Frederick's Coat

by Duff, Alan

  ‘Is the food all right here, Mum?’

  ‘What?’ Her mouth fell open, showing stained and rotting bottom teeth with gaps between each one. Why the hell didn’t the people running this place order them pulled? ‘I’m not your mum. I’ll tell the doctor on you. Get out.’

  ‘Just wondered if everything’s all right here.’

  ‘I caught a butterfly. But it died. Did you see it?’

  He knew she was back in her own childhood and his was a blank. He’d never felt so empty.

  Paolo had the new life in Sydney all arranged. The very nice apartment overlooking Darling Harbour. His place on the top floor of a twenty-one-storey block, his senior ‘rank’ keeping a buffer between him and going back to jail. Plenty of cash, savings in the bank, fifteen grand a month paid as a ‘salary’, annual bonus promised. All right, a standard older-model car parked in his own basement parking space, but at least he had wheels and he’d got his driving confidence back.

  Only thing missing was a girlfriend. He might even marry if he could allow himself to fall in love, instead of pre-judging every woman who had sex with him. He wanted kids like Paolo’s, little ones he could love and fuss over, as his mum had him.

  ‘Not one but two walls between you and the heat,’ Gerardo had said the day before he walked out of Barwon Prison. But no wall could stop him reading the newspaper account in every Melbourne newspaper of one Bernadette Hoeser screaming in court at being sentenced to twelve years in prison, crying out she was a victim who had been duped into being a mule for people dealing in class-A drugs. She’d never been before a court in her life, had worked for the tax department, lived with her parents. Two others, young males with criminal convictions, were given fourteen-year sentences — a familiar number to Shane McNeil. The woman was described as ‘much reduced in weight since her first depositions appearances. Her only support at the trial came from her parents, both of whom were distraught and refuse to accept that their daughter is guilty.’

  And what did that fucking heartless Paolo say?

  ‘Hey, we did her a favour. She’ll be out in half that time, all nice and trimmed down. Soon have a boyfriend and put it behind her. Only thing is, she won’t be able to hide the stretch marks.’ He thought it was a joke. The other two jailed street-dealers would get discreetly looked after in jail, but no tears were shed for them either.

  Shane stood at his living-room window looking out at the night view, the mass of building lights, the lit-up ferries and leisure boats on the move. Somewhere out there could be his old mate Johno Ryan. Or Johno might have moved to another town, even left the country. Shane would start a serious search for him soon.

  Chapter thirty-three

  Corey? Yes, and outside Frederick’s flat, for which Danny had a key. He’d found no sign that his friend had been there.

  ‘Yeah, it’s me.’ No friendly grin like the one he’d given Danny just two days ago when he and Frederick were at the Botanic Gardens. At Frederick’s insistence Danny had left his friend to it.

  ‘A solo trip down memory lane, kid. You’ll be seeing me.’ Frederick looking happy with life — or at something.

  Perhaps wanting to know one way or other, Danny had asked, ‘You want me to bring your stuff?’ Meaning the supermarket trolley.

  ‘No. I won’t be needing it.’

  Pleased, Danny had said, ‘Shall I get rid of it?’ But he didn’t want to ditch the coat.

  ‘I wouldn’t yet. But if your dad’s patience runs out there’s a painting you gave me under the wrap. Don’t be throwing the beautiful baby out with the dirty bath water.’ So why hadn’t he laughed?

  ‘Come with me,’ Corey said, indicating a waiting taxi.

  Danny had to skip-run to catch up with Corey’s quick stride. Not once did he look at Danny or speak to him. His pals waited around a bend in the footpath and without a word of greeting joined the pair.

  They veered off the main path at Rainforest Walk. Still no one said anything. Danny was becoming anxious, even afraid. ‘Have I done something wrong? Has Frederick?’

  No answer.

  Corey slowed and stopped and flicked an indicating hand, as if at a pesky fly. ‘A drunk found him … Hanged himself.’

  ‘Found who?’ Though he knew.

  ‘Your pal,’ said Corey. ‘You guys take a walk.’

