‘When did you last see Adin, Maurice? Can you remember what he said, what he was doing and how you parted company?’ She stopped and flashed one of her professional smiles. He seemed to like that. ‘It’s important.’
He considered something for a long time, hands in his pockets. His brown eyes flicked from place to place. ‘I don’t know . . .’ he finally mumbled.
Billie waited out an awkward minute, the boy now staring at his shoes. With an inward sigh, she slipped him a shilling – did it as smoothly as a magician. He recognised the feel of it immediately and it seemed to jog his memory. Funny that.
‘Look, lady, I haven’t seen Adin, just like I told Mrs Brown, but I think I might know where he’s been.’
‘Go on,’ she encouraged him, offering another smile.
‘Last time I saw him, he was hanging around The Dancers.’
The Dancers? That was a club off George Street, near the Trocadero. It was a far smaller and more exclusive joint than the Troc, and the cream of Sydney society liked to wine and dine there and catch the acts that came through. They had some international performers and a nice little dance floor, and there was a fair bit of glamour about the place. It had white tablecloths and waiters in bow-ties and was the sort of joint where judges and gangsters might be spotted in the same room together. It was strictly for the high end of town. Unless a lot had changed since she’d last been there, it wasn’t for the likes of kids with baby pompadours and tough-guy aspirations.
Billie got an inkling as to Maurice’s reluctance to mention the club. ‘I’m not here because Adin might have been taking grog, Maurice. And what you imbibe is not my business.’
His shoulders dropped a touch. ‘His old woman doesn’t know. She wouldn’t like it.’ He said the words with a shake of his head.
Billie was sure he was right about that. But even if she didn’t find it hard to imagine Adin having liquor at his age – plenty of kids not much older than him had been shot to pieces at Normandy or worked to death on the Burma railway, but a dash of spirits was somehow off limits – she was having trouble imagining where a kid would get the kind of money needed to get about in a joint like The Dancers. Even if he had a dinner jacket, and a fine one at that, he likely wouldn’t have got far at that sort of club.
‘Look, it’s not my kind of joint, but Adin was keen as mustard. We made it in the door one time, and ended up out on our ears in minutes; we barely got up the stairs, but he was obsessed. Dunno why. He kept wanting to go back in. The doormen knew we didn’t have a brass razoo . . . There was no foolin’ ’em.’ He paused. ‘Well, there was one guy who seemed sympathetic, but it was pointless.’ He scuffed at the footpath with one loafer. ‘Yeah, like I said, not my kind of joint.’
‘Someone was sympathetic?’ Billie prompted him.
‘One of the doormen. Adin spoke with him.’
‘What did this doorman look like?’
‘Ahhh, long face.’ Maurice pulled at his chin. ‘Very skinny young bloke,’ he stressed. ‘A wog, I think. About yay high.’
‘I see,’ Billie said, ignoring the slur. ‘Do you know what triggered Adin’s interest? A girl, perhaps?’
‘Maybe, but like I said, I dunno.’ He shrugged, and she felt a stab of annoyance. The Dancers had some glamorous acts, but if Adin was interested in someone it was more likely one of the cigarette girls. Perhaps he’d made a connection, or was trying to.
‘How long ago was this?’ Billie asked.
‘Last weekend. I left him to it. Had a bit of a falling out over it, to be honest. I didn’t want to keep hanging around there getting snubbed like some lowlife when we could get into the Troc, no worries. I ain’t seen him since.’
Same with the rest of his friends, Billie thought. But he had gone home, because he’d only been missing two days, not six. ‘Is it usual for you two to have a “falling out”, as you call it?’
‘It wasn’t as bad as all that; I just didn’t like being turned out on my ear. Who needs it? Why The Dancers?’
‘Why indeed?’ she agreed, wondering who or what was so special about the place that would attract the interest of a boy like Adin Brown. ‘Maurice, can you think of where Adin might be now?’
He shook his head emphatically. ‘Miss, I don’t know.’
‘If you had to guess his whereabouts, what would your guess be?’
He shrugged again. ‘I wouldn’t like to guess, lady.’ There was worry behind his eyes and she was inclined to believe him. Some of his bravado had fallen away. Beneath it was a young man anxious about a friend. Again, a set of curtains moved, and he seemed to notice or at least feel the prying eyes. He straightened, not wanting to be seen as soft. ‘Nah, I don’t know nothin’,’ he declared.
‘Is there anything else you can think of? Anything unusual that happened in the past couple of weeks or so?’ She watched him as he frowned. ‘Did he talk about a girl, perhaps? Or something else? Did he act strangely on any occasion?’ she ventured.
‘Well . . .’
Ah, there is something. ‘Anything might help,’ she stressed, and slipped him another shilling. That frown of his eased up a touch, but only a touch.
‘Look it’s probably nothin’, but there was this thing at the Olympia,’ he said. ‘The milk bar. Something with the paper. He went wild when he saw it.’
How peculiar, she thought. ‘What did he see in the paper, precisely?’
Maurice shrugged. ‘That I don’t know, precisely or otherwise. It could be nothin’, but somethin’ in there sure seemed to set him off.’ He shook his head.
‘But if he went wild he must have told you what it was about?’ Was the boy fishing for yet more coin? ‘You don’t know, or you won’t say?’
‘Listen, lady, I honestly don’t know. He just went into a fury and ripped the page out of the paper and pocketed it. He didn’t show me what it was. Really cut up, he was. I thought it weird at the time.’
Now that could be something, Billie thought. ‘What did he say? I want every word, if you can recall them.’
‘Nothing I want to repeat to you.’
‘I can take it,’ she said, and gave him another smile. If this kid thought he was more worldly than she was, he had another think coming.
Maurice hesitated, noted the smile, and his eyes stayed on it for a moment. ‘Okay, lady,’ he finally said and let off a long trail of expletives. ‘Something like that, give or take.’
‘I see. What day was this? Think hard, now, kid. You’ve got a pocket full of my coin.’
‘Maybe Thursday last week, though I can’t swear to it.’ He squinted for a moment, thinking. ‘Yeah, probably Thursday last week.’
‘Do you remember which paper it was?’
‘The Truth, I think. Or the Sydney Morning Herald. Not sure.’
‘This was at the Olympia?’ She pointed in the direction of the milk bar at the end of the street. ‘And he tore the page out, is that right?’
Maurice nodded. Billie thanked him – though he ought to thank her for the shillings he’d collected – and reminded him that he had her card and should contact her if he thought of anything else. She did the smile. He looked her up and down one more time, wagged his chin at her, affecting a cool manner, and turned away, pulling a comb from his pocket to smooth his hair as he walked back towards the house he shared with his mother.