Sitting there aching and getting drunk, my mind naturally began to run on failure. I tried to think of the cases I’d abandoned for one reason or another. There were a few, given up because I’d been lied to in the first place or because the trouble I was looking into had happened too long ago. I could only think of one given up because I’d been scared, and then I was scared of the police and the politicians and only someone with concrete brains wouldn’t have been scared. I was scared now and I didn’t like it. Emptying my pockets to get into a more comfortable drinking posture, I turned up Kay’s letter. I smoothed it out, poured more wine, and read it.
Dear Cliff,
I’ve thought of you often, wondering how you were and whether you’ve had any regrets about us. I got your letter, but it didn’t say much and I was gung ho after some story or other at the time.
I’ve calmed down a bit and I’m considering an offer from a Sydney paper. Good offer and Sydney’s the only place in Australia I’d want to work. Don’t know what you feel about me but I’d love to see you again. Don’t feel threatened for Chrissake-just telling you I’m thinking of coming back and I’ve got no ties.
I hope you can help my friend Pauline who’s a peach who made the bad mistake of marrying a lying shit. She’s worth helping, Cliff; I did a bit when she made the break but she needs brains and guts now on the money matter, and that’s you in my book. If you can get the money for her I’ll be confirmed in my feeling that you’re a prince.
See you soon, I hope. love,
KAY
It made me think of the few nights I’d spent with Kay and the many nights I’d spent without anyone, and I wanted to see her very badly. My head started to hurt less and I started to feel angry-maybe it was my pride coming back. I had a few days worth of Pauline Angel’s money and an incentive-more than enough motivation. I drank some coffee, showered, put some healing ointment on my head and a cap over it, and went back to work.
A few phone calls deepened the mystery-Ben Angel was an architect all right, but he didn’t seem to do much business. He was an American who’d acquired right of residence on Australia through his marriage to Pauline. He’d opened an office in Sydney and there was talk of big contracts, but so far it was just talk. I couldn’t get anything about his career in America at such short notice except the suggestion that his name might originally have had a few more vowels and consonants in it. Mrs Angel II was more accessible-she worked at a TV station as a PR person. My informant was a journalist who happened to know that Tolley Angel was hosting a small party at the station that evening.
‘Tolley?’ I said.
‘That’s the name she goes by.’
‘How would I spot her?’
‘Look up, they tell me she’s six foot two.’
I drank some more coffee and went out wearing my cap and poplin raincoat and trying to look French. The TV station was on the north side, and I drove into the parking area as if I belonged.
There weren’t many of the minions cars around but the executives’ spaces were pretty well filled with Mercs, Volvos and the like. I tried to guess which of the cars would be Tolley Angel’s; and had settled on a black Porsche when she came out of the building-that is, a six-foot-two brunette with an executive briefcase and about a thousand dollars worth of clothes on her back came out. She seemed to be in a hurry, because she almost ran to a silver grey BMW and took off with spinning wheels and spitting gravel. I followed her, blowing smoke.
The BMW wound down through Lane Cove towards the city. It wasn’t hard to follow because she drove well, signalling early and making her moves decisively; it was a pleasure to watch her drive. She stopped in Drummoyne in a street that didn’t have anything in particular to recommend it and when I saw a middle-aged man in fashionable casual clothes come bouncing out of an ordinary looking house, jump the low fence and grab her as soon as she got clear of the car, I was so surprised I nearly leaned on the horn. They hugged and kissed enthusiastically, and then he escorted her back into the house with his arm around her so tightly she could hardly walk. She wasn’t protesting. I was parked a few cars away; the light was poor but the film in the camera was fast. I got the whole show, frame by frame. After a scarcely decent interval she came out of the house, alone; the front of her dress was unbuttoned in manner not dictated by fashion and her hair had escaped its modish arrangement and was hanging loose. She reached into the car and pulled out a wrapped bottle: I snapped her-dress, hair, bottle and all-and felt like the second-assistant pimp.
She went back into the house, happy and jaunty and somehow I didn’t think she’d be out soon. I didn’t feel like hanging around to see if she did up her dress right or what the brand of the wine was; I drove home and started on some wine of my own. My head was hurting and not only from the earlier beating; I had one of my periods of self-dislike at what I did for a living. I believed in people doing what made them feel good and I didn’t like fingering them because other people didn’t like them doing it. There’s no remedy except to grow another skin and push on. I used the Council rate roll to identify Tolley Angel’s lover-Claude Murray and the telephone book gave me his trade-screenwriter. Call it prejudice, but the hyphen made me feel just a little better. I took a glass of wine and a biography of Scott Fitzgerald to bed. I read for a little while, thought about Kay and then I slept.
Pauline Angel was living in a friend’s house in Balmoral close to the beach and not too close to the neighbours. The house was set on a bigger block of land than is usual in those parts, and the grass and the white paint and the palm trees on either side and in front gave it a feel of the Raj, which would be pretty easy to take in most moods. I went up the steep path in front to the wooden steps that led to a high verandah, running the width of the house. The air felt cleaner just those few metres up. I’d phoned, she was expecting me and there was a pot of tea and milk and mugs on a table in the open. I accepted the tea and repressed the shudder.
She was going to have to nice tan soon, but the strain in her face was beginning to eat at her good looks.
‘Nice place,’ I said. ‘Your husband has a pretty nice place too.’
‘Ex-husband. Has he? I’ve never been there.’
‘Yeah, it’s got better security than this-high wall, peep hole, bodyguard…’
‘You’re joking!’
‘I’m not.’ I lifted the cap and fingered the back of my head which was tender; a little blood came off on my hand and I showed it to her. ‘One of the bodyguards paid me a visit. He warned me off with a blunt instrument.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Neither do I. Mrs Angel, you told me your husband was an architect. I’ve met the odd architect but I never met one who employed muscle. How well did you know him? How long were you married?’
She drank some tea, and looked out across the palm tops to the water like a castaway hoping to see a sail. ‘We were married for four years, he was away a lot. He travelled all over the States on business. He did work for all kinds of big companies. He didn’t talk about it much. I was busy too; I was studying at City College.’ She pulled a self-mocking face. ‘I was studying ceramics, God knows why. Do you know New York?’
‘I’ve been there-wouldn’t say I know it.’
‘Well, you know what a crazy place it is. It was all foreign to me and Ben was born there, he seemed to know it so well. I didn’t know how marriages worked there, he told me ours was fine and I believed him. That sounds crazy doesn’t it?’
‘Not really. It sounds like New York, though.’
‘The truth is I didn’t know him very well. No, I didn’t know him at all.’
‘Kay says he was a liar, what’s that mean?’
‘In the end I found out he had another woman living in an apartment just like the one we were in, and not far away. I don’t think he was travelling as much as he said he was.’ She finished her tea and lit a cigarette. ‘Maybe he never travelled at all, or just across a couple of blocks. I don’t know. I loved him, he was great fun. I just can’t understand what happened, why he went… so strange about the money.’