On Cringila Hill (18 page)

Chapter Twenty

It's cold, up on the street, and it's dark and quiet. Jimmy stands hunched against a wind. He looks down into Luz Solomona's home. The house is in darkness. Nothing is moving. The houses nearby also are silent and dark. No dog comes to the Solomona's fence to challenge him, so he imagines that the animal must be chained in the yard behind, or locked inside the house. He opens the gate, walks down some stairs, then steps up onto the verandah.

He can hear the heels of his steelworkers boots clump on floorboards. He can hear the scrape of the legs of the plastic chair he draws a little away from the front wall of the house before he sits down. He replaces his hands down into the pockets of his jacket. He leans his head back against the wall. He knows that Luz will be inside, asleep. He thinks of her curled in her bed, maybe just on the other side of the wall. He closes his eyes and feels it, that she's so near.

Light floods across him through a window. He blinks, lets his head roll on his shoulders. The front door swing open. Samuel Solomona emerges. He's in Y-front underpants and a t-shirt. He pads onto the verandah boards.

‘What you doin'? What you doin' sit on our verandah? Where you think you are? What you think you doin'?'

Jimmy doesn't shift his head. His hands stay in his jacket pockets. ‘I come to be near her, Samuel, near Luz. Don' need talk to her or nothin'. Even
see
her. Jus' come, be near her. Makes me feel better.'

‘Listen!' The big man's mouth opens and closes several times. He points a finger at Jimmy, his hand trembling. It's clear to Jimmy that he's dealing with a very aroused person. ‘Listen … you fuck off! Got no business. You fuck off or I'll set the dog on you!'

Jimmy rolls back his head, closes his eyes. Quietly he says, ‘Set the dog on me, Samuel, an' I'll kill
the dog.'

‘Kill the dog?' Jimmy hears Samuel go back inside. Samuel will know that barefoot is no way to go into a street fight. Jimmy imagines the big man pulling on pants, dragging on a top, reaching for heavy boots. Jimmy waits, not knowing what's going to happen next, not much caring. He hears her voice. It's muffled, too far away for him to know the words. He imagines that she's talking to her brother. She comes onto the verandah. He turns his head. She's in pyjamas and a cotton wrap that looks like silk. Her hair is long, down over her face. She walks over, sits on the chair beside him.

‘Jimmy,' she says, ‘what you doin'?'

‘Bad thing come to me, Luz. Bad thing. Not too sure who I am no more. Not sure how to go on bein' a person. Got up, went walkin'. Seen your house. An' what I need was to sit near you, be near where you was.' He shakes his head. ‘There wasn' nowhere else. There wasn' nowhere else for me.'

He sees the darkness of her eyes as she watches him. She says, ‘Jimmy, you look like shit. My God. What happen' to ya?'

‘Not sleepin' too good, Luz. Tha's part of the thing. There ain't been no sleep for a coupla days now. Is why I look like this, I guess. This thing … I got this thing. Dunno what to do. Be honest, I dunno how to be a person no more.'

‘Jimmy, you carn stay here. Samuel's upset. This is his home too. He got the right, no one said you could come.'

‘Jus' need to be near ya, Luz. Makes me feel better.'

‘You stay he gonna fight ya. I mean, you two, fightin'! Someone get hurt bad, Jimmy. There's been enough bad things happen. Nobody needs no more.'

Jimmy looks up at the uninhabited hill to the west. It's a mass, heavy and dark. In the end he says, ‘Sure.' He's very tired. He rises from the chair, stands awhile.

Luz says, ‘Jimmy.'

He looks down. Luz reaches up her big hands. He lowers his face to be between them and she draws it down. She kisses his mouth with her damp lips, then she moves his head to press it against her cheek. When she releases him, he straightens.

She says, ‘I go down the jetty sometimes. That jetty goes out inta the lake. Catch fish wit' my brother. Come down, sometime I'm there. Come down, talk to me, proper time when the sun's shinin'.'

