Forget Me If You Can

by Peter Corris

  ‘Cliff, boy. How are you?’

  ‘Hello, Freddy—not as prosperous as you by the look of things.’

  He glanced around the big, bright room with its gleaming chrome and polished surfaces and let out a wheezy laugh, the product of hundreds of thousands of cigarettes. ‘Yeah, this fitness thing, it really caught on. And I had the right spot—you wouldn’t believe the amount of money in Newtown these days.’

  I looked at his shrunken waistline. ‘You’re taking some of your own medicine.’

  He patted his stomach. ‘Diet and exercise, son. Diet and exercise. You don’t look too bad, all things considered. Come for a spot of aerobics?’

  I wished I could take the glasses off; his eyes had always given him away, even in the ring. He was the living embodiment of ‘shifty’ and I couldn’t believe that he’d changed. He also frightened easily. ‘Got an office somewhere, Freddy?’ I said. ‘Nice desk?’ I moved forward and backed him towards the nearest wall.

  ‘Hey, hey, what’s the big idea?’

  I don’t know what I would have done if the weight-lifters had come to his aid, but they didn’t. I put one foot on his right polished loafer and grabbed a fistful of his shirt. A button spun away on the polished boards.

  ‘Still train real boxers here, do you?’

  ‘Sure. Amateurs, you know. The old game’s dead.’

  ‘How about Roberto Panella?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Italian kid. Eighteen. Middleweight I’d say. He’s got a shiner on him the size of a saucer.’

  ‘Don’t know him.’

  ‘I found your card in his gym bag. I’m working for his father. You must remember Fabrizio. He’s not happy. He’s making threats against those responsible for getting his boy into fighting.’

  ‘Jesus. Okay, Cliff. Ease up. Come back here and we’ll talk.’

  I released him and he straightened himself up, stepped briskly around me and ushered me to the back of the gym where there was a partition wall. His office was small and there was no teak or leather but it was a big improvement on his old set-up of a laminex table and plastic chairs. The furniture was modern and the boxing pictures on the walls were framed instead of cellotaped to the wall as in the old days. Freddy sat behind his desk and I perched on a corner of it. He looked up at me anxiously.

  ‘Bobby Pain,’ he said. ‘That’s the name he goes by. Good, eh?’

  I ignored that. ‘He’s fighting smokos, right?’

  Freddy shrugged. ‘Kids want to fight. They always will. They want the dough, too. This law’s a fuckin’ farce. When’s the last time anyone died in the pro ring in New South?’

  ‘I know the arguments. What’s your cut?’

  ‘Shit, Cliff. I don’t train him or manage him or anything. He comes in, uses the equipment, spars a bit with amateurs, with the headgear and all. That’s it.’

  ‘Who handles him?’

  Freddy stroked the loose flesh that sagged around his chin from when he was fat. ‘Fabrizio Panella was a bloody good fighter.’

  ‘I know that.’

  ‘But Mario was a bum.’

  I had a few words more with Freddy and went off to spend the rest of the day doing routine things. I was back at the gym, playing on the exercise machines when Roberto came in at about 6 o’clock. The first thing I noticed was that he didn’t look at himself in any of the mirrors the way most of the other patrons did. The second thing was the seriousness of his workout. He skipped, shadow-boxed, used the light and heavy bags and sparred with an Aboriginal featherweight. Roberto wasn’t much slower than the lighter man and he was beautiful to watch. I’ve seen a lot of fighters over the years, enough to be able to tell when a kid has what it takes. Roberto had ring sense—he always knew where the ropes and corners were, and if you can control the territory you’re on the way to controlling the opponent. He also knew how to pace himself, how to get the other guy to waste energy and when to move up on him. It was point-scoring, fight-winning stuff.

  ‘Fabrizio should be proud of him.’ Freddy Trueman was standing beside me. I hadn’t heard him approach because I’d been absorbed watching such natural gifts.

  ‘Fabrizio wants him to use his brains and use his feet to kick a soccer ball. You’ve taught him a few moves, don’t deny it.’

  ‘Mario’s behind it, like I told you.’

  ‘How many smokos has he fought?’

  ‘Five or six. I hear he has a punch. Last one must’ve been tough, but.’

