by Peter Doyle
“You said that before.”
“Yeah, but things have happened since then. I put him offside. Thing is, Anna, he tries to come across as a nice enough sort of bloke. Smiles all the time. Sharing joints and so on. Might seem friendly. But he’s not.”
Anna said nothing for a second or two, then, “All right, I get it. There’s an overseas telegram here for you. Arrived yesterday afternoon. From Mullet, I guess.”
“Can you read it out to me?”
“Hang on.”
She came back a few seconds later. I heard her tearing open the envelope.
“Okay,” she said. “Here goes: HAVE SHOWN FILM HERE STOP GREAT REACTION STOP CALIFORNIANS LIKE AUSSIE ACCENT AND WEED SUBPLOT STOP DENNY WILSON OF BEACH BOYS INTERESTED IN PROMOTING STOP WILL KEEP YOU POSTED STOP MEANWHILE URGENT NEED MORE FUNDS KEEP WHEELS OILED STOP CONSIDER MAKING NEW PRINT STOP ALSO SUGGEST CHANGE NAME STOP SURFIE WALKABOUT WONT CUT IT STOP PREFER CRYSTAL DREAMS STOP WHAT DO YOU THINK STOP REGARDS MULLET. Get that?”
“Yeah. Mullet wants more money.”
“You want Terry to take care of this one?”
“Don’t bother for now. I’ll send him something on Monday. Is Crystal Dreams a better name than Surfie Walkabout, do you think?”
“Search me. You’re keeping track of these payments?”
“Of course.”
I got to Eloise’s mid afternoon, let myself in and walked through the house. A radio was on upstairs. Kids’ voices coming from somewhere.
Eloise was sitting on the deck out the back. She had a drink going. Janice was there too, also on her way. A strip of blue ocean was visible in the distance. Wind chimes sounded softly in the breeze.
Eloise turned in her slightly overdone languid way. “Oh, Bill darling, the children are beside themselves. Do take the dear pitiful wretches away, for god’s sake.”
I kissed her, waved to Janice. “You two still going to the Windsor Castle?”
Eloise shrugged. “I suppose. Jules is coming around later to cook a curry. You must stay and have some, pet.” She looked at me more closely. “Anna says you’ve gone incognito again.”
“Does she?”
“She said you’ve taken to your secret mountain redoubt.”
“I’m here now, aren’t I? Listen to me, Eloise,” I moved directly in front of her, crouching so we were eye to eye, “has that Geddins bloke been here?”
“Who?”
“Barry Geddins. Tall bloke, thirty-something. Dark hair. Smiles too much. Stands too close. A thug.”
Eloise looked genuinely confused.
“Don’t let him in the door, even if he says he’s a mate of mine. Don’t let him anywhere near this place. Ever.”
“Darling, you’re being so dramatic. But of course, I will obey you without question.”
Janice snorted into her drink.
Eloise said, “And what is this news about Max?”
I stood up. “He didn’t die in that crash.”
“But really, dear one, how could that be?” said Eloise. “We buried him. Rather splendidly, I thought.”
“It was a good send-off. But he wasn’t there. If what they scraped out of the wreckage was human remains, they weren’t Max’s.”
“So the rumours are true, after all?’ Janice said.
We turned to face her. She looked from me to Eloise, back to me. “You never heard them?” No response, so she went on, “That he was working in the bush.” She started counting on her fingers. “That he was in New Zealand. That he was in England. That he was in Sydney, for God’s sake, living under a new identity.”
“Who told you that?” I said.
She shook her head, playing the dizzy bird now. “Oh, I don’t know. Various people. Musicians, I suppose. How on earth did you not hear them?”
Eloise tapped Janice’s knee confidentially. “Oh, Billy doesn’t talk to anyone if he can help it—”. She turned to me. “Do you dear?”
“I do, in fact. It’s just I like to be the one who chooses where and when.”
The girl came running out, squealing, and hugged me. Her brother followed, acting the cool grown-up.
“All right you two,” I said. “We’d better clear out while there’s still time. Put your shoes on and we’ll shoot through.”
