by Steve Toltz
“This is some mess,” Jasper said. “What are you going to do?”
Good point. This was major fraud. Everyone said it: Martin, you will have to prepare yourself for prison. How do you prepare yourself for such a thing? By locking yourself in the closet with some stale bread and water? But I’d have to do something. The odds against me were stacking up- stupidly, the state was even reopening the file on The Handbook of Crime. It suddenly occurred to them that they had a case after all. I was like a derelict building scheduled for demolition, and everyone was crowding around to watch.
My only hope was to try to pay back some of the money, on the off-chance that would appease the people a little. I would maintain that I had been as duped as they had, that I would do everything in my power to pay back every cent, even if I spent my life doing it. It was a weak ploy, but I gave it a shot. I had to sell my labyrinth. It was heartbreaking to have to part with what I had so meticulously designed and brought to life, not to achieve a dream of happiness but to achieve a dream of deep suspicion and loathing, a dream of hiding, a dream I had realized- it had hidden me loyally for years.
The day of the auction, I was advised by everyone with a mouth not to show up, but I couldn’t resist seeing who would be the new owner. Jasper was there too; after all, his hut would be sold in the bargain, the hut that we had both pretended to build with our bare hands. The prospective buyers numbered a thousand. I don’t know how many were bona fide bidders and how many turned up just to gawk.
I was overcome with queasy shivers as I arrived. Everyone looked at me and murmured. I yelled out that murmur is the devolution of speech. No one said anything after that. I took my place under my favorite tree, but it didn’t soothe my defeat; the enemy was drinking sparkling wine in the middle of the fortress designed to keep him out. People soon got caught in its teeth, though; it was satisfying how many had to be rescued from the maze. That delayed the proceedings. When the auction finally began, the auctioneer made a little speech referring to the house and the labyrinth as “the kingdom of one of Australia ’s most controversial minds,” which gave me an uneasy, anxious feeling as well as a perverse sense of pride. I folded my arms regally, even though I knew they found me laughable and not like some dethroned king. This labyrinth betrayed the extent of my inflated fears, insecurities, and paranoia, so I felt psychologically naked standing there. Did they know they were all gathered in the place that proved my contention that I was the most scared man alive?
In the end, because of its curiosity, insanity, or infamy, my labyrinth and the two properties hidden within went for an astounding $7.5 million, nearly ten times their worth. This predictably convinced both the press and its loyal subjects, the people, that I was a wealthy man, which of course only served to reinforce their hatred of me. The buyers, I learned, ran a chain of overpriced furniture stores, and they intended to open the place as a tourist attraction. Oh well. As indignities go, it’s not the worst.
I moved my books and my junk into storage and myself into an apartment Anouk rented for me and Caroline. I didn’t even get a chance to offer my $7.5 million to the people like a piece of meat to a dog who’d much rather bite off my leg. The government seized all my assets and froze my bank account. Seized and frozen, and just waiting for the authorities to charge me, I couldn’t be more powerless.
So, then- if I was being taken all the way down, I wanted to take someone with me. But who? I didn’t bother hating my countrymen for hating me. I saved every droplet in my vast reservoir of fury for my abhorrence for journalists, those phony, self-righteous moral watchdogs in heat. For what they did to my mother, to my father. For loving Terry. For hating me. Yes, I would have my revenge against them. I obsessed about this revenge. That’s why I didn’t crack. I wasn’t ready to fall apart yet. I conceived one last project. A hate project. A revenge project, despite the fact that I’ve never been good at revenge, even if it is mankind’s oldest pastime. I’ve never been into defending my honor, either. Personally, I don’t know how anyone can even say the word “honor” with a straight face. I ask you- what’s the difference between “stained honor” and “dented ego”? Does anyone really still believe this shit? No, I wanted revenge simply because the media had repeatedly wounded my ego, my id, and my superego, the whole shebang. And I was going to get them good.
