BECKER Read online

  ‘They’re coming to lunch.’

  ‘Who’s coming?’

  ‘Your cousin and his wife.’

  ‘Oh, Jesus!’

  ‘Harry, have I done the wrong thing?’

  ‘You shouldn’t have invited them in the first place, Rob.’

  ‘She rang just then. I couldn’t stop her—his wife, I mean. She was gushing like a galloping goof, so happy to be invited, she said. They’d love to come to lunch. He was not working this weekend, either day. What day would it be?’

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘I said Sunday would be the best.’

  ‘Jesus, Rob, I can’t stand the bloke, I never could.’

  ‘I felt I couldn’t say no, after inviting them. Oh, dear, what have I done?’

  She looked as though she’d burst into tears. He was sorry. He had hurt her, this good woman. He went to her, put his arms about her, even patted her, kissed her on the neck. ‘No-one’s going to hurt you.’

  Maria Terracini was overbearingly affectionate, grasping Robyn and kissing her—as though, suddenly, they were sisters. As soon as she’d walked in, she’d set out to inspect the house, every room and nook and cranny. She plunged in, squealing, ‘Ah, gee, ain’t this beautiful? What a lot you’ve done to this old dump. We used to laugh when we was passing, didn’t we, Barry? Hey, come and look at this, love, a bath with gold taps! Oh, my god, you must be loaded, mustn’t they, love? And look at the kitchen, stainless everywhere. We couldn’t afford that, could we? Ah, you’ve got a Miele! Everyone says they’re the best, but cost an arm and a leg. We’ve only got a Samsung. Always breaking down, isn’t it, Barry?’

  Him following and grinning and poking at everything with his smoky-pokey little eyes. She was long and loud and loutish. Her poky little husband following her everywhere, even when she was opening Robyn’s wardrobes and fingering her clothes, saying, ‘Can I just have a quick look?’ All he could say was ‘Mmm’ and ‘Yeah’ and ‘Jesus, eh?’ and ‘This is nice, ain’t it, darl?’ They were the cousins from hell, no doubt about it. They had arrived a quarter of an hour early, as though they’d raced at high speed to get there early, be the first to have a peek.

  They’d invited two neighbouring couples, farmers who did not rush anything. And who arrived with house-warming presents, tentatively offered. And smiling with the warmth of people who’d been on the land a long time. And knew their manners. Or, if they had not, then eager to learn. They knew the way you did things in the bush—with care and grace and consideration in the bad times and with an all-pervading thankfulness in the good.

  The first were an old couple from across the road, Jeff and Florence Jessup, not one minute too early and the others were a Hank and Anika van der Bruggen, who’d migrated from the Netherlands and worked forty years as pastry cooks until they’d saved enough to buy a bit of Australia—six-hundred and forty acres next door on the eastern side, the earth so rich you could eat it.

  Everything went reasonably well, considering. Robyn had managed to get together a menu able to satisfy, after days of worrying she would make of a mess of her first luncheon as a rich man’s wife and lady of his house—so much that at one stage Becker had offered to hire a caterer so she could sit back and play the gracious hostess while he looked after the drinks. But she would not have that. It would look like failure on her part.

  They ate well and she didn’t drop anything in the kitchen, in which she was helped by the busybody woman from Griffith who talked non-stop, telling her about the beautiful Italian dishes she could cook, but her stupid husband didn’t like them. He ate only beef steak and boiled potatoes and cabbage and carrots and mustard sauce. So fussy with his food, she said. She didn’t know why she’d married him. No-one left until three o’clock, thanking them for their hospitality and saying they must come and have a drink soon, certainly before Christmas. And then they left, the neighbours. But not the new-found cousins. While his garrulous wife was helping Robyn clean up in the kitchen, Barnes hopped a bit closer. From one chair to another.

  ‘Jesus, mate, while the ladies are out of the room, could you give me a minute?’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘A private talk. I can see you aren’t strapped for cash at the moment.’ Barnes coughed into a loose-knit hand, cleared his throat, raspingly dry despite all the Johnny Walker he’d consumed. ‘I don’t suppose you could help us out, could you?’

