by Peter Corris
‘Get the stuff he needs together.’ He took his feet from the desk. ‘Fancy a walk? I’ll show you over the place.’
For the next hour we walked from shed to shed, looked over the storage and maintenance areas, loading and unloading docks. We talked in bursts, frequently interrupted by the noise of the planes.
‘Pretty big show,’ I said.
‘Was getting bigger.’ He rubbed the back of his neck where he had taken the hard rabbit punch.
‘Sore head?’
‘Nah. Just a tap. Had ’em harder than that, as you can probably tell.’
‘Where did you fight?’
‘Everywhere. Fought for the state welter title. Lost on points. But I won a few.’
I pointed to three identical gunmetal blue Ford Lasers parked in the shadow of a container. ‘What’re they for? Staff cars?’
Mulholland laughed. ‘They went out with the FBT tax. No, Barnes was pretty pissed off with the security service we were using. He was playing around with the idea of setting up his own.’
We were back at the office. Anna was about to start work on compiling data for me. She flourished a floppy disk. ‘How do you want it, Cliff? On disk, tape, paper, what?’
‘I want it secure,’ I said. ‘Very, very secure.’
9
‘I’m for a beer,’ Bob Mulholland said. ‘Cliff?’
It was after five o’clock. He packed some papers into a Gladstone bag, took a light jacket off a peg and had a few words with Anna about locking up her computer disks and the security of the buildings and yards.
‘We’ve got alarms all around,’ he told me as we walked towards the front gate. ‘Two night watchmen and a couple of dogs. It’s pretty good.’
We went through the gate. ‘No car?’ I said.
‘Nah, I live in Mascot. Walk to work. Keeps the fat down.’
I couldn’t see much fat and he walked briskly, but I had the feeling that it had been a long day for him and maybe the rabbit punch had hurt him more than he let on. He accepted the offer of a lift gratefully. He settled into the seat and stretched his legs. The Gladstone bag sat between his feet.
‘Good car?’
I started the engine, which ran smoothly and softly.
‘Sounds all right. Had it long?’
‘Not long. I traded its older brother in on it. I like Falcons, don’t ask me why.’
He laughed. ‘I like Holdens. Don’t know why either. Let’s go to the Beauchamp. On Botany Road.’
We didn’t speak on the short drive. Mulholland stared straight in front of him. He sighed once, deeply. I realised that he was very tired indeed.
The pub was old and on a corner, the way a pub should be. It also boasted Sky Channel TV, which I’m not so sure about. After the chemical gunge outside, the air, filled with the aromas of beer, smoke and sweat, seemed almost fresh. We went into the public bar and Mulholland settled his bag between his legs, as workmen have done for centuries. ‘I owe you one. That Stillson would’ve made a mess of me. What’ll it be?’
We both had middies of Old and sank them quickly, without talking. Mulholland knew the barman and a few of the other drinkers. They acknowledged him respectfully. I’d seen ex-boxers get that kind of reception before, but usually those who kept on using their fists. Mulholland’s respect seemed to carry a tinge of affection as well.
‘My buy.’ I got the next round. The beer tasted good and I was happy to be there drinking it. But I knew he hadn’t invited me along just for the company.
When we were halfway through the second round Mulholland said, ‘Let’s go and sit down. I’m bushed.’
We sat at a table with a wet surface and full ashtray but as far as possible from the men gathered rowdily around the giant TV screen. The barman hurried over and wiped away the slops. He also removed the ashtray.
‘You’ve got clout in here,’ I said.
Mulholland sipped his beer. ‘Worked around here most of my life. Ever since I got down from the bush. I’ve done everything—truckie, storeman, maintenance at Caltex, the lot.’
‘How long have you worked for Barnes?’
‘Fifteen years, no, eighteen. From the beginning.’ He snorted. ‘He made me go to night school, would you believe it? I was thirty-five, a boong from the bush, bloody near illiterate. Hardly a thought in m’ head.’
‘How did you meet him, Bob?’
‘Korea. He was my C.O.’
‘I thought they only took veterans from the war in Korea.’
