The Big Whatever (16 page)

Cathy and I talked about possible ounces, even pounds, of heroin and whatnot, speculated as to how much money might be reasonable under the circumstances. We kicked around the other questions: should we let Craig the copper know that Barry was back? What would happen if we kept mum? Should we pull Stan and Jimmy in on this?

All through our discussion, I knew Cathy was itching to find out where I was getting the skag, but I wasn't letting on. Finally she asked me outright. No way. Dig: I wasn't going to give away the only bit of an edge I had in this whole sorry business.

We went to bed. It was sweet. United in adversity. I didn't query the status of her and Stan, or her and Jimmy for that matter, or her and anybody. Tonight was cool.

She left in the morning.

That afternoon I went to see Jimmy and Stan and told them to count me in for the big knockover. I gave Stan a couple of thousand bucks right then. Didn't leave me with much, but I was square with the Captain and could no doubt get the next package on tick.

Something else I should mention here: a regrettable disagreement with Bobby Boyd, who remains a good cat to this day but who took an uncharacteristically narrow and unforgiving attitude to my venture into the heroin business. He hadn't minded the go-fast – hell, he'd been a major beneficiary – but he would have no truck with skag. Upshot was,
my young troubadours, by the end of that week I was no longer an Oracle.

I didn't mind too much. Had a good experience that Friday night playing with the Rods, the bequiffed and greasy-haired rock'n'roll diehards with whom I'd never stopped moonlighting. It was a dance in Geelong. The nineteen fifties all over again. People were dancing. With one another. Looking out from behind the piano, watching the smiling dancers, the ladies' eyes closed as they whirled around the floor, I felt more a part of the music than I had in an age, like I was back in the game in some way. Even though your Carlton hipsters would've viewed this as some sorrowful, old-timey stuff, I knew it was the real, no bullshit, be-here-now thing. Hearken unto me, my little hepcats!

Next Monday there was a story in the
Daily Earth News
: “The New Heroin Plague.” By Clive the Fop. I'll spare you the details – suffice to say, the Fop took a dim view. At least, pretended to. There was no mention of the many free lines, tokes, hits, tastes, blasts, etc. he'd copped from the evil drug sellers of Melbourne. Second column half way down, he claimed that smack was even making inroads into the traditional underworld, citing rumours that members of a certain gang of armed robbers were dabbling in it, maybe even running habits, and likely putting the proceeds of their robbery up their arms.

Then he quoted some Carlton idiot saying that heroin was the “existential drug” – the only drug, really, that's why it was “favoured by poets, musicians, writers, dreamers and outlaws.” It finished with the Fop wondering aloud where all this high-quality gear was coming from. Over and out.

A potted version of the story turned up a couple of days later on page three of the
Sun
. All this and less than a week to go before the Moratorium and the big knockover.

I went to see Stan, half intending to get my money back. Found him at the East Melbourne house. He wasn't
interested in the Fop's exposé, though. Right there at the front door, he hit me with, “Bloke named Barry. Bad bastard. From Sydney. What do you know about that?”

I stepped inside and Stan closed the door. Jimmy came out of the kitchen. I could see there were three or four blokes in there; smoke, beer bottles, fish and chips. Jimmy pulled the door closed

Stan and Jimmy were waiting for my answer. I wasn't sure how much Stan knew about the messy events in the house at Bondi the night of his escape from Goulburn Jail. Cathy
should
have told him, but she always had her own ways of doing things. He looked at me, gerried that I was hesitating.

“I know about the rip. Cathy told me. And we know Barry is in with the Sydney Greeks. We need to know if he knows about
our
job.”

“How could he? No, of course not.”

Jimmy said, “The cunt knows
something
.” Looking hard at me now, jerking his head up aggressively. “Well?”

“Barry and Greek Alex fronted me a few months ago. Tracked me down to my place. I bullshitted them. Barry left. The Greek stayed in town. Then Barry turned up again last week.”

