Les checked his watch and started a rhythmic breathing cycle, sending out relaxing signals to his feet and legs, working his way up to his neck and head. Finally he lay there, staring into the blackness of his mind, completely devoid of thought but not sound asleep.
Eventually Norton’s eyes snapped open. The flat was quite dark now and he checked his watch. Exactly thirty minutes. He took a few deep breaths, stretched his legs over his head a few times then stood up, did a few more stretches and switched the lights on. He blinked a couple of times then smiled; he felt as if he’d been asleep for hours. Without any further ado, Les stripped off and got under a cold shower; though it was still that hot a cold one was all you needed.
A minute or so before seven, Les was seated in front of the TV in his Speedos with a cup of coffee. He spread some sheets of newspaper on the floor and started trimming and shaping the piece of sponge rubber with the scissors and the kitchen knife. On the lounge next to him were the pages from the Spanish magazine with the photos of topless Crystal. Les kept smiling at it as he trimmed away and the ABC news came one.
Richard Morecroft looked even more sober and exact than normal. Superimposed behind him was the United States flag, the Australian flag and the seal of the President of the United States. Almost sadly, he announced that the forthcoming visit to Australia by the President had suddenly been cancelled due to illness. The screen then flashed to an official dinner in Hawaii and there was the President, surrounded by flunkies, throwing the best drama imaginable, clutching at his throat and collapsing at the dinner table like he was dying. As if on cue, his wife raced to his side and began wiping his face. Then as if on cue, the Secret Service raced to his side and carted him off with his loving wife in attendance. Norton stared at the TV screen, shaking his head at the President departing, looking like a dingo that had just swallowed a bait. It was pure Hollywood. It couldn’t have looked any better if Steven Spielberg had scripted and directed it. Norton wouldn’t have been surprised if he had. Then Norton started to laugh out loud. If you’re not an actor, pal, he mused, you should be. And your missus too. The screen flashed to one of the President’s doctors saying the President had food poisoning, the rest of his trip was cancelled and he would be kept under observation for a few days at least. Then it was the Australian Prime Minister’s turn, saying how much he regretted the President’s tour being called off and hoped he’d be all right.
Norton continued to stare at the TV and laugh. Yeah, food poisoning my arse. Possible radioactive poisoning’d be more like it. And don’t thank me and my brother either, will you. You pair of gooses. Les watched the Australian Prime Minister for a moment or two more, then turned the TV down; the news was pretty dull after that and Norton wasn’t all that interested. He went back to cutting and shaping the piece of sponge rubber, smiling at the photos of Crystal spread out next to him. The scissors did most of the job, and before long Norton had the sponge rubber in the shape he wanted; or close enough. He held the piece of rubber up, had another look at the photos, and thought about Crystal standing out on his rear sundeck. Yeah. Close enough. Now for the tricky part.
With the scissors in his hand, Les walked to his room and the en-suite and started looking around, finally settling on the bag of clothes he’d brought along. For some reason he’d thrown in a thick pair of track-suit pants, dark blue cotton and rayon. Seems like a shame to stuff up a good pair of track-suit pants but these are the things you do for your brother. He dug the scissors into one leg of the pants and cut out a piece about two inches square. Satisfied, he took it into the loungeroom and placed it next to the piece of sponge rubber. Now what?
Les stood in the kitchen and looked around. There was a small bottle of Coke in the fridge. He took it out and tipped the contents down the sink. Les snapped the neck off the bottle on the edge of the sink, then crushed it up a little with the bottom of the empty Coke bottle. Les picked out a few pieces he thought would do, flushed the rest down the sink and went back to the loungeroom.
Carefully he folded the pieces of broken coke bottle into the piece of track-suit and placed it on the lounge. With the kitchen knife, Les just as carefully cut a small pocket in the piece of sponge rubber, checked it with his index finger then, equally carefully, placed the folded-up square of track-suit in the pocket. The tube of Super-glue was new; Les soon had it open and squeezed a thick smear across the top of the hole in the rubber, binding it tight. He gave it a few moments, just to be surer Yep, that couldn’t be any firmer. Tighter than a finger in a bum — like they say. Les held and lightly bounced the piece of sponge rubber in his huge hands. Well, I don’t think I can do any better than that. Let’s just hope I’m right.
