by Peter Corris
He lit a Rothmans and flicked the match at me. ‘Thanks, Hardy. You did a great job. We had visitors last night, tanked to the gills.’
‘How many?’
‘Enough. There was a couple of big black Marine sergeants here, as it happened. They managed to keep a bit of order. But it’s going to get worse. People are going to get hurt.’
‘What do your backers say?’
Bean would’ve spat if he hadn’t been standing on his new carpet. ‘They tell me to handle it. They’re insured to the hilt, so what the fuck? I tell them we’ll get closed down and they say talk to the right people. They don’t understand how things work in Sydney. Hey, where’re you going?’
‘To see Barraclough.’ I went up the steps fast and almost knocked over a man who was standing at the top, looking down into the gloom and shaking his head.
He steadied himself against the wall and I turned towards him to apologise.
‘Cliff Hardy,’ he said. ‘What the hell are you doing here?’
It was Rhys Thomas, a journalist I knew slightly and didn’t want to know any better. He worked for one of the tabloids and had tried to do a feature on me before I convinced him otherwise.
‘Having an early morning drink,’ I said. ‘How about you?’
‘Just came down to take a look at something we’re not allowed to write about. Didn’t know there was an insurance angle, but.’
‘There isn’t,’ I said. ‘What d’you mean?’
Thomas was a pasty-faced, nocturnal snoop. To even see him in daylight was rare. To see him working was an event. He bared his yellow teeth in an ingratiating smile. ‘Tit for tat?’
‘No. You said “we’re” not allowed to write about something. That means other people know what you know. I’ll ask them.’
He offered me a Senior Service, which was about the only tailor-made cigarette I found hard to resist. I needed a smoke and I took it. I lit it myself, though.
‘Look, Hardy,’ Thomas said, ‘there was a stoush here last night. I saw the tail end of it. Pretty bad. Filed a piece and it got spiked. You know why?’
I puffed smoke and shook my head.
‘There’s no trouble for GIs in our fair city. That’s official. How does that sit with you?’
I shrugged. ‘I’m not a crusader, Rhys. Neither are you, last I heard.’
‘A couple of our boys got hurt pretty badly here. Hospital cases. Whisked away and nothing’s being said. What about that?’
It got to me-a bunch of politicians and city plutocrats sitting down and declaring what was what while dopey young soldiers jabbed broken glasses at each other. I grabbed Rhys by the arm and dragged him across the street. ‘Come with me,’ I said. ‘There’s a story here all right. You just might be the man to tell it, if that’s the way it works out.’
I could feel fear and resistance in Thomas’ body as I hauled him over to the Macquarie. ‘Hardy,’ he said, ‘I’m not sure…’
‘Nothing’s sure, Rhys,’ I said, ‘except that you’re going to get a very thick ear unless you come with me.’
Barraclough was holding court in the Digger Bar. He had a full schooner in his fist and an empty one at his elbow. A couple of his semi-uniformed cronies were gathered round-bristling moustaches, tattooed forearms, beer-glazed eyes.
‘Well, well,’ Barraclough crowed, ‘it’s Lieutenant Hardy who got out when the getting out was good. Top of the morning, Cliff.’
He raised the full schooner. I got close enough to knock it out of his hand. The beer sloshed and spilled over Eddie who was in close attendance. Eddie growled and got to his feet.
‘Sit down, Eddie,’ Barraclough slurred. ‘Man’s some kind of cop. Probably got a gun. Got a gun, Hardy?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘I wouldn’t need a gun for Eddie or anyone else here. I don’t understand you, Ken. Why’re all these arse-lickers around? And where was Eddie last night? I hear the Marines put a couple of Australians in St Vincent’s.’
‘There’ll be other nights,’ Barraclough said.
I was so incensed by the stupidity of it all that I shoved one of the courtiers aside and pushed my face close up to Barraclough’s red, sweaty kisser. ‘I’m ashamed of you, Ken. You were a great officer, the best. You made a mistake and paid hard for it. Now you want to fight, a little GI versus Aussie war right here in the Cross. Fuck you! What gives you the right to put blokes in hospital with broken jaws and carved-up faces?’
‘I didn’t make any mistakes.’
‘The brass say you did. Prove that you didn’t.’
Barraclough roared something incoherent and slammed his fists down on his fat stumps.
‘Foaming at the mouth doesn’t prove a thing,’ I said.
