‘This is a blackman’s blood,’ said Tjalkalieri seriously, still holding the hanky.

‘That’s right,’ winked Norton.

‘Kilby’s?’

‘Right again.’

‘How did you manage it so quickly?’ Now it was their turn to be somewhat admonished.

‘I don’t think I ought to tell you,’ said Norton cheekily.

‘Suit yourself. Don’t tell us,’ shrugged Yarrawulla. ‘And we won’t tell you what we’ve got in the bag.’ He nodded to the black canvas carryall still sitting in the centre of the room.

Norton grinned and dragged a chair over in front of the others. ‘Wait till you hear this,’ he said as he sat himself down. ‘It’ll crack you up.’

Les told them everything he’d said and done from the moment he rang Eddie to when he walked out of the AWEC office. When he’d finished the others were openly laughing amongst themselves — but they were also visibly impressed.

‘Well I’ve got to hand it to you,’ said Yarrawulla. ‘That was terrific. And this.’ He ran his fingers lightly along one edge of the blood-smeared hanky. ‘With the fresh blood on it. You’ve got no idea what this means. It’s perfect.’

‘I wouldn’t mind meeting this Eddie Salita fellow too,’ said Mumbi.

‘I’m certain Eddie’d like to meet you blokes as well,’ chuckled Norton.

The three men suddenly went into a spirited conversation between themselves, in their native tongue again, grabbing at the hanky and pointing and looking towards the balcony every now and again as they spoke. Then just as suddenly as they started, they stopped and once again all three stared at Norton. This time their mood had changed into deadly seriousness.

‘Les,’ said Tjalkalieri. ‘What time will Kilby be in his office till tonight. Did he say?’

‘I don’t know,’ shrugged Norton. ‘I didn’t ask. It’s nearly half past four. I suppose they’d be getting ready to go home now.’

‘Do you think you could use that phone in the foyer again and find out.’

‘Sure,’ shrugged Norton again. ‘Why?’

‘We’re thinking of getting a beam going right now. While we’ve got this fresh blood and he’s so close. It’s too good a chance to miss. We could make the spell that strong, nothing could break it.’

‘Righto. I’ll duck straight down and ring up.’

Fishing around in his pockets for more change, Norton trotted down to the yellow phone in the foyer.

I suppose they’d be in the Yellow Pages thought Norton as he picked up the heavy phone book. But what would it be under? I’ll try the White Pages first. He put the first book down and was about to try the other when he had to smile. Tucked into a corner of the small glass-framed list of advertisers above the phone was a white business card. Superimposed on the red, yellow and black Aboriginal flag was Aboriginal Welfare and Entitlement Council. Percy Kilby, Secretary, was in one corner and the phone number was in the other. Well that figures, thought Les. It’s only a hop, step and a jump across the road. They’d have to come in here for a drink now and again. Still smiling, he dropped the coins in the slot and pressed the buttons. It wasn’t long before a gruff voice came on the other end which he recognised as Frank’s.

‘Hello. Aboriginal Welfare Council.’

‘Yes, it’s Mid-City courier service here. We have a parcel to go out to your office. Could you tell us what time you close tonight please?’

‘Hold on.’

Frank put the phone down in the front room and walked into Kilby’s office.

‘Perce. There’s a courier service on the phone wants to know what time we’re leaving here tonight.’

Kilby’s shifty brown eyes darted across to the tarpaulin-covered cartons stacked up against the wall.

‘Knobby Jones’s coming over to have a look at some of those hot VCRs at five-thirty. I suppose we’ll be here till six.’

‘Righto.’ Frank went back into the front room and picked up the phone. ‘We’ll be here till six.’

‘Thank you.’

Norton hung up, then took the stairs two at a time.

‘They’ll be there till six o’clock.’

Tjalkalieri took a quick glance at his watch. ‘That gives us just on an hour and a half.’ He clapped his hands together quickly and looked at the others. ‘Right. Let’s go.’

As one the boys jumped up off the lounge, Mumbi and Yarrawulla went into their bedroom while Tjalkalieri began to unzip the canvas carryall.

‘What happens now?’ asked Norton.

‘Now? Now we start to earn our fifty grand. We start taking away Percy Kilby’s Kurinata.’

‘His what?’

‘His Kurinata. His life essence. You wanted to know what was in the bag. Well grab a seat, keep out of the road and I’ll show you.’

Norton moved a seat closer to the wall and eased himself down to watch as Tjalkalieri began to unpack the bag.

The first things he pulled out looked like three wooden shields, painted in a criss-cross diamond pattern in red, brown, yellow and white ochre. Some of the diamonds were coloured in, others were outlined with lines of dots, giving it an almost glowing effect. He positioned the shields around the room, but at an angle so they all faced the balcony.

‘What are they?’ asked Norton.

‘Tjuringa boards,’ replied Tjalkalieri, returning to the bag. ‘Sort of shields. They help to protect us from the power of the bone.’

Next to come out of the bag were two small animal-skin sacks full of fine red sand and tied at the top like a schoolkid’s marble bag. Tjalkalieri measured out a dozen handfuls which he placed around the room in the shape of a half diamond, the point facing away from the balcony.

‘What’s that? Just plain sand?’

‘It’s desert sand from right out in Central Australia, where the Pitjanjatjara tribe used to live. Sacred ground.’ Tjalkalieri turned to Norton with a calm but sinister smile as he took the last fistful of sand and let it run slowly through his hand onto the floor. ‘A man’s life goes like the sand, Les. Sometimes fast. Sometimes slow. But when a man is pointed — that’s the end of him.’ Tjalkalieri opened his hand and let the sand run through.

A slight shiver ran up Norton’s spine at the odd look on the blue-eyed Aborigine’s face and the quiet yet deadly serious tone of his voice. It then occurred to him just what he was dealing with, and what he’d so far taken so lightly. These three men were going to kill another man by mental telepathy. Percy Kilby was going to be slowly murdered and not even know what was happening. Murder over a distance by thought transference. No weapon, no evidence, no motive. And no trace of the killers. The perfect crime. Norton stared at Tjalkalieri in awe as he bent back over the bag. And white people demeaned and patronised the full-blooded Australian desert Aborigine. Looking on them as nothing more than ignorant, dirty savages. Almost encouraging them to drink cheap booze and sniff petrol, then stand back and laugh as they died and their culture going back hundreds of thousands of years — a culture so breathtakingly beautiful, yet so simple it’s almost an enigma — is plundered and destroyed. What an unbelievable paradox. On the one hand they were simple, aimless natives, running around in the desert not far removed from the Stone Age. On the other hand their minds were thousands of years, light years, in front of the white man’s. To have the ability to kill someone by mental telepathy. Another chill ran up Norton’s spine and he felt as if the room had suddenly turned several degrees cooler.

Tjalkalieri dipped into the bag again and brought out two shapeless objects wrapped in a sheet of white cloth. When he opened it up they looked like a pair of fluffy housewife’s slippers, only in a dusty discoloured beige.

‘I know what they are,’ said Norton. ‘I’ve seen photos. They’re Kurdaitcha boots.’

‘That’s right Les.’

‘They’re funny looking things. What do you make them out of?’

Tjalkalieri carefully ran his hands over the boots as he slowly and easily placed them on the floor. ‘Emu and cockatoo feathers. The real downy and fluffy ones, held together by human blood. The rest is made from kangaroo and euroglider fur.’

‘Human blood?’

‘That’s right Les.’

Tjalkalieri then went back to the bag and just as carefully brought out another object, also wrapped in white cloth, which he tenderly placed on the floor next to the boots. ‘This is it, Les,’ he smiled. ‘This is the big one. This is the bone.’

Painstakingly he unwrapped it and laid it out on the sheet of cotton. It was slender and white, about twenty centimetres long and made from the forearm of a dead woman. It was ground to a point at one end and at the other was a blob of a black resinous substance something like pitch. Attached to the bone with more of the tarry substance was a length of firmly plaited, light brown chord, about half as long again as the bone. The fragile little object, if somewhat macabre, appeared innocent enough, but there was a definite and esoteric aura radiating from it — an aura that defied description and explanation.

‘So that’s it eh?’ said Norton, more than a little awestruck. ‘The dreaded bone.’

‘Yeah,’ replied Tjalkalieri, crouched on his haunches looking down on it. ‘That’s it all right.’

Norton couldn’t help himself. He had to get up and walk over for a closer look. ‘What’s all that black stuff?’ he said, pointing to the end. ‘It looks like tar.’

‘It’s a sort of glue. You make it out of spinifex bushes. You beat them with a stick, burn them, then blow away the ashes and collect the residue. When it cools off it goes as hard as pitch.’

‘Yeah,’ said Norton slowly, now more curious than ever. ‘And what’s that bit of rope, or whatever it is, made out of?’

‘Human hair.’

‘Human hair?’ Norton had to think for a moment as he studied it. ‘But it’s a sort of brown colour. All you people have got black hair. C’ept for the kids. They’ve got sort of tawny hair.’

Tjalkalieri smiled and gave Norton a wink. ‘Let’s just say it’s a bit of sneak go. Mother-in-law’s hair.’

‘Oh.’ Norton shrugged and continued to stare, fascinated, at the weird object.

A movement to his left caught Norton’s eye. He turned around to see Mumbi and Yarrawulla had come back out of the bedroom. But it was a different looking Mumbi and Yarrwulla from the two natives that had got on Kingsley Sheehan’s plane earlier in the day.

The tracksuits were gone and both men were stripped down to black-cotton G-strings. Their black string headbands, the sign of a circumcised man, were still wrapped around their heads, only they were now adorned with grey and white falcon feathers. A small piece of bone, about five centimetres long, was pushed through the fleshy part beneath their noses and red, white and black ochre paint had been liberally applied to the upper parts of their bodies. Mumbi had three black circles — one over each breast and another painted over his navel — which were joined by parallel black lines and outlined with white dots. Yarrawulla had two rows of red circles, which were also outlined with white ones, running across his collarbones down to his groin. Standing together they looked like they’d just stepped out of the pages of a book on ancient Aboriginal mythology.

Norton stood back and blinked as they walked across the room to Tjalkalieri. ‘Jesus, that was a quick paint job,’ he said.

‘We don’t muck around when we get going,’ replied Mumbi.

‘You got the stone?’ said Yarrawulla to Tjalkalieri.

‘Yeah. Right here.’

Tjalkalieri produced what looked like a small piece of sharpened quartz, and while the others held their arms out he made a small incision in the vein near the fleshy parts of their elbow. Then he did the same to himself. Once the blood started to run all three let it drip over the bone, making it look even more sinister.

‘Righto,’ said Tjalkalieri. ‘Who wants to wear the boots?’

‘I suppose I may as well go first,’ said Yarrawulla, sitting down on the lounge and pushing his feet out in front of him.

As he did so Tjalkalieri took hold of the long skinny toe on each foot, next to the big one, and reefed it back with an audible crunch. Yarrawulla closed his eyes and winced but didn’t make a sound.

‘Jesus, what are you doing?’ asked Les.

‘Dislocating his toes’ replied Tjalkalieri. ‘You have to before you’re allowed to wear the Kurdaitcha boots. It’s okay, I’ll set them back later.’

Norton gave his big red head a shake. ‘Shit! What next?’

Yarrawulla slipped the feathered Kurdaitcha boots on and stood up as Tjalkalieri carefully handed him the bone and opened the door to the balcony. With Mumbi next to him, Yarrawulla took the bone in his left hand, the length of chord in his right, and moved over to the open door where he pointed it out across the balcony towards the AWEC office and started moving it around almost like he was playing a fish on a rod. Then with Tjalkalieri standing just behind them like he was giving them some sort of encouragement, he and Mumbi began to chant in their native tongue, at the same time performing an odd little dance, shuffling quickly from one foot to the other.

Norton watched them from a discreet distance for about five minutes before going over and sitting down on one of the chairs. After another ten minutes or so, while the chanting continued, Tjalkalieri came over and squatted down next to him.

‘How’s it going?’ asked Les.

‘Good. We’ve got him.’

‘What? You mean he’s dead already?’

‘No.’ Tjalkalieri shook his head. ‘It doesn’t work like that. We’ve only just made the point. The contact. It won’t hit him for a while yet. We’ll go for a little longer, then we’ll knock off and start again tomorrow. But Jesus, we’ve got a good point going. One of the best ever.’

‘That’s good,’ nodded Les. ‘So how long do you reckon it’ll take?’

Tjalkalieri closed one eye and picked at his chin for a moment. ‘Monday maybe. Probably Tuesday. Wednesday at the most.’

Norton was visibly impressed. ‘Tuesday eh? Shit that’s all right.’

‘We got off to a good start. It makes all the difference.’ Tjalkalieri winked up at Norton and gave him a pat on the leg. ‘Even though we were bagging you before, you did the right thing moving us into this dump.’

They sat there for a few more minutes in silence as Mumbi and Yarrawulla continued to chant and perform their odd little dance. Finally Les spoke.

‘What’re they singing anyway, Chalky?’

‘The chant? Oh the words go something like this:

‘Percy Kilby. May your heart be rent asunder.

May your backbone be split open and your ribs torn asunder.

May your head and throat be split open.

May your liver bleed and be drowned in its own blood. May your bones become like sand.

May you be sick and still hungry when you eat.

May you howl like a dingo.

May you groan like a bullfrog.’

Tjalkalieri shrugged. ‘You know, Les, the usual thing. You’ve heard one chant you’ve heard the lot.’

Norton smiled but shook off a chill running through his body at the same time. ‘Shit that is a nice song, isn’t it? Who wrote the words. Paul McCartney?’

‘Rodgers and Hammerstein,’ winked Tjalkalieri. ‘I can’t see it getting in the top forty though.’

They continued watching in silence for what must have been almost half an hour. Then, as abruptly as they started, Mumbi and Yarrawulla stopped.

‘Well if that don’t get him, nothing will,’ said Yarrawulla, closing the balcony door before he turned around.

‘Yeah, it was a good point,’ said Tjalkalieri, rising to his feet. ‘A very good contact. I could sense it from over here.’

Norton stood up also. ‘Hey how come you didn’t join in the sing-along anyway?’

‘My turn tomorrow,’ smiled Tjalkalieri. ‘I get to dress up in all different gear and make-up.’

‘Yeah?’

‘Too right. I come out dressed up like Boy George. White smock with all numbers on it. Funny little black hat. Paper ribbons. Everything.’ Tjalkalieri gave Norton a cheeky wink. ‘You wait till you see it Les. It’s a gas.’

Norton had to chuckle at Tjalkalieri’s sarcasm.

‘Tell you what,’ said Mumbi, running a hand over his face. ‘I could go a cup of tea. That chanting knocks the shit out of you.’

‘Yeah, I don’t suppose they’d have a kettle in this brothel would they Les?’ asked Yarrawulla. ‘I’m fangin’ for a cuppa.’

‘I wouldn’t mind one myself, to tell you the truth,’ added Tjalkalieri. ‘Can you do something there Les?’

Norton stared at the three of them, shaking his head almost in disbelief; especially at Mumbi and Yarrawulla. For the last half an hour or so they’d been totally absorbed in singing some bloke to a cruel, diabolical death and now they’d knocked off for a cup of tea. Just like that. Like they were working on the roads or something and suddenly noticed it was time for smoko. Knock off and put the Billy on. Les shook his head again.

‘So now you want a cup of bloody tea, eh?’

‘Yeah,’ intoned Tjalkalieri. ‘Why. What’s wrong with that?’

‘Nothing I don’t suppose,’ shrugged Norton. ‘It just seems a bit odd, that’s all.’

‘A bit odd?’ queried Mumbi. ‘What do you mean — a bit odd? We’ve just been chanting our guts out for the last half a bloody hour, covered in paint and feathers and shit. Christ, surely we’re entitled to a cup of tea aren’t we?’

‘Yeah my oath,’ said Yarrawulla, plonking himself down on the lounge. ‘We work strictly to union rules here son. Half an hour on. Half an hour off. Don’t start trying to break down conditions on us Les.’

‘Union rules. Break down conditions,’ nodded Les sourly. ‘I suppose the next thing you’ll be wanting a 17.5 per cent loading on that fifty bloody grand.’

‘Well,’ smiled Tjalkalieri. ‘We weren’t going to mention that part of our award at this stage, Les. But seeing as you’ve brought it up.’

Norton threw his hands up in the air. ‘Ohh get stuffed will you.’ He took a glance at his watch, now back on his left wrist. ‘Look, it’s nearly six o’clock. And I don’t like your chances of getting a cup of tea in this joint.’

‘What about room service?’ chuckled Mumbi.

‘Room service. In here?’ said Yarrawulla. ‘You’d get better room service on death row.’

Norton ignored both of them. ‘Why don’t I duck out and get us some food and we’ll have dinner? Some Chinese or something. And I’ll get some cartons of tea while I’m at it.’

Tjalkalieri turned to the others, extremely po-faced. ‘What do you reckon, comrades? Are we going to accept this blatant breakdown in our award and conditions? No tea supplied.’

‘It’s a lot to have to accept from the management,’ agreed Mumbi, sitting down on the lounge next to Yarrawulla. ‘What do you reckon brother?’

‘I don’t know mate. I don’t like it. I reckon we’d only be scabbing on ourselves if we accept it. But,’ Yarrawulla winked over at the others, ‘jobs are hard to get these days I suppose, so I guess we’ll just have to put up with these sweatshop conditions.’

‘Thanks,’ said Norton, going to his bag and getting out a notepad and biro. ‘Now if you workers would just like to tell the management what you want to eat, I’ll go out and get it. Plus your cups of fuckin’ tea of course.’

Les wrote down what they wanted — fried rice, soups, sweet and sour, etc., plus his own — then put the list in his shirt pocket.

‘Don’t be too long either, will you Les,’ said Tjalkalieri, watching Norton move towards the door. ‘As work delegate, I can tell you the members aren’t very happy about what’s going on.’

Les paused as he opened the door and glared back at the three of them. ‘You know the unions are fucking this country don’t you,’ he said, then closed the door and disappeared down the stairs.

As Norton was heading up Regent Street in search of a Chinese takeaway, Knobby Jones had pulled up in his Ford station wagon outside the AWEC office to view the hot VCRs. A very tall, powerfully built man in his early forties, Jones too had a broken nose and a bit of scar tissue around his eyes; a legacy from his football days but mostly from his dealings in the Sydney underworld. However, unlike his two dubious business acquaintances, Jones had thinning dark hair, going grey, and he was white.

‘G’day Knobby. How’s things mate?’ smiled Kilby as the tall figure strode into his office.

‘Pretty good, Perce. How are you? G’day Frank.’

‘Knobby.’

‘So this is them, eh?’ asked Jones. He moved towards the VCRs stacked against the wall, raised the tarpaulin and gave them a quick once-over. ‘Yeah they look all right. How many did you say was here again?’

‘Thirty,’ replied Kilby. ‘Twenty Nationals and ten Sanyos. All the grouse Knobby, and straight out of the container.’

‘And what’d you want for them did you say?’

‘Well. They’re worth 900 each in the shops. A third of the ticket’s nine grand. Say eight and a half the lot. What do you reckon?’

Jones nodded his head at the cartons in a look of grudging approval. ‘Yeah, fair enough.’

‘In fact the Sanyos have got infra-red remote control. Here, I’ll show you.’

Kilby rose from his desk, walked over to the VCRs and bent down to point to the writing on the side of one of the cartons.

‘There you are, you see that? Remote control. Only the very best for you, Knobby old mate.’

Kilby straightened up to smile at Jones, but the smile unexpectedly vanished to be replaced by a look of pure eye-bulging shock. He sucked in a choking gasp of air and fell against the cartons clutching at the small of his back.

‘Ohh, Jesus Christ!’ he screamed, his eyes jammed shut with pain and disbelief.

Astonished at the suddenness of it all, Frank stood and watched his stricken boss for a moment or two. ‘Shit! Are you all right Perce?’ he finally said, worry written all over his face.

Even Jones, who was a hard man, was concerned at the agonised look on Kilby’s face. Like Frank he too could see that Kilby was in a great deal of pain. ‘What’s the matter Perce?’ he asked.

‘Ohh, my fuckin’ back,’ Kilby managed to gasp out.

Kilby had no sooner said that when he doubled up and began clutching at his stomach. He let out another shriek of agony and fell down on his knees against the wall. Frank and Jones exchanged worried, puzzled looks for a few seconds as they stared at Kilby. Then Frank bent down to help his suffering boss.

‘No, don’t touch me,’ cried Kilby quickly. ‘Don’t touch me.’

With the others watching apprehensively, Kilby crouched for a few moments, eyes clenched tight with agony. Then as suddenly as the pain came on, it disappeared. Kilby blinked his eyes open in astonishment for a few seconds and slowly got to his feet. The pain had gone but his mouth felt dry and bitter and a lot of the colour had drained from his face.

‘Are you all right Perce?’ asked Frank.

‘Yeah, what was that all about?’ asked Jones.

‘I don’t know,’ replied Kilby, still running his hands gingerly over his stomach and back. ‘I’ve never felt anything like it. It was as if someone had just hit me in the back with an axe — then stabbed me in the guts with a red-hot poker. Christ, talk about pain. You’ve got no idea.’

