The Boys from Binjiwunyawunya (49 page)

‘No. No trouble. But I would like to see you about something. It's a bloody good yarn. I can tell you that.'

‘Yeah? Well I'll tell you what. Why don't you come over about two-thirty? I'll be by myself and we can have a couple of beers by the pool.'

‘Righto Price. I'll see you then.'

Well thought Norton after he'd hung up, if Price can't sort out what to do with all those chops no-one can. Now what am I gonna do till two-thirty? He was staring absently at the strongbox and thinking on it when the phone rang.

It was Louise, wanting to know how he was and how the trip went. Norton replied that it was very quiet down there and he had two early nights. The ad went okay, but he had to stay there an extra day, which was why he didn't ring her earlier. Would he like to come over to her place for a baked chicken dinner that night? Is the Pope a catholic? Les told her he'd be there at seven with a couple of bottles of Taylor's. He'd no sooner hung up when Billy Dunne rang wanting to know how he was and did he want to go for a run later? Les said he'd already had one. What about tomorrow? Billy said he couldn't make it tomorrow. He was taking the family to Old Sydney Town. They chatted for a while till Les hung up saying he'd see him at work tomorrow night and tell him a bit more about what happened in Melbourne then.

Now where was I? thought Norton. Yeah. What to do till two o'clock. I know what I do have to do. Get a new bloody tracksuit. That one's full of bloody holes. I'll get one up Bondi Junction. Might have a few beers, a steak at the Pig's and a bit of a perv while I'm up there. He did exactly that.

Norton was in a good mood from the beers and feeling content in the stomach when he drove through the gates of Price's mansion later that afternoon. The front door was closed and it was still warm and sunny so Les figured Price would more than likely be sitting out by the pool. He picked up
the strongbox, with the garbage bag still wrapped around it, and walked to the rear of the house.

Price was lying back on a recliner lounge by the edge of the pool with his hands behind his head. With his white shorts, sun-tanned good looks and neat, silvery hair, he looked exactly like what he was: a multimillionaire with not a worry in the world. As soon as he saw Norton approaching his face burst into a huge grin.

‘Hello mate,' he called out. ‘How's things?' Price screwed his face up slightly as Norton got closer. ‘Christ! What happened to your face? And what have you got in the bag?'

Instead of replying straight away Norton started to laugh. He sat down next to Price and placed the strongbox on a wrought-iron table opposite them, next to an extension phone and a small esky.

‘Well Price,' he grinned. ‘It's not a bad story this one. You got an hour or so?'

‘From the look of your moosh, it looks like I'm going to have to find one, don't it?' Price reached over and pushed a button on an answering service next to the phone.

Across the crystal-clear water sparkling in the pool Norton saw a figure wave from where he was pottering around amongst some shrubs in the immaculately landscaped grounds. It was Vince, the ex-Welsh Guards caretaker. It looked all nice and peaceful in the garden with Price on his own, but Les knew that in amongst Vince's rakes and hoes would be a fully loaded FN semi-automatic and the odd pistol or two. Vince was a lovely old bloke but he'd been decorated in Malaya and Korea and could shoot the name tag off a dog's collar on the run at 500 metres. If anyone had come in and tried anything they would have got a nice shock. Norton grinned and waved back.

‘Righto Les.' Price nodded to the esky. ‘There's some cool ones in there. Now what is it you want to tell me?'

Norton shook his head and smiled. ‘I honestly don't know where to start,' he said. ‘I suppose I'd better start in Lamrock Avenue Bondi last July.'

He took two bottles of Fourex from the esky, opened them and handed one to Price. Then after a quick ‘cheers' he told his boss everything. How he got pinched in Bondi. Going to Long Bay. The fight with Chopper. His cellmate. Mousey. Mousey's map. Finding Goldschmidt's wallet. The casting. Arriving in Melbourne. Mrs Perry. Even by the time Les had got to Mrs Perry Price was laughing fit to burst. When
he got to the home-made bomb and blowing up the church in Whittlesea, Price let out such a roar Vince dropped his rake and looked up to make sure everything was all right. Norton ended with the fight on the tram and the three girls back in his motel room and how he had to sneak out of Melbourne on the bus like a fugitive after what was in the papers and on TV. By this time Price was in a pitiful state. He was a jelly. His cheeks were scarlet, he was holding onto his ribs and tears were streaming down his well tanned face.

