“Odd?”
“Odd because he’d wander around the edge of the pool for ages before getting into the water. He had an odd way of walking, with one arm up over his shoulder, his hand scratching his spine, staring at the sky and then stopping every few minutes and doing a three-sixty.”
“A full circle? Like a pivot?”
“Yes, it was very disconcerting. Everyone thought he had a screw loose, but then, as I said, he was popular in the steam room.”
“Okay, I’ll bite.”
“He didn’t.”
“What?”
“Young bloke, Clyde … false teeth. Upper and lower plates. He’d take them out, and they’d line up for gobbies.”
That surprised me. The murderer was queer? It didn’t fit with the profile of a violent sex offender that killed his victims, but the false teeth did explain the perfect teeth indentations in the shoulders of the men he’d killed—something that had perplexed Jack Lyme and me when we’d first been obsessing over that particular detail of the murderer’s signature.
“Did you ever … I mean, with him?”
“Twice, Clyde, and I won’t put that on record if this is part of your investigation. But he was very talented, and for me to say that, you know I’m not exaggerating. I can’t remember ever knowing someone so greedy for it—not even you!”
“Arsehole,” I said with a laugh.
“No, my cock, you dag.” He threw his arm around my shoulder and squeezed it. It had been far too long since we’d allowed ourselves to be so coarse with each other. I was fine with it, but I sensed he felt awkward about “stealing” Harley from me.
“You said they lined up?”
“In those days, when the private room at the Cricketer’s Arms was going full swing, a lot of married men were too shy to go somewhere like that, which had a reputation among the queer crowd as a pickup place, in case the joint ever got raided. So, just after my dad died and when I took over the baths, I turned a blind eye to goings on in the steam room. The books were in the red and I needed customers. Wednesday afternoons were known as the time to come here, and as it’s always been the only night we stay open until late, it used to get very busy right up until nearly midnight when I had to scrape them out of the room and then turf them out.”
I laughed.
“The amount of blokes came through actually saved the business if I’m to be honest,” he added. “I used to charge double for entry after half past six when I normally shut up shop.”
“You never told me about any of that, Craig.”
“I didn’t need to, Clyde. I’d always assumed you knew.”
Did I by chance see the murderer hanging around back then? I didn’t recall the face or the physical description—I think I might have remembered the birth mark above his knee. I tended to notice things like that.
“You said he only came for three months?”
“He got so out of hand, I had to tell him to stop coming. It’s not often I have to ban someone, and I wasn’t happy about it either.”
“There must have been a reason for it though …?”
“Well, actually there were two reasons. You know sex by the pool, unless it’s at night when the lights are off, has never been acceptable. People on the beach or on the headland opposite with high-powered binoculars or a telescope … I’d be closed down like that!” He snapped his fingers.
“And the bloke in the photo broke that rule?”
“Yes, only the once, and that was the final straw. I’d already warned him.”
“Over?”
“Seems that not only did he take his teeth out for the punters but he also held out his hand.”
“Oh.”
“Yes, if I ever got raided, I could have always said I had no idea what was going on in the steam room, but a charge of keeping a common bawdy house would have slapped me a fine I couldn’t afford, or have me thrown in the slammer.”
“I’d have looked after you, Craig, you know that.”
“Yes, but it would have been bad for business in the aftermath. Anyway, when I heard he expected to be paid for his lip work, I spoke to him and told him what went on elsewhere was his own business, but I didn’t expect it to happen here, and if he did it again I’d have no choice but to refuse him entry.”
“And how did he take that?”
“Those green eyes, Clyde,” Craig said. “They bored right through me. He stared and stared and then all of a sudden, as if someone had flicked a switch, he just said, ‘all right, I won’t do it again’ and then walked away.”
“But …?”
“But two weeks later, what should I find when I walk out of the office, but one of my older gentlemen lying on his towel at the side of the pool with your green-eyed friend—”
“Performing oral sex out in the open?”
“This time, when I told him I didn’t want him back, he really lost it. Not violently, but he acted like a crazy person in a movie, hopping from foot to foot and whining, turning around continuously, his arm over his shoulder, scratching his back. It lasted for no more than thirty seconds and then the same thing happened. The switch was flicked and he returned to normal. He shook my hand and apologised, told me he was sorry, and said he couldn’t control his urges and wouldn’t be back.”
“Wow!”
“Well, I put his two-bob entry fee back in his hand and then asked if he was skint.”
“Why did you do that, Craig?”
“Not only had he been asking for money for sex but he also looked malnourished—what else was I to think, Clyde? He had that look about him of guys on their uppers who live in cheap boarding houses, and who barely make ends meet. You remember that look—every second man had it during the Depression. But every time he came here and paid his entry fee, I’d noticed that although he was clean, always well-groomed and well dressed, there was something ‘needy’ about him. After I’d told him to leave, I walked him to the gate and asked again if he was broke. He said he had enough money and thanked me politely for enquiring. Told me that asking the men in the steam room for money was a way of justifying his feelings of doing something bad. He said the devil got in him while he was servicing those men, and only the fact they paid him for what he did could drive the evil from his body.”
