Girl Defective (12 page)

“So where are you?”

Nancy laughed low, sounding like Vesna. “What else?”

“Ray asked me if you liked him. I said yes.”

“Gag. Thanks a lot.”

“He's seriously creepy, Nancy.”

“I know.” She sighed. “He wants me to go to this party. He's bought a dress for me and everything. I'm supposed to make him look good.”

“Are you going?”

“Depends. Why—you're not worried about me, are you?”

“Hardly.” I scoffed, then chewed on the silence. I had a feeling that the gap between what we said and what we actually wanted to say was getting wider and wider.

The phone crackled.

“Where are you?” I asked again.

The phone cut off. I waited for Nancy to call back; she didn't. I plummeted into a funk. I saw Nancy moving through the magic doors at the airport. I imagined her boarding the plane, creating her own turbulence, while I was left with a five-dollar coffee in the airport
lounge. To cheer myself up, I watched a little more Luke. Rewinding and fast-forwarding. The sameness of his actions was somehow comforting. And then something happened. For a period he was alone behind the counter. I saw him look around and then take a cassette tape out of his jacket pocket. He put it in the player, pressed play, and waited. It took him a while to work out that the button was set to phono. Finally he figured that out, and the spindles must have been turning then. He sat back on the stool, took his sketchbook out and started drawing. His hand moved loose and so fast I almost couldn't see the pen. As he listened and sketched, his forehead crinkled. When a customer approached, Luke covered his sketchbook. He ejected the tape and repocketed it. He served the customer—smiling—but even after he'd gone, Luke's face never made it back to the calm of Before.

What was he listening to? What was he sketching? Why did he have to wait until he was alone?

These questions rang, and I sat for a long time sparking and bristling and wondering if this was what a crush felt like. Was it real or manufactured? Nancy had put the suggestion there, right from the get-go. What if she'd never said “Yours”? Would I have even thought it? It wasn't the first time I'd had a guy at close proximity—school was full of them. But those guys were creeps; their eyes weren't steady the way Luke's were. Their skin was too spotty, their eyes too
slippery, and their knees tapped their desk lids with some desperate rhythm I didn't want to catch.

I gave up. I was hungry. The later I stayed, the more work I would have to pretend to have done. I put a fresh tape in for the morning, hit record, and went back into the shop. Luke had left his wristband on the counter. I scooped it up. Later in my room I laced it around my wrist. I snapped the button and closed my eyes and imagined that his pulse was still on it and merging with mine.

Memo from Agent Seagull Martin to Agent

Skylark Martin

Date:
Monday, December 8

Agent:
Seagull Martin

Address:
34 Blessington St., St. Kilda, upstairs

POINT THE FIRST:

I now have names and addresses of all registered Jeep owners in the Port Phillip ordinance. There are eleven names in total.

POINT THE SECOND:

According to Asif Patel, proprietor, 7-Eleven, the two women egged the same week as the Bricker's reign of devastation were “prossies.”

POINT THE THIRD:

CCTV acquired—should the white Jeep pass at night, we may get a make on the plates, Bob willing, even the driver.

ACTION

Investigate addresses of registered Jeep owners—ongoing.

Interview prossies.

M
ONDAY BECAME TUESDAY BECAME
Wednesday. Quinn Bishop was still a no-show. I amused myself by Googling Otis Sharp. The computer spat up the same two images. The first was a snap of the family Sharp: Steve and Yayoi and baby Otis at the foot of Mount Fuji. Even as a baby, Otis looked regal. The second image was of rock star Otis in his snakeskin suit and silver scarf; girls flopped on the floor around him like so many dead fish. I stared at the picture for ages. It didn't gel with the image of Otis in the back of his dad's car. It made me think of Mum. How she presented one way, but behind it she was someone else. I called up her website and wrote in the Ask Me Anything box:
How does it feel to be such a fake?

Gully stepped up investigations. We went through Ray's list, staking out various flats and houses for the express purpose of gathering intel on Jeep owners. From Asif's blurry 7-Eleven CCTV photograph, we knew the Jeep had a couple of bumper stickers, but so far nothing we'd seen correlated. Gully used a Polaroid to photograph each Jeep. He performed the age-old
spy tactic of nick-knocking and, where possible, also photographed whoever answered their door. He made copious nonsensical notes and pilfered mail from the owners' letterboxes. In Gully's mind he was above the law, and I didn't have the energy to correct him.

“Date: Wednesday, December tenth. Time: 1617 hours. Location: St. Kilda, corner of Vale and Greeves streets. Operation Prossies in effect.
Chh!
” Gully lowered his fist and peered left and right. Confusion furrowed his brow.

“Where are the prossies?”

I smacked his arm lightly. He reacted as if I'd tried to electrocute him.

“Stop calling them that,” I said. “Say ‘working girls.' ”

“Why?”

“Because it sounds better.”

“Why?”

I stopped. There was a stone in my shoe.

“I don't know, Gully.”

The red light area was not the wilderness of discarded condoms and push-up bras I'd imagined. Instead it looked positively family. Old workers' terraces nestled against modern townhouses. I saw prayer flags, droopy camellias, kids' bikes. I lifted my bead necklace to the sun and watched the rays bounce around.

“What now?” I grouched.

“Now we wait.” Gully began his exercises, a mangled kind of tai chi. He pushed his bum out and windmilled
his arms and closed his eyes and aimed his snout to the sky. Five minutes passed with no cars.

