‘So that’s about it, Woz. If I run DD back to Taree I might stay in a motel for the night, see what happens. But I reckon I’ll be back by the end of the week. I’ll see you then.’
‘Okay, Les. See you when you get back.’
‘See you, Woz.’
Norton looked at the phone, sipped some orange juice and tried not to laugh. But it was no good. And a swallow of orange juice went down the wrong way to make things worse. After Les choked and spluttered it all out he settled down a bit. Things couldn’t have been creamier. No more Annie. No more tandoori twins in general. Bad luck Warren got a bit of a slap, but he wasn’t hurt too bad. And that’s what happens when you back-door blokes. Bad luck about the pot-plant. And the front fuckin’ window. Hah! I can just see Warren getting that fixed. I’ll have a beard down to my knees waiting. Norton finished his orange juice. But all this talk about fighting and whatever has put an edge on my appetite. I think it’s time for breakfast.
Norton found a paper shop just past Cavill Avenue. They’d made the front page of the Gold Coast Bulletin and the Brisbane Sun and would have made the front page on the Sydney Telegraph-Mirror only they led with all the security arrangements surrounding the President’s impending visit. Each paper said much the same thing under the usual, same but different, tabloid banners.
PLAYBOY’S PETULANT PET PELTS PRESS. Not bad mused Les. BIMBO BOOB QUEEN BOUNCES IN AND OUT OF BRISBANE. Reasonable. CRYSTAL LINX STINX. Now that I do like. Short and to the point, so they wouldn’t have to tax their brains too much. ‘American warbler and B-grade actress, Crystal Linx, let the Australian media know what she thought of them when she arrived in Brisbane, before embarrassed minders swept her into a waiting limousine.’
Embarrassed minders? That’s odd, thought Norton. I could have sworn I was on my own and I was rapt in listening to her give it to them. The media then did its best to dump on her. There was a photo of KK and not a bad one of Les standing with the car door open while Crystal gave the press the finger. The rest was a beat-up of how she was a rotten singer, model and actress all round. Kramer wasn’t much better and should be in gaol and this latest record was the last chance to save his dwindling fortune. The usual vitriol and half-truths you expect when the media smells blood. Les kept the Telegraph-Mirror to read with breakfast, the headlines out of the others and dumped the rest in a garbage tin before walking round to Peggy’s.
He found a shaded table to the side of the restaurant and ordered exactly the same as he had the previous day, plus a toasted cheese-and-asparagus sandwich. It was just as tasty and there was just as much as before; Norton took his time eating while he read the paper. Apart from his photo on page three, it was the usual crime scene in Sydney but mainly photos and stories about the US Secret Service arriving in Sydney and setting up security. There were plane loads of them in sunglasses and suits, and they’d brought everything with them but the fun rides in Disneyland and the New York Rockettes. Evidently this was the first time a US president would stay in Brisbane then visit the strategic facilities at Pine Gap. Not that Norton could have given a stuff one way or the other. The President wouldn’t be stopping at Chez Norton and Les wouldn’t be playing golf with him either. The only good thing in the whole paper was a couple of names in the lift-out racing section at the right odds that could be worth an investment later that day. He finished another coffee, paid the bill and was about to stroll round to the TAB, when Les remembered a small chore he’d promised to do for someone very dear to his heart, and it was just across the road.
The suntanned bloke with the tattoos was in between customers, sitting on one of his deck-chairs reading a magazine; next to him was another bloke, overweight, with a cap covering a balding head, talking into a cellular phone. The thing that struck Les as odd, however, was that if the suntanned bloke went back to Price’s era, he had to be getting on for sixty. But in his seaman’s cap, worry-free face and lean build, he didn’t look much over thirty.
‘Excuse me,’ asked Les. ‘Are you Jimmy Martin?’
The suntanned bloke looked up from what he was reading, studied Les for a moment, then nodded his head slowly and gave a very noncommital yes.
‘I’ve got a message for you from a bloke in Sydney — Price Galese.’
The bloke looked at Les again then shook his head. ‘You’re not Norton, are you?’
‘Yeah,’ smiled Les.
‘God strike me. I’ve heard about you.’
‘Where from, Price?’
‘Where bloody else.’ The bloke in the cap shook his head again, then returned Norton’s smile. ‘God strike me. How is the old bastard anyway?’
