Comfort Zone (17 page)

What a day it had been. ‘Christ I'm buggered,' he muttered to himself as he rummaged in his pocket for his key.

Once inside, he fiddled around for a few minutes, tossed his clothes onto the lounge-room floor, and collapsed onto his bed. He made a mental note to look for a Somali driver in the morning. The print on the photos was very small, of course, but his phone's zoom made it just large enough to read. Once he'd worked out what was in the book, he would be in a much better position to deal with Jeffrey. And Farhia.

9

Confusion

Jack's mobile phone continued to weigh him down. It was a nasty fat slug, lying heavily in his right trouser pocket. He was even starting to wonder whether Farhia was worth all this effort. Handing the phone over to Jeffrey would solve a very big problem, and he could always refuse to assist
ASIO
any further. The La Trobe stuff was trivial, surely. What could they possibly do to him after all these years? Imagine the fun Neil Mitchell would have on 3AW if Jack got banned after years of taxidriving because he hadn't mentioned a minor conviction of over thirty-five years ago on his licence application. And he was sick of driving cabs anyway: they might be doing him a favour if he got thrown out.

He was still struggling to understand what Matt was up to. Their mad dash through Melbourne's inner north seemed like a bad dream. If it wasn't for the fact that both his quadriceps hurt — especially when he stood up — he might even have doubted whether it had happened. He now had a new layer of aches and pains added to his earlier injuries. Hanging around Matt was bad for his health.

At least he had a small distraction this morning. He was long overdue to get a haircut, and if he was to continue his pursuit of Farhia it would be good to smarten up his appearance. As always, his regular barber was a reliable source of solace and advice.

‘Long time this time, hey, my friend?'

Jack snapped out of his reverie in the barber's chair and looked at Louie in the mirror.

‘Yeah, had a bit on.'

‘You should make more effort. For the ladies. You're a good-looking man …'

Jack smiled as he listened to the snip-snip of the scissors and the soothing patter.

‘Yeah, yeah, Louie. Watch out Brad Pitt, Jack's coming!' He laughed at this absurd notion.

‘Louie make you look good, my friend.'

‘Yeah, good stuff.'

Jack didn't feel much like talking. He only bothered to get his hair cut now and then. Like most hairdressers, Louie talked a lot. He was a part-time psychologist and counsellor, supplementing his considerable skills with the scissors. Jack's hair was a bit curly, and thinning on top, so he could go for quite a long time without getting it cut. To make the best of a bad job, a visit to his old mate Louie was just the trick.

Louie's shop was on the south side of Elgin Street, a tiny place with two chairs, a mirror, and some other bits and pieces. A quick trim cost fifteen dollars. It was the only old-style barbershop left in Carlton. There weren't any
Man
magazines lying around any more, but otherwise little else had changed since the 1960s.

Louie had been plying his trade there for over forty years. He was now in his late sixties, and he only kept at it because he didn't have much else to do. His wife had died, the kids had grown up and moved away, and he didn't have many other interests. He was a living example of the benefits of the Mediterranean diet, as he was as healthy as a thirty-year-old. Cutting hair was a good way of seeing people and passing the time. Louie was a Carlton institution — everyone knew him and liked him, and he was an excellent source of practical advice.

‘You should get married, my friend,' he said.

‘Yeah, I should.'

‘Before it's too late.'

‘Yeah.' Jack was trying to resist getting drawn into a deeper conversation on the subject.

‘No ladies on your radar?'

‘Well, er …'

‘Aha! You can't fool Louie!'

Jack surrendered. He was trapped.

‘Just someone I'm a bit keen on. Never happen, though. Too young, too different.'

‘Never say never, my friend. The ladies, they are a mystery. Nothing happens like you think.'

Louie knew when to stop probing, and was always careful to keep conversations of this kind at a very general level. If Jack wanted to provide details, he would. His lively gestures made Jack nervous, though: he could see the comb and scissors waving around, and he didn't fancy getting poked in the back of the head.

‘Why would any woman go for me? In my fifties, no money, just a shit-kicker cab driver … Who's going to be interested in me?' Jack could imagine how pathetic this sounded, but he couldn't help it. Louie was one of those people who others opened up to, in spite of their embarrassment.

‘Jack, Jack, Jack. No negative thinking! You got to take a risk! You heard of Casanova? Greatest lover ever? Italian, of course …'

‘Yeah, yeah, course I have …'

‘He was ugly. Short, too. But he knew how to present himself, how to be bold. Probably had a good hairdresser! You are much better than you think! You must be confident!'

This pep talk was delivered with much emphasis and waving of arms, and Jack felt a nip on his left ear. Luckily it was only the comb, and Louie didn't seem to notice. Jack didn't say anything.

‘You're right, I guess.' He didn't sound convinced. ‘But she's a bloody Somali, Louie! Buggered if I know how I got into all this. Shouldn't even be here. Bring all their fights, tribes, clans, all that shit. What am I doing?'

Louie was diplomatic. ‘True love, it doesn't matter, my friend. If she is beautiful, she is beautiful.'

‘Easy for you to say, mate. You married one of your own.'

‘If Maria was Eskimo, I still marry her.'

‘Better man than me, Louie.'

Louie affected a final couple of flourishing snips with his scissors, and then stood back to examine his handiwork.

‘Much better. All done, my friend.'

Jack stood up gingerly, leaning heavily on the arm of the old-style barber's chair to minimise the strain on his aching quads.

‘Thanks, mate.' He pulled out a ten- and a five-dollar note from his pocket, and offered them to Louie.

‘No, no, my friend. Spend it on your lady. This one, she's on me.'

