Ghost River

by Tony Birch

  ‘Well, you be sure to stay out of his sights. The man’s dangerous.’

  CHAPTER 13

  Foy had frightened the life out of Ren, and he spent the following days looking over his shoulder, expecting the detective to come looking for him and Sonny. But nothing happened. The week was quiet. He helped Sonny with the morning paper round as usual, and every afternoon he walked up to the station and stood outside the pawn shop looking in the window at the cameras. He’d already saved enough money for a cheap camera, even a new one, but he wanted something better, a camera with a proper lens that would allow him to take photographs of birds in flight. He also spent more time at the public library reading all he could about how cameras worked. At first he understood nothing, but was surprised that as he read more the technology began to make sense to him.

  The newsstand was always busy towards the end of the week, as was the pub. On Friday nights the boys moved through the bar selling the newspapers themselves rather than leave the stack of papers on the counter. This earned them more in tips, seeing as the drinkers had been paid the day before and at the end of the working week they were in a generous mood. The regulars who had gotten to know the boys personally sometimes tipped them without bothering to buy a paper. Vera, the owner of the zebra finches, had her own stool next to the dartboard. She was fortunate that the game shut down on Friday nights. She took the birds along to the pub with her, only drank wine shandies and always tipped when she bought a paper, but only as long as she could give one of the boys a deep kiss on the lips in return.

  On the Friday night following their run-in with Foy, Ren and Sonny were sitting at the bar sharing a packet of potato chips when Roy the barman, who’d been concentrating on polishing a beer glass in his hand, casually leaned across the bar and whispered something in Sonny’s ear. Ren had been chewing loudly on a potato chip and didn’t hear a word Roy had said, although he did notice a solemn change come over Sonny’s face. He stopped chewing and listened as Roy repeated himself.

  ‘You sure?’ Sonny asked.

  ‘Sure as,’ Roy replied. ‘He says that he wants a word with you. I wouldn’t keep the man waiting either, if I were you. He’s a busy man, Vincent.’

  Vincent didn’t look so busy to Ren. He was reading a newspaper, seated in his usual spot, across the table from his neckless bodyguard. The table was crowded with his cronies, swearing and arguing among themselves.

  ‘Is he after a newspaper?’ Sonny asked.

  ‘Take a look, my friend, ‘Roy said. ‘He’s reading the paper. It’s a calculated guess, I know, but I don’t think he’d be after a second one.’

  ‘What’s he want then?’

  ‘Vincent don’t tell me what he wants.’ Roy sighed. ‘But I wouldn’t test his patience if I were you. You should hop on over there before he decides to send someone across here to fetch you.’

  Sonny picked up his lemon squash, finished off the glass, wiped his mouth and hopped down from the bar stool. ‘You have to come with me, Ren.’

  ‘No, I don’t,’ Ren protested. ‘It’s you he wants to talk to, not me.’

  ‘Ren, I’ve helped you out plenty of times. C’mon, I need you to help me now.’

  ‘I don’t wanna come. You must have done something wrong by him.’

  ‘Can’t have. I’ve never spoken to him. What wrong could I do to a gangster?’

  Roy spread a beer towel along the bar. ‘Son, let me give you some more advice. Don’t be calling him a name like that. Gangster. We’re not in the movies.’

  Sonny pulled Ren off his bar stool and dragged him over to the toilet door. He pushed the door open, went into the room, turned the tap on over the sink and washed his face. ‘Fuck it. I’m really in trouble now. Last week it was Foy, and now this. Can’t figure out what he’d want with me.’

  ‘Maybe you been swapping too many stories about Vincent with the other paperboys and it got back to him. You know how much crims hate people talking too much.’

  ‘Can’t be that. I only listened to stories about him. And I told nobody but you.’

  ‘Sonny, it doesn’t really matter what it’s about. You got no choice but to front him.’

  Sonny looked at his face in the mirror. ‘If he kills me, Ren, the money I’ve saved to get away from here, it’s in my locker at the paper shop. Number seven.’

  ‘He’s not gonna kill you, Sonny. You’re only a kid.’

  ‘Have you forgotten about the body at the station, the debt collector with the sliced throat?’

  ‘Course I haven’t forgotten. That’s the reason I don’t want to go out there with you.’

