You Wouldn't Be Dead for Quids (18 page)

‘I didn't know you were such a caring father, Muzz.'

‘Nothin's too good for my kids, Les.'

Murray walked over, opened the front door of the P76 and looked inside. ‘Hello. What have we got in here?' he said brightly. He reached inside and came up with two dozen cans of beer. ‘Victorian Bitter. That'll do, it's not a bad drop.' He took two cans out and tucked the carton up under his arm. ‘Here y'are,' he said slinging one over to Les.

They whipped the ring-pulls off and started drinking from the cans, walking slowly and quietly up the street, the same as before. After a while Les spoke.

‘Been much rain up home lately?' he said taking a decent sort of a swallow from his can of beer.

‘Nah,' said Murray, finishing his and tossing the empty can in the gutter. ‘It's been that hot and dry even the goannas are gettin' round with zinc cream on their noses.'

‘Go on, eh?'

They strolled leisurely along, talking and drinking a few more cans. They had another couple when they got home and called it a night.

Monday dawned cloudy with a little bit of rain around that looked like it could increase later on. One of those typical, unsettled days Sydney always seems to get in mid spring. Not cold enough to wear a jumper but too lousy to go to the beach; the sort of day you're better off being at work. Or in a pub.

Murray woke up to find Les standing at the bedroom door dressed in a pair of football shorts, running shoes and an old
sweat shirt with the sleeves cut off at the shoulders. A sweat band made from an old T-shirt was wrapped around his head. ‘G'day Muzz,' he said brightly, ‘how did you sleep?'

‘Mate, I never moved,' said Murray blinking his eyes several times while he got his bearings. ‘What time is it?'

‘About half past eight.'

‘Shit, is it?' Murray was a bit surprised, being the sort of bloke that's normally up at the crack of dawn.

‘There's a pot of tea in the kitchen. I'm just going down to Centennial Park for a run, why don't you get Grungle and come down, give him a bit of exercise.

‘Yeah, I might do that,' said Murray rubbing his eyes. ‘Just give me five minutes to have a snake's and put me strides on.'

‘Take your time. There's no real hurry.'

An hour and a half later, Les had finished a 12 km run, sprints included, 150 sit-ups, the same amount of push-ups and a fairly solid spar and wrestle with his rock hard brother; which was a work-out in itself. Grungle had chased all the water hens, swans and everything else to his heart's content, while Murray had a good mag, bush style, to the park ranger and two young mounted policemen. Country boys themselves. They were fascinated by the strange, wild looking bushman and his equally strange, wild looking dog.

It started to rain again when they got back home, a little harder this time, so they had to sprint from Les's car to the house. After a quick shower Les changed into a track-suit and fresh sneakers then cooked them both up a big feed of breakfast sausages and plenty of scrambled eggs with chopped up shallots; plus a pot of tea and huge stack of Vogel's toast. Grungle was wet, so instead of having him lie around stinking up the lounge or the verandah Les put him out the back with the other kangaroo leg, which the dog immediately started crunching up with terrifying efficiency. King put his usual act on when he saw Grungle, who snarled a little at first then simply ignored him.

Over breakfast the boys watched Grungle through the back door, chewing on the leg. Across the fence they could see King's big head sticking out of his carpeted kennel in Grungle's direction. Every now and again he'd snarl bitterly at him.

‘Go on Les,' said Murray between mouthfuls of sausages and egg. ‘Let me toss him over the fence. Just for a couple of minutes.'

‘Turn it up,' replied Les shaking his head. He took a great slurp of tea from his mug and looked at his watch. ‘The bloke should be here soon to take you to Price's place.'

‘Good. To tell you the truth I'm looking forward to meeting this boss of yours.'

‘You'll love him Muzz. He's a terrific bloke. And wait'll you see his home, it looks like Buckingham Palace.'

‘Yeah. Has he got a swimmin' pool? I might take me cossies.'

‘Turn it up. You'd leave a ring around it a foot wide.'

They finished the first pot of tea, Les made a fresh one so they sat there talking and polished off the rest of the toast. They started to put the dishes away when Les heard a car horn bip a couple of times out the front. ‘That'll be him now,' he said walking out and opening the front door. He recognised the driver and waved; the driver waved back from Price's brown Rolls-Royce.

‘You right, Muzz?' he called out.

