‘So what the fuck do you think I should do?’ Her anger was hot and quick and Jack might have lit his cigarette off it. He stood there silent, suddenly seeing her confusion and the emotional edge that she was walking, poised on unsteady heels. Claudia was hurting for love and Jack was acquainted with the feeling. He had no idea what she should do. He could not offer her a thing.
‘Look,’ he said. ‘You just can’t trust Florez, okay?’
But she was touching Beaumont’s face now, red and raw as a split pomegranate. His nose was starting to swell and his eyes, too, and there was a deep slash denting his forehead a little below his perfect hair line: not bleeding, just a rich blue bruise that would no doubt spread to a wider area within the next couple of hours. His head would feel like a big hot ball of straining, sinewy pulp, leaking tears and waiting to burst, but never delivering the relief. Jack was glad — and hoped it hurt Claudia to look at it.
‘My darling …’ she said, but her eyes were vacant, her mind on something else.
‘My head,’ said Beaumont, reaching up but not touching it, as though having his hand just in the vicinity was enough to cause hard pain.
‘Just don’t move. I’ll call an ambulance.’
Jack tapped ash at Big Mick’s feet. ‘No ambulances.’
‘But he’s got a head injury, Jack. What if —’
‘What if it helped cure him of his stupidity?’
Claudia dug into her handbag, angry again. It was probably the best way to be: better a good hard feeling than a murky grey one. ‘I’m calling them,’ she said.
‘Then you can call the police while you’re at it.’
She looked up from the phone.
‘What are you waiting for?’
‘I’m fucking calling them,’ she said, but not convinced anymore.
‘I need this to go away,’ said Jack. ‘And so do you. And he definitely does.’ He stubbed his cigarette and moved to push the situation past her. He stood over Beaumont. ‘Can you stand up? You’ve got to get out of here.’
‘Jesus.’ Then he noticed his fiancée at last. ‘Claudia?’
She stared at him.
‘What are you doing here?’
‘Looking for you.’
‘Hey, Beaumont?’ Jack was not interested in a show. ‘Are you listening to me?’
The guy looked up, squinting through pain and swelling. ‘What?’
‘You need to get out of here.’
‘Why?’
Jack nodded at Mick’s huge dead body on the floor.
‘Fuck!’ Beaumont pulled back in shock.
‘Is the picture coming to you yet?’
‘Did you kill him?’
‘No, son. You did.’
‘What?’ Terror filled his battered face, bleeding some of the colour of the welt that had consumed it. He looked at his right hand, to see if the gun was still there.
‘Get a grip. You need to hustle. Claudia can take you.’
He stared at the body. ‘Was he after me?’
‘I don’t think so.’ Jack was pretty sure that Mick had come to return the kick to the nuts from the card game. That he was following Beaumont did not seem likely: if Mick had known where he was beforehand, he would not have waited to grab the guy. ‘I’ve got to make a phone call.’
‘Jack.’ Claudia now reached for his arm.
He stopped, gave her a half-arsed glare, because he was angry now too, but could never hold it when she was looking at him like that. ‘You know what?’ he said, rushing, so that he said it and did not stumble over his regret. ‘Everything that’s wrong in this room here right now has got nothing to do with me. You people brought it in. Understand?’
‘I know.’
‘Jesus, like I need this and … and you and … the whole goddamn kit.’
‘I know.’
Jack pulled up in surprise: was that sympathy in her face?
‘I’ll get Duncan out of here. Can you handle that?’ She nodded at the body.
‘What?’
‘I agree,’ she said, eyes sparkling but straight. ‘You need to get rid of it, Jack. And so do I.’
He glanced down at Mick then back at the beautiful woman who was driving him nuts. She looked like she knew what she was talking about. ‘A second ago it was call the cops,’ he said.
‘No cops. I’ll get the mess out of here.’ She stepped towards him and leaned into his ear, and the smell and hot presence of her made him go temporarily blind. ‘I’m sorry, Jack,’ she said. And kissed him on the mouth.
Beaumont groaned. ‘My fucking head!’
