by Peter Doyle
He spun around quickly, waved dismissively and shook his head. “I’m not bloody well talking to you.” A touch of cockney in the accent.
I waited by his desk, but he didn’t come any closer, instead took himself off into one of the twisting passageways running between rows of battered wardrobes and kitchen cabinets. I could hear him banging around, but couldn’t see him.
I sat down and started leafing through the Daily Telegraph on the table. Occasional bangs and thumps came from the maze, but no one showed.
“I’ve got all the time in the world, George,” I called out. “So why not come out now. You’ll have to sooner or later.”
“Piss off,” he said.
A shadow in the doorway. Denise was standing at the threshold, hands on her hips, taking in the scene.
She marched in, turned left, disappeared down a passageway, calling out, “George! You get out here. Right now.”
The banging stopped. Silence.
“You heard me!”
I couldn’t see either of them, but I heard firm footsteps, a yowl of pain, and some clumsy shuffling. A few seconds later George emerged out of the gloom, grimacing, Denise behind him. She had him firmly by the ear, which she’d twisted so that he was walking half-crooked.
She pushed him over to the desk, let him go with a shove. “Don’t tell me. This has to be Steptoe,” she said to me.
“The same. Sit down, Georgie,” I said.
Which he did, rubbing his ear, looking from me to Denise.
“Well-known receiver of stolen goods and one-time proprietor of ‘Georgie’s World of Bargains’ of Parramatta Road, Camperdown. Go to Georgie, he’ll see you right. He’ll give you a price for warmish items, no worries. But then he might just let the jacks know. And then go ahead and sell the same goods and split the take with those same jacks. Right, Georgie?”
Now he was sheepish and ingratiating. “I never done that to you, Billy, you know that.”
“No bullshit now, Georgie. Max Perkal was here. I want you to tell me when, and why.”
“Year before last. Came in, bought a guitar and an amplifier.”
“What sort?”
“Eh?”
“What brand?”
He looked off. “The guitar, oh, the Australian one. Maton. I can’t remember the amplifier. Australian-made, though.”
“A Moody.”
“Yeah, that one, that’s right.”
“And since then?”
Looked at me quickly. “Never seen him since. That’s true, Billy. Never seen him.”
“Know what he wanted the guitar for?”
“He had a job. Working with that mob.”
“What mob?”
“The old sheila with the group. Can’t remember the name. They come through here every year or so.”
“When was the last time?”
“Couldn’t tell you. Not my cup of tea.”
“Now Georgie, I want you to think hard before you answer this. You being who you are, and having seen Max, who was widely believed to be dead – that must’ve struck you as the sort of information that others might be interested in.”
He was already shaking his head. “Nuh, I never, Billy, I never. You and Max – I wouldn’t do that.”
“Didn’t mention it to anyone, ever?”
“No one. Never.” Georgie’s confidence was growing, each time he repeated the denial, slowly convincing himself.
We camped that night by the Turon River, a mile outside the almost-ghost town of Sofala. I’d knocked on the farmer’s door and politely asked permission, which was given. Our tent was set up on a grassy rise above a bend in the fast-flowing river, well out of sight of the road.
We’d eaten a Chinese dinner in town and now we had a good fire going and a bottle of Penfolds red, which we were drinking out of tin mugs, half-demolished. There was still a touch of blue light in the sky, but a sharp, crisp chill was rising. We were propped up against logs, facing each other across the fire. Warm in front, freezing at the back.
I topped up Denise’s mug. “I got to say, back there, you flushed little Georgie out of his rathole in fine style,” I said.
“I heard that pommy accent and I just knew he’d be a forelock-tugger of the old school. My father had a good way of dealing with that type.”
“The lower orders, you mean.”
“It worked, didn’t it?”
“But we got nothing from him. Not really.”
Denise straightened herself, pulled a sleeping bag over her knees, patted it down around her curves. “So you figure that none of that list in the book is an accident? There’s a point to it?”
“Yeah, I know, it sounds thin all right. But it’s the way Max does things: never say or do anything directly if you can go round about.”
“Unreliable narrator,” she said.
“Yeah, that.”
We were silent a while. Denise had written in her journal then rolled a slim hash joint, as she did every night. This time I’d taken a couple of puffs. The night was still, and the river seemed loud. But nice.
“Anyway,” she said. “This is what I don’t get. We outran the posse in Gippsland. But now . . .”
“We’re leaving a trail wider than the Hume Highway?”
“Yeah. Dropping in on notorious give-ups like that character back there. Max and everyone else always told me you were Mr Super Secretive. Couldn’t be contacted. Lived in a secret hideaway.”
“When the Troubles started, I kept out of the way best I could. Then it became a habit. I got to like it.”
“And now?”
“Sometimes you have to sneak around to get things done. But other times it’s better to shake the bejesus out of everything, see what falls out of the tree.”
We sat and listened to the river. The sky got dark. There was no moon, but the stars shone as brightly as ever they did.
After a while Denise said, “You know, you could do a book about your life.”
“I’ll leave that caper to Max. He did one years ago, did you know that? Back in 1960, somewhere around then. Called Confessions of a Downbeat Daddio.”