‘Fair dinkum, Les,' he gasped when he managed to get his breath back. ‘You're bloody unbelievable. You pull more strokes than a GPS Regatta.'

‘I told you it wasn't a bad 'un, didn't I,' grinned Norton. ‘But the best is yet to come.'

There were three bottles of Fourex left. Norton could see Price was nowhere near finished the one he was drinking so he took just one from the esky and opened it.

‘Anyway,' he continued. ‘I get up this morning still fumbling around the house like Winnie the Pooh from all those Serepax and I go for a run to try and liven meself up. All the time, though, I'm breaking my silly bloody neck to get back and open that fuckin' strongbox. I nearly break my wrist doing it. And when I do — guess what I find inside?' Norton unwrapped the garbage bag and opened the old strongbox. ‘There you are. That's what I almost blew my silly bloody head off for. Can you believe it? And try and tell me I'm not the greatest fuckin' goose getting around on two legs.'

Price's reaction at his first sight of all the old pound notes was almost identical to what Norton's had been: stunned disbelief. Then he smiled and slowly his expression changed to one of nostalgia... almost to sadness.

‘God strike me,' he breathed. ‘Pound notes.'

‘Yep,' nodded Norton. ‘Sixty thousand of the bloody things to be exact.'

‘Sixty thousand quid eh,' said Price slowly, still shaking his head. ‘Christ! I haven't seen anything like this since... since I was more or less just a young bloke still kicking off.' The casino owner almost had tears in his eyes as he lovingly ran his hands over the old notes, pulling bundles out and flicking through them. ‘Fivers and tenners eh. Lady Godivas and bricks we used to call them, Les. A quid was a fiddley did. Twenty-five quid was a pony. And fifty quid was a monkey. Jesus this brings back some memories, Les.'

‘Yeah,' Norton nodded, smiling at the look in his boss's
eye. ‘Little Mousey must've knocked this off from somewhere, buried it, then got life for something else. And I finished up with it. Funny ain't it.'

Price picked up a ten pound note and held it up to the light. ‘I'd say these were printed in the late '40s Les. And did you say Mousey originally came from Melbourne?'

‘Yeah. So big Bernie told me.'

‘I'm just trying to think back. There was a big mail train robbery in 1950. Seventy thousand quid went missing. It was money going from a bank in Melbourne to pay the workers on the Snowy River Scheme. They never got the money. And they never got who did it. I reckon it was your mate Mousey that did the Snowy Mountains Job.'

Norton's face broke into a grin. ‘Well I suppose we'd better do the right thing and hand it in eh, Price.'

‘Ohh yeah,' snorted Price. ‘Give it to Premier Atkins. He'd keep the lot and be cheeky enough to say he won it at the punt.' Price shook his head again and smiled up at Norton. ‘So what are you going to do with it Les?'

Norton gave his shoulders a shrug. ‘That's what I came to see you about Price. I can't actually walk into David Jones and buy myself half a dozen suits can I. What do you reckon I ought to do?'

Price drummed his fingers on the edge of the table for a few moments, then looked up at Les. ‘I can do something with it for you.'

‘Yeah?'

‘Uh huh.' Price folded his arms and nodded his head at the stack of old money. ‘I'll keep some myself, just for old time's sake. But I know a few blokes that deal in old coins and banknotes and other odds and ends. They'll take this off you. The only thing is the government still could have a note of the serial numbers. Even after thirty years or so they still wouldn't be able to move a big amount like this around openly. On the other hand some of these old banknotes could be worth fifty or sixty bucks each. Maybe more to a collector. So you've got an idea how these blokes work.' Norton nodded his head in agreement. ‘Anyway, to save a lot of fart-arsing around I'll give you thirty grand for the lot. And you can throw in the strongbox too,' he added with a chuckle. ‘That sound all right?'

Norton looked at the money for a moment and shrugged. ‘Sounds pretty good to me.'

‘Righto. Do you want cash or a cheque?'

‘Make us out a cheque. To that bodgie account I got over at Rand wick.'

‘Okay. No worries.'

‘Yeah,' chuckled Norton. ‘No worries.'

