The Washington Club Read Online Free PDF Page A

the supposed other man?’
    â€˜Right again. But I don’t think it’s going to be that simple.’
    â€˜Christ, I hope not,’ Cy said.

4
    I left a message on Pete Marinos’ answering machine asking him to arrange an arm’s-distance minder for Claudia Fleischman. Pete has been a lot of things in his time—footballer, disc jockey, stand-up comic—and now he employs all his talents as a private enquiry agent. He can talk his way in and out of tricky situations better than anyone I know and, at about five foot six with curly hair and soft brown eyes, he looks harmless. He isn’t. If he didn’t do it himself he’d find someone to keep discreet watch on Claudia without her being aware of it. I told the machine that Cy Sackville was employing me—that would give Pete confidence and convey the seriousness of the matter. Unlike a lot of people in our game, Pete plays it straight and wouldn’t sell any information he got to the tabloids.
    I went to bed very sober, feeling upright and glad to be working on something solid, even if it had disturbing aspects, or perhaps
because
of those aspects. One of my favourite writers is Graham Greene and I’ve read thatfending off boredom was one of his big problems. Same for me, especially in these unattached days. Greene did it with drink, travel and writing, and good luck to him.
    Although I was tired, I lay sleepless for a while thinking of Claudia Fleischman’s toothy good looks and wishing I could have done the surveillance on her myself. Instead of which I’d managed to piss her off. Still, it was early days and the lady just might be a cold, calculating murderer. That was a little too disturbing and I tried to focus my mind on something else. A night southerly got up and a branch I’d meant to trim away weeks before started brushing against the bedroom window. It sounded as if someone was scratching at the pane, trying to find a way in. I drifted off to sleep and into a dream in which I was digging a deep hole in my tiny backyard. That dream ended; I dreamed something unconnected and then in a third dream I was in the backyard and falling down the hole. No more dreams after that.
    In the old days, gathering background information on people like the Fleischmans and Katz and the dirt on characters like Robert Van Kep and Haitch Henderson took legwork, contacts and hard currency. You spent time in libraries, hung out in newspaper offices and bought drinks for reporters and cops. Now all it takes is a few phone calls and faxes to the right numbers, the reading off of your credit cardnumbers and the writing of cheques to organisations with names like Information Services Inc, and Access Database. When I left the house at a bit before ten the next morning, I was confident that my fax machine would soon be chattering and that I’d have a file half an inch thick before noon.
    I took a ‘Close the Third Runway’ flyer out from under the windscreen and put it in my pocket.
    â€˜You’ve parked me in!’ The speaker was a tall, skinny guy I’d only seen a few times before—a new arrival in the street, a stranger. He wore a cream linen suit and carried a briefcase pretty much the same colour, probably had them to match all his outfits. His vehicle was a big blue Toyota Land Cruiser that looked as if it had never been off the tarmac. It had wide wheels, a bull-bar and other chrome accessories whose functions I could only guess at. The distance between the front of my car and the back of his was about a metre. The Toyota hadn’t been there when I’d arrived home. I walked forward and saw that his bull-bar was about the same distance from the car in front—a red Commodore which also hadn’t been there when I’d parked.
    I pointed at the Commodore.
‘He
or she parked you in, mate, not me. Anyway, I’m off, so you’ll be all right.’
    But he wanted a fight. ‘Your old