  The arm that came round his shoulders was never more welcome. Corey was telling him how sorry he was. ‘Not saying Fred and us were, like, mates. But you get to know people in these places. Just we don’t live here like he did. But we’re kind of the same people, like a sort of tribe.’

  Danny clutched at that word. Tribe. Made him feel safer, even a little comforted.

  Corey said, ‘Cry all you want. I ain’t tellin’.’

  But Danny couldn’t cry. It was something that must be done first in private. Maybe at the foot of the tree Frederick had used to end his life. His life. He recalled Frederick saying to Wilson how he didn’t worship at the feet of the Bard, it was Shakespeare’s words he worshipped. Signifying nothing.

  Time became another kind of nothing, caught in some kind of echoing chamber repeating itself, pulse beats, heart beats, a steady beating of a drum that wanted to become something else but couldn’t find a way, as he and Corey meandered aimlessly around the park.

  He remembered his confusion when his grandfather had died, how he’d lost all interest, felt no grief. For months afterwards, though, he cried for his grandfather in private.

  Well, this was grief starting to come, great dollops of it, like swallowing food he detested and still it came. And all the while Corey was there, talking softly, an arm around him, saying there was no shame in crying. ‘Not when something like this happens. Jeezuz.’

  And did Corey say, at some stage, ‘I have something to take away all the pain’?

  Chapter thirty-four

  He hadn’t done this before, looking to hire a private investigator, but thought it would be straightforward enough — a matter of meeting the person face-to-face to know if he could be trusted. The rest the PI could do.

  The first guy could have come right out of a protection unit in prison, like some overweight paedophile with slicks of hair flattened across his skull by pungent-smelling grease. Johno asked him a few questions and that was enough. ‘This job’s not for you, mate.’

  ‘Don’t we know each other?’ was the first thing Johno said when the second guy walked into his office. Still big and burly, but dressed more sharply — must have practised the look in the mirror, taken it from some movie he’d seen. And no box-office hit, this was C-grade, way too contrived, the just-so loosened plain black tie, white shirt well ironed and yet crumpled in the wrong places, hair in need of a cut and yet styled that way, perfectly unnatural. His black leather briefcase that had been around or else put through a concrete mixer and no doubt full of listening devices and cameras and PI paraphernalia.

  ‘Yeah. I’d say we do.’ The former flying squad detective had the nerve to grin.

  ‘You and Marshie and the other guy — what was his name?’

  ‘You must be psychic, saying “was”. He’s now the late Nick the Prick. Fell over with a massive heart attack, only forty-one.’

  ‘That’s a shame,’ Johno said, deadpan.

  ‘And you’d know Marshie did time?’

  ‘Word does get around if it’s a cop.’

  ‘Poor bastard got caught up in the sweep, so to speak.’

  Memories of paying this man, Rod Croydon — my mates call me Croydo — when he was a detective sergeant rubbed against an old wound he thought had long healed. ‘Yeah. I heard. Were you hiding under the table when they came for your mate?’

  ‘I’m good at what I do, Johno Ryan. That’s as a former cop and now as a PI. I kept under the radar even before they had that saying. Now, how can I help you, former truck-heister, before we get onto morality?’ Said with that same cocksure grin.

  ‘What’s the difference between morality and being a cunt —
and that was all three of you?’ said Johno. ‘Carrying detective badges.’

  ‘No reason to still be bitter. Now, you need a PI to — let me guess. You got some competition for this very nice bar-cum-restaurant and you want to see what can be found on them? Getting ripped off by your bar staff, I bet? That’s an area I know well. Problem’s endemic in the grog industry, fucking light-fingered staff. I love nailing them.’ That irritating grin again as he added, ‘Reminds me of the old days. Funny old world, isn’t it? I mean, who’d believe?’

  ‘That’s right. Who’d believe I’d want to do business with someone who sent me and Shane McNeil down?’ The memories came back.

  ‘Correction,’ said Croydon. ‘You sent yourselves down. Cutting us out when that wasn’t the arrangement.’

  ‘As I recall, the arrangement was all of your making.’