By now the news was well and truly finished, not that Les had taken much notice, and now it was almost the end of the ‘7.30 Report’. Something caught Norton’s eye. For some strange reason, Quentin Dempster had decided to ask Rampaging Roy Slavin and H.G. Nelson for their comments on the President of the United States cancelling his trip to Australia. Les had missed the first few seconds, and turned the sound up. It was over to Roy Slavin, all po-faced, saying he’d recently been at the White House discussing world policy with the President and giving him some advice on his forthcoming trip to Australia.
‘And I distinctly remember saying to the President, HG,’ intoned Slavin, ‘I said to him, Mr President I said, when you’re in Hawaii, don’t eat the poi. Don’t eat the poi, I said, Mr President. It’s off. Been off for years. Never really been on.’
‘Well, Roy, it’s a funny thing you should warn him about the food in Hawaii,’ chimed in H.G. Nelson, ‘but I was only on the phone to him the other night myself.’
‘On the hotline, HG?’
‘On the hotline, Roy, yes. And I was warning the President about various trendy, so-called upmarket Eastern suburbs restaurants to avoid like the plague. Trendy restaurants with their so-called nouvelle cuisine.’
‘Well, HG, you and I have always been on the same wavelength. And like myself, the President is a personal friend of yours also.’
‘But viewers,’ H.G. Nelson’s voice rose as the camera came full in on him, ‘as well as the President’s visit being cancelled, Roy and myself have had to cancel a dinner for the three of us at Harry’s Cafe de Wheels. That’s right, viewers. Rampaging Roy Slavin and myself were to have had a formal dinner with the President of the United States of America at Harry’s Cafe de Wheels.’
‘Australian cuisine, HG,’ cut in Slavin. ‘That’s what I tried to tell him. Stick to good old Oz cuisine and none of this would have happened. But would the Secret Service listen to me? Would his wife listen to me. Would…’
Les laughed and switched the TV off. Not bad, boys, not bad. But if only you knew the fuckin’ truth. He shook his head. Christ! Wait till Price and Eddie find out. I wonder if even they’ll believe me? I reckon Eddie will.
Satisfied with what he’d done, Les placed the piece of sponge rubber on a chair in his bedroom. Back in the loungeroom, he painstakingly wrapped up all the pieces of sponge rubber, plus the tube of Super-glue and the broken Coke bottle in the sheets of newspaper, placed the bundle in the plastic bag he’d brought his Nikes home in and stuffed it in his clothes bag. Les then spent the next twenty minutes packing all his clothes, his shaving gear and his ghetto-blaster. Bad luck he had to leave the rest of the beer and food, but he packed the still unopened bottle of Jim Beam. He didn’t bother to tidy his bedroom or clean what mess there was in the kitchen. If all went well this would have to have, if not all the signs of a hasty departure, at least an orderly retreat.
He left a blue T-shirt sitting on one of his bags on the bed and had a last look around. Everything seemed in order. Norton then got into his jeans, the denim shirt he wasn’t all that worried about getting ripped, his now completely broken-in R.M. Williams riding boots, and made sure he had all his money together and the car keys in the small overnight-bag. The last thing Les did was to go back to the kitchen, get the same knife he’d been
using and put it out on the back sun-deck. Then he went and tapped on Kramer’s door.
Kramer answered the door and even though it was barely open, Les could see the little conman was wearing jeans, a brown button-down-collar shirt and good old white shoes.
‘Hello, Les,’ he said, blinking slightly behind his glasses.
‘How are you, KK?’ replied Les brightly. ‘You still coming out for a couple of drinks?’
‘Yeah, okay. Crystal said not too late though.’
‘No. As soon as you want to leave I’m with you,’ said Norton.’
‘All right. We’ll see you down the front in about fifteen minutes.’
‘Righto,’ smiled Norton. ‘See you then.’
