Summer in Brisbane, December, 1991
IF YOU CAN’T STAND THE HEAT, it was damned thoughtless of your parents to let you be born in the northern half of Australia.
It was an unmercifully hot summer and someone was trying to frame me for the murder of racecourse hustler and playboy Marcus Georgio, also known, shortly before his demise, by the professional name of Caulfield Jones, of the little-known profession of turfologist.
I had tracked down one of Georgio’s women friends, a hard-bitten sleek blonde by the name of Crystal Speares, who could not give two flying ducks about his mortality. She had an icy temperament and her indifference to Georgio’s death, about the only sincere reaction I received from her, might have been because she now had to trouble herself to cross him from her social diary. Maybe she killed him herself, but had no need for remorse because I could not prove it.
I didn’t have much info to go on. I did not know how struggling jockey Billy Scharfe got to swim in the intoxicating but dangerous waters dominated by a shark like Speares.
Back in my flat, after I left the leggy blonde giving the lacklustre jockey a leg-up into her unit, I was in no great hurry to play smart and get out of Dodge. Natalie was on holidays and up the Sunshine Coast with her parents and her younger sister, Jane. I settled down to a cup of coffee and a phone call to the Gooroo in Tweed Heads.
A stone’s throw from the Queensland border is the town of Tweed Heads, officially in the State of New South Wales. Queensland-owned illegal bookmakers and brothels flourished in this sunny venal paradise in the eighties. Queensland coppers could not touch you here, and Sydney heavies and police had to come 800 kilometres if they wanted to discuss a silent partnership with you.
The Gooroo loved Tweed Heads, even though extended betting hours and live race coverage in pubs and clubs was quickly killing the SP bookie profession. That was about the only subject Gooroo never talked about. A softly spoken, silver-haired sixty-one-year-old, he could quote you the odds on a royal divorce, an invasion in the Middle East, or on contracting an STD when you did not use a condom. The Gooroo managed twelve phones, but I knew which one I could get him on.
‘I’d like $100 each way on the winner of the first,’ I said when he answered.
Gooroo had told me about a former Queensland Police Commissioner who took his cut from the then-flourishing SP bookmaking trade. At the time, registered legal bookies also controlled most of the illegal off-course SP. Differentiating between legal and illegal ventures back then was like distinguishing dollars from their equivalent in gold bullion. Anyway, the Police Commissioner always managed to have fifty pounds each way or win and place on the last winner in Brisbane. After the last race, the legal/illegal bookie would record a winning bet of fifty pounds each way in his ledger at the racetrack. The highest-ranking copper in Queensland would wake up each Saturday morning knowing he was going to back the last winner of the day.
‘Sure, you’re set, no worries, mate,’ the Gooroo lied. ‘How’s it going Steele?’
‘If you turn off that cassette recorder, I’ll tell you how it’s not going real good.’
A click down the line told me the Gooroo had turned off his protective taping machine.
‘Well, what do you make of it?’ I asked after I laid out the whole story, from seeing Georgio in the Feed Bin café, to finding him dead in a West End unit, to my little chat with Crystal Speares and seeing apprentice Billy Scharfe outside the blonde’s place.
‘Looks like someone has you the favourite for a murder charge. You didn’t do it by any chance, Steele?’
‘For Buddha’s sake, Gooroo, what do you think?’
‘No, I can’t see it myself. I’d say you’d be a hundred-to-one. What about one of those three sheilas in the photos? Sounds like Georgio was a pants man. That can be a dangerous hobby.’
‘I think Crystal Speares is in the clear,’ I surmised. ‘She’s a cannibal, without a doubt. But I think she prefers to roast her men real slow.’
‘And the other two women?’
‘I don’t know anything about them,’ I admitted. ‘Why would they want to set me up? At least Crystal was running with the racing crowd, so there might have been something in that.’
‘Well, there’s always that public servant who sent you to the interview, what’s her name?’
‘The lovely Kathy Billings. But she’s a stiff; stiffs don’t kill people. Do they?’
The Gooroo refused to eliminate the possibility. ‘Who knows what stiffs do? Look at it this way: Kathy Billings falls for hustler Georgio. All his other chicks don’t mind about one another – they’re hustling Georgio as much as he is hustling them, so no one has time to keep score. Except for this employment service sheila. She finds out about Georgio’s full book of rides, and decides she’s being dudded.’
‘Sounds farfetched to me,’ I said.
‘Maybe, maybe not. So, this Billings woman decides to lodge a protest with a .38. But she needs a bunny, because her protest might stop her going places in the world of stiffs. She checks out her files for the form of a humble starter called Steele Hill, and decides he is perfect for the daily double. She gets rid of mug lair Georgio and at the same time shafts you, a veteran performer in her unemployment stable who she is sick of feeding. Motive, opportunity and whatever else those dees on TV say. Correct weight and placings stand.’
