Ghost River

by Tony Birch

  ‘Ren.’

  ‘What sort of a name’s that?’

  ‘Just Ren.’

  ‘Well, Just Ren. As you have just heard me tell your friend, I’m out of pocket on account of being owed money by Mr Teddy Brewer. Do you think his own son has the coin to cover his father’s debts?’

  When Ren didn’t answer Vincent slammed his heel into the floor. ‘Do you have it, Sonny. The money owed to me?’

  ‘I have a little,’ Sonny offered. ‘I been saving.’

  ‘A little bit won’t add up to much more than fuck all to me. You’ll be about ten lengths off the interest payment just to start with. I don’t like to have to tell you this but since your father borrowed from me, the debt has doubled.’

  Sonny turned pale and looked as if he was about to vomit.

  ‘You are deep in the shit, son. Chest high and sinking. I feel sorry for you, being put there by your own flesh and blood. But that’s why you need to pay. It’s your inheritance. Count yourself lucky I’m around to throw you a lifeline. Anyone else might cut you up.’

  Vincent held up a finger in the air and left it there, to be sure Sonny got a decent look at it. ‘One job. Just one small favour for me and you and your excuse for an old man will be debt-free. I’m ready to wipe the slate. You up for it?’

  ‘For what?’

  ‘For work. All you need to do is push your pram across the street, go into the club and drop a newspaper to Mr Chris. That’s it.’

  ‘That all?’ Sonny asked, smart enough to know that the man sitting across from him couldn’t be trusted.

  ‘That’s all. And your debt will be cleared. Every dollar your father owes me, including the interest. Done for a few minutes’ work.’ He offered Sonny his hand. ‘We in business?’

  Sonny hesitated before putting his hand out. Vincent shook it. ‘Good boy.’

  Vincent walked over to the table, picked up the telephone and dialled a number. ‘On its way,’ was all he said. He put the phone down, opened a drawer under the table and pulled out the morning newspaper, fatter than it should be, and tied together with string. He took a small black pocketbook out of his coat and wrote in it, before handing the newspaper to Sonny. ‘Off you go then. You put that with your papers, get over the street, knock at the door and ask for Chris.’

  As Sonny was about to take the newspaper, Vincent held it back from him. ‘There’s something else I forgot to tell you. Part of our arrangement. There’s another little story you need to hear from me before you go. I heard that some crazy fucken kid broke into a yard and wrecked a fifty-thousand-dollar bulldozer. Government property it was. You hear anything about that?’

  ‘I heard,’ Sonny answered.

  Vincent turned to Ren. ‘What about you, little fella? You hear about that?’

  ‘Some of it. Not much.’

  ‘Well, the outcome couldn’t be worse for whoever done it. Detective Foy is on the case. Fucken psychopath.’ He raised both hands in the air. ‘I have no time for police. But in the end, they do their job and I do mine. But Foy is something altogether different. The man’s a cunt and a half. You get a taste of that when he bailed you in the back of the car the other week?’

  Sonny looked down at his scuffed shoes and nodded his head up and down. Ren looked over to the window where Rodney was standing. He seemed bored and was picking his nose.

  Vincent rubbed a finger across his bottom lip and licked it with his tongue. ‘Detective Foy has the bad habit of behaving like an animal from time to time. I can tell you from experience, I’ve dealt with some short fuses, but I have never come across a man with a worse temper. So unpredictable. Isn’t he, Rodney?’

  ‘He is.’

  ‘But as luck has it, Sonny, I’m in a position to have a word with him. I can shift his attention one way or the other. I can call him off your back altogether with the right word. Or I could have him working like a cross between Sherlock Holmes and Attila the Hun. Which way do you think I should go?’

  ‘I dunno what happened to that machine.’ Sonny shrugged. ‘It’s got nothing to do with me.’

  ‘Good answer, Sonny. It’s complete bullshit, but a good answer. Be sure you’re just as sharp if anyone asks if you’ve had dealings with me.’

  Vincent pushed the newspaper into Sonny’s gut. ‘Now use your good sense and get yourself across the street, deliver the paper to the Greek and you’re free. No debt and no mad copper up your arse.’