‘No, I was with the occupation mob in Japan. They took a few of us.’
‘You must’ve been young.’
He grinned. ‘Joined in forty-nine when I was sixteen. Used the birth certificate of an uncle of mine who was a few years older. No one knew. That “all boongs look alike” stuff was operating, you know.’
I realised that I didn’t know anything about Barnes Todd’s war record except what he’d told me. That was all anecdotal, throwaway stuff. Knowledge is the name of my game. ‘What sort of an officer was he?’
‘The best. Were you in the service, Cliff?’
‘Malaya.’
‘I thought that was before Korea.’
‘It started before, but it went on a lot later. I was in at the very end. Tell me about Barnes.’
‘Not that much to tell. We were in the Third Battalion, A Company. Saw a hell of a lot of action—up to Manchuria and down to Seoul and back to the parallel.’
‘Frostbite Ridge?’
‘My oath. Barnes looked after us. Bloody brilliant soldier. Whole thing was a waste of time, of course, but I didn’t know that then.’
He finished his drink so abruptly that I thought he was about to leave, but he took out five dollars. ‘Three’s my limit,’ he said. ‘Mind getting ’em? Get a glass of water too, would you?’
There was a soccer match on the TV and the singlet-, overall- and T-shirt-wearing men were shouting and swearing as they drank and watched. The carpet in front of the TV set was worn through to the underlay. The walls and ceiling were stained from the cigarette fug that enveloped the watchers. When I got back with the drinks, he had two pills in the pink palm of his hand. He flicked them into his mouth and swallowed them with the water. ‘Bit of heart trouble. Nothing serious. Cheers.’
We drank some more beer and he told me about his few years as a boxer after he had come back from Korea. Then it had been dead-end jobs for a long time until by chance he had met up with Barnes Todd, who was just getting started in his trucking business.
He did a good imitation of Barnes’ bluff manner and voice. ‘First, you’ll need an education, corporal.’
‘That’s him,’ I said.
‘He was as good at business as he had been at soldiering,’ Bob said. ‘Bloody tough, but fair. He looked after you.’
‘How d’you mean?’
‘Started up a super scheme as soon as he could afford it. Pretty democratic about the big decisions, asked everyone’s opinion, at least. There’s a bit of profit-sharing among the workers. I mean, it’s not bloody utopia or anything, but a hell of a lot better than the average.’
‘Was he always on the up and up?’
‘Pretty much, as far as I know. Early on we did a few things that wouldn’t stand up to too much examination. Cleaned out a few warehouses for people. Debatable, I’d call it. Nothing really bent. D’you want details? It was a long time ago and pretty small beer.’
I shook my head. ‘Did you know he was a painter? A good one, they say.’
‘No, but it doesn’t surprise me.’
The noise in the pub had gone up as the workers had come in after knocking off; there was no one close and little danger of being overheard, but Bob leaned closer to me. ‘Was he murdered?’
‘I don’t know. What d’you reckon? I was hoping the business records might give me a clue.’
‘They might.’
‘But you don’t think so. Come on, Bob. Something’s on your mind. I need all the help I can get.’
/>
‘It’s probably nothing,’ Mulholland muttered. ‘But I can’t get it out of m’ head. It happened at Wonsan, on the retreat. We pulled back with the Yanks, except that they were running and we were fighting.’
‘I’ve heard about it,’ I said.
‘Yeah, no sense in going over it again. Most of ’em were conscripts so it wasn’t their fault. Throw in a few bad officers and you’ve got all the makings of a balls-up. You never saw anything like the mess at Wonsan—the port was choked with boats trying to get away, the roads were shot to shit. What with the smoke and the rain, it was hard to tell who was who and what was what.’ An old-soldier look came over his face. The look holds two things in balance; thank God I’m out of it, and Christ, what a time it was!
He sipped some beer and went on, ‘Our platoon was down to five men and were buggered. We’d been on the move without sleep for days, almost no food and a couple of us with wounds. Barnes was holding us together, but only just.’
His dark face took on a fixed, strained look as if the act of memory was ageing him. I didn’t say anything.
