Black Teeth (23 page)

He says, ‘Were there other blokes on the scene? I mean, after me?'

‘No.'

I wonder what I'd hoped to get out of this. This visit with this stooge.

I say, ‘Do you remember the name Ken Penn?'

‘No.'

My shoe plays with a crop of toadstools that have sprouted here.

‘Rudy seems to think it was Ken Penn who killed Cheryl Alamein.'

‘Well it wasn't.'

‘She and Penn apparently had a thing.'

‘Listen,' he says, seeing that the light is green on discussing this now. ‘Are you going to tell me what happened to your face?'

I wipe the rain from my eyes.

‘I told Rudy that Piers confessed to me. In prison. I told him Piers was guilty.'

‘Why?'

‘
Because
—' I spit the word but can't phrase the rest of it. A black hearse passes nearby. In the passenger seat a young woman checks her makeup in the visor mirror. ‘Because if he accepts the truth, then this all goes away.' I huff water off my top lip.

‘Then what happened?'

‘This.' I point to my head. ‘He freaked.'

‘That's it? He attacked you for that?'

‘He didn't attack me exactly. I tripped and landed on my face. But I'm fine. Don't worry about it.'

This talk of my injuries makes me want to touch them. The cut over my eye stings but the headache seems to come from the swollen cheek. It throbs, boastful.

‘You shouldn't have done that,' Tyan hisses. ‘Nobody asked you to do that. You'll fuck this whole thing up.'

I'm emboldened by my damaged face, like there's no way Tyan will attack me
today
. So I turn to him. Turn on him. Don't get to flex my self-righteous muscles in real life very often.

‘
Somebody
has to fuck it up. Fucking this up is what we should be doing. I know you want to live out your fantasy of capturing him and getting on the TV, but you're fucking naive, man.'

More cars pass; I hope their windows are fogged enough to hide my gesturing.

‘He found the key. To the back door of your house. You've got a spare key outside there somewhere? That's what he was doing in your yard the other night. When you called me. He
knows
how to get into your
house.
'

That keeps him thinking. Hands come out of his pockets, grasp each other for warmth. I continue:

‘You think when he shows up on Friday night and finds you with a gun, you think that's going to
stop
him? You think he'll throw down the shiv and say, “Okay, you got me?” He's not going to sit back and let you make a fucking
citizen's arrest
. His brain is like, revenge or die trying.
That's
why we have to call the cops.'

I say that with conclusion so that Tyan knows the spiel is over. And in response, he nods. For a couple of foolish seconds I think he's on board, that I've convinced him and we will now turn to law enforcement. Undermine Rudy's plan, not help it along. He even says it out loud:

‘You're right.'

He watches another sedan glide past, swish through the puddles. Blinks hard at it.

And he's like, ‘We have to take him out.'

37

The vehicles convene at a distant point among the monuments. Sombre men and women emerge, stagger unhurried through the spits of rain and the wind that seems to own this place, gather where an open plot is gaping.

I can't see it but I know it's there.

‘Look at your face,' Tyan jeers. ‘I mean for Christ's sake…'

‘This is a joke, isn't it?'

‘It's the only way to keep us
both
safe.'

‘What are you going to do? Go to his house and whack him?'

‘Nah.' Another drawn-out vowel. He's got the temerity to be dismissive of how I've got the temerity to be dismissive of this. ‘I mean when he comes for me. I've got a firearm. We're not talking about just detaining him anymore.'

A lot of grey hair crowns the mourners over there; I guess it's a burial for someone whose time had come. Someone older than Mum. Older than Rudy.

‘I think we should go to the cops. I think we should go to them
right now.
'

‘That's not an option.' Tyan moves closer, not to intimidate me but to better conduct a nuanced conversation. ‘You said yourself an intervention order isn't going to work. That's about all he'll get, even with attempted murder. And what if he's bailed? The judge orders him not to go within a kilometre of my house. Big woops. Even if he goes away for a couple of years, do you think when he gets released he's going to waste any time before he
comes after me? He's been stewing on this for years.'

