Frederick's Coat

by Duff, Alan

  ‘Now I’m really shocked,’ Johno said.

  ‘Not what I asked. You should be cooler than that.’

  ‘I dunno. A hundred and twenty grand, as I recall. But—’

  ‘I don’t do “buts”. That include the building?’

  ‘Guess it does. But who says I want to own a restaurant, let alone his dump?’

  ‘I didn’t. I only offered. If you buy at the right price then it could be turned into something good. You’ll still own the building. Wrighty says always pay half the asking for anything, except one of his or my cars.’ A smile revealing nicotine-stained teeth. The charm had always been more in Laurie’s eyes.

  ‘You mean offer Harry sixty grand?’

  ‘I’d go lower. You said he’d had no interest. The bloke’s crook. Place’ll be worth nothing if he dies on the job. It’s past its use-by date, this mixed grill and steak and eggs stuff. Wrighty tells me people want white meat and salads, fish. Not fries with every meal. You need a new clientele. Get the workers with a bit more class and dough. Buy furniture from some restaurant that’s gone broke. Offer him forty-five and see if he’ll settle for fifty. Leaves us some dry powder.’

  ‘What do I know about running a business?’ Though the idea was taking hold — fast.

  ‘What does anyone know about anything when they’re starting out?’ said Laurie. ‘You just put one foot in front of the other and get walking. Only the bricks and mortar is worth anything. And only if the tenant pays the rent. Tell this Harry bloke the place needs a massive refurbishing. Stop at fifty and don’t overcapitalise on the do-up.’

  ‘I’ve never heard you talk like this once in your life,’ Johno said, even as his mind churned.

  ‘Till I met Dave Wright, I’d wasted a lifetime mixing with the wrong people.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Johno. ‘Believing the myth that crime pays and thieves have honour and they hardly ever go to jail.’

  ‘It’s all drugs now, at any rate.’

  ‘If the place was mine …’ Johno started off tentatively, ‘I’d throw out the entire menu, sit down with Mavis and work out a better one — she can cook. I’d improve the quality of service, and the way the staff are treated. Change the place completely — the décor, lighting. And, like you said, attract a better clientele.’

  ‘There you go, mate. A businessman in the making. I’ll provide the money.’

  ‘A loan, of course.’

  ‘You were too quick. Yes, a loan, but as my only child you’ll get it back in my will,’ said Laurie. ‘Minus the fifty grand of Danny’s shares.’

  ‘If I don’t pay it back sooner,’ said Johno. ‘Or I’ll leave it to Danny.’

  ‘Jump into my grave, why don’t you? See if I left anything in my pockets. My health’s fine, other than a smoker’s cough. Thanks for your concern.’

  ‘Didn’t mean you were at death’s door. Can’t have you going before your own father, can we?’ Johno got up and rubbed his father’s thinning scalp, teasing, ‘You do look a bit pale, though.’

  ‘Must admit I didn’t think you’d stick to being a non-smoker. You miss it?’

  ‘Not one bit,’ Johno answered honestly, his mind elsewhere. ‘I’m thinking there are quite a few offices nearby — we could offer lighter lunches at a reasonable price. Women like to keep slim, so why not get a name for great salads? Even offer free delivery to their offices. How about kids can eat free on Sundays when they come with their parents? Make it a place people want to come for a drink, like some of the pubs on our old circuit.’ More than warming to the idea of owning his own business.

  ‘Son, I’ve got like you — don’t wanna know those crims bragging about the good old days. What good old days? I never go near my old haunts.’

  But Johno’s mind was on only one subject. ‘Get in a two-piece live band Friday and Saturday nights, play the standards — Abba, Elton John.’

  ‘Glad you didn’t say Motown. We’re white Australians, we don’t do that black music.’ Then they looked at each other and Johno grinned first.

  ‘I liked black music before I knew my old lady was brown,’ he said.

  ‘Come to think of it, she was hot on soul.’ Gave Johno a funny look before he said, ‘You can forget her. Throw some imagination at your new joint, like your boy does with his art.’

  ‘I happened to read a newspaper article about being in the service industry,’ Johno said. ‘Smile till your face aches. The customer is king and queen.’

