by Robin Storey
Thommo considered this. ‘I s’pose it doesn’t sound that good.’
‘Spot-on. And by the end of the day, my face will be aching from all that smiling, and I’ll be so sick of pulling beer that it will put me off it for life. Or at least, a few days.’
‘So really, it’s a crap job, isn’t it?’
‘Totally.’
Thommo blew out a sigh. ‘Thank God for that. For a moment there, I thought you were one up on me.’
He eyed off the chocolate mint beside Reuben’s coffee. ‘Mind if I have that?’
Reuben’s mobile phone rang again. ‘Hi, honey, just reminding you about picking up the milk. Where are you?’
‘I’m in a coffee shop.’
‘By yourself?’
‘No ... I’m with Finn.’
‘You didn’t tell me he was in town again! Why don’t you invite him home for dinner tonight?’
‘He’s busy tonight.’ Reuben watched Thommo as he returned to the table after ordering another iced chocolate. An idea flashed into his mind. Two in one day – he hadn’t lost his touch after all.
‘I tell you what, he’s in town for a few days, I’ll see if he’s free on Saturday night.’
He put his hand over the phone. ‘Are you free on Saturday night?’ he asked Thommo.
‘Let me check my diary.’ He stared into space, frowning. ‘I could have a hot date.’
Reuben drew a dollar sign on the table with his finger.
‘But then again, probably not. What’s the occasion?’
‘I’ll tell you in a minute.’
‘He’s free on Saturday night,’ he said into the phone, ‘so I’ve invited him over. He’s looking forward to meeting you. And I won’t forget the milk.’
He pressed the ‘off’ button and looked at Thommo. ‘How would you like another job?’
***
Reuben went into the study and retrieved his folder of personal documents. Although he’d gone through his effects and thrown out everything pertaining to his old life, it was possible he still had Curly Hansen’s number somewhere. It had been a while since Reuben had last spoken to him. Six years ago, Curly had set up his and Derek’s computer system for the business, to ensure their financial transactions couldn’t be tracked. In the end though, the police cracked it but only because Reuben and Derek confessed all in return for the prospect of a lighter sentence.
A couple of years later, Reuben heard on the grapevine that Curly had married a rich old Chinese woman. It hadn’t surprised him as Curly was a notorious gold-digger, but the price he had to pay was making love to an old woman. Reuben shuddered at the thought.
He flipped through his papers. Birth certificate, Year Twelve exam results, the last letter his mother had written him in her spidery handwriting, a dog-eared faded photo of him and his mother at his Year Seven graduation - Reuben chubby-faced and grinning, his mother tall and proud in her best dress and hat. A sharp pain stabbed his chest. Old computer manual, instructions for a TV he no longer owned, a solicitor’s account for representation in court – had he paid that? He flipped back to the computer manual. Operating instructions for a Dell, top of the range back then. On the back was scribbled in pencil ‘Curly’ and a phone number. It was unlikely he still lived at the same address, but it was worth a try.
He dialled the number. A lazy-voiced female said Curly no longer lived there.
‘What do you want him for?’
‘He’s an old friend, I just want to catch up.’
‘Honey, Curly has no friends; only creditors and complainants. Which one are you?’
‘As a matter of fact, he does owe me money.’
‘Join the queue. I’ll give you his mobile number, but I’m warning you, you’ll get fuck all. That old ‘Chink’ he’s shacked up with is the one with all the dough.’
Reuben wrote down the number and thanked her.
‘Good luck, luv, you’ll need it.’
He rang the number. A male voice answered. ‘Yes?’
The voice was faint against the blaring of a TV.
‘Curly? How are you? It’s Reuben.’
‘Who?’
‘Reuben. Reuben Littlejohn.’
‘Rubie! How the fuck are you? Hang on, I’ll turn the telly down.’
A pause then sudden silence. ‘To what do I owe this pleasure? I thought you were still inside.’
‘I was a good boy so they let me out. I’ve got a favour to ask you.’
‘What sort of favour?’ His tone was instantly wary.
‘A computer-type of favour. You’re still into that, aren’t you?’
