Black Teeth (9 page)

‘Look, Marnie,' I say, lowering my voice. She's always had terrific posture, but now she goes rigid, like she's expecting bad news. My lips part, my vocal cords squeeze together to initiate the first word of the first sentence of my confession—

My phone rings.

It doesn't recognise the number, just displays it dumbly onscreen. I recognise it though, gape at it for a few stupefied seconds, then look to Marnie for help. She thinks I'm asking permission to take the call and says, ‘Go ahead,' with no idea of the consequences. I have to answer and so I do.

‘Hello?'

No coughing this time, just a sharp rasp in my ear.

‘Where are you?'

‘What?'

‘
Where are you?
'

‘I'm getting a pizza, Glen. What do you want?'

‘
Prove it. Prove you're not outside my house right now
.'

13

Tonight is late closing at Doncaster Shoppingtown so it's weirdly busy, which is good, makes me feel safe. Wrapped in layers of warmth I shiver at the people wearing T-shirts and tank tops, resign myself to the fact that my fear of the common cold is greater than theirs. When I catch my ghost in a store window I think of the little boy at the courthouse on Monday: all bundled up, going home with his mother…

In the food court half the eateries are closed but the other half do a slow trade. I suppose it's the movie crowd that comes hungry, intermittently: young couples feeding soft serve to each other; lonely men scoffing cheap dinners; screaming children hopped up on their own exhaustion.

I drop into a wonky metal seat and remove my beanie.

Marnie must have heard Tyan's bluster from across the table. I'd forgotten he had my number and here he was with more accusation in his voice than even last night. My instinct was to hang up and be done with him. But pride had a point to make. I was no longer the guileless doormat he'd met yesterday.

‘I'm sorry?' I said, calm.

‘That was you. Just now. Behind my house.'

‘No,' I said. ‘That was not me.'

‘Where are you?'

‘In Kensington. A restaurant.'

‘Put a waitress on the phone.'

‘What?'

‘Put a waitress on the bloody phone!'

‘Why?'

‘
Do it or I'll know it was you
.'

Suddenly I realise how hungry I am. I trudge across to a Portuguese fast food stand and buy a chicken burger, smear my face with mayonnaise and lettuce and eat and wait. I hadn't so much as
ordered
a pizza before Tyan called. When I held out my phone to the waiter behind me and said, ‘Someone needs to talk to you,' Marnie's eyes were two big pizzas, wide and confused.

And the teenage waiter, with his gelled hair and shiny face, he said, ‘What?'

‘Someone needs to talk to you real quick.' I tried to seem apologetic.

The waiter wiped his hand on his apron and took the phone.

‘Hello?'

Silence. Then he said, ‘Spatafina's.'

His unibrow formed a deep V on his forehead like a highly inconvenienced Klingon warship. He said, ‘Anderson Street. Yeah. 91 Anderson Street, Kensington.'

How I explained this to Marnie is: I didn't look at Marnie.

The boy said, ‘Around nine on weekdays. Fridays and Saturdays it's later. Sundays we're closed. Yeah. Sundays we're closed.'

Then Tyan said something that made this kid laugh with his whole body, mouth wide and teeth out like a psychopathic puppet. New information: Glen Tyan can make a person laugh. It flooded me with jealousy.

The waiter said, ‘Well I wouldn't know anything about that… All right…Cheers, mate.'

He waved the phone at me and I received it, still emitting apology-vibes, but the boy forgot me instantly and slouched away. I put the phone to my ear.

‘Satisfied?'

‘Come and see me.'

‘What?'

‘Look…' His tone had settled. ‘Please.'

A word so gapingly unexpected that I couldn't find a response.
Genuine vulnerability. From this guy. I stammered and glanced at Marnie. Her arms raised either side of her like a shruggie. Her face told me to get off the fucking phone.

‘When?'

‘Right now.'

‘I can't right now.'

His voice cracked and he took a moment to swallow. ‘I need you to help me, Jason.'

Was that the first time he'd said my name? Gooseflesh prickled my arm. I felt my excitement in the back of my shoulders and fought against that feeling, said, ‘Let me call you later.'