‘Yeah. Wait'll I have a quick leak.'

It had stopped raining so Les walked down to the car to talk to the driver. ‘G'day, Eddie,' he said as the driver's side window slid quietly down. ‘How're you goin'?'

‘Not bad, Les. How's y'self?' The driver was Eddie Salita, a short wiry Calabrian, who wore glasses and smiled a lot with flashing white teeth. There wasn't a real lot of Eddie, but he was a tough little rooster and Price's number one hit-man. It was Eddie who went down to Melbourne and shot the two Painters and Dockers who shot Les in their attempt to kill Price. ‘Hey what's goin' on here, Les?' he asked. ‘Price told me to guard this brother of yours with my life. Christ, I've got enough guns in the car to start a shooting gallery.'

Les smiled as he noticed the .38 police special sitting snugly under Eddie's shoulder and the butt of a sawn-off police riot gun sticking up between the front seats. An unopened box of shells was lying on the floor.

‘Here he comes now,' he said. ‘He'll tell you all about it on the way over.'

As Murray got into the front passenger's seat Les introduced him to Eddie. ‘Listen Muzz,' said Les, ‘it's half past twelve. I reckon you should be back half past two or so. I'll wait here for you anyway.'

‘All right.'

‘So I'll see you then. Good luck.'

‘No worries. See you.'

‘See you later, Eddie.'

‘See you, Les.' Eddie gave the horn a toot as he drove off. Murray had a grin from ear to ear.

As the Rolls slowly cruised off down the street Les noticed Stavros herd his family, all arguing in Greek, out of the house and bundle them noisily into the Valiant; Despina got in the front, Johnny Cash sat in the back between the two boys. Despina looked quite nice in a sleeveless white dress with a floppy light blue hat, the boys were brushed up also in their dark blue Waverley College suits; all freshly dry-cleaned. Stavros was wearing the most ostentatious, black, chalk striped suit imaginable with a red tie about a yard wide. He looked like a heavy in a spaghetti western.

‘Off to the big wedding, Stav?' Les called out as Stavros was getting into the car. Despina and the kids turned around inside, smiled and waved; Johnny Cash flashed a toothless grin from the back seat.

‘Yes. Yes, off to the wedding,' replied Stavros. ‘But I tell you something Les, my friend.' He put his hands on either side of his head and closed his eyes. ‘I do not feel very much like it. Yesterday, too much. Ooh.'

Les couldn't help but laugh. ‘You'll be right, mate,' he said.

He stood there for a moment as they drove off, idly kicking some rubbish into the still lightly flowing gutter. The rain had eased and out towards the ocean he could see a couple of small blue patches among the pastel greys of the sky. He was about to go in his gate when he spotted one of the old pensioners across the road, Mrs. Beatty, trying to manoeuvre a large, potted rubber tree plant from her front verandah down the front stairs.

‘Hey, hang on Mrs. Beatty,' he called out. ‘I'll give you a hand.' He trotted across the road and effortlessly picked up the heavy, black concrete pot. ‘Whereabouts do you want it?' he asked.

‘Just in the corner near the oleander thanks, Les.' Mrs. Beatty straightened up, dusted her hands on the apron she was wearing and tucked a loose strand of blue-grey hair back up under an old yellow scarf she had tied over her head. ‘Oh, you're a pet Les, for doing that,' she said.

‘That's all right,' said Les, nudging the heavy pot finally into place with his foot. ‘If ever you need a lift with anything and I'm around, give us a yell. No good you bustin' a poofle valve.'

‘Well, I generally get Mrs. Curtin next door to give me a hand, but she's in bed lying down. She's not very well today, poor thing.'

‘Yeah. What's up? Bit off-colour is she?'

‘Oh no, she took a dreadful turn yesterday evening. Didn't you hear what happened?'

‘No, I was out. What happened?'

Mrs. Beatty produced a crumpled tissue from her apron, took off her glasses and polished them vigorously. Les could sense she was winding up for a bit of good gossip.

‘Oh it was something shocking,' she said, placing her glasses back on her face. ‘We were standing out the front having a bit of a talk . . . we'd just put the garbage tins out. Mrs. Curtin had Sally with her.'

‘Her little sydney silky?'

‘Yes. Anyway, Mr Poltavaris has come out of his front gate with that great big alsatian of his, King, on a lead.'