  ‘Come on, Johno. It’s a new world now, and I’ve moved on and you sure as hell look like you have. Quite a place you’ve got here. A fucking waterfall in the middle of Balmain? Mate.’ Too familiar by half.

  ‘Like you said, who’d think it?’

  ‘Look, why don’t we smoke a peace pipe over a beer and get this job done? Tell you what: don’t pay me unless I do it to your satisfaction. That’s how confident I am.’

  ‘You know what would satisfy me, Croydon? To see someone nail you.’

  ‘Memories cut both ways, Johno Ryan.’ Croydon stood up and gave a wicked smile.

  ‘Bet you wish we were in a police cell so you could give me a good flogging.’

  ‘Plenty of other places, sonny.’ The ex-cop had walked to the door; the office wasn’t the largest of spaces.

  ‘Wherever you like.’ Johno felt that little trembling, ridiculously like fear, that he knew could grow into blind violence.

  Now he was telling Melanie, ‘But the third guy wasn’t too bad. He had an honest manner. Even his name, Selby Whiting, had a ring to it.’

  And when Melanie said nothing, Johno asked, ‘What? You don’t approve?’

  ‘I just think something vital’s lost when you spy on your own flesh and blood.’

  Exact same thought he’d had, but his kid was dicing with danger. And how come she got more, well, assertive in her own apartment, and more docile when at his place?

  ‘My son’s a heavy drug user, if not an addict.’

  ‘Johno. Please,’ she said. ‘I’m not the enemy. I’m not a drug dealer.’

  ‘But you don’t think trying to find out who’s dealing drugs to my son is the right thing?’ He shifted position on the sofa where they were sitting.

  ‘Don’t move away like that,’ she said. ‘I know this is killing you. It’s tearing me up, too, seeing your anguish.’

  He looked at her for some considering moments, slid back to where he was. ‘Start again. First, let me finish. This private detective found that a gang of young guys, early twenties, are the street-dealers, the direct contact with Danny. They report to a couple of heavies. They’re the ones I want.’

  ‘Is that it? Problem now solved, or …?’

  ‘The problem could be solved.’

  ‘Except your son goes down in the plane crash.’

  ‘He goes down anyway.’

  ‘Or,’ said Mel, ‘his talent is his saving grace and, as he matures, he sees what he’s doing to himself and kicks the habit, given he’s not on heroin. Which I understand is near impossible to kick. But cocaine has somewhat less of a hold. Yes?’

  ‘Says a woman looking for a happy ending,’ said Johno, not meaning to hurt her or be sarcastic. But he continued, ‘Life ain’t like that. And Danny isn’t what you’d call a robust person who has it in him to quit.’

  ‘He’s an artist. Not meant to be robust.’

  ‘Not meant to be on coke, either,’ Johno said, ‘not if he wants to be painting into old age. Even to middle age.’ Johno pulled out his hard face; he didn’t know he was doing it, just saw the change in Melanie’s expression, a frown, but too late now. ‘Or I can stop these people in their tracks.’

  ‘Oh? How would you do that? Get the cops involved?’

  ‘Get them not involved. I already told you about the ex-detective turned PI. Attracts a certain type I’m chemically averse to. I know people.’

  ‘So do I,’ Mel said. ‘But none who’d take on organised criminals.’

  ‘I meant at supplier level. I know the direct sellers are just pawns in the game. But I’ll hit the soldiers and might even surprise the big guys at the top.’

  ‘My, you make it sound like a simple military operation.’ Was she being sarcastic? ‘And you have a thriving business, as I recall. Why would you put that at risk? How long do you think it would take them to replace these people? Don’t they call them mules or something?’

  ‘A mule is the mug who brings the drug in,’ said Johno. ‘Then it comes down a chain. That’s about all I know of the business. I intend going as far as necessary to get them off my son’s back.’

  ‘I understand,’ Mel said. ‘It angers you and, I hasten to add, me as well. Just in a different way, since it’s not my kid involved. Might be said I’d rather have her back with this challenge to face than not here.’

  Chastened, he said, ‘Sorry.’

  She reached for both his hands. ‘You need to think it through, hard as it is. Know I’m here for you always.’