‘You might’ve slipped a disc or something for a second when you bent down,’ suggested Jones. ‘I’ve done that. It’s a bastard.’

‘Yeah. But what about the pain in my stomach?’ Kilby walked over and slumped down behind his desk.

Jones shook his head and shrugged a reply. ‘I dunno. Anyway, Perce. I’ve got to piss off. I’ve got a million other things to do. I’ll send Jolly around to pick this stuff up in the morning. He’ll give you the dough then. Okay?’

‘Yeah, righto.’ Kilby made a gesture with his hand from behind the desk, scarcely looking up. He was still visibly shaken. ‘I’ll see you later, Knobby. Frank’ll see you to the door. I’m still not feeling the best.’

‘That’s okay,’ replied Jones. ‘I’ll give you a call through the week. Take care. See you Perce.’

‘Yeah. See you Knobby.’

After he’d seen Jones to the door, Frank returned and gave his boss another worried look. ‘You feelin’ all right now Perce?’

‘Yeah, I don’t feel too bad. But Jesus, I’m fucked if I know what hit me just then. Fair dinkum, I’ve never felt pain like it.’

Frank nodded sympathetically. ‘I don’t suppose you’ll feel like having that feed now.’

Kilby slowly brought his gaze up to his heavy. ‘That’s the funny part about it, Frank. I’m hungrier now than I ever was.’

Norton didn’t have too much trouble finding a half-decent Chinese restaurant just around the corner from the hotel. He ordered the food and while it was being prepared went to a hamburger shop opposite and ordered three polystyrene cups of tea, taking a punt before the owner put the lids on that the boys all took milk and sugar. The girl in the restaurant gave him a cardboard carton for the food so he stopped at the bottle shop in the hotel and bought a dozen stubbies of Fourex; not taking a punt on the boy’s beer tastes this time... if they didn’t like Fourex they could go without. As it happened, the boys weren’t real keen on the Queensland fighting foam, though they managed to force down two bottles each. They gave the tea the thumbs up however, and on a rating of one to ten gave the Chinese food a begrudging four and a half, not that they left too much in the containers when they’d finished.

Then the workers sent the management down to get another dozen bottles of beer — Stag Lager this time — which they demolished pretty smartly while they sat around watching TV. The boys told Les they were tired not only from the chanting and the plane trip, but they honestly couldn’t handle the polluted air and city tap-water after Binjiwunyawunya so they were all in bed before ten. Les joined them not long after, making two phonecalls before he did.

The first was to Warren, to ask sarcastically if he could manage without him and were there any messages. Warren said he could, and there weren’t. The next was to Price at the club to make sure Danny had turned up and to tell him everything appeared to be going to plan. Price said everything was shipshape at the club but he still sounded sceptical about Les’s strange scheme and would liked to have known a bit more about what he was doing with that $100,000. Eddie was sitting in the office opposite Price and he too was dying to know a bit more, but Norton just laughed saying not to worry he’d tell them some more on Saturday night and it would all be over one way or the other by Wednesday.

‘Eddie. What do you reckon the big red-headed prick’s up to?’ said Price, drumming his fingers on the desk as he stared at the phone after Les had hung up.

‘I’m buggered if I know Price,’ replied the little hit man, giving his head a shake as he too glanced absently at the phone. ‘It’s something bloody weird though. He rang me earlier wanting to know how to get a blood sample from that Kilby without him knowing it.’

‘Blood?’ Price screwed up his face and switched his gaze from the phone to Eddie. ‘What in the hell would he want Kilby’s blood for? What the hell are they up to over there in Redfern? Black magic or some fuckin’ thing?’

Eddie let out a bit of a snigger. ‘I don’t know to be sure, Price,’ he said slowly, ‘but it just might be, you know. It just might be.’

The two of them continued to stare at the phone in silence for a few moments while outside the office the sounds of the Kelly Club coming to life echoed softly through the frosted glass door and the polished red-cedar panelling.

While Les and the boys had been getting into their mundane Chinese takeaway earlier, Percy Kilby and Frank were seated comfortably in the Tai-Ping restaurant, spending what was left of Norton’s, alias Vernon Stroud’s, donation to AWEC, and enjoying the very best the renowned Chinese restaurant had to offer. Kilby’s earlier discomfort had not been completely forgotten, it had been pushed aside as they both ordered up plenty with money being no object. They’d finished the triple-decker prawns and lobster medallions in chilli and garlic, accompanied by a chilled bottle of ’73 Taylor’s white burgundy, and the waiter had just deposited their fingerbowls on the table and two cracked mudcrabs with black-bean sauce, steamed to perfection and smelling good enough to turn the heads of the diners at the surrounding tables.

‘Jesus, how good are these,’ said Frank after he’d finished his first delicious mouthful.

‘Yeah I know,’ replied Kilby, his eyes rolling with delight as he tore into his. ‘They’re the grouse aren’t they?’

Frank raised his glass of wine and grinned disparagingly at his boss. ‘Here’s to the Chartered Accountants Against Apartheid.’

Kilby raised his glass and grinned back. ‘Here’s to apartheid in general. It and those white do-gooders all full of shit. They’re the best thing that’s ever happened. Let’s hope to Christ South Africa stays flavour of the month for the next ten years. We’ll be eating here every night.’

They both threw back their heads and roared laughing, then continued enjoying their cracked crab in almost silent ecstasy.

Frank and Kilby were just about finished and ready to order something else to drink when Kilby unexpectedly dropped his last piece of crab back onto his plate. His sauces-pattered mouth gaped open, his eyes widened with apprehension, and he began to stare into space. He gripped the edge of the table tightly and fearfully as his stomach began to heave violently as though he was attempting to hold back a series of uncontrollable hiccups. Next thing, his breath started coming out in short, choking gasps and his mouth opened and closed noisily like he was trying to belch and swallow at the same time.

Frank stopped eating and stared at his boss’s convulsions in disbelief. This was the second strange attack in less than four hours. ‘Hey Perce,’ he asked nervously. ‘Are you all right mate?’

Kilby had let go of the table and was now clutching fearfully at his stomach. ‘Frank. Help me out to the toilet will you? For Christ’s sake!’ he gasped between bouts of heaving.

‘Sure mate.’

Frank quickly got up from his seat and slipped his arm around his boss’s waist. With Kilby almost doubled over in agony as he clutched at his stomach, Frank helped and guided him to the toilet as swiftly as he could, through the tables, past the astonished looks of the other diners and almost knocking over a waiter coming from the kitchen as they stumbled past.

Once he was in the toilet, Kilby burst into the nearest cubicle and began vomiting. Terrible, searing retches that sounded almost as if he was going to bring up his intestines. This gasping, horrendous sound was broken now and again when Kilby violently broke wind. He was in an appalling state. All Frank could do was stand there helplessly and watch his ashen-faced boss slumped against the wall of the cubicle bringing his heart up.

After about five minutes Kilby stopped. He let out a deep moan of relief and turned to Frank, who could scarcely believe the gaunt face staring at him from the cubicle. His boss’s eyes were puffed and bloodshot; his dark brown face had turned a dirty slate grey; his hair was damp and sweat was running down his cheeks and dripping off his chin. He staggered across to the wash basins, turned on a tap and began slopping cold water across his face while he gulped the odd mouthful down.

Worry all over his face, Frank watched Kilby in silence for a few minutes. ‘How are you feeling now mate?’ he finally asked. ‘You any better?’ He had never seen his usually fit and tough boss in such a state.

Kilby didn’t answer at first. He leant face down in the basin, still gasping and spluttering water as he tried to get his breath back. After a while he tilted his head back and drew in a deep breath of relief. ‘Yeah. I think so.’ He blinked groggily.

‘Must’ve been that bloody crab, eh?’

Kilby shook his head lightly. ‘No it wasn’t that,’ he sighed. ‘They were only fresh in this morning. I don’t know what it is. But Jesus, I’ve never spewed like that in my life.’

‘You don’t have to tell me. I could see it. It was terrible.’

‘In my back pocket, Frank. Get my wallet and go out and pay the bill. Then come back and get me will you. I’ll wait here. I’m still too fucked to move.’

‘Yeah, righto mate.’

Frank took the money, walked out to the front desk and paid the bill. The head waiter, having seen Frank helping his boss to the toilets and knowing Kilby was a regular, came over and asked if everything was all right; he was as surprised as he was worried because he knew the quality and freshness of the food was second to none — especially the mud crabs. Frank assured him there had been nothing wrong with the food, his boss was just sick from the flu, that’s all, and he’d be fine once he was outside and got some fresh air.

Kilby was still propped in front of the wash basins, slopping water over his face, when Frank returned. Oddly enough, considering the horrendous bilious attack he’d just been through, Kilby had almost regained his composure. The colour was back in his face and his stomach didn’t feel too bad even though only minutes before he’d almost turned it inside out. Frank had his arm around his waist but Kilby was almost able to walk through the restaurant and out to the car under his own steam.

‘Yeah, it’s a funny one, Perce’ said Frank, once they were inside the AWEC Toyota panel van and he was driving his boss home to Stanmore. ‘You looked half dead only a little while ago. Now you don’t look too bad.’

‘Yeah. It’s got me fucked. And you’re not going to believe this, Frank.’ Kilby shook his head and gazed out the window for a few moments before he spoke. ‘You know how crook I was back there at the Tai-Ping, and I brought everything in me up.’

‘Yeah.’

‘Well now I’m starvin’ fuckin’ hungry again. In fact you can pull over at that hamburger shop up ahead. I’m going to get half a chicken.’

Frank switched on the indicator and now it was his turn to shake his head. ‘I think you’d better see a doctor tomorrow Perce.’

Norton was up around seven-thirty the following morning. Considering the narrowness of the bed, the one lousy pillow and the lumpy mattress, he had slept quite soundly. Tjalkalieri was already in the bathroom when Les climbed into the tracksuit he’d brought with him. Mumbi and Yarrawulla were seated on the lounge in their tracksuits also, listening to the radio when Les walked into the main room. They looked like two men who had just lost their entire life’s savings at the races and picked up a purse with two dollars in it as they left the track.

‘Fair dinkum. This is a nice how-do-you-bloody-well-do, this is,’ Mumbi grumbled as soon as he spotted Les.

‘Oh hello. What the bloody hell’s up now?’ yawned Norton.

‘No cup of bloody tea in the morning. That’s what’s up,’ replied Yarrawulla.

‘Cup of tea. Cup of tea. Fair dinkum, you’re like a lot of old sheilas.’

‘Hey don’t worry about the old sheilas,’ said Tjalkalieri, who had just walked into the room. ‘No cup of tea. No chant.’

‘My oath,’ nodded Yarrawulla. ‘We are not amused.’

‘Oh for Christ’s sake,’ said Norton. ‘Just give me five minutes to have a crap and clean my teeth and I’ll go out and get you a gallon of the shit. Anything to keep you happy.’

‘Get some fruit while you’re down there,’ said Mumbi. ‘Some apples and oranges and that.’

‘And a packet of those muesli bars, too, Les,’ said Yarrawulla. ‘I don’t mind them. They’re all right.’

‘Are you sure there’s nothing else you want?’

‘No. Not for the moment,’ shrugged Tjalkalieri, who had now joined the others on the lounge. ‘But don’t be too far away at lunchtime.’

‘Oh I’ll be here, don’t worry. You won’t be able to miss me. I’ll have my butler’s uniform on.’ Norton laughed as he shook his head in disgust and went to the bathroom.

When Jolly pulled Knobby Jones’s panel van up onto the footpath outside the AWEC office around eight a.m., exhaust fumes, dust and other pollutants were just starting to thicken the air around Redfern, drifting off up into the windless sunny sky to form the yellow blanket of smog that generally settles over Sydney by mid-morning. Jolly, a medium-built, darkhaired guy who always liked to dress well, was oblivious to all this. All he had on his mind was getting a packet of cigarettes before he started loading up all those hot VCRs. He sprinted across to the shops just around the corner from the Thames Tavern.

Jolly, whose real name was Mick Rodgers, got his nickname because he was a pretty happy sort of a bloke. Someone once referred to him as Jolly Rodgers and somehow the name stuck. Jolly wasn’t real keen about work, especially the nine-to-five caper, so he generally did a bit of SP or whatever else he could get his hands on, hanging around with various shifties in the Eastern suburbs. Which was how he got to know Les Norton and how he got to be moving hot VCRs for Knobby Jones. But Jolly — happy, mildly dishonest or whatever he was — was more than a little surprised when he almost bumped into a familiar red-headed figure ambling around the corner into Regent Street. A tall red-headed figure carrying a cardboard carton full of fruit, biscuits and takeaway cups of tea under his massive right arm.

‘Hello Les,’ he said happily. ‘Fancy bumping into you here. How’re you going?’

Norton too was taken a little by surprise, and not all that overjoyed, at someone seeing him lurking around the streets of Redfern. ‘Oh... g’day Mick,’ he half smiled. ‘How’s things?’

‘Pretty good. What’re you up to?’ Jolly couldn’t help but notice the extra stubble on Norton’s jaw and couldn’t help but think it a little odd him being up so early in the morning... especially seeing as he worked so late on Thursday night. But Jolly always minded his own business and only asked more or less out of polite conversation.

‘Nothing really,’ replied Norton cautiously. ‘I was just driving through so I thought I’d stop and get some fruit. An old mate of mine’s got a shop just round the corner.’

‘Oh.’ Jolly noticed the four paper cups of tea in the carton, plus the packets of biscuits, but decided not to say anything.

‘What about yourself Mick?’

‘I’m just delivering a bit of stuff for a bloke. That’s all.’

‘Oh.’ Norton knew of Jolly’s somewhat shifty demeanour but declined to elaborate on that either.

They had a brief conversation while the cars whizzed past and the pedestrians scurried across Regent Street to the station. Then Les said he’d better make a move as he was illegally parked down the road.

‘You going down the Sheaf on the weekend, Mick?’

‘Yeah. I’ll be there Sunday for sure.’

‘Well I’ll have a beer with you then, eh?’

Fancy someone spotting me in Redfern of all bloody places thought Les as he turned into the hotel once he made sure Jolly was out of sight. And this hour of the bloody morning too. Oh well. Can’t see him making any difference. Norton walked to the stairs only to find someone else he knew coming down. Ross Bailey, the owner.

‘Hello George,’ Ross said cheerfully, rattling a great ring of keys in his hand. ‘How are you this morning?’

‘Oh g’day Ross,’ Norton replied, wondering who he was going to bump into next. ‘I’m good thanks.’

‘Everything all right? Room okay?’

‘Yeah, good as gold thanks Ross.’

‘I’ll have the girl change the sheets and vacuum the place out for you later.’

Norton’s brow knitted for a moment as he thought over Bailey’s last statement. If a cleaning lady came into the room and saw the boys running around covered in blood, paint and bird feathers and chanting away like demons with bones shoved through their noses she’d be likely to flip out. And if she vacuumed up all the little piles of sacred sand it could stuff up the proceedings as well. Yes, they could certainly do without a cleaning lady in room 9 at the moment.

Norton took the hotel owner gently by the elbow. ‘Ah, look Ross,’ he said easily. ‘I was going to mention this to you earlier. Those three blokes in that room up there come from this really primitive tribe from right out in the middle of nowhere. They’re almost still in the Stone Age.’

‘So?’

‘Well. One of their tribal customs — and a very strict one — is no women in their living quarters.’

Bailey looked at Les blankly. ‘Is that right?’

‘My oath. In fact I’m glad I bumped into you, because if a woman had of happened to have walked into that room, there’d be the biggest blow-up ever.’

‘Go on.’

‘You better believe it. If they ever catch any sheilas in their living quarters back in the desert they cut their bloody throats.’

‘Christ!’ Bailey looked at Les incredulously for a moment, then a bit of a twinkle began to form in his eye. ‘Listen George,’ he said, moving a little closer. ‘This mightn’t be any of my business. But how do they get on when they want to have a root?’

‘Mate. They only fornicate on special, ceremonial occasions. Two or three times a year at the most.’

‘Fair dinkum?’ Bailey, the sort of bloke who loved nothing better than a bit of business and would screw just about anything he could get his hands on, was somewhat taken aback by this. He continued to stare at Les and then a deep, lecherous chuckle began to rumble out of his throat. ‘I’ll tell you what,’ he laughed. ‘I’d like to be around when they go off. I reckon it’d be like a twenty-one gun salute.’

‘You’re not wrong there,’ laughed Norton, giving Bailey a slap on the shoulder. ‘When they’re finished it looks like a Mr Whippy van’s just been overturned in the tent.’

Bailey threw back his head and roared laughing. ‘Anyway George,’ he said, returning Les’s friendly slap on the shoulder, ‘I’d better get going too. I’ll get the girl to leave the sheets and that outside the door. Okay?’

‘That’ll be great thanks Ross.’

Bailey paused for a moment. ‘Listen George. If you ah... want a couple of flagons of plonk for ’em or something. Just go down and see the girl in the bottle shop. On the house,’ he added with a wink.

‘No, that’s all right’ smiled Les. ‘Hey, there is something you could get us though.’

‘Sure. What is it?’

‘Could you get us an electric kettle and a teapot?’

‘Sure, no worries. I’ll leave it outside the room with the sheets. I’ll get some cups and all that too.’

‘Good on you. Well, I’ll see you later Ross.’

‘Yeah. See you after, George.’ Hoping to Christ the boys’ tea hadn’t turned too cold by now, Les took the stairs up to room 9 three at a time.

Across the road in the AWEC office, Percy Kilby could have been a lot happier than he was, considering Rocket Johnny had got up at Dapto and paid almost 8–1 on the TAB. However, winning $1,600 didn’t quite seem to compensate for the rotten night’s sleep he’d just had. Fortunately his stomach felt a lot better but he was headachy and weak and his eyes were puffed and grainy from lack of sleep. Unable to sleep, he’d been in the office since just after seven, hoping to catch up on some bookwork. But all he’d done since he got there was sip on a mug of coffee and stare moodily at his desk. Frank, on the other hand, had not long waiked in with the morning paper under his arm and was quite jubilant.

‘Three dollars seventy-five for the win Perce,’ he grinned. ‘I told you that pot licker of Ronnie’s was a goer.’

‘Yeah. Terrific Frank,’ muttered his boss irritably.

Frank smiled across from where he was seated on his boss’s desk, reading the sports section. ‘Bad luck you’re still crook Perce. I wouldn’t mind backin’ up at the Tai-Ping for another lash at those muddies.’

‘I’m not all that crook, Frank. I’m just bloody tired. I had a cunt of a night’s sleep.’

‘Yeah?’

‘Yeah.’ Kilby sighed and ran a hand across his eyes. ‘All I did all night was dream.’

‘Nightmares eh?’

‘Ohh just bloody weird. I kept dreaming these three old black blokes were after me.’

‘Black blokes?’

‘Yeah. Real full-bloods. All done up in feathers and bones through their noses. Like something out of a thousand years ago. They kept chasing me with spears — all over some desert somewhere.’ Kilby buried his face in his hands. ‘Buggered if I could get to sleep. Every time I’d doze off I’d keep seeing these old blokes with these weird blue eyes.’ Kilby shook his head tiredly. ‘Fair dinkum, Frank, it was that real at times it scared the shit out of me.’

Frank moved his gaze from the paper across to his boss. ‘I reckon you ought to see a doctor Perce.’

Kilby was about to say something when an abrupt ‘shave and a haircut — two bits’ rapped on the door and in walked Mick Rodgers.

‘Hello boys,’ he grinned, cheerfully rubbing his hands together. ‘What’s doing?’

‘Ah, Mr Rodgers,’ smiled Frank, looking up from his newspaper.

‘What’s doing?’ said Kilby morosely. ‘Eight and a half grand’s what’s doing. You got it with you?’

‘Right here in my kick,’ replied Jolly, the grin still plastered across his face. He pulled a fairly bulky envelope wrapped in a plastic bag out of his back pocket and dropped it on the desk. ‘There you are. You want to count it?’

Kilby stared at it for a moment. ‘Count it will you Frank. I’m too bloody tired.’

Luckily the money was in neat bundles of hundreds and fifties so Frank was able to count it fairly quickly without breaking into a sweat or giving himself a migraine in the process.

‘Yeah. It’s all there Perce,’ he said, pushing the money across the desk.

‘Good.’ Even though it was quite an amount of cash, Kilby dropped it in the top drawer uninterestedly. ‘Okay. You may as well give him a hand to load them up. I’d help you but I’m too rooted to move.’

‘Yeah. I was just going to say you don’t look too good on it Perce,’ said Jolly. ‘What’s up?’

‘I think I’m getting the flu,’ replied Kilby shortly. He let out a sigh and dropped his face back into his hands.

‘It’s a proper bastard, isn’t it,’ nodded Jolly. ‘There’s a lot of it going around too.’

Frank produced two small wooden wedges, jammed them under the office doors, and they started loading up the panel van. Between them — even taking their time and stopping for a bit of a perv on any girls walking to the station — they had them all loaded up in less than half an hour. Jolly slammed the rear doors of the van and then lit a cigarette, offering one to Frank which he declined.

