‘I do mean it.’
‘It would take me years to make that much. And what’s stopping you from killing me anyway, even if I do pay you?’
‘Absolutely nothing.’ He brought his gun out, put it to the side of my head. ‘It’s up to you. If you think I’m asking too much, we’ll drive back to the building site, take care of it all right now. That way, you won’t have to bother yourself with raising the money, or with anything else. The alternative, have a go at getting the money. If I was you, I’d have a go.’ He put the gun away. ‘That way you have a chance at least. What have you got to lose?’
I thought hard. ‘I need time.’
‘I understand that. Since this is a kind of settling of accounts, an appropriate deadline would be the end of the financial year. I’ll give you until the first of July. See it as a kind of race against the clock. Now, I’ll let you choose how you do this. You can either give me fortnightly instalments, or a lump sum at the end.’
‘I’ll go for the lump sum. How do I get in touch with you?’
‘You don’t, I’ll keep in touch with you. You live in a flat up the back there, work down at the Haymarket, drive a grey Holden. Yeah, I know your movements pretty well, Glasheen. I’ll keep in touch, don’t worry about that. Off you go now.’
I stayed indoors with the blinds drawn for the next three days. I’d never crossed Slaney’s path before but I’d heard the stories. About how he was a loner in the force but had a hand in nearly everything bent that was going: abortionists, pros, bludgers, thieves, standover men, bookies—a whole army of crook operators made regular payments to him just to stay in business. Then there was his other job, the New South Wales Police Force’s unofficial assassin.
I slept badly or not at all. My appetite vanished. I tried to read, couldn’t concentrate; turned on the television, couldn’t sit still. I had a nearly constant headache and a cold feeling in my guts.
Towards the end of the week, my nerves started to settle down. It was pay up or die, and the longer I spent shivering in my burrow, the nearer the deadline would get. I opened Uncle Dick’s book of wisdom. The preachment said, Put fear aside and go forward.
I turned my mind to the matter of the ten thousand pounds. A huge amount of money. You could buy a row of terrace houses for that much, or three new American cars.
First off, I’d have to call in all my debts. If I did the rounds I could probably collect half of what I was owed, or maybe more. And there was the Jack Davey loan. That might add up to one and a half or two grand. But I knew my only chance for the really big money lay in high-risk, high-return endeavour—lawbreaking.
The fact was, however, I was sadly underqualified for day-to-day criminal work. The rorts I’d done in the past had been other people’s jobs that I’d tagged along on, or else spur-of-the-moment things I’d stumbled into. I had no real idea about the routine business of crime. For the life of me I wouldn’t have known how to open a safe, pick a lock, or shimmy up a drain pipe.
I got on the phone to Teddy Rallis, slippery man about town, dealer in stolen property, and prime mover of the J. Farren Price deal. I told him I was on the loose and interested to hear of any business on the go, and that I wasn’t averse to trying my hand at the semi-skilled, meat and potatoes aspects of the trade. He said he’d keep in touch.
Then I got out and pressed the flesh, visiting those places known to be frequented by the lawless element. I started at the Bognor, moved on to Monty’s at Pyrmont. I mingled, got into shouts, dropped hints here and there. I wasn’t exactly overwhelmed with offers, so I moved on to the Ancient Briton at Glebe. I asked the bloke behind the bar if he’d heard of any, you know, ‘jobs’ going anywhere. He kept a straight face, said he understood they were looking for an offsider on the brewery truck.
I went to the Victoria at Annandale where I spotted Ronnie Cosgrove. Just after the war, when Ron had been a Newtown publican, I’d run sly grog for him. Nowadays he was the acknowledged expert at hoisting cigarette trucks. So lucrative was the ciggy truck business, three or four such jobs could get me square with Slaney. I renewed my acquaintance with Ronnie and let him know I was available. He nodded, said he’d be happy to have me on board but he had nothing on right now. I read in the paper next day that a Rothmans truck had gone off that very evening.
But I didn’t panic yet, I had five months. Christ, anything could happen in that time.
Chapter 4
Back on the mail order front, things had been let slide. Not that a few days mattered so much—the mail was so slow, I could let the post office take the blame for my tardiness. But mail order was my bread and butter, and it would be a mug act to leave it any longer. So on the Friday of the second week after my encounter with Slaney, I went back to the Manning Building.
It was the wrong day and the wrong time. When I got out of the lift a rough-looking hoon was knocking hard on my office door. He was forty or so, wearing a yellow sports shirt with big green blotches on it. I couldn’t place him as anyone I knew. He grew more impatient, banged harder.
I walked down the hall. He looked at me as I drew level. His shirt was a map of Hawaii, the green blotches were the islands. I nodded good day and walked past him.
He called out to me, said, ‘Do you work here, pal?’
‘Ah, yeah. Why?’
‘I’m looking for the bloke who works in this office.’ He pointed to my door. ‘Do you know him?’
‘Oh, I see him now and then. Do you want me to give him a message?’
‘Yeah. Tell him to ring this number.’ He handed me a slip of paper with a phone number on it.
‘Can I ask what it’s in connection with?’
‘About a betting system I bought from him.’
‘I’ll pass it on,’ I said.
After he’d gone I went inside, watched from the window as he got into a light blue Zephyr convertible and drove away. If that goose thinks he’s getting a refund from me, I thought, he’s having himself on.
But coming on top of my other troubles, the episode unnerved me. So instead of going to work straight away I nipped over to the Chamberlain for a calming draught. An hour later, suitably calmed, I cautiously made my way back to the office.
Five minutes after I arrived back, the brown-haired beat girl from Conni Conn tapped on my door. She said there’d been a bloke looking for me earlier.
‘Oh yeah, a bloke in a yellow shirt? I saw him. It’s all okay.’
She shrugged like it didn’t matter much to her either way. Then she stopped, walked over to the desk, picked up the copy of On the Road lying there.
‘Jack Kerouac. Is this yours?’ she said.
‘Sure.’
She nodded. I asked her name. She said Trish. I offered her a ciggy. She accepted, I lit it. She took a puff and said, ‘So, you’ve read Kerouac?’
‘Yeah, of course. Not bad really. But right now I’m rather more taken with the French existentialists.’ I pulled out the copy of The Outsider that Max had loaned me.
Trish looked at it, nodding. She said, ‘Albert Camus. I hear it’s good.’
‘Have it,’ I said.
‘No. Wait till you’ve finished it.’
I said sure, and then hit her with a couple of questions. Turned out she was a student at Sydney University, studying arts. A North Shore girl, working at the sweatshop for the holidays.
She finished her cig and said, ‘A couple of the girls back in the workshop were talking about you the other day.’
‘Really?’