~4~

SOMEBODY HAD SIDE-SWIPED THE TOYOTA. The black plastic side mirror hung limply from the door by a thin wire, like a small, gutted marsupial. The mirror insert lay shattered on the road. There was no note with a phone number tucked in under the windscreen wipers. But what did he expect? It had been a long time since honesty was the best policy any place Jack knew.

He stood in the road and looked at the other cars parked around him: no matching scratches, just perfect, state-ofthe-art automotive technology, shining under the glow of movement-sensitive security lights and an inky-blue night sky that caught the city’s electricity like a stretched tarp. He wondered which wheels were de Groot’s.

They were meeting tomorrow in the city, at Susko Books, at 11.00 a.m.

Jack had not agreed to anything specific — but he knew all about that kind of deal. It was a tune he had heard before, working for the likes of Ziggy Brandt. Only difference now, he was on lead trumpet instead of just carrying the gear. It had been a surprisingly easy step to take, only a small movement into the frame. He wondered if that was how Ziggy had started his career.

He kicked at the shards of mirror on the road. Shit. It was not like he had much choice. So they called the cops and everything was taken down into the little leather notebooks, the descriptions of the three masked men, everything they said, approximate times, names and addresses. Then off they go to investigate, find the perpetrators and Jack’s book.

James Bond, was it? We’ll be in touch. Yeah, right.

He unlocked the car. What did he care about de Groot’s safe and whatever the hell was in it? The man did not want to call the cops. Could be a million reasons. And none of them had anything to do with Jack.

No, there was only one thing on his mind: he did not want to lose Susko Books. No way. Sometimes he loved it and most times it gave him grief, but he was in charge and he took responsibility. Something had to measure a man’s satisfaction and worth. And even though the ruler was chipped and drew cracked lines and all the numbers had faded away, it was Jack’s hand on it and he tallied the stats. Which was something: especially when there was a whole lot of not much else.

Friday night in Paddington. Crowds milled outside the pubs on Oxford Street: people laughed, yelled, hailed taxis, checked text messages on their mobile phones. Couples strode the footpaths in groups: the women scantily dressed in the evening heat, their buff men strutting a step or two ahead, eager with the sniff of sex in the air. The relief at the weekend’s arrival was palpable. Stumbling-drunk dawn was still hours away. For the moment, everybody beamed fresh and happy, like extras in a shampoo commercial.

The Toyota rolled on through all the summery optimism. Jack felt a little better, cruising the evening. Maybe he would join the revellers tomorrow night for a well-earned drink, after de Groot’s cash put a little bump in the middle of his mattress.

He found a parking spot just down from his apartment building in Leinster Street and squeezed the car in.

At the front entrance, he paused to check his mail. As he pushed a small key into the lock, a shadow moved along the road. He heard footsteps and turned to see. A dark figure approached.

‘Jack Susko?’

The man’s tone was not particularly friendly. Jack casually flipped through his mail, an assortment of bills, pizza and Thai restaurant menus, and a Time magazine meant for somebody else. ‘Never heard of him,’ he said.

The man pointed at Jack’s mailbox. ‘Apartment two?’

‘You got the right street?’

The man laughed. ‘Jack, it’s me! Carl Reiss, remember?’

Jack looked up. The streetlights threw shadows over the man, but something tagged his memory. Aunt Eva’s boy. Jack offered his hand. ‘Cousin Carl.’ They shook. ‘I was sorry to hear about your mother.’

‘Yeah, thanks. It was pretty tough at the end,’ said Carl, tension in his voice. Then he shrugged. ‘But you know. When you’ve got to go.’

‘She was a lovely woman.’ Jack felt a twist of guilt as he thought of the Toyota. ‘I would have come to the funeral but I didn’t know anything about it until the lawyer contacted me after.’

‘Yeah,’ said Carl, eyes flitting past Jack.

He doesn’t believe me. Jack felt a moment’s annoyance but did not pursue it. ‘You doing all right?’

