Nothing had changed at number seven, no new lights, no new cars outside; professional pride didn’t impel me to identify the TV channel that was providing the voices. I drove back to Glebe with the slip of paper on which I’d written the midnight contact number in my jacket pocket. I kept feeling the paper as I drove, wishing it was something more substantial, wishing that I was causing things to happen instead of being Grey’s representative in Mountain’s game.
I got home with a couple of minutes to spare. I dialled and got a recorded message as I expected. It told me to speak after the blip.
Blip. ‘This is Hardy, Grey. I think I’m onto something but the relevant meeting is tomorrow night. Don’t hurt the girl or I swear I’ll come after you and break your back. I assume you’ll be in touch.’ I hung up feeling ridiculous at making threats into machines at the stroke of midnight. I waited. At five minutes into the new day the phone rang and the same voice as before spoke quickly: ‘Delighted to hear that you’re making progress. The girl is fine, although we’ve had some trouble in restraining Peroni. Don’t make empty threats. Hardy; it creates a bad impression. I’m going to read you your next contact number twice. I’ll expect a call twenty-four hours from now.’ He did that, I wrote the number down and the line went dead.
There are more ways to set up secure telephone contacts than there are to nobble horses and the Grey Organisation (as I’d come to think of it) seemed to be aware of it. I sat and brooded, forseeing a series of nights of telephone calls until there was nothing on the other end of the line. The thought chilled and depressed me. I went to bed where I had trouble finding sleep, and when I did find it, the sleep was troubled by dreams of Helen Broadway, Erica Fong and bloody objects arriving in the mail.
About ten the following morning, I got a call from Terry Reeves. The Audi had been found.
‘God,’ I said. ‘Where?’
‘Right outside the office.’
‘In what condition?’
‘Mint. You have anything to do with this, Cliff?’
‘Mate, I’d like to claim the credit, but I can’t. I’ve been on the trail of the bloke who took it, but I haven’t even got close to him. I think he’s in Sydney-that’s how it’s been, that vague.’
He grunted. ‘Well, I’m not complaining. Send me an account and I’ll fix you up.’
‘Okay.’ I was embarrassed; it felt like taking money for nothing and I went in for some self-justificaton. ‘Terry, there’s an organisation behind this; it goes interstate…’
‘I’m not madly interested, Cliff. Not very public-spirited of me, I know, but I’ve got a business to run. Unless you’re saying it could happen to me again?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Are you saying you can recover the other cars, mine I mean?’
‘No.’
‘I think we’ll call it a day then, Cliff. Thanks for what you’ve done. I can wear the insurance on the others, the Audi would have been the last straw.’
He was embarrassed, too. We both went polite and let each other off lightly, the way friends should. I’d keep my bill low, and he’d pay promptly. The Crusades were a long time ago. The business situation-left with no new client and inhibitions about billing the last one-was bad, but the side issues the Reeves case had generated threatened to be a disaster. I didn’t know where Erica was, or what Mountain was doing by returning the car. That was puzzling. Did it mean that Mountain had been in touch with Grey and that this was a move in that game? Would Grey have told Mountain about Erica, and what would Mountain’s reaction be? It was like fumbling around in a dark, locked room for a light switch that wasn’t there.
I knocked up a cheapo bill for Terry and drove to Darlinghurst feeling worm-like. The orange skirts and white blouses blossomed around the parking bays and in the office, and the place seemed to wear a new air of optimism. I walked into the office with the folded account in my hand, wanting to explain the circumstances, but wanting to meet Terry Reeves about as much as I wanted to meet Pol Pot.
Things had changed a bit. Terry’s office was now a walled-in box. That was probably the idea of some security consultant; there seemed to be more screens around too-TV monitors and VDTs. Terry wouldn’t like the changes, but maybe he didn’t have any choice. His secretary was parked outside his office behind a big desk with an intricate-looking telephone system. In her quick glance I read approval of the new arrangement and disapproval of me. She held out her hand for the paper I was carrying.
‘Mr Reeves isn’t in,’ she said.
‘Cliff Hardy.’
‘I’m sorry, Mr Hardy, he really isn’t in.’
I handed the account across. ‘This is my account for the work I’ve been doing for him. I understand the Audi has been returned?’
‘Yes.’
‘I’d like to look at it, please.’
She looked doubtful. ‘I don’t know…’
‘I don’t want to dismantle or drive it, I just want a look. It’s important.’
She wasn’t going to budge. ‘What would you be looking for?’
‘I don’t know, anything that might have been left in it.’ I opened my hands. ‘Evidence.’
‘I see.’ She picked up her phone and dialled the workshop. If the CIA had had her, Chris Boyce would still be flying falcons. She spoke briefly into the phone and looked up at me. ‘Are you interested in body damage?’
‘Only to me.’
She tapped her pencil impatiently and I nodded. She spoke again and looked up. ‘There isn’t any. They’re sending up everything they found. Mr Reeves asked for it to be kept.’
‘Thank you.’ She motioned me to a seat and I sat down feeling grateful that Reeves’ old investigative habits were still with him. The secretary got on with her phoning and filing and ignored me; I was very low on charisma for the employees of Bargain Renta Car. After a while a man in orange overalls came into the office and put a plastic bag on the secretary’s desk.
‘Thanks, Ken.’
Ken winked at her and went out. She pushed the bag across the desk and I reached for it. Inside was a tattered copy of the Melbourne Age, a half-empty bottle of Suntory whisky and a glossy, folded pamphlet. The secretary’s eyes widened as I unfolded the pamphlet; mine probably widened too. It was a catalogue of sadomasochistic ‘love aids’ available from the I’ll Be Bound boutique in the Cross. Whips, light and heavy; leather constraints of various kinds; chains; velvet and silk garments designed to define areas of interest. The stuff was superbly photographed and the whole production had a streamlined, high-tech gloss. The chains gleamed against velvet folds; the whip ends lay on smooth, soft leather. There were lavish bedroom scenes in which the faces and bodies of the active and passive participants were taut with pleasure.
The secretary got up and came around her desk for a better look. She gazed over my shoulder at a picture of a black man with an enormous erection and wearing a white mask who was shackling a couple who were in a contortionistic oral embrace.
‘God,’ she said.
‘Turn you on?’
‘I don’t know.’
I folded up the pamphlet and put it in my pocket. She was breathing hard but still at her post. ‘I don’t know that you should take that away.’
‘I’m old enough,’ I said. I put the paper and bottle back in the bag. ‘Here, you can give this to Ken.’