‘In that case,’ said Eddie. ‘I might be able to do you another favour.’
‘You can?’
‘Yeah. An old mate of mine’s running a big holiday apartment thing at Terrigal. He owes me a favour. I’ll see if can I organise a couple of nights for you on the house.’
Les was chuffed. ‘Unreal.’
‘I’ll ring you back in ten minutes.’
Eddie hung up and Les kicked back in the lounge. Well, this is all right, he smiled. I get my master key and a nice little holiday at the same time. I like Terrigal, and being able to do my own thing up there will be absolutely delightful. Les finished his mug of tea and the second ten minutes had passed, the phone rang.
‘Hello?’
‘Yeah. I’ve sorted everything out. You got a Biro?’
‘Right here, mate. Fire away.’
Eddie gave Les his locksmith mate’s details and the details of his other mate who ran the resort.
‘You’ll like Ocean Star Apartments,’ said Eddie. ‘They’re right across from the ocean. Glen’s a good bloke, too. And when you get your key cut, slip Kenny a few extra bucks. His granddaughter needs an eye operation.’
‘Good as gold.’
‘All right. Have a good time up there, Les. I’ll see you when you get back.’
‘Okay. Thanks, Eddie.’
Les hung up and took his empty cup out to the kitchen. Well, that’s all right, he smiled. A holiday on the house. Les winked up at the sky. You have your moments, don’t you, boss. Les checked the addresses and the two names again. Kenny Taylor and Glen Kaplan. I’ll leave the locksmith alone. But I’ll ring the other bloke just to break the ice. Les picked up the phone and dialled again.
‘Hello. Ocean Star. Glen Kaplan speaking.’
‘Oh Glen. My name’s Les Norton. Did Eddie ring you about me?’
‘He sure did.’ The voice was warm and friendly. ‘What time are you coming up?’
‘Depending on the traffic, tomorrow morning before lunch. Is that okay?’
‘No problem at all. You know how to get here?’
‘Yeah. I’ve stayed in Terrigal before.’
‘Well, we’re on the main drag as you pass the Skillion. Just pull into the drive and sound the buzzer.’
‘All right. I’ll see you in the morning. Thanks, Glen.’
‘No worries, Les.’
Glen hung up and Les stared at the phone. There it is. Done deal. And there’ll be nothing doing up there early in the week. So I’ll just eat, sleep and train. Maybe have the odd cool one. And forget about Sydney. I wonder what the weather’ll be like? Les peered out the window. Mmmh. Looks like it’s getting ready to rain down here. Les was contemplating what to take with him, when his mobile phone rang. ‘Hello?’
‘Yes. It’s me again. Bodene Menjou’s friend.’
‘Deep Throat,’ said Les.
‘Is that what you wish to call me?’ said the voice.
‘Sure. Why not,’ answered Les.
‘Very well,’ replied the voice. ‘Is good. So how did you go down at the Bondi Markets?’
‘Well, I didn’t find any green bag. And Rose the tarot reader knew nothing. But she gave me a good tarot read.’
‘You had your tarot read?’
‘I sure did,’ said Les.
‘Excellent.’ Suddenly the voice sneezed violently.
‘Gesundheit,’ said Les.
‘Yeah,’ sniffed the voice. ‘Something like that. Now, I have somewhere else for you to look.’
‘Somewhere else?’ said Les.
‘Yes. And there could be more. But I want you to find the bag. It is important you do.’
‘And all you want is satisfaction,’ said Les.
‘That is right. Now have you a Biro ready?’
‘I have.’
‘Excellent. The street runs off Bondi Road and the house is on the right near the end. I believe the bag was left out the front.’
‘Out the front?’
‘Yes. Look for it there. Here is the address.’
‘Righto.’ Les wrote down the address and read it back.
‘That is good,’ said the voice. ‘Now I must go. I will ring you back.’
Les placed his mobile on the table and looked at the address. I think I know where that is, he mused. Not far from the Royal Hotel. He looked out the window again. It looks like it’s going to rain later, so I may as well go round now. No need to get changed. But this time I’ll wear those gloves I keep in the car for changing flats. Christ! If I’d have known all that shit was going to go down, I would have worn them last night. Be nice if I’d cut myself. There was blood everywhere. Les put the address in the back pocket of his jeans, locked the house then climbed behind the wheel of his car and drove off.
