by Peter Corris
“Yes? You want something sir?”
I asked for coffee and got out a five-dollar note. He pushed the cup over to me and I gave him the money.
“You can keep the change for a little information.”
He held his fingers poised over the keys of the cash register like a typist waiting for her nails to dry.
“Information?”
“Nothing dangerous. Were you working here yesterday morning?”
“Sure, I own the place. I’m here all the time.”
I handed him the picture of Noni Tarelton. He looked at it and shrugged.
“Maybe. Lots of girls like that around here.”
Balmain, it’s the only place to live. I described Berrigan to him and he nodded so hard his chins wobbled.
“Sure, sure, I remember now. Ears like this.” He fanned his ears out the way Lorraine had; it must have happened to Berrigan all his life and it was a bad thing for a criminal to be so recognizable. He should have tried another trade.
“That’s him. What did they do?”
“They had breakfast — eggs and toast and coffee.”
“Did you hear them talking?”
“No, too busy.”
“OK. Now this is the important part. Who else was here?”
He laughed with the rich, high notes of the Italian tenor. The guy slumped at the table jerked up and looked around, then his head fell back.
“I couldn’t tell you Mister, the place was full. It’s my busy time like I said.”
“I appreciate that, but you should remember this one — a black girl, young, very good-looking.”
“Ah, the blackies, sure I remember them.”
“Blacks? Did you say blacks?”
“Yeah. The girl, must be the one you mean, and a man, youngish fella, a tough guy.”
I felt the excitement rise up inside me. He pushed my coffee cup forward on the counter.
“It’s getting cold.”
“Forget it,” I said, more sharply than I meant to. He look offended and I picked up the cup and took a sip. “Terrific. Tell me about the girl and the man, what did they do?”
“Are you the police?”
“No, private enquiries. Look. I showed him the licence and drew another five out of my wallet.
“Is it about dope?” he said quickly. “I hate dope, sloppy people, dirty . . .”
“So do I. Yes dope’s part of it. Just tell me about the girl and the man.” To encourage him I finished the coffee. He pulled out a packet of Gitane filters and offered them to me. I refused and he shook one out and lit it; the acrid smoke overwhelmed the cooking smells and gave the place a conspiratorial, secretive atmosphere. I fiddled with the note, folding it and tapping it on the counter.
It got to him and he screwed up his eyes against the smoke, visibly searching his memory. “The man was here first, yeah, that’s right. He had just had coffee, over there.” He pointed to the deepest, darkest corner of the cafe. Then he thumped himself on the head and his curls bounced. “No, no, I’ve got it wrong. The girl, the blonde, and the man with the ears came in first. They sat here.” He indicated a table near the door. “I didn’t see the black come in. He must have come in the side door. It’s open at the busy time.” The cafe had a lane running beside it and a door let out onto the lane. I nodded and he went on: “He was just there, the toughie, in there where I said. I remember because he paid me when I brought his coffee. That’s not usual, you know?”
I knew, I said. “What about the dark girl?”
“She didn’t stay, didn’t buy anything. The blonde and the man with her paid and went, then the young guy went after them. The girl came in the front — they were all going out the side, see? She just went straight through after them. She came back later and had coffee . . . yeah, I think it was her.”
“You’ve got a good memory.”
“I sing, opera you know? I have to remember the words and the movements. You like opera?”
I hate it. “Yes,” I said. I gave him the other five and he tucked it away in his apron.
“Thanks, I’ll buy a lottery ticket. The big one, you know?”
“Yeah, good luck.”
“It’s bad luck for those people, isn’t it?”
“Why do you say that?”
“Don’t get me wrong, it’s nothing personal, but I got a sense, you know? You’re a bad luck man and the chair told me anyway. The one with the ears, he sat in the bad luck chair.”
“What’s that?”
“Don’t let this get around, eh? But there’s a chair in this place that’s unlucky. People sit in it and they have bad luck. A friend of mine, his daughter died, and a woman I know, she got hit by a bus, right out there.” He pointed out into the street. I took a last look around the cafe. Nobody had moved. Nothing had changed. It was just a little bit later and the air was a little bit staler. And for the men at the tables the park was just so much nearer.
“Why don’t you move the chair?” I said.
“I do, every day. It’s over there now.” He waved his hand with the cigarette in it to the far wall. “You think I’m superstitious?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know, could be. Why don’t you try an experiment?”
He looked interested. “Like what?”
“Try the chair on someone you don’t like.”
“There’s no one I don’t like that much.”
“You’re lucky. I’ve got to go. Thanks for the help. Goodnight.”
“Goodnight Mr Hardy.”
He was quick. I grinned at him and went out.
The house was quiet when I got home. The bedroom let out a soft glow and Penny’s coat and clothes were still in the kitchen. I tossed the clothes onto a chair and fought down the impulse to go upstairs. I needed help in the fight so I rooted around and found a bottle of rum, half-full. I got out ice and chopped up lemons and settled down in the front room with the bottle and the fixings. I worked steadily through the liquor and started on Flashman for the third time. I remember reading “Possibly there has been a greater shambles in the history of warfare than our withdrawal from Kabul . . .” and taking another drink of the rum and thinking what a shambles the Tarelton case was in and then nothing more. The couch was big enough and soft enough and I was drunk enough. I slept.
