a severe grey suit, a white blouse and pearls. She lifted her head from the typescript she was reading and gave me a wintery smile.
‘Yes?’
‘Hardy,’ I said, ‘but not the writer. No plays, no poems, no novellas. I had an essay on shoe cleaning published in my school magazine, but that was a long time ago.’
‘You’re a humorist.’
‘I wanted to see if I could make you smile.’
‘You failed.’
‘I’m a detective, here to see Mr Lambert. Smile at that.’
She didn’t, but she did react. ‘Oh, yes. About the Mountain manuscript; please go through there. Mr Lambert’s waiting.’
She pointed a long, thin, grey arm at the apparently
blank wall at the end of the room but I didn’t obey. I leaned close down to her, not expecting any perfume and not getting any. ‘Manuscript?’ I said.
‘Oh, God, I’m talking out of turn. Please see Mr Lambert. He’ll explain everything.’
I straightened up and peered at the wall. ‘I’ve been waiting all my life for someone who could explain everything.’
‘Please!’
Two pleases was urgent stuff from the likes of her; I followed her stabbing finger, and after walking across a few thousand dollars’ worth of carpet paid for by the authors whose books I passed, I found a door discreetly hidden in the wall. I knocked and Lambert called out: ‘Come in!’ as if I was David Williamson come to sign up for life. He was half way across his office towards the door by the time I got it open. His hand came out so fast I nearly ducked and countered.
‘Mr Hardy, come in, come in.’ We shook hands and he practically donated his to me. He stuck his head through the open door and asked the woman behind the desk to bring us some coffee. Lambert’s office was a smaller version of the other room: bearded faces gazed out from dust jackets, review headlines announced biting wit and experimental irony.