Of Cops & Robbers (24 page)

Xmas, Ray Adler’s got the bullet. Like a stone in the shoe.
Nagging
. Irksome. Otherwise he’d be content. There he is sitting on his balcony with the cat on his lap, his feet on the railing,
drinking
beer, talking to his daughter. Happy, except for the bullet.

His daughter’s in London, he’s in Sydney. Couple or eight hours’ time she’s going to be on a Qantas flight home for Xmas. Ray hasn’t seen her in eighteen months. They talk often on the phone but what he wants is to hold her, hug her.

Her name’s Alice. She’s twenty-five.

She says, ‘Dad, what d’you want? What can I bring you?’

‘You,’ he says.

‘Dad,’ she says. ‘Come on.’

Ray looks at the day fading, strokes the cat’s head. From his balcony he has a corner view of a park where this time of the late afternoon a pusher sells dope to school kids. Ray’s told the jacks, but nothing’s come of it. Sometimes he feels he should go over, kick the dealer in the nuts.

‘I dunno,’ he says. ‘Beer. A four-pack of Black Sheep.’

‘That’s a beer?’

‘Where’re you living? You must get out more.’

‘Very funny,’ she says. ‘That’s all?’

He can hear her exasperation, he loves it. Reminds him of her childhood years, how she’d tug at his hand when he teased her.

‘Alright. A Terry’s Orange. That satisfy you?’

‘Dad! From the best city in the world, my father wants a
four-pack
of Black Sheep beer and a Terry’s Orange. That’s crazy.’

‘Mostly he just wants his daughter,’ says Ray, taking a
swallow
of beer from the tin.

‘You’re getting her.’ He hears teaspoon-tinkle, tries to
imagine
his daughter in the grey London early morning. He doesn’t
know what her flat looks like. He hasn’t been to London in eight years. What for?

‘How’s the weather?’ says Alice.

‘It’s summer,’ says Ray. ‘Summer is summer in Sydney. Full cafes, full beaches. People having fun.’

‘I can’t wait,’ she says.

Neither can I, Ray thinks.

‘Got to go,’ she says. ‘Still have to pack.’ He hears her
blowing
kisses. Putsh. Putsh. ‘See you tomorrow. Or whatever time it’s going to be. Don’t be late.’

‘Am I ever?’ he says.

Ray rings off. Sets his cellphone on the table beside a bowl of pistachios. Cracks a few, pops the green nuts from their shells. Alice. What a sweetheart. Two weeks. Pure bloody heaven. He pulls another beer from the cooler box at his feet, rips the top.

But the thing in Ray Adler’s life that he can’t figure out is the bullet. Point two two, the nose cross-hatched. A little present he received through the post. Mailed in Sydney a few days ago. He keeps it in his pocket, brings it out now and then, turns it over, puzzled. What’s tugging at him is whether he should make a few calls. He’s reluctant. You start something, you don’t know where it’s going to end. After all these years of peace and quiet, best not to look into the abyss. Best to keep quiet, pretend nothing’s happened. Difficult though.

Antsy, Ray glances over at the park. The young weasel’s on his corner selling dope. Okay, Ray thinks, enough. He nudges the cat off his lap, gets up, slugs back a mouthful of beer. Ray in his T-shirt and boardies, flip-flops, is about to do his bit for the community when there’s a knock on his door. Ray thinks
probably
the old biddy from upstairs come down for the sherry she phoned for. Last three Xmases she’s bummed a bottle of sherry off him in return for a trifle, which is fine by Ray. He grabs a bottle from his booze cupboard, heads for the door.

Standing on his welcome mat is a man he doesn’t recognise. Snappy dresser black dude. The man says, ‘I like it, legendary
Aussie friendliness.’

‘Who’re you? How’d you get in?’ says Ray. There being a buzz-lock on the block’s foyer door. And no one buzzed for him.

‘You know,’ says the man. ‘Not too difficult. Mostly
everybody
’s gonna let in the plumber.’ He grins at Ray. ‘Can I come in?’

‘No.’

‘Don’t be like that, Ray. There’s things we got to discuss.’ The man slipping past Ray into the flat. ‘Not quite the place I pictured you in. Pictured you more upmarket. Not second-hand furniture, Van Gogh prints. But this’s discreet, Ray. Low-profile. Modest. Humble even. But comfortable.’ The man flops down on the settee. ‘Comfortable.’

Ray says, ‘Like what?’

‘Like what, what?’

The two men eyeballing one another.

‘Get out,’ says Ray. ‘Bugger off.’

‘Sure. I’m going to do that,’ says the man. ‘But first we’ve got to talk.’

‘About what?’

‘About things you did once upon a time.’

Ray’s daughter Alice flies into Sydney bang on time and he’s not waiting to meet her. She leaves a message on his voicemail: ‘Dad, where are you? I’m here. You stuck in traffic?’