‘You want to come inside for a cup of coffee before you go?’

‘No. I’ll piss off thanks Frank. The sooner I get these unloaded back at Bondi, the sooner I can get down the beach.’ ‘Fair enough.’ Frank watched Jolly puff away at his cigarette for a few seconds. ‘I don’t suppose you’d get over Redfern way very often?’

‘Not very often,’ replied Jolly. He took another huge drag on his cigarette and leant back against the side of the van. ‘It’s funny though. I just bumped into a bloke I know from down the beach.’

‘Yeah?’

‘Yeah. One of Price Galese’s bouncers from up the Kelly Club.’

At the mention of Galese’s name, Frank’s ears pricked up and some of the tiny wooden cogs in his bony head started ticking over.

‘Did you say one of Price Galese’s boys?’

‘Yeah. Les Norton. Big red-headed bloke.’

At that brief description Frank’s ears pricked up a little more. ‘What’s he look like again... this Les Norton?’

Jolly described Norton again, only this time throwing in Les’s bushy eyebrows and his Queensland drawl. Now the cogs in Frank’s half punch-drunk brain were whirring into overdrive. Les Norton began to sound very suspiciously like a certain chartered accountant who had called into the AWEC office the day before.

‘What’d this mate of yours say he was doing in Redfern?’ he asked evenly.

‘Nothing,’ shrugged Jolly. He flicked the cigarette butt out into Lawson Street. ‘Just said he stopped by to get some fruit. That’s all. Seemed a bit funny though, seeing him here at eight in the morning.’

‘Mmhh.’

‘Anyway Frank,’ said Jolly, jangling the car keys out of his pocket. ‘I’m gonna get crackin’. I’ll see you later.’

‘Yeah,’ replied Frank slowly. ‘I’ll see you later Mick.’

Once he was back inside and had removed the wedges from under the doors, Frank couldn’t tell his boss fast enough what Jolly had just said to him out the front. Kilby listened, but his tiredness and illness still had him uninterested.

‘Yeah, there might be something in what you say, Frank,’ he muttered, his head still resting on his hands. ‘It’s more than likely just a coincidence though.’

‘Fair enough,’ replied Frank, ‘but if I happen to spot that big red-headed prick still hanging around I’m going to front him.’

‘Yeah, do that Frank.’ Suddenly Kilby winced and clutched at his stomach again.

‘What’s up?’ asked Frank.

‘Ohh shit. I’m starting to get those pains in the gut again.’

Back in room 9 at the Thames Tavern, Tjalkalieri and the boys had resumed chanting. Earlier, they’d complained about the tea being half cold — naturally — and Mumbi had bitten into a partly-rotten apple. The muesli bars were okay, though. Norton assured them they could stop complaining about the tea from now on as he was getting a kettle and a teapot, and he’d buy a dozen packets of Kinkara as soon as it arrived. Yarrawulla told him he could shove his Kinkara up his big red arse; they wanted Twinings English Breakfast or Prince of Wales. Norton told them that he’d hire a Sherpa guide and bring the tea down from Tibet if that would make them happy. The boys said they’d think on it. Tjalkalieri had got into the chanting now; after putting a bone through his nose and painting a design on his chest and back, something like a pair of black braces and waistband surrounded by tiny red and white circles. A number of red and white circles were painted across his forehead also. Mumbi was seated on the lounge next to Norton, casually peeling an orange as they watched the other two do their stuff.

‘How come you’re not doing any chanting Mumbles?’ asked Norton, watching avidly as Tjalkalieri skillfully manipulated the bone and chord.

‘Flexitime,’ replied Mumbi, spitting several pips into his hand.

‘What?’

‘I’m on flexitime. I don’t start till about ten-thirty.’ ‘You’re kidding aren’t you? What do you think this is? The public bloody service?’

Mumbi shrugged his shoulders. ‘That’s the way we work, bloodnut. If you don’t like it — stiff shit.’ He took another bite of his orange and spat some more pips into his hand. Norton shifted his gaze from the balcony to the floor and shook his head.

The boys chanted and danced non-stop till twelve-thirty sharp; then they abruptly knocked off for lunch. They’d taken it in turns to have an hour off at a time, but always making certain there were two men constantly chanting. Les was there to watch them most of the time, except when he had to go out and get the sandwiches, and ended up spending almost an hour scouring Redfern in an effort to find a place that sold Twinings Prince of Wales tea. Consequently he wasn’t in all that good a mood when he got back to room 9 and made a brew, using the kettle and teapot that had been left outside the door with the sheets. But the boys were quite happy for a change, giving the tea a resounding thumbs up. They even said the chicken and salad sandwiches were okay too, though they would have preferred wholemeal bread to plain brown. Les prostrated himself on the floor and begged forgiveness, swearing on his mother’s dying oath that it would never happen again.

‘Okay,’ Les said, slapping his hands together and checking his watch after they’d all finished eating. ‘One o’clock, back to work. Come on.’

‘Hey, don’t go putting the bustle on Les,’ said Mumbi, draining his cup.

‘I’m not putting the bustle on Mumbles. But you’re being paid to work you know. Not to sit around drinking tea all day.’ He gave them all a thin smile as they stared up at him impassively from the lounge. ‘Of course I wouldn’t dream of trying to break down any of your conditions. I’m even going to make afternoon tea for you later on. In fact what time would you chaps care to have your afternoon tea?’ he added sweetly.

‘Three o’clock on the dot,’ replied Tjalkalieri quickly. ‘And we knock off at quarter to five sharp.’

‘Quarter to five? You’re supposed to work till bloody five.’

‘Fifteen minutes washing up time,’ said Yarrawulla.

‘Fifteen minutes to have a bloody wash? You’re kidding.’

‘How long do you think it takes to wash all this blood and shit off?’ said Mumbi.

‘Shouldn’t take you quarter of a bloody hour.’

‘Hey,’ said Tjalkalieri. ‘You just make sure you’ve got the soap and towels waiting in the amenities room at quarter to five, mate. Or the management might find it’s got a rather large industrial dispute on its hands — and we haven’t even discussed site allowance yet!’

Norton shook his head once more and started picking up the cups and saucers and tidying the mess. ‘The unions are fucking this country,’ he said. ‘You know that don’t you.’

Meanwhile, over at the AWEC office Percy Kilby was getting sicker and sicker as the day grew longer.

His headache, bad enough as it was to begin with, got worse. He felt weak as a kitten, his eyes were watering, his temperature was up, and his nose was running like a tap. He would have gone home to bed but he felt that crook he was too tired to move. At ten he told Frank that if anybody called he wasn’t in. At eleven he got Frank to put a sign on the door saying the office was closed for the day. Frank suggested he drive him home, but apart from being too tired to move Kilby said he’d had a gigantic argument with his wife on Wednesday and had belted her one. The thought of being in the house all afternoon, in his condition and with her nagging at him, was just too ghastly even to contemplate. He’d end up choking her. The odd part about it all, though, was despite his illness he was still hungry. At twelve he sent Frank over to get him three meat pies and half of litre of chocolate milk. Sitting in the office, Frank couldn’t believe it as he watched his sick and suffering boss sneezing his head off and trying to blow the sinuses clean out of his nose while he wolfed down the pies with sauce.

‘Perce. You’re going to have to see a doctor, mate. This is getting ridiculous.’

‘Yeah I know,’ mumbled Kilby between gulps of pie and gravy. ‘But I just got to get something into my stomach. I’m bloody starving.’

Frank shook his head. ‘It just doesn’t seem right mate. You’re as sick as a dog and you’re still stuffing all that rubbish into yourself. What do you reckon?’

‘What do I reckon?’ Kilby finished the last pie and wiped the sauce from his mouth. ‘I reckon you can go over and get me some chips. Plenty of ’em. With vinegar too. And a large bar of fruit-and-nut chocolate. And hurry Frank — cause I’m still bloody hungry.’

Frank shook his head, then walked over and got his boss what he wanted. By the time he’d got back Kilby had brought up the three pies and chocolate milk and was ready to go again, hungrier than ever.

In the Thames Tavern the boys kept up the chanting till they stopped for smoko at three, then continued till they finished for the day at four forty-five sharp. For the last hour and three-quarters all three men had joined in the chant, giving Kilby a solid blast of non-stop bone pointing till they called it quits. Norton was a little curious about this last burst of enthusiasm because so far they’d stuck strictly to their so-called union rules — with their flexitime, tea breaks, washing-up time and whatever else they could think up just to annoy him. He inquired about this while he watched them getting cleaned up.

‘We don’t do any more chanting now till Monday,’ answered Tjalkalieri, wiping the last of the paint and blood from him with a small face cloth.

‘No more till Monday?’ said Norton. ‘That seems a bit strange. You’ve only been going for what?... barely two days. Won’t the spell or whatever it is wear off?’

‘That’s where you’re wrong, Les,’ said Mumbi. ‘Don’t worry. We’ve given him heaps the last couple of days. Now we let him off the hook for a day or two and he starts to think he’s getting better.’

‘That’s right,’ chipped in Yarrawulla. ‘We sort of lull him into a false sense of security. He thinks he’s over it and bingo! On Monday we all get into the act and hit him with the old double whammy. And by Tuesday, it’s adios senor Kilby.’ Norton nodded his head and continued to watch as they finished cleaning up and changed back into their tracksuits.

‘So what do you intend to do all weekend?’ he asked.

‘Nothing,’ replied Tjalkalieri. ‘Sleep, read, just take it easy. We won’t even leave these rooms.’

‘Yeah?’ Norton was a little surprised. ‘Don’t any of you want to go for a bit of a walk or something. Take in a movie?’

Tjalkalieri shook his head. ‘That chanting takes a lot out of us you know. We’re pretty buggered. Besides, we’ve built up a kind of an aura in this room with the spirits. For any of us to leave could damage the aura.’ He smiled at the look on Norton’s face. ‘I know it’s a bit hard for a wombat like you to fathom, Les. But that’s the way it goes.’

‘Fair enough,’ replied Norton with a shrug of his shoulders. ‘But what about your girls back at Binji. Do you want me to give them a ring and tell them you’re all right.’

Yarrawulla shook his head and sat down on the lounge. ‘No need to Les. We sent them a telegram before we went to bed last night.’

Norton screwed up his face. ‘A telegram? I don’t remember any of you going to the post office.’

Tjalkalieri winked at Les as he and Mumbi joined Yarrawulla on the lounge. He didn’t say anything, just tapped his middle finger against his forehead; then all three of them smiled up at the look on Les’s face.

‘Bloody hell,’ muttered Norton. ‘What next?’

‘What next?’ smiled Mumbi, rubbing his hands together. ‘A nice cup of tea’d go down well Les.’

‘Yeah. Then you can get us something to eat,’ added Yarrawulla. ‘How about some pizzas tonight boys,’ he said, turning to the others. ‘I don’t think I could handle another gutful of that so-called Chinese food.’

‘Not a bad idea,’ nodded Tajlkalieri. ‘I’ll have a large pepperoni.’

‘Pizza it is then,’ said Norton quietly, still shaking his head.

By this time Kilby’s condition back at the AWEC office had deteriorated further. Just before five he closed the office and got Frank to drive him home, promising him he’d definitely be seeing a doctor first thing tomorrow. Kilby continued to sneeze, cough, blow his nose and groan the entire journey. Then about five minutes from his house he stopped sneezing, turned to Frank and stared at him in amazement.

Frank caught his boss’s eye and looked back at him curiously. ‘What’s up now Perce?’ he asked, starting to get more than a little worried again.

Kilby continued to stare at Frank for a few moments before answering. ‘Frank’ he said incredulously. ‘You’re not going to believe this.’

‘Believe what Frank?’

‘You know how crook I’ve been all day.’

‘Yeah.’

‘Well mate, I feel as good as gold now.’ Kilby took in a deep breath through his suddenly cleared nose, held it for a moment, then let it out. ‘I feel terrific, look at that, clear as a bell. That stinkin’, rotten flu must’ve worn off.’

‘Yeah?’ Frank kept looking curiously at his boss. ‘I dunno Perce. Fifteen minutes ago you looked like you were ready to kick the bucket.’

‘I know. But I’m telling you I feel fine now. Better than I’ve felt for ages.’

Frank pulled the car up outside Kilby’s house but didn’t turn the motor off. ‘I still don’t know, Perce,’ he said, more mystified than ever. ‘I still reckon you ought to be in bed. And see a doctor first thing tomorrow.’

‘Ohh bullshit.’

‘All right, suit yourself. Anyway, do you want me to call around in the morning?’

Kilby blinked at his employee. ‘Why, where are you going now?’

‘Home. I’m gonna have a few beers first, then I’m going home.’

‘Well I’m coming too.’

Frank continued to stare at his boss. ‘Yeah... but.’

‘What do you mean, yeah, but. Aren’t I allowed to have a beer with me old mate after work?’

‘Yeah sure. But.’

‘Well. Come on, let’s go. I don’t want to go inside, I’ll only end up hitting her on the chin again.’

Frank put the car into gear and did a U-turn. ‘You’re the boss,’ he shrugged, shaking his head at the same time.

‘And stop at the TAB on the way. I still haven’t picked up our winnings yet.’ Kilby threw back his head, roared laughing and gave Frank a friendly punch on the shoulder. ‘We’ll give that a nice nudge before the night’s out Frankie boy, I can tell you.’ Kilby laughed again. ‘You reckon I don’t feel good.’

Frank continued to shake his head as he weaved into the traffic. ‘You’re the boss,’ he repeated.

Kilby managed to get good and drunk all right that night. They hit the Redfern RSL about six and left just after eleven in separate taxis. Kilby was that happy and relieved at his sudden and unexpected recovery from the flu or whatever it was that had laid him so low the last couple of days he gave Frank $250 from the winnings at the TAB and then made sure he never put his hand in his pocket the rest of the night. Consequently both men had hangovers the following morning big enough to sell advertising on. But Kilby was so glad it was only a hangover he almost enjoyed it — the headache, the furry tongue, and the feeling that his head was a length of guttering and several people were banging on it with tyre levers. Compared to what he’d just been through it was almost enjoyable, so he didn’t bother to take Frank’s advice and ring a doctor. A glass of Eno’s, two digesics and a feed of bacon and eggs and coffee had the AWEC boss feeling almost on top of the world.

Les Norton, on the other hand, never went out. After getting the boys their pizzas, orange juice, Stag Lager and whatever else they wanted, they ate and settled down to a boring night watching TV. When the old John Wayne movie finished at ten-thirty they were all yawning their heads off and so tired all they wanted to do was go to bed anyway.

Norton figured the boys would be tired from all that chanting and would be hot candidates for an early night; maybe there was an aura in the room like Tjalkalieri said and it was making him tired as well. Though by now — although he didn’t like to admit it to himself — Les was beginning to get just a little sceptical about this bone pointing. He trusted Tjalkalieri and he knew the boys had done it in the bush, but in the big city it could be a different kettle of fish altogether. Especially with what struck Les as their rather flippant attitude towards it now that they’d started. Going like mad one minute, then turning it off for the weekend, then hitting Kilby with their so-called ‘double whammy’ or whatever it was on Monday. He hoped to Christ they knew what they were doing and he hoped to Christ it worked or he’d end up making a nice dill out of himself and Price would be more than entitled to take the $100,000 back out of his thick Queensland hide. A few doubts and misgivings were swirling around in Norton’s mind when his head hit the pillow that night, but he slept soundly enough. Even Tjalkalieri’s snoring, coming from barely a metre away, didn’t bother him.

So, unlike his two adversaries, Norton woke up around seven-thirty feeling rested, refreshed and without the slightest trace of a hangover. He was first up, so after finishing in the bathroom he decided to go up and get the boys some steak sandwiches for breakfast before they had a chance to start whingeing.

It wasn’t much of a day when Les stepped out of the Thames Tavern — cloudy with a cool southerly in the air and the thick band of black clouds gathering across the city skyline promising rain before lunchtime or early afternoon at the latest. There were quite a few people about for early on a Saturday morning. Mostly heading for work, thought Les, and not looking too happy about it either as they pulled their collars up against the wind and walked briskly towards the station.

The Greek in the hamburger shop whipped up the stack of steak sandwiches pretty smartly, throwing on plenty of extra onions as Norton ordered. The shop also sold the morning papers so he got two of each plus some bottles of fruit-flavoured spa water and dropped them in the carton as well. On the way back Norton ducked out to the hotel carpark to make sure his car was all right. He was quite pleased to see that apart from a few pigeon deposits across the roof and bonnet the old Ford was resting quite comfortably next to a couple of cars equally as battered and dirty as his. Well for Redfern that’s a plus he thought. Though I might pull the coil lead out before I go to bed tonight. Not that anyone would want to steal it. But there just might be someone around here who needs my old Ford more than I do. Les was whistling softly to himself as he jogged up the stairs to room 9.

‘Jesus, don’t tell me you’ve managed to make yourselves a cup of tea while I was away.’ He stepped into the room and kicked the door shut behind him with his foot. ‘Must’ve been quite an effort for one of you. That teapot can get pretty heavy when it’s full of water.’

Yarrawulla looked up expressionlessly from where he was sitting. ‘We had to, Les,’ he said taking a sip from his cup. ‘You make it that weak it needs a pair of crutches to get out of the pot.’

‘Fair dinkum.’ Norton chuckled and shook his head as he placed the carton on the table in the middle of the room. ‘It wouldn’t matter what I done. One of you drop kicks’d have a go at me over it.’

Tjalkalieri got up and smiled at Norton as he walked over and had a look in the carton. ‘You know what, Les,’ he said, ‘you’re right.’ He gave the big red-headed Queenslander a wink and a friendly slap on the back. ‘These steak sangers don’t look too bad though.’

They mustn’t have been because in less than twenty minutes there wasn’t a crust, a skerrick of meat or a shred of onion left, and Mumbi had made a fresh pot of tea. They sat around reading and half listening to the radio while they sipped their tea. It was all very relaxed with no one saying much and the next thing it was well after eleven.

Flicking through the sports section, Les noticed that one of Price’s horses was in a welter at Canterbury that afternoon. A couple of the tipsters had it down for a place and according to the papers it was 8–1. Norton wouldn’t have minded having something on it but he wasn’t too sure of its form and there were some other things on his mind as well. Although he could have, he didn’t want to get into the habit of running backwards and forwards to the TAB all day and leaving the boys in the room alone. Running out to get the food for a few minutes at a time was all right, but he would have preferred to be with them the whole time. Especially in that old pub on a Saturday afternoon in Redfern; anything could happen. He was probably overreacting a little, but you never knew. Someone could start banging on the door while he wasn’t there and upset the boys. A drunk could wander up from downstairs and cause trouble. The two old pisspots who originally had the rooms could come back and start something. Even a drainpipe merchant could unsuspectingly climb up over the balcony intent on robbing the joint. Yes, he was no doubt overdramatising things, but knowing his luck he’d only be out of the room a few minutes and something would go wrong. He’d stay with the boys and keep an eye on them. He’d appointed himself minder and that’s exactly what he would do. There was too much at stake. And besides, it would be all over in three or four days, one way or the other. But he wanted to back that horse and he’d have to get in touch with Price to get the drum on it.

That was another thing. Les wasn’t all that keen to ring Price just yet because Price would want to know what was going on, and what could he tell him? Yeah Price, it’s all sweet. The boys chanted for a day and a half; now they’ve knocked off for the weekend. Chanted? Price would say. What’s with this chanting? How was he going to explain that to him? How was he going to explain anything to him? Unless you knew just what was going on the whole idea was preposterous. Even if you knew what was going on, the whole idea was still preposterous. But he wanted to back that horse and he had to know if it was going first. He stroked his chin thoughtfully for a moment then glanced at his watch. It would be no good ringing Price now anyway. He’d either be out at the track or over at his trainer’s stables at Randwick. What about George? No, he’d be out playing handball somewhere. Billy? Billy’d be either helping his wife with the shopping or watching his kids play soccer. Norton glanced over to the open balcony door where the southerly was sending a thin mist of rain across the tiled deck from a sky that was beginning to reflect Norton’s mood. Wait a minute. What about Eddie? He folded his paper, got up and closed the balcony door.

‘I’m just going to duck down and make a quick phone call fellas.’ There was an almost imperceptible nodding of heads as the boys continued reading. ‘I’ll only be a couple of minutes.’ This time there was complete silence. ‘Yeah righto Les,’ said Norton out loud to himself. He checked his pockets for change and went out the door.

Eddie answered the phone immediately.

‘Hello, is that you Eddie? It’s Les.’

‘G’day Les. How’s it goin’ mate?’ Eddie sounded quite pleased to hear Norton’s voice.

‘Ohh, not too bad.’

‘So what’s happening over there in beautiful downtown Redfern? Is Kilby still alive, or have you knocked him or what?’

‘No. He’s still alive,’ replied Les a little hesitantly.

‘Still hanging in is he? How did you go with that watchband caper? Did it work?’

‘Yeah. Like a charm. Thanks for that Eddie.’

‘That’s okay. Anytime you want any more dirty tricks just give me a call.’

‘Yeah, I will,’ laughed Les.

‘So,’ said Eddie. He paused for a moment but the chuckle was still in his voice. ‘What can I do for you this time? You wouldn’t be ringing me up on a shitty day like this unless you wanted something.’

