‘Yeah? Then I’ll fuckin stick you.’ Red Beanie pulled out a knife and waved it in front of Les, close enough to put a tiny nick in Norton’s jacket. ‘I’m tellin’ you, I’ll fuckin stick you, man. Give us your fuckin money.’
Les looked at his jacket. ‘My fuckin good tracksuit,’ he howled. ‘You little cunt.’
Norton wasn’t in the mood to play games. If the kids wanted to be men, then they’d better learn to take it like men. He pivoted slightly on his left foot and with his right instep kicked the knife straight out of Red Beanie’s hand, breaking the kid’s wrist. The young hood screamed with pain and grabbed his shattered wrist as the knife landed in the skip bin. Les followed up with a full-blooded right into the young hood’s face, almost taking his skinny head off. Before the kid hit the ground, Les turned and left hooked his nearest mate, dumping him on his skinny backside with blood pouring down his chin and no front teeth. Realising things weren’t quite going as they’d planned it, the other three turned and went for their lives. One wasn’t quite quick enough and Les was able to kick him fair up the arse. He yelped with pain and lost his balance for a moment then tottered forward before catching up with his mates.
‘We’ll fuckin remember you, mate,’ one called out.
‘Good,’ Les called back. ‘Make sure you do.’
‘Fuckin white cunt.’
‘At least I know what I am,’ said Les. ‘Do you?’
Les looked at the two young hoods moaning on the ground and felt like doing a bit of Balmain folk dancing on their heads. Instead he gave them a kick in the thigh each and walked briskly to the end of the lane. He ignored the people in the bar on the corner, jogged straight across the road and up the driveway into the Grande.
Les stopped near a column in the lobby to gather his thoughts. Can you believe that? he asked himself. I go up to have a lousy look at some CDs and I nearly get rolled. Bloody hell! Does trouble follow me around or what? Shaking his head, Les felt like a drink. But not in his room. Why don’t I have one in the Torrens Bar? he thought. Maybe with a bit of luck somebody’ll pick a fight with me in there, too. Or pull a gun on me. Or a knife or something. They’d be mad not to. I mean, that’s what I’m here for.
A bar built low to the floor with low seating ran around as you walked in on the left with a sunken lounge on the right and plenty of chairs and tables in between. A mirrored ceiling looked down on the punters and at the rear a three-piece jazz combo was backing a girl in a silver-blue lamé dress wailing ‘My Baby Don’t Care For Me’. The air was thick with smoke, most of it coming from a plentiful selection of cigars available in a cabinet near the entrance. Along with the cocktails and beers going down, every second man in the place was smoking a cigar and every woman was smoking a cigarette. Everyone was dressed up, mainly in black, and the average age was thirty plus. There was a casually dressed group of people at one end of the bar that looked like flight attendants on a stopover. Looking around, Les surmised the Torrens Bar was one of the places to be seen in Adelaide. He walked over to the bar, ordered a bottle of Hahn and a JD and ice and charged it to his room. Some bloke in a dark jacket got up from a table near the cigar cabinet leaving a butt smouldering in an ashtray. Les took the table, dumped the cigar butt into a pot plant and sat facing the bar. He took a belt of JD and washed it down with almost half the bottle of beer.
Well that’s it, Les told himself. No more going out while I’m away. I’m a walking fuckin disaster area. Kids with knives, blokes with iron bars. Coppers. Stop the fight! He took another hit of JD with his beer chaser and looked at the nick in his tracksuit. No. Tomorrow night I’ll be in my room watching TV or reading a book. In fact I shouldn’t even be in this rotten bloody smoke box. Knowing my luck, the cops’ll come in here looking for whoever belted those little pricks, and I’ll get charged with assault. Along with every bloody thing else I’ve been charged with. Fuck it. I’m out of here. Les downed the rest of his drinks and caught a lift to his room.
The room temperature was perfect. Les took his tracksuit off, cleaned his teeth and turned the TV on. There was still nothing worth watching, but Les lay on the bed and watched it for a while anyway before turning everything off and getting under the doona. As he squashed his head into the pillows, Les couldn’t help but think about Conrad Ullrich being dead. It was a little eerie. And Gary saying Adelaide was a spooky place. I wonder why he said that? Buggered if I know. Buggered if I know anything to be honest. Les yawned and stretched out a little more. This bloody bed’s comfortable. I know that. Before long Norton was snoring peacefully.