I look at my mother's grave, scoff at it.

‘Is this what men do without women in their lives? Just stand around, plotting to murder each other? I mean…' I laugh, pointedly. ‘Are we really discussing this in a
graveyard
?'

‘It's not murder. It's self-defence. It's the guarantee that I can sleep for the rest of my life with both eyes shut.'

The steam from Tyan's mouth is like the exhale from a single toke on a cigarette.

I say, ‘From what I understand, he's got a heart thing. Like, a heart problem. He could drop dead any minute.'

‘Only makes him more dangerous.'

‘All he's going to have is a freaking toothbrush. Are you allowed to shoot him
then
?'

‘What toothbrush?' He leans into my eye line. ‘Have you seen it?'

‘It's a tiny plastic stick. It's not self-defence if it's a stick.'

‘It is if he's a real threat. If he takes me by surprise.'

‘But you
know
he's
coming
.'

Tyan's eyes droop, bored with how I'm arguing. ‘We don't tell anyone that I knew.'

‘So you want me to lie. To the police.'

‘It's a small price to pay—'

‘And you think they're just going to
believe
us?'

‘Why shouldn't they?'

‘Because there isn't a reason that they
should
. Outside of you and me, no one knows what Rudy's planning. No one knows he hates you. He winds up dead in your house, they might not just take your word for it.'

There's Beth. But no way I'm bringing that name up right now.

‘Okay,' he says, nodding with the wisdom of Yoda. ‘We should talk about that. But first you need to calm down and see that this might be against the rules but it's absolutely fucking necessary.'

‘It's
not
. And after what happened last night, he doesn't know what the fuck's going on with his insurance. So we don't even know if Friday's still the day. Maybe he'll just say fuck it and come tonight.'

It's raining heavier. Umbrellas come out among the mourners.
Tyan turns, starts the walk back the way we came. The visit to Mum's grave is over.

‘Then we've got to find out,' Tyan says over his shoulder. He knows I'm following. ‘And I can't fucking do it, can I? I need you. Because otherwise all this is for nothing.' He waves at the cemetery.

‘You're out of your mind. This is…This makes you no better than Rudy.'

Tyan swivels at me with a bony finger.

‘Being better than him isn't the
fucking
point. The point is not to get
fucking
murdered in my
fucking
sleep. Can't you see that? I don't reckon there's a future for you and me if you're like this. Sorry to be so blunt, but it's a little chilling to think you don't care.'

‘
That's
what you find chilling?'

The dirt path turns to mud, impacted and sloppy beneath our feet. Already cars return along the blacktop, attendees harried from the burial by the cold. In the thick of this altercation I'm still watching in case people can tell we're arguing.

I raise my voice, bowed against the wind. ‘I'm not helping to do it. I don't care if it
does
queer things for you and me.'

The cigarettes come out now. Tyan stops to light up, thwacks away at his plastic lighter but the elements are against him. He gives up, waves the white stick at me.

‘You should think about that.'

He continues to walk. I stay put.

‘I don't need to think about it!'

Over his shoulder, without turning back, still holding the cigarette like he's smoking it: ‘Think about
that
!'

I let him go. I'm parked in the other direction.

38

Beth is drinking cappuccino when I arrive. A chocolate moustache lines her top lip and either she knows about it, considers it hilarious, or she doesn't know. Or maybe she wants me to see how she's no less handsome for this new virility.

The Lunacy Café was her choice, so close to where she lives. Lunchtime it's crowded with Brunswick people: as I enter a young woman in full kawaii cosplay throws me a sour look from this side of the drinks fridge, one to make me shut the door against the cold, which I do, then move to Beth's table and she shows me her dimples and smiles that wide brown smile.

‘Hiya, toots.'

It holds nothing of the awkwardness of this morning and it's a reminder of how not-Marnie she is, the thought of whom brings on a pang of guilt which I force down with a more powerful, somehow more acceptable, sense of shame—my father plans to kill someone.

