In Darlinghurst, if a shout saves you from injury and violation, you don’t complain if you never see who did the shouting. I sat with my bum on the cold cement, my back against the door, and peered up at the high wall opposite. But there was no further movement or sound from that quarter. The envelope had slid to between my knees and was ripped where the attacker had got a grip on it, but that was all. My head was aching, ringing. I guessed the blurry white thing lying in the lane, upside down with a large dent in it, was my pizza box.
When I was sure I had vision and movement, I levered myself upright and looked around for my key. I couldn’t see it on the ground. I picked up the pizza, squinted in the gloom and found the key in the lock. I opened the door and broke my fail-safe rule by putting the key in my pocket. The rule doesn’t apply when you’re semi-concussed and carrying a broken pizza. Then I went slowly up the stairs, pausing at each level, until I reached my own floor. I slid along the wall like a drunk needing the support until I reached my door. No need to dig for a key or, even worse, go back to the stairs for the one under the lino. The door was standing open.
I turned on the light, went inside and put my burdens on the desk. I knew I’d left papers on the desk; my mother’s attempts to make me tidy hadn’t ever taken, and where she’d failed how could the army hope to succeed? But I hadn’t left the desk as messy as this. I certainly hadn’t ripped my copy of the Commercial Agents and Private Enquiry Agents Act 1963 into pieces and scattered them around the room. I gave the door a push and heard it slap against the frame and fail to lock. The lock had been opened with a pick and had jammed in the latch position. That much detection was all I was up to for the moment. I went down the hall to the bathroom, ran water, washed my face and got a thick wad of wet handtowel paper to press against the bump on my head.
I sat in the client’s chair with my eyes closed for a while until the throbbing eased and other parts of my body made their needs known. I was hungry and thirsty. For no good reason I remembered something my ex-wife Cyn had said when I came home with a pizza one night. “Garbage in, garbage out,” she’d said. That was all she knew; if I’d been carrying a tabouli salad my brains might be lying in the lane. The filing cabinet had been opened-it didn’t take Raffles to do that-but the wine was still there. I pulled the cork out of the bottle and drank some of the rough red down in gulps. Aggressive stuff, confidence-building. I slid the pizza out of the crushed box and wolfed it-cold squashed anchovies and all. A few more gulps of wine and I felt ready to plug in the jug and make coffee. Cyn had despised instant coffee too, but even she couldn’t deny that it was quick. Two cups of it, black, with three red Codrals, and I was pain-free, almost floating, ready to think about what the hell was happening to me.
The office had been roughly but thoroughly searched-filing cabinet, desk drawers, under the carpet, behind the electric jug, coffee and sugar. For what? I did a quick paw through myself and couldn’t find anything missing, although I had a feeling that something was. The notes on my oldest case, the one involving the striptease dancer and her runaway son, and my latest, the disappearance of Brian Madden, were where they should have been. I prowled around the room trying to locate the gap. When things are too familiar, it’s easy to overlook something missing-memory and imagination supply the lack. I drank some more wine and gnawed on a pizza crust. What? What! Eventually it hit me: a framed photograph almost three decades old I had put in the office rather than the house because Cyn had hated it, wasn’t lying face down on top of the filing cabinet the way it had for years. A clean space, six centimetres by ten, stood out on the dusty surface like a cricket pitch on a bowling green.
I sat down behind the desk and thought about the picture. I’d looked at it a thousand times with mixed emotions, and every detail of it was clear in my mind. ‘Maroubra Police Boys’ Club boxing championships’ had been scratched across the bottom by the photographer. The picture showed the finalists in the divisions from heavyweight to flyweight — sixteen of us. I was there alongside Clem Carter, who’d knocked me out in the third round to win the welterweight title. Also in the picture were several policemen who’d trained and encouraged us and also acted as timekeepers and referees. I’d long forgotten most of their names but I remembered one of the referees. He’d tried to give me a fast count when I went down in the semifinal, and I’d had to scramble up early to beat it. You might think that a man who can’t even referee a kids’ boxing match honestly has a serious problem and in this case you’d be right. His name was Stewart ‘Rhino’ Jackson.
It didn’t make a lot of sense, but it did make some. One thing was certain-it was time to get professional help on my semi-professional problem. I poured a sipping-size measure of wine and called Cy Sackville. In an unguarded moment, Sackville had once told me that he liked to watch LA Law on TV on Tuesday nights, so I knew where to find him. I dialled his number and tried to imagine him sitting in a leather armchair in his Point Piper flat with the remote control in one hand and the Law Review Digest in the other, ready to do a bit of reading during the commercials.
“Sackville. Please leave your message after the tone.”
“I know you’re there, Cy. Put in a tape and press the record button. It’s your old friend and client, Cliff Hardy, in need of a talk.”
There was a pause, then the tone was cut off and Sackville’s voice came on the line. “Jesus Christ! Hang on.”
I grinned as I sipped the wine.
“Okay,” Sackville said.
“How’re Mickey and Grace? Are they married yet?”
“What d’you want, Cliff?”
