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

to me and his hands in his trouser pockets. He’d turned around and had taken off his straw Stetson, holding out his hand. “Harry Jones,” he’d said. “You must be Clyde Smith. Sorry, was daydreaming.”

“Harry, I’ve decided to see someone about those ghosts under my bed. Billy’s given me the number of the doctor who sorted out his inner demons after the war and I intend to get some help. I’d rather we didn’t go into it, because it’s going to take me the most enormous amount of courage, and I think if I start to share my fears, I’ll chicken out.”

“I think that’s a wonderful idea, Clyde. Okay, agreed, no talk of the head-shrinker.”

I laughed. “I’m going to pick up lunch for we three. What do you fancy?”

“Stones milk bar had a sign out on the street this morning when I got off the tram. Vienna schnitzel sandwiches for one and sixpence.”

“The world’s coming to Coogee!” I said. “I’ll pick up a few for us, and I’ll see you around twelve.”

“See you then, Clyde.”

I sat with the phone off the hook after he’d hung up, just listening to nothing but the crackle of the line. I still believed he was too good for me, but I was determined to do something about it. I replaced the receiver and then retrieved the business card Billy had given me. I dialled the number he’d scrawled on the back.

“Hello, Dr. De Natalis’s office.”

“Good morning. My friend William Tancred suggested I should contact Dr. De Natalis. I’d like to make an appointment.”

“I put you through. Dr. De Natalis is free at the moment.”

“I—”

“Giuseppina De Natalis speaking.”

I was less astonished that the doctor was a woman than to hear her thick Italian accent.

*****

Clarrie’s son was where I expected him to be: in the wine bar at the bottom of Coogee Bay Road, drinking a long glass of port and lemon.

The place stank of piss. Not because anyone had spilled their bladder on the floor, it was just the smell of old men who drank far too much fortified wine. There was something acrid about the smell. Nearly everyone, except Clarrie junior, had an enlarged, veiny, reddened nose. I’d been told it had nothing to do with alcoholism, but it seemed very common among those who were too fond of the grog. There were half-a-dozen men, either sitting at the bar or in the booths opposite it, not much unlike each other, smoking and staring into glasses of ruby port or deep-gold sweet sherry.

“Can we go out the back please, Mr. S.? I don’t want these blokes thinking I’m working for you.”

“I’m not a cop anymore, and if anyone asks why I’m here, tell them your dad’s gone home for a bit and I’ve come to give you my bets for Wednesday’s Goulburn Cup race at Randwick.” I handed him a piece of paper.

“What’s this?”

“The blasted bets, you dolt. Now go outside, I’ll come out in a moment.”

“If you hear the sound of thumps from out the back, just ignore them,” I said to the bartender after the lad had closed the door into what passed for a courtyard. “Young Mister Toolidge might just get a slap around the chops.”

“Right you are, Mr. Smith. Give him one or two for me,” the bar­tender said with a wry smile.

Instead, I gave Clarrie’s son two quid and then offered him one of my smokes. “You left a message in my letter box at home this morning?”

“Yeah. Followed your copper bloke after he knocked off work, but didn’t see much until Sunday. That old fella he lives with is a right prick, Mr. S.”

“What do you mean?”

“They was in the backyard hanging out the washing—well the copper was. The old bloke was sitting on a bench with a bottle in his hand and seemed to be yelling at him and telling him how to peg the clothes. Made him take one or two down and then hang them back up again. That’s what it looked like anyway.”

“Where did you see this from?”

“There’s a block of flats two doors down the street. I went up the back steps and watched around the corner of the incinerator chimney. Anyways, after a bit, the copper drops a tea towel he was hanging out and the old fella jumps up as quick as you please and starts to lay into him with a long piece of galvanised pipe.”

“What?”

“Yeah, right savage, too. Your sergeant fella, he was on the ground with his hands up and everything and the old geezer’s whacking into his back and kicking him in the arse. Then he grabs a handful of his hair at the back of his head and spits in his face.”

“How long did this go on for?”

“Bit longer than a minute I suppose.”

“Just how far away were you again?”

“Had me dad’s army binoculars, Mr. S. I’m not stupid.”

“Is that all?”

“Nope. The old fella—you said he was his grandfather?—grabs him by the scruff of the neck and boots his backside into the house.”

“Jesus!”

“There’s more though.”

“Go on …”

“I ran downstairs and then climbed over their fence—first thing I noticed about their house was all the blinds were drawn. I don’t know what the old man was doing to your mate, but the copper was screaming his head off. ‘No! no!’ over and over again, and sobbing and yelling in-between times. I could hear the whacks outside the window. Sounded like a razor strop … I’m not unfamiliar with that sound, Mr. S. But my dad never laid into me that hard ever—neither did I howl so much with the pain and the fear of being thrashed. Made me come over quite bad for a while.”

*****

The girl behind the counter at Stones milk bar was new, so was the chalkboard up high behind the counter. I knew where she was from before she even opened her mouth. All the sevens of the prices on the specials’ menu had a short line crossed through them in the continental way.