They ran off.
I waved goodbye to Janice, and signalled Eloise that I wanted to talk to her privately, then headed towards the front door.
She joined me in the hallway.
“There’s something else,” I said.
She gave me a long look before saying, “Yes?” Picking up on something in my voice, she was more down to earth now.
“Phil has some houses in Annandale. Guilliat Street. Four in a row. Numbers 15, 17, 19, 21. You heard anything about them?”
“Not a thing. Why would I?”
“There’s a Leb family in one. The others are empty. Now Phil suddenly wants the tenants out. Joe Dimitrios is involved as well. One of the Leb blokes reckons people in suits have been around stickybeaking. Surveyors, too. So something’s going on.”
“And you want to know what.” She brightened. “Dad might know.”
“No, you have to leave Donny out of it.”
An appraising look. “All right, give me a couple of days.” she said, picking up a pad next to the phone in the hallway, writing down the addresses. A different person now. She tapped the pad with the biro and smiled. “I’ll see what I can find out.”
The kids came running into the hallway, eager to get going.
We went to the city. They dropped a few dollars in the machines at Playland. The boy liked the pinballs, the little girl the pincers. After that I took them to the Minerva in Elizabeth Street. I had a coffee, they had milkshakes and crème caramel.
“How’s school going?” I said to the young bloke.
He looked seriously at his milkshake for a few seconds then said, “All right.”
“That took you a while.”
He glanced at me. His light brown hair was getting long, and sun-bleached. Covered half his face. “I got into trouble last week,” he said, and looked down again.
“Yeah?”
A pause. “For being late.”
“You shouldn’t be late,” I said.
He grinned at me, assuming I was being sarcastic.
“I mean it,” I said.
He looked back down at his milkshake.
The little girl piped up: “Eloise makes him late.”
“Don’t tell tales,” I said. Asked the boy, “How?”
“She makes me miss the bus, even when I’ve got time to catch it.”
“Yeah?”
“She says punctuality is bourgeois.”
The girl said, “She says it’s middle class.”
“Fuck me. Sorry. Ignore that. I don’t want to hear either of you swearing, by the way. Did you tell the brothers the reason you’re late?”
“No!”
“Good. Don’t be a give-up. Well, that’s your mother for you. She’s one of a kind, that’s for sure.”
The boy stared gloomily at his drink.
“One day you’ll appreciate her for the way she is,” I said.
He nodded again, unconvinced.
“All right, I’ve got an errand to run. You two okay with tagging along?”
Eager nods from both.
It was a five-minute walk down to the Third World Bookshop in Chinatown. We were greeted with a musty smell partly masked with incense. Some kind of blues record playing, with wonky electric guitar. Maurie was at the shelves, rearranging books, a cranky expression on his dial. Bob Gould, roundish, of indeterminate age, bearded, thick hair sticking straight up, bib and brace overalls, was sitting on the elevated platform behind the till like some minor potentate. A chubby hippie girl sat next to him, sipping a cup of tea, smoking a Drum.
I said to the kids, “Have a look around but keep away from the dirty books.” Waved to Maurie, then to Bob. The hippie girl smiled.
“Ah,
it’s that colourful Sydney identity, Brother Glasheen,” Bob announced, “of the Miscellaneous Workers’ Union, I believe.”
“Comrade Robert,” I said.
“What can I do for you?” he asked, in a tone that could be taken as either friendly or contemptuous.
I pulled Lost Highway to Hell from my back pocket and handed it to him.
He looked at the cover, the back page, flipped through it. “We’re not taking any second-hand books today,” he said, “unless you’ve got some rare labour history.” He passed the book back to me.
“But you must know it?” I said.
“Trash paperback. Not terrific.” He smiled and went on in a fast, quiet voice. “Could use a little more lesbian sex. Or a better critique of counter-cultural opportunism masquerading as direct action. Preferably both.”
“So you do know it?”
He shrugged dismissively. “There’s a whole type,” he said, pointing behind me.