  ‘Exactly what Wrighty says. Why he sells more cars than his competition and I sell my own share, too — we smile, and from our greedy little hearts.’

  ‘This could work, couldn’t it?’ Johno was still far from believing it.

  ‘Or not, never forget. Th—’

  Laurie turned at the sound of footsteps outside. Danny walked in ahead of Mavis.

  The boy promptly said, ‘Granddad? Our teacher says adults should smoke outside because of secondary inhaling.’

  ‘Little bugger, I’m just about to do you a big favour you won’t get till you’re much older and I’m probably dead,’ said Laurie. ‘Tell you what: let’s have a rule says whenever I smoke, you go outside. How’s that sound? Gidday, Mavis. Another trying day with the art genius, was it?’

  ‘He’s a good child with me, Laurie,’ Mavis said. ‘It’s because I never tell him this genius and freak stuff. Keep his feet planted on the ground. He’s only six. And I’d prefer you smoked outside, if you don’t mind.’

  ‘Bloody Nazis, all of you. Nice day for the beach.’ Laurie winked at Danny, who beamed back, then looked at his father.

  ‘We’re going,’ Johno said. Loved being with his kid in the surf, though not the first few times, when Danny acted like a tidal wave was about to engulf them. But he’d gotten used to it now, venturing further and further out and only sometimes losing his nerve. Spent hours etching detailed figures in the damp sand, explaining to his father what each depicted.

  ‘How do you feel about Dad having his own restaurant?’ Johno asked.

  Danny gave that some serious thought. ‘Would I still see you quite a lot?’

  ‘See what I mean?’ said Laurie. ‘What other six-year-old would answer like that, I ask you?’

  ‘Try his whole school class,’ Mavis said. ‘You’ll give him a swollen head.’

  ‘You might get one, too, when Johno asks you to write up a brand-new menu that’ll have customers queuing at his door.’

  ‘I’d be happy to help,’ Mavis said, still trying to look stern, but giving them her complete attention.

  Later, as he lay in bed, it came to Johno that if he could make this venture a success then he’d better not forget all his broken promises to Evelyn, his obligation to his other child. This opportunity — if indeed it was one — wasn’t going to come again. Even if success, legitimate and perhaps kind of moral, seemed like something that happened to others.

  All right, if success did come, then this time he would give something back instead of taking; now Evelyn had sent Danny a few letters accompanied by gifts, Johno had an address to give her a real surprise by sending her a chunk of money after, say, a year or two. But not for a moment did he believe things could turn out so good.

  And there was the promise he’d made to Dixon Kanohi, that he’d try to keep his son Tahu on the right track. He’d met up with the young man a few times, but there had been little he could do in the immediate sense, and anyway it felt like he’d been put in an awkward position. Was he supposed to be a mentor to a strapping twenty-year-old Maori who’d spent most his life in Australia? How Kanohi saw that capacity in Johno he didn’t know.

  Naturally, thinking about Kanohi led him to wonder what had become of Shane McNeil. He’d been due out from prison three months after Johno, but not a word. Had to assume he’d got into trouble again. Their friendship now seemed something from long ago and those career criminal dreams felt rather silly.

  Once he’d put in the opening offer of forty thousand dollars, under a company n
ame so he couldn’t be linked to it, Johno couldn’t stop thinking about the restaurant, about Danny, about the effect it might have on their relationship if he worked long hours. As long as his boy remained his first priority, he was prepared to drop the whole thing if Danny suffered from his father’s longer absences.

  That’s when the name came: Danny’s Drawings. Had a nice ring to it and kind of intriguing, picturing the place with his son’s artwork hanging on the walls, and the customers getting to meet the little artist from time to time. Johno hadn’t been this excited in years.

  Chapter eight

  Barwon Prison, high security, about an hour’s drive in a prison van from Melbourne city, handcuffed to a steel rail, peeking out a tiny window at the free world being left behind — Christ, how it was left behind.

  Barwon. Living the story of the recidivist — no sooner out than he’s back in. For doing a job that sounded so easy — aren’t they all? What crims have in common: they always want the easy way.

