~6~

FROM THE STREET, Ray Campbell Art + Books + Catalogues looked like it had closed down some time ago. The glass panels of the shop-front window were painted a thin white and the small alcove leading to the front door was strewn with pamphlets and fliers and a couple of yellowing community newspapers, long out-of-date and unread, disturbed only by wind or the odd midnight drunk looking for a place to urinate. No indication whatsoever that inside it was more like the Reading Room at the British Library than empty, abandoned premises falling into disrepair.

Jack loved it at Ray’s. He had always wanted to work for him, but Ray was less about business and more about sitting around reading — and that had always been a one- man operation. Jack had started Susko Books with the same kind of intent: though not quite with the same outcome. But what could you do? Good stock cost good money. Ray Campbell Art + Books + Catalogues had drawn a lot of its highly collectable, leather-bound stock from the family vault. Ray had inherited some real beauties and all he had to do was sell the odd one and he was able to easily afford a life of sitting around with the ones that were left. Jack’s inheritance was mainly an album full of faded Polaroids and a bunch of unpleasant memories. And you could find that sort of thing at just about any garage sale you cared to look.

Ray Campbell was the only true eccentric Jack had ever met. With his old boss Brendan MacAllister away on a trip to New Zealand with his wife, Ray was Jack’s touchstone and font of knowledge about everything that you never read in the papers. Jack was hoping he knew a little about Richard de Groot.

The Sunday afternoon heat and humidity had filled Ray’s shop on Victoria Street in Darlinghurst to the brim, thickening the usual mustiness to something you could almost vacuum. Jack entered and breathed the dusty whiff of time that lingered there. The past in a thousand shades of brown. Shelves and tables full of rare first editions, one-off hand-illustrated cards, limited-edition artists books, signed catalogues, prints, paintings, etchings, photographs and sculptures. Knick-knacks all over the place like crumbs on a dining table: toy soldiers and cars, matchboxes and old postcards. The world brought in, so that Ray did not have to go out.

On the stereo, Gottschalk’s ‘Souvenirs d’Andalousie’: bright, festive and cool.

‘Raymond.’

‘Ah, Jack! Good to see you, my man.’

‘You look comfortable. Practising for a cruise?’

‘Not practising, Jack,’ said Ray, his usually pale face blushed by alcohol. ‘Cruising.’

‘Of course. My mistake.’

Ray Campbell was reclined in a timber deckchair. Above his head, a red, white and blue striped shade umbrella, set on a slight angle. He sat low in the canvas seat, knees high, one long skinny leg over the other, a pale-green drink in his left hand. He wore a yellow shirt open at the neck, with white collar and cuffs, white braces over his narrow sloping shoulders, white pants, two-tone brogues and bright yellow socks.

‘Oh, Jack, my lad. I have so few pleasant surprises,’ he said as he began to struggle out of the chair. ‘Come.

Embrace me.’

Jack grinned. Ray sloshed his drink over the floor and held his arms out. They hugged, stiffly, punctuating their affection with a couple of manly backslaps. Jack did not slap too hard, though: he was surprised at how skinny and feeble Ray felt in his arms. A little more old age had crawled quietly into his friend since the last time Jack had seen him.

‘Margarita?’ asked Ray.

‘What’s happened to the single malts?’

‘I’m in a Latino kind of mood. Have been all week, actually. Can’t you tell by the music?’ He shook a couple of imaginary maracas. ‘I’ve just finished Bernal Diaz de Castillo’s Historia verdadera de la conquista de la Nueva España. And I’ve been revisiting Lorca and Neruda. Not to mention Elizabeth Bishop, from her time in South America. She’s wonderful. The best.’ He bent down to the floor beside the deckchair and handed Jack a book. ‘Here. Have it.’

‘You don’t need to give me books.’

‘But I want to. Take it. It’s a lovely little edition. Used to be my Uncle Pete’s. I don’t think he ever read it. You must.’

Jack thumbed the book, nodded. Then he looked up and said: ‘Think you could spare some cash, too?’

Ray shook his head. ‘Oh, Jack.’

‘It’s just been one of those months.’

‘I know.’ He smiled, sympathetically. ‘How much?’

‘Five hundred?’

‘Done. Now, let’s drink. I think you need a little more tequila in your mix. You sound weary, Jack. Three parts to one to one ought to be just right.’ Ray walked over to the large mahogany table that served as a counter and book display. ‘I’m getting very good at them, you know.’

‘I have no doubt.’

‘And I only started this morning.’

Jack watched Ray mix the margaritas. He put the lid on the cocktail shaker and gave it precisely five shakes. He poured the drinks and handed one to Jack.

‘To solitude measured by conversation.’

‘Cheers.’

‘And sex, of course.’ Ray walked over and eased himself down into the deckchair again. ‘Incredible how even at my age the thought of it won’t go away.’

Jack sat back on the edge of the table and drank. The cold lime and tequila hit was right on the money. ‘You need to get out more.’

‘And spoil my imagination?’ Ray shook his head. ‘No no no …’ He sipped his own drink. ‘Speaking of narrow imaginations, was the Xanadu catalogue okay?’

‘Yeah, it was the right one.’

‘God, Mr bloody Xanadu! Have you ever met him? Such an awful man. Such a lack of talent. Did you look at the catalogue?’

‘Yep.’

‘Don’t get me started.’

Jack grinned, took another sip of his margarita. ‘What about the de Groots? Know anything about them?’

‘Well, now I know they have no taste.’

‘It was for a client.’

