~18~

PARRAMATTA ROAD WAS HOT AND UNPLEASANT AS USUAL. Lined with empty shops like an old film set, only traffic rushing by. The route 440 bus Jack had caught was one of the old, non-air-conditioned numbers, and even though all the windows were open and the roof vents were up and there were only four people creating body heat, Jack was sweating himself into a stupor inside the metal box. Out on the horizon there were more glimpses of thick clouds rising high into the air, brewing rain for a storm. Jack hoped it would hit soon.

He got off on the corner of Norton and Marion streets. Passenger jets roared overhead, adding to the rumble of buses and cars, and to the heavy heat that just sat on everything, dusty and low and brown. Sinclair’s place was around the corner. Jack found the car about three doors down: a white, 1992 Subaru Fiori, rusted to within an inch of its life.

It was about the size of a box of matches. Driving it would be the equivalent of strapping a saddle to a fruit fly. Jack looked through the window: books, papers, magazines, empty Snickers wrappers and Pepsi Max cans, takeaway coffee cups, a weary cardboard box on the back seat with the arm of a black jumper draped over it. Darth Vader hanging from the rear-view mirror. He pulled open the driver’s side door and nearly fell over: close to a thousand degrees in there. Strong smell of kebab, garlicky baba ganoush, stale sweat. As Jack worked his way into the seat and wound the window down, he seriously contemplated walking to Bankstown. It was as though he had climbed into Chester Sinclair’s armpit.

Jack used the key to his apartment: the motor kicked over. Seven hundred and fifty-eight cubic centimetres of pure power at his fingertips. Nought to one hundred in three weeks. By the time Jack had filled up the tank and was rolling down Old Canterbury Road, he had discovered that nothing worked except the warning lights: every single one glowed bright red. Maybe the thing was about to explode? Or maybe the car was psychic, telling Jack to beware of approaching doom?

Bankstown shimmered with heat. The glare made Jack squint. Old Canterbury Road had eventually led the Fiori into a suburb of wide, low streets lined with single-storey dwellings and warehouses, and parched, empty allotments. Jack drove through, into the shopping streets, past parks and playgrounds, eventually turning into Begonia Place. Somewhere that he had not been in too many years to remember.

Cousin Carl’s house was a low, orange brick-veneer place with a dark-brown tiled roof and peeling brown aluminium guttering. There was a large, bare front yard of dry, patchy grass, its centrepiece a deflated red-and-white wading pool, full of leaves and a couple of drowned toys. On the right, a concrete driveway with an oily nature strip down the middle: it led to a pole-framed carport where a dented, grimy white van was parked. An air-conditioning unit strapped to the side of the house vibrated roughly.

The place had not changed much. Jack walked up to the front door, nervous, thinking about cigarettes, thinking about how it had been a very long time since he last made his way across this scrappy lawn to spend the afternoon with his Aunt Eva. Dropped off without a word but with five bucks for a drink and an ice cream down at the shops. An old feeling stirred in the sludge of his memory, like a sleeping crocodile shifting in thick mud. Regret? Anger? Guilt? Maybe a little of everything. Even happiness. Aunt Eva had always been good to him.

He knocked on the metal frame of the screen door, the sound flimsy, like the splash and rattle of aluminium foil. After a moment, he heard somebody moving around inside and waited. He looked over his shoulder, out into the broad bright street. Nostalgia always made him nauseous. Somebody ought to invent a procedure where you could drain it off and bottle it and shoot it into outer space. Most times, Jack reckoned the past was a pointless exercise.

‘Can I help you?’

A woman looked through the screen door. She had messy, shoulder-length ash-blonde hair, tucked in behind her ears, and tired hazel eyes in a tired tanned face. Early forty-something, though probably younger in fact. She wore a white singlet and pale-pink shorts, barefoot with a tea towel in her hand. Her toenails were painted red. There was a two-year-old clinging to her leg. The woman had a small, rounded body, soft-fleshed and a little post-baby plump, but shapely and smooth brown. Attractive, but needed a week off, just her and a lot of sleep. Her left hand rested on the child’s shoulder. She was smiling and it was like a warm backlight in her face; Jack saw that she was one of the world’s troopers, weary but trying to be happy, and getting there, slowly.

