Peter Corris - The Black Prince

‘Can you walk?’

‘Just.’

Clive’s taxi was in the street so I limped next door and asked him for my mail. He was surprised to see me and told me how crook I looked. I thanked him and took the couple of uninteresting-looking letters.

‘Did your mate call in?’ he asked.

I’d moved away and turned towards the gate, now I turned back and felt pain shoot through my chest.

‘What mate?’

‘Bloke knocked at the door yesterday as I was going out. Young guy. Tough-looking. Said he was a friend of yours. I told him where you were.’

I didn’t like the sound of that, but there was no point in putting Clive on the spot. ‘Oh, him, yeah, sure. He dropped in.’

‘Right, Cliff. Take it easy.’

Good advice and I’d have been glad to adopt it if I hadn’t had at least six things to worry about. The exertion had tired me. I put a banana and some milk in the blender and slowly drank the result. Then I had a large Scotch and drove the short distance to Sangster’s surgery.

He smelled my breath. ‘I see you’ve been on the mother’s milk.’

I consulted my ancient Swatch. ‘This can’t take more than thirty minutes.’

‘You’re going to a disco?’

‘Hah.’ With difficulty, I stripped off my shirt. Ian removed the strapping, inspected the damage and re-strapped me. He examined my jaw, took my temperature and manipulated my neck. It all hurt but I was stoical.

‘Tough guy,’ he said. ‘You think I don’t know what you’re suppressing?’

‘Look, Ian. I need to be up and doing. I’m taking your fucking steroids and the other bombs you’ve prescribed. I don’t feel too bad, but I need some painkillers that’ll cut in quickly and won’t make me drowsy.’

He rummaged in a drawer and produced a bottle. ‘I can’t think how many times I’ve broken the law in treating you.’

I took the pills and let him help me on with my shirt. ‘It adds spice to your life. Thanks, Ian. You’ve done a great job.’

‘You’ll live at least until tomorrow. With you, that’s about as much as anyone can say.’

‘We’ll have that drink soon.’

I cracked a can of the warm beer and used it to wash down one of the pills. I drove to a point higher up and one street away where you can observe the area in front of my house if you know how to position yourself. I sipped at the beer and waited with a pair of field glasses finely adjusted to the distance. The pill and the alcohol started to take effect and I was able to perform a few gentle stretches and regulate my breathing.

Eight minutes before the hour I’d stipulated was up, a car stopped outside my house. Blue Camry. I noted the number. Two men got out. They were both big and looked to be in their late twenties or early thirties. Both wore dark suits and ties and one had his hair pulled back into a knot at the back of his head. The other hadn’t done anything with his hair except shave it all off. His bald dome glistened in the late afternoon light. They pushed open the gate and advanced towards the front door. I lost them on the overgrown path.

You can’t get to the back of the house outside from the front without a machete; the bougainvillea is a knotty, thorny maze between the house and the side fence. I couldn’t see these two risking their thousand-dollar suits on that. They reappeared, conferred, and walked along to the alley a few doors down to take a look at the back. They were doomed to disappointment there as well unless they had a rope and some other shoes in the boot. My back fence is an ordinary, very weathered, paling job, but it sits on top of a two-metre high sandstone wall.

Back they came to the front looking very pissed-off and a bit hot. The blocks in my street are deep and the walk back up the alley is steepish. I was untroubled in the shade and wearing a light shirt; walking around in the sun in a suit wouldn’t be comfortable. They looked up and down the street, perhaps searching for my car, perhaps because they couldn’t think of anything else to do. Baldy leaned against the Camry and lit a cigarette while his mate pulled out a mobile phone and made a call. Then they got back into the car and drove off. They didn’t look like draughtsmen or office wallahs who might work for Nickless. They looked like muscle.

In response to my phone call, Wesley was at my house in half an hour. He was reassuringly massive in his jeans and sweatshirt. I needed reassurance.

‘Mandy’s okay,’ he said, acknowledging my enquiry. ‘What’s up?’

‘I know where Clinton is. I’ve seen him and talked to him. He’s not rational and you almost wouldn’t recognise him physically. He’s put on twenty kilos, he’s got a busted nose and a flattened mouth and he wears dreadlocks.’

‘Who cares? Where is he?’

‘He’s at a house in Ryde. He’s working for a guy named Stan Morris as a standover man.’ I touched my jaw. ‘He’s the one who did this to me.’

‘Jesus, it can’t be true. He’s…’

‘He’s been through hell, Wes. He’s changed. He fought in one of those smokos they hold in the backblocks. And there’s worse.’

‘What?’

‘He’s planning to kill the man who supplied Angela Cousins with the steroids. He’s expecting to meet up with him very soon, could be any day.’

Wesley shook his head. Sweat beaded his upper lip and forehead. ‘My boy wouldn’t kill anyone. Not possible.’

‘He’s got my gun to do it with.’

That convinced him. ‘We’ve got to go to the police.’

‘With what? We’ve got no grounds to call in the police against Morris. We’ve got nothing on him.’

Wes acted as if he hadn’t heard me. He shook his head and pointed to the phone. ‘C’mon, you must have cops you can trust. You can arrange something.’

‘I don’t and I can’t.’ My own feelings of guilt about the gun made me testy. ‘How about this? D’you want me to get in touch with Nickless and have him accuse Clinton of kidnapping and extortion? We could probably get the cops in on that.’

‘No, of course not. Why can’t I just turn up there and say it’s your father and…’

I’d told Wes about his son’s masquerade but he seemed to have forgotten. ‘Can’t do that. He’s supposed to be an Aborigine, remember? How’d he explain things to Morris? That’d put him right in the shit.’

‘So you’re saying we have to do it ourselves? We have to front up to this Morris character and try to get Clinton away from him.’

‘Right. Ordinarily, I’d tackle it myself with another pro or two, but I’m somewhat incapacitated. And normally the last thing I’d do is involve a client directly, but I reckon you’d have more influence with Clinton than anyone else on the planet, if we can just get at him properly.’

‘Given that Angela Cousins is dead,’ Wes said quietly.

‘Yeah, that’s right. Look, I have to assume Morris has a couple of other guys with him, especially if he’s waiting to do a big drug deal. But you must’ve been in some fights, Wes.’

‘Uh huh, very few. You look like this, the drunks and even the racists, they pretty much leave you alone.’

‘Must have done your National Service when you were in England.’

He suddenly looked older and sadder, which was not what I was hoping for. ‘Yeah, I did it. In Northern Ireland.’

‘Perfect,’ I said.

I told him about the set-up at Ryde-the size and operation of the gate, the height of the fence, the floodlights, the kind of neighbourhood. He listened intently. It seemed that he’d got rid of all doubt; now he was totally committed. He absorbed the information instantly and I could sense him processing it the way a military field officer does, the way I’d done myself in Malaya but a long time ago and with varying degrees of success.