‘You sure?' Jack didn't want to look a gift horse in the mouth. Fifteen dollars wasn't a small amount, but he thought he should query Louie's generosity out of courtesy.

Louie grabbed Jack's hand in both of his, and squeezed it into a fist, the notes still inside.

‘It's for you to use, my friend. What do I need your money for anyway? You go out, you get this lady. Listen to Louie: he knows!' He tapped the side of his nose, and leered knowingly at Jack.

‘Thanks, mate, much appreciated. You're right, I suppose. Got to to be in it to win it. Give it a go, I guess.'

‘That's the way!'

‘Thanks, mate, be seeing you.' Jack walked out into the watery sunlight with a little spring in his step. He suspected Louie's gesture was quite calculated. He was fond of Jack, and he'd watched him slowly deteriorate over the years. His small act of generosity would boost Jack's confidence, which might help in his romantic endeavours.

He got into the cab, doing his best to ignore his aching thigh muscles, and drove towards the city with a new lightness in his heart. He would keep pursuing Farhia, regardless of how remote his prospects of success might be, or how violent those around her were. It was amazing how something as simple as a haircut could have such an impact on a bloke's morale.

The William Street rank was slow that morning — agonisingly slow. Cursing mid-morning slumps and the nasty, biting wind funnelling between the giant office towers, Jack fantasised about sitting at a desk in a nice warm office up on the forty-first floor. He was still only fourth in the queue on the rank.

There was one pleasure available to him that was denied to all the pen-pushers up in the skyscrapers: smoking. It was time to light up. That was sure to get the rank moving.

He'd only been in the cab for five minutes or so to escape the wind, but that didn't matter. He eased his way back out of the driver's seat, groaning as his aching quad muscles protested. Exercising great care because of the south-westerly barrelling up William Street, he lit his cigarette. He inhaled the warm, acrid smoke with much pleasure. Who cared if they were slowly killing him? After a brief burst of optimism from Louie's pep talk, his normal pessimistic, cynical self was returning. He didn't have anything much to live for, so why not smoke? Farhia was just a pipe-dream.

As he was approaching the point where the cigarette flavour started to change, and the taste was more of filter than tobacco, he noticed the driver of the second cab on the rank get out of his car. He raised his left forearm in a signal of greeting, recognising the dark, skinny driver, but not quite recalling his name.

‘Hi, Mohammed, shit day, hey?' He wasn't sure he had the name right, but most of these guys were called Mohammed. He was obviously Somali.

‘Ibrahim. Mohammed, he is my brother.'

‘Er, yeah, sorry, mate, must've mixed you up.' He managed to stop himself saying something like ‘You guys all look the same.' Ibrahim didn't seem to mind that Jack had got his name wrong.

His phone beeped, and, as he reached for it, it occurred to him that this might be the chance he had been waiting for. He could get Ibrahim to shed some light on the contents of Farhia's book.

‘Hey Ibrahim, can you take a look at something on my phone for me? Think it's in Somali. Found it, you know, think the cops are interested. Can you tell me what it says? Don't want to drop anyone in it with the cops or anything …' Jack was pleased with this improvisation. He reasoned that Ibrahim would be keen to protect any of his countrymen from entanglement with the police.

He fiddled with the phone to bring up the first page, and then used the zoom to make the text large enough to read. Jack was proud of his phone: it was the only cutting-edge thing he'd ever owned.

Ibrahim stared intently at the screen, with Jack hovering close beside him, showing him how to use the cursor to move the image around. As they huddled on the pavement beside Jack's cab, the first cab on the rank pulled away.

‘My friend, where did you get this? It is bad people in Somalia, criminals. You should not have this.'

Ibrahim was shaking a little, and glancing around nervously as he spoke. Whatever was in Farhia's book had frightened him.

‘What people? Who?'

‘I do not know. They kill people. You must stay away.'

‘Why? What's going on?'

A driver further back on the rank tooted at them as a man in a dark-blue overcoat approached the front of the line. Ibrahim jumped, then handed the phone back to Jack, darted in front of his cab, and leapt into his own with fluid, economical movements.

‘Be careful with this. Goodbye, Jack.' Ibrahim wasn't about to sacrifice a good fare on a slow morning to help Jack solve his mystery. As he slipped into his cab, Jack called out to him: ‘Who are they? What'd they do?'

By this point, though, Ibrahim was in his cab apologising to his passenger, and Jack was standing alone at the kerb still holding his phone.

His mind was racing. Maybe Farhia was involved in some kind of terrorist cell, after all. Or perhaps it was her unfriendly cousin with the knife, and she was an innocent bystander caught up in things she couldn't control. He couldn't imagine Farhia as an extremist. She was much too genteel and sensible. He resolved to go looking for her when his shift finished.

Jack remained standing in the gutter beside his cab, one foot on the pavement, his face contorted with concentration. What was it about the stupid book? Why was it so important — and so scary?

He was startled out of this deep contemplation by an impatient shout.

‘Hey, mate, you moving up?' The next driver reminded him that the queue needed to move up, as it was now getting congested at the tail end. Jack waved an acknowledgment and got into his cab and crept forward. He was so perplexed, he wasn't even thinking about the next fare.

He would have to confront Farhia about the book. If necessary, he would confess everything. He wouldn't be able to keep Jeffrey at bay for much longer, and he was worried about being charged with obstructing justice, or something of the kind. He might even get locked up under the new anti-terrorism laws he'd heard about. He could be interrogated for weeks without anyone even knowing where he was, apparently. Not that there was anyone who would care, of course.

His Farhia fantasy was fading a little. The previous night's escapades had given him more to think about, and the injection of optimism from Louie had receded. All the unexpected excitement was getting to him. He could feel panic rising inside him again. Everything seemed to be spiralling out of control.