Les Norton and the Case of the Talking Pie Crust (11 page)

‘Yes. What would you like?’ the girl asked.

‘I don’t know, Spare One. What’s good in this joint?’ asked Les.

‘Patooties,’ squealed Houston, when she realised who it was. ‘What are you doing up here?’

‘I don’t know, Spare One,’ replied Les. ‘I might ask you the same thing.’

‘I moved up here. Got married. Had a kid. I’ve turned into a boring old housewife, Tooties. It’s ridic.’

‘That’s one thing you’ll never be, Spare One,’ said Les. ‘Boring. But I’m up here on a quick holiday.’

‘You’ll have to come back when it’s not so busy,’ said Houston. ‘We’ve got our rings hanging out tonight.’

‘Fair enough,’ nodded Les. ‘Anyway. Give me three Jackie’s and soda. Ice and slice.’

‘Coming right up, Tooties.’

Over the noise, Les and Houston had a quick chat about Nizegy and other things. She introduced him to the barman, whose name was Pete, who found time to shake Norton’s hand and wish him the best.

‘All right, Spare One,’ said Les, after he’d paid for the drinks. ‘I’ll see you before the night’s out and I might call back tomorrow night.’

‘Do that, Tooties,’ smiled Houston. ‘It’s always good to see a friendly face. Even the rough ones.’

Like a tightrope walker crossing Niagara Falls, Les shuffled back through the gyrating punters with the drinks on a small plastic tray. The girls had managed to find a table and stools near the entrance. Les placed the drinks on the table and sat down.

‘Well. Here’s looking up your old address,’ he said, clinking his glass against Marla’s and Carol’s. Les took a sip and gave a double blink. ‘Shit. They’re not bad bloody drinks.’

‘Yeah. They look after you in here,’ agreed Carol, hoofing into hers.

‘I’m glad I don’t have to get up tomorrow,’ said Marla.

After that the night went swimmingly. They put away plenty of delicious. Marla was all Norton’s way and they had a few jigs in and around the other punters swarming through the bar. And Carol met a solid, fair-haired, ex-army bloke, Piers, who was now a builder and a good mate of Pete the barman, who’d also been in the army. Piers sat with them and joined in a few shouts and Les was glad for the extra company, enjoying Piers’ stories about serving in Timor.

The only uneasy incident on the night was when Les noticed Marla staring apprehensively at something happening out the front that was reflected in the mirror opposite their table. Jim the doorman was arguing with a group of four men. The one doing the most arguing was a tall, sallow-faced man with thinning brown hair, wearing a red Holden Racing Team jacket. Next thing Pete left the bar and ducked through a side door leading into the smaller dining area. Piers saw Pete hurrying out, excused himself and joined the doorman and the big barman. The four men doing the arguing were full of themselves when Jim was on his own. But the minute Pete and Piers arrived on the scene, their confidence soon waned and they left.

‘Everything all right?’ Les asked, when Piers returned to their table.

‘Yeah. Just a bunch of yobs full of piss and attitude,’ replied Piers. ‘Jim wasn’t going to let them in.’

‘The one in the red jacket was Barry. My ex-boyfriend Milton’s brother. He’s a prize idiot. So are his mates.’

‘Well, they won’t be coming in here tonight,’ said Piers.

‘Good,’ replied Marla.

The night continued. Carol kept inching towards Piers and Marla was up against Les, surreptitiously taking his inside thigh measurement. Midnight came and went and although it was non-smoking in the bar, the punters on the verandah were making up for lost time and the fumes were swirling back inside. Besides that, the ambient house music was starting to lose its ambience and Les would have given his left nut to hear Jerry Lee Lewis doing a duet with someone. Anyone—from Barry Manilow to Nana Mouskouri. Marla was nestled up against him and he put his arm around her shoulder.

‘Marla,’ said Les. ‘I hate to be a lemon, but I don’t know if I can take much more of this. That music is starting to give me GBH of the earhole. And the smoke’s making my eyes feel like I’m blinking fish hooks.’

‘Yes. I know what you mean,’ agreed Marla.

‘Don’t take this the wrong way, but would you like to come back to my place and have a drink? I’ve got some Jackie’s and that.’

‘I’d love to come back to your place,’ smiled Marla. ‘I’ve always wanted to see inside Ocean Star Apartments. They say it’s very nice. What’s your room like?’

‘My room? Oh, it’s reasonable enough,’ replied
Les. ‘Could do with a lick of paint. But it hasn’t got a bad view.’

‘All right,’ said Marla. ‘I’ll tell Carol what’s happening.’

‘You don’t mind catching a taxi home?’ said Les. ‘Christ! If I blew into a bag, the ocean would catch fire.’

‘No. That’s okay.’

