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  “Are you Lorraine?” I asked.

  She nodded. The action must have sent waves of pain through her because she shuddered and slid lower on the chair. I hoisted her up.

  “Water?”

  She made a sound that could have meant yes, so I rinsed one of the dirty glasses, half filled it and held it to her lips. She sipped a thimbleful then shook her head. On a close look her Chinese ancestry was apparent. Her eyes were jet black and sloped a bit and although there was practically no flesh on her face the bone structure was broad and oriental. She picked up the damp dishcloth from where I’d dropped it in her lap and mopped at the slash beside her mouth.

  “Did Noni do this to you?”

  Her mouth twisted into a grin, the movement brought flesh blood out of the cut and she checked it.

  “Not likely,” she croaked. “I can handle Noni any day.”

  “Who then?”

  “Guy with her. Dunno his name.”

  “What happened?”

  “They got here late this arvo — no, a bit later. Noni said she wanted to stay the night, her and him. I said alright and gave them the room. Then they went out for a while, came back with the booze.”

  She nodded at the bottle on the table and immediately regretted it. I gave her another sip of water. She held on to the glass and some colour came back into her face making it grey like old, stained china. I waited.

  “I made them something to eat, we had a few drinks, friendly like. Then the bloke started to talk about him and me swapping cars. I’ve got a Holden ute — bomb, but it goes. I said alright. I thought he was joking. I asked him to throw in the rest of the gin. He said OK and to give him the keys. I thought he was joking. When I wouldn’t he smashed me.”

  “With a pistol.”

  “Yeah. Big bastard.”

  “The man?”

  “No, the gun.”

  “What did he look like? What did the girl call him?”

  She handed me the glass. “Get me a drink and a smoke and tell me who the hell you are and I might say some more.”

  I tipped the rest of the water in the glass into the sink and poured in a slug of gin. I looked around for something to put in it but she snapped her fingers and held out her hand.

  “Put that much in again and give it here.”

  I did and rolled her a cigarette. I lit it and she drew it down half an inch and pulled the smoke deep into her lungs.

  “Thanks, that’s better. Now, who’re you?”

  I told her the story quickly, suggesting that the man travelling with Noni had probably killed Ricky Simmonds.

  “Jesus,” she said when I’d finished, “I was lucky; he might’ve done me.

  “That’s right. Will you answer my questions?”

  “Yeah, what were they?”

  I repeated them and she drank some gin and smoked while she thought it over.

  “I can’t remember that she called him anything,” she said at last. “They weren’t getting on too well seemed to me. You know Noni?”

  I shook my head and produced the photograph,

  “That’s her, the slut. Well, the bloke’s not big, about five foot six or seven, not more. He’s thin but sort of flabby thin, you know?”

  I said I didn’t know.

  “Well, there’s not much meat on him but what there is looks sort of soft. His chest’s sort of slid down to his gut. Can’t make it no clearer. Gimme another smoke.”

  I got out the makings and started to roll one but she reached over impatiently and took the packet away. Her fingernails were black-rimmed and the thin skin on her hands was stretched tight like the fabric on a model plane. She made a fat cigarette and twisted the ends.

  “Anything else about him?”

  “You mean clothes and that?”

  “Anything.”

  “He had an old suit on, blue with a sort of checked shirt under it, like tartan. Looked a bit funny with the suit. He was real pale, like he’s been in hospital. Oh, and his ears stuck out, like this.” She fanned her ears out from under her lank, greasy hair.

  “What did they talk about? Did they say where they were going?”

  “Let’s think.” She put a black fingernail through the black hair and scratched. “He didn’t say much but Noni blabbed a bit. She was pissed and I reckon she was taking something else as well. You know?”

  “I know. What did she say?”

  “Well, I went out to do somethin’ and I heard her say, when I was coming back, that it was a long time ago and he should forget it and it was only money.”

  “What did he say?”

