The Marvellous Boy (19 page)

He turned his head to look at the water; it was dark with an ugly, metallic sheen.

“Okay, okay, give me some air.”

I eased back a bit. “Who?” I said.

“The same guy you're following.”

That jolted me. “What's his name?”

“Russell James, or so he tells me.”

“You said you didn't know Miss Reid had a boyfriend.”

“I didn't. I couldn't believe it when I saw them together tonight.”

I was confused, but it felt like the confusion that comes before clarity.

“When did James ask you to follow me?”

“Couple of days ago, after you'd come to my dump. I looked but you weren't around. I picked you up today.”

I tightened my grip because I was angry at my own carelessness. “Do you do much of this Albie? Following people?”

“Easy,” he gasped. “Not usually.”

“How long have you known James? Customer is he?”

“Sort of. Known him a couple of years but he only started buying a while back.”

“He doesn't look the type. How long back?”

“‘Bout a year. There's all sorts of people on drugs, Slim.”

“I told you not to call me that,” I snarled. “Where'd you meet him?”

“Pub in the Cross.”

“Jesus. The Noble Briton?”

“I think so, yeah, how'd you know?”

“I guessed. Do you drink there often?”

He hesitated. “No, well . . .”

I bent him over the rail a bit more. “You're not off the hook yet, Albie. I want it all. If you make me happy I'll let you go on another one of your train trips and you can come back with a suitcase of shit. If you don't you're history. Now, you were saying?”

“Well, I really met him in this whorehouse in Darlinghurst. We sort of got talking and went for a drink to the Briton. I saw him on and off at Honey's, ah . . .”

“I know Honey,” I said. “Go on.”

“He spent some dough, drinks and that. And he helped me to move a few things, you know. Then he started buying, if you ask me it was for someone else.”

“Who?”

“I dunno.” I twisted. “I dunno. Shit, easy!”

“What did you talk about, you and James? Did he ask you about your old job with the Chattertons?”

“Yeah, I suppose he did. Yeah we talked about that.”

“What does he do?”

“He never told me.”

“You didn't ask?”

“No, look I was pissed half the time, or high.”

“What does he buy?”

“Fuckin' near anything—grass, speed, coke sometimes. Mostly speed and downers. He bought a big load when I seen him last.”

“You told him about my visit?”

“Yeah, well I was feeling pretty pissed off. I was just talking and then he put it on me to follow you. He said we could get you in the shit. He was gonna pay me.” He looked down at the water again. “I'm sorry,” he gulped.

“You should be.” I heard sounds, voices, feet on the stones, and judged that people would be coming out of the cinema for a smoke. I moved Albie away from the rail keeping a strong grip on his arm and walked him down towards the car park. He was shaking and his colour was bad. We walked down between the ranks of cars and I backed him up against a VW Kombi van in a shadow.

“Have a smoke, Albie.”

He got out his cigarettes and lit up. The flame jumped around his hand and his eyes were pin-pointed with fear or drug need or both. He blew the smoke towards me and quickly fanned it away with his hand.

“Albie, this is a rough game you're in. Two people are dead before their time and your mate with the bandages hit me over the head from behind a few nights ago. So I'm not happy with him and I'm not happy about a dirty little creep like you following me around.”

He drew nervously on his cigarette and didn't say anything.

“Now you are a lucky man, I went on, “because you are fat and short and I don't feel like belting you. I suggest you go on an interstate run tomorrow and then take your holidays or something. If I hear you're in Sydney I'll make a couple of phone calls and you'll be out of a job and the narc squad'll be picking your teeth for you. Clear?”

“Sure, sure.”

I shovelled the tie and handkerchief into the front of his coat. “Piss off, Albie.”

