Salt and Blood (7 page)

‘Or her. You said your friend Glen drove one.'

Fuck you,
I thought. ‘Okay. My guess is we're being followed to find out where you're living. Poor bugger's been staking out that garage since Sunday. If we lose him or her it's a win.'

‘I thought you said it wasn't a game.'

One to him. I didn't reply, trying to work out a
strategy. Not too hard. I tooled along down to Brookvale, showing every sign of intending to stay on Pittwater Road to Manly. But before the fork with Condamine Street I edged over, crossed a line of traffic and took the Harbord turn-off to the east. The Santa Fe, if that's what it was, was committed to Pittwater Road and there was no way I was going to let it pick me up again.

‘That was slick,' Rod said.

‘Thanks. At least we've learned that whoever's after you isn't tied in to your brother and mother.'

‘How do you figure that?'

‘They're looking for you. If they were tied in they'd already know. So it looks like you're safe in Bondi for now.'

‘I can't stay in Bondi for the rest of my life.'

‘No, but you can for a while. Get on that Malibu.'

I drove on, working my way back to where I wanted to be and keeping a weather eye open. I ran my mind back over all I could remember of what had been said to who by whom since this business began. Something jumped into my head.

‘What was all that about your agent?'

I circled the block several times before deciding that it was safe to park at the flat. Rod Harkness was bearing up well under the pressure of being shot at and tracked. He seemed to be able to put such things aside and get on with his reading and cooking. He went out briefly around six o'clock and I thought,
Uh oh, happy hour.
But he came back with a yellow legal pad and spent a good bit
of the next hour writing on the table in the living room. It was me who went out for a couple of drinks after his passable veal stroganoff.

I sat in the bar of the Bondi Hotel watching the black and white Kiwis mix with the black and white Australians. You could distinguish them pretty well by their T-shirts—‘All Blacks', ‘Wallabies', ‘Sheep Fuckers', ‘Warriors', although there were probably some crossovers. They drank and played darts and pool and got on well for the most part under the great comradely influence of beer and tobacco. I nursed a couple of Scotches and thought over what Rod had told me about his ex-agent, Doug Schirer.

‘It ended in a stand-up fight,' Rod had said. ‘And I decked him. I was pissed of course, and Doug was a mad cokehead in those days. It was crazy, but there was a lot of money involved. And with residuals you can go on earning good dough for years if the commercial gets a long run and revivals.'

‘Did yours?' I asked.

Rod shrugged. ‘I dunno. Everything went to shit after that and I …'

He stopped there and I didn't press him, not wanting to push him towards the brink again. Then he got stuck into his writing and I let it slide. But I had a few more questions in mind and thought it might be safe to put them when I got back. I'd sneaked a look at his pad when he went for a piss. He was writing a script about a wife who left her husband.
Okay,
I thought,
let's hope writing's as cathartic as they say it is.

On my return, Rod glanced up from his pad and grinned at me. He looked the happiest I'd seen him. ‘You don't have to do that, you know.'

‘Do what?'

‘Sneak out for a drink. I wouldn't mind if you had a slab in the fridge and a case of Johnny Walker in your room.'

‘Better safe than sorry. But are you really that clear of it?'

‘I think so. Seven years. Well, no. There was that time early on, Buster Lewis got a couple of bottles smuggled in and then again when Luigi Coppola cooked up some grappa. But otherwise, yeah.'

‘Good for you. How's the writing going?'

‘It's fun. I think I might get a cheap computer and that scriptwriting software.'

‘You know about that stuff?'

He smiled. ‘I read a lot of magazines in there. Had the time.'

He'd made another pot of his premium coffee and I put a mug of it in the microwave and got it hot. I sat down across the table from him. ‘Okay, a couple of questions.'

‘Alcohol's good for stimulating questions. So's tobacco. I can smell public bar on you, Cliff.'

‘Shit, you're not a recovering smoker, too?'

‘No. I never smoked except phoney cigarettes on the set.'

‘You're lucky, mate, I did. Just supposing your commercial's gone on earning big bucks. Who'd be getting the money?'