‘Me? Oh, yeah, no problems … well, I’m still getting used to it, you know, but life goes on.’ Carl smiled at Jack: his messy teeth caught the sky’s city lights and gleamed. ‘Just getting on with it.’

‘Come in for a drink?’

‘Ah … look, no, I can’t. I’m meeting some friends out tonight.’

Jack nodded, looked his cousin up and down. Tall and wiry, a little hunched over in the shoulders. Awkward, just like he was as a kid.

‘Do you live around here?’ asked Jack.

‘No, no, still in Mum’s old place, out in Bankstown. Just in the area tonight.’

Jack recalled his aunt’s house. ‘Begonia Avenue.’

‘Well done.’ Carl paused. ‘She at least left me that.’

A fruit bat flapped by overhead. Jack glanced up into the night sky but could not see anything, only the pinpricks of hazy stars. Not enough to distract him from his growing discomfort.

Carl checked his watch. ‘I’ve been meaning to call you ever since Mum died. Thought I’d pop in tonight, seeing as I was out here. I was just about to go when I saw the car turn into the street.’

‘Yeah, I’m late,’ said Jack. ‘Got held up.’

‘Working hard, huh?’

‘Masked bandits.’

Carl laughed. ‘Still the same Jack, then. You used to talk shit like that when we were kids. Always making stuff up.’

Jack frowned a little, kneaded the ache in his shoulder.

‘Mum used to love it, though,’ added Carl.

‘Right.’ And there was Jack thinking that as a young buck he had always been enigmatic, cool and mysterious, a child of few words. Just like Clint Eastwood in For a Few Dollars More, only without the cheroot.

Cousin Carl put his hands on his hips. He sucked his teeth and nodded down the street. ‘So how’s the Toyota running?’

‘Like a gold Rolex.’

‘Hey, it’s a good car,’ said Carl, mock defensive.

Jack locked the mailbox. Headlights swept over them from a passing car. Carl glanced down the street. ‘Still can’t believe you got it, huh?’

‘It’s not a Porsche, cousin.’ Jack felt old irritations resurfacing.

‘The old soft spot I’d say,’ continued Carl. ‘You used to pour her drinks any time of the day. And light her cigarettes with that Harley-Davidson Zippo she had.’

Jack remembered the lighter. An anomaly in Aunt Eva’s world of doilies.

‘I was never allowed to touch it,’ said Carl. ‘Ever.’

A couple more memories returned to Jack. ‘You nearly burnt the house down once,’ he said. He was careful not to say tried to.

‘So you remember that.’

‘Just now.’

‘What else?’

Jack grinned, but squirmed on the inside. ‘Running through the sprinklers when it was hot.’ He wanted his cousin to go.

Carl tugged at his black short-sleeved shirt. ‘I could do with some of that now.’

‘Yeah.’ Jack breathed in, nodded, let it out slowly. ‘Anyway …’ ‘Remember that time your old man came by? Gave you a walloping in the front yard? We all thought he was going to kill you. One of the neighbours called the cops.’

‘I must have blocked it out.’

‘Yeah.’ Carl raised an eyebrow. ‘It was pretty good of us to look after you, eh?’

Jack nodded, gave a strained smile. ‘Nice to see you again, Carl. We’ll catch up soon.’

‘Listen, there’s something else.’ Carl’s eyes shone like wet glass, stared hard and straight into Jack’s. ‘Any chance I could borrow the old bus?’

‘The Toyota?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Well …’

‘I need a car for a couple days. Three or four, actually.’

‘When?’

‘I was kind of hoping tonight. You know what I mean?’

‘Not really.’

‘Look, I know it’s an ask. But I need a car for work. My van’s out of action and I can’t afford to fix it right now and I’ve got jobs on. And I’m on the ropes financially. Can you cut me a break?’

Jack shuffled the mail in his hands. He knew what those ropes felt like.

‘I mean … it was my mother’s car,’ said Carl.

A couple walked down the street holding hands, their voices happy, content. Carl turned to look at them. Jack remembered his cousin had been a quiet kid, nervous and prone to a mild stutter. Mostly grim-faced. But he had lost his old man early in life. And now his mother was dead, too. The guy was bound to be upset. How could Jack say no?