‘I know you're in a shit about last night. You've got to admit, it's strange this happening the same time you show up. Just show up out of the blue. So of course I'm just…I'm careful.'

‘Strange that what has happened?'

‘I don't know…' A long, agitated sigh. ‘There was someone in my backyard.'

‘You should call the police.'

‘Come over. I need to talk to you.'

‘Why?'

‘It's a long fucking story, mate. Just come over. I haven't been able to sleep. I'm going nuts.'

‘You understand I'm out? I'm having dinner—'

‘Please, matey.' So imploring you'd think he was mocking me. ‘If I
am
who you think I am, you can help me just once, can't you?'

I didn't answer.

‘
Can't you?
'

Now, in the food court, we spot each other. Tyan's pudgy frame rises on the escalator in exactly the outfit he wore yesterday. He approaches, watching me watch him. How disappointing it must be, to think this weedy dork is his own flesh and blood. Every few steps he shoots a glance to his left or right, analysing the people. I try to relax. I'm not going to speak first. I will wait for Tyan to start speaking.

14

Tyan angles a chair to face the way he came, grunts loud as he sits, murmurs something that might be ‘Thanks for coming' with that coconut-husk voice. I don't say ‘You're welcome', just shuffle my chair across so that we're not seated side-by-side. I do it noisily. Then Tyan says:

‘How did Helen die?'

It is not how I expected him to open. I shift and scratch at my shoulder.

‘Umm…It's called pulmonary fibrosis. Her lungs kind of went bad.'

Tyan nods. But like he's got any idea what he's nodding at.

‘Did you say it was last year?'

‘Yeah.'

‘She would have been, what? Fifty-nine?'

‘Fifty-two.'

What passes behind his eyes, I don't know if it's Tyan remembering her or just pretending to.

I told Marnie that I had to see a client, that it was an emergency. I waited for her to say something but she just glared, shook her head, offended. On my way out I heard her say, ‘Have fun.'

So here we are. Me and Tyan. Having fun.

‘I'm sorry,' Tyan says. ‘I lost my old man when I was your age. No mum around. No brothers or anything. I know it's…' He frowns, hopeless. ‘…shithouse.'

This genuine emotion is another surprise.

I don't want to talk about Mum so I ask, ‘Are you married?'

Tyan pushes air out of his nose. ‘No. I told you last night—'

‘Any other kids?'

‘
Other
kids? Mate, I'm not…'

He laughs breathily. He doesn't want to finish that denial.

Across from our table a horde of adolescents rounds the corner, lured by pizza slices and dumplings and the kind of chicken burger that's yodelling in my stomach, too many of them to be anything less than a school group and sure enough an adult woman, younger than me and somehow older, speaks with a forced smile to three or four that are lingering, waving them on towards food.

Tyan tries again.

‘How do you know…I mean…How do you know I'm the one?'

‘Mum told me.'

‘My name's not on the birth certificate.'

‘I know. She said that was your idea.'

‘We didn't know if…if I was responsible.'

‘She always seemed pretty sure to me.'

‘She shouldn't have been.' Two rows of teeth clack together. His tongue flicks against his cheek. ‘You were born long after things had finished between Helen and me.'

‘Nine months after, in fact.'

‘I'm just saying there's no way for you to be sure. Now, I don't want to blacken the memory of your mother, but she—'

‘Do a test.'

He snorts, hates being interrupted.

‘What?'

‘Do a DNA test.'

‘
DNA
test?' He scoffs. ‘Do you know how much they cost?
Hundreds
of dollars.'

‘Okay, fuck it then. If it costs hundreds of dollars…'

But even as I speak I'm leaning away from Tyan because I don't know how he reacts to sarcasm.

At first that distance comes over him, the same kind he had last night when he realised who I was. Like a wave of sadness he briefly has to withstand. Then, in reluctant surrender, he reaches into
his jacket pocket, pulls out a small leather flask, unscrews the lid, thoughtful.

‘Even if I was the…' He sighs. ‘I wouldn't have been any good to you. I was a pisspot back then. Just like now.'

He drinks a tame slurp. I'm suddenly massively restless.

‘What am I doing here…' I look for a word to address him, but I can't call him Dad, won't call him Glen, and Tyan feels like we're at boarding school. And who calls their father ‘mate'?