The street wasn’t hard to find. It was a short, narrow, one-way thoroughfare running from Bondi Road towards Birrell Street. Les checked the numbers. The house was on the right-hand side near the end, wedged between a small block of units on the right and another house on the left. Les crammed his car against someone’s driveway opposite and walked down. He checked the number, checked it again and gave a double blink.
It was a single-storey cottage with a tatty brick fence out the front and no front gate. A small porch with a front door sat on the right-hand corner, next to a weed-infested driveway that led to an overgrown backyard. Beneath a sagging powerline, several leafless trees pushed against the front and side fences. There was no gate to the side passage, the letter box had broken off and most of the guttering had rusted away. Instead of a verandah, a double room full of broken windows faced the street, covered over by a flapping square of thin green tarpaulin, frayed at the edges and full of splits. The old house was the most decrepit, tumbledown dump Les had ever seen. Squatters wouldn’t even live in it. But as well as being an absolute eyesore, the whole place was piled with rubbish. In some parts, it was over two metres high. Les stood on the unkempt nature strip, gobsmacked.
There were piles of newspapers, magazines and cardboard. Prams, toys, Boogie Boards, Coolite boards, surfboards, push-bikes, scooters, skateboards and other sports goods all rusted and broken. Paint tins, bottles, jars, shoe boxes, plastic containers, mattresses, cardboard boxes full of tins, broken cardboard boxes spilling out tins and jars half full of stagnant green water, crawling with larvae. Smashed TV sets, broken stereos, old ghetto blasters, plastic bags of vinyl records. You name an article of rubbish that had been thrown out in a street clean-up or dumped on the side of the road and something similar was in there, rusting or rotting away.
Lord have mercy, thought Les. Where do I start? He checked the room facing the street and could perceive no sign of life. Well, I suppose I’d better start by getting my gloves. Les walked back to the car and got a pair of cheap all-purpose leather gloves from the boot. He put them on and adjusted his cap then, just as it began to rain, started searching through the rubbish.
Les was groping around in the filth and stench, dodging cockroaches and millipedes and other horrible crawling bugs and cursing his luck when he uncovered it. Beneath a pile of rotting tea towels. A green handbag with a…dinosaur on the side.
‘Ahhh shit!’ cursed Les, tossing the empty bag aside.
Filth and grime clinging to his rain soaked clothes and trainers, Les searched on amongst the sodden piles of rubbish. A trickle of cold water ran down his neck and he was seriously thinking of giving the whole idea a miss and telling Deep Throat what to do with his instructions the next time he called. Rummaging away, Les knelt down to upend a pile of rotting underlay and a roll of filthy grey carpet when he sensed movement behind him. Next thing, he felt a sharp pain as someone hit him across the head with something.
‘What the fuck!’
Les turned and looked up at a grim, hatchet-faced old woman wearing a plastic raincoat and a blue scarf over her head. She was holding a black plastic garden rake above her which she viciously banged down across his head again.
‘Kriminal! Kriminal!’
the old woman shrieked as she whacked into Les with the rake handle. ‘What you are doing in my belongings, kriminal? Go vay. Go vay, kriminal.’
‘Jesus Christ! Piss off will you,’ yelled Les, trying to ward off the blows.
Les was slipping and sliding around in the mud and rubbish when two women, a little younger but similar in looks and clothing to the older one, came from the door at the corner of the house and joined in the attack. One had a dust broom, the other a squeeze mop.
‘Kriminal. Kriminal,’ they shrieked, as they helped the older woman bash into Les. ‘Die, kriminal bastard. Die.’
Under a torrent of blows from the three women, Les staggered to his feet and picked up an overnight bag full of stinking wet rags. He hurled it at the younger woman on the left, who screamed as it knocked her on her backside amongst the piles of rubbish. This sent the other two women into an even wilder frenzy.
‘Bastard! Bastard!’ they spat at Les, furiously raining blows upon him. ‘Murdering kriminal bastard. Die, stinking shit bastard.’
