squatted behind a tree for ten minutes soaking up the atmosphere-no sign of a car, no wisps of smoke in the air, no coughing. I did a complete circle of the place at about seventy-five yards distance, the way they’d taught me in Malaya. Still nothing. There are two theories on approaching a possibly defended place like this: one says you should keep circling and come in closer each time; the other has it that this causes too much movement and you should come in straight. The first way was out because there was a clear patch about fifty yards deep in front of the shack and I’m a straight line man myself, anyway.
I made it down to the back door without any trouble. The building was a tiny one-pitch, three rooms at most. The noise I could hear inside was snoring. I gave it a few minutes, but it was real snoring, complete with irregular rhythm and grunts. I eased the door open and went in; floorboards creaked and the door grated, but Doc Mahony wasn’t worried-he was lying on a bed in his underwear with a big, dreamy smile on his face-maybe he was dreaming of when he was young and slim and sober, which he wasn’t anymore. There was an empty bottle of Bundaberg rum on the floor and one half full on a chair beside the bed.
It was a dump comparable to the Frenchman’s and the rural setting didn’t help it any; you could hardly see through the dusty windows and the kikuyu poked up through the floor. I couldn’t find the. 22, which worried me, and I was also worried by the empty tins and the food and water bowls in the back room-I hadn’t seen any sign of a dog. I filled the empty rum bottle with water and went back to the bed chamber. The Doc tried to ignore the first few drops but then I got some good ones down his nose and into his mouth and he spluttered and coughed and woke up.
His face was pale, grimy with dirt and whiskers, and lumpy like his body. He had a few thin strands of hair plastered to his head with sweat, and a few teeth, but much of the beauty of the human face and form was lacking. He opened his eyes and his voice was surprisingly pleasant-sounding.
‘Who the hell are you?’
‘I’m a friend of Pat Kenneally, Doc. You remember Pat?’
He remembered all right, alarm leapt into his pale, bleary eyes and he made a movement with his hand. He changed the movement into a grab for the rum but I wasn’t fooled. I pushed the bottle out of reach and felt under the bed, and came up with a shoe box. I took my gun out and pointed it at Doc’s meaty nose.
‘Lie back. Get some rest.’
Inside the box was a notebook with Pat’s address and phone number written on the first page. The next few pages were taken up with the names and descriptions of greyhounds. Some dog owners were listed with telephone numbers and addresses. Also in the box was an array of pills and powders, a couple of hypodermics and some bottles of fluid with rubber membrane tops.
‘Nasty’, I said. ‘Poor little doggies.’
He didn’t say anything, but reached for the bottle again. There were still a couple of inches of water in the bottle and I poured enough rum into it to darken it up a bit. I handed it to him.
‘You’ll ruin your health taking it straight. Now, let’s hear about he bricks and the car and the bullets through the Frenchman’s house.’
He took a long swig of the diluted rum, swilled it around in his mouth and spat it against the wall. He followed this display of his manners with a racking cough and a long, gurgling swallow from the bottle.
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about’, he gasped, and then took another swallow.
I tapped the notebook. ‘What’s this-research for a book?’
‘I wanted to get Kenneally’, he said in the voice that was all he had left of his profession and self-respect, ‘but I don’t know anything about that other stuff-bricks and bullets.’
‘It’s God’s own truth, Hardy.’ The voice came from behind me; it was the voice on the phone and now I didn’t even need to turn around to know who it was. I felt something hard jab the nape of my neck. ‘Put the gun on the bed, Hardy. Do it slow.’
I did it very slowly, and then I turned. Johnny Dragovic had scarcely changed at all in the past six years since I’d seen him in court when my evidence had helped to get him eight years for armed robbery. Johnny was a tough kid from Melbourne who’d decided to take Sydney on; he knocked over a couple of bottle shops, and moved up to TAB agencies, with some success. The Board hired me and some other private men and I got lucky, heard some whispers, and we were waiting for Johnny at the right time and place. Blows were struck, and Johnny turned out to be not quite as tough as he thought. But he was tough enough, and the automatic pistol in his hand made him even tougher. I said ‘Dragovic’, stupidly.