20
When I woke up Penny was standing over me with a cup of something emitting steam in her hand. I groaned and pulled myself up on the couch. I took the cup and sipped it. Instant coffee. Not the worst thing for my head just then but not the best. I ungummed my eyelids a second time, enough to see that Penny had put her clothes back on. Not that it mattered. I was in no condition to take her up on her offer of the night before if she should repeat it. Her hair was damp from the shower and her skin shone like polished copper.
“You look terrible,” she said,
“Thanks. What’s the time?”
“Six-thirty. The taxi’s due at seven. You’ve got time for a shower.”
“Thanks again.” I set the coffee down on the arm of the couch and swung my feet off it. My head rang like a J. Arthur Rank gong. I headed unsteadily for the shower. The water helped a bit. I felt better still after a shave and ready for a drink after I’d dressed. In the kitchen Penny was sinking a big white tooth into a piece of toast. I shuddered when she offered me some and got the white wine out of the fridge. When a tall glass of riesling and soda was fizzing in my hand I felt well enough to compliment her.
“Don’t work in offices. Go on television, advertise things, make yourself some money.”
“I might,” she said and knocked back half a pint of orange juice.
Carrying the drink with me I went from place to place collecting things. I packed a cassette tape recorder and a pair of binoculars into an overnight bag. An old credit card Ailsa’s firm had issued me and not cancelled went into my wallet and an unlicensed Colt automatic went into the lining of the parka where the .38 had been. She had her coat on and the glasses and plates and cups
were rinsed and stacked when the taxi honked outside. We went out of the house into a neutral and uncertain dawn.
We preserved silence on the drive to Mascot. The airport preliminaries weren’t any more complicated than usual and I still had a few dollars left after buying tickets, papers and magazines. Unlike most people, Penny was easy to travel with; she was there when she was needed and not in the way when she wasn’t. We got looks, usual I suppose for couples of mixed colour; half curiosity, half hostility. Penny noticed me glowering at the lookers.
“Don’t worry,” she said, taking my arm, “your lot have been staring at us since you got here.”
Flying was a novelty for her and she enjoyed the rituals of it all. I sat in my seat and obeyed orders slavishly out of some dark belief that this would keep me safe. When we were airborne Penny stared out of the window at the few flashes of green and brown that showed through that high-flying fog. We were half a hundred people flying blind, trusting our lives to a few fuses and valves. I tried to concentrate on the papers but couldn’t. Penny read in a desultory fashion for a while and then I felt her go tense beside me. I sneaked a look across and she was gnawing her lip.
“What’s wrong?”
“I’m frightened.”
“Of flying?”
“No.” She waved strong men’s traumas away with one thin hand. “No, of course not. It’s nothing, flying. I thought it would be more exciting. It must be boring after the first time.”
I nodded. “Well then . . .?”
“All this. How’s it going to end? You haven’t even told me what’s happening.”
“You’re holding out on me, too,”
“Where they’re going? I told you I’ll tell you in Macleay.” She glanced around the cabin. “I suppose I can tell you now. We’re not going anywhere else.”
“It can wait,” I said sharply. “I think I know anyway. No, you’re holding back something else, but I’m not going to press you. In fact I’ll tell you things and not ask for anything from you. OK?”
“Why?” she said warily.
“I have reasons. Partly because I have to. I want you to do something for me and it won’t make sense unless you know what’s going on.”
I filled her in on some of the details — on the ransoms for Noni and who paid them and how the police were in on the whole thing now. I didn’t tell her about Berrigan’s death or about “Percy White”. She’d heard a little about Coluzzi and the fight game from friends. I expanded on that a bit and kept away from the subject of Ricky Simmonds until I mentioned Trixie Baker. Penny looked interested in the name.
“I’ve heard of her,” she said, “from Ricky I think. Doesn’t she have a farm or something?”
“That’s right, just out of Macleay. Ricky talked about her?”
The smooth brown skin on her forehead wrinkled. “I think so, once when he was a bit drunk, not so much about her as about someone who worked for her, one of us.”
“An Aborigine?”
She snorted. “I don’t mean a Hottentot.”
“OK, OK, keep your hair on. What did he say about this person of your own race?”
She looked at me to decide whether to take offence or not but I’d arranged my face in its most winning shape and she let it pass.
“I told you Ricky always seemed to be looking for someone. Well I asked him about it this time, when he was full and he said ‘I’m sure that was him, at Trixie Baker’s’ or something like that. I didn’t push him, it didn’t make sense to me. Does it mean anything to you?”
“I think so. Ricky was looking for his father, I reckon. I think his father and Berrigan robbed a bank in Macleay in 1966. Berrigan was connected with Trixie Baker, maybe Ricky’s father was too. Perhaps Ricky got a lead on him but couldn’t clinch it. Anyway, this is where you come in — I have to ask the Baker woman some questions and I haven’t got a chance in a million of getting in to see her.”
