When I woke up Penny was standing over me with a cup of something emitting steam in her hand. I groaned and pulled myself up on the couch. I took the cup and sipped it. Instant coffee. Not the worst thing for my head just then but not the best. I ungummed my eyelids a second time, enough to see that Penny had put her clothes back on. Not that it mattered. I was in no condition to take her up on her offer of the night before if she should repeat it. Her hair was damp from the shower and her skin shone like polished copper.
“You look terrible,” she said.
“Thanks. What’s the time?”
“Six-thirty. The taxi’s due at seven. You’ve got time for a shower.”
“Thanks again.” I set the coffee down on the arm of the couch and swung my feet off it. My head rang like a J. Arthur Rank gong. I headed unsteadily for the shower. The water helped a bit. I felt better still after a shave and ready for a drink after I’d dressed. In the kitchen Penny was sinking a big white tooth into a piece of toast. I shuddered when she offered me some and got the white wine out of the fridge. When a tall glass of riesling and soda was fizzing in my hand I felt well enough to compliment her.
“Don’t work in offices. Go on television, advertise things, make yourself some money.”
“I might,” she said and knocked back half a pint of orange juice.
Carrying the drink with me I went from place to place collecting things. I packed a cassette tape recorder and a pair of binoculars into an overnight bag. An old credit card Ailsa’s firm had issued me and not cancelled went into my wallet and an unlicensed Colt automatic went into the lining of the parka where the. 38 had been. She had her coat on and the glasses and plates and cups were rinsed and stacked when the taxi honked outside. We went out of the house into a neutral and uncertain dawn.
We preserved silence on the drive to Mascot. The airport preliminaries weren’t any more complicated than usual and I still had a few dollars left after buying tickets, papers and magazines. Unlike most people, Penny was easy to travel with; she was there when she was needed and not in the way when she wasn’t. We got looks, usual I suppose for couples of mixed colour; half curiosity, half hostility. Penny noticed me glowering at the lookers.
“Don’t worry,” she said, taking my arm, “your lot have been staring at us since you got here.”
Flying was a novelty for her and she enjoyed the rituals of it all. I sat in my seat and obeyed orders slavishly out of some dark belief that this would keep me safe. When we were airborne Penny stared out of the window at the few flashes of green and brown that showed through that high-flying fog. We were half a hundred people flying blind, trusting our lives to a few fuses and valves. I tried to concentrate on the papers but couldn’t. Penny read in a desultory fashion for a while and then I felt her go tense beside me. I sneaked a look across and she was gnawing her lip.
“What’s wrong?”
“I’m frightened.”
“Of flying?”
“No.” She waved strong men’s traumas away with one thin hand. “No, of course not. It’s nothing, flying. I thought it would be more exciting. It must be boring after the first time.”
I nodded. “Well then…?”
“All this. How’s it going to end? You haven’t even told me what’s happening.”
“You’re holding out on me, too.”
“Where they’re going? I told you I’ll tell you in Macleay.” She glanced around the cabin. “I suppose I can tell you now. We’re not going anywhere else.”
“It can wait,” I said sharply. “I think I know anyway. No, you’re holding back something else, but I’m not going to press you. In fact I’ll tell you things and not ask for anything from you. OK?”
“Why?” she said warily.
“I have reasons. Partly because I have to. I want you to do something for me and it won’t make sense unless you know what’s going on.”
I filled her in on some of the details – on the ransoms for Noni and who paid them and how the police were in on the whole thing now. I didn’t tell her about Berrigan’s death or about “Percy White”. She’d heard a little about Coluzzi and the fight game from friends. I expanded on that a bit and kept away from the subject of Ricky Simmonds until I mentioned Trixie Baker. Penny looked interested in the name.
“I’ve heard of her,” she said, “from Ricky I think. Doesn’t she have a farm or something?”
“That’s right, just out of Macleay. Ricky talked about her?”
The smooth brown skin on her forehead wrinkled. “I think so, once when he was a bit drunk, not so much about her as about someone who worked for her, one of us.”
“An Aborigine?”
She snorted. “I don’t mean a Hottentot.”
“OK, OK, keep your hair on. What did he say about this person of your own race?”
She looked at me to decide whether to take offence or not but I’d arranged my face in its most winning shape and she let it pass.
“I told you Ricky always seemed to be looking for someone. Well I asked him about it this time, when he was full and he said ‘I’m sure that was him, at Trixie Baker’s’ or something like that. I didn’t push him, it didn’t make sense to me. Does it mean anything to you?”
“I think so. Ricky was looking for his father, I reckon. I think his father and Berrigan robbed a bank in Macleay in 1966. Berrigan was connected with Trixie Baker, maybe Ricky’s father was too. Perhaps Ricky got a lead on him but couldn’t clinch it. Anyway, this is where you come in – I have to ask the Baker woman some questions and I haven’t got a chance in a million of getting in to see her.”