  ‘What kind of help?’ Becker could have refused straight out, but he wanted to know what this little crawler was up to.

  ‘Ah, well, you see, things are a bit tight at the moment. I mean, I’m a bit over-committed. You know how it is, a big mortgage, lots of stuff on hire-purchase and a bit of a problem with some people.’

  ‘What people?’

  ‘Ah, you know, her old man, who lent the money for a deposit, a few other debts here and there. Nothing too big, but Maria keeps naggin’ at me. You’ve got to pay your debts, she says. If you don’t they’ll come around and—’ He didn’t finish, screwed up his dry and scungy little mouth the way some men shrug, a little rattle of the head too. He was an urger, a creature who’d work on you until he got what he wanted, one way or another.

  ‘How much?’

  ‘Aw, you know, ten-thousand if you can spare it, maybe fifteen.’

  ‘You want me to lend you fifteen-thousand?’

  ‘If you can spare it, mate. You’d get it back, no worries.’

  Becker stared at him, this cocky little nobody in a cop’s uniform when he was on duty, prowling up and down a highway each day, trying to catch someone at something illegal, all to gain a few pats on the head. And trying to get a promotion. Probably all he ever got for hiding around corners or behind bushes to catch the occasional speeding hoon or a truckie with an overweight load. And the accidents, trucks run off the road and head–on collisions. The filthy mess, the blood. The vomit, the screaming. And dragging drunks out of cars and kids screaming their heads off. Ten years of that, every day. And what had he got for his trouble? Nothing, still a low-grade constable after ten years in the service. In fact, he was now forty years of age, a failed cop going nowhere. Becker knew he and Barnes were the same, except that he’d been caught and kicked out, whereas Barnes was still in there. Hanging on by his fingernails by the sound of it.

  ‘No,’ he said.

  ‘No?’ Barnes jumped as if he’d been hit. ‘No?’

  ‘Not one dollar.’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘Get out,’ Becker said.

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘Piss off before I hit you again.’

  ‘Eh? By Christ—’ Barnes jumped to his feet, his face livid. ‘You can’t talk to a bloke like that.’

  ‘Can’t I?’ Becker was on his feet too. ‘Take your woman and clear off. Never come here again. Get her out of here. I can’t stand her yapping voice, and I can’t stand you. I never could.’ Becker reached for him. ‘Go on, get out!’

  ‘What? Ah, Jesus, what a good mate you turned out to be. I mean, I’m your fuckin’ cousin. You understand? I’m family. Don’t you forget it!’

  Becker pushed him, steering him out. His wife rushed out. ‘What is it? What’s wrong? What’s he gone and done to you, love?’ She turned on Becker. ‘Why’re you pushin’ him?

  ‘Just shut up and get out.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Get out!’

  ‘What? What? You can’t talk to us like that. What sort of a cousin are you?’

  ‘One who doesn’t forget.’

  ‘What? What d’y’mean?’

  ‘This little bastard used to beat me up at school. He hated me because my dad was a soldier, a sergeant. This brainless little fuckwit liked to belt me in the guts, in the solar plexus. He like to see me cry. He was a fucking creep, a brainless nobody. I cry baby. His dad used to beat him up. I saw him once, on the ground, crying, asking
for mercy while the old man was kicking him. Kicking him, you understand. Whereas, my father, my father never hit me or kicked me of insulted me or made me cry. He was a soldier. A soldier would never do such a thing.’

  ‘What?’ she said again. Maria Barnes did not have much vocabulary. She was more expression that verbose. All face and fury and bad breath. Her mouth went back so that if you were there, you would have seen long thin, twisted, horsy teeth. Almost out of the gums. Red gums, infected, you could see. And her eyes, they had gone back into her head. As if in retreat, like a crab into a shell. Creepy crawly sort of eyes. On stalks with frightened rage.

  ‘You can’t talk to him like that,’ she said.

  ‘Just clear out before I throw you out, the pair of you.’

  She retreated backwards out the front door.