‘Hi,’ he said, returning her smile. ‘I’m Carl’s cousin, Jack Susko.’

She pressed her lips together and gave a small look of pain, as though the two-year-old had pinched her. ‘Oh.’

‘Is he in?’

‘Um, no. He’s out. On a job.’

Jack noticed the warmth in her face fading. ‘Back soon?’

‘Um … no. I don’t know.’ Behind her, another child, four, maybe five, appeared in the hallway, holding on to the doorjamb, peering out, his face glum.

‘Look, I don’t want to —’

‘I’m really sorry,’ said the woman, reaching to give the back of the little boy against her leg a rub. ‘I know he should have returned it by now, but he still needs the car.’

‘Right.’

‘The van,’ she said, unsure, and nodded towards the carport. ‘It’s no good.’

Jack glanced down at the boy. He had his mother’s ashblonde hair, round cheeks and brow; his father’s small eyes and sharp nose. ‘Yeah,’ said Jack. ‘Carl mentioned something.’

‘Mum …’ The other boy stepped into the hallway behind his mother. ‘I’m hungry.’

‘Yes darling. In a minute.’ She looked at Jack, her face meek, a touch flushed and embarrassed.

Jack tucked the edge of a grin into his cheek. He wanted to put the woman at ease. ‘We can sort the car out later. But I need to speak to Carl.’

Her face unburdened, relaxed a little. Somewhere in the house, a baby began crying. The woman straightened up, gave a here-we-go-again roll of her eyes. ‘Won’t be a second.’ She went down the hall and then through a door on her right. The two-year-old scurried along after her, calling ‘Mummy, Mummy, Mummy’, dragging a small, wornlooking length of blue flannelette behind him. The older boy remained where he was and watched Jack from under the fringe of his blond hair.

‘How’s it going?’ Jack shifted his feet, uneasy before the boy’s unblinking gaze. He pulled what he thought was a friendly face. The kid stared, did not move, said nothing.

‘That’s great.’ The kid was starting to freak him out a little. Jesus. In the penetrating high beam of his eyes, it was as though Jack had done something wrong.

The woman came back, a baby in her arms. Pink, plump wrists and cheeks and feet, everything bursting with chubbiness. Crystal blue eyes, narrowed and unfocused and bemused, almost annoyed, like the kid was over the world already. The two-year-old trailed behind, holding on to the hem of his mother’s shorts.

‘Got any more?’ said Jack.

She smiled. ‘No. Just the three.’ She held the baby up in the nook of her arm. ‘This is Amelia. Our little surprise. Weren’t you, darling?’

‘Must keep you nice and busy.’

She gave him a look of exasperation. ‘Uh-huh. Just a bit.’ Her rounded shoulders slumped slightly.

‘So Carl will be back tonight, then?’ Jack remembered why he was there. Waiting until tonight to give his cousin one in the guts, maybe two, was not something he wanted to do.

‘Look, um, no. Probably not.’ The woman adjusted the child, bounced it slightly like a stack of weekend newspapers too heavy on her arm. Her face darkened and some kind of pain sucked in her cheeks. She glanced behind her, then leaned a little towards Jack, spoke in a softer voice. ‘Carl’s at a friend’s place. We’re … we’re having a break for a while.’ She closed her eyes for a moment, squeezed them hard, held back whatever it was that wanted to spill freely from her. Her neck flushed and her eyes were glazed when she opened them again.

‘Mum?’

‘It’s all right, darling.’ With great skill, a happy, unconcerned face slipped into place, like a holiday slide, clicked into a projector’s beaming light. She smiled at Jack.

‘Do you know where he’s staying?’ Jack felt seriously awkward.

She nodded quickly, turned to the older boy behind her.

‘Toby, could you get Uncle Jack a drink from the kitchen, please. There’s a ginger beer in the fridge.’

Uncle Jack. He had never heard that one before.

‘That’s my ginger beer.’

