Peter Corris: Casino

I caught up with them and was alarmed at the size of the one still on his feet. He was big and he was quick. He came at me with his shaved head lowered and looked ready to butt, kick or punch. I took a swing at his right ear and he swayed away from it easily. I wasn’t as fit as I should have been and my wind was short after the run. His was sound. He slammed a punch into my left shoulder and brought his knee up as I sagged. I managed to twist aside and hit him with a wild, glancing backhander that tore skin from my knuckles and ripped open his right cheek. He bellowed, wasting breath, and I drove hard at his nose. It caught him but he’d pulled back from it and it didn’t hurt him nearly enough. I was gasping and the shoulder hurt.

I didn’t even see the other man. He must have scrambled up and slid behind me. He kicked the back my of right knee and the leg buckled. The big man came in and slammed me twice, right hand, left hand, as I was on my knees with my head up. Just the way Dempsey finished off Firpo. It finished me, too.

The woman holding my head smelled of roses, then of mint. Her face yellow, then green. All my senses seemed to be jumbled and I was feeling pain in my stomach, feet and arms instead of my shoulder and head.

‘His eyes look funny,’ someone said.

The woman said, ‘Probably a concussion. Can you talk? Do you know your name?’

‘Dempsey,’ I mumbled. ‘Jack Dempsey’

‘Better call an ambulance. He needs to go to hospital’

I hate hospitals. The sound of the word helped to unscramble my brain. ‘I think I’m all right,’ I said. I felt my jaw, sore but not broken and I could see out of both eyes. My shoulder was numb but I could flex my knee. The woman let go of me and I managed to stay sitting, almost upright. Three or four people had gathered round but interest was waning now that I clearly wasn’t seriously hurt. I smiled my thanks to the woman who was still saying something about concussion and got slowly to my feet. I swayed but I could stand.

‘Don’t give him that!’

It was the woman again and she’d exceeded her brief because someone had gone to the pub and come back with a glass of beer. I took it and drank some. ‘Thanks, mate. Thanks all of you. I’ll be OK.’

‘At least you stopped them stealing your car,’ the beer-provider said. ‘Fucking bastards.’

The woman turned and walked away. ‘See a doctor,’ she said over her shoulder.

I took a few shaky steps, propped myself against a tree and finished the beer. I handed back the glass and someone gave me my coat. I wasn’t functioning well but I was functioning. I said some more thankyous and moved towards my car-a long, long way off. It would have been closer if I’d been able to walk in a straight line, but I got there and slumped down in the driver’s seat. Not surprisingly, the door lock seemed to be undamaged. Car door locks are for stopping ten-year-olds, not anyone who seriously wants to open them. The mobile phone was still in the pocket of my coat along with the car keys. My wallet was on my hip. It seemed I’d lost nothing at all but some skin off my knuckles and some pride.

I wasn’t ready to drive just yet and I wondered what the last beer had done to my blood alcohol. So many things to worry about these days. Like having lost a metre or two as a runner and not being able to hit as hard as I once could. I swung my legs inside and tested my shoulder by putting both hands on the wheel. Painful, but possible. For the first time in my life I wished my car was an automatic. I leaned back against the seat and took some deep breaths. My knee, jaw and shoulder hurt. Not vital spots. I put the phone on the passenger seat and that’s when I remembered the files and Baldy’s mate’s awkward running style. He’d looked that way because he was carrying the two folders in his right hand.

I swore, thumped the steering wheel and felt the pain travel along my shoulder and down my arm. I still wasn’t thinking straight and it occurred to me that being beaten up was a punishment for being careless.

‘Cliff, what in hell’s happened to you?’

Vita Drewe was standing by the car door. She was wearing shorts and sneakers and a T-shirt with Chinese characters printed across it. A largish dog on a leash was sniffing at the upholstery.

‘Stay, Dylan!’ She let go of the leash; the dog backed and sat with its tongue lolling out. She leaned closer to look at me. ‘Kee-rist, you’ve got a bruise there. Anything broken?’

I shook my head dopily and wished I hadn’t. ‘Don’t think so. They took the files. Two men. What’re you doing here?’

‘This is where I walk Dylan. Run some. I’m just here, that’s all. You smell of beer.’

‘Good Samaritan came by. People are decent. They helped me. But I really needed the help a bit earlier on. Not the man I used to be.’

‘OK. Let’s get you outa there and round the other side. I’ll drive. You mind Dylan getting in the back? He’ll behave, likes riding in cars.’

‘Can you drive? You hate cars. This is a manual.’

She helped me out, flicked up the knob on the back door and reached across to open the passenger door while I leaned against the car and looked at Dylan who looked back. Sceptically, I thought. I folded myself into the seat and she closed the door. A click of the tongue and Dylan was in the back.

She settled behind the wheel. ‘Can I drive a manual? I drove a Land Rover from Cape Town to Cairo.’

‘Bullshit.’

She laughed. ‘You’re right. I lie a little. But I can get this heap from here to my place.’

She handled the Falcon well, not crunching the gears and quickly getting used to the brakes and steering. Dylan growled contentedly in the back and only briefly pawed at the vinyl. He could have clawed it all up for mine, I was hurting too much to care. I’d have bet on a terrace house, but Vita told me that her place was a basement flat under a pathology laboratory on Victoria Road. She followed a complex pattern of lanes to get to the barred back gate. The light was failing but I could see a grassy area with shrubs and a few tall trees.

‘I’m sorta the watchperson,’ she said. ‘But Dylan does the work. It’s cheap rent and the traffic roar from the road up front only drives me half nuts half the time. I guess the car’ll be fifty per cent safe here in the alley.’

‘There’s a steering lock.’

‘I know a guy can get through them with a ballpein hammer in three seconds flat. But OK. Out you get, boy.’

She was talking to the dog. He sprang from the car and lifted his leg against a wheel. I should be so mobile. I climbed out stiffly, trying not to crouch and hobble like Olivier playing Richard III. She took some keys on a ring from a pocket in her shorts and unlocked the gate. Dylan bounded through and immediately began what looked like a search and destroy patrol. He was a German shepherd, mostly black and tan, with a bit of something else in him that reduced his bulk. A nice dog to be nice to. He came running back as Vita and I went up the path to the back of the red brick building. The dog was frisky.

‘You cost him his run.’

‘Tell him I’m sorry. He got a ride in the car to compensate.’

‘True. I’ll try to explain that to him.’

Another key unlocked a security grille on the back door and the door itself. We went through into a cool, dark space that smelled vaguely of something I identified with Fiji. I was aware that my thought processes were still jangled.

‘Cliff Hardy.’ I said.

‘Say what?’

‘I was testing to see if I had concussion. I remember my name and you’re Vita Drewe.’

‘Right.’

‘Curry. I can smell curry. I think I’ve got some circuits crossed.’