‘Ohh no... not really.’ Norton wasn’t actually lying, but he wasn’t quite telling the truth either. ‘It’s just that I mightn’t get a chance to ring Price tonight and I wanted you to give him a message. That’s all.’

‘Yeah?’

‘Just tell him everything’s sweet and we still should have a result Tuesday. Wednesday at the most.’

‘Good as gold. I’ll be seeing him at the game tonight, so I’ll tell him then.’

There was another short pause before Eddie spoke. ‘You sure there’s nothing else?’

‘Well,’ drawled Norton. ‘I did happen to notice in this morning’s paper, Dealer’s Choice is running in the seventh at Canterbury.’

‘And you want to know if it’s going?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Price was talking about it last night. It’s coming back from a spell. But they reckon each way it’s a fairly good thing.’

‘All right. Well look. I haven’t got the Brute’s phone number with me. Can you get something on “the Murray” for me?’

‘Sure. How much?’

Norton hesitated for a second or two and screwed his face up as if he was in some sort of pain. ‘Two-fifty each way.’

‘Sweet as a nut. I’ll ring him as soon as you hang up.’

‘Good on you Eddie.’

‘Listen, before you go. You sure there’s nothing else you want to tell me? How about filling me in a bit on what you’re up to over there.’

‘Monday for sure, Eddie. Tell Price I’ll ring him Monday night and I’ll dead-set give you the drum then. Okay?’

‘All right Les. I’ll tell him you’re going to ring him Monday evening. And I’ll make sure I’m there when you do.’

‘Good on you Eddie. Thanks mate.’

‘Well I’ll hear from you Monday.’

Yeah thought Norton after he’d hung up. I just hope to Christ I got something to tell you that makes sense by then. Oh well. He stared absently at the phone for a few moments, then returned to room 9.

The maid, or whoever, had left fresh sheets and pillowcases outside the door and Norton bundled them up under his arm and took them in with him. A fresh pot of tea was sitting on the table so he poured himself a cup then stood in the middle of the room slowly sipping it while he looked at the others, who continued to read their papers in silence, treating him almost as if he wasn’t there.

‘So what’s doing anyway?’ said Norton after a minute or two.

There was continuing silence till Tjalkalieri finally looked up from his newspaper. ‘Did you... say something Les?’ he asked, raising his eyebrows slightly.

‘Yeah. As a matter of fact I did Chalky. I asked what’s doing. I didn’t really mean anything by it. I was just... you know. Trying to make conversation.’

There was silence again for a few moments. Then Mumbi spoke. ‘What’s doing, did you say Les?’ he said slowly. ‘Nothing’s doing Les. It’s a prick of a day outside and seeing as we’ve been working like dogs the last couple of days we’re going to take it easy. Sit around. Read. Listen to the radio. And in a few minutes I might even turn the TV on. Okay?’

‘I told you that yesterday Les,’ said Tjalkalieri. ‘Fair dinkum. What do we have to do to get something through to you, Norton? Write it on a message stick and shove it in your arse?’

‘All right you team of cunts,’ said Norton. ‘I was only bloody asking. Christ, you’ve got to be the greatest lot of narks I ever come across in my life.’ He moved over to the balcony and peered sourly out through the glass door at the thin sheets of rain the southerly was wafting in from the street.

‘If you’re looking for something to do,’ said Yarrawulla, ‘instead of standing around like a stale bottle of piss, why don’t you go out and get us some lunch.’

‘Yeah, my oath,’ chimed in Yarrawulla. ‘It’s after bloody twelve and I’m starving. In fact we shouldn’t even have to bloody ask you. It should be here on the table.’

Norton turned from the balcony and gave them a smile that had about as much warmth in it as a mile under the polar ice-cap. ‘And anything in particular you’d like for lunch...boys?’

‘Yeah,’ replied Tjalkalieri brightly. ‘Some more of those steak sandwiches, Les. Those last ones were spot on.’

‘Spot on were they? Oh I’m so pleased.’ Norton went into the bedroom, put his tracksuit top on and got some more money. ‘And anything else you might like while I’m out?’ he asked with exaggerated politeness.

‘Yeah. A bit more fruit,’ said Yarrawulla.

‘And another carton of milk,’ added Mumbi. ‘For the tea.’

‘Oh yes of course. We mustn’t forget our bloody tea, must we?’ Norton glared at each of them as they ignored him and continued to read their papers. He zipped up his track-suit top and left the room, trying his best not to rip the door off its hinges as he went.

Fair dinkum, he thought, those three skinny little pricks are going to drive me round the bend before this is all over. Get us this. Get us that. Cups of tea. Fruit. Muesli bloody bars. Pizzas. But inside he couldn’t help but chuckle a little. He knew the boys’ nature, and that most of the time they were just trying to goad him and if he blew his stack he’d only be playing into their hands. Then they’d shove it up him worse than ever. You can’t help but like the cheeky little bastards though, he thought. He jammed his hands a bit further into the pockets of his track-suit top as he strode on into the light rain. Still, he’d be more than glad when this Kilby caper was over and done with. The thought of being stuck in that room for another three days didn’t appeal. Already it felt like he’d been there a month.

Norton was turning out to be a pretty good customer by now, so the Greek in the hamburger shop gave him a big, oily smile when he walked in. He whipped up the steak sandwiches with plenty of extra onions while Norton got a large bag of fruit and some magazines from a shop across the road.

By the time he arrived back at room 9 the boys had switched the TV on and were laughing like drains at an old Marx Brothers movie, Duck Soup.

‘Hey grab a seat, Les, and have a look at this,’ roared Tjalkalieri as Norton placed the food on the table. ‘It’s the funniest thing you’ve ever seen in your life.’

‘Yeah,’ giggled Mumbi. ‘There’s a big, boofheaded heavy running around trying to get Groucho — and he looks just like you.’

The rest of the afternoon was spent eating, drinking tea and watching a special run of Marx Brothers movies on Channel 10. Despite himself and the rotten day Norton found himself laughing like a hyena along with the others. Maybe because it was such a miserable bastard of a day outside it made the movies seem funnier than ever.

At ten past four Les turned the TV down just a little and switched the radio on, telling the boys it would only be for a minute or two as it was the second leg of the double and he’d backed one of Price’s horses. By the time they’d swung round the turn and Dealer’s Choice was fourth on the rail heading into the straight, Norton had the $250 each way at 8–1 counted, folded and in the bank.

The sky had blackened noticeably as the southerly picked up, and so had Norton’s face when Dealer’s Choice got beaten in a photo finish for third. He switched the radio off, almost snapping the knob from the dial, and resumed his seat. Somehow the Marx Brothers seemed to have lost a lot of their humour. Medicine men or not, Tjalkalieri and the others didn’t have to be mind-readers to know what had just happened. Norton’s face was showing about as much mirth as the public executioner in Tehran, not that this was going to stop them from a stir.

‘What’s up, Les?’ asked Yarrawulla, with mock innocence. ‘Don’t you like the Marx Brothers?’

‘No Yarra,’ hissed Norton. ‘They’re my fuckin’ favourites.’

‘That’s good,’ chuckled Mumbi. ‘Cause you’re gonna love the next one.’

‘Yeah Mumbles. And why’s fuckin’ that?’

‘It’s called A Day At The Races.’

If looks could have killed, Numidi, Natjinin and Mammanduru would have been waiting a long time for their men to come back to Binjiwunyawunya.

It certainly wasn’t the best day in Les Norton’s life. It was raining, cold and miserable, he was stuck in a room in a grotty hotel in Redfern, and now he was $500 down the gurgler as well. The only two things Norton could find to give him any sort of cheer were: one, he didn’t come across a TAB when he went out to get lunch or he probably would have put more on Dealer’s Choice; and two, when the boys sent him out for more pizzas he lied and told them the shop was closed so he’d have to get Chinese food again instead, which he knew the boys hated. Especially the prawn chow mein, of which he got four extra serves. Norton wasn’t real keen on the local version of Chinese food himself, but even though it was a bit like cutting his nose off to spite his face it was worth it just to hear the whingeing and see the looks on the faces of the boys as they forced themselves to eat it.

But despite an annoying day and a boring night watching TV, Norton managed to sleep well enough. In fact he was almost nodding off in his seat by the time John Wayne finally got Maureen O’Hara’s pants off in The Quiet Man.

Sunday was almost a repetition of Saturday. The rain had eased up slightly, but Norton noticed it was definitely colder as soon as he stepped out of the hotel to get the boys their steak sandwiches and the Sunday papers. The only variation after that was every now and again one of the boys would get up to make a fresh pot of tea.

By lunchtime Norton had read every paper twice. He had steak sandwiches coming out of his ears and he swore that if he never had another cup of tea again as long as he lived it would still be too soon. The others, however, kept pouring it down their throats like they owned Ceylon. All Norton could think of was his comfortable home in Bondi, his nice big double bed and how every Sunday Warren used to grate a big heap of potatoes and onions and they’d have a late breakfast of hash browns and ham and eggs. With percolated American-style coffee that strong you almost needed a whip, a chair and a gun to keep it down in the cup.

Meanwhile the weather added to Norton’s blues. You couldn’t open the door to let in a bit of air because the wind blew the rain in on the carpet. Besides which all the extra onion on the steak sandwiches was beginning to work and every two or three minutes one of the boys would let go a fart that would’ve won an Olympic gold medal. Norton did his best to fight back but with three on to one it was no contest. During one particular volley if anyone had walked past the room they would have thought there was a Salvation Army band in there, tuning up. And if the noise was bad enough the smell would stop a wildebeest. Mumbi let go one particular scorcher that stung Norton’s eyes and he swore that if Mumbi had let it go out in the hallway it would have set off every sprinkler in the hotel.

Raining or not, Norton ran to the balcony door, tore it open and shoved his head outside, only to be hit with a violent chorus of ‘Close the bloody door, you stupid big prick. It’s freezing.’

‘Right. That’s it,’ Les said, closing the door behind him and wiping rainwater from his face and hands. ‘Those bloody steak sandwiches are definitely off the menu.’

‘Yeah. Pig’s arse they are’ replied Tjalkalieri. ‘They’re about the only things around here worth eating.’

‘In fact to tell you the truth,’ chimed in Yarrawulla, ‘we were just thinking of sending you up to get some more. It’s after lunchtime you know.’

‘Yeah? Well too bloody bad.’ Les resumed his seat and began flicking through the Sunday paper once more. ‘You want more steak sandwiches. You can go up and get ’em your bloody selves.’

‘Fair enough’ replied Tjalkalieri casually. He folded his paper, stretched his legs out in front of him and clasped his hands behind his head then smiled over at Les. ‘But no steak sandwiches. No chant tomorrow morning.’

Norton glared at the smiling Tjalkalieri, then at all three of them. ‘Fair bloody dinkum,’ he cursed. ‘You three have got to be the most obnoxious little turds I’ve ever come across in my life.’ He rose to his feet and once more zipped up his tracksuit top. ‘No bloody wonder old Bjelke won’t have a bar of you.’

As he opened the door to step outside Mumbi called out to him. ‘Hey Les.’

‘Yeah?’

The grinning little Aborigine lifted one cheek of his backside off the lounge and let go with a fart that made the others sound like the tinkling of a wind chime.

‘Don’t forget the extra onions — will you,’ Mumbi added.

Norton knew he was a beaten man as he trudged off into the rain once more. And it was further emphasised when he returned and wanted to watch the Wide World of Sport. He was ruthlessly vetoed in favour of an absolutely diabolical Elvis Presley movie. The girls in it all had those horrible beehive hairdos and wore bikinis about a metre wide on the sides. Elvis mumbled his way through several inane songs and carried on like some pimply faced adolescent you’d expect to see hanging around a pinball parlour near a Western Suburbs railway station. And if that Elvis movie wasn’t bad enough there was another one, an even worse one, on straight after it. And the boys insisted on watching that also.

It was obvious it was going to be Annoy Les Norton Afternoon. All they did was fart, eat, watch Elvis and do everything they could think of to goad Les into blowing his stack. But Norton persevered and did his best to ignore them. The climax came, however, after Les had gone up and got their pizzas for tea and they were all settled back watching the news on Channel 2.

As they sat there, stuffing themselves with tea and pizzas, the news flashed onto an anti-apartheid demonstration outside the South African Embassy in Canberra. A small crowd of beefy-looking, crewcutted women dressed mainly in overalls were screaming their lungs out, burning flags and making horrible noisy arseholes of themselves while they did everything possible to provoke a number of cold, frustrated young policemen into arresting them. The young cops having to take all the abuse and grit their teeth looked like they would have liked nothing better than to take their caps and badges off and thump the stuffing out of the lot of them. Norton thought this might be as good a time as any to have a go back at the boys, who were watching the demonstration with looks more of contempt than anything else.

‘Fair dinkum’ said Les sarcastically. ‘Fancy those silly sheilas sticking up for you Aborigines. You’d think they’d have more bloody sense.’

‘What was that?’ said Tjalkalieri.

‘I said those sheilas sticking up for you Aborigines. They’re wasting their bloody time.’

Tjalkalieri looked at Norton in both disgust and amazement. ‘Do you really think those... those so-called women are sticking up for us?’

‘Yeah. Well of course they are,’ replied Les. The tone of Tjalkalieri’s voice had taken him back slightly. ‘Anti-apartheid. South Africa. Aborigines. Same bloody thing isn’t it?’

‘Have another look at them, Les.’

Norton studied the demonstrators for a few moments. One of them — a particularly sour Slavic-faced blonde in a Levi jacket — had just flung red paint on one of the police and was now on her back, kicking and screaming as she was getting dragged off by the arms to a waiting paddy-wagon. ‘Paula. Paula,’ she was screaming out to one of her equally sourfaced girlfriends as if she was in mortal agony. ‘Help me. Help me.’ She wasn’t in all that much pain and it was obvious she was putting an act on for the cameras.

‘Notice anything about them?’ asked Tjalkalieri.

‘They all look like they could do with a good wash,’ he shrugged.

‘Yeah,’ snorted Tjalkalieri. ‘And they’re all bloody lesbians too.’

From his observations around the Cross Les had to agree. ‘Yeah, they’re all dykes. That’s fairly obvious. So what?’

‘And you think those dykes are sticking up for us do you?’

‘Well... I...’ Norton was beginning to wish he hadn’t said anything now.

‘Now have a look at the cops. They’re nearly all young blokes. Right?’

Norton kept his eye on the screen. ‘Well... yeah.’

‘Well that’s how the dykes get their rocks off, you dopey big clown.’ Norton could sense the bitterness increasing in Tjalkalieri’s voice and the others weren’t looking too happy either. ‘Those man-hating dykes couldn’t give a stuff about Australian Aborigines. Demonstrating against South Africa is just an excuse to pick a fight with those young cops and look like heroes at the same time. They love it.’ Tjalkalieri turned from Les back to the TV. ‘Have a look at that thing they’re dragging into the wagon. She’s just about blowing in her pants. Once she gets in the back of the wagon she’ll start fingering herself.’

‘Oh come on. Turn it up.’

‘Turn it up my arse,’ snorted Yarrawulla. ‘Heaps of mugs like you tumble in and think they’ve got the interests of our people at heart. Balls. They wouldn’t give an Aborigine the time of day. You won’t get your head on TV sticking up for Abos.’

‘All right. I just...’

‘Hypocrites. They give me the bloody shits,’ continued Tjalkalieri. ‘One of the only blokes in this country who’s fair dinkum about helping Australian Aborigines is Peter Garrett.’

‘That bloke out of Midnight Oil?’

‘Oh you do know bloody something Les. That’s a change.’

Then it was on. Somehow, just looking for a joke, Norton had unsuspectingly touched a nerve with the boys, especially Tjalkalieri. And it wasn’t funny. They sat on the lounge very sourly, gesticulating amongst themselves and arguing in their native tongue. Then Tjalkalieri reached over and abruptly switched the TV off, after which you could have cut the air with a knife.

Christ, what have I done, thought Les as he sat there in the almost inflammable silence. Every now and again one of the boys would mutter something under his breath to the others and they’d all glare murderously at the blank TV. Norton couldn’t ever remember seeing the boys in such a foul mood. What he’d said was only meant as a joke, and a very mild, back-handed one at that. He didn’t dream it would be so provocative. But evidently those lesbian protesters had rubbed the boys right up the wrong way, especially where it concerned their people.

After about five minutes or so of uncomfortable silence Norton had had enough. He thought it might be a good idea if he got out of the room and left the boys alone for a while.

‘Look,’ he said. ‘I, ah... might go for a walk for a few minutes. Get a can of Coke or something. You blokes want anything while I’m up the road?’

There was an almost imperceptible shaking of heads and more sour looks followed by continuing silence.

‘All right. Well I’ll only be about fifteen minutes or so. I’ll see you when I get back.’ The door clicked quietly and he was gone.

Norton didn’t see anybody else in the hotel as he trotted down the stairs and when he got out on the footpath he had a quick look in the bar. There was no sign of Bailey and no more than half a dozen people in there. The streets were quiet also. A few cars swishing past and that was about it. Satisfied it would be safe to leave the boys alone in their room for a while, Les started walking; straight up Regent Street.

I don’t know about a Coke, he thought, as he trudged along in the soft glow of the neon signs and shop lights. I wouldn’t mind a beer after that little caper. Should’ve had one in the bar, I suppose, but I might’ve bumped into the owner and I sure don’t feel like talking or trying to crack jokes with anyone at the moment.

After he’d crossed the next intersection and got a bit further down the street, Les noticed a couple of people standing beneath a red canvas awning in a lane off to his right. In the darkness he could just make out the words Redfern RSL. Hello he thought, the local ‘rissole’. That’ll do just nicely. I’ll have a couple of schooners and a lash at the pokies. Wonder if I can get in wearing my tracksuit and joggers. Round here? Can’t see why not.

Just like the Kelly Club, he laughed to himself as he stepped under the small, canvas awning and through the wood, panelled door. Don’t think it’ll be quite the same clientele though.

Apart from a woman using a red phone in the foyer there was no one else around and no one at the reception desk. A red and brown carpeted hallway, flanked by a large photo of the Queen, led inside, so he followed that along to what appeared to be the main bar.

It was a typical, fair-sized RSL bar, with poker machines around the walls and another circle of machines in the middle. There was a restaurant selling Asian food plus a menu of hamburgers, pies and chips for the local plebians. In front of him were a blank video screen and a small stage with a sign on it — ‘Lester And Smart Next Show 9 p.m.’ Les didn’t think he’d bother staying for the floor show. The place was happily noisy, however, fairly crowded with boozy, casually dressed whites and almost the same number of Aborigines. No one approached Les for membership as he stood there, so he eased himself through the drinkers, the rattle of the poker machines and the cigarette haze, finding an uncrowded spot right in the corner of the bar. There didn’t appear to be any Fourex on tap or in the fridges, so he settled for a schooner of Tooheys new. A skinny tired-looking barman had it in front of him pretty smartly and it was cold and crisp and hit the spot almost straight away. Norton downed most of it and got ready to order another.

Well this isn’t too bad, he thought, propping himself up on his elbows with his back to the bar after the second schooner arrived. And it sure is nice to get out of that room for a while. He took another huge slurp of his schooner. I’ll finish this, get another and run a few bucks through the pokies.

Norton was almost lost in pleasant thoughts as he leant against the bar checking out the heads on the locals. Although he wouldn’t be able to stay too long, it was good to get a break out of the room away from the others and in a place where no one knew him and he could lean back and enjoy the pleasure of his own company over a nice, cold beer. He took another hefty swallow. And there’s nothing wrong with the Tooheys on tap either.

But unbeknown to Les there was one person in the club that did know him. A tall Aborigine in a tracksuit similar to Norton’s had been watching him intently, almost from the moment he had ordered his first beer. He was standing off to Norton’s left, where the bar cornered round in front of the Men’s Toilets, drinking with two other Aborigines from the local football team — one about the same size, the other shorter but more solid. He said something to the two men who looked over at Les, nodded grimly, then looked away again. The tallest one turned slightly side on to Norton while he sipped his beer but never took his eyes off him.

So, thought Frank, Vernon Stroud the chartered accountant, eh? Or is it Les Norton? Price Galese’s so-called bloody heavy. Well you don’t look so heavy to me, you red-headed goose. And you’re right out of your territory. I think we might just be having a little word or two before the night’s over. And it won’t be about donations for South bloody Africa either.

Norton finished his schooner and placed the glass on the bar.

‘Same again mate?’ said the barman.

‘Yeah. But make it a middy this time will you? And take it out of that. I’m going for a leak.’ Norton nodded to some change on the bar and moved towards the toilets. That beer’s nice all right he thought. But shit! It goes through you like a packet of bloody Epsom Salts. Easing himself through the other drinkers, Les still didn’t notice the three pairs of brown eyes watching him stealthily but intently as he entered the toilets. They gave him a minute or so then Frank nodded to the other two and they followed him inside.

