There was almost no wind. I started the engine, motored slowly away, taking one last look astern. There was nothing to see other than red foam and an oily surface.
I guess it was an opportunity too good to miss. I certainly hadn’t planned it. I’d intended to anchor in Watson’s Bay until late at night, and as I escorted her to her car, I’d suggest a walk, guiding her towards the cliffs, where I’d nudge her over. Her car was close by, with only her prints in it. It would have been an easy decision for the jacks to call it suicide.
If any parts of her washed ashore, it was close enough to The Gap that it could look like suicide, followed by a shark fest. All in all, it worked out well. I hadn’t needed to be ashore with her and risk some nosy citizen picking me out of a line up. I could sail straight back to the marina, lock up the boat, and head to town.
I cut a thick steak off the tuna, threw the rest back in, went below and put it in the fridge. I set a course for South Head, sat down and cracked a beer. When I brought the bottle to my lips, I noticed my hand shaking.
All the cash was there; three hundred and forty-eight thou. Enough to get me set up in something where I didn’t have to kick a few thousand back to a mug each week.
My prints were all over her house, so if the jacks did suspect something, they’d question me, but I had nothing to hide.
‘We met in a bar and used to see each other once a week or so. She seemed sad, sort of depressed. I think it was her work making her feel that way.’
Back at the marina, I cooked and ate the tuna, cleaned up. I cleaned everything, and then cleaned it again. The cash went in three separate hiding places, mostly in fake plumbing behind the toilets. No righteous jack was going to look in there. I sat and smoked a few cigarettes, checking the tremble in my hand each time I lit up. It was almost gone by the third. My head swirled with visions of the first shark hitting her, of blood foam on the water, her terrified cry.
Moving On
It was after nine when I rode a cab into The Cross. I carried a small bag containing her few pieces of clothing, which I stuffed into a charity bin close to where the cab dropped me.
It was good to see Meagan again, although whilst chatting with her, I’d get occasional flashbacks of a blood-stained sea and a drowned scream. My feelings were mixed. On one hand, Carol had screwed me, lied, and conned me. She’d killed Barry Hedges in cold blood, and who’s to say that one day she wouldn’t have done that to me if the stakes were high enough. On the other hand, she’d been good company—great company most of the time—and part of me regretted not having more of that side of her, perhaps even sailing, and having fun together that way.
It was all academic as I drained the whiskey tumbler and tried to tune in to the conversation I wasn’t having with Meagan.
There was the usual hum of voices in the bar; Meagan’s was just one more I could hear but not understand. She’d been talking at me, but I’d missed most of it, so asked, ‘Is Janet doing okay?’
‘Yeah, like I said, she works hard and she’s really good with the punters. Are you going to hang around for a shot after close?’
‘I doubt your new man will like that.’
She looked at me with one arched eyebrow. ‘He’s never here for close. That’s what I was just saying. I’m still doing the close. He’s a lazy prick and I bet Ray has him out of here in no time.’
‘Next time I see Ray, I’ll suggest he gets you to run the joint.’
‘Yeah, right, and you’ve got suction with Ray, have you? Doubt it, or why did he replace you?’
‘Who said he replaced me? Maybe I quit. Maybe I told him to bash it up his arse.’
She grinned. ‘Nice try, Micky, but you wouldn’t be walking the same.’
She was right. Ray the hard man, the enforcer, would pay no attention to a shit-kicker like me. Merely trying to tell him how to do something would likely get me a beating.
‘What will you do, Micky? Run another bar?’
‘I dunno. Just see what comes up, I guess.’ I drained my glass, ‘If you hear of anything that suits me, let me know.’
Before I turned to leave she said, ‘How would I get in touch with you?’ There was a different question playing in her eyes.
I scraped my change from the bar, dropped it in my jacket pocket, and asked, ‘Shots after close on Friday night?’
‘My shout,’ she said eagerly, ‘and bring some of those little cigars again; I loved those.’
