Bondi is flat country. The place is crowded with big blocks of flats, small ones, and divided houses in a pattern forced by the passionate desire of Australians to live by the sea as if they are reluctant to desert the fount of life. By day the suburb is a mixture of the smart and shabby; most of the buildings are painted white, but on some of them this gives way to green or grey at the sides. Some of the backs are grimy. Some of the gardens are smart and well watered; some feature palm trees tattered like old umbrellas in front of windows with faded, stained blinds.
Night changes all that. The neon glow compensates for the immense dark blankness of the sea. The haphazard levels of the buildings take on a foreign, exotic look and the penthouse dwellers sip their drinks high above the streets like fat, privileged eagles in their eyries.
I parked near the Regal again and strolled around the streets. There were too many cars for the air to be really pleasant, but the light breeze and the sea were doing their best. Up there in an eyrie with a scotch and a cigar, it would be pretty good. Food wouldn’t be a problem; along the Parade you could eat Russian, Lebanese, Italian, Chinese and Indonesian and have a choice of places to do it in. You could take most of those culinary delights away, too, as well as the standard varieties of chicken and burger.
This profusion of food blunted my appetite. I walked, reflecting that these Bondi people were a breed apart; they ate out and lived on top of each other. Next to food joints, secondhand furniture places seemed to be the most common businesses. Those flats needed furniture, and I wondered if it was cheaper tenth hand than third hand. I doubted it.
The pubs were doing good business. So were the coffee bars, and a disco joint had the air of a car with its motor idling, waiting for the action to start. There were plenty of Asians and a few big, broad-featured Maoris among the street people. Humanity flowed freely along the main street, trickled down across the grass to the pavilion and sand and clustered in humming, twittering groups outside places of entertainment. The background to it all was the steady, pounding rhythm of money being spent.
I had one good contact in Bondi. Aldo Tomasetti is the brother of Primo, who runs a tattoo parlour in the Cross and who lets out a space at the back for me to park my car. Aldo is in the same game.
I tramped up Bondi Road two blocks back from the Parade and turned north. Aldo’s place is a hole in the wall between a delicatessen and a place where women cater to the needs of men, credit cards accepted. The delicatessen was open and my appetite returned. I bought a sandwich and some orange juice and went into Aldo’s.
He was working on an arm, a big, wide, fair-skinned arm that already had some snakes and dragons on it. Aldo was adding an eagle. The arm’s owner grinned at me; he had a blank, comic-strip face and you could see why he wanted his body covered with pictures.
‘Hey, Cliff,’ Aldo said. ‘Good to see you.’
‘Excuse me eating,’ I said.
‘Have some wine with it. Flagon’s over there.’
I got some paper cups and filled three with the red.
‘You shouldn’t drink for twenty-four hours after being tattooed,’ Aldo said.
The customer looked alarmed and Aldo slapped his shoulder. ‘I’m joking. Drink up. How’s it going, Cliff?’
‘Okay. Do you remember a guy named Singer? Used to own this and that around here?’
‘Sure. Dead.’
‘So they say.’ I watched the tattooee carefully to see if there was any reaction to the name, but his face stayed blank. He seemed to be enjoying the wine, though. I finished the sandwich and wiped my mouth with the wrapping paper.
‘Did you ever hear anything different, Aldo? You know-boat offshore, frogmen, that sort of crap?’
‘No, nothing like that. Was he kinky?’
‘Not that I know. Why?’
‘Just thinking. That Commander Crabb slept in his frog suit. Did you know that?’
‘No.’ I was aware of how little I knew about Singer. I didn’t know how he talked, how he walked, what he drank. All essentials. I quizzed Aldo and he gave me the names of two hotels where Singer used to drink. One was on my list as one of his business interests. He also named three taxi drivers whose cabs Singer owned and he knew there were a good few more. There were no taxi drivers on my list.
To my great surprise, the customer spoke up brightly. ‘You oughter look for Leon, mister. He knows everything that happens around here.’
‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘Who’s he?’
‘Derro,’ Aldo said. ‘Wanders up and down. Funny guy. I once heard him speaking perfect Italian and you’d think he couldn’t talk at all. Pissed all the time.’
I finished my wine and put the juice on the floor.
‘Thanks again. Have some juice.’
‘I’ll give it to the girls next door for their vodka.’
I nodded and took a closer look at the tattoo. The tips of the eagle’s wings were being inked in with brilliant reds and blues. My grandfather had had naval tattoos acquired in Port Said when he was fourteen; he used to show them to me fifty years later. One carried the name of his ship and he was still proud of it. I wondered whether John Singer had any tattoos.
So I hit the street with my photo and my list and my expense account. Although the pubs were busy, they hadn’t reached that frenetic stage when everybody seems to be shouting while a full-scale brass band plays in the background. I had a discreet word to a barman here and a barmaid there, but drew blanks. I limited myself to half scotches with soda and ice, which made me belch but otherwise did little harm.
