by Robin Storey
‘But no haggis,’ he added.
She shook his hand. ‘Thanks, Reuben, same to you.’
‘There’s no danger of Santa bringing me any haggis...’
‘See you next year,’ she said firmly.
As Reuben opened the door, he heard the tinkling of a mobile phone. He recognised the ring tone as the theme song from the TV show The Addams Family. He glanced back and saw Lucy pick up a mobile phone from the desk.
‘Hullo,’ he heard her say as he closed the door. So she liked The Addams Family, the first thing he knew they had in common. As a child, he’d watched every re-run and even at that young age was fascinated by Morticia with her glossy black hair and impossibly tight dresses.
But there was no time to reflect on this important discovery. On the pavement outside the parole office, Reuben dialled Bomber’s number and let it ring three times again to signal the end of the interview. Almost immediately the phone rang back. Reuben swallowed hard. ‘Yes?’
‘Meet me in the Parkside Tavern in ten minutes. Public bar.’
‘Okay.’
The Parkside Tavern was two blocks away, modern tiled brick, fronted by a huge sign proclaiming that Monday nights was all-you-can-eat pasta for $8, Tuesday was karaoke night and on Saturday night the Rusty Screwdrivers were playing. Apparently nothing much happened between Wednesday and Saturday.
Bomber was hunched over a beer staring at a surfing clip on the TV. Reuben bought a light beer and sat down across from him.
‘This operation is jinxed,’ Bomber said.
Thank God. It had worked.
‘Why do you say that?’
‘Some bloke was hanging around in the car park, reckoned he was waiting for his girlfriend, and chewed my ear off. He wouldn’t fuckin’ shut up – he was a bit simple, a sandwich short of a picnic.’
‘That was bad luck. Why didn’t you tell him to fuck off?’
Bomber drummed his fingers on his beer glass and looked away. ‘I got a nephew like that. Goes to special school. He’s the greatest kid...’
He took a swig of his beer. ‘I told him to piss off but he didn’t understand.’
He paused. ‘Not a friend of yours, is he?’
Reuben met his gaze. ‘What do you mean by that?’
The words came out with more force than he intended. Bomber said nothing, just stared at the TV screen. A gigantic wave barrelled a hapless surfer off his board to disappear in a flurry of foam.
‘Are you saying I’ve deliberately sabotaged this operation?’
Bomber shrugged. ‘It’s funny that something’s happened both times to put a spanner in the works.’
‘Do you really think I’d be so stupid as to try and deceive Frank?’
‘Mate, I hardly know you, I don’t know how stupid you are.’
‘Not that stupid, I can tell you. I know Frank and I know what he’s capable of. He’s threatened to kill my wife if I don’t do this, so I’m not about to stuff it up.’
Bomber downed his beer and slammed the glass on the table. ‘This business is shitting me. I just want the moolah and to fuck off outta here. The old girl’s driving me crazy.’
His eyes lit up and he gave a low whistle. Reuben followed his gaze. Two young women in short dresses, tights and boots were standing at the bar. As they headed towards a table, drinks in their hands, Bomber called out, ‘There’s a seat here, sweetheart!’ He dragged a chair from a nearby table, placed it next to him and patted the seat.
The girls looked at each other. ‘In your dreams, loser!’ one of them called.
‘As if !’ the other said, and they sauntered off, giggling.
‘Stupid little sluts.’ Bomber got up. ‘Well, it’s nice not doing business with you, Littledick. No doubt we’ll meet again soon.’
He ambled out the front door. His hair looked as if it hadn’t been washed for days, his shirt hung out over his belt and his jeans sagged in the crotch. The two girls, sitting near the door, exchanged glances and burst into giggles again. Reuben finished his beer and resisted the temptation to have another.
***
As he started the engine of the Barbiemobile, his jeans pocket vibrated. There was a text message on the mobile phone Frank had given him. ‘City Botanical Gardens 3pm tomorrow. Now dispose.’
