‘Yeah, righto mate.’
Frank took the money, walked out to the front desk and paid the bill. The head waiter, having seen Frank helping his boss to the toilets and knowing Kilby was a regular, came over and asked if everything was all right; he was as surprised as he was worried because he knew the quality and freshness of the food was second to none — especially the mud crabs. Frank assured him there had been nothing wrong with the food, his boss was just sick from the flu, that’s all, and he’d be fine once he was outside and got some fresh air.
Kilby was still propped in front of the wash basins, slopping water over his face, when Frank returned. Oddly enough, considering the horrendous bilious attack he’d just been through, Kilby had almost regained his composure. The colour was back in his face and his stomach didn’t feel too bad even though only minutes before he’d almost turned it inside out. Frank had his arm around his waist but Kilby was almost able to walk through the restaurant and out to the car under his own steam.
‘Yeah, it’s a funny one, Perce’ said Frank, once they were inside the AWEC Toyota panel van and he was driving his boss home to Stanmore. ‘You looked half dead only a little while ago. Now you don’t look too bad.’
‘Yeah. It’s got me fucked. And you’re not going to believe this, Frank.’ Kilby shook his head and gazed out the window for a few moments before he spoke. ‘You know how crook I was back there at the Tai-Ping, and I brought everything in me up.’
‘Yeah.’
‘Well now I’m starvin’ fuckin’ hungry again. In fact you can pull over at that hamburger shop up ahead. I’m going to get half a chicken.’
Frank switched on the indicator and now it was his turn to shake his head. ‘I think you’d better see a doctor tomorrow Perce.’
Norton was up around seven-thirty the following morning. Considering the narrowness of the bed, the one lousy pillow and the lumpy mattress, he had slept quite soundly. Tjalkalieri was already in the bathroom when Les climbed into the tracksuit he’d brought with him. Mumbi and Yarrawulla were seated on the lounge in their tracksuits also, listening to the radio when Les walked into the main room. They looked like two men who had just lost their entire life’s savings at the races and picked up a purse with two dollars in it as they left the track.
‘Fair dinkum. This is a nice how-do-you-bloody-well-do, this is,’ Mumbi grumbled as soon as he spotted Les.
‘Oh hello. What the bloody hell’s up now?’ yawned Norton.
‘No cup of bloody tea in the morning. That’s what’s up,’ replied Yarrawulla.
‘Cup of tea. Cup of tea. Fair dinkum, you’re like a lot of old sheilas.’
‘Hey don’t worry about the old sheilas,’ said Tjalkalieri, who had just walked into the room. ‘No cup of tea. No chant.’
‘My oath,’ nodded Yarrawulla. ‘We are not amused.’
‘Oh for Christ’s sake,’ said Norton. ‘Just give me five minutes to have a crap and clean my teeth and I’ll go out and get you a gallon of the shit. Anything to keep you happy.’
‘Get some fruit while you’re down there,’ said Mumbi. ‘Some apples and oranges and that.’
‘And a packet of those muesli bars, too, Les,’ said Yarrawulla. ‘I don’t mind them. They’re all right.’
‘Are you sure there’s nothing else you want?’
‘No. Not for the moment,’ shrugged Tjalkalieri, who had now joined the others on the lounge. ‘But don’t be too far away at lunchtime.’
‘Oh I’ll be here, don’t worry. You won’t be able to miss me. I’ll have my butler’s uniform on.’ Norton laughed as he shook his head in disgust and went to the bathroom.
When Jolly pulled Knobby Jones’s panel van up onto the footpath outside the AWEC office around eight a.m., exhaust fumes, dust and other pollutants were just starting to thicken the air around Redfern, drifting off up into the windless sunny sky to form the yellow blanket of smog that generally settles over Sydney by mid-morning. Jolly, a medium-built, darkhaired guy who always liked to dress well, was oblivious to all this. All he had on his mind was getting a packet of cigarettes before he started loading up all those hot VCRs. He sprinted across to the shops just around the corner from the Thames Tavern.