‘For a select few. I’m in semi-retirement, mate, got myself an old lady who’s loaded and as much mull as I want.’
‘This is kind of urgent, so I’d like to see you ASAP.’
‘I’m pretty busy at the moment.’
His voice was slow and languid; he was probably smoking a joint as he spoke.
‘I thought you said you were semi-retired.’
‘Doesn’t mean I’m sitting on my arse all day waiting for people to call around and ask me favours. Tell you what, I’m free tonight. Why don’t you come over? The old lady’s doing her specialty; deep-fried pig trotters.’
He and Carlene had been invited to a dinner party at Alec and Nancy’s. He was sure the guests would include at least one local industry bigwig who would profess an interest in finding Reuben a job. Weighed up against the pig trotters, the trotters won hands-down. But there was no hope of weaselling out of the dinner party.
‘Where do you live?’ he asked Curly.
‘Highgate Hill, 34 Wesley Street.’
Not too far. Into the city, over the William Jolly Bridge and another couple of kilometres. He could be there in half an hour. He looked at his watch. A quarter to five. They were expected at her parents’ place at six-thirty. He made some quick calculations. It was tight, but doable.
‘How about I come over now? I’ll have to pass on the pig trotters though.’
‘Suit yourself.’
He left a note for Carlene. ‘Had to go out. Will be home in time to go to the dinner party.’ The traffic was heavy and the Barbiemobile weaved its way through the cars like a small pink missile. Thirty-five minutes later, he arrived at Curly’s house.
It was a sprawling, well-preserved Queenslander, set on a hill amongst a tangle of lush, untamed vegetation. Below it the Brisbane River gleamed a sullen brown in the afternoon sun. The house was set back from the road and by the time Reuben had climbed the steep path to the front door, brushing away ferns that leapt out at him and ducking overhanging branches, he was out of breath. So much for the jogging.
The house was high-set, the underneath built in as a lower storey. At the top of the front steps, a notice on the front door said ‘Xio Changu. Chinese Medicine and
Acupuncture. Monday to Friday 9am to 5pm. After-hours by appointment’.
A door opened from beneath him and a head popped out. ‘Down here, mate.’
Curly hadn’t changed, apart from a few more grey hairs. Contrary to the tradition of Australian nicknames, Curly actually did have curly hair. Along with his cherubic face he’d borne an uncanny resemblance to Leo Sayer in his younger days and he still did so now, if a craggier, wilder Leo. His hair stood up from his head in a halo of frizz, as if he were in a permanent state of electrocution.
‘Come into my den of iniquity.’
He ushered Reuben into an expansive living room – dark panelling, polished wooden floor and expensive furniture. A huge flat screen TV dominated the room; the evening newsreader smiling cheesily. The sweet burnt smell of marijuana lingered in the air.
‘Want a beer?’
Curly was barefoot, in torn jeans and t-shirt, cigarette dangling from his mouth. Without waiting for an answer, he went behind the small bar in the corner and came out with two stubbies of beer.
Reuben sank into the leather couch and Curly stretched out in the recliner chair opposite. ‘So mate, you’re
looking well. The Big House treat you okay?’
‘I survived it. But I’m not going back there.’
‘They all say that. And they all end up going back. Even me. But Delores looks after me now, she makes sure I don’t get into any trouble.’
‘Delores?’
‘My old lady. I can’t pronounce her Chinese name. You got a girlfriend?’
‘A wife, actually. Carlene.’
‘Congratulations!’ He held up his beer in a toast. ‘Didn’t think you’d ever tie the knot. She must be some chick, huh?’
‘Yeah, she is. We’re going to a dinner party tonight and she’ll kill me if I’m late home, so I’ll have to get down to business.’
He gave Curly a brief outline of what he wanted him to do, with no mention of the plan to kill Lucy, or of Frank and Bomber.
‘I thought you said you weren’t going back inside?’ Curly said.
‘I’m not.’
‘Whatever you’re doing is obviously not legal, and you’re asking me to stick my neck out as well.’
