The Black Russian

by Lenny Bartulin

  ‘I’m going to kill that bitch.’

  The lights changed. The last few pedestrians passed in front of the car.

  ‘Go!’

  Jack opened the door and jumped out of the Beamer.

  Nobody shot him as he ran to the footpath.

  He stood back from the road, under an awning, safe among his fellow citizens with takeaway coffee cups to their lips. He looked into the car. The windows were fogged up and streaked with rain and it was difficult to see inside. Three seconds later, the engine came to screeching life and the BMW sped off down the hill. A green light released more traffic behind it and the car disappeared into a river of flickering steel and light.

  Jack stood there for a moment longer, getting himself together. As wet and wrung out as the day he was born.

  ~

  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.’

  ~

  38 ~

  THERE WAS SOMETHING IN THE WEEKEND PAPERS about it all. Rhonda Alexandra de Groot and Max Troy Martin were arrested and charged with the murder
s of Richard John de Groot and Lewis Hendrik Bloemsaat. Their trial was pending. Apparently, South African authorities were also keen to interview Mrs Rhonda de Groot over the theft of antique diamonds and some ancient tribal artefacts that her deceased husband was implicated in. Police refused to comment on the source of their tip-off.

  Lois was out and about and Jack did not feel like being alone in the apartment. He went around to see Ray Campbell. Susko Books and the public hordes could wait another day. Maybe it was delayed shock that had him feeling strange? Or the return to nicotine? More likely, he just needed an afternoon full of margaritas.

  Ray Campbell had stopped with the margaritas and was into Manhattans now. By the fourth one, Jack had told him all about it.

  ‘And you never even got to see the Sergius?’ Ray was almost beside himself.

  ‘Just wasn’t meant to be.’ Jack dragged deeply on his cigarette. ‘Only the five-buck paperback specials for Jack Susko.’

  ‘But so close!’

  ‘And yet …’

  Ray sighed and shook his head. Hair slicked back, clean-shaven cheeks glowing with moisturiser and alcohol, he was dressed like some kind of Jay Gatsby: high-waisted, pleated grey pinstriped pants, white shirt with a paisley blue necktie, cufflinks, braces, and spats. The deckchair was gone and he was reclined in an old leather wingback. A worn but rare edition of Cornell Woolrich’s 1927 novel, Children of the Ritz, was on the drinks stand beside him.

  ‘To think whose hands have held it.’ Ray reached across for the cocktail shaker and topped up his Manhattan. His was on the sweeter side and poured into a cocktail glass. No cherries because Ray never bought out of season. Jack preferred a four-to-one whiskey to vermouth in an old-fashioned lowball. He raised it to his lips, for a moment remembering Kim’s hands on his shirt.

  ‘So Kablunak called the cops?’

  ‘Yep.’ Jack tapped his cigarette into a chrome smoking-stand ashtray. ‘They caught Rhonda and Max at the airport.’

  ‘And what about the girls?’

  ‘Gone.’

  ‘Both of them?’

  Jack nodded. ‘Apparently.’

  ‘My, my,’ Ray sipped his Manhattan. He eyed Jack, gave a sympathetic smile. ‘You liked this Kim, didn’t you?’ he said.

  Jack weighed up his feelings as he stubbed out the cigarette. It was still too early to call. And what did it matter now, anyway?

  He said: ‘Maybe I was just about to, you know?’

  ~

  39 ~

  MONDAY. BACK TO WORK. Somebody had left a box outside the front door of Susko Books. Whoever it was had written in thick black marker across the top: All Yours! Jack took it inside and dropped it on the counter. He lit a cigarette and had a look.

  The Diamond in Your Pocket: Discovering Your True Radiance by Gangaji; The Power of Vastu Living: Welcoming Your Soul into Your Home and Workplace by Kathleen Cox; Now Hear This Gentle Singing by Meredith Mathers and Josephine Stone; Meditation: the Complete Guide by Patricia Monaghan and Eleanor G. Diereck; The Silent Scream: Subconscious Trauma and How to Let It Out by Helena le Brun and Gary Klein; Life Is But a Dream … So Row! by Reynold Knox; After the Ecstasy, the Laundry by Jack Kornfield; and Knitted Animals by Anne-Dorthe Grigaff.

  Everything you needed to read to get your shit together. Maybe Jack would take the afternoon off and have a little flip-through.

  The phone started ringing. He tossed Knitted Animals back into the box, came around the counter and picked up.

  ‘Susko Books.’

  ‘Where the fuck’s my car?’

  Chester Sinclair. Shit. Jack had still not been out to pick up the Fiori. ‘What’s the author’s name?’

  ‘What?’ There was a pause as Sinclair thought about it. ‘Don’t give me any of your crap, Susko! Where’s my car?’

  ‘Being serviced as we speak,’ said Jack, surprised at how smooth he managed to sound. He went with it. ‘Then I’ve got it booked in for a Super Clean Supreme at Super-Clean-All-Hand-Wash. As a sign of my appreciation.’

  ‘You’re fucking with me.’

  ‘Chester, you won’t recognise it.’

  Pause. ‘Okay. What about Babylon Boy? You made the bet, right?’

  This time Jack was not as quick off the cuff. He said, ‘Um …’ and Chester was all over him.

  ‘Oh don’t fucking say it! You made the bet, didn’t you, Jack? Tell me you made the fucking bet!’

  ‘Sorry, Chester. Just couldn’t get there on time.’

  Silence. He could sense Sinclair’s rage down the line. He heard a throat being cleared.

  ‘Jack,’ said Chester, voice calm but wound tight. ‘Babylon Boy fucking romped it home, just like Eddie Roy said it would. Do you understand?’ He cleared his throat again.

  ‘Now, according to my calculations, the fifty dollars you were kindly asked to place on that horse in that race would have returned winnings of ’ — Jack heard paper rustling — ‘six hundred and twenty-two dollars and ten cents. See what I’m getting at, Jack?’

  ‘Loud and clear.’

  ‘Don’t make me call the cops.’

  ‘I’ll bring the car and the money round tonight. Okay?’

  ‘Just don’t make me call the cops.’

  Chester Sinclair hung up.

  After the rent — home and business — the credit cards, the overdrafts, the outstanding invoices, the backed-up phone and gas and electricity bills, and goddamn Chester with his car and his horse, Jack’s ten-thousand-dollar money fan was significantly reduced in size. He managed to buy himself a couple of things: some vinyl, some CDs, some new clothes and a haircut. He managed to toss a few gold coins into a few homeless cups and hands around the city. He even managed to stock up on booze and cigarettes, going for the middle ground in quality, so that it might stretch a little further into the New Year. And then that was pretty much it. Which was great. Because everything was only up to Jack’s neck again. He was used to it there. And at least he could breathe.

  Two weeks later, an airmail envelope arrived in the post. From Paris. No return address. Jack tore it open with a blue Bic and pulled out what was inside. British Airways airline ticket. And a note.

  Hi Jack

  Paris is unbelievable!

  Why don’t you come over?

  Kim xox

  Jack read the note again. Then he put it and the plane ticket down on the counter and lit a cigarette. He smoked and stared out into the quiet shelves of Susko Books. He was trying to remember if he and Lois still had valid passports.