by Tara Moss
There was a knock, and the door opened.
‘Papa!’ a smaller Cassimatis yelled, and Jimmy slipped inside and shut the door behind him as if keeping back a wave.
‘Mate, never have kids. They’ll suck the life out of you!’
Andy laughed. They had this kind of exchange from time to time. It was an unconvincing display, especially given the naked look of fatherly pride in Jimmy’s eyes. He had four children now, between the ages of fifteen and ten months. Andy was childless.
‘What did Bill Hicks say? That kids are naturally smarter than we are, because he’s never met a kid who was married and had children.’
‘Yeah!’ Jimmy declared. ‘They’ve got it worked out. Beat up kids in the schoolyard, come home, get fed, yell at their dad. Kids have it made.’
Jimmy’s boys were at the age where they still idolised their father, and swelled with pride at the knowledge that their dad was a cop and carried a gun. It gave them cred at school. It was cause for boasting, for a couple more years anyway. Once the boys started going to parties, it would be different.
‘So, mate, you wanna find some beers tonight after dinner? Maybe hit the local? Or…’ he winked lasciviously, ‘we could check out the shows.’
He didn’t mean the Opera House.
‘Uh, I’m seeing Mak tonight,’ Andy told him. ‘Maybe after.’
‘Okay, mate. Sure,’ Jimmy said, clearly disappointed. ‘That’s okay. I have to go in and check on some stuff at work, anyway.’
The reality of what he had returned home to filled Andy with a mix of rage and grief. He didn’t know what he would do when he saw her; he only knew that he needed to.
‘Maybe we can do a work-out, too,’ he managed to joke, gesturing to the rusting equipment.
Jimmy cracked a smile. ‘Fuck you.’
CHAPTER 9
Mak pocketed her phone, and held back a strange sensation of drowning. Andy’s name had come up on her caller ID and she had not answered. It was not the time or place. But already a series of unwanted memories had begun flickering below the steady surface of her professional focus.
Dammit.
‘I’ll show you upstairs,’ Glenise Hart told Makedde, and the women both rose from the couches on which they’d sat and discussed the disappearance of Adam Hart for over an hour.
Makedde was led towards a staircase at the end of the main hall, and as she ascended at the woman’s heels, they passed more framed family photographs. Lots of smiling. Lots of sunshine. Mak’s heart lurched a little at the thought of all that broken cheer.
‘When did you notice that Adam’s bike was gone?’ Mak asked.
‘Not until I spoke to the police.’
‘He kept it in the garage, or somewhere else?’
‘Sometimes along the side of the house. It’s a safe neighbourhood. I don’t know where he’d left it that night.’
As Glenise had not been awakened by the sound of the garage door, Mak thought the bike had probably been parked beside the house the night he disappeared. She would need to take a look at the spot.
They reached the top of the stairs. An open door revealed a tidy bathroom with a toilet and bath. Glenise moved to the next door down the hall on the right and placed her hand on the doorknob.
Mak interrupted her. ‘If it’s okay with you, Mrs Hart, I’d prefer to have a look at Adam’s room alone, and then I might ask you to take me through a few things.’ It was better to take an objective look first, so as not to be led into the same false conclusions others might have fallen into. ‘I’ll be a while. I’ll be careful with his things, I promise.’
‘Okay’ Adam’s mother stepped back with something like a whimper of rejection, before padding softly down the carpeted stairs, shoulders slumped.
‘Thank you,’ Mak called, but she was already out of view, and there was no reply.
Who is Adam Hart?
Makedde Vanderwall took a breath and entered Adam Hart’s bedroom with as clear a mind as possible. She found herself in an average-sized room with off-white walls and a window with a leafy outlook. Immediately the neatness of the room struck her as odd: all perfect files and books stacked so precisely they were practically colour-coded. There was a single bed in the corner, made with an almost military precision. It brought to mind her days as a naval cadet back in Canada; from age ten to thirteen, she’d gradually gained confidence along with semaphore and Morse code skills as she rose through the ranks to chief petty officer, in charge of a parade square of kids. A tightly made bed was given strange value in cadets. ‘If I can’t bounce a quarter on it, you get fifty push-ups…’
Mak moved first to the window. It unlocked easily and slid open far enough for a slim person to fit through. With a half-hearted jiggle the flyscreen came away. She peered out, feeling the fresh evening summer air on her face. It was a single-storey drop to the ground beside the house, but there was a wooden ledge above the kitchen window—part of the fake Tudor design—and a drainpipe within reach. She could shimmy down it if she wished. Adam could have got out this way. Or someone could have got in. She replaced the flyscreen and closed the window.
