Jack was inclined to agree. It was not the first time in his life he had been tempted by the freedom aspect. Pulling up pegs and rolling out. Days merging into each other, the horizon always in view. Lois taking care of the coin toss and pointing left, right or straight at the crossroads when they came. What about Susko Books on wheels, like a travelling road show? Not bad. Not bad at all.
He looked back at the woman reclined in the bedroom of the Pemberton Hacienda. Tried to picture Claudia inside but the image would not take. Made Jack think that it could get a little empty in there, even with all the luxury appointments.
There was a guy hanging around outside the apartment block in Leinster Street when he got home. Even under the weak frosted light globe of the entrance awning, he could see the man was tall and lean, with dark hair cut short and neat, styled upwards at the front. Straight, thick eyebrows and trimmed sideburns. Shadows chiselled the planes of his face, making it look angular, almost graphic. Dressed in a blue-black overcoat and matching suit, white shirt and black tie. Arms down by his sides. One hand swinging an umbrella.
As Jack pushed his key into the front door and opened it, he could hear the faint scratch of leather-soled shoes step towards him. When he got there, the guy swung his umbrella up as though hailing a cab and blocked Jack’s passage into the building. Then he smiled and said: ‘Hello, sunshine.’
Jack turned, holding firm the impulse to take a step back. The words might have intended some kind of threat, but he had heard tougher tones. The guy was about his age, maybe a couple of years older. An inch or two taller, but most of it heel on the nice shiny shoes. A pretty-boy nose and hooded, pale-blue eyes. Small mouth and a jutting jaw. Easy to aim at. Was he really thinking about rolling Jack right here?
‘How was your day, Susko?’
Jack straightened up. This was something else. ‘I don’t remember ordering any umbrellas,’ he said. Took his hand from the front door and let it swing closed.
The guy pulled the umbrella. ‘But it’s been raining.’
Jack stayed with a blank look. He could feel irritation building inside him. The umbrella was in the guy’s right hand: it could come down hard. But first he would have to get it up over his head for the swing. Enough time for Jack to step inside and use his own right. Maybe even a little forehead, straight at that girly conk.
‘Playing it silent, huh?’
‘I only speak the language of love,’ said Jack.
‘Yeah. I know all about you, Susko.’
‘Maybe you’ll know a little more soon. If you’re unlucky. Checked your stars this week?’
The guy slapped the umbrella into the palm of his left hand, once … twice. Rocked up onto the balls of his feet. ‘You stay the fuck away from Claudia. Got it? Second-hand Book Boy.’
Jack grinned. Was it really Beaumont? ‘Duncan,’ he said. ‘How lovely.’
‘I’m warning you. Straight.’
‘Fine. Now why don’t you fuck off.’
The heat appeared to throw Beaumont. His frown turned to surprise for a split-second. Then composure again. ‘If I hear you’ve contacted her —’
‘Listen, Dunc. I don’t know what you’ve heard or where, but leaving right now would be the smartest thing you’ve done all year.’
‘Talk is cheap.’
Beaumont tapped Jack on the arm with his umbrella. If he was trying to get a bite, it worked. Instinctively, Jack grabbed at the umbrella and pulled. Beaumont held on and moved in. Whether pre-meditated or spur of the moment, the guy decided to throw a punch: left-handed and half-arsed, it caught Jack on the shoulder but slipped down his arm. Beaumont gritted his teeth. ‘Son of a bitch!’
Jack had reached the end of his tape measure. He was angry, and for more reasons than Duncan Beaumont was supplying, but he did not let it loose in the uppercut that was there for the placing. Instead, he brought his right up, open-handed, grabbed the guy’s throat and gave it a firm squeeze. Pushed Beaumont’s head so that he was looking at the overhead light on the awning, then shouldered him back, taking the umbrella out of his grip at the same time. Hard blood pumped through him. He took a step back and waited for Beaumont to make a move, hoping he would decide not to.