Stan and Jimmy looking very serious now.

“But it's not about, all
this
. . .” I gestured around the room. “It's about the Sydney rip. Really, it's about the Greeks wanting a smack supply. Nothing to do with your job.”

“How do you mean, you bullshitted them?” Jimmy, sceptical.

Oh, Jesus H. Christ on a bike, I thought. My desperate gobbing off back then, my heist-novel riffing about robbing the lottery office. So obviously far-fetched that Alex had politely not mentioned it in our subsequent dealings. I'd thought it was forgotten. But maybe Barry had got a whiff from somewhere else that made him think again about my tall tale, put two and two together.

So I told them. When I finished, Jimmy sighed, long and deep, looked at Stan, who was deep in thought.

“I did jail with Barry,” Stan said, “Parramatta. Years ago.” I waited for the explanation, but none was forthcoming.

After a few more seconds Stan said to Jimmy. “We can't do anything now, too near the job. We just play it by ear. Cut him in if we need to. Deal with him later.” Something else unspoken passed between the two of them – oh, my little peaceniks, you don't want to know!

Astute observers of human behaviour among you might be wondering just how well your trusty correspondent was dealing with all this aggravation. Truth is, not well. I'd never stopped taking speed, and I couldn't remember the last proper night's sleep I'd had. Despite what I'd resolved earlier, I was using the smack now, too. Mixing it with the accelerant. The term “emotional roller-coaster” comes to mind. But I wasn't paying for any of the dope, and I had access to so much of both varieties, my own chipping wasn't making any real difference to the profits.

Day to day, I was still doing plenty of goey biz. With Bikey Vic. Who was also part of the team on the big knockover. Yeah, I haven't mentioned that yet. Well, like me, Vic had been brought in as an investor. He and his bikey gang mates had a pretty good bank by then. But Vic was itching to get actively involved in the armed robbery caper. Jimmy and Stan had come to trust him, even like him, tough little bastard that he was, so they'd let him in.

I'd made a point of
not
asking questions, but Vic had let it drop that he and a couple of mates had been assigned a task that was very near to their nihilistic hearts: they were to handle the explosion on the King's Bridge. They could get hold of explosives – Vic hadn't said how, but I guessed the Boy Wonder might have something to do with that.

Vic had also taken to horning the odd line of hammer and tack, which was strictly non-U for your bikey brigade, but we're only human, right?

Anyway, Vic was a reliable cat, and I'd always liked his company. So when he came to my flat one night after dark, highly agitated, and said, “There are two blokes sitting in a car outside,” I took notice. After turning the lights out, I drew the curtain and peeked through the window. The street was quiet. A plain Holden was parked back a bit from the street light. I couldn't see shit.

“Did you come in the front?”

Vic shook his head. “Round the back. Seen them before?”

In truth, my little scoundrels, for some time now I
had
been seeing suspicious loiterers, and more than once had the feeling cars were following me – I'd put it down to a return of my drug-induced discombobulation. A grain of salt, renarda renarda. Fact was, I'd spotted that same car outside twice in the past week, but my cooler-headed self had prevailed, reasoning, why the fuck would they be looking at old Mel, really?

“Could be nothing,” I said.

Vic was already dialling a number on my phone.

“This is the Reverend Edward Entwhistle here, and I wish to report grossly indecent acts taking place right now, in a car, in my very street, between two male persons.” Pause. “Yes.” Another pause. “Sodomy, I believe.” He described the green Holden, where it was, gave a bodgey address as his own, a few doors down from my real address, demanded a peeler come around and investigate, and hung up.

We kept the lights off. A quarter of an hour later a cop car cruised down the street and stopped. Two uniformed blokes got out and approached the parked car, one either side. There was some talk through the window. Whoever was in the car didn't get out. Then one of the uniformed men looked at his book, went off to find the Reverend Entwhistle. He came back a minute later, and both cars drove off.