  “Told her to shut up. Then she said something about Macleay and he told her to shut up again. Listen, did they take the car?”

  “Was it parked out front?”

  “Yes.”

  “They took it.”

  “Fuck ‘em. They leave the big one?”

  “The Chev? Yes.”

  Her thin, ratty eyebrows went up. “Is that a fact? Reckon I can keep it?”

  I thought of Ricky Simmonds, slumped down dead in a ditch around a fort built to repel invaders of an already invaded land. Crouched over like an Aboriginal warrior buried with all ceremony as in the time before horses and guns and arsenic and venereal disease. His car had been his shield and his weapon and now it was discarded beside a house where black men were banned by a yellow woman. Australia,

  A man in a dressing gown and three days of stubble came through the passage door before I could answer about the car. He shuffled into the kitchen and stopped short when he saw the gin.

  “Piss off, Darby,” Lorraine said sharply.

  The man looked at her with bleary eyes that sagged down into deep pouches about his cheekbones. With the eyes and the stubble and the grizzled grey hair poking through the top of the dressing gown he looked like a tired old owl who’d lost his way.

  “Go on Lorraine,” he whined. “Just a small one.”

  She shrugged and nodded at me. I poured some gin and handed him the glass; he didn’t seem to notice me, just lifted his hand and let the liquor slide down his throat. His neck convulsed once and he set the glass down carefully on the table. He let it sit for a few seconds, then tilted it again and got a few drops on his tongue.

  “Right, piss off,” Lorraine snapped.

  He pulled the dressing gown around him and dragged himself out of the room. I looked at the woman.

  “A bum,” she said. “Probably came out to piss in the sink. Now, about that car?”

  “Not up to me. Give me the details on the ute.”

  She did, the number and colour and a description of the frame mounted over the tray. I picked up my gun from the bench and tucked it away. I nodded to her and headed for the door. She ignored me, her hand snaked out for the gin bottle and she wasn’t worried about her glass.

  Outside the drizzle was steady and the ground was slippery underfoot. I walked slowly along the side of the house and pulled open the driver’s side of the Chewy. The interior light came on. A profusion of wires and fuses spilled out over the floor like a heap of multi-coloured guts.

  10

  I was tired and Macleay was three hours away by road if I didn’t kill myself by falling asleep at the wheel. It was three a.m. and I needed some sleep badly. I drove to Newcastle airport and bought a seat on the flight leaving for Macleay, Coffs Harbour and points north at six a.m. I parked my car in the airport lot and locked it after taking out the duffel coat and the whisky. I wrapped the .38 in a scarf and stuffed it into the coat pocket. The bottle went into the other pocket. I found the dimmest corner of the passenger lounge, stretched out on the seat and took a long pull at the whisky. It hit hard and started to close down some departments in my mind. I pulled the coat over my legs and went to sleep.

  Three hours later I was awake with stiff joints, a headache and a vile taste in my mouth. The lounge canteen wasn’t open this early so I went into the toilet and swilled water around in my mouth and lapped it into my face. The black-brist
led dial that looked back at me from the mirror was red-eyed and pale-skinned.

  “You look terrible,” I said to it and it insulted me right back.

  There were a few people standing around in the drafty lounge. There was a sleek guy in a suit carrying a steel-rimmed briefcase and a girl in overalls and a fringed shawl straddling a big New Guinea-style string bag who looked aggressively at me when I glanced at her. A clutch of kids swarmed around a woman in black who had the long-suffering, my-reward-is-not-of-this-world look of an Italian matron. A young man with a thin aquiline face like a Spanish gypsy was reading a paper and seemed to be taking some trouble to ignore me as I walked through to the seat allocation desk. The clerk ripped leaves out of the ticket and when I looked around again the gypsy had gone and left his paper behind. I went over and picked it up. It was the Newcastle Herald of three days before.