“Hah, hah, can’t say you’re busy, can you?”
“I could hang up.”
“Don’t, Cy. I need help.” I told him about the summons and Parker’s sketchy information. I didn’t tell him about the missing photograph or my sore head or the squashed pizza. Sackville’s appetite for the law is insatiable The best way to get his attention is to present him with some legal snafu he hasn’t struck before. I get to do that reasonably often, and I could tell by his silence as I spoke that I’d hooked him with this one.
“Interesting,” he said. “I’ve never been to one of these hearings.”
“What hearings?”
“This petty sessions sitting you’re going to. It’s more in the nature of a hearing than a trial. Statements, right of reply, modified rules of evidence.”
“I don’t want to go to any hearing. I want you to get me out of it. It’s bullshit. I wouldn’t know Beni Lenko from Alan Bond.”
“How about this Jackson?”
“I know him, sure. But there’s no connection to the Steller-Lenko thing.”
“How do you know? Have you looked into it?”
“Cy…”
“They must have something, Cliff. I know they’re trying to tighten up on all you pistol-packing types-private eyes, security guards and so on. Too many guns and payrolls going missing. But your nose is clean with the police, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“So there’s someone behind it. I wouldn’t press Parker on the name of the witness. These witness protection pro-grammes are the flavour of the month since Fitzgerald. A breach by Parker could seriously damage his career if it got known.”
“I told him not to do anything to risk his job. But I can’t just sit and wait for this shit to flop on me. As my lawyer they’d have to put you in the picture, wouldn’t they?”
“Up to a point.”
“What does that mean?”
“They needn’t identify the witness specifically, but I would get a context- full transcript of statement, supporting evidence and so on.”
“Great. I can be put out of business by a faceless woman.”
“Let me think,” Sackville said.
“If you’re sneaking a quick look at the box, Cy, I’ll come around and piss in your pool.”
“No, no. This is interesting. Don’t worry, Cliff, I’m taking it seriously. What I’ll do first off is get you a delay. I can probably get a fortnight, maybe more.”
“What good will that do?”
“You’re a detective, aren’t you? You’d better ask around and find out who wants you retired. Are you vulnerable in any other way? What are you working on now?”
“A missing person case.”
“Sounds safe enough. Good, even. A little acceptable privatisation of law and order. Keep your books in shape, account for your expenses. Write up your notes every day.”
“My name card fell off the door.”
“Get a proper plate made. Screw it to the door. You need to look solid.”
Just hearing him say it made me feel all the more fragile. He got the date of the hearing and had me spell the name at the foot of the fateful letter: G-r-i-f-f-i-n. He told me he’d get back to me when he had some news. I think he expected another crack about LA Law but I disappointed him. My head was buzzing again and the torn paper, turned-back carpet and battered pizza box were depressing me. I added the documents I’d collected to the Madden file, put the police pamphlets on top of the filing cabinet and gathered up my meagre belongings. I freed the door lock, turned out the light and left the office. I went down the stairs quietly and carefully, but no one was lurking in the shadows. So if my guardian angel was hovering around he had nothing to do for the present. I stuck the key back in the wall, drove home and went to bed.
In the morning, after eight hours’ sleep, with only a slight headache and the cat for company, things seemed a lot clearer. I had a one-thousand-dollar fee to earn and a licence to protect. “Keep busy, that’s the secret,” is what my Irish gypsy grand-mother used to say. She made it to eighty-plus and keeled over while building a drystone wall. It was good advice, applicable to me at forty-plus, although the only physical labour I did these days was carrying out the garbage tin. As I told the cat, it was very simple. “Work on the Madden case in the daytime and the Lenko matter at night. Keep busy.”
I washed a couple of days’ worth of dishes and swept a fortnight’s dirt from the floor. Then I shaved and stood under a shower, letting the warm water massage my bruised head. The bulldozers hadn’t made their moves on the next two houses yet, and I was dreading the day. For the moment they stood empty, and my end of the street was unnaturally calm and peaceful. No Joni Mitchell from Soames, no revving Yamahas from number 63. I missed them both. The cat missed them more. Soames’ cat was a wimpy part-Persian that offered no competition to mine. The bikers-the house seemed to harbour a shifting population of leather-clad males and females-were an endless source of hamburger, pizza and souvlakia scraps. The cat’s calories were cut drastically when the places were sold. It drank its milk sullenly, curled up in a patch of sunlight and was through for the day. “Have a good one, sport,” I said.
I allowed myself a few minutes to sit in the sun and try to recall every nuance of the attack the night before. Nothing much came: male almost certainly, from an impression of size, and a smoker. No one who has given the habit up ever fails to detect the smell on hair and clothes. No Hercules-the blow hadn’t been delivered with enormous power. But then, that might have been compassion. There’d been no sound, no speech. At a guess, a million or so citizens of the city could fill the bill.
I told myself this was a challenge. Keep busy. By the time I was sitting in my car, turning the ignition key and putting on my sunglasses, I felt almost normal. If you can call a man who talks to cats normal.