‘Come on, Curly, cracking a Facebook password is just kindergarten stuff for you. It’s not as if you’re robbing a bank. The cops have bigger fish to fry.’
‘And what’s in it for me?’
‘You owe me.’
Curly’s face was blank. ‘I do?’
‘Two words. Fiona Watford.’
He stared into his beer. ‘Oh ... yeah.’
Fiona Watford was an heiress with a pug-like face and a body to match. Curly had been dating her and convinced her to marry him – the only problem was that Fiona was pathologically quick-tempered and the slightest incident could provoke her into a rage. After she threatened Curly with a knife, he called the wedding off, which made her even more furious and she threatened to set her brother, a hulking ice user who was just as unpredictable, onto Curly. Reuben stepped in, took Fiona out for a drink and convinced her that Curly himself was not only a psychopath but a member of the Hells Angels and she should consider herself very lucky she’d escaped from his clutches. Fiona gave him a prolonged kiss of gratitude and left town the next day.
‘You said you were indebted to me for life,’ Reuben said. ‘Or words to that effect.’
‘I don’t remember saying nothing like that.’ He grinned. ‘But fuck, she was a mad bitch and you saved me from a thrashing.’ He raised his beer again. ‘Okay, it’s a deal.’
He got up, went over to the bar and came back with a small clip seal bag and a packet of cigarette papers.
‘You gonna join me?’
Reuben shook his head.
‘Not even for old time’s sake?’
Reuben hesitated. When Curly was setting up the computer system for All Purpose Financial Consultants, and Reuben and Derek were getting the office ready to move into, the three of them would light up a joint in the afternoon and as the furniture had not yet arrived, sprawl on the carpet. As the setting sun glinted on the windows, a spectacular sight after a smoke, they discussed their favourite subjects – money, women and sex. Afterwards they’d reconvene to a smoky downtown bar, then dinner at a seafood restaurant on the river.
Those were heady days – full of hope and the invincibility of youth. The weight of sadness overwhelmed Reuben and he felt a deep longing to be back there. Even as he was tempted to light up a joint to take him back, he knew it was futile. He was stuck in between, wanting to and not wanting to, and either decision was painful. Anyway, he couldn’t afford to get stoned – he had a dinner party to go to.
Reuben shook his head again. Curly rolled himself a joint with deft fingers and lit it, settling back in his chair.
‘I need some info,’ he said. ‘Everything you can tell me about her.’
He gave Curly the basic stuff – Lucy’s name, address, occupation, an estimate of her age, married with a young child.
‘A parole officer? You’re in dangerous territory, mate. Are you stalking her?’
‘No.’
‘It’s your funeral. What else do you know about her?’
‘That’s about it.’
Curly closed his eyes and exhaled a cloud of pungent smoke. Was the furore about passive smoking true? Reuben breathed in deeply; he hoped so.
‘You’re making it bloody hard,’ Curly said.’
‘Aren’t there programs you can use to crack a password?’ Reuben asked.
‘There are, they’re called dictionary attack and they literally try every word in the English language. You only get so many attempts at one time and then they boot you off, so then I have to log in to another computer with a different IP address and a new identity, so they can’t trace me. So it can sometimes take weeks. And I’m assuming you want it sooner than that.’
‘The sooner the better. I’ve got someone breathing down my neck, and it’ll be very nasty for me if I don’t come up with the goods.’
‘Sounds like heavy stuff, mate.’ He placed his joint in the ashtray beside him and leaned forward, his large bony hands dangling between his knees. ‘See, it’s a lot easier to crack a password if you have a psychological profile of the person, like those police guys on telly. You have to know their likes and dislikes, what sort of clothes they wear, favourite food, favourite rock group, all that sort of stuff. It could be the difference between me making a thousand hits and a hundred. You’d be surprised how many people use really obvious things for their passwords, like their kid’s name or their favourite food.’
‘I don’t know any of those things, I really don’t know much about her at all.’ Except what he’d made up. In his fantasies, Lucy liked long dresses with slits all the way up the leg; skinny-dipping in the middle of the night, her bare skin luminous in the moonlight; anything dipped in chocolate; and music with a primal beat that thrust right into your very core...
