See You at the Toxteth

by Peter Corris

  ‘Sammy,’ I said, ‘this isn’t your style.’

  But Sammy Weiss seemed to be enjoying himself. His smooth, pasty face, normally fairly good-natured as long as things were going his way, was set in a scowl that he seemed to have grown used to. Sammy had put on weight since I’d last seen him, and lost some hair. But he was more snappily dressed and more carefully groomed—silk tie, shirt with a discreet stripe, lightweight double-breasted suit.

  He snapped his fingers and his buffed nails gleamed briefly. ‘Toss him out, Turk. Don’t do no damage but, he’s got a nasty nature.’

  ‘Sammy …’

  The pistol dug back in again, and the man I’d dropped was starting to get to his feet. Turk had all the moves; he jerked my elbow around, and you have to give when that happens. He prodded again and I found myself pushing through the crowd towards the door. I was confused by Sammy’s behaviour, but not completely thrown. Before we got to the door I side stepped and watched Turk move automatically in the same direction. I dug my knee into his balls and reached for the gun, but he’d put it away and my move threw me a little off-balance. He recovered fast and stepped back—a medium-sized, dark guy, strongly built with a bald head and a thick, compensatory moustache. Standoff. People were starting to notice us now.

  ‘See you again, Turk,’ I said.

  He spat at my feet and backed away into the crowd.

  I was still mulling it over the next morning—the change in Sammy Weiss from lair businessman who liked to flirt with the rough element to crime boss with minders—when Sammy’s brother, Benjamin, knocked and walked into my office.

  ‘I heard what happened last night, Cliff.’

  ‘I hope you heard it right, Benjamin,’ I said. No one ever called him Benny. He was an accountant, very straight.

  ‘I heard there was a gun and a knife. Sammy’s lost his mind.’ He put his hat on my desk, lowered his small, neat body into a chair and ran a tired hand across his worried face. Benjamin is older, smaller and quieter; the brothers look alike only around the eyes, where intelligence is suggested.

  ‘That’s how it looked to me. What’s going on?’

  ‘First, would you mind telling me what you wanted to see him about?’

  That’s Benjamin, always getting the figures in the columns first. I told him about Ruby and Sammy.

  ‘That’s a good, steady business. The property’s being well cared for, and it’s appreciating. Things being the way they are, Ruby could probably handle a modest rent hike, but nothing like this.’

  ‘I agree. What’s got into your brother?’

  ‘He’s a changed man. Dresses differently, struts around with those two hoods. He’s drinking and gambling more, acting the big shot. But all this is so heavy-handed, dealing with you and Ruby like that. If he tries it on the wrong people …’ Benjamin shook his head and looked even more worried.

  I knew what he meant. There were people in Sydney who’d take Sammy and Turk and the other guy apart just for fun. ‘There must be a reason,’ I said. ‘A woman?’

  ‘Come on. You know what sort of chain Karen keeps him on. No, I guess he’s just bored. That plus the piece that appeared in Sydney Scene about him.’

  ‘You’ve got me.’

  ‘It’s an insignificant little shoestring mag, run by a couple of queers. They did an article on Sydney’s crime czars and somehow Sammy got a mention and a quote. Now he thinks he’s Mr Big.’

  ‘Jesus. That’s dangerous.’

  Benjamin leaned forward in his chair. ‘I love Sammy, Cliff. He’s a good man basically, always been very generous with me. He’s a good husband and father. I don’t want to see him get into trouble. Could you …’

  ‘Hold on. We’re talking conflict of interest here.’

  ‘I don’t see why.’ His small hands came up and he started ticking points off on his fingers. ‘One, Ruby wants Sammy off her back; two, I want Sammy to wake up to himself; three, you’d like to get your own back on Turk.’

  ‘Who says so?’

  Benjamin smiled. ‘I know you, Cliff.’

  I thought about it, but not for long. I had to admit it was an interesting problem. Tough, but not too tough. And I had an affection for Sammy dating back to the days of the Victoria Street green bans, when he was on the side of the angels. Good business, as it turned out: he made money on his houses in the street. Still. ‘What’re Sammy’s weaknesses?’ I asked.

  Benjamin didn’t need his fingers. ‘First, he’s afraid of Karen; second, he’s a hypochondriac.’

  ‘That’s interesting. Who’s his doctor?’

  ‘He never goes near them. He doses himself for his imagined illnesses. He tells me about them all the time, but I’m sure he’s as healthy as a horse. So far.’