‘Mummy’ll get you some more. Please, darling.’

‘Just a glass of water is fine.’

‘It’s all right. Come on, Toby. Skip to it.’

The woman reached out and pushed open the screen door. Held out her free hand. ‘I’m Renée, by the way.’

‘Hello, Renée.’

‘And this is Nicholas. Say hello, darling.’

Nicholas turned his face and pressed it into his mother’s soft brown thigh. Renée tousled his hair. ‘Come on, shy boy.’

‘No!’

‘Oh, grumpy bum …’ Toby came back, handing his mother a half-glass of water. ‘Here.’

‘Say hello to Uncle Jack.’

‘No.’ He walked off and disappeared through a door.

‘Sorry,’ said Renée. She looked down at her youngest.

‘Don’t worry about it.’

Renée closed her eyes for a moment. Her forehead sweaty and flushed. Then she glanced up and smiled another apology, creased the skin in all the small corners of her face. She handed Jack the glass of water. ‘I’ll try and speak to Carl.’

Young Nicholas turned his head slightly and peeked up. ‘Sure,’ said Jack. For a moment he wondered if she was talking about Carl busting up Susko Books. He drank the water.

‘So do you know where Carl’s staying?’

‘Friends in Surry Hills,’ she said, with a look of disgust. It quickly changed to anger. ‘His actor friends. I don’t know the address. And I couldn’t give a shit.’ Renée looked out past Jack into the street, rubbing the young boy’s shoulder a little harder.

The skin around Jack’s skull tightened. ‘Actors?’

‘Losers. They’ve convinced Carl that he’s got talent. Ha!’

She stopped, gathering her self-control.

‘What was the name of — ’

‘He’s a father of three, for God’s sake!’ Renée was not listening. ‘Not to mention a husband.’ The kid looked up at his mother, his eyes big and round and wet.

‘You know,’ continued Renée, ‘I saw them all in a play once. Oh, yes. And you know what? It was embarrassing! Just terrible.’ She looked down, ruffled her boy’s hair. ‘It was pathetic. Better actors at my son’s school.’

‘Can you remember the theatre?’

‘Palomino or something,’ she replied. ‘The effing Palomino.’

Same as Larissa. Same as Shane.

‘The bastard.’

Awkwardness worked its way between them again. Jack had no idea how to respond: thought that he should say sorry, or something, but said nothing.

Renée let out a large breath and a long sigh.

Jack handed over the glass of water, gave her a sympathetic smile. ‘Thanks for that. I’d better make a move.’ He took one step backwards, down from the small area of concrete in front of the door, onto the curved, cracked path that led to the street. Blue and red chalk was scrawled here and there, nondescript drawings only the boys could decipher. ‘Look, if you do see or hear from Carl, could you tell him to call me?’ he said.

Renée closed her eyes again and nodded, moving back into the house and closing the security door at the same time. She disappeared behind its shadowy, flyscreen darkness. Jack held up a hand and moved off, back across the hot, scrappy lawn, towards the Fiori parked down the street.

It did not start first go. Or on the second or on the third, but that was not what had suddenly begun to annoy Jack. Nor was it the cramped interior and sauna-level temperature. It was Lewis the bodyguard in the de Groot Maserati, parked about a hundred metres behind him down the road, trying to look inconspicuous among the Fords and Mazdas and Hyundais, which combined were probably worth about the same as the leather trim on the Maserati’s steering wheel. Son of a bitch. Now they were following him?

The Fiori moaned and squealed and finally started. Jack pulled out, eyes flashing to the rear-view mirror as he watched for traffic. There was somebody in the passenger side of the Maserati, too, but he could not see who it was. He wondered whether Chester would mind if he got up a little speed and rammed the Subaru into de Groot’s wheels. Jack was tempted, but knew he could do more damage with a full can of Pepsi.

He drove off. Glanced over at his bag on the seat beside him. Three-point-four-million-dollar postal slip inside.

Jack had noticed before that Lewis had trouble moving his head left and right. Too many muscles in the neck. Maybe if Jack took a few sharp corners, he might lose him.