Deal Me Out by Peter Corris Read Free Book Online Page B

the same. I suppose I should be glad the terms haven’t got worse.’
    She smiled at me with her white teeth, and I did the best I could in return with my yellowed fangs. ‘Okay. Deal. We’ll go first thing in the morning.’
    ‘No. We’ll go now.’

6
    I DROPPED Erica on the smart side of Centennial Park and drove home to Glebe to prepare for the trip to the mountains. It was late and I was tired, but after the suburban people-and-property work I’d been doing of late, the search for William Mountain was a change and a challenge. I put on old jeans and boots, and tossed a bush jacket into the car along with a torch and a spotlight I could rig to the battery—all probably a city man’s over-reaction to the harsh demands of the country.
    Erica arrived in a taxi, and slung her bag into the back seat as she got in beside me. The bag clinked.
    ‘He might need something to drink.’
    ‘Probably,’ I said. ‘So might I.’
    I hadn’t driven to the Blue Mountains for years, and I was surprised to see how easy they’d made it. The freeway runs you smoothly out to Parramatta, and it’s plain sailing from there to the beginnings of the climb at Springwood. Erica was silent for the first part of the trip, but she opened up after Springwood and told me about life with Mountain—the drinking bouts, blocks and euphoric break-throughs that seem to be part of the writerly life. She spoke of camping trips that sounded more like fun, and filled me in on Blackheath.
    ‘There’s an old house up there,’ she said. ‘I’m not sure who actually owns it. It’s half falling down. Bill took me there to stay once. It’s a great spot—clean air, you know?’
    She’d created enough fug in the car to prompt a rude remark, but I resisted the temptation. I just said I’d heard about clean air.
    ‘You get up in the morning and really feel alive. Feel likegoing for a long walk, not like in the city.’
    ‘Can you find the house in the dark?’
    She looked back at the tangle of glass, metal and electrical wire on the back seat and smiled. ‘You’ve got it all wrong. The place is in the town, not half way up a mountain. There’s street lights. Mind you, there’s no light in the house except kerosene lamps.’ She paused, maybe to enjoy a memory. ‘D’you think he’ll be there?’
    I blinked a few times to get rid of a momentary blindness caused by some passing high-beam headlights. ‘What do I know? I’m the guy who said Mal wouldn’t be in the pub tonight, remember?’
    ‘You did a good job there though.’
    It was the first bit of praise I’d earned from her. ‘Thanks. We’ve got a few worries with this.’
    She lit a new cigarette. ‘You tell me yours.’
    ‘First, why did Mountain mention Blackheath to Mal? It seems indiscreet.’
    She blew smoke at the windscreen. ‘And?’
    ‘The opposition. What’ve they made of it? I haven’t been up here for years. What’s Blackheath like now—biggish?’
    ‘No, smallish, especially now—not many holiday people around.’
    ‘That’s what I was afraid of. If the car lifters went up there to flush him out the odds are that they’d be able to do it. He’s a pretty distinctive bloke, even without the big beard. What’d he be, six foot two?’
    ‘Three,’ she said. ‘He’s six foot three.’ She fell silent after that. I thought what an incongruous pair they’d make, but of course, that could’ve been half the fun.
    We went through Katoomba somewhere around midnight. The moon was nearly full in a clear sky that seemed to have twice as many stars in it as it does over the city. I stopped on the outskirts of the town to stretch my legs and empty my bladder. I shivered as I stood there in my cotton shirt and unlined jacket. Steam lifted pleasingly from the stream of urine. Like most city people, I like thecountry in small doses. The light breeze carried tree smells that evoked boyhood memories of holidays in big guest houses with stiff, cold sheets and mountainous