Peter Temple - Dead Point

‘Jack Irish,’ I said.

‘Irish? There’s a name to make a man sing. What’ll you be drinkin? First one’s on the house, first and a few too many in the middle says the accountant. Got no heart, these counters of beans.’

He was a man you could like without thinking about it.

‘A beer,’ I said.

‘Not just a beer in this establishment.’ He waved. ‘Dieter, my fine Teutonic friend, a couple of pints of the Shamrock, there’s a good lad.’

‘Sir.’ Dieter slid off.

Doyle leaned his back against the bar, patted my arm.

‘Now Jack, the feller upstairs says you’re askin about young Robbie. There’s a tragedy for you. Why would a young feller like that get into the drugs? We’ll never know, that’s the answer, isn’t it?’

‘Someone who knew him well might know.’

‘I can’t say that I did, Jack. I wish I could. You’d like to know all your staff well, wouldn’t you? But there’s near sixty work here and they’re comin and goin, grass’s always greener, and the competition always out to poach em.’ He paused, a sad look. ‘So, no, I can’t say I knew Robbie well. But an excellent worker, top of the class, we’d a put him on permanent at the drop.’

The beers came, silver tankards topped with two fingers of foam.

‘Let’s get in front of some of this Irish gold,’ said Doyle. He had a way of holding your eyes, as if looking into them gave him great pleasure.

We drank. It wasn’t bad stuff. I wiped off my foam moustache. ‘Robbie didn’t want a full-time job?’

‘Bernie asked him but he said he had other commitments.’

‘Another job?’

‘Entirely possible. How’d you like this beer?’

‘I like it.’ I drank some more. He drank, wiped his lips with a red handkerchief drawn from his top pocket.

‘Next time you come we’ll be drinkin The Green Hill pinot noir. We’re takin delivery of vintage number one in a coupla days. From our own little estate out there on the Mornington. Nectar, I tell you, a drop fit for a crowned head.’

He waved at the barman.

‘Some of them pecan nuts, Dieter lad. Now Jack, you’re in the legal line the boyo says. That’s the solicitorin, is it? Or are you one of them fellers wears a ferret on his head?’

‘Solicitor.’

Dieter positioned a silver bowl of pecan nuts.

‘Good few of your kind drop in here,’ said Doyle. ‘Corporate, a lot of em, the Lord knows what they do. How’d you get involved in this unfortunate affair?’

I chewed a nut. ‘His relatives,’ I said. ‘Lost touch with him, now they want to know a bit more about his life.’

Doyle nodded. ‘Perfectly understandable.’ He flashed a cuff, looked at his watch. ‘Day’s flyin away from me. Jack, it’s a pleasure to meet you. We’ll be seein more of you now? Promise me that.’

‘Promise,’ I said. ‘Xavier.’

‘Call me Ex,’ he says. ‘It’s what they call me.’ He turned his head to Dieter. ‘Fix this feller in your mind,’ he said, ‘and take proper care of him.’

He was at the inside door when he turned and came back. ‘Next week we’re launchin this little cookbook we’ve knocked out, Jack. The Green Hill Food it’s called. Lots of the legal brotherhood comin. And the sisterhood, mind you. Your presence is required. Got a card on you?’

On the way out, I waved goodbye to Dieter. He was standing at a hatch talking to a young woman on the other side. They were both looking at me. He waved back, a polite wave.

Outside, in the rain, the meter had long expired and the Stud had a note under the driver’s wiper. It read: ‘If you ever consider selling this, ring me.’ There was a name and a number and, after it, in parentheses, the words Traffic Inspector. Such is luck.

‘Kashboli?’ I said, studying the menu. ‘What does Kashboli mean?’

‘Where have you been, Jack?’ asked Andrew Greer, my former law partner and friend since law school. ‘Kashmiri plus Bolivian. Two interesting cuisines.’

I loosened my tie. ‘With absolutely fuck-all in common.’

‘Exactly. Until united by fusion cuisine.’

We were sitting in the window of Kashboli, an eating and drinking place on lower Lygon Street whose premises had previously housed a famous Carlton dry-cleaning establishment. Where a bar with a mosaic top now stood, garments were once handed over, precious garments, mainly Italian men’s items handed over by Italian women — dinner jackets the men had proposed in, wedding suits, good linen trousers, dark single-vent jackets, many let out a bit at the seams by the skilled fingers of loved ones. It had been my dry-cleaner when I was a five-suit man practising criminal law with Andrew in nearby Drummond Street.

‘Hello, young lovers, wherever you are.’

A seriously big man, big and fat man, in loose white garments, shaven skull, no neck, head like a nipple with features, had appeared behind the bar, sang the line in a singing pose, chin raised, hands up, palms outwards.

Andrew gave him a wave. So did all the other patrons, late-working trade unionists from headquarters down the road by the grim and dedicated look of them.

‘Our host, Ronnie Krumm,’ said Drew.

‘Is that Kashmiri Ronnie Krumm or Bolivian Ronnie Krumm?’

‘Neither. Ronnie’s from Perth, travelled widely in search of the new. I understand the family’s in hardware, very big in the hardware.’

‘Hardware, software, Ronnie’s big all over. What’s the fat content of Kashboli tucker?’

Drew was intent on the menu. ‘Excessive but only good fats. Premium, I’m told. No finer fats available. Well, what’s your fancy or will you be guided?’

‘Be my trained labrador.’

Drew ordered what appeared to be a form of fish stew. It came in minutes, a minefield of a dish. You chewed uneventfully and then you bit on anti-personnel chillies and your eyes lit up from behind. Fortunately, it came with a glass of a sweet off-white substance, a neutralising agent, possibly crushed antacid tablets in a sugar solution.

‘Interesting,’ I said, recovering. ‘Fusion brings electrocution. Tell me about The Green Hill.’

Drew was savouring the Kashboli fish and chilli stew with no sign of strain, no resort to the pale liquid.

‘The Green Hill?’ He raised his glass of Bolivian cabernet to the light, his eyes narrowed, the long face took on a stained-glass religious look. ‘Not your kind of place. Very few geriatrics arguing about football at The Green.’

‘Tell me,’ I said.

‘Thinking of taking someone? A date, is it?’

‘With destiny. It’s for a Wootton client. And I’ve been there. This afternoon.’

‘Shit. Boring. How is the love life?’

‘She’s taking pictures in Europe. Not enough time between assignments.’

‘To do what?’

‘Fly home for twenty-whatever hours and go back the next week.’

‘Serious concern?’

‘I suppose.’

‘Extremely fetching person. In a mildly intimidating sort of way. Not talkative exactly,’ said Drew.

‘No. Well, she can be. Depends.’

‘Yes. All life depends. It’s pendant.’

‘The Green Hill?’

‘Testimony to one man’s dream,’ Drew said. ‘Xavier Doyle, heard of him?’

‘I met him. Very affable. He shouted me a pint of Shamrock, told me to call him Ex.’

‘Radiates charm, Mr Doyle. Gave character for a bloke of mine, waiter at The Green, stark naked outside the National Gallery on New Year’s Eve, pointed his bum at a cop. By the time Doyle was finished, I thought the mago was going to award the lad compensation.’

Ronnie Krumm was coming our way, a white tent with a large shining head where the flagpole should be, hipping his way through the tables.