Animal Kingdom

by Stephen Sewell

  Smurf smiled. She wasn’t going to tell him. ‘I’ve been around a long time, sweetie,’ she said in that sickly sweet tone of hers, adding, ‘J’s turned and he’s not coming back. Even if the boys get off, I won’t be seeing him again.’

  He was watching her, and she didn’t flinch.

  He organised a meeting at his city office between Smurf and a certain Detective Randall Roache, Craig’s former business acquaintance, who was now in search of a new partner.

  There, sitting in front of a walnut bookshelf heavy with leather-bound tomes of criminal law, Roache tried to sound sympathetic.

  ‘Look, I know you’ve got a problem, Janine,’ he said. ‘But I don’t see how this mess your boys are in has got anything to do with me.’

  Smurf—Janine—listened politely as he continued.

  ‘So, if you’ve called me in here to see if there’s some strings I can pull, then you’re way off course.’

  Smurf had her own ideas. ‘Hey, Randall,’ she said, looking smug and chirpy, ‘before you go on, this boy who’s currently being looked after under Witness Protection’—namely, her grandson, J—‘tell me if you agree with this,’ she said. ‘This boy who’s being looked after, he knows who you are … and what you’ve been up to.’

  If Roache was startled by the observation, he didn’t show it, but it had started to have a cumulative effect; he felt the movement inside him of something unfamiliar. Revulsion is what it was.

  She was the real thing.

  ‘And you know how these things go,’ she continued, screwing it down so Roache wouldn’t misunderstand. ‘They’re gonna ask him all sorts of questions, about everything he’s ever seen or done. Everyone he’s ever met. And he’s met you, hasn’t he? He has,’ she said, reminding him, just in case he’d forgotten. But he hadn’t. She was smiling now, because she knew she had him. ‘And you’ve done some bad things, sweetie, haven’t you?’

  Roache’s blood was pumping. It wasn’t a very comfortable position to be in and he didn’t like being there. But he knew now he was dealing with someone a lot tougher than her sons.

  ‘I want this part to be clear,’ Smurf continued. ‘This is not about you doing me a favour or me blackmailing you or anything like that. It’s just a bad situation for everyone.’

  She was good. She was very good. And she had him by the short and curlies.

  ‘Ezra’s got the address,’ she said. ‘It shouldn’t be too hard to set up a raid on the house. There’d be reasonable grounds, what with all the strange activity—the comings and goings day and night. One of the neighbours might have seen a gun or something. This is your area of expertise. I’m not trying to tell you how to suck eggs. What do you think?’

  What he thought was that she was the toughest nut he’d ever come across. He’d met some hard bastards, and there’d probably be a few people who would describe him like that as well, but he’d never met anyone who would ask a policeman to kill their own grandson. That was a first. And not even for anything he’d done, or was; just because of what he knew.

  Roache had seen him. He was just a kid, like any kid you’d meet in any schoolyard in the country, and here was his grandmother soliciting his murder. Was that love? Could what Smurf felt for her sons be called love, that it could make her do this? Roache had thought he’d seen it all, but she was something else.

  ‘I really don’t see how anything can be done, Janine,’ he said, trying to tough it out.

  ‘Randall,’ Smurf said, sounding like his mum, ‘I feel sick about this. I’m not happy at all. Not one little bit. But we do what we have to do. We do what we must. Just because we don’t want to do something doesn’t mean it can’t be done.’

  EIGHTEEN

  Leckie had gone out and J was eating some three-minute noodles he’d shown him how to cook when he realised something was going down. One of the plainclothes boofheads guarding him, the one with the big ears, rushed anxiously past to the other two watching TV in the front room and pointed out the window to where he could see armed men in police get-up stalking towards the house.

  ‘They’re cops,’ the man cried. ‘Get on the blower, quick.’

  ‘Who says they’re cops?’ the other one spat back, slamming in his ammo clip and taking up a defensive position.

  Shit, they were under attack.

  J looked out the back door for an escape.

  ‘Fuck that, there’s six of them,’ the third guy was saying, already chickening out.

