Free Deal Me Out by Peter Corris Page A

grabbed them and throttled him.’
    ‘Get stuffed.’
    ‘Don’t be like that, Geoff. You’ll mend. Sorry I didn’t bring any grapes.’
    ‘Get stuffed.’
    He pressed a button and a white-coated male nurse came in and wheeled him away. I paced up and down in the gloomy little room trying to assess how much worse things had got. In general, the fewer trios of efficient heavies that know your name the better. It sounded like high time for me to get myself a dog like Max or go to Melbourne.
    Back home I phoned Terry Reeves and gave him an edited version of what I had. My best card was the news that one of the phoney car renters was in the hospital.
    ‘Good,’ Terry said. ‘You put him there?’
    ‘No, but he won’t be driving cars for a bit.’
    ‘Where’s the one he took?’
    ‘Sorry, mate, it’s gone through the system.’
    ‘It figures. Well, at least I haven’t lost any more since I saw you. Any point in bringing a charge?’
    ‘Not if you want to crack the system and maybe recover the cars.’
    ‘That’s the second time you’ve said system—how d’you see it?’
    ‘Big operation, well-financed, good procedures, and there’s something else in it—something above and beyond the cars, but I don’t know what.’
    ‘Just stick to the cars, will you, Cliff? Keep your imagination in check.’
    ‘What about my initiative?’
    ‘What’s it going to cost?’
    ‘I’ve got to go to Melbourne.’
    He groaned. ‘Maybe I’ll take a holiday when it’s all over. I need one I can tell you. Well, thanks for all the information, Cliff.’
    ‘You know how it is—little by little.’
    ‘Yeah, well, soldier on, Cliff, and listen, take care, all right?’
    I rang off, and reflected on how much hung on this case—Bill Mountain’s life maybe, Erica Fong’s lungs and Terry Reeves’ long overdue holiday. TAA offerred me two flights—one I could catch easily and one I’d have to rush more. I accepted the challenge, packed a bag in record time and threw in West’s
The World is Made of Glass
and
The Intimate Sex Lives of Famous People.
My white jeans and shirt made me feel like a bowls player, so I put on a navy shirt and a leather jacket. I left my one funeral tie behind; I didn’t expect to be visiting the Melbourne Club.

9
    O N the plane I skipped through
Intimate Sex Lives,
jumping from the ones who’d had a hell of a good time, like Picasso and Josephine Baker, to those whom sex had made thoroughly miserable, like D.H. Lawrence and Paganini. I decided that I was somewhere in the middle. The flight took about an hour; after five minutes the woman sitting next to me clicked her tongue disapprovingly when she saw what I was reading, and stared fixedly out the window for the rest of the hour. She seemed to disapprove of what she saw out there too.
    My knowledge of Melbourne is sketchy. A flight attendant told me that she thought Bentleigh was a southern suburb; I knew the airport lay to the west of the city so I took the airport bus into town. The Tullamarine freeway must be one of the most boring stretches of road on the planet; either they picked a boring landscape to run it through or they made it that way in the process. Anyway, there was nothing on the run to occupy my thoughts or delight my eye until we reached the city, which looked pretty good in the afternoon sun, if you like broad, tree-lined streets and a flat landscape.
    At the city terminal I hired one of Reeves’
Bargain Renta Cars,
thinking that I shouldn’t have any trouble with this item on the expense account.
    ‘I’m sorry about all the red tape,’ the woman who processed the hiring said. ‘It used to be simpler.’
    ‘That’s okay,’ I said. I looked for the hidden camera behind the desk, but couldn’t spot it. ‘Do you have a Gregory’s in the car?’
    ‘I’m sorry?’
    I rapped the counter. ‘My fault—Sydney born and bred. I mean a street directory.’
    ‘There’s a directory in the glove box. Where are you going,