‘That’s right’, he said. ‘Glad you remember.’
My guts were turning over and I concentrated on getting my balance right and watching him carefully, in case he gave me a chance. I didn’t think he would.
‘What’s it all about then?’ I said.
‘It’s about eight years, five at Grafton.’ The way he said it spoke volumes, he wasn’t there to thank me for rehabilitating him.
‘Put it behind you’, I said. ‘You’re not old.’
The gun didn’t move. ‘You bastard. I’ve kept going by thinking what I could do to you.’
‘Thinking like that’ll get you back there.’
‘Shut up! I was nineteen when I got to Grafton, what do you reckon that was like?’
‘Scarey’, I said. I thought that if I kept him talking something might happen, he might even talk himself out of whatever he had in mind.
‘That’s right, scarey. That’s why I got you with the bricks and fixed your bloody car-to scare you.’
‘You win. You did it, you scared me. I’m scared now.’
‘You should be. I’m going to kill you.’
‘That’s crazy’, I said desperately. ‘And not fair, I didn’t kill you.’
He laughed. ‘Sometimes, in that bloody hole, I wished you had.’
‘What about him?’ I gestured down at Doc who was listening and clutching the bottle like a crucifix.
‘He goes out too’, Dragovic said. ‘You kill him and he kills you. All in the line of duty.’
‘It stinks, Johnny, it won’t work.’
‘It fuckin’ will! I’ve planned this for a while, been watching you until the right deal came up. It’ll look like you caught up with the bloke who shot up the Frenchy’s house and you shot him and he shot you. You’ll take a while to die, though.’ He smiled and I could see how much he was enjoying it all, and how unlikely it was that he’d change his mind.
Mahony raised himself slowly on the bed and swung his legs over the side. ‘This is madness’, he said. ‘I don’t want any part of it. I’m going.’ He got off the bed and took a couple of shuffling steps towards the door before Dragovic reacted.
‘Get back here!’ he yelled. ‘Get back.’
But Mahony opened the door and had half his body outside when Dragovic shot him. He crumpled, and I moved to the left and swung a punch which took Dragovic on the nose. Blood spurted and he blundered back, but kept hold of his gun. I made a grab for mine, missed and lunged out the door, nearly tripping over Mahoney. I staggered, recovered my balance, and started to run for the trees about fifty yards away. I was halfway there when something stung my calf like ten sandfly bites; the leg lost all power and I went down, hard. Johnny Dragovic stepped clear of the doorway, carrying a rifle and started to walk towards me. I lay there in the dust watching him and watching the rifle and when he was about twenty feet away I closed my eyes. Then I heard a shot and didn’t feel anything, so I opened my eyes: the rifle was on the ground close to me and Dragovic was yelling and rolling around and a greyhound was tearing at his neck. There was blood on Dragovic’s face from my punch, and a lot more blood on his chest from the dog’s attack. He screamed, and the dog’s head came up and went down twice. I sat up and grabbed the rifle; the dog turned away from the bloody mess on the ground and sprang straight at me. I shot it in the chest and it collapsed and I shot it again in the head.
I hobbled across and bent down, but one look told me that tough Johnny Dragovic was dead. The dog had a length of chain attached to a collar trailing away in the dirt. It looked as if Dragovic had secured the dog, but not well enough. More hobbling got me over to the shack where there was more death. Mahony’s eyes stared sightlessly up at the blue sky; his mouth was open and some flies were already gathering around the dark blood that had spilled out of it.
After that it was a matter of rum and true grit. I took an enormous swig of the rum and started on the trek back to my car When I made it I was weeping with the pain and there was a saw mill operating at full blast inside