He sidled along, keeping his back to the van until he was clear of it and then he took off fast towards the comforting lights of the Quay. I made a cigarette and smoked it slowly while I pieced things together—Henry Brain, the Noble Briton, Russell James (as he called himself), Honey Gully, Richard Selby, and Verna Reid, all interlocked in a pattern of calculation and deception. It looked as if Brain had run into Baudin in the Cross, noticed his powerful resemblance to the Chattertons, and spilled some of the story to him. Baudin could have known Selby through the Spartacus Studio and together they could have sent Brain up to Lady C. to gauge her reaction. Getting nothing they switched to working through Verna Reid in some way. It fitted a lot of the facts; Russell James told Verna Reid he was a property developer; Keir's $1,500 could have been used to finance that, either for real or as a front. Whatever the tactic my turning up must have thrown them into a spin—exit Brain and Callaghan. It had holes in it: if James
was
Baudin why didn't he just declare himself and claim the loot? But there was a possible explanation for that—Lady Catherine's wish to find the grandson might be a secret she'd confided only to me. Selby's involvement could be complex, he could be in collusion with Reid and James or be playing another
angle—in the normal course of things his wife was in line for a big slice of the pie anyway. Then there was the mystery of the Chatterton will, there could be something in that which necessitated a waiting game.

I finished the cigarette and looked out across the water in a mood of mild self-congratulation. I checked back over my reconstruction and didn't find anything too inconvenient although the Chatterton heir's character was looking blacker every minute. I walked quickly back to the restaurant and suddenly I was breaking all my own rules, moving hastily and obtrusively for cover at the foot of the steps—under a harsh neon light the big man with the bandaged face and his dark-eyed friend were stepping it out towards their car.

Verna Reid and Russell James were quarrelling; they kept well apart and their heads jerked as they snapped and snarled. Watching them, I dodged about on the other side of the road like a boxer trying to stay out of trouble on the ropes. James slipped quickly into his mildly aggressive driving style. The Toyota took the corners with practised ease and pulled familiarly up into Richard and Bettina Selby's driveway. I skulked on for a hundred yards before killing the lights, putting the keys under the seat, arming myself and heading up the street to do some genuine, in the field, sleuthing.

No front gate, no alert dog in the front yard, no kids' toys to trip over. I padded up past the Toyota; the Honda-Accord was missing but a Chev was there instead. Lights were on in the back of the house and there was a soft, green glow from the pool which looked cool, inviting and uncomplicated. A heavy thumping, like a fist beating on tin, caused me to duck down into the shadows near the garage. I poked my head around the corner and saw the man in the fawn suit knocking his knuckles on the back door.

“Richard!” His voice was high and urgent. “Richard, where the hell are you?”

Where indeed? It hadn't looked like a chance call and I'd expected to find them cosy over a beer with their ties loosened.

He kept on knocking and nothing kept happening, then he started to swear rather nastily and display a considerable bad temper by kicking the door. The gun was biting into my gut and I was getting cramped in the squatting position; I uncoiled cautiously and inched along trying to get a better view of the man assaulting the door. It all happened very fast—a car door slammed and I spun around and then something hit me in the stomach very hard. It bent me over and I had an impression of a wide, light shape near me and then my upper right arm was stinging like hell and I was throwing a long punch that went on and on to nowhere.

I was only a quarter of a man or less after that: the two of them dragged me into the house. I couldn't move but I could hear all right.

“She's away with the kids,” Selby said.

My head bumped against something as the other man spoke.

“Easy,” Selby grunted. “Albie phoned, I was ready for this bastard half an hour ago.”

Albie,
I thought.
Rotten little Albie, fucking Albie . . .

They let me down roughly onto carpet that felt like marble.

“How long'll he be out?”

“It varies,” Selby said. “That stuff puts some people under for hours and others hardly go out at all. Let's have a look at him.”

The smart thing seemed to be one of the susceptible; I let my eyelids drop and my head loll. I felt hands grab bits of my face and then I was on the carpet slab again.

I didn't have to act too hard: I was lying still but felt as if I
was swimming and there was a roaring in my head like an eternal wave breaking over me. I heard snatches of their conversation through the foam.

“What are we going to
do
with this character?”

“You were supposed to find out tonight,” Selby said.

Then Verna Reid chipped in: “He tried but I just don't
know!
She's kept it all to herself.”

