Ghost River

by Tony Birch

  ‘In the signal box. No one’s gonna look for me there. In the morning, with the money I got, less your cut, I can get to any place I like.’

  ‘I just told you, I don’t want a cut. And what are you going to do about Rory? You forgotten about him?’

  ‘I haven’t forgotten,’ Sonny protested. ‘I’ll make sure to see him before I go.’

  ‘You can’t desert Rory, when he come and looked after you.’

  ‘I’m not deserting him. If he was here now, he’d tell me to do the same, shoot through.’

  ‘I bet he wouldn’t. He’d say running would get you nowhere, I reckon.’

  ‘It’ll get me away from here. You have a torch I can borrow?’

  Ren went into the house. Archie wasn’t home and he could hear Loretta moving around upstairs. When he returned with the torch Sonny offered him his hand, the same as he had done the day he walked home with Ren after stepping in against Milton.

  ‘After I’m gone you will need to spread a story about me. Say it was my idea alone. That I took Vincent’s money.’

  ‘I couldn’t do that. Never.’

  ‘Sure, you could. Rory and me, we sometimes read crime stories in the magazines about gangsters in America. True stories. He read one story to me about a big time criminal who was old and had lost all his soldiers. They’d been killed in gun battles or were in prison. He was the only one of his gang who’d never gone to gaol or been shot. I said to Rory, he must be the smart one, the leader. Rory laughed and told me I had a lot to learn. Smarter than you think, he said. He reckons that the biggest crims, the ones who stay out of prison, they might be the smartest, but they’re also the biggest laggers. In bed with the police, is exactly what he said.’

  ‘Do you believe him?’

  ‘Everything Rory has said to me, any advice he’s given, has turned out to be a good lesson. Yeah, I believe him. So, what you have to do is lag me. Crims do it to each other all the time.’

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘You can if I’m asking you.’

  ‘If I did that you’d have to write it down, so people knew it was your idea. I don’t wanna be called a lagger. No one round here would talk to me again.’

  ‘Whatever you want me to do, I will.’

  ‘I better go inside,’ Ren said. ‘Try and get these wet clothes off before my mum sees me.’

  ‘Okay. I’m gonna grab a blanket and stuff and go out by the back gate.’

  CHAPTER 17

  The next morning Ren got out of bed. The house was cold and it was raining out. He thought about Sonny holed up for the night in the signal box. He put his dressing gown on and went downstairs. Archie was in the kitchen, flipping eggs at the stove and waiting for his favourite radio show to begin, News Beat. Its reporters trawled the streets of the city chasing the drunken fights, car smashes, accidents and robberies.

  ‘Morning,’ Archie said. ‘I thought the smell of bacon might get you moving. Do us a favour and put some toast on.’

  Archie looked up at the clock sitting on the fridge. It was five to nine. Ren cut the bread and put it in the toaster, boiled the kettle, put the tea in the pot and placed the butter and milk on the table. Archie liked to be seated with his breakfast in front of him when the show started. He was ready with a raised knife and fork when the pips from the radio signalled nine o’clock.

  Archie had a habit of providing a running commentary on each story. The show kicked off with the breaking news of a double shooting in the inner city.

  Archie looked up from his plate and smiled. ‘Terrific. Last week was awful. All they had was a cat stuck down a drain and a fire in a mattress factory.’

  Ren’s stomach turned over as he listened to the broadcast.

  ‘… the two male victims were shot at close range in a laneway behind the Railway Hotel in Collingwood as they were about to drive away in a motor vehicle. One male was found slumped in the driver’s seat with a bullet to the side of the head, while a second man was located nearby. He had been shot in the back, most likely as he attempted to escape the gunman. The first officer on the scene, Senior Detective Foy, stated that each of the deceased men, Vincent Anthony Lombardi and Rodney James Lowe, was well known to police. The crime appears to be gang related, said Detective Foy. He spoke exclusively with our reporter at the scene and urged anybody with information about the crime to please come forward.’

  ‘Outside the Railway,’ Archie whistled. ‘Don’t surprise me. Always been a blood house. No one’ll be coming forward on this one. You can be sure of it.’