He began to thread the key to the Toyota off his key ring.

‘Here,’ he said.

‘I really appreciate it.’

‘No worries.’

Carl held out his hand. A calloused ridge ran across the base of his fingers, like maybe he spent the day hauling rope or trying to loosen rusted nuts with a spanner. Jack gave him the key, wondering what Carl did with himself.

‘I’ll have her back safe and sound in a few days.’

‘Sure,’ said Jack. They shook hands. ‘See you then.’

Carl walked off down the street. Jack watched him and then waited until he heard the Toyota start up. He had half a feeling that Carl had somehow played him, but tried not to dwell on it.

Lois bounded out from the darkness of the apartment building’s hallway just as Jack slotted his key into the door. She bumped his shins, miaowed, twisted between his legs and miaowed some more. She looked up, eyes wide. Jack reached down and scratched her behind the ears.

‘It’s been a long day, baby. Did you save me some dinner?’

Closed up all day, the apartment was hot and musty and smelt a little damp. Lois ran into the kitchen and waited beside her food bowl. Jack tossed the mail onto the coffee table, found the stereo remote and pressed play. Mingus Ah Um, 1959. He hit track two: ‘Goodbye Pork Pie Hat.’

As the music started up he began searching under the sofa for a stray, forgotten cigarette. Even a half-smoked butt would do. But nothing. He put his head to the floor and scanned under the furniture. A couple of pens and a lot of dust. He checked the bedroom, the closet and his clothes, even the bathroom. Lois miaowed impatiently from the kitchen.

Jack opened a few more drawers and checked the bookshelves. Zero. He knew there was not a flake of tobacco anywhere in the place. He had crushed all his spares the day before, thrown out all his lighters and matches. So what the hell was he doing?

Lois miaowed from the kitchen again, eyeballing him. She had changed her style recently and it was only now as Jack watched her that he saw it. A certain brazen quality. No more Continental sophistication, rather a sultry, American confidence. Goodbye Marlene Dietrich, hello Veronica Lake.

The left ear was hanging down, shading the eye there, almost with a curl to it. She no longer walked anywhere, but glided, slinky and never in a hurry. When she offered you bourbon an hour before noon, you could be sure she had already cracked the bottle. And her new philosophy of life? Distilled to one sentence and you could read it on her face, any time of the day or night: Hey mister, do I look like I care?

Jack fed her and opened a bottle of wine, the last out of a case of five-dollar cleanskin cab merlots that he had picked up a week ago. Rough and full of splinters. He poured himself a glass, found a notebook and pen, grabbed a pile of bills, and then sat down in his Eames chair. As the leather creaked, he remembered the garage sale a few years ago when the guy had said: ‘Seventy-five bucks. It’s a good chair.’ Jack had replied: ‘Sure. Okay.’ Maybe that had been it for lucky breaks. Could he part with it now and raise some cash? Did he have to? He listened to the music and went over his troubles. It was probably about time he appreciated the details.

Jack owed, give or take a dollar or two, about thirty-two thousand big ones. Bills, credit cards, outstanding payments, back rent, among other things. He had two dollars and forty-nine cents in the bank. To withdraw it from a teller would cost him a buck-fifty. All the financial papers warned it was not a good time to cash in your investment portfolio, so he decided to leave it.

There was ninety-three dollars and eighty-five cents in the till float at Susko Books. The business had turned over a meagre two-thirteen forty-five for the week, down nine fifty on the week before. From that, Jack had to subtract rent, electricity, repairs, stock purchases, petty cash and — now that Carl had taken the Toyota — bus fare. He did not need a calculator. He knew exactly how much he did not have.

He needed de Groot’s money.

Jack dropped the notebook and bills onto the floor and picked up the Time magazine that had been mistakenly slipped into his mailbox. He looked at the address label: somebody called Gavin Porter.

He tore the plastic off, opened a page, slugged his wine. Sorry Gav. I’ll pay you back later.

Along with everybody else.