by JR Carroll
She looked at him blankly.
‘Forgive me,’ he said. ‘I don’t get many opportunities to have a good wallow. At least, not with another person present.’
‘That’s all right,’ she said, and sipped. ‘At least you went there. I haven’t been anywhere. I was born in bloody Melbourne and I’ll die here. I’ve only been out of Victoria once, and that was when Larry and Thommo took me pig shooting up in Tocumwal or somewhere. There was just a lot of swamp and flies and drinking piss and blueing on and sleeping on the bloody ground.’
‘Who’s Thommo?’
‘The other guy at the house. He was at the pub yesterday.’
It meant nothing to Robert, who hadn’t seen any of them. But he nodded.
‘Well, Florence,’ he said, ‘you’re better off without those lads by the sound of it.’
‘I sure am. No way am I going back.’
‘That’s the idea. Stick to your guns.’
‘I will.’
‘Where are you going to go?’
She shrugged. ‘Somewhere, I dunno. I’ll be right.’
‘What about parents?’
‘Nope. No chance. Never.’
That was emphatic enough, so he said, ‘Friends, then?’
‘Not really. I mean, none that aren’t married or that. None I could just … lob with.’
‘How old are you, Florence?’
‘Twenty-three.’ She looked up sharply. ‘Why, how old are you?’
‘Me? Good question. Let’s see … I think I was born in 1958. That makes me … bloody old. Thirty-eight, by my reckoning.’
Florence smiled.
Shortly afterwards Florence went for a shower. When she returned, wrapped in a towel, Robert was sorting through a stack of hardbacks against one of the walls.
‘What are all those books?’ she said, pulling back her hair and tying it tight with the rubber band.
‘They are my lifeline,’ he said, leafing through a thick volume. ‘They are all I have left to sell, apart from my blood. And I wouldn’t inflict that on anyone.’ He showed her the cover: a biography of James Joyce, by Richard Ellmann. ‘Time for Mr Joyce to hit the second-hand shops, unfortunately. But I’m sure he wouldn’t mind if he knew it was for such a worthy cause.’
He dropped the book onto a small pile he’d already selected, all hardbacks, and immediately picked up another, Norman Sherry’s life of Graham Greene. ‘That should do,’ he said, snapping it shut. ‘Mr Greene is still a saleable commodity, I believe. And he certainly wouldn’t object to being sold off for mind-fucking materials. He’d do the same thing himself.’ He picked up the chosen volumes, some six or seven, and hooked an arm around them. ‘Well, I’d better piss off. It’s a long, thirsty haul, and these buggers get very heavy after a while. Look, Florence … I haven’t got a spare key to give you, so … I dunno, just shut the door behind you and I’ll see you later. I might be a couple of hours, depending.’
‘Where’s the bookshop?’
‘Well, there are several. I have a regular beat, you see. One shop probably won’t buy them all, not at the right price, so I’ll keep going until they’re gone. Maybe I’ll bring them all back. But I could luck out and flog the lot at the first place.’
‘Maybe I could go with you. Help you carry them.’
‘Well … sure, if you can be bothered. I can manage.’
Florence smiled the warmest smile he had seen from her so far. ‘I don’t mind at all. I’d like to. You carried me, remember. And I’m sure I was heavier than a few books. Just wait’ll I get dressed.’ The towel fell away before she was out of the room, giving him a flashing glimpse of her young buns.
So it started.
Midmorning saw them sitting on a bench outside a liquor store in Swan Street, in the heart of Richmond, drinking cold cans of VB. Robert had managed to unload four books, leaving Tristram Shandy, a volume of Ezra Pound’s verse, supposedly signed by the man himself in 1957, and a first edition biography of Dylan Thomas. In dealing with booksellers Robert’s main problem was one of credibility. People naturally found it hard to believe that someone with a down-and-out appearance and alcohol on his breath before opening time could be in possession of genuine literary artefacts, unless he’d stolen them. As far as he knew the Pound signature was real – the book was a birthday present from his parents, who had bought it in New York – but making someone believe him was hard. His educated speech did some good, but not when it was slurred.