  Ren abruptly stood up from the table. While he couldn’t be sure what Foy knew of Sonny taking the money, he was sure Sonny would be in danger if Foy got hold of him, unless he had already done so.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Archie asked. ‘You’ve hardly touched your breakfast. And the show’s not half over.’

  ‘Sorry, Arch, but I don’t feel too good. I’ve been sick most of the night. I think I should have a shower to wake myself up. I can help you with the dirty dishes after that.’

  ‘Don’t worry about the dishes. I’ll clean up. Maybe go back to the cot?’

  Ren raced upstairs and dressed as quickly as he could. Archie was busy in the kitchen finishing his breakfast and listening to the radio as he snuck out of the house. He headed along the street, climbed the fence into the railyard and sprinted for the signal box. He stood at the bottom of the ladder and called Sonny’s name. His friend unlatched the trapdoor and he climbed the ladder. Sonny was wrapped in a blanket and shivering with cold.

  ‘You hear the news?’ Ren blurted.

  ‘Not yet. But the carrier pigeon’s due any fucken minute.’

  ‘They’re dead, Sonny. Shot dead.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Vincent and Rodney. I heard it on the radio, just then. They were shot outside the pub last night. Foy’s been talking on the radio. He was the first copper there. You know what that means, don’t you?’

  Sonny jumped up and hugged the blanket to his body. ‘You tell me,’ he asked, already sure of the answer.

  ‘I bet he killed them after that meeting with Chris. You have to get out of here. Take off, like you said last night. Where’s the money?’

  Sonny opened a cupboard door, pushed an old signal lamp to one side and pulled out the roll of money. He counted out two hundred dollars and put it in his pocket, followed by a second two hundred, which he handed to Ren. ‘I’ve changed my mind about the money. I’m taking my own back, that Vincent took from me. You should have the same amount, Ren, for all the trouble I caused you.’

  ‘And what happens to the rest?’

  ‘I want it to go to Rory. He’ll have no work when he comes out of hospital. He’ll need it.’

  Sonny counted the rest of the money and laid it on the ground. Two thousand six hundred dollars. He handed it to Ren.

  ‘I want you to make sure Rory gets it.’

  Ren added his two hundred to the pile. ‘He can have the lot. I don’t want anything to do with it.’

  ‘It’s your money. I’m giving it to you.’

  ‘I don’t want it.’

  ‘Think about that camera you want to buy, Ren. You take two hundred dollars into one of them shops in the city and you could buy any camera you like.’

  ‘I don’t care. It comes from them two being killed.’

  ‘Fuck em. They deserved it.’

  ‘You really don’t care that they’re dead?’

  ‘Do you? You’d rather have them taking from us and treating us like shit, running round for them? Would you?’

  Sonny was right and Ren knew it. Although he didn’t like the feeling, he was as relieved as Sonny that Vincent and Rodney had been killed.

  ‘Now, take the money and keep it for Rory. Hide it some place safe until he gets home.’

  They heard a car driving slowly al
ong the street. Ren lifted his head to the window. It was Foy driving by, in the same unmarked car he’d been in the night before. The car turned into their street, drove to the other end and parked across from Sonny’s house.

  ‘Why would he be driving his own car, Sonny, and not a police car?’

  ‘Because this is all about last night. He’s not on police business. You can’t leave here until he’s gone.’

  The boys sat and waited for half an hour or more, sharing a cigarette but saying little. At one point Foy got out of the car and stood in the middle of the road in the rain before getting back into the car and driving away. Ren watched through the window as the car cruised slowly by the railway line, Foy turning his head and searching both sides of the street.

  ‘He’s gone.’

  Sonny threw the blanket to one side. ‘I’m gonna stay here until dark and then take off. I need you to do me one last favour.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘I don’t want to go back to the house. I need you to get a bag ready for me tonight, with some food in it, maybe a jumper and a raincoat if you can find one. I’ll meet you in the lane on dark. I’ll flash the torch over the fence. Can you do that?’

  ‘If that’s what you want. I hope you’ve thought this through, Sonny. Maybe you should go now.’