  ‘Help me out, Ren. You come with me and I’ll let you have all tonight’s tips to yourself. The lot.’

  ‘The lot?’

  ‘Yep.’

  They walked out of the toilet. Ren followed Sonny across the bar-room, looking down at the grubby carpet and counting the cigarette burns. Vincent had his head in the paper and an ear cocked to one side, taking in every word around the table. Ren was able to get a closer look at the scar on the back of the bodyguard’s head. It was uglier up close. Not the perfectly round circle it resembled from a distance. The scar formed the letter C, carved roughly into the man’s skull. Smaller holes were dotted around the scar, as if his head had been mistaken for the dartboard on the other side of the room.

  The men sitting either side of Vincent were locked in an argument. ‘I’ll tell you what, Rodney,’ one of the men yelled across the table, ‘you want the fucken car back, go and pick it up yourself. You said right here at this table last Thursday night,’ he knocked on the table with the knuckles of his fist, ‘if you can get five hundred for it, take five. And now you’re telling me it wasn’t enough. If you’re unhappy about it you need to sort it out yourself. But before you do, make sure you’re wearing deep pockets. He’ll want compensation.’

  Ren recognised Rodney as the man who’d been with Vincent at the meeting with the Greek from across the street. He had deceptive puppy-dog brown eyes. He wagged a finger across the table. ‘I never said a word about five hundred. You must be fucken deaf, Clive, as well as fucken stupid. The car was worth double that. Fuck, I paid fifteen hundred for it less than a year ago and haven’t driven it around the block. Get it back, you say? He’ll have ended it by now and spread it round. Be like trying to put a thousand piece jigsaw together. Fuck that. That car is worth nothing to me now. You took five off him. The only collecting I’ll be doing is prizing the other five from you. And that’ll be like pulling fucken teeth.’

  ‘You’re getting fuck all from me. I did you a favour.’

  Rodney turned to the bodyguard. ‘You were here, Joey. Did I, or did I not tell this fuckwit last week, sitting at this table, to ask for a ton and do not, under any circumstances, bottom out below eight hundred dollars?’

  Vincent looked up from his newspaper, over at Sonny and Ren, and then back at the circle of men at the table. ‘Knock it off, Rodney. You’re giving me a headache. And we have visitors.’

  Joey, the bodyguard, slowly turned his body towards the boys. His head moved with it, as if it were bolted to his neck. Ren noticed he had more scars on his face, each of them a mess. He sniffed the air like an old dog on the hunt for prey.

  Vincent neatly folded the newspaper and rested it on the table. He ordered Clive to give up his seat to Sonny. ‘Over here, son,’ he said, quietly.

  Sonny snailed his way to the chair and stood behind it. Vincent patted the seat. ‘Take a rest. Can I get you and your friend a lemon squash?’

  ‘We’re okay,’ Sonny croaked. ‘We just had one.’

  ‘Well, you wouldn’t want to make a pig of yourself by having a second, would you?’

  Sonny slowly sat down and shrank into the seat.

  ‘I’ve seen you around,’ Vincent said. ‘You’re Teddy Brewer’s kid.’

  ‘Yep,’ Sonny croaked ag
ain.

  ‘Joey, get the poor kid a drink of water or something. Sounds like he’s got a terrible sore throat. You got a cold or something, kid? Maybe you been out late at night? No good for anyone with the weather we’ve been having.’

  Joey stuck a hand in the air and clicked his fingers. Roy was standing at the table within seconds. Joey ordered another round of drinks for the table and two glasses of lemon squash for the boys.

  ‘I know your old man,’ Vincent continued. ‘Have known him a long time. Teddy used to come in here like clockwork every afternoon. I could have set my watch by him. Your father is a man of habit, Sonny. You know that?’

  ‘Nup. I don’t.’

  ‘He is. Unfortunately, he has one bad habit. Working on the hot-mix. Fucken thirsty work that. The poor bastard got too thirsty, didn’t he? He went downhill in a rush, your dad.’

  The others at the table sat quietly listening to Vincent, as if he was royalty. He wrapped a large hand around Sonny’s neck and gently shook him. ‘Where’s your manners? I need you to look at me, son, when I’m talking to you.’

  Sonny turned to face Vincent.

