Peter Corris - Heroin Annie

‘That sounds like fun. Who’s he up against?’

‘Do you know anything about the mines in this neck of the woods, Cliff?’

I shook my head. ‘No.’

‘They’re basic to the character of the place. Miners are terrific people. There’s a strong democratic spirit around here, the miners keep it alive and they’ve stopped this part of the world becoming a great big MacDonaldland. You know what I mean?’

‘Yeah, I noticed some of the towns coming down; they still look like people might live in them. There must be big money trying to change all that, though.’

‘That’s what the Dempseys are fighting. There’s a mine in behind here, about thirty miles in. It s small but it pays its way and the coal comes out by rail. There’s pressure on to build a road and move the coal that way.’

‘Pressure from who?’

She held up her hand and ticked off on fingers. ‘The truckies want it, people who’ll be paid for the land want it, and believe me, some of them only bought the land yesterday. The big mines want it so they can argue that all the coal here travels by road and they need a subsidy.’

‘What about the unions?’

‘Some for and some against.’

‘Charming, and Dempsey’s leading the fight?’

‘Right. He’s held public meetings, organised petitions, written to everyone who can read. He’s writing a book on the politics and economics of it, hot stuff.’

‘Shouldn’t he be teaching at the university?’

She gave a short, barking laugh. ‘He works it into his lectures, he sets essays on it. He’s had students interviewing truck drivers and mine management.’

‘That’d make him popular. It’s one of this crew that bashed him tonight?’

‘Bound to be.’

‘Where does the Communist Party fit in?’

She leaned forward to pick up her glass; I could see down inside her blouse, see the line and shape of her breasts. ‘That’s another story’, she said.

‘Now you tell me why you’re here.’

I told her; but I wasn’t far into it before she crossed the gap and we were kissing and she was touching me and I was touching her. We went through to the bedroom and she took her clothes off and my clothes off and there was a good deal of laughing while we got used to each other. It didn’t take long; she lay under me and we moved well together, and we made a very good job of it. After, I held her small, tight breasts in my hands and she held me; she wasn’t shy.

In the morning we did the usual things-drank coffee, hugged and kissed and wondered what would happen next, if anything. I finished telling her about my assignment for the patriarch Dempsey, and I learned that she was divorced, with two children, of whom the father had the custody. She didn’t want to talk about that. I admired her figure and the quick, deft way she did things around the house while I waited to see the Dempseys again. On an impulse, I pulled out a copy of the newspaper clipping and pointed to the man in the crowd scene with his head circled.

‘Know him, Zelda?’

She took a quick, casual look. ‘Sure, who doesn’t?’

‘I don’t. Who is he?’

‘Tommy Gibbons, bad news.’

‘What’s his game?’

‘Don’t know what you’d call him, he’s a sort of bodyguard or protector.’

‘Who does he protect?’

‘Harry Belfrage; he’s a trucker and lots of other things.’

‘Like what?’

‘Oh, security services, he moves money I think and guards buildings, you know.’

‘Yeah. This Gibbons, he used to be a unionist, why’d he change sides?’

She shrugged, it was nice to watch. ‘I don’t know; I don’t follow this sport myself, I just get it from Bill and Ro. What’s the connection? If Gibbons has any tie-up with the lost brother it means he’s a hood.’

I was staring out of the window at her well-kept but unfussy garden; she preferred trees and shrubs to flowers and there were big stones arranged in a circle that looked to be for sitting and drinking on. She snapped her fingers in front of my face.

‘I see there’s a great mind at work. Look, I have to go out soon, Cliff…’

‘Okay, can I ring the Dempseys?’

‘Ring? They’re just over there.’

‘I don’t have time for the chitchat, and I suspect he won’t be up to seeing me.’

She pointed to the phone, turned hard on her heel and went out. I made the call and got Rosemary, who confirmed what I’d thought. Bill was still drowsy and she wasn’t letting anyone near him. I said I’d call later, and hung up. I sat thinking for a minute and then located Belfrage’s business address in the directory. When I went through the house I found that Zelda had left. I wrote a note on a paper napkin telling her where I was staying and saying I’d ring her later, and left it under the Scotch bottle.

I drove back to the motel for a shave and a shower. They saw me come, knew I hadn’t slept there, saw me go, and not one of them batted an eye. As I drove off I remembered the first time I’d stayed, guilt-ridden, at a motel; the car had stalled and the luggage was faked and the manager had looked like he was about to call the cops. Now you couldn’t faze them if you checked in with Les Girls.

The Belfrage Trucking and Security Company was a huge area enclosed by a high cyclone wire fence. About twenty big trucks, Macks, Internationals and others, were parked on a strip of tarmac that looked big enough to handle a Concord. There were workshops and other buildings inside the compound and up near the front gate a long, low structure with a curved roof like a Quonset hut.

It was past ten o’clock on what was going to be a warm day. I sat in my car with a drop of sweat trickling down my neck and admitted to myself that I only had a vague idea of what to do next. To bust in on Gibbons and Belfrage demanding to see birth certificates seemed a sure way to land in the hospital, if not the harbour. I sat and watched, wishing I could smoke so as to convince myself that I was thinking. But I didn’t smoke anymore. Suddenly, I had something to watch: the door to the main building flew open and a dark, stocky man moved almost at a trot across to a Holden ute parked nearby. I was the best part of a hundred yards away, but I could hear his voice raised in anger and tell from his movement that he was not happy. Another man appeared in the doorway-a big, middle-aged character with a pink shirt and a face to match-and he wasn’t happy either. He was yelling and the first man was yelling, and then a bloke in overalls came sprinting on to the scene. He did a bit of yelling too, and some armwaving as he unlocked and swung open the big gate which held a metal plate with Belfrage Trucking and Security printed on it. The dark man gunned the ute and roared out of the gate; he bounced inside the vehicle as he drove over a gutter and passed within twenty feet of me heading towards town. I got a good look at him; he was the man in the photograph, aged a few years, and with his features distorted by ungovernable anger.

I got out of my car and moved quickly towards the gate. The two men were talking across a distance of thirty feet and the gate stayed open. The overalled man started to swing it to as he saw me. I held up my hand.

‘Business with Mr Belfrage’, I said. ‘That him?’

He nodded and let me through. I walked towards Belfrage who stood in the doorway watching me. He looked unhealthy; his grey hair was cropped short around his bullet head and seemingly thousands of veins had broken in his nose and face. He looked as if he was pumped-up and over-heated, ready to burst. I wiped my hand on my trousers and stuck it out in front of me.

‘Mr Belfrage, my name’s Hardy; I might want to lease a truck-quarrying job.’

He ignored my hand and turned back inside as he spoke.