“Why?”
“The police already dislike me for leaving the scene of the crime – her bashing that is. I did, but I had no choice. That’s sort of been squared now in a way, but I’ll still be very unpopular around Macleay.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Done any acting?”
“A bit, street theatre, black theatre stuff.”
“That’ll do – this is a cinch for you. I’m going to get hold of a hospital cleaner’s uniform. Dressed in that you should be able to sneak around the hospital and find Trixie Baker. It can’t be a big place. I want you to take this in,” I tapped the bag with the tape recorder inside, “and ask her some questions. The right answers will sort this mess out. Will you do it?”
She seemed about to ask a question, an important question, but she bit it back.
“Yes,” she said quickly, “of course I will.”
“There’s another thing. Is there anyone in Kempsey, one of you I mean, who’d know all about the Aborigines in the area – who’s who and when and where?”
She didn’t have to think. “Yes, Charley Gurney, he was initiated, he’s old, a clever man. That means…”
“I know what it means. I’ve read Elkin. Would you take me to see him?”
She nodded. “Anything else?”
“That’s all for now, except to warn you that you’re in for a rough time. I expect all this to sort out, but I don’t expect it’ll come out neat and pretty.”
She shrugged. “We’ll see.”
“Yeah.” I picked up her hand. In my yellowed, scarred claw it looked like a soft, brown orchid. “I’m sorry as hell I had to refuse you last night, I didn’t want to.”
“You were right I think, but I’m sorry too.”
I put her hand back on the seat rest. “It’s better we didn’t because we’re on opposite sides in this even if you do help me. I want to get Noni Tarelton back home to her rich Dad in one piece and you’re not going to stop me. I’ll flatten you if you try.”
She looked quickly at me. I wasn’t smiling and neither was she. It was a risky declaration because the help she would be giving me would be substantial and things could get into a hell of a mess without it. Maybe they would anyway. She had a right to know the rules I was playing by but I hoped it wouldn’t come to an outright conflict between us. She had strength and guts and would fight hard. Also there was something between us, a connection, part sexual, part temperamental. It would be a nasty falling-out if it happened.
The plane swayed around like a mast in a high wind on the last hour of the flight and Penny didn’t seem quite so blase about flying. I didn’t enjoy it myself and then I had to face a moment of tension when I presented the out-of-date credit card at the car hire desk. It passed muster and there was a white Datsun waiting for us in the company bay outside the airport building. The air was warm and dusty. A haze in the sky suggested that the day would get a lot warmer. I unlocked the driver’s door and threw the bag into the back seat. Penny stood by the passenger door sneering at me as if I was some inferior and unpleasant exhibit at a zoo. I didn’t like that look. I settled myself in the seat and turned on the air-conditioning. She tapped on the window. I wound it down.
“Yes?” I said.
“Let me in, Hardy.”
“A girl like you wouldn’t ride in a big, fat, Nip capitalist car like this would she? Take a bus, I’ll meet you behind the pub.”
Her eyes blazed at me and I could hear her breath coming in short, hard bursts.
“Let me in!”
I flicked the door open, she got in and sat down hard staring straight in front of her. It was a bad start.
“Don’t be so touchy,” she said.
“I’m sorry. Look, we need a car for this job. They’re all rubbish, they’re all too expensive and they fall apart too soon, but we need one and this’ll do. Alright?”
“Yes,” her voice was tight and small.
I swung the beast out of the car park. I wanted to tell her to get ready for some lying and shooting, but I didn’t know how.
We drove in silence along the dusty roads into Macleay. I hadn’t liked being there the last time and I didn’t expect this time to be any better. Penny sat with her arms wrapped tightly around her thin body as if trying to physically contain her resentments. The car handled well, a bit squashy and soft compared with the Falcon, but it would be fast if that was needed. The air conditioning worked, cooled me down and smoothed the edges off my temper. Penny took her coat off and threw it on the back seat. We exchanged small smiles as she did so. She hit the radio button and got some country and western music which she turned down very low.
I drove into Macleay and cruised slowly past Bert’s garage. Penny looked out at the place with the rough-painted sign hanging over the bowsers and nodded. “You did know where they were going.”
“Yeah. The thing is, are they still there?” The garage looked closed although it was after ten a.m. and a piece of cardboard with something written on it was hanging on the handle of the office door. I drove past again and could see at least two cars parked in the alley beside the garage. I found a phone booth and located Bert’s number in the directory. I called it. The phone rang twice, then it was answered by the voice I’d heard telephonically at Ted Tarelton’s. I asked for Bert and was told he was sick. I asked when his place would be open again and the voice said “tomorrow”. He hung up.
The way to the hospital was signposted and the building couldn’t have been anything else; it was like hospitals everywhere, all clean lines, light and airy, set in lawns and trying not to look like a place where people died. We parked in the visitors’ area and Penny got out of the car. “Wait here,” she told me.
