Black Teeth (40 page)

He jabs the door with the key, hands shaking, looking for the lock. It opens silently. I can smell the oil Tyan must have applied to the hinges to keep them quiet.

Rudy doesn't go in. So I take his hand, the one that isn't holding a weapon, and I say, ‘When you're ready.'

69

The vestibule is just as dark as everything outside and we probably should have brought flashlights. More than anything it's sonar we use to navigate: the sound of our breathing tells us where we are, the creak of the floorboards relays our progress. I wanted Rudy to lead the way, but it's me, really, who finds the kitchen door.

‘There's another door here.' This is a whisper into what I think is Rudy's ear.

He squeezes my hand.

‘I can't open it, Rudy.'

Silence, then the sound of fingernails licking the wood veneer, then the bass thunk of a spring catch released.

This door is oiled too. I only know that Rudy has opened it by the cold air that sweeps across my face, this interior colder than the winter outside, like it's been refrigerated for hours. More like years.

A tug on my hand. Rudy steps into the kitchen. No tripwire, no gunfire. Just old sneakers on linoleum. It seems the blinds are open but it makes no difference to the darkness. I try to follow, try to blink away the dark, try to make out the figure of Tyan hiding under the table or in the hollow by the stove. From behind me comes another gust of air, this time it's the door that swings shut slowly on its spring.

Tyan must have heard footsteps on the driveway, must have been impatient when Rudy didn't instantly show himself and he must be ready to pounce. But I don't know. He might be standing two feet away, tracking us with night-vision goggles.

Before I can further think on it, the hallway lights up. Rudy squeals.

Tyan, silhouetted in the kitchen door by the dim orange bulb behind him.

‘What the fuck are you doing here?'

He wears jocks and a singlet. How a real man dresses for a killing. Legs so pale they glow in the dark. I can just make out his face, his look of perplexity, almost hurt.

‘He wouldn't come alone.'

Rudy shudders with a guttural moan, steadies himself and clutches the toothbrush to his chest like it will save him.

‘He knows,' I say. ‘He knows what's happening.'

Rudy's big eyes, pinned on Tyan's belly button.

‘I know…' He moans it.

Hovering there is Tyan's right hand, something black and glimmering. The sharpened toothbrush falls to the lino. Rudy doesn't notice. He's too busy hyperventilating.

What I notice is the draughts board. It's under the fridge, jammed beneath one corner in place of the newspaper. Deep in this tension, that's what draws my eye. Tyan has used the board to stabilise his refrigerator. I wonder if he said ‘I'm sorry' out loud when he did it.

‘How does he know?' Tyan doesn't take his eyes off Rudy. ‘You told him?'

‘He just kind of…figured it out.'

‘Stop fucking holding hands, would you?'

Rudy's hand has felt so natural in mine that I'd forgotten it was there. Instantly I release it and it hangs in the air like an astronaut cut loose. Then Rudy plants it on the kitchen sink, keeps himself standing.

‘You can't be here,' Tyan says, flicking the gun at me. ‘Go over the back fence. Don't make noise.'

‘Okay.'

I move a few steps to the table, cling to it for balance.

‘
Go on, then
.'

‘Okay.'

I do not move.

‘I know…' grinds out Rudy again.

Tyan makes a disgruntled face at me, rotates slightly to address the other weirdo.

‘If you know…then you know.'

He adds, by way of consolation, ‘I'm not going to give you some big speech.'

Already Rudy is nodding.

‘But the fact is, I'm sixty years old. You think I'm going to sleep with one eye open the rest of my life?'

And then, without warning, a kind of compassion comes to him. ‘I'm sorry about this.'

Although Rudy nods, face screwed into a toddler's tantrum, he is reversing. His back hits the door, presses against it.

I feel a heavy pain in my chest, realise I'm holding my breath.

Tyan's speech, the one he wasn't going to give, continues.

‘You remember the day I come there? To your house? And the bloke took our picture for the paper? We talked. You knew I wasn't a bad sort of a bloke. And now here you are. It can't go on, mate. It has to end.'

‘I know…' Rudy manages to raise his eyes. When he says it again it's found spit and anger. ‘I
know
.'

‘Fuck you. What do you know, hey?' Tyan, working himself up. ‘What do you
know
? Your father killed Cheryl Alamein. He killed your mum.'

