“I seem to remember.”
“Sure. We all do. It’s been in a downward spiral ever since the Catastrophe. I get so utterly depressed whenever I go back, half my mind there, half in Heropa. If I felt out-of-sync before, these days I feel like a total outsider. Once you’ve seen and clutched at the stars, it’s not easy to return to oblivion. There’s nothing for me in Melbourne, and I would not risk my place here for anything. Anything.”
“Thought you said this world isn’t real.”
“It isn’t. But Heropa is an escape hatch. So I’m not going to kill anyone, or compromise my standing. I need you to trust me on that alone.”
Jack looked at her hard. “You don’t make it easy.”
“I know I have an attitude from hell.”
“Attitude sounds perky. I’m seeing more a chip on the shoulder. Speaking of which, can I have my arms back?”
The woman lifted her hands in over-theatrical fashion. “Voilà. So now the question is — could you try to trust me?”
“Try? That’s all you’re asking?”
“It’s a start.”
“No catches?”
“None I can think up on the spot.”
“All right. I will. Try.” Surprising himself, Jack meant what he said.
“There’s a boy. You’re a good man, hon, better than I expected. And, if this works out, I’ll owe you one.”
“Just promise to say nothing more about Louise. I don’t need you lecturing me.”
“That’s her name?”
Silence.
“My lips are sealed, sewn, glued — you name it.”
PRANCE, PRANCE, PRANCE
#132
When the Brick exited the building not long later, Jack couldn’t decide why, exactly, he followed.
There were too many mysteries circulating, no clear-cut answers.
Thirty seconds between them, each man passed a sleeping guard in the dark foyer, the muted portable TV creating dancing monochrome shadows in one corner.
The Brick carried an umbrella and declined to take his car — perhaps he felt it was the perfect evening to promenade the city, wrapped in an overlarge trench coat with a straw hat and a pair of sunglasses his only disguise. Oddly, the ruse seemed to work. No one on the streets noticed this hulking behemoth passing them by.
For a while, the Equalizer walked beneath a wooden trellis overpass that shook and groaned whenever one of the peak-hour trains scuttled along. Jack hung back several metres, far enough to remain anonymous (he was wearing a suit and hat), unless the Brick actually looked his way. The man didn’t. He focused ahead and occasionally up at the brilliantly lit city skyline. There was a zeppelin, hundreds of feet in length, sliding through a network of spotlights and heavy cloud-cover.
They passed a boarded-up haberdashery. Most of the other shops, although still in business, had closed by this hour and some had their metal shutters down, others lights on in their window displays. It started to rain.
Slowing down as he passed a row of lit-up store windows, the Brick inspected a Smoke Mahout window display in a pharmacy, hats on show in the LaValle Millinery Shop, a bookstore called First Editions, and finally Mount Hollywood Art School.
The rain was getting heavier and Jack had already raised his umbrella, but the Brick took longer to open his. After a few short seconds sheltering beneath it, he shrugged, closed it again and laid it on his shoulder — even went so far as to skip the next few steps along the pavement. The lamppost was probably lucky that the Equalizer didn’t try swinging around it.
The Brick reopened his umbrella, grinned boldly to no one, and stomped off.
From the darkened doorway of the pharmacy close by his left, Jack heard a voice, all quiet-like. “Hey, mister.”
Since the rain had eased off, the Equalizer dropped his brolly and examined the shadows. The first thing he noticed was a glowing cherry, and then an individual stepped out into the yellowish luminescence, cigarette dangling from his lips.
“There’s only two things in this world that a ‘real man’ needs: a cup of coffee and a good smoke. Got the ciggie, but not the Joe. Can you lend me a dime?”
Jack noted that the fancy coat the newcomer wore was hardly down-at-the-heel. “You don’t look short of a buck.”
“Still. Won’t tell the big fella you’re following him, if you do. C’mon — help a fella out.” He lifted an upside-down red hat, as if that was where Jack was supposed to drop his donation.
He had no time for this. He took out his wallet and deposited a dollar bill. “Get yourself a Thermos to go with the coffee.”
“Sweet.”
When he turned around, Jack realized he’d lost sight of the Brick. The street was dead quiet in both directions.