Mrs Singer was right; I did have something against pinball. The Punk Palace of Fun was a garish barn with strobe lights and brain-scrambling music. The machines gave out bleeps and blasts that the players seemed to understand and respond to. The non-players stared vacantly around them through their cigarette smoke; the users worked with the intensity of brain surgeons. The light sharpened their features, accentuated their youth. I felt the same kinship with them as I would with Chinese border guards.
At the back, in the shadows but not out of range of the noise, was a tiny recess with a table, a telephone and mine host. He was about thirty with sparse hair, a sunken chest and a grey, twitching face. He took a long look at the photo, which he held in a hand that vibrated like a musical saw.
‘Could be. I dunno.’
‘He’s the owner. How long have you been here?’
‘I dunno. Coupla years.’
‘Have you ever seen this man?’
‘I wouldn’t see the owner, man. I manage for a guy who rents. He might rent from someone else, for all I know.’
‘You might have seen him somewhere else. On the street?’
‘Could be.’
I got ten dollars out and put it on the table, keeping my index finger down hard on one corner of the note.
‘Think.’
‘I could ask around.’
I got out one of my cards, put it on top of the note and took my finger off. He grabbed with one of his dancing hands. He’d spend the money on something to put in a vein or up his nose and wouldn’t remember who had given him the card or why, but you never knew.
‘Give me a call if anything comes.’
He nodded jerkily. I went out onto the street and turned towards the last Bondi place on the list, a snooker room. I was thinking that it wasn’t a promising start when a kid stepped out of a doorway and asked me for a light.
‘I don’t…’ He hit me low and hard and I gasped, feeling the fluid rise inside me. Then my arm was grabbed and swung and I had to go with it or break it. I went, spinning out of control off the street into a lane, where my back hit a wall with an impact that shook my teeth. They came at me, two of them, with a third hanging back. I was shaky and just managed to get a knee up into one of them before the other threw a punch that got me on the neck.
I sagged and would have been a sitting duck for the next punch, but it never came. Someone moved behind my playmates and hooked the legs of one neatly out from under him. He didn’t even watch the effect of that; the other kid swung around and my saviour hit him just above the belt. There were three sounds: a whuump as the punch landed, a grunt from the guy who delivered it and a scream from the recipient. The third guy, the non-participant, ran down the lane and the one who went down first scrambled up and ran after him. The unluckiest of the trio lay on the ground, fighting for breath.
I straightened up. My deliverer gripped my arm and I felt the immense strength in his hold.
‘Easy,’ he said.
‘I’m okay, thanks. That was a great punch.’
He looked down at the figure on the ground; he was young and slight.
‘He was overmatched,’ he said. ‘I was the light heavyweight champion of Oregon, amateur.’
‘I believe you.’ I peered down at the kid. I’d never seen him before; he was pimply and smelt a bit.
The light heavyweight champion of Oregon let go of my arm and gave me his hand to shake. I took it carefully.
‘Bruce Henneberry.’
‘Cliff Hardy. Henneberry? Really?’
‘Sure. Why?’
‘He was a fighter here, good one. Fred Henneberry.’
‘That right? Now, what was this here?’
‘I don’t know.’ The kid was crawling now, back towards the street, and Henneberry put a leg across his path.
‘You show any money out on the street?’
‘Yes, a bit.’
‘Junkies most likely, then.’ He bent down for a closer look at the kid. ‘Scabs, skin and bone. Hopped up-junkie for sure. After your cash.’
‘Let him go,’ I said wearily. ‘He’ll be bruised for weeks.’ He lifted his leg and the kid got up and walked off shakily as if his legs were made of tin.
During the action, Henneberry had looked to be of middle height or under, but now I could see that he was nearly as tall as me. He’d been in a fighter’s crouch, for one thing, and for another he was so solidly built that he didn’t look tall. His shoulders were huge and he had the sort of neck and chest that are built up by weight training. He wouldn’t have made the light heavyweight limit now. His face was wide and open and his brown hair was cut short.
‘I need a drink,’ I said.
‘How about brandy and coffee? I know a place.’
‘Fine. How far?’
‘Close. Let’s go.’
We walked; he was not quite supporting me, but ready to do so. I tried to think of what I knew about Oregon and couldn’t come up with much-capital Portland, industries, timber and fish. Not sparkling openers.
‘Ah, Cliff, do you mind me asking what you were doing flashing your roll on Hill Street?’
‘I wasn’t exactly flashing it. I’m looking for someone. I was buying information.’
He stopped in mid-stride. ‘You’re not a cop?’
‘Private enquiries. Why?’
‘I don’t want to screw up. Helping a cop wouldn’t help me.’
We got moving again and he steered me into a small court that was flanked by boutiques, a cake shop and a surf shop. It struck me that Bondi was light on for outdoorsy places like surf shops. There was a dark window at the end of the court, dimly lit from inside, with an illuminated sign saying ‘Manny’s’ over the door.
‘This is my base,’ Henneberry said. ‘Manny keeps a bottle under the coffee machine.’