The Big Whatever

by Peter Doyle

  “She’s out too.”

  “No adult there?”

  “No. But we have sandwiches. And I made a cup of tea.”

  I thought, does he know how to make a pot of tea? Figured he obviously did. Wondered if that was precocious. Figured it wasn’t.

  “Sorry about the scare outside your school the other day,” I said.

  “Why are you sorry? It wasn’t you who scared me.”

  “Don’t be a smartarse,” I said.

  “You’re the one who taught me.”

  “Did I? In that case – well done, lad. I’ll ring back later. Tell Eloise you lot need to stay put for a bit longer. Give your sister a hug and a kiss for me.”

  I rang Katie’s place at Avalon. Moondance was playing in the background. Katie told me all was good. Terry and Anna and she were having a jolly old time of it. That was good, I said. She told me Terry wanted a word.

  He came on, “So how’s that thing going?” His voice low, serious.

  “The Barry thing?”

  “Yeah, that.”

  “Well I’m . . . out of town.”

  Silence from Terry. Putting it together, quick smart.

  “And Barry is . . . ?”

  “I don’t know where or what Barry is.”

  “Meaning?”

  I said nothing.

  “Oh. I get it. Sort of. You’re not sure.”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “But you . . . you took action?”

  I said nothing.

  “Right. You’re just not sure of the outcome.”

  I gave a noncommittal hmm.

  “So, what happens next? Katie’s a doll, but Jesus, we can’t stay here forever.”

  “Truth, Terry, I don’t know. I wish I did.”

  “Maybe I should ask around a bit? See if he might be hiding anywhere?”

  Terry was a Balmain head, and he looked it. But he was a pub pool champ too, carried a nice cue in a nice case, had a good rep. He could mix with pretty much anyone, including the rougher element, plenty of whom had won big by backing the longhair in pub competitions.

  “Keep your distance, but yeah, if you can find out anything at all . . . Thing is, Terry, if the bloke is around, he could be, you know, hurt.”

  “Yeah, I get it. I’ll find out what I can. I won’t do anything. Hey, in other news, I spoke with Mullet last night, long distance.”

  “Yeah?”

  “He’s been screening Crystal Dreams. He says people love it. Even the bikers don’t mind it.”

  “They can love it till the cows come home, but we need to turn a friggin’ dollar.”

  “That’s it.” Terry said, warming, “Have you seen that film American Graffiti?”

  “Nah. Nostalgia.”

  “What? Is it? Yeah, well, Dennis took Mullet to a party, introduced him to the bloke who directed it. How do you like that? They got on beaut, apparently. Mullet reckons this bloke was very interested in our thing.”

  “So we’ve got the Beach Boys onside—”

  “One of them.”

  “—and now a director. Listen Terry, Mullet being who he is, yeah, I can see him palling up with other lairs and loudmouths. Good for him. But are they going to give us any money?”

  “Patience, mate. Let them nibble at the bait a bit. I know, I know – there’s nothing solid yet. But it’s all heading in the right direction, that’s the main thing.”

  “All right. Whatever you say. Better shoot through. I’ll ring you in a few days.”

  “Hang on, hang on, before you go. That squat in Annandale.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Still a goer?”

  “Tell them it’s okay. There’s a bundle of keys in the kitchen drawer in my flat. There are front door keys to all three places, but they’ll probably need to put new locks on the doors. Phil will be on their hammer, but if you reckon they can deal with it . . .”

  “They can, trust me.”

  “All right. Three weatherboard joints, all in a row. 17, 19 and 21 Guilliat Street, down near the canal. There’s a Leb family in 15. They keep to themselves, but they seem all right. Keep my name right out of it.”

  * * *

  Denise and I drove out of Melbourne the next day, along the highway to East Gippsland. We stopped mid-afternoon in Orbost, an inoffensive little town in dairy country. I found a phone booth with a local directory and got the address I wanted.

  Denise was looking at me expectantly when I went back to the car.

  “I’ve got to see a man,” I said, and waited. “About a dog,”

  She stared at me a moment, not pleased.

  “This person will be shy. Let’s find a motel. You check in. I’ll go do this thing.”