Les's eyebrows knitted and he looked at her quizzingly. ‘Go on,' he said slowly.

‘Well, the next thing, King's torn itself off the lead, ran across the road and started savaging Sally.'

‘Her little silky?' Les was incredulous. ‘It's no bigger than a powder puff.'

‘Yes I know. Luckily I had a broom handy and I gave it a crack across the face and he dropped her, otherwise he'd probably have killed the poor little thing.'

Les stood there po-faced, silently shaking his head.

‘Anyway, poor Mrs. Curtin has picked up Sally, who had terrible gashes in her back, and King's gone her. She's fallen over and hurt all her back. By this time Mr. Poltavaris has ran over and managed to get hold of King and he's shouting at it to get down, but the blessed thing hardly takes any notice of him, you know. So I gave the rotten thing another crack with the broom. That made it shut up a bit.'

Les thought back to his episode with King and the cricket stump. ‘Yeah, it would,' he said. ‘So what happened then?'

‘Oh Mr. Poltavaris was all apologies of course, but we had to
take Sally to the vet and get its back stitched. Honestly, Les you should see some of the gashes. They're something dreadful.'

‘I could imagine.'

‘And we had to get the doctor for Mrs. Curtin. She took a very nasty turn, you know, when she fell down and hurt her back.'

‘That's understandable.'

‘Like I said. Mr. Poltavaris was all apologies and he's offered to pay any costs involved, he's quite a lovely person really. But that's not the point Les. It's that darn dog of his. Honestly, it's a bloody menace if you ask me.'

‘Yeah, it's a pain in the arse all right.'

‘Really Les, something should be done about it, you know.'

Les nodded his big head slowly. ‘You're right there,' he said. As they were standing there it started to rain again. ‘Look at that,' he said. ‘Just as I thought it was going to clear up. Well, I'd better get inside.' He made a move for the front gate.

‘Are you sure you wouldn't like a cup of tea?' said Mrs. Beatty as she went up the front steps.

‘No thanks,' replied Les. ‘I've got a few things I've got to do. When you see Mrs. Curtin say hello for me.' He started to head across the road. ‘I'll see you later Mrs. Beatty.'

‘Bye Les. Thanks for the lift.'

‘That's all right.' He sprinted for his front gate as the rain increased. His front door was still open so he ran straight inside.

He went to the kitchen, put the kettle on and began cleaning up the dishes. While he was doing this he started thinking. He was still thinking 15 minutes later while he stood at the back door with a mug of coffee in his hand watching Grungle bulldoze an empty wine flagon around the backyard with his nose. Across the fence he could see King's sour face sticking out of its kennel. Every now and again it would snarl and bare its teeth towards Grungle, still spoiling for a fight and obviously still flushed with its victory over Sally.

Finally Les called Grungle over. ‘Grungle, come here mate,' he gave a soft whistle and slapped his hand against his thigh, Grungle dropped what it was doing and ambled happily over. As it walked towards him, it reminded Les of a small train engine with a cow catcher on the front the way it seemed to push its big head in front of it in the bull terrier style; unlike other dogs that carry their heads up in a straight line.

It climbed up the stairs and flopped on its backside, resting on its paws next to Les's feet. Les patted its scarred head and gave its stomach a rub. Grungle gave a grunt of satisfaction and licked Les's hand. Looking up at Les, the happy smile on its face and the laughing effect of its pink piggy eyes almost hid the awesome, destructive power of those razor sharp teeth and massive jaws propelled by its short, unbelievably strong neck. Sitting there wagging its tail peacefully, it looked just like a family pet. Except that when you got up close it looked like at some time the family pet's face had caught on fire and someone tried to put it out with a pick axe.

As Les patted Grungle's unlovely head, he reflected back to how he used to watch his brother help it to develop those crushing jaws by taking a piece of thick branch at either end and with Grungle clamped on to it in the middle he'd lift the dog clean off the ground and swing it around for up to 15 minutes at a time. The dog would grip the wooden log like it was riveted to it till finally Murray would let go, then Grungle would crunch through the solid piece of wood like it was a scotch finger biscuit.

Les looked at Grungle, looked across the fence at the snarling King, thought about Sally across the road and looked back at Grungle again, scratching his chin thoughtfully. Finally he finished his mug of coffee and put it down on an old table on the verandah.