Peter Carey - The Tax Inspector

‘I could have the police here,’ Pavlovic smirked and rubbed his bright red ear. ‘Or I could leave you here. I like both ideas.’

Sarkis did not actually have a police record, but he had experience of the police in Chatswood. To Mrs Catchprice, he said: ‘Maybe you should look in your handbag.’

Mrs Catchprice’s smile became even bigger. ‘You must not equate age with stupidity,’ she said. ‘You’d have to be senile to walk around at night with money in your bag.’

She made him ashamed he had suggested such a cowardly course but he had seen the twenty-dollar notes very clearly in the jumble under the street lights before they caught the taxi. He did not wish to insult or anger her, but he tapped her very playfully on the back of the hand. ‘I think I may have seen some there.’

Mrs Catchprice looked at him briefly, frowned, and addressed herself to the balding, hawk-nosed driver. ‘What will the police think,’ she asked, ‘of a taxi-driver operating outside the correct area?’

‘They do not give a fuck. Excuse my language, but if you were nice, I would care. You are not nice, so I could not give a fuck. The police got no bloody interest in what area I’m in. Most of the young constables don’t even know what an area is. But I tell you this – they got plenty of interest in assault, and they got plenty of interest in robbery. That’s their business.’

‘Maybe you should check your handbag,’ said Sarkis.

‘I can see I’m going to have to train you,’ said Mrs Catchprice. ‘When I say I have no money it is because I have no money.’ To the taxi-driver she said: ‘You wait.’ Then she slid out of the door and disappeared into the night.

The taxi-driver leaned back and shut the door. Mrs Catchprice appeared in the headlights of the car walking towards the river. Then – so suddenly it whipped Sarkis’s head forwards and backwards – Pavlovic reversed, made a U-turn, and before his passenger could do anything he was bouncing up the pot-holed track with the red electric figures on the meter showing $28.50.

They were half way through the first S bend when Sarkis leant forward and hooked his forearm round the taxi-driver’s long thin neck. He pulled it back so hard he could feel the jaw bone grating against his ulna. All he said was: ‘Turn back.’ The driver’s stubble was rubbing against his forearm. He hated to think of this against his mother.

‘Road,’ Pavlovic gasped. ‘Too narrow.’

‘O.K.’

‘Can’t breathe.’

‘Shut up.’

‘Breathe.’

Sarkis released his arm a little. The taxi-driver screamed. He screamed so loud he made the taxi like a nightmare, a mad place: ‘You a dead man, Jack.’ Sarkis could feel the wet on his arm. Not sweat. Pavlovic was crying. ‘I hit my panic button, they get you, cunt. They get you in the cells, they fuck you with their baton, you wait.’ The car slowed and slowed until it was juddering and kangaroo-hopping up the road. As the car leaped and jerked, Pavlovic was flailing around with his arm, trying to grab first Sarkis’s ear or eye but also – the panic button. Sarkis grabbed Pavlovic’s hand and held it. He held it easy, but he was now scared, as scared as Pavlovic. Pavlovic was crying but it was not simple scared-crying, it was mad-crying too.

‘You pull up here,’ Sarkis said.

‘You get twenty years for this. You’re dead.’

‘She gets murdered or something,’ Sarkis said. ‘She’s dead.’ The car shuddered and stalled.

‘You,’ yelled the taxi-driver, his face glowing green in the light of his instruments, but he didn’t finish the sentence.

‘What you think I’m going to do to you?’ Sarkis asked. ‘Did I hurt you?’

‘Just pay me,’ Pavlovic said, glaring at him from streaming eyes.

‘O.K.,’ Sarkis said, relieved. ‘You go back and get her, I’ll pay you.’

‘O.K. You take your arm away now.’

Sarkis unhooked his arm from under the driver’s chin.

‘O.K.,’ said Pavlovic, blowing his nose. ‘You got money on you?’

‘At home.’

‘Then I’ll take you home for the money, then we come back here and get her.’ He was hunched over the wheel. He did not need to tell Sarkis he had his finger an inch away from the panic button.

‘We get her first.’

‘You want me press this fucking button?’

That button was enough to get Sarkis put in jail. Pavlovic used it like a pistol. First he forced him to abandon Mrs Catchprice. Then he drove him to his house where his mother had $52 hidden under the lino in the sitting-room.

While Sarkis stole his mother’s money, Pavlovic sat in the cab with the engine running. He stayed hunched over the wheel, his finger on that button.

‘Come on,’ Sarkis said when he got back in the cab. ‘I’ve got the money.’

‘Hold it up. Hold the notes.’

Sarkis showed him – five tens, one two.

Pavlovic twisted his neck to see the money. He had to keep his finger on that button. Even when he backed out of the drive-way he had to sit twisted sideways in his seat, and he drove back to the Wool Wash one handed, all the way, in silence.

When the meter showed $52 they were almost there, on the main road up above the Wool Wash Picnic Area. Pavlovic stopped the car.

‘You pay me,’ he said, ‘or I hit this fucking button now. I charge you with fucking assault, at least. You understand me.’

‘Relax,’ said Sarkis. ‘No one’s going to hurt you.’

‘Shut up, Jack. Just pay me.’

‘I need a lift back. O.K. Can you hear me? I’ll pay you more money when we get back.’

‘Give me the fucking money or you’re a dead man.’

‘You don’t want to make more money?’ Sarkis held out the $52 and Pavlovic snatched the notes. ‘I need a lift back,’ Sarkis said. ‘I’ll pay you.’

‘Not in this cab, Jack.’

‘Just calm down, relax a little.’

‘Get out,’ screamed Pavlovic.

Sarkis shrugged and got out of the car.

Pavlovic locked the car doors.

‘Listen,’ Sarkis began, but the taxi was already driving away, leaving him to stand in pitch darkness.

It was now five minutes to eleven o’clock on Monday night. Mrs Catchprice was already back in Franklin, walking back across the gravel towards her apartment.

26

The Australian Tax Office was in Hunter Street. The glassed, marble-columned foyer remained brightly lit and unlocked and, apart from video cameras and an hourly M.S.S. patrol, the security for the building depended on deceptively ordinary blue plastic Security Access Keys which were granted only to ASO 7’ s and above. This was why Gia now had a key and Maria did not.

In the six months she had had the key, Gia had never used it. It sat in its original envelope in the bottom of her handbag, together with its crumpled instruction sheet. Now, standing before the blank eyes of video cameras which were connected to she knew not what, Gia read the instructions to Maria.

‘O.K. Hold the key firmly between thumb and forefinger. Ensure blade is unobstructed.’

‘We should have read this in the car,’ Maria said. ‘I can’t see where the shitty thing goes.’ She jabbed the key at the button.

‘First you’ve got to step into the elevator, Señora.’ Gia took Maria’s arm. ‘Then you put it in the Security/Air-conditioning slot.’

A red light came on. A buzzer sounded. Maria started.

‘Calm down,’ Gia said. ‘No one’s going to shoot you. All we’re doing is working late.’

The lift ascended and the liquid display panel above the door wished someone called Alex a happy birthday. Maria seemed pale and unhappy. Gia took her arm and squeezed it.

‘Relax,’ she said.

‘You know,’ Maria said, ‘that’s exactly the wrong thing to say to me. If you’re dealing with an agitated person, a maniac, you never say “relax”. Relax means what you feel is not important to me. I read that in the Sydney Morning Herald yesterday.’ She took Gia’s hand and held it: ‘You’re very brave to come with me. Thank you.’