  “It’s one of them, right?”

  “Huh?”

  She grinned tightly, trying to conceal her irritation. “One of the people Max listed in the book?”

  I said nothing.

  “Yep, I thought so.” She rummaged around in her bag, pulled out the book and thumbed through it. “Page, ah, let’s see . . . Okay, got it.” She looked at me, pleased. “Page 112, for your info.” She put on a hardboiled Joe Friday voice. “Along the way I looked up some folks from the old Sydney days. I saw the Cat, proprietor of a chemist shop, a picture of respectability. The Multi-Grip Kid was running a big garage down south. Molly had a motel. Mr Bones, Brylcreem, Steptoe, the Reverend, the Sexational Gypsy Woman. Yeah, Johnny, you know them, our people – they send their regards. The old crew. They’re all out there.” She put the book down. “Would it be one of them?”

  “You’ll never know, sweetheart,” I said.

  She smiled, shrugged as though she didn’t care that much. I thought to myself, Damn, she’s quick. I dropped her and our bags at a hotel/motel on the outskirts which advertised “TELEVISION IN ROOMS” and headed back through town. And out the other side, past the showground, to a scrappy industrial area. I passed a wreckers, a timber yard, a kitchen cabinet maker, and a tackle shop, turned into a yard surrounded by a high barbed wire and corrugated iron fence. A small sign on the open gate read M&G TRANSPORT. A couple of two-ton trucks were backed up to a big rusty shed. Half a dozen more wrecks lay around in different stages of pillage. Other wrecked cars, racks of steel bar, iron sheets, and a small mountain of rubbish off to the side.

  There was a fibro office next to the main shed, a dark green Ford Fairmont behind it. I parked next to the Ford and got out. A kid in greasy blue overalls was staring at me from across the yard. His stance seemed oddly hostile. I ignored him and went into the office.

  A stocky middle-aged man with steel-wool grey hair sat at the desk. Wearing reading glasses tied to a length of string around his neck, a stack of crumpled papers in front of him, cigarette burning in the ashtray. Could have been a lesser comic character in Sergeant Bilko or McHale’s Navy. He looked up at me, said nothing. His expression was neutral, but he held the look.

  “Hiya, Multi.”

  He shook his head slowly, smiling in a sad kind of way.

  “They usually call me Ron these days.”

  I put my hand out to shake. He offered his with a degree of reluctance. “I had a feeling I’d be seeing you sooner or later.”

  “Really? How come?” I said.

  He gave a “fucked if I know” shrug and smiled. “You’re looking well,” he said.

  “You too.” He’d put on a few pounds, was wider around the middle, but he was still the tough, muscled bloke he’d been five years before. “How’s business?” I said. “Mind if I sit down?”

  “Go ahead. Business is all right.”

  “Transport . . .”

  “No need to say it like that,” he said. “Those are working trucks out there.”

  “Yeah, no doubt. What do they transport? Never mind. You were expecting me, were you?”

  “Yeah. After I saw Max.”

  “After you saw Max. Right.” And waited.

  He didn’t offer to elaborate.

  “When would
that’ve been?” I said.

  His phone rang. He picked it up, listened. “Yeah . . . No . . . Fuck that . . . That’s right . . . No, no, no . . . Yeah . . . Tell him I said no . . . All right, bye now.” He put it down and shook his head.

  “The trials of running a small business,” I said.

  He looked at me. “Max was here, oh, would’ve been middle of the year before last.”

  “When everyone thought he’d been killed.”

  “Yeah. Bit of a surprise. He was playing with a music group up the golf club. Clang-clang yodel-ay-ee-hoo.”

  “Hillbilly?”

  “Is that what you call it?”

  “Would it be too much of a stretch,” I said, “if I were to ask if you know his current whereabouts?”

  “Ask away, but I couldn’t tell you.”

  “So you and he had a talk?”

  “Chit chat, nothing much.”

  “But you must’ve been surprised to see him alive, after all the newspaper and TV stuff?”

  “Maxxy always was full of surprises.”

  “He wrote a book, did you know that?’

  He gave a sort of world-weary chuckle. “I’m not much of a reader.”