‘No…'

‘You told the fucking paper—'

‘I
didn't
—' Rudy yells at the floor. Voice cracks. Both hands pinned to the door like a prisoner.

‘But now your life's turned to shit and you need someone to blame. Why not muggins here? Poor bastard just doing his job. And so here you fucking are.'

My stomach is in spasm, searching for air.

‘
No
,' Rudy cries. So certain despite his ignorance. ‘You
lied.
You
lied
about it. You said it was my dad and he
didn't
!'

‘Pick that up.' Tyan gestures at the toothbrush on the lino.

So slowly, in spite of his tears and that mouth drawn open by
invisible hooks, Rudy bends down and grasps the shiv. It takes three attempts.

To this phenomenal sight, Tyan says, ‘You're a fucking joke.'

He raises the black glimmer, levels it. Arm straight like a gallows.

‘Nargh…' Rudy moans. ‘You
did
lie.'

Blood bashes my eyeballs.

Tyan: ‘I did my
fucking job
.'

‘You
lied
.'

‘
Fuck you.
'

‘
He didn't
.'

‘He
did.
'

‘
Tell him.
'

They each snap their heads to me.

I gulp a tonnage of air. Those words were the cork that stopped the bottle and now my head swims and I suck in the full atmosphere of the room, don't notice the acrid taste now, clutch the table edge, blink yellow flashes in the dark.

‘Tell him,' I say again before anyone can change the subject.

‘What?'

‘You have to tell him.' Dry mouth. I swallow. ‘After that, you can…whatever. But you have to do this first. You have to say it. You thought Piers was lying.'

‘He
was
fucking lying.'

‘The Polygraph…' I push fists into my abdomen. ‘You thought he was lying so you fixed him up.'

Tyan, in jocks and a singlet, looks at me like
I'm
ridiculous. ‘You've swallowed his bullshit, have you?'

‘Look at him.' I gesture at Rudy's cramped, melting figure, face frozen in that butoh agony. ‘He can't hurt you—'

‘You
did
it,' is all that Rudy whimpers.

‘
Piers Alamein killed his wife
.' Tyan shouts it at both of us. A ligature to tie off the discussion. And it's there, in that adamance, that I see a crack.

Rudy doesn't. He slides down the kitchen door, mimicking the tears that slide down his face. His backside reaches the lino, knees wrap up to his chin.

‘You thought he did,' I look to my own grip on the kitchen table as I speak. ‘You thought he'd kept the vase he used, but you couldn't find it. So you bought a second one.'

‘Fuck off…'

‘You knew where to buy it. And you cleaned it with the same detergent they had at the house. That's why there were no fingerprints.'

I'm not sure, but Tyan seems to roll his eyes.

‘Then you got Cheryl Alamein's blood on it. And you took it to the workshop. And you pretended to find it.'

‘Don't be bloody stupid.'

‘But you got it wrong…'

‘Fuck this for—'

‘You thought he'd confess, but he didn't. So it went to trial and you didn't care because Piers Alamein was guilty. You were the Polygraph. You could always tell if someone was lying.'

‘This is bullshit.'

‘You got it wrong. If he was weird with you it's because he thought Rudy had something to do with it. But it wasn't Piers.'

‘Then who
was
it?' The incredulity is back.

‘Ken Penn!' Rudy yells this from the floor.

‘No,' I say. ‘Not Ken Penn. A man named Des Blake. He broke in, Cheryl surprised him and he hit her with the vase.'

‘Fuck you.'

‘He's in a hospice in Fairfield.'

Tyan blinks back thoughts. He wasn't expecting actual proof.

I'm like, ‘He's dying and he left a confession. A signed statement that he killed Cheryl Alamein.'

Tyan's gallows arm goes slack, the one that had followed Rudy on his slide to the lino. Still he holds it out there like he's offering it to us. His head retreats two inches on the axis of his neck.

‘Come on,' He grins, indignation stifling his voice. ‘You're making this up—'

‘I'm not.'

‘Anthony?' Rudy's face is scrunched skin, eyes in there somewhere. I don't try to remind him of my real name. Instead I say to Tyan:

‘It all goes public once Blake dies. Any day now.'