  The boys stood on the footpath, beneath the glow of the neon light above the hamburger joint, next door to the hotel. The newspaper with the string tied around it lay in Sonny’s pram, under a magazine.

  ‘You know we don’t have to do this,’ Ren said. ‘We can wheel the pram straight back to the shop and go home.’

  ‘Maybe you can, but not me. You take off home if you want. If it were me in your place, I would. But I have to do this if I want to keep Foy off my back. And like he told me upstairs, if I do this my old man’s debt will be wiped.’

  ‘You gonna take his word for it? I don’t trust him.’

  ‘Nothing to do with trust. I’m hoping. It’s all I got.’

  There was nothing Ren wanted to do less than walk across the road to the Greek club but he didn’t feel good about leaving Sonny on his own. ‘I’ll come with you,’ he said.

  ‘You don’t need to act brave all of a sudden.’

  ‘Nothing brave about it. Some old Greek fella is not going to give us trouble. I bet he’s under Vincent’s thumb like everyone round here. Sounds like even Foy is in his pocket.’

  They crossed the road. Sonny pushed the pram and Ren looked down the street to where the meat van was parked. The cabin was empty. Sonny stopped outside the club door, turned and looked back at the window above the hotel. The blind was pulled to one side and Vincent was watching the street.

  ‘You see anyone in the van, Ren?’ he whispered.

  ‘Nah. They probably have a hidden camera.’

  Sonny lifted the magazine, picked up the newspaper and tucked it under his arm.

  ‘Last chance, Ren. If you’re thinking of shooting through, go now. Or you can wait out here for me. If I don’t come out in five minutes take the pram back to the shop.’

  ‘Why wouldn’t you come back out, Sonny? It’s not like these Greeks would kidnap you or something.’

  Sonny knocked at the door. A boy opened it wearing an apron over a white T-shirt and jeans. Ren had seen him before, hanging around at the hamburger joint playing the pinball machines. ‘What do you want?’ he sneered.

  ‘We’re here for Chris,’ Sonny answered. ‘We’ve been sent by Vincent.’

  ‘Stay here. I’ll go ask.’

  The boy closed the door. Sonny could heard him calling to somebody in Greek. A couple of minutes later he was back. ‘Chris says it’s okay for you to come in.’

  The Greek club consisted of one long narrow room. Men sat at a table playing cards. They didn’t look all that different from Vincent’s crew, except these men were a little older and greyer. None of them looked up when the boys walked into the club. A younger man leaned over a pool table with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth. He looked as if he was about to play a shot, but didn’t. He wore a tight short-sleeved shirt, had muscled arms and an unfriendly face. The walls of the club were covered with posters and photographs of soccer teams. A blue-and-white striped flag hung from the ceiling. The boy who’d opened the front door walked into a back room, through a plastic strip blind. He could be heard talking to somebody, again in Greek.

  Less than a minute later the blind parted and a man walked through it. He was wearing a cardigan over a shirt and dark trousers. It was the same man Sonny had sold a newspaper to on the first morning Ren had helped out with the paper round. A heavy gold cross hung from his neck and he wore his thick black hair brushed back. The pool player moved away from the table to th
e front door and snapped the lock shut. The older man smiled at the boys.

  ‘Hello, young men. You have something for me?’

  ‘Are you Chris?’ Sonny asked.

  ‘I am Chris.’ He smiled again.

  Sonny handed him the newspaper. ‘This is for you. We were told to bring it from Vincent.’

  Ren was desperate to escape the club as quickly as possible. He turned to leave. The old Greek lifted a hand in the air. ‘Now you must wait.’

  Chris called the pool player over. ‘Nikos.’

  Nikos took the newspaper from Chris and went into the back room. Chris invited the boys to sit at one of the tables. Ren did his best not to look too closely at the man. He pretended to be interested in the posters of soccer teams.

  ‘You like the football?’ Chris asked. ‘This football?’ he added, pointing at one of the posters.