Alone in the men’s room, Norton had just finished and was standing in front of a long mirror above a row of hand-basins, while he rinsed his hands and splashed a bit of water on his face. A movement to his left caught his eyes and the hairs on the back of his neck bristled as he immediately recognised Frank. A quick surge of adrenalin hit the pit of his stomach. The sour look on Frank’s face and the way his two associates were swarming behind him like a pair of hungry barracudas told Norton something wasn’t quite right. Casually, he moved to the roll-towel on his right, pulled it down, and acting blasé, began drying his hands. Frank and his mates moved a little closer to Les, surrounding him yet not quite crowding him. Frank stood in the middle with his arms folded.

‘How’re you goin’ there mate. All right?’ sneered Frank, menace dripping off his every word.

‘Yeah, not bad,’ replied Norton breezily. His back was to Frank who couldn’t see his eyebrows bristling as he continued slowly wiping his hands.

‘How’re all the chartered accountants these days?’

Norton looked at Frank quizzingly and shrugged his shoulders. ‘I don’t think I know what you’re talking about.’ He finished drying his hands and turned to face the three of them.

‘Don’t give me the fuckin’ shits,’ continued Frank. ‘You know what I’m talking about, you prick. You were snooping around in our office the other day with your shitpot $250. Weren’t you. Les Norton.’

At the sound of his own name, Norton couldn’t help but look surprised. How the bloody hell did he find out who I am, he thought. But it was too late now. The game was definitely up.

‘You’re about as much a fuckin’ chartered accountant as what I am,’ hissed Frank. ‘You’re one of Price Galese’s bumboys aren’t you? Come over to try and put the frighteners on Perce.’

Norton didn’t say anything. He just stood there rocking slightly on the balls of his feet, his eyes moving across the three faces in front of him as he sussed out the situation and set himself up.

‘So you think you’re gonna put shit on us do you,’ Frank continued. ‘Well you’re in the wrong part of town. Arsehole.’

Frank had now unfolded his arms and the other two had bunched their fists. Les knew he had about two seconds to make a move.

‘Look mate,’ he said, turning his hands palms up to Frank in a gesture of helplessness, ‘I honestly don’t know what you’re talking about.’

Frank was about to say something else before they moved in, when quick as a snake Norton closed his left hand and hooked his massive fist into the face of the solid Aborigine to his right. It caught him flush under the nose, ripping apart his top lip and caving in most of his front teeth. From the shock that ran up his arm Norton knew it was a knockout punch.

As the solid thug yelped and spun along the washbasins before he hit the far wall and dropped to the floor, Les swung a quick short right, hitting Frank on the jaw. He was a bit crowded though and couldn’t get his shoulder properly behind it. It hurt Frank and flung him against the toilet doors, but it didn’t drop him. By now, though, the last hood had swung into action.

As Norton was about to step in and follow up on Frank with a left hook he just detected a movement out of the corner of his eye. He managed to tuck his chin in and move his shoulder up as a solid right thumped in behind his ear and a left caught him above the eye. That was all hood number two had a chance to get in. Norton spied an opening, bent slightly at the knees and let go a monstrous right uppercut that caught the tall Aborigine right under the chin, shattering his jaw like a sledgehammer hitting a housebrick. He let out a little shriek of shock and agony, made a grab for the towel-rack for support and brought the lot crashing down noisily on top of him as his knees went from under him. That now left only Frank, whose confidence had taken quite a dive at the sight of his two friends out like lights on the men’s room floor. But he was tough, fit and an ex-heavyweight fighter; plus he had a slight drop on Norton who was just turning around after dropping hood number two.

Frank tore into Les, throwing lefts and rights which nearly all landed and stung. But one on one, even for an ex-pro it was no match. As soon as he got settled Norton swung a peach of a left into Frank’s face that completely mashed the tall Aborigine’s mouth and made his already broken nose ‘even broker’. A short right, straight after, split open his cheek and flung him back against the toilets. It was almost lights out time for poor Frank. But instead of following through with another barrage of punches Les took him by the front of his tracksuit, moved slightly to one side as he jerked him forward, and in almost the same movement grabbed Frank by the scruff of the neck, shoving him face forward up over the washbasins and into the full-length mirror. Frank’s big, bony forehead split open and sent cracks splintering along the glass at the same time. The linen handtowel was still rolled out all over the floor and as Frank began to slide to his knees, Norton grabbed a length of towel, wrapped it around Frank’s neck and began choking him. With Frank turning blue and gagging for his life, Les dragged him to his feet, spun him around and forced him up over the basins again.

By now Frank’s face wasn’t the most appetising sight in the world. His hair was matted with blood and tears were streaming out of his eyes, running into the blood pouring from his nose and mouth and the wicked zigzag cut in his cheek. ‘Now listen — you fuckin’ yobbo,’ hissed Norton, his eyes about an inch from the barely conscious Aborigine’s. ‘I didn’t come here looking for any trouble. I’m over here for another reason altogether. But if you, or your smartarse boss want trouble, I’ll give it to you. By the container load. You understand?’ Les jerked the towel around Frank’s neck. Kilby’s offsider was in too much pain and discomfort to say anything, but the terrified look in his eyes said the message had got through. ‘Good,’ smiled Norton. ‘Now, Frank, you’re a bit of a mess old mate. I think we’d better get you cleaned up.’

He dragged Frank across to the nearest toilet, pushed him through the door, shoved his head down the bowl and pushed the flush button. Frank coughed and spluttered as Les kept his head down and the smelly water slooshed up his nose and into his mouth, turning a weird purple as the blood blended in with the blue flushmatic. Norton dumped him casually in the cubicle, checked on the other two, who were still snoring soundly, and with a grunt of satisfaction walked out of the men’s room.

With all that noise and shouting, thought Norton, it’s a wonder nobody’s come in to see what’s going on. As he opened the door he saw why. Another Aborigine, big but more overweight than anything else, had been left standing outside to make sure Frank and his two cohorts weren’t disturbed. The blackman didn’t actually turn white when he saw Norton suddenly appear out of the men’s room unscathed. But he certainly went a very milk coffee colour.

‘You a mate of Frank’s are you?’ grintied Les. The Aborigine gave two very short, very quick nods. ‘Well he needs you inside. There’s no toilet paper and he wants you to hold his legs while he does a handstand under the blow dryer.’ The Aborigine blanched even more, gave Norton a double blink, then turned and ran inside.

There was no blood on Les’s face; he’d made sure of that in the mirror as he walked out. Apart from a sore knuckle, a sore ear and a thickening above his left eye, he hadn’t been hurt. For a fairly willing fight with three big men he’d hardly raised a sweat. But he hadn’t lost his thirst. His middy was still sitting on the bar with his change, so he downed that and ordered another, drinking it pretty smartly while he watched the shocked looks on the faces of the small group of men surging around the front and coming in and out of the men’s room. Oddly enough, apart from the goon who’d been left standing outside, nobody seemed to know who did it. But Les surmised that it would only be a matter of time before someone said something. He finished his middy, deliberated on whether or not to get another, then decided to leave.

Walking back to the hotel, Norton’s amusement at the funny side of belting Frank and his mates started to wear off and a few worrying thoughts began to enter his head. Frank was a twenty-four carat mug and deserved to get flattened, there was no two ways about that. And so did his two mates. But from another angle that little incident back at the RSL could cause some repercussions. Price had been adamant that nothing was to happen to Kilby or any of his associates because of the newspapers. And knowing Frank’s type and how they operated there would be no way he would tell the truth about what happened. It would come out more like Norton and a few of Galese’s heavies jumped him outside when he was drunk and gave him a kicking. And now that they’d found out who he was — how they did was still a mystery to Norton — what would Kilby’s reaction be? He’d have to interpret this, along with Les calling into the AWEC office, as Galese trying to put pressure on him. The one thing Price didn’t want. Now Kilby could dig his heels in and demand more money. He could go to the papers with Frank and scream assault and intimidation. It was only their word against Norton’s and Kilby could do any bloody thing. If this bone-pointing thing didn’t work out, and Les was getting dubious about that, he could find himself right up shit creek, without a paddle and with a rather large hole in the bottom of the boat as well.

Norton’s mood grew gloomier and gloomier as he approached the hotel. And it grew even more so after he’d told the boys what had just happened.

They’d turned the TV back on and were sitting in the same spot watching a Bryan Brown movie when Les walked in. At first they didn’t appear to take all that much notice, but when he explained to them who Frank was Tjalkalieri reached over and turned the TV off and the three of them sat there staring at Les — incredulous, almost horrified looks on their faces.

‘And one of the men you just beat up. This Frank,’ said Tjalkalieri. ‘That’s Percy Kilby’s offsider?’

Norton nodded glumby.

‘And he’s in the AWEC office with Kilby nearly all the time?’

Norton nodded again. ‘I imagine so.’

Tjalkalieri turned to the others. ‘Shit!’ he cursed. The looks on Mumbi and Yarrawulla seemed to echo Tjalkalieri’s sentiments precisely.

Norton stared at the three of them for a moment or two. ‘Why, what’s the trouble?’ he shrugged. ‘It’s not going to make any difference to what you blokes are up to... is it?’

‘That’s where you’re wrong, Les,’ sighed Mumbi. ‘It’s going to make a difference all right. A lot of difference.’

Norton’s jaw dropped slightly. After the other thoughts that had been running through his mind this was all he needed. He stared at them for want of an explanation.

‘You see, Les,’ said Tjalkalieri quietly and seriously. ‘Kilby can draw strength from this.’ He gave a brief, sympathetic smile at the dumb, hurt look on Norton’s face. ‘It’s hard to explain to an outsider. But with Frank in the office all day next to Kilby, and us trying to take away Kilby’s Kurinata, his Kurinata can draw not only on Frank’s pain, but the revenge and hatred that would be inside him for you.’

‘Yeah,’ added Yarrawulla. ‘And this... this aura of hatred and violence entering right into where we’re pointing the bone. It could bugger things up completely for us.’

‘Shit!’ cursed Norton.

‘This pointing the bone is a very involved, very complicated ceremony Les. I know we tend to make light of it and make it look easy. But there’s a lot more to it than what you think. There’s a hell of a lot of things can go wrong. And this is one of the worst things that can happen.’

Norton closed his eyes and shook his head. ‘Shit!’ he cursed again. ‘So what happens now?’

‘We honestly don’t know, Les,’ sighed Tjalkalieri, giving his head a bit of a shake. ‘And I don’t want to alarm you. But ... it’s not looking too good.’

‘Bloody hell,’ cursed Norton once more. ‘Just my fuckin’ luck.’

Everyone was silent for a moment. There was just the noise of the wind against the balcony door and the gentle spattering of the rain on the tiles.

Mumbi rubbed a little warmth into his arms and got to his feet. ‘I’m going to make a fresh pot of tea. We’ll talk about it over a cuppa.’

Mumbi made the tea and they sipped it slowly while they talked between themselves, mostly in their own language. Les just sat there, cursing himself for going into the RSL in the first place. The boys stopped talking. For a few moments there was complete silence. Then they had another quite excited burst, nodded solemnly to each other and turned to Norton.

‘We may possibly have just one card left up our sleeve,’ said Tjalkalieri. ‘It’s a dicey one, but it might work. But if it doesn’t...’ Tjalkalieri shrugged his shoulder at Norton.

‘What is it? Tell us.’

Mumbi shook his head. ‘We’re tired and we’re going to bed,’ he said as they all got to their feet. ‘We suggest you do the same, and we’ll talk about it in the morning.’

Norton nodded his head and stared disconsolately at the floor for a little while. In fifteen minutes they were all in bed. Despite what Tjalkalieri had just said, the big Queenslander felt pretty ordinary as he lay there, staring up at the ceiling. It was a very worried Les Norton who finally got off to sleep about an hour after the others.

The rain appeared to have stopped when Les walked out into the main room around seven the following morning. The southerly was still blowing, though not as hard and nowhere near as cold. Through the open balcony door Les could see several small patches of blue in the grey lumpiness of the sky. The empty cups on the table next to the teapot told him the boys had been up for a while. They were stripped down to their tracksuit pants, daubing themselves with ochre and feathers, and while Les’s eyes were grainy and he felt a little tired from not sleeping so well, the others looked fresh and relaxed.

‘G’day fellas’ he said with a slight yawn. ‘How are you?’

‘Not too bad, Les,’ replied Tjalkalieri. He was standing side on to Norton as Mumbi daubed his back with yellow ochre. The others, who were already painted, gave Les a cheery greeting also.

Despite their freshness, Norton could detect a very businesslike manner, almost a sense of urgency. He studied them for a moment or two then walked towards the table.

‘Any tea left?’ he said, placing a hand on the still warm teapot.

‘There might be one cup left in there,’ replied Yarrawulla.

There was, just, so Norton poured it and took a seat.

‘So what’s doing? You want me to go and get you some breakfast?’

‘Not this morning,’ replied Tjalkalieri. ‘We might have some fruit for lunch. That’s about all.’

‘Whatever.’ Norton took a sip of tea while the others continued to daub Tjalkalieri with symbols. ‘So what’s the story anyway? You said something last night, Chalky, about having one last card up your sleeve. What is it?’

‘I’ll tell you in a minute. Just wait’ll we finish doing this.’

Norton continued to sip his tea, watching intently as Mumbi finished painting a pair of braces in white circles and yellow dots across Tjalkalieri’s back. The others were painted in fairly similar fashion, only in red and brown. All had blood-smeared parrot feathers in their hair and tucked up under their stringy black headbands. After a minute or two Mumbi stepped back and nodded to Tjalkalieri.

‘Yeah. I reckon that ought to do,’ he said.

‘Right then,’ replied Tjalkalieri. ‘We’ll have time for another cup of tea then we’ll get stuck into it.

Yarrawulla went to the bathroom as Mumbi put the kettle on and Tjalkalieri walked over to Norton.

‘Righto, Les,’ he said, ‘I’ll try and give you an idea about what’s going on. We’re going to have to chant like buggery today. All day. Probably right up till about five. Then we’ve got to be left alone in the room for about an hour while we go into a trance and summon up the serpent spirit.’

‘The serpent spirit?’

‘That’s right. And I’m not even going to bother trying to explain it to you.’ An air of brittle politeness crept into Tjalkalieri’s voice. ‘In the meantime, you’ve got to arrange a confrontation with Kilby for us. Can you do that?’

‘A confrontation?’

‘Exactly. And not in his office, and not right up close to him. It’s got to be about twenty feet away. Can you arrange that?’

Norton took another sip of tea. ‘I’ll have to won’t I,’ he shrugged.

‘If you want this to work you will.’

‘When do you want to see him?’

‘About an hour after we finish our trance. Say six thirty. But no later than seven.’

‘Okay. I’ll work something out.’

Yarrawulla re-entered the room just as Mumbi finished making the tea. He gave the others a cup each and looked at Les who shook his head.

‘Now you got all that?’ said Tjalkalieri. ‘We have to front Kilby no later than seven. And it’s absolutely vital that we do.’

‘As a bean,’ nodded Les. ‘I’ll sort something out.’

‘Good on you. Now,’ Tjalkalieri turned to the others, ‘Kilby and Frank are in their office. We’ll finish our tea then I think we’d better get stuck into it.’ The others nodded in agreement.

Norton got up from his seat, walking across to the open glass door and looked out over the balcony. There didn’t appear to be any cars or movement around the AWEC office. He scratched his chin thoughtfully for a moment and turned to the others. How would they know if Kilby was in his office yet or not, he wondered. I still don’t know about all this bloody mental telepathy bullshit. And what’s all this about summoning up the serpent spirit? Norton shook his head. If you ask me, this is turning into one big shemozzle all around. Why did I open my big mouth in the first place?

He sat back down on the lounge chair and let the others move to the balcony door. The bone was on the floor wrapped in the cotton sheet. Tjalkalieri picked it up, handed it to Mumbi, who had slipped on the Kurdaitcha shoes, then after nicking all their arms with the sharpened piece of quartz and bleeding onto the bone they started chanting and dancing once more; Mumbi with the bone in his left hand and the hair chord in his right playing it towards the AWEC office.

Deep in thought, Norton watched them from his seat, pondering how he was going to organise the confrontation with Kilby, and with him somewhere in the background. It was a bloody tricky one again, and no Eddie to help him this time. It was nine-thirty and each of them had taken a turn on the bone before Les made a move. He picked at his chin, nodded to himself, checked his pockets for change and went down to the yellow phone in the foyer.

When the phone rang Percy Kilby was sitting in his office feeling angry, ill and completely mystified. He was angry because of what had happened to Frank the night before. His illness, although nowhere near as bad as it had been, had started not long after he walked into the office. Which was why he was mystified. How could you feel like a million dollars all weekend, then feel like a shithouse as soon as you start work? This had to be the weirdest case of flu, or whatever it was, he’d ever had or ever heard of. He was definitely going to see a doctor that night. Kilby was crook all right. But he didn’t feel anywhere near as bad as Frank, who was sitting opposite him, looked.

His lieutenant’s mouth was puffed up and full of stitches. There were stitches in his cheek and a large portion of hair was missing just above his forehead, where the nurses at Prince Alfred had shaved it to add a few more stitches. Frank felt like he had more stitches in him than a wedding gown. And his two mates hadn’t fared that much better. One had a broken jaw. The other had about the same amount of stitches in his mouth as Frank, and all his front teeth were gone. Frank’s larynx wasn’t in the best of shape either, from where Norton had tried to tie a Windsor knot around his throat with the towel. Which was why Kilby, sick and all as he now was, had to answer the phone. Frank’s voice sounded like a Sydney silky with bronchitis. His discomfort, however, was matched by his hatred for Norton. And his hatred was matched equally by his fear. Frank had met some tough boys in his time, in the ring, in the street, and on the football field. But he’d never come across a punching machine like Les. No one could possibly fight like that. Nevertheless, it was quite a different version of the battle in the Redfern RSL men’s room that he’d related to his boss.

Kilby reluctantly looked at the ringing phone for a few moments before finally reaching over and picking up the receiver. ‘Yeah hello. AWEC’, he growled.

‘Is Percy Kilby there?’ Norton crossed his fingers on his end of the line and hoped the plan he had in mind would work.

‘This is Percy Kilby.’

Norton couldn’t help but hesitate for a second or two before he answered. ‘My name’s Les Norton. I work for Price Galese.’

There was a shocked pause for a moment, then Kilby exploded. ‘What? he roared. ‘You — you cunt. You’ve got a fuckin’ hide ringing me. After what you and your mates did to my assistant last night.’ Kilby put his hand over the receiver and looked at Frank. ‘It’s that prick from last night. Les Norton.’ Frank gave a double blink. ‘I can’t believe your front ringing me after what you and your team did to Frank. What do you want anyway? You arsehole.’

‘What did your mate Frank say happened to him last night?’

‘You and a couple of other clowns jumped him outside the RSL when he was half full of piss and gave him a kicking.’ Kilby stared over at Frank, who swallowed hard and looked away.

Despite his apprehension Norton couldn’t help but chuckle to himself: he hadn’t been too far out in his summing up of Frank. ‘Is that what he told you, is it? I think you’d better pull him aside later and find out the truth.’

‘Ohh look, don’t start coming on with that shit.’ Kilby dismissed Norton’s last statement with a contemptuous wave of his hand. ‘Anyway, what do you want, you flip?’

‘I want to see you. I want to have a word with you.’

‘You want to see me, do you? Well I don’t particularly want to see you. You cunt. And you can tell that old prick you work for, Galese, that the price has just gone up to $650,000 too.’

‘That’s what I want to see you about,’ lied Les. ‘Price has agreed to your offer.’

There was a sudden pause at Kilby’s end of the line. ‘He has?’

‘Yeah. Look, what happened last night was just a mistake. But Price is prepared to give you $250,000 tonight. And another $250,000 next week. I’ll have to get back to him about the other $150,000 though.’

Kilby drummed his fingers on the desk for a moment while he had a think. Coming on top of what happened to Frank, this took him completely by surprise. ‘So you want to give me $250,000 tonight?’

‘That’s right.’

‘What’s wrong with bringing it round here? Right now.’

‘No. It has to be on neutral territory. And there has to be other people around. We’re talking about quarter of a million dollars you know.’

Kilby’s eyes narrowed. ‘I don’t know. This all sounds a bit funny to me.’

‘There’s nothing shifty going on. I just don’t trust you in your office — that’s all.’

‘Ohh don’t give me the shits.’

‘Look,’ said Norton. ‘What about I meet you up in the RSL tonight? I’ll be on my own, and I’ll have the money in a blue overnight bag. I’ll put it on the bar and order a drink. What can possibly go wrong?’

‘I don’t know. It just don’t seem right to me. You could have a bomb in the bag.’

‘Ohh don’t be stupid. You can open the bloody thing in front of me. And you can have as many mates with you as you like. But don’t get any ideas in your head about giving me a serve, cause you won’t get the rest of the dough.’

Kilby thought about it for a few seconds. What could go wrong? Norton would be on his own in a crowded RSL. And he’d make sure Frank and some of the boys were around. There’d be no point in giving Norton a serve over Frank and bombing the other $250,000. Plus possibly the extra $150,000. Fuck Frank if it came to that, anyway. Norton was right. What could possibly go wrong?

‘Yeah all right,’ agreed the AWEC boss. ‘I’ll see you up there when we finish here. About five.’