  Johno stood before his double parking spot in the apartment block basement, thinking it was time to get rid of Frederick’s trolley. Or, if Danny didn’t want that, then it could be stored in his car park, given he’d never learned to drive. Danny had asked his father to purchase his late friend’s rented flat and he had moved in.

  But how did Johno take the trolley to Danny’s — push it? What would people think, seeing a well-dressed, clean-shaven man acting like some reluctant street person? Or he could have some fun and take a whisky bottle with him, sing as he walked, make out he was drunk. Nope, much too extroverted for Johno Ryan, and a lot of locals knew him.

  Danny could come and collect it himself. He wasn’t the type to worry what people might think of him pushing a supermarket trolley down a busy city suburban street like some glamorous imitation of a tramp.

  Should he call Danny or should he surprise him, just press his buzzer and see if he sounded guilty when he answered?

  He was kind of relieved when his mobile rang and the caller ID said S. Whiting.

  ‘I’ve found her.’

  Chapter thirty-five

  Give the woman her due: she opened the match with the coolest of expressions.

  ‘How’d you find me?’

  Didn’t look that bad for a woman of, he wasn’t sure, sixty-plus. Hadn’t seen her since he was fifteen and then only for a few minutes. Yet she was strangely familiar.

  He tried not to show he was assessing — judging — wondering, even marvelling at the fact that this was his mother, Anita.

  Her dress was summer-light material, no sleeves and no sagging skin on her arms. Yeah, good-looking — still. Complexion of a woman half her age, except for the telltale smoker’s city map lines around the eyes. Dark hair heavily streaked with grey, nothing fancy about the practical cut. A funny way of looking at him warily, half side-on, at least initially.

  He was trying not to imagine this woman — his old lady — on her back servicing a customer to get her next fix. But the thought still popped up and it filled him with — well, disgust, and yet maybe, like Frederick, she couldn’t help what she was. He’d expected Selby Whiting would discover his mother had died a long time ago, having succumbed to drugs. But she looked clean. Not that he knew what a clean former drug addict looked like. In prison he’d avoided drug offenders like the plague, and not just because he’d been brought up prejudiced against anything to do with drugs. They all lack scruples.

  ‘Private investigator.’ Johno was surprised at his own emotional state — way too high, just like that dive had been way too deep.

  ‘Well,’ she said. ‘Fancy this. How long’s it
been?’

  ‘I was fifteen.’

  ‘So I was thirty-five. And now you’re forty.’

  ‘This is your flat?’ A second-floor pad in the main street of Kings Cross, a cesspit of drug addicts and all their lowlife associated parties. He’d had three offers of sex between parking his car down a side street and reaching here. No lift — up creaky stairs that took him back to the outside wooden stairs of Evelyn’s flat a lifetime ago. Memories. Why do the bad ones stick? The place was so tiny he could have touched the walls if he’d spread his arms out.

  ‘I share it,’ she said. ‘How did you get my surname? From your father? I saw he died a while back.’

  ‘You must be getting old if you’re reading the death notices.’ He meant it as light relief.

  ‘Not me. I heard on the underworld grapevine that an old stager in the minor league had passed on. I beat him on that count. He used to say I wouldn’t reach thirty,’ she said with almost a sad expression. ‘If you can call my life living.’

  ‘He only had a description and your first name. The PI, I mean.’

  ‘So say it,’ she said. ‘Say my name.’ Striking the first blow.

  ‘If you don’t know it by now, you never will,’ he said and gave something of a smile to say that he wasn’t playing that game but nor was he spitting her out.

  ‘Suit yourself. You want something to drink?’

  ‘No, thanks.’

  ‘You don’t look like a non-drinker,’ she said. ‘Drinkers are a breed I can spot. But not like I can spot a fellow junkie.’

  Johno had his answer, or so he thought.

  ‘Reason I’m still here,’ she said. ‘Money circumstances made me give up about, oh, twelve years ago now.’ She waited for his reaction. The softest brown eyes for someone who’d done it hard. He’d better get his emotions reined in or this would be all over before it started. Couldn’t believe he was reacting like this, feeling a stupid urge to take her in his arms and have a good bawl.