Jolly, whose real name was Mick Rodgers, got his nickname because he was a pretty happy sort of a bloke. Someone once referred to him as Jolly Rodgers and somehow the name stuck. Jolly wasn’t real keen about work, especially the nine-to-five caper, so he generally did a bit of SP or whatever else he could get his hands on, hanging around with various shifties in the Eastern suburbs. Which was how he got to know Les Norton and how he got to be moving hot VCRs for Knobby Jones. But Jolly — happy, mildly dishonest or whatever he was — was more than a little surprised when he almost bumped into a familiar red-headed figure ambling around the corner into Regent Street. A tall red-headed figure carrying a cardboard carton full of fruit, biscuits and takeaway cups of tea under his massive right arm.
‘Hello Les,’ he said happily. ‘Fancy bumping into you here. How’re you going?’
Norton too was taken a little by surprise, and not all that overjoyed, at someone seeing him lurking around the streets of Redfern. ‘Oh... g’day Mick,’ he half smiled. ‘How’s things?’
‘Pretty good. What’re you up to?’ Jolly couldn’t help but notice the extra stubble on Norton’s jaw and couldn’t help but think it a little odd him being up so early in the morning... especially seeing as he worked so late on Thursday night. But Jolly always minded his own business and only asked more or less out of polite conversation.
‘Nothing really,’ replied Norton cautiously. ‘I was just driving through so I thought I’d stop and get some fruit. An old mate of mine’s got a shop just round the corner.’
‘Oh.’ Jolly noticed the four paper cups of tea in the carton, plus the packets of biscuits, but decided not to say anything.
‘What about yourself Mick?’
‘I’m just delivering a bit of stuff for a bloke. That’s all.’
‘Oh.’ Norton knew of Jolly’s somewhat shifty demeanour but declined to elaborate on that either.
They had a brief conversation while the cars whizzed past and the pedestrians scurried across Regent Street to the station. Then Les said he’d better make a move as he was illegally parked down the road.
‘You going down the Sheaf on the weekend, Mick?’
‘Yeah. I’ll be there Sunday for sure.’
‘Well I’ll have a beer with you then, eh?’
Fancy someone spotting me in Redfern of all bloody places thought Les as he turned into the hotel once he made sure Jolly was out of sight. And this hour of the bloody morning too. Oh well. Can’t see him making any difference. Norton walked to the stairs only to find someone else he knew coming down. Ross Bailey, the owner.
‘Hello George,’ Ross said cheerfully, rattling a great ring of keys in his hand. ‘How are you this morning?’
‘Oh g’day Ross,’ Norton replied, wondering who he was going to bump into next. ‘I’m good thanks.’
‘Everything all right? Room okay?’
‘Yeah, good as gold thanks Ross.’
‘I’ll have the girl change the sheets and vacuum the place out for you later.’
Norton’s brow knitted for a moment as he thought over Bailey’s last statement. If a cleaning lady came into the room and saw the boys running around covered in blood, paint and bird feathers and chanting away like demons with bones shoved through their noses she’d be likely to flip out. And if she vacuumed up all the little piles of sacred sand it could stuff up the proceedings as well. Yes, they could certainly do without a cleaning lady in room 9 at the moment.
Norton took the hotel owner gently by the elbow. ‘Ah, look Ross,’ he said easily. ‘I was going to mention this to you earlier. Those three blokes in that room up there come from this really primitive tribe from right out in the middle of nowhere. They’re almost still in the Stone Age.’
‘So?’
‘Wel
l. One of their tribal customs — and a very strict one — is no women in their living quarters.’
Bailey looked at Les blankly. ‘Is that right?’
‘My oath. In fact I’m glad I bumped into you, because if a woman had of happened to have walked into that room, there’d be the biggest blow-up ever.’
‘Go on.’
‘You better believe it. If they ever catch any sheilas in their living quarters back in the desert they cut their bloody throats.’
‘Christ!’ Bailey looked at Les incredulously for a moment, then a bit of a twinkle began to form in his eye. ‘Listen George,’ he said, moving a little closer. ‘This mightn’t be any of my business. But how do they get on when they want to have a root?’
‘Mate. They only fornicate on special, ceremonial occasions. Two or three times a year at the most.’
‘Fair dinkum?’ Bailey, the sort of bloke who loved nothing better than a bit of business and would screw just about anything he could get his hands on, was somewhat taken aback by this. He continued to stare at Les and then a deep, lecherous chuckle began to rumble out of his throat. ‘I’ll tell you what,’ he laughed. ‘I’d like to be around when they go off. I reckon it’d be like a twenty-one gun salute.’
