Clem Carter was the welterweight boxing champion of the Maroubra Police-Citizens Boy’s Club in 1955. The title didn’t mean much to most people, but it meant a hell of a lot to Clem; and it meant something to me too because I was the one he beat in the final of the tournament. He was a tough kid, Clem, working at fifteen as a brickie’s mate; and he had a couple of stadium fights in the next few years while I was finishing school and not finishing university. Then I went into the army and Clem went to gaol. He got three years for GBH and he told me later that he had so many fights inside that he had to serve the whole time.
After fighting, cars were Clem’s big thing- when he was young he stole them, later he built and raced them. I met him a few times in the early seventies when he was racing stockcars; the boxing scars on his face were overlain with the marks of racing injuries, and he was drinking heavily. But he was cheerful-he was newly married and heading up north to manage a new speedway. Then someone told me that he’d been sentenced to fifteen years for armed robbery and then he was in the news-for escaping.
I didn’t think much about it. I was working on a mildly interesting job, trying to locate a union official who’d gone missing with a certain amount of money. It was hard to tell whether or not he was more crooked than the people who wanted him. I got home late this night, tired from covering some far-flung addresses, and dry. I hadn’t had a drink all day. I edged the old Falcon into the small yard at the back of my house, got out, locked it, and felt the hard metal bite into my ear.
‘Put your gun on top of the car, Cliff.’
I did, and turned around slowly. He was always a fast mover, Clem; he slid around, grabbed the gun and dropped the length of pipe he’d been holding. He could hit too, and got mean when he was hurt, so I smiled at him.
‘Hi, Clem, get sick of the food?’
He jerked his head at the house. ‘Inside.’ He’d beaten me easily when he didn’t have a gun, and there was only a crummy electro-plated cup riding on it, so I didn’t fancy my chances now. I walked to the back door and opened it, went in, turned on lights and opened the fridge.
‘Drink, Clem?’
He raised the gun. ‘No, you either.’
‘Christ, have a heart, I’m bloody dry!’
‘I haven’t had a drink in five years, Cliff.’
‘You used to like a drink.’
‘Yeah. Have you got a thermos?’
I said I had, and got it out.
‘Make some coffee; I see you’ve got the makings.’
‘How’d you get out’, I asked him.
‘I fixed up some of the guards.’ He said.
I poured the coffee and pushed the sugar across to him. I haven’t used sugar since I went on my fitness kick a year ago. Clem ignored the sugar, sipped the coffee black. ‘Must have cost you’, I said.
‘Right.’ He looked at me carefully and put the gun down by his cup. ‘It’s funny that, I had to get a mate to sell one of my cars. Joannie… ah, never mind, I’ll sort it out.’
I drank some coffee, still wanting a real drink. ‘What’re you going to do now, Clem?’
He picked up the gun. ‘You’re driving me north. When we get there I’m going to use this on a man.’
‘That’s crazy. That’s life!’
‘I didn’t do that job, Cliff, he put me in.’
‘Still…’
‘Don’t chat about it! Five years… what’ve you been doing in the last five years?’
I finished my coffee, didn’t answer.
‘A few birds, Cliff? Bit of travel? I remember you used to read a lot; well, I’ve had plenty of time to read and to think. So I know what I’m going to do and I don’t want to bloody debate it with you. Okay?’
I nodded, Clem had done a bit of self-improving in prison; he’d never have said ‘debate’ before. He was all the more dangerous for it. I started to pour more coffee but he waved the gun. ‘Stick it in the thermos and make up some food, we’ve got a long drive.’
I put together some bread, salami and cheese while Clem watched me. I took out the flagon of white wine but he shook his head.
‘Let’s go and get some clothes, we’re still about the same size.’
‘A bit of luck that’, I said.
He grinned at me. ‘Not really; I told you I’ve thought this out.’
We weren’t welterweights anymore, more like heavy middles; but a pair of my jeans and a shirt and windcheater fitted Clem well enough. I could have taken a chance while he was dressing, but he was still very quick and I knew I wouldn’t have been able to use the gun on him anyway. It was a weird feeling; I was alarmed by his manner and his possession of the gun but I couldn’t really believe that old Clem would harm me, and in a way I was glad of his company.
We went back downstairs and listened to the news. He listened intently but not with that inflated self-importance that leads criminals to keep scrapbooks and to want to be on TV: Clem wanted to find out what the cops were doing. The report was vague; Clem was described as dangerous and the police were appealing for help. It sounded as if they didn’t have any ideas.