But he did. Duncan Beaumont had a reach on him and Jack watched a fist flash in front of his eyes. Another followed out of nowhere and clipped him and he felt sinew stretch at the jaw joints. Fuck. Not like the first punch. That was quick. Maybe they put them through some kind of training at ASIC? Before he got too impressed, he took another step back, spreading his weight evenly. Jack snapped off a right, this time fist clenched and homing for nose. On the money. Cartilage crunch and free blood.
Beaumont swore and shook his head, but came again, arms wide, rushing Jack and taking him down in a tackle. The thing was getting out of hand. They hit the deck and groaned in tandem. Beaumont freed an arm, cocked and fired. Jack wore it under the eye. Two more rained down, half-power but still stinging. He wondered if it was something he had done in a past life.
Nothing pretty now, amateur wrestling hour. Beaumont thrashed and twisted, kept throwing punches, mostly hitting Jack’s arms. Enough. Jack held firm, pushed and got above the guy. Rammed home a knee to the guts. A lull in proceedings. He scrambled to his feet and watched Beaumont curl up into a ball, groaning.
‘Are you fucking crazy?’ Jack brushed himself off. Arms on fire, chest heaving. The guy’s blood was on his best jacket, a 1960s gunmetal-grey, wool-cashmere blend duffel coat, given to him by Ray. The motherfucker.
From the ground, tight moans through stretched lips. ‘Stay … away … from …’
‘Shut up.’ Jack felt under his eye. Swollen and sore. Jesus Christ. He could hardly believe what had just happened. Right in front of where he lived. His elbow ached and he looked, saw a torn sleeve, too. ‘Oh, man …’
Duncan Beaumont struggled to his feet. Jack clenched a right, just in case. He kept his eye on the guy’s bloody nose. He was thinking about Claudia. He was thinking about Ziggy. He said: ‘What the fuck are you doing?’
Beaumont grinned, then grimaced and lifted his chin. ‘Just stay out of it, Susko. You’ve been warned.’ He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a phone. Held it up in front of his face and lost the grin. Snapped a picture. Two. Then he winked at Jack, like the whole thing was a joke. Picked up his umbrella from the ground and walked off.
Jack watched him crack it open and step out into the rain. Fade into the dark. He wondered if this was the first time he had ever been in a brawl over a girl who did not even like him.
8
The call from the cops came the next day, just before lunch.
Jack was at Susko Books, thinking. All the previous night and all of that morning he had been playing over the events of the last few days, particularly yesterday’s championship bout with Duncan Beaumont in the blue corner. Jack’s cheek was swollen and shined apple-blush red. It hurt to smile, but he was a long sea voyage from a good mood anyway. He told customers he was coming down with something. They said yeah, it was that time of year.
When the phone rang he just held it to his ear and said: ‘What?’
‘Jack. Nice to hear your voice.’
‘Who is this?’
‘Detective Sergeant Keith Glendenning. Remember me?’
Jack’s cheek throbbed. The pain broke through his skull, blunt but wide like a wave, and he dropped his head a little. ‘Not really.’
But he did. Glendenning was the cop from a few years back who had basically saved Jack’s arse while it was hanging off a cliff — though only because he had to. A decent guy probably, but Jack had managed to irritate him. So he knew the call was anything but good news.
‘Been a while, huh?’ said Glendenning.
‘Maybe not long enough.’
‘Gee, don’t be like that. Especially when all I
want to do is help.’
‘Uh-huh.’ Jack stared at a faded scratch on the counter, ran his finger over it. ‘Help with what?’
‘Oh, just a little assault charge that I happened to notice down here at the station, sitting in the to-do pile. One Duncan Alistair Beaumont alleging that one Jack Susko struck him repeatedly and unprovoked on the night of —’
‘It’s because I don’t have a middle name, isn’t it?’ The quip was quick but empty. Son of a bitch. Who the fuck was this Beaumont guy?
‘You think I’m joking?’
‘He’s lying.’
‘That right?’
‘Something I can do about this?’
‘Well, Jack, yes there is. Come down to the station and give me your version. Maybe we can clear this thing up.’
‘We can do that right now.’ Jack was not one to voluntarily go visiting his local police station. ‘Like I said, he’s lying.’
