Animal Kingdom (5 page)

The mention of Pope was just the thing to put Catherine in a good mood. Biting her lip, she glanced away. ‘How long's that car gonna stay parked outside our house?' she wanted to know. As if it was his fault. Well, in a sense, it
was
his fault.

‘That's what I'm gonna see him about,' Baz said.

‘It's been there for a week,' she answered, as if he hadn't noticed, and as if they hadn't both lain awake worrying about it.

‘Yeah, well, this is what I'm gonna meet him about, isn't it?'

It wasn't mean, and he wasn't angry. He knew how hard it was for her, how frightened she was, and not for herself—she was as tough and as brave as they come—but for the baby. For them. For the life they were trying to make together. She was frightened that it was all just going to disappear in a puff of smoke one day, with a crowd of coppers kicking down the door and marching through the place like they owned it, because they did.

That's what it was: she was frightened that none of this was real—the vacuum cleaner, the vitamin pills, this normal life they'd tried to make for themselves and their daughter—none of it was real. It could all just disappear in a flash as soon as someone in one of those big towers overlooking the city said so. Catherine knew them, or imagined them: shadowy men in suits flicking through their files. Just when you thought they'd forgotten you and you'd gotten away, someone would turn up to remind you that you never would. That was the problem with crime. You think it's a way out, but, once you're in there, they never let you go.

He knew that was what she was frightened of, because he was frightened of it, too. But Baz never showed it, because a man can't. A man's got to be there, and that's what he always tried to do, to be there. To be there for his mates, to be there for his girl. Flicking the vacuum back on, he gave her bum an affectionate little slap as he turned towards the door.

‘Can you not pinch my arse every five seconds?' she growled tenderly, hitting him back.

‘Oh, but I can't help it,' he joked gently, lifting her up and giving her a squeeze. ‘I just love it so much.' It was the truth, and she loved him back.

But she hated it when that was the only answer he had for her concerns. That he loved her. Love wasn't going to hold the door up when the Special Operations Group came bashing it down. They had to get out, she knew it; they had to get out of the shadow of the Codys before it was too late. And, going on the evidence of last night, that day wasn't far off.

They were mad, living this crazed existence with no-one to bring them in line because the only people who could were either dead or too frightened to even talk to them any more. Catherine felt sorry for J. She'd been able to have a quick chat to him the night before and she could see he was only a kid, but what could she do? She wasn't going to bring him into the house and give Smurf the excuse to drop over and start moving in on them and their life here. J'd have to work it out for himself, and if he didn't, well, maybe it was because he had it inside him as well.

But what she couldn't work out was what Baz saw in them all. And she'd asked him. Again and again. They weren't even good company. ‘They were always good to me,' he'd say, and if Baz had a fault, that was it. Loyalty.

‘See ya,' she said, wishing it was over as he headed out the door. ‘Get milk,' she cried as an afterthought. ‘And nappies!'

Maybe he'd heard her.

She'd never know.

Pope was his usual shifty self, sneaking into the super market like he was breaking into Fort Knox. The man couldn't brush his teeth without making it look suspicious. They were in the skincare and nappy section and looked about as unobtrusive as balls on a duck.

Pope was moving his weight from one foot to the other, like a nervy boxer. He was one of those guys who just couldn't keep still. He'd been exactly the same as a kid, before they discovered the wonders of Ritalin. Glancing this way and that, as if he was expecting to see the cops any second, he dug into his pants pocket and passed Baz a piece of paper.

‘Here, mate, take that,' he said, like it was the key to King Tut's tomb. ‘That's my number.' Baz looked and saw it was for a mobile. ‘That'll be my number for the next week or so,' Pope continued, ‘and then I'll change it every week.'

Baz glanced over his shoulder and then handed Pope an envelope. ‘Right,' he said. ‘That's your split.'

Pope took it and flicked at the meagre contents as Baz started to explain. ‘It's bullshit …' But just then a woman shopper stepped into view, and, reaching past her for the toddlers' nappies, Baz covered, saying, ‘Sorry, love.'