  ‘Leave it with me, Benjamin, along with a couple of hundred bucks. I’ll see if I can work something out.’

  Benjamin wrote me a cheque. I gave him a receipt. He put on his hat and went, leaving me to do some thinking, of which two hundred dollars buys a fair bit.

  Marcia was behind the table when I dropped in at Ruby’s that afternoon. She had on another plunging blouse, and I had the feeling that the parts of her body I couldn’t see weren’t warmly clothed either.

  ‘Ruby?’ she said.

  ‘No. I’d like to talk to you, doctor.’

  She smiled, and I could see humorous lines under the makeup. ‘Ruby’s been chattering. I have to say she cheered up a bit after she saw you yesterday. She’s been very down.’

  ‘Do you know why?’

  She shook her head and the jaunty, short hair bounced ‘No. This is an excellent establishment, and business seems to be good. You’re not a policeman, are you?’

  ‘Private enquiries. My name’s Cliff Hardy.’

  It surprised us both that we shook hands.

  ‘What do you want to talk to me about?’

  For the second time that day I told the story of Ruby’s troubles. This time there was a second strand—the metamorphosis of Sammy Weiss. Marcia listened intently, asking one or two questions. We had to break once while she dealt with a customer—for Henrietta and the special—but when I finished I felt as if I’d clarified a few things for myself as well as shared the problem with a good thinker.

  ‘I like Ruby very much,’ Marcia said. ‘And I want to help. How can I? You haven’t told me this for nothing.’

  ‘You practise somewhere? You’ve got a surgery?’

  ‘Hardly that. The front room of a terrace in Stanley Street.’

  ‘That’ll do. Is there something we could slip Sammy to give him the symptoms of a venereal disease—fever, discharge and so on?’

  She took a deep, very distracting breath. I tried to sneak a look at her legs under the table. Well, it was that kind of a situation. ‘Yes, there is,’ she said. ‘Cantharides’d do it.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Spanish fly. Take enough, and you feel you’re pissing razor blades.’

  ‘What about … discharge?’

  She shook her head. ‘Harder. Massive vitamin C’d produce stains.’

  ‘But no serious damage.’

  She shook her head. ‘Not in the short term.’

  ‘How does it come, this stuff?’

  ‘Granules. They’re rather bitter.’

  ‘Sammy has a couple of long blacks with his brother every morning and after work.’

  ‘Three days,’ Marcia said. ‘Four at the most.’

  I spoke to Benjamin in his office, which was a flat in a pre-war building in Riley Street, another of Sammy’s holdings.

  ‘A doctor and she’s a whore? What’s the world coming to?’

  ‘Tell yourself it’s getting more interesting,’ I said. ‘It works for me. All you have to do is slip this stuff into Sammy’s espresso. Couple of days later you tell him he’s looking terrible and offer to help. Make sure he takes a lot of vitamin C. Be subtle. If that doesn’t work, be direct.’

  Benjamin agreed to do it. Three days later he was
on the phone to me. ‘Sammy’s desperate,’ he said. ‘I can’t bear to see it. What’s next?’

  I gave him the telephone number and the address in Stanley Street.

  ‘How am I supposed to know these symptoms?’

  I’d done some checking on Benjamin in the quiet hours. It’s always wise to check on a co-conspirator. There was more to him than met the eye. He had a personal interest in some of Sammy’s assets, and he was not unknown at the House of Ruby. ‘Benjamin,’ I said, ‘if your wife is the only woman you’ve ever shtupped, I’m a Dutchman.’

  He disposed of that with a quiet cough. I repeated the address and told him not to worry. He called me at home that night.

  ‘Tomorrow at 2 p.m., as planned,’ he said.

  ‘Good. Will he be alone?’

  ‘Of course. You think he wants anyone to know about this? What’s the matter, Cliff? Are you afraid of Turk?’ It was the first time I’d heard an edge on Benjamin’s voice since this business began. I was glad of it; it meant that he wanted Sammy straightened out as much as my other client did.

  ‘Turk’ll come later,’ I said. ‘Let’s get this done first.’