I drummed my foot. “This is dumb. Let's go.”

But just as I spoke, a car turned in and stopped. A girl jumped out of the passenger seat. She was tall and thin with nimbus hair. She propped against a wall and poked around her purse. Gully strode toward her and it dawned on me: he's actually going to interrogate her. Suddenly this seemed like the worst idea in the world. I lunged to stop him, catching his sleeve and tearing it. I could tell by his face that any interference would result in a shit fit, but I couldn't seem to stop myself from trying to stop him.

“Don't,” I started.

“It's okay!” Gully shrieked, shaking me off, plowing forward.

A hundred public meltdowns flashed through my mind. I used to be able to get him in a pretzel hold, but he was bigger now. The best I could manage was to grip his arm, and shield my face from his free one.

We struggled. It felt like forever, but it was only a few seconds. Then Gully bit my arm.

“Ouch!” I cried, letting go of him. “Fucking hell!”

“Mouth!” Gully snapped, then quickly, with his head down, said, “Sorry.”

I rubbed my arm. The skin was already swelling. “Look!” I said, shoving it into his eyeline. “Those're your teeth marks.”

“Well, you shouldn't have tried to strangle me.” Gully rejigged his snout; he took a breath and released a small ninja cry. I backed off, wincing as he faced the girl and fired questions like popgun pellets.

“Were you working the week of November twenty-second? Did you get egged? Two girls got egged right here. Were they friends of yours? Do you know about it? Did you happen to see a white Jeep?”

The girl considered Gully: his ripped shirt, his skewed snout, his hair sticking up all staticky.

He blustered under her gaze. “I'm a detective and this is important.
Chh!
”

She gave me a terse smile. “Off his meds?”

I bit my lip. I wanted to cry. It was so hot and my head hurt and Gully was impossible. Maybe the girl could tell I was on the brink. She held up her hand.

“Try the collective. Streetwise, Inkerman Street. Ask for Granny.” She pointed at Gully. “Watch your temper, little man.” Then she flicked her hair and walked away.

S
TREETWISE HAD A SHOPFRONT
, but they weren't selling anything. The windows were lined with photographs of men under a sign that said,
ugly mugs, name and shame.
Gully and I paused before each picture. The men were a mix of ages; some looked hard and some looked stupid and some had regret rounding their brows. Most seemed to have been snapped on the fly. Below each image was text detailing crimes and misdemeanors. I read the comments—there was nothing savory. I wanted to shield Gully's eyes, but he read without flinching. He may have been small and weird, but in a way Gully was more comfortable with the world than I was. He was never shocked. He sought for the rational explanation and if it didn't exist, he was perfectly happy to invent it.

A ponytailed woman in a halter top sat at a desk, facing a computer. From the door she looked young, but as we got closer, I saw her dragon skin. Her face was so creased it looked like a relief map. Her eyes grazed me, Gully, Gully's snout.

“Are you Granny?” Gully sounded so imperious.

The woman had a voice like Velcro. “I might be. Who are you?”

He took his notebook out. “Agent Detective Seagull Martin, Special Investigations Unit.” He cleared his throat. “Two, uh, working girls were egged the week of November twenty-second. I'm after information.”

Granny pushed back on her rolly chair. She folded her arms in front of her considerable chest. Gully was searching her face but coming up short. He said, “Our dad owns the record shop on Blessington Street. Our window was bricked November twenty-seventh. I have a hunch that the two cases are connected.”

“You have a hunch.” Granny's eyes met mine. There was a light in hers that made me feel less anxious. “Is he a vigilante?”

“Something like that.”

“I don't mind a vigilante if he's on the right side.” Granny rose slowly. She had a turgid, waltzing walk. As she moved farther away from us, I could see that her foot was encased in a plaster boot.

“I got shot,” she said, not looking back. “You know how many bones there are in the foot? A fuckload. Pardon my French. Phalanges, metatarsals, sesamoids—shattered.”

She edged behind a partition.

Gully was brimming. He gave me the two thumbs-up.

“We're close,” he whispered.

I shook my head—it was too soon to call the mission a success.

On the pinboard above Granny's desk I clocked a photo of Johnny Depp in his
Pirates of the Caribbean
gear with a sign that read, “Happy 70th, you scurvy wench!” Also: a certificate of appreciation from St. Kilda Primary School. Also: six photos of the same dog—a Jack Russell—modeling a series of knitted vests.

We could hear her gravelly voice from behind the partition. Laughing ruefully, waiting, saying, “I know, I know.” Granny re-emerged, taking longer on the way back. Gully was on tiptoes and tenterhooks.

“Cleo says the eggs were thrown from a white Jeep, four young guys, unknowns. No plates, but there were stickers on the back window.” She checked her Post-it. “One of them said, LOVE LIVE LOCAL.”

“ ‘LOVE LIVE LOCAL'?” Gully repeated.

“That's what she said.”

Gully wrote the words in bold capitals. He remembered to say thank you. He looked like he was fit to combust. I hooked my arm around his shoulders. For once he let me.

“Come on,” I said.

The Ugly Mugs were inside as well. Granny saw me staring.

“Curb crawlers,” she said. “Head cases. Give the girls a hard time. They don't have any protection out there. Rotten eggs are the least of their worries. You got a nice home? A mum and a dad?”

“That's personal information,” Gully snapped.

“Gully,” I scolded him, then answered Granny with a nod.

Her lips met to form a thin line. “Well, you're lucky.”