Eddie and a couple of the other heavies looked restless. They were all battling hangovers and could turn mean at any moment. Rhys Thomas had backed into the shadows, but he was soaking up every word. Barraclough was the key to it all. The trick was to force something conciliatory, something reasonable out of him.
‘What about it, Ken?’ I taunted him. ‘Want to Indian wrestle? You used to be good at that. I saw you break a guy’s arm once in Singapore. The bone came through the skin. Remember? Want to arm wrestle to prove you were right? Prove the Yanks never told you the fucking mines were there? Prove you didn’t blow your fucking legs off yourself?’
There was silence in the room. The night’s smoke and beer fumes hung in the air like cobwebs. Sweat poured from Barraclough’s face as he fought to control his anger. He looked around at the men lolling in chairs, slumped over tables and his lip curled. He sucked in a deep breath and his eyes came to focus on me. They bored in, tested me, the way he used to do back when he was about to issue orders about how to kill and survive. Suddenly, he was sober and deadly again.
‘No, Cliff,’ he said softly. ‘I’m out of condition and you’re still in shape. But I’ll tell you what. You get that little prick Bean to find a Yank who can fight and we’ll put an Aussie up against him. Unarmed combat with no holds barred.’
‘What’s the point?’ I said.
‘That’ll settle it. Win, lose or draw, I won’t look for trouble with the Yanks. We’ll fraternise.’
‘No provocation?’ I said. ‘No Yankees Go Home and half-price beer for Australians?’
‘Right,’ Barraclough said.
It seemed like a possible solution to a mess that was bound to grow messier otherwise. I couldn’t see Bean having any objection. Bound to be a dirty fight, but one unarmed brawl was better than a hundred with broken bottles.
‘I’ll put it to Bean,’ I said. ‘Who’s going to fight for you?’
Barraclough signalled for a drink. A schooner arrived and he took a small sip and wiped his moustache, very much the mess officer. You are, Cliff. Who else?’
Rhys Thomas was practically incoherent with delight.
‘What a story,’ he babbled. ‘What a story.’
I’d done the deal with Bean. The fight was set for two nights away. My opponent was going to be one of the black Marine sergeants. Thomas had all the details. I bought him a drink in a pub in Victoria Street and gave him the bad news.
‘No story, Rhys,’ I said, ‘not yet awhile.’
‘Yeah, yeah. When the fight’s over. I appreciate that. But even with the hush-hush on, they can’t suppress this.’
‘You’re missing the point. I’m suppressing it. I just took you along for recording purposes. I don’t want anything written about this.’
‘Hardy!’
‘Maybe one day.’
‘That’s not good enough.’
‘It has to be. If you don’t agree, I’ll make sure you don’t get to see the fight.’
‘I suppose you could do that, but how’re you going to stop me writing about it?’
I lowered my glass and looked at him.
‘Jesus, Hardy. You can be an evil-looking bastard when you try.’
‘I’m going to have to be more than evil-looking to get out of this in on
e piece.’
‘Come on. It’ll be a set-up, won’t it?’
‘You don’t know Barraclough. He’ll make sure it’s not.’
I went through the motions for the rest of the day and then went back over the bridge. Things weren’t any better on the home front. Astrid tried. She asked me how the Barraclough matter was going and I wasn’t forthcoming. What could I do? Tell her I was going mano e mono against some Harlem streetfighter for the sake of something I wasn’t even clear about myself?
On the day of the fight, Grant Evans called to tell me how quiet it had been the night before. ‘False alarm, eh, Cliff?’
I grunted.
‘What’s wrong?’
‘Nothing. Sorry, Grant, I’ve got a few things on.’
He hung up, offended. Terrific. Just the way to go into a fight, with your woman cold and resentful and your best mate pissed off. I got through the day somehow. Astrid had told me that she wouldn’t be in until nine. I said we could watch Peter Gunn together at 10.30. She wasn’t amused.
I turned up at the Macquarie at 9.00 p.m. wearing jeans, tennis shoes and an old army shirt. I leaned against a car outside and waited until Barraclough came to me. A couple of his boys had lifted the wheelchair up to street level and were looking a bit distressed. Barraclough was drunk.
‘Where?’ I said.
‘Out the back. That little prick of a journalist reckons you said he could watch. That right?’
‘Yeah. I hope you haven’t sold tickets.’
Barraclough chuckled. ‘Just a few friends, Hardy. Just a few friends.’
