By Peter Corris
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EORGE Marr was the Credit Comptroller at Partner Bros which, if it wasn’t the biggest department store chain in Sydney, was rapidly getting that way. To me, he looked absurdly young for his job, but that might have been because I was feeling a fraction too old for mine. He was a slightly built, fair character with a fresh complexion. His hair was cut short and I suspected that he put something on it to keep it as neat as it was. His white shirt was as crisp and fresh as if he’d just put it on a few minutes before, although it was 11 am.
‘Mr Hardy,’ Marr said, ‘have you got a Partner Card?’
‘No. I’ve got a Medicare card and MasterCard. I was hoping to limit my card-holding to them.’
Marr raised one fair eyebrow and looked younger still. ‘You don’t approve of cards?’
‘These days I might have a couple I don’t even know about, the way things are going.’
‘Cards are the future.’
‘They’re all right for poker.’
He digested that while I looked around his office. It was neat, stocked with everything he’d need. His secretary was holding his calls and the boldly written entry in the appointments diary open on the desk in front of him showed that I had twenty minutes.
‘Well,’ he said, ‘I suppose that attitude will help keep you objective.’
‘What is the objective, Mr Marr?’
His expression showed that he didn’t like jokes that early in the day; perhaps he didn’t like them at all. ‘The Partner Card enables you to credit shop in any of our stores with a minimum of fuss. The system is completely computerised-high integrity, the most sophisticated data base and… ‘
‘Hold it. You’ve lost me.’
‘It doesn’t matter. There are more than 20,000 card-holders, state-wide.’
‘That’s more than members of the Liberal Party. It sounds wonderful for your… merchandising. What’s the problem?’
‘The card is being forged. The system is being used fraudulently.’
‘Ah.’ I sat back in the comfortable seat and thought about what I’d seen on the way to Marr’s office. I’d passed several million dollars worth of electronic junk on the way to a lift which had flashed by three floors crammed with ‘Home’, ‘Fashion’, ‘Style’ and ‘Recreational’ junk. Partners was organised in ‘Lifestyle Themes’; you set out to buy a box of matches and you ended up with a barbecue.
‘It’s serious,’ Marr said. ‘We’ve lost close to a hundred thousand dollars at last count.’
‘When did you notice it?’
‘At a credit audit a week ago. It was plain to see. The stock balance and credit account ratios… but I wouldn’t expect you to understand the technical details.’
‘You’d be right. We private detectives don’t understand much. The whole of life is a voyage of discovery for us.’
‘Are you trying to be funny, Mr Hardy? I was told you were capable and close-mouthed, not that you were a humorist.’
‘I’m not trying hard. Give me the details you think I’ll understand, Mr Marr, and I’ll try to help you.’
I’m computer-illiterate, but Marr filled me in as best he could. The phony cards had been used mostly in the electronic sub-section of ‘Home’ but also in some luxury ‘Fashion’ sections and in ‘Out-of-doors’ which had lost a prefabricated garage. A lot of liquor had been liberated too but I couldn’t work out whether it came from ‘Style’ or ‘Recreation’.
I scribbled notes while Marr talked. When he stopped I tried to show how sharp I was. ‘I can see how they could walk out with the booze and the VCRs, but not a garage.’
‘No, that was odd.’ He consulted a file on his desk. ‘The garage was delivered to an address where the home owner had no knowledge of it. The home owner didn’t even shop in Partners.’ Marr said this as if it was a matter for deep regret.
‘I’ll need that address,’ I said. ‘Also all the names and addresses on the phony cards and details on the people who could have helped from the inside. You know it has to be something like that, don’t you?’
He sighed, ‘Unhappily, yes. It’s a terrible thing -Partners has the best employee record in the industry, bar none. Well, I’ve anticipated you.’ He slid a sheet of paper across the desk. About a dozen names were listed along with addresses and jobs-Electronics Manager; Credit 2IC; Sales & Stock (Liquor); Accounts etc. The names were in two columns, one headed hardware, the other software. I tapped the headings. ‘What’s this?’
Marr’s smile made him look schoolboyish. ‘Our little joke-the “hardware” is the selling staff, who interface with the customers; the “software” is the computing staff, who… ‘
‘Don’t say it. All right, this is the address of the home owner, is it? And let me guess, this is your private phone number at the top. You’ve got an efficient secretary, Mr Marr.’
