Blindside

by J. R. Carroll

  ‘He sure is,’ Shaun said.

  Stiles sucked on the cigarette one last time, then flicked it away.‘We’ve known each other since school,down the peninsula. We were always together. Where you saw one of us, you saw the other. But he wasn’t crazy in those days. A bit on the wild side,but not crazy.’He produced a crumpled pack of Stuyvesants from his shirt pocket and shook out two,one of which he offered to Shaun. With a slightly trembling hand he got them both ignited,then carried on. ‘It was one of those . . . doomed families, you know, like that Kennedy crew. When Stan’s mother was killed in the chopper crash, he was just completely and utterly fucked, beyond salvation. Stan loved her so damn much it was indecent. I think he was . . . sexually obsessed with her, to be brutally honest,and when she died it left a hole that could never, ever be filled. He never got over it. That was bad enough, but it was worse than that—a lot worse.’ He inhaled a lungful of smoke and let it drift out of his nose and mouth as he spoke.

  ‘As you probably know, his brother George took his own life when he was twelve years old.’

  ‘Yeah, I did know that,’ Shaun said.‘It was pretty gruesome, wasn’t it?’

  Stiles nodded. ‘Awful. Shocking. Tore his throat apart on his old man’s power saw. Beats me how anyone can . . .’ He shook his head.‘I mean, what pain must he have been feeling inside, if that was the better option?’

  Shaun didn’t say anything. Stiles was really just thinking aloud, he realised that.

  ‘One day, not long after George died,’ Stiles said,‘Stan and I became blood brothers. You know how it is. We cut our wrists, pressed them both together, and swore to be loyal and true to one another forever. Jesus, you wouldn’t do it these days, would you? Finish up with Hep B, or HIV.’ He laughed, and so did Shaun. He was getting a bit of a feeling that Stiles wasn’t a bad person—he was someone who had made a few wrong turns in life and was still paying for them. Becoming Stan Petrakos’s blood brother was definitely a major one. But then, he had long been Stan’s best buddy, and in a way it was to his credit that he had stuck by him, been loyal and true, through all the tough times.

  ‘Stan had a big secret,’ Stiles said. ‘He was busting to spill it, but wouldn’t, because it had been given to him by his brother just before the suicide. He was sworn to silence, but it was too much. It was eating him up inside. One day we were drinking some of his old man’s wine, and he finally let the cat out of the bag. He was in tears while he was saying it, but he had to get it out. Sure explained a lot. Shit.’

  Stiles threw down his cigarette and massaged his face. When he took his hands away his eyes had filled up. He sniffed, staring at the ground, and Shaun watched the teardrops fall. When he had straightened himself out a bit he took some deep breaths, and wiped his face with his sleeve.

  ‘Sorry about that,’ he said.‘Still gets me right here.’ He hit himself in the chest.

  ‘It’s okay, man,’ Shaun said. ‘No hurry.’

  ‘You have to understand some of the family history,’ Stiles said. ‘Stan’s mother, Iris—well, she was truly a wonderful person, and beautiful too. Too perfect by far for old George. It was not a happy marriage. A clash of cultures, I suppose. She was Australian-born and he was a Greek, and as far as George was concerned that meant he ruled the roost. He was a proper bastard. Stan told me he used to slap his mother around if his meals weren’t on the table at six sharp, or his favourite shirt wasn’t ironed, whatever. Stuff like that. He used to belt the boys too, just because they were on their mother’s side. It was a concentration camp. Stan used to say he couldn’t help it, he was fucked up from the war. And then . . . one night, the old man was bashing her up in front of George and Stan because he believed she was having an affair. He was right off his scone. Anyway, young George has a go at him, and his old man gave him a proper hiding, using his fists, with Iris trying to drag him away. You can picture the scene. He beat the shit out of his own son. The Bull of Crete, he called himself. He was the pig of Crete.

  ‘A while after that, the old man was gonna buy this country house, you see, a bed and breakfast place up near Mansfield. Had his own helicopter and employed a pilot, who was a nice guy. I remember him. George told the family over dinner that he was leaving in the morning and would be back during the afternoon sometime. Young George . . . he really had it in for the old man. You can’t imagine how much he must’ve hated his guts. Now he saw his chance. So, he got up before daylight, and poured some sand into the fuel tank of the chopper. He was so fixed on killing his dad he didn’t even care that the pilot would go down too. As long as the old man died, that was all that mattered. And then he went off to school without saying a word to Stan.

