Comfort Zone (20 page)

As he had anticipated, Rowan was there in the lounge. Laura and Vanessa were nowhere to be seen, but Rowan wasn't alone. He was sitting at a small table in the far corner, deep in conversation with a man who was hunched forward over the table.

Rowan's companion was wearing a shiny black-leather jacket and a navy T-shirt. His face carried an unpleasant, aggressive expression that would have curdled milk. He had thick, wavy, dark hair, and a face that spoke of hard living and violence. His small, neatly trimmed goatee, which was several shades lighter than his hair, looked out of place. Jack felt an air of menace radiating from him.

He approached Rowan's table warily.

‘Hi, mate, okay if I join you?'

‘Sure, grab a pew.'

They remained silent as Jack scraped and shuffled his way onto a chair between them. The shape of the corner cramped them, the result of a protruding timber beam that was probably a relic of some earlier structural arrangement. Jack felt uncomfortably close to Rowan's anonymous friend.

The mystery man spoke suddenly. ‘This the guy?' He glanced at Jack, but otherwise maintained a fixed stare in Rowan's direction.

‘Yeah, he's cool. User-friendly bloke, aren't you, Jack?' Rowan maintained his avuncular demeanour in spite of the hostile atmosphere.

‘What do you mean?' Jack was on his guard.

‘You forgotten?'

‘What?'

‘You owe us a small favour.'

‘You're kidding! The dogs were supposed to be called off, remember? So how come we got chased halfway across Melbourne the other night?' Jack's voice had risen, betraying his mounting apprehension.

‘Deal's a deal, Jack. I've got no idea who was chasing you.' Rowan kept his voice low and calm, but his message was clear. There were no choices on offer here, just obligations.

‘I didn't sign up to anything, mate,' Jack objected. ‘You just told me. And you didn't fucking deliver, anyway.' Jack was agitated now, unnerved by the glowering look of Rowan's mate, who was sitting disconcertingly close to him.

‘Jack, Jack,' Rowan replied in a fake-friendly tone. ‘Everything'll be fine. There are serious people involved here. Nasty people. Can't afford to upset them.'

I seem to be surrounded by nasty people these days
, Jack noted in passing.

‘That's your problem, mate. I've got enough things to worry about without getting into this shit.'

Rowan shifted his weight forward on his chair and fiddled with his sleeve. Then, without warning, Leather Jacket grabbed Jack's collar with his right hand, twisted it to half-choke him, made a fist, and lifted him off his seat.

‘Think again, we aren't playing games here.' His flat, threatening tone carried a touch of an Eastern European accent. The threat felt and sounded authentic.

‘Get the fuck off me!' Jack squeaked. He grabbed his assailant's arm, and tried to stand up and extricate himself from his grip. Leather Jacket was too strong for him. He rose onto his haunches and leant into Jack, tightening his grip even further.

Furtive glances were now being cast in their direction, but no one intervened. Minor altercations were not uncommon in the Dan, although this one was happening unusually early in the evening.

Jack knocked over his chair with a loud clatter, and then his glass fell off the table and shattered on the floor. His face was now bright red. He arched his back and threw himself backwards, dropping his knees as he did so. As he fell to the floor, Leather Jacket fell on top of him. Jack glimpsed Rowan as he fell, still sitting at the table with an impassive expression on his face.

Even before he hit the floor, Jack felt an excruciating pain in his genitals. Leather Jacket now had him by the throat and the balls — definitely not a good position to be in. He bellowed with shock and pain, thrashing about wildly in a desperate effort to escape the madman's grasp.

Things became even more confusing from this point, and Jack's sense of what was happening started to scramble. He somehow registered that Rowan was now entangled in the mess of arms, legs, and furniture. Leather Jacket had lost his grip on Jack's genitals, but he still had hold of his collar. He could hardly breathe as the crush of bodies pressed against him and the choke-hold took him to the brink of unconsciousness. Other people seemed to have got involved, pushing and shouting above him, and the lights had been turned up. The fight was spreading.

He rolled over hard towards his right, and his cheek struck someone's knee. The stench of sweat, beer, tobacco, and Rexona was overpowering. He slipped out from beneath Leather Jacket, but his left arm was still pinned. A large man with short dark hair and a stubbly beard was sprawled out over his legs, wrestling with Leather Jacket from behind. Rowan was sitting against the wall, nearly under the table they'd been sitting at only minutes beforehand, with blood trickling from his nose and a cut on his left cheek.

Leather Jacket was now kneeling astride Jack's prone body, leaning over him, an ugly leer spreading across his face. He threw a vicious punch at Jack's head, but was knocked off balance at the critical moment, so he only struck Jack a glancing blow to the right cheek, which didn't cause any major damage.

Jack was puffing and panting furiously — he could feel hayfever rising inside his sinuses again. At one point, he was sure he was going to faint. With an enormous effort, though, he extracted his legs from under the big man who was grappling with Leather Jacket, and staggered to his feet. Copping a punch wasn't much fun, but at least Leather Jacket had let go of Jack's collar.

With a good deal of wriggling, shoving, and cursing, Jack eased his way out of the brawl. He heard the sound of glass being smashed. He looked towards the source of the noise, and saw a skinny, unshaven man in a denim jacket and jeans taking a shard of broken glass from the small window he had just smashed. It was obviously intended as a weapon.

Shit
, he muttered
, this is out of control. One minute I'm about to get shanghaied into working as a drug courier, and the next I'm in the middle of
TV Ringside
.
Leather Jacket and the large bearded man were still grappling on the floor. The window-smasher stood back from the fray, his legs planted firmly apart, waving the shard of glass in front of him and daring anyone to take him on. Off his head on something, Jack assumed.

Just as his breathing was returning to normal, he heard someone shout: ‘Cops!'

