The Gilded Madonna by Garrick Jones (ebook reader for comics TXT) 📕

“Billy, you know I—”

“Stop, Clyde. I only said it because it’s the truth. Your emotions are running high, and it’s allowed stronger stuff to re-emerge from that hole of despair we all carry around inside ourselves. I never saw anything as bad as when we liberated your camp at Macerata, apart from the movies of the Nazi death camps that is. I didn’t live through it for three years like you did. It’s bound to stick its ugly head up now your feelings are running free and bite you in the bum when you least expect it.”

“I suppose …”

He pulled his Rolodex across his desk and flipped through it. “I’m glad you asked me, Clyde. It shows you trust me.”

“I was angry, Billy. The only trust issue I had was with Sam—”

“Here, take this. It’s the only number I have. Tell the receptionist or the nurse that I gave it to you. There’s no pills or quack treatment to take away the past, Clyde. The doctor lets you talk, sits back and listens and then helps you understand why you feel the way you do.”

“Thank you, I mean it.”

“And by the way, Clyde. You know I’m always here for you, and I hope you’d be there for me too if I ever needed it. There are things I simply can’t talk about with Sam, and I’m sure it’s the same with Harry. Now, apart from needing someone to talk to about your feelings, there’s something else on your mind, isn’t there? I know you far too well.”

I nearly didn’t speak, but then I saw the picture on his bookcase of him and me in Italy in our dress uniforms on the day I was to meet the King of Italy and to be presented with my minor commendation. We had history, Billy and me.

“Remember that case three years ago? It was when Sam was laid up with a broken leg—it was the only investigation I’d ever done where I ran into brick walls no matter which way I turned. I remember moaning to you one night at that cheap Italian eatery down in Woolloomooloo about not feeling fit for a real detective to wipe his shoe on.”

“The murders of those queer men?”

“Yes, I called it the Silent Cop case.”

“I remember. What about it?”

“Well, it seems he’s turned up again. Killed a young army bloke in the men’s lavatory at the back of the grandstand in Coogee Oval, right opposite my house, late on Friday night or in the early hours of Saturday morning.”

“Holy Mary, Mother of God,” he said.

“She had nothing to do with it, Billy. But I have this dreadful feeling we’re in for another string of murders.”

*****

I’d parked my car in the laneway off Phillip Street right next to the building in which Billy had his legal practice.

I lit a cigarette and leaned against the brickwork at the corner of the building, thinking about what both Mary and Billy had said. Why hadn’t Harry told me he’d already spoken to his parents about us going away for the new year? I knew he was probably keeping it for a surprise and then after one glass too many, I’d done what I always seemed to do—I’d spoken about things I’d been obsessing over, like an idiot, and probably hadn’t listened to him. It had ended up in a fight and he’d left angrily, leaving me wondering what I’d done. Of course, that was the way I operated. Good old “kick the door down and go in with guns blazing” Smith, as my father used to call me.

I walked down to Martin Place and then used one of the telephone cubicles in the foyer of the Australia Hotel.

“Hello, Tom, it’s me. What’s happening?”

He informed me there’d been two walk-ins that morning, and he’d made up a list of possible investigations he thought he might be able to manage by himself—things I’d put on the back burner because I didn’t really like infidelity cases, or recovery of debts, that sort of thing. I told him I’d pick something up for lunch for us and I’d be in at around noon. “Is Harry there?” I asked, just before I was about to say goodbye.

“Hang on, Clyde, I’ll patch you through.”

“Harry Jones speaking.” I guess Tom had sensed there’d been some sort of atmosphere and hadn’t told Harry it was me on the phone.

“I love you, Harry Jones,” I said.

“What? I can’t hear you?”

“I said I love you!” I shouted it so loudly that a woman who was walking past the booth turned to look at me. She smiled and moved on.

“We need to talk, Clyde, and if you say sorry once more, I’ll hang up in your ear.”

I chuckled. “Your mother told me.”

“Told you what?”

“About being banished from home for three days a week.”

“Oh that? Yes, I thought I might take a few train trips, maybe book in at the Hydro Majestic, spend some time by myself hiking in the bush …”

I could hear the smile in his voice. “Just promise me something, Harry,” I said.

“What?”

“The moment I go to pour a third glass of wine without eating something, can you pick it up and pour it over my head?”

“What, the glass, or the rest of the bottle?”

“The wine. Break the bottle over my stupid noggin.”

“You have way too many ghosts hiding under your bed, Clyde.” I heard movement at the end of the line. There was a long extension cord on his desk telephone. I knew he’d moved into the storeroom at the end of his office. “I love you even for those.”

I felt something crack in my chest. It wasn’t the result of the surgery I’d had earlier in the year, it was my heart twitching at what he’d said. I wasn’t sure I’d ever feel I was good enough for someone like Harry, but it was moments like this I blessed the day I’d opened my front door and found him standing with his back