Between the Devlin and the Deep Blue Seas (5 page)

The traffic wasn't too bad between Double Bay and Randwick and Les was there in about fifteen minutes; only abusing all the pedestrians and just about every other driver on the road. He found the estate agency after turning left off Alison Road and fluked a parking spot about twenty metres away.

Steinberg and Ringblum's was in between a boutique and a travel agency underneath a large motel. The front window was full of photos of houses and blocks of flats and stencilled on the door was Isaac Steinberg, Licensed Real Estate Agent and Marvin Ringblum, Licensed Strata Manager. Behind a counter inside, three girls sat typing beneath a large map of Randwick and Coogee. A sort of corridor along the grey carpet separated them from a row of filing cabinets and further down the room glass partitions formed three offices. Les stepped inside and waited at the counter.

A young blonde girl in a light blue dress got up from her typewriter and walked over. ‘Yes?' she smiled. ‘Can I help you?'

‘I'd like to see either Mr Steinberg or Mr Ringblum, please,' answered Les.

‘Mr Steinberg is out at the moment, but Mr Ringblum is in. Who shall I say wishes to see him?'

‘Mr Norton. The owner of Blue Seas Apartments.'

‘I won't be a moment.'

The blonde girl walked down to the furthest office, said something to a man in a shirt and tie, who looked up briefly, then came back.

‘Mr Ringblum will see you. The second office on the left.' She opened up part of the counter and Les walked through.

Marvin Ringblum, a telephone receiver resting on his left shoulder, was about fifty, balding, with a paunch pushing out against a white shirt tucked into a pair of brown trousers. With a podgy hand he motioned Les into a seat, muttered a few more unsmiling words into the phone and hung up.

‘Mr Norton,' he said through an oily, insincere smile,
‘such a long time since we've seen you. How are you?' He offered Les a handshake which felt like a slice of veal steak. ‘And what can I do for you?'

As if Marvin Ringblum didn't know. Sitting before him was one big, dumb goyen with red hair. A goyen straddled up with a block of flats worth about two and a half shekels. And now the goyen was probably going to start crying on his shoulder. Norton's troubles Marvin didn't need. Sympathy Les wasn't going to get.

‘As you probably know, I'm the owner of Blue Seas Apartments in Aquila Street,' said Les, pointing to the folder in front of him.

‘Of course, Mr Norton. A nice... a nice little block of units.'

‘I'll get straight to the point, Mr Ringblum. I want to sack... dismiss the caretaker.'

Ringblum shrugged and made an open-handed gesture. ‘Of course, Mr Norton. You're the owner. You do as you wish.'

‘Yeah. But I want to do it straight away. Today.'

‘Good,' nodded Ringblum. ‘Do it.'

Les looked at the estate agent quizzically. ‘Well, you're the agents. What do you do? Send him a letter? Go down and tell him? What?' Surely there had to be some kind of protocol involved here? You just don't sack someone without a reason or at least some sort of an explanation — do you?

But as far as Steinberg and Ringblum Real Estate agents were concerned, Les could do what he liked with Blue Seas Apartments and whoever lived in them. The block was a lemon and an eyesore and for the amount of commission they collected from the rents, not worth having on the books. And as far as any feelings for the caretaker... Marvin and Isaac were a couple of good Jewish boys who had come out from Russia fleeing persecution by the communists. Their mothers wanted them to be doctors but they couldn't afford uni fees at the time. Politics didn't interest them, or being heroin dealers and joining the parking police didn't pay enough.
So they became real estate agents instead. Norton could have taken the caretaker out into the street and had him publicly beheaded then fed his body to the hyenas at Taronga Park Zoo for all they cared.

‘No problem at all, Mr Norton. You just go down to the apartments and tell Mr Olsen he's been dismissed.' Ringblum sat back and gave Les another oily smile.

‘That's it?' blinked Les.

‘You want I should give him a gold watch?' shrugged Ringblum. The phone rang and he picked it up. ‘I'm sorry, Mr Norton, but I'm terribly busy,' he said, cupping his hand over the mouthpiece. ‘If there is some sort of a problem, come back and see me. Thank you, Mr Norton.'

‘Yeah righto, terrific. It's been really average talking to you.' Norton picked up his folder and left the office.