  Sammy turned up in a taxi at Marcia’s terrace five minutes early. He was as nervous as a schoolboy buying condoms; he glanced up and down the street and then stared at the house. That must have been a comfort: Marcia’s place had a neat, tiled frontage, just the right amount of greenery and a confidence-inspiring brass knocker. I was watching from the balcony. Sammy knocked. I scurried down the stairs and took up my position with the camera behind the screen in the front room. Marcia, wearing a short skirt, very high heels and a starched white lab coat, jotted down Sammy’s details on a card. She arched a plucked eyebrow once, presumably at some blatant lie of Sammy’s. I was alarmed; although her makeup was much toned down for the event, I was afraid she might overdo things. She didn’t. Her instruction to Sammy to take off his pants was clinical. Sammy was so embarrassed he shut his eyes when she examined him. This allowed Marcia to open the lab coat. I had the silent camera whirring the whole time: Sammy’s flaccid dick in Marcia’s hands, the lacquered nails showing clearly; Marcia, her breasts dropping forward out of a lacy black bra under the starched white fabric and her hand clasped around Sammy’s balls; Sammy, bent over, his underpants around his ankles, and Marcia behind him with the coat shrugged back on her shoulders, muscular thighs showing under the mini-skirt and her rubber-gloved finger probing Sammy’s arsehole.

  ‘Get dressed, Mr Jones,’ Marcia said.

  Sammy did, with relief. Marcia stripped off the gloves, washed her hands in a bowl and dried them on a white towel. Sammy sat on a plastic chair. I could see the sweat standing out around his receding hairline. Marcia picked up Sammy’s card and made a few notes. She’d buttoned up the lab coat and assumed a prim, professional expression.

  ‘Well, doctor?’ Sammy said.

  ‘You have nothing to worry about, Mr Jones. Your condition is the result of a dietary irregularity—lack of calcium, principally. Do you drink much milk?’

  The gratitude and pleasure on Sammy’s face was childlike. ‘Never touch the stuff.’

  ‘You’ve built up an imbalance in your body chemistry. I recommend milk and goat’s cheese, also green vegetables. As much as you can get down.’ Marcia scribbled on a prescription pad.

  ‘Sure thing. And …?’ Sammy said.

  Marcia tore off the sheet. ‘These pills. Twice a day before meals.’

  ‘You mean three times a day.’

  ‘No. Skip lunch. You should eat only a light breakfast and a high calcium dinner. No meat.’

  ‘Pasta?’

  ‘Light on the oil.’

  Sammy jumped to his feet and thrust his manicured hand at Marcia’s middle. ‘Thank you, doctor. Thank you.’

  ‘Here’s your prescription. Have you got your Medicare card?’

  ‘Let’s make it cash,’ Sammy said.

  Benjamin and I had agreed that there was no point in lying, no working through go-betweens. We didn’t want Sammy worried out of his mind. I arrived at Benjamin’s office by arrangement late the following day to find the two brothers drinking coffee. Sammy said it was the first decent coffee he’d had in days. Benjamin didn’t say anything. Sammy was expansive and ready to apologise for our misunderstanding of a few nights back.

  I cut him off and spread the photographs out on the desk beside his coffee cup. I’m no artist of the lens, but the pictures were eloquent enough. Marcia looked delicious in her unfastened coat, Sammy’s closed eyes could be taken for transports of ecstasy, and so on. Sammy looked at the photos and slowly reddened from his soft chin to his retreating hairline. He looked across the desk at Benjamin and his eyes were moist.

  ‘You set me up. Your own brother.’

  ‘It was for your own good, Samuel. Believe me, your own good, and mine and everybody’s.’

  ‘Your own brother.’

  ‘I’m not your brother, Sammy,’ I said, ‘but I am your friend, or I can be if you play ball.’

  ‘What’s the rules?’ Sammy said softly.

  Benjamin got up and took the coffee pot off the warmer. He poured some more into Sammy’s cup and filled a cup for me.

  ‘First, you lay off Ruby. Leave her rent alone, don’t hassle her in any way. Meet any reasonable requests she has as a good tenant.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘You stop pissing around with hoods like Turk. Stop acting the big shot.’

  ‘Attend to business,’ Benjamin said.

  I sipped some of the terrific coffee. ‘Exactly.’

  ‘Or?’ Sammy said.

  ‘I take the pictures to Karen along with the doctor’s report on you—that you presented for a suspected venereal disease and so on.’

  Sammy snarled, ‘Doctor!’

  I said, ‘She is a doctor, Sammy, and she gave you the straight goods. There’s nothing wrong with you. You took a few doses of Spanish fly, which caused you a few temporary problems. That’s all.’