‘It's not likely but with everything that's hap
pened I haven't even thought about it. I suppose it'd be going to Barney Nugent who was my agent when … You know.'

‘You haven't heard from him?'

‘No. But I'd better get in touch if this comes to anything.' He gestured at the pad.

‘What was the commercial for?'

‘Olympic running shoes. I was the winged god Mercury who gave the shoes to the black kid. I mean it was sentimental crap. Olympic's like all the rest—uses Asian sweated labour—but actors can't be choosers.'

‘I've seen that one,' I said. ‘It's been on a lot—world championships, Commonwealth Games. It got a big run around the time of the Sydney games. You couldn't turn on the TV without seeing it. There must be a fair bit in the kitty for you, depending on the contract.'

Rod shook his head. ‘I can't remember much about it but I was strong on the residuals. Sometimes they cut out after a couple of repeats but I think I held out for more than that.'

‘It sounds like we'd better have a word with both these blokes. One could have it in for you for diddling him out of the money and the other one might not want to hand over what he's got. Are these agents generally honest?'

Rod grinned. ‘When it suits them. But it couldn't be enough money to kill for.'

‘How much is that? It varies. What if Barney's spent it all on blondes and horses?'

Rod laughed. ‘No way. Barney's a pussycat. Doug's another matter. He's an ex policeman and …'

‘That means he could've had a way of finding when you were getting out. What if Doug's in it with Barney?'

Rod scribbled something on his pad. ‘Good plot point,' he said.

‘What?'

‘Never mind. So we talk to them, do we? We can look them up in the phone book. What's that you've got?'

On the way back from the pub I'd opened the car and dug the rifle bullet out of the back seat with my Swiss army knife. I put it on the table and spun it. ‘It'll have rifling marks on it that can identify the weapon that fired it.'

‘Can you tell what sort of bullet it is?'

‘Not me, but I know people who can. Glen for one. She did a course on it.' Mention of Glen set him doodling on his pad. I located the phone directories and looked up Agents—Theatrical. Barney Nugent was there with an address in Paddington but there was no sign of Doug Schirer.

Rod had gone back to his writing.

‘Did this Schirer have a company name?' I asked. ‘Olivier Theatrical Agency, something like that?'

Rod barely glanced up. ‘Doug? No chance. Too egotistical.' He scribbled a bit more and then put his pen down. ‘Sorry. I'm not helping, am I? It's just that writing feels like a bloody good thing to do. Better than that bullshit therapy back at Rutherford. Okay, Doug. He got into it when he was hired as a consultant for a TV doco on police corruption. He reckoned he was ripped off. He
claimed that he coached the actors for the reconstruction scenes, bloody near wrote the script and told the director what to do. Maybe he did. It happens. Anyway, there was a fair bit of that sort of work around at the time—‘60 Minutes', crimestopper stuff, you know? Doug edged his way in. He had some ex-coppers on his books and ex-crims like Billy Parkinson who'd taken up acting and writing. Did you look up literary agents as well?'

I hadn't. I did. Still no Schirer.

Rod was into the full flood of memory now. He microwaved coffee for both of us and stabbed at his pad with his pen. ‘I went with Doug because that was the sort of stuff I was getting work in around the time—cop shows, pilots and such, and he was aggressive. He got me a few things and took his full whack, let me tell you. Twenty per cent. That was all right. Then the money got to him. He started hanging around with the really big earners and he got on the coke and he was fucking hopeless. Mind you, I was well on the way to being hopeless myself.'

This was dangerous ground after the performance of a few days back but I risked it. ‘How d'you mean?'

‘Lucille and I weren't getting on. I was drinking too much. Did you have another question?'

Not bad,
I thought.
He handled that moment pretty well.
I asked some meaningless question, got a reply and then he went back to his writing. I sipped the hot coffee and wished I'd had another drink. The flat was well insulated, double-glazed
and there was nothing to be heard except the scratch of Rod's pen, so the sudden ringing of the phone startled us both.

‘Who's got the number?' Rod said.

I considered. ‘Your brother, I guess. And Glen.'

‘I don't want to talk to Warren.'

I nodded and picked up the phone.

‘Cliff? It's Frank Parker.'