Sitting outside in his car Les didn't quite know what to do. He'd never sacked anyone in his life and no matter what, he couldn't have done it just like that, anyway, no matter what sort of a mood he was in. And the last thing he wanted to do was go down and have a look at his gilt-edged investment rotting away just down the road; it was too vexing and too depressing. He thought about it for a few moments, then started the car, took the next on the left and drove home.

It was close enough to lunchtime when Les walked in the front door and normally at this time he would have cooked himself something tasty to eat, but for some reason he seemed to have lost his appetite. Instead, he made a cup of coffee and contemplated his miserable fate while he flicked through the folder Whittle had given him. The pile of documents with all the facts and figures made no sense at all. The letter from Randwick council did, though, and he was able to grind through that. The only other thing he could understand was that the flats were insured for $150 000 with Erin. A. Insurance Company. Hah! That figures, snorted Les. Erin means Ireland where that stinkin' lawyer's in gaol and you can
bet your life he's set that up and pissed off with all the funds. So it's a lay-down misere that's not worth the paper it's printed on. On an impulse he picked up the phone book and then the yellow pages. There was no Erin. A. Insurance Company in Sydney. That figures. Yeah, that bloody well figures. He put the useless insurance policy back in the folder and tossed it on the dressing table in his bedroom.

Norton switched on the TV to watch the midday movie, but ten minutes of Joan Crawford in
Autumn Leaves
almost had him reaching for the hemlock. Ahh, bugger this, he cursed, switching off the TV. I know what I'll do. I'll get a bottle of Bundy and a case of beer and blot the whole stinkin' day out. He went to his room to get some money then he remembered that he and Warren were going on the wagon for a month. Christ! What a time to try and stay sober. No, bugger getting on the piss. I've only got to wake up again tomorrow and Warren will want to know what's going on.

He fiddled around the house for a while then drove up to Bondi Junction and hung around the shops and the Plaza for the rest of the cool, cloudy, November afternoon. When he left, he bought a kilo of cheap mince; being in a lousy, miserable mood he decided to cook a lousy miserable tea.

The mince was stewing on the stove and Les was stirring it disconsolately when Warren arrived home about six.

‘Hello landlord,' he said cheerfully, as he breezed into the kitchen, holding two large bottles of mineral water. ‘What's doing?'

‘Not much,' grunted Les.

Warren took a deep breath, held out his arms and flexed what little muscles he had. ‘You know, I've never felt so good in my life. This getting off the drink is the best idea we've ever had.'

‘Yeah? That's good.'

Warren moved across to the stove. ‘So what's for tea?'

‘Mince.'

‘Mince!' Warren peered distastefully into the pot. ‘Fuckin' mince. They feed you that in Boys Homes.'

‘You don't like mince Warren?'

‘I'm fuckin' sure I don't.'

‘Well, don't fuckin' eat it.'

Warren stepped back from the stove. ‘Jesus! You're in a good mood.'

‘I'm all right.'

‘Yeah, terrific.'

Warren got cleaned up then joined Les in a very ordinary tea. So much for a month of gourmet cooking, he mused. This tastes like shit. And Les is in the same sort of mood. I think having him hanging around the house is going to be like I pictured it in the first place. Very bloody ordinary. They did the dishes and watched TV. The TV was quite good, but the conversation on Norton's behalf was very limited.

‘You know what's wrong with you?' said Warren, half way through ‘Beyond 2000'.

‘What?'

‘Withdrawals. Two days off the piss and you can't handle it.'

‘If you say so, Warren.'

‘You fuckin' big sheila.'

‘If you say so, Warren.'

They watched TV till around eleven then hit the sack. Norton managed to get to sleep after a while but he definitely wasn't looking forward to the following day. Or the following five years for that matter.

Wednesday was pretty much like the day before; scattered clouds being pushed along by the southerly, cool but in no way cold. Les was up at his usual time for another run in Centennial Park, trying to enjoy it as best he could, despite what was sitting uneasily on his mind. Warren had left for work when he got home and Les remembered his saying something the night before about having to start a little earlier because of some
new advertising campaign. He got cleaned up and had a leisurely breakfast and read the morning paper, making it last as long as he could. Finally he got into a pair of jeans and a T-shirt and headed for Randwick. It was getting on for eleven when Les turned into Perouse Road and found a parking spot almost out the front of Blue Seas Apartments.