I borrowed money from Caroline and told her it was for legal expenses. Then I called on a private detective named Andrew Smith. He worked out of his home with his wife and poodle and looked like an accountant, not a private investigator. In fact, he looked like he did nothing privately. When I sat down in his office and removed the hood and glasses, he asked what he could do for me. I laid it all out for him. And consummate professional that he was, he refrained completely from judging me for my little, mean-spirited, hate-filled plan. He listened quietly, and at the end gave me a thin-lipped smirk where only one side of his lips raised, and he said, “I’ll get right on it.”
***
Only two weeks later Andrew Smith came to me with that quasi-smile of his. He was as thorough in his mission as I’d hoped- he had broken I don’t know how many privacy laws and presented me with a dossier. While he fed his dog, I went through the files, giggling, gasping, and guffawing. It was an incredible dossier, and if I hadn’t had other plans for it, I could’ve published it as fiction and made the bestseller list. Now all I had left was to memorize it.
Then I set off to do the only really nasty thing I have ever done.
The live press conference was held on the steps of the Opera House, for no good reason. The smell of the harbor and of the media scrum mingled in the cold morning air. Every reporter, current affairs host, shock jock, and media personality in Sydney had shown up, and we all stood dwarfed by the bizarre geometry of that iconic theater. This reunion, it was something. Me and the media, like a divorced husband and wife meeting for the first time in years at the funeral of their only child.
As soon as I swaggered up to the podium, they posed their loaded questions, as if defending a high ideal. I cut them off.
“Hermaphrodites of the press. I have prepared a short statement: you wouldn’t know decency if it came up and shat on your face. That’s it. I told you it was short. But I’m not here to explain to you why you are parodies of your former selves, I’m here to answer your questions. And knowing how you all like to shout your questions at the same time with little or no regard for your comrades who might have small, fragile voices, I will address each of you individually, and you may ask your questions that way, one by one.”
I gestured to the journalist standing closest to me. “Ah, Mr. Hardy, I’m glad to see you here and not at your gambling counselor’s, where you go Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. What is your question? No? No question?”
They looked at each other in confusion.
“OK. What about you, Mr. Hackerman? I hope you’re not too tired- after all, a man with a wife and two mistresses must have a lot of energy. Your first mistress, twenty-four-year-old journalism student Eileen Bailey, and your second mistress, your wife’s sister June, obviously aren’t keeping you as busy as one would think.
“What’s going on? Where are the questions? What about you, Mr. Loader? I hope you’re not going to hit me with a question in the same way you hit your wife- five times, one police intervention. Did your wife drop the charges because she loves you or because she’s afraid of you? Anyway, what do you want to know? Nothing?”
I didn’t let up. I let loose. I let all the cats out of all the bags. I asked in turn about their marriage counselors, penile implants, hair transplants, cosmetic surgery, about one who had cheated his brother out of his inheritance, about seven who had cocaine addictions and one who’d left his wife just after she was diagnosed with breast cancer. By humiliating them one by one, I turned the assembled crowd into individuals again. They were unprepared, squirming and sweating under the glare of their own spotlight.
“Didn’t you tell your psychologist just last week tha
t you’ve always wanted to rape a woman? I have the recording right here,” I said, tapping my briefcase. What were a few defamation and invasion-of-privacy charges when I was going down for fraud? “And you, Clarence Jennings from 2CI. I heard from a certain hairdresser that you only like to sleep with your wife when she’s menstruating. Why is that? Come on! Out with it! The public has a right to know!”
They were swinging their cameras and microphones on each other. They wanted to shut them off, but they couldn’t miss the scoop when the competition was right there beside them. They didn’t know what to do or how to act. It was chaos! You can’t erase a live broadcast; their secret lives were dripping through television sets and radio speakers everywhere, and they knew it. They condemned each other out of habit, but then it was their turn in the sick limelight. They stared at me, at each other, disbelieving, ridiculed, like gnawed bones positioned upright. One removed his jacket and tie. Another sobbed. The majority wore terrified smiles. They appeared reluctant to move an inch. Caught with their pants down! Finally! These people had for too long taken on the importance of the subjects they reported on, strutting around as if they were celebrities themselves, yet laboring under the misapprehension that their lives were exclusively their own. Well, not anymore. They were caught in the morality traps they themselves had set. Branded by their own cruel irons.
