He kept his dark head with its wild, uncombable curls bent over the arm. He looked up to a sheet of grubby paper with typing on it and then back to the job. His white coat was spotless as always, he wore Italian shoes too but his were pointed.
‘Rules of his club, Cliff.’
The biker glowered at me and pushed back his thick, greasy hair with his free hand.
‘Good idea’, I said. ‘What’s the first article?’
Primo looked up enquiringly at the customer who gave him a sullen nod and me a look of hostility mixed with suspicion. But he was pleased with what was happening, and it made him half-civil.
Primo tested his handiwork by reading directly from the kin: ‘No member shall use a machine of under 1500cc.’
‘That lets me out’, I said. ‘Everything set up in the darkroom?’
The camera uses a standard 15mm film, and processing these days is child’s play even to the technically handicapped like me. I did the things you do with the solutions and peg’s and fixative and came up with my usual result: two of the four profile shots were blurred, the others were okay. Only one of the almost full-face shots was worth looking at but it was pretty good. You wouldn’t have called ‘the cop’ photogenic, but the camera had caught the full venality of him, the forcefulness of the fleshy face and malevolence of his down-turned mouth. The face stood out clearly against the indistinct background-if you knew him in life you’d know him from this picture.
I ran off a few copies, cleaned up my own mess the way my mother taught me, thanked Primo and went off to phone Frank Parker. He was at home, doing nothing, and invited me over to see him.
‘Bullet-proof vests?’ I said.
‘Tennis gear, we’ll have a game.’
Frank’s place was in Harbord and the suburb looked particularly well on the clear, bright day. The street was middle-income, middle-mortgage territory. Frank’s house was one of the smallest; he must have been one of the few residents without children. Signs of them were everywhere around the other places-bikes, toys and icy pole wrappers trapped at the feet of gate posts.
Frank was already in his tennis clothes; I went inside and changed into the down-market tennis gear I keep in the car-and we walked a couple of blocks to the local courts. Parker’s house had a strange, alien air to it and he seemed glad to be out on the street. He was nervous though, and he bounced the balls continually on the walk.
The three cement courts had good surfaces and clear markings Parker spoke briefly to the manager, who lived in a house beside the courts in what looked like happy semi-retirement. The nets were in a big box; Parker dug one out and we got set up. There was no one else around to play and it occurred to me that Parker was a sitting duck if someone wanted to take him out now. I mentioned this while we were measuring the net.
He whacked the top vigorously. ‘Anyone thinks I’m going to sit around going crazy, they can think again. I’m not sure those go’s at me have been fair dinkum anyway.’ We satisfied ourselves about the net height and Parker nudged his racquet cover with his foot-the shape of his pistol was clear under the vinyl.
It became obvious almost from the hit-up that Frank was about a 10 per cent better tennis player than me. His backhand was confident, mine isn’t. He’d even learned how to impart some topspin to it, a thing unimaginable in the days when I learned to play. Against that, he had a tendency to hit his serve too hard which made him liable to double fault. He had quickness and range at the net, but lobbing was my forte.
It was a beautiful day, and Liam Catchpole and murderous Mazdas and police corruption seemed far distant things as we played. We both had authoritative forehands, and some of our best rallies were of that standard that lifts you out of yourself and gives you a glimpse of what real sporting excellence might be like.
Frank won the first set 6–3; I pegged him back in the second when the double faults began to creep in and I got a good percentage of my lobs over his head and in. At 6-all we decided to play a lingering death tie-breaker, which I won 9–7.
It was good to be walking back with a sweat up, despite the beginnings of a blister on my hand. Frank had stopped bouncing the balls.
‘Kenny Rosewall grew up around here’, he said. ‘Played on those courts.’
‘Yeah? I wonder where he is now?’
‘Dallas, Miami, one of those places.’
‘Ever see him?’
‘Bloody oath. I saw him beat Hoad for the Australian title in 1955. Straight sets.’
‘Remember the score, Frank?’
‘Never forget it: 9–7, 6–4, 6–4. Amazing man.’
‘That’s right. What d’you think of Cash?’
We talked tennis until we got back to his empty house. I showered and changed, and joined him in the kitchen.
‘I don’t eat lunch’, he said. ‘How about you?’
‘Don’t care. How about some coffee?’
‘Right. Can you get through to six without a drink?’
‘If I have to.’
He laughed. ‘Same here. But I’m doing it. Worst possible thing for a man in my situation would be to go on the grog. I haven’t done anything about your enquiry yet. Anything new?’
The kitchen was small compared to the one in Helen’s flat; it was more modern but, oddly, less practical. There seemed to be gaps in the equipment, and a shortage of spoons and crockery which reflected the departure of Nola. The bathroom had a spartan, austere air, and it looked as if the rest of the house would rapidly get that way too. Frank made coffee in a twelve-cup filter machine, and he did it neatly and efficiently, as if he enjoyed it. All Parker’s work that I had seen was neat and efficient.
He poured two big mugs, set the milk and sugar down on the table and eased down into a chair.
‘Pretty fair work-out’, he said.
I put my photographs on the surface and swivelled them around to face him.
‘That’s young Guthrie’, I said. ‘You’d know Catchpole and Dottie Williams-question is, who’s the other joker?’
He sipped his coffee and studied the pictures carefully. The coffee was strong, but a touch bitter. I wouldn’t have minded some lunch-you can’t be too careful about getting a low blood sugar level.
‘He looks familiar, but I just don’t know. He’s a cop, wouldn’t you say? Or was.’
I hadn’t considered the ‘was’ angle. ‘That was my impression. I didn’t speak to him, mind.’
‘I’m not surprised. He doesn’t look as if he’d go in for the small talk all that much. Where was this, by the way?’
I told him about the events of the night before, editing slightly. Parker was smart enough to do his own filling in. My account upset him: I’d seen an academic learn that one of his students was a spook and a union leader find out that his right-hand man was in the pay of the bosses. Frank’s reaction to my tale of the two police types in the Cross affected him the same way.
‘You didn’t hear anything, I suppose?’
‘Shit, no. I kept my distance.’
‘Wise. You should know what to look for; did you pick up anything at all from the way they acted?’
‘The dark guy’s the boss. There’s something on between Dottie and the kid-she was feeling his bum.’
‘Brilliant. Can I keep one of these?’ He took one of each photograph.
‘Sure. Look, this might be indelicate, but I’m on good expenses for this job and…’
‘You wound me, Hardy. You wound me deeply.’
8
We left it that Frank would get in touch with me as soon as he had anything useful. I told him I’d have a word with Tickener about a former senior police officer prepared to make revelations. I couldn’t tell whether or not Parker was serious about that; it would have gone against at least one of his prejudices-a belief that all journalists were frustrated somethings-else; and therefore untrustworthy. The tennis, the lunch-skipping and the abstinence suggested to me that Parker had action in mind rather than talk.
When I got back to Glebe it was after four o’clock, much closer to six than twelve and, therefore, by that logic, time for a drink. I changed my underwear and socks and tucked the denim shirt into my pants-a complete re-vamping of the wardrobe for me. The gun was in a clip under the dashboard of the Falcon. I was working on a big white wine and soda, sucking at the ice, when the phone rang. Helen Broadway, I thought, no, not yet.