When I stepped out onto the polluted, rain-soaked street, it was still only ten-thirty. I didn’t want to go back to the boat, didn’t want to see the swim-ladder she almost reached or the bed I woke in that morning with her naked body pressed into mine, didn’t want to remember her lips against my unshaven neck as they worked around to my mouth, tasting of whiskey, sex, and sleep.
I walked a few blocks to the west, to Woolloomooloo, where there were cheap hotels that dealt in dayrooms and cash. The first one looked like a dive. There were three men sitting out front, sucking down beer, and smoking. The second looked okay, so I checked in for one night: cash, no luggage, no name.
The following morning I scanned through the paper as I scarfed a fried breakfast and a pot of coffee in a nearby café. There was nothing about shark-attack victims, or remains found on the beach, nothing about jumpers at The Gap. I still had to contact Ray, but that could wait a day until I sorted out somewhere to live.
I mopped up the egg yolk and ketchup with the last of the bread, pushed the empty plate away, and poured the remaining coffee. As I leaned back in the chair and pulled in the first smoke of the day, I contemplated what I was going to say to Ray and Mitchell when I met them to tell him I’d fulfilled the contract.
After two cigarettes and more thought than was comfortable at that time of day, I decided to wing it, to tell them whatever I felt like at the time. I’d make sure the jacks had her listed as missing, so any cops they had on the payroll could confirm she was gone. With her car parked at The Gap, suicide would be the natural conclusion.
With that settled in my mind, I flicked through to the classifieds. Since Ray had kicked me out as manager, I needed somewhere to live.
When the waitress cleared the table, I ordered more coffee and a slice of lemon meringue pie, circled possible apartments, and wondered what the next chapter of life would hold.
I had plenty of cash. With the rest I’d saved and skimmed, there was over $350,000 stashed on the boat. Having it all in one place, and one that could sink, was not a good idea. Banks were out of the question. It was time to move ashore, to get an apartment. There were plenty of options in the paper and I circled five to visit.
In the end, I only visited two. The second was so good I took it on the spot. It wasn’t so much an apartment, more a converted industrial unit. The ground floor had two big open rooms dotted with support columns. One was a kitchen, dining room, and lounge combined. The other looked as if the previous tenants had used it for storage. It had an open-plan garage with benches on two sides and a roller door leading out to the alley at the back of the property. There was no garden, just a paved area out front and a narrow alley out back.
The upper floor had a big lounge with exposed, rough wooden beams, and like the ground floor, there were timber support columns. Opposite the stairs, filling most of the wall, were three floor-to-ceiling windows with arched tops, each made of many small glass panes set in a wooden frame. The walls were brick, with multiple layers of peeling paint. When I stepped close to the windows, the floorboards creaked. The view wasn’t spectacular, but it was a view; I could see the ferry angling into the wharf at Five Dock across the river.
There were two large bedrooms, one set on each side of the lounge, each with an en-suite and the same floor to ceiling windows, exposed wooden beams, and bare hardwood floors.
The previous tenants had shot through, owing rent and leaving behind furniture. When the agent offered to sell me the furniture for five grand, I told him to take the shit away and I’d get my own.
We agreed on fifteen hundred and I paid him cash.
The place and its furniture was mine the following day.
I was still driving the old Valiant I’d bought from the slapper on Parramatta Road. That afternoon I took it back to the same car yard where I’d bought it, struck a deal with Bunty for the same price as the furniture. Seemed like a fair thing. She was trying hard to sell me an aging Commodore as I walked away. After fifteen minutes, glancing into each yard as I passed, I spotted a dark blue Falcon at the back of Tommy’s Autos.
Tommy seemed like a regular guy. There was no hard sell, no Bunty hanging her jugs out, just ‘Here’s the keys. Take it for a ride.’
The interior was clean and original, other than the sound system, and when I turned the key with a soft foot on the gas, the V8 kicked twice, then rumbled into life.
I looked around for Tommy, but he was talking into his phone in the small caravan that passed as an office. I rolled out of the yard, drove two blocks south, and circled round two more.
