Ghost River (17 page)

‘Like a baby.' Rodney chuckled. ‘It was embarrassing.'

Vincent shook his head in mock disgust. ‘First of all I thought he was going to ask me to go and pay a visit to the landlord and break his legs on him.' He stood up from the chair, walked across to the window, opened it and sniffed the air. ‘A job like that wouldn't have come cheap. But had he gone down that path it would have cost him less in the end, as it's turned out. Rodney here warned me that stepping in and helping your dad out would be a poor investment on my part. My problem is I can be as soft as butter. Against all commonsense I covered his debts. Rodney went off his rocker.
Fuck the cunt and give him nothing.
That's what you said. Am I right, Rodney?'

‘Spot on, Vince.'

‘Your dad had been near drinking himself to death every night of the week. It got so bad he was pissing his own pants. One of my fellas, Clive, he come across him out in the street after the pub had closed, laying in the gutter. A pathetic sight.'

Sonny couldn't help but show his anger.

‘I know, son,' Vincent went on. ‘This is a story you don't want to hear. But I need to tell it you in full so you understand the trouble you've been left with. The funny thing is the day he come in for the loan, he was sober. Silly me thought it might be the start of better days for him. That's the reason I covered the debt. I even sent Rodney round to speak with the landlord personally. Paid him the money, every cent your old man owed him. Rodney told the landlord that if he put one of his dogs within a mile of your father I'd have his balls. You paid him a visit, didn't you, Rodney?'

‘I did. An old Italian fella.'

Vincent tapped the floor with the heel of his boot. ‘I have been more than generous with your father. But the trouble is, Sonny, I haven't sighted him or seen a dollar of my money since that day.'

He slowly walked the length of the room. ‘On your feet, boys. Over here. I need you to see something.'

Ren could hardly lift his feet from the floor. He shuffled across the room after Sonny like a crippled pensioner.

Vincent drew the curtain back from the window. ‘I need you to take a look down there, over to the other side of the street, and tell me what you see.'

Sonny looked out the window. He didn't notice anything particular about the street. Vincent tapped the glass. ‘You see the Greek club on the corner?'

‘Yep,' Sonny answered. ‘The one where they play the card games?'

‘That's the one. Now, you see that white van with the dark window parked down the street a bit?'

A van with a sign
– St Patrick's Meats –
painted on the side, was parked on the corner of a laneway, a couple of car spaces back from the club door. Rodney nudged Sonny in the back. ‘You see it?'

‘Yep. I see it.'

‘Let's test your street nous,' Vincent said. ‘Who might be sitting in that van?'

Sonny stuck his hand in the air like he was in school. ‘The butcher?'

Rodney chuckled and Vincent smiled. ‘Cute, son. But it's the wrong answer. Rotten fucken police are in the back of that van. Gaming Squad. They have one eye on the club door and the other over here, watching me. This snooping has created a problem for me and the owner of the Greek club, Chris. We do business with one another, and from time to time I need to send a package across the street to him. He's been waiting all week on something from me but I haven't been able to get it to him because of the snoops. You think I'm an unfriendly type, let me tell you, Chris can be a very difficult man. Gets himself wound up. Impatient.'

Vincent turned his back on the window, leaned against the ledge and cracked the knuckles of the fingers on both hands. ‘If I were to cross the street now, or one of my friends from here were to do so, on my behalf, or let's say Chris sent one of his boys over to the pub to pick up the package, like he usually does, we could have a problem with the pigs in the meat wagon. For all I know they've got cameras in there, and I don't like having my picture taken. So,' he cracked his knuckles again, ‘I need to solve this problem. In a hurry. That's where you come in, Sonny. And your mate, seeing as he's here anyway. What's your name?'

‘Ren.'

‘What sort of a name's that?'

‘Just Ren.'

‘Well, Just Ren. As you have just heard me tell your friend, I'm out of pocket on account of being owed money by Mr Teddy Brewer. Do you think his own son has the coin to cover his father's debts?'

When Ren didn't answer Vincent slammed his heel into the floor. ‘Do you have it, Sonny. The money owed to me?'

‘I have a little,' Sonny offered. ‘I been saving.'