‘They’ll be looking for you up north, Clem’. I said.
He rubbed his hand across his face. Some bristle was showing through but his last shave must have been a very close one. ‘I know’, he said. ‘But they’re pretty dim up there. I could get in and out with my eyes closed.’
Suddenly I felt tired; I didn’t want to go cowboying off north with Clem Carter while half the New South Wales police force chased us. I wanted a drink, several drinks, and I felt more like reading about chases in Desmond Bagley than being in one. So I tried it; while Clem was checking the food parcel I made a grab at the gun. It wasn’t much of a try, but even so Clem’s speed surprised me: he side-stepped, kept the gun out of harm’s way and hit me in the pit of the stomach with his left. It was something like the left he’d dropped me with at Maroubra more than twenty years back and it had the same effect. I went down hard, and stayed down.
‘You shouldn’t have tried that, Cliff, he said nastily. ‘I can beat you anytime.’
I sat on the floor, feeling my guts re-arrange themselves. ‘I know, Clem, I just don’t like guns pointing at me. What about a truce?’
He eyed me suspiciously. ‘What sort of truce?’
‘Put the gun away and I’ll do what you say short of getting myself in too much trouble. I’ll stick with you. If you shoot at anyone I’ll run away. If you shoot at me I’ll try to do you in any way I can.’
He gave the sour laugh again. ‘Okay. I’ll let you drop off as soon as I can.’
We picked up the food, turned off the lights and went out to the car. Clem set the safety and put the. 38 in the waistband of his jeans. ‘You drive’, he said. ‘Take it easy, there’s no hurry.’
I worked the car out and we drove in silence through Glebe and Ultimo and on to the Harbour Bridge. There was rain in the air, threatening in the dark, purple-streaked sky, but the roads were still dry and the traffic was light. I told Clem I had to stop for petrol. He didn’t like it much and made me keep going up the Pacific Highway until we hit a self-service place. Clem huddled down as I got out of the car.
‘Don’t do anything silly, Cliff.’
‘Hell no, this is fun. Do you want anything, I smokes?’
‘No, I’ve got no vices now. Just get on with it.’
I fuelled up, checked the water and oil and tried to think of something clever but nothing came. When I got back in the car I handed Clem ten dollars.
‘What’s this for?’
‘Give it back to me.’
He did. ‘Now I’ll consider you a client, Clem. It’s as illegal as hell but it makes me feel better.’
‘You’re full of shit, Cliff, he said but he seemed to relax a bit. The gesture was pointless, a farce, but it led him to talk about his mission.
Clem had been managing the Gismore speedway and making a fair fist of it for six months. They were taking a few thousand dollars a meeting and the prospects looked good. He bought a house which was attached to an older timber mill and this gave him a big covered space for a workshop. In his spare time he worked on improvements to his cars. According to Clem it was the owner of the speedway, a guy named Riley, who came up with the idea of holding meetings for six days running, a sort of tournament for the different models of cars. For the last meeting, Riley gave Clem the night off. He went home, collected his wife and set off for the movies, but the car broke down up in the hills. Clem was still working on it when the cops came. The speedway had been knocked over with close to $30,000 in the till. Riley, who’d taken a shotgun blast in the shoulder, identified Clem as one of the heavies. He also said that the six day meeting had been Clem’s idea. The cops found a dust coat, mask and a sawn-off shotgun with one barrel recently discharged in Clem’s car. Clem’s only witness was his wife, Joannie, and she didn’t impress anyone. They searched the house and found letters from Riley giving Clem hefty advances on his salary. Clem said he’d never seen the gun or the mask or the coat before, nor the letters. Riley spent some time in hospital and he closed the speedway. The town lost jobs and entertainment. No one wanted to start a Clem Carter fan club-and he got fifteen years for armed robbery and wounding.
The way he told it impressed me. Clem was never known for his imagination and the story hung together pretty well. A few things bothered me though.
‘This Riley’d be stealing his own money, wouldn’t he?’
‘No. He had big overheads, loans, salaries, taxes; this was a gift.’
‘Wouldn’t he have moved on by now?’
Clem was staring ahead up the road. ‘You’d reckon he would, wouldn’t you? But he hasn’t. I expect I’ll find out why when I get there.’
‘He’ll move when he hears you’re out.’
‘I’ve got a mate up there, he’ll keep me informed.’