When I bumped it up the kerb back onto the yard, Tommy was still on the phone. The papers were hanging in a plastic sleeve from the passenger visor. I pulled them free and scanned through until I found the price: eight thou. Tommy was still talking.
He looked up as I walked in without knocking, put his hand over the mouthpiece. ‘What?’
‘I’ll give you five.’
He looked at me, said into the phone, ‘I’ll call you back.’ He shuffled a couple of papers on his small cluttered desk, leaned back in his seat, looked at me intently and laced his fingers behind his head. ‘Six-five cash. No Warranty.’
As he sat there, his elbows jutting out like demonic wings, he reminded me of someone. I must have been staring. He dropped his arms to the table, picked up a pen. ‘Well?’
We agreed on six and a pre-sale service including new rubber on the back. While he was writing it up, it struck me where I’d seen him before. It was in every club and dive I’d been in, every after-hours joint and strip-club. He had that way about him, an indefinable quality that said player.
I looked around the yard and office. He had money but didn’t show it. He’d just dropped over two grand on this car without breaking a sweat. The money wasn’t important to him. The place was a front, a way of cleaning money, and maybe a supply of cars for those who didn’t need paper.
When I pulled a fold of cash from my front pocket and counted out the six, he scrutinised me more closely. ‘What name do you want it in?’
‘Micky DeWitt.’
‘Address?’
‘Care of Frankie’s Bar, Darlinghurst Road.’
He paused without looking up, then continued writing. ‘How’s Lenny?’
‘Lenny doesn’t live there anymore.’
A slight pause before signing, handing me a copy. He counted the bills, folded them, and slid then into the desk drawer.
‘It’ll be ready tomorrow at this time. Do you want it delivered, Mr DeWitt?’
I wasn’t sure if he was digging or taking the piss. I took a business card from the holder. His name was K B Tucker. Tommy wasn’t his real name, just a nickname, like would-be wise-guys liked to use—Little Tommy Tucker, two-faced fucker.
‘I’ll collect, Mr Tucker.’
I had a gut feeling of strong change as I gathered all I would need to take with me. The cash and Beretta, a few clothes, my CDs, my break-in tools, and the triple loop of pearls that still haunted me. It all fitted into a canvas grip.
I locked up and rode a cab to the Balmain ferry terminal, walked to my new apartment and picked the lock. I was due to collect the keys from the snotty agent the following day; until then I made myself at home.
The Apartment
That first night in the apartment, I found ten different places to hide the break-in tools, cash and other valuables. The cash I broke down into packs of thirty thou and hid them under floors, in ceiling cavities, behind a loose brick in the garage area.
There was a lot of stuff that needed tossing, so I made a pile in the middle of the downstairs lounge and a note to rent a skip. As I walked back and forth between the rooms, upstairs and down, the pile grew. I’d never been one for hoarding junk, especially someone else’s.
Whenever I went upstairs, I’d stand and look out of the huge windows. To the north, Cockatoo Island was lit like a commercial wharf. Spectacle Island, to the north-west, was barely visible, hidden by the lights of Woolwich immediately behind it. There were river-cat ferries plying back and forth the length of Drummoyne Bay, guys in tinnies returning from a day’s fishing, small sailing boats motoring home through the calm night air.
Moving off the boat had seemed like a retrograde step, but as I looked around the apartment, I felt immediately at home. It was big, rough, and rude, and I loved the place already.
In every room, I had a list of things to do, and another for things to buy. The windows were filthy, the paint peeling, but I barely noticed. I stood and smoked a small cigar and looked at my view.
The apartment was in Somerville Point in the west of Balmain. In those days, the area was all a bit rundown. There were a handful of shops and a few cafés on the main street. The following morning I bought breakfast and two takeaway coffees and headed home.
I needed to collect the Falcon from Tommy Tucker’s car yard before I could go and buy all I’d need, but that was not until after eleven, so I ate breakfast, made more lists, and looked out of my windows at the emerging day.