That's it
, Jack thought,
I'm out of here
. He was composed enough to avoid making the obvious mistake — heading for the main exit — and he made his way around the melee to a doorway connecting to a corridor that led to the toilets. He knew there was a small rear-exit at the end of the corridor that led to a tiny, little-used beer garden backing onto a lane at the side of the hotel. Being a regular was sometimes very useful.

The noise and confusion in the lounge receded as he reached the corridor's end. Nerves tingling, cheek stinging, and thighs throbbing, he slipped through the door and out into the fading twilight.

As he adjusted his eyes to the haze in the cobblestone lane, Jack concentrated on returning his breathing to normal. His hayfever was rising, and he wanted to calm himself as quickly as possible. Then he would get as far away from the Dan as he could. He didn't relish being interviewed by the police about his role in the brawl. He hadn't broken any laws, but he knew that drug dealers took a dim view of people who talked to the police, and it would be very hard to come up with an explanation for the brawl that didn't at some point lead to Rowan and his dealer friends.

It didn't take long for his breathing and heart rate to return to normal. He walked to the end of the lane, stepping around a small pile of loose construction rubbish, turned into Neill Street, and walked briskly away from the hotel. He began to relax as he headed into Rathdowne Street and turned south towards Elgin Street. It would be a longer walk, but he thought it would be better to catch the tram at the corner of Elgin Street and Lygon Streets, well away from the excitement he had left behind. Within ten minutes, he was sitting on a tram, trying to gather his thoughts about the strange confrontation he had just triggered.

11

Apprehension

It was still early when Jack called Matt the next morning. He stood in the carpark behind his flat, his mobile pressed to his right ear, walking up and down beside the cab. There was a pleasant chill in the air, birds were chirping, and the initial signs of a nice day were emerging. Jack counted the number of missing and broken palings in the back fence as he waited for Matt to pick up.

The sleepy, disoriented voice that finally came on the line suggested that Matt had had a big night out.

‘Who is it?' he groaned.

‘Jack. Mate, you've got …'

‘Hang on. Time is it?'

‘Bit before seven. You've got to tell me what's going on! I've landed in the middle of some fucking drug gang war or something, all because of you! Got whacked in the pub last night, huge blue happened. Rowan's mate laid into me. What's the story?'

Jack could sense the rising hysteria in his own voice.

‘Okay, okay, cool it. Jack, stay calm, it's going to be okay. Driving this morning? How about we grab a coffee?'

Jack grasped this offer eagerly. They agreed to meet at a café in Chapel Street, the glitzy boulevard that dominated Prahran and South Yarra. Jack regarded the area as a kind of Fitzroy for rich people, full of airheads and try-hards.

He calmed down as they agreed on details.

‘See you there, Jack. Stay cool.'

‘Yeah, yeah. I'm too old for this shit.'

He did his best to shut this latest problem out of his mind as he did several routine jobs over the next few hours, but it proved impossible. By the time he got to the café, he was even more on edge. He couldn't help scanning the crowds wandering along the street and sitting around in the outdoor cafés, just in case Leather Jacket was lying in wait for him.

‘Mate, I can't handle this bullshit. I'm a cab driver. Don't want to get involved in drug stuff.'

He stared glumly into his coffee as he spoke. Matt was now his usual expansive, optimistic self, but there was a decidedly off-hand cast to his conversation. He looked very relaxed, at ease with the world. He was wearing an understated checked blue-and-cream shirt over a navy T-shirt, immaculate tan chinos, and brown R. M. Williams boots that looked like they'd been polished by someone with OCD. As Jack talked around his predicament, Matt checked out the attractive young women on display around the café. He rolled his shirt-sleeves up a couple of folds, so they reached the mid-point of his forearms, adding to his classy, confident look. Jack wondered if it was some kind of signal of sexual availability. It didn't feel like Matt was paying much attention to him. Jack felt out of place in the fashionable pavement café. The unusually pleasant weather accentuated the unreality of his surroundings.

‘You're involved, Jack, just like me. Nothing to get upset about — we just have to deal with it. I'm getting the cash together. It'll be fine. Look!' He lifted his hands to his ears and wiggled them theatrically, grinning inanely at Jack as he did so. The ludicrous image did nothing to lighten Jack's mood.

‘You've been really helpful, you know. Getting Rowan to have a word did the trick. But now we've got to seal the deal. They just want you to drive to Sydney.'

Rowan. Jack did a quick rewind of his conversations with Matt. He couldn't remember whether they'd discussed Rowan's involvement in any detail. Matt seemed to know a lot about it.

‘So I have to drive something to Sydney?'

‘Yeah, just a small package. They'll strap it in between the back seat and the boot somehow, so you'd have to take the car apart to find it. And you'll get paid a fare a bit better than the going taxi rate.'

‘What is it?' Jack's voice wavered. He didn't want anything to do with this, but he felt trapped. Where could he hide? It was bad enough trying to avoid
ASIO
, but drug dealers were much worse.

‘Better you don't know. Not smack, though.'

He noted Matt's use of the common slang for heroin. Matt didn't often use slang: he spoke properly and precisely, like a well-raised private schoolboy. It was beginning to sound as though Matt was more involved than he was letting on.

‘That's okay then. I'll only do five years.'

‘Jack, you're a cab driver. What's more normal, more innocent, more boring than a taxi?' Matt spread his arms wide, and used his open hands to emphasise the point. ‘No one gives them a second thought. They're everywhere. How often do the cops pull over a cab?'

‘Not too many cabs driving up the Hume.' Jack wasn't giving up easily.

‘Same logic, though. No one suspects a cabbie of anything worse than going the long way round to pump up the fare. You'll be fine.'

‘So when am I supposed to do this? I'll have to sort something out with the bloke I share the cab with.'