Les was out of bed, cleaned up and staring out the window at eight o’clock the next morning, picking over the remains of last night’s hoummos. Outside it was windy with patchy rain and it looked cold. So. What should I wear today in my search for the good ship Lollipop or whatever it is? thought Les. I’ll probably be doing a fair bit of running around. I reckon my tracksuit and gym boots. And my Bugs Bunny cap. Les got changed, put what he thought he’d need in his backpack and left it on the bed then got the lift down to the Regency Club to sample the continental breakfast.
A smiling girl in a black uniform checked Norton’s room charge card when he walked in. There were plenty of comfortable chairs and glass tables and about a dozen guests seated round the fountain. Les placed his room key on a table near the entrance and walked across to the servery. He didn’t go far. Next to the fresh fruit and stewed peaches was a tub of fresh Bircher Muesli thick with blueberries. Les got the biggest bowl he could find and ate enough to fill a pothole in a road. He followed that with toast, smoked salmon and coffee and more toast, and finished with two sparkling glasses of fresh OJ. Nothing wrong with the continental breakfast, thought Les, rubbing his stomach as he took the lift back to his room. I can’t wait for tomorrow. He checked his map again, made sure he had everything, and headed for Avis.
There were two girls in red uniforms looking after two customers at the far end of the office when Les walked in, and a man at this end using the phone. The man was wearing a button-down collar shirt with the collar buttons undone and a crumpled red tie. He put the phone down and moved his eyes wearily to Les, looking like he’d sell his soul if he could get out of having to work that morning.
‘Yes, sir,’ said the bloke, expressionlessly. ‘How can I help you?’
‘Have you got a car here for Ullrich?’ said Les. ‘Through Travelabout in Sydney?’
‘Just one moment, sir.’ The bloke punched the keys on a computer like he was shifting furniture. ‘That’s right, sir. A Hyundai Grandeur. For Mr C. Ullrich.’
Norton couldn’t help himself. He had to try an impersonation of Jelly in Analyze This. ‘Mr Ullrich’s been detained,’ said Les. ‘Not only that. He ain’t going to be here. So I’ll be taking it instead. My name’s Norton.’
The bloke looked at the computer screen again. ‘No problem, Mr Norton. Do you have your driver’s licence and credit card?’
‘I sure do.’
Les soon filled out the forms and was handed a receipt, the keys, a small map of Adelaide, a pamphlet for the Avis Navigator and told where to collect the car.
‘You know how to work the Avis Navigator, sir?’ asked the bloke.
Les looked at the pamphlet like it was a Chinese newspaper. ‘I wouldn’t have a clue.’
‘Just read the pamphlet, sir. It’s quite simple.’
Les looked at the pamphlet again. ‘Simple, eh?’
‘Yes, sir. Just read the instructions, sir,’ repeated the bloke, tireder than ever. ‘It’s quite simple.’
‘Yeah righto,’ replied Les, staring blankly at the pamphlet.
He walked out of the office into a small arcade with a few Saturday shoppers and through a doorway into the car park. The Hyundai was up on the next level in bay 37.
The car had a silver duco with a neat grille and looked a little like a small Mercedes. Les clicked the locks up with the remote, opened the door and got behind the wheel. Inside it was all soft leather seats that adjusted e
very which way and a wooden dash that looked like it belonged in a MiG 21. Les had a look around and tried to familiarise himself with everything. The handbrake was a footbrake with the release in the dash, you couldn’t take the keys out of the ignition unless the gear shift was in park and the electric windows were especially designed so you’d push the wrong buttons all the time. There was a small screen below the dash and sitting near the gear shift was the control module, something like a TV remote. Les had another look at the pamphlet.
Avis Navigator is easy … Control Module. Cursor direction control. Repeat direction. Confirmation key. Main menu. Plan an alternative route. Volume down. Volume up. 1. Turn on ignition. Les turned on the ignition and the screen lit up. Main Control. Destination input. Stand-by. Settings.
Les pressed a minus button, and a woman’s voice said, ‘Softer.’