‘Ohh fuck you,’ howled Les. ‘Stick your lousy rubbish in your arse.’ Les hastily stepped back out of the driveway to the other side of the footpath and stared at the three women in disbelief before beating a retreat to the safety of his car. The three women continued to shriek at him, still brandishing their cudgels.
‘Kriminal! Kriminal!’ they shouted.
‘Go from our street, kriminal!’
‘Yes. And doesn’t coming back. Bastard!’
‘Christ! You needn’t worry about that,’ said Les, painfully getting back behind the wheel. ‘You’re off your fuckin heads.’
Les started the car and the wheels spun on the wet road before he sped off, putting as much distance as he could between himself and the three maddened women in the shortest time possible.
Les hung two lefts before he pulled up for the lights at the Royal Hotel and checked himself out in the rear-vision mirror. As well as being soaking wet and covered in filth, there was blood all through his cap and trickles were running down his face and dripping off his chin. Under his top, he could feel welts along his arms and across his shoulders. A family pulled up alongside in a station wagon and they all stared at his condition. Les snarled back at them and roared off down Denham Street when the lights changed, not stopping till he pulled up outside Chez Norton. Checking to see there were no neighbours around, Les dragged his sorry arse out of the car, locked it and went inside.
In the bathroom, Les couldn’t believe the dishevelled, bloodied face staring back at him in the mirror. ‘Shit! Can I find them or what,’ he cursed. ‘This is getting to be a bloody habit.’
Les went to the laundry, stripped off and once again threw everything into the washing machine along with plenty of Dynamo and a liberal splash of Pine O Cleen. While that was going round, he got under the shower and let the hot water sting all the cuts as he washed away the dirt and blood. Under closer inspection with a hand mirror, none of the cuts needed stitching, but he was covered in welts and the crazed women had landed a few blows across his jaw and nose. After a long, hot shower, Les ran a bath, added some Dettol and had a good soak while he cursed his luck once more. You hate me, don’t you, boss, he grimaced, staring out the bathroom window. I know you do. That’s okay, mate. I can handle it. But just tell me the reason. I do have rights, you know.
After getting out of the bath, Les dried off, dabbed some Dettol cream on his cuts and welts, and wrapped a blue check cotton scarf round his head. He changed into a grey, fleecy lined tracksuit, poured himself a delicious and settled down to watch the Sunday football. Brisbane vs Manly—which turned out a pretty good game, with Brisbane getting up at the death, 34–30. Half full of delicious, Les grilled a T-bone which he devoured with brown rice and salad, tea and toast.
Once he’d cleaned up in the kitchen, Les packed a bag with what he thought he’d need in Terrigal, including his Speedos and snorkelling gear. Satisfied he had everything, he dropped some Panadeine capsules, made a delicious, then settled back in front of the TV with another one of Warren’s DVDs, 300.
It wasn’t the most boring movie Les had ever watched. But for all the hype, it was up there with them. The whole thing was nothing but a surge of flashing white grins and buffed-up six-packs topped by non-stop macho posturing in leather jockstraps. David Wenham traipsed around looking and sounding like Vincent van Gogh after he cut his ear off. Maybe it was all the paracetamol and delicious topped off by a bad day. But after the two-hundredth severed limb fell to the ground and the hundredth decapitated head rolled away, Les was on the nod. The only brief enlightenment occurred in the temple, when the king’s wife stabbed the bloke who porked her behind her husband’s back. By golly, thought Les, when he put the DVD away, not much point having a stray root back in old Sparta town. You’d be better off with a copy of Playboy and a full hand going alone. Les put his mobile phone on charge, switched off the lights and climbed into bed looking forward to an early night. His last thoughts, after he adjusted the scarf round his head, were—thank Christ I’m getting out of Bondi for a couple of days. Les gave one mighty yawn then blacked out.
Les woke up in fairly good spirits the next morning and rose not long after the sun. Outside a few clouds were still hanging around in the light sou’wester, but the rain had gone, leaving a delightful crispness in the air. He went to the bathroom, took the scarf off and checked himself out. His face had seen better days, and he had welts all over him, however the bleeding had stopped and his clothing had protected him from the worst of the crazed women’s attack. He picked up his toothbrush and smiled at himself in the mirror.
