out several decades worth of rubbish, including innumerable layers of lino. A few floorboards had come up with the bottom layer. But the hot water service had worked OK and we’d had some fun in the bath and upstairs on a mattress afterwards. Pretty good memories and maybe things hadn’t gone too sour between us even now. I lay there until the water got cool. Then I put on a towelling dressing gown and made myself some Welsh rarebit with lashings of Worcestershire sauce. It was close to midnight when I sat down to eat after a day of tennis, two-way assault and battery and sudden, brutal death.
12
Sundays were quiet in Glebe. The container terminal across the water was silent and the traffic rumble was absent. The planes were fewer and came later. My neighbours didn’t bang doors and start engines at ungodly hours, and Glebe was not motor mower territory. As a result of all this silence and stillness, and my exertions of the day before, I slept late. It was an unusually peaceful sleep and I felt fine after some coffee and a toasted bacon sandwich.
I didn’t look as good as I felt. My nose was swollen to nearly twice its size and it wasn’t a small hooter to begin with. At least it hadn’t been broken again. Twice was quite enough. One eye was slightly blackened but sunglasses would conceal that. My jaw was a bit puffy but it had stopped aching. On balance, I’d hurt Pascoe more than he’d hurt me and that was only physically. When it came to pride, I was streets ahead-but that could pose problems for later on. But it was a fine, clear morning and I was a temporary bachelor with no responsibilities and interesting work on hand.
I drank some more coffee out in the concrete backyard and thought about flying up to Cairns to spend some time in the sun with Cyn. Maybe Loggins’ idea of acting as a bait was the quickest way to get through to that happy scenario. Somehow, I wasn’t able to convince myself.
The phone rang and it was Doc Lee on the line, chirping cheerfully and asking me how my Sam Spade act had worked. He sounded very uppish-maybe he’d felt rejuvenated by the tennis and had slipped it to Inge for the first time in a while.
‘It went OK, Doc,’ I said. ‘Thanks for the help.’
‘I asked around a bit about that Perkins chap. Discreetly, you understand. You need to watch your step with him, boy.’
‘I know. I spoke to Cyn last night. She’s enjoying the job. I might go up and see her in a week or so.’
‘Good idea. I’m glad to hear you two are getting along. Inge sends her best.’
All sweetness and light on the home front. A rare condition. I turned my mind to the weighty question of locating a private investigator by the name of Dick, presumably Richard, Maxwell. There was no telephone listing for him but that wasn’t too deflating. His agency might have a name, like Ace Detective, or he might work for one of the big shows like the Montalban Agency or the Blaine outfit. A few security firms employ PEAs too, and there are some attached to big hotels. I needed firsthand information and the obvious source was Ernie Glass. The problem was that the easiest place to find Ernie, the Tottenham Hotel in Glebe Point Road, was closed because it was Sunday. Easiest? It was the only place I’d ever talked with him. I knew he lived in the immediate vicinity of the pub and the only thing to do was to wander down there. The Tottenham did a steady sly grog trade on Sunday, selling bottles and flagons after midday in the backyard at double the weekday price. Maximum of three bottles and one flagon to a customer. Ernie always laid in stocks; I’d seen him toting them carefully away on a Saturday evening. An ant. But one of the Sunday grasshoppers would be sure to know where he lived.
The rear entrance to the Tottenham was in a lane quite a long way back from the main road. The business was conducted discreetly with a minimum of noise and fuss. The police knew about it, of course, and occasionally moved in to close the operation down for a few weeks. Token stuff. They either got a kick-back or decided the peace was better kept by allowing drinkers to get their poison than by depriving them. Cynics accepted the first motive, idealists the second. I tended to think it was probably a bit of both.
Things were quiet this Sunday. I wandered up and down after having a word, and passing a few dollars, to Freddy, the lookout. The customers varied between winos after their port and muscatel, and better-heeled types who’d forgotten to lay in the riesling for lunch. Ernie’s mates weren’t of either stamp-army pals, old jockeys, footballers and boxers and women of the world who liked a drink and a joke. I knew a few of them by sight and I’d asked Freddy, who worked as a barman and chucker-out at the pub, to give me a nod if one of Ernie’s friends showed up.
It was warm in the lane and I was ready for a drink myself by the time Freddy called me over. The man he indicated was middle-aged with a seamed face and a thick body that might once have been athletic.
‘Reg, this is Cliff Hardy. He’s a mate of Ernie Glass’. Reg Kerr, Cliff. Reg used to play for Balmain. Winger.’
I shook Reg’s hand and tried not to look shocked at the realisation that he was short a few fingers.
‘Yeah,’ he drawled. ‘Just couldn’t catch the fuckin’ thing after I lost them digits.’
He had three bottles of Reschs Pilsener in a paper bag under his arm. ‘Party?’ I asked.
He winked. ‘Couple of sheilas coming by. Could be. Well, nice to meet you, Cliff.’
‘You need more than three bottles for a party,’ I said. ‘Freddy, you could organise another three, couldn’t you?’
‘Sure,’ Freddy said. He took the note I gave him, looked both ways up and down the lane and went through the back gate into the pub’s yard.
‘I’m looking for Ernie, Reg,’ I said. ‘I don’t have his address. I only ever met him here. D’you happen to know where he lives?’
‘Not a cop, are you? Ernie’s a bit behind on the child support I hear.’
‘No. I’m in the same game-private inquiries.’
He laughed. ‘And you can’t find him. You blokes are full of shit.’
I grinned. ‘It’s Sunday. The usual channels are closed.’
Freddy came back with the bottles and my change and then took up his post down the lane. I stuffed the money in a pocket and offered the paper bag to Reg. ‘What do you say? I could find him tomorrow but I need him today. It’s important.’
‘Say you know him?’
‘Yes. He helped me get into the business.’
‘Who does he support?’
Fair enough question in the context, but football wasn’t one of my passions and I couldn’t recall ever having a conversation about it with Ernie. Then it came to me, his outrage when his club’s try had been declared invalid and the other side had won a finals match.
‘Newtown,’ I said.
‘Right. The cunt. Ernie’s got a flat in Ferry Road. Flat 2, 4A. Say I said hello. Ta for the beer.’
I thanked him, gave Freddy the thumbs-up and began to thread my way through the back streets. No time like the present. Ferry Road follows the lie of the land, running down to Blackwattle Bay. The area was undergoing a lot of change-rusty, ramshackle factories coming down, small boatyards and workshops closing, apartment blocks rising on the sites. There were still some of the old houses, narrow single and double-storey terraces jammed close together with built-in verandas and porches dating back to the Depression when rentable space was at a premium. Number 4A was smarter than most- a well-maintained terrace with two letter boxes on the gate, indicating that it was divided into only two flats.
Flat 2 was reached by an iron staircase running up the side of the building to a balcony at the back. I knocked at the glass-panelled door and Ernie’s distinctive shape appeared in the mottled pane almost immediately. Ernie stood about six-four when he was younger but had stooped a bit in recent years. He was still big all over- shoulders, arms and chest. He pushed his glasses back from the end of his big nose.
‘Cliff, old son. What brings you around here? Don’t tell me your wife’s left you and you need someone to find her?’
‘Hah, hah. No, mate, I need a line on one of our co-workers. I get the feeling he’s more your vintage than mine.’