He draws a hand from a pocket, runs fingertips across her cheek. ‘Sure.'

He leaves her, gets up onto the street. He stands up there with his hands deep in his jacket pockets, against the cold. He watches her go within the house, close the door. Eventually he watches as the light goes out in the window. He turns and walks towards his mother's home.

Chapter Twenty-one

The heavy car shakes in the wind. Peter Grace listens to the pounding of rain that lashes over it. There's lighting further along the beach and, under it, he can see the foam of waves running up onto sand. He frowns through the sodden windscreen at a very bleak scene, and settles deeper in his seat, waiting.

He sees the slash of headlights through the darkness. A vehicle comes slowly into the carpark, pulls up near him. For a moment, while its cabin light is on, he can see trainee journalist Ian Battle, who is hunched against the weather, thickly covered by an old woollen overcoat. Then the car door closes, it's dark again. Peter reaches across and opens his passenger door. Battle slides in, curses, shuts the door against the wind-driven rain.

Battle says, ‘This, my friend, had better be good.'

Grace snaps on the interior lighting. For a while they study each other. Peter hands the younger man a piece of paper. He says, ‘You read that. Remember it. Anything you want to write down, write down. Then you give that paper back to me and you forget where you got it. I'm down the coast, in my caravan, cursing the weather. And let me tell you this, my young friend, at one stage there might have been those crossed me about such matters. No one does any more. There's people's learned crossing me is a very silly thing to do.'

Battle gives the policeman an irritated glance, reads the material.

‘Need to write it?'

‘No, I'll remember all that.'

‘Names, dates, everything?'

‘Sure. These people, they'll say yes to all this, this is what happened?'

‘I wouldn't give it to you otherwise. I'm not the only one she's upset.'

‘Okay.'

They sit for a while, listening to the storm. Peter takes the paper, turns off the light. ‘Any good to you?' he asks the journalist.

‘You know the answer to that.'

Chapter Twenty-two

Feizel says, ‘Shit.'

‘Yeah.'

‘I carn fucken believe it.'

‘Well, I'm telling you.'

‘I carn believe anyone could be that stupid.'

‘Yeah, well. Maybe not so much stupid as weak.'

‘An' you hearin' this from more than one source?'

‘I got it from people who are serious people. You can trust me, what I'm saying is the truth. That's what this kid's doing. That's what he's said.'

Feizel's companion is mid- to late forties. He's seated on the opposite side of a heavy table with a top made from a plastic material, in the vast retail hall of the Sydney fish market. People are bustling by carrying bulging bags. Between Feizel and his companion are cups half-filled with coffee.

‘Vincenzo, you say it to me, sure, I believe is true. But is so hard to believe. Such a strange thing a person might do. Goes against it all, you know. Goes against everything makes sense.'

Vincenzo is swarthy, carefully barbered, gym-trained fit. When he smiles he shows a set of even teeth, dazzling white. He has on an orange-coloured t-shirt, across his shoulders is a pink lambswool sweater with the arms dangling down over his chest. He's wearing thick gold around his neck and a wrist.

‘So, what,' Feizel says. ‘You gonna say the names?'

‘Nope.'

‘But you know who they are?'

‘I do. And, Feizel, let me tell you it's a heavy connection. Them, it's not just Mary Jane. They bring in coke, H. They do the car theft and rebirthing. They got this thing where, there's a hotel with big profit, some boys come in, there's a scene, people get hurt, then next day there's old men in suits got briefcases. They come in and say, “So, there's been a problem, look, we've got a program, you pay each fortnight, we can guarantee no more violence, nice peaceful place.” And, Feizel, this is the point, then there is no more trouble. Some unconnected kid comes in wants to show off he's a hard man, soon enough he gets his head broken, everything settles down. A good thing for you to remember, my friend. These people promise a thing, it happens. Both ways, good thing to happen, something not so nice. They promise it, it happens. In spades.'

