‘I’ve got an appointment. I expected you to be some dim summons server, Hardy. I can see that you are not.’ He smiled and put a lot of warmth in it; the smile and the voice together would bowl over most women and a lot of men. ‘In fact I think you have a genuine interest in human character which is quite an unusual thing to have. So I will take a chance with you. This is a complete shot in the dark, but I’d say that if Mountain managed to achieve the sort of self-control you’re talking about he would be capable of extraordinary things-a great novel, a terrible crime. Almost anything.’
I stood up and he stood too. We were about the same height as we faced each other over the antique desk. I guessed he would get a lot of transference from his patients-that process where the progressing patient imagines that he or she is in love with the analyst. Hilde used to say that it happened a bit with dentists, too. It wasn’t a problem I’d had to contend with. He came around the desk to see me out and we shook hands again.
I couldn’t resist it; he was just too comfortable and secure for my liking. ‘Did you know that Mountain kept notes on his sessions with you, Doctor? He analysed you, spotted a few weaknesses too.’
His grizzled, pepper-and-salt eyebrows shot up and he looked positively pleased. ‘Really! How interesting. But I can’t say I’m at all surprised. I recommended just such an activity as part of his therapy.’
14
I didn’t see the woman in the jodhpurs on my way out, but I did recognise Dr Holmes’ next patient as I passed through the gate a little ahead of him. Anyone who watched television or read the tabloids would know him from his talk show, where he smiled equally broadly at beauty queens with impoverished vocabularies and RSL officials emotionally arrested in 1945. He was never heard to voice an opinion and was known for his unflappability. He looked pretty flapped now as he advanced towards Holmes’ doorway, as if he was about to melt under the strain of all that affability. I greeted him by his Christian name and he shot me a look as haunted as any ever dreamed of by Edgar Allan Poe.
I drove to my office where the only thing happening was the gathering of dust. On the way back to my car I stopped in at the tattoo parlour on the ground floor, to try out the descriptions of my car park playmates on Primo Tomasetti. Primo has a photographic memory for the faces that sit on top of the bodies he tattoos.
There was no hum coming from the shop, which meant that Primo wasn’t working. I knew he’d either be dozing or sketching designs for tattoos, designs that would always owe a lot to Goya and William Blake. I pushed aside the curtain and saw him hunched over his cartridge paper with a crayon held in his thick fingers moving rapidly in bold strokes.
‘Where d’you get your inspiration from?’ I said.
Primo looked up and grinned. ‘It’s in the blood.’ He scratched at his wiry black hair and brushed the shoulder of the white lab coat he wore over a pink shirt. I once told him he should put a row of ballpoints in the pocket of the coat and he’d look like Ben Casey, but, like everyone under forty, he’s never heard of Ben Casey. ‘My grandfather was the greatest document forger in World War I.’
‘On which side?’
Primo scratched some more. ‘I never bothered to ask. Does it matter?’
‘Not for World War 1 it doesn’t. Look, Primo, I ran into two unfriendly guys the other day-one big, flabby, bit slow, the other was smaller, dark with a bitter look, like he’d gone straight from the orphanage to Long Bay. Ferrety-looking. Any ideas? They seemed like a team.’
‘Hard to say. Cliff.’ He put. down the crayon. ‘Can’t place the flabby one, he sounds like ten cops I know. What’s a ferret?’
‘Small animal they put down holes to flush out rabbits.’
He picked up the crayon and a rabbit appeared on the paper.
‘That’s fascinating. What happens next?’
‘You shoot the rabbits when they come out or wring their necks. I had an uncle used to do it. He’d ride for miles on his bike and he’d always bring back a bag of rabbits.’
‘Did he bring back the ferrets?’
‘Yeah, in a cage on the back of the bike.’
‘What did he send down after the ferrets to get them out of the hole?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Strange place, this Australia. Weird customs. Okay, a guy who looks like he could go down holes after rabbits. That sounds a bit like Carl Peroni.’
‘He didn’t look Italian.’
‘Not all Italians look like Al Pacino. Some in the north look like Robert Redford. It sounds like him is all I’m saying.’
‘Where does he hang out?’
‘Mostly in a coffee place with a pool room called the Venezia. Off Crown Street, you know it?’
‘I think so, yeah. Thanks, Primo.’
‘Hang on, Cliff. I’d go very quietly there if I was you.’
‘I’m known for my tact.’
‘Seriously.’
‘I’m not. planning to bust the Mafia, mate. I’m just going to show the flag, show that I know who works for who and how to find them.’
‘What good would that do?’
‘Always helps to be positive-attack the net.’
‘Attack the net. Is that how they catch the ferrets?’
‘No, that’s tennis. If I find out how they catch the ferrets I’ll let you know, seeing you’re so interested.’
‘You could ask you uncle.’
‘He’s been dead for twenty years.’
Primo starting hatching in a section of his drawing. ‘That probably means his ferrets are dead, too.’
Being mono-lingual, I’ll give the last word any day to a man who can make a joke in his second language. Besides, doing that usually makes people happy to talk to you again and Primo was a first-class source.
It was after five, getting towards wine or gin time rather than coffee time, but I wandered down to the Venezia anyway. It was a nice afternoon for a walk, or would have been sixty years ago when my rabbitto uncle was a boy. Now the traffic was banked up in William Street right back to the tunnel. The air was thick with fumes from idling engines; the case for lead free petrol seemed urgent. I was wearing a white shirt, dark pants and my Italian shoes; I could play a fair game of pool but my Italian was non-existent beyond una cappuccino molto caldo, per favore. The Venezia has two entrances, one on one street and the other around the corner which is occupied by a florist. From the steady twenty-four-hours-a day, 365-days-a-week trade the Venezia did, you’d have thought they could’ve bought out the florist and expanded, but maybe the florist didn’t have a price. I wandered in at Crown Street, bought my coffee and went through pinball and video game purgatory to the pool room. You could buy coffee in there and something stronger if you had the right look about you. All four tables were in operation and the couple of nests of tables and chairs were crammed full of men talking, sipping and smoking; no women. I leaned against the counter and watched a player run a series of balls into the pockets. He had the expert’s simultaneous total concentration and relaxation-whether he’d have grace under pressure was another question.
I finished the coffee and ordered another. The man serving it wore long sideburns that covered his cheeks to within a centimetre of his nostrils. He wasn’t busy but he seemed determined to give me the minimum attention he could get away with. I fumbled for money and counted it slowly to extend his attention span.
‘Do you know Carl Peroni by any chance?’ I compared a dull dollar coin to a shiny ten cent piece.
‘Carl? Yes.’ His fingers obviously itched to pull the right money from my handful of coins.
‘Expect him in tonight?’
His shrug sketched the coastline of the Bay of Naples in a single movement. I got out a ball point pen and flicked it; I really had his attention now.
‘Got a bit of paper? I want to leave him a message.’