‘He’s good. I’m Les, anyway.’
‘Jimmy. Pleased to meet you, Les.’ Jimmy took Norton’s offered hand and gave it a solid pump. ‘So what’s the message from the old crook?’
Norton shrugged. ‘All he said was, are you still cooking those oysters Amos?’
‘Ho! Jesus!’ This seemed enough to send Jimmy into a complete tailspin. He slapped his leg and threw back his head howling with laughter. ‘God strike me. Did he say that — did he?’
‘Yeah,’nodded Les, somewhat mystified. ‘That was the message.’
‘God strike me.’
Jimmy continued to roll around on his deck-chair, laughing like he was about to blow a boiler. His mate looked up from his cellular phone, gave his head a bit of a shake and continued talking. Norton was just puzzled. It was the most cryptic message ever, yet at Jimmy’s reaction you’d have thought Norton just came out with the best gag of all time.
‘So what’s the joke, Jimmy?’ asked Les. ‘You’re gonna have to tell me.’
Jimmy dabbed at his eyes. ‘Price has never told you?’ Norton shook his head. Jimmy shook his head also and stared at the sand for a moment. ‘Christ! This goes back to 1959, ’60.’
Jimmy, it turned out, had been a seaman for years and good mates with Price. Jimmy got a nest egg together and gave up the sea to become a successful restaurateur in Sydney around the same time Price kicked on in the gambling and started to set up the Kelly Club. Both being larrikins and knockabouts and plain good blokes, between the casino and Jimmy’s popular restaurant they got to know just about everybody in the Eastern suburbs on both sides of the law, including a crime boss called Amos Nathan. Nathan used to run mainly strip-joints — sly-grog shops as they were known then — nightclubs, porn and just about anything to do with vice and sex. He wasn’t interested in drugs and he left the gambling to Price and his bunch, but Nathan just about ran Kings Cross. The odd thing was, in twenty years of extremely dicey operations, Nathan barely had a strike against him. Nathan had oiled plenty of palms in both the government and the police department. The only thing they got him on in the end was tax evasion. And then they had to pay someone to shelf him.
One Saturday afternoon, Jimmy and Price had to go round to Nathan’s house in Bellevue Hill with several cases of good scotch and a bag of American cigarettes, all at the right price for his clubs. One of Nathan’s heavies opened the door with just a towel round his waist and told them to come inside. In the loungeroom, Nathan and another heavy were sitting around with no gear on plus four big-titted strippers, who also had no gear on, and several plates of choice Sydney rock oysters on the shell. It was what they were doing with the oysters, where they were sticking them and how they were getting them out, that spun both Jimmy and Price around: especially Price, being a good Catholic and all that. Nathan invited both Price and Jimmy to join the party. Jimmy was half keen to give it a whirl but Price shook his head and suggested they get on the toe, saying they had other deliveries to make and that. It was just as well they did. They’d barely got to the end of the street when three car loads of Vice Squad detectives came roaring down the street with a warrant, banged on Nathan’s door and arrested all of them on morals charges; even confiscating the oysters as evidence. In those days in Australia, bikinis were about a foot wide on the side, using the word ‘bloody’ was tantamount to blasp
hemy and the merest glimpse of a woman’s breast, let alone a nipple, was enough to send ordinary citizens, church leaders in particular, into a foaming-at-the-mouth-tambourine-banging frenzy. So placing Sydney rock oysters in big-titted young ladies’ private parts and sucking them out again was considered in extremely bad taste, no pun intended, and not a particularly nice thing to do on a Saturday afternoon; especially by square-headed members of the New South Wales Vice Squad. Amos and his team got off with a very heavy fine and a suspended sentence, and were lucky they didn’t go to gaol. Nowadays, you can get the same thing on video, in glorious technicolour with a Dolby sound track.
Just as a joke though, Jimmy thought up this oyster dish for his restaurant, using chopped smoked salmon, white wine and spices popped under the griller and called it oysters Amos. And it was very popular with the customers. Till one night Nathan came in, saw it, ordered a dozen, and although he said he liked it, he also said he didn’t want to see it on the menu again. So rather than have his restaurant fire-bombed, or be the only maitre d’ in Sydney working tables in a wheelchair, Jimmy took them off the menu. Oysters Amos were off, in more ways than one.