Vincenzo looks through the throng of people. He lifts his arm, smiles, waves slowly. Feizel turns to look. There's a tall woman with long dark hair over by an island of display cases filled with crushed ice and lobsters. She is maybe Feizel's age and she's wearing high heels, tight jeans up her long legs, a scarlet buttoned-up shirt tucked into her jeans, a white leather waist-length jacket. Feizel decides that he's never seen anyone more beautiful. He can't prevent himself from a little speculation as to the potential of her long legs. She points at the lobsters, raises her eyebrows at Vincenzo. He shrugs back as though replying, sure, if that's what you'd like. Watching her, and because he is in fact a young and somewhat inexperienced man, Feizel wonders in a flash what it might be like to have a relationship with a woman so beautiful. He watches her dark eyes and bronzed, lustrous skin, the way she tosses her long hair back behind her shoulders. He wonders what she smells like, up close, and wishes he were near enough to her to get her perfume, to hear the rustle of her clothing when she moves. He glances at the Vincenzo across the table, sees how he too is watching her. Feizel wonders what the appeal is that binds her to this man. Probably several things, he supposes, though, for sure, the money wouldn't do his appeal any harm.

It's cement, underfoot. Feizel's feet feel cold through the rubber of his shoe soles.

Vincenzo says, ‘Yeah, a nice lobster lunch, some salad, good bread, glass of wine, out on the balcony, be nice, watch the yachts having races down on the harbour.'

Feizel must stop himself from imagining the afternoon pursuits between the two, following the lobster and wine. He replies, ‘So let me run through what you've told me: there's this kid, one of three, he helped Abdul do that bad thing to Luz.'

‘Sure. That's the sort of person he is; watches a bad thing get done just for the buzz of it.'

‘Abdul takes the fall, keeps his mouth shut about who the ones with him was, an' one of them was the kid with a big mouth, connected to this very heavy family.'

‘You got it. Then the family arranges a really bad thing happen to
Abdul, there in jail, which is their way of saying to him, “Don't tell. Don't you tell who was with you.”'

‘Then Abdul gets out, mistrial, gets bail.'

‘Sure, and see, now the thing done to Abdul has turned out against the family, because now they think Abdul will do anything not to go back in. And this is my part, not anything this kid has said – if Abdul gives up names to cut a deal, the kids he talks about know an awful lot about what the family has done, and this kid, the nephew doing the talking, he clearly ain't no hero. Maybe
he's
gonna give up some of the treasured secrets, to get a deal from the coppers.'

‘Seems a reason to kill the nephew.'

‘Ah, come on, Feizel, do the thinking. The sister's boy! Think. He gets whacked, what do the heavy boys hear from the kid's grandmother? What does the kid's mother do? Something like that, you can let out this whole force no one's going to control. Better to bring out someone from the home country, arrange it so they don't know his name, know nothing about him, he knows nothing about them. Abdul gets whacked, the shooter's gone, no one can make a connection with anyone. All over. Perfect crime. They don't got to worry about the Abdul thing no more.'

‘But now this kid gets drunk …'

‘Drunk on American whisky, which he don't hold too well.'

‘… an' tells people in a nightclub what his uncles have done for him.'

‘Sure. Not once. Three, four times he does this talking and there's people can't believe their ears. Thinks he can trust them, though I'm sure he wakes up next morning and wonders, “What the fuck have I done?” Big-man-drunk, see. That's part of it.'

‘An' you say this is cos he's weak?'

‘My read. He wants people to think he's this hard man, dangerous hard-ass. Which, in fact, he's not. So he boasts to people, about this thing's been done: this is the stuff he knows about; these are the circles he moves in. There's stuff happens in his life other people couldn't know a thing about, he's so dangerous.'

‘But you won't name him.'

‘Not my place,' Vincenzo says primly, and looks across at the young woman who's made the purchase, which she holds aloft. Vincenzo nods, to show he's pleased. ‘So, the perfect crime now is not so perfect. See, someone always knows something. I was thinking this just the other morning. I got a call and had to go somewhere. This is two a.m. Not too much petrol in the tank so I dropped into the all-nighter at the bottom of the hill to fill up. As I drive away, I'm thinking, “That kid who served me, now he knows that sometimes I have to go out in the middle of the night. He knows it's unexpected because I didn't fill the tank the day before.” Someone always knows something, no matter how perfect your preparation is.'