  The cloud that had been gathering on Sammy’s brow lifted. ‘You mean it? That woman really is a doctor?’

  ‘Sure,’ I said. ‘I just got your urine tests back. You’re clean.’

  Sammy drank his coffee in one gulp. The flush in his face receded and he grinned. Then he exploded into laughter. ‘You guys,’ he said. ‘You fuckin’ guys. You finally get me to go to a doctor. Me, scared shitless of doctors. And I’m okay?’

  I nodded. ‘Sound as a bell. Sammy, while you’re laughing, I can’t quite see why you were worried. I mean, you haven’t stepped out of line, have you?’

  Sammy looked at his brother. ‘You knew, didn’t you?’

  Benjamin nodded. ‘I knew the scheme’d work, Cliff. Sammy worries about toilet seats, mosquitoes, knives and forks in restaurants …’

  ‘You can catch things,’ Sammy chuckled as he spoke.

  It was time to cut through the hilarity. ‘Okay, Sammy,’ I said. ‘I’m glad you’re happy. We did you a favour, fine. But the terms still apply. Get ahold of yourself, or Karen makes your life a living hell. I don’t need to spell it out, do I?’

  Sammy shook his head; suddenly glumness enveloped him. ‘It’s not that easy.’

  ‘How so?’ Benjamin said.

  Sammy waved his hand and it was almost as if he was saying goodbye to buffed nails and shaped cuticles. ‘It’s Turk,’ he said. ‘He’s kinda … pressuring me. You know?’

  ‘Don’t worry about Turk,’ I said.

  A little checking turned up something odd and interesting about Turk. He didn’t have a permanent place of residence; instead, he moved around a circuit of city hotels, staying two or three weeks at a time in one place after another. Not five-star hotels, but not fleapits either. The sorts of places I like to stay in myself, and where I stick out-of-town clients. Spending some money on the street and using the phone, I located his current hostelry, the Sullivan in Elizabeth Street, where I happened to know the security man.

  Bert Loomis is
an ex-cop, ex-bank security man, ex- quite a few things. He’s fifty-five and looks every minute of it, especially around the eyes, which have seen most of the dirty things there are to see. I judged that fifty dollars would be about right, and it was.

  ‘Fifteen minutes, Hardy,’ Loomis said. I noticed that he didn’t touch the knob, just slipped the card in the slot and edged the door open with his knee.

  ‘Right,’ I said. ‘Where’ll you be?’

  ‘Nowhere.’

  He jerked his head; I went into the suite and heard the door close behind me. I had to work fast, and Turk made it easy. He lived light—basic toilet articles in the bathroom, clothes in the closet and drawers. Condoms, a vibrator and pornographic material in a bedside cabinet. Beer and wine in the bar fridge, hard liquor on top. Two suitcases, empty. Dirty clothes in a heap in the corner of the little balcony room that overlooked the park. The drawer in the solid writing desk was locked and the Sullivan didn’t run to a security safe for guests. I picked the lock and emptied the drawer out on the bed. Personal papers, money matters—bank books, cheque books, statements, bills from a firm of accountants, three passports.

  I checked my watch. Twelve minutes. Time was up. I turned on the radio and dumped a drawer full of underwear onto the floor, where it could be seen from the doorway. Then I moved across to the door, opened it and left it propped open with the toe of one of Turk’s high-heeled boots. According to the passports, Konstanides/Lycos/Mahoud measured 183 centimetres—he’d looked taller in the Skin Cellar and the boots explained why. I stood inside the bathroom, two metres from the doorway, with my .38 Smith & Wesson at the ready. I was there because I knew Bert Loomis couldn’t resist a doublecross or a dollar.

  Turk was quiet, but I could sense and smell him. He edged through the door, and I could imagine him standing in the short hallway, hearing the radio, looking at the mess on the floor. I could feel his tension. I stepped out with the .38 levelled at 150 centimetres. Turk was fast: he saw me, ducked, pulled out his own gun and came on. But the round hole staring at him had held his attention for just long enough, and I had the advantages of height and readiness; I moved aside, reached forward and clubbed his bald head with my metal-loaded fist. The barrel and trigger guard tore his skin, and the blow almost stunned him. His knees gave and I chopped at his right wrist, bringing my left hand down hard and bunched. He dropped his gun. I hit him between the eyes with my left and felt the knuckles protest. He fell forward and I kneed him in the chest as he came down.