‘Top computing facilities.’
‘Yeah, well that could be your problem. In the old days you just looked and waited until you could slam the till on the hand in it.’
‘Times have changed. At first we hoped it was just someone manipulating the programs, but it became clear that false cards were involved. That made it a hands-on situation. That’s why you’re here.’
I couldn’t have taken any more of that kind of language but my time was up anyway. Marr handed me over to Kelvin Lean, the internal security officer, who grudgingly took me on a tour so I could get a sly look at the ‘hardware’. After that I went to the Personnel section where Lean showed me photographs of the others.
‘This is a smooth operation,’ he said. ‘I’ll be blunt, Hardy. I can’t see why I can’t handle it myself.’
I didn’t say anything. What Lean didn’t know was that his name appeared on my list and it was entered under both headings.
* * * *
My strategy was pretty simple-investigate the people on the list looking for changes in the patterns of their lives. Few people who suddenly come into money can resist displaying it, particularly when the money has been acquired dishonestly. And criminal association is not just limited to inarticulate phone calls between nicknames; it involves time and travel, changes in routines and rendezvous. It makes sense-if you suddenly came into a fortune would you keep on buying your fish fingers at Franklins? The hell you would.
Just to get started, I picked on Morris Guest, the fat, florid manager of the electronics section, as a subject. I followed him out of the store on his lunch hour. He went along George Street and took the underpass to the Queen Victoria Building. It was early February; the kids had just gone back to school and it was a little too early for the shops to be pushing Easter. A quiet time. Guest took the escalator to the top floor. From the close inspection he gave everything-the fancy paving, the polished brass, the stained glass-you’d have thought it was his money they’d used to fix it up.
On the Albert Walk he stood opposite a shop that sold imported rugs and wall hangings. He nodded with approval as customers entered and exited; then he went to the coffee shop and took a seat. I watched from fifty metres away. A large woman, almost as high-coloured as Guest himself, came from the shop. She joined Guest in the eatery; he rose from his chair and pecked her cheek the way a husband does when he’s hit the same spot five thousand times before. I left when they started on their lunch-double serves of frankfurts and sauerkraut, iced chocolates with whipped cream and a bushel of bread rolls. I’d check Morris Guest out a little further in Epping where he lived, but my tentative assessment was that he was too soft and comfortable to steal.
Over the next few days I plied my trade. I followed people home and watched them at night. I picked them up in the morning dnd went to work and lunch with them. I went to laundromats and the movies, McDonald’s and wine bars. I walked a lot, stood around a lot and didn’t get much sleep. After a week and a bit I’d eliminated all but three of the suspects for various reasons-some too timid, others too family-oriented, some too lazy, some too sporting and so on. The weekend was tough: I watched Kent Hayward (‘Software’) play golf at Royal Eastern; Colin McKemmish (‘Hardware’) went to the races and the dogs but didn’t bet much; Daphne Lewis went straight from her accounts department job at Partners into her role as freelance caterer. She worked non-stop through the weekend and looked more tired on Monday morning than she had on Friday night.
The garage had been delivered to an elderly widow who lived in a flat in Bondi, three floors up. She found it very funny.
‘Why didn’t they send me something useful?’ she said. ‘Like a waterbed? Tell ‘em I wanna waterbed next time.’
The break came when I was talking with Kelvin Lean in the Partners canteen the following week. Lean I’d eliminated early in the piece. He was obsessed with machismo and self-improvement- went horse-riding, pistol-shooting, took karate lessons, read Ayn Rand. If he’d caught himself being dishonest he’d have handcuffed himself and called the cops. Lean seemed better disposed towards me because I wasn’t making progress. I remarked that Kent Hayward seemed like an indoor type-he was tall and thin with a manner something like an art gallery director, part aesthete, part party-goer-and wasn’t much of a golfer despite the expensive equipment and membership of a club where the fees were steep.
‘Golf?’ Lean said. ‘That’s new for Hayward.’
‘How do you know?’
Lean fidgeted and made a train with the sugar cubes. I stared at him with my I’ve-got-my-teeth-in-your-ankle-and-I’m-not-letting-go look.
‘Staff file,’ he mumbled.