I did as I was told. I rolled a cigarette and fiddled with the tape recorder. It seemed to be working alright, drawing power from the batteries and responding to all buttons. I smoked and waited while the morning heated up. Sweat was soaking into my collar when Penny got back. She climbed in and unrolled a bundle.
“Chic, isn’t it?”
She held up a pale green, front-buttoning, belted dress with yellow piping.
“Terrific. Your size?”
“Close enough. We’ll have to go back to town, I’ll need a scarf and some sneakers.”
We drove back to the shopping centre and bought the things and a pillow case and a plastic bucket. On the way back I showed her how the tape recorder worked. She nodded, wrapped the machine in the pillow case and put it in the bucket. She changed clothes in the back of the car and left her platform soles, slacks and top on the back seat with her coat. I drove to the service entrance of the hospital and let her out. She stood beside the car while I told her what I wanted to learn from Trixie Baker. I gave her two hours and she didn’t argue about it. She pointed to a park bench near a small copse artfully contrived by the landscape gardener.
“There, in two hours.” The sheer confidence in her voice made me look at her carefully. She’d moved into the role already, her shoulders were slumped and she carried the bucket as if she’d forgotten it was there. The uniform and the scarf and the sneakers toned her down. She’d pass as a menial as long as nobody got a good look at her fierce, alert face and beautifully tended nails. She slouched across to the heavy plastic doors of the service entrance and slipped through.
I drove slowly back into town, turning the next steps over in my mind, looking for snags and dangers. There were dozens of both. It took me nearly half an hour to pick my spot from which to watch Bert’s garage. Behind the building and across a narrow lane was a shop that had been burnt out. The blackened brick shell still stood and an iron staircase took me up to the second storey which was intact apart from many missing floorboards. Crouched by the back window I could get a good view through the binoculars of the back doors and windows of the garage.
It was hot, boring work. I didn’t want to send smoke up into the still air in case the watched were also watching and I hadn’t brought the Esky and the chilled beer with me. For a while nothing happened and as my eyes adjusted to the light and the shadows and shapes I began to be aware of a fine mist drifting out from one of the windows. Coming from a motor garage that could mean only one thing – spray painting. This was confirmed when a man wearing overalls came out into the yard pushing painter’s goggles up onto his head. He was short and stocky and dark – very dark.
He took a few deep breaths and some more mist came floating out of the open door behind him. Then he ducked back into the garage and came back a minute later with a welder’s torch. He gave it a few experimental blasts and took it back inside. The set-up wasn’t too hard to figure and I had to admire it. You’ve got a hundred thousand or so dollars in ready money but it might be marked. You’ve got cops in Sydney and Newcastle looking for you. And you’re black. So what do you do? Fix up a truck, really fix it up with bars and secret compartments and a new spray job and take to the roads. Get out into the bush where you can camp, spend the money carefully, spinning it out, while the heat dies down. You can come out in Perth or Darwin or wherever the hell you please. Not bad. It was a pity to disturb it but I had to. Fixing a truck in the way I imagined they’d be fixing it would take time and that was what I needed.
I watched for another hour but nothing changed. I fiddled with the adjustment mechanisms of the glasses, trying to get a clearer focus on an oil drum near the back door of the garage. Something about that drum disturbed me, but it was in shadow and I couldn’t pick out any details. I backed away from the window and went down the staircase and out to the car. My shirt was a wringing wet rag when I got there and I took it off and draped it over the hot roof of the car while I rolled and smoked a cigarette. The shirt was hot and stiff after a couple of minutes. I put it back on and drove to the hospital.
Penny was waiting on the seat when I drove up. She ran across to the car and threw the bucket savagely into the back.
“Easy,” I said. Then I noticed that she was carrying the tape recorder. I took it from her and settled it gently on the seat. “How did it go?”
“No trouble,” she said tightly. She got into the back seat and began changing her clothes. I resisted the temptation to watch her in the rear vision mirror. She stuffed the uniform, sneakers and scarf into the bucket and clambered over into the front seat. She put the tape recorder on her lap and patted it.
“Want to hear it?”
“Not now. How’s Trixie Baker?”
“Bad. I don’t think she wants to live.”
“Upset about all this?” I nodded at the machine.
“Not really. I think she’s a bit relieved it’s all come out.”
“How about you?”
“Doesn’t change anything for me. What have you been doing?”
“Watching the garage. They’ll be there till night time I reckon. We’ve got time to see the clever man, how do we find him?”
“Stop the first boong we see and ask.” I looked quickly at her. The hospital encounter had got to her and the tough indifference was a pose. Her features were all drawn tight and there was tension in every line of her body. The bitter remark was hard to interpret. I had too little experience of her moods, but she was seething inside, fighting some deep battle in which her pride and her colour and her loyalties were all taking a hand.