Next morning it was cold. I went out early to the Captain's for a restock.

He was bleary-eyed, wearing a heavy sweater. He led me
into his lounge room, left me for a moment, then came back with a tray – teapot, cups, saucers, cigar box. He poured tea for us both, then opened the box, brought out a large plastic bag, put it on the coffee table.

The stuff was white – not sparkly like speed, but pure, matte white. And fine-grained, no lumps at all.

“This lot is different,” he said. “Stronger. You'll need to be a bit careful with it.”

It was the same price as before, though. I paid him for the last load, then left with the bag of new stuff, went over to Vic's place to repack it. He cooked up a taste.

Some drug lore here, young seekers. The stuff we'd been getting till now needed to be mixed with a little vinegar or lemon and cooked up in a spoon. Whereas this stuff dissolved easily, no acid needed. Vic looked at the spoon closely. “Interesting,” he said. He drew it up into his fit, banged it away, and promptly went on the nod. He came around twenty minutes later and said, “That was like a train going through my brain.”

Met Cathy later on at my place. We were sitting at my kitchen table. She'd brought falafels. I dropped a little folded-up package in front of her. She opened it up, stared at it up close, like a scientist, prodded it with her fingernail. “This is different dope.”

“It's good piss.”

She tipped it around in the open package, nodding. “This looks like number four.”

She looked at me searchingly. “You getting this from the same source?”

“Never mind.” I picked up a falafel, and started in on it. Mainly to avoid her gaze. Cathy cooked a taste, hit it up. Went pale, closed her eyes for a minute. She breathed deep. “Yep, number four,” she said, then got up, put the dope in her pocket and left.

Two days later Cathy came back needing more. She was selling to Alex's people now too, which meant her business
had nearly doubled. I had none left – I'd taken the last skerrick twenty minutes before. So I bundled up the money I had, told Cathy to sit tight, left her at my flat while I went to see the man.

I rang the Captain from a public phone down the street – I didn't want Cathy eavesdropping – then drove to Albert Park. An hour later, deal done, I walked back to my car, which I'd left parked around the corner. Soon as I got in, the passenger door opened and Cathy hopped in smartly.

“You're getting the dope from
him
?” She nodded in the direction of the flat.

“Who? No. Jesus, Cathy, I told you to wait at the flat.”

“There's something you need to know. Let's get out of here.”

MEL'S HISTORY LESSON

Back at my place Cathy put a hit away, got up quickly, went to the bathroom. She came back a minute later and sat down at my kitchen table.

“Remind me,” she said. “When were you last in Vietnam?”

“Early sixty-seven,” I said.

She didn't say anything more for a while. Taking a little wander down memory lane, I guessed.

I'd first met Cathy in Vietnam. Did I tell you that already? At an army base in Phuoc Tuy. I was on tour, playing piano with Ray Rock and the Rockbeats. War is hell, baby, it's true, but that was a good gig. Cathy was one of a group of New Zealand dancers. They were doing their thing on stage that day, really shaking it. Went over big with the boys.

We smoked some ganja together afterwards – strong smokables in that part of the world, my young tea-heads. Cathy had been in Vietnam for over a year. Went as a nurse but was drawn into the entertainment scene. Good life for a party girl.

Next time I saw her she'd stopped dancing, was co-running an agency booking Filipino soul bands, Maori groups, Aussie country and western acts – anything, really – into military bases. South Vietnam was the show-biz capital of the earth for a while there: the chitlin' circuit, Broadway, Nashville, Hollywood, Kings Cross and Jimmy Sharman's tent show all rolled into one.

We met up once or twice again at different stops along the circuit. Then she disappeared. I didn't see her again until she turned up at the Joker looking for work. That's when she and Johnny had fallen in with one another, even though he already had complicated domestic arrangements. She became part of the Joker R&R scene, but we'd never really talked about our Vietnam days.