by Ron Thomas
Meggsie was laying out apples on the sloping display shelf, polishing each one and taking care to place them with their best side showing and trying to match Benito’s deft speed. Suddenly an apple at the bottom of the pile rolled from its place and in an instant, Meggsie had an apple avalanche on his hands. His panicky shout brought Benito on the run. Meggsie crouched and spread his arms wide, holding back most of the fruit. Only a couple of apples overflowed and bounced across the floor. With Benito’s help, they repacked the fruit. Meggsie expected at least a clip over the ear and a tongue lashing, but the blow never came.
‘Sorry. They just got away,’ he said apologetically, but was surprised by Benito’s hearty laughter. Then Benito slapped him on the back.
‘Doesn’t matter! Shit happens! You should have seen the look on your face as you were doing a Moses, holding back the tide!’ Meggsie crawled around the floor, gathering the fallen apples. Benito seemed to think the boy’s misfortune was hilarious. He took the apples one at a time, inspecting each one carefully. Two passed muster. He polished them on his sleeve and placed them carefully back on the shelf. A half-dozen more had bruises. Benito selected the two best and threw the others into a nearby box, then bit into one and chewed contentedly ‘This is how we treat escapees,’ he commented.
Benito held the other one out to Meggsie.
‘Thanks Benny,’ Meggsie said as he accepted the apple. Benito’s smile faded.
‘My proper name is Benito,’ he chided. His voice was kindly enough. ‘Customers can call me whatever they like, they can call me shit-for-brains as long as they buy. You gotta be respeckful. I’m-a the boss, see, and you’re the boy, the ragazzo. Respect is important. Remember that. Benito, got that?’
***
As Gilbert Maggs lay back in the darkness, snug in his cocoon of sacks smelling of cabbages, he found sleep difficult to come by. He’d enjoyed his day. With his hands behind his head, he reflected on his fortune. He’d swelled with pride when he’d started the old 1918 Thornycroft flatbed with only four pulls of the crank handle, and he loved his first ride in a truck through the wet, dark Sydney streets. The market seemed to be a place where everyone was a friend, and abuse was little more than the banter of mates. With Benito’s help, he knew he could master the tasks required to succeed in the fruit and veg business. Unlike his previous experiences, he found that Benito Battaglia was a benign and surprisingly easy-going boss. It had been a good day.
He was beginning to drift off, when his thoughts wandered off unbidden into other territory. Was he a murderer? Had he really killed Harry Moon? Would the police turn up at Benny’s someday soon and put him on trial? How he wished he could talk his situation over with somebody. Gilbert had never had anyone to talk through any of his problems, and he needed somebody now. The thought occurred to him that perhaps Benito would understand, but he couldn’t even imagine how he would begin to tell the fruiterer his story. Hours later, he drifted off into an uneasy sleep. In the cold light of dawn, he dreamed he was being chased by Harry Moon’s ghost.
***
The following morning when Benito arrived, his protégé was ready to go. He’d combed his hair with his new hairbrush and brushed his teeth with the sixpenny toothbrush, both of which Benito had purchased for him cheap at the markets.
‘You look pretty spiffy, young fellow,’ Benito said. ‘The boys at the market will reckon you’re a mug lair. Pity about that tear in your shirt. Let’s get a go on and beat the crowd.’
The day was even better than the first. Already, many of the sellers at the market remembered him, and seemed eager to greet him. Already, Meggsie was accepted. He was one of them.
***
For the most part, it was quiet in the shop most weeknights, except for the Oxford Street traffic. When Friday came, it was soon evident that Fridays were different. About two hours after closing time, well after Benito had gone home, Meggsie heard the creaking sound of rusty hinges as somebody opened the back gate. His first thought was that someone was stealing the truck. With his heart racing, he grabbed a jemmy they used for opening the boxes and stood by the back door listening for the cranking sounds that would mean the Thornycroft was being nicked. Then a key turned in the lock of the back door and it opened slowly. Meggsie stood ready to swing the jemmy. Suddenly, the figure of Guido Caletti was silhouetted in the doorway.