  ‘You can’t speak to us like that. You’ll see.’

  Barnes was already out the door, his pinched little eyes full of hate and humiliation.

  ‘Come on, love,’ he said, ‘we’re gettin’ out.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Grab y’bag and move y’self.’

  ‘What? Jesus, we was havin’ a lovely time, wasn’t we, Robbie?’

  ‘Are you bloody comin’ or not?’

  She grabbed her bag and hugged and puffed her way out. Robyn followed her husband onto the front verandah, watching them run for it. To a colourless Datsun, which had seen better days.

  ‘Harry, what is it? What is it?’

  He did not answer, watching until they’d fled in a cloud of angry noise and angry smoke.

  ‘Harry, please, what is it? Did I do something wrong?’

  ‘I beat him up at school. He’d been picking on me for years, because I was a little kid. Then I grew up and he did not. I had the reach on him. One day I beat the shit out of him.’

  She was trembling, yet trying to work it out.

  ‘But, you got even, didn’t you? There’s no problem now, is there?’

  Becker thought about it, sniffing the air as if for any lingering odour.

  ‘You never get even,’ he said.

  He didn’t mean it that way.

  He meant that Barnes was going to get even.

  Chapter 7

  He was scared again. In Canberra he’d been scared, always afraid someone was going to hit him. A bullet from nowhere, or a road accident. Or maybe a knife in the guts one cold night on his rounds, checking places downtown, banks, car showrooms, department stores, warehouses. Those bleak and comfortless night rounds. A watchman’s job. He’d come down to that. He used to be a cop in Sydney. In Canberra he’d been a nobody who worked by night, trying to make enough money to support his wife and family in Sydney. She wasn’t his wife now. She’d divorced him after he’d been kicked out of the police force for corruption. Which was a big joke. Her old man was a locksmith who’d done time. He used to open safes without the permission, in the dead of night. He’d hated Becker, a man who, in a rash and good-hearted moment, had saved his daughter from ignominy and possible suicide or at least a good thrashing for getting herself pregnant, by offering to marry her. They had never thanked him, not even young Adeline. Who’d divorce him when he’d been kicked out of the police for corruption without a pension. Only his contributions plus accumulated interest.

  He’d thought of going back to Wagga Wagga, his hometown. But people there would know him, would ask about him. Want to know why he wasn’t still a cop. So, he’d hidden himself away in Canberra. Hidden from the light of day, working at night, twelve hours a night, five days a week. Sleeping by day. Or trying to sleep. Normally he’d get out of bed about one o’clock, get dressed to go to town, have some lunch. He’d been sitting in Garema Place, eating hamburger one day in April last year. He’d finished the burger. Got up, walked to a bin to throw in the paper bag, then had spotted the handbag. A shiny bag, a quality bag, a Gucci. No woman would throw away a bag like that.

  Self-consciously, he’d lifted it out. People were sitting around at tables and under the plane trees. It was a Gucci. He’d opened it. As he’d guessed, she had been mugged. Her bag snatched. No purse, no keys. But a letter, which had been opened. Addressed to Evelyn Crowley, who lived in Empire Circuit, Forrest. Anyone who lived in Forrest was sure to be worth a packet. There might be a reward...

  His thoughts tended to wander. Sometimes memories came back for no reason at all, like dreams you don’t want to dream. The kind of memories which keep knocking at your mind. Shouting at you, Hey, don’t forget me!

  One Friday night at the Cross he was called to a brothel in Roslyn Gardens—not to be confused with Roslyn Street, which ran down from Darlinghurst Road to the gardens at the bottom of the street, where there was a terrace of three-storey houses, one at least of which was known to be a brothel. Some of the boys went in there for a freebie. Even Whitford himself, blatantly. Everyone one who lived at the Cross in those days knew about the police. No-one complained.

  Operations had received a call from someone living opposite, reporting a woman was screaming her head off in the street. Trying to run across the gardens, but a man was trying to drag her back. But the screamer, who sounded young and foreign, she was crying and shouting over and over in some incomprehensible lingo. Which sounded Chinese or similar.