The next leg of the journey took them into the city and some of the more upmarket and snooty bookshops. Conversation along the way consisted of small talk and harmless bits and pieces that just trailed away, with no probing questions or attempts on either side to trespass too far into the personal domain. Florence’s vibes told him she felt comfortable in his presence, as he was in hers, and yet they were near strangers. He found himself thinking, What am I doing with this woman. Who the fuck is she anyway. When you were out on the rim weird shit happened, some good, mostly not. You got to meet people with all the bullshit stripped off them. Robert wondered what she made of this instant alliance they’d formed – or maybe she did it all the time, lurching from one bad situation to another, basically not giving a stuff what became of her as long as she had a man in her life. Such people existed. Florence didn’t give away much at all, but seemed content with a companionable silence and just being with someone who spoke and behaved civilly, and who obviously wasn’t going to bash her.
As they passed Flinders Street station, Robert got the idea that Florence might have more success selling the books, while he waited outside. It was worth a shot, especially if she was dealing with a man. If you overlooked her cheap, slatternly clothing Florence was an appealing young woman, and if he could coach her to say the right things and smile winningly and not appear too desperate for money maybe that would do the trick. He put it to her, and she just shrugged and said righto.
By lunchtime she had got rid of the three volumes for what Robert considered to be fair prices. The Pound anthology brought thirty dollars, and although it was worth a lot more than that in the trade it was the best he was ever going to do. Unfortunately, the man said, the signature could not be verified, or it would bring much more – up to a hundred and fifty. Robert was in no position to argue – especially from the footpath – and now they had ninety dollars to play around with. The first thing her did was buy cigarettes at a discount stall, after which he spent forty on a cap of heroin from a dealer he knew who operated outside a video arcade in Russell Street. Then, instead of wasting money on tram fares, they walked back to Richmond, stopping at a string of pubs for some cooling ales and for Robert to use the men’s room, then they picked up a chilled cask of chablis and some stubbies at Coles in Church Street before returning home.
Robert emptied his pocket onto the island bar: eighteen bucks left. It sure didn’t go far. Florence had kicked off her shoes and was splashing cold water on her face in the bathroom. When she came out they broke into the six-pack of stubbies and consumed them immediately. While they were drinking the last two she said, ‘I should go and get my stuff from the house. Before Larry gets home.’
‘When will that be?’ Robert said.
‘I think he’s on the day shift. Depends if he goes to the pub or not. He probably will because it’s hot.’
‘Still. You never know. Better go soon. Where is it?’
‘Abbotsford. About half an hour’s walk.’
Robert drained his stubby, stood up and said, ‘Let’s do it now, Flo Jo. Before we get too settled in.’
She seemed surprised, but didn’t say anything. She finished her drink and they went out again straightaway.
It was a long, tiring half hour walking into a hot north wind. They broke the journey twice for beers, and when they reached the house Robert had his usual midafternoon buzz going. He waited outside the crumbling stucco terrace while Florence seemed to take forever packing her things, but she finally appeared, carrying a suitcase and so
me plastic bags crammed with possessions. No sign of Larry or his pals, which was a bonus. He had begun to have visions of the whole mob of them bailing him up prior to kicking the crap out of him as soon as they realised what was happening. The notion of Robert protecting himself, let alone Flo Jo, against psychopaths was pure comic book material. He relieved her of the suitcase and they made their way back to Richmond at full speed, breaking the journey once for a pit stop at the halfway mark. It was during this welcome break that Florence produced a thickish bundle of banknotes which she said was four hundred dollars.
‘It’s the rent money,’ she said. ‘I swiped it.’
‘Did you just.’ Shit.
‘Fuck the bastards. They’ve used me often enough. Payback time.’
But Robert had no interest in the moral conundrum. He was much more concerned with matters closer to home. For instance, what if, as usual, she went back to this mongrel and put the blame on Robert to cover herself? This guy made me do it, honest, Larry baby. Yeah? Which fuckin’ guy? Where’s he live? Supposing Larry made it his purpose in life to find out where she was and who she was hanging out with, this prick helping her spend his hard-earned?
Abbotsford wasn’t far enough away. Tokyo wasn’t far enough away.
Reading Robert’s face, Florence said, ‘He’ll crack a real mental when he finds out. So will Thommo. But I won’t be around to cop it, so it doesn’t matter, right?’
Robert was about to ask, Who’s Thommo? and instinctively stopped himself. Brainrot and not being used to the company and conversation of others had largely robbed him of the ability to retain information. He took a deep drink from his pot glass and said, ‘Let’s hope so, Flo Jo.’