‘Jesus, Meggsie, you scared the shit out of me!’ Guido said. ‘I forgot you’d be here. I always have a little meeting here Fridays with my mates.’ Guido came into the room followed by two men, one lanky, the other heavy-set.
‘This is Meggsie. He’s working in the shop,’ Guido explained. ‘He just started this week.’
‘Feisty little bugger,’ the taller man said.
‘Benny found him nicking bananas. We’re trying to save him from a life of crime.’ Guido replied, laughing, thinking his little joke was hilarious. The other men laughed too, but Meggsie didn’t see the joke.
‘Meggs, meet Charlie Sorley and Bert Rushford.’ Charlie was a stout balding man, while Rushford was tall, and weather beaten, with a tattoo of a mermaid and anchor on his arm. ‘They run the game,’ Guido added, piquing Meggsie’s interest. He liked games.
‘You’ve got guts, kid,’ Rushford said. ‘Most kids would have hidden.’
‘We’ll have to throw you out for a while,’ Guido explained. ‘Private business. It won’t be for long. You can go out in the shop if you like, or out the back. I’ll give you a shout when we finish.’ Meggsie decided he’d prefer to sit in the truck, which was parked in the backyard. Meggsie liked trucks.
About half an hour later, Guido stuck his head out of the door.
‘All done,’ he said. ‘We’re off to the game now.’ Meggsie’s ears pricked up again when he heard Guido mention a game.
‘Is it footy? Can I come?’ he asked innocently.
‘No and no,’ Guido replied. ‘It’s not footy, not a kid’s game and it’s nothing to do with you. I don’t want to see you around the game. We’ll go out through the roller door and you can lock up after us.’
Suitably chastened, Meggsie subsided grumpily. After only a few nights cooped up in the fruit shop, boredom had begun to set in. A warm place to sleep and as much free fruit as a boy could eat was all very well, but there was a definite shortage of adventure. Prudence had Meggsie confined to the shop, not wanting to encounter the Forty Thieves on a dark street, but he was getting itchy feet.
He took his time closing the roller door and watched as the men disappeared through a green, narrow iron door by the butcher’s shop a dozen doors along Oxford Street. It wasn’t long before he could hear men shouting, cheering and laughing behind the green door. Only nervous fear of Guido’s wrath kept him from investigating.
***
Time flew for Meggsie in the fruit and veg business. Every day in the morning darkness, Meggsie went with Benito to the produce markets at Haymarket in the flatbed truck, and returned loaded with boxes of fruit and vegetables. The more the merchants at the market got to know him, the more they seemed to enjoy ragging the red-headed boy, but in a friendly way, and they never seemed to mind if he ate their fruit. Benito expected him to work like a man and Meggsie thrived on it. He stacked potatoes, unpacked onions, polished apples and was content. Once that was done, his next task was to walk up to the corner of Oxford Street and buy a Sydney Morning Herald from Moe Zeller’s news stand. He soon became one of Moe’s regular customers and could readily imitate Moe’s bellowing call of ‘Getcha Sinny Mornin’ ‘Erald!’ Moe was a little man in a leather apron who always had the butt end of a roll-your-own hanging from his lower lip, that jiggled when he talked. Meggsie and Moe at first just exchanged pleasantries, but when the news man found that Meggsie worked at Benny’s, they quickly became friends. Moe seemed to know everyone and everything that went on around Darlinghurst, and he forgot nothing. He enjoyed nothing more than to recite the details of events that happened twenty or thirty years before. Often Moe would point to s
ome article in The Herald and would happily provide gory details that weren’t in the newspaper. ‘Getting the paper,’ became a part of the day that Meggsie anticipated with great interest.
And almost every night, Meggsie’s thoughts would wander to his altercation with the Forty Thieves, and once sleep came, most nights the ghost of Harry Moon paid him an unwelcome visit.