Les pressed a plus button, and the voice said, ‘Louder.’
Well, I’ll be buggered, thought Les. How about that. Les pressed more buttons and the screen changed to: Destination input. Country. Junction. Guidance. Les pressed buttons and more buttons and got nothing except the woman’s voice saying softer and louder. After a while he threw in the towel. Fuck this! You’d have to be Bill Gates to work one of these. Les locked the car, went back to the office and got the bloke to come and have a look at it. The bloke followed Les like he was being led to a firing squad.
‘Fair dinkum, mate,’ said Les, as they both got in the front seat, ‘I can’t work this thing out to save my life. It took me all my time to find the handbrake.’
The bloke looked at the pamphlet. ‘They can be a little tricky,’ he conceded.
‘A little tricky?’ echoed Les.
‘Where are you going, sir?’
‘Victor Harbor.’
Even the man from Avis had a little trouble. But eventually he pushed the right buttons and the screen lit up like the keys on a typewriter. He ran Les through it; Les nodded, understanding less than a third of what he was saying. Finally the bloke punched in Victor Harbor. And told Les how to punch in his way back to Adelaide.
‘There you go, sir,’ he said. ‘You’ll be all right now.’
Les had another look at the pamphlet. Approximately ten to twenty-five per cent of the traffic network is changing each year. Because of this one hundred per cent accuracy is not possible.
‘Hey mate,’ asked Les. ‘Do these things play up much?’
‘No more than anything else, sir,’ replied the man.
‘Yeah. But do they play up?’
A polite half-smile appeared on the man’s face before vanishing. ‘No more than anything else, sir,’ he repeated.
‘Thanks.’
Les watched as the man got out of the car and dragged himself back to the office.
Terrific, thought Les. That means they can play up. Knowing my luck, I’ll probably finish up in Perth. Les got his backpack from the back seat and put it next to him with the map on top. Oh well, here goes nothing, he thought, and started the car. The engine was that quiet and smooth you hardly knew it was running, and after fiddling around with the seat, the car seemed to mould itself around you.
Les drove to the boom gate, gave the parking attendant his ticket, then turned right into a lane and came out facing the Grande. There was a break in the traffic and Les turned left looking for West Terrace then Anzac Highway and South Road. He took a quick glance at the map when an arrow and a number appeared on the radar screen and the woman’s voice said, ‘In two hundred and fifty metres, turn left.’
‘Huh? Oh, thanks sweetheart.’
Sure enough, there was West Terrace. Les waited for the lights and took off. He was about to check the map again, when the voice said, ‘In five hundred metres, turn right.’
‘If you say so, sexy,’ smiled Les.
A little further on a sign said ANZAC HIGHWAY. And another, A.13 NOARLUNGA. CAPE JERVIS. VICTOR HARBOR. Yes, smiled Norton. We’re on our way.
The traffic was constant, but compared to Sydney it was a drive in the country.
There were plenty of parks and trees and the road was wide and flat like the old houses going by on either side. Les passed a hotel on the left called The Avoca and smiled as he briefly remembered walking along the beach with Jimmy Rosewater. The traffic thinned out a little and he came to a slight rise so Les put his foot down to see what the Hyundai could do. Instantly it kicked silently down into second and took off. Les found himself congratulating the late Conrad Ullrich on his choice of cars. The Grandeur was a real pocket rocket. Les zipped effortlessly past the other cars then eased up. The last thing he needed was to get pulled over and a check done on his licence.
‘Right turn — ahead.’
‘What?’
Les looked at the radar screen and an arrow saying 2700 metres. Minutes later, Les found himself cruising up a winding hill and noticed in the distance a low range of mountains that ringed Adelaide. He crossed the Onkaparinga River, and the voice said, ‘Left turn ahead.’
After that it was plain sailing. A shower would fall now and again, but mostly it was light drizzle. The countryside was green rolling hills with patches of forest here and there, but it still looked a little barren; probably because it was such a miserable bleak day. Les didn’t notice many birds. The only signs of life were cows standing around waterholes with ibises picking at the grass near their hooves. He went through Mount Compass. It was more a big hill than a mountain, with a set of lights, then a few shops and a hotel on the left. Les was tempted to put on a tape but he thought it might be best to concentrate on the road rather than start bopping. The road curved up and down. The weather had probably turned away the weekend drivers, so there wasn’t a great deal of traffic. A sign on the right said MINIATURE VILLAGE.
