Peter Corris - The Marvellous Boy

We climbed and took some turns and suddenly I knew where I was — right, slap-dab in millionaires’ row and the Datsun was turning into Lady Catherine’s drive and I was going past with things dropping into place in my mind like snooker balls being run into the pockets. The man driving the Datsun into the Chatterton residence had been driving it out when I’d last come calling, and that little blue car was the self-same one that had been parked on Nurse Callaghan’s land the night I got my skull dented.

I waited an hour, getting more impatient and uncomfortable by the minute. I took in a little more whisky and a little more tobacco. A few expensive cars purred past and I prayed that the cops would be far away keeping the lower classes in order where they belonged — in that street the Falcon stuck out like a clown at a funeral. I kept low and was considering risking my aim into an empty beer can when the Datsun came out of the drive. I hung well back and let him pick up a couple of other cars as we headed back to the city. He drove fast and well, moving between the lanes and judging the lights; Warwick Baudin had had some car trouble, I’d been told, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t a good driver.

He turned into Macquarie Street and headed down towards the water. I got close, closer than is classical and confirmed that there was a woman in the car beside the driver. The impression I got was of thinness — Verna Reid. It looked as though they were headed for the Opera House which was good because I could get a parking place there and bad because there were a dozen different places they could go. I stayed close and parked a few cars behind them. He was gallant with the car door and his arm and Miss Reid hung on tight; she would have had her head on his shoulder if she could, but she’d have had to jump to get it there. They ambled on towards the billowing sails, the box offices and the Bollinger ‘71. I followed, gunless, innocent and with a bursting bladder.

They turned a few heads as they promenaded. You don’t see a six-foot-three Hercules with his face in bandages boulevading with a handsome eagle-faced woman every day. I kept back in case Verna looked around and tried to blend in with the tourists and the lookers and the buyers. They hung over the rail watching the ferries pull in and out and the plastic bottles bobbing in the water for a while and then made their way around to the restaurant. I felt like cheering; if they only had the soup and salad it’d still give me time for a piss. I hung around for a minute to make sure they were settled and then set off in search of a facility. That was when I saw him or sensed him. The first rule in following people is not to make any sudden movements; you can pick up a quick movement even when it’s outside your field of vision — an atavistic instinct maybe. As I turned around to go down the steps from the restaurant I caught a disturbance of the landscape behind me and to my left. I hopped down the steps and turned the first corner and put the antennae up: there were a few strollers and purposeful walkers about and there was someone following me.

He was still there when I went into the toilet and still there when I came out. I wandered about, getting the lie of the land and waiting for a few evening shadows to fall. The lights of the city and the expensive suburbs across the harbour started to do their job and the water turned from a soft blue to green and then to a flinty grey. The revellers went to their revels and I walked to the end of the point and ducked in flat to the wall around a corner. He came on. His feet were quiet but I thought I could hear the rasp of his breath and I fancied I could smell him. When he came around the corner I slammed my fist into his gut and twisted his arm like an elastic band. I rushed him over to the rail, thumped his back into it and bent him. Albie Logan looked up at me with big, round, frightened eyes like a frog about to give its life for science.

‘Well, well,’ I said nastily, ‘it’s Mrs Logan’s boy Albert. Now just what would you be doing here?’

He didn’t answer so I took him off the rail an inch or two and put him back on it hard. He yelped.

‘Turn it up Slim, you’re breaking me back.’

I did it again. ‘Why are you following me, Albie?’

‘I wasn’t,’ he said and then he yelped again as I bounced his spine off the rail.

‘Why?’

‘I was… hired to,’ he gasped.

‘You’re lousy at it. Who hired you?’

‘I dunno his name.’

I looked around. We were alone on the concrete peninsula. Albie was wearing a suit and tie and I yanked the tie off and pulled the handkerchief out of his breast pocket.

‘Can you swim Albie?’

‘Not good,’ he stammered.

‘Tell you what I’m going to do. If you don’t speak up and answer every question I ask you to my satisfaction, I’m going to tie you up with this,’ I showed him the tie, ‘and stuff this in your gob and drop you over here. You’re a dealer — who’d give a fuck?’

He turned his head to look at the water; it was dark with an ugly, metallic sheen.

‘Okay, okay, give me some air.’

I eased back a bit. ‘Who?’ I said.

‘The same guy you’re following.’

That jolted me. ‘What’s his name?’

‘Russell James, or so he tells me.’

‘You said you didn’t know Miss Reid had a boyfriend.’

‘I didn’t. I couldn’t believe it when I saw them together tonight.’

I was confused, but it felt like the confusion that comes before clarity.

‘When did James ask you to follow me?’

‘Couple of days ago, after you’d come to my dump. I looked but you weren’t around. I picked you up today.’

I tightened my grip because I was angry at my own carelessness. ‘Do you do much of this Albie? Following people?’

‘Easy,’ he gasped. ‘Not usually.’

‘How long have you known James? Customer is he?’

‘Sort of. Known him a couple of years but he only started buying a while back.’

‘He doesn’t look the type. How long back?’

‘ ‘Bout a year. There’s all sorts of people on drugs, Slim.’

‘I told you not to call me that,’ I snarled. ‘Where’d you meet him?’

‘Pub in the Cross.’

‘Jesus. The Noble Briton?’

‘I think so, yeah, how’d you know?’

‘I guessed. Do you drink there often?’

He hesitated. ‘No, well…’

I bent him over the rail a bit more. ‘You’re not off the hook yet, Albie. I want it all. If you make me happy I’ll let you go on another one of your train trips and you can come back with a suitcase of shit. If you don’t you’re history. Now, you were saying?’

‘Well, I really met him in this whorehouse in Darlinghurst. We sort of got talking and went for a drink to the Briton. I saw him on and off at Honey’s, ah…’

‘I know Honey,’ I said. ‘Go on.’

‘He spent some dough, drinks and that. And he helped me to move a few things, you know. Then he started buying, if you ask me it was for someone else.’

‘Who?’

‘I dunno.’ I twisted. ‘I dunno. Shit, easy!’

‘What did you talk about, you and James? Did he ask you about your old job with the Chattertons?’

‘Yeah, I suppose he did. Yeah we talked about that.’

‘What does he do?’

‘He never told me.’

‘You didn’t ask?’

‘No, look I was pissed half the time, or high.’

‘What does he buy?’

‘Fuckin’ near anything — grass, speed, coke sometimes. Mostly speed and downers. He bought a big load when I seen him last.’

‘You told him about my visit?’

‘Yeah, well I was feeling pretty pissed off. I was just talking and then he put it on me to follow you. He said we could get you in the shit. He was gonna pay me.’ He looked down at the water again. ‘I’m sorry,’ he gulped.