She pushes through the crowd to a bench, parks herself, zonked out after the long-haul. Five minutes. Ten minutes.
Fifteen
minutes pass.

Alice dials him again. ‘Where’re you?’ She stands on the bench to get a view over the crowds. No Dad in sight. ‘This’s costing me a bomb, phoning you.’

Half an hour later still no Dad, still no answer to her
messages
. Worried more than pissed off, Alice trolleys her suitcase to the taxi rank.

Forty-five minutes later she’s buzzing him from the street door. No response. She can see his balcony if she backs out into
the road, see the door’s open, see the cat on the balcony wall. Hear the cat meowing. Calls her father’s name.

A woman coming down the pavement carrying grocery bags says, ‘He’s not answering, lovey. Neither his phone or door. Had to buy a bottle of sherry myself.’

‘I’m his daughter, Alice,’ says Alice.

‘Can see that,’ says the woman. ‘Told me you were coming, he did. Looking forward to it, he is. Shouldn’t he have been out to meet you?’

‘Yeah,’ Alice says.

‘Come up,’ says the woman. ‘You got a key to his flat?’

Alice shakes her head.

‘Old man Arnot must’ve. He’s the caretaker.’

Ten minutes later old man Arnot the caretaker lets Alice into the flat. ‘I shouldn’t be doing this,’ he says, ‘even for his daughter.’ The moment the door opens, the cat’s out, rubbing against their legs.

‘Wants feeding,’ says the woman. ‘Unlike Ray not to.’

Alice hefts her suitcase into the flat. She’s not feeling good about this. She’s feeling like this is all wrong. She walks into the lounge, looks through the open door to the balcony. Can see the cooler box. Some beer cans on the table. That’s unusual. Unusual he wouldn’t have cleared up.

The kitchen’s spick and span. Like her father always left it. The tidiest man she knew. No wet towels on the bathroom floor. No dirty underwear piled in the bedroom.

She checks his bedroom. He’s lying on the bed with his eyes open, a bullet hole in the centre of his forehead. At first she doesn’t see it. Just sees him lying there, thinks heart attack. She rushes at him, yelling, ‘Dad, Dad, Dad.’

The woman and old man Arnot come running.

Then Alice sees the bullet hole, screams.

Spray painted in red across the bedroom wall the words: sweet dreams. Clutched in Ray’s hand a .22 long-rifle cartridge with a cross-hatched nose.

Daro Attilane’s not a man at home in the world when he opens up his executive car boutique.

His day might’ve kicked off with a surf but shredding a couple of waves hasn’t brought happiness and light to his heart.

Most of the time he was in the sea he sat on the backline, letting the swells pass under him. Not really adrenaline-pumping swells, but swells that would’ve given him a decent enough ride nonetheless. And the morning was pretty awesome. Bit more cloud in the sky than the day before. Still the mountain went heart-stopping tawny with the rising sun. Spectacular.

Most of the time Daro sat on his board thinking about Mart Velaze. About who Mart Velaze was really working for. That crap about Adler Solutions just so much sunshine. Truth: Daro had a good idea who pulled the strings that got Mart Velaze on the move.

The previous afternoon, agitated, Daro’d driven to Milnerton, waited in the parking lot outside the block of flats for almost three hours. A big block called Unitas. Mart Velaze was on the seventh floor. Daro’d worked out which one: the unit on the end with no curtains at the window.

In those hours, six o’clock to almost eight forty, people
working
nine-to-fives got home. No light went on in Mart Velaze’s window in that time. During those hours Mart Velaze should’ve come home. Even if just to freshen up before he hit the high life.

Also, Daro couldn’t see the snappy Mart Velaze with his Golf GTI living in a flat in Unitas. The style didn’t fit.

So Unitas was a drop pad, a convenience.

When he drove away Daro Attilane was a worried man. He was Mr Normal when he got home, but Georgina wasn’t fooled. Steffie was fine, giving him the-everything’s-cool-
Dad-I’
m-handling-it
story that he wanted to hear. And he believed her. But Georgina … Georgina nailed him with the sceptical eye when he walked in, sat at the table opposite while he pushed his food around the plate, watched him sink two whiskies, one more than normal.

When he poured the second drink she said, ‘Daro, you’d better tell me.’

He wanted to. Lord knows he wanted to. But he couldn’t. She’d never have believed him. Then it would’ve sat in her,
nagging
, poisoning her against him. Until weeks, months down the line she’d walk out.

‘It’s nothing,’ he said.

