“Are you a religious woman Mrs Baker?” I asked.
She let out a short, breathless version of the cackle I’d heard, on the tape.
“No, no, not a bit. Wish I was, then I could think I’d be seein’ Albie soon, couldn’t I?”
“I suppose so.”
“But it’s bullshit. Things are so bad, so rotten, there couldn’t be a God, not a nice one like they say. Why anyway?”
I explained to her. It took some time and I had to repeat myself. She kept slipping away into some state that telescoped the last fifty years of her life. Things I said triggered memories and resentments and she lived through some scenes the meaning and content of which only she could know. It was her way of facing death and I couldn’t deny it her. In the end she agreed to do what I asked. I called Henderson in and she took down the statement in shorthand, typed it up there and then and Trixie signed two copies.
I took the pen from her skeletal fingers and stepped back from the bed. Her hand fluttered on the coverlet and I bent down to hear what she said. Her voice was very faint.
“All gone now, eh? Albie, Joe Berrigan, me soon. What about Noni? What happened to her?”
“She missed out on all the trouble. She’s got problems though, she’s on drugs.”
“She’ll be alright. She’ll die old and rich.”
It sounded like wisdom and I treated it as such, nodding and saying something in assent. A soft sigh came from her and her eyelids came down. I jerked up alarmed and Henderson glided up to the bed. She took the stick- thin wrist in her strong brown hand and laid fingers across it. After a few seconds she put the arm down and raised her fingers to her lips. We went quietly out of the room.
“She’s asleep but it can’t be long,” Henderson said professionally.
“Are you trained?”
“Five years, army nurse.”
“Your typing looks alright, too.”
“Business school. Graduated first-class.”
“You should be doing more with it.”
“Are you making me an offer?”
I backed away physically and verbally. She’d be running things within a week, telling me what jobs to take and how I could increase my fees.
“No, sorry, I’m in a very small way of business.”
She sniffed and drove me to the airport. It wasn’t the worst of my rides out of Macleay but it wasn’t the best either.
I read Ragtime in the waiting lounge and finished it on the plane. I kept it with me to give to Ailsa. On arrival in Sydney I went to Cy Sackville’s office, talked to him for a while and left the papers plus several others I signed myself. Cy wasn’t wearing the suit I’d seen in Macleay, in fact I’d never seen the suit before. Cy probably had more suits than I had fillings. Still, I liked him and promised to pay him before Christmas. He waved the promise aside which was probably wise.
I left, taking note of how to furnish an office with taste and style. There were only two problems: one, I’d never be able to afford it and two, if by some chance I ever could, this decor would be out of fashion. Difficulties… difficulties… On the drive home I considered what I’d done. The papers I left with Sackville were sworn statements by Patricia Baker, widow of Macleay, made in the belief that she did not have long to live, that Aldo Coluzzi was her partner in the marijuana-growing business, supplying capital and arranging distribution. Two other men, Carlo and Adio, surnames unknown, were mentioned as agents.
It wasn’t much. It probably wouldn’t even stick, but the papers would go in to the Drugs Enquiry Commission that was sitting just then and it wouldn’t do Coluzzi any good. He’d get a mention in the press with luck and there’d be some investigation of his business affairs. I calculated that there should be something in there for auditors and tax men to chew on. At the most there might be a deportation order in it. I’d settle for that.
As for fat Sammy Trueman, he was going to lose money and the best fighter he’d ever had.
27
Prizefighting is in the doldrums, of course. I can remember when the big stadiums in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane did a roaring trade a couple of nights a week and stories on fighters pushed the politicians off the pages of the newspapers. That’s all finished; the big stadiums are closed and pulled down mostly and the big crowds assemble for football and to see androgynous pop stars who are millionaires at eighteen and dead of drugs by twenty-five.
The Moody-Rosso fight was being put on at a League’s club in the eastern suburbs, a great barn of a place designed to park as many cars as possible and accommodate as many bars and poker machines as possible. Living near it must be hell. The club had put on a good front for the fight; there was a big red banner with the fighters’ names on it draped over the main entrance and a few old-time pugs were on hand to lend colour. Still, nothing could disguise the fact that the place had been designed for a softer generation. This place smelled of money. The stadiums smelled of sweat and piss.
I parked the Falcon and went up the steps into a lobby furnished in what might have been Elizabeth Taylor’s taste when she was a girl. It was all scarlet and gold and the mirrors seemed to me to have a slimming effect. Most of the members thronging through to lose their money could use it. I scouted around for Tickener but he wasn’t there. I was, as usual, neurotically early. Passages led off from the lobby to bars and entertainment rooms which were off-limits to non-members.
There was a bank of poker machines standing by one wall and I shook out some change and started dropping it in and pulling the lever. The machine devoured the money like a Venus fly trap taking nourishment. I turned around and almost had to grab the lever again for support. Tickener was walking towards me and beside him was the six foot redhead I’d seen at the newspaper building. They came up and I summoned the strength to move away from the machine. The reporter’s face wore a half-moon grin; I could have sworn he’d grown an inch or two. That still left him a few inches short of the redhead.
“Cliff, this is Toni Blake. Toni, Cliff Hardy.”
I admired her. She was wearing black harem trousers with gold high-heeled shoes and some sort of beaded, lacy top; the slim arms, completely bare, were creamy, not one of your freckled redheads. I tried to keep my eyes off the cropped hair and treat her like a normal human being.
“Hello,” I said. It sounded weak so I said it again. Then it sounded stupid so I gave up.
“Going to be a good crowd Cliff,” Tickener said heartily. He was enjoying my reaction, as he had every right to. I’d taken the mickey out of him more times than was fair. The girl took hold of Tickener’s arm enthusiastically, the way you handle a good bottle of Scotch.
“Let’s go in and get a drink,” she said thrillingly, “the auditorium’s this way.”
Harry kept up manfully and I tagged along, trying to get my mind off her swaying, queenly gait. I failed. Harry flashed the tickets and we went into a room a couple of hundred feet square with bars along three walls. It was filled with rows of metal chairs and the boxing ring was set up on a three-foot-high stage in the middle of the floor. The place would have held about 3000 people which, even with tickets at five to ten bucks each, doesn’t amount to much of a gate. There were television rights though; the crew had set their gear up around the ring and heavy cables snaked across the auditorium floor. A couple of hundred people were already there, some sitting down but mostly crowded around the bars. I saw big Ted Williams over in a corner with Rupert Sharkey. They both held schooners of beer and looked depressed. I nodded at them and they returned the nod guardedly. I wanted to go over and talk to them, tell them what I’d arranged for Coluzzi, but I didn’t. It wouldn’t have helped. There were a fair number of Aborigines in the crowd, maybe a quarter of the people were dark, and this proportion held as the room filled up.
People parted in front of Toni and we walked down what was virtually an aisle to the bar.
“My shout,” I said. “Toni, what will you have?”
“Triple Scotch,” she said. “I’ll have just the one drink all night.”
“Harry?”