I turned and looked at a shelf with multiple copies, face out, of The Last Whole Earth Catalogue, Ringolevio, Trout Fishing in America, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.
“Lower down,” he said.
Next row, slimmer paperbacks with lurid covers. Hippie chicks with bandanas and machine guns, half-exposed tits. Gun-toting lads with bandit moustaches. Burning cars, joints, hypodermics, bullets, peace symbols. The titles: Dangerous Generation, Highway Blues, The Peacenick Gang, The Red Kill, The Bombshell Heiress.
“They’re all based on that business,” Gould said. “Loosely. Mate of yours, wasn’t he?”
I looked at him.
“Max Perkal,” he said.
I didn’t say anything.
“Never cared for the bloke myself,” he said. “Anyway, there’s a slew of books about him and the others now. Nothing in them, but we move a few. For a while they were the most stolen books in the shop.”
He turned to his side, took a black-covered hardback from a box at his feet. “What I do have is this fantastic but hard-to-come-by account of the New South Wales bank nationalization crisis of the thirties.” He looked at me, smiling. Genuine pleasure there. “I can do a good price for you.”
“How is it for lesbian sex?”
“Not so good,” he said, “but the analysis is excellent.”
“This is the one I’m interested in, Bob.” I held up Max’s book. “Where did it come from? There’s no publisher’s name on the back, and the title page is missing. Nothing even on the spine except for this, what is it, a flag? A map? Any ideas?”
He shook his head and said, “Can’t help you, comrade,” then walked away to the back of the shop.
Maurie glanced at Bob, at me, then turned back to his shelf tidying.
“Come on kids,” I said.
Back at Eloise’s there was a gathering. Rich, spicy smells came from the kitchen. A J. J. Cale record was playing. People inside and out drinking wine. Eloise’s trendy east-of-centre friends: advertising people, groovy clothiers, art directors, so-called “Nation Review types.” The kids disappeared into their rooms. I drifted into the kitchen and ate some curry, which was good. A woman in a red scarf, a stallholder at Paddo markets, came over and said hello. She told me she’d just seen a film called American Graffiti.
“Have you seen it? It’s great fun,” she said. Then confidentially, resting her hand on my arm, “Fifties nostalgia is definitely going to be the new thing. I’m getting rid of my Gatsby stuff and stocking up on fifties tat.”
I slipped away at eight, took a cab to Taylor Square. When I stepped into French’s, a blues band had just started playing. A very un-blues-looking guy – fresh-faced, pressed jeans, short hair – was blowing harp. It was crisp and swinging just the same. No one much there yet.
Maurie from the Third World Bookshop was at the bar, already looking a bit dissolved. I joined him and ordered drinks.
I took a sip. “This cider tastes of iron filings,” I said.
Maurie took a long swig. “You did no good with Bob, then.”
“Nah. But it was like he knew something,” I said.
Maurie barked out a quick laugh. “He should. He published that book himself!”
I looked at him.
“Published it then pulped it. Too libellous, I guess. Even for him.”
“So why didn’t he tell me that?”
Maurie shrugged. “Nothing for nothing.”
“Where did he get it from?” I said.
“I always thought he’d paid some hack to write it. One of the Balmain poets maybe.” He looked at me quickly. “Why do you ask?”
I shook my head. “Just curious. Never mind.”
“I mean,” said Maurie, “I know you and Max Perkal used to run that club up the street. Hazyland, wasn’t it?”
“Not that, but similar. I’d prefer not to talk about it. Hey, you know anything about fifties nostalgia?”
He pulled a face. “Nostalgia’s bullshit.”
I drank up and wandered a block along Oxford Street and into a phone booth. After I dialled, it rang a long time, then a husky, unencouraging “Yes?”
“Fred, it’s Bill.”
“Ah. Himself.”
“Got a question for you.”
“Of course you have.”
“You ever see any of the books that came out about those bank robberies Max Perkal was involved in? The Hippie Gang and all that.”
“Never paid any attention.”
“Did you ever hear any police gossip about Barry Geddins being involved?”
A long pause. “Involved in what?”
“In the robberies. In the Footscray shootout. In the car crash.”