  ‘I give it as much thought as it needs. And don’t forget the money. Hide it good. And Ren,’ he stopped and barked a miserable cough, ‘if Rory never comes home from the hospital, if he dies, you use the money to pay for his funeral. It’s important he’s buried, not cremated. He told me once he couldn’t think of nothing worse than being fried.’

  Sonny pushed the money into Ren’s hands. ‘Be sure to go home by the lane and keep an eye out for Foy.’

  Ren spent most of the day in his room. It would be dangerous to leave the house in case Foy was on the street. He packed a woollen jumper and raincoat into his schoolbag and hid it in his wardrobe. He went down to the kitchen, took a packet of biscuits out of the cupboard and two apples from the fruit bowl. Armed with a screwdriver from the laundry he went back upstairs and picked the carpet tacks away from a corner of the room and peeled the rug back. Ren laid Rory’s money, folded into a sheet of newspaper, on the bare floorboards and replaced the carpet. He banged the tacks down and moved the chair from next to his bed over to the corner.

  The clouds were so low in the sky it was almost dark by five in the afternoon. He sat by the window watching the pounding rain and looking towards the back fence, waiting for Sonny’s signal. He could just hear the sounds of the piano coming from the stable. It sounded as if the keys were being battered with a hammer rather than played. The music stopped and the Reverend Beck appeared at the open stable door. A few minutes later his wife walked across the yard holding the hand of a girl. Ren quietly opened his window to get a better look at what was going on. Even though she was wearing a head scarf Ren could see that it was the red-headed girl he’d spied in the stable with the Reverend. Mrs Beck handed the girl to her husband and walked back into the house. He ushered the girl into the stable and closed the door.

  Ren kept one eye on the back fence and the other on the stable door, convinced that something terrible was happening behind it. A little while later a dark figure appeared in the yard. It was Della, acting peculiar, creeping across the yard in the rain like a mangy cat, towards the stable. She put her ear to the door for a moment, then disappeared into the laundry. She came out carrying a wooden chair, which she placed under a small window directly above the door. She stood on the chair and looked into the stable. She watched with intensity before jumping off the chair. She stepped back and covered her mouth as if she was trying to stop herself from vomiting. Ren watched as she wedged the back of the chair under the door knob and ran back across the yard and into the house.

  Ren had been so fixated on Della he almost missed the flashing light of the torch winking at him from over the back fence. He grabbed his schoolbag and a duffle-coat out of his wardrobe and quickly climbed out of the window. He crossed over to Sonny’s roof, slid down the drainpipe into the yard and opened the back gate. Sonny was huddled in the lane, shivering to the bone.

  Ren pulled the spare jumper and raincoat out of the bag. ‘Get into the back toilet, strip your wet stuff off and put these on.’ He handed Sonny the jumper and spoke to him through the toilet door. ‘It’s pissing down. You’d be better off at my place. You can hide out in my room for the night.’

  Sonny pulled the wet jumper over his head, threw it out into the yard, put the dry jumper on and the raincoat over the top. ‘Nup. I’m gonna head to the river and camp with Tex for the night. I’ll move on early in the morning.’

  ‘Might not be anything left of the camp with this rain.’

  Sonny had made up his mind that he was leaving and there’d be no stopping him.

  They walked to the end of the darkened lane. Della was standing beside the telegraph pole, as if she’d been waiting for them.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ Ren asked.

  She looked at the bag over Sonny’s shoulder. ‘Are you going away?’

  ‘Nothing to do with you,’ Sonny said.

  They could hear a banging noise, coming from the stable.

  ‘I need you to take me with you,’ Della said.

  ‘You got no hope,’ Sonny told her.

  She turned to Ren. ‘Please?’

  ‘I don’t want you with me,’ Sonny said. ‘This is crazy, Ren.’

  The pounding on the stable door got louder and they could hear the sound of a girl’s voice calling for help. Sonny wouldn’t look at Della. ‘Fucken tell her, Ren. She’s not coming with me.’

