Peter Corris: Aftershock

That explained his surprise. I recognised him now. ‘Wrecker’ Jacobs, who’d played Rugby League for Newcastle and regularly put city players in hospital in the city versus country games. He’d refused all offers to play in the city competition and had only come to Sydney as a businessman and team manager. I hadn’t seen a photograph of the Wrecker since his playing days and he’d gained a good deal of weight and lost some hair. ‘I’ve placed you,’ I said. ‘Chargers aren’t doing so good, are they?’

Jacobs eyed me now with frank dislike. ‘I did some checking around on you before I came here,’ he said. ‘I’ve got a few mates on the force and in your game, too.’

‘You would have.’

‘There’s those who say you’re honest and get the job done and some who reckon you’re a smartarse fuck-up.’

‘You can’t please everybody,’ I said.

‘Right now, I’m leaning to the smartarse point of view. You must be pretty desperate to take this case on. Haven’t you got anything better to do?’

‘Such as what?’

I put a bit of an edge on the question and Jacobs had obviously done enough deals in his life to smell one when it started to cook. He unbuttoned the jacket of his double-breasted grey pinstripe and let a little flesh breathe. ‘I could put some work your way…’

He stopped when he saw me grinning. He knew he’d been had. It made him angry. His already high colour mounted. ‘You bloody low-life loser. What a dump. What sort of a business could be run from here?’

‘I don’t run it from here really,’ I said. ‘I run it out on the street and in pubs and other places where people talk to me and tell me things I need to know. Right now, I’d like to know why a prosperous business gentleman like yourself is worried about his father wanting to find out what happened to his friend.’

Ralph snorted. ‘Friend!’

‘That’s what he called him. Do you say something different?’

‘It was a matter of time. The man was a crook. He was just waiting to take Dad for everything he had.’

‘I understood they were friends from before your father got rich.’

‘Did Dad tell you that?’

‘I’d have to check my notes, but that’s my impression.’

‘That’s bullshit. Bach hardly knew Dad before he won the Lotto. Then he moved in on him-”Let’s go fishing, Horrie,” and “Beer is for birdbrains, Horrie.” I tell you he was getting set.’

There was malice in Jacobs’ voice, but also concern. He was aware that he was revealing more of his feelings than he’d intended and he reined back. ‘All this stuff about him not getting killed in the earthquake is crap. Dad got concussed and he can’t think straight. Drop it.’

I shook my head. ‘I can’t do that. I’ve taken his money’

‘And you plan to take a hell of a lot more of it.’

‘I think you’d better go, Mr Jacobs, before this gets nasty. You don’t look like much of a wrecker to me now. You should turn out with the team now and then, get a bit of the flab off.’

He half rose from his chair and his clothes suddenly weren’t fitting him so well. He had the hunched shoulders and corded neck of the front-row brawler. But he was a smart man who’d learned what a bad play physical violence was. He sat back and drew in a deep breath. ‘One of my police mates said you had something called ethics.’

‘He must’ve looked it up in his pocket Macquarie.’

Jacobs cleared his throat. ‘I can see that you plan to go through with this. Go up to Newcastle, see Dad, sniff around.’

‘That’s right.’

‘Okay. Maybe it’s for the best. Maybe when you tell him there’s nothing in it he’ll let it lie.’

I shrugged. ‘Who knows?’

He got up and loomed over the desk, buttoning up the double-breaster. ‘I’ll just say this. I’ve got a lot of friends in Newcastle. Good blokes-cops, miners, football players.’

‘I’m glad,’ I said. ‘Must be nice to have some mates to drink with after you’ve dropped in on the old dad and mum. How long’s it been, Wrecker?’

That went home. He wanted to hit me. He wanted to break something, but he didn’t. He showed his even, capped teeth in a smile that had all the warmth of a packet of frozen peas. ‘Just watch yourself up in Newcastle, smartarse,’ he said.

I’d driven through and around Newcastle often enough over the past few years in my assaults on, and retreats from, Helen Broadway, but it had been ten years or more since I’d actually set a course for the city intending to do work there. The drive up the freeway is untesting and the rivers and ranges and glimpses of Lake Macquarie are easy on the eye. As drives in Australia go, the one from Sydney to Newcastle is calculated to allow you to arrive in a reasonably good mood. North of Belmont I noted the turn-off to Redhead and Dudley. I had an overnight bag on the front seat sitting on top of a manilla folder with the Jacobs case materials as assembled so far. I also had a camera, a pocket-sized tape recorder and a Smith amp; Wesson. 38. I didn’t need Ralph Jacobs to tell me that Newcastle was a tough town where Sydneysiders can be thought of as invaders from another planet.

Signs of the earthquake began in Broadmeadow-vacant blocks, braces holding up brick walls, scaffolding and tarpaulin-shrouded buildings-and increased closer to Hamilton. Beaumont Street had been considerably cleaned up, but there were still some shells of buildings, scars where awnings had fallen and braces, scaffolds and tarps. The Kent Hotel had been a victory for the conservationists. The building, which had lost almost its entire front wall, was in the process of renovation. Several empty blocks, scoured down to the sandy earth, indicated where the developers had won.

I parked opposite a collection of bricks and metal that had once been a chemist shop, to judge from the remnants of the paintwork. It was five minutes to midday. That’s Hardy, compulsively early yet again. The day was mild, with a clear sky and a light wind keeping the temperature down. It might have been my imagination, but I fancied that some of the shoppers glanced up apprehensively at the awnings over the pavement and that more than a few of them kept to the roadway as much as they could. Dust from the reconstruction work going on hung in the air. The earthquake was still very much a presence in Beaumont Street.

At noon precisely Horrie Jacobs appeared from around the corner to stand outside the Kent Hotel. I was parked about sixty metres away on the other side of the road, giving him a test. He passed it. He took off his sunglasses, shaded his eyes, looked up and down the street and spotted me. Pretty good for nearly seventy in a busy street. I got out of the car, crossed the road and we met outside a boarded-up shopfront. We shook hands. Horrie was wearing a polo shirt with an insignia on the pocket, cotton slacks and canvas shoes. He smelled slightly of aftershave and his face was scraped very close. Professional job.

‘It’s a mess, isn’t it?’

I nodded. ‘The insurance companies couldn’t have been too happy’

‘They’ve been pretty good, most of ‘em. My place down the road got a bit of a hammering and the insurance came good. I haven’t heard too many complaints.’

‘Could you show me where everything happened?’

We walked south along the street, away from the concentration of shops. Horrie stopped at a corner and pointed down a curving, tree-lined street. ‘Gollan Street. See the little joint there, the white one?’

I looked at a narrow-fronted cottage with a minute front garden and an iron roof, the back part of which was weathered and the front, brand, spanking new. The other houses in the street bore similar signs of recent work. I nodded, thinking that Horrie and his son the Wrecker had come a long way from their humble beginnings.