Make Me Rich (18 page)

“When?”

“Oh, just recent, last coupla' months.”

He lifted the glass and the rest of the sherry. I looked down at the money on the table and tried to calculate how many flagons it would buy him. Not enough. There weren't enough. I stood up and he pushed the other can of beer across the table.

“Never touch that stuff,” he said, “doesn't do you any good.”

16

They were waiting for me when I got home, and I have to admit they did it well. I pushed open the front door with the details of my interview with Phillips still being sorted in my head, half-expecting Parker and Hilde to be screwing on the stairs, and “Bully” Hayes stepped out of the door immediately to the right of the front door. He slapped the side of my head with a heavy hand made heavier by the automatic pistol in it.

“That's for Tiny, Hardy,” he said. “And just an instalment.”

My gun was in the car, and my wits were loose with surprise.

“Nothing to say?” His Queensland drawl was more suggestive of Boggo Road Gaol than Great Keppel Island.

“I'll listen, I think.”

“That'd be smart for openers.”

Liam Catchpole and Dottie Williams came out of the front room into the hallway. Liam was still so slimy-looking you hoped he wouldn't touch the walls. Dottie had got fatter; her thighs under her mini skirt were meaty, and her double chin creased as she bent her head to light a cigarette. She dropped the match on the sea grass matting.

“You'll start a fire, Dottie,” I said.

Hayes hit me again, same place, same way. “Manners,” he said. “Let's go and sit down.”

I had my ears cocked for the familiar sounds of my house;
Hilde's radio, the shower she usually left dripping; the window in my room that rattles. Everything sounded reassuringly normal; there was no blood on the sea grass, no whiff of cordite in the air. I hoped Frank and Hilde were away somewhere, eating Italian.

We went to the back of the house, and Catchpole and Williams sat down at the table. They were quiet, as if they were depressed. Hayes backed me up against the sink and stood close, threateningly. He was a little taller than me and much broader. He was well groomed; shaved close and recently barbered; his business shirt looked expensive and had kept its creases that late in the day; his tie was carefully knotted, exactly centred. The downturned mouth made him look as if he'd never been happy.

Catchpole picked up a knife and fiddled with it, excavating the grooves in the pine table. “You killed Tiny,” he said.

“He fell. Accident.”

“You took him away,” Catchpole said; he dug the knife in an inch and twisted. “You picked him up at the Crimea, you and some other cunt. You took him away in that fuckin' bomb you drive.”

I didn't say anything, on the principle that fear will find words to express itself. I was full of it. Catchpole levered up a long splinter from the table top, and worked at it.

“To save time,” Hayes said, “I'm going to assume that you know who I am. That gutless wonder of a Tiny would've told you that.”

I nodded.

“Good. Now, you've been working for Guthrie, and getting right in my way.”

Silence looks like fear, too
, I thought. You can't win. I shrugged. “Had to protect the boy. Trying to.”

“You haven't done much of a job. Know where he is now?”

I shook my head.

“Neither do I. All I know is he's no fucking good to me anymore. I'm under pressure all of a sudden. I don't like that. I like to apply the pressure myself.”

“We all do.”

“Don't be smart. We don't think you're smart. Liam and Dottie here want me to put you away for killing Tiny. They're not smart, either.”

“No quarrel with me there.”

“You're doing it again. Must've got you into a lot of trouble, that.”

Catchpole had worked the sliver of wood out and was digging in another spot. Williams smoked and patted her soft chin.

“
I
am smart,” Hayes said. “I have to be. I've got a contract to kill Peter Collinson, and I want to collect on it. I don't care about Spotswood, I don't care about the Guthrie kid.”

I turned around, ran the water and washed my hands in the sink. Hayes looked surprised, but he let me do it. I flicked at the paper towel holder and pulled off enough to dry my hands. There were beads of sweat above the wrinkles on Hayes's forehead, where his hairline would once have been. It was the only sign that he was in any way affected by the exterior world.

“Why were you working on the Guthrie kids? What was the idea?”

