Read Online Black Tide by Peter Temple - Free Book Online Page B

rich in chemicals, tangy tuna fresh from the can that day, chopped hard-boiled egg. And these things they wanted topped not with Sicilian caper salsa or harissa or Bhutanese sour cucumber relish but with a rip of tunnel-grown iceberg lettuce and two slices of cold-storage tomato recently ripened by the application of gas. And Judy’s customers didn’t care to have their fillings wrapped in focaccia, ciabatta, bruschetta or Peruvian machaya flatbread. They wanted it slapped on soft, milk-white bread, the bread of their childhood, bread with the texture of Kleenex.
    No rush yet. A woman was leaving as I came in, another woman was being served at the counter. The four pine tables down the righthand wall were unoccupied. It was just after 10 a.m. and the bain-marie was loaded, a good sign in a lunchtime food business.
    Good for the business, not the customers.
    Three people were at work behind the glass display counter. A woman in her sixties, long sorrowful Balkan face, was dismantling a greyish cooked chicken. A young man was assembling salad rolls, and a woman, late thirties, early forties, short bleached hair, attractive in a hard-bitten way, was serving the sole customer, putting a sandwich into a paper bag. ‘Don’t you get tired of eating the same sandwich every day?’ she asked.
    ‘Nah,’ said the customer. ‘Love it. Have it three times a day if I could.’
    When he’d gone, I said, ‘Is Judy around?’
    The woman gave me the pained look that greets salesmen everywhere. ‘I’m Judy.’
    ‘Jack Irish. I’m a lawyer acting on behalf of Des Connors.’
    48

    The pained look went. ‘How is he? He’s all right?’
    ‘He’s fine. Bit creaky in the hips, otherwise fine. This is about Gary.’
    Judy sighed, sagged her shoulders. ‘Beats me how a lovely bloke like Des fathered a prick like Gary. What’s he done?’
    ‘Got a moment? Could we sit down?’
    ‘Sure. Have a seat at the back table. Things don’t get lively till eleven or so.’ Peeling off her latex kitchen gloves, she said to the young man, ‘Andy, see to customers, will you?’
    Judy went into a back room, came out a moment later without her neck-high pink apron. She was wearing jeans and a white T-shirt and wearing them well. ‘Nice to have an excuse to sit down,’ she said. ‘Tell me the sad tale.’
    ‘Des lent Gary money.’
    She closed her eyes for a second or two, shaking her head. ‘Usually it’s the mums won’t give up hope,’ she said. ‘Dream is they’ll wake up one day and their little bastard’s turned into an angel. Not much money, I hope.’
    ‘Much. Left to Des by his sister.’
    ‘Well,’ Judy said, ‘that’s money past tense.’
    ‘Des asked me to have a word with Gary but he hasn’t been at home for a while.’
    ‘Home? Gary? Home? That’s a joke. Last place you’d look for Gary. Try whorehouses.
    Topless bars. Table-dancing clubs. He’ll be somewhere near women. Certain kinds of women.’
    ‘Was he still a cop when you met him?’
    She nodded. ‘Used to come in here. Lots of cops from Russell Street used to come in.
    Boy, did I think he was a spunk. And the manners. Oh, the manners. The shy way. The cap under the arm. Did he stand out from the rest of the animals? Like a cathedral choirboy in Pentridge. Mrs Kodja—that’s her behind the counter, she owned this place then—she used to say, “That boy, that Gary, take twenty years away from me, I tie him to my bed with a rope.’’’
    A couple came in. Judy heard the door, turned her head, waved at them, watched to see that they were being served, said without looking at me, ‘What Mrs K didn’t know was that Gary would have jumped at the chance to tie her to his bed with a rope. Never mind taking twenty years away. Add twenty, he’d be keen.’
    49

    ‘Did he leave the force while you were married?’
    ‘I came home one day—we were living in Richmond, tiny flat—about six plainclothes cops searching the place. Gary’s standing there, in