Kramer closed his door. Les went inside and sat in the kitchen sipping the last of his orange juice: thinking. Not necessarily about the ensuing fight; something else besides. He took his orange juice into the bedroom and had another look at the piece of sponge rubber. He’d done about all he could with that. Now there was just one hurdle to overcome. A bit of a tricky one, but if he couldn’t do it, he’d just abort the mission. It was all a bit of a long shot, a real long shot and he was only surmising. He knew he was right about one thing. The other was just an educated guess. The bottom line was though, he had nothing to lose if he was wrong. Only his brother’s earn. Les swallowed the last of the orange juice. So let’s just hope for Murray’s sake I’m right. A couple of minutes later Les was down the front of the flats about the same time as the stretch limousine.
Well, nice to see we’re all going out in style on our last night in Surfers, Les thought to himself. The limo was facing towards Cavill Avenue with Tony behind the wheel. Les gave him a smile and a bit of a nod as he walked across the driveway. The driver nodded back, noticing Les was wearing sunglasses, and if Les wasn’t mistaken there was a bit of a smirk in Tony’s eyes. Fair enough, thought Les, leaning against the back door. If it was the other way around I’d probably do the same thing, and aren’t we all entitled to a bit of a laugh in these troubled times?
Les had just got comfortable when KK and Crystal came out the front door. Kramer was wearing what he had on earlier, Crystal was wearing jeans also and the same white chef’s kind of jacket she had on when they went out to dinner some night or somewhere. Now there was a bit of a smirk behind Norton’s sunglasses. I’m glad you chose to wear white tonight, Crystal. I’m not quite sure why, but I’m just glad you did.
‘Hello, Crystal,’ said Les, his voice dripping with politeness. ‘How are you? Nice top you have on.’
‘Not bad, Dempsey,’ replied Crystal, also noticing Norton’s sunglasses. ‘Where’s your white stick?’
Norton still kept smiling. ‘I just thought I’d wear these. You know how people like to stare.’
‘Yeah,’ nodded Crystal. ‘That’s about all there is, down here in this neck of the woods. Rubber-necked geeks.’
‘Something like that,’ answered Les. He opened the back door, they all climbed in and the limousine moved off.
‘Kelvin says you’re actually gonna take us out and buy us a few drinks,’ said Crystal, making herself comfortable. ‘Shout? Is that what you hillbillies call it?’
‘Yeah, that’s about it,’ nodded Les. ‘You’ve both been that nice to me, I thought it’s the least I could do. And it is your last night in Australia.’
‘Yeah. And ain’t I just broken-hearted having to leave.’ Crystal turned to Kramer. ‘What’s this place like he’s taking us to, Kelvin?’
‘Nice,’ answered KK. ‘It’ll probably be a bit quiet tonight. But the Boulevarde’s a nice place. Even though I haven’t been in there for yonks.’
Crystal shrugged. ‘I don’t give a rodent’s much what it’s like, so long as Joe Palooka here’s paying for it.’ Crystal smiled incisively at Les. ‘So what’s your story, Dempsey? You looking for a bit more trouble tonight?’
Norton shook his head. ‘Not much chance of that,’ he replied.
‘Guess you’re just gonna have to learn to tap-dance a bit faster this time, if there is, ain’t you?’
Norton smiled back. ‘The only dancing I’ll be doing tonight, Crystal’ll be a bit of Balmain folk dancing,’ he purred.
Crystal turned back to Kramer. ‘Balmain folk dancing? What’s with this fuckin’ Balmain folk dancing, Kelvin?’
Kramer shrugged his fat little shoulders. ‘How would I know? I’m from Melbourne.’
The stretch limo cruised comfortably on into the night. Next thing they were in Begonia Avenue, alighting amongst the people walking past or standing outside the Boulevarde.
There was a solid bouncer standing out front behind a kind of roped-off partition. He didn’t say anything as he let them through, though he appeared to be thinking about something. Les smiled from behind his sunglasses and opened the front door.
Inside was considerably more crowded than when Les had walked through the place earlier, even for a Monday night. There were a few couples on the dancefloor and two or three girls hanging round a DJ wearing a floral shirt who was playing some track by Simply Red. Naturally everybody stopped to look at Crystal, and naturally KK basked in it, although he seemed a little more subdued than normal.
‘It’s a bit crowded in here,’ said Les. He indicated with his head. ‘Why don’t we go down that bar at the end?’