  The bloke was shouting something at her. Only one word, it seemed. Some sort of order, a barking type of order, really snappy. And a woman in a red dress with a high black collar was running out of the whorehouse and yelling at the girl and then running back inside, then outside again. The racket was going on and on.

  People at a party across the road were getting irritated. And ringing the police, and saying you’ve got to come and do something about this racket! Not to do something to help this poor girl, mind you. They didn’t give a stuff about her, only about the unseemly behaviour.

  The Cross in those days was a fairly quiet place, especially off the main drags like Darlinghurst Road and Macleay Street. Some respectable people lived there, particularly down in Elizabeth Bay, by the water. Grand old homes with terrific harbour views, occupied by important people. Like bookmakers and speculative builders and senior cops, and politicians who were in it for the money and stuff the voting public.

  Becker arrived within minutes of the call, sirens going and red and blue lights flashing. By which time some pedestrians and gawkers from the country, and dealers who’d been drawn to the spectacle from the park, where they had been so inconsiderately disturbed, had gathered. Becker jumped out of the patrol car and ran at the melee, which was probably the smallest melee the Cross had ever seen, but also possibly the noisiest.

  The girl was still screaming and saying over and over one word, unintelligible to him, but sounded like ‘No, no, no!’ in anyone’s language. Of course, it could have been ‘Help, help, help!’, but that’s beside the point. He jumped out of the car and went over, charging into the fray. Alone, he was that night. His buddy’s wife was having a baby. He’d been working his arse off, looking after smashes, break and enterings, drunken brawls and all the usual problems in and near the Cross on a Saturday night.

  ‘What the hell?’ he’d said. ‘What the hell is going on? What’s wrong with her?’

  The girl, who looked about sixteen but was probably a few years older, she being some sort of Asian in a short dress, slit down the side, was rolling on the ground.

  And bawling her head off, although not so loudly.

  The man in a white shirt and black pants was trying to get her to her feet, but she refused.

  ‘What’s going on?’ Becker said again. White shirt was holding her with one hand, while trying to deal with Becker.

  ‘She all okay,’ he said. ‘No much problem.’

  ‘So why the hell is she crying?’

  White shirt had a fat round head like a football and straight black hair sticking out each side and long slits for eyes. ‘Ha
? Ha?’ he was saying, which probably meant ‘What? What?’

  ‘Why is she crying?’ Becker demanded, at the same time signalling the bystanders to keep back.

  ‘She okay,’ white shirt said.

  ‘Take your hand off her,’ Becker said. The girl was almost quiet now, looking up at Becker through her tears, as if slowly realising some sort of help in a strange uniform had arrived.

  ‘No, no, she okay now,’ the Chinese guy said. ‘She no feel good. She got bad news.’

  ‘What kind of bad news?’

  ‘Ah, bad news from China.’

  ‘She’s Chinese?’

  ‘Yes, she okay now. We take her in house.’

  ‘Which house?’ Becker asked. He had to ask several times, because the boss man didn’t seem to want to answer. ‘That place there?’ Becker asked, pointing at the brothel. ‘Did she run out of that place?’ It was a three-story terrace, well-known for nice, clean, Asian girls.

  ‘Yeah,’ one of the spectators said, giggling. And rolling his eyes. He was high on something. So was the girl with him, not a pro by the look of her. She didn’t have the short skirt and thigh-length boots of the professional. Probably a couple who’d decided the Cross was the place to be on a Saturday night. So they’d better have a snort while they were there. Get into the mood of things.

  Becker was trying to get the Asian girl to her feet, but the boss man was trying to drag her away.

  ‘Get your hands off!’ Becker said. ‘That’s an order! Release her or by Jesus I’ll arrest you!’

  During all this, red dress had been running in and out of the brothel. She stuck her nose in, yelling her ten cents’ worth, but Becker told her to shut up. She kept yelling at him, as if he were committing some awful public outrage. Even shaking her fists at him. And snapping at the man, one word over and over. It sounded like ‘Wiffor’ or ‘What for’.

  White shirt then released the girl.