~12~

IT WAS A LONG, PLAIN, WOOD-LAMINATED DESK, the kind government departments auctioned off when they moved to newer premises. Viktor Kablunak sat behind it and worked his chicken. Drumstick and thigh. He ate like a man who had just returned from the Battle of Stalingrad. His small brown eyes were locked on Jack, but there was nothing to read in them. Blue-and-purple paisley tie over a white shirt. His shirtsleeves were rolled up past his elbows and his elbows were resting on the desk. Jack’s copy of From Russia with Love was there, too. He hoped Kablunak had not been reading it while he ate.

‘Nothing,’ announced Pascal. ‘We haven’t checked his apartment yet, but I don’t reckon it’s arrived.’ He glanced over at Shane tied up in the chair. ‘Dickhead could only have sent it late on Friday or sometime Saturday, maybe Monday. So …’

Kablunak nodded, kept eating. There was a signet ring on the little finger of his right hand, a shield with the letters V and K inscribed, and a ruby set between them. Matching cufflinks were on the desk by his elbow. His hair was thick and healthy, dark with barely any grey, swept back over a square, Slavic skull. Large fleshy nose, cheeks a little flushed, jowls shaved and shiny. Fifty, or slightly older, but blessed with smooth-skin genes.

He kept eating the chicken. The rest of the carcass was splayed out in front of him on the desk, on a foil bag torn open down the middle. It was missing a couple of limbs and a good deal of breast. No vegetables or salad. Just the bird meat.

‘Susko says he doesn’t know anything about it,’ said Walter.

Viktor Kablunak frowned and tossed what was left of the drumstick-and-thigh piece onto the desk, as though he had suddenly decided it was no good. He held his hands up, palms in like a surgeon about to go into theatre. He stared at Jack. Then he motioned for Walter to come over. Fat Boy leaned in behind the boss and reached into the breast pocket of his jacket hanging on the chair. He passed Kablunak a crisp white handkerchief and stood back. The boss snapped it open and wiped his mouth and his fingers and then blew his nose into it. He screwed up the handkerchief and dropped it onto the foil bag beside the chicken and began to roll down his sleeves.

‘Vodka,’ he said.

Walter went to a three-drawer filing cabinet in the corner. He slid open a drawer and got out a thick, stubby glass and a half-full, clear glass bottle. Stolichnaya. He poured Kablunak a drink. It went down in one gulp.

Jack swallowed a little of the heavy air in the room. ‘Good read?’ he said, pointing at his book on the desk.

Kablunak said nothing. He held out his glass for another shot. Walter poured. His boss emptied the glass again, smoothly.

‘Mr Fleming,’ said Kablunak. ‘Yes. It is poor literature. But he knows what a man really is. Inside.’ He spoke slowly and his voice was slightly accented, a touch stiff. Maybe English learned as a teenager, or studied in a foreign school. Either way, Viktor Kablunak sounded like a man who was used to being listened to. ‘Inside,’ he continued, tapping a thick thumb to his chest, ‘man cannot forget completely that he is an animal that must fight to survive. Everything else is nothing.’ He showed some good teeth. ‘And James Bond … well. He knows that life has no consequence but death.’

Not quite the book report Jack was expecting. He stared at Kablunak as no consequence but death repeated in his head.

‘You don’t think that’s a touch over the top?’

Kablunak ignored the question. He adjusted his cuffs, put the cufflinks in, clipped them, tugged at the sleeves of his shirt. He leaned back in the chair, wrists down on the edge of the desk, and sucked his teeth. Then he reached out and pushed the chicken a little further away. ‘Did you know, Mr Susko, that Ian Fleming sold forty million books before Sean Connery made a fool of his creation in Dr No?’

‘I knew he’d done okay.’

‘That is much better than okay.’

‘So you’re a fan, then?’

‘Well … I enjoyed your book.’ He patted the copy of From Russia with Love on the desk.

‘Good,’ said Jack, trying not to think about the chicken grease on Kablunak’s fingers. ‘That’ll be fifteen thousand dollars. Cash, if you can manage it.’

Kablunak smiled. ‘No.’

Thoughts flapped around in Jack’s brain like moths headbutting a light bulb. None of them held still long enough to let him formulate an idea. He turned and looked at Shane Ferguson again. Saw the swollen eye and the fat lip and the bloody dribble in the corner of his mouth.

‘What happened to Shane?’

‘Ah,’ said Kablunak. ‘You do know each other.’

‘Not really,’ said Jack.

The Russian nodded at Pascal. As Jack scanned Shane’s face some more, a terrific punch filled his empty stomach and doubled him over. Christ. Hitting Jack in the guts seemed to be the latest craze. He tried to remain on his feet and wrapped his arms around his stomach, but the pain was there to stay and drew him kneeling to the floor. Kneeling did not help. Jack groaned and squeezed tighter as the hot pain grew. Hugging yourself was never the soothing experience you hoped it would be. For a couple of seconds he wondered if lying down and curling up into a ball might help, but remembered the head-stomping boots worn by Pascal.

‘You have something of mine, Mr Susko,’ said Kablunak. ‘Something that was stolen from me. And now stolen again. I wish it returned.’

