It’s strange the way physical attack affects you. Sometimes you just go under, recognising superior force’ and hoping to fight another day. Or you kick back against the same odds and take a bad beating. Other times, training, anger, desperation or something else cut in and you can’t be stopped. I was tired, stressed, in a confused state of sexual excitement and not ready to lie down for anyone. I came back up off the floor, ricked knee and all, and threw myself against Ralph Jacobs as if I wanted to hammer him through the wall.
I hit him hard and low in his softening gut. There was a whoosh as the air went out of him and I hit him again, higher, wilder, hurting my hand against bone. I yelled and used the pain and the momentum I had to butt him, elbow him, bring my knee up, all in a sequence that would have delighted Sergeant O’Malley. Ralph had no answer. He staggered back, bleeding and defensive and I hacked his feet out from under him with a sweep that brought him down. I fell over myself as the knee gave out.
This might have spoiled the effect except that I landed near where my jacket lay on the floor. I realised then that I hadn’t just missed the pegs-I’d hit Ralph as he waited under the stairs. So what? I pulled the Smith amp; Wesson out of the pocket and jammed it up into the blood flowing from Ralph’s nose.
‘You’re wrong, Ralphie,’ I said, ‘the fun’s just beginning. See these?’ I touched the cuts on my face. ‘Your boy with the crowbar gave them to me.’ I jiggled the gun. ‘How about I work you over a bit with this by way of return?’
Ralph’s first expression had more of surprise than anything else. I don’t suppose the Wrecker had lost many one-on-ones over the years. But now fear was showing in his fleshy, well-tended face. Blood was dripping onto his shirt and the fancy cream cotton jacket and the pressure I was keeping on the gun was hurting his nose cartilage. It was also stopping him from speaking so I eased off a little.
‘Do I call the police and charge you with break and enter and assault, or do we talk?’
He ground out one word. ‘Talk.’
I gave him a light shove as I took the gun out of his face and edged away from him in a half-crouch. ‘Okay. I haven’t shot anyone in my own house in years. It’s messy afterwards and I don’t like cleaning up. But I’ll do it if you give me any trouble. Get over there and sit down.’
I motioned him to a chair in the corner of the room. He dragged himself a metre or so and then seemed to regain enough self-respect to straighten up and complete the trip in an almost normal posture. He was still shaky though, and glad to sit down. I wasn’t in much better shape myself. I made it to another chair without actually hobbling, but the back of my leg hurt like hell and I was sore where the kidney punch had landed.
I rubbed the sore spot. ‘You better hope I don’t piss blood, Ralph. I get very angry when someone causes me to piss blood. Now what the hell’s this all about?’
He wiped his face with the back of his hand, saw the blood and dug in the pocket of his jacket for a handkerchief. He found one, but got a lot of gore on the jacket. ‘I spoke to Mum on the phone today. She said you got Dad all upset. He’s very sick. I warned you to keep off.’
‘Did she tell you she’d hired me to go on looking into Oscar Bach’s death?’
‘No. I… ‘
‘Sounds like you did more talking than listening. Your nose is bleeding again.’
He lifted the handkerchief. I flexed my leg and put the gun down on the floor beside the chair. We were both crocks, too old for this game. ‘I should’ve brought someone with me,’ he growled.
‘How’d you know I’d be coming here?’
‘Kept tabs on you all day. You saw the Toyota but I had another car pick you up after that. What’ve you been doing down south? Anything to do with my old man?’
‘Hold on,’ I said. ‘You’ve been following me all day? Reporting in by car phone, that sort of thing?’ He nodded and some more blood flowed.
‘Why?’
‘I do a bit of that as a sort of sideline. Favours for people. I put a man on you to give him some practice.’
‘Shit, Ralph, you’ve got some nasty habits. Let me tell you what’s going on.’
I told him in some detail, partly to straighten things out for myself, partly because I wanted him off my back, once and for all. He listened, nodding occasionally. I left out the names although they were clear enough in my mind- Gina Costi, Renato ‘Ronny’ Costi, Mark Roper, Angela Fanfani. I finished and he didn’t say anything.
‘Family man, are you?’ I said.
‘Two boys, two girls.’
‘How does it grab you, then?’
‘I knew that Oscar was creepy. Only met him once, but I knew. I can’t understand how Dad got taken in by him.’
‘You’ve got too simple a view of human nature, Ralph. I’ve known some real nice blokes who liked doing very nasty things when the mood was on them.’
‘And Mum wants you to find out who did him? You’ll tell Dad and everything’ll be okay?’
‘What d’you reckon?’
He shook his head. ‘I don’t know. It’s beyond me. I never thought our family’d get involved in anything like this.’
I suppose it was then that I warmed a bit towards Ralph Jacobs. He came clean with me, admitted that he was a bit strapped for cash and had been hoping to put the bite on his father. He didn’t want anyone siphoning off the loot, like a private detective who might bleed the old man for months or even blackmail him. He said the crowbar kid had exceeded his orders which, given the kidney punch and the knee kick, I doubted. But Ralph wasn’t a happy man. I could sense that he was under pressure- business or personal, or both.
‘Your mother’s holding things together up there,’ I said. ‘I think she could use a bit of help.’
He nodded. ‘Never seem to find the time. I’ll try. You reckon you know who it was, this wog?’
‘Show a bit of class, Wrecker,’ I said. ‘Didn’t you ever meet an Italian who could run the bloody legs off you?’
He grinned. ‘Yeah, yeah, sure I did. And tackle, too. Okay, this Italian.’
‘I’ve got an idea. But I’m going to have to go carefully.’
‘Maybe I could help.’
I sighed. ‘Ralph, I’ve got the man down south ready and willing to help. He’s a builder. I fancy he could swing a few cement mixers my way. You’ve got friends with Toyotas and car phones and iron bars
‘I said he was out of line. I’ll talk to him.’
‘Don’t bother. If I ever see him again without the crowbar we’ll have a chat. My point is, I’m working with the police on this and…’
Ralph’s grin was a bit lopsided and all the more salacious for that. ‘Yeah, Senior Sergeant Withers. She’s a goer, I’m told.’
That’s when I told him to piss off. He’d recovered a lot of his aplomb by this time. He stood up, took a card from his pocket and set it down on the chair. ‘You can reach me,’ he said. ‘And, Hardy, the locks on this place are lousy. Yours took me about thirty seconds and I’m no expert.’
I said, ‘You see anything worth stealing?’ But he was gone.
When I got out of the chair the pain really hit me. My back felt as if it was on fire and the knee was going to need strapping. I staggered to the toilet but there was no blood. Lucky for Ralph. The bath is old and stained but it’s deep and I can submerge myself in it up to the shoulders. That’s what I did, in water as hot as I could stand it and with a couple of inches of scotch to hand. I breathed in the steam and tried to think open pores, get ye hence toxins, circulate blood, heal wounds. When the water cooled I let some out and ran in some more hot. I was probably in there an hour and felt better at the end of it, although whether it was the bath, the healing thoughts or the scotch that did the trick was hard to say.
I decided that it was the scotch and had some more. A few painkillers didn’t seem like a bad idea either and after that my bed felt like a cloud. I drifted off into a doped sleep. The cat scratched at the balcony window and I laughed at it. The phone rang and I ignored it. I dreamed I was young again and running to catch a Bondi tram. I’d almost got my hand on the rail when the strength left my legs and the tram pulled away and I stood in the middle of the tracks watching it go.