Make Me Rich by Peter Corris

him in his place but I couldn’t. It was a relief to leave him there and go back up to the better company in the bar.
    I worked my way back to the bar and decided to stay for the length of one more drink. The beer came and I raised it unenthusiastically—the steak and pills had probably done their work, I didn’t feel drunk. I didn’t drink—five metres away Liam Catchpole, with his French cuffs turned back and his hair slicked down—was gently opening his hands to let four glasses down on to the top of a freshly wiped table.

6
    I’d only met Catchpole once, and then only briefly. Since then he’d had his picture in the papers. I hadn’t. I knew him but there was no reason to think that he’d know me. Anonymity is an asset in my game, and I was careful to preserve it.
    I took a quiet sip of the beer and surveyed Catchpole’s companions. Ray Guthrie wasn’t hard to spot although he’d put on weight since he stood, proud and free at the wheel of the
Satisfaction
, for the camera. He’d also grown a face-brutalising, droopy moustache. He looked prosperous in a blue silk shirt and his hair was expensively cut and styled. He was drinking beer, probably the source of the extra weight, and he’d lost his outdoors look.
    The woman sitting next to him was Dottie Williams. I’d once seen a blurred newspaper photograph of her and it was enough to confirm the judgement. She had a mass of light red, curly hair, a soft round face and a double chin. She was wearing earrings that dangled near her shoulders and a frilly white blouse. The effect was supposed to be of soft femininity, but when she glanced across the bar I got a look at her blue eyes—they were as hard as hacksaw blades.
    Williams kept her attention on Ray, leaning toward him, touching his arm. Like him she was drinking beer. Catchpole and the other man were drinking spirits. His back was turned to me; it was a very big back, wide at the shoulder and wide all the way down to a thick, spreading waistline.The dark hair had departed from the top of his head, leaving him with a fringe around a bald dome. The exposed skin was very dark, so was the flesh of his thick neck.
    I began to move around the bar to get another angle on the group. Catchpole was doing the talking now: four heads leaned forward toward the centre of the table like footballers in a huddle. Catchpole shut up and drank—they all pulled back and relaxed. That’s when I took the first picture by cupping my chin in my hands and shooting through the opened fingers. I shifted the grip and took a few more so as not to end up with only arty finger close-ups.
    The huddle again, and I moved to get a better view of the big, dark man. In profile he looked even more bulky; the depleted hair was carefully cut and his dark, fleshy face was shaved close. Everything about him—his business shirt with the gold cufflinks, the quiet tie with gold bar, the trousers so well cut that his pockets sat flat and his gut didn’t stretch the pleating, said
cop
.
    The crowd in the bar had thinned out a bit; I wanted more pictures, but if he was a cop it wouldn’t be a good idea to be caught candid-cameraing him in the Noble Briton. He turned toward me and I took a chance; knuckling my eyes, I got one of him almost full-face. He had a meaty nose and a puffy, down-turned mouth. This guy had changed a lot, and all for the worse, since his mum had had him on her knee.
    I tucked the camera away and backed off, leaving the next move to them. Their move was to have another round of drinks and do some more talking. Williams and Ray Guthrie stayed in eye contact; Catchpole and the man who I had privately dubbed “the cop,” talked intently, occasionally consulting the others. There was nodding and head shaking. I didn’t think they were discussing existentialism, and I would have loved to know what they
were
talking about, but there was no chance of that.