It was barely first light when they reached the bottom of the cliff but both old ‘rockhoppers’ still knew their way around. Both still remembered where their secret spot was and how to get to it by scrambling up, through and over certain barnacleencrusted ledges and around dozens of smelly seagulls’ nests; whose occupants squawked and screamed furiously at them in protest as they tramped past. Neither man could believe his luck when they finally made it to the clearing underneath the huge, towering cliffs. Warm and still and not a soul around. The summer nor’easter wouldn’t be up for hours yet and there was only the slightest pleasant breeze. The seas were calm and safe with just enough swell surging around the edge of the rocks to create the white water needed to bring the blackfish swarming around, and biting at almost anything in their voracious search for food. There was an abundant supply of bright green ‘cabbage’ on the rocks. They soon filled their little plastic bait containers attached to belts round their waists, then picked some more which they tossed all over the water for burley. Joe had brought down a radio which he turned first to Doug Mulray and his madcap humour on 2MMM, then Ron Casey arguing about football with some yobbo on 2KY, finally settling for a bit of nice middle of the road music on 2DAY FM. Before long both doctors had their fishing shoes and sunshades on and had cast out. Within less than thirty minutes Ozzie had five blackfish, Joe had four, and not one under a kilogram.
‘Shit! How good’s this, Joe,’ called out Ozzie excitedly, as another luderick hit him, pulling his slender blackfish rod down almost in a U-shape. ‘Jesus Christ. I can’t remember the last time they were as thick as this.’
‘The bastards are swarming like piranhas,’ yelled back Dr Connely, his rod bending violently as he too was hit by another luderick. ‘Betcha can’t wait to be doing a few autopsies on these little critters later, Oz.’
Dr Joyce didn’t say anything. He just grinned and wiggled his eyebrows cheekily. The city coroner was not only very adept at performing an autopsy or slicing up a cadaver, but when it came to filleting a plump blackfish with an old fishing knife there was hardly any better in the business at that either.
Ozzie lost his blackfish. But Joe, after a bit of tricky playing managed to time it right and catch the surge of a small incoming swell to play his fish up over the ledge and land it with the wash almost at his feet. It was a beauty: almost two kilos. It flopped and wriggled around on the weed-covered rocks, the sun sparkling on its fat silver stomach with its bands of black scales as it tried desperately to disgorge the hook and get back into the ocean. With a happy whistle Joe deftly picked the struggling fish up under the gills, and with the metal cleats fastened to the bottom of his old gym boots rasping and scraping on the rocks, took it over to a small rock pool where it could swim around and stay fresh until it was gutted and scaled.
Dr Connely had just got the hook out and the plump blackfish in the pool when a movement up above his head caught his eye. He squinted up into the bright blue sky over the surrounding cliffs just in time to see a figure come plummeting down towards him; its arms held straight out in front and its legs still pumping like it was riding a pushbike in midair. Even at the rate it was falling there was no mistaking it was a man.
The body landed with a sickening crunching thump in the middle of the clearing barely five metres from where Dr Connely was standing. In the still silence at the base of the soaring cliffs the noise was almost like a small explosion. Speechless with shock the horrified doctor could scarcely believe his eyes; he just stood there in awestruck silence blinking over at where the body had landed out of sight behind some large sandstone boulders. He continued to stare for a few moments then dropped his fishing rod and hurried back to Dr Joyce who was furiously playing another huge blackfish he’d just hit in to.
‘Oz, you’re not going to believe this,’ he said, gesticulating wildly with his hands, ‘but some bloke’s just thrown himself off the Gap.’
The coroner half listened to Dr Connely but was too interested in landing his fish to take a great deal of notice. ‘Yeah, hold on a second,’ he grunted. ‘I’ve nearly got this bludger.’
‘I’ve never seen anything like it,’ babbled Dr Connely, still waving his hands around madly. ‘I can’t believe it.’ He turned wide-eyed back towards where the body had landed. ‘I just don’t bloody believe it.’
Dr Joyce continued to half listen to his friend as he moved right up to where the swell was lapping around the edge of the rocks in a renewed effort to land his fish. The way his rod was bending almost to breaking point and the line whipping violently through the water it had to be a monster. Suddenly the line tightened then went dead. The hook must have torn straight out of the frantically fighting blackfish’s soft mouth.
