‘I’m working for the guy you stole the cars from.’ His tongue flicked out and worked at the corner of his mouth; I realised that he was trying to perform the old nervous trick of trapping a beard hair in his teeth and pulling it out with a movement of his head. The tongue moved uselessly. ‘That’s what the other one said.’
‘You mean the guy at Blackheath?’
‘You have been on the trail, Cliff. Congratulations on reaching the end.’
I summoned up some breath and saliva to enable me to speak clearly and keep the fear down. ‘Let’s not piss around, Mountain. You’re in big, big trouble, but it’s probably not too late to pull something out of this mess.’
He laughed then; the basso I’d heard in pubs and in his house; it was a warm, rich, totally good-humoured sound, and so inappropriate in that chamber of horrors that it had the effect of making me shiver. ‘I’ve been on a journey,’ he said easily. ‘An incredible journey, the like of which no man has ever been on before.’
‘Bullshit! You’re talking half-baked mysticism, and you’ve been acting out fantasies half the men in Sydney share. Quit before you go too far.’
‘You wouldn’t understand. After all those years of seeing life through the bottom of a bottle, I’ve finally acted, I’ve finally freed myself. I’ve broken the block; I can write again.’
My full-frontal approach hadn’t produced much of a result. Time for the soft-soap? ‘Good for you,’ I said. ‘I know you’ve been writing. Your agent thinks it’s wonderful.’
‘So he should, it is wonderful. I slaved over that, it’s Art!’ Something happened to his eyes, which had been fixed directly on me, as he spoke. They seemed to wander away to focus on the remote distance. He put his hand up to stroke his face; his skin had lost its elasticity, and the flesh moved under his hand and moved back to its original shape only slowly. He unsquatted with the suggestion of an effort; he was still a heavy, bulky man, and walked out of the room. I shouted as he went but he didn’t seem to hear me.
After a few minutes, he came back with Deirdre Kelly. She was wearing spike heeled, thigh-high boots, a G- string and a velvet jerkin that propped up her breasts and left them exposed. The sounds in my head had stopped, and in the few seconds that the door was open I registered that the party was over.
Mountain’s eyes were back to red, wide and crazed again, and he was smiling.
‘I promised Dee I’d let her hear this.’
‘I’m glad you keep your promises,’ I said. ‘It makes me feel more at home.’
That didn’t get a smile from either of them, much less a laugh. ‘This is Cliff Hardy, darling,’ Mountain said. ‘He’s a private detective who does things like finding missing teenagers and throwing drunks out of rich people’s parties.’
Kelly didn’t seem to be listening; she played with her right nipple, poking and teasing at it until it stood out an inch from her breast. She moved rhythmically, as if she was listening to music being played inside her head.
‘Do you know how dangerous this woman is?’ I said. ‘She’s crazy, she has rape fantasies. She’s the worst kind of trouble on legs.’ I realised how silly it sounded as I said it, but I was desperately trying to touch bases, to stand up for normality in the bizarre surroundings. ‘Come on, Bill, this isn’t you. You’re a writer, you need a keyboard and paper and something to drink.’
‘I don’t drink any more.’ His voice was childlike with pleasure at forming the words. It was useless to try reaching him by referring to his earlier life. He pulled at the inelastic, slack skin on his face and twitched his tongue out of the corner of his mouth. A nerve jumped under his right eye: he was well away, responding to chemical and emotional stimuli all new and all his own.
Kelly knew how to get through to him; she massaged his upper arm with her long, strong fingers and carried his hand up to her breast. He gripped the nipple between thumb and forefinger and squeezed hard. I saw the pain wave hit her and give way to something else; a dreamy look came over her face and her purple tongue licked her lips as if they were sugar-coated. ‘I want to hear all about it,’ she said.
‘All about what?’ I said.
The tongue flicked out. ‘How did he look, the man at the Blackheath house? The one Bill killed. How did he look?’
‘He looked dead. And Bill’ll look the same way if certain people catch up with him.’