‘I saw them. They had work experience, references, financial stuff. That’s all.’
‘Private/Staff.’
‘Jesus! Look, Kelvin, I was supposed to have access to everything. Do I have to talk to Marr again about this?’
‘I don’t even know what this is. That’s my gripe.’
‘Okay. Maybe you’ll be flattered. Marr kept you in the dark because you were a suspect.’ I explained the way of it to him while he turned his sugar cube train into Stonehenge. When I finished he cracked his knuckles.
‘Maybe I can help.’
‘You can help by showing me these private files.’
‘Right.’
We went to his office and Lean transformed himself from ‘hardware’ to ‘software’ by switching on his desk computer and dancing his fingers over the keyboard. In a couple of seconds Kent Hayward’s private life was on screen. There was a lot of it. Hayward was divorced and paying maintenance and child support for three. According to the file he had no sporting interests.
‘Look at this,’ Lean said. ‘He goes on a pricy holiday last September. First time ever.’
Hayward had used the firm’s holiday service to book himself into the Tropicana Hotel at Surfers Paradise for six days. The holiday had upped his indebtedness to Partners Holiday Club but he seemed to be coping with the extra monthly instalments. ‘Could be,’ I said. ‘But people change. Take stock of themselves. Slow down.’
‘Come into money?’
‘Win it on the horses.’
Lean smiled and the grooves in his over-trained, gaunt face deepened into ruts. ‘This is it. I can smell it.’
I had to think quickly. The last thing I needed was Lean sneaking around cracking his knuckles and smelling things. I must have looked doubtful because he held up one hand placatingly while he punched keys with the other. ‘Don’t worry. I won’t interfere. I just wanted to be asked. You might give me a favourable citation in your report if it works out.’
If you can’t beat them, join them. ‘You’ve got it,’ I said.
The ‘Private/Staff files revealed nothing of interest about the other suspects and Hayward firmed as favourite. It was a bit like shooting with a telescopic sight; when the lines intersected you were in focus and on target. I went home and caught up on some sleep which was easy to do because I was living alone, apart from a cat, and visitors were rare and getting rarer. I told myself that I was lying fallow socially and sexually, rejuvenating. I told this to the cat too, but the cat didn’t believe it any more than I did.
My first move was to check on Hayward’s golf partners. My lawyer of many years standing and suffering, Cy Sackville, was a member at Royal Eastern. I called him and began by asking what his handicap was.
‘Scruples,’ he said. ‘When did you start playing straight man, Cliff?’
‘I’m working on it. What kind of people do you play golf with at Royal Eastern?’
‘Oh, judges, lawyers, doctors, stockbrokers, embezzlers, all kinds, why?’
‘I’d like to find out who a member by the name of Kent Hayward played with last weekend. Could you get the names?’
‘Nothing easier. From the book. You want the scores?’
‘No, thanks. When?’
Cy supposed he could fit in nine holes the following morning to relax him for his afternoon in court. He proposed a drink in the club bar at noon.
By then I’d had too much sleep and too much of my own company. I was refreshed, showered and shampooed and taking an interest in every woman I saw between seventeen and seventy. The waitress in the Royal Eastern bar was about thirty and moderately good looking. When she served me my
Swan Light my blood raced. Sackville wandered in and ordered Perrier.
‘How’d you do?’ I said.
‘Forty-one, double bogeyed the eighth, bugger it. Here’s what you want.’
He handed me a slip of paper. The bar was almost empty but I kept my voice low. ‘Clyde Teasdale, Reginald Broderick, Montague Porter. That wouldn’t be Monty Porter, would it?’
Sackville sipped Perrier. ‘Believe so. Any help?’
‘Could be. Thanks a lot. What’s the case this afternoon?’
He yawned. ‘One of the doctors claims one of the lawyers was embezzling from him.’
‘Was he?’
‘Probably, but we’ll sort it out.’
* * * *
Monty Porter, if he wasn’t actually Mr Big, was Mr Big Enough. If he’d been responsible for half the things that were alleged against him he’d never have had time to wash his socks. Gambling, pimping and drugs were his mainstays, but he probably financed some heavier stuff as well. Monty was married to Marjorie Legge who had a high profile in the fashion industry and the right-wing media, so for every allegation against him there was a champagne glass raised as well.