‘I still don’t see what you reckon to get out of it.’
‘Revenge.’
‘Bullshit. You’re going to kill a man for revenge, bullshit!’
‘All right, Cliff, I’ll tell you. I’m not going to kill him, I just said that to sound hard. You’re a smart man, you must be able to guess why I’m going after him.’
‘The money’, I said.
‘Right. He hasn’t touched it, it’s still around somewhere and I’m going to ask him nicely where it is.’
‘And then…’
‘You meet some interesting people in gaol. If I can get my hands on the money I can get out of the country, no worries.’
‘If you can get the money it’ll prove you didn’t do the job.’
He sneered at me. ‘How?’
I could see his point-after some thought-chances were if he walked into a police station with a bag full of money they’d say thanks very much, and send him back to the slammer. Still, I was liking it less and less; it sounded like unpleasantness followed by deserted beaches or airfields. I like to do my travelling in the daylight with a lot of people taking the same risks. As I was thinking, I raised the speed a bit.
‘Take it easy, Cliff, I don’t want to draw any attention. I want Riley to sweat, but I don’t want him to know whether I went north, south, east or west.’
We got to Newcastle around midnight, and I watched the motel signs flashing by and thought about sleep. I put the question to Clem and he uncorked the thermos for an answer. That worked for a while, but after an hour on the open road I was sagging and letting the car drift a little.
‘Okay, let’s not be statistics’, Clem said. ‘Pull over when I tell you and we’ll rig something up.’
We turned off the highway down a dirt road which had trees, widely spaced, growing alongside. We went in through the trees and pulled up about thirty feet back from the road, pretty well sheltered. Clem rummaged around in the back of the car and came up with a long piece of flex. He wound the middle part of it around my ankle and took the two ends to tie around his foot. I stretched out in the front seat and he took the back. There was a coat and a blanket in the car and he slung the blanket over to me. It was cold and uncomfortable, and I soon needed a piss. Clem’s breathing was steady but whether he was asleep or not I couldn’t tell. Eventually I slept in snatches; but I was cramped, stiff and bursting at first light when Clem stirred in the back.
‘Have a good night, Cliff?’
I grunted something uncomplimentary and he laughed. ‘You should try a stay at the Bay, Cliff, this is a picnic’ He untied us and pushed his door open. ‘Splash the boots, Cliff, and let’s get moving.’
He looked pretty fresh, considering, although his stubble was darker and there was some tension in his movements. He kept patting the gun in his waistband. We pissed, and ate some of the food while the day got started; the sky was clear and even this distance north of Sydney there was a different taste to the air, fruity. I moved towards the door but he put his hand on my arm.
‘I’ll drive.’
I shrugged and got in. He tapped the wheel and gear shift as if getting the weight and balance of them, and then we were off out of the trees, bumping down the track and out onto the highway. Clem drove the way he fought; very smooth, and with a feeling of power kept in reserve. He kept the speed down; I’d spent some money on the Falcon recently and it was going along nicely at sixty. I was thinking that Clem’s luck was holding when the trouble started. A motorcycle cop passed us and then dropped back. Clem passed him and the cop drew up alongside and took a good look at us. He waved us in and Clem put his foot down. I looked back and saw the cop’s face which was white and set under the goggles. He hunched over the handlebars and came after us with a siren screaming.
‘This thing’ll fall apart at eighty’, I said.
‘Shut up.’ Clem gripped the wheel and seemed to be looking ahead, beyond the turns in the road. We were climbing slightly and the bike gained quickly. Clem bent forward and his eyes flicked from the road to the rear vision mirror. I checked my seat belt and tried to console myself with the thought that the Falcon probably wouldn’t even do eighty and that something would burn out if he tried something that would slow us down and bring us to a gentle stop. Clem wasn’t slowing, he pushed the speed up as we gained the flat. The bike cruised up close behind us and then Clem flicked off the bitumen and sent a hail of dust and stones flying back at the cop. That gained us some distance, the siren receded and then came back louder than ever. Clem fought the wheel as the needle touched eighty-five and the suspension and steering protested. When I thought the car was going to disintegrate he eased off and looked into the mirror, then he picked up again, eased back and studied the mirror. He grinned.
‘What?’ My teeth were chattering and I had to say it again to get the sound out.
‘He’s confused’, Clem said tightly, ‘probably young. Give me a break and I’ll shake him.’