“Why?”
“The police already dislike me for leaving the scene of the crime — her bashing that is. I did, but I had no choice. That’s sort of been squared now in a way, but I’ll still be very unpopular around Macleay.”
“What do you want me to do?”
’’Done any acting?”
“A bit, street theatre, black theatre stuff.”
“That’ll do — this is a cinch for you. I’m going to get hold of a hospital cleaner’s uniform. Dressed in that you should be able to sneak around the hospital and find Trixie Baker. It can’t be a big place. I want you to take this in,” I tapped the bag with the tape recorder inside, “and ask her some questions. The right answers will sort this mess out. Will you do it?”
She seemed about to ask a question, an important question, but she bit it back.
“Yes,” she said quickly, “of course I will.”
“There’s another thing. Is there anyone in Kempsey, one of you I mean, who’d know all about the Aborigines in the area — who’s who and when and where?”
She didn’t have to think. “Yes, Charley Gurney, he was initiated, he’s old, a clever man. That means . . .”
“I know what it means. I’ve read Elkin. Would you take me to see him?”
She nodded. “Anything else?”
“That’s all for now, except to warn you that you’re in for a rough time. I expect all this to sort out, but I don’t expect it’ll come out neat and pretty.”
She shrugged. “We’ll see.”
“Yeah.” I picked up her hand. In my yellowed, scarred claw it looked like a soft, brown orchid. “I’m sorry as hell I had to refuse you last night, I didn’t want to.”
“You were right I think, but I’m sorry too.”
I put her hand back on the seat rest. “It’s better we didn’t because we’re on opposite sides in this even if you do help me. I want to get Noni Tarelton back home to her rich Dad in one piece and you’re not going to stop me. I’ll flatten you if you try.”
She looked quickly at me. I wasn’t smiling and neither was she. It was a risky declaration because the help she would be giving me would be substantial and things could get into a hell of a mess without it. Maybe they would anyway. She had a right to know the rules I was playing by but I hoped it wouldn’t come to an outright conflict between us. She had strength and guts and would fight hard. Also there was something between us, a connection, part sexual, part temperamental. It would be a nasty falling-out if it happened.
The plane swayed around like a mast in a high wind on the last hour of the flight and Penny didn’t seem quite so blase about flying. I didn’t enjoy it myself and then I had to face a moment of tension when I presented the out-of-date credit card at the car hire desk. It passed muster and there was a white Datsun waiting for us in the company bay outside the airport building. The air was warm and dusty. A haze in the sky suggested that the day would get a lot warmer. I unlocked the driver’s door and threw the bag into the back seat. Penny stood by the passenger door sneering at me as if I was some inferior and unpleasant exhibit at a zoo. I didn’t like that look. I settled myself in the seat and turned on the air-conditioning. She tapped on the window. I wound it down.
“Yes?” I said.
“Let me in, Hardy.”
“A girl like you wouldn’t ride in a big, fat, Nip capitalist car like this would she? Take a bus, I’ll meet you behind the pub.”
Her eyes blazed at me and I could hear her breath coming in short, hard bursts.
“Let me in!”
I flicked the door open, she got in and sat down hard staring straight in front of her. It was a bad start.
“Don’t be so touchy,” she said.
“I’m sorry. Look, we need a car for this job. They’re all rubbish, they’re all too expensive and they fall apart too soon, but we need one and this’ll do. Alright?”
“Yes,” her voice was tight and small.
I swung the beast out of the car park. I wanted to tell her to get ready for some lying and shooting, but I didn’t know how.<
br />
We drove in silence along the dusty roads into Macleay. I hadn’t liked being there the last time and I didn’t expect this time to be any better. Penny sat with her arms wrapped tightly around her thin body as if trying to physically contain her resentments. The car handled well, a bit squashy and soft compared with the Falcon, but it would be fast if that was needed. The air conditioning worked, cooled me down and smoothed the edges off my temper. Penny took her coat off and threw it on the back seat. We exchanged small smiles as she did so. She hit the radio button and got some country and western music which she turned down very low.
I drove into Macleay and cruised slowly past Bert’s garage. Penny looked out at the place with the rough-painted sign hanging over the bowsers and nodded. “You did know where they were going.”
“Yeah. The thing is, are they still there?” The garage looked closed although it was after ten a.m. and a piece of cardboard with something written on it was hanging on the handle of the office door, I drove past again and could see at least two cars parked in the alley beside the garage. I found a phone booth and located Bert’s number in the directory. I called it. The phone rang twice, then it was answered by the voice I’d heard telephonically at Ted Tarelton’s. I asked for Bert and was told he was sick. I asked when his place would be open again and the voice said “tomorrow”. He hung up.
The way to the hospital was signposted and the building couldn’t have been anything else; it was like hospitals everywhere, all clean lines, light and airy, set in lawns and trying not to look like a place where people died. We parked in the visitors’ area and Penny got out of the car. “Wait here,” she told me.