‘So that’s the story of oysters Amos, Les,’ smiled Jimmy. ‘Does it make you hungry?’
Norton wasn’t laughing as much as Jimmy had been, but it was still a reasonable yarn which he somehow couldn’t quite picture Price coming up with late one night back at the club. ‘No, Jimmy,’ he replied. ‘Not really. In fact I doubt if oysters au natural will ever be the same again.’
Just then a platoon of tourists lobbed up for a suntan-oil spray, deck-chairs, surf-mats, the lot.
‘Listen,’ said Jimmy, taking hold of his spray-gun. ‘Why don’t you come round a bit early one day and we’ll have a good yarn. Saturday’s a bastard of a time. And I gotta get a quid while it’s on.’
‘Okay, Jimmy,’ answered Norton. ‘I got to get going myself. But I’ll make sure I see you before I go back to Sydney.’
‘See you, Les.’ The compressor clattered into life and a fine mist of suntan oil wafted into the air.
Norton was still chuckling a little when he walked into the TAB just past Cavill Avenue. But he stopped chuckling when he had to work out the different betting tickets, the change of colours on the horse sheets, and the meeting codes to put a bet on in sunny Queensland. Somehow he managed to get a couple of all-ups going in Sydney, a quinella in Brisbane, and the daily double in Melbourne together and be back at the flat with some fresh milk and more orange juice to find the curtains still drawn next door.
So what to do now? thought Les. All these decisions so early in the day. One thing for sure, I don’t need anything else to eat. He leaned against the railing on the sundeck and looked at the people lying on the beach and the others in the water. The water still looked inviting. Too inviting. There were no cars in the driveway: no noise from next door. Before he knew it, Les had a towel round his neck and was jogging across the sand to the water’s edge.
He gave it another half an hour, wallowing around like a red-haired hippopotamus, catching the odd wave and thinking, when it was all boiled down, how lucky he was to come up here, eat his head off, do this and cop $1,500 at the same time. A couple of big-titted young girls walked past Norton, sprawled out in some shallow water; Les smiled at them and they smiled back. Ahh yes, how sweet it is, Norton smiled to himself. And this afternoon, I know how to make it even sweeter. Whistling happily, he walked back to the flats, had a shower and got into a pair of shorts. Still whistling, he moved the stereo speakers so they faced the sundeck, got a beer out of the fridge, put a cassette on and did what he’d planned the day before: stick his feet up, have a cold one and listen to the tapes he got made up in Sydney with the million-dollar view in front of him. No one to annoy him. The only mild disturbance a couple of willie-wagtails and the odd magpie either fluttering or walking around in the backyard.
What the music was, Les wasn’t quite sure; some sort of toe-tappin’ rock‘n’roll with a raunchy, shuffling beat and an accordion. Some of the lyrics were in French. But he could make out some bloke saying,
Hot steppers dance Zydeco.
Hot steppers dance Zydeco.
Hot steppers dance the varnish off the flo’.
Hot steppin’ that Zydeco.
Whatever you say, pal, agreed Norton, demolishing one beer and starting on another. He was lying back on the banana-lounge, listening to the music with his eyes closed when Norton sensed something. He opened his eyes and Crystal was standing on her sundeck looking at him. She had a dressing-gown wrapped loosely around her and her hair was still wet from the shower. He was about to say something when Crystal spoke.
‘Where’s that music coming from, Les?’
Norton indicated with his bottle. ‘Just some tapes I got playing on the stereo. Hope I didn’t wake you up.’
Crystal looked a little surprised. ‘That’s your music?’ Les nodded. ‘That’s Cajun music.’
‘I don’t know what it is. But it sounds all right to me.’
Crystal cocked her head to one side. ‘That’s Queen Ita and the Bon Temps Zydeco Band.’
‘I wouldn’t have a clue,’ shrugged Norton. ‘I just like it.’
Crystal looked at him for a moment. ‘Do you mind if I come in for a while, Les?’
‘No, go for your life. Your key fits my door.’
A few minutes later, Crystal was standing on the sundeck, a T-shirt on under the dressing-gown, everything else heaving against the lot. Apart from a bit of a hard face she didn’t look too bad.