‘More complicated than that, I’m afraid. It’s a serious allegation, Jack, and it’d help if you came down, you know, answered a few questions —’
‘So you can log me?’ Jack knew that score. Getting things down on the record early, cops covering their paperwork arses. Suspects tying themselves up in knots with no lawyer around to help with the loops. He frowned, senses alert, just not exactly sure as to what.
‘That’s an interesting reflex,’ said Glendenning. ‘I’m ringing to help, yeah? Presuming innocence?’
‘Is that what you guys do?’
‘Let me reiterate. This is a serious allegation.’ The detective sergeant’s tone flicked with annoyance like a polygraph needle.
‘Can I ask a question?’
Glendenning said nothing, waited.
‘Why’s a big-shot detective sergeant calling me about this?’
A pause. ‘We’re old friends, Jack. Remember?’
‘Ah, okay,’ said Jack. ‘That’s right. And what are friends for?’
‘Exactly.’
‘Nothing really to do with Duncan Beaumont per se.’
‘Could be the prime minister for all I care. But when I saw your name on the form …’
Jack nodded at a customer who held up the inside flap of a book, showing him the price, and left ten dollars on the counter. ‘You thought, oh, it’s me old buddy, Jack.’
‘We’ve got a new coffee machine down here. Latte, cappuccino, espresso, whatever you want. Cream, milk, low-fat, soy …’
‘I’ll check with my lawyer, see how he takes it.’
Silence.
‘So,’ said Jack. ‘Duncan Beaumont. What’s so interesting?’
‘Come in and we’ll talk about it.’
‘Sure. How about next week?’
‘Do you need to see my badge, maybe?’
‘Like I said, Sheriff, I’ll speak to my lawyer first.’
‘Okay, Jack. Play it your way.’
‘Only way I know how.’
The line went dead.
Jack did not have a lawyer. He did not know any lawyers or have the money to get acquainted with any. What he had was a big goddamn headache and a book about how to live in a caravan.
He flipped over a page, read the heading. The Caravan Code.
The caravanner shows courtesy and consideration to all with whom he comes in contact …
Maybe Jack was not going to make the cut after all. Because it was definitely time to pay Duncan Alistair Beaumont an unfriendly visit.
9
Astrid seemed pleased to hear from him but Jack dodged the bons mots. ‘Where does Beaumont live?’
‘Birchgrove,’ she said. ‘Why?’
‘Address?’
‘What’s going on, Jack?’
‘I just want to send him a card to congratulate him on his engagement.’
‘Don’t bullshit me.’ Her tone was all ex-cop. ‘Ziggy doesn’t need muscle on this thing. Get it? He’s got others to ask for that. Not you.’
‘You don’t like my muscles?’
‘I’ll ask again, nicely. What’s going on?’
‘I’ve got to go. Customers everywhere.’
‘Hey, Susko —’
He found the street address online in the White Pages: only the one listing for a Beaumont, D. in Birchgrove, down on Ballast Point Road. One of the nicer spots on the planet. Jack decided to catch a ferry.
Hands-in-pockets weather outside. Jack lit a cigarette in the nook of a high-rise and walked towards Circular Quay. He knew it was a bad idea but he let his mind roam the memory banks. Claudia. A stream of images started up like an old reel-to-reel, its electric motion flick-flacking and warm, moving swiftly from black-and-white to colour as emotions tagged themselves to the moments screening across his mind. So long ago now it was closer to fiction, but that did not mean there was no truth involved. Jack could still feel the sting.
‘It’s not going to work,’ she had said. Smoking, like she used to, this particular time those long, thin brown cigarettes from London that a friend had sent her. ‘We’re too different. I want a future.’
Leaning against the car, stopped on a romantic spot along a country road. Jack had been speechless, with a hand in his pocket, the small ring box there — not an engagement but thereabouts. A gift to suggest … what? Longevity? Christ, he had not been sure even then. Maybe she knew. Decided to give his vacillation the coup de grâce. All over in a blink after two years together. Nothing but dust, trailing the Beamer as she sped away. Later, Deepak from the porn shop upstairs had said, ‘You’re kidding.’ He thought Claudia Brandt was worth spray-painting love graffiti over the Taj Mahal for. ‘Who are you, Bozo the fucking clown? You think you’re going to get better than that?’