‘Come on,’ said Claudia, quickly bending down to him. ‘Let’s go.’
Jack stared at them for a moment. ‘Wait.’ The kiss lingered warm on his lips. He did not want her to go. ‘Just wait there a second, okay?’ He turned and left the storeroom, his brain plummeting through thick clouds of confusion. But one thing was for sure: Claudia Brandt was not telling him everything that was going on in her sweet sexy brain.
Back at the counter, he dialled Astrid’s number.
‘Hello?’
‘It’s Jack.’
‘Hey, darling, how are —’
‘I’ve got Beaumont.’
‘What? What are you talking about?’
‘If you want him, come around to the shop.’ Jack thought of her Porsche. ‘But bring something with a boot.’
‘You want to tell me what’s going on, Jack?’
‘When you get here.’
A pause while she did some thinking. Then: ‘Beaumont’s there?’
‘That’s what I said. Bring a car with a decent-sized boot and you can have him. As long as you’re a good girl and don’t ask any more questions.’
‘Is he dead?’
‘Not yet.’ His mouth was doing the talking, but not necessarily because his brain was telling it what to do. ‘Don’t be long. Glendenning wants him as well.’
Jack hung up. He checked the front door for any customers hanging around, saw none and picked up the phone again.
Sinclair eventually answered. ‘Bookstalk. Yeah?’
‘Chester. It’s Jack.’
‘Didn’t you just hang up on me, you motherfucker?’
‘Customers, what can I say? And there’s a dead guy in my storeroom. Look, thirty bucks a box, okay?’
Sinclair took a sharp breath, ready to loose a salvo of expletives, but then held it. Let the air out slow. ‘Twenty-five.’
‘Twenty-nine fifty.’ Jack was in a hurry but knew the guy loved to haggle. The indulgence was necessary.
‘Six.’
‘Eight.’ Jack could hear Claudia and Beaumont arguing, coming to him unclear but punctuated with shouting.
‘Twenty-seven nothing and that’s fucking it, Susko.’
‘Done. I’ll send them around right away.’
A pause. ‘So why’d you change your mind?’ Chester Sinclair, always with a nose for rats in the hold.
‘Couple of bills in the mail,’ said Jack, as straight as he could muster. ‘The postman always stings twice.’
‘What?’
‘Don’t worry about it. I’m sending a guy around now, okay?’
‘All right.’ Sinclair, dubious. ‘Just don’t slip any fucking romance novels into the stock. Cause I’m checking the lot.’
The line fuzzed faintly. ‘Till next time, Chester.’
Jack walked back into the storeroom. Beaumont had not moved. Neither had Mick. Claudia stood over her fiancé, arms crossed. A new tension in the room, but he did not want to know. He said to her: ‘Have you got a car?’
‘Yes.’
‘Bring it round the back. There’s a bookshop out on Glebe Point Road where you can wait unti
l I get there. Just deliver some boxes and then hang around, look at the books.’
Beaumont lifted his head out of his hands: face pale but red in the cheeks where his knuckles had pressed. ‘Why?’
‘Astrid is coming,’ said Jack. ‘You know, the chick that tried to shoot you in the car park? Probably better you’re not here when she arrives.’
‘I don’t get it,’ said Beaumont. ‘You’re not calling the cops?’
‘Jesus, just shut up, Duncan, okay?’ Claudia was shaking her head. ‘We’ve all had enough of Mr Stupid, yeah? Do as Jack says.’
Her fiancé frowned, confused. Her tone was all venom and no love. Jack was starting to feel awkward, and not just because there was a dead body in the room.
‘Everybody wants to kill you, understand?’ she said. ‘So just don’t fucking say anything for a while.’ Claudia was letting Beaumont wear it large.
She got no arguments from Jack. He had his own situation to contend with. He wanted Astrid to take the dead body and make it somebody else’s problem. If she saw Beaumont there, then Jack knew she would just let Mr ASIC fly for it and solve Ziggy’s problem nice and neat: of course, leaving Jack with the cops, too, handling the end that Brandt had tossed him with the eviction notice. Once the body was gone, Claudia could sort it out with her fiancé fool.
