Sold. Blair Denholm
mind went into overdrive. That would be a gross sale amount of about $205,000. He snatched the phone and punched in Max’s extension. He had to score the money for Jocko first, sell the cars second.
‘Max, great news!’ He recited the text message to his boss. ‘Only problem is, the debt collector will get here first. You’ve gotta let me have the cash to pay him. He might not make a scene here, but he’s gonna do something to Maddie if I don’t hand it over today.’
The slight pause seemed like an hour to Gary.
‘Okay,’ said Max. ‘It’s only four grand I’m risking. But if the Russian doesn’t show, you need to start looking for a new job as of this afternoon. Clear?’
‘Thanks, boss. It’s going to be a win-win. You get to sell some expensive cars, I get to clear my debt and everyone’s happy,’ Gary gushed, taking a celebratory sip of rum.
‘To be honest, I’m not happy. I’d rather sit on those cars for the rest of the year if it means you keep your nose clean. I know it’s for your mother-in-law and all, but you could have come to me in the first place instead of approaching a loan shark.’
‘I know and I’m sorry. I’ve learned a valuable lesson, that’s for sure. I’ll never forget this.’ Gary hung up the phone and rubbed his sweaty palms together. Four grand in the hole for now (there’d be some commission to pocket later) but he’d received a stay of execution. He busied himself filing paperwork, preparing mentally for his encounter with Bradley Jones.
He couldn’t concentrate. Tick-tock, tick-tock.
It wasn’t the clock – his heart, pulse and brain thumped a loud and distracting beat in his head. He looked at his phone and wished Ivan would ring or text to say he’d be early. Finally his patience gave out. He pressed the green call button, but there was no answer. Okay, he’ll be here. Stop panicking.
At precisely one o’clock, Gary saw Godzilla stride through the black iron gates into the yard. The creature’s colossal frame tested the seams of a dark blue suit that looked half a size too small. The enforcer’s box-shaped head was bookended by a pair of pink cauliflower ears, the result of packing his melon into more than a thousand rugby scrums.
Gary’s extension buzzed. ‘Gaz, a Mr Jones to see you.’
‘Come on Irina, the taxi will be here in half an hour,’ said Ivan Romashkin. ‘Please be ready on time.’
Ivan looked at his and Irina’s brand new Trust Bank of Australia online account. The money from Murmansk came through overnight. A monster of a transaction – $2 million USD, or $2.5 million Aussie with change – $200,000 for the cars and the rest to play with. He’d been browsing realestate.com.au over the last few days and decided ‘play with’ meant buying a fancy house in one of the Gold Coast’s fashionable suburbs. On a canal would be ideal. Maybe there’d be enough money left over for a boat.
He couldn’t believe that he, Ivan Olegovich Romashkin, unassuming and, by his own standards, unambitious fish factory worker of humble proletarian origins (and damned proud of it), had been so lucky. His mother said more than once, ‘Vanya, be happy with what you have. The grass is not always greener on the other side.’ To which he always replied, ‘Mother, there is no bloody grass here.’ A fair comment when he considered the grey, gloomy hell of his home city of Murmansk, perched under the Arctic Circle. But mother was wrong. She didn’t know about the Gold Coast.
Ivan stood on the balcony of the top-floor apartment on Orchid Avenue and gazed upon the throngs of tourists milling about on the streets below. The endless Pacific Ocean was a mere two blocks away; even at this early hour hundreds of bare bodies and multi- coloured umbrellas dotted the sugar white beach. There’d be barely enough room to place a towel by lunchtime. Snug in his fluffy black dressing gown, a fresh orange juice in his hand, he looked down upon the wonderful scene of brightness and light and smiled. This was Utopia.
Ivan’s mother had called Irina a stuck-up cow with ambition beyond her station. But here she was, taking him and their two girls overseas to a place beyond their craziest dreams; Australia, for God’s sake.
Not much of a traveller, Ivan had only once been away from Murmansk. One night at the factory, a stray fish hook impaled his eye. It was agony and worse – threatened his vision. Irina’s boss flew him to Moscow for emergency surgery. Only the skilful hands of the world’s leading eye surgeon saved his vision in the injured eye. The boss put them up at the Hotel National – luxury on a scale Ivan never imagined.
Through his one good eye he saw the crazy, multi-coloured onion domes of Saint Basil’s cathedral, the shiny cobblestones of Red Square, the red bricked Kremlin and its massive walls, gaudy billboards and bright neon lights. Not to mention the department stores brimming with consumer products unavailable in Murmansk. To Ivan, Moscow was a shiny gold nugget, while his home town was the kind of nugget that dropped out of a dog’s arse.
But that day at the tail end of a brief wet autumn, when the daylight faded faster and faster into endless black nights, Irina announced the forthcoming expedition to the antipodes. His head spun like sizzling sprats in a frypan.
Now as he scanned the long, uninterrupted arc of sand narrowing into the distance, he could just make out the hotels and holiday units at Coolangatta, he thought Irina was the cleverest, most wonderful woman in the world.
On the last Monday of that rainy autumn, Irina’s boss Fil Muzhasov – head of the Murmansk General Catering Open Joint Stock Company and monopoly supplier of kitchen equipment to local restaurants and factory cafeterias – sent an email to all employees asking for volunteers to travel to Australia to seek out new business opportunities. Unbelievably, of the many eager applicants, Irina was chosen to lead the mission. Ivan felt his face turn as purple as borsch, bursting with pride when his wife came home with the news.
Irina admitted later the job was hers from the start; the boss only put it out to tender for the sake of propriety. They’d be allowed to keep any assets they acquired to the value of two and a half million dollars so long as they followed all instructions on how to invest other funds transferred to their account.
Irina’s mission was to build a portfolio of property assets purchased through special bank accounts and with the help of an Australian national. Fil’s crack team of IT programmers would eventually close and expunge all traces of the accounts’ existence. Irina admitted she didn’t understand all the technicalities, but in essence the operation hinged on a software application that worked like a cloak of invisibility.
The app made it possible to open bank accounts in any of the major Australian banks, complete with online facilities, passwords and all that jazz, operate them up to the end of the financial year then make them disappear. With an override of daily withdrawal limits, ATMs could be stripped bare of cash. Best of all, the banks couldn’t see the open accounts or money going in and out of them. But it was critical to set up the accounts, deposit and withdraw the money as fast as possible. Irina as a book-keeper was in awe. Just like rubbing out numbers in the ledger book, only on a majestic scale.
‘Shut up, Ivan. I’ll be ready when I’m ready!’ Irina’s shrill voice ricocheted off the tiles in the cavernous bathroom. Her vocal versatility amazed him: low and syrupy for sexy, mid-range for negotiations, high and piercing for putting people back in their box.
‘Okay, my love,’ came the meek reply.
Ivan wandered into the lounge room and stared at his craggy face in the mirror. He adjusted his bright red tie about seven times, but Irina would have to re-tie it anyway. Wearing formal clothes felt unnatural, like putting a saddle on a cow. Irina had spent thousands at a Cavill Avenue boutique for men. She picked a wardrobe full of suits and shirts, several pairs of shoes (most of which pinched and rubbed painfully) and a variety of pants in conservative colours and styles. He was only allowed to dress down on weekends when they cruised the shopping malls and relaxed on the beach, unless there