  Della knew better than to waste her time on Sonny. She stepped forward and looked into Ren’s face. ‘Please help me. Or my father will hurt me.’

  The streetlights suddenly came on, exposing the three of them huddled together in the lane. Sonny walked to the middle of the road. ‘I got to take off, Ren.’

  ‘Sonny, wait,’ Ren said. ‘I’m coming … we’re coming with you.’

  ‘No, Ren. I’m not looking after her.’

  ‘You don’t have to. We’ll camp with you tonight and go our separate ways from there.’

  ‘I have enough shit to deal with, Ren. You want to help her out, she’s your problem. She’s fucken conning you,’ he added, as if Della wasn’t there at all.

  Ren took Della’s hand and they followed the beam of light from Sonny’s torch until they reached the hole in the fence. Ren climbed through ahead of Della and turned to help her. They slid down the greasy bank together and scrambled to catch up to Sonny. He was standing on a tree stump, the beam of his torch pointed back up to the shadow of the mill.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Ren asked.

  ‘I heard something. The fence rattled, and I saw something move.’

  ‘It’s just the wind.’

  ‘I don’t think it was. Something else.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘I dunno.’

  It was difficult to see much through the gloom. The relentless rain of recent days had swallowed the banks on both sides of the river. The water continued to rise and the roar of water spilling over the falls was ferocious. The boys looked downriver, realising the camp beneath the iron bridge would be gone.

  Ren sniffed the air. ‘Can’t see a fire, but I can smell smoke.’

  Sonny sniffed also. ‘It’s coming from the wheelhouse. They’ll be in there trying to keep dry. We’ll need to shelter there too.’

  ‘I’d rather drown than go in.’

  Sonny looked down at the rising water. ‘If we stay here we’ll drown anyway. You can please yourself.’

  Ren turned to Della. ‘I saw what you did back there,’ he said, ‘locking your father in the stable. Why’d you do that?’

  ‘Because of what I saw.’

  �
��What did you see?’ Ren asked, suspecting he already knew the answer.

  ‘Betrayal,’ she spat. ‘My father’s betrayal.’

  Della had a peculiar look on her face, one as disturbing as her father’s, Ren thought. Sonny had opened the wheelhouse door. Smoke poured out. He shone his torch inside, coughing and waving a hand in front of his face. ‘Tex!’ he called. ‘You in there?’

  There was no answer.

  ‘Maybe they’re not here?’ Ren said. ‘It could be an old fire smouldering.’

  ‘Don’t matter. We can stay here the night and in the morning I go my way, you and her the other.’ Sonny looked back at Della, standing by the rising bank ‘Don’t be trusting her, Ren. Come on.’

  Ren had avoided the wheelhouse from the first day he visited the river. He reluctantly stepped through the door. Della skidded along the bank and followed him. The smell was terrible, like a rotting animal, so powerful it couldn’t be disguised by the smoke. As they moved through the first room they found that the rain appeared to be as heavy inside the wheelhouse as it was outside. Water streamed down the brick walls and ran across the floor. Sonny shone the torch up at a tangle of rusted metal pipes. Curtains of cobwebs caught the light and glittered in the dark.

  Sonny called out to Tex. A deep moan came back.

  ‘Hear that? They must be down below.’

  Sonny shone the torch down the staircase and followed the beam of light. Near the bottom of the stairs something shot out of the darkness, ran across his feet and was gone. Ren’s throat burned when he breathed in and his eyes were watering. Sonny made his way along a passageway, its walls covered in moss. He stopped at an open doorway and peered inside. ‘I found them.’

  Tex and Cold Can were camped on a long wooden tabletop in the storeroom, sitting around a kero lamp, damp blankets hanging from their shoulders. They resembled a pair of old sailors adrift in a lifeboat. The men were caked in so much dirt the colour of their skin had become unrecognisable. The room was thick with smoke from a wood stove burning in the corner. The legs of the stove were submerged in water. Della looked from Tex to Cold Can and back again as if they were ghosts. Ren waded across to the table and shook Tex to get his attention. ‘You can’t stay here Tex. The water is coming up real fast. You and Cold Can will get trapped.’