‘I can’t get there before six-thirty, seven.’

Kilby tapped on the desk for a second. ‘Yeah righto. But no later than seven. I’m not too good and I want to get home to bed.’

‘You’re what?’ Norton couldn’t hide his surprise.

‘I said I’ve had the flu or something the last few days. And I want to get home to bed.’

Norton’s face broke into a grin. Kilby had been crook the last few days. Maybe this thing was working. ‘No worries mate. I’ll see you there about six-thirty. Seven at the latest.’

‘Just make sure you are. And on your own. Or you and Galese can shove your money and I’ll go straight to the papers.’

‘Sweet as a nut. I’ll see you up there.’

Kilby hung up abruptly.

Well thought Les, gazing absently through the door of the foyer in the direction of the AWEC office. That’s that. I just hope to Christ I’ve done the right bloody thing. He sucked in a breath of air and let it out again. I think I have. Oh well. Too bloody late now. An way, I’ll go and get that fruit, then I s’pose I’d better tell the boys what’s going on.

In room 9, Tjalkalieri, Mumbi and Yarrawulla were chanting away like there was no tomorrow. They didn’t stop or even turn around when Les walked in, so he guessed they didn’t want to be disturbed. He placed the fruit on the table, and still feeling a little tired, walked quietly into the bedroom and lay down staring up at the ceiling. Even though a multitude of thoughts were swirling around in his mind, the steady, low buzz of the boys chanting seemed to relax him as it drifted through the open door. It wasn’t long before he’d dozed off.

He came to with a bit of a start just before twelve. Shit! What time is it? He blinked groggily at his watch, stretched, then went into the bathroom and splashed some cold water on his face. Back in the main room the boys were still chanting and dancing away steadily. He peeled and spread the fruit out on the table, then sat down on one of the seats and watched them. Before long it was afternoon and they abruptly stopped.

‘Ohh shit!’ said Tjalkalieri, flopping down on the seat nearest Les, while the others almost collapsed on to the settee. ‘I’m buggered.’

Norton could see from the flushed looks on their faces and the trickles of sweat beneath their headbands that they were obviously quite exhausted. ‘Hard work eh?’

‘It is this time,’ said Mumbi. ‘We’ve really got to concentrate.’

‘Yeah. I understand.’ Norton felt more than a little self-conscious because it was mainly his fault. ‘I’m sorry about last night.’

‘That’s all right’ said Yarrawulla. ‘You couldn’t help what happened.’ The little Aborigine tilted his head back and closed his eyes. ‘Listen Les. What about making us a cup of tea. We’re dead-set too fucked to move.’

‘Yeah, sure mate,’ replied Norton, getting to his feet. ‘There’s fruit on the table too if you want it. Do you want me to run out and get you something to drink? Some orange juice, or lemonade or something. What do you want?’

‘Just a nice cup of tea’ll do, Les,’ said Tjalkalieri. Like the others, he had his head tilted back and his eyes closed.

Norton made a pot of tea and after the first cup they seemed to have freshened up a little, so he poured them all another and made a fresh pot. While the kettle was boiling he told them about his phonecall to Kilby and what he’d organised. He hoped it suited them because if he had to ring Kilby back and change the arrangements there was a good chance he’d smell some sort of a rat and back off.

‘Meeting him up the RSL was about the best thing I could think of fellas.’ Norton threw the tea leaves in the pot, poured in the boiling water, then folded his arms and looked hopefully at them while he waited for it to draw. ‘If I’d have arranged to meet him somewhere where there was no-one around, and I walked in with you, or you were already there, he’d get suspicious. He’s a real shifty bastard.’

Tjalkalieri gave Norton a tired wink. ‘Actually that’s perfect, Les.’ Which cheered Norton up immeasurably. ‘It’s best there’s some people around. Even though what’s going to happen will be over in a matter of seconds. With people around it will help to hide it. A small group, or one or two people would take notice. In a crowd there’ll be confusion. No-one will be sure what’s happened. You’ve done well, Les. It’ll work out good.’

‘Just what is going to happen?’ asked Norton.

Tjalkalieri looked earnestly at Norton, looked for a second at the others, then back at Norton.

‘Les,’ he said slowly. ‘What you’re going to see briefly tonight... No white man in Australia, or the world for that matter, will have ever seen before.’

‘Yeah?’

‘We’re going to fleetingly make contact with the Otherworld tonight Les. We can’t, and we won’t, explain it to you. But you must swear you’ll never, ever, tell a soul what you’ll see tonight. If you’re quick enough to see it.’

Norton nodded solemnly. ‘Yeah, fair enough.’

‘There’s forces in this world, Les,’ chimed in Yarrawulla, ‘that you and any other white man know nothing about. Even we’re not too sure of them.’

‘I can appreciate that. I’ve known you blokes, and about you, all my life.’

Tjalkalieri got up, took a piece of rockmelon from the table and chewed on it for a moment when he sat back down; as if he needed to get a sudden dryness out of his throat before he could continue.

‘We’re going to raise an evil spirit tonight, Les, and hope he’ll do something for us. He’s called Mungoongali. He’s one of the evilest there is. The thing is, Mungoongali feeds on the weakest. If we don’t insure that Percy Kilby’s Kurinata is weaker than ours, Mungoongali will turn on us.’

Norton stared at the three of them and blinked. It all sounded like some sort of fairy tale. But their usual lighthearted banter had completely disappeared and the nervous looks on their faces told him they were deadly, even fearfully serious.

‘If Mungoongali doesn’t wish to do what we want him to do after we raise him from the Otherworld. He’ll kill us.’

‘What Tjalkalieri’s trying to say,’ said Mumbi, ‘is we’re laying our lives on the line tonight.’

‘Jesus!’

‘We’ll need more than him to save us if this doesn’t work out Les,’ said Yarrawulla.

Norton stood there staring at them. Motionless. Absolutely lost for words.

‘But don’t worry, Les,’ smiled Tjalkalieri. ‘We’re fairly confident our Kurinata’s good.’

‘Look,’ said Norton, and he pointed at all three of them. ‘I don’t know much about all this spirit thing. But I know you blokes, and I know you’ve always been fair dinkum. If this is getting a bit beyond what you can handle, and there’s any sort of danger to you, I want you to knock it on the head. That’s fine by me. And I’ll still give you your money. It’s not worth it to lose three old mates.’

‘No. Everything’s going to be okay,’ smiled Tjalkalieri. ‘We’ve come this far. We can handle it.’

‘Okay, suit yourselves,’ shrugged Norton. ‘But if you want to pull out — no sweat. It was a good try. And all this fuck-up’s my fault anyway.’

‘She’ll be sweet, Les,’ winked Mumbi.

‘Anyway. I think we’ve got time for another cup of tea,’ said Tjalkalieri. ‘And then we’ll get into it again. I’ll tell you what. This rockmelon’s all right.’

‘Yeah I was just watching you,’ said Yarrawulla. ‘I might grab a bit myself.’

The boys finished their tea and most of the fruit. Then after using the bathroom they started chanting again. Yarrawulla took first turn at holding the bone.

There wasn’t a great deal Les could do now. The fresh linen had been left outside the door so he made the beds and cleaned up what little mess there was from lunch, doing his best to keep quiet and out of the way while the others continued their chanting. Tjalkalieri told him that when they’d finished their trance and went up to the RSL to do whatever it was they were going to do, they would still have to wear their body paint and their headbands with the blood-smeared feathers stuck in them. Their tracksuits would cover their bodies, but they would need some beanies or caps. So Les went out, found a K-Mart and bought three Khaki cotton, army-style bush hats. Back in the hotel he phoned Kingsley Sheehan, putting him on standby for Tuesday. That was no sweat said Kingsley. The rest of the afternoon Norton spent reading and half-dozing in the bedroom and before long it was five.

He folded his magazine, then went out to the main room and sat on one of the lounge chairs, watching as the boys gave it one last frantic burst before finishing just on ten past five.

‘Shit! I reckon that ought to do it.’ Tjalkalieri was the last one holding the bone. He placed it carefully on its sheet and they all flopped down in pretty much the same state of exhaustion as before. Eyes closed, heads back. Two on the settee, Tjalkalieri on the spare lounge chair across from Norton. ‘What time is it Les?’ he asked.

Norton couldn’t help but feel for the little Aborigine. His arms dangling loose by his sides, feet spread out in front of him. Tiny streams of sweat were still trickling down his face. He was obviously buggered.

‘About quarter past five, Chalky.’

‘Righto. We’ll take a break for five or ten minutes, then we’ll get in touch with Mungoongali.’ Their eyes still closed, the others nodded in agreement. ‘This is where we’re going to have to ask you to leave us for about an hour. What we’re about to do now, you can’t see. Sorry mate.’

‘That’s okay. I understand.’ Norton got to his feet. ‘I may as well get going now. I’ll see you in about an hour.’

Well there’s not a great deal I can do, thought Norton, standing outside the hotel. The rain had stopped but it was cool and starting to get quite dark. The Regent Street traffic was thick and noisy and exhaust fumes and other smog hung in the air, frozen momentarily by the headlights of passing cars. I’d better not go too far though. He had a quick glance through the drinkers crowded around the public bar. And I’d better not have anything to drink either. Oh well, guess I’ll just have to take in the sights of beautiful downtown Redfern for an hour.

If Norton had stepped out of the hotel about ten minutes earlier, he more than likely would have seen two shadowy figures walking up the opposite side of the road towards the RSL. A shorter, stockier one who wasn’t feeling all that well and kept coughing and spitting into the gutter as he walked along. And a taller, rangier one who wasn’t sick at all, but certainly didn’t look too healthy.

‘You reckon the prick’ll turn up, Perce?’ asked Frank, as they shuffled along the RSL side of Regent Street.

‘Dunno for sure.’ Kilby shrugged. ‘But I reckon he will. He sounded fair dinkum over the phone.’ Kilby hawked and let go another gob into the gutter.

‘You reckon he might try and pull something clever?’

‘Dunno about that either. But I made a few phone calls and there’ll be six good boys up there with us.’

‘Seven counting me.’ Frank spat into the gutter also. ‘And just quietly, I hope the big cunt does.’

‘Just cool it up there Frank — till after we get this 500 grand. Then after that. Well, wouldn’t it be a shame if Mr Les Norton was to get knocked down by a hit-and-run driver.’

‘Or accidently copped a shotgun blast in the face.’

Kilby laughed and spat in the gutter again. ‘Right now I wouldn’t mind giving him some of this bloody flu I’m getting back. But with half a million dollars in our kicks, anything could happen to him.’

‘Yeah. Anything.’

They both laughed and continued walking.

Norton continued with his stroll around Redfern, but after half an hour of grimy terrace houses, equally grimy shop windows and not much more in the darkness, he ended up back in the Greek’s having a coffee and raisin toast over the evening papers. When the hour was up he folded his newspapers and headed back to the hotel.

Tjalkalieri, Mumbi and Yarrawulla were sitting on the settee dressed in their tracksuits and hats. Each of them looked quite subdued and serious, as if they’d just undergone some sort of strain. They looked up expressionlessly at Les as he crossed the room.

‘How’re you goin’ now fellas?’ he asked quietly. ‘Everything all right?’

‘Yes,’ replied Tjalkalieri. ‘We’ve done everything we had to. And everything we could do.’ He snatched a nervous look at the others next to him. It was the first time Les had ever seen him look like that. ‘We can only hope for the best now.’

‘You guys all right yourselves?’

‘Yeah we’re okay,’ nodded Mumbi. ‘We’re absolutely knackered and we’re a bit frightened about what we just done. But we’re okay.’

‘It’s still not too late to pull out if you want to.’

‘No Les,’ said Tjalkalieri, giving him a tired smile. ‘We’ve come this far. We may as well go through with it.’

Norton nodded as he folded his arms. ‘Okay. Now how do you want to work this?’

Norton explained roughly the layout inside the club. He said he’d prop in the same spot he was drinking last night. He’d put his overnight bag — which would have nothing in it but dirty clothes — on the bar. He guessed Kilby and his team would probably be standing at the other end of the bar where it formed a bit of an alcove in front of the men’s room. That was where Frank and his two mates must have been standing when they saw him walk in before, and it was the sort of place where shifty characters usually like to congregate when they want to have a drink and do a bit of side-of-the-mouth talking.

The boys said that that would be ideal for them. They’d enter the club behind Les, but not with him, then stand at the bar to his left and order their own drinks. He could discreetly point Kilby out to them, then stand back out of the road. As soon as it was all over the boys would leave the club and wait outside for Les.

‘How long do you reckon this will take? Once we’re inside,’ asked Norton.

‘From as soon as you point Kilby out to us. No more than a few seconds,’ replied Tjalkalieri.

‘Yeah? I thought you said I’d be seeing something weird. Something I’d never seen before.’

‘You will,’ said Yarrawulla. ‘But you’ll want to keep your eyes open.’

‘And you’ll want to be quick,’ added Mumbi.

Norton nodded and looked at his watch. ‘Well. It’s getting on for six-thirty. We get going?’

Norton got his bag out of the bedroom and opened the front door. The next thing they’d left the hotel and were walking slowly and silently, four abreast, heading for the showdown at the Redfern RSL. For all his own nervousness and uncertainty about what was going to happen, Norton couldn’t help but feel like Gary Cooper in High Noon or one of the Earp brothers heading for the gunfight at the OK Corral. All that was missing was someone playing a lone harmonica in the background. He was going to mention this to the others, but the worried, almost fearful looks on their faces told him this was not the time to be flippant.

Once again there was no one at the reception desk so they ambled straight in and up the hallway to the bar and auditorium. The place wasn’t quite as crowded as Sunday night, but it was just as smoky and just as noisy. Keeping a discreet distance, the boys followed Les around the circle of clattering poker machines and stopped in the corner at the bar, just down from him. Before long the tired-looking barman from last night came over. He took Les’s order, a middy of new, and turned to the boys slightly down to his left, who ordered three of the same. To all appearances it didn’t look at all like they were together: the drinks came; they paid separately. Norton started looking around the bar, spotting Kilby and the others about a minute after they’d seen him.

Les was fairly spot-on about Kilby and his associate’s drinking habits. He couldn’t miss Frank’s tall frame propped up in the alcove near the men’s room. I’ll bet that’s where they were standing last time I was in here thought Les. And I didn’t even notice them.

Even at that distance Norton couldn’t mistake all the stitches sticking out of Frank’s mouth and cheekbone like a lot of little flies’ legs. And he couldn’t help but smile at the way the AWEC thug was gingerly sipping his middy to one side of his swollen mouth. Frank was looking absolute daggers back at Les. Standing just to Frank’s left — wearing brown trousers, matching shirt and stylish leather jacket, and more-or-less surrounded by another six big Aboriginal heavies — was Percy Kilby. He stared impassively at Norton, who stared back for a moment before picking up his overnight bag and placing it on the bar. He then stared back at Kilby and nodded to it with his head. Very casually, Norton picked up his middy, moved his head slightly to his left as he took a sip, and leant a fraction towards Tjalkalieri.

‘That’s him at the other end of the bar. The solid bloke in the tan leather jacket and brown shirt.’

‘Gotcha,’ replied Tjalkalieri urgently. ‘Now move back from the bar Les.’

Norton did that, keeping his head straight but not taking his eyes off the boys. Kilby and Frank didn’t notice him say anything or see anything suspicious; they were too interested in the bag which was supposed to contain $250,000. What happened next, Norton still isn’t sure of and he still keeps it to himself.

The boys had all turned in Percy Kilby’s direction, except that each had their eyes closed. After a second or two they opened them and when they did their strange blue eyes now had a bright, luminous green glow. The intense glow pulsated for a second, then seemed to radiate a few centimetres from their eyes where it formed a thin ribbon of emerald-green light. Quickly, the ribbon of green light beamed along the bar before materialising behind Kilby and his associates like a small, flat cloud of tiny sparkling crystals. It closely resembled a mist or a handful of glowing grains of green sand, suspended in mid-air.

In the smoky light of the club and the heaving throng of drinkers, no-one noticed anything. Norton was watching intently and he only just saw it. Kilby and the others, who were too interested in watching Norton and his overnight bag, didn’t notice a thing.

The sparkling crystals, or whatever they were, hung in the air behind Kilby and his associates for barely a second before they began to take the shape of an unbelievably muscular man. A man almost eight feet tall. But instead of skin he had thick, lumpy green scales. And where the figure had a man’s torso the head was a cross between a snake and some kind of lizard — possibly a goanna but much more evil, with piercing orange eyes. Across the creature’s shoulders and chest were body markings identical to those Tjalkalieri had on back in the room. The wicked, horrible mouth opened slightly and a thin forked tongue, black like wet tar, seemed to dart out and briefly touch Kilby on the back of his head.

There was no noise, no sound at all. Only the hubbub of the drinkers and the rattle of the poker machines. Kilby and his gang still hadn’t noticed anything. Their eyes were glued on the overnight bag, though they were probably a little curious at the now wild-eyed look on Norton’s face.

The monster, or apparition, or whatever it was, had no sooner touched Kilby when the tongue vanished back into the huge, scaly mouth. The figure then dissolved into the glowing crystals, then into the thin beam of green light which raced back down the bar and swiftly vanished into the glow still radiating from Tjalkalieri’s, Mumbi’s and Yarrawulla’s eyes. The boys closed their eyes for a moment and when they opened them again they were as clear, blue and piercing as ever. They picked up their middies and continued drinking as though nothing had happened.

The whole strange, horrifying incident had taken no more than six or eight seconds. No-one really saw it. The one or two drunks that did could only shake their heads in disbelief and forget about it. Even Norton, who was prepared for and saw the whole thing, wasn’t sure what he’d just witnessed. But he was certainly stunned.

Eventually Norton shifted his gaze back to Kilby and Frank, who were staring back at him, curious about the odd look on the big Queenslander’s face. Kilby pointed towards the bag, said something to Frank, and still had his left arm out in Norton’s direction when he began to blink rapidly. His jaw swung open and a look of shock and disbelief spread across his face as his gaze switched to the boys standing quietly at the bar. From where he was standing, Norton could see Kilby’s mouth and throat moving as he made several short, choking gasps. He clutched at his chest with one hand and turned to Frank for support with the other. Frank’s face screwed up with worry at the look on his boss’s. But now it wasn’t a look of pain. It was a look of peace. A smile of understanding, as if a great mystery had just unfolded itself to him, and although he knew what was just about to happen to him he was glad that it was. He gave one small, final gasp and collapsed at Frank’s feet.

All eyes immediately focused on the stricken AWEC boss. Norton glanced over at the boys who were now finishing their beers. They put their empty glasses down and headed for the door.

‘We’ll see you out the front, Les,’ said Tjalkalieri as they walked past. Still a bit dumbfounded at what was going on around him, Norton could only nod.

He turned back to the other end of the bar where Frank and several others were crouched over Kilby. Through the confusion and hubbub Norton heard someone yell out. ‘Quick. Get a doctor.’ Les picked up his overnight bag full of dirty T-shirts and walked up for a better view.

The chances of finding a doctor drinking in Redfern RSL are pretty remote. But as is often the case there was an off-duty nurse in the club, a plump, apple-faced woman in her early fifties who now worked part time and was in there having the odd middy or ten before she switched over to brandies and soda. And go easy on the soda. She huffed and bustled her way through the crowd. Not really enjoying having her drinking disturbed, though relishing in her brief moment of importance, she told Frank and the others to move aside while she undid Kilby’s collar and loosened his belt. Professionally she picked up Kilby’s wrist and held it for a second before placing his hand back on his chest. She placed her hand on the side of his neck, waited a moment, then put her ear on his heart. Grim faced and tight lipped the sister next peeled Kilby’s eyelid back with her thumb: his pupils were just widened, dark pools of nothing. The sister shook her head and placed Kilby’s hand down by his side, before getting slowly and a little unsteadily to her feet.

‘I’m afraid he’s dead,’ she shrugged, looking helplessly around her.

‘Dead! said Frank, who was still kneeling by Kilby’s side. He leapt to his feet and stared accusingly at the slightly swaying nurse. ‘What do you mean dead? There’s got to be something you can do.’

‘I’m sorry young man. But it’s too late. There’s no pulse. No heartbeat. No respit... no resp... He’s stopped breathing and his pupils are dilated.’ She shrugged again. ‘Call for the paramedics. But they won’t be able to do anything. He’s dead.’

‘But... but,’ protested Frank, ‘he was only standing there having a drink two minutes ago. How can he be dead?’

The sister, now keen to get back to her drinking shrugged and made a helpless gesture with her hands. ‘It looks like he’s had a heart attack. Or a massive stroke.’ She looked down at Kilby. ‘Or both.’

Frank’s mind was immediately filled with confusion and dread. Percy. Dead. He couldn’t come to grips with it. Not as quickly as that. His eyes darted towards the other end of the bar. What about that bloody Norton? Could he have something to do with this? No. He was standing on the other side of the room. Besides. Perce had been sick the last few days. Very sick. The poor bastard was dying and didn’t even know it. And he thought all he had was the bloody flu. In the surrounding silence, broken only by the distant clunk of someone playing a poker machine, Frank stared down at his late boss. Before she went back to her table, the sister had closed Percy’s eyes and now he looked like he was in a deep restful sleep. Even the smile was still on his face. The next thing, Frank felt a tug at his elbow.