‘A little bit won't add up to much more than fuck all to me. You'll be about ten lengths off the interest payment just to start with. I don't like to have to tell you this but since your father borrowed from me, the debt has doubled.'

Sonny turned pale and looked as if he was about to vomit.

‘You are deep in the shit, son. Chest high and sinking. I feel sorry for you, being put there by your own flesh and blood. But that's why you need to pay. It's your inheritance. Count yourself lucky I'm around to throw you a lifeline. Anyone else might cut you up.'

Vincent held up a finger in the air and left it there, to be sure Sonny got a decent look at it. ‘One job. Just one small favour for me and you and your excuse for an old man will be debt-free. I'm ready to wipe the slate. You up for it?'

‘For what?'

‘For work. All you need to do is push your pram across the street, go into the club and drop a newspaper to Mr Chris. That's it.'

‘That all?' Sonny asked, smart enough to know that the man sitting across from him couldn't be trusted.

‘That's all. And your debt will be cleared. Every dollar your father owes me, including the interest. Done for a few minutes' work.' He offered Sonny his hand. ‘We in business?'

Sonny hesitated before putting his hand out. Vincent shook it. ‘Good boy.'

Vincent walked over to the table, picked up the telephone and dialled a number. ‘On its way,' was all he said. He put the phone down, opened a drawer under the table and pulled out the morning newspaper, fatter than it should be, and tied together with string. He took a small black pocketbook out of his coat and wrote in it, before handing the newspaper to Sonny. ‘Off you go then. You put that with your papers, get over the street, knock at the door and ask for Chris.'

As Sonny was about to take the newspaper, Vincent held it back from him. ‘There's something else I forgot to tell you. Part of our arrangement. There's another little story you need to hear from me before you go. I heard that some crazy fucken kid broke into a yard and wrecked a fifty-thousand-dollar bulldozer. Government property it was. You hear anything about that?'

‘I heard,' Sonny answered.

Vincent turned to Ren. ‘What about you, little fella? You hear about that?'

‘Some of it. Not much.'

‘Well, the outcome couldn't be worse for whoever done it. Detective Foy is on the case. Fucken psychopath.' He raised both hands in the air. ‘I have no time for police. But in the end, they do their job and I do mine. But Foy is something altogether different. The man's a cunt and a half. You get a taste of that when he bailed you in the back of the car the other week?'

Sonny looked down at his scuffed shoes and nodded his head up and down. Ren looked over to the window where Rodney was standing. He seemed bored and was picking his nose.

Vincent rubbed a finger across his bottom lip and licked it with his tongue. ‘Detective Foy has the bad habit of behaving like an animal from time to time. I can tell you from experience, I've dealt with some short fuses, but I have never come across a man with a worse temper. So unpredictable. Isn't he, Rodney?'

‘He is.'

‘But as luck has it, Sonny, I'm in a position to have a word with him. I can shift his attention one way or the other. I can call him off your back altogether with the right word. Or I could have him working like a cross between Sherlock Holmes and Attila the Hun. Which way do you think I should go?'

‘I dunno what happened to that machine.' Sonny shrugged. ‘It's got nothing to do with me.'

‘Good answer, Sonny. It's complete bullshit, but a good answer. Be sure you're just as sharp if anyone asks if you've had dealings with me.'

Vincent pushed the newspaper into Sonny's gut. ‘Now use your good sense and get yourself across the street, deliver the paper to the Greek and you're free. No debt and no mad copper up your arse.'

The boys stood on the footpath, beneath the glow of the neon light above the hamburger joint, next door to the hotel. The newspaper with the string tied around it lay in Sonny's pram, under a magazine.

‘You know we don't have to do this,' Ren said. ‘We can wheel the pram straight back to the shop and go home.'

‘Maybe you can, but not me. You take off home if you want. If it were me in your place, I would. But I have to do this if I want to keep Foy off my back. And like he told me upstairs, if I do this my old man's debt will be wiped.'

‘You gonna take his word for it? I don't trust him.'

‘Nothing to do with trust. I'm hoping. It's all I got.'