The break came in the next mile; the road narrowed over a bridge and there was a high bank quite close to the road over the bridge. Clem eased off the power, touched the brake and we probably weren’t doing much more than fifty when we bumped over the bridge. He swung the wheel and the car lurched out towards the middle of the road, the bike came up on the inside and then we slipped back over to the left and crowded the bike closer to the bank. I saw the rider’s head go up and then he was in a skid, sliding and slowing, and Clem kept just ahead of him, hemming him in until he went sideways into the bank. Clem picked up speed on the straight road and I kept the dark figure in sight until we went over a hill.
‘Moving?’ Clem said.
I drew in a sour, gummy breath. ‘Yeah.’
‘Should be okay, he wasn’t going fast.’
A truck roared by on the other side and Clem wiped his hand over his face. ‘He’ll see him right. We’ve got to get off this bloody road, though.’
We went inland south of Taree and started winding and climbing through the rich farming country. I had a map of sorts and Clem had a good eye for roads; we did some backtracking but still made pretty good progress north. After a while Clem started to whistle.
‘What the hell have you got to be so cheerful about? They’re going to have two men in a dark Falcon registration number KLG 343 on the air by now.’
Clem looked at me, he was munching on the last of the salami and the scars and lines on his face were criss-crossing, smoothing out and bunching up.
‘You’re slipping Cliff. Notice anything about the farm houses around here?’
‘No.’
‘Fuckin’ great TV masts. This is TV territory, most of these people wouldn’t listen to the local radio if you paid them and they won’t watch television until the evening. Nothing to worry about till then.’
I grunted. ‘You’re wasted in a life of crime, Clem. You should be in my racket.’
The remark sobered him. ‘Yeah’, he muttered, ‘well, it’s a bit late for that, and I mightn’t be so smart anyhow, we’re going to need petrol and they listen to the radio in the workshops anyway. Going to have to trust to all that bloody luck I usually have.’
We bought the petrol in a small town that featured a bowser on the side of the road, a post office store and a pub. Clem took some money and bought food; I bought some beer and a bottle of brandy. Clem gestured angrily at me to drive when he saw the package. I knew he wouldn’t want to start a scene in the town so I opened one of the cans as I got behind the wheel.
‘I said no booze, Cliff, he said when we got out of the town.
‘Fuck you, Clem, I’m twitching and I need a drink. I’m not going to go through another night like that without a few belts. Think of it as medicine.’ I held one of the cans out to him but he stared out the window.
We pushed on through the afternoon scarcely talking. Clem kept looking at the map and dictating the route. He was making for some point short of Gismore and his spirits seemed to lift when we got into the ranges between Kempsey and Tamworth. The light was fading when we got to Bunda Bunda. Clem told me to stop by the single public phone booth in the town.
‘Let’s have some silver, Cliff.’ I gave him what I had, and he reached over and took the keys. He went into the booth and I saw him take the. 38 out and put it to hand; then he shovelled money into the box, dialled, waited and spoke. He was grinning when he came back.
‘What next?’ I said.
‘Night’s sleep and a new car, about twenty miles off.’
We turned back towards the coast and started dropping. I was tired and hungry when Clem guided us down a track to a shack at the edge of a fast moving creek. A white VW 1600, not new but younger than the Falcon, was parked behind the building which was mostly fibro with a bit of timber and a minimum of glass.
There was a gas cylinder and a two burner stove in the shack and we had a meal of tinned poison and I drank two cans of warm beer. I was sleepy and even the rickety bunks at the back of the single room looked inviting. Clem had taken the distributor from the Falcon and he looked at me as I yawned.
‘Ready to pack it in, Cliff?’
‘Yeah, but let’s not have any of that Siamese twins act, eh?’
‘You could shoot through and have the cops here in no time.’
‘Clem, I’m buggered. I don’t know where we are. It’s pitch black outside. I assume the creek goes down to the coast but I’m just not in the mood to build a raft. I’m not going anywhere tonight.’ I took off my shoes and handed them to him.
He laughed and jabbed at me with the shoes. ‘All right, tell you what, you have a nice big brandy and I’ll have a small one to keep you company.’
He’d taken charge of the bottle and now he held it out. I set the world’s bottle-opening record and we sat there in front of the kerosene lamp with a good brandy in enamel mugs. He took sip and pulled a face. In the flickering light the strain and the years showed clearly. He drank a bit more, and squinted as if he was in pain.
I took a long pull on the smooth spirit. ‘What’s on your mind, Clem?’