I gave them a leering wink so they could be certain I had thoroughly enjoyed invading the sanctuary of their lives. Fear was in their throats- they were petrified. It was magnificent to watch the falling of great masses of pride.
“Now go home,” I said, and they did. They went off to drown their sorrows in beer and shadows. I stayed alone, with the silence saying everything it always says.
***
That night I celebrated by myself in Caroline’s apartment. She was there but wouldn’t inhale so much as a champagne bubble in the name of victory.
“Well, that was childish,” she said, standing at the fridge eating ice cream from the carton. Of course she was right. Nevertheless, I felt sublime. As it turned out, hateful revenge was the only pure aspiration from my youth that had survived intact, and its satisfaction, however puerile, deserved at least one glass of Moët et Chandon. But the awful inevitability of the situation had dawned on me: they’d be coming for me soon with redoubled strength. I must right now choose between the reality of prison and the reality of suicide. I thought I really would have to kill myself this time. I couldn’t do prison. I have a horror of all forms of uniform and most forms of sodomy. So suicide it was. According to the conventions of this society, I’d seen my son reach adulthood, so my death would be sad but not tragic. Dying parents are allowed to moan about not seeing their children grow up, but not about not seeing them grow old. Well, fuck- maybe I wanted to see my son graying and shrinking, even if I had to witness it through the foggy frosted glass of a cryogenic deep freeze.
What’s that? I hear a car. Shit. I hear footsteps. The haunting percussive beat of footsteps! They stop. Now I hear knocking! Someone’s knocking at the door! Suicide? Prison?
***
Well, what do you know: a third option!
I have to finish this off quick. There isn’t much time.
I came out of the bedroom to see Caroline curled up on the couch like a long skinny dog. “Don’t answer it,” she said, not speaking these words out loud but mouthing them noiselessly. I took off my shoes and crept up to the door. The floorboards complained under me. I gritted my teeth, took a few more creaky steps, and peeped through the peephole.
Anouk, Oscar Hobbs, and Eddie were standing there with big convex heads. I opened the door. They all hurried inside.
“OK. I’ve spoken to a friend in the federal police,” Oscar said. “I had a tip-off. They’re coming to arrest you tomorrow.”
“Morning or afternoon?” I asked.
“Does it matter?”
“Maybe a little. I can get a lot done in five or six hours.” That was just bravado. The truth was, I’ve never been able to get anything done in five or six hours. I need eight.
“And what’s he doing here?” I asked, pointing at Eddie.
“We’ve got to get out of here,” Eddie said.
“You mean- run?”
Eddie nodded with such energy he lifted up onto his toes.
“Well, if I decide to run, what makes you think I’d run with you? And where could we go anyway? The whole of Australia knows my face now, and it’s not something they cherish.”
“ Thailand,” Eddie said. “Tim Lung has offered to hide you.”
“That crook! What makes you think-”
“You’ll die here in jail, Marty.”
That settled things. Not even I would go to jail simply to be able to tell Eddie to fuck off. “But we’ll get stopped at the airport. They’ll never let me leave the country.”
“Here,” Eddie said, handing me a brown envelope. I looked inside and pulled out the contents. Australian passports. Four of them. One for me, one for him, one for Caroline, and one for Jasper. Our photos were there but the names were different. Jasper and I were Kasper and Horace Flint, Caroline was Lydia Walsh, and Eddie was Aroon Jaidee.
“How did you get these?” I asked.
“Courtesy of Tim Lung.”
Yielding to an impulse, I picked up an ashtray and hurled it against the wall. It didn’t change anything substantial.
“But it’s still my face on the passport!” I shouted.
“Don’t you worry about that,” Eddie said. “I have it all worked out.”
Caroline put her arms around me and we assaulted each other with whispered questions, each terrified to acknowledge the desires of the other lest they contradict.