I'd forgotten that I'd given Frank the number. When I said his name Rod looked at me enquiringly. ‘It's all right,' I said.

Frank sounded puzzled. ‘What's all right?'

‘I'm talking to someone else, Frank. What's new?'

‘I've got the name of the detective who arrested Rodney Harkness and interviewed him. He's retired. I've had a word with him and he says he'll talk to you. I'll give you the details.'

‘Great.' I pulled out my notebook and a pen and scribbled down the name and address.

‘He's a good bloke,' Frank said. ‘He retired on a disability pension. Took a bullet in a bank holdup. He seems to remember Harkness pretty clearly so there must be something noteworthy about it.'

I thanked him and then had a thought. ‘Not wanting to lay too much on you, but do you know anything about a former member of the force named Doug Schirer?'

Rod was staring at me now and the silence at the other end of the line was heavy. Eventually Frank said, ‘Do I ever. He's involved, is he?'

‘Could be.'

‘That's bad news. He's a real bastard, Cliff. Got
kicked out for corruption and brutality. No, I think he resigned before he could be kicked out. Then he had something to do with television.'

‘That's him. Do you know what he's doing now?'

‘Don't you?'

‘No, I never heard of him until just lately. What do you mean?'

‘I've no idea how it happened but somehow he got a private enquiry licence. He's a member of your bloody profession, Cliff. That is, nominally.'

‘Meaning?'

‘The word is he's been a hit man in his time. A pricey one.'

9

I figured to spend a few more days making sure Rod was settled in and on the straight and narrow before taking a look at Doug Schirer and Barney Nugent. When I checked with Glen she said she'd established that Lucille Hammond and her daughter hadn't left Australia around the time specified.

‘That's unless they had false passports, credit cards in another name and such,' Glen said. ‘Which doesn't seem likely. Don't think she'd have known how to go about it. She seems to have been a handful and not very bright.'

‘What did she do before she got married?'

‘Aerobics instructor—a gym bunny, starving herself and exercising her tits off, literally. Apparently she had a hard time giving birth and suffered a bit of post-natal depression.'

We were in a coffee bar opposite the computer store where Rod was buying his machine. He'd consulted with Glen about the purchase, listened intently to her advice, but insisted on doing the buying himself.

‘A good sign, that,' Glen had said. ‘Wants to make his own decisions. A lot of recovering
drunks become completely dependent. They substitute one addiction for another.'

‘And how are you doing?'

She flapped her hand noncommittally. ‘So-so. Have you told him about me?'

‘No. Why would I do that?'

‘Never mind. Anyway, I'm waiting to hear back on the bank and credit and car registration enquiries. If they turn up blank then she's really gone to ground.'

I told Glen about the possibility of there being money held in trust for Rod from his TV commercial. Glen looked thoughtful. ‘Lucille didn't have any money of her own as far as I can see. Warren says she made no approaches to him. And there's the kid to support. Did Rod make this commercial before the break-up?'

‘I think so, yes.'

‘Then she must have known about it. It's strange she didn't look for support. File for divorce. She'd have walked it in. Got child support, custody, the lot.'

Rod emerged from the shop and crossed the street looking pleased with himself. He waylaid a waiter and ordered more coffee. ‘An iMac,' he said as he plonked himself down. ‘As you recommended. Laser printer and a scanner. Plus I've put in an order for the software. There's only one thing.'

Glen leaned forward. ‘What?'

Rod grinned. ‘I've never used a computer. Wouldn't have a clue how to fly one.'

‘I'll show you,' Glen said.

The computer would be arriving the next day and they made an arrangement to have a training session. Glen went off about her business and Rod said it was time for him to try the surfboard. He was energetic, jumping out of his skin, and I knew enough about rehabilitation to know that it was a dangerous state. Hyper up can lead to hyper down and listening to the siren call of booze or drugs. A good dose of surf exhaustion could be just the ticket. We headed down to the beach, Rod in his new boardies and wetsuit vest, and me in jeans, sneakers and a T-shirt with the Chow Hayes book, a peaked cap, shades, sunblock and two cans of light beer in a plastic bag.