Bad news travels fast. Reuben drove through the car park to the rear of the hotel and stopped at the industrial garbage bin. He took the sim card out of the mobile phone and threw the phone in the bin, where it lay glinting amongst the food scraps and papers. He placed an empty pizza box on top of it so it wasn’t visible and zoomed off.
The house was in silence when he arrived home. Carlene hadn’t arrived home from work yet. He ran the bath, pouring in some of her scented bubbles, and submerged himself in it with a Mandrake comic and the Boston Stranglers, in their punk rock phase, screeching from his iPod speakers.
He was on a yacht with Lucy, the water lapping gently at the hull. Lucy stripped off and dived into the ocean, the firm, pale moons of her buttocks sliding into the glassy water. Reuben dived in after her. The water was freezing and he broke out in goosebumps. When he opened his eyes, Carlene was standing beside the bath with his mobile phone in her hand. She put it on the sink.
‘Your phone was ringing.’ She was still in her work clothes. ‘And you’re drooling again.’
He wiped his mouth and glanced down at his nether regions. Thank God he didn’t have an erection. The bubbles had disappeared, exposing his cock floating on the cold water like a listless sea slug.
Carlene leaned over and gave it a playful tug. ‘Your poor baby. You must have been tired. Did you remember the lamb?’
Shit, the lamb for tonight’s curry. Somehow it had slipped his mind, what with saving Lucy’s life.
Carlene’s shoulders stiffened. ‘You’re hopeless. I ask you to do just one little thing and you can’t even do that.’
She stalked out. Reuben got out of the bath and dried himself. There was a voicemail message on his phone. A voice hummed the first few bars of Mission Impossible, then said in a conspiratorial tone, ‘Mission accomplished. Except for the moolah. Ring me.’
Reuben sent a text message. ‘Tomorrow 4pm. Coffee Club, Adelaide St, City.’
The reply came back immediately. ‘Skinny iced chocolate with cream please.’
***
At ten past three, Reuben arrived at the front gates of the Botanical Gardens. He’d had to leave work half an hour early, pleading a doctor’s appointment. Joe glared at him. ‘You look as strong as an ox to me. What’s wrong with you?’
‘Er…’ Reuben racked his brains for an affliction that was not too serious or socially unacceptable. ‘I’ve got an ingrown toenail, the doctor said it needs immediate treatment.’ He assumed a pained expression. ‘It’s very painful.’
Joe shook his head. ‘When I was in the army in Malta, I marched twenty miles with an ingrown toenail. And a twenty kilo-pack on my back.’ He waved his arm in dismissal. ‘You ... you metrosexuals, you have no idea!’
Thank God for that. ‘Thanks, I appreciate you giving me the time off.’ Reuben limped out as quickly as he dared before Joe changed his mind.
He sped into the city on the Barbiemobile. Each time the speedometer crept up over sixty kilometres, he glanced nervously over his shoulder, half-expecting to see a police car appear and pull him over. SC Bonazzi’s warning was still fresh in his mind. What if the police had somehow found out about his association with Franks and Bomber? Forget it, you’re becoming paranoid. That’s what a guilty conscience does to you. In the city, he parked in an underground car park and ran the three blocks to the Botanical Gardens, dodging and weaving through the pedestrians.
Stopping inside the entrance gates, he surveyed the path winding through the rolling expanse of lawn, garden and gigantic Moreton Bay fig trees. Frank hadn’t specified a meeting place – how in hell was he supposed to find him? Was this supposed to be some kind of test? Did he leave a trail of breadcrumbs?
To his far left was a small pond, a family of ducks weaving gracefully through the lily pads. An elderly man and a little girl stood at the edge of the pond watching them. On a nearby seat, with his back to Reuben, sat a man in a pale blue shirt and black cap, a newspaper spread out on his lap. It was obvious he wasn’t reading it.
Reuben walked over to the seat and sat beside him. The little girl threw a piece of bread into the pond. ‘Look, Grandpa!’ she squealed as the drake paddled over and scooped it up in its beak.