Meggsie only saw Guido Caletti once or twice a week, and then only briefly, and it became obvious to Meggsie that Benito didn’t welcome his uncle’s visits. Whenever Guido was around, he brought with him an air of tension, and when he left, Benito seem to breathe a discernible sigh of relief. Often, Guido was accompanied by a man he introduced as Mickey Milligan. Milligan had sunken cheeks and a jagged scar down his face that gave his mouth a lopsided twist. ‘That’s-a what a razor does to a man’s faceface,’ Benito told him. ‘In Milligan’s case, he deserved it,’ he added, and spat on the floor.
***
It was Saturday evening and Benito was serving the last customers. Meggsie was hard at it on the broom.
‘Seven shillings and threepence, Mrs Worthington,’ Meggsie heard Benito say as he stacked vegetables in a box. I’ll have the boy run it all down to your place, if you like. It’s far too heavy for you.’
‘I’d be grateful for that, Mr Battaglia. I’m having trouble with my back these days, you know.’
‘You notice I didn’t offer to carry it myself, Mrs W. I offered the boy’s services. He’s stronger than he looks.’ Meggsie glanced up to see Benito grinning slyly in his direction. ‘I’m trying to build him up.’
‘Well thank you anyway,’ Mrs Worthington replied, putting her purse back in her bag. She unfurled her umbrella to shield her from the hot sun outside as she left Benny’s. Meggsie, having overheard the conversation kept his head down and kept sweeping. He glanced up to see Benito standing behind him with his arms folded, watching him. Thinking Benito was checking that he was sweeping properly, Meggsie swept faster, and when he took another surreptitious glance, Benito had turned away and appeared to be counting the day’s takings, so Meggsie slowed his frenetic pace.
‘Meggsie.’ Benito’s voice startled the boy.
‘Yes, boss,’ Meggsie said, a little flustered.
‘Stop-a sweeping, Meggsie,’ Benito said. ‘Pay time. Hold out your hand.’
Meggsie duly did as he was told and Benito counted out his pay. Meggsie’s eyes widened as Benito counted six two-shilling pieces into his eager palm then added a crisp one-pound note.
‘One pound twelve shillings. That’s a shilling an hour,’ Benito explained.
Meggsie could hardly believe his eyes. ‘Gee thanks, Benito! Thanks so much!’ he exclaimed, unable to keep the excitement from his voice.
‘That’s-a the right rate. You worked hard for it. Now put it in your pocket and stuff your hankie down so you won’t lose it. Then take Mrs Worthington’s box down to her place. She lives in Comber Street. Do you know it?’
‘Yes.’
‘I don’t know the number, but you can’t miss it. It’s got a pink door and lots of ivy on the front walls. Round the door, you know? It’s called Palmdale. She’s not a bad old stick. I reckon she might give you a tip if you’re lucky. I’ll finish up here.’
‘OK, boss,’ Meggsie said.
***
Meggsie carried Mrs Worthington’s box of vegetables on his shoulder in the way Benito had taught him. It made him feel like a proper fruit-and-veg man. He felt on top of the world. For the first time in his life he had the jingle of well-earned coins in his pockets, and a crisp one-pound note. The world was sweet. When Mrs Worthington added a shiny shilling to his new-found wealth, it was even sweeter.
When Meggsie arrived back at Benny’s, Benito was just locking up.
‘You took your time,’ he said, sounding a trifle annoyed.
Mrs Worthington offered me cheesecake,’ Meggsie replied.
Chapter 8
A Homicide of Fruit
For Meggsie, the period between the end of his working day and bedtime was both lonely and boring. Within weeks he knew every nook and cranny of Benny’s Fruit Market except one, and that one forbidden place intrigued him more and more as days and boring nights passed.
The left-hand drawer of Benny’s desk in the back room was locked. At first, he idly wondered why it was locked. Obviously, there must be something of value in there, or perhaps something incriminating. At first, he just tried by giving the handle a pull, a little harder than normal. Then he tried a little harder again, despite realising that if he pulled the handle off the front of the drawer, Benito would be angry. Worse, if the contents were something illegal Guido had hidden, Meggsie might have more than anger to be concerned about. For weeks, fear of the consequences made him desist. Thinking back to his first days at Benny’s, he remembered vaguely that it was Guido, not Benito, who had told him the drawer was off-limits, so prudence was called for.
