Peter Corris - The Black Prince

They stopped but didn’t look scared. ‘It’s fucking Hardy,’ Baldy shouted above the alarm.

‘That’s right. Sorry I wasn’t at home when you called.’

Ponytail edged closer. ‘He won’t shoot.’

I shot, aiming well in front of him. More gravel flew, some of it into his face, and he flinched. The Colt makes a sharp report and it brought a scream from the house. Morris appeared on the porch.

‘Bindi, what the fuck’s going on?’ He pointed a remote controller at the Commodore and the whooping stopped.

‘Who’s Bindi?’ Baldy said.

‘No-one you know. Get lost.’

The gunshot must have startled and distracted Wes because Clinton broke free of him. He lashed out and caught his father with a glancing blow to the head. Wes reacted more out of surprise probably than from the weight of the punch. He stepped back. Clinton jumped forward and into the Camry. He gunned the motor and shot out through the gate in reverse, swerving, clipping the post as he went.

‘Clinton!’ Wes shouted, but tyres shrieked and rubber burned and he was gone.

Stan Morris, wearing a silk dressing-gown, came across the gravel, wincing as it bit into his bare feet.

‘Will someone tell me what’s going on here?’ He pointed at me, still holding the gun more or less at the ready. ‘You’re the fucker who followed us from the fight. Bindi said he’d wiped you off.’

‘Not quite, Morris,’ I said. ‘There’s a very long story here and there’s been a car alarm and a gunshot. Do we get the cops in or what?’

Wes had walked to the open gate and was staring out at the street.

‘Who’s he?’ Morris said.

‘He’s the father of the guy you know as Bindi. He’s not an Aborigine by the way, he’s a West Indian.’

‘Shit. And who’re these two?’

Without their car and their target, Baldy and Ponytail seemed to be at a loss. I said nothing and waited for the sound of sirens or signs of consternation in the street. Nothing. Maybe the gunshot hadn’t been so loud. A backfire. And car aiarms go off all the time. Morris’ thought processes were running along the same lines.

‘No cops,’ he said.

‘Good,’ I said. ‘I’ve got reason to believe you’ve got illegal substances in there, and if that hooker’s sixteen…’

‘Okay, okay. What d’you want?’

Baldy and Ponytail were getting edgy, looking from one to the other. Ponytail felt for his mobile while Baldy lit a cigarette.

‘I think you’d better be on your way, boys,’ I said. ‘You can call yourselves a cab. Just for interest though, how’d you get on to this place?’

Baldy obviously felt a whole lot better with two lungs full of tar. ‘We had two cars at your place. You ducked the first one but the second one picked you up and followed you here. Rex is going to want to talk to you, Hardy. We’ll deal with the boong later.’

Wes, head bowed, was walking back towards us. I pointed to him with the gun. ‘If his father hears you using words like that you’ll have to crawl away. Piss off!’

They trooped off towards the gate. Baldy turned around before they got there. ‘We know where you live, Hardy.’

‘Yeah,’ I said, ‘and I know what you used to drive. Explain that to Nickless and tell him I’ll be in touch.’

The blonde girl was on the porch, smoking and wearing only her pink blouse. Morris shouted at her to go inside. She flicked ash at him but obeyed. Wes advanced on Morris.

‘I ought to kill you for using my boy like you have.’

‘Hey, hey, he came to me. He looked like a Koori, talked like one and he could fight. How was I to know what he was?’

Wes shook his head and looked at me as I put the gun away. ‘I don’t know what to do. What’ll I tell Mandy? I didn’t even get to talk to him.’

Morris’ confidence was flowing back. ‘I don’t think any of this is my fucking problem. You’ve entered my property illegally somehow. Probably done some damage and…’

‘Forget it, Morris,’ I said. ‘You haven’t got a legal leg to stand on. Wes, we have to go inside and look at Clinton’s things, see if the gun’s there and if we can get any idea of where he’s gone.’

‘You’re not going…’

Wes took a handful of Morris’ dressing-gown at the back and lifted him off the ground with one hand. Morris wasn’t light but Wes carried him towards the house with his feet some centimetres off the ground with no apparent effort until the fabric ripped and he fell, skinning his knees on the gravel. He yelped and the blonde girl poked her head out of the door and giggled. Morris shouted an obscenity at her and Wes lifted him up and shook him.

‘You’re a piece of shit, Morris. Go and turn the lights off. And I don’t want to see you again, understand?’

Morris nodded and we went up the steps and into the house. The girl had her skirt and shoes on and was unshipping her mobile.

‘I’m leaving,’ she said.

I nodded. ‘Better. Did he pay you?’

‘No.’

‘Find his wallet and take what you’re owed. He won’t say anything.’

She was pretty and not yet as tough as she would be in a very short time. ‘Right,’ she said. Wes started up the stairs and she followed with me bringing up the rear. She went into what was obviously Morris’ bedroom and came out flourishing some notes. I escorted her down the stairs and outside in case Morris had turned nasty, but he was standing in the carport looking at his damaged Commodore. The girl gave me a hard, painful tobacco-breath kiss on the cheek, tried for a high five which I couldn’t quite get my hand up for, and high-heeled it towards the gate.

I went back into the house and up the stairs. I found Wes in a room at the back. He was looking sadly at his son’s meagre possessions: some clothes hung on a metal rack, jeans, T-shirts, a denim jacket-others lay on the floor or on the unmade bed. A few weight-lifting magazines and some newspapers added to the mess. A half-empty bottle of Jack Daniels and a litre-sized bottle of Coca-Cola were on the dressing table. Beside it there was a paperback copy of Charles Perkins’ autobiography, A Bastard Like Me, and a brimming ashtray.

‘He used to be so neat,’ Wes said. ‘I kind of worried about it. And he didn’t drink or smoke.’

‘I didn’t tell you about the drinking. I think it started to help him put on weight and disguise himself. The same for the smoking. I don’t know about now.’

Wes shook his head sadly, sniffing the strong smell of smoke in die room. ‘He moved like Clinton, but he sure didn’t look like him. Shit, what a fucking fuck-up.’

There were a few coins on the dressing table and a set of keys, presumably to the Tarago. No notes, no wallet. An op-shop bomber jacket hung on a hook on the back of the door. I felt through its pocket without much optimism. Wes opened some drawers and slammed them shut. There was no sign of the gun. We completed our search and looked at each other. I tried to remember what Clinton was wearing but it wasn’t necessary.

‘I felt something hard in his jacket when I grabbed him,’ Wes said. ‘He had on a tracksuit top with zippered pockets. I felt something hard.’

I nodded. The effort of throwing the wrench, the recoil of the Colt, the whole fucked-up business had taken its toll. I reached for the bourbon, uncapped it and took a swig. I handed it to Wes who did the same.

Morris appeared in the doorway. ‘What the fuck are you two doing? You’re trespassing, you’ve got no right…’

‘Where’s he gone?’ Wes said. ‘My son. Where’s he gone?’

‘How the fuck would I know? Get out of my house.’

Wes advanced on Morris and pulled him into the room. He backed him up against the wall, towering over him. If Morris was an Aborigine he was a pale one and even paler now. Wes looked like a black thunder god, about to send down a lightning bolt.