~37~

THE ROUTE 389 BUS CRAWLED UP OXFORD STREET: packed, stuffed full of annoyed wet people and their dripping umbrellas. Jack had an aisle seat near the front. He sat and stared and felt his damp clothes stick uncomfortably to his body. Every now and then, a drop of water gathered at a hair tip and swelled and, after a small dramatic pause, spilled down the back of his neck or into his eyes. His head was really making him suffer. A man standing in the aisle bumped into his shoulder every time the bus lurched, which did not help the pain. And the woman sitting next to him would not stop talking into her mobile phone. She did not have much to say and what Jack heard could easily have been saved for later.

The bus stopped: more people squeezed on. Jack wondered what he would find back at De Groot Galleries. His head throbbed some more. His neighbour continued to complain into her mobile: ‘… Derek, he just doesn’t get it, he’s so insensitive, you know, and I really need him to be there for me right now …’ The guy standing in the aisle leaned his arse into him. The bus steamed.

He wondered if Kim had got onto a plane.

Back in Woollahra, the bus went along Moncur Street and then past Peaker Lane. Jack saw police cars and an ambulance choking the entrance and the ramp down to the car park under De Groot Galleries. Cops with raincoats and umbrellas all over the place. The bus pulled over at a stop right there and a couple of people got out and an old man and his hunched-over wife got on. It took them a while. Jack gave up his seat and moved down the aisle towards the back. As much as he wanted to leave the mobile sauna, for now he decided to stay put.

He was not worried about the cops so much: after all, Jack had not actually done anything. Neither had Kablunak, for that matter, if you did not count the original theft of the Sergius from wherever it had been stolen from. And Jack suspected that the Russian had probably called the cops on Rhonda himself — who else would have? — which was a sure sign that Kablunak had got out of the kitchen. Walter must have eventually wondered what the hell was going on and gone to look. But Jack had been the cause of quite a few of the more recent hassles that Viktor Kablunak had been forced to deal with; he had given up on ever seeing the Fleming book again, but was concerned now with any ideas the Russian might have for other types of retribution. His personality was a touch too biblical for Jack’s liking. Plagues would not be out of the question with regards to Kablunak’s vengeance.

Jack got out at Edgecliff station. Inside, he peeled a one-hundred-dollar bill off the wad in his pocket. He immediately felt a little better. He did not mind being wet so much. He went straight to a newsagent’s and bought a packet of cigarettes. Camels. Then he jumped into a taxi and went home.

Jack had a shower, changed into some dry clothes and looked at the money. He smoked and counted it and fanned out the crisp one-hundred-dollar notes on the dining table and looked at it some more, then gathered it up and counted it again. He sipped from a nice bottle of twelve-year-old Bowmore single malt that he had treated himself to, and smoked more Camels with great pleasure. Lois scoffed down some top-shelf Norwegian sardines in the kitchen, straight from the can. Jack worried about her lips. He remembered what Kablunak had said to him. Money has no soul. It is energy. It must move.

Jack looked over at Lois. She was licking her chops clean. She glanced at him, just a hint of disdain in her eyes. Do you get it yet, Jack? she seemed to say. Basically, it comes and it goes.

The Russian appeared the next day. He found Jack walking down Oatley Road, on his way back home after buying more cigarettes. Cousin Carl was driving the car. He nodded at Jack through the window.

Kablunak was in the back. ‘Need a lift, Mr Susko?’

In the Mercedes, Viktor Kablunak had selected Ascenseur pour l’échafaud by Miles Davis.

‘Hey Carl,’ said Jack as he slammed the door.

‘Jack.’

Jack turned to Kablunak. ‘New driver, huh?’

‘Yes,’ replied the Russian. ‘Walter got a call-back. He is to be a singing policeman in a stage-musical. I am told the production will travel through regional New South Wales and Queensland. I believe this will be good for Walter, so I have given him two months’ leave.’

‘You’re very kind.’

‘Yes. I can be.’

Jack looked out through the window. Today, the sun was back out, heating the storm-soaked city like a giant jet engine, idling in the sky. Everything steamed and sweated. The streets were awash in drowned leaves, banked up and welded into the gutters. Birds chirped, drains gurgled. The people of Sydney walked around sluggish and sapped, flat as car batteries after a night with the lights left on. It was the perfect day for lying around and sweating and stroking your cat, for smoking cigarettes and eating pistachio nuts, and washing it all down with lots of quality Belgian beer — or maybe driving around with a jazz-loving Russian who may or may not want to hurt you.

‘How’s Pascal?’

‘Recovering.’

‘Oh, good,’ said Jack. ‘And Rhonda?’

‘Cops got her,’ said Carl.

‘So what happened in the end?’

Viktor Kablunak grimaced. ‘Please, Mr Susko. It is old news and I have been repeating it all night with the police. So very boring, once it has happened, no?’

Jack tried to read between the lines, but it was all in Cyrillic.

‘You look confused, Mr Susko.’

‘It’s just my head. Sometimes after intense gun-wielding adventures, I’m prone to suffer waves of nausea.’

‘You must forget about it.’

They drove on. The sun had the girls out in skimpy clothes again. Jack wondered what Kim was wearing right now.

‘I fear boredom far more than death, Mr Susko,’ announced Viktor Kablunak, relaxed, very unlike a man who only yesterday had lost over three million dollars’ worth of the Good Book. ‘I have always sensed that you are of a similar attitude.’

‘Who likes to be bored?’

‘It is not a question of like. It is a question of the effort not to be so.’

‘Right. I always thought it was a question of money.’

‘Wrong. It is about attitude, Mr Susko.’ Kablunak played along to the music on his thigh. ‘Attitude and intent. Desire enacted. Action.’ The Russian clapped his hands. ‘Life with no consequence but death. Remember, Jack?’

‘Who could forget?’

Kablunak’s tone hardened. ‘Do not dismiss this idea. I am still not sure what to do about you.’

‘How about giving me my book back?’

‘No.’

‘Right,’ said Jack. ‘So we’re okay, then?’ His tone was bright, as though everything was nothing. He hoped Kablunak would buy it.

No reply. They turned into Leinster Street. Kablunak still said nothing, stared out of the window at the hot bright day. A little further up, Carl pulled over. The Russian gestured to the door. Jack opened it and got out.

Through the open window, Viktor Kablunak said: ‘You owe me, Mr Susko. I will let you know.’