‘You’re not wrong there,’ laughed Norton, giving Bailey a slap on the shoulder. ‘When they’re finished it looks like a Mr Whippy van’s just been overturned in the tent.’
Bailey threw back his head and roared laughing. ‘Anyway George,’ he said, returning Les’s friendly slap on the shoulder, ‘I’d better get going too. I’ll get the girl to leave the sheets and that outside the door. Okay?’
‘That’ll be great thanks Ross.’
Bailey paused for a moment. ‘Listen George. If you ah... want a couple of flagons of plonk for ’em or something. Just go down and see the girl in the bottle shop. On the house,’ he added with a wink.
‘No, that’s all right’ smiled Les. ‘Hey, there is something you could get us though.’
‘Sure. What is it?’
‘Could you get us an electric kettle and a teapot?’
‘Sure, no worries. I’ll leave it outside the room with the sheets. I’ll get some cups and all that too.’
‘Good on you. Well, I’ll see you later Ross.’
‘Yeah. See you after, George.’ Hoping to Christ the boys’ tea hadn’t turned too cold by now, Les took the stairs up to room 9 three at a time.
Across the road in the AWEC office, Percy Kilby could have been a lot happier than he was, considering Rocket Johnny had got up at Dapto and paid almost 8–1 on the TAB. However, winning $1,600 didn’t quite seem to compensate for the rotten night’s sleep he’d just had. Fortunately his stomach felt a lot better but he was headachy and weak and his eyes were puffed and grainy from lack of sleep. Unable to sleep, he’d been in the office since just after seven, hoping to catch up on some bookwork. But all he’d done since he got there was sip on a mug of coffee and stare moodily at his desk. Frank, on the other hand, had not long waiked in with the morning paper under his arm and was quite jubilant.
‘Three dollars seventy-five for the win Perce,’ he grinned. ‘I told you that pot licker of Ronnie’s was a goer.’
‘Yeah. Terrific Frank,’ muttered his boss irritably.
Frank smiled across from where he was seated on his boss’s desk, reading the sports section. ‘Bad luck you’re still crook Perce. I wouldn’t mind backin’ up at the Tai-Ping for another lash at those muddies.’
‘I’m not all that crook, Frank. I’m just bloody tired. I had a cunt of a night’s sleep.’
‘Yeah?’
‘Yeah.’ Kilby sighed and ran a hand across his eyes. ‘All I did all night was dream.’
‘Nightmares eh?’
‘Ohh just bloody weird. I kept dreaming these three old black blokes were after me.’
‘Black blokes?’
‘Yeah. Real full-bloods. All done up in feathers and bones through their noses. Like something out of a thousand years ago. They kept chasing me with spears — all over some desert somewhere.’ Kilby buried his face in his hands. ‘Buggered if I could get to sleep. Every time I’d doze off I’d keep seeing these old blokes with these weird blue eyes.’ Kilby shook his head tiredly. ‘Fair dinkum, Frank, it was that real at times it scared the shit out of me.’
Frank moved his gaze from the paper across to his boss. ‘I reckon you ought to see a doctor Perce.’
Kilby was about to say something when an abrupt ‘shave and a haircut — two bits’ rapped on the door and in walked Mick Rodgers.
‘Hello boys,’ he grinned, cheerfully rubbing his hands together. ‘What’s doing?’
‘Ah, Mr Rodgers,’ smiled Frank, looking up from his newspaper.
‘What’s doing?’ said Kilby morosely. ‘Eight and a half grand’s what’s doing. You got it with you?’
‘Right here in my kick,’ replied Jolly, the grin still plastered across his face. He pulled a fairly bulky envelope wrapped in a plastic bag out of his back pocket and dropped it on the desk. ‘There you are. You want to count it?’
Kilby stared at it for a moment. ‘Count it will you Frank. I’m too bloody tired.’
Luckily the money was in neat bundles of hundreds and fifties so Frank was able to count it fairly quickly without breaking into a sweat or giving himself a migraine in the process.
‘Yeah. It’s all there Perce,’ he said, pushing the money across the desk.
‘Good.’ Even though it was quite an amount of cash, Kilby dropped it in the top drawer uninterestedly. ‘Okay. You may as well give him a hand to load them up. I’d help you but I’m too rooted to move.’