  “In the book he says there was a bloke he knew then, husband of the bandleader, who was a mad rorter. Sheep and cattle duffing, probably stolen farm gear. Had a few trucks.”

  He was slow to answer. “And because I have a few trucks, what, I’m supposed to be up with that? Or part of it?”

  “Jeez. Settle down, Multi. I was just asking.”

  He sighed deeply, leaned back in his swivel chair.

  “Sorry, you’re right, Bill. I’m being a fair dinkum touchy cunt, aren’t I? Truth is, I didn’t want any contact with Max, or any of the old mob. Includes you too, old son. That thing we did back then, it was good, and it got me set up here. Nicely. We got away with it, but I don’t want to push my luck. And Vi likes it out here.” He gestured out the window. “I said hello to Max, because I couldn’t very well not.”

  He looked me right in the eye. “Of course, I knew he was supposed to be dead. And I’d read there was money unaccounted for from those robs. Which maybe burnt up in the crash, but who knows? Anyway, I didn’t want to stick my beak in. And I still don’t.” He let that hang. “Honest, I was fucking well glad when they left.”

  Through the little office window I saw a shiny Cortina drive in fast, pull up sharply. A portly, redheaded woman got out and stomped into the office. Middle-aged but not in bad nick, a bit like Shelley Winters. Curly hair, cat eye sunglasses.

  “Gawd love ’im,” she said. “Look what the cat dragged in.” She came over and hugged me, smiling.

  “Hello Vi,” I said.

  “Lovely to see you, pet,” she said, “as always.”

  She stepped back and the smile went ever so slightly off the boil. “What brings you here?”

  “I was on my way to Melbourne. Thought I’d pop in, say hello.”

  “From Sydney? On the coast road?”

  “I thought you might’ve seen Max.”

  She almost glanced at Multi for a signal as to how much he’d already told me. She stifled the reflex, but not quickly enough.

  “Max?” As though that was an outlandish idea.

  “Come on, Vi. Multi has already said he was here, that you saw him.”

  The smile gone. “Did Ron tell you we’re squareheads now? And we want to keep it that way.”

  “And the sooner I shoot through the better? Don’t worry.”

  “Darling, you’re always welcome here. You know that.” She opened her handbag and pulled out an Oroton cigarette case and a lighter. She picked a cig out with her long fingernails and lit it. Took a drag, exhaled a cloud of smoke, folded her arms and looked at me. “Yes, we saw Max, the poor love. He’s a caution, isn’t he? Still alive after all that . . . and not around to cash in on his fame?”

  “He’d be facing ten years in Pentridge if he was found. At least. But the fame thing, yeah. Out of character. Any idea where he’d be now?”

  She shook her head. “Wouldn’t have a clue. Wouldn’t want to know.” She looked at me conspiratorially. “What about you, Bill? Not gunning for our old Maxxy. are you?”

  “Nothing like that. It’s fallen to me to tidy up his affairs. Some of them, anyway, the bits that concern me. I just thought you two, on the off-chance. But you don’t, so . . .”

  I looked back at Multi. His face completely bland now. Calm and amiable as could be. Vi smoked her cig, watchful.

  “So I better shoot through.” I shook hands with Multi, gave Vi a kiss.

  Vi smiled. “Is there any particular lady friend these days, Bill?”

  “How could there be, when Multi here bagged the best one going?”

  She gave a wheezy laugh, then started coughing.

  Denise was waiting for me in the ladies’ lounge back at the hotel/motel. Late afternoon sun was slanting in. The beer garden outside was half full, but except for us the lounge was deserted. Denise had showered and changed. Denim jacket, floral blouse. Sort of a hippie look, but not in a way that would attract attention. We had drinks in front of us – a gin and tonic for her, a beer for me.

  “They definitely know something,” I said. “But they played it very cool.”

  “So who was this? ‘The Cat’? ‘Mr Bones’? ‘Brylcreem’? ‘Motel Molly’?”

  “It was the one Max called ‘the Multi-Grip Kid.’ Actually, we called him ‘Multi-Grips.’ Or just ‘Multi’.”

  “Yes, simple is better,” she said, without a smile.

