him again. The father’s been told his kid was on the piss with the three of them. You can guess what comes next, Frank?’
Parker scratched at his heavy beard; the noise was like amplified radio static. ‘I’d have to ask around a bit. That wouldn’t be too hard, there’s still people who owe me favours.’
‘I’d be grateful’, I said.
He wasn’t listening to me; he was off in the private world the persecuted build for themselves in the long, quiet nights and the slow, slow days.
‘Favours… favours. I can put pressure on people-bucket them if I want to. They’re afraid of me. Sometimes I think the whole bloody system runs on terror.’
‘Easy, Frank. I don’t want any terror. Just a line on Catchpole-who he’s fizzgigging for at the moment. What might be going on.’
‘Why don’t you front him?’
‘It might come to that. I’m just trying to be subtle first.’
‘Haven’t lost your nerve have you, Cliff?’
‘Come on, you know Liam and his sort better than I do. Thumping them does no bloody good. You make it worth their while if you can, or you find someone else who’ll tell you what they won’t. Thumping’s no good unless you’re prepared to go all the way. Liam would’ve got thumped in the cradle.’
‘You sound like a social worker.’
‘Just ask-will you?’
‘Okay.’
‘Thanks. Another beer.?’
‘No, don’t think so,’ He stretched his arms out in front of him and shook the imaginary bars of a cage. The old knife-scar showed dirty white on his black-haired forearm. ‘I reckon I’m glad you dropped by, Cliff.’
‘How’s that? Stimulating company, I know.’
‘I’m not going to lie down under this. I’m forty-three, I’ve been in the force for twenty years. I like the work. I’ve got a bloody investment in it. And they owe me.’
I nodded and let him talk.
‘I’m going to make a stink. That’s where you can help me. Tit for tat.’
‘Charmed. How?’
‘I’d like to have a session with your journo mate, Harry Tickener. I could tell him a thing or two.’
‘Jesus, Frank, don’t just jump into that. Think hard about it.’
‘Would Tickener be interested?’
‘He’d give an arm and a leg.’
We got up and left the pub. Parker pushed the door out and I followed him on to the street. It was early evening, still very warm and the traffic was light. People had got to where they wanted to be. Parker stepped off the kerb to anticipate a break in the thin stream of cars. As he did, a shout of ‘Hey, Frank!’ came from across the street. Parker’s head lifted to look for the shouter, but he kept moving forward. I was a step-and-a-half behind. A green Mazda with hooded headlights left the kerb ten metres away and roared towards Parker like a blinded, pouncing beast. I jumped, and clawed at Parker’s shoulder, digging my fingers in, twisting and pulling him back. We both stumbled and he fell back on top of me. I grazed my hand breaking the fall. The Mazda screamed past.
Parker rolled off me on to his back; he lifted his head off the road. ‘I forgot to tell you’, he said. ‘There’s someone trying to kill me.’
I went to the Noble Briton that night and on the next night, which was Saturday; both visits had their interest for a student of human nature, but neither Ray Guthrie nor Liam Catchpole showed. I made some discreet enquiries around the Cross but came up with nothing. One of the girls said she thought Dottie Williams had gone interstate for a while but was back now. Big help.
Roberta Landy-Drake had a hangover when I phoned her on the Sunday morning.
‘Cliff, you’re not dunning me for your fee are you? That’s not classy. Especially not with the head I have.’
‘I wouldn’t do anything that wasn’t classy, Roberta. No, I wanted to know how to get in touch with Helen Broadway.’
‘Aha. I wonder if I should tell you. Why should you and she feel good when I feel so bad. Tell me that?’
‘Come on.’
She gave me the phone number and the address in Elizabeth Bay. I rang the number, but there was no answer. Well, she said she was doing what she liked and you never know where that will lead you. I wrote the address down, killed some of the day at the Dawn Fraser pool in Balmain, which they’ve cleaned up except for the water, and went home to make my preparations for the evening’s visit to the Noble Briton. Hilde was away for the weekend so I didn’t have to explain why I was having steak and Vitamin B pills for dinner on a Sunday night instead of a bacon sandwich. The reason was to erect a defence against the beer I’d have to consume to maintain my standing at the pub.
It was a mild night; I put on jeans and tee-shirt, and a denim shirt with a longish tail over that. Hanging outside my pants the shirt-tail concealed the gun I wore in a holster inside the waistband at the back. I’d splurged recently on some light Italian shoes which were the only leather shoes I’d ever had which let me forget about my feet. In the breast pocket of the shirt I put a miniature camera which is small enough to hide in your hand and still let you pick your teeth.
I drove up William Street at about 10 p.m. The council has put up a network of barriers in Darlinghurst which block the streets off and turn them into one-way mazes. The intention and effect is to eliminate cars cruising in the area for street pick-ups. As a result, the rougher trade has moved out to William Street. The girls and girl-boys were almost jostling each other in front of the car showrooms, car accessory joints and other businesses: three steps across the pavement takes them to the open car window where the negotiation goes on. Then it’s either in and off or back across the footpath to wait for the next one. The whole transaction takes place on the front seat of the car.
A few blocks back, in the closed-off streets, the women work out of houses with doors that open directly on to the street. They don’t exactly stand in the doorway with one leg up, but they aren’t out in the kitchen either. There’s a soft light in the front room, but that’s about all the softness going.
I parked around the corner in Greenknowe Avenue and walked back to the pub in Darlinghurst Road. The Cross seemed to be operating at about 80 per cent voltage on the Sunday night. Nearly everything was open, nearly everyone who should be was there-the spruikers outside the strip joints, the street girls, the cruisers and the cops-but some of them looked tired as if the seven-day-week which is the norm for the vice business was taking a toll.
The Noble Briton is a survivor, fighting back against the homogenised, imported culture of the eighties. It has the authentic old Australian discomfort-steep, slippery steps to the toilet, cramped bar and blind spots where the barman can’t see you to serve you. The habitues manoeuvre interlopers into those blind spots. The dimness comes from the miserly low wattage of the electric bulbs rather than from any effort at cosiness.
Trade was good: there was a strong platoon of stool-sitters and bar-leaners; there was a gang of old-timers around one table and an intense young couple drinking gin at another. The pool tables were busy. I squeezed in at the bar, ordered a beer and tried to close my nose against the smoke. There was a low hum from the lubricated voices and occasional appreciative female shriek.
As I drank I tried to keep obvious observation to a minimum. Shadowy figures came and went through the door down to the toilet in processions that suggested something other than the call of nature. Men bent their heads together just out of the pools of light cast by the big tables where the cues and balls clicked. It wasn’t the sort of place in which to pay too much attention to what other people were doing.
A blonde woman in a pink, tight skirt that didn’t come down very far over her fat thighs, squeezed in beside me at the bar.
‘Wanna go along?’ She shot a furtive look at the barman who had his back to us and his hands full.
‘Fair go, love. I just got here.’
Nothing showed in her face-not disappointment, annoyance, nothing. She nodded and moved to try further along. She watched the barman like a cat watches a bird, only moving when she judged the time to be right. She also had to watch out for other whores and pimps and predators. On the third try she scored, a tall, thin man with a