A great way to do business. A great way to live. Frightened you're going to get sprung in the baby-love aisle.

‘Mate, I dunno what you're thinking about your future,' Baz began when the woman was gone, ‘but I'm about done with this shit.'

You didn't have to be Einstein to see why, and maybe Pope had seen it coming for a while, but it still hit him hard.

‘I need some sort of change,' Baz continued.

It wasn't exactly like they were living the life of Riley; Pope would be the first to admit things had gotten a little hairy lately, but it was bound to turn around sooner or later. It always did.

‘The stock market's working,' Baz continued, on his own train of thought. ‘You know that twenty grand I put in? Well, there's sixty now. You get a foot in that door, there's serious money to be made, you know?'

Serious money? Who was Baz kidding? Pope hadn't even finished school. The only things he could count were holes in a doughnut. Stock market? What was this shit?

‘Well, I don't know anything about the stock market, mate,' Pope answered drily, trying to work out how to handle this.

‘So what?' Baz answered. ‘Neither did I.' He was trying that bluff
she'll be right, mate
tone of voice you use on a kid when you're trying to get him to stick his head under water for the first time. ‘Doesn't matter,' he continued. ‘You get the paper, you learn it; it doesn't matter.'

Baz and Pope had kicked around since they were kids in juvie together. Pope had been the bigger of the two but was always in trouble; Baz had taken pity on him because he was a bit slow. Not slow enough that you'd notice at first, but slow enough to be picked on. It was weird to see Baz taking on kids twice his size—and these were tough kids— as Pope stood there towering over him, looking sheepish. But Baz never thought twice about it, because if he saw an injustice he'd want to step right in and do something about it, no questions asked. And Pope reciprocated. Pope loved Baz, he really did. And he'd loved him a long time after he'd stopped loving anyone else. Which was what was making the present conversation so difficult. Pope had heard him talk like this before, sure he had, but he'd always been able to swing him around.

‘Our game, it's over,' Baz continued, while Pope thought what to do. ‘It's getting too hard. It's a fucking joke.'

That was true enough—there was no serious money to be made in armed robbery any more. The technology made it impossible. Only kids with dirty syringes were robbing 7-Elevens for small change. Where was the payoff, where was the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow? He didn't know what else they were going to do. Settle down to play the dogs at the back of the bar?

Pope thought he knew how to handle this. He'd spin Baz a line, about a million-dollar payroll coming through next week, someone walking down the street with a few hundred grand in their briefcase he'd heard about. Something to make Baz lick his lips and forget this shit about twenty grand turning into sixty on the stock market. That's all he needed, just to remember the taste.

Because the thing was, armed robbery was just about the sweetest thing you could do. It was you against the machine. Man and gun and living by your wits. What about all the fun they'd had? All the good times? That time they'd kicked over a safety deposit box and, instead of the ten thousand dollars they'd been expecting, there was a hundred thousand; or the time they'd partnered up with one of the security guys with the bank codes and had driven around all night loading the car with loot? There were good times, plenty of good times, and they'd had their run-ins with the law, of course they had, and had to pay the toll, but there weren't as many real successes as them. No way. They were legends living the way men were supposed to live, not being screwed down every day of their lives, but warriors.

Pope was no philosopher, but if he ever thought about what he did, that's how he thought about it. He'd even read up on it one time. The Greeks had a god of thieves, Hermes, a kind of patron saint that crims could pray to, and apart from that he was also the messenger of the gods, or so they said. So the next time someone knocks over your house, consider it a message from the gods.

So there was a dignity in being a thief. More dignity, anyhow, than being a process worker on night shift. And when Pope had finally got jack of school, or school had got jack of him, that had been the best on offer. He tried it for a while, but pretty quickly saw where the money was, and it wasn't in breathing plastic fumes and eating iron filings. It was in the tax rorts and backroom deals he saw his bosses pulling off. And when he couldn't do that himself, he'd tried the next best thing.

Armed robbery.