I would never be rash enough to dismiss out of hand anything the Gooroo surmised. But doubt was gnawing at my belly. Talk about a new frightening possibility in a world of scary possibilities! That’s all the world needs now – stiffs taking Kathy Bates and Robert De Niro classes.
‘What about the .38?’ I protested.
‘Could have been Georgio’s. What do you know about the bloke?’
‘Not much. You picked him in one – mug lair. Flashy gambler, who never hits the surface without a splash of bugs bunny. Did he bet with you at all?’
‘The name’s familiar. I’ll look him up.’
I heard Gooroo turning the pages of a book.
‘Yair, he was into us for a grand. That’s peanuts. Not even monkeys kill for peanuts.’
‘Maybe he was into some heavies for more.’
‘Not that I’ve heard. There’s not much you can do, Steele. Worrying will only make it worse. They tell me New Zealand’s nice at this time of year. I might be able to lend you a few quid.’
I told him I did not want to leave Natalie behind. We talked about her, and about Gooroo’s wife June. We talked about his kids and his grandkids. We talked about the next day’s race programs, and the odds on the Sheffield Shield cricket competition. For a beautiful half-hour, Marcus Georgio, dead or alive, didn’t exist.
When I hung up, the funk came rushing back and nausea caught in my throat and my stomach. Okay, first thing is to get Kathy Billings off the suspect list. I dialled the Nundah employment service.
I was Kathy’s cousin from Adelaide. Was she at work? No, she had the day off. What a shame, I was really keen to catch up with her. And I don’t know her address, just where she works. Sorry, but we cannot give out the home addresses of staff. What a shame.
But she would be at the smoko in the city that afternoon. Smoko, what’s that? Oh sorry, figured you might be a public servant too. Smoko is an interoffice get-together. Would you know the address? Sure, here it is. It starts at five. Thanks very much. I do hope I can catch up with Kathy. I’m only here for a few days.
Five o’clock was six hours away, so I sat and tried to study the form guide. What a versatile word study is. Kids at university study to become upmarket stiffs – doctors and lawyers and engineers; Rastafarians study their religion; people like me study form guides. The objects of the three studies are like chalk, cheese and marshmallow. But there is enormous fervour in all three.
Only, I could not concentrate on my studies. I switched on the TV, to find an American talkfest hostess introducing Friday’s parade of geeks to me and the rest of housebound AustralAmerica. Okay, I thought, that should slow my brain down a bit.
The front door slammed inward against the wall, rattling the windows and distracting me from the telly. A police boot hung in the air, before lurching forward, propelling the recently promoted Detective Senior Constable Bill Schmidt with it. Schmidt was unable to stop himself from crashing to the floor. The silly bastard had just smashed down an unlocked door with his size-eleven boot.
Sergeant Frank Mooney smirked at the antics of Keystone Kop Schmidt. Then the senior cop’s face grew fierce as he looked down at the gun in his hand and remembered he meant serious business. He pointed the gun at me.
‘Buddha,’ I said. ‘I know playing cards for money is illegal, but I didn’t know you blokes took it so seriously.’
‘Let’s go, Hill,’ Mooney scowled.
‘Are you charging me with something, Sergeant Mooney?’ I asked, wide-eyed and innocent. ‘Do I need a lawyer?’
‘Don’t give us that bullshit, Hill. I’m from the old school of copper. You’re from the old school of grub. You start talking legal rights and I start shooting you in the thigh.’
The Fitzgerald Inquiry of 1989 was meant to change police culture. The sergeant must have been washing his hair during the months the inquiry was on. I nodded towards Mooney’s gun. ‘That warrant in your hand looks in order. Only, next time, tell Schmidt that he has lousy style in picking up a date.’
The junior officer regained his balance and smiled. ‘Lucky it was your door and not your face I kicked in.’
I know when I am beaten by superior wit, so I turned to Mooney. ‘Mind if I keep my hands down, and you keep that gun out of sight? What on Earth will the neighbours think?’
Mooney put the gun back in its holster. We went outside with the Sergeant and Schmidt on either side of me. I pulled the fractured door closed and managed to lock it.
‘Don’t want to encourage crime,’ I said to my captors.
I nodded at Mrs Barnes, tending her roses. She looked at my escort.
‘It’s criminal what they get up to these days,’ Mrs Barnes said. ‘It’s the heat. This heat plays havoc with them.’
Cue quizzical expressions all round.
‘Aphids, I mean. Aphids on the roses.’
I nodded sympathetically.