Alone with their thoughts they both stared at the money while across the other side of the pool Vince continued to potter around in the garden and the afternoon sun mirrored off the sparkling blue water into their eyes. Then the hint of an odd smile formed on Norton's face. He took a suck on his beer and turned to his boss.

‘I'll tell you what Price,' he said thoughtfully. ‘I've got a better idea.'

‘Yeah. What is it?'

‘Make the cheque out for twenty-five grand.'

Price looked at Les curiously and shrugged. ‘Okay. If that's what you want. What have you got in mind?'

‘I'll keep a thousand pound for a souvenir myself.'

‘Yeah.'

‘And are you still sweet with that walloper that arranges all the transfers down in the city?'

‘Yeah sure.'

‘Well can you get that fat turd that pinched me in the first place transferred somewhere. His name's Kennewell. And he's stationed at Waverley.'

Price took a sip of beer and chuckled. ‘You're not vindictive or spiteful, are you Les.'

‘No,' replied Norton, innocently shaking his head. ‘I just like to get even — that's all.'

‘And where would you like officer Kennewell transferred to. The moon?'

‘No.' Norton's face burst into a grin. ‘How about Moree? It'd be just starting to get warm out there now. See how officer Kennewell handles twelve months of heat and flies and “the brudders and the cuddins” getting full of piss and rioting every weekend.'

‘Okay.' Price smiled and gave his head a bit of a shake. ‘That's as good as done. What else?'

‘What about the Mouse? We must be able to do something for him?'

Price pursed his lips and drummed his fingers on the table for a moment. ‘Well Les,' he replied slowly, ‘if he's a lifer I doubt I could get him out of the nick straight away. But I could get him out to a farm or something. Say Berrima. Or maybe out to Silverwater.'

‘That'll do. But just get him out of Long Bay.'

‘Okay mate. I'll attend to that immediately. Well that's about your five grand gone, Les. Anything else you want?'

Norton drained his beer and once more that horrible grin returned to his face. ‘Yeah,' he nodded. ‘Just one more little thing . . .'

About six-thirty that evening Norton was sitting in his kitchen having a cup of tea and reading the paper before going around to Louise's for dinner. The front door opened and in came Warren. He threw his gear in his room and walked into the kitchen with a big grin spread over his face. He'd just had four sensational days at Palm Beach with the girl from
Cleo
and he was genuinely glad to see Les again, especially with the ad turning out as well as it did. The first thing he said when he saw Norton however was,

‘Jesus Les. You sure did a job on your head, didn't you.'

‘You noticed Warren,' Norton replied with a tight smile.

‘Noticed. Christ, it looks like something you'd see after drinking metho for a week!'

‘Thanks, arsehole.'

Warren continued to stare at Les as he moved over to the sink to make himself a cup of coffee. Then the grin came back on his face and he gave Norton a hefty slap on the back. ‘Ahh you still look beautiful to me,' he said, and added a punch to Les's shoulder.

‘Thanks Woz.'

‘So,' said Warren as he fiddled around with his cup and spoon, ‘Melbourne was all right eh. I told you the bosses are rapt in the ad. And I'll have your cheque for you on friday.'

‘Good,' grunted Norton. ‘I'm a bit short at the moment.'

‘Yeah. I'll bet. So what happened down there? What did you get up to, besides blowing yourself up at your uncle's.'

‘Well to tell you the truth, I won myself a little heart down there.'

‘Really?'

‘And not a bad little sort either.'

Norton told Warren about his sexual romps with Mrs Perry and Dixie, without laying it on too thick about the young girl from Footscray. He told him about Mia and Penny going off on the lounge, but naturally he didn't mention blowing up the church or spitting in the girl's face at Richard's and belting the two bouncers on the tram. He added that he'd
caught the plane back too; Warren wouldn't know the difference.

Even though Warren had only got about half the full story, he was still astonished and couldn't help staring at Norton while he sipped his coffee.

‘You're amazing, Les,' he said. ‘You pot the woman that runs the motel the first night you're in town. Then win yourself a grouse young babe as well.'

‘And earned five grand into the bargain,' smiled Norton. ‘But don't think there was any great skill in pantsing Mrs Perry. She was just a bloody case. She'd've jumped into the sack with Quasimodo to get a root. But little Dixie,' Norton winked. ‘She was something else.'