“Collinson kept his eye on his kids, right up to when the shit hit the fan. He worried about them. I'm one of the few people who knew that. Nobody else knew he even had any kids. I reckoned that by screwing up the kids I could get him
to show himself, or give me a lead. I'm good at it—I wouldn't need much, believe me.”

“Didn't work,” I said.

“It would've. I had the time and the people I needed. Had those Guthrie kids watched round the clock. Now the game's all changed. You're sniffing around, and the word is your mate Parker could be getting close to Collinson his way. I thought I could cancel him out, but it looks like he's tougher than that. I want to know what he knows and what you know, Hardy. I don't want to miss my chance at Collinson. There's too much money at stake.”

“You have my sympathy.”

“Do you ever say anything that isn't smart-arsed?”

“I mean it.” My mind had been roaring around the problem, looking for a way to handle it, and now I thought I'd found it. Selling anything to Hayes, though, would be a hard sell.

“Look, Collinson's nothing to me. I found out that he's still married to the kid's mother. No divorce. Paul Guthrie's a jealous man. Collinson dead would suit him just fine.”

“What's he yapping about?” Williams snapped.

“Shut up, Dottie,” Hayes said. “Go on, Hardy. What about Parker?”

“All Parker wants is his job back. He's not interested in being a hero. Just let me nut this out … If Collinson's dead, the people who put the screws on Parker because he might just have got Collinson alive and talking, well, they can relax and go to bed. They'd be the ones who hired you.”

Hayes nodded. “I suppose so. I don't give a fuck. I've got guarantees and safeguards, that's all I care about.”

“If Parker can pick up a few crumbs from this, he'd be sweet. He's an honest cop, but he's not a crusader.”

“Honest cop,” Catchpole sneered, and did some more
knife work. The scotch bottle was still on the table. I took two steps across the room, picked it up and slammed it down on Catchpole's fingers. He yelped, and the knife skittered away.

“Shit in your own nest, Catchpole.”

He jumped up and faced me, but there was no fight in him, really. His eyes darted around, and I realised what he was doing—looking for Tiny. Hayes moved across and took the bottle from my hand. Catchpole subsided, and Dottie Williams lit her sixth or seventh cigarette. Hayes got a glass from the sink and poured himself a measure of scotch and tossed it down. The phone rang; Williams, who was sitting nearest to it, jumped. The phone kept ringing.

I looked at it; we all looked at it. Hayes nodded at me to answer it and gestured at Catchpole to get out of the way. Hayes stuck his ear down close to hear—whatever move he made, the automatic was never vulnerable to attack, and he let nothing get between it and me.

“Mr Hardy?”

“Yes. Who's this?”

“It's Jess Polansky, Mr Hardy. Ray Guthrie's girlfriend?”

“Yes, Jess. What's up?”

“It's Ray. He's just gone. I'm scared. He's crazy … wild …”

“You're all right? Not hurt?”

“No.”

“Okay, calm down. Tell me what happened.”

Hayes snapped his fingers at Williams; she poured him another drink and passed it across. I could have done with one myself.

“He came up to Newport. He just dragged me out of the office, pulling me and shouting. He said Chris was dead. He called his father … everything … every word. Said
he was going to kill him.” She paused. “He wrecked the Guthries' boat.”

“What boat?”

“They've got a sort of houseboat up here, almost that. He went down into the living quarters and ripped everything up. He was shouting and swearing.”

“What? Shouting what?”

“I don't know. He kept saying there must be something. He was looking for something.”

“Did he find it?”

“He found something in with his mother's things. Some papers. He just left the mess, and me. He just left.” Sobbing, deep and convulsive, came over the wire.

“Jess! Jess! Listen! Do you know where he was going? Did he say?”

“No. No. I don't know what to do. I don't know where Mr Guthrie is …”

I clamped my hand over the receiver and looked at Hayes. “I think I know where he's going. I think I know where Collinson is. I know what the kid found. Can we do a deal?”

“Collinson's mine.”

I nodded. “The kid's out of it?”

“All right. Get rid of her!”

I gave Helen Broadway's number to Jess, and told her to keep calling it until she got through. Helen would help her, I said. Jess calmed down, repeated the number a couple of times which seemed to soothe her and said she'd do it.

