Make Me Rich Read Free Page A

oldest, nineteen. Just under nineteen. I haven’t seen for four months.”
    â€œThat’s not so long.”
    â€œIt is for the way it happened. The other boy, Chris, he went up to Brisbane at the beginning of the year. He’s all right—went to university there. They’ve got special studies in race relations—Aborigines, Islanders and all that. That’s what he’s keen on.”
    â€œWhat about Ray?”
    He rubbed at his close-cropped grey hair, making it rough and spiky. “We had our difficulties. Started a few years back. We just didn’t get along as well as we once did. No serious stuff; just sulks and no cooperation. A real pain in the arse to have around.”
    â€œThat’s normal enough.”
    â€œSo they tell me. Now, Chris could be hard to handle too but he’d go off and hit the books. Ray’s no scholar. He’s not dumb, mind. Passed the HSC, but he wasn’t interested in going on.”
    I finished the drink and thought about another. I was tired, and still had some clearing up to do at the party. It was a sure bet that there’d be someone asleep somewhere to be woken up and poured into a taxi. Besides, he was reluctantto tell me the trouble and that’s an attitude I’ve come across before. Sometimes it takes three runs before they come out with it and tonight I didn’t have the time. I wanted to let him down gently, though.
    â€œI’m sorry, Mr Guthrie. It just doesn’t sound so different from a lot …”
    â€œIt gets different,” he said sharply. “We had a bit of a row the day Ray left. He wasn’t under the thumb, you understand. Lived on the boat … I’m sorry, I’m having trouble coming to the point.”
    â€œYou had a row.”
    â€œYes. He stormed out. No word since. His mother’s out of her mind. I asked around. Couldn’t find him, and then I heard about the company he’s keeping. Bloke like you would know what I mean. Apparently he’s hanging around with Liam Catchpole, Dottie Williams, and Tiny Spotswood … that lot.”
    Those names changed things a lot. Catchpole, Spotswood and Williams were all crims. Not big-time enough to make their full names a household word—Liam Angus Catchpole or whatever—but consistent, professional wrong-doers. All had convictions, but it was rumoured that Tiny Spotswood had done things much worse then those he’d been convicted for. Bad enough, but there were other reasons to avoid them: I wondered whether Guthrie had the whole picture.
    â€œBad crowd,” I said. “Bad example for an impressionable lad.”
    â€œIt’s not the bad example I’m worried about. Those three are police informers.”
    â€œRight.”
    â€œ
And steerers!
”
    He meant
agents provocateurs
, and he was right again. Catchpole survived by steering men into gaol. Dottie did the same with women and she had a sideline as a drugs providerand procurer. I knew Catchpole had had some connection with Glebe in days gone by, but the details eluded me. I knew of no one who trusted him—not the crims he associated with nor the policemen he provided with information. He was almost, but not quite, a pariah. Tiny’s muscle helped to make people civil to him some of the time.
    â€œDo you have any idea what’s going on?” I asked. “Has the boy had police trouble?”
    He shook his head emphatically. “Never. I’d have to say he’s moody and stubborn—but honest as the day. And he’s not lazy—worked like a bastard on the boats. In my experience it’s the work-shy that run into trouble first. Ray’s not work-shy.” Now that he had it all out in the open, he was determined to convince me. “Look, Hardy, you know your way around. I’ve seen you in action and Roberta speaks very highly of you. She’s a good judge of character, though you mightn’t think