The first place he'd ever held up was his own factory. He found out later they claimed twice as much from the insurance company as he actually took, and a year after that the whole place was sold to the Americans and closed down. So there you go. Who's right and who's wrong?

But Baz was banging on about share ownership like he'd just worked out millionaires had money. Seeing he wasn't making any headway, Baz changed tack. ‘You know,' he said, ‘Craig's making a fucking fortune with the drug thing.' That was the truth, and Pope knew it. ‘You saw the house he's bought.'

Pope didn't know why he'd brought that up. Neither of them was interested in drugs; it was a pussy's game. Up all night talking to idiots and their girlfriends.

‘But I don't know if I got that in me,' Baz concluded, like drugs was the only alternative. ‘It's grubby.'

What was Baz's problem? It was that bitch Catherine he'd shacked up with. Ever since she'd come along and they'd started playing happy families, it'd been trouble. It had got so bad, Baz couldn't even go out drinking any more.

Blokes like him and Baz weren't cut out for happy families. They were the bad boys; that nine-to-five shit wasn't for them; they wanted to go down with ten grand stuffed in their pockets, guns blazing and some blonde sucking on their cock. That was the way they were going to go. Why was Baz trying to convince himself otherwise? He had as much hope of turning himself into George Soros as Pope did of turning himself into a fairy.

‘The stock market, mate,' Baz continued, like a broken record. ‘There's a resources boom.'
Blah-blah-blah.

Resources boom. What chance did any of them have of cashing in on that? Not a snowflake's. It was all insider trading and rorting the market. You just had to watch the news. You needed to be rich to get rich. If there was anything Pope knew, he knew that.

‘I'll get you started,' Baz was saying. ‘I'll set up an account and you're away.'

Who was he kidding? Pope was sure all Baz was trying to do was blow him off. This was Baz's
Dear Pope
letter. But Pope wasn't going to let himself get blown off, because this was his life, the only life he knew.

‘I don't have a computer,' he said.

‘Don't need a computer,' Baz answered, looking as bright and cheerful as any fresh-faced career guidance counsellor trying to lay some bullshit on some council-estate kid destined to be a shelf stacker the rest of his life.

But it wasn't working. Pope and Baz were a team, they were magic—no-one could do what they did. They had what it took: brains and balls. Baz was the brains, always cool, always with his planning right down to the last detail. Pope had the grit; nothing fazed him. One time they'd opened a strong box and there was a bloody snake curled up inside and Pope had just grabbed it by the tail and flicked it out. He could stare down ten well-armed men with a brick in one hand and a lump of pipe in the other. And, all right, the last job hadn't gone so well, but so what? It was swings and roundabouts. You'd just got to be grown-up and adult about it and expect that every now and then things weren't necessarily going to go the way you wanted. They hadn't meant to cripple that guy; nobody asked him to be a hero. It was just life. And, anyhow, his worries were over now. He'd get compo payments and insurance. He'd be set.

‘Well, I don't know what I'm gonna do,' Pope said, looking to play the guilt card.

‘Well, neither do I is what I'm saying,' Baz said quickly, trying to head that one off. Guilt wasn't something he responded well to. ‘But every day's a new day is what I'm also saying.'

Every day's a new day. She really had him pussy-whipped.

‘What the fuck's that supposed to mean?' Pope said, sick of messing around, and wanting to get a straight answer out of him.

It didn't mean shit, and Baz knew it. They were mates and some bitch was telling him he couldn't come out to play any more. It meant it was over, that's what it meant.

Looking at him, Baz shrugged. ‘It's been a nice ride,' he said, ‘and now it's time to get off.'

So that was it.

The two men just looked at one another. Pope didn't know whether to hit Baz or cry. In the end he didn't do either, and, grabbing a packet of nappies, Baz turned and started heading off.

Baz was pretty upset as well. They'd known each other for a long time, maybe twenty years. Pope had helped him out lots of times, even saved his life once, when some overpumped security guy went into a roid rage on him and had to be smacked across the back of the head a couple of times before he'd let him go. You don't get that close to a lot of people, but that's how close Baz had got to Pope, and now he was telling him it was over.