How often did you sneak out, young man, and for whom? Do tell…
The décor in the room was minimal. There was a single large poster over the bed, a black-and-white illustration in traditional Victorian sideshow style, advertising the Jim Rose Circus. It depicted five characters, each engaged in a different bizarre performance. The central figure was a strongman type, tied up with chains and struggling atop shattered glass. Floating to his left was a man in a suit with a tube up his nose. The tube ran down into a big syringe containing some presumably sinister substance. Below him, a traditional sword swallower posed with a smile, the handle of the weapon protruding from between gleaming teeth. On the right-hand side of the poster was an oddly proportioned clown breathing flame, and below him a male figure struggled with a heavy weight that dragged his tongue down to his waist from an overstrained piercing. The poster proclaimed enticingly:
THE JIM ROSE CIRCUS
SIDESHOW FREAKS!
The images were set against a giant stage curtain, and brought to mind the dark sideshow world of Tod Browning’s subjects. Mak squinted at the poster, intrigued that Adam had chosen this over a poster of, say, a scantily clad Jessica Biel or a Suicide Girl. Perhaps his mother wouldn’t allow anything too racy in the house. Was she controlling? Mak wondered.
She set about searching the room.
Stacks of DVDs were set neatly against one wall, one upon the other from the carpet up: kung fu movies, foreign films, black-and-white films, fantasy. He was a Star Wars fan. There was an inexpensive-looking guitar in the corner closest to the bed, the make of which Mak did not recognise.
He had a medium-height chest of drawers filled with the usual socks, underwear, jeans and T-shirts, all neatly folded. There was also a four-shelf bookcase filled with carefully ranged books. She read titles off the spines: English as a Legal Language, Professional Practices, A History of Accounting and Accountants.
Riveting stuff, Mak thought.
But there were also copies of Kerouac’s On the Road— well thumbed—Ringolevio by Emmett Grogan and Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts. There was a dichotomy between the young man’s field of study and his interests, if such tales of adventure and rebellion against the system were anything to go by. There were also a lot of philosophy books, a number of which appeared to have unbroken bindings, and a thick book of Bob Dylan songs.
Hmmm. What about drugs…
In one smooth manoeuvre Mak dipped to the floor on one elbow and swept her eyes under the young man’s bed. A guitar case, empty. A fat dictionary.
Nothing. Not even the swirls of fluff and dust you’d expect to find under any bed, especially a nineteen-year-old male’s.
She sat on the edge of the bed and contemplated the space. What nineteen-year-old keeps their room this clean? She slid her hand under the mattress and searched for contraband: porn, marijuana, a f
lask of alcohol, a little black book, a tell-all diary…something interesting, anything. Perhaps Adam was like Andy’s old police mate Jimmy Cassimatis, harbouring a collection of trashy weekly nude magazines with their HORNBAG NEXT DOOR contests? It might not help to find Adam, but it would at least be amusing.
Again, nothing.
With its neatness and sterility, the room was almost a blank space. This was disappointing for Makedde’s purposes, to say the least. It was certainly not the messy jumble of unwashed gym socks and Ralph magazines she’d expected. Was this extreme tidiness the result of a strict upbringing? His mother was a schoolteacher and she did seem to like to keep things orderly and under control. Or was Adam expecting someone like me to come along? Mak wondered suspiciously. Either he had recently tossed a lot of belongings out and purposely tidied the place in preparation for his departure, or he routinely spent a lot of time keeping everything organised. Or—and Mak suspected this was closest to the truth—Glenise Hart had tidied her son’s room in anticipation of Makedde’s visit.