  ‘Yell to them! Tell them!’ the first guy said.

  ‘Just because they’re wearing fucking flak jackets with Police written on, it doesn’t mean they’re coppers!’ the third guy said. ‘Get to your positions!’

  Great police protection. The shooting hadn’t even started and they were already cracking up.

  J stood, trying to work out which was the best way to go.

  ‘I’m not fighting a war over some fuckwit kid,’ the second one said. And, with that, he laid down his gun.

  ‘Fuck you!’ the third guy roared. ‘Pick it up and do your job!’

  ‘I’m with him!’ the first guy called, putting down his gun and dropping to his knees. ‘They’ve got armalites!’

  That was enough for J, and he was off.

  Roache was coming down the side of the house, gun at the ready. He’d never killed anyone before; he’d pointed his gun, but he’d never shot, and his heart was thumping.

  Swinging around the corner, he saw J running out of the house. ‘Freeze,’ he cried, raising his gun as he heard the sounds of shouting inside the house and the door splintering.

  Turning, J recognised Roache from the pet shop.

  ‘Freeze, you fuck!’ the cop roared as loudly as he could, hoping the men inside could back him up.

  To serve and protect, that’s what he’d promised, and for some reason those words shot through his mind just at that moment, and maybe that’s what threw him.

  J was gone, up and over the back fence before Roache could let one loose.

  Fuck! Roache didn’t know what to do. He’d let him go!

  ‘They’re police! They’re police!’ he heard voices calling from the chaos inside.

  Rushing to the fence, he tried to get J in his sights again, but the kid was already two backyards away. He’d fucked it. He’d blown it.

  ‘Abort! Abort!’ he roared, trying to recover his authority as he shoved his gun back into its holster. What was he going to do? What the fuck was he going to do?

  ‘They’re police!’ someone else called.

  To serve and protect.

  But J was away. And now he knew. If he hadn’t before, he did now. Nothing the cops said could be trusted. They were liars, they were corrupt and they were cowards, and they were the last people you could rely on in an emergency. And if this wasn’t an emergency, J didn’t know what was.

  He didn’t have much time to think, but he thought harder than he ever had. He knew what he had to do, but knowing and doing it were two different things. He’d never faced anything like this before. This was a trap. There was no way out, and there were no good solutions. Everything that he’d ever thought about how the world worked and what you could do about it was wrong. He was on his own, and he had to come up with his own solution.

  Making his way back to the house, he finally stood at the screen door. ‘I wanna get Pope out of jail,’ he said as she looked at him, bemused and bewildered to see him alive. ‘I can’t live like this.’

  ‘Of course, dear,’ she said, amazed at this turn of events. Sometimes, even when things go wrong, they go right, and, for once in this whole mess, it looked like things had started to go right for Smurf.

  ‘I want to set up a meeting with Ezra and the barrister from the committal,’ J said.

  ‘Okay, of course,’ Smurf replied, wondering how much he knew or had been able to figure out.

  ‘I don’t trust Ezra, so I’m not going to anyone’s house.’

  His tone had changed: it was like he was a different
boy, or maybe not a boy at all any more.

  ‘It has to be somewhere public,’ he continued, ‘but it also has to be somewhere no-one we know would go.’

  ‘Okay, honey, okay,’ Smurf said, going along with him, sensing he knew what he was up to, even if she wasn’t sure herself. But either way, it was going to work out in her favour. If he cut a deal with her, he’d alter his evidence and the boys would get off in court. And if he didn’t, well, if he didn’t, she’d cross that bridge when she came to it.

  ‘Okay, honey, okay,’ she said again, and it looked like at last it was going to be.

  They met in the art gallery.

  J hadn’t even known it existed. Hardly knew what the pictures were for. But there were people there, looking at them. People with soft faces and hands, not people like the ones he knew.

  ‘Mate, if you really want to help the boys,’ Ezra said, wondering what he knew and if he was wired, ‘coming home is the best thing to do.’

  ‘I’m not coming home,’ J said. ‘I’m not safe there.’