‘The Yanks had had to abandon most of their armour, most of their transport and supplies. They were demoralised. Weather was too bad for the planes and a lot of the Yanks were still recovering from their first sight of the Chinese up close. Scary’s not the word for those blokes.’
‘I know.’ I had my own memories of the fanatical little Chinese fighters. In Malaya we hadn’t had endless waves of them like in Korea, but ten at a time were quite enough.
‘There was this American captain trying to get clear in a jeep. He shot a couple of civilians, including a woman and a kid, who got in his way. He ran over two wounded men. Barnes jumped onto the jeep and put his Webley up the captain’s nose. He made him stop to pick people up, Koreans mostly. We sort of escorted the jeep to where the medics were working and Barnes made a report on the captain.’
‘You saw all this?’
‘Not exactly. I’d copped one in the head. Nothing much, bit of metal I reckon. But it blinded me temporarily and buggered me up a bit. Barnes was hauling me along like a side of meat. I heard some of the shots and shouting. Barnes told me about it all later.’
‘What sort of a report did he make? Who to?’
‘I’m not sure. It was all a bloody mess. The mortars were dropping around us and the Yanks were firing everything they had in all directions at once. But I heard the captain just before we moved on. He said, “I’ll kill you, you bastard, if it’s the last thing I do.” It was as if everything stopped moving and all the noise stopped and I could hear every word. That’s how I remember it although it wasn’t like that, of course. I can still hear the captain’s voice. I mean he was a mad dog to start with, and what Barnes did really hit him. He meant it.’
‘It’s nearly forty years ago,’ I said.
‘It’s yesterday in my head. I know it’s crazy, but when I heard this talk of Barnes being murdered, it’s the first thing I thought of.’
I said I’d be in touch to collect the results of Anna Carboni’s work and to talk some more. We shook hands. He declined my offer of a lift home, saying he’d walk off the beer. As I watched him stride away, swinging his Gladstone bag, I realised that I knew nothing about his personal life. Did he have a wife, kids? He’d impressed me as an intelligent, truthful man, but what if I was wrong? What if he harboured a corrosive grudge against his WASP ex-C.O. and had waited thirty-plus years for an opportunity to settle the score?
I knew it was the beer on an empty stomach talking, and I took a walk to clear my head and give myself a chance of getting below .05. The planes kept taking off and touching down; it was just as well I was talking to myself because the human voice wouldn’t have stood a chance above the racket. Now you’ve got three suspects—someone in the art game, a business rival and a US Army captain. Good going. Throw in Mulholland and the widow and you’re really in business. And what about suicide? That reminded me I should talk to Todd’s doctor. My business mainly consists of paying visits on people, some welcome, some not. And ten grand buys a lot of visits.
10
On the drive from Botany to Redfern, I tried to sift the facts and impressions I’d acquired so far, but two things kept distracting me—the prospect of seeing O’Fear in Long Bay and my urgent need for a piss. It was no way to go calling on a lady.
On the drive through Mascot, Rosebery and Alexandria, there’s nothing to inspire higher feelings. The residents of Alexandria are still waiting for their long-promised park on the old brickworks and rubbish dump site. It was strange—there was a state election campaign running and I hadn’t heard a word about speeding up work on the park. I amused myself by trying to work out what that meant. I decided that it was a forecast of the election result—the government thought it was going to lose so there was no point in talking about the park and the opposition didn’t have to talk about it because it thought it was going to win.
I had the piss and bought some white wine in a pub in Pitt Street. This part of Redfern was very quiet, almost sedate. There were designer denim shops and Thai restaurants. I paid more for the wine than I expected to, a sure sign that an area is on the rise. I drove around the park and adjacent streets, partly to familiarise myself with an area that seemed to have changed dramatically since the last time I’d been in it, and partly to see if K blank M 2s and 3s was around. I didn’t see it.