‘Don’t worry, mate,’ winked Les. ‘You’re still a handsome, handsome brute.’
When he finished in the bathroom, Les changed into a fresh pair of jeans, a white Jimmy Buffett T-shirt and a clean pair of AND 1 trainers.
He went to the kitchen, put the kettle on and made two toasted cheese sandwiches and a mug of tea. He’d have a bigger breakfast at Terrigal, and Les felt the sooner he got going the better. He cleaned up, put his phone in his backpack, snuck two thousand dollars out from behind the panel in his wardrobe and had a last look around. Satisfied everything was in order, Les locked the house and took his bags out to the car. Ten minutes later Les was on the other side of Bondi Junction heading for the Eastern Distributor.
Traffic was light heading out of Sydney and Les fiddled around with FM radio to get some music and pass the time. After a non-stop barrage of gibberish, ads, and the Eagles playing ‘Hotel California’ fifteen times in a row, Les changed to AM for news and views. Apart from the usual ABC blandness, all he got was a right-wing shock jock on one station debunking global warming and cheering on the war in Iraq, and two politically correct schlock jocks on another station called Mutt and Jeff or something, trying to be funny. Mutt was trying that hard he was giving himself a strangulated hernia and still getting nowhere. I think the best way to sum those two up, thought Les, when he stopped near Gordon for petrol and the paper, is Mutt talks through his arse and Jeff talks through his nose. As soon as Les paid for his purchases, he pissed the radio off and slipped on a tape. Soon Steely Dan was bopping out ‘Cousin Dupree’ which cut into Gina Jeffreys’s raunchy version of the old Janis Joplin song ‘Mercedes Benz’. Before Les knew it, he was on the F3 and it was music all the way to the Central Coast.
Driving along with the music playing, Les reflected on his two previous trips to the Central Coast. The first time he met up with crazy Sophia and kind of had fun getting his brains bonked out. But the second trip when he teamed up with Jimmy Rosewater was sad. Jimmy had too much going for him and was too good-looking to die so young. Turning out to be George Brennan’s illegitimate son made it even sadder. But, mused Les, I guess that’s the way it goes. One thing for sure, ain’t nothing going to happen to me this time. No woman would give me a second look with my head the way it is. And I sure as hell ain’t getting into any fights. They can laugh, chaff and poke shit at me, I will
not react. I’ll get my master key, kick back and relax with a few drinks at wherever it is I’m staying.
Before Les knew it, the Moonee Moonee Bridge was behind him and he was hanging a right at Bluetongue Stadium. He hung another right at Erina Fair into Terrigal Drive, and Alabama 3 were crackling into ‘Cocaine Killed My Community’ when Les cruised into Terrigal with the ocean on his left.
There’d been some development since Les had been there last, including a row of prestige units on the right. The Flathead Spot had grown and moved next door and there was a new surf club. The road had been narrowed into a one-way strip heading towards the Haven and the footpath on the right was now a wide boulevard full of restaurants with outdoor dining. Les slowed down for the speed humps before coming to a three-way pedestrian crossing where the resort stood on the corner. May as well cruise the rest of the hood, shrugged Les, and hung a right.
The little butcher shop was still next to the fruit shop and there were two more restaurants with bars above overlooking the street. The church was still open for business, but the hardware store was now a gourmet pizza restaurant with a classy looking little bar next door called the Point. Les hung a right at the bank and came down Church Street.
Coffee shops had sprung up everywhere and the punters grouped outside one opposite the police station gave it the appearance of a scene. Les hung another right at the end and found a Subway franchise, and the one-man barber shop opposite the TAB was gone, replaced by a juice bar. Les turned right again at a fish café next to an Italian restaurant sitting alongside the local cake shop, then checked out the water through the towering pine trees. He continued on past the resort where an open-air restaurant facing the beachfront caught his eye, then checked the address again as the road rose past the Skillion. Where it curved towards the approaching houses and units, he found what he was looking for: Ocean Star Apartments, a spreading complex of clay-coloured units with rounded balconies and bay windows facing the ocean. Les pulled up at a blue wrought-iron gate set in a wide driveway flanked by palm trees and pressed the buzzer.
Les Norton and the Case of the Talking Pie Crust Page 7