‘Joannie’, he said.
The room was full of light when I woke up and Clem was shaving with a blade razor and a piece of soap; steam was lifting from a shallow enamel bowl.
‘Get up you lazy bugger, and make some coffee.’
I had a bit of a head and I groaned when I swung my legs on to the boards.
‘You look bloody awful, I should make you take a swim in the creek.’
‘You’d be lucky. How’d you sleep?’
‘Fair.’
I made the coffee and set the mug down in front of him. He wiped his face off carefully with a torn towel. He looked healthy and fresh. I rubbed my hand over my dirty, dark-bristled face; I was the one who looked like a desperado. He offered me the razor but I couldn’t see my heavy beard giving way to it.
‘Look, Clem, why don’t you stick here a while. I’ll go up to Gismore and see what I can find out. If you can pin it on this Riley character, you’re home free.’
Clem sipped coffee, taking it hot and squinting against the steam, then he shook his head slowly. ‘Thanks, Cliff; I know you’d give it a go but it’s not on. I want him and I want the money, I’ll start turning over new leaves then.’
‘Could be too late, Clem.’
‘Could be.’
We tidied the cabin a bit and took the spare food and drink out to the VW. Clem took a plastic drum out of the back and told me to siphon out the Falcon’s tank. He let me pour back enough to run her a few miles and he tossed the distributor on to the seat.
‘It’s all downhill from here’, he said.
He was preoccupied on the drive towards Gismore, and so was I.
‘Have you given any thought to the coppers, Clem?’
‘How d’you mean?’
‘Well, if this Riley set you up like you say, you’d expect a copper or two to know a little about it.’
‘Fine body of men, Cliff.’
‘Sure, but you see what I mean. If a policeman or two have an interest in keeping you fixed up for this job things could get pretty hot.’
‘You’re so right.’
‘Well, you’ve been spotted going north, assuming that poor bugger back there could talk when they got to him. They’ve had plenty of time to prepare. This Riley’ll have a copper in bed with him.’
‘I know that. I told you I’d thought about this thing, I’ve got a way to bring him to me quiet as a mouse.’
‘How?’
‘You’ll see.’
He pushed the VW along pretty hard and when we were about still two hours out from Gismore I could tell from his driving that he was in familiar country. I wasn’t; the deep green foliage and the red earth looked foreign to my city eye and the glimpses of ocean were like snapshots of exotic seas, richly coloured and mysterious.
Gismore was ten kilometres away when Clem headed up a dirt road into the hills behind the town. He seemed to take pleasure from just looking at the forest and the cleared land-there were a lot of corn fields and I have to admit they looked nice. We bounced along a couple of tracks and Clem stopped just before a sharp bend.
‘Go for a stroll up the road, Cliff, Clem said. ‘You’ll see a big open shed with an iron roof, the house is off to the right, white weatherboard. See if there’s anyone about. Look innocent, mate.’
I got out stiffly and walked up the track. Birds and insects in the trees were making a lot of noise and I could hear a tractor working a long way off. It was a nice clear day and I felt tense, like waiting for a dentist to start in with his drill. I stuck my hands in my pockets and wandered up to the mill which had a very rusty roof and a slab wall at the back. There was a lot of rusty machinery and a couple of long, low shapes covered with heavy polythene. I took these to be Clem’s cars. On a bench in the middle of the shed a set of tools lay in a jumble of oil and dirty rags and rust. There was an almost sheer rock wall behind the shed, the track in front. The rock wall ran around to the left and the house was on the right. There was scrub and light forest behind the house. I walked across towards the house; there were no fresh tyre tracks on the dusty ground and the place had a closed-down, empty look. There were cobwebs across the screen door at the front and the back door was locked. I walked back to the car.
‘All clear. What’s next?’
He put the gun away and relaxed. ‘I’ll show you around.’
We went into the shed and Clem swore when he saw the neglected bench. He pointed to the closest of the covered cars. ‘Take a look, I want to find something here.’ He leaned over the bench and I bent down to lift the polythene. Clem moved fast; I didn’t hear him, and then his arm was around my neck and he was pressing hard somewhere and I grabbed at the dusty plastic and everything went black.
When I came to I was sitting at the base of the bench and my arms were drawn back behind one of its legs and tied with what felt like wire.
‘Sorry mate’, Clem said, ‘I didn’t think you’d go along with the next bit so I had to put you out. How do you feel?’