‘Why are you saying this?' Tyan
really
wants to know. I thought Rudy was Paul Heaney, that he'd somehow convinced himself the past hadn't happened. But here is Tyan, seeing me as if for the first time, righteous and wounded. ‘Why…?'

‘Because it's true. Because you fixed up an innocent man. And he went crazy. And so did his son. That's what happened.'

‘
That's not true
.'

‘You just have to admit it.'

Tyan's thoughts seem to cave inwards. But only for an instant before he straightens that arm again, points at Rudy's head. Rudy flinches, grabs at nothing.

‘Stand up,' Tyan says to him.

‘Tell him,' I say.

Rudy is such a mess down there beside the shine box, his arm flapping useless and his head beating against the door, that I don't know if his brain would receive the information if Tyan
did
tell him.

‘
Stand up
,' Tyan's voice is sludge.

Rudy hears that. His pencil arms push to the floor and he gets to his feet. Ready. Shrunken and terrified and willing.

I say, ‘He deserves to know the truth first.'

‘It's
bullshit
,' Tyan roars, inhales hard through his teeth and burns at me. And I soften my voice.

‘Tell him the truth, Dad.'

That's what I say to end it. That's the capper. Call the man Dad and see what happens. Tyan's grip loosens, the revolver lowers an inch and drifts. He goes to speak but doesn't. He peers at the figure of Rudy, somehow both cowed and stoic, then back at me and then at nothing, beaten in a game that has gone on so long.

The gun lowers another inch and he wants to speak again. That face, though. I know that face. I know the face that comes before a confession. Tyan knows it.

He whispers: ‘I had to.'

Rudy and I extend to him. Like, imperceptibly. The way flowers extend to the sun.

What comes next—within a second of realising that I've done it, that Tyan is capitulating, that he isn't going to shoot Rudy Alamein—is a gunshot.

Two gunshots, actually.

70

Prostate cancer is a terrible disease. The tumour squeezes your urethra so you never really feel relieved, kind of always have to go. Every moment of your life gets planned around your access to a toilet. You're up six or seven times a night. You worry whenever you leave the house.

It's a terrible disease so you can't blame the guy. What, he should have held it in so that we could all live happily ever after? He should have stayed in bed so we could somehow cathartically dispel all our bad ju-ju? He should have undergone a stabbing pain in his guts tonight so that none of
us
had to? Freddie probably doesn't even know the light from his bathroom window, the one that throws across the fence and into Tyan's kitchen, is like daylight compared to the darkness that preceded it.

What happens now takes place at such speed that only a Thruware botlog can capture it.

20120714 23:49:28:66 Freddie feels the stinging in his groin for the first time tonight.

20120714 23:50:36:03 Freddie gets out of bed. He has no idea what's going down in the house next door. Even if he heard anything, even if he bothered to look, all he'd see is that the lights are off in Tyan's kitchen.

20120714 23:50:42:89 Freddie switches on his toilet light.

20120714 23:50:42:90 The stupid light lights up Tyan's kitchen.

20120714 23:50:42:95 Rudy, who already thought he was about to die, shrieks and recoils.

20120714 23:50:43:01 This recoil includes a kick into the shine box that's still in place beside the door. The pistol inside is still loaded, still on a hair trigger.

20120714 23:50:43:02 The pistol discharges.

20120714 23:50:43:04 We all jerk at the noise and the flash. Tyan jerks back.

20120714 23:50:43:05 Tyan's firearm, the one he's holding in his hand, discharges.

20120714 23:50:43:06 Exploit resolved, retrieval j98::%lo07, link#1…

A ringing comes from somewhere but that might just be my ears. Movies don't prepare you for how loud guns are—so loud it feels like
I've
been shot. My instinct is to look where Tyan's gun had been pointing: the refrigerator where he keeps his food and any jars he's too weak to open. The ringing doesn't come from there, might be from behind me. I look around. Behind me is just the stove.

Tyan stumbles forward. A step. He triggers the kitchen fluoro. The room blazes. I want to step towards the fridge as well, want to know what that ringing noise is but I can't step forward. Something holds me back. Something behind me has a grip and it's keeping me in place. I rotate to see what it is and on the stove there's a steel saucepan. It is empty and it is ringing. A tiny lunk of black metal lodged in its side.