There was nothing Ren wanted to do less than walk across the road to the Greek club but he didn't feel good about leaving Sonny on his own. ‘I'll come with you,' he said.

‘You don't need to act brave all of a sudden.'

‘Nothing brave about it. Some old Greek fella is not going to give us trouble. I bet he's under Vincent's thumb like everyone round here. Sounds like even Foy is in his pocket.'

They crossed the road. Sonny pushed the pram and Ren looked down the street to where the meat van was parked. The cabin was empty. Sonny stopped outside the club door, turned and looked back at the window above the hotel. The blind was pulled to one side and Vincent was watching the street.

‘You see anyone in the van, Ren?' he whispered.

‘Nah. They probably have a hidden camera.'

Sonny lifted the magazine, picked up the newspaper and tucked it under his arm.

‘Last chance, Ren. If you're thinking of shooting through, go now. Or you can wait out here for me. If I don't come out in five minutes take the pram back to the shop.'

‘Why wouldn't you come back out, Sonny? It's not like these Greeks would kidnap you or something.'

Sonny knocked at the door. A boy opened it wearing an apron over a white T-shirt and jeans. Ren had seen him before, hanging around at the hamburger joint playing the pinball machines. ‘What do you want?' he sneered.

‘We're here for Chris,' Sonny answered. ‘We've been sent by Vincent.'

‘Stay here. I'll go ask.'

The boy closed the door. Sonny could heard him calling to somebody in Greek. A couple of minutes later he was back. ‘Chris says it's okay for you to come in.'

The Greek club consisted of one long narrow room. Men sat at a table playing cards. They didn't look all that different from Vincent's crew, except these men were a little older and greyer. None of them looked up when the boys walked into the club. A younger man leaned over a pool table with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth. He looked as if he was about to play a shot, but didn't. He wore a tight short-sleeved shirt, had muscled arms and an unfriendly face. The walls of the club were covered with posters and photographs of soccer teams. A blue-and-white striped flag hung from the ceiling. The boy who'd opened the front door walked into a back room, through a plastic strip blind. He could be heard talking to somebody, again in Greek.

Less than a minute later the blind parted and a man walked through it. He was wearing a cardigan over a shirt and dark trousers. It was the same man Sonny had sold a newspaper to on the first morning Ren had helped out with the paper round. A heavy gold cross hung from his neck and he wore his thick black hair brushed back. The pool player moved away from the table to the front door and snapped the lock shut. The older man smiled at the boys.

‘Hello, young men. You have something for me?'

‘Are you Chris?' Sonny asked.

‘I am Chris.' He smiled again.

Sonny handed him the newspaper. ‘This is for you. We were told to bring it from Vincent.'

Ren was desperate to escape the club as quickly as possible. He turned to leave. The old Greek lifted a hand in the air. ‘Now you must wait.'

Chris called the pool player over. ‘Nikos.'

Nikos took the newspaper from Chris and went into the back room. Chris invited the boys to sit at one of the tables. Ren did his best not to look too closely at the man. He pretended to be interested in the posters of soccer teams.

‘You like the football?' Chris asked. ‘This football?' he added, pointing at one of the posters.

Ren knew nothing about soccer but didn't want to offend the man. ‘It looks like a good game in the pictures.'

‘Ah, you play the other football? Aussie ball?'

The pool player stuck his head through the blind and lifted his hand, just a little. Chris tapped the table. ‘All good. Thank you, boys.'

He went behind the shop counter and picked up a large knife. ‘Here. Come.' He waved the boys over and stooped to open a cupboard under the counter. ‘You hungry?' he asked.

He was holding a square of cake on a tray. He sat it on the counter and began to cut into it. ‘The man over there, is he hiding in his castle?' he asked, as he admired his knife. Neither of the boys was sure what he was talking about. He cut two slices from the cake and placed them on sheets of wax paper. Chris looked directly at Sonny. ‘Is he King Vincie? Or prisoner in that place?' He seemed to be talking to himself as much as he was to the boys. He handed each of them a slice of the cake. ‘Eat this one,' he said, wiping the crumbs from the knife with a cloth. ‘I think he is prisoner.' He laughed.