return?’
Ralph’s first expression had more of surprise than anything else. I don’t suppose the Wrecker had lost many one-on-ones over the years. But now fear was showing in his fleshy, well-tended face. Blood was dripping onto his shirt and the fancy cream cotton jacket and the pressure I was keeping on the gun was hurting his nose cartilage. It was also stopping him from speaking so I eased off a little.
‘Do I call the police and charge you with break and enter and assault, or do we talk?’
He ground out one word. ‘Talk.’
I gave him a light shove as I took the gun out of his face and edged away from him in a half-crouch. ‘Okay. I haven’t shot anyone in my own house in years. It’s messy afterwards and I don’t like cleaning up. But I’ll do it if you give me any trouble. Get over there and sit down.’
I motioned him to a chair in the corner of the room. He dragged himself a metre or so and then seemed to regain enough self-respect to straighten up and complete the trip in an almost normal posture. He was still shaky though, and glad to sit down. I wasn’t in much better shape myself. I made it to another chair without actually hobbling, but the back of my leg hurt like hell and I was sore where the kidney punch had landed.
I rubbed the sore spot. ‘You better hope I don’t piss blood, Ralph. I get very angry when someone causes me to piss blood. Now what the hell’s this all about?’
He wiped his face with the back of his hand, saw the blood and dug in the pocket of his jacket for a handkerchief. He found one, but got a lot of gore on the jacket. ‘I spoke to Mum on the phone today. She said you got Dad all upset. He’s very sick. I warned you to keep off.’
‘Did she tell you she’d hired me to go on looking into Oscar Bach’s death?’
‘No. I… ‘
‘Sounds like you did more talking than listening. Your nose is bleeding again.’
He lifted the handkerchief. I flexed my leg and put the gun down on the floor beside the chair. We were both crocks, too old for this game. ‘I should’ve brought someone with me,’ he growled.
‘How’d you know I’d be coming here?’
‘Kept tabs on you all day. You saw the Toyota but I had another car pick you up after that. What’ve you been doing down south? Anything to do with my old man?’
‘Hold on,’ I said. ‘You’ve been following me all day? Reporting in by car phone, that sort of thing?’ He nodded and some more blood flowed.
‘Why?’
‘I do a bit of that as a sort of sideline. Favours for people. I put a man on you to give him some practice.’
‘Shit, Ralph, you’ve got some nasty habits. Let me tell you what’s going on.’
I told him in some detail, partly to straighten things out for myself, partly because I wanted him off my back, once and for all. He listened, nodding occasionally. I left out the names although they were clear enough in my mind- Gina Costi, Renato ‘Ronny’ Costi, Mark Roper, Angela Fanfani. I finished and he didn’t say anything.
‘Family man, are you?’ I said.
‘Two boys, two girls.’
‘How does it grab you, then?’
‘I knew that Oscar was creepy. Only met him once, but I knew. I can’t understand how Dad got taken in by him.’
‘You’ve got too simple a view of human nature, Ralph. I’ve known some real nice blokes who liked doing very nasty things when the mood was on them.’
‘And Mum wants you to find out who did him? You’ll tell Dad and everything’ll be okay?’
‘What d’you reckon?’
He shook his head. ‘I don’t know. It’s beyond me. I never thought our family’d get involved in anything like this.’
I suppose it was then that I warmed a bit towards Ralph Jacobs. He came clean with me, admitted that he was a bit strapped for cash and had been hoping to put the bite on his father. He didn’t want anyone siphoning off the loot, like a private detective who might bleed the old man for months or even blackmail him. He said the crowbar kid had exceeded his orders which, given the kidney punch and the knee kick, I doubted. But Ralph wasn’t a happy man. I could sense that he was under pressure- business or personal, or both.
‘Your mother’s holding things together up there,’ I said. ‘I think she could use a bit of help.’
He nodded. ‘Never seem to find the time. I’ll try. You reckon you know who it was, this wog?’
‘Show a bit of class, Wrecker,’ I said. ‘Didn’t you ever meet an Italian who could run the bloody legs off you?’
He grinned. ‘Yeah, yeah, sure I did. And tackle, too. Okay, this Italian.’
‘I’ve got an idea. But I’m going to have to go carefully.’
‘Maybe I could help.’
I sighed. ‘Ralph, I’ve got the man down south ready and willing to help. He’s a builder. I fancy he could swing a few cement mixers my way. You’ve got friends with Toyotas and car phones and iron bars
‘I said he was out of line. I’ll talk to him.’
‘Don’t bother. If I ever see him again without the crowbar we’ll have a chat. My point is, I’m working with the police on this and…’
Ralph’s grin was a bit lopsided and all the more salacious for that. ‘Yeah, Senior Sergeant Withers. She’s a goer, I’m told.’
That’s when I told him to piss off. He’d recovered a lot of his aplomb by this time. He stood up, took a card from his pocket and set it down on the chair. ‘You can reach me,’ he said. ‘And, Hardy, the locks on this place are lousy. Yours took me about thirty seconds and I’m no expert.’
I said, ‘You see anything worth stealing?’ But he was gone.
When I got out of the chair the pain really hit me. My back felt as if it was on fire and the knee was going to need strapping. I staggered to the toilet but there was no blood. Lucky for Ralph. The bath is old and stained but it’s deep and I can submerge myself in it up to the shoulders. That’s what I did, in water as hot as I could stand it and with a couple of inches of scotch to hand. I breathed in the steam and tried to think open pores, get ye hence toxins, circulate blood, heal wounds. When the water cooled I let some out and ran in some more hot. I was probably in there an hour and felt better at the end of it, although whether it was the bath, the healing thoughts or the scotch that did the trick was hard to say.
I decided that it was the scotch and had some more. A few painkillers didn’t seem like a bad idea either and after that my bed felt like a cloud. I drifted off into a doped sleep. The cat scratched at the balcony window and I laughed at it. The phone rang and I ignored it. I dreamed I was young again and running to catch a Bondi tram. I’d almost got my hand on the rail when the strength left my legs and the tram pulled away and I stood in the middle of the tracks watching it go.
19
There wasn’t much of the morning left when I woke up and what there was of it was pretty nasty. The storm of last night must have moved out to sea and come back again, bigger and better. The sky was dark and the wind and rain were lashing at the trees that overgrow my balcony. I struggled out of bed, pulled on a tracksuit and went downstairs to make coffee and see if the cat had survived the night. It had, of course. The house is even more vulnerable than Ralph Jacobs thought. The cat had found a way in through a broken section of fibro in the bathroom wall. It was curled up asleep close to the hot water service. Smart cat.
With the coffee came normalcy. Which is to say, confusion. I had enquiries to make in Newcastle and a source of official help-Glen Withers, who by now might have found out other things herself. Then there was Horrie and May and Ralph and Antonio, all expecting things of me and likely to be disappointed. I could have done with some sunshine but the sky stayed dark even though the rain and wind eased a little. I saw myself driving north on the fairly new steel-belted radials. And then what? I reached for the phone to call Glen and saw that the message