She didn’t laugh. “I’m serious, Bill. There’s one in the pipeline now, in Melbourne. A bloke named Brian. one-time police informer. Not like Georgie, this is the guy who blew the whistle on police pay-offs at the royal commission. He’s working with a journo, but it’s the crook’s point of view.”
“‘Criminal chic’?”
“Mock away all you like. But you just wait and see what happens.”
“You could be right. Like the old stories about bushrangers and the traps. No one ever barracked for the traps, right? But what about your film, that really going to happen?”
She nodded vigorously. “Australian film. There’s something brewing there, for sure. I’ve got a bunch of friends, they’re all learning filmmaking. At tech, at the new film and TV school.”
“Yeah?”
“They’re making shorts and documentaries, mostly. But why not feature films?”
“What about surf films?” I said.
Her face went blank. “What about them?”
“Never mind.”
“Anyway,” she said, “Australian films, Australian settings. With genuine Australian characters.”
“That’s what you’re aiming at?” I said.
“My fucking oath I am,” she said. “The book first, then the film.”
“Where does the money come from?”
She smiled, very pleased with herself. “That’s the trick of it. Getting the money. My brother will help with that side of it.”
“The old boys’ network.”
“Not only. What you do, you tap all these Johnny-come-latelys – property developers, TV stars, advertising people, sportsmen – who are cashed up but a little bit unsure of themselves still. You give them a chance to buy into something to do with culture. They get to meet actors, go to good parties. Maybe make some money back. At the same time, Richard and a few of his fr
iends are working on the other side of it, talking with people in the government about creating tax concessions for film investors. So it’s in the investors’ interests too.”
“Your brother and his private school pals. At least the Combine lets wogs in.”
Denise went quiet again, then got up and walked off into the gloom, unbuttoning her jeans. “I hope there are no snakes out here,” she called out as she ducked behind a bush.
“Too cold,” I said.
When she came back, she used her boot to roll the largest log back into the centre of the fire, got under the blanket again as it flared up.
“About that old boys thing—”
“Forget it,” I said. “Your brother and his mates are probably all good chaps.” I’d meant to sound neutral, but it came out sounding even more bitter than what I’d said before.
“They don’t only look after themselves,” Denise shot back.
“No doubt.”
“It’s true. These friends of mine who have a housing co-op in Collingwood? Richard put them in touch with the Housing Department, even negotiated on their behalf. The department bought the whole street in the end, set up a bunch of public housing co-ops.”
“The state government?” I said.
“Hardly,” she said, irritated. “No, the federal Labor boys. After all that time in opposition – twenty-something years? – they don’t really know anyone in the business and finance world. Richard voted Labor. Lots of his friends did. Now they have the government’s ear. You don’t see the Labor boys telling them to piss off – they welcome the help.”
I said, “Yeah?” trying to keep my voice even.
“Yeah. There are things happening no one has heard about yet. Not just the tax concessions for making films. Education projects in inner Melbourne. Richard is very involved in all that.”
I kept my trap shut. After five minutes of uneasy silence Denise said, “Would you go another joint?”
We didn’t return to the matter of Richard and string-pulling.
I woke up sometime late in the night. It was cosy in the tent. The river outside, unrelenting. The cold, the stars. I thought about the reason I’d given Denise for why I wasn’t covering our tracks any more. What I’d told her was only half the truth. The other half was that having her along made me feel different. Like things could work out. Like she’d bestowed something on me. I thought I should tell her that in the morning.
I didn’t get the chance. First thing, Denise announced she was bailing out, heading back to Melbourne. No, it wasn’t because I’d sneered at her brother and his clique (though neither of us addressed that directly). What it was, she needed to get back home, back to her writing. Being on the road with me had been fun, but you know . . . And if I happened to get a hot tip on Max’s whereabouts, then let her know and she’d be back in a flash. But meanwhile . . .
She had me drive her back to Bathurst, so she could catch the train to Sydney then a plane back to Melbourne. A long goodbye hug at the station and she was off. She left me a stock-cube-sized chunk of hash.
* * *
I went to the public phone at the station. Terry and Anna were back in Balmain. All was good, no trouble. Still not a peep, not a whisper from or about Barry Geddins. Which was maybe the worst thing I could’ve heard.
Then I rang Eloise, still at her sister’s. She was irritable, distracted.
“Everything okay there?” I said.
“No, it’s not. The sprouts just have to go to back to school.”
“Hang on another day or two, will you? I’m working on it.”
“Where are you?”
“The bush.”
“Working on it?”
“As a matter of fact, yes. I know it’s a pain.”
“It is. Anyway, Phil’s houses.”
“Yeah, what?”
“Well, nothing really solid yet. But it’s interesting.” Her tone changed, suddenly pleased and conspiratorial. “I asked a young friend of mine, in real estate, if he knew anything—”
“Jesus, I said keep it under your hat.”
“It is. My friend will keep it quiet.”
“Who is he?”
“No one you know.” Somehow I guessed that meant a boyfriend. “Anyway, when I mentioned the street – in a roundabout way – I got a strange reaction. He was surprised, because another party had asked him about that street a couple of days before. He’s looking into it now. So wait a couple of days, see what he can find.”