  More people turned up and about twenty of us got on the plane. We took off dead on time and ran straight into a headwind which we battled for the whole trip. The dark widow fed sweets to the children like a conveyor belt. The executive type took papers out of his briefcase and worked on them with a gold ballpoint pen. The girl in the overalls dug a paperback copy of The Golden Notebook out of her bag and didn’t lift her head from it the whole way. I looked down across the wing of the plane as the central coast of New South Wales slipped past beneath us. The mountains and valleys were wrapped in swirling blue mist and the ground, when it showed through, was a patchwork of brown and green and white like camouflage. I rubbed my hand across my face and promised myself a shave and some breakfast in Macleay. The eight hour sleep in a soft bed would have to wait.

  The plane bucked about on the descent but the weather up here, a few degrees north of Sydney, was clear and the moist wind blowing across the little runway was warm. The terminal was a fibro-cement affair with a galvanised iron roof, the whole structure sitting up on yard-high brick piers. We trooped across the tarmac, went up some rickety wooden steps and into the arrivals lounge which was also the departure lounge and the cargo despatch. I had all my luggage in my pockets so I went through the building and out into the real world before anyone else. The executive was hot on my tail but I caught the first taxi going. The driver seemed half asleep when I got into the cab and he stayed that way. We ran out of the airport standing area and along a road that was only wide enough for one car to drive on the metal; the gravel beside the road was washed thin and runnels threatened to undermine the surfaced section. I sat in the back seat and rolled a cigarette for want of anything else to do. The rainforest grew close to the road on either side and screened out everything else, only the occasional track running in, showing deep caterpillar treads, betrayed the logging going on inside that would eventually thin the forest away to nothing.

  After a few miles the straggling houses and half-hearted fences that mark the outskirts of all Australian country towns appeared and then we crossed a bridge over a river and houses stood side by side and we were in the main street of Macleay. The shopkeepers were out, splashing water over the dusty footpaths and sweeping the night’s rubbish into the gutters. On both sides of the street most of the shops had iron awnings which covered the whole depth of the footpath. A couple of gnarled old jacaranda trees buckled the bitumen and the streetscape was dominated by two pubs on either side of the road. Rusted tin signs on their sides advertised brands of beer long since defunct and both buildings boasted acres of trellis work, painted white, around the balconies which ran across the front and along one side. The Commercial Hotel had a sign out front promising breakfast for non-residents. I paid the cab fare and went in.

  I wolfed down the mediocre breakfast of chops and eggs and put a little character in the thin instant coffee by adding some whisky. An old biddy eating crumpets at another table and dabbing at her thin, bloodless lips with a lace handkerchief caught me at it. I stared defiantly at her and was surprised when she gave me a tolerant smile. When I crossed the room to pay the bill I noticed the patchwork of blue veins under the powder on her nose. I’d made her day. She probably didn’t start till ten.

  Barber shops are getting thin on the ground everywhere, but they’re hanging on better in Macleay than most places. There were three in the main street. I chose the cleanest and sat down to think while the artist went to work. The coolness of the lather on my face was nice and the razorman’s total silence was soothing but they didn’t change anything. I was still just chasing people, following thin leads and not understanding the pattern of things. I tried to tell myself this was flexible, open thinking, but I wasn’t convinced. I refused a hair trim, gave a good-sized tip and got the address of Bert’s garage. He said I could walk it from there so I walked.

  The garage was set on a narrow block with the pumps right on the street in the style of the 1920s. The workshop needed a coat of paint and the bowsers hadn’t yet been changed over to decimal currency. The alarm cable didn’t work when I trod on it and an old dog lying in the sun between the air hose and a rusted watering can that seemed to serve as the radiator water supply didn’t even scratch himself as I walked past him.