  Having already served close to four years at Long Bay prison, Shane was now looking at a whopping fourteen — fourteen — years for armed robbery in Melbourne. Back to the same reduced world, measured and defined by perceived insults, looks, slights, offence taken. Watching your back, careful in everything you said and did. Oh, how many times did he wish he could turn the clock back?

  The Midees — Middle Easters — were upset at him. Not as if he’d insulted their sacred Muslim religion — fucking hypocrites, in here for selling heroin. All the inmates felt like asking if Allah approved of them selling smack. But the Midees as a group were too crazy when it came to their religion. Was it some act of aggression? A filthy look?

  No, he’d jumped ahead of one Midee in a shower cubicle. Big fucking deal. Start a world war over that? Not as if Barwon, only opened in early 1990, didn’t have lots of facilities like decent clean showers, better grub than Long Bay’s. Every cell had its own toilet so inmates didn’t have to go through the undignified process of taking a dump in a line of doorless loos.

  Anyone serving less than a ten-stretch wasn’t a resident here. This was the big time. Lots of blokes thought they’d arrived coming to Barwon, but Shane McNeil was cured of that hero outlaw crap the moment the High Court judge sent him down.

  But queue-jumping for a shower? Like who here was in a hurry, had a plane to catch, some important job to do?

  Seemed at any given time he was under some swarthy guy’s evil eye. In his head, Shane asked his old mate how he’d get out of this situation, but since Johno didn’t even appear in spirit with good advice, Shane wondered who among the hundred or so in this unit was likely to take his side, even up the numbers to make the Midees think again. Like none?

  Avoiding the ablutions block, the exercise yard and the recreation area where most of the violent action took place, Shane felt he had an attack covered. Best not to move too far from his cell.

  He saw Gerardo Lagano, and when the Italian nodded with a serious face, Shane hoped like hell he’d seen a sign of support. Gerardo was true Italian, and not just through parentage but born in Florence, came to Australia with his family as a teenager and still had an accent twenty-five years later. Not that bullshit second-generation acting of the Midees like they grew up in sight of pyramids baking in forty-five-degree sun, or had Israel as hated neighbours, or whatever the political issue was in a region even Shane knew was in permanent tumult and featured frequently on the TV news.

  Suddenly that favour Gerardo had sworn he owed Shane came to mind. Shane had been passing Gerardo’s cell one cold June morning last year and saw the Eyetie was in trouble — a heart attack, or some kind of fit. His prompt action in getting help for the overweight thirty-nine-year-old had saved his life. He wasn’t fat any more. Remembered, too, that Eyeties and Midees, though they never talked to one another, often seemed much the same — jealous about their women, extreme views on so many things, strong family ties, talked an awful lot about not much, extremely volatile. Both groups were doing big sentences for drug offences. The Eyeties moved marijuana in bulk, no fucking around, by the truckload, and they had got onto the huge returns in buying methamphetamine ingredients from China. In the same line of business and moved in packs, yet they never talked to one another.

  ‘Hey, Gerardo. How’s it going?’

  ‘I’m going same as yesterday, last week, last year, Shane. Bad because I miss the freedom I took for granted. Yet good because I’m still alive to fight another day. Yeah?’ In his put-on, breezy, semi-Italian way. ‘And you, my friend?’

  Shane seized on the ‘my friend’ bit, put out a hand to shake. ‘Not so good, actually.’ Watched — hoped — for the frown of concern, which came.

  ‘What’s wrong? You get a dear John letter?’

  ‘Not me. Girl I trotted out couldn’t read or write. Only joking.’ He could get like that when he was nervous or scared. There were the crazy Midees, but this bloke had a dangerous air about him, too.

  ‘That’s quite funny. But you’re not smiling, huh?’

  Shane told him of the trouble looming. ‘I was wondering if you could get someone to talk to these hotheads, calm them down. Let them know I’m not out to upset anyone.’ That leaf out of Johno’s book and another to follow.

  ‘I’ll apologise if I have to.’

  ‘To who?’ Gerardo no less than incredulous. ‘To those date-eater camel-fuckers who were born here, never set eyes on a camel and only dates they know are with their hairy girls?’

  ‘Words right out of my mouth,’ said Shane. ‘But can’t say it, can we? Like we can’t about almost anyone here.’