‘Hey Frank. You got a minute?’ said Norton.

Frank didn’t know what to do when he turned around and saw Les. Immediately he was filled with hatred and fear. Yet at the same time his boss had just collapsed dead at his feet making him a hotbed of helpless grief and confusion. He glared grimly at Norton, completely speechless.

‘Well Frank old mate,’ said Norton, giving his overnight bag a tap. ‘Looks like all bets are off. Sorry about your boss. But that’s the way it goes.’

Norton paused to run his eyes across Frank’s mates, who were glaring at him over the small crowd gathered around the prostrate Percy Kilby. The looks on their faces weren’t at all friendly and they appeared to be edging towards him. Norton ran his eyes over them again, then turned back to Frank and looked him right in the eye.

‘Now Frank, I’ll give you some real good fuckin’ advice. Firstly, don’t you or any of your boofheaded mates get any ideas of following me out of the club for a square up and to try and get this money. We’ve got two blokes with guns waiting outside and they won’t think twice about blowing you and the rest of them to bits. You got that?’

Frank nodded briefly.

‘Good. Now secondly.’ Norton nodded his head in the direction of the railway station. ‘Be out of that building by Thursday morning. Typewriters. Furniture. Your poster of Michael Jackson. The fuckin’ lot. If you’re not,’ Norton looked down at the body of Percy Kilby, ‘that’s how you’ll finish. Only you won’t go out with a smile on your face. You’ll have no head. You got that too?’

Frank nodded sourly again.

‘Good.’ Norton smiled at the tall thug. ‘Well I guess I’ll be seeing you, Frank. Don’t know when though.’ As Les turned to walk away the smile on his face spread into a huge grin. ‘In the meantime. Keep those stitches dry, won’t you.’

Frank clenched his fists with rage, but he didn’t say or do anything.

Outside the club the boys were waiting impatiently. ‘Come on Les,’ said Tjalkalieri. ‘We want to get out of here.’

‘You want to get out of here,’ replied Norton. ‘So do bloody I. And I want to have a word with you three back at the bloody hotel.’

They reached the Thames Tavern as an ambulance came screaming up Regent Street, its red light flashing as it shot through the traffic lights outside the front door. Back inside their hotel room, the boys took their hats and headbands off and flopped down on the settee to watch Norton clumsily making a cup of tea. He was still wide eyed and still obviously in a state of mild shock.

‘Right,’ he said, pointing a finger accusingly at the three of them once he’d managed to get the kettle filled and switched on. ‘Did I see what I thought I saw back in that bloody club?’

The boys just stared up at him, slight smiles flickering around the corners of their eyes.

‘Just what in the bloody hell was that thing?’

‘That,’ smiled Tjalkalieri. ‘That was Mungoongali.’

‘Christ!’ exclaimed Norton.

‘Yes. He’s an ugly big bludger, isn’t he?’ said Mumbi.

Norton shook his head and stared at the three little Aborigines on the lounge.

Norton made the tea, waited in silence till it drew, then poured them all a cup. Norton took his over to the balcony where he opened the door and stared out at the city skyline for a few moments before coming back inside. He closed the door behind him and stood in front of the others.

‘I still don’t believe what I saw back at that RSL.’

‘Good,’ replied Tjalkalieri, slowly sipping his tea. ‘Keep it that way, Les. Forget you were ever up there. Forget the whole thing. Just put in down to your imagination.’

‘That wasn’t my imagination. I saw some bloody thing in there. Either that or you hypnotised me.’

A titter of laughter ran across the lounge.

‘Les,’ intoned Yarrawulla. ‘There’s a lot of things about our people the whites will never understand.’

‘Yeah,’ nodded Mumbi. ‘We’re not all like those morons hanging around Redfern. Sucking on flagons of plonk and trying to look like they just got off a boat from Jamaica.’

‘I know that Mumbles.’

‘You ever heard of the Strehlow Collection, Les?’ asked Tjalkalieri.

Norton nodded his head. ‘Yeah. There was something on TV about it just the other week. They call them Australia’s crown jewels. They’re sacred relics, thousands of years old. Is that right?’

‘That’s them,’ nodded Mumbi. ‘Professor Ted Strehlow conned the Aranda elders into letting him take them for safekeeping about fifty years ago.’

‘Did it say on the TV about the Canadian anthropologist who got a look at them and it scared the shit out of him?’ said Yarrawulla. Norton nodded slowly again. ‘Well that’ll give you an idea why. And we’ve got an identical set back at Binjiwunyawunya.

‘How about another cup of tea Les.’ Tjalkalieri held up his empty cup. Norton topped it up and the others as well. Tjalkalieri took a sip and smiled up at Norton. ‘We’re the only people in the world that worship the earth. Did you know that Les?’

‘Hey. I know a fair bit about you,’ replied Norton. ‘And I know that.’

‘Other people and tribes worship the moon. The sun. Stars. Gods. Buddha, Mohammed. We worship the earth.’

‘And where do you think Mungoongali comes from?’ smiled Mumbi.

‘I don’t know what to think. But I’ll bet he doesn’t come from the local women’s softball team. Anyway,’ Norton drained his cup and put it on the table, ‘I’ve got to go and make a phonecall. Do you want anything while I’m down there?’ There was a general shaking of heads. ‘Righto. I’ll be back in about ten minutes.’

A skinny woman — in her fifties and obviously a wino — had just got off the phone when Norton came down into the foyer. After waving away the cigarette smoke and brown muscat fumes, he was able to get straight through. Price was sitting in the lounge room of his Vaucluse home discussing something with Eddie Salita when the phone rang.

‘Hello,’ he said into the receiver.

‘Price? It’s Les. How’re you going?’

‘Les!! Shit! I’ve been waiting for you to ring. What the bloody hell have you been up to?’

‘Nothing. Listen, I want you to ring Redfern RSL and ask for Percy. Here. I’ll give you the number.’

‘What! You’re bloody kidding aren’t you? What do I want to talk to that arsehole for?’

‘I just want you to ring up and ask for him,’ laughed Norton. ‘That’s all.’

‘You’re off your bloody head,’ replied Price, jotting down the phone number. ‘What am I bloody well going to say to him? He’s got to be the last prick in the world I want to talk to.’

‘You won’t be talking to him. I just want you to ring up and ask for him. I’ve got a surprise for you.’ Norton laughed out loud again. ‘I’ll tell you what though. If he does answer the phone — hang up quick. I’ll ring you back in five minutes.’

‘Yeah righto,’ mumbled Price reluctantly.

‘What’d Les want?’ asked Eddie.

‘He wants me to ring Redfern RSL and ask for Kilby.’ ‘You going to?’

Price shrugged. ‘I may as well I suppose. Don’t know what I’m going to say to him though.’

Price pushed the buttons and was through. It seemed like a while before a rather anxious voice answered the phone.

‘Hello. Redfern RSL.’

‘Yes,’ said Price slowly. ‘Could you page someone in the club for me.’

‘Yeah sure. Who is it?’

‘His name’s Percy Kilby. He runs the local Aboriginal office.’

There was a pause for a moment. ‘Are you a relative of Mr Kilby’s?’ came the careful voice at the other end.

‘Well, I’m a pretty close friend of his. I have to talk to him about something. Is he there?’

The voice on the other end began to sound very strained.

‘Look. I ah... don’t know how to put this to you. But Mr Kilby just had a heart attack in the club.’

‘He what!’

‘He had a massive heart attack at the bar. Barely thirty minutes ago.’

‘A heart attack?’ Price’s face lit up and a huge grin spread across it. ‘Fair dinkum. How is he?’

There was another pause. ‘You are a friend of Mr Kilby’s are you?’

‘Yeah, of course I am. We’re like brothers. Hey, what’s going on?’

‘I’m afraid Mr Kilby died in the club before the ambulance could get here.’

Price couldn’t help but burst into laughter. ‘Did you say he’s dead?’

‘Yes. I’m very sorry.’

‘You’re sorry,’ roared Price. ‘Mate, I’m fair dinkum heartbroken.’ Price roared laughing again and hung up.

‘What’s going on Price?’ asked Eddie.

With a huge grin on his face Price stared at Eddie in amazement. ‘Kilby’s just had a heart attack. He’s as dead as a dodo.’

‘What!!?’ Now it was Eddie’s turn to stare. ‘How did it happen?’

‘I don’t know,’ shrugged Price. ‘But I will as soon as Les rings back.’ The mercurial casino owner rubbed his hands gleefully in front of the phone. ‘Come on you big red-headed prick. Where are you.’

Right on five minutes later Norton phoned back.

‘Hello Les?’ said Price, snatching up the receiver.

‘Yeah. Did you ring the RSL?’

‘I sure did. Kilby’s brown bread. He had a heart attack in the club.’

‘Yeah I know. It happened right in front of me,’ chuckled Norton. ‘It’s a shame isn’t it. That’s why I said if he answers the phone hang up for Christ’s sake.’

Price burst out laughing again. ‘Hey fair dinkum Les. How did you bloody do it?’

Norton gave a tired laugh. ‘Ohh, it’s a long story, Price. But look. I’m not quite finished over here yet. Will you be home tomorrow afternoon?’

‘Yeah. For sure.’

‘Well I’ll call over about four. I’ll tell you all about it then.’ Norton paused for a second. ‘Or as much as I can.’

‘Fair enough. Eddie’ll be here. We’ll see you then.’

‘Okay. See you tomorrow Price.’

Back in room 9 the boys had turned the TV on and were sitting in front of it watching the figures on the screen more out of habit and indifference than anything else. Mumbi had his eyes almost closed and Yarrawulla wasn’t far behind him. Tjalkalieri looked up and let out a cavernous yawn as Les walked in.

‘Make your phone call Les?’ he asked.

‘Yeah. I just rang Price.’

Norton told them about his brief conversation, which had them all smiling despite their heavy-lidded tiredness.

‘So your boss is quite happy eh?’ yawned Mumbi.

‘Yeah. Happy as the proverbial pig in shit. I reckon he’d like to meet you blokes, too, before you go back.’

Tjalkalieri shook his head. ‘Sorry Les. We’d like to and all that. But we want to get going as soon as we can tomorrow. It’s been a big five days for us — and we’re starting to miss home.’

‘Fair enough, Chalky. Anyway,’ Norton clapped his hands together and grinned, ‘what do you want for tea? How about something grouse tonight. Anything you want.’

Tjalkalieri smiled then yawned as he shook his head. ‘Les. We couldn’t eat a thing. We’re too stuffed.’

‘You sure?’ Norton looked surprised. ‘All you’ve had all day has been a bit of fruit and a few cups of tea.’

Yarrawulla shook his head and yawned. ‘Thanks all the same, Les. But we’re dead-set rooted. We’ll probably be in bed in another five minutes.’

And they were. Leaving Norton in front of an almost inaudible TV, staring absently at it on his own. After a few minutes he went down to the bottle shop and got a couple of cans of Fourex, then came back and propped in front of the TV sipping them slowly. Very slowly. He wasn’t really watching the TV either. Just staring at it. The thing may as well have not been turned on for all the notice he was taking. There was a lot more on Norton’s mind besides A Country Practice and Hill Street Blues.

Ancient Aboriginal ceremonies. Vicious fights in men’s toilets. Subterfuge in the AWEC office. That bloody Mungoongali or whatever it was. And when it was all boiled down, he’d just been an accessory to another murder. Yeah. Like Tjalkalieri said, it certainly had been a big five days. Or at least very bloody strange ones. Hard to believe it’s finally all over. Oddly enough, Les began to feel quite tired himself after the second can of beer. He turned the TV off and was in bed by nine. Five minutes after his head hit the pillow, he hardly moved for almost ten hours.

They were all up and showered and dressed by not long after eight the following morning. Although a little stiff at first, Norton felt good after all that uninterrupted sleep. But everyone was in high spirits. It was the relief, more than anything else, that the job was finally over and almost like a great burden had been lifted from all their shoulders. Especially with the boys. Where they had been noticeably tense and strained, especially the last day or so, now they were positively jubilant. What they’d come all this way to accomplish had been done, they’d soon be paid and in a few hours they’d all be home with their loved ones. Norton made a pot of tea and they drank that while they gave the room a bit of a tidy and the boys carefully packed up their Tjuringa boards and the bone, etc. Norton made a quick trip downstairs to ring Kingsley Sheehan to confirm they’d be out there about eleven or so. The cheerful pilot said that suited him as he had a bit of bookwork to catch up on and he’d see them when they got there.

‘Well. Everything’s arranged,’ Norton said happily when he got back to the room. ‘You fly out around eleven and you should be home in Binji by four.’

‘That’s good Les,’ smiled Tjalkalieri.

‘The girls know what time you’ll be there?’

‘We let them know last night before we went to sleep,’ winked Yarrawulla.

‘Saves the price of a phone call,’ nodded Norton.

The room was cleaned up now and the boys were standing next to their bags sipping the last of their tea while they waited patiently to leave.

‘Well,’ said Norton, smiling at the three of them. ‘I suppose you’re going to miss room 9 eh?’

‘Yeah,’ replied Mumbi. ‘Like you’d miss Johnny Holmes belting you over the head with his cock for a couple of hours.’

‘It was starting to get like a prison,’ added Yarrawulla. ‘And those bloody beds. You’d be more comfortable sleeping on a sheet of corrugated-iron.’

‘Yeah. You’re pretty right,’ smiled Les. He jangled his car keys in his hand after he slipped off the key to the door. ‘Anyway. What about breakfast? How about we slip up to the San Francisco Grill at the Hilton. Or the New York Deli at Double Bay. Have some eggs benedictine and hash browns. Tell you what. We’ll go down to Pancakes on the Rocks. Have some blintzes and pancakes with maple syrup. What do you reckon?’

‘Les,’ smiled Yarrawulla. ‘You know what we’d like for breakfast?’

‘No. But name it Yarra baby and it’s all yours.’ ‘McDonalds.’

‘McDonalds?’

‘Yeah. Too right Les. That’s just what I feel like.’

‘Bloody oath,’ added Tjalkalieri. ‘Quarter pounder with cheese. French fries. Coca-Cola. And one of those grouse chocolate fudge sundaes. Les, I can taste it now.’

Norton smiled at them almost in disbelief. Fancy wanting to go to McDonalds when he would have taken them anywhere in Sydney they wanted to go. And hang the expense. But actually McDonalds suited him. There was one at Bondi Junction just down from the bank. He could kill two birds with the one stone, so he wasn’t going to argue.

‘Come to think of it Yarra. That’s not a bad idea. I might even have a Big Mac myself.’

‘Have a nice day. Enjoy your meal,’ grinned Mumbi.

The boys picked up their bags. Les took his, plus the big black one, and they walked down the stairs to the foyer. Norton asked the girl in the bottle-shop where Bailey was; she said he was out in the parking area washing his car. When they got out there, Ross was running a hose over a green Ford Station-Wagon parked two down from Les’s old sedan. He smiled as soon as he spotted the four of them.

‘Hey. How’re you goin’ there George? All right?’

‘G’day Ross,’ replied Norton. ‘How’s things?’

‘Pretty good.’ The hose had one of those little plastic guns for a nozzle; Bailey dropped it and walked over to where Les was unlocking his car. ‘So how did the ad go. Everything sweet?’

‘Yeah. Good as gold,’ replied Norton easily. ‘I’m just taking the boys out to the airport now. Fellahs,’ he said, turning to the others. ‘This is Ross. The owner of the hotel.’

The boys nodded briefly and gave Bailey a half smile.

‘Nice place you’ve got,’ said Tjalkalieri.

‘Yeah. Just bonzer,’ nodded Yarrawulla.

‘Great view,’ added a po faced Mumbi. ‘Pity we’ve got to go home so soon.’

‘Yeah,’ winked Bailey. ‘She’s a beaut little pub the Thames. I thought you blokes’d like it.’

‘Anyway Ross,’ said Norton. ‘We’ll just shoot our swags in the car and I’ll fix you up.’

‘When you’re ready George.’

They put their gear in the boot, being especially careful with the bag containing the bone and the Tjuringa boards. Then Tjalkalieri got in the front and the others in the back, winding all the windows down quickly because although it was quite sunny now, after five days being locked up out the back of the pub in all kinds of weather, the inside of Norton’s old Ford smelt like bath night in an English boarding house.

‘Righto Ross,’ said Norton, dipping into the back pocket of his jeans. ‘This should make us square.’ He handed the hotel owner $500 plus the key to the room.

Bailey slipped the money straight into his own pocket without bothering to count it. ‘Thanks George. I hope everything suited you.’

‘Couldn’t have been creamier,’ replied Norton, climbing in behind the wheel. ‘They’ve never had it so good.’ He smiled at the others, whose faces reflected about as much expression as the statues on Easter Island.

‘Well, make sure you have a safe trip home.’ Bailey leant his hand on the roof above Les and absently tapped it. ‘And take it easy. I lost one of my good customers last night. I don’t want to lose any more,’ he added, with a bit of a chuckle.

‘How was that Ross?’ asked Norton, starting the motor and giving it a gentle rev as it idled.

‘One of my regulars had a heart attack just up the road last night. Poor bastard. He was only forty-three too.’ Bailey peered into the car at the others. ‘You blokes might’ve known him. Percy Kilby? He ran the Aboriginal affairs office just over the road.’

Tjalkalieri shook his head. ‘Can’t say as I have. What about you blokes?’

‘Never heard of him,’ said Yarrawulla.

‘Me neither,’ added Mumbi.

‘Oh well, doesn’t matter. Funny thing though. He was only in here on Saturday having a drink. Said he had the flu bad but he’d managed to shake it.’ Bailey shrugged his shoulders. ‘Just goes to show, eh. You’re drinking with a bloke on Saturday. Then you’re going to his funeral on Thursday.’

‘Yeah. That’s the way it goes Ross,’ nodded Norton. ‘You’re a rooster one minute, a feather duster the next. Anyway. We’ve got to go. We’ve got some more filming to do.’

‘Yeah? What are you doing now?’ asked Bailey.

‘An Aboriginal kung-fu movie’ replied Norton.

‘Fair dinkum. What’s it called?’

‘Enter the Flagon.’

‘Oh. That sounds all right. Anyway, I’d better let you go. I might see you again George. See you fellas. Nice meeting you.’

The boys smiled thinly back at the owner as Norton reversed out then drove over to the entrance of the parking area. ‘Don’t suppose you’ll be wanting to stay for the funeral,’ he asked as they waited for the traffic in Regent Street.

‘Not particularly,’ replied Tjalkalieri.

‘Funny thing,’ said Norton slowly. ‘I only just saw an Aboriginal funeral going past the balcony this morning. I thought it might’ve been his.’

‘How did you know it was an Aboriginal funeral?’ asked Mumbi unsuspectingly.

‘The first four garbage trucks had their lights on.’

Cracking up inside at his two corny jokes and the stoical looks on the faces of the others, Norton laughed like a drain all the way to McDonalds.

Les sat the boys down against the window facing Oxford Street, then got them everything they wanted. Big Macs. Quarter pounders with cheese. McFeasts. French-fries — stacks of them. Gallons of Coca-Cola. Ice cream sundaes. Apple pies. Anything they wanted and more. Even Les had a Big Mac and a thick shake and some French-fries. The boys were laughing and giggling like three little kids as they tore into all the fast food. They were equally fascinated at what, to them, were some very strange looking people walking past and getting on and off the bus just in front of the window.

‘You sure you wouldn’t like some party hats?’ asked Les, as he watched a giggling Mumbi rip into his second quarter pounder with cheese. ‘Maybe the manager might find some little cakes with hundreds and thousands on them for you.’

‘Good thing you mentioned hundreds and thousands honkey,’ said Tjalkalieri. ‘Because you’re just about to fork out fifty big ones.’

‘Plus the 17.5 per cent loading,’ laughed Yarrawulla.

‘The only loading you three cheeky little pricks’ll be getting is when I load you onto that bloody plane out at Mascot.’ Norton washed the last of his hamburger down with orange juice. ‘Anyway. The bank’s only over the road. I may as well go and get the money, then I can piss you off.’

‘Grab us another chocolate sundae each before you go,’ said Mumbi.

Les did; then walked up to the bank.

Norton only had to wait a couple of minutes before he was ushered into Mr Sturgess’ office. The manager didn’t ask too many questions, Norton signed a couple of documents to close the account, there was a brief handshake, and before long he was back out in Oxford Street with the remainder of the cash in his overnight bag, holding onto it tighter than a rope-ladder. Before he went back to get the others Les took a small note pad and biro from a side pocket in the bag and did a bit of quick adding and subtracting.

After taking out Murray’s $10,000, the pilot’s $9,000, the hotel bill, the AWEC sling and various other expenses, there was around about $75,000 left. Of which the boys were to get $50,000. Leaving $25,000 — Norton’s whack if he wanted it. Not a bad earn for being stuck in a hotel room with three cheeky Aborigines for five days. And he thought it would take closer to three weeks. Not that it had been the best five days in his life. Far from it. But in that time he’d developed an affinity with the boys that had never been there so completely before. And at one stage the three cheeky little bludgers had laid their lives on the line for him. He was convinced they were sincere about that. Norton absently tapped the biro on the pad for a few moments before putting it in the bag and walking back to McDonalds.

