St Kilda Blues (Charlie Berlin #3)(37)
Horvay was Hungarian, an ex-journalist, ex-hearse driver, one-time inmate of a Nazi concentration camp, restaurant owner and possibly a former or perhaps current Soviet agent. The two men had met ten years back when a tip from Horvay had dropped Berlin into a nasty situation, the one that had earned Bob Roberts his scar and limp and attracted the attention of ASIO and some very unpleasant people in Special Branch. Lazlo had wisely dropped out of sight, disappearing into the multinational immigrant workforce constructing the dams, roads, tunnels and electricity-generating stations like the massive Snowy Mountains Hydro-Electric Scheme.
Four or five years back Berlin had seen Lazlo’s name mentioned in an article in the business section of the newspaper and decided to try to contact him. He had telephoned the Café Budapest, which had been Lazlo’s favourite hangout when they first met and was surprised to learn Lazlo was no longer a customer but was now the owner. It appeared he had done well for himself during his time in the mountains They had arranged to meet that evening.
The restaurant was on the ground floor of a run-down, three-storey brick terrace on Acland Street, near the intersection with Carlisle Street, and closed wooden shutters over the front windows gave the place its unwelcoming air. Inside, there was the smell of meat and boiled cabbage and the familiar murky haze of cigarette smoke broken by pockets of light from low-wattage bulbs in wall-mounted lamps. The dark space had been crowded with tables; the clientele was all male and suspicious of strangers, the waiters surly. No one had seemed happy to see him. Well, almost no one. A hand had waved from the back of the room. And there was Lazlo, smiling with his right hand outstretched. His grip when they shook hands was just as strong as Berlin remembered.
‘It looks like all that time working in the Snowy must have agreed with you, Lazlo, going by that handshake.’
Lazlo had given him a friendly punch to the left shoulder and then winked. ‘Charlie, my friend, I must tell you this: when a man rises before dawn in a freezing mountain camp and swings a pick or drives a bulldozer or blasts a tunnel through the solid rock or mixes concrete till sunset, it does not take many days for him to become as fit as a mallee bull. And if I had actually done any of those things there is no doubt I would be even fitter than I am now, believe me. But there is a limit to the time a man can spend away from civilisation and the company of women.’
Lazlo had indeed done well for himself in the mountains and had purchased the Café Budapest in the early sixties, after amendments to the licensing laws allowed restaurants to compete with hotel dining rooms by selling imported wines and spirits instead of just Australian wines. The original owners of Café Budapest had been doing this anyway but Lazlo now no longer faced the possibility of raids by the licensing police or having to pay hefty incentives to prevent or be fore-warned of these raids.
The rest of that evening had been spent eating and talking about Rebecca and the children. Lazlo had been keen to become involved with the kids, offering to appoint himself as their honorary uncle since both Berlin and Rebecca couldn’t provide aunts and uncles themselves. This had worked out well with Sarah, who had grown to adore her Uncle Laz, but the relationship that developed with Peter had been fractious. He’d been offered a job in the restaurant kitchen but it took only a week of hard graft for the boy to lose interest and begin arriving late and disappearing early. Peter had finally been sacked and when Berlin tried to apologise for his behaviour Lazlo had placed a hand on his arm and stopped him.
‘You were a whisky drinker once, you told me. Over the bar we have some good whiskies and some great whiskies. The great ones are the ones that have had some time to mature. I’m sorry if my metaphor is inappropriate for a man who does not drink, but for Peter time is what is needed. You shall see, just have patience.’
*
‘This the joint?’ The taxi driver’s question brought Berlin back from the past.
‘What?’
‘I said, is this the place you’re looking for, sport?’
The taxi was stopped at the kerb. Berlin glanced out the passenger-side window, trying to orient himself. They were at the right place, on Acland Street, near the intersection with Carlisle Street, but something was changed, different. The taxi driver had both forearms on top of the steering wheel as he peered out through the windscreen.
‘Café Budapest you said, right? And there she is. Nice-looking place, is it new? I don’t remember it.’
It was a nice-looking joint, a lot nicer than Berlin remembered from his last visit. ‘It’s been around for a while but it looks like it must have had a bit of a spruce-up.’
‘Budapest’s in Italy or Greece or somewhere, right? Tucker in there any good? Not usually much into wog food myself, a Chiko Roll is about as foreign as I like to get.’
Berlin remembered the size of a schnitzel Lazlo had once insisted on ordering for him. ‘I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t walk away hungry.’ Berlin glanced at the meter and reached into his pocket for his wallet. He only had a twenty-dollar bill and the driver scowled at the note. Berlin tried to remember if he had ever handed over a bank note of any denomination that hadn’t been scowled at by a taxi driver. He took his change and climbed out onto the footpath. The taxi moved off and joined the line of traffic after allowing a tram to rattle past first. Charlie Berlin was left standing on the kerb, looking at a very different place to the one he remembered.