  ‘That’s better. And now I need to ask you a very important question. I need a true answer from you. Nothing like the shit you been trying to sell to that cunt, Foy, over the break-in the other night. I heard all about that fuck-up. Now, I need to know where he’s got to, your dad. He hasn’t been seen in here or on the street for some time now.’

  Vincent shifted his chair closer to Sonny, who couldn’t keep his eyes on him any longer. Sonny looked across the table at Ren. He’d never seen such fear on Sonny’s face before. Vincent tightened his grip on Sonny’s neck and shook him a little harder. ‘Where’s he got to?’

  Ren opened his mouth before he knew what he was saying. ‘He went away and left Sonny by himself in the house. He’s disappeared and nobody knows where he is.’

  Everyone at the table turned to Ren. Except for Vincent, who didn’t bother looking up. He patted Sonny on the back, stood up, pushed his chair into the table and stuck his hands in his pockets.

  ‘Come with me, son. There’s something important I need to show you. You and your mate. Both of you. Follow me. Don’t worry, I’ll have your drinks brought up.’

  Rodney stood up and opened a door directly behind the table. The bodyguard was about to stand up as well. Vincent smiled at him.

  ‘What are you doing, Joey? Take a rest. We’re dealing with a couple of kids here, not hired killers.’

  He slapped Sonny on the back. ‘You’re not gonna kill me, are you, son?’ He laughed. ‘Rodney, grab the young mascot and bring him along for company.’

  Vincent led Sonny through the doorway, marched him to the end of the hallway and up a narrow staircase winding its way to the top floor of the hotel. Ren couldn’t move quickly enough. Rodney stopped, waited for him to pass and pushed him in the middle of the back. As they walked along a second hallway Ren could see that the doors on either side were open and the rooms were empty, except for mattresses stacked against the walls. At the end of the hallway Vincent took a key out of his pocket and opened a door. The room had bare floorboards, a beaten leather couch against one wall, and a table in the middle of the room with a pack of playing cards and a telephone sitting on top. A noisy refrigerator hummed away in the corner and a single window looked over the street.

  Vincent nodded towards the couch. ‘Take a seat and make yourselves at home.’ He dragged a chair away from the table and sat in front of the boys. He stared at Sonny for several minutes without saying a word. Rodney walked over to the window, pulled a curtain to one side and looked down on the street. He turned and nodded at Vincent and lit a cigarette. Ren could feel his heart thumping in his chest, convinced it was beating faster than the day he stood on the ledge of Phoenix bridge in the moments before he jumped. Sonny couldn’t keep still. His legs were shaking and he was scratching his head like he had nits.

  Vincent finally spoke. ‘You like a good story, Sonny?’ he asked.

  ‘I guess so.’

  ‘Well, let me tell you a beauty. Your father, he came to me some time back. Told me he’d got himself in a heap of trouble. I’ve never seen a man as desperate as he was that day. Sweating and shaking, he was.’

  Vincent tilted his head to the side and stared at Sonny. He couldn’t work out if Vincent was waiting for him to say something or was examining his bad eye.

  ‘You’re shaking,’ Vincent said, putting a hand on Sonny’s knee. ‘You nervous?’

  ‘Nah. I’m okay.’

  ‘Good. Don’t worry yourself over me. Your fucken daddy dropped you in the shit and I’m going to help you out of it.’ He took a piece of paper out of his pocket and handed it to Sonny. ‘Take a look at that and tell me what it is.’

  Sonny took the piece of paper from Vincent and looked down at it. It was a carbon copy of the same rent receipt Rory had shown Loretta the night he had turned up at Ren’s door.

  ‘What is it?’ Vincent prompted him.

  ‘It’s a receipt,’ Sonny answered.

  ‘Good. Now let me tell you why I have it in my possession. You’re dad came to see me. He sat on the couch, right where you are now, and begged me to help dig him out of the hole he was in. He said he had a rack of debts, gambling and drinking money, and had got himself a long way down on the rent. The landlord had been round to your place and said he wanted the rent back-paid in full or your father and you would be out on your arse. A week’s grace the landlord give him. Fuck me. There’s no grace in that. Vultures. When the week was up the landlord sent some heavy around to put the threateners on him. Fucken dog. Your old man have a word to you about that?’

