Babylon South (19 page)

He spent a week doing a reconnaissance, looking for an old bank where there was no newfangled technology. The world was being taken over by bloody technology; he had become so reactionary, he longed for the horse-and-buggy days that only his grandfather had known. He found what he wanted out in Leichhardt, a bank built before the First World War and soon to be replaced by a new building close by. There was no sky-rocketing steel shield mounted in the counter; there were remote-controlled cameras in the corners of the ceiling, but they would be a help, not a hindrance. They would help him to be identified, if he should walk away with the hold-up money.

He bought a gun, knowing where to go from the old days: a Walther PPK .380, a formidable-looking gun that would frighten the pants off any sensible bank teller. He did not, however, buy any ammunition; he was not looking to get into a shooting match. The object of the exercise was to fail, not to succeed; bullets were not necessary for failure, unless you were going to commit suicide. So far, he was not
that
depressed.

He put the gun in the cheap briefcase he had bought, put on his new straw hat, debated whether to wear a jacket and decided against it, and went out into the hallway, locking his door behind him. Jerry Killeen, as always, was waiting in his own doorway.

“G'day, you going out? It's bloody hot, I can tell you. I just been up the road and I was bloody glad to get back for a cuppa, I can tell you. You want one before you go out?”

A few nights ago he had spent the evening with Killeen. On the spur of the moment, feeling sorry for the little bugger, he had asked him to go with him to the jazz club up the street. Killeen had been bored by the music and Dural had been embarrassed at his boredom and remarks. He had decided that from now on he would keep the little man at arm's length.

“I can't, mate. I got an appointment with my parole bloke.” He had found it best to be frank with Killeen, up to a point; otherwise the old coot would just keep asking questions. “We're gunna rob a
bank
together.”

“Well, good luck. On the way back, knock on the door. I'm always here.” He sniffed the air. “You notice anything? The Viet Cong have stopped frying rice. They must be trying to become more like us Aussies. They're gunna take over the bloody country, I can tell you. Definitely.”

Dural left him, the little Aussie battler besieged by slant-eyed invaders, and went out into the heat of the morning. He hailed a cab and got into the back seat, not wanting to have to belt himself into the front seat; he wondered if breaking the seat-belt law could result in his being sent back to prison. The driver was an Aussie, a change from the bloody foreigners who had been picking him up for the past month. This one was a
real
Aussie.

“You don't like riding in the front?” Meaning:
you too good to sit up here beside me?

“I'm nervous.”

“You afraid I'm not a good driver? Listen, sport, I been driving a cab for twenty-five years, never had an accident, not so much as a scratch. This is me own cab, I own it, paid a hundred and fifty grand for the plate and don't owe a penny on it. I'm as good as the next man, I always say.”

“As good as your passengers, that what you mean?”

“Every time, no matter who they are. No offence.”

“Not bloody much.” Dural took the Walther out of the briefcase; it was a spur of the moment decision. “I'm not gunna shoot you,
sport,
nothing like that. But I don't like uppity cab drivers, you know what I mean? Now shut up and just drive.”

“Jesus, I told you—no offence, mate.”

Dural put away the gun and the driver drove in silence for the rest of the journey, keeping a watchful, fearful eye on his passenger in the rear-view mirror. Dural caught the glance and grinned at him.

“Relax, sport, I'm not gunna hurt you. I just like cab drivers who know when to shut up.”

The driver kept his silence, but Dural knew that once he had got out of the cab, the man would be on his radio to report a gun-toting crazy he had just had as a fare. Within minutes the police would have a patrol car cruising the area looking for him.

“
Here will do,” said Dural abruptly and the cab driver swung into the kerb so sharply he almost mounted it.

“Forget the fare, sport—”

“No,” said Dural. “I never take charity. Keep the change and learn to keep your mouth shut.”