  ‘Trouble was, in the morning, something came up and the old man couldn’t go. It was some business problem he had to attend to. So, he sent Iris to look over the place instead. They got some distance before the sand blocked the fuel lines, and down she came in the North Warrandyte hills. The chopper burst into flames on impact. When they called George from class that morning he expected to be told his father was dead, but when they said it was his mother . . . well, you can imagine the reaction.’

  Shaun was feeling a little stunned. ‘I can,’ he said.

  ‘That was the big secret George told Stan later. He made him swear he wouldn’t tell anyone. When Stan told me,he made me swear I wouldn’t tell anyone. And I haven’t—until now.’

  Shaun said, ‘And that was why—’

  ‘Yeah. That was why George aced himself. Couldn’t live with it. Shit, how could he? How could anyone? Imagine— you set out to kill the person you hate most in the world, and end up killing the one you love most instead.’

  Shaun had nothing to say. He was suddenly seized with thoughts of Vincent O’Connell. Leon Turner was dead right: with the best intentions in the world he had sent his friend to a stupid, unnecessary death. It was something he would have to live with now. He decided he would just sit tight and let Stiles get on with the story in his own fashion. Shaun had an idea there would be one or two more jolts to his system before the ride was over.

  ‘Jump-cut a respectful interval, and George marries Stephanie Small,’ Stiles said. ‘Pin-up girl and porn movie star. She couldn’t have been more different from Iris. It was so stupid. George was filthy rich by this time and thought he was Australia’s answer to Onassis. So he goes into overdrive, has this ridiculous multimillion-dollar wedding, flies in guests from all over the world. Then he decides to build this . . . monstrosity out at Lancefield. It was supposed to be a symbol of his love for her—a palace for his princess. What did the magazines call her? “The Siren Goddess.” Well, the way George was throwing his money around it was obvious she had him by the shorts. Whatever Steph wanted, she got. I dunno why she’d be all that impressed, though. Wasn’t as if she crawled out of the gutter, was it?’

  Shaun said, ‘Did you know her?’

  ‘Steph? Yeah, I met her—or should I say drooled over her— plenty of times. Seems a bit hard to believe, doesn’t it? A bum like me, mixing it with the rich and beautiful. But I was coming in on Stan’s coattails. We were close then. Blood brothers to the last, especially so after George junior . . . Stan used to say I was his replacement brother, and that’s how it was. I had nothin’, but Stan had more than enough cash for both of us. Drugs, booze, women, parties . . . it was wild. We were eighteen or nineteen, and he’d splash it around just like his old man. Crashed a brand-new Porsche once, and just left it there, abandoned it. Couldn’t care less. Then he started hanging around with some dangerous people, having run-ins with cops, getting into fights. It was pretty obvious to me that he was not travelling.

  ‘All this time, he was fighting with his old man. Bitterly, sometimes violently. You wouldn’t believe the stuff they said to each other. When he got really wound up, George would slip into Greek, which Stan couldn’t understand, and that would drive him around the twist. But then after the storm would come the attempts at reconciliation. It was very bumpy. When George
and Steph moved to Lancefield, Stan stayed in his Carlton pad, even though there were rooms to burn up at the new place. Stan didn’t want any part of it. He was part of the Carlton scene, anyway. But the old man used to get him up there on Sundays for a family lunch, you know, doing his best to hold it all together. Stan hated going, but went under sufferance. Sometimes he’d get me to go with him for moral support. They were very interesting occasions, I can tell you. It was always a matter of when, not if, the blue would start. They would argue about absolutely anything and everything. There were shouting matches across the table. After we’d eaten, when Steph was in the kitchen cleaning up, George would start on the brandy, and that was more or less a declaration of war. I can remember he’d bring out an unopened bottle of Metaxa and three glasses, which he would fill up. You’d only get halfway through it and he’d top up your glass. No-one was allowed to leave the table until the bottle was empty. In the end it was a total shambles. And then Stan and I would have to drive back to town. Shit. How we did that sometimes . . .’ He shook his head, pupils zooming in and out.