  ‘I knew he’d run out of money,’ Sonny snivelled, ‘but he never said nothing about owing back rent. Or anyone threatening him.’

  Vincent took the receipt from Sonny and slowly tore it into thin strips as he spoke.

  ‘He wouldn’t want you to know, I suspect. Have you worrying over it. He owed money all over town. That’s why he come to me for help. He sat there and broke down and cried, didn’t he, Rodney?’

  ‘Like a baby.’ Rodney chuckled. ‘It was embarrassing.’

  Vincent shook his head in mock disgust. ‘First of all I thought he was going to ask me to go and pay a visit to the landlord and break his legs on him.’ He stood up from the chair, walked across to the window, opened it and sniffed the air. ‘A job like that wouldn’t have come cheap. But had he gone down that path it would have cost him less in the end, as it’s turned out. Rodney here warned me that stepping in and helping your dad out would be a poor investment on my part. My problem is I can be as soft as butter. Against all commonsense I covered his debts. Rodney went off his rocker. Fuck the cunt and give him nothing. That’s what you said. Am I right, Rodney?’

  ‘Spot on, Vince.’

  ‘Your dad had been near drinking himself to death every night of the week. It got so bad he was pissing his own pants. One of my fellas, Clive, he come across him out in the street after the pub had closed, laying in the gutter. A pathetic sight.’

  Sonny couldn’t help but show his anger.

  ‘I know, son,’ Vincent went on. ‘This is a story you don’t want to hear. But I need to tell it you in full so you understand the trouble you’ve been left with. The funny thing is the day he come in for the loan, he was sober. Silly me thought it might be the start of better days for him. That’s the reason I covered the debt. I even sent Rodney round to speak with the landlord personally. Paid him the money, every cent your old man owed him. Rodney told the landlord that if he put one of his dogs within a mile of your father I’d have his balls. You paid him a visit, didn’t you, Rodney?’

  ‘I did. An old Italian fella.’

  Vincent tapped the floor with the heel of his boot. ‘I have been more than generous with your father. But the trouble is, Sonny, I haven’t sighted h
im or seen a dollar of my money since that day.’

  He slowly walked the length of the room. ‘On your feet, boys. Over here. I need you to see something.’

  Ren could hardly lift his feet from the floor. He shuffled across the room after Sonny like a crippled pensioner.

  Vincent drew the curtain back from the window. ‘I need you to take a look down there, over to the other side of the street, and tell me what you see.’

  Sonny looked out the window. He didn’t notice anything particular about the street. Vincent tapped the glass. ‘You see the Greek club on the corner?’

  ‘Yep,’ Sonny answered. ‘The one where they play the card games?’

  ‘That’s the one. Now, you see that white van with the dark window parked down the street a bit?’

  A van with a sign – St Patrick’s Meats – painted on the side, was parked on the corner of a laneway, a couple of car spaces back from the club door. Rodney nudged Sonny in the back. ‘You see it?’

  ‘Yep. I see it.’

  ‘Let’s test your street nous,’ Vincent said. ‘Who might be sitting in that van?’

  Sonny stuck his hand in the air like he was in school. ‘The butcher?’

  Rodney chuckled and Vincent smiled. ‘Cute, son. But it’s the wrong answer. Rotten fucken police are in the back of that van. Gaming Squad. They have one eye on the club door and the other over here, watching me. This snooping has created a problem for me and the owner of the Greek club, Chris. We do business with one another, and from time to time I need to send a package across the street to him. He’s been waiting all week on something from me but I haven’t been able to get it to him because of the snoops. You think I’m an unfriendly type, let me tell you, Chris can be a very difficult man. Gets himself wound up. Impatient.’

  Vincent turned his back on the window, leaned against the ledge and cracked the knuckles of the fingers on both hands. ‘If I were to cross the street now, or one of my friends from here were to do so, on my behalf, or let’s say Chris sent one of his boys over to the pub to pick up the package, like he usually does, we could have a problem with the pigs in the meat wagon. For all I know they’ve got cameras in there, and I don’t like having my picture taken. So,’ he cracked his knuckles again, ‘I need to solve this problem. In a hurry. That’s where you come in, Sonny. And your mate, seeing as he’s here anyway. What’s your name?’