Frank wore large wrap-around sunglasses that made him look like a gigantic blowfly. Without acknowledging Reuben’s presence he said, ‘I love the simple things in life, don’t you?’
Expecting a reprimand for being late, Reuben said nothing, surmising the question to be rhetorical.
‘Ducks swimming on ponds, a cold beer on a hot afternoon and I especially love it when a plan comes together.’
The little girl shrieked and jumped up and down as the ducks gobbled up the bits of bread as quickly as she threw them in.
‘That’s why I’m mightily pissed off, Littledick. Not to mention Bomber. And a pissed off Bomber is not someone you’d want to have around.’
What did he mean by that? That Bomber would exact revenge and blow up the Barbiemobile? Was it possible to hide a bomb in a motor scooter? Perhaps a small pink bomb – anything was possible with modern technology. He saw himself turn the ignition and the Barbiemobile explode in a ball of flame; pieces of flesh, bone and pink fibreglass flying through the air. He gulped.
‘Believe me, Frank, I’m just as pissed off as you are. I don’t want it dragging on either.’
That at least was the truth.
‘So you’re telling me it was pure coincidence that dickhead just happened to be walking past when Bomber was about to do the deed?’
‘Of course it was, do you honestly think I’d sabotage your plans and risk my wife’s life?’
‘Maybe you don’t like your wife; maybe you just married her for the money.’
‘That’s not true. I love my wife.’
Did he just say that? He’d never said those exact words before, probably because in the normal course of conversation you didn’t tell people you loved your wife – they just assumed you did.
Reuben was about to protest further but stopped himself. Don’t say too much, it makes you sound guilty.
Frank foraged in his pants pocket and pulled out a fat cigar. He unwrapped the cellophane, lit the cigar with a silver and gold lighter, and puffed furiously on it. Clouds of foul-smelling smoke billowed around them.
‘Yuk, Grandpa, what’s that smell?’ the little girl said.
The old man darted a hostile look at Frank. ‘Some people are very inconsiderate, sweetheart. Come on, we’ll go and get an ice-cream.’
The little girl tucked her hand into her grandfather’s and trotted beside him, twisting around to stare at Frank with big, appraising eyes.
‘Thank bloody God,’ Frank grunted. ‘Now I can think without that kid screeching in my ear.’
Reuben’s eyes were watering. He leaned back in his seat, away from the smoke stream.
‘Okay, Littledick, I’m giving you one last chance. You’re so fucking smart, you come up with a plan. And it better be fool-proof or the deal’s off, and you can kiss good-bye to wifey-poo.’
‘Can I give it some thought and get back to you?’
Frank looked at his watch. ‘I’ll give you five.’
‘Five hours?’
‘Five minutes.’
‘Right.’
Think. Plan. Kill Lucy. Reuben’s brain froze.
‘So we’re still going with the car bomb?’
Frank gave a heavy, cigar-smoke filled sigh. ‘The good thing about a bomb, Littledick, is that it can be planted to go off at a certain time, which means we’re out of there when it happens. Unless you have any other brilliant suggestions?’
‘No, car bomb is fine.’
Frank looked at his watch again. ‘Four minutes.’
That damn well wasn’t a minute. Think, for fuck’s sake. Reuben glanced at the newspaper folded in Frank’s lap. A paragraph caught his eye.
‘Hackers Cost Millions.’
‘Computer hackers have cost businesses world-wide millions of dollars in fraudulent transactions and damage control...’
An idea appeared like a huge, shining light bulb above him. ‘I know a guy,’ he blurted out, ‘a genius with computers. I’ll get him to hack into Lucy’s Facebook page and suss out her social life.’
‘How do you know she’s got a Facebook page?’
‘Of course she has, they all do. If it’s not Facebook, it’s Myspace or something similar. Whatever it is, he’ll find it. I’m not kidding, this guy could hack into the World Bank.’
‘And then what?’
‘If he can find out where she’s going to be on a certain night, a party or some other do, then we go and do the deed on the car while she’s there, under the cover of darkness.’
Frank leant back and stared at the sky, puffing on his cigar. Reuben could almost hear the cogs turning in his brain.