  ‘It was a test of manhood,’ Shaun said.

  ‘A test of something. I dunno what that was supposed to prove. But anyway, the Sunday lunch became an institution, a ritual. Even though he hated going, Stan could never resist because he wanted to attack his father. It was a fight to the death between them. How sick is that? I dropped out. It was too much for me. And then one day Stan drops a bombshell. He was good at that. He revelled in the telling of it, too. Told me he was screwing Steph.’

  ‘Oh,’ Shaun said. ‘Shit.’ What did this mean? Where was it going? He couldn’t see, but it had to tie in somewhere . . .

  ‘Having it away with his own stepmother,’ Stiles said. ‘Now I know that’s not incestuous or evil or whatever, and she was hot stuff, but even so . . . Christ. How fucked up can one family get?

  ‘The way Stan tells it, he goes to the bathroom during lunch one Sunday. He opens the door and there’s Steph, sitting on the can. “Oops, sorry”, he says, as you do, and she stands up and steps out of her pants. Without a word she pulls her sweater off over her head, and she’s got nothing on under it. Picture that, Pilgrim. Then she tells him to snib the door. So Stan gives it to her, right there in the toilet. When they’ve finished they go back and resume eating lunch with the old man. And that was how it started.’

  Having run out of Stuyvesants,Stiles crumpled the pack and tossed it towards a bin. When he missed, he got up and dropped it in. Shaun offered him one from his own nearly depleted pack. When he had it burning Stiles remained standing, with one foot resting on the bench. Shaun waited patiently for him to go on.

  ‘Steph was hot,’ he said. ‘All that talk in the magazines about how she had changed, how she’d turned into a nun and was dedicating herself to her home and marriage—it was all complete bullshit. Stan couldn’t wait to get up there after they’d broken the ice. The place was so big they had no trouble finding a room to do it in. They even went around the world in the marriage bed while the old man was downstairs pissed. They’d go out in the stables for a roll in the hay. Huh! When she wasn’t riding horses, Stan was riding her. Steph said she didn’t even care if George found out. She was so desperate for it she used to trawl around the city at night in a rented stretch limo, pick up guys from outside nightclubs and bars, do ’em in the stretch and then sling ’em to shut up.

  ‘The old Bull of Crete . . . well, he couldn’t get it up anymore. Not unless Steph used the whips and that on him, and she wasn’t into that. She just wanted the sex, without all that, uh, heavy lifting. The bull’s pizzle was a fizzer. Had been for a long time, she said, since a year into the marriage. All George wanted was to get smashed on Galliano every night. Used to put down bottle after bottle of it. Often he didn’t even come up to bed, he was that legless. Must’ve had a cast-iron constitution though—he was up and at ’em at the crack of dawn seven days a week, fifty-two weeks a year.’

  A chattering little girl and her mother walked by the park. Stiles whipped his head around, as if to check whether they belonged to him: evidently not. He switched feet on the bench, from the left to the right, rocking back and forth while he sucked on the cigarette. He seemed to be trying to organise his thoughts before putting them into words.

  ‘I knew all that,’ he eventually said.‘Understand. What I’m going to tell you now I found out later . . . a lot later.’

  ‘Okay,’ Shaun said. The vibe: Get ready for anything.

  Stiles flicked the butt away and plunged his hands into his back pockets.

  ‘Did you ever see The Postman Always Rings Twice?’ he said. ‘There are two versions—you’ve probably seen the Jack Nicholson one.’

  ‘Yeah, I’ve seen it,’ Shaun said.

  ‘It’s not as good as the original,’ Stiles said, ‘with John Garfield and Lana Turner. The gist of it is, they decide to bump off her husband and live happily ever after.’

  ‘I remember,’ Shaun said. ‘It all goes to shit.’

  ‘Of course—it’s a James M. Cain novel. Anyhow, life imitates art, right?’

  ‘If you say so.’

