Amaze Your Friends. Peter Doyle

      Max had dummied up the guitar and accordion courses from his own collection of tutors, sheet music and old song books. The betting system was something he and a pal of his, Neville, had worked out years before. It had never been known to turn a quid for anyone, but nor had anyone lost too badly with it either. Neville was now a fast-rising Labor barrister, and happy to hand full ownership of the betting system over to Max. In fact, he was insistent he receive no money of any kind from the sale of the system and that his name not be linked with it, nor with any aspect of our enterprise. It’s nice when your friends have faith in you, I told Max.

      For our temporary office and storeroom, we had been using the downstairs flat at Perkal Towers, as Max’s block of flats at Bondi Junction was known, but in our third week of business Lovely Lani arrived at his door in tears and announced that she needed somewhere to live. The previous weekend her parents, Greeks, had caught her act, the Tahitian Fire Dance, at the Maroubra Junction Hotel, and now her persona was extremely non grata in the strict orthodox household. So Max, ever the gent, invited her to move into the downstairs flat for a special mate’s-rate rental. Max said we could rent a good room in the city for less than he could pull on the flat.

      I checked out city real estate. I’d prefer a room with a view, I told the agent, nothing fancy, maybe Macquarie Street facing the botanical gardens. I spent an afternoon inspecting stately old buildings occupied by accountants, barristers, gynaecologists, and the like. After seeing several horribly expensive such premises, I went back to the real estate office and asked the agent, who could afford to pay rents like that? He said plenty of people. He looked at his watch, asked me did I want to think about it for a while, as he had things to attend to. I told him, listen, there must be something cheaper.

      Well, he said, there was a room, downtown. It might better suit my budget, so long as I didn’t mind sharing the premises with chows and lurk merchants. If I wanted to have a look, the place was called the Manning Building. I could get the key from the tenant next door to the empty office, one Murray Liddicoat.

      It was a run-down, four-storey building in the Haymarket, backing on to the Capitol Theatre. At street level there were two Chinese restaurants, a disposal store, a shoe shop and a milk bar. There was a laneway out the back where some shifty-looking Chinese blokes were hanging about.

      I took the stairs to the first floor, strolled along the corridor past a rag-trade workshop, a supplier of artificial limbs, an elocution teacher, a wig maker, an ‘art studio’, and two charities I’d never heard of. A middle-aged woman walked out of one doorway marked ‘Association of Breeders of British Sheep’. She glanced my way. I said, ‘Excuse me,’ but she hurried away before I could continue.

      I knocked on an unmarked door, went inside. There was an old bloke sitting at a bench, a piano accordion in pieces in front of him. I asked where I’d find Murray Liddicoat. He said he didn’t know. I tried three more rooms, got nothing but suspicious looks. I walked slowly back along the hallway, taking in the atmosphere of malpractice and dubious enterprise. It wasn’t Macquarie Street, but I had to admit, it was my kind of place.

      I went into the sweatshop, Conni Conn Fashions. A good-looking girl with long straight brown hair was sitting at the front desk. She was reading a paperback, smoking a black cigarette. I said hello.

      She slowly turned to face me. Her eyes were brown and bright, despite her serious expression. She was done up in the style that the Sunday papers were calling beatnik—black sweater, black stockings, not much makeup, eyes half-closed.

      I asked her if she knew of anyone named Liddicoat on this floor.

      She said she didn’t and turned back to her book. ‘What are you reading?’ I said.

      She held up the cover of her book, Women in Love by D. H. Lawrence.

      ‘Good yarn?’

      She said it was fabulous and returned to it.

      I found Murray Liddicoat in the office two doors along. The sign on his door said ‘Private Inquiry Agent’. I knocked and went in. A large, genial-looking bloke was sitting behind the desk in an almost bare room.

      He sat back in his chair, his coat open over a large paunch. ‘Yes?’

      ‘I have an inquiry. The real-estate bloke said you have the key to a room for rent somewhere in the building.’

      ‘Oh yes, I do, old son. The key’s here somewhere.’ He spoke out the side of his mouth, like he’d spent a lifetime at racetracks and boxing stadiums. His accent was broad but crisp. He rifled through his desk. ‘Ah, here it is.’ He stood up. ‘Come, I will shew thee great and mighty things which thou knowest not.’

      ‘Eh?’

      ‘This way.’

      I followed him into the corridor and along to the next office. He unlocked the door, swung it open and said, ‘This is it.’

      A double room with big arched windows looking out at Belmore Park. The paint was peeling, and some chunks of broken moulding were lying on the floor. There was an old scratched desk in the centre of the room, large enough to use as a work bench.

      ‘Do you know what the rent is?’

      He shook his head. ‘I pay five guineas a week but this one would be a little more, in view of the appointments. Listen, old chap, I’m a little thirsty. I’m going back to my office. When you finish here just slam the door. Join me for a snort before you go, if you like.’

      I looked around. This would do. I closed up and went next door to get to know my neighbour-to-be.

      We had a couple of nips of Johnny Walker together. He kept the bottle in his filing cabinet. In that regard, if no other, he was straight out of your private-eye yarn. Before I left he put the bite on me for five quid. I felt like I’d known him for years.

      On my way out I stuck my head into the brown-eyed beatnik girl’s door. She was still reading her book.

      ‘I found Liddicoat, he’s the bloke two doors along,’ I said.

      ‘Oh, you mean Murray. You should have said his first name.’

      ‘I found him anyway. Looks like we might be neighbours soon. My name’s Bill.’

      ‘Enchanted, I’m sure,’ she said, and returned to her book.

      Next day I signed a lease, paid a month in advance and then rented a box at the Haymarket post office. That afternoon Max and I lugged our just-printed stock down to the new premises in the boot of his car.

      On the way I said, ‘What are you reading these days?’

      ‘All sorts of stuff. What do you mean?’

      ‘Like, if I was reading D.H. Lawrence, say, tell me something to go on with after that.’

      ‘For you?’

      ‘Yeah. Or anyone. A beatnik, maybe.’

      ‘Anything by Jack Kerouac.’

      ‘Yeah, right, On the Road. What else?’

      Max shrugged. ‘Albert Camus, The Outsider.’

      ‘What’s