A trip to Surfers would have been welcome but I couldn’t justify it. I phoned Roger Wallace who operates several detective agencies in the eastern states. When he reached fifty, he picked his South-port agency as the one that most needed his personal touch. I asked him to run a check on the guests in the Tropicana over the period of Hayward’s stay. We exchanged pleasantries, agreed on terms and he phoned back towards evening.
‘Subject didn’t get much of the sun,’ Roger said.
‘Seems he spent most of his time in smoky rooms.’
‘Who with?’
‘Hard to say, but it could easily have been Monty Porter.’
‘Oh?’
‘Yeah. Monty was in the Honeymoon Suite at the Tropicana for some of the time. I’ll send you a list of the other names if you like.’
‘Don’t bother. Thanks, Roger.’
‘Not working for Marjorie Legge, are you?’
‘No, why?’
‘Monty was honeymooning without her.’
That was intriguing, but I was more interested in the clear focus I was getting on Kent Hayward. I enlisted Lean’s help and took a closer look at Hayward professionally and personally. He was manager in the section of the computer operation that despatched and made up accounts and upgraded the data base as required.
‘Box seat,’ Lean said.
‘What about for forging the cards?’
‘That too. He’d know the codes, the cut-outs, everything. Of course, he’d have to know some physics and electronics to make much of it.’
‘He does,’ I said. ‘I’ve followed him to the library and into bookshops. He’d rather read electronics textbooks than Wilbur Smith.’
‘I’m a Ludlum man myself,’ Lean said. ‘So what next? You going to collar him?’
‘There’s no direct proof. If he’s been careful all the way through he could show up clean.’
‘Yeah. I’ve been doing a little quiet snooping myself. Don’t worry, not on the ground. Through the computer-there’s something a bit funny about this fraud.’
‘Struck me they could’ve got away with a hell of a lot more if they’d wanted to,’ I said.
‘There’s that. But it looks as if all kinds of things have been tried out, all parts of the program.’
‘Don’t follow.’
‘Goods sent to addresses, goods returned and exchanged, items queried, lots of checking of the data base. You’d have thought they’d run the phony cards through the easiest channels but it hasn’t been like that at all. They’ve gone the tough route most times.’
‘As if they were checking that it all worked?’
‘That’s what it looks like. What d’you make of it?’
‘All I can think of is that something bigger is on the way. Thanks Kelvin, you’ve been a big help.’
‘As I say, put it in the report.’
* * * *
They were the last words I ever heard from Kelvin Lean. A little later, after I’d done some more surveillance of Hayward without result, Marr telephoned to tell me that Lean had killed himself.
‘It was a great shock. He was a good man, or so we thought.’
‘Me too. Why?’
‘He left a note to say that he was afraid he had AIDS.’
‘Looked pretty healthy to me.’
‘Well, there it is. I suppose the autopsy will tell the story.’
‘How did he die?’
‘He used his shotgun. I believe. Now, d’you think this could have any bearing on your investigation?’
‘Don’t know. Do you?’
‘No fraudulent card use has been reported in the past week. What have you turned up so far?’
‘A suspect with no proof.’
‘Any connection with Lean?’
‘I’ll look into it.’
‘If there are no further losses… ‘
‘Sure, you’ll consider the case closed. Give me a few more days, Mr Marr.’
I didn’t believe Kelvin Lean had AIDS or thought he had it. And I didn’t believe he committed suicide. I phoned Detective Inspector Frank Parker of the Homicide branch and found the police weren’t too convinced either.
‘Difficult to say, Cliff. Typed note. Prints on the shotgun but you know… ‘
‘What do you think of the AIDS theory?’
‘Not gay, no drugs and what was left of him would put you and me to shame for muscle tone. What’s your interest?’
‘Can’t say. When will you get the autopsy report?’
‘I can’t say. Perhaps when you decide to cooperate.’
Logic led to Hayward. As a working theory: Hayward finds out that Lean has been checking on him through the computer. Hayward has a lot to hide and nasty friends like Monty Porter. Exit Lean. Confronting Hayward seemed like my only option if Partners were going to pull the plug on me. Besides, killing Lean looked like an overreaction to a fraud investigation, even a major one. Maybe I could panic Hayward.