  Ren knew nothing about soccer but didn’t want to offend the man. ‘It looks like a good game in the pictures.’

  ‘Ah, you play the other football? Aussie ball?’

  The pool player stuck his head through the blind and lifted his hand, just a little. Chris tapped the table. ‘All good. Thank you, boys.’

  He went behind the shop counter and picked up a large knife. ‘Here. Come.’ He waved the boys over and stooped to open a cupboard under the counter. ‘You hungry?’ he asked.

  He was holding a square of cake on a tray. He sat it on the counter and began to cut into it. ‘The man over there, is he hiding in his castle?’ he asked, as he admired his knife. Neither of the boys was sure what he was talking about. He cut two slices from the cake and placed them on sheets of wax paper. Chris looked directly at Sonny. ‘Is he King Vincie? Or prisoner in that place?’ He seemed to be talking to himself as much as he was to the boys. He handed each of them a slice of the cake. ‘Eat this one,’ he said, wiping the crumbs from the knife with a cloth. ‘I think he is prisoner.’ He laughed.

  Ren took a bite of the cake. He’d never tasted anything as sticky and sweet.

  ‘You like this one?’ Chris asked.

  ‘It’s beautiful,’ Ren answered.

  ‘Is baklava. The best.’

  Chris walked over to Sonny and touched him on the arm. ‘I see you go out in the mornings with papers. Every day. Early. You are good worker. Come here another time. More baklava for you.’

  Chris nodded to Nikos, who unlocked the front door.

  As the boys made their way up the street they could see Brixey was waiting out the front of the shop, marching up and down like a soldier on guard. Spike was leaning against the shop window, listening to him rant. As soon as Brixey saw the boys coming he called out to Sonny. ‘Do you know what time it is? I should have locked up and been on my way home by now.’

  ‘I’m really sorry, Brixey,’ Sonny said. ‘Take it easy. We ran into trouble, didn’t we, Ren?’

  ‘Don’t be telling me to be taking it easy, Sonny. I’m your boss. What sort of trouble?’

  ‘We were in the pub picking up the returns when this kid knocked the pram from the street and took off with it. There was at least a dozen magazines in there. I wasn’t going to have them stolen on you. Or lose your pram, Brixey. We chased him all the way to Fitzroy to get the pram back.’

  Brixey softened a little. ‘What did he look like, this kid?’

  ‘Hard to say. We only saw the back of him. And he was moving real quick.’

  ‘You said you chased him and got the pram back. You must have got a look at him when you caught up with him?’

  ‘Nah. I was half a block off him when he slammed the pram into a wall and kept on running. He took off up a lane and disappeared.’

  Ren looked from Sonny to Brixey and back again. He had to hand it to Sonny, the way he could conjure a story out of nothing, on the spot. Brixey looked a little suspicious. He watched closely as Sonny took a bite from his baklava and chewed on it.

  ‘How’d you get your hands on the cake then, if you were running up the street chasing a kid who had your pram?’

  ‘We were given the cake just now. After we got the pram back, we were coming down the street and the fella at the Greek club bought a paper from us. He gave us the cake for a tip. Didn’t he, Ren?’

  ‘That’s right. He gave us a piece of cake each.’

  Brixey wasn’t convinced. He wasn’t sure if Sonny was bullshitting to him or not, but he raised his eyebrows and decided to let it slide. Spike couldn’t take his eyes off Sonny. He wiped a hand across his mouth. ‘Do you think I could have some of that cake?’

  ‘Sure, Spike.’ Sonny broke off a hunk of cake and handed it to him. Spike slowly chewed on the cake and stared greedily at what was left in Sonny’s hand. ‘This is a good … what do they call it?’

  ‘Balaclava. It’s a balaclava cake.’

  It took only a week for Vincent to go back on his promise. The next Friday night he called the boys over to the table and again ordered them to follow Rodney upstairs where Sonny was handed another envelope hidden inside a newspaper. Rodney wrote some figures in Vincent’s book and sent the boys across the road to the Greek club again. The week after it was another envelope, and each Friday after that it was the same story.