  “Multi used to be a Sydney knockabout. Very good with machinery – motors, cars and that. He could open most safes, was handy with electrics too. Could deal with an alarm system. He’d been an engineer at AWA, got done for a fiddle he worked with equipment spares. No charges were brought. He was – is – very careful, very meticulous.”

  “And his connection with you and Max was what exactly?”

  “We were involved in some, ah, things together. One of them turned out pretty well for us. Multi and his missus were able to move away, set themselves up down here.”

  Denise’s eyes were very wide, pupils large, as she vacuumed up the story.

  “You memorizing this for your novel or film script or whatever it is? Multi will provide a bit of underworld colour, right?”

  It rattled her for a second.

  “Sorry. I don’t mean to be so snoopy. I am fascinated, though. Genuinely. Max talked about this stuff a lot, talked about you a lot. The nightclub. I always assumed it was part-fantasy. To hear the truth now . . .” She let it trail off.

  “A lot of this is common knowledge in Sydney anyway. But this is off the record, okay?”

  “Okay. But tell me – why Multi, why now?”

  “Max mentioned him specifically in the book, like he was sort of directing my attention that way.”

  A near-shriek from across the room. “Here he is, bless ’im!”

  We turned around to see Vi bearing down on us.

  “And look, a darling little sweetheart with him!”

  Denise stared, literally open-mouthed, then smiled. Vi sat herself down and put out a paw to Denise. “I’m Vi.”

  “Hello Vi, I’m Denise. Love your glasses.”

  “Aren’t they something?” Vi was reaching for her Kools, shaking her head, turning to me. “Billy, dear. You must think we’ve become utter brutes out here in the bush, letting you go without even inviting you for a drink, generally behaving like savages.”

  “No harm done, Vi.”

  “Well, we’re not having it. There’s a good Chinese dinner at the Golf Club. You come along tonight – it’ll be our shout. Don’t even think about saying no, we absolutely insist. Then a big smile for Denise, “You too, petal.”

  “How did you know where to find me, Vi?” I said.

  “Small town. There are only three places you could be staying, and the other two?” She shook her head. “You wouldn’t stay ther
e.’

  Denise smiled. “Would you like a drink?”

  “No thanks, darl. Just popping through.” Vi turned to me. “You will come, won’t you?”

  “Yeah, that’d be great.” I smiled as warmly as I could. “But listen, just give me a chance to tub and so on. See you there at, what, seven thirty, eight?”

  A look of doubt flashed across her face. But she smiled and said, “Wonderful! Make it eight. The golf course is straight out of town a quarter mile past Ronny’s yard, on the right.” She picked up her keys and cigs, waved “Byee!” and bustled off.

  When she’d cleared right out, I waited a moment longer then said to Denise, “Are we paid up at the desk?”

  She looked at me with surprise. “No, of course not.”

  “Go and pay right now. Tell them we’re leaving at six in the morning. But be casual about it: ask if there’s somewhere we can get breakfast here that early. Then go pack, quick as you can. I’ll put the car round the back so we can load up without being seen.”

  She looked at me for a second, then took off.

  Half an hour later we were out of town, driving east. The sun had gone down, the Princes Highway was quiet. We were driving through tall eucalyptus forest, our headlights picking out the straight trunks either side of the road. Roos and wallabies were grazing on the grass verge, so I was taking it slow.

  We’d slipped away without fuss. And without dinner. After a long silence Denise said, “Are you going to let me in on what that was all about?”

  “Back there? That was all wrong,” I said. “They were hiding plenty.”

  She looked at me curiously, but said nothing.

  “And why would they do that?” I said, more to myself than to her. “Cover up, evade?”

  “Maybe out of general suspiciousness. Stan’s friends were like that, some of them. Wouldn’t tell you the truth if there was a lie to be told, any lie.”

  “Could be. But we go back, Multi and me. I’m not just some gig. Their guard should’ve been down, at least a little bit.”

  Denise said nothing.

  “They were rattled enough to forget the social niceties. Didn’t offer me a drink. Vi had a think about it after I’d gone, realised it looked bad, tried to mend it.”

  “Yeah, right,” Denise said. “She was trying too hard. I see that.”