He walked away, knowing that before he had turned the corner the driver was already on his radio. It was a ten-minute walk to the bank; halfway there he wondered why he had not just remained beside the cab while the driver called the police. But that would have been too obvious: Les Glizzard, the angel's advocate, would have pleaded for him and, who knows, some bleeding-hearted magistrate or judge might have listened to him. No, it had to be the bank: the police could pick him up there.

The bank was in a side-street off Parramatta Road: twelve miles up the road was home. Or nineteen kilometres, if you wanted to be modern: that was another thing he could not get used to, metric measure. The bank was an old building, built of stone, the sort of institution where you expected pounds, shillings and pence still to be the currency across the counter. Dural went into the bank and took his place in the roped-off queue. Queueing for a hold-up; even he, without much sense of humour, had to grin at the thought. Though it was a nervous grin, more a tic of reaction. He was suddenly uptight, afraid that things would go wrong, that he might be carried out of here feet first.

He had decided on the quiet approach to the teller, just presenting a note and a sight of the pistol. He had listened to discussions in gaol about bank hold-ups. The mode (one con had actually used that word) these days was to threaten violence, to go in shouting with all the violent language you could think of, waving your gun and looking ready for murder. The psychology of fear, the cons had said: the mode was to frighten the shit out of everyone in the bank. But that wasn't for Dural. Walk softly, speak softly, Heinie Odets had advised in the only hold-up he had master-minded, and you'll be gone before they get over the shock.

“Move along,” said the woman who stood behind him. “We no can stand around all day.”

The district, a working-class one, had been named after the German explorer Ludwig Leichhardt; but there had been few German settlers in Sydney and it had never resounded to Wagner or
even
to the music of a glockenspiel. It had, with post-Second World War immigration, become almost a Little Italy. When he had been scouting here a couple of days ago he had gone looking for somewhere to lunch on steak and chips and grilled tomatoes, but every café and restaurant he had passed seemed to offer only pizza and pasta. The names above the doorways of the shops were straight out of the Rome or Naples phone directories: there was even a P. Mussolini, Fruit and Veg. Dural now became aware of the fact that he was standing in a queue of Italian women. When he drew the gun there was going to be a panic that they would hear at the top end of Italy.

“I no seen you here before,” said the woman who had spoken to him. She was young but already middle-aged plump, an Italian momma years ahead of schedule. She had a friendly, pretty face and a voice that suggested she might be able to carry a song. “You new around here? Is a nice place to live, you know? Lots of life, things always going on.”

She had no sooner said that than things started going on. The front door of the bank burst open and three men came in with stocking masks over their heads. They were waving sawn-off shotguns and they were shouting at the tops of their voices, their language as violent as their behaviour.

“Okay, okay, on the fucking floor—everybody! On the fucking floor or we'll blast the shit outa you! On the floor! Fuck you—move!”

One man kept yelling, waving his gun back and forth as the other two rushed at the counter and leapt at it. There was a shriek from the woman behind Dural; she fell into him, carrying him to the floor with her. Christ, he thought, this ain't happening! These bloody cowboys, drug-drunk, are spoiling everything for me! His straw hat had been knocked off as he went down, he had dropped his briefcase as he grabbed at the woman. He lay flat on his back under the shaking jelly of her; it was like being underneath a vibrating bed. He turned his head and saw the briefcase had burst open and the butt of the Walther was sticking out. Oh Jesus! He turned his head and looked up past the woman's tangled hair and distorted face and saw the gunman standing over him.

“Quit that fucking row!” The gunman kicked the woman in her well-padded behind; she lurched forward on Dural as if trying to rape him; he was smothered by her big bosom, could see nothing
but
black satin. “Shut up, you bitch, or I'll kill you!”

The woman suddenly went limp, as if the language itself had shot her. Dural lay beneath her, waiting for the gunman to see the butt of the Walther, pull it out of the briefcase and then start in on him. The crazy junkie might even kill him.