He lived in Woollahra, in a big white building that looked as if it had once been a squatter’s townhouse but was now four elegant flats. Elegant but old, or perhaps elegant because old. At 6 pm I was parked on the other side of the road watching the expensive cars swirl around the streets, slip into the garages slotted in under the high-sitting nouses or jostle for parking space under the plane trees. Hayward had a garage for his Holden Calais. When he closed the roller door I was only a few metres away. When he put the key in the front door to the building I was by his side.
‘Let’s go inside, Mr Hayward. Let’s talk.’
‘Who the hell are you?’ He threw back his head, to toss long hair out of his eyes and to look through the bottom part of his bifocal lenses. He had his suit coat over his arm, neatly folded, and he was wearing a bow tie. This made me happier about heavying him. I gripped his elbow and bustled him through the door. He tried to prop but he had no experience in the physical side of life. I kept him moving up the stairs and to the door of his flat by keeping him off balance and increasing the pressure on his arm. He was saying things like ‘This is intolerable’ but I wasn’t listening.
So we were in the passageway of his flat and I was doing fine when suddenly things went wrong. First, a man appeared out of nowhere; he moved smoothly, seeming to take all the time in the world, and he shot Hayward between the eyes. I felt Hayward sag away from me and collapse. I flattened myself against the wall and tried to reach for my .38 knowing all the time that I’d be much, much too slow.
The gunman knew it too; he sighted on my chest and gestured for me to drop my hand. I did it; at that range he couldn’t miss.
‘Well,’ he said, ‘what’s this?’
Another man edged cautiously from a room off the passage. The gunman was medium-sized and wide with a bald head and an almost immobile face. The second man was younger, not out of his twenties. He had long dark hair and a slack, shocked expression on his face. He said, ‘Shoot him,’ so I liked him less than the other who could’ve shot me but hadn’t tried.
‘This isn’t the bargain basement, sport. I don’t do it in job lots.’
‘Come on,’ the dark one said. ‘He seen every thing. You’ve gotta… ‘
‘I don’t have to do anything. Look at him. The man’s carrying a gun. He could be a cop. Or he could be someone I can talk to.’
‘That’s right,’ I croaked.
‘Shit! You just want more money.’
The gunman kept his pistol, which looked like a silenced .22, very steady. ‘That’d help,’ he said. ‘Let’s get out of the hall. We can sit down and you can use the phone.’
We went through to the big living room which was dark because all the curtains had been drawn against the light and the heat. The gunman didn’t seem to have any trouble seeing; he gestured for me to sit in a chair in the corner and for the other man to use the phone.
‘Hey, don’t give me orders. Just kill him.’
‘You don’t have the clout to order a kill, friend.’
The dark man picked up the phone and hit the buttons. He waited, began to speak and stopped. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Ten minutes, but tell him it’s important.’ He read the phone number slowly and clearly and hung up. ‘We gotta wait.’
The gunman smiled; until then his face had been so still I was surprised he could do it. ‘Why don’t you make us a drink, Charley?’ he said.
‘Fuck you. And my name isn’t Charley, it’s…’
‘Shut up, you bloody amateur. Charley’ll do. Get us a drink, unless you’d rather hold the gun?’
My eyes had grown used to the gloom; it was a big room with a bay window and some low, unobtrusive furniture. The hi-fi looked good and new, so did the TV and VCR. The gunman sat three metres from me and out of the way of all distraction. He saw me judging distance and angles and shook his head. Charley came in with two drinks, whisky and ice.
‘One for him, too.’
‘What the fuck for?’
‘You’re paining me, you know that? I didn’t like having to bring you along in the first place and I’m liking it less. Just do as I say. It might help him talk. By the way, sport. You might put the gun on the table here. Easy.’
I took out the .38 and put it on the coffee table. I had to lean almost out of my chair to reach it. The gunman would have had to get up to take it but he didn’t bother. He gestured for me to sit back. Charley returned with a solid Scotch and I took a drink thinking that the odds had shrunk from short to hopeless.
‘Name?’
‘Hardy.’
‘Cop?’
I shook my head. ‘Private. Partners hired me to look into the card business.’
He nodded. ‘Anything to trade?’
I shook my head again. I was thinking about throwing the glass and risking a .22 in the body, but the precise way Hayward had been plugged deterred me.
