Crooked (11 page)

J
UNE
1967

Charlie Gillespie entered gate three of the Sydney Stadium and shoved his way down the aisle. The ring was empty. Just above the ring-lights the air was split-level with smoke, like a mist rising off flat ground. He scanned the thicket of faces shadowed under felt hats, the smouldering orange ends of cigars flaring over chins and foreheads. High mesh wire divided the ring from the terrace, and behind the terrace were the bleachers, row upon row of bare wooden planks, rising steeply from the small-upraised square in the centre.

He found Browne seated ringside. Charlie took the vacant seat beside him as the lights went down and the fighters came out – spotlights trailing them down the aisle. The champ took the ropes at a hurdle, dancing about the ring with arms extended, gloves pressed together, and the whole crowd yelling back at him, stomping and caterwauling for the flyweight with the wild, swinging style. (‘Born with the Italian's inherent love of spaghetti,' ran the fight promo. ‘He is also very keen on Australian steaks.')

Then the yammer and hum of the crowd died down until there wasn't a sound, except the surreptitious scrape of a beer bottle on concrete, and the creak of wooden seats as the crowd shifted position, poised and waiting for the fighters to touch gloves.

Inside the ring, the champ came out fast, whirling and swinging. The challenger was more cautious, dancing with his chin tucked into his chest, blue smudges flaring under his eyes. The champ was on him before his gloves went up. Left after left came flashing from the champion until he brought over a full roundhouse swing, landing flush and solid to the side of his face. The crowd rose, swaying to its feet.

‘Go after him, you mug,' yelled Browne. ‘Go after the bastard!'

Charlie turned his eyes away from the action. Chip sellers dodged up and down the aisles, cameras waltzed backwards and forwards under the ring, and dough-fat men with one too many beers under their belts ducked off to the Gents. Charlie's eyes alighted on a technicolour sign, ‘Insist on Bell's Double Seated Briefs'. Seated underneath it was Premier Bob Askin, muttering deferentially to his good friend Frank Packer, owner of Sydney Newspapers Ltd and publisher of the
Telegraph
.

Inside the ring, the referee threw his arms wide. The champ made a victory tour of the canvas, bending his knees, worrying the ropes. An incongruous anthem struck up. The crowd surged forward, cramming the aisles, climbing over seat backs, prying their way with shoulders and elbows. Askin got up and appeared to be moving towards them – the crowd falling watchfully back from his passage until they were standing together under the ring.

Askin poked a stubby forefinger at Browne's chest. ‘Too much weaving and jabbing the long lefts. “Left hook,” I yelled at him. “Left hook.”'

Browne chortled. ‘I reckon the job of holding him up must have been harder than knocking him down.'

‘That's an unworthy thought.'

Browne let out a full-throated roar and Askin laughed too. Then Askin was patting his coat pocket for a light. Charlie dug a packet of matches out of his pocket and stroked up a flame.
Askin glanced at him with mild surprise, as if seeing him standing there for the very first time. Browne introduced them.

‘Browne tells me you're a racing man,' said Askin, glancing sideways at Charlie as he puffed at the flame. ‘My good friend Packer's got a filly running in the fifth at Randwick. What do you think?'

‘Blue Cairo by a length,' said Charlie.

Askin seemed to find this unbearably funny. ‘Not if he's being asked to rely on any God-given abilities.' He slapped his thigh, laughing in quick bursts like a sea mammal. ‘Browne's told me a few things about you. He says you've got a friend who wants to give me a donation.' He wandered off a step and then, as if recollecting something, turned back. ‘Here's what.' He rested his cigar hand gently on Charlie's shoulder. ‘Why don't you bring him to the racetrack on Saturday? Maybe we can nut out something or other. Also, that way I can watch your face when that pox horse Blue Cairo falls over the finish line six lengths behind the rest of his mob.'

In the world in which Charlie aspired to live, important pursuits were treated as if they were only mildly significant to the people they really concerned, and such people were to behave as if they were only half serious about the things for which they were asking. So though Charlie's heart was fit to burst with his triumph, he laughed and joked and threw a wet blanket over the matter as if the whole episode was of no consequence at all.

But once they were shot of the crowd, the charade fell away. ‘Does Askin really know about Reilly?'

‘What's there to know?' Browne wandered on ahead. ‘As far as the world is concerned Reilly is a legitimate businessman. He enforces a degree of order in a world of illegal enterprises whose denizens might feel a little different from you or I about seeking official help. I guarantee he's good at making lots of noise, and
scaring up the sort of thing that frightens people half to death, but there are some who would see such a service as a benefit to society. Frankly, I don't know another well-to-do blackguard of whom you might say as much.'

‘I mean, about his being a criminal,' Charlie blurted out.

Browne stared at Charlie with some perplexity. ‘And what is crime, but a wilder form of enterprise than the one that we're used to? I tell you, the criminal fraternity is perhaps the only functional model of pure capitalism, the only instance of free enterprise working as … well, free enterprise.'