“All right. I hope he can keep his trap shut.”
“Oh, he can.”
“Listen, Eloise. I haven’t kicked in for a while, I know. I’m a bit short right now—.”
Eloise interrupted me with a long, weary sigh. “When you can.” No bitterness there.
I rang a number on the Central Coast, was given another number to ring, which I did, and finally got a name and a number back in Sydney. I made that call, wrote down an address in the town of Wellington, New South Wales. Less than a hundred miles from where I was, according to the NRMA map.
Back on the road, the day was cool and clear. A deep blue spring sky. The car drove well enough if you kept it slow, which I did. The muffler was noisy, but no worse than plenty of other cars on the bush roads.
By day’s end I was pulling into Wellington. A mid-sized town at the junction of two rivers. Grain silos at the end of the main street, a grand 1930s pub. Not much else. I found the house I was looking for in Falls Road, on the other side of town, the last building before the paddocks.
The house was turn of the century and surprisingly large, red brick with an ornate timber veranda around it, a huge walnut tree on the left, old plum trees on the right, sitting on a few acres of what looked like good riverside dirt.
I parked on the road and walked the thirty yards up the house. The sun had just set, and the trees cast deep dark shadows. The closer I got, the more I could tell how run-down the house was. A wooden sign in the front yard, red lettering on white background, said “Church of the Living Spirit.” Underneath in smaller letters, “Rev. Murray Leonard” and a phone number.
I stepped onto the veranda and up to the heavy front door, which had an ornate knocker and a leadlight glass panel. A dim light somewhere deep inside the house. The trees hadn’t been pruned in an age, and no sun had shone on the veranda in a long time.
I knocked loud and slow. Heard footsteps approached almost immediately, and the door opened to reveal a tall, thin older guy with straggly grey hair. A long, mournful face, sad eyes. Alistair Sim with hair.
He looked at me a long time, standing there in the gloom.
“Murray, you old cunt, doing all right for yourself?” I said eventually.
He smiled and shook his head slowly. “Open rebuke is better than secret love. Faithful are the wounds of a friend, but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful. Proverbs, 27.”
“Too true. Listen, Murray, I’ve been driving all day and I’m going to fair dinkum cark it if I don’t get a cup of tea into me soon.”
He put his hand out and we shook, then he stood aside and gestured me into the hallway. “Straight ahead into the kitchen.”
I walked down the long wide hall. A large room on the left had fifteen or twenty upholstered chairs and couches arranged in a rough circle around a small table set on a Persian rug. A standard lamp with a weak bulb beside it.
I went to the end of the hall and into the large kitchen. A newspaper on the table, turned to the sports results. Next to that a book, closed. The room was comfortable, well equipped. Frilly stuff hanging from the shelves.
“You married that Salvation Army lass, didn’t you?”
He shook his head. “She and I parted company years ago. This is Maria’s doing. She’s Estonian. She’s away at the moment.”
I sat down at the table, picked up the book. I read the title aloud. “The Teachings of Silver Birch. Becoming a tree surgeon, Murray?”
Murray filled an old kettle, put it on the gas.
“Delightful though it is to see old friends – especially you, Bill – I know you’re not here to chat about the old days.”
“Maybe I need that special comfort which is offered by the Church of the Spirit,” I said.
It got no rise from him. He busied himself at the counter. Then said over his shoulder, “You in trouble?”
“I’m looking for Max Perkal.”
Murray waited for me to go on. I waited for him.
He bought two mugs over to the table. “Max was cutting quite a trail for a while there, wasn’t he? Armed rob . . . and then writing a book.”
“How’d you know about that?”
“He told me.”
We sat in silence while the kettle boiled. Then Murray stood up, poured the water into the pot, brought it to the table.
“So, looks like a beaut old rort here, Murray.”
He looked at me sadly.
“Oh, I’m being suspicious and unkind, right?”
“You know me well enough to think that, I suppose.”
I did. Murray, who used to be known as Murray Liddicoat, had at various times been a private inquiry agent, a drunk, a gambler, a street-corner preacher, and one of the most able bloodhounds who ever drew breath, like the one in the book who could shadow a drop of salt water from the Golden Gate to Hong Kong without losing sight of it. He was a crook and a wastrel who took his religion seriously. Bits of it, anyway. Last seen in Sydney doing late-night television advertisements for a furniture warehouse, promising a percentage of the profits would “go to charity.” The gig went well until a journo from This Day Tonight decided to follow the money.
“You teetotal, still?” I asked. “Except when I’m not. I try to save the sprees for special occasions.”
“Nice house.”
“A grateful member of the flock lets us live here rent-free.”
“Right.”
“She has cancer. She appreciates my ministry . . .”
“Well, that’s nice,” I said. “Not having cancer, of course.”
A long sad sigh from Murray. “I do no harm,” he said. Then in a very different voice, not the god-bothering sing-song but a lower, street-corner tone, “But don’t think you can meddle with what I’ve got here.”
“I know, Murray, I’m being an arse. You never did the wrong thing by me. Not to pry, but would cancer generally be involved in what happens here?”