Mountain grinned as if he’d caught me out in a lie. ‘I thought you said you weren’t working for them?’
‘That’s right. But I ran into a man named Grey who’s working for the mob you’ve been playing games with. He doesn’t want to play games; he thinks you know more about his operation than you should. He wants you dead.’
‘So he sends you to do the job?’ Kelly murmured.
‘No, Jesus, It’s too complicated a story to tell you now. Come on, this is ridiculous; you look very nice in your outfits but I’m freezing my arse off. Let’s quit the playacting and start thinking: I’ve got contacts, I can arrange a few things.’
Mountain wasn’t listening. ‘I had to imagine that part,’ he said. ‘The car thieves coming after me. Grey, you say? Good name, wish I’d thought of that. I wonder if I got it right otherwise?’
‘I’ve seen your synopsis. You got it pretty right.’
‘What about the people who supply the drugs to Dee and her crowd? They must be after me, I left clues.’
I shook my head, but I had to think of something to say instead of just sitting there like a trussed-up bale of wool. I sensed that his sympathies were with action and danger; passivity could be fatal. ‘I don’t know about them. God knows, Artie Henderson’s not a very reliable associate. If they’ve got on to him somehow they could be getting close. Christ, Bill, how much trouble can you handle? And it’s not just you, there’s…’
He gripped my jaw and ground the bones together. ‘Yes, Hardy? There’s who?’
Gripped like that I couldn’t talk and it was no time to mention Erica anyway-Kelly would regard someone else’s suffering as just part of the fun. Mountain went on grinding my face, but Kelly got impatient. He’d let go her nipple, and it looked as if she was jealous of the attention I was getting. She wandered away towards the whip rack; her bare buttocks above the tops of the shiny boots were a little flabby and there were bruises, precisely patterned, across them. Mountain gave my jaw a vicious twist and let go. He expected an answer.
‘You’re a sick man, Bill. I’ve seen Dr Holmes and he wants to talk to you. Maybe he can help. I’m sure he can help keep you out of gaol.’ Mountain didn’t react, and I only had the one card left to play. It was risky. I lowered my voice so Kelly couldn’t hear. ‘Erica wants to help too.’
My dry throat had brought the sound out in a harsh croak that carried more than I’d intended. Kelly came back in a few long strides. ‘Why’s he whispering?’
‘He says Erica wants to help me.’
She laughed that cackling hoot again; it was a cruel, twisted sound full of pleasure at the thought of pain, and contempt for anything gentle. ‘Erica,’ she spat, ‘if I had her here now I’d take her yellow hide off.’
‘Yes,’ Mountain said. ‘You could. Where is she, Hardy?’
Looking up at the pair of them, I took a mental vow of silence. Nothing a rational person said could possibly make any kind of sense to them; they were travelling in a private dreamland signposted by drug fantasies and guided by obsessions that might have started in the womb. Kelly’s fingers were sliding up and down a long, thin cane, and she was looking at Mountain with a rapt expression. He glanced at her and then down at his own body; the change that came over his face made me draw in breath sharply. He seemed to be filled with revulsion. He ran his hands over his chest and clawed at his nipples and the thick, grizzled hair. Kelly watched him, breathing hard.
‘Have you slept with Erica, Hardy?’
I shook my head. ‘You’ve got bigger problems, Mountain. You’re headed for a padded cell, years of being treated like a child
‘He has, he has!’ Kelly almost shrieked. ‘He’s sucked her and she’s…’
Mountain jerked the cane out of her hand; he acted decisively and then seemed to go dreamy again. It was eerie to watch his body following his mind in its wafting fluctuations. He flexed the cane and newly-tightened muscles moved under the old slack skin on his upper body. He looked down at me and spoke slowly, dreamily. ‘I’ve finished the book.’
Kelly pouted. ‘You didn’t tell me.’
Mountain’s face seemed to dissolve. ‘I loaded up on speed and I blasted for thirty-six hours straight. I did the whole thing in thirty-six hours.’
‘How does it end?’ I said.