The old block looked pretty much the same as the last time Les had seen it, which was so long ago he couldn't remember when. It was situated on the corner of Aquila Street and Perouse Road, about two hundred metres down from the Royal Hotel. Aquila Street was a dead-end street, about a hundred metres long, with a couple of blocks of flats on one side and Blue Seas on the other, the rear of which backed onto a lane with St Bridgettes College taking up the entire end of the street. Unlike the better blocks of flats opposite, Blue Seas only had two storeys: three flats on the top level and two on the bottom, along with the small caretaker's residence, a storeroom and laundry.

The front of the building was old, daggy brown brick smeared with pigeon shit; Blue Seas was written above some windows in what once might have been dark blue but which was now almost faded to a light grey. A waist-high brick fence stood under this stopping at a side passage where an old wooden, paling fence hung with letter boxes ran alongside the house next door. The brick fence cornered from Perouse into Aquila and past the main entrance till it became more wooden palings which went round the back of the flats where the alley separated them from St Bridgettes at the rear. The whole place looked old and neglected and again Les wondered how he'd let them talk him into buying it. Shaking his head he got out of the car and walked over stopping to look at the small front yard. The grass was overgrown and a few different types of cactus plants almost gave a hint of colour where some dog turds sat amidst a number of yellow dandelions pushing through the weeds. Some fuckin' caretaker I've got, thought Les. He shook his
head and walked around to the old wooden doors at the entrance in Aquila Street next to a number of dirty wooden boxes that held the gas meters.

The foyer consisted of more dirty brown bricks above a floor of chipped, slate tiles edged in a kind of red and white diamond pattern. A staircase with thick wooden handrails ran up beneath a splintery wooden panel with ancient electricity meters clinging to it. In the light from the old lead-lined windows in a kind of blue bow design Les could see wires and leads poking and hanging out everywhere. Again, he shook his head then thought seeing as there didn't seem to be anybody around, he might check the place out before he saw the caretaker.

The doors on the flats upstairs were the same as the ones below: white with brass knockers and milk serveries in between. He pushed a door open onto the fire escape. It had a wooden staircase and a handrail made of pipe and cyclone wire which had been painted a garish red; more wires and leads hung off the walls and more pigeon shit smeared the dirty brown bricks. Another flight of stairs led to a door that opened out onto the roof. The roof was flat — plain grey tar with a few old boxes, bricks and other junk strewn around. A TV aerial jutted out to one side and behind that, if you twisted your neck around enough, you got a distant glimpse of a few swells out on the horizon. So that's why it's called Blue Seas Apartments, thought Les. The panoramic ocean view. He shook his head and walked down to the back yard.

The concrete back yard held the empty clothesline and several long metal stakes jammed into the concrete held the back fence up. Someone had stacked a number of housebricks into two squares filled with soil to make a bit of a garden, and the few red flowers within, along with the cacti and dandelions out the front added the only colour to what was undoubtedly a very dismal scene. How could I have been such a mug thought Les again. No wonder I kept away from the prick of a joint. He
stared absently at the flowers for a moment then went in to see the caretaker, checking out the laundry as he did.

The laundry was dark, dirty and stunk of mildew. Old papers, bottles and other junk littered the floor amongst the dirt and dust that seemed to be everywhere. There were five copper tubs with a gas meter above, each fitted with a lock. Cobwebs, dead flies and more dirt festooned the windows that overlooked the backyard. Water on the floor, a few pegs scattered round the tubs, and a couple of dried-up bars of Sunlight said at least someone had been in there recently. How could I have been such a mug? thought Les again. And again he shook his head.

The storeroom was locked and the caretaker's flat was next to the laundry. Les knocked, not too loudly, and waited. He heard a shuffling movement inside then the door opened.

If Warren was half Les's size, the caretaker was a quarter. He looked around sixty, with thinning brown hair edged with grey, little ears, a little flattened nose and a little mouth full of stained teeth, all set in a heavily-lined face. Wearing an old pair of shiny blue trousers and a matching flannelette shirt he looked up at Les through a pair of watery eyes.