‘Ahh shit!’ cursed Dr Joyce. ‘Lost him.’ Disappointed, he slowly wound his line in and walked over to where Dr Connely was standing. ‘Now, what were you saying, Joe? Some one’s jumped over the Gap or something?’
‘Yeah, over here. Come and have a look. I still don’t bloody well believe it.’
Dr Joyce placed his rod up against a rock and they scratched and scraped their way over to where whoever it was had landed.
The body had rolled down from its original position on to its back, between a couple of fairly large sandstone boulders. There was surprisingly little blood. Some seepage out of the ears, nose and mouth, one arm looked like it was broken and the clothing was ripped a little, but that was about it. The only odd thing was that the corpse’s eyes were still open and there was this strange, contented, almost joyful smile on its face.
Dr Connely took a closer look at the body and stopped dead in his tracks. ‘Good God,’ he shouted out, turning to Dr Joyce. ‘I know him. That’s Bob Davis.’
‘Yeah?’ replied the city coroner a little indifferently. He’d just seen around fifty corpses in the last two weeks and he wasn’t too keen to see any more. Not on his day off anyway. ‘Looks happy enough—don’t he?’
‘Bob Davis, my God!’ Dr Connely had just got over his first shock and now there was another one. A worse one. ‘That’s one of my patients. I’ve known him for years. He was only in a few weeks ago.’
Dr Joyce walked over and placed his fingers expertly on either side of the corpse’s throat. ‘Well, I don’t think he’ll be coming in any longer, Joe,’ he said, after a few seconds.
Dr Connely slumped up against a large rock and wiped a hand across his face. ‘Christ Almighty, Oz, what are we gonna do. We’ll have to go and get the police. God, this has really stuffed up my day.’
‘Yeah?’ Dr Joyce took another look at the body, looked up at his old friend then walked over and placed a hand on his shoulder. ‘Well Joe. It might have stuffed up your day, but it sure as hell ain’t gonna stuff up mine.’ He gave Dr Connely a soothing pat on the shoulder. ‘Now I know how you feel Joe. Even I’ve got to admit this is a bit unexpected. But your mate here’s not going anywhere and those blackfish are on Joe. On. So what do you want to do?’ The coroner nodded his head back towards where they’d been fishing. ‘Come on.’ Dr Connely looked up at Dr Joyce for a few moments, looked at Davo then back at Dr Joyce. ‘Yeah Oz,’ he sighed, heaving himself up from the rock he was leaning against. ‘I s’pose you’re right. It’s not often we get a day like this, is it?’
‘That’s the style, mate.’
‘Jesus I’ll tell you what though, Oz. I might have to open one of those bottles of wine.’
‘Good idea,’ said Dr Joyce cheerfully, giving his good friend another reassuring pat on the back as they scraped and scratched their way back to the water’s edge. ‘I wouldn’t mind a drop myself—to tell you the truth.’
About half an hour later both men had landed another four blackfish each and the bottle of 1978 Rosemount Chardonnay was well and truly gone. Roughly about the same time the notorious Australian summer flies and a couple of curious water rats found Davo.
Robert G. Barrett
You Wouldn’t Be Dead For Quids
You Wouldn't Be D
ead For Quids is the book that launched Les Norton as Australia’s latest cult hero.
Follow Les, the hillbilly from Queensland, as he takes on the bouncers, heavies, hookers and gamblers of Sydney’s Kings Cross, films a TV add for Bowen Lager in Queensland and gets caught up with a nymphomaniac on the Central Coast of New South Wales.
In one of the funniest books of the past decade you will laugh yourself silly and be ducking for cover as Les unleashes himself on Sydney’s unsuspecting underworld.
Robert G. Barrett
The Real Thing
. . . it isn’t every day you help murder someone with poison in an illegal casino, whisk his body halfway across town in a Rolls Royce, after robbing him, then bury his body in tonnes of concrete underneath an international airport—all more or less with the cooperation of two detectives.
Les Norton is back in town!
Trouble seems to follow Les Norton like a blue heeler after a mob of sheep.
Maybe it’s his job.
Being a bouncer at the infamous and illegal Kelly Club in Kings Cross isn’t exactly the stuff a quiet life is made of.
Maybe it’s his friends.
Like Price Galese, the urbane and well-connected owner of The Kelly Club, or Eddie Salita, the hit man who learned to kill in Vietnam, or Reg Campbell, struggling artist and dope dealer.