Les eased back while Marla had a confab with Carol. Before long Marla found her handbag and stood up at the table. Les joined her.

‘Well, I don’t suppose I’ll be seeing you for breakfast tomorrow, Carol,’ he said. ‘Shit. Who’s going to insult me?’

‘Oh, I’m sure you’ll find somone,’ smiled Carol. ‘With your head, Knackers, you can’t miss out.’

Les reached across and shook Piers’s hand. ‘Nice to have met you, Piers,’ he said sincerely. ‘You people did a great job up there in East Timor. Hey. They’re still doing a great job everywhere.’

Piers returned Norton’s handshake. ‘Thanks, Les,’ he said. ‘I appreciate that. If you got time before you go back, look me up and we’ll have a drink.’

‘Sounds good to me,’ said Norton.

Les and Marla eased their way out the door and through the punters along the verandah. They said goodbye to Jim, and Les thanked him again for letting him in. Jim said it was a pleasure and he was glad they had a good night. They crossed the street and when they got to the resort corner, Les stopped and sucked in a huge lungful of air.

‘Oh Marla,’ he breathed. ‘What about this fresh air. It’s full of oxygen.’

‘I know what you mean,’ she replied. ‘I’ll have to wash my hair with sugar soap before I go to bed. As for my clothes, I think I’ll just burn them.’

They shuffled along arm in arm when something lying on the ground caught Norton’s eye. ‘What’s…?’ Les picked it up. It was a red, white and blue plastic glasses case with LE SPECS LE TOUGH printed on the side. Les opened the case and inside were a pair of chrome Elvis Presley style sunglasses. ‘Holy shit,’ cried Les. ‘Check these out. Somebody must have dropped them on the way to the Point.’ Les couldn’t whip them out of the case and put them on quick enough. He turned towards the Point Bar and cupped his hands around his mouth. ‘Hey,’ Les called out. ‘Elvis has left the building. All right?’

‘Shit. Carol would kill for those,’ laughed Marla. ‘She loves Elvis.’

Les threw an arm out and started boozily gyrating one leg. ‘
You went nuttin’ with a ground hog
,’ he sang flatly.

‘Jesus. Don’t ever give up your day job, Les,’ Marla advised him.

Laughing away, Les punished Marla with a bit more Elvis on the way up the street, and arm in arm they danced happily around the corner. Suddenly Marla stopped. Sprawled along an empty cab rank outside the resort were the four men Jim wouldn’t let into the bar. The one in the red jacket was seated at the end closest to Les and Marla. His three mates, wearing tracksuits, jeans, zip-front jackets and baseball caps, were slouched alongside him. As soon as the one in the red jacket spotted Marla, his face soured into an expression of pure rancour.

‘Well, look who it ain’t,’ he sneered. ‘The beautiful Marla. How are you, you fuckin moll.’

Marla rolled her eyes shut for a brief moment. ‘Oh Barry,’ she pleaded. ‘Why can’t you just leave me alone?’

‘Ohh well, why don’t you go and get an AVO on me too,’ sniggered Barry. ‘You do a lousy TV
doco and you think you’re too good for my brother. You stuck-up bitch.’

Barry’s mate at the end with his hood up decided to put his head in. ‘Hey, check out fuckin Elvis,’ he laughed.

‘Yeah. Where’s your blue suede shoes, Elvis?’ mocked his mate next to him, wearing jeans and a brown jacket.

Marla gripped Norton’s arm and went to walk past the four men. ‘Come on, Les,’ she said, quietly. ‘Don’t take any notice of them. They’re idiots.’

‘Idiots,’ said Barry. ‘Who are you calling an idiot? You snooty moll.’

The four men rose up from the seat and stood in front of Les and Marla, blocking their way. Barry was closest to a car parked by the footpath. The bloke with the hood up was next to him. Les let go of Marla and stared down at the footpath through his sunglasses as if he was looking for an answer. If he was, it didn’t take long for him to find one.

‘Barry,’ said Les, shaking his head. ‘I haven’t got the time, nor the patience for this fuckin shit. I really haven’t.’

Having said that, Les snap-kicked Barry in the solar plexus with his right foot, doubling him up
like a concertina. Next, a short right uppercut slammed into Barry’s face, opening his mouth up like a tin of jam and throwing him against the car. Blood bubbling down his chin, Barry tottered for a moment, then before Les could belt him again, he fell to his knees and pitched face-first onto the footpath, out cold. Wasting no time, Les walked straight across to the bloke with the hood up and slammed a left hook into his face, pulverising the bloke’s nose. The unsuspecting bloke let out an agonised yelp, then went spinning back along the footpath, landing sprawled out over the taxi rank seat, holding his bloodied face.

