‘Beats me. He was a copper. That didn’t last. Reckon he resigned. I reckon they give him the arse. Then he had a job with some transport bunch. Then I don’t know. Got one of them German cars, cost more than a house. Lives in a flat in bloody Toorak, know that, got the address. Got the bloody keys too.’
‘How’s that?’
‘Give em to me that day when he come smoodgin around for the lend. Dad this and Dad that. Dad, d’ya mind hangin on to me spare keys, case I lose mine?’
‘This was before the man from the bank came round?’
‘Oh, yeah. Don’t think I’d’ve lent the bugger the money if I knew he’d got a mortgage on his mum’s house, do ya?’
I didn’t say anything. Des looked down at his hands again. He wanted something from me. I wanted to give him something.
‘I could write him a letter,’ I said. ‘Lawyer’s letter. Tell him we want the money or else.’
‘Or else what?’
‘Or else we’ll institute proceedings for the recovery of the debt.’
‘That any good?’
I scratched my head. It wasn’t itchy. Vestigial animal body language revealing doubt. ‘Depends,’ I said. ‘Works with some.’
‘Won’t work with Gary,’ said Des with absolute certainty. ‘Brass balls.’
‘Well,’ I said, ‘not much one can do otherwise.’
Silence. Des had the disappointed look on his face again. Finally, he said, ‘Go around to his place and see if the bastard’s still livin there. That’s what I’d do if I could.’
‘We could go around to where he lives,’ I said.
‘You and me?’
‘I could drive you around there.’
‘No,’ said Des. ‘Not your problem. Just came to make me will.’ He never took his eyes off me.
‘Enjoy a drive,’ I said. ‘You could tell me a bit more about my old man.’
He brightened. ‘Bill Irish,’ he said. ‘Stories I could tell you.’
‘Tuesday. About 10 a.m. Give me your address. I’ll pick you up.’
3
‘Jack,’ said the voice on the office answering machine. ‘Ring me. You never ring me, you shit.’
I didn’t ring her. No phone call to my sister, Rosa, lasts less than half an hour and, from the canyons of Fitzroy, the beer was calling. I was still tired, sagging from my two weeks looking for the alibi witnesses who could save Cyril Wootton’s client Brendan O’Grady.
But.
My days wandering through the toxic wasteland of Tony Ulasewicz’s life would keep Brendan out of jail for a crime of which he was certainly innocent.
Justice for Brendan.
But.
In a world of perfect justice, would Brendan walk free?
Absolutely not. In such a world, the naked Brendan would be dragged from his round waterbed, subjected to ritual humiliation, then thrown face forward into a pit of starving hyenas. Too extreme? What of the ideal of rehabilitation? Certainly Brendan was capable of changing. He could be permanently changed, perhaps into rose fertiliser, a kilo and a bit of blood and bone.
At peace for the moment, I walked the fifty paces to Taub’s Cabinetmaking, down the narrow lane that ran to Smith Street, Collingwood.
I opened the battered door, stood for a moment. The smell of the workshop: wood shavings, linseed oil, Charlie’s Cuban cheroots, coffee. Charlie was at the back of the large space, opening and closing the raised-panel door of a narrow, elegant rosewood cupboard. Joints, doors, drawers. For Charlie, it was pistonfit or nothing.
Out of the corner of his eye he saw me coming. ‘So,’ he said without looking at me. ‘Man who finds the scum of the earth. Man who breaks his parents’ hearts. Horses and criminals. That’s his life.’
‘It’s too late for him to break his parents’ hearts,’ I said. ‘And sometimes the criminals are on the horses. That door fits.’
Charlie closed the cupboard door, opened it a fraction, closed it. ‘An old man,’ he said, ‘should be retired. But no, he goes on, teaches something to this person who won’t go away, this nuisance person. What thanks does the old man get?’
I walked around to look at the back of the cupboard. The back of a Charlie Taub piece, destined to be seen only by removalists, was treated the same way as a violinmaker treats the bottom of the violin. ‘Let me guess,’ I said. ‘Bugger all?’
‘Those who hear not the voice of the conscience,’ Charlie said. ‘Those are the truly deaf. Karl Bernsdorf. He said that. A great man.’
I said, ‘I quote him all the time. Maybe they could train a conscience dog for handicapped people like me. You even think about not behaving well, the dog nudges your leg.’
Charlie made his snorting noise. ‘Nudges? Pisses on it. Eat your leg off, right up to the hip even, won’t help.’
I came around to look at the severe pediment. ‘I gather you missed me a lot then?’
Another snort. ‘What I miss, I miss someone finishes little jobs I give him. Like little tables. Day’s work for a man who actually works.’
‘Finished tomorrow,’ I said. ‘Good as done. Now, time for a beer.’
Getting Charlie out the front door took me another ten minutes. He was quite unable to end the working day without going around touching, fiddling with, and testing the work in progress. Left alone, this could amount to half an hour of shuffling, muttering and whistling.
Outside, the coming winter was in the polluted air, the cold sharpening the smell of the hydrocarbons. We walked to the Prince of Prussia, Charlie telling me about his latest bowls triumph.
‘Youngsters,’ he said. ‘We draw to play these junge. They think, old buggers, goodbye. I say to Freddie Chan, he thinks we got no chance, “Freddie, I say, what do these pishers know about skill? Nothing, that’s what.’’ He doesn’t believe. Well. Next thing, the little fat boy and the other one, the chemist. Mr Pills. In the gutter. You follow?’
‘Every word.’ We were walking past the old chutney factory. A yellow Porsche and a huge four-wheel-drive were parked on the pavement. Two men, one shaven-headed, the other with a ponytail, were talking in the open doorway. You could smell the sweet, vinegary smell of the long-gone chutney barrels.
‘The pricks like the industrial look,’ the man with the pigtail said to shaven-head as we came abreast. ‘Some paint, some plumbing, don’t even have to hide the fucking pipes.’
‘So where am I lying?’ said Charlie. ‘So close, a veneer you can’t get it in between. That’s where I am and that’s the end of these smart boys. Freddie, he can’t believe it. He says to me, “Charlie, you’re a master.’’’
‘Toothless whip ruthless,’ I said. ‘These pishers, how old are they, more or less?’
Charlie shrugged, waved a huge hand. ‘Sixty, sixty-five, there around.’
‘Pishers,’ I said. ‘They should have a junior league for them.’
The Prince was its usual vibrant, cutting-edge-of-the- hospitality-industry self. Stan, the publican, was at the far end of the bar reading a paperback called Desperado: Success Secrets of the New Small-Business Bandidos. At the counter, the men Charlie called the Fitzroy Youth Club, Wilbur Ong, Norm O’Neill and Eric Tanner-all men who were shaving when Fitzroy won the 1944 Grand Final-were reflecting on past injustices. Next to them, Wally Pollard, retired tram driver, was talking bowls with a man called Alec Leach. Three other men were seated at a table in the corner studying the racing pages of the Herald Sun. Under the window, two thirtyish women, serious-looking, short hair, business clothes, were studying what looked like proof copies of the telephone directory.
Charlie veered off to join the bowls talk. I sat down next to Wilbur Ong.