  ‘A few can,’ Gerardo said. ‘Like the man you’d like me to go to, yes?’

  Shane hadn’t dared consider asking such a favour. ‘Well, you are mates.’

  ‘He has associates, not mates. But he is Italian born,’ said Gerardo. Primo’s name meant first born, and he acted like he was entitled to anything he wanted.

  ‘He also has tendencies … What if he wants to —’

  ‘The Midees can kill me.’ Shane wasn’t going to hear another word.

  ‘He’s not a homo. I don’t like the word gay. It don’t fit what they are, which is male sluts, whores for free. Primo is just horny and it’s too long to wait before he has pussy again. He is very discreet.’

  ‘Jesus, Gerardo, you for real? Just the thought makes me wanna chuck. And no such thing as discreet, not in this place.’

  Grinning, Gerardo said, ‘So you would do it if he was?’

  ‘I’d put a shank in his coozers, then wait for your boys to take me out,’ said Shane.

  ‘They’d make you suffer before they killed you.’ Gerardo’s tone had changed, but then he went on: ‘I wasn’t serious about Primo fancying your ass. You have no humour in this place, then anger and all the other shit takes over. I’ll talk to him. I owe you one. And …’ his eyes narrowed, ‘he respects me.’

  Back in his cell later with a foot ready to kick the door shut on attackers, Shane almost slammed it in Gerardo’s face.

  ‘He says you’re too ugly to screw,’ Gerardo began. ‘The matter is closed. No apology required, but you need to be careful who you jump ahead of in the shower.’

  ‘In case it’s a big stiffy following me, eh?’ Shane let his relief show.

  ‘Not likely, my friend. As Primo says, nature was not so kind to you in the looks department.’

  ‘And that’s fine by me,’ said Shane. ‘Now I owe you a favour — a big one. I wasn’t prepared for the Midees.’

  ‘You know your problem? You need to operate in numbers, but only with the most trusted who will never betray you or fuck you over.’

  ‘That an invite?’

  ‘It could be discussed. You saving me will help your case. If they agree, you’d have to learn our language. Think you can do that?’

  ‘I left school at sixteen and could have left five years earlier with what I didn’t learn.’

  ‘So you’re not prepared to put in the effor
t?’

  ‘Shane McNeil speaking Italian?’

  ‘I speak English.’

  ‘Why would you want me?’

  ‘We have a saying: blood kept circulating in too few families turns to bad blood.’

  ‘I’m not into arranged marriages.’

  ‘I’m not talking breeding with you,’ Gerardo said. ‘And in the future — far off, you have to say — when you’re a free man, I wouldn’t recommend you marry an Italian girl. Her family will swallow you up. But if you speak our lingo, that’s different. Might surprise them, but our lot in here are always open to new ideas, another way of thinking. This is why we not only survive, we flourish.’

  ‘Let’s get one thing straight. If I’m not the best-looking bloke you ever saw, then I’m sure not the smartest.’

  ‘So, what you telling me is new?’

  ‘Just so you don’t think—’

  ‘It’s not intelligence our organisation lacks,’ Gerardo cut in. ‘It’s loyal people, an Aussie with integrity instead of this “mates when the sun is shining”. You could be a — how you say — a go-between.’

  ‘I’ll think about it.’ Shane not sure he liked his compatriots described as fair-weather friends. He knew plenty who’d die for each other. Just not the two he’d made the terrible mistake of hooking up with on that armed robbery fiasco.

  ‘Good. Only a fool rushes in. I’ll still talk to you if we aren’t your scene.’ Gerardo as he turned to leave, ‘If you do decide yes, you’re in with us, take down those filthy pictures of women showing their pussy. In our culture we respect women.’

  ‘Oh yeah? So how come in the movies the Mafia guys screw everyone in a skirt? No different to how they are in real life.’

  ‘Because there is the public man,’ said Gerardo, ‘and the private man. They know each other but they don’t feel a need to have a discussion.’

  Christ, the bloke was a true philosopher who happened to have about six years left to serve of a sixteen-year sentence for conspiracy to supply marijuana in vast quantities. Maybe joining up with them wasn’t such a bad idea.