‘This is a big operation,’ Charley said. ‘The trump won’t want any loose ends.’
I jerked my thumb at the passage. ‘Is that what he was?”
‘Yeah. He was leavin’ tracks.’
I drank some more Scotch and sneered at him.
‘Big operation my arse,’ I said. ‘Hitting a department store for a few thousand. Fake credit cards. That’s not big, it’s medium at best. I think our friend here better worry about getting his fee.’
‘He’ll get it,’ Charley said. ‘This is really big. Three dead men.’
‘I make it two, Lean and Hayward.’
‘I was countin’ you, arsehole.’
‘You talk too much,’ the gunman said contemptuously. He sipped his drink. ‘Why don’t you just tell him all you know while you’re at it?’
Charley threw his Scotch straight down. ‘Why not? He’s dead when the phone rings. You think the Partners stuff is small time? You’re right. But it’s a practice, you dumb arsehole, and it’s not the only one.’
Suddenly it all made sense-the thorough testing of the data base, the relatively small yield. ‘Practice for what?’
‘I wouldn’t,’ the gunman said. ‘I don’t want to know.’
‘Screw you. For when they bring in the Australia Card. We’re gonna be ready to crack it wide open. We’ll get millions out of it before they know what’s fuckin’ happened to them.’ He smiled triumphantly but his face still looked unambitious and dumb.
‘Who’s we?’ I said.
The phone rang. I finished my drink and looked at the gunman who put down his glass and indicated that I should do the same.
‘Yeah,’ Charley said into the phone. ‘He’s here.’ He listened and then extended the phone to the gunman. ‘Wants to talk to you.’
The gunman got up in an easy fluid movement, kept the pistol on me and took the receiver. He listened, said ‘Understood,’ and handed the receiver to Charley.
‘What’d he say?’
‘He said to make it a double. Sorry.’ He shot Charley in the head. I moved like a twelve-year-old, springing from the chair, hitting the floor in a diving roll and grabbing my .38 from the table all at once. I heard the .22 crack and I got one shot off that went into the ceiling, but by then I was almost behind a high-backed chair and the gunman was facing a heavier calibre gun and a more desperate man. He fired once at the chair but he was already on the retreat. He was quicker than me; by the time I was clear of the chair and had hurdled Charley’s body, the passage was empty apart from the slumped body of Kent Hayward. The door was flapping open. A face appeared in the opening, a woman.
‘Hey,’ she yelled.
I said, ‘Call the police.’ Then I looked at Hayward and the gun in my hand. I tried to look reassuring but she covered her face with her hands and shrank back. ‘No, don’t bother,’ I said. ‘I’ll do it myself.’
* * * *
The bodies brought Frank Parker, who listened quietly to what I had to say while a forensic man bustled around the room and the uniformed cops dealt with the ambulance, the other residents in the flats and sundry spectators. I gave Frank everything, including Monty Porter’s name and his connection with Hayward. I told him what Charley had said about the practice run for the Australia Card, as close to word for word as I could recall it.
‘They’re starting early,’ was all he said.
‘Think you’ll be able to tie Porter in with this guy?’ I pointed to the chalk on the chair which marked where Charley had died.
‘What d’you reckon? Describe the killer for me.’
‘Thirty, maybe a bit more; bald head, maybe shaved; brown eyes, maybe contacts; five nine… ‘
‘But maybe he had lifts in his shoes. Maybe his teeth were false. No, nothing’ll tie up to anything else. Well, your clients’ll be happy. You’ve given them Hayward. End of story.’
‘You might find out he owed Porter money.’
Frank laughed. ‘Porter hasn’t got any money. Not a cent. How he lives in a two million dollar house when he’s so poor beats me.’
‘Will you tell the Federal people about this?’
‘I’ll tell them. It’ll take me a couple of days to write the reports. Then you know what’ll happen? They’ll issue a statement confirming the high integrity of the Australia Card.’
I shrugged. ‘Who cares?’
Frank looked at me. ‘Not very public-spirited.’
I watched the forensic guy put my .38 in a plastic bag and label it. I thought about the statements I was going to have to make and the forms I’d have to fill in to get it back. Bureaucracy. ‘I don’t want a bloody Australia Card,’ I said. ‘When I want another card I ask the dealer.’