Peter Corris - White Meat

“Don’t worry. Tell him nine o’clock.”

I hung up, made a cigarette, got a drink and thought about it. Siding with Sunday against Coluzzi was like backing the Apaches against the cavalry, but something was working inside me. I could have ducked it, could have pretended that Coluzzi wouldn’t buy it, got out of it some way. But I thought of the two men dead in the unfriendly town up north and the girl who’d seen too much pain and blood at seventeen. They hadn’t taken a trick in the whole mess. Noni was on her way to London, or wherever, and I was due a big cheque. I hunted around for the card, found it in some unwashed clothes and called Coluzzi.

I got a female Italian voice on the other end and then a long, long wait. When Coluzzi finally came on the line his voice was soft and guarded.

“I’ve been wondering about you Mr Hardy, what do you know?”

“Hello Coluzzi. I’ve been out of town, up north with the black people.”

“So?”

“Maybe you’ve got problems, maybe not. The Aborigines are organising themselves a bit. I don’t think they’d be too keen on your idea of fights between blacks and Italians, not the way you see it anyway. They’d like to see their boys coming out on top once in a while, or twice in a while.”

He didn’t say anything, forcing me to go on.

“I’ve met their top man, Jimmy Sunday. He wants to talk to you about a deal.”

“What deal? I don’t need a deal. Why should I meet him?”

“Well, I’m just passing this on you understand? He says he can arrange the result of the Moody-Rosso fight. That’s to show his good faith.”

There was a pause while he considered it. When he spoke again it was with all the straightforwardness of Lucrezia Borgia inviting you to dinner.

“That’s interesting, very interesting. Maybe I better meet these people. Where and when?”

I told him. He didn’t sound happy but I said that was all I’d been given. He said he’d be there and rang off.

It left me edgy, without diversion. Ailsa wasn’t due in until the next day. A postcard told me that. The rest of the mail was just waiting to be waste paper and I obliged it. I wished I’d asked Sunday about guns. I hoped there wouldn’t be any guns. I wished Penny would come to see me but I knew she wouldn’t. I wished the fight would be called off; I read the last couple of days’ news reports on the fighters. They were both in great shape, both going to win, according to their trainers, both going to be world’s champions. Moody had made the better impression in training. He was comfortably favoured to win. Coluzzi must have got good odds on his money. I called a man I knew and got fifty dollars to win thirty-five on Moody. Then I worried. What if Coluzzi knew the man I knew? What if the man I knew told Coluzzi? I drank and smoked and worried. Then I thought the hell with it. I’m a private detective, I’m tough. I can be stupid if I want to be.

I called Harry Tickener and we insulted each other for as long as we could stand it. He had tickets for the fight and was going himself. He agreed to leave two for Ted Williams at the paper and to meet me at the club with two for me.

“Ailsa?” he asked.

“I hope so.”

“Good. I expect to have company too.”

“That’s nice. Do I know her?”

“Your name’s never come up.”

“OK, be mysterious. I’ll see you there.”

“You won’t be able to miss us.”

That was a good exit line. I wondered what it meant. Harry sounded happy. Good. If Harry could be happy maybe we could all be happy.

Twenty hours later I was happy. Ailsa flew in around eleven and we went straight back to her place and to bed. We got out of bed an hour later for something to eat and drink and then back again. After that session I smoked and we picked up the pieces. Her tan told the story of where she’d been and she filled me in on the progress of her interests in the Pacific. The picture amounted to good news and more good news. I told her I was glad about it and she scrutinised me for the irony in such remarks that usually sparks off our fights. It wasn’t there. The heart had grown fonder. I told her about the Tarelton case and promised I’d take her out to dinner when I got the cheque.

“Oh that reminds me,” I said. “I’m taking you out tomorrow night if you’re free.”

“Good, where?”

“The boxing.”

“Ugh, no thanks – horrible.”

“Harry Tickener’ll be there.”

“Harry’s nice but still, no.”

“I think he’s got a girlfriend.”

“Really, that’s interesting. Who?”

“I don’t know, and if you don’t come tomorrow night I’ll make sure you never find out. I’ll break it up and you’ll never know.”

She yawned. “Who cares.”

“I gather you’re not coming?”

“Right. Come and see me afterwards.”

We wasted the afternoon a bit more and I left. I went home and played with my pistols for a while; I cleaned them and loaded them and checked their actions. Then I wrapped them up and put them away. I’d bought some cut price Scotch and I sampled it just to see whether it was a bargain. Not bad. Quite smooth. Of course the first drink can be misleading so I had a second. I thought I detected a metallic taste so I had a third. I was mistaken about the metallic taste. It was good smooth whisky that needed drinking without any judgemental attitudes in view. I had a fourth in a calm, purely objective frame of mind.

I ate something and showered and dressed myself in the clothes I’d worn to break into Sammy’s gym some nights before. I took the papers I’d removed then from the hiding place and stuck them in my pocket. I thought again about the guns and compromised by putting the Colt into the clip in the car. The Celica had gone back to the Tareltons soon after my arrival back in Sydney. I had a mind-flash image of Madeline Tarelton as I climbed into the Falcon. An unscrupulous, despicable person would ring her up some time and find out just how much her husband didn’t understand her. But an unscrupulous, despicable person wouldn’t be driving to Newtown for a show-down between ethnic minorities, and he wouldn’t be haunted by the eyes of a dark girl standing stock-still while blood rained on her.

I was nervous and early, much too early. I drove into town and down to the Rocks to kill time. The Opera House billowed up like bedsheets in a high wind. North Sydney was canopied by purplish cloud, but the sky to the east was a pale powder blue. The stratosphere was in two moods like me; my satisfaction at the conclusion of the Tarelton case, messy though it was, was tempered by the threat of the events ahead. I parked and wandered up through the city which gradually emptied around me. By eight o’clock there was only a thin line of traffic made up of people snapping up the last parking spots for their night on the town. Nine-tenths of the city was asleep and the remaining tenth was only fitfully awake in those oases of light where celluloid was spinning, liquor was flowing and there was money to be made. I went back to my clean car and drove to Newtown.

I parked half a mile from the gym and walked through the streets Any one of the couple of black people I passed could have been Sunday’s confederates, or none of them. It seemed to me that Coluzzi was a brave man to agree to a meeting in this territory. I’d have insisted on neutral ground. The thought bothered me as I walked along. Coluzzi was totally professional to all appearances and this was a bad move. I scouted around the gym looking for signs of trouble but everything was as quiet as a synagogue on Sunday. I walked back to my car and took out the gun. The door to the building was open and I took the stairs as quietly as I could. On the stars the stale smell of tobacco smoke and the reek of sweat blended into a threat of mustard gas. The place whispered of tension and danger. It was a good place not to be.