Tommy looked up, glanced at his watch and shrugged as I walked into his caravan office.
‘You’re early.’
‘Lots to do today, Tommy: thought I’d get going. Is it ready?’
He looked through a side window, stood, slid the window open, and yelled, ‘That Falcon ready to go?’
The overall-clad figure gave a non-committal shrug.
‘Is it ready or not?’ Tommy yelled. The guy ambled over to my Falcon, looked at the rear wheels, then at his clipboard, and gave Tommy a single nod.
‘The keys are in it. Say hi to Lenny from me.’
‘I told you, Lenny doesn’t live there no more.’
‘That’s right. So you did,’ he said, a question hanging in the air and a smartarse look on his face.
Before driving off the lot, I checked the new tyres, lifted the hood and dipped the oil, making sure it was clean, checking that the filters and plugs looked new at the same time. Tommy was watching from his van, probably calling me every sort of wary fucker he could think of.
It was twenty to eleven when I rolled her off the yard. She was smooth and quiet, just that V8 rumble that turned into a roar as the pedal went down.
When I arrived at the agent’s office, the contract and keys were waiting with his secretary. I signed, thanked her when she handed me my copy, picked up the keys and left.
There were three priorities for me that afternoon: cleaning products and painting supplies from the hardware, secure door locks from a locksmith, and a sound system from an audio store in Glebe.
At Audio One in Glebe, I bought the best system in the store—a quad-sound with four big floor-standing teak speaker enclosures. The Falcon was jammed, barely room to shift gear.
Back at the apartment, I set up the audio system before doing anything else, made some phone calls, arranged a skip for the trash, and left a message for Meagan to get back to me.
With Santana filling the huge rooms, I fitted the new locks to the only exterior door, and scrubbed and cleaned until dark.
After eating, I painted well into the night. It was more about making it mine, putting my stamp on it, rather than any kind of statement of style or taste.
At two-thirty, I fell into bed, smoked one last cigar, propped up against the padded headboard and looking out over the sleeping harbour.
Friday evening. In a few hours I had to face Ray, and possibly Mitchell, to explain where Carol was. Between shopping and cleaning up the apartment, the days had flown past. I still figured winging it would be best.
Any kind of practised lines would sound scripted and false, leading me to a one-way drive to the outback.
When I arrived at the bar, Meagan and Janet were busy keeping up with a full house. It felt odd waiting to be served on the public side, but that’s who I was, just another Joe Public. When I turned my back to the crowd, Meagan was standing a glass of Jameson on the bar in front of me, a wide smile on her face and cheek in her eye.
She looked around for demanding customers, found none, slid me a Camel. She flicked the silver Tommy lighter and held the flame below the cigarette.
I drew in aromatic smoke. ‘Looking good, Meagan: new hair?’
‘Just a cut and colour,’ she said with a pleased-that-I-noticed look. ‘How have you been?’
‘Tip top. Did you get my message about the mail?’
She moved to the register, came back and laid a buff envelope in front of me, which I pocketed with thanks.
‘No worries. Are you staying on your boat now?’
I still didn’t know how far in she was with Ray, so I fudged. ‘Some of the time. What about you? Did you get a new place?’
‘Still in the same dump, but looking for a change; all the places I like are well out of reach.’
She moved off to serve. I took the opportunity to leave the bar, claim a table just vacated.
It was nine-thirty I was hoping Ray wouldn’t be late as I was edgy and wanted to leave, wanted to pump up some blues and stare out of my windows at the harbour.
The big Islander came through the door first, closely followed by Mitchell, Ray, and a lank-faced man I hadn’t seen before. Sonny stood in front of a booth where two couples were talking, drinking, and eating nuts. He spoke to one of the men. They stood and went to the bar. Mitchell, Ray, Sonny and the other guy sat down. I wanted to get this over with, so I pulled a hardback chair from a nearby table and sat at the end of the booth.
Flank Street Page 18