  While the boys were uneasy around Vincent and didn’t trust a word that came out of his mouth they quickly got used to the Greek club. The same kid would always open the front door, wearing his dirty apron, and Nikos, who made a habit of snarling at them when they came into the cafe, would take the newspaper into the back room and count the money. As soon as he’d given Chris the nod the boys were called over to the counter and would leave the club with cake.

  It didn’t take long for Sonny to realise it would take some time before he paid off his father’s debt, if at all. Each week Vincent made a point of mentioning Detective Foy and how he was the only person who could keep the policeman off Sonny’s back. Sonny was feeling as miserable as he had in the days between being thrown out of school and landing himself the job at the paper shop. The gloomy weather matched his mood. It rained most mornings when he and Ren were on the paper round. The dark clouds hung so low in the sky Sonny thought he might be able to reach up and touch them.

  After they’d done the club run half-a-dozen times Vincent called the boys to another meeting, where he told them he was thinking of giving them other jobs to do. Paid jobs.

  ‘You two don’t need to be my errand boys for much longer. You know when I get hungry and want my steak sandwich, a messenger boy from the hamburger place downstairs brings it up to me. If I want something important done, I get one of my own to do it. Somebody I can trust. Right now I’m thinking of making you boys my own. What do you think?’

  ‘What would we have to do?’ Sonny asked.

  ‘I haven’t made up my mind yet.’

  ‘You don’t believe what he said, about giving us paid jobs, do you, Sonny?’ Ren asked, after they’d left the pub with the delivery that night. ‘Something’s up with all this. Haven’t seen a van outside the club since the first night. I don’t reckon any coppers were watching him in the first place.’

  Sonny stuck the envelope in the pram and wheeled it to a vacant doorway three doors down from the hotel. He ducked in the doorway, poked the top of the newspaper open and pulled out the envelope.

  ‘What the fuck are you doing?’ Ren asked.

  ‘You reckon there’s something up, well, I want to see what’s inside the envelope. It’s got to be money. Let’s see how much.’

  Sonny opened the envelope. It was stuffed with large notes. He whistled, stuck the envelope back into the newspaper and re-tied the string. ‘Must be a thousand dollars in there. Maybe more.’

  ‘We need to get moving. Vincent will be looking for us from the upstairs window.’

  ‘Why would he give so much money to the Greek?’ Sonny wondered as they crossed the street. ‘Vincent’s suppo
sed to be the heavy.’

  ‘I don’t know. And guess what, Sonny? I don’t care. All I know is that this means trouble for us. You shouldn’t have opened that envelope. If we get caught, we’re fucked.’

  ‘Who from? Vincent or Chris?’

  ‘Both of them for all I know. This is the last time I’m doing this, Sonny.’

  ‘You quitting on me?’

  ‘No one’s quitting. We’re in serious trouble, and we have to find a way out of it.’

  ‘It shouldn’t be too hard, Ren,’ Sonny said sarcastically. ‘Next time Vincent tells me I have to drop the envelope for him, I’m gonna tell him I’ve retired. You reckon he’ll let me walk away?’

  ‘But you paid him back the money, everything your dad owed him, over and over by now. He said it would be just the once. This is bullshit.’

  ‘Remember what Rory told us. With people like Vincent you never stop paying, is what he said.’

  ‘And if you’d listened to him, maybe we wouldn’t be in this shit now.’

  ‘You reckon I had a choice? My old man got me in all this trouble. I told you the first night I did this you could walk away. You were the one who wouldn’t listen. And have you forgotten about Foy? I haven’t seen him since that night out front of the shop when he mashed my balls. I bet Vincent can set him on us any time he feels like it.’

  Ren had forgotten all about Foy. He felt sick.

  The boys dropped the newspaper at the club, returned the pram to the shop and headed home. Sonny knew he was pushing their friendship but asked Ren if he would help him out the next morning on another job.

  ‘Rory’s been sick again and hasn’t been able to get out of bed all week. He needs me to cover the emu run for him at the races tomorrow. He’s already missed the midweek meeting and is worried that if he’s away much longer someone will move in on his turf.’