But then again, maybe Les is just unlucky.
As in You Wouldn’t Be Dead For Quids, Robert G. Barrett’s five stories in The Real Thing provide an entertaining mix of laughter and excitement, as well as an insight into the Sydney underworld—a world often violent and cynical, but also with its fair share of rough humour and memorable characters.
Robert G. Barrett
The Boys From Binjiwunyawunya
The big Aussie Rules player hit the roadway in a tangle of arms and legs. His head came up just in time to see Norton come leaping out of the tram and the Cuban heels of his R.M. Williams riding boots land on his chest, with fifteen stone of enraged Queenslander behind them. If the earlier onslaught of punches hadn’t done Rick’s internal organs much good, the final serve completely destroyed them. He gave one hideous moan and passed out.
Les Norton is back in town!
There’s no two ways about Les Norton—the carrottopped country boy who works as a bouncer at Sydney’s top illegal casino. He’s tough and he’s mean. He’s got a granite jaw, fists like hams, and they say the last time he took a tenner from his wallet Henry Lawson blinked at the light.
Lethal but loyal, he’s always good for a laugh. In this, the third collection of Les Norton adventures, Les gets his boss off the hook. But not without the help of the boys from Binjiwunyawunya.
Les then finds himself in a spot of bother in Long Bay Gaol then in a lot more bother on a St. Kilda tram in Melbourne...
Robert G. Barrett’s Les Norton stories have created a world as funny as Damon Runyon’s. If you don’t know Les Norton, you don’t know Australia in the eighties.
Robert G. Barrett
The Godson
‘I wonder who that red-headed bloke is? He’s come into town out of nowhere, flattened six of the best fighters in Yurriki plus the biggest man in the valley. Then he arrives at my dance in an army uniform drinking French champagne and imported beer like it’s going out of style. And ups and leaves with the best young sort in the joint. Don’t know who he is. But he’s not bloody bad.’
Les Norton is at it again!
Les thought they were going to be the easiest two weeks of his life.
Playing minder for a young member of the Royal Family called Peregrine Normanhurst III sounded like a dead-set snack. So what if he was a champagneguzzling millionaire Hooray Henry and his godfather was the Attorney General of Australia? Les would keep Peregrine out of trouble. So what if he was on the run from the IRA? They’d never follow him to Australia . . .
Robert G. Barrett’s latest Les Norton adventure moves at breakneck speed from the corridors of power in Canberra to the grimy tenements of Belfast, scorching the social pages of Sydney society and romping through the North Coasts’ plushest resorts to climax in a nerve-shattering, blood-spattered shootout on a survivalist fortress in the Tweed Valley. The Godson features Les Norton at his hilarious best, whatever he’s up against—giant inbreds, earth mothers, Scandinavian au pair girls, jealous husbands, violent thugs and vengeful terrorists.
If you thought Australia’s favourite son could get up to some outrageous capers in You Wouldn’t be Dead for Quids, The Real Thing and The Boys from Binjiwunyawunya, until you’ve read The Godson, you ain’t read nothin’ yet!
Robert G. Barrett
Between the Devlin and the Deep Blue Seas
Okay, so it looks like the Kelly Club is finally closing down—it had to happen sooner or later. And it isn’t as if Les Norton will starve. He has money snookered away, he owns his house, and his blue-chip investment—a block of flats in Randwick—must be worth a fortune by now. Except that the place is falling down, the council is reclaiming the land, there’s been a murder in Flat 5, and the tenants are the biggest bunch of misfits since the Manson Family. And that’s just the good news, because the longer Les owns the Blue Seas Apartments, the more money he loses.
This time Les Norton’s really up against it.
But whilst he’s trying to solve his financial problems, he still has time to fight hate-crazed roadies, sort out a drug deal after fighting a gang of bikies, help a feminist Balmain writer with some research she won’t foreget in a hurry, and get involved with Franulka, super-sexy leadsinger of an all-girl rock band, The Heathen Harlots.
And with the help of two ex-Romanian Securitate explosive experts, he might even be able to sort out his investments.
But can Les pull off the perfect crime? Of course—and why not throw the street party of the year at the same time?
Robert G. Barrett’s latest Les Norton novel is probably no more outrageous than his previous ones.
But then again . . .
Davo's Little Something Page 38