‘I’ll write down the address,’ he said. ‘It’s a big second-hand bookshop, you can’t miss it. The guy’s name is Chester. Give him the boxes, tell him you’re browsing and then I’ll come and tell you when it’s all clear.’
Beaumont went to say something, his eyes round and grateful, but Jack held up his hand. ‘Save it,’ he said. ‘I’ll bust you on this in a second if you don’t do exactly as I say. We clear?’
Beaumont nodded.
‘I’ll get you an umbrella.’
Claudia grabbed him by the arm. ‘Thank you, Jack.’
He looked at her, saw the lost expression and the anger in her eyes. Somehow knew it was not meant for him. ‘Maybe later you can tell me what’s going on.’
‘Sure,’ she said. ‘Soon as Duncan explains it all to me.’ Grinned, but not like anything was funny.
26
Astrid was not happy. She stood over Mick’s body. ‘How did it happen?’
‘The gun went off in Beaumont’s hand after a bit of door frame smacked him in the head.’
‘Jesus.’
‘They both went down at pretty much the same time.’
‘Nice of you to call me.’
‘I figured you’d want to take care of it. Better than me calling Ziggy from Detective Sergeant Keith Glendenning’s office.’
She gave him a look. ‘You told me Beaumont was here. He go out for coffee?’
‘Took off while I was calling you.’
‘Right.’
‘That’s it, then,’ said Jack.
‘You expect me to move the prick all by myself?’ Astrid shook her head, fists pressed into her hips. She was wearing tight black jeans, a grey hoodie under her red puffer vest, and black hiking shoes. ‘I don’t think so, Jack. You want this shit to go away, then you’re coming with me.’
‘In the Porsche?’
‘Yeah, in the fucking Porsche. You can squeeze into the rear shelf.’
‘What, and stick my feet out of the window?’
‘You’re coming with me,’ said Astrid, crossing her arms now. ‘Or I’m out of here and you deal with it.’
Jack frowned: not exactly his plan, but at least he had talked her into getting rid of the body. She was very annoyed that Jack had lied to her about Beaumont being there, but he had seen an idea flash in her eyes: something about Jack’s scenario had appealed to her.
‘Okay,’ he said, left with no choice. ‘Let’s do it then.’ As long as the body was gone from Susko Books, that was all he cared about.
Astrid had parked the Porsche in Market Row. ‘He’s going to bleed all over my fucking car.’
‘Wait a sec.’ Jack went out into the shop. A customer had left a jacket in there a couple of weeks ago, a brown corduroy blazer, now stowed behind the counter. He found it and went back into the storeroom, handing it to Astrid. ‘Use this.’
It was too small for Mick’s broad shoulders, so Astrid draped it over the leather passenger seat. Then she slid the seat back as far as it would go. ‘You head, me feet,’ she said.
Jack removed his coat and slipped off his jumper, down to an old cotton shirt. If he got blood on it, he could throw it away later. As he looked at the body of Kippax’s right-hand man, he was surprised at his criminal attention to detail.
Don’t think about it. He bent down to the body.
It was like trying to shift a giant sack of potatoes, but they managed to squeeze him in. Jack straightened the body out as best he could, until it looked like somebody sleeping a big night off. The tinted windows of the Porsche and the rain would help hide the dark hole in his chest.
‘You get in the car,’ said Jack. ‘I’ll just be a minute.’
‘Hurry up.’
He checked himself for blood: a little smudge on the shirttails. He removed the shirt and dropped it onto the newspaper on the floor. Grabbed a roll of tape and a plastic bin liner and shoved the shirt and the blood-soaked newspaper into the bag. There was a small faint stain on the concrete. Jack scuffed at it with his shoe and dust ate into the reddish shade: it would have to do. From a cardboard box he ripped off a flap and taped it over the sledgehammer hole in his door. He did not worry about the bullet hole. A quick glance around: everything looked okay, normal. Outside, he locked up and inspected Mick’s handiwork with the hammer. It was rough, but nobody would pay it any special attention: just another battered laneway door in the city.