  I went up to the workshop and peered inside. An old Holden was up on jacks in the middle of the floor which was littered with tools, car parts and other equipment. A battered work bench was in the same condition. I called out and nothing happened. Another yell and a door opened at the back of the shed and a man came through it carrying a teapot and an enamel mug. He moved carefully, picking his way through the litter like an actor obeying chalk marks on a stage. He had been tall but had lost inches from years of bending over cars. He wore thongs, old grey flannel trousers and a brown cardigan over his bare chest. His grey felt hat had been all the rage when Don Bradman was a boy. I moved forward into the shed and heard a growl behind me. The dog was bristled up and baring its teeth six inches from my ankle.

  “Easy Josh,” the man said. “Back off boy.”

  I let the shiver run its way down my back and legs and stood still. The dog growled again then jogged off to the shade of the petrol bowsers.

  “Is your name Bert?” I asked.

  He moved closer and took a good look at me. It was impossible to judge his reaction. The nose was a bit purple and the face hadn’t been shaved today, yesterday or the day before. The smell coming off him was strong — motor oil, tobacco and underarm. I dropped back a fraction.

  “What if it is?”

  “Got a niece, Noni?”

  “Yeah, you a cop?”

  “You expect one?”

  “Where Noni’s concerned, yes.” He beckoned me further into the workshop and peered over my shoulder as I came in.

  “What’s wrong?” I said, turning to look out towards the street.

  “Nothing.” He poured tea into the mug and sipped it. “Just looking. Abo hanging around earlier.” He blew steam off the tea. “Sorry I can’t offer you a cup, only got the one mug. A cop you said.”

  “No, I didn’t. Don’t worry about the tea.”

  He looked at me over the rim of the mug. His eyes were pale blue dots amid a mass of wrinkles and puckered flesh.

  “If you’re not a cop what are you? Bookie’s mate?”

  He was off on a new tack and sketching in areas of Noni’s past life. She was probably in trouble with the Commissioner of Taxation and hadn’t renewed her driver’s licence.

  “Noni’s missing,” I said evasively.

  He shrugged and finished his tea in a long gulp. He began patting his pockets in the age-old manner of the tobacco cadger. I handed him my packet, papers and matches. A cigarette took shape between his fingers; he didn’t look at what he was doing as if that was against the rules. He lit up and handed the makings back.

  “Thanks, son.” His voice was friendly, almost wheedling but there was a guarded, semi-hostile undertone to it.

  I let my eyes wander about the shed and spotted something in a far corner. He saw me looking.

  “When did you last see Noni?” I asked.

  �
��Years ago.”

  I sauntered over to the rear of the shop and kicked at a tarpaulin-covered lump on the ground. It clanged and I eased the tarp away to show a cage of silver-frosted bars, the frame from Lorraine’s ute. I started to turn back and stopped when I saw that he’d moved across to the work bench. He fumbled behind him and his arm swept around but he was much too slow and I ducked to let the heavy spanner fly over my head and crash into the metal frame. I moved in on him fast and crushed him back against the bench. He wasn’t as old as he looked and he was quite strong but he had no confidence. He pushed against me briefly but I pulled him forward and then slammed his spine back against the bench and the fight went out of him. I slapped the side of his face lightly.

  “Why’d you try that old-timer? What’s it to you?”

  He didn’t answer so I slapped him again. I don’t like hitting people older than me, but then there’s a lot of things I do that I don’t like.

  “Come on! What’s it to you?”

  Still no answer. I hit him two jolting slaps. His face blotched suddenly and took on an unhealthy rubicund glow.

  “You’ll have a heart attack,” I said. “Natural causes.” I pulled my hand back for another slap. He wriggled a bit but wasn’t really trying; his breath was coming in short, wheezy spasms like an emphysema case in the last stages.

  “OK, OK,” he gasped, “you’re right, me ticker’ll give out. I’m too old for this. I can’t take this many frights so quick.”

  “Noni’s bloke?”

  “Yes. Shit, what a hard case. He dumped the frame and took some plates off a wreck out the back.”

  “You let him?”

  “He showed me the gun. That was enough for me.”