Another long pause. “I believe he was involved. I don’t know how much. His name never came up officially because he was in thick with Russell Street.”
“Is he still?”
A long sigh. “You don’t know about Noelene Gray and her kid?”
“No.”
“She was a Melbourne moll. Had a son, twelve or so. Not quite right. Sub-normal or something. Well, Geddins was keeping company with Noelene, and one weekend he took the kid for a fishing and camping trip, while she stayed in town working. The kid never came back. No explanation given. That was too much, even for Russell Street. Wasn’t the first such incident, either.”
“So why don’t you lot do something about him?”
“She never put in a complaint. Too scared, I suppose.”
“Get him for something else then.”
“Like doing standover work for Phil?”
“What if I gave you something you could act on? Something solid.”
“Bill, these things aren’t as straightforward as you might think.”
“That’s what I pay you for. You’re what’s known as a corrupt cop, Fred. It’s quid pro quo. That’s how it works.”
“How it works, son, is you do whatever it is you need to do, then your corrupt cop looks after you. But I wouldn’t advise anyone to go up against Geddins. Not without a team.” Another long sigh. “Anyway,” he said, “you’re going to need another mate in the force soon enough. My days are numbered.”
“Really?”
“There’s no one going in to bat for me. Not any more. After all this time, after all the looking after and fixing up, and all the money that’s been kicked in, suddenly, now, the New South Wales government is developing scruples. They’ve watched the Labor boys take over the federal government, they know their run here can’t last much longer, and now – fucking now – they want to clean house. Which means get rid of old Fred Slaney, or else.”
“Or else what?”
“They all end up in the shit.”
“Life’s so unfair,” I said.
“What they don’t realise, they’re in the shit anyway. That new state Labor bloke, Wran. He’s going to win next time. Anyone can see that. Wran’s a mate of yours, isn’t he?”
“I knew him a bit, years ago. I’d have no influence there now, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
“Ah, well. We must strive to accept the things we cannot change.”
“Fred, you know that place, the Third World Bookshop. Down there off George Street??”
“The commos? What about them?”
“I could use some leverage with the proprietor, bloke named Gould. You got anything?”
“I’ll ask around.”
I strolled back to French’s. A group of Maori female impersonators had stationed themselves in front of the band. They were all Mandraxed-up, and there was much whooping and calling out, some falling over. The place had filled up with junkies and longhairs, getting rowdier by the minute. Maurie was at the bar, swaying, well on his way. I listened to another song then left.
I had the cab drop me a mile from the secret redoubt, got back there just before midnight. Everything undisturbed. I cranked up the pressure lamp, lit a coil, sat down with the book.
SATORI OUT THE BACK OF FUCKING NOWHERE
I tracked down the Croaker. He’d been known years ago as ‘the Doctor,’ as in, “send for the doctor,” as in, make that horse go faster. Or slower. Make that athlete jump higher. Or not. Fix that injured bloke who’d rather not go to Saint Vincent’s casualty department. The Croaker was a decrepit old fucker you wouldn’t trust with a knife and fork let alone a scalpel. Hence the change of nickname. But his writing hand worked well enough, and after a bit of bullshit from me he duly gave me the scripts I needed.
There’s been a lot written, proclaimed, and gobbed-off about the various methods of self-managed drug withdrawal and their relative merits. One authority will favour slow reduction, another the Chinese water torture. One fiend will swear by methadone substitution, another speak up for straight-out cold turkey. Some junkies just drink their way through the worst of it. But your old uncle has the mail on this, learned under the tutelage of Harry ‘Big Sleep’ Bailey, the crazy Sydney shrink, so pay attention, my young psychic buccaneers. It’s as simple as this: you take enough stoppers to snooze your way through the whole thing. However long it takes. Harry keeps his patients unconscious for a whole fortnight, but that’s not practical when you’re self-managing. Four or five days is the recommended snooze. Wake up when all the shit is out of your system. There you go. New life, blank slate. Bye bye now. Go thou, and fuck up no more. That’s what I had in mind.