addresses in Lugarno and Bankstown and stepped back. A lot of territory to cover.
It was after seven p.m. but daylight saving was still in operation and the office was gloomy rather than dark. Still, I switched on a light and squatted on the edge of my desk staring at the map. The city had provided me with my living for a long time now but I occasionally thought of leaving it, never more than after one of my trips up north to stay with Tess. But on the drive back I’d started thinking about how I’d earn a living up there. That led logically to thoughts of selling the Glebe terrace for a bundle, investing the loot and moving in with Tess. By Coffs Harbour I’d convinced myself that this was the intelligent thing to do. By Port Macquarie I was having doubts and by Newcastle I was thinking with horror of sitting around doing nothing or taking up fishing and the impulse had well and truly passed. Tess hadn’t been pleased.
I hadn’t ever bothered to mark my Glebe address or the Darlinghurst location of my office on the map and I did it now with blue ticks. It made me feel anchored in the right place. I’d heard people say they no longer liked Sydney because it’d become so international as to be characterless — anywhere and nowhere. To my mind that depends on where you drink, and I was late getting there.
3
Contrary to popular belief, the best time to put awkward questions to people is not at night when they’re tired but first thing in the morning. If they’re in a rush to get somewhere they’re likely to answer the questions to get rid of you. If they’re not, well, you’ve got all the time in the world to work on them. It’s best, though, to have been up earlier yourself and have all your juices running.
I was at Wesley Scott’s Redgum Gymnasium and Fitness Centre in Norton Street, Leichhardt, shortly after its six a.m. opening time. I stripped, warmed up briefly and went into my routine on the machines. Nothing too strenuous. Lots of reps at low weights, trying for flexibility rather than strength. The gym has fans rather than air- conditioning as a good gym should, but it was pretty hot even that early on a March day which promised to be summery. I was displaying a light film of sweat after working on the seated bench press when Wesley walked up and eyed me critically.
‘You should be sweating more, Cliff.’
‘Sweat yourself, Wes. I’ve got a busy day ahead.’
Wes is West Indian and a former body-building champion. His body hasn’t deteriorated even though the tightly curled hair and clipped moustache are grey. I helped him out once and we became friends of a sort. He shook his head. ‘A true weight trainer doesn’t compromise his workout for other things.’
I stepped across to the pec deck and adjusted the pin so that the machine carried less weight. I’m trying for tone,’ I said. ‘Svelte, you know?’
‘Forget svelte. White men don’t get svelte.’
Just then Detective Sergeant Peter Lo walked into the gym as I was hoping he would. Peter is Balinese, married to an Australian, and the name he goes by is only an approximation of his real name. He wouldn’t have made it into the New South Wales police force a few years back because he stands only about 155 centimetres. But, sign of the times, the cops dropped the height requirement in deference to the changed ethnic mix of the Australian population. In Lo they got a man as smart as a whip packed into a muscular body.
‘Now there’s a man who works out,’ Wes said.
I nodded and set about doing my insignificant thing on the pec deck. Wes wandered away and I completed my workout, ending with a longer warm down than usual. I kept an eye on Lo. As I finished stretching he was doing concentrated curls using a weight I would have had trouble getting off the floor with both hands. His brown bicep bulged and the veins stood out like blue ropes. He did fifteen, slowly, in a perfect rhythm with each hand, before fastidiously wiping the grip down and restoring the weight to the rack.
He saw me watching and walked over. Lo was broad across the shoulders and chest and thick through. He wasn’t strictly speaking a bodybuilder, but his arms couldn’t hang straight by his sides because of his muscularity and the development made him look shorter than he was.
He flashed a whiter-than-white smile and pushed back his damp hair. ‘Hey, Cliff, done enough?’
‘Not according to Wes, but all I can manage. Can I have a word with you when you’ve finished your Schwarzenegger act?’
‘Sure. I’ll just do a bit of pressing and warm down. We’ll have a coffee down the street.’
‘Does Arnold drink coffee?’
‘He smokes cigars so I bet he does.’
I didn’t want to see him bench pressing. He practically needed to put every weight in the place on the bar. I showered and waited for him in the Bar Napoli a few doors from the gym. The pace of gentrification seems to have stepped up in Leichhardt over the past few years as if it’s in competition with somewhere else and afraid of being left behind. The Italian flavour is still there but it’s being added to by other cultures. The package is wrapped up nicely in bricked footpaths and newly planted trees and fancy civic signs. You can buy just about anything you fancy eating or drinking or wearing, but you’ll pay for it.
The kind of workout I do isn’t very tiring, but it gives me a hell of an appetite and I have to remind myself not to undo all the good work. Lo rolled in and sat down and we ordered black coffee and raisin toast, no butter. We talked gym talk until the food came and then we concentrated on that.
‘So,’ Lo said. ‘What can public law enforcement do for the private sector?’
I finished my coffee and signalled to Paolo for a refill. “That’s funny. I’ve never thought of myself as being in law enforcement. More like… problem solving.’
Lo laughed. ‘Me, too.’
‘I’m interested in finding out about the drug scene in a certain part of Sydney.’
‘What part?’
‘Down along the Georges River — Peakhurst, Lugarno, down there.’
‘At a guess, zilch, but it sounds like you know something I don’t.’
I gave him a heavily edited version of the story. He listened while sipping his second cup of coffee. Mine was getting cold while I talked. Lo nodded several times, which only meant that he was attending, not that he believed me. I finished and drank the lukewarm coffee. ‘If your client had information about illegal activity he’d be in breach of the law in using it for his own purposes. So would you.’
‘Come on, Peter.’
‘It sounds more like law manipulation than law enforcement.’
‘Right, such as a barrister or a solicitor might do.’
He laughed again. ‘Point taken. Is the person your client is trying to protect worth protecting?’
‘I can’t afford such fine ethical distinctions. I just don’t know. It’s early days.’
‘You haven’t met her?’
‘Did I say her?’
‘Balinese intuition plus observation of your body language.’
‘I’m just sitting here.’
“That’s what you think.’
This hadn’t gone as I’d hoped. Of course I hadn’t expected to learn anything about a Mr Big supplying drugs in the area. What I was really fishing for was the police take on dealers there and specifically Danni Price. But Lo’s acuteness had put him closer to my intention than was comfortable. I shrugged, meaning for me — not important… God knows what it meant to Peter Lo.
‘Wes thinks a lot of you. He was giving me one of his bloody excruciating deep tissue massages and he told me how you’d saved his son from big trouble. I like that. I’ll talk to the drugs boys and see what I can find out. When’ll you be here again?’
‘Day after tomorrow.’
‘Bludger. If I help, you can buy me a drink.’
‘Sure. What d’you drink?’
‘Dom Perignon.’
