I did the calculation in my head. Geometry, algebra and trigonometry were all a mystery to me at school, but I was sharp enough at arithmetic and this was dead easy. If he kept half himself and came out with 500,000 dollars, I was looking at twenty-five grand. I reached into the top drawer, took out a contract form and filled it in. It was the first contingency fee I’d negotiated and made me feel as if I was moving towards the twenty-first century. Twenty-five thousand dollars would help me nicely along the way. Bert signed and I pointed out to him that he was up for a five hundred dollar retainer fee there and then.
‘Shit,’ he said. ‘I’m in the wrong game.’ He wrote a cheque and handed it over.
‘I don’t suppose you’ve got a sample with you, or the gun or the snap?’
‘No chance. I put it all right back where I found it. If I go to look for it and it’s gone, stiff shit. My question’s answered.’
‘So only you and I know about it?’
‘Right. I told my boy Tom I was thinking of diving off the point, salvage and that. Do you dive, Cliff?’
‘Snorkel only. When do I come up to take a look?’
‘What about tomorrow, Saturday?’ He looked out of the window and would have seen a clear blue late-afternoon sky if the pane hadn’t been coated with grime on the outside and dusty inside. ‘Bring your togs anyway. Be right for a swim. Do you play golf?’
I was thinking about what I had on hand, nothing that couldn’t be delayed in favour of a trip to the Central Coast on a fine February day. ‘Golf? No, why?’
‘I’m just across the way from the course. Good layout. Never mind. I’ll give you the address. I’m going up later tonight. Come as early as you like. I’m always up at sparrow fart.’
‘How long have you had the place?’
He blinked. ‘It was my wife Jessie’s place. It’d been in her family for a while. Dunno how long.’
Jessie Russell, a plump warm-hearted woman, had died of cancer three years ago. Bert had never recovered from the loss and I had to go quietly at that point.
‘I see. Have you got any papers on it?’
‘Nah. Wasn’t worth anything in those days. No mortgage or that. Jessie’s old mum left it to her and her brother and he died a good while back. We just paid the bloody rates. I suppose it’s worth a bit now, but I couldn’t sell it, like. You know
I didn’t know but I made the noises that suggested I did. He left and I poked around the office cleaning things up to allow for a couple of days absence. My mind was already working on the job. Local council records to trace previous owners of the property, neighbours, real estate agents, maybe. The items in the strongbox were another matter, but it looked as if I could count on a couple of days in the sun. I left the office and drove to the central branch of the Leichhardt library to do some reading up myself-on guns and gold and women’s fashions.
After the library, I stopped by the liquor store, not because I needed grog, but to take another look at Tom, who I assumed would be minding the shop. Tom was a skinny man in his middle twenties with pale hair, eyes and eyebrow, nothing like his burly father in appearance. He was stacking bottles into a fridge when I entered and the bottles rattled loudly when he saw me, but it’s a tricky job and that can happen. Didn’t mean he was nervous, although I could tell he didn’t like me. He was smooth enough with the transaction when I bought a bottle of Houghton’s White Burgundy.
‘Bob Menzies’ favourite drop,’ I said.
‘Whose?’
Tom would’ve been four or five when Pig-iron Bob died so you can’t blame him. Still, they should teach them better at school about the heroes and villains. ‘Never mind,’ I said. ‘How’s your dad?’
Not a flicker of the colourless lashes. ‘Okay. Gone up the coast for the weekend.’
‘Oh, yeah. Where’s that again?’
‘Dugong Beach.’
‘Right. You get up there much?’
‘Nah. Dead place. Good golf course, but. I bloody near parred it once.’
‘Good on you. Thanks.’
I went home and made an omelette to blot up the Houghton’s. The Leichhardt library hadn’t had anything on the law relating to treasure trove and there was nothing useful on my shelves. A year ago I could’ve phone up Cy Sackville, my lawyer and friend, and asked him to look it up for me. He’d have abused me and given me a brilliant summary of the matter at the same time. But Cy had been shot dead a year ago. I missed him and felt depressed when I thought about him. These days I try to keep my wine consumption down to less than a bottle a day, but the Houghton’s was a dead soldier by the time I went to bed.
I was on the road by eight and reached Dugong Beach about eleven. Most of the vehicles that held me up seemed to be towing boats or carrying surfboards-it was that sort of a morning. At least I had swimming togs, snorkel and flippers in the boot and sunblock in my bag. I was part of the great tribe of Sydneysiders that heads for near and distant beaches when the sun shines, as if drawn by some kind of ritual or ceremony. If I knew Bert Russell, there’d be a barbie and some wine that slid down your throat like a perfect oyster. Ceremony.
After getting off the highway past Newcastle I went north on the old coast road and eventually hit the hamlet of Dugong Beach. I followed the sign to the golf course and wound down an unmade road with sandy edges towards the water. The fairly substantial houses up near the road started to give way to fibro and weatherboard places as the street narrowed, swung left in line with the coast, and petered out at a solitary stand of mangroves. Bert’s house was opposite the mangroves behind a thick screen of casuarinas, but I got a glimpse of a tin roof and a galvanised iron water tank.
I bounced down a rough track, brushing the trees on both sides and then drove up a slope to the house. It was a double-fronted weatherboard with a verandah running along the front and one side. A section of the verandah was protected by shadecloth and that’s where Bert was sitting in a deckchair, reading the paper.
I got my bag and took a look around before approaching the house. Bert’s 4WD Land Cruiser with trailer and dinghy attached was parked under a tree. I could see a shack of some kind, almost hidden in the bush a good hundred metres from Bert’s house and another building away to the right behind more she-oaks-a pole house with a flat roof. Newish.
‘Gidday, Bert. Thought you’d be fishing.’
Bert carefully folded the business section of the Herald. I wondered if he’d been checking the price of gold. ‘Cliff. Been out, hours ago. Got a few flathead. We’ll have ‘em for lunch. Good for the heart, or so they reckon.’
‘Heart?’
‘Yah. They say I’ve got a crook ticker. Feel all right, but.’
I mounted the steps and moved out of the sun behind the shadecloth. The temperature dropped immediately. ‘How much land’ve you got here?’
‘About three acres, give or take a few rods and perches. That dump back there went up in the Depression.’
I jerked my thumb to the right. ‘What about the house on stilts?’
Bert laughed. ‘They reckoned they’d be able to see the water if they went up like that. Might be able to see it from the roof.’
‘No other close neighbours?’
‘Yeah, there’s another place like this further back. Can’t see it from here, but. Jeez, my manners’re ratshit since Jessie died. Have a seat.’
I dropped into a deckchair and heard the sand crunch under it as the legs moved. Great sound.
‘Not too early for a beer, is it, Cliff?’
‘Got a light?’
‘Coopers, only one I’ll drink.’
He went into the house, heavy-footed and slightly bandy in thongs and flapping grey shorts, and returned with two stubbies. We uncapped them and drank, toasting the Australian way of life for those who were lucky enough to get a piece of it.
‘How’d you come to be digging holes?’
‘Planting a few vegetables. Jessie used to do it and I just thought I’d… Anyway, I hoed up a patch and started to turn it over. Not too sandy just there. Shovel went in and hit the box. I cleared the dirt off and opened it. Then I put everything back and finished making the vegetable patch. Want to take a look?’