She giggled. Fatty turned and the look he gave me wasn’t a pleasant sight, but he forked over the money. Champ lit a cigar and added to the fug.
The hall had a wooden floor and there was possibly some light padding under the ring canvas, but it couldn’t have been much. The canvas was old and stained with blood and sweat. The ropes were frayed where they met the posts and sagged in the middle of each section. No money spent on frills here. The only touch of glamour was provided by the blonde who held up the card to signal the beginning of round one. She wore pasties over her nipples, a g-string and very high heels. She attempted to kiss everyone in the ring except Albie. Kito gave her bum a good feel. That didn’t go down too well with some of the less racially tolerant punters.
In the first round nothing much happened. Kito swung and Albie ducked. That was about all you could say. The crowd was unhappy and only Morris and the big Aborigine in Albie’s corner looked reasonably satisfied. Albie had no expression at all, just a blank stare over a mouthguard that looked to be too big for him. In the second round Kito connected with a wild swing and Albie shrugged it off and hit him hard in the guts. Kito sagged and Albie waded in, throwing punches. Kito survived the attack and I knew why, even if the screaming crowd didn’t. Albie pulled every punch he threw.
Kito certainly was unaware of this and came out in the third with his guard down, swinging from the hip. Albie jabbed him into total confusion, throwing him off balance. Near the end of the round Kito caught Albie in a clinch. This was the only thing I was worried about. The referee would probably have let Kito use his knees, thumbs and head but Albie had the answers. He pounded the Maori’s kidneys with bruising short punches that had him gasping for breath and backing away. At that point I was sure Albie could have knocked Kito out and, again, he made a show of it by swinging and upper-cutting. It looked good but the punches mostly landed on Kito’s well-padded shoulders. In a nice flourish in the last seconds, Albie turned his opponent like a bullfighter with a bull and then had to steer him back to the right corner. Enraged, Kito swung and landed a heavy punch on the half-turned-away Albie well after the bell. Albie sagged to one knee. The crowd roared. The referee did nothing. The Aborigine jumped into the ring and dragged Albie to the stool.
Tank Turkowitz leaned forward from his seat to talk to Kito’s corner man. Both looked happy.
The redhead turned around in my direction. ‘Last chance for you.’
I nodded. I was surprised that she could count. The noise level was high and most of the crowd was drunk and watching the blonde. I saw Champ place a bet on Albie to finish inside two rounds. He got better odds than I had and I began to worry that the fix was in. Morris and the other second worked hard on their man-smelling salts, a water spray, slaps and the water bottle. Harry Grebb, one of the wildest fighters who ever lived, used to swig French champagne between rounds. I doubted that was what Albie was getting, but it was bound to be an illegal stimulant of some kind.
Despite all that, Albie looked shaky when he came out for the fourth. His thin legs wobbled and his probing left looked ineffective as Kito lumbered forward ready to let go a haymaker. It was all a fake. Kito’s swing missed and Albie hit him right on the button with a left hook that couldn’t have travelled twenty centimetres. The Maori’s head had continued moving forward and it stopped abruptly. His brain would have bounced against his skull and the blood supply been cut off. He was unconscious before he went down, and the impact of the back of his head against the thinly padded floor would have intensified the concussion.
The crowd screamed. Tank Turkowitz yelled for his man to get up and the corner boys did the same. The referee waved Albie to a neutral corner, the first time this nicety had been observed, and slowly bent over the comatose fighter. He raised his arm and the count he gave must have extended to at least twenty seconds. It was no use. Kito had met his first defeat. The redhead had lost Fatty’s money and Champ and I had won.
I collected my winnings and kept a close eye on Albie and his entourage. They disappeared into a changing room at the back of the hall and I hung around outside waiting for them to emerge. The grog was still flowing but I passed. The redhead had got hold of a bottle of champagne and looked set to drink the lot. Fatty and Champ were arguing over something, possibly her. I kept out of sight as Turkowitz and the others bustled Kito into a car. He still looked shaky and I hoped they were taking him to a hospital. Unlikely.
The crowd was thinning and I was beginning to feel conspicuous, alone and sober, when Albie emerged with his handlers. They passed close to me and I heard Morris address the other man as Bindi as he tossed him the keys. Albie was wearing an old tracksuit and sneakers and moved with the same ease he’d shown in the ring. You would have said he was unmarked except that he’d been marked so much so many times before.
Keeping a discreet distance away, I followed them to a silver Tarago parked not far from my car. I noted the licence number and the rip in the cover of the spare wheel at the back. They climbed in and started off, Bindi driving; I let another car get in front of me and fell in behind. Taillights up ahead and headlights behind. The night was over.
It started to rain while we were still on the dirt roads. The rain laid the dust and I took it as a good omen. It’s easier to follow someone in the rain-if they have any sense, they pay close attention to the road and drive more slowly. A couple of cowboys passed me, veering close to the trees and the ditch, but the Tarago maintained a sensible speed.
We reached the bitumen and headed towards Sydney. The other cars in front peeled off and I was left to follow the Tarago as carefully as I could. We picked up the Hume Highway in Liverpool and followed it to Bankstown. The traffic was thin at this time of night and I hung back a bit and waited to make the turns. I was equally anxious that the Tarago would get away from me as I was that they’d spot me. Tricky, but it’s the only way to do it if you haven’t got TV-show things like direction finders and homing devices.
The Tarago pulled up in front of a nondescript block of flats near the station. Albie climbed out, conferred at the passenger-side window for a minute and then loped off towards the flats.
You’ll be somewhere flasher, Stan, I thought as we started up again. Wonder where Bindi kips? It was really risky now. The street was dark and long and I couldn’t show my lights while we were on the same stretch. I breathed a sigh of relief as the Tarago turned right into a thin stream of traffic. I realised that I hadn’t eaten anything for twelve hours and the pangs were strong. Although I had a strong bladder I was feeling a bit of pressure down there and debated whether a can of beer was a good idea. Pissing in the car is never a pleasant experience. The emptiness won and I cracked a can and drank it warm, trying to ignore the bodily signals.
In increasing discomfort, I followed the Tarago up the Concord Road across the river at Rhodes into Ryde. Bindi was a good driver, good in traffic, good positioning on the road. I hung back and it was easier to keep them in sight from a distance in the well-lit streets. The Tarago turned into a road with broad nature strips, big shady trees and houses on big blocks with deep gardens. The house they stopped at was on a bigger than normal corner block where a narrow side street cut in. It was new and two-storeyed with a large expanse of concrete inside a gate that opened by remote control from the car. The gate was set in a high brick fence and floodlights came on when it opened.
I was about sixty or seventy metres back and I killed my lights as I crawled up closer to get a good look at the place. It was a sure bet Stan wasn’t dropping Bindi off here, more likely the reverse, unless Bindi was some kind of live-in minder. He had that look. The Tarago cruised through the gates and I watched them shut behind it. I drew a deep breath, tried to ignore my bladder but couldn’t. All I could think of was getting somewhere I could have a piss and quickly. Then I realised I hadn’t noted the name of the street. I put the car in gear and was about to move off when the door was pulled open and a hand slammed into the gearstick and made the engine stall.