“He said what?”
“He said he loved what he did while he was doing it, that every man was a new adventure, and that was why he was so energetic at his task—I’ve never forgotten that description, ‘every man was a new adventure’—but as soon as the man had squirted he felt bad about it, and that taking money gave him an excuse not to.”
“Not to what? Feel bad?”
“I suppose so. I can’t even remember if what I’ve told you were his precise words. I could be paraphrasing, Clyde. I haven’t thought about it from that day to this.”
“But it obviously made enough of an impact on you to be able to recall in a fair amount of detail.”
“Do you know why?”
I shook my head. He had that look, the one men get when they have to tell you things they’d rather not and which are only revealed to very close mates, and only under certain restrictive circumstances.
“Because all the time we were speaking I couldn’t take my eyes off his mouth, Clyde.”
*****
“Yes, I’ve seen him around a few times,” Neil, the usher from the Boomerang, said after I’d shown him the photograph and then, before I could stop him, beckoned the one-legged man Steve had told me he liked, who I’d been watching doing laps, wondering how he kept swimming in straight lines.
“Hello,” the man said, extending his hand to me from the water. “My name’s Boyd, and I know who you are, Mr. Smith.”
Even if they did know who I was, I thought it only polite to introduce myself to both of them, telling them I didn’t really need to know their names, I was just after information, but neither man seemed to mind. It turned out they were pals, former lovers, and still met up in the pub for a beer, or went
to the footy together and often came down here to swim.
“You remember this guy?” Neil asked his friend Boyd, showing him the photo I’d given him.
“Of course. What’s this all about?”
“I’m just wondering what you can tell me about him,” I explained.
They’d both seen Green Eyes around and about. Neil had not only been aware of his activities in the steam room years back but had also seen him at places men frequented at night. Both of them had originally run across him in Hyde Park in the city years ago on the same night but not at the same time, and while they’d still been a couple. They explained they’d not had a monogamous relationship.
The Archibald Fountain after dark, with its bronze life-sized statues of naked men, was one of the most well-known pickup places in Sydney, within walking distance of the gardens opposite Saint Mary’s Cathedral and the Domain parkland, it was where men made contact and then went into the gardens or the park to do their business.
Boyd’s recollection of Green Eyes had been one of initial surprise when someone so young had slipped his false teeth into the pocket of his jacket as he’d fallen to his knees. Boyd said he’d been rather taken aback by the man’s eagerness. He’d been quite shy in those days, worried about what people might think when they discovered that the left leg beneath his trousers was wood and metal, rather than flesh and bone. Boyd drove an automatic, and although Green Eyes had declined a return favour, had asked him if he needed a lift home, but had been shocked when he’d been told, with a genuine and disarming smile, that the young bloke had only just arrived and had said he wanted to spend a few more hours seeing who else he could pick up before taking the last tram home. Just after they’d said goodbye, the man had run up to Boyd as he was getting into his car. He’d wanted to know if Boyd knew where the pickup places were in the Eastern Suburbs, because he’d been thinking of moving there.
“Do you remember by chance exactly when this was?” I asked him.
“January, 1951.”
“Any date come to mind?”
The two men looked at each other and then Boyd said, “It was the twenty-seventh of the month, the day after Australia Day. We were both in the mood for tomcatting and decided to go into town, because it was the safest place to pick up in those days. Went in separate cars and then by chance ended up with the same man.”
“Is it improper of me to ask how you knew it was the same bloke?”
“He told each of us he needed money to get the tram home, and we both fell for it. I gave him five bob and told him to get a cab, and then Neil told me he did the same thing.”
“And?” I asked. “Was that the only thing that made you think he was the same bloke?”
Neil laughed. “The story’s a bit sordid, but I’m sure you’ve heard worse, Clyde.”
“I’m sure I have. Go on.”
“I drove into Boyd’s parking spot in Cathedral Street just as he pulled out of it—I smiled to myself because I recognised his car. One out, one in. And that’s how I met the man in your picture. He was lighting a smoke, standing right next to the curb, leaning on a telephone pole, having just said goodnight to Boyd. I wasn’t even out of the car when he tapped on the passenger side window and asked me if I wanted a gob job. Took his teeth out and slurped his tongue over his lips.”
I laughed, more from slight shock than anything. “What if you’d been a cop?”
“Who me?” Neil said and then snorted with amusement. “Anyway, my dick told me to open the door, and he had his head in my lap before I knew what was going on. When I got home, I told Boyd the story and we compared notes. Same man no doubt. How many other young blokes wearing the same outfit do you meet who take out their false teeth and then ask for money once the job’s done?”
“He never gave you a name?” I was hopeful, but they both shook their heads.
“No one gives their real name at beats, Clyde.”
I shrugged. I knew little about what went on, except second-hand.
“So, you initially met him what, nearly six years ago, is that right?” I asked.
They nodded.
“And have you seen him since, other than here at the baths, four years ago?”