The wheelchair had an electric motor. He drove it along a narrow lane beside the pub and through a gate into a small yard, floodlit from the wooden stairs that led down from the back of the hotel. It looked as if Barraclough’s backers planned some improvements out here. The cement had been taken up and the yard was about to be bricked. The bricks, nice ones, salvaged from some demolished building, were in stacks around the edge. The space, about the size of two boxing rings, was covered with a couple of inches of sand. Lawrie Bean was there, along with three men in US military uniform, three Australian soldiers and Rhys Thomas. A woman sat on the bricks, smoking. Along with Barraclough, me and Eddie, that made twelve. The woman came across to stand beside Barraclough’s wheelchair. She was a leggy blonde with a miniskirt, sequined top and a face hard enough to knock the mortar off the old bricks.
A man stepped from the shadows near the steps. Number thirteen. He wore fatigue pants, a singlet and basketball boots. He was about six-foot-two, fourteen stone and black. Except for his teeth. They were very white when he smiled, which he did now.
‘Hi, honky,’ he said. ‘I understand you don’t like niggers.’
I shot a told-you-so look at Thomas but I didn’t bother to reply. I took off my watch, removed the money from my pockets and put the lot on the bricks, never taking my eyes off the Marine. He spat on his hands and dropped into a crouch.
‘Sergeant Lester Dobbs,’ he said. “Whose ass do I have the pleasure of whipping?’
‘My name’s Hardy,’ I said, ‘and you talk too bloody much.’
He scooped up a handful of sand and whipped it at me, but I was ready for that and went in under it with my eyes slitted. I kicked for his groin; he shuffled fast and took it on the thigh. My foot bounced off rock-hard muscle. He came at me, jabbing out a left, right cocked, balanced. I moved my head enough to avoid the jab and hit him on the nose with a quick one of my own. Too light, rusty, not enough snap. He got me with the right below my left eye and I went down. I saw his huge blue and white basketball boot coming for my ribs and twisted away; he missed, lost balance momentarily and I swept his feet from under him with a scythe kick. Even falling, he was fighting; he came down hard on top of me and we grappled in the sand, kicking and clawing until I got away, courtesy of one good elbow to his ear.
We were up again, circling. I could feel blood on my face and there was a roaring in my ears. He was sweating and dirty but unmarked, smiling. I didn’t even see the roundhouse right that caught me in exactly the same place as the first one and closed my eye. I claimed him and brought my knee up which hurt him a bit but not enough to stop him butting me. I felt my nose break, not for the first time, and pain spread through my skull. I might have landed a few more times, I don’t remember. All that stays with me is the hiss and stink of his boozy breath as he hit me, left and right, head and body. The pain was everywhere, mounting to a crescendo. I felt a tooth collapse, then my mouth was full of sand and the pain stopped.
I heard Dobbs say, ‘Guy can fight.’ Then I was lifted up and propped against the bricks. Something damp was passed across my face and a glass was lifted to my mouth. I sucked in beer, choked and sprayed it out with blood and the broken tooth.
‘Jesus, Hardy.’
I recognised Rhys Thomas’ voice but I couldn’t see him. My left eye was closed and the other had sand in it. I lifted my hand to rub the good eye and felt the blood dripping from my knuckles. I smiled. I thought, Must’ve landed one punch at least.
‘He’s laughing,’ Thomas said.
Barraclough sounded almost sober. ‘Hardy’s got some fuckin’ funny ideas, but he’s not a squib.’
I said, ‘I don’t hate niggers.’
Dobbs’ ripe breath was close to my face again. ‘Say what?’
I had just enough strength to raise my hand and wiggle the fingers. ‘Joe Louis was the greatest fighter and Louis Armstrong’s the greatest horn player ever.’
‘An’ the best singer?’ Dobbs said.
‘Ella Fitzgerald,’ I said.
‘You’re all right, man. Who’s going to take this guy home?’
I don’t know how it happened, but the next thing I knew I was sitting in the back seat of my Falcon. My shirt was ripped but I could feel my watch and money in the pocket. Dobbs was driving and the blonde in the miniskirt was sitting next to me soaking up my blood with tissues. We crossed the bridge.
‘Walker Street,’ she said. ‘Turn here, sweetie.’ She had a nice, soft, breathy Sydney voice.
Then we were on the landing outside the flat and the woman was ringing the bell and Dobbs was holding me up.
Astrid opened the door. She was wearing one of her black silk nighties and looked adorable.
Her eyes went wide at the sight of the Negro, the battered bloody ruin and the whore.
‘Christ,’ she said. ‘Is it always going to be like this?’
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