‘Like a Tooheys’, I grunted.
He laughed and loped off down the track. He was fit, purposeful and fresh looking. I felt a thousand years old, impotent and beaten. He came back with the box of food, peeled a banana and fed it to me slowly.
‘Keep you alive for weeks that will.’ He found a dirty mug on the bench, rinsed it at a tap and mixed a strong brandy and water. He held the cup while I sipped it down.
‘Okay?’
‘Yeah. I don’t like the look in your eyes, Clem; do you remember when you fought in the state finals? That army bloke?’
‘Yeah, I remember.’
‘He was too big for you, mate, too smart and he hit too hard. I think you’re going up against him again.’
‘No, Cliff, I’m going to win this one.’ He turned and went out of the shed and down the track. The wire hurt my hands but not unbearably; I tried to relax in the unnatural position and the feeling of incipient cramp eased off. Clem had cleared a space all around where I was sitting; there were no tools, no nails, no rusty hacksaw blades. Ten feet away there was enough gear to break into a bank. It was early afternoon and warm; I still had on the winter shirt I’d worn in Sydney and in which I’d now slept two nights-it stank. I’ve always liked the north coast and fantasised often about that one big case that brings in an enormous fee which could set me up with a shack overlooking the Pacific. Right then I’d gladly have been in Melbourne, or in church or anywhere else.
I dozed and came awake to the sound of the VW being driven up to the shed. Clem got out and grinned at me.
‘Bearing up?’ I grunted in reply and he worked at the wire so that I had one hand free. I looked at the other hand; the wire was heavy duty stuff twisted tight and hard with pliers, I couldn’t make any impression on it with my fingers. Clem handed me a hamburger and made another brandy and water.
‘Sorry there’s no beer, Cliff, out of the habit of it.’
I looked across at the car as I bit into the hamburger. In the passenger seat I could see a vague, light shape.
‘Who’s that?’
Clem took the cup from me and had a swig himself. He looked confident and assured.
‘That’s Dorothy Farmer; she’s Riley’s girlfriend.’
‘Happy to be here, is she?’
‘Not exactly, she needed some persuading. My mate in town tells me that Riley’d do anything for that girl; crazy about her, he’s told me that a hundred times.’
‘And…’
‘I’m going to call him, tell him I’ve got her and suggest he comes to fetch her and bring along the money. Simple as that.’
‘Kidnapping, Clem; big one.’
‘Who’s going to tell? I get the money and piss off, what’s Riley going to say?’
It sounded all right-if Riley’s feeling for the girl was as strong as Clem thought. Clem went to the back of the shed and rummaged around. When he came back he was carrying a. 303 rifle and a box of ammunition.
‘Jesus, Clem, I thought you were confident.’
‘I am, but Riley’s a cunning bugger, I just want to be sure. Hold tight, Cliff, I’m going to phone him.’
Carrying the rifle, he went towards the house. He took a quick look in the car then he stepped up onto the porch, clubbed the window in with the butt of the rifle and reached around to open the door. He was inside for about ten minutes; I saw the girl in the car stir and her hand go up to her face. Clem helped her gently out of the car and led her into the shed. She was a plump blonde with a lot of make-up over a very scared face. There was an old car seat under the bench and Clem dragged it out and pushed the girl down into it. He put some brandy in the cup and held it out to her.
‘Sorry, Dot’, he said.
She tossed back the brandy and held the cup out for a refill. ‘You scared the shit out of me with that gun, Clem. What’re you on about?’ Her voice was shaky and nasal; she had a frilly blouse on and very tight jeans with high-heeled shoes. She looked as if she’d just stepped out from behind the bar, except that she was as nervous as a rabbit. Clem stood over her with the. 303 across his shoulders. I was dirty-faced, stubbly and stinking with one arm lashed down with wire. She had a right to be alarmed.
Clem ignored her and I decided that it was time to recruit her to my side. ‘You’re a hostage, Dorothy; so am I in a way. Clem’s holding you because he wants something from Riley; when he has it he’ll let us both go. That right, Clem?’
‘That’s right.’
She looked at me as if I had started spouting Shakespeare. She opened her mouth to speak and then she looked at Clem; he was just faintly comic with the big rifle, but not funny enough to cause Dorothy to laugh as she did. She leaned back in the chair and bellowed. Clem swung the rifle around and at that minute I wondered just how cool he was. There was a flush in his face and his eyes looked nervous as he watched the convulsing girl.