So I finish with nothing and let the question hang.

‘Hey,' Tyan puts away the flask. ‘You looked me up on the internet, right?
You
came and found
me.
'

‘On the phone you begged—'

‘Why did you do that? Why did you have to find me so bad?'

I shrug, remove all emotion from my thoughts. All thoughts from my thoughts.

‘There's stuff that would be good to know. Like, medical stuff. Like a predisposition to something.'

Tyan shakes his head and arches his mouth. ‘Nuh.'

‘Prostate issues? Heart problems? Any kind of bug in the system?'

Shakes his head again, not overly vigorous, just not interested, which I take to mean he's not hiding some terminal defect beneath this facade of Overly Manly Man. Then he turns, stares keenly at the escalators, displays for me a bald spot at seventy per cent opacity.

‘I'm sorry about last night.'

‘Don't worry about it.'

He turns back, uses the palm of his hand to rub his other palm.

‘You all right?'

‘I'm fine. But you can bet I won't be going for a piss while you're here.'

Tyan nods, doesn't consider this an attempt at humour.

‘I'm not myself, you can see. I'm edgy. Can't sleep. The shit that's been…If you've got nothing to do with it, then I'm sorry.'

‘What's happened?'

He twitches slightly, tips his head to the side.

‘Your job. Finding stuff on the internet…Or was that just bullshit too?'

‘It's not bullshit.'

‘If I asked you to find out about someone, could you do it? I mean, could you do it without them knowing it?'

‘I guess.'

‘
Can
you or—'

‘Yes. Within limits.'

‘What limits?'

‘I won't break the law.'

‘You broke the law to find me.'

‘And then you attacked me and pushed me into a toilet.'

‘And then I said I'm sorry. I'll pay you.'

I laugh. ‘I don't work for free.'

Tyan stops rubbing his palms but can't stop the fidgeting, seems to grimace at having to ask. ‘How much?'

‘Three hundred an hour. But it depends what you want done.'

‘Three
hundred
?'

‘It depends what you want done.'

‘I need you to find out about someone.'

‘Let me guess,' I say, fucking owning him for just this moment. ‘Elizabeth Cannon.'

15

It began last Monday night, after a party at the Darebin RSL. A detective senior sergeant was retiring and a piece ran in the
Daily Sun
that day, Hollywood-taping his career, calling him a legend, previewing the alcoholic circle jerk that awaited him. Tyan's name was written up as one of the likely attendees.

‘The point is,' Tyan says, ‘Anyone that wanted to know where I'd be that night would know just by picking up the fucking newspaper.'

It's 2012,
I want to say.
No one's picked up a newspaper since 1997.
But I let him continue.

He'd drunk more than his share and he shouldn't have driven home. Not that he thought that at the time. At the time he figured it was after midnight and the traffic would be light and he'd motor along on impulse power so he risked it. But he lost focus on the Eastern Freeway, missed the exit and trapped himself on the approach to Mullum Mullum Tunnel. Emboldened by the beer, Tyan U-turned quickly through the centre divider, narrowly avoided a utility vehicle and a motorcyclist.

What was strange was, then a green Volvo did precisely the same thing. He saw it in the rearview. Its break in the oncoming traffic was clearer though; it didn't almost kill someone like Tyan had.

He watched the Volvo in his mirror as he came off the freeway and down onto Springvale Road. Couldn't see the driver. Even at the red lights he tried but couldn't see.

‘Did they want you to know they were tailing you? Like, to intimidate you?'

‘Nuh. I don't reckon. They were just shit at it.'

He wasn't sure if this was for real or if he was paranoid with booze. Maybe his unconscious was getting nostalgic. After an evening spent carousing with other coppers, maybe he hankered for the old adrenaline, projected this desire onto a vehicle that had coincidentally chosen the exact same moment to U-turn…

It followed him all the way home.

By which time Tyan was halfway to the disturbed ward. He drove past his own house, around the block, all the way around and back again and parked and rushed inside. He thought that had worked. But when he pulled back the curtain on his front window, there it was, stopped on the corner, camping the house. Whoever they were, they'd turned off their lights and slumped down in the seat. But they were there. It wasn't nostalgia.