  ‘Yes, you are, dear,’ Smurf assured him.

  ‘No, I’m not,’ J answered without any rancour. He was just stating a simple fact. ‘I’m not safe in Witness Protection either but I’d rather take my chances there.’

  ‘You’ll be safe at home, honey,’ Smurf repeated, anxious to get him back so she could keep an eye on him. She liked having the things that were important to her close to her.

  ‘Look, I’m not coming home,’ J answered confidently. ‘I’m going back there. I’m just letting you all know that I’m here to help.’

  He was different. He wasn’t the shy young kid he’d been; he’d started to work it out. So they’d have to try a different approach.

  Ezra looked worried.

  ‘I think J’s made his position clear,’ the sharply dressed barrister from the committal said, as she flashed a smile at him. ‘Where that leaves us now is to decide how best to proceed, given the brave offer of assistance.’

  She had her own ideas, and, after all, she was a barrister: they all liked to think they were running the show.

  ‘You know what I liked about the committal hearing?’ she continued warmly, leaning forwards. ‘What I liked was that for the most part their case looked pretty flimsy.’ Her eyes sparkled with anticipation. ‘Largely dependent on witness testimony.’ And gesturing to J, she continued, ‘And here we’ve got their star witness.’

  It was a pleasure, hearing her lay things out so clearly.

  ‘Personally, I’d rather tackle the evidence I saw at the committal than any re-jigged brief they come up with should J suddenly … switch camps. You know what I mean?’

  They did. They were going to blindside Leckie.

  And while J now had an excuse not to go home, he sensed the sharks brushing by his legs.

  ‘So I think we should just get into it,’ she concluded. ‘There’s a bunch of things we’ll need to go through here, like …’

  And that’s what they did. Under the watchful gaze of the country’s founding fathers framed in gold on the august walls around them, they plotted how they were going to rort the system. And as J was rehearsed in the evidence he was to give, he got yet another insight into the way things really worked.

  ‘He’s a smart cookie,’ Ezra said to Smurf later, as they walked through the Great Hall towards the exit.

  Smurf looked askance at the lawyer, wondering what he was getting at. ‘He’s a Cody,’ she said.

  ‘Are you sure?’ the man replied as he turned to face her in front of the sheets of water cascading down the glass wall in front of them.

  ‘What do you mean?’ she asked.

  ‘Janine, we’ve known each other for a long time, haven’t we?’

  ‘Long enough,’ she answered.

  ‘And I’ve always done the right thing by you.’

  ‘You’ve been paid to,’ Smurf answered.

  ‘I have,’ Ezra agreed. ‘But I’ve got to tell you, this is probably going to be the last time.’

  ‘Why’s that, Ezra?’ she asked, hitching her skirt up and putting her hand on her hip. She’d been given the brush-off before.

  ‘Because life is short,’ Ezra answered. ‘For some of us, it’s a lot shorter than for others. This game you and the boys are playing with the coppers, it’s going to come to a sticky end. You might beat them this time, and with J’s help you probably will, but they’ll be back in one way or another, and when they are, I don’t want to be around.’

  She knew what he was talking about, but she was winning, so she wasn’t afraid.

  ‘You see, that’s the difference between you and me,’ Smurf answered. ‘For you, this is a job. You can duck down here with the rest of us and see how the other half live, and then you can go back to your mansion up there and laugh about it all with your rich mates over cocktails—but for us, this is our life.’

  ‘Well, good luck to you,’ Ezra answered. Turning, he moved off towards the exit.

  ‘And you, too,’ Smurf said.

  But as she watched him go, she saw the ghostly figures of people passing behind the water wall and then with a chill noticed the people moving past and around her, none of them smiling, none of them even recognising her, all of them ghosts.

  Or perhaps she was the ghost.

  She’d never thought that before, and wondered what it would be like. To be dead, but not know it. Maybe the way she felt now was how ghosts felt. Maybe she was the ghost.

  Going back to the so-called safe house was one of the scariest things J had ever done. He’d seen the look in Roache’s eyes and there wasn’t the slightest doubt in his head that the man’d had every intention of killing him.