Charlie tried to protest, but Browne was awash in a sea of sophistry. Soon he found himself standing on the doorstep outside the Mansions Hotel.

‘Where are we going?'

‘I reckon you've got to give Reilly the good news.'

Browne crossed the road and walked down a dark tunnel of buildings. Charlie caught up to him outside the Kellett Club door. The street was quiet, and there was nobody about except for a bag lady with rouge on her cheeks and a delphinium in her hair. Browne bent forward to knock on the door, but it gave way under his hand. Inside, the hall was scattered with carnations of newsprint and empty wooden crates labelled ‘Darjeeling Tea Co'.

Browne blinked hard in the semi-darkness. ‘I reckon we're a bit late.'

Reilly had disappeared, but it didn't take long for Charlie to find him. He parted with Browne on the doorstep of the Mansions Hotel, then followed the bartender's directions back to the crenellated black brick building on the opposite corner. A sign in oil-slick neon was fixed across the second-storey window. But the sign was turned off and the place appeared empty. Charlie reached the first-storey landing, and disappeared through a bead curtain.

‘Good news, Dick. Good news.'

‘What's good about it?' said Reilly, looking up.

Reilly was turnip-white and crumpled-looking. Charlie followed his gaze as it drifted around the dingy room, taking in the piles of green baize, the stacked chairs and tables, the half-empty packing crates stained by the strange orange glare seeping in through the window. ‘What's going on?'

‘What does it look like?' said Reilly, unreasonably. ‘I mean, I didn't ask you to set up a transnational merger or nothing. I just asked you to speak to this Askin bloke, poke a broomstick around, see what comes out. I mean, what sort of bloke is he?'

‘Askin's a good bloke.'

‘Mucking me about like he is?'

‘I don't think he meant to.'

Reilly shook his head. ‘I dunno about that.'

Charlie tried, ‘I'm sorry, Dick. But I didn't expect to find you in this, ah, kind of situation.'

Reilly put his head back and roared with laughter, making Charlie uneasy.

‘You feeling all right?'

Reilly caught hold of himself, literally wrapping his arms around his waist. ‘Guess I'm not feeling too good, maybe some kind of bug, maybe ought to lie down, catch myself some shut-eye tonight.' He moved his hands around the inside of his trouser belt as if to illustrate the point. ‘I guess you've got to understand that this organisation I'm running, it isn't a few tosspots standing around, pitching some pennies onto a canvas. Everything I got feeds off another thing, a mixture of high turnover and longer-term investment. The more you've got, the stronger it makes you, and the more you can get. Then again, something like this comes up, and there's this knock-on and carry-on effect. Everything gets forced out of whack. A bloke gets himself cash-strapped and over-extended.'

‘Couldn't be that bad, surely?'

Reilly shrugged, ‘Just got to put a bit of the wallop around, take some of the doubt out of the situation. I take it you've got a good outcome from your chat?'

‘I reckon.'

‘He doesn't mind doing business?'

Charlie finally got to make his announcement. ‘I reckon he's pleased. I reckon he needs all the money he can get, come next election.'

‘He does, does he?'

‘He'll be at Randwick on Saturday. There's a pretty good chance I can arrange for you to meet.'

Reilly brightened almost immediately. ‘Once was I used to meet all of them political blokes, they used to come into the club, make use of the actual premises. If there was something I needed, might never get it any other way, we'd see that as something we
could all make a dollar out of.' He reached into his pocket and pulled out a bright wad of banknotes. He appeared to hesitate before he thrust the whole roll into Charlie's hand. ‘Mind you, this is just on account. This all goes ahead, from now on it's the same every week.'

A lightness descended upon Reilly like he'd not felt in weeks. He had strained every nerve to appear composed and indifferent in the hours leading up to the closure of the Kellett Club, and put on a great song and dance to show how the organisation was basically unaffected. He rented new rooms, engaged removalists to shift furnishings, hired a few workmen to splash on some paint, got his contact at the PMG to have a bank of telephones installed so the SP could keep going. But it wasn't enough. He had let events rule him, the last couple of months, and it was time to turn things around.

‘Ernie!' he yelled, striding back across the carpet.

Chubb stopped a few feet over the threshold. ‘What, Boss?' he said, then hacked, and spat a fat purple gob into the pot plant beside him.

Reilly shuddered, ‘Jeez, Ernie. Thought I told you never to do that?'

‘Sorry, Boss,' said Chubb. He took out a crumpled yellow handkerchief and mopped off the backs of his ears and neck. ‘I've got a bit of the flu. Only came in because you said it's important. The missus, she reckoned I ought to have stayed in my bed with the temperature I've got.'

Reilly sighed, ‘Okay, I'm not going crook on you. But hell, you keep spitting that stuff in there and the pot plant is going to die, understand?'