I hung up, got up from the table and poured myself a drink.

“What the fuck was all that about?” Dottie put her foot on another butt on the floor.

“Hardy's going to take us to Collinson. Wouldn't care to
give us the address, Hardy?” Hayes took a length of paper towel and blotted those sweat beads.

I shook my head. “I want to see to the kid. I want to see Collinson dead, if that's the way it has to be.”

“I don't trust the cunt,” Catchpole said.

“Don't be bloody stupid!” Hayes wadded the paper towel and threw it at the open tidy bin. He missed. “We're not talking about trust here, we're talking business. Still, you'll have to give me a bit more, Hardy. Convince me you know where Collinson is.”

It was the right question for him to ask.

“I know where you got the information about Collinson's kids,” I said. “From a guy named Wally Bigelow, used to be a private detective.”

“That's right,” Hayes said.

“What happened to Wally?”

“He dropped dead. I was about to put some pressure on him to give out a bit more. He sold me some of it, but not enough. Bloody old pisspot. Died of fright.”

“He didn't know any more. Twenty years ago he was partners with a private detective named Phillips. Collinson's wife hired Phillips to check on her husband. Collinson went by another name then. He'd begun to organise himself, be Mr Anonymous, but he wasn't quite there. I've talked to Phillips.”

“So we could talk to Phillips,” Williams said.

“No,” I lied. “I've tucked him away. You can't get to him.”

“What'd this Phillips have to say?” Hayes was calm, weighing his words.

“He reckoned Collinson had a place to hide in. A perfect place, it sounds.”

“When was this?” Catchpole said.

“Nearly twenty years ago.”

“Shit! Twenty years! Everything's different!”

“I wouldn't say that. You're just as slimy as you were then.”

“Knock it off,” Hayes snarled. “It
is
a long time, Hardy.” He looked dubious, and convincing him was the key to the whole thing. I had one more card to play. “I've got what seems to be the only known photograph of Collinson,” I said. “Put that bloody gun away, look reasonable, and I'll let you see it. The Guthrie kid in Brisbane's going to be all right. I got him to the hospital, so I'm in good there. If I walk away with the other one, I'm on a bonus. I want a deal as much as you, Hayes.”

The idea of the photograph excited him—police training maybe—and the money talk was a clincher. He understood that sort of motive. Dealing with him was like trying to walk on a slippery, sloping roof, but I had as much duplicity as he did, and neither of us had handholds. He put the automatic on the table.

“We're dealing. Let's see the picture.”

I got out the old photograph and passed it to him. He examined it like a violinist with a Stradivarius.

“Well, I'm buggered.”

Dottie Williams leaned over and looked. “Looks like the picture the kid talked about. Said he had it, then he couldn't come up with it. Said it'd been pinched.”

“How'd you get to him, Hayes? The kid, how'd you get to him?”

Hayes grinned. “Dottie got to him.”

“He was as green as grass,” she said. “The first hand job I gave him blew his mind.” On closer inspection the pale-red aureole of her hair was a dyed, teased fake; her clothes reeked of tobacco, kissing her would be like licking an ashtray. But maybe I was getting discriminating as I got older. Liam Catchpole broke in with a typical contribution.

“Who needs Hardy?” he said. “Let's get what he knows out of him and go and do the job. Fuck Hardy! Fuck the kid.”

Hayes seemed to give the idea some consideration, then he shook his head. “We haven't got the time. Ray's on the move, and Christ knows what'll happen if he gets to Collinson first. If he's as crazy as his bird says he is, he could kill him, or they could take off for Aca-fucking-pulco or somewhere. Besides,” he looked at Catchpole, who was propped back against the sink where I'd been, “you reckon you can put the scarers on Hardy?”

A lot of the stuffing had gone out of Catchpole since I'd last seen him. His reputation was more for slipperiness than gutsiness, but neither was apparent now. His face was tense and pale, acne-pitted, and he was pushing back his lank, oiled hair with nervous flicks. There was a brown scuff mark across the toe of his right, white shoe.