‘Would you like a beer or a cup of coffee, Crystal?’
‘I wouldn’t mind a cup of coffee.’ Les went to get up. ‘Stay there. I’ll get it.’
Crystal found the jug and the coffee and a few minutes later was back on the sundeck sipping a mug of coffee.
‘Well, you’ve brushed up all right, Crystal. How’s champagne Charlie this morning? He looked like death warmed up the last time I saw him.’
‘He’s not so good. He got up for a while earlier, then went back to bed.’
‘We going nightclubbing again tonight?’
‘I would doubt that very much.’ Crystal sipped her coffee, then a big grin spread across her face as a new track came on and she started bopping around a little to the music. ‘Hey, that’s Boozoo Chavis.’
‘It is?’
‘I used to see him in New Orleans, Les. The big easy on the big drink.’ Crystal took another sip of coffee and started singing along with the lyrics; considerably better than in the car the night before.
Eighteen, nineteen, twenty years ago.
Uncle Bud beat the devil out of cotton eyed Joe. Uncle Bud.
Down in Louisiana where the grass grows green.
They got more women than you ever seen. Uncle Bud. Uncle Bud got cotton, ain’t never been picked.
Uncle Bud got corn ain’t never been shucked.
Uncle Bud got a daughter ain’t never been touched. Uncle Bud.
Uncle Bud got a daughter, her name is Joan.
Soft as butter, make her old man moan. Uncle Bud.
Crystal threw back her head and laughed. ‘Where did you get this music, Les?’
‘I got a bloke in an import shop in Sydney to make it up for me. Do you like it?’
‘Like it?’ Crystal shook her head and a far-away look came in her eyes for a second or two. ‘Shoot, Les, that music reminds me of home. Good times, good folks, good fiddles and good whisky.’
‘Home?’ Les looked quizzical. ‘This is some sort of southern music. I thought you came from New York?’
‘In a pig’s ass I do. I’ve been there about three years. The Big Apple. Hah! The big sewer’d be more like it. But that’s where the money is.’ Crystal smiled a sweet smile. ‘No, Les. I come from a little town called Granite Falls, North Carolina.
‘North Carolina? Is that in the south.’
‘Is North Carolina in the South?’ Crystal looked shocked. ‘Boy, have you got a sassy mou
th. Keep on with uppity talk and ah might just have to whip yo’ ass. Of course it’s in the South. We’re talking mint-juleps, magnolia blossoms and maghty fahn folks. It’s the Red Cardinal state.’
‘Red cardinal?’
‘Yeah. It’s a bird. The state bird.’ Crystal pointed to one of the willie-wagtails bobbing around in the backyard. ‘Like that li’l critter there. Only all red with a black face.’
‘Oh.’ Norton eased back on the banana-lounge. ‘So tell us a bit about yourself, Crystal. And do it in that southern accent. It cracks me up.’
‘Wah Rhett.’ Crystal batted her eyelids. ‘Ah declare, you do make a gal blush so. You want ah should talk suthin?’
‘Ah’d surely be obliged, ma’am.’
Crystal laughed then gave Les a bit of a rundown on herself while she sipped her coffee and the cassette played in the background. She did come from the little town she mentioned where, with her giant, humungus boobs, she just about got driven mad. She was half singing in a band and doing other work and finally figured there were bigger things in store for her other than her tits, so she drifted down to a place called Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and joined up with a zydeco band — Big Gator Cha Cha. After a while she ended up in New Orleans, singing, doing a bit of modelling and cheesecake. It was here she met KK and his brother Menachem. She drifted up to New York to do more cheesecake photos and ended up cutting two records. She met KK again in New York and ended up going with him. All the time telling her story she spoke ‘suthin’, and the accent had Norton fascinated.
Crystal looked into her now empty coffee cup. ‘Les, have you met Kelvin’s brother Menachem?’
Norton nodded. ‘Several times.’
‘If I tell you something about him, Les, do you swear you won’t repeat it?’
‘Sure.’
‘I saw Manny kill two men one night with his bare hands. Two of the biggest niggers I ever seen.’
‘Fair dinkum?’ Norton wasn’t the least surprised, but he was more than interested. ‘Tell us what happened.’
White Shoes, White Lines and Blackie Page 11