  So to step past the cop cars parked in the driveway and enter a roomful of policemen who all looked up when he entered was something he wasn’t sure he’d be able to do.

  But if you have to, you do.

  Leckie was there, planning the search party, when J walked through the door. Startled and relieved, he stepped forwards, taking him by the elbow and leading him into another room.

  ‘Come with me,’ he said. ‘Where have you been?’

  ‘Where do you think? Thanks for the protection,’ J said.

  Leckie wasn’t sure how to handle this. ‘Look, this was a terrible stuff-up, I admit, and it’s all my fault. From now on, I promise I won’t leave your side, and we’ll get another squad to look after your security. Special Ops.’

  ‘How can I trust you?’ J asked. And it was a real question, coming from someone whose trust had been betrayed by everyone he’d ever known.

  ‘I’m trying to do the best I can. Haven’t I always played it straight with you? What do you want me to do?’

  J considered him. He’d never felt sorry before for anyone in his life. Not really sorry. Sorry for kids getting bashed up by their parents, sure, sorry for animals getting hurt, and for the unfairness and the pain in the world. But it wasn’t like looking at a man, an adult, and realising how fucked he was, how compromised. And not because someone was out to get him or had the goods on him; just because he was part of something much bigger than him that he’d never be able to escape, and that would fuck him up just as effectively as it had fucked up everybody else. Actually, even more so. Because Leckie believed in the system.

  That’s what J realised, seeing Leckie squirm. A copper like Roache wouldn’t have squirmed; he just would have lied. But Leckie couldn’t lie, not straightforwardly.

  Leckie believed all the crap about trees and bugs—it wasn’t a line, it was a philosophy—believed all the stuff he’d been telling J, even when some prick was there holding a gun to J’s head, still saying, No, no, you’ve got it wrong, because to say You’ve got it right would mean the thing he loved wasn’t what he thought at all. It was much darker than anything Leckie had ever imagined. And J saw that Leckie didn’t want to believe that, because he was a good man. But good men aren’t what this world needs.

  ‘Okay,’ J said at last.
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  Leckie looked at him. Did he mean it? ‘You sure?’ he asked. ‘We’re square?’

  ‘We’re square,’ J answered.

  ‘Did anybody see you out there today?’ Leckie asked, feeling his way onto firmer ground.

  ‘No,’ J said. He didn’t feel guilty about lying, not to Leckie. Not now. He had only one priority now and he was going to get that, no matter what.

  ‘I’ll make sure Roache doesn’t get anywhere near you again, okay?’

  ‘Okay,’ J answered, sure he was telling the truth this time.

  ‘You all right?’ Leckie said.

  ‘Fine,’ J answered.

  Not that Leckie cared. Not really. He might have thought he did, but if he really did, he would have listened. Leckie didn’t care, thought J. Leckie didn’t give a shit.

  But Leckie did care; he even liked Josh, or J, or whatever he wanted to call himself. He was a handful, that was for sure, but most kids that age are. Always demanding, always alert to what they think are the injustices of the system.

  Leckie remembered what he’d been like himself at that age, always challenging his father, his teachers, giving every one hell. But sooner or later you grow up; you learn to choose your battles, the ones you can win. He knew there were corrupt cops—of course he knew: everyone did. And you tried to put in place the institutions and the culture to combat it. Police Integrity, proper training, that sort of thing. It wasn’t heroic; it was just the normal slog of trying to keep things on the rails.

  But that doesn’t mean anything to a young person with an axe to grind. They want everything sorted out now. And if it’s not sorted out now, it’s because the whole thing is corrupt.

  But there are plenty of good, honest police trying to do the right thing by the community and prevent crime, and they’re the real police force, not the few bad apples who give everyone a bad name. That was what Leckie thought, anyhow. And if it ever started to get to him, the sense of the rising tide of corruption that might overwhelm them all, what he thought was that it’s not just the police who are corrupt—it’s the world.

  He didn’t think that often. But when he looked at his son, he hoped it would be better for him. That the rot of this world would never touch him.