‘This mate – has he got enough sense to keep his mouth shut? And what’s in it for him?’
‘He wouldn’t be doing what he’s doing if he was the sort who blabbed. And he owes me a favour, a big one. I got him out of a nasty scrape.’
‘What sort of scrape?’
‘It’s a long story – suffice to say it involved a woman, a very stroppy woman.’
‘They always do.’ Frank said. He sat up and stubbed out his cigar on the seat. ‘It needs more work. Get the Facebook thing happening and we’ll go from there.’
‘Just one thing - she’s going on holidays in a couple of days, won’t be back until the New Year.’
‘Bloody hell! Where’s she going?’
‘Scotland.’
‘Scotland? Why the fuck is she going there?’
Reuben shrugged. ‘I don’t know, perhaps she has relatives there. Or maybe she likes men in kilts.’
‘Anyway,’ he added, ‘my mate will need some time. It’s not something he can do in a few hours.’ He had no idea if that were true, but at least it would buy him some time.
‘At this rate she’ll die of old age before we get to her. And just tell your mate as much as he needs to know to do the job. I’m warning you, if there’s a leak, I’ll know exactly where it’s coming from. And then...’
He made a gun with his fingers and pointed it towards Reuben’s head.
CHAPTER 22
Thommo stuffed the fat envelope in his jeans pocket. ‘That’s the easiest three hundred dollars I’ve ever made. You got any more jobs like that?’
Reuben shook his head. ‘Afraid not. How did it go?’
Thommo shovelled a large dollop of cream into his mouth. ‘I decided beforehand to pretend to be a bit simple – some would say, not much pretence. Usually people are more tolerant if you’re handicapped. I raved on about cars and how much I loved them, and he was getting impatient so he got his gear out and started cleaning the windscreen, hoping I s’pose that I’d go away. But instead I grabbed a cloth and started helping him.’
He grinned. ‘That tested his patience because I made a few smears on the windows and he got really agitated then. He was almost bursting with the effort of not telling me to fuck off. Then a woman who’d parked her car near us came back from her shopping and was listening
to me, and that made him even more annoyed. Then when the time was up, I said I was meeting my girlfriend and hoped to bump into him again one day. He just sort of smiled through gritted teeth. But I bet he gave the cat a good hard kick when he got home.’
‘That was a good call, doing the simpleton thing.’
‘So, mission accomplished?’
Reuben nodded.
Thommo polished off his iced chocolate with a slurp and a belch. He leaned back in his chair and patted his stomach.
‘I really must lose some weight. Why does food have to be so fucking delicious?’
The tinkling of a mobile phone sounded nearby. The man at the next table dug into his pocket, and two women on the other side scrabbled around in their handbags. Reuben suddenly recognised the ring tone and dragged his phone out of his pocket just in time.
‘Reuben, this is Bruce Berkeley.’
‘Who? ... Oh, hullo.’
‘I have some good news. You have a part in the Becker beer ad.’
‘Really? Wow – I mean, thank you.’
‘It’s not the part you auditioned for, though. I want you to play the barman.’
‘The barman?’
Thommo was looking at him intently.
‘It’s not a speaking part but it’s an important one.’
‘So what do I do?’
‘Look obliging and pull a few beers.’
‘I think I could probably manage that.’
‘Fantastic, I’ll ring you soon with the details of the shoot. Enjoy the rest of your day.’
‘You got a part in the beer ad, didn’t you?’ Thommo said.
Reuben nodded.
Thommo thumped the table. ‘Fuck it, it’s so unfair! I’ve been slaving away for years and the best I can do is an extra in a crowd scene and you score a part at your first audition!’
‘Chill out,’ Reuben said. ‘I got the part of the barman; it’s not even a speaking part. All I get to do is pour beer.’
‘At least you can’t forget your lines. And they might let you drink the beer.’
‘I doubt it. And what’s so good about not having any lines? It’ll be boring as batshit standing there looking – how did he put it? – obliging and not saying a word.’