She touched his hand, smiling. ‘Don’t worry, Robert. It’s all right. It’ll blow over. They might think they spent it when they were pissed. Anyway come on, it’s my buy. Pick something off the top shelf if you like. I’m going to.’
Robert fingered the bristles on his chin and eyed off the rows of bottles. Now she was talking. ‘Absolut vodka on the rocks,’ he said. ‘Double. And a beer chaser.’
That night they shared a large pizza and kicked on into the small hours. At around midnight Florence pulled a clear plastic pouch from her bag and told him it was Larry’s dope. So she’d knocked that off too, and the pouch was nearly full. Robert was whacked enough by then not to give a fuck. She rolled a monster joint and they both tripped off with the fairies in a big way. Robert hallucinated and Florence said she was ‘majorly stoned’. When that one was gone they had another. Next morning Robert did not remember the second leg of the walk home after closing time, clutching Flo Jo’s suitcase, the meal, the joints, nor finding the sleeping bag and setting up a bed space for her in the lounge at some ridiculous hour when it was just starting to get light. The only thing he was certain about was the monumental hangover ripping his skull apart. That, and the fact that his left eye would not open. Maybe he had banged into something, yet the eye was puffy and felt more as if he’d been stung by a wasp.
When she saw it Flo Jo said, ‘Looks like an infection. Why don’t you go to the doctor? There’s a bulk-billing place not far away.’
Robert said, ‘Doctor? Don’t be funny. If I went to the doctor, the first thing he’d say would be something really clever, like, “What are you doing here? You should be in a cemetery,” or, “How come you’re still breathing?” Then he’d give me a lecture about the things doctors always lecture you about. Then after I’d endured all that he’d write out a prescription that I wouldn’t bother filling. So what’s the point exactly? I’ll just lie here and suffer.’
‘Just a suggestion. Can I get you something from the chemist? I’m going down the street.’
‘Well … see if they’ll give you a painkiller with penicillin in it. Nothing else is any good. Thanks, Flo Jo.’
She said, ‘Have a joint why don’t you,’ and left.
Robert remembered then with a cold, numbing shock, like a bodyblow, that she’d produced Larry’s fucking dope. As if knocking off the rent money wasn’t bad enough, she’d done that too, really rubbed it in the guy’s face: pinched the cash and the dope stash. How could she think Larry would let her get away with that? Robert felt both helpless and seriously concerned for his safety. While he didn’t necessarily mind dying, being dismembered as well was quite another matter. This was not an ideal situation. Fuck. You do the right thing, help a girl in trouble, and next you know you’re being hunted down by a deeply aggrieved madman.
Robert stayed in all that morning, feeling even more sorry for himself than usual. The eye was really causing him a lot of grief. He popped a cold can from the remnants of the slab they’d bought the night before, moulded himself into the armchair as comfortably as he could and listened to the silence in the room. At some point he dozed off, then woke from an appalling dream in a tide of sweat, which was stinging his bad eye and a cut somewhere on his scalp. ‘Oh, fuck,’ he murmured, and cradled his face for a long time, breathing in short, shallow bursts into his hands and listening to his heart pounding wildly in his chest. So hard to die. So fucking hard. Why, God, you bastard?
In the meantime Florence wandered along Bridge Road, looking in shop windows and feeling good about herself with money in her purse. Even after splashing out last night she still had more than three hundred. She picked up a few toiletries, some cheap underwear and a cold can of Sprite, most of which she drank while she waited for the lights to change at Church Street. Across the road she didn’t spot the young, wiry guy with the wild hair and eyes who looked as if he’d been plugged into a wall socket. He was Warwick Thompson, or just plain Thommo, which is what Flo Jo always called him if she called him anything. But he saw Flo Jo all right, draining the soft drink can and then tossing it in a bin like a good, litter-conscious citizen. Thommo curled his lip, hawked and slagged a big green wad on the ground, a trademark gesture of his when he was not happy. His first instinct was to run through the traffic and fix her up on the spot, give her a right hook and split her wide open like a pumpkin, but then some cunning prevailed and he decided to follow her instead, see where she called home these days. Then work out the next move with Larry. That would be much more fun.