‘Sure,' said Chubb. ‘Anything you say, Boss.'

Reilly glanced at his knuckles. ‘I've heard that Tommy Bogle, who's shown that he can no longer be trusted, was there
on the night Warren's Liverpool operation got raided. I want you to have a talk to the bloke, find out what's happening.'

Chubb hung his head. ‘I dunno he'll be particularly anxious for a chat. Not after the last talk we had.'

‘The last talk weren't nothing.'

‘Well, after it was over I reckoned he was looking a bit rough.'

‘Ernie, I told you to go around there, ask him nicely. Just bump into the bloke on the street, wasn't anything you planned, then drop it on him what's he been doing.'

‘I dunno.'

Reilly's mood dissipated under the weight of frustration. ‘I'm telling you to go around and nudge the bloke, see what pops up. He don't talk to you nicely, then talk to him anyway, understand?'

‘Sure, Boss,' said Chubb, getting ready to go.

But Reilly stopped him. ‘There's one other thing,' he said, getting to the crux of the matter. ‘I want you to tell me exactly what happened that night at the Latin Quarter.'

‘About the blue?'

‘Yeah.'

Chubb hung his head. ‘I was really that sloshed that I didn't see a thing. Honest.'

Reilly rolled his eyes. ‘Well, I reckon you did and I want you to tell me. Did Lennie knock him or not?'

Chubb stood there, stricken. ‘I dunno.'

Reilly wanted to turn on the bloke, but kept telling himself that he had always trusted Chubb to look after his interests. ‘God help me, Ernie. I almost believe you. But I want you to go away and have a serious think. Maybe talk to a few blokes, come up with an answer.'

‘Is everything all right, Boss?'

‘I reckon nothing will ever be like it used to.'

‘No, I reckon it won't,' said Chubb, seemingly mystified by the philosophical turn in the conversation.

Reilly tried to enlarge. ‘Changes for the worse, I mean. Blokes doing all sorts of things because they reckon the world allows it.'

Chubb swallowed. ‘You're worried about Lennie?'

Reilly glanced up with a mild sort of surprise. ‘Yeah, Ernie. I reckon I am.'

Chubb jumped into his red Datsun and headed for Woolloomooloo. Outside, the air was clammy and cold. Chubb felt like he was swimming through waves of moisture. He had come up as a streetfighter with the railway mob (skull fractured, spleen punctured and ribs cracked) and hadn't been having much luck until Reilly stepped in. Reilly had valued his talents and skills where others did not. Chubb was acutely aware that he wouldn't be occupying the position he was occupying if Reilly hadn't taken an interest.

Reilly was an all-round stand-up sort of bloke, who always dealt square, and Chubb knew there was margin in that. He only had to sit at the pub counter to hear how crooks on all sides had abandoned any idea of square dealing – these days, a bloke had to keep his mouth shut or his teeth would be taken out. The dilemma Chubb had was that Reilly wasn't making a penny. Chubb had honestly tried to ignore this problem, telling himself that things would come right. He still remembered the days when Reilly was so big it was like he generated his own gravity – as soon as he walked into a room, you found yourself drawn into his orbit. But now it was like Planet Dick was imploding and everything was falling apart. Chubb didn't really know if he wanted to be around the day that thing happened.

Chubb pulled into a small space off Cathedral Street under a sign that read ‘Bogle Bros Auto Electric'. Tommy was standing beside a petrol pump, taking a two-dollar note off a taxidriver. He ambled towards Chubb as the taxi drove off.

‘I've got a visit from the messenger boy of the mob. Boy, am I blessed.'

For comfort, Chubb touched the bulge that his gun made in his jacket and climbed out of the car. ‘That last time we talked, it was strictly professional.'

‘So why are you here?'

‘Dick told me.'

‘Well, you can tell him from me I've got nothing to say.'

‘He's heard that you've been working for that thief Johnny Warren.'

‘That's none of your business.'

Tommy wiped his petrol-smudged hands on the backs of his trousers, and made his way to the counter. Chubb trailed behind.

Chubb really had been drunk that night at the Latin Quarter and wasn't really sure that he understood what went down. He'd taken some time out to ask McPherson about it, and McPherson had told him he was looking after Reilly's interests. But Chubb had his doubts.

He said, ‘I stuck to McPherson over O'Connor, but I've decided I'm through. I reckon we should go back to Reilly and make a clean breast of it. I reckon Reilly is prepared to overlook everything so long as you tell him what's coming.'

‘Are you mad?'

Chubb shook his head. ‘I trust him like a father.'

‘Well, you shouldn't.'

A second taxi pulled into the garage, the driver yelling for service.

‘Why not?' said Chubb.

‘I can't talk about it here,' said Tommy, scowling at the taxidriver over Chubb's shoulder. ‘I'll meet you at your place tomorrow and explain the whole thing.'