Table Of ContentWhat the critics have said: ‘Corris' story is
clever, his asides wry, his language rough but
whimsical. Once more Corris captures
intonations of speech and nuances in gestures
adeptly; that gift (and cunning similes) are
the hallmarks of a thriller craftsman.’
The Canberra Times
‘Corris's book is tight without losing its humanity—professional without being
slick. Hardy as well as being tough and wise, is also determined, resilient …
Amid the footslogging, the action, the beatings Hardy receives, the twists and
turns of the ingenious plot and the strongly characterised cast there is
nightmarishly grim descriptive writing …’
The West Australian
‘Cliff Hardy is … as Australian as two-up and Fosters.’
The Australian
Peter Corris
HEROIN ANNIE
and other Cliff Hardy stories
GEORGE ALLEN & UNWIN
SYDNEY LONDON BOSTON
© Peter Corns 1984
This book is copyright under the Berne Convention.
No reproduction without permission. All rights
reserved.
First published in 1984
Second impression 1984
Third impression 1984
George Allen & Unwin Australia Pty Ltd
8 Napier Street, North Sydney NSW 2060
George Allen & Unwin (Publishers) Ltd
18 Park Lane, Hemel Hempstead, Herts HP2 4TE
England Allen & Unwin Inc.
Fifty Cross Street, Winchester
Mass 01890 USA National Library of Australia
Cataloguing-in-Publication entry: Corris, Peter, 1942- .
Heroin Annie and other Cliff Hardy stories.
ISBN 0 86861 399 1.
I. Detective and mystery stories, Australian.
I. Title
A823.’3
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 83-72896
Set in 10/1l pt Century by Post Typesetters, Brisbane.
Printed by Wing King Tong Co Ltd, Hong Kong.
For Jim Hall
Contents
Marriages are made in heaven
Heroin Annie
The luck of Clem Carter
Silverman
Stockyards at Jerilderie
Blood is thicker
Mother's boy
Man's best friend
Escort to an easy death
California dreamland
Marriages are made in heaven
‘You're cold, Cliff!’ Cyn banged her fist on my desk. ‘That's your bloody trouble,
you're cold? She was close to tears the way she always got when we argued.
They weren't tactical tears, but they were part of the reason that I nearly always
lost the arguments.
‘I'm not cold’, I said. ‘I'm warm-hearted, a loving man. I'll take you out
tonight.’
‘I don't want to go out.’
‘Okay, we'll stay home. I'll cook.’
The telephone rang. We were in my office where I answer the telephone, open
the door and type the letters myself, because there's no-one else to do it.
‘Hardy Investigations. Warm-hearted Hardy speaking.’
‘Your heart's as warm as Bob Askin's. Cut out the bullshit, Cliff, I've got a job
for you.’ It was Athol Groom, who works in advertising and agenting; he
sometimes drinks where I sometimes drink.
‘Terrific, Athol’, I said. Athol deals in people with soft jobs; Cyn calls him a
pimp, and she made a face when I said his name. ‘What sort of job?’
‘Come down here and I'll tell you.’ He gave me his address.
‘How long do you reckon this'll take?’
‘How the hell do I know? All day, all night, all week. The longer the better as
far as you're concerned, isn't it?’
‘Yeah, I guess so.But I've gone up to seventy-five a day and expenses.’
‘Shit. All right. Just hurry, she'll be here soon.’
‘She?’
‘Selina Hope. Hurry.’
I put down the phone and stood up; Cyn moved away from me as if we were
in a slow ballet.
‘A job’, I said.
‘It's always a job, what we need is a talk-tonight.’
‘I don't know, love.’
‘A minute ago you were going to cook some slop for me, drink two-thirds of
the wine and that.’
She was looking very nice that morning, my wife. Nearly as tall as me, she
was straight and slim with honey-blonde hair. She must have come directly from
the architect's office where she worked because she still had draughtsman's ink
on her fingers. She saw me looking, and her fine-boned, handsome face went
hard.
‘Cold’, she said. ‘Selfish and cold.’
I patted her arm, there were no tears which was good. I went out.
Athol's pimping shop was in Double Bay on a steep hill. I ran the back wheels of
my old Falcon into the kerb and let it sit there in a way which says to the world,
‘This car has a faulty handbrake’; but what can you do? Athol's decor was
dominated by photographs, mirrors and magazines. The pictures were blow-ups
of models with impossible cheek bones doing mysterious things amid shadows.
The magazines were glossy, and the mirrors are fine if you're a five foot nine
clothes horse with the right angles and planes. When you're a thin, six foot,
thirtyish man with untidy dark hair and Grace Bros, clothes, they're not so good.
A lacquered, Sassooned brunette pressed a buzzer when I told her who I was,
and Athol hurried out.
Athol Groom is one of those men in the fifties who plays squash and eats
nothing so as to keep his waist down; he likes a drink though, and that slight
thickening won't be denied. He has a glossy moustache, and hair and teeth to
match, but he's not a phoney.
‘Good to see you, Cliff, how's Cyn?’ I took Athol home once, and after one
look at Cyn he tried to persuade her to take up photo modelling. She laughed at
him.
‘All right. What's going on?’
The brunette looked at her appointment book and spoke up crisply. ‘Mr Blake
is due any minute, Mr Groom.’
‘Right, right. Come on, Cliff, you're a bodyguard; come and meet the body.’
We went down a corridor past more photographs and into Groom's office. A
woman was leaning back against the big desk combing her hair. It was worth
combing, a great blue-black mane that rippled and flowed under the comb
strokes. Its owner had the standard tall, thin, flat body; but with a face to haunt
your dreams forever. Her skin was darkish, almost olive; she had jet black