Terrified at the monster they’d unexpectedly unleashed, the bloke in the brown jacket stepped back and pointed at Les. ‘I’ll get the cops onto you,’ he whined. ‘I’m gonna get the cops. You wait.’

‘What?’ Les reached over with his left hand and grabbed the bloke roughly by the collar. ‘Four of you were going to get stuck into me and the girl. Now you want to run to the cops. You weak piece of shit.’ Les swung his right hand back and bitch-slapped Brown Jacket across the face, splitting his lip. As he cried out with pain, Les gave him a crisp backhander, opening his mouth up some more, then bitch-slapped him again.

Keeping a wary distance, the remaining hero glared at Les. ‘You’re dead meat, arsehole,’ he yelled. ‘Dead. I’m gonna get me brothers. And we’ll fuckin kill you.’

Les glared at him. ‘You’re going to get your brothers, are you? Well here, take your mate with you.’ Les spun Brown Jacket around, gave him a push then booted him hard up the backside.

Holding his bleeding mouth, the bloke wobbled along the footpath and into his mate.

‘Now piss off, the pair of you,’ snapped Les, ‘before you both get a blue suede shoe up your arse. Go on. Fuck off.’ Les stared daggers at the two hoons for a moment then turned back, stepped past the bloke lying on the seat and around the unconscious Barry and took Marla by the arm. ‘Come along, Marla,’ he said calmly. ‘Best we get out of here. This doesn’t appear to be a very nice part of town.’

Still not quite sure what happened, Marla looked at the two men lying where Les had left them and the other two standing at the corner. ‘Okay,’ she said quietly.

They crossed the next corner and started up the hill before Les spoke. ‘So did you have to get an AVO out against that dill’s brother?’ he asked.

‘Milton? Yes. After I said I didn’t want to see
him any more, but we could still remain friends. He got…really angry.’

‘Angry?’

‘Yes. He tried to choke me, actually,’ said Marla.

‘Choke you? Ohh, what a hero,’ sniggered Les.

‘Don’t worry,’ said Marla. ‘I nearly scratched his eyes out. So then he started stalking me. And threatening my friends. His family was the same. As you saw with Barry tonight. So I took out an AVO.’

‘An AVO. Did it work?’

‘Yes, sort of.’

‘Sort of,’ echoed Les. ‘Marla, you can take out all the AVOs in the world, but nothing gets through to a mug better than a good smack in the mouth and a few broken bones. Bad luck your friend Milton wasn’t here tonight.’

‘Yes,’ agreed Marla. ‘But I’ll tell you something, Les. Zac, the bloke you slapped across the face.’

‘Yeah. What about him?’

‘Well, he’s got a brother and a cousin are cops in Gosford. And they’re real turds. So you can bet he’ll go running to them and try and have you up for assault.’

‘Maybe,’ said Les.

‘And the last bloke, Hickey. He does come from a big family of nutters. And they will
come looking for you. So be careful while you’re in Terrigal.’ Marla smiled up at Norton. ‘I’d hate to see anything happen to you, Les. You’re nice.’

Les took the Elvis sunglasses off and put them in his pocket. ‘Why, thank you, ma’am,’ he smiled back. ‘Thank you very, very much.’

They proceeded on up to Ocean Star Apartments. Les opened the gate and Marla admired the fountain before they walked through the foyer. There was no one around. But the place was well lit and Marla noted all the paintings and furnishings before they took the lift to the first floor.

‘Wow. These paintings just go on and on,’ said Marla, as they followed the hallway down to Norton’s apartment.

‘Yes. They’re nice, aren’t they,’ said Les. He put the key in the lock then pushed the door open. ‘Anyway, Marla. Here’s my room. It’s a bit cramped. But if I move the fold-up bed, there’s a bit more space.’

Les had left the loungeroom light on. He flicked the light on in the hallway as Marla stepped inside then closed the door behind them. Marla walked down to the loungeroom then turned around and gaped at Les.

‘This is your room?’ she said.

‘That’s right,’ nodded Les. ‘Like I said. It’s reasonable.’

‘Reasonable? Reasonable? It’s…it’s out of this world.’

‘What?’ shrugged Les. ‘Doesn’t everybody stay in a place like this when they’re on holidays?’

Marla took in the surroundings. ‘Those paintings,’ she pointed. ‘They’re bloody Brett Whiteleys. This glass table. It’s inlaid with pure onyx. The chandeliers are all crystal.’

‘They light the place up, I suppose,’ said Les. ‘Come and have a look at this.’ He opened the sliding glass door and led Marla out onto the balcony. The moon was shimmering on the glassy water in the Haven and the ships were still necklaced across the horizon. In the far distance Norah Head lighthouse was flashing its friendly beam out over the ocean.