over it that read ‘Powder your nose till it glows’. Annie and leather jacket followed him, and thirty seconds later I followed them.
After the door there was a short, dark corridor and then a set of narrow, carpeted stairs. I went up the first flight, made a turn and then something like the Queen Mary hit me behind the ear. My face hit the carpet hard and a front end loader scooped me up and threw me down the stairs. I flipped over, hit my head more than once and never reached the bottom. I went down into the blackness and then down some more.
When I came out of it a cat was walking across my face and talking. I told it to be quiet and tried to brush it away but it stayed there and talked louder. At least it wasn’t scratching, but I thought it might, so I opened my eyes. It wasn’t dark at the bottom of the stairs anymore, there was a bright light burning about a hundred miles away and it was getting closer. I closed my eyes again.
‘He’s alive’, a woman’s voice said.
Another woman giggled. ‘How alive?’
I decided to kill the cat so I opened my eyes again. The light was closer this time, but not as bright, and the cat was a fur coat. Its owner also wore a pink leotard and spike heels. ‘What happened to you?’ She had the same voice as the cat.
‘I fell down the stairs.’
The giggler giggled again. ‘Break anything?’
She was small and dark with a big bright smile. She’d have been just the girl to take to an execution.
I located my arms and legs and flapped them. I didn’t fly but I did manage to crawl up the wall and stand there with my head throbbing. Two versions of the big figure in the fur coat stood in front of me, I tried to fuse them into one.
‘I’m okay’, I said.
‘Oh’, said the small one, and I thought I detected a note of disappointment.
‘You need a drink.’ Fur coat, leotard, spike heels and practical, too-my dream girl. I mumbled something and staggered through the door back to the fun parlour. There were more people around, more drinkers and dancers but no sign of the frolicsome four.
I didn’t have the drink; being knocked unconscious disturbs the normal behaviour patterns. I plodded out to the street and walked two blocks before I realised I was going the wrong way. The walk back to my car was like a month on the chain gang. I stumbled and ran into things and people on the streets drew the natural conclusion; each collision sent daggers of pain stabbing into my head and only a strong mixture of pride and stupidity got me to the car. I sat in it for a while looking at the cars-the new fast ones and the old ones and the people who were just the same. When everything had settled down to a steady hum of distress, I drove home. My mirror showed me a right eye that was darkening and a swelling on the side of my head. There was no blood to speak of, and I did what I could with wet cloths and pain killers and went to bed. Just as I drifted into sleep I had one of those half-dreams where you fall off a step or a gutter, except that my step was high and over an endless void; I twitched like an electric shock victim. I didn’t wake up until nearly midday and waking up was no pleasure. My head and body ached and I felt weak as if I’d had a long illness; maybe I had, maybe it was this work I was doing. I dragged myself out to the kitchen for some food, ate it and went back to bed again. I did some more sleeping and it was dark when I came out of it to hear the phone ringing. I stumbled down the stairs.
‘Mr Hardy? Mr Hardy, I’m worried. What’s going on?’ Ma’s voice was urgent with concern and something else, maybe anger.
‘Not sure I follow you Ma’, I said. ‘I got knocked on the head last night by one of Annie’s friends. I was going to tell you about it when I felt better. What’s got you upset?’
‘Annie, of course. She didn’t come home last night and she hasn’t been at work. I don’t know where she is. I thought you might know. What happened? I mean, why’d you get hit?’
‘I’m not sure, but I know your Annie’s in bad company.’
‘The bloody drugs?’
‘I think so. But one day out of sight doesn’t mean anything necessarily.’
‘It’s more than that. She was supposed to see her parole officer today. She didn’t turn up and he went to the shop. Now she’s in real trouble. Mr Hardy, Cliff, can you… ‘
I put my hand to my head, the swelling was large and pulpy and very tender to the touch. ‘Yeah, yeah. I’ll try to find her Ma. If she’s ducking parole she won’t want to see me. I might have to be rough.’
‘You do what you bleedin’ have to.’
I told her I’d work on it and keep her informed. She asked if she could help, but I couldn’t see how she could. Then she said to be careful; that was nice, not many of my clients told me to be careful.
I had a cautious shower and shave and got dressed gingerly. Some food and a little wine and a careful checking of my gun made me feel better.
It was a little after six when I got to the house in Erskineville. There didn’t seem to be any point in subtlety. I banged on the door, and when a hairy man in a dressing gown opened it I put the. 38 to his right cheek.
‘I want the tall, thin guy. Where is he?’
His mouth opened but no sound came out. I jabbed him a little with the gun. ‘Where?’
‘He’s gone. Went this morning.’
‘Show me.’
We went down the dark hallway to a room at the back of the house. It had a bed and some basic furniture and was fairly clean. There were marks on the walls where posters had been torn off and dust mark on the floor showed where a bag or a box had stood. I motioned the man to stand in a corner while I looked in the cheap wardrobe: it was empty and so were the top two drawers beside it. I felt around in the bottom drawer and came out with a plastic syringe, the disposable kind. I held it up.
‘Diabetic, is he?’
‘No, no’, he stammered. There were three roaches in an ashtray by the bed.
I looked at the man who was fiddling with the cord of the dressing gown. ‘What’s his name?’
‘Paul.’
‘Paul what?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Where did he go?’
‘Don’t know.’
‘Don’t know much, do you?’
‘I don’t know nothing. He stayed here a few weeks, paid his rent sometimes, not lately. I’m glad to be rid of him.’
There was no point in pressing it. I put the gun away and left. Things were stirring in Annie’s little circle and it wasn’t too hard to guess what was causing the movement.
The next stop was Primo Tomasetti’s tattooing parlour which is just down the way from my office. For a consideration Primo lets me park my car in the yard behind his establishment. I pushed the door open and entered Primo’s surrealistic cavern: the parlour consists of a one big room which is decorated over every inch with designs, large and small, which Primo promises to transfer to the skin. His creations range from the heterosexual-nautical to the most vivid, eastern philosophy-inspired fantasies. I usually gape a bit on entering Primo’s because he is capable of changing the motif of a wall overnight: I once saw disgusting imaginings involving mermaids changed into inter-galactic, time-capsule obscenities over ten hours. Primo paints on the walls and sticks needles into the skin. There was a cowbell hanging from the ceiling and I rang it. Primo leapt into the room from somewhere dark and gloomy behind: that’s how he moves, in jumps, except when he’s wielding his tool of trade.
‘Primo, caro, bonno sierra!’
He winced and adjusted the bow tie, spotted, red on white, he wears with the business shirt, the white coat and the dark slacks.
‘Cliff, you are the least talented linguist I have ever had inflicted on me.’ He reeled off some liquid sounds with gestures, and I watched admiringly.
‘Mondo cane’, I said, ‘L’adventura, Hiroshima mon amoure. Primo, old friend, I need your help.’
‘At last!’ He clasped his hands together and looked skywards like a bishop. ‘I see a Walther PPK, gun metal,