  I could see what he meant. Roberto was protecting the eye but doing it well, not adjusting his classical style and cutting loose when the opportunity presented.

  Freddy gave a deep sigh. ‘Christ, he’s got it all right. If only the game wasn’t fucked.’

  ‘Like to handle him, would you, Freddy?’

  ‘Not with Fabrizio hiring the likes of you to fairy godmother him. What’re you going to do, Hardy?’

  ‘I wish I knew,’ I said.

  It was a very tough call. Roberto was an adult, free to make his own choices, but his father was my friend and I knew he had the boy’s best interests at heart. Fighting smokos was a one-way ticket to blood loss and brain damage. Roberto’s fitness and skills wouldn’t save him; eventually he’d run into some steroid-pumped maniac impervious to pain who’d break his jaw or rupture his kidneys. So I told Fabrizio about Bobby Pain and where he was training.

  ‘I remember Freddy Trueman,’ Fabrizio said. ‘I can handle that fat slob. I’ll …’

  ‘He’s not fat anymore and I’ve got a feeling he’ll be on the lookout for you. He used to have some pretty hard mates, probably still has. Any way, he’s not the one who got Roberto into it.’

  ‘Who then?’

  I told him. We were in the Sorrento. It was after nine and wet out and the place was almost empty. Fabrizio got a bottle of grappa from under the counter and poured two solid shots. He told me about the rivalry between him and Mario, how it had started when they were small and had continued for the rest of their lives. Fabrizio had been better at everything than his brother, at school, at boxing, at business, and to top it all he had a son. Mario had four daughters.

  ‘But I didn’t think he hated me,’ Fabrizio said. ‘He knows how I feel about boxing. This is the worst thing he could do to Josie and me.’

  That was another thing; Fabrizio had married an English girl named Josephine. It was a registry office job and neither Fabrizio nor Josie nor Roberto went to church. Their daughter Sara went occasionally. Mario was a staunch Catholic.

  ‘You’ll have to talk to Mario,’ I said. ‘Tell him to back off.’

  ‘You can’t tell Mario anything,’ Fabrizio said. ‘You have to show him.’

  I never found out how he arranged it, but two nights later, close to midnight, I was back in Trueman’s gym along with Fabrizio, Freddy, Roberto and Mario. Roberto’s black eye was like a ragged stain on his pale, handsome face; Freddy was nervous, Fabrizio was calm; Mario was angry.

  ‘Don’t do it, Dad,’ Roberto said. ‘I don’t want to see it.’

  ‘I should have done it a long time ago,’ Fabrizio said.

  The brothers had stripped to their singlets; they took off their shoes and socks and laced on boxing gloves.

  ‘This is silly,’ I said.

  ‘Cliff, you are referee,’ Fabrizio said. ‘Freddy, you’re the timekeeper.’

  Mario said something in rapid-fire Italian. I looked at Roberto. ‘He says Dad always had it easy and me the same. He says he was just trying to toughen me up.’

  ‘What d’you think?’

  Roberto shrugged. ‘I like fighting.’

  The three of us got into the ring. Freddy tapped the bell and I beckoned the brothers forward. I took a short lead-and-leather blackjack from my hip pocket and flopped it in their faces. ‘I’m not going to give you any bullshit about wanting a fair fight,’ I said. ‘The first dirty trick I see and whoever did it’s on the fucking floor.’

  ‘Si,’ Fabrizio said and they backed off
without touching gloves.

  Roberto quit protesting and took up a position by the ring apron near his father’s corner. Despite himself, he was excited. He’d probably been aware of the antagonism between his father and uncle for most of his life and he couldn’t help but be interested to see it played out physically. But it was more than that. Boxing—no matter how much you are against it intellectually you can’t deny the drama.

  Freddy hit the bell and they went at it. Mario was taller and heavier and the outdoor work had kept his weight down and his strength up. Fabrizio had spent more time sitting down than standing or moving and he liked his focaccia and grappa. He was soft in the middle and his reflexes were way off in the first exchanges. Still, he could protect his head and duck and sway away from trouble, as in the old days. But Mario was landing solidly to the body and coming forward confidently. Fabrizio got in a few jabs towards the end of the round and seemed to be finding the range and timing, but I knew that a couple of the body shots had hurt him and his breath was short when he went back to squat on his stool. No fouls or threats of them and I put the blackjack away. Roberto moved towards his father, caught his glance and shaken head and stayed where he was. Fabrizio’s singlet was sodden and Mario’s nose was leaking blood. Honours about even.