Jack gave him the ring. ‘Maybe your girlfriend will like it.’
‘Yeah,’ said Deepak, smiling broadly. ‘But which one?’
At Circular Quay Jack bought a ticket and made his way to wharf four. The Birchgrove ferry had gone but he was just in time for the Balmain trip and walked the gangplank aboard. Not far to Ballast Point Road from the Thames Street pier. He sat at a window on the upper level and watched the lights of Sydney play hide-and-seek on the harbour waves, then the crazy clown face of Luna Park blaze brightly just up ahead. He was tired now, and some of the anger seeped out of him.
Across from Darling Harbour he saw the Barangaroo development site, now empty except for a few lights, reflecting golden off the sandstone walls the area had been cut from. It looked unassuming in the dark and rain, just a plot of shoreline that nobody had given much thought to when the cargo ships had docked there, rusty and briny and overladen. Yet now it was the hub of a great wheel of hustling, everybody trying to hitch it to their wagons. All the big boys out to play. As the ferry dipped past, Jack could almost see an image of Ziggy Brandt’s face in the shadows over the sandstone, his laugh as sinister as the Luna Park clown’s.
The ferry guy moored the chugger. Jack merged with the crowd across the ramp and felt their weariness. He trudged up the hill and along to Ballast Point Road, feeling vulnerable whenever headlights swept down, worried that Beaumont might be driving home and recognise him there on the root-rutted footpath. Or worse, Claudia.
The house was a dark redbrick bungalow with white window boxes. Over part of the roof, blue plastic sheeting rippled in the breeze. A pile of sand stood on the front lawn, wet and heavy, next to some crusty old bricks. Dented rubbish skip on the road, half-filled with cracked plaster, splintered lengths of timber and joints of plumbing. Beaumont, the home renovator. The lights were on inside.
Jack looked around. Took in the nice big house in the nice inner-city suburb, remembering he would soon have nowhere to live. He slipped through the front gate and moved quickly into the shadows.
His shoes sank into muddy grass and mulch as he squeezed pa
st garbage bins and some abandoned chairs stacked against the side of the house. A small rectangular window up ahead, light hanging off the glass like fog. What was he, a cat burglar now? A goddamn peeping Tom? He crouched and moved through overgrown shrubs, the branches painting his arms wet. Stopped and listened. Muffled voices from inside. He raised his head to the level of the window and had a look. Whatever he might have hoped to see, this was not it.
Beaumont and Claudia, side-on.
Kissing.
Honey, I’m home.
She had her hands on his neck. Jack could see the diamond glimmer on her finger. Dressed to severely maim in a knee-length little black dress and heels and a classic trench. Beaumont was wearing a red-checked apron, wooden spoon in one hand, arm around Claudia’s waist. Pots steaming on the stove behind him. Beaumont, the gourmet cook.
Jack knew he had to get the hell out of there. It was the new number one stupidest thing he had ever done in his life. Or at least top five. Recently.
He headed back down the path, unable to shake the image of domestic bliss from his mind. Served him right. And the worst of it was suddenly clear: he had to admit that Brandt’s tap tap had started to appeal to him. Had set his imagination off, like a drunk with a fresh bottle. Some crazy notion that Claudia might want him back, even though he knew that his chicken cacciatore was well and truly cooked as far as that was concerned. Oh man. Love was a childish thing.
Car doors slammed on the street just as he was about to step out into Beaumont’s front yard. He stopped, backed up against the house. The gate squeaked open. Footsteps and then voices.
‘Nothing rough, Mick. Unless I give you the wink.’
‘Got it.’
Jack frowned. Kippax? He edged his head around the corner, reached out and held down the branches of a fuchsia bush. Allan Kippax and his right-hand man, taking the two steps up to the front door of Duncan Beaumont’s house.
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