The Easy Sin. Jon Cleary

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СКАЧАТЬ sympathetically,’ said Sheryl, reacting quicker than Malone. ‘You must be terribly hurt by what’s happened to Errol.’

      ‘Oh, I am,’ said Kylie, and sounded as if she might also be pleased. ‘What’s going to happen to you, Louise?’

      ‘Oh, I’ll be okay,’ said Louise, settling back into her chair. ‘In this game you’re always ready to jump. It’s the nature of it.’

      ‘Basically,’ said Malone and then from another age asked, ‘Don’t you ever think of long-service leave and superannuation?’

      ‘What are they?’ she said, but gave him the pleasant smile again.

      4

      Darlene hung up the phone and stepped out of the phone-box into the glare of the Sutherland street. She put on her dark glasses and stepped under the shade of a shop awning. She only knew this southern suburb from passing through it on the way down to the bush cottage. She was a stranger here.

      ‘We’ve got to get right away from where we usually are,’ her mum had said. ‘We don’t make any calls from anywhere near home. I dunno whether they can trace phone calls, but we’re not gunna take any chances. Don’t use your mobile.’

      Shirlee had organized them all, right after breakfast. First, she had spoken to Phoenix, who always wanted to argue: ‘You go back up to Hurstville and check in at Centrelink, tell ‘em you’re still looking for a job. Then go and bank your dole cheque –’

      ‘Ah shit, Mum –’

      ‘Wash your mouth out,’ she said, washing dishes.

      ‘Well, for Crissakes, Mum, we’re gunna be rich – why the fuck – why the hell’ve I gotta worry about my dole cheque? Or fuck -or Centrelink? I’m not innarested in a job now.’

      ‘We don’t arouse suspicion, that’s why. So none of the nosy neighbours back in Hurstville can talk –’

      ‘Mum,’ said Corey, lolling back in a chair at the breakfast table, ‘why d’you think anyone’s gunna suspect us? You think they got guys out there, watching Pheeny don’t turn up at Centrelink?’

      ‘As for you,’ said his mum, the general, ‘you be certain, you go back to town, you walk around like you got a sore back. Men on workers’ compo, the insurance companies, they got private investigators watching you like hawks. I seen it on TV a coupla months ago.’

      Corey worked for a haulage company as its chief mechanic. A week ago he had conveniently strained his back and had gone to a doctor, recommended by one of his workmates, who, for the right consideration, would give a death certificate to a glowing-with-health gymnast.

      ‘How long we gunna give ‘em to make up their minds to pay the ransom?’

      ‘Four, five days, a week at the most. They’re gunna bargain. I been reading about Big Business, them takeover deals. They bargain for weeks. They do something, I dunno what it means, it’s called due diligence.’

      ‘Mum,’ said Darlene, putting on her face, looking at it in her vanity mirror, wondering what she would look like when she was a million dollars richer, ‘this isn’t big business. It’s a ransom, five million dollars. Petty cash to them.’

      ‘You been working too long at that bank,’ said Corey. ‘You dunno what real money means.’

      She put away her mirror and lipstick. ‘We can’t sit around here looking after His Nibs, feeding him, taking him to the toilet … I’ll give ‘em a deadline. I’ll call ‘em today, give ‘em till five o’clock. They want more time, I’ll say till five p.m. tomorrow. That’ll be the absolute deadline.’

      ‘And they don’t come through?’ said Corey. ‘What do we do then?’

      ‘We do him,’ said Phoenix and nodded towards the front of the house.

      His brother and sister looked at him and his mother paused at the kitchen sink, a wet plate in her hand. I think we’ll have to talk to Chantelle.’

      Chantelle was their contact, the one who had told them where the money was. Or where they had thought it was.

      Now Darlene paused under the shop awning and wondered if she should go on into the city. She had phoned in first thing this morning to the bank and told her boss she was not well, but would be in at work tomorrow. Bloody women, had been his only comment and he had hung up in her ear.

      She was worried that the police were already on the case; but that was because of the stupid bungle, the killing of the maid. Sometimes she wondered at the intelligence of her brothers. Corey had all his marbles, but at times he could be as coldblooded as their mother. Pheeny was two or three marbles short and she wondered how he would keep his mouth shut after they had collected the ransom money and let Errol Magee go. But that was in the future, down the track, as Pheeny, who never thought beyond tomorrow, would say.

      She and her brothers had been petty crims ever since their early teens. They had never been encouraged to take up thieving; but neither had they been discouraged. Their mother, and their father when he wasn’t doing time, had looked upon it as part of growing up, like acne, or in her own case, period pains. Darlene herself had never felt any conscience; if money or clothes or make-up was there to be taken, it was taken. She had never stolen from workmates, but that had been only because it was stupid. Her mother, in the only piece of advice she had given on how to get ahead in the world, had told her that.

      She had never gone in for breaking and entering, as Corey and Pheeny had, but that had been more laziness than conscience. Their father had used guns in his hold-ups, but Darlene had never thought much of him anyway, let alone loved him. When her mother had told her, almost off-handedly, that she was getting rid of their father, she hadn’t enquired how or why. He would not be missed, she had told herself, and that had been true.

      Shirlee had supplemented the family budget with stolen credit cards, ATM cards and shoplifting. None of them had ever been caught, not even dumb Pheeny. Of course, Clyde had been caught and jailed half a dozen times, but that was to be expected; he had been a loudmouth and thought he had flair. Flair and the loud mouth had landed him in jail and, finally, in a grave.

      Shirlee had been firm about one thing: no drugs. She knew the money that was in drugs, but that had been her one moral principle: no drug dealing. And Darlene had always admired her mum for it, as if she were a volunteer aid worker. The family had gone on, making adequate but constant money to supplement what Darlene and Corey earned by working, and then had come this big opportunity.

      Now she walked back to the railway station. She passed a newsagent’s and saw the billboard: E-Tycoon On Run. She smiled and a young man, passing her, paused and smiled back. She looked at him, puzzled, then gave him a glare that sent him on his way. She had had half a dozen boyfriends, but they had been only passing fancies, one or two good in bed but none of them a long-term prospect. She would wait and see what she could attract with a million dollars.

      In the meantime Chantelle needed to be consulted. She bought a ticket, went out on to the platform and waited for a train. A few minutes and then a loudspeaker announced: The 10.48 for Central is running fourteen minutes late. Good luck.’

      She had enough sense of humour СКАЧАТЬ