Then out of the corner of his eye, through a curtain of the woman's black hair, he saw the gunman's feet turn away. He lay still, the unconscious woman still covering him, heard more violent swearing; the gunmen were shouting at each other now. All around him people were stretched out on the floor, faces against the cold tiles; some had fainted, like the woman on top of him, others were weeping in sobbing gasps. An old man just lay and stared across the floor at Dural with a sort of resignation, as if he felt no surprise that his time had come at last and like this.

Then: “Okay, don't fucking move for five minutes—no one, understand! Move and you're fucking dead!”

The two men who had been behind the counter jumped over it again, encumbered by the two airline bags each of them carried. A canvas bank bag spilled out of an airline bag and fell with a clunk right beside Dural's head; but the gunman who had dropped it didn't stop to retrieve it.

Dural, with one eye, saw the robbers go. They went on the run out of the front door, straight into the patrol car as it pulled up outside the bank looking for the gun-toting taxi passenger. The two policemen in the car reacted at once; the driver swung the car up on to the footpath and drove it straight at the three gunmen. The leader let fly a round, but the shot went high, bouncing off the roof of the patrol car. The car hit him, kept going and collected the other two robbers. It was like something out of
Dirty Harry
and if Chilla Dural had seen it he would have remarked how different things were from the old days.

But he saw nothing of what went on out in the street. He slid out from under the woman as she moaned and regained consciousness. He reached for his hat and the briefcase, pushing the Walther back into it and closing the flap. He also reached for the canvas bag; it was heavy, full of coins. Then he stood up and looked around as the other customers slowly came to life and began to struggle up from the floor.
The
bank staff appeared above their counter like soldiers rising out of their trench to see if the war was really over. Out in the street there was shouting and the sound of an approaching siren. In a moment or two the police were going to burst into the bank. It was time to go.

Dural picked his way through the customers, stepping over those who still hadn't the strength to stand up. The old man who had been ready to die sat up and looked at him as he passed.

“Not yet?” he said in a shaky voice.

“Not yet, Pop,” said Dural.

He found a back door, unlocked it and stepped out into a small yard. He opened the canvas bag; it was full of dollar coins. He crossed to a gate, unlocked it and walked out into a narrow lane. He straightened his hat, put the canvas bag in his briefcase, tucked the case up under his arm and walked unhurriedly up the lane.

There were probably five hundred bucks in the bag, so the morning hadn't been entirely wasted. Les Glizzard would be happy at what had happened, though he would never tell him. He just wished that he had had ammunition in the Walther; he could have shot all three of the gunmen; he hated the bastards and nothing would have given him greater pleasure. But then Glizzard would have had him declared a hero and he would be more lost than ever.

6

I

“I'VE BEEN
through the newspapers, Inspector,” said Andy Graham. “For the whole of March and April 1966. There's plenty on the Springfellow disappearance, but nothing on anyone else missing, no one that hasn't been accounted for since. Same with Missing Persons, those files that are still there. I've drawn a blank.”

Graham was an oversized young man who had only recently transferred from the uniformed division; he was all enthusiasm, but he had to be taught that detective work was 95 per cent plodding routine. He had just had his first lesson and looked suitably chastened.

“That's just the start, Andy. I want you now to go looking in places where missing persons wouldn't be reported.”

“Right, Inspector,” said Graham, looking blank.

“You know where I mean?”

Graham coloured, ran a hand like a crab up and down his thick thigh. “No, sir.”

“Radical hang-outs, embassies, consulates. Walter Springfellow was a spy chief, don't forget that.”

“Will I need a warrant to get into any of those places?”

Malone grinned. “The embassies and consulates would just tell you to get stuffed and they'd be within their rights, As for the radicals, if you can find „em, just barge in and then apologize afterwards. It saves a lot of bother. They'll ring up that Civil Liberties bloke and he'll go to the newspapers, but nobody'll read the story. The voters don't care about civil liberties in this country, not unless it's their own.”

Graham
nodded, his enthusiasm regained; this was like his old days in uniform. “About the embassies, Inspector—they're all down in Canberra, right? Do I go down there?”