The boys were still at the window, surrounded by paper cups and food wrappings and laughing like drains at two punks arguing over something just out the front. A pimplyfaced girl in an oversize leather jacket, tartan miniskirt and holed black stockings tucked into a pair of boots that looked like they belonged to Mammy Yokum. Her boyfriend, or whatever, looked pretty much the same except that the rips in his trousers were held together by thin chains. Both their acne-riddled faces were topped by gelled up, spiked red hair that made them look like a couple of floating mines.

‘Jesus, Les,’ said Mumbi as he walked in and noticed what they were laughing at. ‘What bloody tribe do they belong to?’

‘They don’t belong in a tribe, Mumbles,’ smiled Norton. ‘They belong in a zoo.’

‘A circus’d be more like it,’ said Yarrawulla.

‘You wouldn’t have to worry about buying them a clown’s outfit,’ added Tjalkalieri.

They watched the two punks arguing till they were eventually joined by another pair; just as pimply and just as ugly. Finally Les spoke.

‘Well. If you’ve had enough to eat and you’ve seen enough of the sights in beautiful downtown Bondi Junction, we might get cracking, eh.’

‘Yes. I think that might be a good idea, Les,’ said Tjalkalieri. ‘We’ve certainly eaten enough. And we’ve certainly seen enough to last us for a long time.’

‘Binjiwunyawunya’s never looked so good, eh?’

‘Never,’ the three of them chorused.

They walked down to the car and headed for the airport. Norton took his time driving out to Mascot. The weird five days, with their bantering and roasting, were over now and soon it would be time to say goodbye to three old friends he’d known and respected all his life. When he’d seen them again Les didn’t know. But he hoped it might be soon and in more comfortable, relaxed circumstances. A week or two out at Binjiwunyawunya after the smog and noise of Sydney would be unbelievable to say the least.

‘If you blokes want to wait here, I’ll race up and get the pilot. I won’t be a minute.’

‘Righto Les.’

There was a general nodding of heads and the boys waited in the flight facilities hangar with their bags while Norton rattled up the stairs to the Boomerang Aviation office. Sheehan was in his usual position, sitting beneath the window at the end of the office. He must have finished whatever bookwork he had to do because he had his feet up on the table and was reading a copy of Hustler. He looked up when Norton knocked and walked straight in.

‘Well, if it isn’t me old mate George,’ he grinned cheekily, dropping the magazine on the table. ‘How are you?’

‘Not too bad squadron leader,’ replied Les just as cheekily. ‘We ready to scramble are we?’

‘We certainly are boss. I’ll just grab my logbook.’

Kingsley picked up a leather briefcase and followed Norton down to where the others were waiting in the hangar.

‘Hello fellas,’ he said cheerfully. ‘How’s it going? Looking forward to going back home?’

The boys nodded and smiled.

‘Well, if you want to grab your gear, you can follow me and we’ll get on board.’

Les took the big bag and they followed Sheehan over to the plane. Kingsley climbed aboard and let them hand the bags up to him. He figured they’d all want to say goodbye, so when what little there was was loaded he left them on their own.

‘I’ll go and warm the engines up, George.’ He winked at Les before he disappeared inside the plane. ‘You’ve got a few minutes yet.’

‘Righto wing commander. And this fella here’s got your money,’ he added, resting his hand on Tjalkalieri’s shoulder. ‘He’ll fix you up when you land. Okay?’

‘No Cloncurries George.’

There was an awkward silence for a moment as the boys smiled at Norton and he smiled back at them.

‘Well. What can I say?’ he finally said, the smile on his face breaking into a huge grin. ‘Just what can I bloody well say?’

‘Yes,’ grinned back Tjalkalieri. ‘That’s about it Les. What can you say?’

‘I can’t say it was the best five days I’ve ever spent. But... it’s definitely got to be the most memorable.’

‘Yes. It certainly was different, old fella. Wasn’t it?’ said Yarrawulla.

‘It certainly was,’ agreed Norton. He stared at his three Aboriginal friends for a few seconds, then slapped his hand hard against his thigh. ‘I hate to have to say this. But I’m gonna miss you three little pricks.’

With the grin back on his face bigger than ever, Norton shook hands with each of them. And the handshakes were warm and firm and lasted quite a bit longer than your normal handshake.

‘I’ll tell you what Les,’ chuckled Mumbi. ‘We’ve got to admit. We did everything we could to stir you up.’

‘Fair dinkum. Did you?’ replied Norton innocently. ‘Well I’d never have noticed.’

‘You noticed all right,’ replied Yarrawulla. ‘In fact at one stage there I thought you were going to choke Chalky.’

‘Now would I do a thing like that?’ grinned Norton.

The boys were about to say something when the two engines whined and kicked over, sending a dusty blast of propwash swooshing over them. They moved a little away from the plane to escape the wind and noise.

‘Anyway,’ said Norton, having to raise his voice a little over the noise of the engines. ‘It’s all over now. And to show there’s no hard feelings. Here.’ He opened his overnight bag and took out a small, black plastic bag which he handed to Tjalkalieri. ‘There’s your fifty grand. Plus that fuckin’ loading you’ve been whingeing about.’

Tjalkalieri studied the bag of money for a second, then bounced it up and down in his hand as if he was weighing it mentally. ‘Exactly what do you mean by that, Les?’

‘There’s about $75,000 there Chalky. Plus the four grand you’ve got to give the pilot. Bit of a bonus for you.’

‘But... just a second Les,’ protested Tjalkalieri. ‘Didn’t you say something in the hotel, that what was left after paying us and all was to be your share?’

‘Yeah,’ shrugged Norton. ‘But who gives a shit. I couldn’t really tike it and I’d only end up giving it back to Price. Not that he’d want it. So you blokes may as well have it. Price won’t miss it anyway. He takes ten times that on a good Saturday night.’

‘Jesus, Les,’ said Tjalkalieri, awkwardly expressing the sentiments of the others.

‘Anyway,’ said Norton, nodding towards the plane. ‘I just saw the pilot wave to me. So I reckon it’s time to go boys.’

They shook hands briefly again when Mumbi’s face broke into a huge grin. He looked at the others for a moment, then back at Norton before he spoke.

‘To tell you the truth,’ he said. ‘It’s not as if we didn’t think of you either. In fact we brought you down a little present too. We’ve just been waiting for the right opportunity to give it to you. And I reckon this is it.’ He put his hand in his tracksuit pocket and handed Norton a tiny leather pouch made out of emu skin. ‘There you go, Les. A present from the boys.’

Norton opened the pouch and inside were what looked like two pieces of clay-covered gravel about the size of sultanas. He tipped them into his palm and studied them curiously for a few seconds.

‘What are these?’ he asked, looking at all three of them. ‘Lucky stones,’ smiled Tjalkalieri.

‘Lucky stones?’

‘Yeah.’

‘What am I gonna do with them?’

‘Keep them. They’re lucky,*’ said Yarrawulla.

‘Fair enough,’ shrugged Norton. ‘If you blokes say they’re lucky they’ve got to be. Thanks a lot. I appreciate it.’

‘If they don’t bring you any luck,’ grinned Mumbi. ‘Throw them at the pigeons out your way.’

‘Yeah,’ nodded Yarrawulla. ‘Make yourself a slingshot and fire them at any pigeons in your backyard.’

The three little Aborigines grinned at each other, then burst out laughing as if they had some private joke going amongst themselves.

Norton continued to study the two pieces of gravel before finally putting them back in their pouch. ‘Lucky stones? Pigeons?’ he said shaking his head. ‘Buggered if I know what you’re on about. But thanks anyway.’

‘Don’t worry about it,’ said Tjalkalieri. ‘You’ll work it out. Anyway, we’ve got a plane to catch.’

‘Yeah, you lucky bludgers. I wish I was going with you.’

They moved over to the steps where they said their last goodbyes. Kingsley gave Norton a bit of a wave and pulled up the hatch, leaving Les walking back alone to the hangar. He turned around to see three beautiful white grins almost shining at him from the portholes. With a bit of a lump in his throat he waved back then stood there as the Beechcraft taxied out to disappear momentarily amongst the other planes taxiing around. A few minutes later he saw it take off and bank towards the ocean. Subconsciously he gave another wave then headed back to his car.

Just before he started the engine Norton pulled the little pouch out of his pocket and tipped the two pieces of gravel, or whatever, into his hand. He studied them intently for a minute or two before putting them back. So that’s my earn for five days of living like a pig in that sleezy hotel in Redfern eh? He chuckled to himself. Two pieces of blue metal. Oh well, you never know, they might be lucky. ‘I’ll take them down to the paper shop with me on Friday, when I put my Lotto tickets in.

After sharing the one mildewed shower — and not all that often — with three others for almost a week, Norton’s shower at home was like sheer, oppulent luxury. Plenty of steaming hot water. His own special soaps. His own shampoos and conditioners. His own backscrubber. And all Warren’s imported aftershave lotions and deodorants. He took his time in the bathroom, changed into a clean pair of jeans and a sweatshirt, unhurriedly made a pot of tea and some sandwiches for lunch, did his laundry, then pottered around the house doing not much more than just enjoying being back home.

At about half past three, he headed over to Price’s place.

Price’s gardener, cum caretaker, Vince, an ex-sergeant in the Welsh Guards and still ramrod straight despite it being over twenty years since he’d left the army, waved him through the security gates with a smile.

‘G’day Vince,’ said Norton, smiling back at the grey haired, rosy cheeked Welshman. ‘Price is expecting me. Where is he?’

‘He’s out the back by the pool boyo,’ replied Vince. ‘Eddie’s with him.’

‘Righto mate.’

Les cruised up the white concrete driveway to the front of the mansion where he pulled in between Price’s Rolls and Eddie’s Mercedes; Myra’s BMW was nowhere to be seen so he figured she must be out somewhere. The huge front door was open but instead of walking through the house Les cut around the side. Price and Eddie were seated at one of those white, wrought-iron outdoor tables sipping coffee. Price had just got off an extension phone when they both spotted him coming towards them.

‘Hello, here he is,’ beamed Price. ‘The man of the bloody hour. Grab a seat old son, it’s good to see you. We’ve missed not having your big boofhead around the last few days.’

‘Our man in Redfern,’ grinned Eddie. ‘Les Norton. Undercover agent extraordinaire. How are you mate?’

Norton returned their grins and after a brief handshake pulled up a seat facing away from the glare of the swimming pool. ‘Any coffee left?’ he asked, nodding towards the silver pot.

‘Help yourself,’ smiled Price. ‘Eddie only brewed it five minutes ago.’

Price and Eddie were obviously delighted to see Les and were all smiles as they started firing questions at him the moment his bum hit the seat. It wasn’t hard to see they were breaking their necks to find out what had happened in that hotel in Redfern. Especially Eddie. However, the smiles on their faces were well and truly gone about thirty minutes later when Norton refused to elaborate on what had happened back at room 9 in the Thames Tavern. In fact the look on Eddie’s was downright rancorous. Les explained, and in detail, where all the money went. He told them about the fight with Frank and his two mates and about meeting Kingsley. But he wouldn’t disclose where the boys came from, nor give out too many details about the ceremony. Not that he would have told them about the finale in the RSL. No-one would believe that. Les still wasn’t too sure about it himself.

‘So that’s about it fellas,’ said Norton, taking a sip of his second cup of coffee. ‘The boys made me promise I wouldn’t let on what they did. And that’s it. Sorry. But I gave them my word.’

Eddie was almost fuming. Price was still quite curious but more-or-less glad just to have Percy Kilby out of the way. Both, however, knew Norton was as staunch as they come; the big Queenslander’s word was his bond and if he’d been told to keep something to himself he would. They respected him for it, though in this case it was exasperating to say the least.

‘But Jesus, Les,’ pleaded Eddie. ‘Surely you can tell us something. I mean. All you’ve told us is about getting that blood. They point a bone out the window. Sing and dance a little bit — and Kilby has a heart attack four days later. Come on.’

‘Well that’s all you need to know anyway,’ replied Norton. ‘Look Eddie. I started asking that pilot mate of yours a few questions about you. And he soon clammed up. So...’

‘Fair enough,’ sighed Eddie grudgingly.

Price leaned back and clasped his hands behind his head. ‘Anyway, who gives a stuff? The job’s done and that’s the main thing.’

‘That’s right,’ nodded Les.

‘I still reckon you’re a mug though,’ said Price ‘for not keeping that twenty-odd grand that was over.’

‘Doesn’t matter,’ shrugged Norton. ‘They deserved it more than me.’

‘Suit yourself,’ said Price, shrugging his shoulders also. ‘But no good putting yourself out of pocket.’

‘I’m not out of pocket.’

‘You’ve done a week’s wages.’

Norton screwed up his face. ‘What do you mean? I’ve done a week’s wages?’

‘I’ve had Danny bloody McCormack up the club the last four nights. You don’t think I can afford to pay him and pay you as well while you’re galavanting around Redfern.’

Norton shifted his gaze out across the pool and shook his head.

‘But don’t worry.’ Price winked over at Eddie. ‘See George tomorrow night at work and if you’re going bad you can sub him for a few bucks till payday.’

Norton smiled and went to pour another cup of coffee but it was cold. ‘That’s not the only money I’ve lost, too, come to think of it,’ he chuckled. ‘I also done $500 on that rotten horse of yours. Dealer’s Choice.’

‘That’s right,’ grinned Eddie. ‘You’re into the Brute for five hundred aren’t you?

‘Poor old Dealer’s Choice,’ intoned Price. ‘He fell in a bit of a hole halfway down the straight. He’s in again next week at Rosehill. He should win then.’

‘Mmhh! Now you tell me.’

‘So,’ said Eddie slowly. The grin on his face had widened. He was still dirty on Les for not telling him exactly what happened in the hotel and now he was getting a bit of a buzz out of seeing him squirm. ‘You could say it wasn’t the most profitable week you’ve ever had mate.’

‘Yeah. I suppose you could,’ smiled Les. ‘But I did finish up with something out of the wreck.’ He dipped into the front pocket of his jeans and took out the tiny, emu-skin pouch. ‘I finished up with these.’ He tipped the two pieces of gravel out into his hand and held them out in front of Price and Eddie. ‘Lucky stones.’

‘What did you say they were?’ asked Eddie, holding a piece of gravel between his forefinger and thumb. Price held the other.

‘Lucky stones. The boys gave them to me just before they left.’

Price still hadn’t said anything. The smile on his face however had completely disappeared as he peered almost transfixed at the small greyish brown piece of stone in his hand. Suddenly he reached across the table and almost snatched the other out of Eddie’s fingers. ‘Give me a look at that other one,’ he muttered gruffly.

With slightly amused smiles creeping across their faces, the other two watched as Price carefully rolled the tiny pieces of stone around in his fingers. He jiggled them around in his cupped hands as if he was trying to weigh them before licking the edge of one and scratching at the wet part with his thumbnail. Finally he held that one up to the light and squinted at it with one eye closed.

‘Where did you say you got these?’ he asked, turning and staring almost accusingly at Les.

‘The boys gave them to me as a going-away present, just before they got on the plane,’ replied Norton indifferently. ‘They said they were lucky.’

Price’s eyes darted back to the little rocks, then back to Norton. ‘Yeah. What are you going to do with them?’

‘Keep ’em,’ shrugged Les. ‘Take ’em with me when I go to buy my lottery tickets. You never know. They might just be lucky and I won’t have to put up with you anymore.’

Price ran his tongue around the inside of his cheek for a moment. ‘How about leaving them with me for the night.’

‘Yeah, okay,’ shrugged Norton. ‘What are you going to do with them?’

‘I just want to have a good look at them — that’s all.’

‘Go for your life.’ Norton handed Price the skin pouch. ‘Don’t lose them, though, will you?’

Price didn’t say anything. But after another look at the stones he put them back in their pouch and tucked it carefully into the fob pocket of his trousers.

They sat around talking for another twenty minutes or so before Norton said that he might make a move. Price meanwhile hadn’t said a great deal. His mind seemed to be somewhere else and every now and again he would subconsciously run his fingers across his fob pocket. Finally Les stood up and said goodbye, saying he’d see them at the club tomorrow night.

Norton bought a couple of pizzas on the way home and waited for Warren, who arrived around six, all ears and all excited at seeing Les. About twenty minutes later he’d got less information out of Norton than Price and Eddie had. So what exactly the big Queenslander had been up to for the last five days was still a mystery to him. But knowing Les’s line of work he reluctantly copped it sweet.

Wednesday wasn’t too bad a day. The light cloud cover and the onshore breeze had taken the edge off it for a day on the beach, but it was ideal for training and Norton was up and roaring at six. He ran eight laps of Bondi, then did an hour in the gym, hitting the heavy bag with left and right combinations that loosened half the tiles on the roof and frightened every starling out of the building plus the blocks of flats across the road. He topped this off by borrowing a surf-ski and paddling six laps of the beach. By ten-thirty the two kilos he’d put on were gone, and so was Norton.

He went straight home, decided to skip breakfast and held out for lunch instead, which consisted of a slice of rump about as thick as a house brick swimming in a lake of mushroom gravy surrounded by a mountain range of mashed potatoes. Plus enough tossed salad to feed Southern California. Normally Les had a sleep for an hour or so late in the afternoon before going to work. But with all that food inside him he could hardly move, so he lay down on his bed like a blue-ribbon hog at the Easter Show and crashed out till four o’clock.

Blinking groggily, he got up, yawned and stretched for a few moments before splashing some cold water on his face in the bathroom. He then drifted slowly into the kitchen and made a cup of coffee. He was sitting in the lounge room quietly sipping it, not fully wide awake and still a little stiff and sore when the phone rang. He blinked at it for a few seconds before picking up the receiver. It was Price.

‘Is that you Les?’ he almost barked.

‘Yeah. How are you Price?’

Price didn’t answer straight away. There was a laboured pause as if he was having trouble getting the words out. ‘Listen. Where did you say you got those two pieces of rock from?’ he finally managed to blurt out.

‘Off those three mates of mine,’ yawned Norton. ‘I told you didn’t I. They gave them to me as they got on the plane.’

‘And they told you they were lucky stones?’

‘Yeah,’ yawned Norton again. ‘Something like that.’

There was another pause and more laboured breathing. ‘You know what they are, don’t you? You great red-headed galah.’

‘No,’ shrugged Les. ‘What?’

‘They’re two pigeon-blood fuckin’ rubies. That’s all.’

Norton yawned again. ‘What are they?’

Price sighed heavily on the phone. ‘Fair dinkum. It’s like talking to a brick bloody wall. You don’t know anything about gemstones do you?’

‘No,’ replied Les. ‘Not really.’

‘No. I didn’t think you did. You bloody wombat. Bloody lucky stones. I took them down to Consolidated Diamonds this morning. Got the boss there to have a look at them, knowing a dubbo like you would be arsey enough to fluke something like this. He split them, cleaned them up a bit and bloody near fainted. They’re two eighteen-carat, pigeon-blood rubies. They could be worth anything. At least $30,000.’

‘Did you say pigeon blood Price?’

‘Yeah. That’s what the best rubies in the world are called. It’s a real dark, deep rich red.’

‘So that’s what the boys meant,’ chuckled Les.

‘What?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Bloody lucky stones,’ snorted Price. ‘You... boofhead. They’re two of the best rubies I’ve ever seen in my life.’ Norton shook his head and took a sip of coffee. Despite Price’s outburst he still wasn’t fully wide awake and a lot of this was still going in one ear and out the other.

‘Hey but hold on a second, Price,’ he said. ‘There’s no rubies in Australia. Is there?’

‘That’s what I’m getting at, you imbecile. They’re as rare as rocking-horse shit. These’ll be the first of their kind ever found here.’

There was another pause on the line and Norton could hear Price breathing deeply as if he was trying hard to control himself before he spoke.

‘Now listen, Les,’ he said tightly. ‘In all seriousness. I know you don’t want to tell me too much about those Aborigine mates of yours. And you won’t tell me what they got up to in that hotel room. That’s all right. I don’t really give a stuff. But surely to Christ, Les, you can tell me where those rubies come from.’

Norton paused for a moment, then chuckled to himself as his thoughts drifted off to a rambling, old wooden house built into a mountain full of spa water right on the Tropic of Capricorn. Where more than likely at that very moment three wise old Aboriginal men would be sitting on their verandah with their beautiful young girlfriends, watching the Queensland sun go down over their landscaped garden dotted with lily-covered ponds full of tropical fish. The peace and tranquility disturbed only by the noise of the countless native birds. Norton chuckled again as a whimsical smile spread over his face.

‘Price,’ he said slowly. ‘I can’t tell you that mate. But there is one thing I can tell you.’

Norton let his gaze wander across the lounge room to his open back door. Through his backyard and over the top of the house behind he could see the countless red-tiled roofs of the other houses and the cramped rows of home units and flats. Their silhouettes crowded each other through the car fumes and smog of Old South Head Road towards Bellevue Hill.

‘If they come from where I think they do, it’s a bloody long way from here.’