Читать книгу Reborn - Vin Ph.D. Jackson - Страница 5

Attendance was fair for a Monday. The chic lady on stage oozed confidence, unlike the one hundred and thirty lesser mortals who absorbed her lecture in apprehensive silence. She was well aware most of the men would be eyeballing her, and some women. It went with the territory, was kind-of flattering that they'd given up their lunch of a chicken salad sandwich and a Coke in the Mall for the privilege.

And not all of them would be ogling her exclusively. Not when there was an inviting cleavage to glimpse in the chair on their left, and a spunk in a blue suit two rows down. Then there were the squirmers distracted by various discomforts and itches which had remained dormant until they sat down. One or two worried about incontinence, or flatulence and kept darting nervous glances at the exits.

In the main, though, she was guaranteed a reasonably captive audience. Most devoured the salient points of the lecture because they were either too greedy or too desperate not to - business people with a lease on the future; unemployables who had none. A few, unfortunately, were lost before they even walked through the door. They made up the numbers as they sat and tried to look clued in.

Richard Olsen was a special case: an intelligent man who might have understood had his mind not been elsewhere. He had a client to see at 1.45. Unless the lecture finished dead on time he wouldn't make it, not if he stayed. But if he left now he'd never know what she was talking about. And he'd paid $80 for an hour of salvation.

The sign outside said: SUCCESS - YOUR LAST CHANCE! His name had been omitted, but he'd felt that the message was for him personally. That was why he'd paid the money - for a tailor-made solution. Not this off-the-peg, pseudo-intellectual rubbish she was wholesaling to the masses. Despite this, he stayed.

Eventually, the speaker concluded her offering and made a reluctant theatrical exit. As she passed behind the curtain, sedate applause died an ignoble death to be replaced by the scraping of chairs and shuffling feet. She shucked her head at the noise and added a self-satisfied grin. "I actually think I got through to some today."

Her manager, a squat, oily man, was juggling figures in a note book. He shrugged. "At seven grand an hour clear, who cares?" Then he turned on his heel and slithered away. The woman watched his retreating back, his rolling gait, and she thanked God their arrangement was purely business.

Towards the front of the building a closing door nudged Richard's shoulder as he misjudged the exit to the street. He wasn't thinking. His mind was still in the auditorium, but on what he wasn't sure. Fragments of the lecture were all he seemed able to recall. Criminal when he needed to convince himself that he had gained $80 worth of positive motivation.

A car horn blared followed by a yob-yell: "Dozy Bastard!" Richard jerked to a halt, fresh perspiration bleeding from his forehead. A faded yellow ute streaked past shaking a fist. A sign across the road said: Don't Walk! Richard supposed he had. Then a surge of pedestrians drove him forward and he accepted it as a temporary respite to his motivation problem.

On his way down to the lower-level car-park beneath his office he actually remembered something:

"There are two Universes - a positive and a negative."

Bright sunlight gave way to a diffused neon gloom - definitely negative.

The sedan next to his had been broken into. Beads of glass from the shattered side-window spread a jewelled carpet beneath his feet. There was no option but to walk on it. The crunching caused him to feel involved somehow as if he was destroying evidence, desecrating remains. As he climbed into his own car he was careful not to bump the victim's duco with his door. Probably the least he could do.

Driving off the ramp to the street, he almost collected a passing vehicle. It was the same make and model as his, only black instead of white.

"Nothing can exist without its opposite."

She'd said that too, hadn't she? Without night there was no day; no good without evil. There had to be losers otherwise no-one could win. He was going to lose, for sure: his dash clock said 1.43; his appointment was in two minutes! Goodbye new client, goodbye junior partnership. Step up and get your medal, Clive, you slimy, adolescent boot-licker!

"Matter is balanced by anti-matter."

That was why there had to be people like Clive. Richard wore dark suits over white shirts; Clive was loud, trendy, had his hair permed. He ate Chinese, Mexican, Italian; Richard had to mind his ulcer. Richard's wife of fifteen years was mousy-plain; whereas Clive's tastes....?

Traffic ahead of Richard had banked up. He braked, almost made the mistake of checking the clock again and searched for something outside the car to concentrate on. Anything not connected with time. Not much that wasn't: even the busker on the footpath probably had commitments, deadlines. Anyone who had a future did.

Hidden from Richard's view and approaching the same intersection at right-angles was a Harley, gleaming chrome and showroom-condition black, cream fuel tank with the distinctive icon. The driver wore a faded vest and tattoos, his woman passenger a scarred leather jacket. Both had on holey denim jeans. No stack-hats, though. On a Harley? No way! Bystanders followed the bike's passage, some with admiration, some envy. Many resented it as a blatant display of vulgarity within their upper-middle class sanctuary. Richard had no opinion. Yet.

A horn blast invaded his preoccupation. Vehicles ahead had pulled well clear of him and were already crawling through the intersection. There was a gap of at least forty metres between Richard and the back marker. As he started up, a stream of opportunistic pedestrians waded across the road and cut him off. So he waited. The horn beeped again, very irritable. He fretted until it was clear to go, then accelerated towards the lights. They began to change as he was approaching the line. A glance in the rear-view mirror confirmed the car behind was sitting right on his tail. He was committed. At least the intersection was clear. For a second.

Just then his fringe flopped over his eyes. It was always doing that. He tossed his head to clear his vision, had a brief premonition of something wild and bearded flying at his windshield. Richard simply froze.

The sound of impact didn't travel far: the high-rise baffles and a seething human carpet muffled it. Those closest were deafened, shocked. Only a block away heads turned slightly and wondered whether they'd heard something.

Further away still - seventeen K's into the suburban sprawl - Richard's plain, mousy wife heard nothing beyond her own erotic gasping as she rode the window cleaner like there was no tomorrow. Unlike Richard, he was young, athletic. A big boy.

"Nothing can exist without its opposite."

She finally rolled off her stud and lay gazing dreamily up at the ceiling. "That was...." she started, ending with a deep, satisfied sigh. Gary paused to mumble an unintelligible response, then resumed gagging in an attempt to regurgitate a hair in his throat.

After a coffee, he started on the front windows, giving Janet the opportunity to enjoy the after-glow. She was comfortable with the arrangement now; at the start it was like cheating. Not that there was ever much love between her and Richard - she wasn't even sure she knew what real love was - but it took a while before she stopped thinking of herself as a tart. Then she figured, if Richard didn't know and she was happier, who really suffered? Not Gary, that was for sure.

He finished the windows and they were having the lunch she'd made when the door-bell rang. Janet answered it, still in her bathrobe. That, added to the flush on her cheeks and the truck parked in the drive, prompted a furtive, knowing exchange between the police constables on the step. But they covered it better than she did her guilt and went on to explain about her husband's accident. After which, they waited in the car while Mrs Olsen put some clothes on, then drove her to the hospital.

Gary eventually left by the side gate. He paused at the mailbox to slide in his account. Even though he ran a strictly cash business, he bent the rules for his regulars.