How Not To Commit Murder - comedy crime - humorous mystery (28 page)

‘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 Harry – 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.

On impulse he said, ‘The usual sort of park, you know, swings and slippery slides. I had a couple of swings and went down the slippery slide a few times. That’s probably why I forgot the time.’

He felt her eyes boring into him. ‘Reuben’ – it was the first time she’d called him by his full name – ‘there is something definitely wrong with you. Listen to yourself! A grown man playing on the swings and slippery slides! What’s next? Playing in the sandpit?’

‘I see nothing wrong with playing in the sandpit; it’s a healthy outdoor pastime.’

Carlene took a deep breath and said in slow, measured tones, ‘When people are under extreme stress, they sometimes revert to a happier time, like their childhood. That’s what you’re doing, trying to avoid the present because it’s too painful.’

Reuben’s hands tightened on the steering wheel. ‘I’m not avoiding the present and the only fucking stress I’m under is you telling me I’m under stress.’

Carlene stared out the window, her body as rigid as a steel pole.

‘I just don’t know what to believe any more,’ she said wearily.

‘What do you mean?’

‘You’ve been behaving very strangely, going out at odd hours. And you say you’ve been spending time with Finn, but sometimes I’ve wondered if he even exists.’

‘Of course he exists – you’ll meet him on Saturday night. Do you think I’ve been spending all this time with an imaginary person?’

She ignored his question. ‘And then there’s the jogging. Men often take it up when they’re having an affair.’

‘I’ve told you already, I’m jogging to tone up and improve my chances of getting work with Pizzazz. Believe me, I wouldn’t put myself through the agony for any other reason.’

‘And what about staying up late at night on the computer? A girl at work’s husband was doing that and she found out he was having cybersex with a woman in Romania!’

‘For God’s sake, that was only one night and I wasn’t having cybersex! How do you do that anyway? Sounds very uncomfortable to me.’

A red light loomed in front of them. Reuben braked and glanced at Carlene. A tear spilled out from her eye and rolled down her cheek. He felt a pang of remorse for the joke, and reached out and stroked her knee.

‘Honey, I promise you, I’m not having an affair.’

Carlene burst into a fit of loud, gasping sobs. Why did women always pick the worst possible time to turn on the waterworks? The traffic light turned green, Reuben darted into the left lane and pulled over on the side of the road outside the Little Bo-Peep Adult Shop. He took Carlene in his arms and stroked her hair until her sobs had died down to soft little sighs. She sat up and gave him a half-smile. Her hair was rumpled and her eyes red and mascara-smudged. Reuben’s good shirt was wet with her tears.

‘We’d better go,’ she sniffed. ‘Mum and Dad will be getting worried.’

CHAPTER 23

He didn’t have the opportunity to tell Carlene about getting the part in the ad until they were on the way home from the dinner party.

‘How much are you they paying you?’ she asked.

‘I forgot to ask.’

She stared at him in disbelief. ‘You forgot to ask? Again?’

‘With the excitement of getting the part, I didn’t think of it.’

‘The excitement of getting the part of a mute bartender who’s on screen for probably all of four seconds?’

‘He’s not mute; he just chooses not to say anything. The strong, silent type. And I think it’s actually six seconds.’

‘Whatever. What next? Any roles coming up as a non-speaking gorilla? Or maybe more modelling – a centrefold for Cleo?’

‘Look, I know it doesn’t sound much, but who knows what it could lead to?’

His words rang with false confidence. He didn’t have a clue where it could lead to.

‘To the employment agency, I expect,’ Carlene said.

‘You’re just shitty because I didn’t take up Greasy Gavin’s offer.’

‘Damn right I am.’

Gavin Topfer had been a guest at the dinner party. A portly man exuding after-shave and self-importance, he owned the biggest chain of used car dealerships in Brisbane. He’d offered to pull some strings and get Reuben a mature-age apprenticeship in car mechanics. Reuben declined, saying he didn’t fancy wobbly rear ends and had no desire to know the difference between a monkey wrench and a screwdriver.

‘Honestly, honey, can you see me as a grease monkey? It’s a job for pimply-faced kids who get high on engine grease, and anyway I don’t look good in overalls.’

‘How do you know until you’ve tried it? It’s not the most glamorous job in the world but that’s how Gavin started out, and look where he is now.’