‘I thought you were coming here?’
‘I changed my mind. You be there, Hardy. I’ve gone out on limb for you. You better have something good for me.’
It was my day for being ordered around by coppers. I said I’d be there. I took the. 38 out of its drawer, checked it over and strapped it on. Before I left I took a quick one from the cask. They call Leichhardt Little Italy, and when in Rome…
It took me longer than half an hour to get to the park but I didn’t mind keeping Gallagher waiting-no sense letting him have things all his own way. The traffic crawled along Parramatta Road and I had to wait three cycles of the lights before getting around at Norton Street. The Italian flavour was struggling to get through the Australian ingredients, but a few of the restaurants had tables placed outside and many of the businesses had signs up in both local languages. The post office and town hall are solid pieces of Victoriana, like the pubs, but there was no such thing as a pasticceria in grandma’s day. Cyn and I occasionally ate in Leichhardt, always at my bidding. She said once she thought I’d be happy with a dish consisting of pasta in red wine. Cyn’s preference was for the kind of French cuisine which left me wondering if the tablecloth might be edible.
I like suburban parks and the Pioneer Memorial in Leichhardt was a beauty. It had all the essential features-a militaristic arch and a memorial stone listing the names of the fallen residents of the municipality in two world wars, an acre or so of grass with cement paths through it and a few battling flower beds. The trees and shrubs either weren’t really trying or didn’t get enough water, and the white smudges on the grass indicated where dogs had shat. The backyards of Leichhardt were, typically, small and cemented over. The dog-owners had to have somewhere for nature to take its course. My familiarity with the park stems from a few hours I spent in it after a fight with Cyn in a nearby restaurant. She walked out. I took the remainder of the Moyston claret to the park and absorbed alcohol, tobacco and the atmosphere.
I parked alongside the adjacent high school and entered the park from the eastern side, near the bus depot. People were strolling and sitting; the dog-lovers were indulgently watching their charges sniffing at tree trunks and rubbish bin support posts. I was comforted by the sight of every one of them, the long and the short and the tall. The Hardys, Pettigrews, Flanagans and Fanous-my antecedents-have been in Sydney for a long time. A Fanou, or a Le Fanou as my sister Tess prefers it, was shot dead by the constabulary in The Rocks in the early 1860s. He was a publican, although Tess insists he was also a police undercover agent. Whatever the truth of that, I had no wish to emulate him, and the best protection against a police shooting, accidental or otherwise, is the presence of solid citizens.
I did a careful visual survey of the park. I didn’t see any toey featherweights or heavies like Carl or Matthews. I realised how edgy I was and tried to force myself to calm down. Gallagher was sitting on a bench near the arch reading a newspaper. He did it well. It was his precinct; maybe he sat there and read the paper when he wasn’t conspiring against his fellow officers. There were another couple of hours of daylight left and I felt reasonably safe from direct attack. As I approached him, I watched the street for cruising cars. I walked straight past Gallagher and did another lap of the park, looking, checking, trying to register any change in the configuration of things. People came and went-old men, kids; a bus stopped, dropped some passengers and picked up others. I saw nothing to alarm me.
‘You’re careful, Hardy,’ Gallagher said. ‘That’s good. I like that.’
I sat on the bench beside him, fished out the makings and made a cigarette. ‘Your good opinion is all I crave.’
‘Don’t get smart. This was all your idea, remember.’
‘You approached me when I left the station, remember.’
‘What is this? Are you getting cold feet?’
I lit the cigarette and puffed smoke towards the memorial to the fallen. ‘No. Loggins rang me just before you did. He wants to see me tomorrow morning.’
‘Right.’
‘What’s on his mind?’
Gallagher rolled up his newspaper into the shape of a baton. He held it in his right hand and thumped it against his left palm. He gave it a solid whack, more the street copper’s thump than the demonstrative gesture of the LLB. ‘You don’t get a word out of me until you give me that name. Who killed Meadowbank, Hardy? According to your unnamed source?’
It was put-up time and I knew it. I took a deep drag on the cigarette and let the words out slowly with the smoke. ‘Lawrence “Chalky” Teacher,’ I said. ‘Ever heard of him?’
The noise Gallagher made was hard to interpret. It was something between a sigh and a grunt. ‘Chalky Teacher, yeah, I know him.’
‘My information is he’s the enforcer. The only other thing I know is that there might be another private investigator or two in on it. You see why I want to deal with the police?’
‘Yes. And what do you want to do about it?’
‘Get hold of Teacher and shake him. Maybe get some evidence-the gun, the stocking, something that ties him to Juliet Farquhar and this whole business. At worst, scare him, rattle him. See what happens.’
Gallagher looked pained. ‘I can’t do that.’
‘Why not?’
‘I have to go through channels. Get a warrant. That means see a magistrate; that means clear it with Pascoe.’
‘You can’t be serious. D’you mean you never picked up a known crim on suspicion of something or other and gave him a hard time? Come on.’
‘And what would you be doing?’
‘I’ll back you up.’
‘If anything went wrong, anything, it’d mean my job. It’s not worth the risk.’
‘I’m disappointed in you, Ian. I thought you wanted to cut the red tape and get something done for a change.’
‘I need to think about it.’
‘Bugger that. The meeting with Loggins is tomorrow. I want to head that off.’
‘You’re out of your mind. You want to do this tonight?’
‘Why not?’
‘We’d have to locate him. Check his movements, vehicles, his mates…’
‘I know where he lives. He works for Max Wilton, the bookie, and I know where he lives, too. How hard can it be to find them?’
The park was emptying as the light began to fade and the people and their dogs went home to their dinners. I was feeling let down by my failure to galvanise Ian Gallagher. I hadn’t expected this degree of caution and concern for correct procedure. I was beginning to think I’d misjudged my man. Was he thinking about reporting straight to his bosses and, instead of putting the pressure on Teacher, putting it on me first? I thought I had a strategy for stopping that but now I wasn’t so sure. Gallagher got up suddenly and began to walk around. He went over to the memorial stone and squinted at the faded names. Then he tossed his rolled-up newspaper at a rubbish bin and scored a direct hit.
Eventually he stopped and put one foot up on the bench. He rubbed his hand over his face and I could hear the bristles of his beard rasping. ‘It can’t work like that, Hardy. No chance. For one thing, I’m too buggered to go cowboying around tonight. For another, whatever you might think, a thing like this needs a bit of groundwork. Where does Teacher live?’
‘Randwick.’
‘OK. I’ll have to have a word to someone out there. Not tell them anything, mind, just get us a bit of elbow room.’
That made sense. I’d been keyed up for action and was already feeling the let-down and maybe, just-maybe, a little relief. I rolled a cigarette and fiddled with it, not wanting it.
‘Look,’ Gallagher said. ‘Your information sounds good. Teacher fits the bill perfectly. He’s a little guy and he used to be a gymnast or some fucking thing.’
‘Boxer,’ I said.
‘OK. I agree we should brace him, but not tonight. Tomorrow, after the meeting with Loggins. Let’s find out exactly what he has in mind.’