Caution kicked in and he did nothing more about the drawer for more than a month. But idle wondering turned into curiosity, which turned into a consuming need to know, as lonely nights passed with little else to keep him occupied. Finally, one long night, curiosity overflowed. He pulled up a chair and examined the front of the drawer at close range, and found that he could make out the tongue that prevented it opening.
With mounting excitement, he pulled the desk lamp over, so its light fell on the desk front. In the crack at the top of the drawer front, now he could see not just the tongue, but the slot it fitted into. The whole locking mechanism didn’t look very substantial. He took a kitchen knife, and with utmost care, tried to push the tongue first left, then right. It resisted all his efforts. For some time, prudence overwhelmed a persistent temptation to take his curiosity further using more violent methods. Even the smallest scratch on the varnished drawer front would be enough to give him away.
He sat back from the desk and ate a couple of bananas as he pondered the problem. By the time he’d done that, he’d decided that he wouldn’t be defeated by a simple, ordinary desk, and he’d do well to examine the problem from another angle.
With lamp in hand, Meggsie lay on his back on the floor only to find disappointment. Aligning his eyes alternately with the gaps on each side of the drawer, there didn’t appear to be any screws showing that he could undo and drop the drawer slides down. There was a narrow space between the top of the drawer and the under surface of the desktop, and he found that if he twisted his body at just the right angle, he could push his hand in there.
The first thing his groping finger found was paper. With some difficulty, he gripped the corner of it between two extended fingertips. When he retrieved it, it proved to be a small packet. It contained a white powdery substance, and Meggsie knew enough about cocaine to guess that’s what it was. He dropped it back into the drawer. On his second try, he couldn’t reach anything at all.
Meggsie rolled up his sleeve and turned on his side. By twisting his body, he was able to push his arm further into the space. Almost immediately, his fingers touched on cold steel. He had found the secret. There was a pistol attached to the under-side of the desktop, held by some sort of strap. That explained why the drawer was locked. Presumably the normal way of retrieving the weapon would be to remove the drawer first. Meggsie found that it was quite easy to extract the weapon from its securing strap, and within seconds a shiny silver pistol lay across his palm. As he closed his eager fingers around the grip, it felt heavy, businesslike and deadly.
It was the first time in his life that Meggsie had handled a firearm, and he nervously turned it over two or three times in his hand, while keeping his fingers carefully away from the trigger. In only a few minutes, he found the little catch near the trigger guard that made the magazine drop out into his hand. He put it carefully down on the desk then peered up into the mechanism to make sure there wasn’t a bullet inside. Reassured, he closed his eyes, pointed the weapon at a nearby bag of potatoes and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. The t
rigger wouldn’t move. Realising that there was probably a safety mechanism, he moved a little slide, and when he did he could see a little red spot inside. When he pulled the trigger again, however, there was still no result. There was a slide on the side of the pistol that he hadn’t touched, so he slid it back as far as it would go and heard the mechanism click as it adjusted itself. This time, when he pulled the trigger there was a satisfying click. By now, Meggsie’s confidence was growing. He was beginning to think he understood how to use the weapon. He walked around the shop for some time, pointing the weapon at various vegetables, and shooting them dead with the unloaded pistol. By the time he’d murdered some mangoes, killed a few cucumbers and assassinated asparagus, he was having more and more difficulty fighting the temptation to fire a real bullet. He carefully inserted the magazine back into its spring-loaded nest, released the safety catch and cocked the pistol, taking careful aim at a watermelon. It was all he could do to prevent his finger from tickling the trigger, but common sense finally prevailed. The sound of a gunshot might attract unwarranted attention. Also, he couldn’t be certain that it wouldn’t be evident to Guido that his pistol had been fired. He knew that he daren’t risk that, and slowly, reluctantly, he returned the pistol to safe condition and climbed back under the desk., By twisting his body, he had little difficulty returning the weapon to its strap under the desk.
Chapter 9
Poisoned Chalice
Meggsie was busily stacking cabbages, and he didn’t notice the customer until her voice interrupted his thoughts.