It’s certainly bloody miniature, thought Les, cause I’m buggered if I can see anything. The farms thinned out and houses began to appear. Then a Lutheran church with a sign out the front. YOUR CHILD’S TOMORROW DEPENDS ON YOUR LOVE TODAY. I’ll go along with that, thought Les. Unless it’s got a skateboard that should be wrapped round its pointy little head. A garage loomed up on the left and Les got a glimpse of ocean. A sign on the left pointed to Goolwa and another on the right said VICTOR HARBOR.
‘Right turn ahead.’
‘Thanks, baby,’ smiled Les. ‘I couldn’t have got here without you.’
The road curved down a hill with houses on either side, the ocean on the left, and surrounding hills off to the right. Ahead was just a huge bay edged by a strip of sand. There were a few rocky islands and waves breaking over reefs near the shore, a long row of pine trees faced the ocean and in the distance a long jetty ran out to another rocky island, and that was it. It looked nice enough. But Les was expecting wharves, jetties, piers, marinas, boats, fishing fleets. Not just a big, blue bay. The smile vanished from Norton’s face. This is Victor Harbor, he asked himself? Railway lines appeared on the left, and coming up was the shopping centre. Suddenly a sign on a small blue wooden building on the right in front of a brown wooden fence caught Norton’s eye and he pulled over. 1ST V.H. SEA SCOUTS. Hello, thought Les, I’ll bet that’s where Knox and his mates got their T-shirts. I’m definitely on the right track. The building was locked and the wind blew a sudden patch of rain against the car, so he didn’t bother getting out. He doubted if he’d find what he was looking for in there anyway. But he’d keep it in mind. Heartened by what he’d found, Les drove on.
He bypassed the shopping centre and followed the road as close to the coastline as he could with no idea where it would lead. Around him were mostly houses or holiday lettings, a few small blocks of flats and the odd motel. Parks and reserves overlooked the bay and he crossed a couple of creeks. A smile flickered in Norton’s eyes for a moment. Next door to a bowling club was The Ezy Rest Motel. The sealed road finished at a blue building called The Whalers Inn Resort and Conference Centre, then a narrow dirt road curved round the water’s edge towards a low bluff. There were still no boats or jetties, no
t so much as a canoe or a paddle-pop stick floating in the water. Just a few clumps of granite rocks smeared with bird shit sticking up through the seaweed with the odd pelican sitting on top. Les followed the dirt road till it ended at a turning circle next to a small wharf and a low granite wall facing the ocean. Parked near a granite cliff was an old white station wagon and sitting on the wall were two surfboard riders. Les pulled up near the wharf, got out of the car and stretched his legs. The rain had eased, but a gusty offshore wind was blowing and it was quite cold. Les shoved his hands in his pockets and had a look around.
The wharf was a fish-measuring station, with a noticeboard at one end showing the different kinds of fish. Across the bay, houses built on the low hills overlooked the ocean and there was another island in the distance, but still not a boat in sight. Les was shaking his head, completely baffled, when he heard the two board riders clapping their hands and calling out to something in the water. He sauntered over for a look. Swimming next to the rocks were half a dozen seals. Les watched fascinated as the seals rolled on their sides, dived under the water then came up again, snorting and blowing as they floated on their backs, wiggling their flippers and looking up at you with big soft eyes. Les had never seen a seal before. He got his camera from his backpack and, despite his disappointment at not finding any boats, took a few photos. The two surfies gave him a smile, then got in their car and drove off. Les was about to take another photo of the seals when a movement on the right caught his eye.
A woman wearing just a pair of check shorts and a black T-shirt rattled up on a battered old push bike. A white helmet sat loosely on her head and a pair of well-worn thongs clung to her feet. She had black hair and a plain face and Les would have put her age at around forty. The cold didn’t seem to worry her at all. Les caught her eye as she rested her bike against the granite wall and smiled. She smiled back, then turned to watch the seals. Les walked over to her.
‘Excuse me,’ he said. ‘Would you mind doing me a favour?’
Leaving Bondi Page 14