‘What d’you make of him? Would he need the novocaine?’
She studied the picture. ‘No chance. A real tough guy.’ She frowned. ‘He looks like someone I know.’
I sighed. ‘Michael Caine.’
‘That’s right! I loved him as the good Nazi.’ She gave me a challenging look across her cup. Her people left Germany sometime in the 1920s and went to Palestine to grow olives. They were interned by the British and put on ships going here and there. The Stoners ended up in Australia and became Stones. Hilde’s an anarchist freethinker, but she likes to play the Hun.
‘He was great,’ I said. ‘But this isn’t him. This bloke could mean big money for me if I find him… or if I don’t.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Neither do I. Well, I’m off to Bondi. Thanks for the coffee.’
‘Aren’t you going to eat?’
‘What do they eat in Bondi, do you reckon?’
She shrugged. ‘Dunno. Fish and chips, I suppose.’
‘Lovely.’
I reclaimed the picture, checked that I had some business cards and money and set out for Bondi where Sir Charles Kingsford Smith nearly got drowned and where John Singer did, maybe.
4
Bondi is flat country. The place is crowded with big blocks of flats, small ones, and divided houses in a pattern forced by the passionate desire of Australians to live by the sea as if they are reluctant to desert the fount of life. By day the suburb is a mixture of the smart and shabby; most of the buildings are painted white, but on some of them this gives way to green or grey at the sides. Some of the backs are grimy. Some of the gardens are smart and well watered; some feature palm trees tattered like old umbrellas in front of windows with faded, stained blinds.
Night changes all that. The neon glow compensates for the immense dark blankness of the sea. The haphazard levels of the buildings take on a foreign, exotic look and the penthouse dwellers sip their drinks high above the streets like fat, privileged eagles in their eyries.
I parked near the Regal again and strolled around the streets. There were too many cars for the air to be really pleasant, but the light breeze and the sea were doing their best. Up there in an eyrie with a scotch and a cigar, it would be pretty good. Food wouldn’t be a problem; along the Parade you could eat Russian, Lebanese, Italian, Chinese and Indonesian and have a choice of places to do it in. You could take most of those culinary delights away, too, as well as the standard varieties of chicken and burger.
This profusion of food blunted my appetite. I walked, reflecting that these Bondi people were a breed apart; they ate out and lived on top of each other. Next to food joints, secondhand furniture places seemed to be the most common businesses. Those flats needed furniture, and I wondered if it was cheaper tenth hand than third hand. I doubted it.
The pubs were doing good business. So were the coffee bars, and a disco joint had the air of a car with its motor idling, waiting for the action to start. There were plenty of Asians and a few big, broad-featured Maoris among the street people. Humanity flowed freely along the main street, trickled down across the grass to the pavilion and sand and clustered in humming, twittering groups outside places of entertainment. The background to it all was the steady, pounding rhythm of money being spent.
I had one good contact in Bondi. Aldo Tomasetti is the brother of Primo, who runs a tattoo parlour in the Cross and who lets out a space at the back for me to park my car. Aldo is in the same game.
I tramped up Bondi Road two blocks back from the Parade and turned north. Aldo’s place is a hole in the wall between a delicatessen and a place where women cater to the needs of men, credit cards accepted. The delicatessen was open and my appetite returned. I bought a sandwich and some orange juice and went into Aldo’s.
He was working on an arm, a big, wide, fair-skinned arm that already had some snakes and dragons on it. Aldo was adding an eagle. The arm’s owner grinned at me; he had a blank, comic-strip face and you could see why he wanted his body covered with pictures.
‘Hey, Cliff,’ Aldo said. ‘Good to see you.’
‘Excuse me eating,’ I said.
‘Have some wine with it. Flagon’s over there.’
I got some paper cups and filled three with the red.
‘You shouldn’t drink for twenty-four hours after being tattooed,’ Aldo said.
The customer looked alarmed and Aldo slapped his shoulder. ‘I’m joking. Drink up. How’s it going, Cliff?’
‘Okay. Do you remember a guy named Singer? Used to own this and that around here?’
‘Sure. Dead.’
‘So they say.’ I watched the tattooee carefully to see if there was any reaction to the name, but his face stayed blank. He seemed to be enjoying the wine, though. I finished the sandwich and wiped my mouth with the wrapping paper.
‘Did you ever hear anything different, Aldo? You know-boat offshore, frogmen, that sort of crap?’
‘No, nothing like that. Was he kinky?’
‘Not that I know. Why?’
‘Just thinking. That Commander Crabb slept in his frog suit. Did you know that?’
‘No.’ I was aware of how little I knew about Singer. I didn’t know how he talked, how he walked, what he drank. All essentials. I quizzed Aldo and he gave me the names of two hotels where Singer used to drink. One was on my list as one of his business interests. He also named three taxi drivers whose cabs Singer owned and he knew there were a good few more. There were no taxi drivers on my list.
To my great surprise, the customer spoke up brightly. ‘You oughter look for Leon, mister. He knows everything that happens around here.’
‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘Who’s he?’
‘Derro,’ Aldo said. ‘Wanders up and down. Funny guy. I once heard him speaking perfect Italian and you’d think he couldn’t talk at all. Pissed all the time.’
I finished my wine and put the juice on the floor.
‘Thanks again. Have some juice.’
‘I’ll give it to the girls next door for their vodka.’
I nodded and took a closer look at the tattoo. The tips of the eagle’s wings were being inked in with brilliant reds and blues. My grandfather had had naval tattoos acquired in Port Said when he was fourteen; he used to show them to me fifty years later. One carried the name of his ship and he was still proud of it. I wondered whether John Singer had any tattoos.
So I hit the street with my photo and my list and my expense account. Although the pubs were busy, they hadn’t reached that frenetic stage when everybody seems to be shouting while a full-scale brass band plays in the background. I had a discreet word to a barman here and a barmaid there, but drew blanks. I limited myself to half scotches with soda and ice, which made me belch but otherwise did little harm.
Mrs Singer was right; I did have something against pinball. The Punk Palace of Fun was a garish barn with strobe lights and brain-scrambling music. The machines gave out bleeps and blasts that the players seemed to understand and respond to. The non-players stared vacantly around them through their cigarette smoke; the users worked with the intensity of brain surgeons. The light sharpened their features, accentuated their youth. I felt the same kinship with them as I would with Chinese border guards.
At the back, in the shadows but not out of range of the noise, was a tiny recess with a table, a telephone and mine host. He was about thirty with sparse hair, a sunken chest and a grey, twitching face. He took a long look at the photo, which he held in a hand that vibrated like a musical saw.
‘Could be. I dunno.’
‘He’s the owner. How long have you been here?’
‘I dunno. Coupla years.’
‘Have you ever seen this man?’
‘I wouldn’t see the owner, man. I manage for a guy who rents. He might rent from someone else, for all I know.’
‘You might have seen him somewhere else. On the street?’
‘Could be.’
I got ten dollars out and put it on the table, keeping my index finger down hard on one corner of the note.