‘What else?’
‘Marquis de Sade.’
‘That’s filth, isn’t it?’
‘Yeah, but it’s French. Very deep. Why’re you asking?’
‘Just wondering. What else?’
‘Oh, I suppose Nausea, by Jean-Paul Sartre.’
‘Yeah?’
‘There’s this bloke, everything gives him the shits.’
‘Don’t tell me. It’s French and very deep. What are you reading?’
‘I just finished this thing called Malone Dies, by Samuel Beckett.’
‘Hey, that’s more like it. A story about an Irishman, eh? There’d be some good jokes in it, then?’
‘Actually, it was written in French and—’
‘So, French is the go.’
‘You could say that. Especially if they’re existentialists.’
‘You better spell that for me.’
I gave the magazines the go-ahead to run the adverts, with the new address, and sure enough the letters and postal orders started rolling in. Over the weeks I settled into a work routine. Each day I’d empty the mailbox, then go to the office and make up the relevant packages—smoking cure, guitar tutor, lucky charm, betting system—and post them off the same day.
There was nothing too difficult about any of it, except that after a while, along with the postal orders, we began getting the occasional complaint or demand for a refund. I only answered if they wrote twice, and I never refunded so much as threepence.
The stock sold pretty evenly except for the Lucky Monkey’s Paw, which proved to be a dud. There’d been a misunderstanding at the factory in Hong Kong and they’d sent me five tea chests full. At the rate they were selling, I figured we had enough to last about three centuries. So I started looking into ways of getting them moving. I got some little strips of leather, riveted them onto key-rings and carried a pocketful around with me, giving them out as a kind of gimmick. People liked them. Next I produced a deluxe version with a bottle opener as well, and took to throwing in a complimentary key-ring or bottle opener with every package I sent out. Sometimes I’d include a little thought for the day, lifted from T. W. Ulmer’s book of preachments.
The daily business took me an hour or two to complete. After that, I’d do the banking then have lunch at one of the watering holes in the Haymarket area. Murray Liddicoat would sometimes join me. A man fond of a drink, he wasn’t without talents: he could quote the good book, chapter and verse, on just about any topic and could reel off sports results at great length. As drinking company he wasn’t too bad, although it was usually up to me to pay for the drinks.
Max kept out of the day-to-day running of the business. We had agreed on a split whereby I took wages for doing the hack work, we paid the expenses and then divided the remainder equally between us. For his part, Max was supposed to be working on expanding our product range. He talked about developing a Hawaiian guitar course and a book of jokes and magic tricks, but nothing much was coming of it. Don’t worry, brother, it’s all up here, he said, pointing to his head.
New Year, 1959 rolled around. The cops hadn’t tumbled to my new address or phone number, and there’d been no more anonymous calls or undeserved traffic fines. Money was coming in at a rate that would see our set-up costs recouped before too long, and meanwhile I had something to keep me out of trouble. And it was all legal.
Yeah, I wasn’t travelling too badly at all, I thought. I’d have that Customline back soon. Maybe I’d get a Bel Air next time.
Chapter 3
A hot Sunday in late January, I walked up to Crown Street and had a late lunch of bacon and eggs at the Italians’ while I read the paper. Elvis Presley was in Germany earning $82.50 a month in the US army. Over in Cuba a ‘beat-generation leader’ called Fidel Castro was stirring things up. Meanwhile, the Russians had discovered a youth drug called Substance H-3. There was a picture of a bloke doing a handstand on a table, one hand. I swallowed an Aspro, paid up and left.
A bloke was waiting for me outside the cafe, leaning against a car, his arms folded. He had short, bristly hair, a round face, protruding lower jaw. I knew the face. Detective Sergeant Fred Slaney. He pointed at me.
‘You, come here,’ he said.
He opened the passenger door of the car. ‘Get in.’ I did. He walked around, got in, started the car and drove up William Street.
‘Where are we going?’ I said.
He didn’t answer. He drove into the city, off Pitt Street into a laneway called Central Street.
‘Are you taking me to the CIB?’
‘When I want you to talk I’ll let you know, maggot.’
He drove through an archway into a courtyard. He parked the car, got out, said, ‘Come on,’ and we went into the old building next to Central police station.
We went upstairs to a small room, bare but for a table and two chairs. Slaney went off and came back in less than a minute, carrying a folder.
He sat down, indicated for me to sit in the other chair, opened the folder and flipped through some papers. Then he leant back and looked at me.
‘September 1957. Someone knocks over the J. Farren Price vault. Forty thousand quid’s worth of jewellery. Six weeks later Chief Superintendent Ray Waters disappears. His car is found at Mascot airport. Items from the Price robbery subsequently turn up in Los Angeles. Why do you think that was, Glasheen?’
I said nothing.
‘Well? What do you think happened? Don’t be shy.’
‘I believe there were rumours to the effect that Waters had bundied with the gear, that he was somehow mixed up in the robbery.’
He said, ‘I worked with Waters on a number of cases.’
I nodded.
‘And I know he didn’t organise the Price robbery.’
I nodded again.
Slaney closed the folder, sat back. ‘But I also know he had an interest in it. He was in line for a half-share of the fenced value.’ He paused. ‘Ten thousand pounds, so he reckoned.’
‘A lot of money.’
‘And I was expecting half of his share. That’s how we used to work, sharing the take.’
‘That’s very touching.’
He leaned forward. His fist shot out, caught the side of my jaw, knocked me right off the chair.
‘I’ll let you know when I want your smart-arsery. Get up.’
I did. He continued like nothing had happened.
‘So, I was expecting a half-share of Waters’ ten grand.’
‘You must have been upset when he disappeared.’
‘I was more than surprised, you might say. So I personally looked into the matter of Ray’s disappearance, on my own time.’ He smiled at me. ‘Among Ray’s notes I found an address in Pittwater. And naturally I—’
There was a tap at the door. A voice called out, ‘Mr Slaney?’
He got up and left. Ten minutes later he returned with another bloke, a grubby little feller. Slaney left us together in the room, said he’d be back shortly.
The little bloke hardly looked at me. He walked around the room, blew his nose into a dirty hanky.
‘It’s not fuckin’ fair. I fuckin’ told him