Four doors down from the Bar Napoli is another coffee shop in which very little coffee seems to get drunk. It’s small, crowded with tables, has a big flashy espresso machine and they work hard at creating a busy atmosphere. The TV is always on; La Fiamma and other papers and magazines lie about, and there’s always at least one table with coffee cups and full ashtrays sitting on it. They sit there for a long time. Also sitting for a long time are a succession of men who smoke, watch the TV with one eye and the street with the other. In Australian they’re called ‘cockatoos’; I don’t know what they’re called in Italian.
I went past the Bar Napoli and gave Bruno the sign. Then I walked into the other place and nodded to the man sitting near the door. There were no other customers but there was a guy sitting on a stool behind the bar. He was dark and thin, not more than twenty years old, and he was reading an Italian soft porn magazine with deep concentration. I bought cigarettes I wouldn’t smoke and a cappuccino I wouldn’t drink from him and put two twenty-dollar notes on the counter. He made change for one of the twenties and I pushed it and the other note towards him.
“You know me, don’t you, mate?” I said.
He shook his head.
I pointed at the door. Bruno stood there, all five foot three and fifteen stone of him. He nodded and the man behind the bar scooped up my money. His accent was straight inner-west Sydney. “It’s too early,” he said.
“I’m looking for someone.”
“Who’d that be?”
“Rhino Jackson.”
“Haven’t seen him for a fuckin’ month, the bastard.”
“My sentiments exactly. I’ll go up and watch for a bit.”
He shrugged and went back to his tits and bums. I pushed past a couple of empty tables and went up a set of stairs placed so far back from the light in the room that you couldn’t see them from the street. I made out that I could hardly see to climb them; I hung on to the rail and almost stumbled on the first landing. It occurred to me that it wouldn’t hurt for the porn freak and anyone else to think I was half-drunk or half-blind. No one worries about a blind man; no one presses warning buzzers. I pushed open the door at the top of the stairs and walked into the room where they sold plastic chips and scotch rather than cigarettes and cappuccino.
I’ve been in dozens of such places in my time and, although they all smell the same and share a certain look each one has something distinctive about it. Some look fixed and established, as if they’ve been there since Federation, others look as if everything could be wheeled out the door and the place turned into a carpet display centre inside thirty seconds. This one specialised in European sporting motifs- there were photographs of boxers, cyclists, soccer players and others on the walls. Most of the sportsmen were Italian, but there were some Yugoslavs among the water polo players and some Austrians among the skiers. In a glass case was a soccer ball signed by a couple of dozen people; an unsigned pair of boots was in another case.
There were about twenty people in the room. A six-handed card game was going strong in one corner, and there were three playing and a couple watching at a baccarat table. Two roulette wheels were yet to attract players and another baccarat dealer was giving himself a hand of patience while he awaited customers.
Four men were rolling dice under the eye of a large character who slightly resembled one of the photos on the wall- the one of Primo Camera. His dark, hooded eyes followed me as I moved around the room. I stopped at the bar and bought some chips and a scotch and soda. This seemed to comfort Primo, who went back to concentrating on the rolling dice.
There was a little talk, not much, some drinking and cigar-smoking going on, not much. The place was just warming up, like a car with the motor running but no gears engaged.
I took my chips to a roulette wheel and lost them in fairly rapid order.
“Bad luck,” said the croupier, a small, sleek-haired character starting to look old before he was thirty.
“Have you seen Rhino Jackson lately?”
He inspected the end of his spatula and picked off a piece of fluff. “I didn’t think you were a serious player. Cop?”
“No. Who would I talk to about who comes in here and who doesn’t?”
The croupier grinned. “Not me, that’s for sure. Why don’t you try him?” He jerked his head at Primo.
I wandered away from the table with my drink and thought about that. I had the distinct feeling that talking wasn’t Primo’s long suit and that, if I insisted, he’d roll me down the stairs just to keep his wrist in practice. I was on the point of buying more chips when a party of a dozen or so, including four or five women, came in.
Immediately the place seemed to pick up a glow. The noise level went up, people starting buying drinks and jostling good-naturedly for position at the tables.
I had to queue for my chips. The door opened and Lou Campisi walked in. Lou had been a jockey until he grew too big, then he played League for a while but he proved to be too smalclass="underline" his middle-sized physique had done the dirty on him twice. It might have embittered some men but Lou took it in his stride. He went energetically into SP bookmaking, race-fixing, supplying illegal drugs to football players and scalping finals tickets. Anywhere there was a quick soiled dollar to be made out of racing and football, Lou was on the spot. He was also an associate of Jackson’s. They probably discussed electric saddles and quick counts, ring-ins and tank jobs together. I bought my chips, fifty dollars’ worth this time instead of the previous ten, and moved away quickly so that Campisi wouldn’t see me.
Watching an addicted gambler play is a bit like watching an alcoholic drink. You know they enjoy it up to a point, but that point quickly passes and simple need takes over. Campisi was drinking steadily and losing. He made several trips to the chip desk and his original plunging style gave way to a more cautious approach. All this meant was that he lost more slowly. Towards the end he started to get a bit desperate; he had a winning run at baccarat, but it soon petered out, and I moved in on him when I calculated that the two chips in his hand were his last.
“Hello, Lou,” I said. “How’s tricks?”
He turned his bleary, loser’s eyes on me. “Lousy. Who’re you?”
“You remember me, Lou. Cliff Hardy. I helped to unfix one of your fixes a few years ago.” Three years before, to be precise, when I’d been employed by a horse trainer to find out who was bribing his riders.
“Push off, prick,” Campisi said.
I showed him my stack of chips. “Lose the ones you’ve got there and then come over and see me. These could be yours.”
“I’m winning, cunt.”
“You’ll never win, Lou. You just play. Go ahead, play.”
He placed the chips on the red and lost. I’d moved back to watch him. He went through his pockets, first for chips, then for money. He came up empty. A woman at the roulette wheel gave a shriek as her ball dropped in. Campisi wet his lips and looked around for me. He saw me, hesitated, lit a cigarette and came across.
“You got some kind of a proposition, Hardy?”
I moved across to the wall furthest from Primo, and Campisi followed me. “Yes, there’s something you could help me with, if you’ve a mind to.”
Another squeal from the roulette table where a lot of people had gathered. Campisi glanced across. “Wheel’s running hot.”
“You could get in on it.” I clinked the chips together.
“What do you want?”
“Information. Solid, factual information. The kind that checks out or I come back and point out to you that you made a big mistake.”
“Sure. Sure. You’re tough. What d’you want to know?”
“Where to find Rhino Jackson. Tonight.”
Campisi wet his lips. “I don’t know. I…”
Clink. Clink. “Yes, you do.”
He was tempted but very afraid. The noise in the room had mounted, along with the level of smoke and the fumes of whisky; the women’s perfume was giving the air an extra tang. To addicts such as Lou Campisi it was like the kiss of life. He wanted to go on breathing it, suck it in deeper, but…