Astrid got out of the Porsche and tilted the seat forward. Jack threw the sledgehammer and the plastic bag onto the floor, then squeezed in. He had to half lie on his side along the small shelf there between the seats and the motor idling behind. About as comfortable as getting into a kitchen cupboard: he felt every jolt of the car’s suspension like a punch to his body.
‘Where are we going?’
Astrid swung down Druitt Street, drove fast and then left into Sussex. She grinned into the rear-view mirror. ‘Kippax’s place,’ she said. ‘Where else?’
Out of the Porsche’s window, over big dead Mick’s shoulder, Jack saw somebody exit an elevator in the Lumiere’s underground car park. He watched the woman head towards the car: his guts did a half-pike, full twist and somersault. It was the blonde concierge that he had seen on the night of Kippax’s card game. She approached the Porsche, pushing a white plastic bin on coaster wheels. It looked big enough to accommodate at least a week’s worth of bottle recycling — or maybe one curled-up dead man who had caught a slug in the chest. The thing rattled and shook loudly in the echoing cold of oil-stained concrete all around them, but she seemed casual and showed no concern, as though she was just helping out the cleaners.
Astrid climbed out of the car and stretched. Jack followed, banging his head as he backed out of the rear. He turned to her, standing beside him.
‘She a lesbian, too?’ he said.
‘Why don’t you try and find out?’
‘I’m not wearing my Lynx deodorant today.’ Jack felt like the last guy to the scene of a car crash, trying to see in over the crowd. ‘So she works for Ziggy, too, huh?’
‘No, Jack. She works for me.’
‘Heisting card games a sideline to your day job?’
‘Helps pay the bills.’
‘And Brandt doesn’t mind?’
‘He likes it that I can annoy his various business rivals in particularly annoying ways.’
‘I’m sure he does. How much did you get out of the Kippax job?’
‘Lots. It took ages to count.’
&nb
sp; ‘Good. Then you can give me my money back.’
Astrid grinned, not looking at him. ‘Francine told me you were up but that last hand was going to clean you out.’
‘Never happened though, did it?’
‘You expect me to play by the rules?’
‘You expect me to?’
She turned to him with a small yawn. ‘We’ll see, Jackie-O.’
‘See what?’
‘How this all plays out.’ She moved around to the passenger side door as the concierge parked the bin beside the Porsche. ‘Come on. Help get this lug out of my fucking car.’
Jack helped. He tried not to think too hard about what he was doing. He nodded at the concierge. ‘Aren’t you going to introduce us?’ he said to Astrid.
The blonde said: ‘I already know who you are, Jack.’
‘Oh, good.’
‘Yeah,’ she said, smiling. ‘Hey, listen. Francine said to say sorry and hello.’
‘Tell her I want it in writing. On the back of a photograph. Twelve by five.’
‘Don’t make me jealous.’
‘Could I do that?’
‘I’m sure you could do lots of things.’
‘If only people would give me a chance.’
‘Don’t hesitate, Jack. Take your opportunities. The world flashes by every second.’
‘So only philosopher lesbians can join the gang, is that right?’
‘Come on,’ said Astrid. ‘Let’s get out of here.’
Jack got him under the arms again and the three of them hauled Big Mick out of the Porsche and got him into the bin. Then Jack grabbed the sledgehammer and placed it next to the body. Nearly over. But as he straightened up and took a deep breath, it was dread that filled his lungs, harsh and leaden. He knew, suddenly, like a smack to the cheek, that he was now in this. What the hell was he doing?
Astrid grabbed the bloodstained jacket she had draped over the passenger seat. ‘What do you want to do with this?’
Jack stared at it a moment. ‘There’s a plastic bag in the back.’ A little panic in his voice. Should he have called Glendenning? Not even an hour ago, it had all been clear to him, or so he had thought: you people come here and get your goddamn mess out of my house. But every step he had taken since then had bound him further to the same people. It was his mess and always had been.
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