I snuck a look through a shuttered eye; they were in armchairs but tense and nervous. Verna Reid was wearing her basic black which suited her fierce, hostile mood. Selby was wearing jeans and a white shirt, his face was scarlet above the snowy cloth. He was drinking what looked like scotch and the other man clinked bottles and ice and made himself something, too. I was parched and hearing a howling wind now along with the boom of the surf. I was slipping under and coming up, hearing words and missing some, and I was suddenly cold from my scalp to my big toes.

“We have to settle it,” Selby was saying. “Is he up at the river?”

“Should be by now. But what if . . .”

“It's all ifs. We have to make a move, we have to find out.”

“What about him?”

The roaring and booming blotted out the rest of it and I felt them take hold of me again and move me. I summoned up everything and tried to fight them but for all the difference it made I might have been a butterfly. They dragged me easily with their weight-lifters' strength and they didn't care when parts of me hit things. I didn't care much either. I wanted to sleep, to curl up in a ball and sleep, and then I remembered Kay and that I hadn't called her and I heaved and strained at them and said uncomplimentary
words that felt like stones in my mouth. They must have bumped me into something then or hit me because it all slid away; the noises stopped and I tobogganed down into darkness and silence.

Coming to was like being born—I struggled down a long, dark tunnel, not wanting to get to the end but not in control of what was happening. I was pushed and pulled towards a circle of light which grew bigger and bigger until it filled my whole field of vision and blinded me. I felt as if I'd been folded in half and put in a box. In fact I was sitting with my knees drawn up to my chin: I tried to lower my legs but they only got half way before they bumped into something. I shook my head and forced my eyes open and saw a wall; I felt a wall behind me and a hard surface under me. I was in a shower stall, my hands were tied behind me and my feet were strapped together at the ankles. Pains like cramps were shooting through me and my throat was as dry as a chalk duster. At first I thought the light tapping I could hear was inside my head but I found it was a steady drip from the shower rose. The drop fell about a foot in front of me but I couldn't lean far enough forward to get my tongue out to it—my whole body was thirsty. It was torture.

I had no idea of the time, lights were on in the room but I couldn't see a window. It could have been midnight or midday. I wasted some time cursing myself for carelessness and incompetence, and wasted some breath by shouting for help. Then I calmed down and became more practical: I listened, the house was dead quiet. I pulled at the cord holding my ankles and at whatever was around my wrists—nothing gave. I looked around as best I could but the stall was tiled and smooth, there was nothing to cut with or rub against. So I shouted again and choked and was sick all over my legs, and everything was just that much worse. I tried
kicking at the wall but the thing was built solid and I only succeeded in sending jarring pains shooting up into my crotch. I tried to roll and found that my wrists were tied to something firm—no rolling.

It was hard. The thirst and the cramps and the smell were bad but the feeling of helplessness was destructive. It washed over me in waves making me rave and struggle and then leaving me defeated, almost indifferent. The drug was still working; I blanked out a few times. I had bursts of cold anger and mushy self-pity; I did no clear thinking. I was in one of the indifferent stages when I heard the noises—a door opened far away, there were footsteps and other indeterminate sounds. I hardly cared, or thought I was imagining it. I smiled and felt the caked vomit on my face crack—ho hum. Then the noises were closer and then they were going away with a final sound to them. They were real. I shouted and thumped my feet on the wall; I howled like a wolf.

High heels rang on the tiles and the shower curtain jerked aside: Bettina Selby stood there, the most wonderful person in the world, a goddess, a saint.

“Jesus Christ,” she breathed.

I croaked up at her: “Water, and get a knife.”

An hour later I was sitting in her kitchen with a third cup of coffee and wearing one of her husband's shirts. I was shaved, fairly clean and if not quite back to normal at least I could remember what normal felt like. Bettina had been fast and cool with the necessaries. She told me that she'd planned to stay a week with a friend but had come back for something she'd forgotten—the thought of a week in the shower stall made my guts turn over. I drank coffee and made a cigarette; I hadn't explained one damn thing to her
and it was time. She was wearing an off-the-shoulder dress in a floral print and big wedge shoes and looked good enough to eat. It was 11 a.m. on Tuesday, she told me, as she poured herself a hefty brandy. I accepted a slug of the same in my coffee.