‘Yeah. I was just going to say you don’t look too good on it Perce,’ said Jolly. ‘What’s up?’
‘I think I’m getting the flu,’ replied Kilby shortly. He let out a sigh and dropped his face back into his hands.
‘It’s a proper bastard, isn’t it,’ nodded Jolly. ‘There’s a lot of it going around too.’
Frank produced two small wooden wedges, jammed them under the office doors, and they started loading up the panel van. Between them — even taking their time and stopping for a bit of a perv on any girls walking to the station — they had them all loaded up in less than half an hour. Jolly slammed the rear doors of the van and then lit a cigarette, offering one to Frank which he declined.
‘You want to come inside for a cup of coffee before you go?’
‘No. I’ll piss off thanks Frank. The sooner I get these unloaded back at Bondi, the sooner I can get down the beach.’ ‘Fair enough.’ Frank watched Jolly puff away at his cigarette for a few seconds. ‘I don’t suppose you’d get over Redfern way very often?’
‘Not very often,’ replied Jolly. He took another huge drag on his cigarette and leant back against the side of the van. ‘It’s funny though. I just bumped into a bloke I know from down the beach.’
‘Yeah?’
‘Yeah. One of Price Galese’s bouncers from up the Kelly Club.’
At the mention of Galese’s name, Frank’s ears pricked up and some of the tiny wooden cogs in his bony head started ticking over.
‘Did you say one of Price Galese’s boys?’
‘Yeah. Les Norton. Big red-headed bloke.’
At that brief description Frank’s ears pricked up a little more. ‘What’s he look like again... this Les Norton?’
Jolly described Norton again, only this time throwing in Les’s bushy eyebrows and his Queensland drawl. Now the cogs in Frank’s half punch-drunk brain were whirring into overdrive. Les Norton began to sound very suspiciously like a certain chartered accountant who had called into the AWEC office the day before.
‘What’d this mate of yours say he was doing in Redfern?’ he asked evenly.
‘Nothing,’ shrugged Jolly. He flicked the cigarette butt out into Lawson Street. ‘Just said he stopped by to get some fruit. That’s all. Seemed a bit funny though, seeing him here at eight in the morning.’
‘Mmhh.’
‘Anyway Frank,’ said Jolly, jangling the car keys out of his pocket. ‘I’m gonna get crackin’. I’ll see you later.’
‘Yeah,’ replied Frank slowly. ‘I’ll see you later Mick.’
Once he was back inside and had removed the wedges from under the doors, Frank couldn’t tell his boss fast enough what Jolly had just said to him out the front. Kilby listened, but his tiredness and illness still had him uninterested.
‘Yeah, there might be something in what you say, Frank,’ he muttered, his head still resting on his hands. ‘It’s more than likely just a coincidence though.’
‘Fair enough,’ replied Frank, ‘but if I happen to spot that big red-headed prick still hanging around I’m going to front him.’
‘Yeah, do that Frank.’ Suddenly Kilby winced and clutched at his stomach again.
‘What’s up?’ asked Frank.
‘Ohh shit. I’m starting to get those pains in the gut again.’
Back in room 9 at the Thames Tavern, Tjalkalieri and the boys had resumed chanting. Earlier, they’d complained about the tea being half cold — naturally — and Mumbi had bitten into a partly-rotten apple. The muesli bars were okay, though. Norton assured them they could stop complaining about the tea from now on as he was getting a kettle and a teapot, and he’d buy a dozen packets of Kinkara as soon as it arrived. Yarrawulla told him he could shove his Kinkara up his big red arse; they wanted Twinings English Breakfast or Prince of Wales. Norton told them that he’d hire a Sherpa guide and bring the tea down from Tibet if that would make them happy. The boys said they’d think on it. Tjalkalieri had got into the chanting now; after putting a bone through his nose and painting a design on his chest and back, something like a pair of black braces and waistband surrounded by tiny red and white circles. A number of red and white circles were painted across his forehead also. Mumbi was seated on the lounge next to Norton, casually peeling an orange as they watched the other two do their stuff.
‘How come you’re not doing any chanting Mumbles?’ asked Norton, watching avidly as Tjalkalieri skillfully manipulated the bone and chord.
The Boys from Binjiwunyawunya Page 11