‘What…’, she gasped, ‘what makes you think Charlie Riley will do anything for me?’
‘You’re his girl’, Clem grated. ‘He’s nuts about you, Johnny Talbot told me.’
She giggled. ‘Johnny Talbot told you!’ She laughed again and Clem stepped forward.
‘Easy, Clem’, I said.
He grabbed her shoulder and shook it. ‘What’s funny? Come on, Dot, I’m not joking.’
She calmed down and looked up at him, tears had spilled eye black down her face so that she looked like a tormented mime.
‘Riley hasn’t laid a finger on me for two years, Clem’, she said softly. ‘You know who he’s on with now?’
‘Tell me.’
‘Joannie, your wife. Johnny must’ve been too scared to tell you. Two years it’s been now, Clem, near enough.’ She started to get up from the seat and Clem shoved her back savagely.
‘Let me go’, the girl said, ‘I’m no use to you. Let me go, Clem!’
Clem slapped her hard across her tear-daubed face. ‘Shut up! Just shut up and let me think!’
There was a silence and we were all thinking fast and all thinking scared. The girl was telling the truth, that was clear, but I wondered if Clem saw all the consequences.
‘How did Riley take the news, Clem?’ I said quietly. Clem looked at me blankly. ‘He was… sort of shocked.’
‘You told him to get the money and come up here.’
‘Yeah.’
‘Jesus! I know what I’d do if I was him; I’d get hold of the biggest gun I could find and come up here and blow you away. Has he got any guts, this Riley?’
‘He has, he was an SP bookie in Sydney. He’d gone soft when I last saw him, but he used to do his own collecting.’
‘You’re in trouble, son. There’s nothing to stop him killing you, it’s the best end to all his troubles. You’d better get out, Clem.’
‘Shit, where can I go? I was counting on getting the money.’
‘Ring the cops then, it’s your only chance.’
It was exactly the wrong advice; the words seemed to jolt him out of a defeatist mood and into something else, he checked the bolt on the rifle and patted Dorothy on the head clumsily.
‘Sorry, Dot, stay put and you won’t get into any trouble. It makes sense you know. I couldn’t work out why she didn’t come through with the money.’ He was talking to me now and running his left hand along the stained wood under the barrel of the rifle.
I’d seen men do that before, in the army and not in the army, I’d done it myself; it meant you were ready to shoot and didn’t mind being shot at. A lot of those men were dead.
‘I wanted the money, but I came for Riley and I’ll get him. What does he drive, Dot, something flash?’
‘Volvo’, she said.
‘That’ll do, I’ll take that and head up to Queensland and get lost. Want to come along, Cliff?’ He was jocular but there was a desperation in it, as if he was screwing himself up to do something.
‘No thanks, Clem’, I said. ‘Listen, have you ever shot a man?’
‘No.’
‘It’s not that easy.’
‘I’ll manage. Now shut up, I need to organise this.’ He looked around the shed obviously picking the best cover assuming that Riley would come up the track. There wasn’t much doubt about what was best-the plastic-covered cars were at right angles to each other in the middle of the shed; anyone down behind them would be protected on two sides. Dorothy and I would be off to one side, out of the line of fire from the track or the direction of the house, but with all that machinery around bullets could ricochet. I felt I had to make another try.
‘Give it up, Clem, you’re just going down for the second time. He might have help. All the odds are against you.’
He ignored me and settled himself behind the cars with the box of ammunition beside him. He wriggled to get himself comfortable and then turned back towards us.
‘One sound out of you two, and I’ll shoot you. Got it?’
Dorothy bit her lip and shot an anguished look at me. I nodded and she did the same. Clem eased himself up to look down the track when two shots sounded clear and sharp. They hadn’t carried into the shed and I squinted out past the cars; the VW sank crookedly like a wounded buffalo.
‘The VW’, I said, ‘front and back. He doesn’t want you to go to Queensland.’
Clem said nothing, then he tensed himself, lifted the rifle a little and let go two rounds, working the bolt smoothly; he mightn’t have shot men but he knew his rifle.
‘Get him, Clem?’
‘No.’
‘Can you see his car?’
‘No.’
‘Probably left it well back. If he’s any good he’s disabled it.’