There's a disturbance. An Asian lady walking the thoroughfare between the retail fish-selling bays has had a plastic bag burst. Fruit and vegetables roll along the cement. At once Vincenzo is up, he's reassuring her smilingly, retrieving the rolled-away merchandise, he's at the counter of a fish seller, pointing, discussing, getting fresh plastic carriers. And, watching, this is what Feizel notices – at no stage does the woollen sweater around Vincenzo's shoulders shift a centimetre from its perfect placement.

When the older man returns, Feizel says, ‘Yeah, that was pretty nice.'

The young lady, Vincenzo's companion, is sitting with her shopping some distance away, well out of earshot.

‘Ah,' Vincenzo says, and gives a smile. ‘Poor lady, all upset. What you gonna do? Now. You up for this shipment, these pills? More money.
Lots
more money. See, we make this stuff ourselves. Don't have to grow it, don't have to ship it, not so many mouths along a chain got to be fed.'

‘And these get used by kids, young kids?'

‘Sure. It's not like the weed, the guy home from work, the joint outside on the verandah, calm himself down, feel relaxed for his evening. This is for kids want to feel excited, dance all night, talk to their friends about what outlaws they are.'

‘Sure.'

‘You got the people to handle it? I hear you had some problems.'

‘Well, we did. I lost someone, actually, kid worked over in Berkeley. He got knocked around and dropped out of the scene.'

‘Yeah, I heard about that too. You've handled that problem okay so far.'

Feizel hears the ‘so far' and at once the conversation is changed for him. He turns towards a fish-selling bay so that Vincenzo will not be able to see his eyes. He sits still, thinking for a while. Still looking away, he says, ‘This kid, this big-mouth kid drinks the whisky, talks about things when he should keep his mouth shut. You're going to tell me somethin' else about him? You're going to tell me somethin', ain't ya, give me a way to know more about this kid who's got the whisky and talkin' too much?'

‘Oh, well, sure, if you want that, what harm? He lives in Telopea. Drives a big yellow Ford.'

‘Yeah. Geez. An' don' I
know
a lot now. An' this heavy family done this thing, they doin' real good, ain't they, usin' up lots of space.' He turns to see Vincenzo watching him closely. ‘An', what, they got big houses, out there above the harbour? They got houses but you got a unit?'

‘No.' Vincenzo looks displeased. ‘They live out in the south-west, where their families are. I don't know what they do with their money. Maybe send it home, to the old country. Maybe they're going to go back there some day, go back in style.'

‘An' their old country – it's not Italy, is it?'

‘No. Oh, they're not Italian.'

‘Figured that. An' if I let this slip, this thing I learned from you today, that'd be down on the south coast, eh, long way from you, nothin' to do wit' you. An' would give 'em big grief, that family, maybe break up their whole operation. An' they'd never have no way to bring it back to
you
, would they?'

He sees Vincenzo's charming, confident smile.

‘But, Feizel,' Vincenzo says, ‘you won't let anything slip. I know you. I trust you. That's why I can tell you these things.'

Feizel can't shift his eyes from the man across from him. The tan, the teeth, the gold, the smile. ‘Sure,' he says.

‘And now I must go. You'll collect at the normal place. More money now, your operation's worth, with this new product. I myself must not keep the lady waiting because she'll be wanting her lunch.'

He reaches a hand across the table, which Feizel accepts. There's a warm, trusting handshake. Feizel watches Vincenzo and the glamorous young lady leave the vast hall. He can't resist watching the sway of the young lady's buttocks in her tight jeans as she strides confidently on her very high heels out into the carpark. And, for reasons which he can't begin to understand, he takes great pleasure in the fact that the lovely young lady is a great deal taller than her boyfriend.