Crystal and KK exchanged glances and shrugged. ‘Yeah, okay’, said Kramer.
With Les leading the way, they eased their way through the crowd down to the end bar. It was a bit quieter, maybe fifteen or so people standing or sitting around or grouped around the bar next to the balcony. And sure enough, there was Stinnett and Jasper and the team, casually dressed in jeans, T-shirts or loose fitting shirts, seated or leaning up against the wall-length mirror near the window in the corner. Although he couldn’t help the tremor in his body, Norton pretended not to notice them; especially Stinnett and Jasper. One thing Les did notice: instead of six, there were eight and all pretty fit looking. The team couldn’t help but notice the trio walk in, they were onto them in a flash; Les felt like it was sixteen surly eyes drilling straight into them.
Smiling and acting completely oblivious, Norton made room at the bar on their left, even managing to find a stool for Crystal. ‘Righto,’ he said brightly. ‘Now remember, this is on me. What are we having?’ He gave his hands a little clap and rubbed them together.
‘Les,’ said Kramer apprehensively and suddenly looking a little pale. ‘You see who’s sitting against that wall over there?’ Carrying on completely blase, Norton had a quick look around then turned back to Kramer. ‘That team that gave you the hiding at CJ’s.’
‘Is it?’ Still acting blase, Les had another quick look through his sunglasses. ‘Oh well, I don’t think they’ll want to cause any trouble. Not in here, surely?’
‘I think we should leave,’ said Kramer.
‘Ahh we’re here now,’ said Les. ‘Have one drink. If they look like causing any bother we’ll stall.’
Crystal soon twigged to what was going on. ‘Yeah let’s have a drink,’ she said, adding a cynical smile. ‘We’ve got Dempsey here to protect us. I’ll have a George Dickles on the rocks, Killer. Make it a double.’
‘You got it,’ beamed Norton. ‘What about you, KK?’
Kramer thought for a second. ‘All right,’ he said reluctantly. ‘A Jack Daniels and Coke. Plenty of ice.’
‘Good idea. I might have the same. Wait here, I won’t be a sec.’
Norton walked over to the bar opposite, checking out the team and the other punters on the way over. He noticed most of the team were watching him; Les was also stuffed if he could see Murray. They were mainly couples and a few girls and overdressed men out on the run. But no sign of fuckin’ Murray. Les checked his watch. Shit! The cunt should be here. Where is he? Now it was Norton’s turn to be a little apprehensive. He eased himself up against the bar next to some bloke reeking of aftershave lotion, wearing white pants, white shirt, white belt, white shoes, a
white hat and white-rimmed sunglasses, trying to put work on two women sitting next him. Christ! Who does this mug think he is? thought Norton, now feeling a little irritable at his brother not turning up. Boz Scaggs, Elton John or the secretary of some North Shore bowling club? Nice flip. Norton ordered the drinks and tried to check out the team in the mirror behind the bar. But it was on too much of an angle, which added to his irritability. Norton was wondering what to do when Boz Scaggs tapped him on the arm.
‘Excuse me, mate. You wouldn’t have the time, would you?’ he asked.
Still feeling testy, Les held up his arm and bent his wrist so Boz Scaggs could see his watch.
‘Thanks, mate.’
‘You’re welcome,’ replied Les.
After those few brief words, Les completely ignored his brother. He just smiled as a wonderful feeling of relief went through his body while he waited for the drinks, then quietly slipped his watch off and tucked it in the front pocket of his jeans.
The drinks arrived. Les walked back to the others to find KK had found a stool and was sitting next to Crystal. Smiling away, Les put the drinks on the bar, picked up his own and clinked their two glasses.
‘Well, here’s to…’ Les turned to Crystal. ‘Here’s to the South. The South’s gonna rise again. Ain’t that what they say?’
‘They sure do, boy,’ answered Crystal. ‘To the South.’
‘Whatever,’ muttered Kramer.
Les swallowed almost half his drink in one go and felt it burn the back of his throat as it slid pleasantly all the way down to his stomach. Ahh, good thing I got doubles, he thought to himself. Out the corner of his eye he watched the team against the wall, now going into a bit of a huddle.
White Shoes, White Lines and Blackie Page 25