___o0o___
AMELIA BARNES had invited me in for tea, one morning years earlier, after I admired her roses in bloom. I was in no hurry to get to the tote that day, so I accepted. She was 84-years old then. This I knew from the recent birthday cards she showed me. A slight woman she shuffled when she walked but still maintained a more-or-less straight back.
Mrs Barnes edged across the room and reached into her pantry for a handful of long flat green leaves with sharp edges. With scissors, she cut the leaves into a teapot; then added hot water, replaced the lid, wrapped a cosy around the pot, and spun it round three times. She looked a member of Housewives’ Freemasonry. After a minute, I was looking warily at the dull-green liquid in my cup.
‘Lemongrass,’ Mrs Barnes said. ‘Try it.’
It was not half bad, somewhat lemony and refreshing, a little tame for someone with a caffeine dependency like mine.
‘You like my roses, Steele?’ the old woman asked when she saw me looking out the window in their direction. ‘So, what’s your favourite?’
I hadn’t been looking at her roses at all, and I had no favourite, as they all appeared to be the same white variety. I was only staring blankly into the mid distance, which I often do when enjoying a cuppa. Not wishing to offend, I focused on one rosebush, a little taller than the others, and with plenty of branches radiating from a fork in the trunk. Masses of smallish white blooms burst from among the green leaves. I nominated it as my fave.
‘It’s called Iraqi Icicle,’ Mrs Barnes said. They’re all Iraqi Icicles but I think that one’s the best, too.
‘A lot of what we think of as European roses came originally from the valley of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. That’s around Iraq and Persia, you know, what we call Iran now.’
I complimented Mrs Barnes for running rings around me in roseology.
She went on. ‘You know, for some reason, many Australians think roses are English natives. They tell me many Americans think they originated in the southern United States. But they didn’t. I don’t think it’s right that the rose is the national flower of the United States. What do you think, Mr Hill?’
She sipped her lemongrass tea. I took a hearty swig of mine, feeling a little bored and uncomfortable, as you do when you are with someone who has a passion you do not share. ‘I never really thought about it, Mrs Barnes. I suppose they have had it as their national flower for a while.’
‘I don’t think it’s right, and there should be some international law against it. They must have plenty of plants, native to the United States that had been there for centuries before they brought in roses. Why didn’t they choose one of those? That would be right.’
Amelia Barnes had lived in one of the ground-floor flats since long before I moved in. Neighbours for years, we were polite without really knowing each other. It was not until our rosy morning tea that I discovered she was widowed.
‘Clarrie planted the roses. He was tending them when he passed on,’ Mrs Barnes told me. ‘I took over because, when he died, they were still young, just babies really. I suppose you could say I’m completing my husband’s unfinished business.’
She sipped. I sipped. I looked around at the family pictures on walls and on little tables in the small room. Clarrie was not smiling in many of the photos; perhaps he was camera shy. Still, in death, he was one of the lucky ones. His memory lived among the Iraqi Icicles as well as in his uncomfortable family photos.
The old woman put her cup down and her face grew stern. ‘But the aphids always come for them.’
I had heard the name aphids before, but they certainly weren’t something I’d given much thought to.
Mrs Barnes knew a fair bit about the creatures, pests that attacked plants, including roses, especially relishing the new shoots and buds. ‘Aphids are very tiny; many don’t have wings, so they can’t climb rosebushes very well to get at the new shoots and petals. Ants give them a ride up the roses.’
Now this was interesting: a couple of Nature’s creatures striking a deal for their mutual benefit. You would think such a contract would require human intelligence, but obviously not.
‘The ants farm the tiny aphids,’ Mrs Barnes said softly, warming to her subject, ‘and protect them from predators such as lady beetles. Ants are like us humans, Steele. They don’t mind making war, even against their own kind. Raising an army, that’s unusual in nature, Steele, but ants do it. We do too.’
I took Mrs Barnes’s word for it, but I had a question. ‘Sounds great for the aphids, Mrs Barnes, but what’s in it for the ants?’
‘Oil.’
‘Oil?’
‘Oil. After feeding on the rosebuds, aphids secrete a sweet, oily substance sometimes called honeydew. The ants love this sweet oil, and for some species it is a basic part of their diet.’
‘Everybody wins,’ I said.
‘Everybody except the roses,’ Mrs Barnes said. ‘The arrangement does not do much for the Iraqi Icicles.’
___o0o___
I WAVED WEAKLY to Mrs Barnes as she sprinkled a powder on the roses in her relentless war against the aphids. I would have liked Mooney and Schmidt to let me walk rather than push me to the unmarked police car. I have a certain standing, however wobbly, in my community, and Mrs Barnes might misinterpret my helping the detectives with their inquiries. She looked up at me, wedged between the two detectives.
‘It’s criminal,’ she said. ‘Bloody aphids.’