Pascal grabbed Jack hard by the bicep and pulled him to his feet. Jack grimaced, his insides burning and a taste like battery acid in the back of his throat.

‘Sorry, Jack,’ said Shane Ferguson.

Kablunak put his hands behind his head and leaned back in the chair. He glanced down at the Fleming book on the desk and then reached over and smoothed the palm of his hand across the cover. ‘Maybe you wish you were James Bond right now?’ he said, voice light, but arrogant. ‘Mr Susko?’

‘We could pretend,’ replied Jack, hunched over, wheezing. ‘I’ll be Bond,’ he gasped. ‘And you can be General… Grubozaboyschikov …’

Kablunak’s brow tightened. He turned away, as though he was about to spit on the carpet. He took his time replying. ‘If I was Grubozaboyschikov,’ he said, evenly, ‘you would be hanging on a hook right now.’ He snapped a finger at the foil bag curled up around the chicken carcass.

Walter laughed. Kablunak gave him a look like a slap across the face. ‘You think I’m funny?’ he said. ‘Grubozaboyschikov wiped out my father’s village. With a pencil on the map.’ Viktor Kablunak banged a fist down and slid his thumb across the desktop. ‘Just like that. In one stroke. We had to run, like fucking animals. Those who stayed behind, the Chinese made dim sims out of their balls. But what would you know?’ He shook his head, face dark with contempt. ‘Here, history is all English lies.’

Silence. Jack tried to breathe quietly but the wheeze in his throat would not go away. He made a mental note to Google Grubozaboyschikov when he got home. Fleming obviously did a little research in between the martinis.

‘Move this!’ Kablunak waved his hand at the chicken. Walter stepped over and quickly swept it up and dumped it into a small bin in the corner. The Russian glared down at the wood-veneer desktop. ‘Where is my property, Mr Susko?’

The room was hot; Jack was sweating. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘Your friend here, Mr Ferguson, sent you something after he stole it from me. He is a very stupid man.’ Kablunak paused, sighed. ‘I hope you are not a very stupid man.’

The furniture in Jack’s guts was all over the place, but they still told him not to mention the postal slip he got in the mail that day. ‘Nobody sent me anything.’

‘Don’t lie to me, Mr Susko. Your friend lied. Did you look at him?’

Jack closed his eyes for a couple of seconds: Kablunak was still there when he opened them again. ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘I looked.’

‘Good. Then no more bullshit, please.’

Jack remembered Richard de Groot not calling the cops back at the gallery; his wife not knowing what was in the safe. He remembered Pascal lifting a corner of the velvet cover on whatever the thing was and looking at it and smiling.

Jack turned to Shane. ‘What the hell did you send me?’

‘I’m sorry … Jack … I had no choice.’

‘Does it hurt to talk?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Good. You owe me five hundred bucks from ten years ago. Why didn’t you send me that instead?’

Shane coughed, swallowed with a little difficulty. ‘I couldn’t believe it was you at the gallery. Just give the package back to Mr Kablunak and everything will be sweet.’

‘I haven’t got any damn package!’ Jack’s anger focused on the beaten-up wannabe actor tied to the chair in front of him. ‘What the fuck did you send me?’

Kablunak stood up, moved out from behind the desk and sat on the edge, one leg off the floor. ‘You should not worry about details, Mr Susko. For you it is very simple. For now I will believe that you do not have what has been sent to you.

So. When it arrives, you will call me. When I have it, you can forget about everything and go back to your life. Okay?’

‘Sure, sounds great. But what if I don’t believe you?’

‘This is your problem.’

Jack stretched a little, ignited another spark of pain in his guts. How many problems was that now? Maybe he could get into the Guinness Book of Records. He nodded at the Fleming hardback on the desk. ‘I’d like my book back.’

Kablunak half turned towards it. ‘Yes, good,’ he said, voice bright now. ‘All I ask is a little cooperation. And then we can maybe have a fair exchange.’

‘How about you give it to me now and then I cooperate.’

‘No.’

‘Okay,’ said Jack, annoyed. ‘In the meantime just promise to keep your greasy mitts off it.’

Kablunak raised an eyebrow, said nothing. Jack held his stare.

‘Just do it, Jack.’ Shane moved against the tape binding him to the chair. It rustled like aluminium foil.

Jack turned towards his former lodger. ‘What’s going on, Shane? I thought you wanted to be an actor.’

‘I am an actor.’

‘Obviously.’

Shane squinted up at Jack through his puffy eye. ‘I needed cash. You know how it is.’

‘So you got in on a heist and then tried to doublecross these guys?’ Jack frowned in disbelief. ‘Did you think you were in a movie?’

‘Enough. Pascal and Walter will drive you home, Mr Susko.’

Jack looked at Viktor Kablunak. The Russian was inspecting his fingertips. He had broad, workers’ hands, but manicured nails.

‘What are you going to do with Shane?’

Kablunak grinned. Then stopped. He took his jacket off the chair behind the desk, reached into the inside pocket and handed Jack a card. ‘Call this number when my package arrives. Do not open it, do not wait, do not think. Just call.’

Pascal leaned into Jack’s face. ‘Reckon you can handle that?’

‘Yeah. No problem. Reckon you could brush your teeth?’

This time, even Viktor Kablunak grimaced at the punch.