‘Come on, Daro. Don’t give me that. You made a sale last week, it’s not all doom and gloom.’ She was curled on a couch, staring at him with those green attentive eyes. The once-
upon-a
-time blonde beach girl he couldn’t believe had fallen for him. Miss Unattainable. But they’d got it together at a crayfish braai one evening under the Scarborough milkwoods. Hadn’t been for those lobsters, hadn’t been for her and her contacts, there’d have been no boutique car dealership. He’d still be on the floor somewhere: McCarthy’s, Auto King, Thorp. Didn’t matter which one, he’d be at a little desk next to the demos: inbox, outbox, blotter, telephone, coffee mug with the company logo. Couple of spec brochures aligned with the corner of the desk.

‘No,’ he said to her, taking down a large swallow of that second whisky, ‘I didn’t make the sale.’

‘It’s the economy,’ she said. ‘The recession. Got nothing to do with you. You can live it out. We’ve got the fat.’

What she didn’t say was we’ve got my income. But Daro knew it was there, the hidden sting. Live it out. Problem, Georgina, the likes of Mart Velaze aren’t necessarily something you can live out. You have to run from them. You have to disappear or … Or you have to get them to back off. You have to show you have an insurance policy. But he can’t tell Georgina that.

So they sat there talking about her management placements,
he and Georgina, till midnight, till he’d sunk two more whiskies. Back of his mind he was working on what to do about Mart Velaze.

He tossed and turned on it through the night, too, but there didn’t seem to be a way out. Certainly not an easy way out.

He faked breeziness when the alarm clock buzzed. Told
Georgina
he was going for a surf, would grab a croissant at Knead, head from there to the office.

‘Daro,’ she said, not opening her eyes. ‘Just relax, please, about the slow sales. Things’ll pick up again.’ He nodded, gone to her room to plant a kiss on Steffie’s head. Told her to be a good girl. She smiled, which was a bonus.

Out on the ocean he thought if the man pulling Mart Velaze’s strings made a move, he’d be ready. In all ways. During the day he’d get the envelope from the bank deposit box, prepare a file of photostats. Maybe consider carrying the pistol. Wasn’t much good locked up in the safe, always considering his instincts were right. One thing Daro Attilane trusted, it was his instincts.

This is the kind of anxiety that makes Daro not feel at home in the world when he opens up his dealership. The main
consideration
: get the documents from the bank first or sit through the morning? He decides to wait, drives the Audi from the showroom onto the forecourt.

There’ll be a phone call Daro reckons to pick up on the car sale.

He’s eating the croissant with a filter coffee when a courier van pulls in. Package for Mr Daro Attilane. Small padded
envelope
with something could be a matchbox in it. The sender: Adler Solutions.

‘When your father was alive …’ Estelle is saying from the cellphone in loudspeaker mode lying on the kitchen table. Fish staring at it, drinking a last coffee before heading out. Thinking he hasn’t heard Estelle use that in a long while.

‘When your father was alive’ being one of Estelle’s constant refrains at the time Fish chucked up his degree.

‘When your father was alive you got higher marks.’

‘When your father was alive you were focussed.’

‘When your father was alive you wouldn’t have dreamed of doing this.’

‘When your father was alive you didn’t surf every moment of the day.’

‘When your father was alive I used to see you as a man of the city. A top lawyer.’

Then she cooled it, let him get on with his life in the
insurance
agency.

Now it’s back: ‘When your father was alive, you weren’t a bullshitter, Bartolomeu.’

Fish raising his eyebrows both at the ‘when your father was alive’ bit and the ‘bullshitter’. Not like his mother to swear.

‘I’m not bullshitting, Mom,’ he says. ‘I’m telling you I need more time.’

‘It’s a simple research task, Bartolomeu. I’d expect a report in a day normally. A first-year could do it in a morning.’

‘Mom,’ says Fish, leaning towards the phone, ‘Mom, listen to me.’

‘Yes, I’m listening.’

‘I need more time.’

‘You keep saying that.’

‘For a reason.’

‘Which is?’

‘This Prospect Deep mine is not some Anglo American
sell-off
. I read the news. I know that much.’

‘What difference does that make?’

‘Big difference.’

‘How, Bartolomeu? How’s it different? A gold mine is a gold mine is a gold mine.’

‘This one’s about who owns it. About who is going to own it.’

‘They all are, Bartolomeu. Give me some credit. I’ve been doing this for ten years now. I’ve put together people who’ve brought millions into our country. Without those investments we’d be a poorer nation. I know what I’m doing, Barto. I know how to do it.’

‘I’m not saying that, Mom.’

‘Then what’s the problem?’

‘Another twenty-four hours,’ says Fish, putting down his coffee mug. ‘Just so I can get the names, the connections. I’ve got to go, Mom.’

‘We’re on a cellphone, Bartolomeu. We can continue this while you’re going wherever you’re going. Unless you’re going surfing?’

‘I’m on a job.’

‘I’m pleased to hear it. Pity it’s not my job.’

And Estelle’s gone. Fish standing, shaking his head, scoops up the phone. Jesus, bloody mothers. Lights out for the Perana.