Grant phoned me the next day. ‘First batch of GIs’re due in today.’
‘Great. I took a walk past the pub and the club this morning. It’s all systems go, on both sides. Beer’s half-price at the Digger Bar for Australian servicemen and Lawrie Bean’s advertising a shot and a beer at prices you wouldn’t believe. For Yanks, that is. Did you find anything out about Barraclough?
‘Not much. He’s the licensee. The pub’s not tied to a brewery. It’s owned by a company named Australian Holdings which is one of a group of subsidiaries of something called the Pacific Investments Corporation.’
‘Jesus, is that legal?’
‘They tell me it’s the business structure of the future.’
‘Who tells you that-the fraud squad?’
‘We’ve got nothing to act on, Cliff. The boys on the beat can keep an eye out, but they’re going to have their hands pretty full anyway. It’s worrying.’
Grant Evans was a busy man with a weight problem, a family he loved and ambitions which were being frustrated. He was dead straight and found a lot to worry him inside the New South Wales police force. I could hear real concern in his voice now and I pressed him to tell me what else he knew. He admitted that he’d gone into the Digger Bar himself the night before. He’d left his cop suit and manner in the office-he was an ex-serviceman and a drinker and he knew how to conduct himself. What he’d overheard had alarmed him.
‘Barraclough’s crazy,’ he said. ‘He wants to see American and Australian soldiers fighting. He says the Americans are the real enemy in Vietnam. Reckons all they’ve got is equipment, no brains, no plans and no guts.’
‘What about the military police? Can’t our people and the Yanks bung on a bit of protection?’
Evans sighed. ‘I sniffed around on that. There’s a problem. Sydney got to be the Rest and Recreation base after a fair bit of negotiating. Brisbane was well in the running, being closer, but the line was that there could be some racial problems up there with the black GIs. We’re more cosmopolitan and sophisticated, see?’
‘Yeah,’ I said, ‘and it wouldn’t look good to start staking out the bars with MPs.’
‘Right. Not on the first night. We’ll have to wait and see how it shapes up, Cliff.’
I was edgy and hard to get along with at home that night. Astrid pretended not to notice and I pretended not to notice that she was pretending.
In the morning, I called in at the Rocky Mountain Bar and saw the signs of what I feared- broken glass on the pavement, some damage to the neon sign. Two big potted palms, which had stood outside, had been snapped off. Soil from the pots had been spilled over the lobby carpet. I went in and found Lawrie Bean supervising a clean-up. Inside, there didn’t seem to be much damage, except to Bean. His tight grey waves were ruffled, his eyes were red-rimmed and he looked as if he needed lots of sleep.
He lit a Rothmans and flicked the match at me. ‘Thanks, Hardy. You did a great job. We had visitors last night, tanked to the gills.’
‘How many?’
‘Enough. There was a couple of big black Marine sergeants here, as it happened. They managed to keep a bit of order. But it’s going to get worse. People are going to get hurt.’
‘What do your backers say?’
Bean would’ve spat if he hadn’t been standing on his new carpet. ‘They tell me to handle it. They’re insured to the hilt, so what the fuck? I tell them we’ll get closed down and they say talk to the right people. They don’t understand how things work in Sydney. Hey, where’re you going?’
‘To see Barraclough.’ I went up the steps fast and almost knocked over a man who was standing at the top, looking down into the gloom and shaking his head.
He steadied himself against the wall and I turned towards him to apologise.
‘Cliff Hardy,’ he said. ‘What the hell are you doing here?’
It was Rhys Thomas, a journalist I knew slightly and didn’t want to know any better. He worked for one of the tabloids and had tried to do a feature on me before I convinced him otherwise.
‘Having an early morning drink,’ I said. ‘How about you?’
‘Just came down to take a look at something we’re not allowed to write about. Didn’t know there was an insurance angle, but.’
‘There isn’t,’ I said. ‘What d’you mean?’
Thomas was a pasty-faced, nocturnal snoop. To even see him in daylight was rare. To see him working was an event. He bared his yellow teeth in an ingratiating smile. ‘Tit for tat?’
‘No. You said “we’re” not allowed to write about something. That means other people know what you know. I’ll ask them.’
He offered me a Senior Service, which was about the only tailor-made cigarette I found hard to resist. I needed a smoke and I took it. I lit it myself, though.
‘Look, Hardy,’ Thomas said, ‘there was a stoush here last night. I saw the tail end of it. Pretty bad. Filed a piece and it got spiked. You know why?’
I puffed smoke and shook my head.
‘There’s no trouble for GIs in our fair city. That’s official. How does that sit with you?’
I shrugged. ‘I’m not a crusader, Rhys. Neither are you, last I heard.’
‘A couple of our boys got hurt pretty badly here. Hospital cases. Whisked away and nothing’s being said. What about that?’
It got to me-a bunch of politicians and city plutocrats sitting down and declaring what was what while dopey young soldiers jabbed broken glasses at each other. I grabbed Rhys by the arm and dragged him across the street. ‘Come with me,’ I said. ‘There’s a story here all right. You just might be the man to tell it, if that’s the way it works out.’
I could feel fear and resistance in Thomas’ body as I hauled him over to the Macquarie. ‘Hardy,’ he said, ‘I’m not sure…’
‘Nothing’s sure, Rhys,’ I said, ‘except that you’re going to get a very thick ear unless you come with me.’
Barraclough was holding court in the Digger Bar. He had a full schooner in his fist and an empty one at his elbow. A couple of his semi-uniformed cronies were gathered round-bristling moustaches, tattooed forearms, beer-glazed eyes.
‘Well, well,’ Barraclough crowed, ‘it’s Lieutenant Hardy who got out when the getting out was good. Top of the morning, Cliff.’
He raised the full schooner. I got close enough to knock it out of his hand. The beer sloshed and spilled over Eddie who was in close attendance. Eddie growled and got to his feet.
‘Sit down, Eddie,’ Barraclough slurred. ‘Man’s some kind of cop. Probably got a gun. Got a gun, Hardy?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘I wouldn’t need a gun for Eddie or anyone else here. I don’t understand you, Ken. Why’re all these arse-lickers around? And where was Eddie last night? I hear the Marines put a couple of Australians in St Vincent’s.’
‘There’ll be other nights,’ Barraclough said.
I was so incensed by the stupidity of it all that I shoved one of the courtiers aside and pushed my face close up to Barraclough’s red, sweaty kisser. ‘I’m ashamed of you, Ken. You were a great officer, the best. You made a mistake and paid hard for it. Now you want to fight, a little GI versus Aussie war right here in the Cross. Fuck you! What gives you the right to put blokes in hospital with broken jaws and carved-up faces?’
‘I didn’t make any mistakes.’
‘The brass say you did. Prove that you didn’t.’
Barraclough roared something incoherent and slammed his fists down on his fat stumps.
‘Foaming at the mouth doesn’t prove a thing,’ I said.
Eddie and a couple of the other heavies looked restless. They were all battling hangovers and could turn mean at any moment. Rhys Thomas had backed into the shadows, but he was soaking up every word. Barraclough was the key to it all. The trick was to force something conciliatory, something reasonable out of him.
‘What about it, Ken?’ I taunted him. ‘Want to Indian wrestle? You used to be good at that. I saw you break a guy’s arm once in Singapore. The bone came through the skin. Remember? Want to arm wrestle to prove you were right? Prove the Yanks never told you the fucking mines were there? Prove you didn’t blow your fucking legs off yourself?’