  ‘I dunno who brought it up first, but Stephanie and Stan decided to get rid of George. Stan said it was her idea, but you know, he would, wouldn’t he? Maybe it was the marriage of true minds, united in the face of a common enemy. So let’s say she’s the femme fatale—Lana Turner with brown hair. But Steph was more like Jane Russell in The Outlaw, especially when she’s rolling around in the hay. I can see her doing it. We can say what we want about her now, can’t we, since she’s dead? She was trapped in a bad marriage. George was an old tyrant. He’d never let her go. He’d lose too much public face, not to mention the divorce settlement he’d be up for. The only way out was to snuff him. So she got Stan onside. Might’ve been why she started screwing him. The plan was, he’d do the hit, and then they’d live happily ever after. But as we know, that script never works out, does it?’

  ‘No,’ Shaun said, sitting up straight.

  ‘Jump-cut several months,’ Stiles said.‘They’re in deep, and Stan’s done his nuts. Who wouldn’t? So one day during one of their little trysts, Steph informs him that she’s overheard George on the phone talking to someone long distance about a drug shipment coming from overseas. She had no idea he was involved in this scene, and neither did Stan. Eager to please, Stan says, don’t worry, leave it to me, sweetheart, I’ll fix it with my cop contacts. We’ll rip him off. We have to kill him too, Steph says, and Stan sees how he can do both at the same time. But he’s not stupid, Stan—he can see he’s a logical suspect, so he needs a plan—a good one.

  ‘He goes to Simmonds and Turner. Doesn’t like either of ’em, but they’re bent, they’ll go for it. They bring in Morris Salisbury, and now we have a full cast list of arch villains. But it’s not quite there yet. Stan doesn’t tell them he plans to whack George, doesn’t know how that will go down. And he’s still iffy about it, he’s still the suspect. They all wait for the dope to arrive: D-Day. Old Steph’s constantly on the extension, eavesdropping on George.

  ‘In the meantime, a major coincidence pops up. Cops—at least the ones in movies—don’t believe in coincidences. They believe everything’s, you know, destined to happen, it’s written, it’s all out there waiting to unfold. So how ironic is it when Mitch Alvarez, ex-cop and sworn enemy of the Petrakos clan, appears on the scene with a plan to rip off George’s stash? Man. Simmonds has Alvarez champing at the bit. But he doesn’t know about the real job. Doesn’t know about the heroin. Doesn’t know Steph and Stan want to put George down. Alvarez doesn’t know shit. And neither do his two sidemen, right?’

  Stiles was visibly captivated by his own narrative skills at this point. His grin was loose; the zooming eyes danced and bobbed. He was one spaced out, wired-up piece of business.

  ‘As I said, I didn’t know any of that until after the shit had flown. Until after what went down that Wednesday in October 1992.’

  ‘As you s
ay.’

  ‘Hey, man, I’m no killer. If I’d realised—’

  ‘It doesn’t matter now.’

  ‘Matters to me. I know I lied at the trial. But I had to. Understand—’

  ‘I do understand. You and Stan were tight. And he had you. Get on with it.’

  Stiles sat down again. ‘Got any more cigarettes? There’s a shop down the corner.’

  ‘Got some, not many,’ Shaun said. There were three left. ‘Here.’

  When Stiles had his hit of nicotine he made an effort to settle himself down before continuing.

  ‘On that morning, the Wednesday, Stan calls and says he wants us to go up to Lancefield. Pretty unusual, since it wasn’t Sunday, but I figured he was gonna jump on Steph’s bones. Still . . . why would he want me along? I press the point. He says his car has engine problems, and will I drive. Sure, why not? I didn’t have any plans for the day. I wish I did have. I wish I’d been up in Kakadu fishing for barramundi. I wish . . . but I wasn’t, was I? So I chauffeured him up to Lancefield. And all the way there I had this uneasy feeling in my gut that something was not right about this. Stan was so tense, so goddamn quiet . . . so I pumped him, and eventually he says he’s gonna rip off some dope. I bought it, but all the same I thought—’

  Shaun suddenly remembered something.

  ‘What were you driving?’

  ‘At that time . . . I had a Ford Galaxie. Used to be my dad’s, and he gave it to me.’

  ‘What colour was it?’

  ‘Safe family car colour—white.’

  In his mind Shaun was back in the pretend-plumber’s van with Mitch and Andy, heading for Lancefield on a secondary road that was under repair. A car rushes past in a big hurry, showering them with dust and stones, and Andy jokes: Book the bastard, Mitch.

  The car: a white Ford Galaxie.

  ‘I saw you,’ Shaun said.