“Would you like me to come with you?” Caroline asked.
“What do you want to do?”
“Will I make life hard for you on the run? Will I be in the way?”
“Do you want to stay?” I asked wearily.
“Dammit, Martin, just tell me one way or the other. Do you want me to work on your case from here?” Caroline offered, the idea having arrived at her lips at the same time it struck her brain. I understood that her questions were thinly veiled answers.
“Caroline,” Anouk said, “if Martin goes missing, the police are going to give you a pretty hard time.”
“So will the public,” Oscar added.
Caroline was suffering. The shape of her face seemed to lengthen like a shadow. I watched conflicting thoughts play out in her eyes.
“I’m scared,” she said.
“So am I.”
“I don’t want to leave you.”
“I don’t want to be left.”
“I do love you.”
“I was beginning to think…”
She put her finger on my lips. Normally I hate it when people shut me up, but I love it when women put their fingers on my lips.
“We’ll go together,” she said breathlessly.
“OK, we’re coming,” I said to Eddie “But why did you get a passport for Jasper? He doesn’t need to go on the run.”
“I think he should,” Eddie said.
“He wouldn’t.”
“The family that sticks together…” he said, without finishing. Maybe he thought I’d finish it for him. How could I? I have no idea what happens to the family that sticks together.
***
It was perhaps the saddest moment of my life, saying goodbye to Anouk. It was awful not to be able to say I would see her soon, or even later. There would be no soon. Nor a later. This was it. It was growing dark. The sun was setting with urgency. Everything had sped up. The air was charged. Oscar never forgot that he was taking a risk coming here; he tapped his finger on his leg with increasingly rapid intensity. The sand was racing through the hourglass. Anouk was desolate. We didn’t hug so much as we grasped each other. It’s only at the moment of goodbye that you understand the function of a person: Anouk had been there to save my life and she had done it, many times over.
I didn’t even know how to say “I don’t know what to say.” I just hugged her tighter while Oscar cleared his throat a dozen times. Then they left.
Now I am packed and waiting. The plane leaves in about four hours. Caroline is calling me. Though for some reason she is calling me Eddie. Eddie answers. They aren’t talking to me.
I think I’ll leave this manuscript here in a box in the apartment, and maybe one day it’ll be found and someone will have the smarts to publish it posthumously. Maybe it can act as a makeover from beyond the grave. Certainly the media and public will take our escape as concrete evidence of our guilt- they don’t have enough insight into human psychology to know that escape is evidence only of fear.
And now, on our way to the airport, we have to stop by Jasper’s apartment and say goodbye to him too. How am I going to say goodbye to my son? It was hard enough when he moved out of home, but what words will form the goodbye that says I’m going to live the rest of my days as Horace Flint in Thailand in a nest of seedy criminals? I suppose I’ll warm him with the consolation that his father, Martin Dean, will never be eradicated after all, but it will be Horace Flint who will earn himself a grave in some swampy Thai cemetery. That should cheer him up. OK. Now Caroline is really calling me. We have to go. The sentence I am now writing is the last sentence I will write.
SIX
I
Why, oh why did I go on the run too? Why did I throw in my lot with Dad, after all that had happened between us? Because I’m the dutiful son? You never know. I loved my father, no matter how imperfectly. Is that any reason? I mean, loyalty is one thing, but the man had destroyed my life, after all. That should’ve reserved me the right to let him tear off into the wilderness without me. He had meddled unforgivably in my relationship. OK, it wasn’t his fault I was in love with a girl who was not a girl but a building on fire. And it wasn’t his fault either that she chose a man who was not me. I had no case; I was me, and embarrassingly so. It wasn’t Dad’s fault I couldn’t strong-arm her affections, that I couldn’t think of an offer she couldn’t refuse. So she refused me, that’s all. Was it my father’s fault that this flaming edifice loved her failed ex-boyfriend and sacrificed us on the altar of that love? No, it wasn’t. But I blamed him anyway. That’s the great thing about blame; she goes where you send her, no questions asked.