Clem turned on me fiercely and his head lifted up above the car. ‘Will you shut up, Cliff, I…’
A bullet whined off the bonnet of the car and two more whanged into the metal body. Clem dropped down and knocked over his ammunition. Dorothy was sobbing quietly in her chair and Clem’s lips were moving silently. ‘Listen, Clem’, I said urgently, ‘you’re an amateur at this and I once did it for money. You’ve got to go out and get him. You’re pinned down as it is, he can call the shots.’
‘You said he might have mates.’
‘I was trying to persuade you to run, it’s all different now. I don’t think he’d bring anyone in on this. He wants you out, clean.’
‘Well, you tell me, if you’re the professional.’
‘Go out the side there, get across to the house and work around behind him. Try not to kill him, Clem, they’ll let you rot if you do.’
‘What’s the odds.’ He put a handful of bullets into the pocket of the jeans and wriggled across to the side of the shed. He took his time, moved back and deeper into the shadow thrown by the post and then he snaked across towards some bushes by the house.
‘Dorothy’, I hissed. ‘Are you okay?’
Her answer was a sniff.
‘Quick, get the pliers off the bench.’
She sat frozen in the chair like an accident victim.
‘Dorothy, move! There’ll be bullets flying everywhere unless I can stop this! Move!’
She got up and stumbled over to the bench. ‘Pliers’, she said.
‘Right, to cut this wire. Quick, give them here.’
She got them and I hacked at the wire with my left hand; I lost a bit of skin in the process but having the use of both hands again was like being given a million dollars. I bent low, and scuttled across to where Clem had left the Smith amp; Wesson when he went back for the rifle. I held it and looked at it, and wondered what the hell difference it made. The girl was standing by the bench; she wiped the hand that had held the pliers on her blouse and left a dark, oily stain on her right breast. She glanced at it and giggled, she was close to hysteria. I took her arm and herded her across to the shed to a point nearest the house. There was no sign of Clem or Riley.
‘Get across there and ring the police. The window’s broken by the door, you can reach in. After you’ve phoned, stay there; you’ll be safe.’
She ran across to the porch and made it into the house. I breathed out and turned my attention back to the track in front of the shed. The light was just starting to fade and a slight breeze was moving the trees and bushes. I took the. 38 off safety and crouched down behind a post at the front of the shed. After ten minutes or so Riley came into view, working his way along in the scrub towards my corner of the shed. He would have been invisible from behind the cars. He looked back down the track and froze, I ducked behind a packing case and then he came on. He was doing it slow and careful and he held the short, stubby carbine lightly and ready for use. He was a big man, over six feet with a full belly and a wide, pale face. His hair was dark and thin; he wore grey slacks and white shirt, the dark hair made his thick forearms look almost black. There were big sweat patches under his arms. I waited until he had got up to the post then I tossed some sand out onto the track. He turned at the sound and I came up and put the. 38 in the nape of his neck.
‘Put the rifle down Riley, or I’ll blow your head off.’
He stood stock still for a second, I jabbed him with the muzzle and he bent and put the rifle down. He was standing there, full frontal, six feet high and three feet wide when Clem stepped out of the scrub thirty yards away. He lifted the. 303 and sighted.
‘Clem, don’t!’ I yelled.
‘Move away, Cliff, I’m going to kill him.’ He moved a bit closer stiffly, with the rifle still up. Then from behind Clem a woman’s voice screamed ‘No!’
Clem swung back towards the sound, I stepped away from Riley to look and saw a small figure running up the track. Then Riley bent smoothly, picked up the carbine and fired a short burst. Clems head flew apart and he pitched backwards still holding the. 303. The woman ran up the track screaming and screaming and then we heard the sirens.
Riley gave me a lot of the credit. He said he couldn’t have shot Clem in self defence if I hadn’t created the diversion. Dorothy told the cops I’d been tied up, how I got loose and that it was me who sent her to call them. A doctor treated me for abrasions to the wrists; my gun hadn’t been fired. I was clean.
Riley told his story pretty straight; he said Clem had phoned him, told him he was holding the girl and demanded money and a car. Riley came to try to talk some sense into him and Joannie for the same reason. He said Clem had fired twice at him with the. 303 and that checked out. They were a little concerned about a private citizen possessing an M1 but hell, he’d been shotgunned hadn’t he?
I cleaned up in town and the police drove me back to where my car was. I drove slowly back to Sydney along the coast road. I thought of well-padded Riley with all his problems solved, and I thought of Clem’s wife, a neat, dark little woman who’d stood still and said nothing. And I remembered Clem telling me that he thought she was pretty.