  The minute between rounds seems like a long time when you’re not fighting and like an instant when you are. I leaned back against the ropes, looked around the silent room and wondered what the two wives and five daughters would think. It was a totally masculine occasion, a sweat and blood affair, and intelligence had nothing much to do with it. I was worried for both men and about the effect the fight could have on Roberto. Only Freddy Trueman was genuinely enjoying himself. He hit the bell with enthusiasm.

  Fabrizio was still sucking in air and the blood was still running from Mario’s nose when they got to centre ring. I stepped between them. ‘This only goes three rounds,’ I said.

  Fabrizio nodded. ‘Basta,’ he said.

  Nothing much happened in the first minute of the second round. Then Fabrizio appeared to slip on a sweaty spot on the canvas; Mario landed a clumsy right that knocked Fabrizio off balance. Roberto shouted something and Mario waded in, swinging. Suddenly, Fabrizio wasn’t off balance at all—he nailed Mario with a perfect straight left, right cross combination. Mario sagged and a savage uppercut straightened him up so that his feet seemed to leave the floor. He fell back against the ropes and his legs had no prop in them. Fabrizio claimed him and held him as if he was going to rough him up in close.

  ‘No!’ Roberto yelled. He jumped onto the apron.

  Fabrizio eased his brother to the canvas.

  ‘Mario always got excited when he thought he had his man hurt,’ Freddy Trueman said. ‘And the silly bugger was usually wrong.’

  I don’t know what Fabrizio had in mind when he set up the fight, but he couldn’t have anticipated the result. He paid me for a day’s work and the next time I saw him he avoided all mention of Roberto, Mario and boxing. I considered that I had a professional right to more information and I got it from Freddy Trueman. The brothers had become closer than ever before after the fight; they’d both tried to persuade Roberto to stop fighting with no success. Roberto, Freddy told me, had turned pro and gone to Melbourne where boxing was still legal. He’d found himself a Maltese manager. Bobby Pain was due to fight a six-rounder at the Footscray Town Hall in a fortnight and Freddy offered to get me tickets.

  ‘You’re managing him?’

  Freddy grinned. ‘I’ve got an interest.’

  Nothing ever really changes in the boxing game.

  Lucky Jim

  ‘He’s a diabetic, Mr Hardy. And he’s only just turned sixteen. Oh God, I don’t think I can bear to talk about it.’

  I had my pen and notebook out, but what I really needed was some blotting paper, and my office supplies don’t run to it. Mrs Truscott’s tears were trickling down her face and soaking into the lace collar of her dress: she was a stylish-looking woman in her middle forties. Well-heeled, to judge by the clothes and accessories. Her son, James, aka Jamie, had been missing for two days and Mrs Truscott had come to me rather than the police for a not uncommon reason. At her divorce, she informed me, she had won custody, but her husband was rich, well connected, and poised to use any excuse to challenge the custody order. A police missing person’s bulletin would provide a perfect excuse.

  ‘My ex-husband is a very vindictive man. He’d stop at nothing to get Jamie back. And the thought of him living with Roger and that slut of his …’ She wasn’t dumb; she realised how it sounded and she pulled out of the spin. ‘They couldn’t possibly look after him properly.’

  I took notes and asked questions and told her I’d give the case twenty-four hours, after which she would have to go to the cops. It was a reasonable position to take—the police don’t get too excited before seventy-two hours have elapsed. I looked at the photograph she handed me. James Truscott was a tall, thin lad with a long, intelligent face. Brains looked to be his long suit rather than muscle, but there was something athletic about the way he held himself.

  ‘He takes insulin?’

  She sniffed and wiped away tears with a pink scented tissue. ‘Three times a day, before each meal.’

  ‘What else does he have to do about the diabetes?’

  ‘Diet, of course, and exercise. And test his blood sugar at least once a day.’