I consider telling Beth exactly half of that, not sure I want to in such a crowded spot. Even as I sit there's someone's arse in my face, shimmying past.

‘Hello.' You can't help but grin at her.

‘God…' She examines the markings on
my
face. ‘I can't believe we…I should have taken you to the hospital.'

The nerve-endings have come back to life. Everything's tight. My eye wants to close over.

‘I'm fine.'

‘Did Rudy really, like…punch you?'

‘Not really,' I say. ‘He slapped me.'

‘That's a
slap
?'

‘I was trying to get away from him. I fell and hit my head.'

‘Right…'

‘But it wouldn't have happened if he wasn't so aggressive. Like, way aggressive.'

She nods with an urgent understanding. I hurt myself running away.

I'm like, ‘What have you been up to this morning?'

‘Just waiting for you, toots. How's the fam?'

‘Fine.'

‘Was it like a birthday thing?' She sips more coffee and wipes her mouth, sees the chocolate on her hand and finds a serviette.

‘Just a catch up with my dad.'

‘Cool,' she says, her interest tapering.

‘I never knew him my whole life. We've only just now been in contact.'

My lord, that feeling when you finally tell someone.

‘Wow. How's
that
going?'

‘Fine.'

I raise my head for a waiter. It's less that I want to eat and more that I want to change the topic. My conversation with Tyan killed my appetite, buried it and left a tasteful plaque. Which is just as well, because I can't tell which of these hipsters are waiters and which are patrons. Everyone has dreadlocks or tattoos and they all seem to have just finished having sex with each other.

‘Are you okay?'

Her question catches me out.

‘Why?'

‘You seem weird. Did something happen with your dad?'

‘No. It's a long story. Let's talk about something else.'

‘Okay,' she says. ‘Listen, I think you need to tell me what's going on. Like, more about, like…'

‘What?'

‘Like, for one thing, who is this guy? The one Rudy's got it in for?'

Toots, that is so not changing the subject.

I scan the café. Joyless gossiping twentysomethings mixed in with loners on their phones and laptops, but the dreamy ambient music is loud enough to keep most conversations private. I hold off as a dazed beard carries green juice in a jar past our table.

‘His name is Glen Tyan. A retired police detective. He put Rudy's dad in prison.'

‘Okay…' She scrunches her eyes, sympathetic and thoughtful.

‘Once upon a time, Rudy knew his dad was guilty, told it to a newspaper, but then his father took his own life and Rudy started to think that Piers was…framed.'

I feel stupid just saying that word.

‘He can't explain how or why, because there is no how or why. How and why got buried underneath this revenge thing. He just blames the guy that arrested his father. But Beth…'

I raise my fist off the table, grapple with what I'm about to say. It's time to make this particular fact clear to Rudy's number one apologist.

‘Rudy wants to kill him.'

A weak twitch in her eye that makes her glasses shudder.

‘No way.'

‘He's going to break in and murder Tyan in his sleep. At least, that's what he was planning up until this.' I draw a circle in the air around my face. ‘Since this I don't know what he's thinking.'

‘He told you all that last night?'

‘Sure,' I say.
Why not?
‘I pretended to have the tattoo to win his confidence. It really, like…worked.'

‘You've got to tell him.' A hand flaps, frustrated. ‘Glen Tyan. You've got to tell him Rudy wants to—'

‘He knows.'

Her confusion seems to frustrate her and she scowls down at the table.

‘He knows?'

‘Yes.'

‘But he won't go to the police?'

‘He will on the night. He'll incapacitate Rudy and have him
arrested. He's the kind of guy who can do that.'

Only that's not the plan anymore, is it Jason?

‘Why not, like, go to the police now?'

I sigh, slow. Eyebrows rise, cheeks puff.

‘Tyan says they'll throw the book at him if he actually tries it. He's hoping that'll teach him a lesson.'