‘Good Lord. What kind of people are they dealing with?’

Jack held his glass up, watched the light shine through the margarita green. ‘Me.’

‘Present company excluded from my snide remark, of course.’ Ray raised his eyebrows. ‘Do they need another catalogue?’

‘No. Something else.’ Jack paused. ‘We’ve agreed on … well, a small deal. A kind of exchange. And now the husband owes me some money and he’s taking his time with the payment.’

Ray looked thoughtfully at Jack. ‘Right. Interesting.

Should I ask?’

‘Maybe later.’

‘Okay. Fine. So, you’re asking does de Groot have a baddebtor reputation? Well, I can’t say I’ve ever heard anything like that.’

‘Anything else?’

‘I know they left South Africa in the ’80s, like many others with money, and migrated to Australia. Getting out with their cash before apartheid completely crumbled.

And then I believe Richard de Groot went on making more money here.’

‘Doing what?’

‘Business. I have no idea. You know the amount of attention I pay the corporate world, Jack.’

‘What about the gallery?’

A half-smile creased a corner of Ray’s mouth. ‘A compensatory gift for the wife.’

Jack paused the glass of margarita before his lips. ‘Richard’s a naughty boy?’

‘Apparently so. Insatiable appetite for fresh strumpet, I am told.’

‘Right.’ Jack remembered Rhonda’s tense, tired face, the heated air around her. ‘He’s an ugly little bastard,’ he said. ‘Must be the money.’

‘There was an incident, not too long ago, in fact,’ said Ray. ‘The police were called to their house. She threw something, he tried to calm her down, that sort of thing. Black eyes and shattered vases. And it wasn’t the first time, either.’

‘A wife-beater?’

‘Oh, she gives as good. Set fire to his car once, out on the street. The rumour was Russian mafia, but people know.’

‘How do you know?’

Ray grinned. ‘Did you meet Max at the gallery? He’s an old Vietnam friend.’

‘I see.’ Jack nodded. He shuffled the information around in his head like a deck of cards, wondering what to play. Then he said: ‘Tell me something. Why wouldn’t you call the cops if something was stolen out of your safe?’

‘Was something stolen from De Groot Galleries?’

‘Between you and me.’

Ray frowned. ‘Jack, you’re not involved in something silly, are you?’ His voice was firm, but concerned. ‘I don’t want to encourage anything untoward by lending you money.’

‘Nothing to worry about, Ray.’ Jack downed his margarita.

‘I don’t believe you.’

‘Can you answer the question?’

The deckchair creaked as Ray adjusted himself. ‘Well, the obvious conclusion is that this something that was stolen might have been a something on the black. Undeclared, bought for cash, that kind of thing. Although, just thinking about it, an art gallery dealing in contemporary work is less likely to have the opportunity for fudging the books.’

‘Unlike you.’

‘Are you insinuating that I am a tax cheat?’ Ray held up his hand immediately. ‘Don’t answer that.’ He sipped his drink. ‘But yes, if you like. I do have just such an opportunity to … forget how much I sold something for. A contemporary art gallery, however, would want to work at lifting their artists’ profile and value by, well, showing off the sales. They live and breathe hype.’

Jack remembered the gunman inspecting the object from the safe. ‘But wouldn’t most works be on the walls or on plinths or out the back in the storeroom?’

‘Yes, but …’

‘Maybe it had nothing to do with the gallery,’ said Jack, more to himself.

Ray waved his free hand. ‘Then it could be anything.’

Jack nodded, let out a breath.

‘How do you know something was taken from the De Groot Galleries’ safe?’

‘Big stroke of shit luck.’

‘Ah yes. We don’t like those.’ Ray climbed more successfully out of the deckchair. He pointed his empty glass at Jack. ‘Another?’

‘Thank you.’ Regardless of his financial concerns and the question of Richard de Groot, the drink was relaxing the stiffness in Jack’s neck and shoulders. ‘Any cigarettes, Ray?’ he asked.

‘Alas, no. Banned by my doctor. Apparently, I possess the lungs of a willy-wagtail with asthma.’

‘Nobody smokes anymore.’

‘We know too much, Jack. No longer are we free to frolic behind blissful ignorance.’ He shook his head. ‘We now live in a world where being unhealthy is seen as a crime against humanity.’

Jack picked up a men’s magazine lying on the table where Ray was making the margaritas. What to wear, where to go, who to read, what to drive, how to look. He flipped through it absently. Non-smoking, perfectly healthy, well-dressed gentlemen of the world. ‘For the pictures?’ he asked, turning a page.

‘A customer left it behind.’ Ray hammered the air for a moment with the cocktail shaker. The crushed ice sound was soothing and cool and Jack wondered if Ray had a spare deckchair. Drinking margaritas through the rest of a hot Sunday afternoon sounded like a good idea. Better than sitting around by himself, worrying.

Ray poured the drinks and passed one to Jack. ‘Cheers.’

As Jack took his eyes from the magazine and turned towards the drink in Ray’s hand, a face on the page he had been looking at flashed into his mind. Just a pulse of mute light, nothing more. But he glanced back down at the face.

A couple of cogs in his brain shifted slightly. Teeth bit into corresponding grooves. And then as wheels turned and chains began to rattle, Jack knew that he recognised the guy. In fact, he had seen him just last Friday night: the only difference being that he was wearing a mask then instead of a suit.

‘Sorry, Ray.’ Jack took the margarita from him and drank the whole thing down. He passed the glass back. ‘I’ve got to go. Have you got the White Pages somewhere?’