‘Think, mate. There’s got to be something,’ Curly said.
‘The only thing I know is that she’s going to Scotland for the Christmas holidays. And she doesn’t like haggis.’
‘Fan-fucking-tastic. So we know haggis isn’t her password, besides the fact it’s not long enough, and that only leaves several million other words.’
A pair of tiny feet appeared on the internal staircase leading up from the den. They trod lightly down the stairs, to reveal a petite woman in a long cherry-red silk dress. Despite the lines criss-crossing her face like a map of the Underground, she resembled a Chinese doll with her shiny black hair cut in a short bob and her dark, slanted eyes.
‘Delores, babe, meet a friend of mine, Reuben.’
She glided over to Reuben and held out her hand. ‘Pleased to meet you.’
She smiled and instantly you forgot about the wrinkles. Her eyes shone like two black marbles. Reuben stood up and shook her hand.
‘You like some green tea?’ she said.
‘No thanks, I have to go soon.’
Delores waggled her finger at Curly. ‘You naughty boy, you smoke too much weed. It makes you forget.’
She spoke in a singsong lilt.
‘Babe, you don’t have to worry, I’ll never forget you.’
Curly leaned forward and pinched her on her almost non-existent backside. She slapped his hand and winked at Reuben. ‘It makes him sleepy too. Then he doesn’t want to fuck.’
‘Okay, Delores, that’s enough. Get up there and cook those pigs trotters.’
Delores winked at Reuben again and scampered up the stairs.
‘Can’t keep up with the old lady?’ Reuben couldn’t resist it.
‘Not at all, mate. You can’t give it to them every time they want it; they’ll just take it for granted. Keep ‘em keen, that’s my motto.’
Reuben looked at his watch. ‘Gotta go. How long will it take you?’
Curly shrugged. ‘Could take hours, could take weeks.’
Weeks? Reuben had met a guy inside – everyone knew him as Harry the Hacker – who’d boasted that he could hack into anyone’s password on any site in an hour. Pity he didn’t know where to find H
arry – he didn’t even know his surname. Maybe Harry was exaggerating, but to take weeks seemed excessive. Frank couldn’t make a move until Lucy came back from Scotland in the New Year, but he’d be constantly on Reuben’s case.
‘I’d appreciate it if you could make it top priority,’ Reuben said.
‘Don’t worry mate, I’m onto it,’ Curly said, lighting another joint. As Reuben left, he called out, ‘If you can find out anything more about her, call me.’
***
Of course Reuben’s calculations had not taken into account the three-car pile-up on Petrie Terrace that brought the traffic to a standstill. He wove his way through the line of cars, only to be stopped at the head of the queue by the gloved hand of a policeman. His mobile phone rang in his pocket. He knew it was Carlene, and he was glad of the excuse not to answer it. By the time the traffic had cleared and he arrived home, it was dark.
Carlene whipped open the front door. ‘Where the hell have you been?’
‘I’ll explain later,’ he said, rushing past her into the house. He had a shower and dressed in record time. Carlene was sitting on the living room couch with a face like thunder.
‘We’re already late,’ she hissed. ‘You’d better have a fucking good excuse.’
Reuben felt a jolt of shock - it was the first time he’d heard her swear. ‘Let’s go and I’ll tell you on the way.’
Neither of them spoke as they got into the car, and he backed out of the driveway.
‘Well?’ Carlene said.
He’d tried to think of a reasonable excuse all the way home. He didn’t want to use Finn again – he was becoming far too demanding and he wouldn’t be at all surprised if Carlene accused him and Finn of having an affair. Or dressing up in women’s clothing together.
‘I needed to get out. I went for a drive and lost track of time.’
‘Where did you go?’
‘Just around the neighbourhood. I found a park and sat there for a while.’
‘What park?’
‘I don’t know the name of it,’ he said irritably. ‘Just a park, okay?’
He was driving along Gympie Road as fast as he dared. Luckily, the worst of the peak hour traffic was over. He stole a glance at Carlene. Her expression was a mixture of anger and disbelief.