Near the park and for a few streets around, a lot of the houses had been renovated. Big three-storeyed terraces and little single-fronted cottages had all had the treatment. Iron lace was back; the fibro and louvres had been knocked out of the balconies and vines grew out of tubs and tangled round where washing had once hung. Tons of cement had been prised up from front and back gardens and greenery was sprouting over the fences. Even the park had had a facelift; the big old trees looked healthy and there were wild thickets of new growth that contrasted well with the orderly layout of the paths, fountain and war memorial.
The last of the useful light went as I parked in Chalmers Street a few doors from number 505. It was one of the two-storeyed jobs, all sandblasted brick, wrought iron and clean tiles. It occurred to me that this was what the next owner would probably do to my house. I shrugged into my jacket, took a grip on the wine and pushed open the gate.
My knock brought quick footsteps on the stairs and Felicia Todd opened the door. She was wearing white pants and a blue silk shirt knotted at the waist. She looked fresh and almost happy. I was suddenly aware of a strong wish to keep her that way.
‘Well,’ she said. ‘You look like you’ve had a hard day.’
I rubbed my hand across my bristly chin. ‘That bad?’
‘I didn’t say bad.’
‘I’ve just come from Mascot where the workers really work. I can tell you that you’re pretty popular out there just now.’
She smiled and patted the bottle under my arm. ‘What’s that? Some plonk?’
‘Yes. I thought …’
‘Look, Cliff, herb omelette’s about my limit. If you want to wine and dine, we’d better go out.’
‘I don’t care. A sandwich’ll do me.’
‘No, I’d like to get out.’ She stuck her head through the door and mimed a furtive look up and down the street. ‘Is it safe?’
‘It’s getting cool. You’ll need a jacket.’
She went quickly up the stairs. My nasty suspicious mind wondered whether she had contrived a way to keep me out. Distrust is an occupational hazard; Cyn said I must have distrusted my mother. Felicia came back wearing a grey denim jacket with the fashionable half-worn-out look. She felt in her pocket for the key and slammed the door hard. We stood on the pavement and faced west.
‘Italian? Chinese? Thai? What?’ she said.
‘No Greek?’
‘We can do Greek. D’you like Greek?’
‘Yeah, I do, as a matter of fact.’
‘So do I. Greek it is.’
We walked to a restaurant in Elizabeth Stre
et. She told me she had filled in the day pretty much as she had expected, with walking and taking photographs. She was animated, apparently glad of my company. But then she’d had a boring day.
I was so hungry I wouldn’t have cared what nationality the food was, but the flat bread, skewered lamb and salad were good. Felicia knocked off a glass of wine quickly and then nursed a second for the rest of the meal. I gave her an outline of what I had done during the day. She looked concerned when I told her about the disturbance at Mascot.
‘Was Bob hurt?’ she said.
‘No. They got more hurt than us.’
‘You sound like Barnes. Tell me about the place. I’ve only been out there once or twice, and very briefly.’
‘It’s worth a visit,’ I said. ‘I’ll take you next time.’ I told her about Anna Carboni and the work she was doing for me.
‘It’s funny,’ she said, when I finished talking to do some more chewing.
‘What is?’
‘You met the most hateful person Barnes knew, that’s Willowsmith, and the nicest—Bob Mulholland. You must be getting some interesting impressions.’
‘Willowsmith struck me as dangerous.’
‘He is. I could tell you some stories.’
We were picking at the remains of the salad by this time. I dipped a bit of bread in the dressing. ‘Bob Mulholland told me something interesting.’ I gave her the story about the US captain.
‘Barnes used to have nightmares about Korea. I came to hate the sound of the word. Could there be anything in that, d’you think?’
‘It seems unlikely. Barnes never mentioned it? No strange Americans turned up recently?’
The waiter cruised up and we ordered coffee. I let him take away the wine bottle with more than an inch still in it. I hoped I was making a good impression. We sat quietly watching the other diners while we waited for the coffee. There was only one smoker and only two people were noticeably affected by alcohol. Times have changed in Redfern and everywhere else. I caught a snatch of conversation about the election: ‘Political parties are a conspiracy against the people. They’re both in trouble.’ I was in agreement; maybe I’d have to revise my analysis of the Alexandria park issue.