  I remembered my diabetic mother eye-droppering urine into a test tube and dropping in a tablet and cursing when the result didn’t suit her. It didn’t sound like much fun for a sixteen-year-old.

  ‘How does he do that?’

  ‘With a glucometer. That’s a little machine with a computer that reads the blood on a reagent strip. Jamie’s very brave. He doesn’t mind pricking his finger to get the blood.’

  ‘And he gives himself his injections?’

  ‘Oh, yes. Jamie would never allow anyone else to do that. I wanted to get him a nurse to do it. His father could certainly have afforded it, but he wouldn’t hear of it. He’s been doing it himself ever since he … ever since it … since he was a little fellow of fourteen.’

  From the look of him, Jamie would have been a pretty long streak of a fellow at fourteen, but I didn’t say anything. She told me about his excellent school record, his popularity, his golf-playing.

  ‘Has he got a girlfriend?’ I asked.

  ‘Of course not. He’s far too young for that sort of thing.’

  I was beginning to build up a picture. I had a couple of other cases on hand, but I agreed to visit the Truscott residence in Chatswood that afternoon to look over the scene of the disappearance. After she’d signed a contract and a cheque, and restored her gold Parker pen and hefty chequebook to her purse, Mrs Truscott began to look a little uneasy.

  ‘I think I know what’s happened,’ she said.

  Look out, Hardy, I thought. This could be cheque-tearing-up time. ‘You’d better tell me,’ I said.

  ‘I think his father has arranged for someone to abduct him so that I’ll have to go to the police and report it. Then Roger will have him set free and I’ll be made to look like a neglectful parent. Oh, how I hate that man.’

  I relaxed somewhat. Mrs T’s theory wasn’t worth the paper it wasn’t worth writing it on, but I pretended to give it some weight. Clearly, she wanted to talk about Roger. ‘I have to ask, Mrs Truscott—why is there so much ill-feeling between you and your husband? It sounds as if there’s more than … infidelity involved.’

  Her chin was soft, a bit loose, perhaps needing a tuck soon, but she jutted it firmly across the desk at me. ‘The diabetes is on his side of the family,’ she said.

  She drove a bronze Celica; I followed her in my rust-pocked Falcon. The two-storey house in Chatswood with ample grounds and well-tended gardens front and back was close to the golf course where, I was told, young Truscott was a junior member. He played off a 9 handicap and got in a round almost every day, studies permitting.

  ‘H
e got a hole-in-one,’ his mother told me as she conducted me up the stairs to the boy’s room, ‘but he had no witnesses. I believe him, his father didn’t. He’s a very honest boy. Of course I drive him to the club and check his bag to make sure he has barley sugar with him and his diabetic identity card as well as his bracelet. Just between you and me, I ring and check with the professional while he’s out playing, just to make sure that he’s all right.’

  I was beginning to feel Mrs Truscott’s motherly concern wrapping itself stiflingly around me, and I was only a casual employee. I asked her if I could look at the room on my own. ‘Man stuff,’ I said, trying for a hearty tone. ‘It might help me form a clearer picture of Jim.’

  ‘Jamie,’ she said and retreated tearfully down the stairs.

  He might have had a serious, chronic disease, but Jim Truscott (as I had begun to think of him) presented as one of the healthiest young men I had ever snooped on. He was obviously an organised and motivated student, keen on golf and other sports, and not immune to the attractions of the opposite sex. He had a couple of cunningly concealed copies of Playboy, and I found a packet of condoms with two missing. A rock radio calendar on the wall had the birthdays of his mother and father circled and annotated. I did a quick check of the upstairs bathroom where Jim’s tracksuit hung and a pair of smelly sneakers lived, and rejoined Mrs Truscott in her chintzy living room.

  ‘I can’t find any of these things you mentioned,’ I said. ‘The needles and the sugar-testing machine. Where does he keep them?’

  ‘In the upstairs bathroom. They’re gone. Whoever took him knew he had to have those things to live. It must be Roger.’

  I doubted it. It looked to me as if the boy had tidied his room and taken his survival equipment with him, but not his expensive set of Ping clubs or his spiked shoes. Something was obviously more important to him than golf. I was beginning to form impressions of the lad and the crosses he had to bear—antagonistic parents, an over-protective mother, the discipline of diabetes.