“Well, I don’t remember him here at that time,” Neil said. “I was in a new relationship, but I do remember Boyd telling me he’d turned up at Craig’s and was popular in the steam room. However, in answer to your question, Clyde, yes, we’ve both seen him walking his dog—fairly recently too. We were only talking about the coincidence last week.”
“His dog?” I was so surprised I nearly fell into the pool.
“Yes, he’s got a large, furry-looking thing that he lets run loose in the park. It’s very friendly. He always keeps well away from everyone else, and if it runs up to say hello to anyone, he whistles to it, and it goes straight back to him.”
“Large and furry?”
“Bitzer,” Neil said. “Not a breed.”
“And where does he walk his dog, anywhere specific?”
“In the parks around here, usually late afternoon or early evening. The dog sits or lies down while he goes about things.”
“When you say ‘goes about things’ I suppose you mean …”
“He likes to expose himself to men and then he’ll either play with them or take his teeth out and you know. But, I’ve never seen him let anyone return the favour … let anyone give him a blowie, I mean.”
“That’s odd,” I said. “Tell me something, have either of you ever seen him or heard of him having anal sex with anyone? In the steam room or in the parks? Have you heard from other friends who might have run across him, who might have seen him going the full hog?”
“He could have, but I never saw it. In fact, whenever I saw him doing the beat at the park I made myself scarce. I found his over-enthusiasm a little off-putting, to be perfectly honest. That one time with him was enough.”
“Do either of you recall when you started seeing him again … you said it was recently, didn’t you, and with his dog?”
The two men looked at each other. “Probably early September was the first time, I think,” Neil said. “I live opposite the park up in Wolseley Road—funnily enough there was something going on there in the early hours of this morning, cops everywhere.”
I wasn’t going to tell him about the double murder that had taken place opposite his flat, but encouraged him to continue. “September you said?”
“Yes, I was on my way to work at the cinema, and I passed him coming up from the tram stop with the dog. I only remembered it because he looked me straight in the face but didn’t smile. I was about to say hello, but he didn’t seem to recognise me and just kept going. I knew it was him though—who could forget the colour of those eyes?”
“The colour of his eyes?” Although I hadn’t mentioned it, the man’s eye colour was his most salient feature. I wanted to make absolutely sure we were talking about the same person in the picture Art had drawn from Steve’s description.
“Yes, Boyd and I discussed it several times. Neither of us had ever seen anyone with such bright green eyes. They looked almost artificial, and—”
“Wait a moment, Neil,” I said. “You said he was coming up from the tram stop? You can’t take dogs on trams.”
“That’s the direction he was coming from. I didn’t say I saw him getting off the tram. He was walking down Havelock Avenue, just where the trams leave the Bundy.”
“That’s only a short way up the road from my office,” I said.
“When I thought about it, after having seen his pooch, I thought he must have been following what we used to call the ‘dog walk’. All us kids used to follow it with our pooches. While we exercised them, it gave us a chance to play on the swings and roundabouts in each of the parks along the way.”
“The dog walk?” I’d never had a dog as a pet. Mum had cats, and therefore we always had moggies.
“Yes. It’s called the dog walk because you can basically travel through the
back streets from the park opposite mine, Trenerry Park, down through Grant Reserve and then alongside the tram tracks up to—”
“Baker Park?”
“Yes, Clyde, and then farther on from that there’s that patch of grass outside the Prince of Wales hospital at Randwick, and finally Alison Park at Peter’s Corner … Clyde? Are you all right?”
I’d just realised three of the murders over the past four years had occurred in the parks they’d just mentioned. Grant Reserve and the patch of grass outside the hospital were the only two that didn’t have public toilets. However, I snapped to and moved on. “Can I ask you one last thing, fellas?”
“Sure, Clyde.”
“Do you know of anyone else who might have run across him … more recently and at night?”
There was a moment when they looked at each other and then Boyd spoke. “Tell him, Neil. Go on.”
“We said we wouldn’t—”
“I’ll keep it to myself, I promise you,” I said, guessing it might be something more than another quick exchange of glances while the man had been walking his dog.
“Well, it’s just odd you should ask that, Clyde,” Neil said, looking behind him quickly to make sure no one else was within hearing distance, “because a few weeks back, Max, one of our mates, said he had a scary encounter with this bloke.”
“Really?” I said, my interest really aroused.
“Max lives in Brook Street, Clyde. He told us he’d been leaning on the balcony of his flat late one night having a smoke and had seen a man get out of a cab outside the cricket oval. He watched as the bloke headed over the road towards the back of the grandstand, but before he wandered off into the shadows, he stopped on the footpath, took his hat off and held his watch up to the light of the streetlamp to check the time—that’s when Max had glimpsed his face and recognised your feller.”
“Do you remember when exactly this happened?” I asked, starting to feel a little excited and anxious at the same time. I was positive I was going to hear about the night of the first murder, opposite my flat.
“Few weeks before Christmas,” Neil said.
The Gilded Madonna Page 34