Flo Jo arrived back with some pills and a bottle of bourbon, along with her other shopping, to find Robert sprawled in his chair with the needle still sticking out of his arm and a brain-dead, faraway glow on his face that told her there was no point talking to him. She carefully plucked out the needle and put it on the sink, then poured a glass of water and tried to administer it to him with one of the painkilling tablets. Robert seemed to have lost the ability to swallow, but after a few tries she got it down, then repeated the process. Robert coughed and jerked around in his chair and then made plaintive whining sounds of the kind a child makes when it wants its mother’s loving. He was well away. ‘Have a nice trip, Robert,’ she said. ‘See you when you get back.’ Then she went to the fridge for a cold one.
Outside, Thommo made a mental note of the upstairs flat number. He was still torn: would he bust straight in and give her a nice surprise, maybe even jump her too? Tempting. Wonder who else is there. He wiped a hand thoughtfully over his mouth, spat, then turned and hurried back to his car. Larry would definitely want to be in on this caper.
6
As soon as the Air New Zealand Airbus’s undercarriage made contact with the tarmac at Tullamarine, Wolfgang Lutz shut his eyes, breathed out and, as always, gave a silent prayer of thanks to Phoenix, the Great God of Aviation or whatever superior intelligence it was that kept these things in the air, against all natural laws as far as he could see. Planes. He hated flying and avoided it whenever possible, but unfortunately there were times – like now – when he just had to buckle up, sit tight and sweat it out, quite literally. It was a white-knuckle, dry-throated experience from start to finish for Wolfgang, who, whenever the aircraft struck even minor turbulence, straightaway went rigid and had visions of it breaking up or bursting into flames and p
lunging into the Tasman Sea, the way he’d seen it happen on the news a while back when a big jet went down off the African coast, right in front of holiday-makers sunbaking on the beach. It was an image that haunted Wolfgang every time he stepped onto an aircraft now. Christ, it didn’t have to be bad weather, terrorists or pilot error – a single spark, even a fucking flock of seagulls sucked into its engines could do the job. Having this terrible phobia was bad enough, but what made it infinitely worse was Wolfgang’s inability to conquer it, even though he knew it was all in his mind. He wasn’t the kind of man who accepted failure or defeat, but what else could he do.
The journey wasn’t made any easier by the fact that Wolfgang Lutz did not much care for Australia or Australians, who had an inflated opinion of their own importance, and treated Kiwis the way Brits treated the Irish. If he had his way he would never leave New Zealand, which suited him right down to the ground. Wolfgang was a born outdoors man who loved bushwalking, rock climbing, freshwater fishing, rafting, camping, the whole shebang. It was all right there at his doorstep. In fact, he’d been fly fishing in his favourite little mountain stream, gutting a magnificently stippled 500-gram brown trout on the sun-washed pebbly bank when the call came through on his mobile to come in straightaway. His superior, Bernie Welsh, had given no reason: it’s important, just do it, he’d said. Typical. This was the weekend, and Wolfgang was not pleased. Shit, it was his rostered weekend off, which he’d pointed out to Bernie, who told him to be there in two hours, if not sooner, then disconnected. Fuck him. It was a two-and-a-half hour drive back to Auckland, and that was how long he’d take. He pulled down his tent, loaded the Toyota and hit the track, winding his way down the lush slopes of Urewera National Park, which would take him down to the Bay of Plenty. Some of the finest country on God’s earth, and he’d only been amongst it for five minutes.
Coming off the 737 Airbus with his pack over his shoulder, Wolfgang did not have any problems at all spotting his Melbourne counterpart, even though he’d never seen him before. This was Alex ‘Mad Al’ Grimke, who was two metres tall and weighing in at one hundred and fourteen kilos or around eighteen stone on the old scale. The two men had worked together several times by phone or fax, but never managed to come face to face before. But Al’s reputation was as big as the man himself: veteran detective who had seen action in all the elite squads, including the infamous ‘majors’, a relentless investigator and inquisitor who struck real fear deep into the hearts of criminals without ever having to lay a finger on them. He was a calm, quiet man, with watery blue-grey eyes that never left you and hands the size of pork joints. It figured: he had been a heavyweight fighter in his younger days until a perforated eardrum terminated a promising career. He was so good he had considered turning professional, but then a well-aimed right cross extinguished all such thoughts. The nickname was ironic: no-one had ever seen Alex Grimke lose his temper, and no-one wanted to.