Mak stood up and felt something hard under her foot. She rolled her boot to one side and saw she was standing on a single coin—or rather, half of one. It was an American quarter, and it looked like a bite had been taken out of it. She examined it from all angles. The edge seemed to have been crushed by something, but the rest of the coin was unscratched and unbent. She placed the quarter on the bed and frowned.
A coin out of place. You missed that one, Glenise, she thought suspiciously.
She pocketed it for later, then took out her digital camera, checked that it had a fresh, correctly labelled memory stick, and began to take the first photographs for her new case.
When Makedde emerged from Adam’s room thirty minutes later, she felt only the tiniest step closer to knowing who he was.
She moved into the hallway and looked both ways. There was some movement in the kitchen directly below, a cupboard closing, the rattling of china, the shriek of water coming to the boil again. She stepped into the bathroom. It, too, was spotless. The towels were dark. There was a mirrored cabinet above the sink. She opened it, hopeful. If it were anything like hers, the shelves would be overflowing with toiletries, vitamins, toothpaste oozing out of tubes.
Anti-psychotic medications, party drugs, bags of condoms, what have you got for me…
There was a small tub of hair gel. Deodorant. Toothpaste still in a box. Boring. Mak opened the cupboards under the sink and found nothing but neatly folded towels, a rubber plunger. Nothing.
Makedde readied herself to face Adam’s distraught mother again. What had she learned? Her son was tidy. He read novels and watched DVDs. He liked Star Wars. He liked the Jim Rose Circus. And he had a strange coin. He most likely entered and exited his room through the window and down the drainpipe. But why? Mak descended the stairs wishing she’d discovered something more tangible, something to give hope that Adam would soon be returned to his mother, but of course it was far too early for results.
Glenise was waiting for Mak at the bottom of the stairs.
‘More tea?’ she asked.
‘Oh, thank you,’ Mak replied, not at all meaning it. ‘But I should get going soon.’
Tea was poured and Mak returned to her place on the lonely loveseat, smiling gently. She hadn’t had to use the tissues yet and she hoped the meeting would not turn to tears now. Adam’s mother sat across from her, expectantly. She seemed to have gained some composure. Her posture was stiff and proud.
‘I was wondering…does Adam’s room look any different than normal to you?’ Mak asked.
‘Not really.’
‘You didn’t perhaps clean it?’ she suggested gently. If Mrs Hart had cleaned the room to make it presentable for her and for the police, it was an extremely counterproductive thing to do.
‘Oh no. I wouldn’t do that. He has to clean his own room.’ Glenise held her gaze, and her answer was direct. Could the orderly teacher’s pride allow strangers to sift through her only child’s untidy room if it had been a mess?
‘It’s very well organised in there,’ Mak observed.
‘Oh, yes,’ Glenise replied, swelling with pride. ‘Adam’s a very neat boy. I didn’t raise any slob.’
Mak smiled. ‘You certainly didn’t.’ She took a sip of tea for the sake of diplomacy, but she had spent enough time in this pleasant, fractured home with its antiseptic grief. For the moment there was nothing more she could accomplish.
‘Before I go, may I have a look at where Adam kept his bike? You said he sometimes left it alongside the house?’
‘Of course.’
Mak gathered her things, and Glenise led her out the front door. The suburban street looked different in the slowly waning daylight, the houses beginning to be bathed in purples and greys, the shadows growing longer. They walked around to the side of the house, overgrown with green grass. Mak dodged a spider web, and was struck with images of Glenise Hart mowing the lawn alone, working in the garden alone, shopping for groceries alone, cooking for one.
‘He often kept it here. But it’s gone,’ Glenise said.
There was less than two metres space between the Harts’ house and a tall fence separating the property from next door. Mak could see wheel tracks through the grass, but it was hard to say how recently they’d been made. She again spotted the drainpipe that extended up to the roof, past Adam’s window. Had Glenise never noticed that her son conveniently parked his bike at the bottom of it?
By the look of that photo on the beach, Adam would certainly have had interest from the opposite sex. Or both sexes, actually. But Glenise had denied he had a girlfriend, or any ‘special’ male friends. Right on cue, Glenise reached into her pocket and presented Mak with the photograph from the mantle.
‘Oh, thank you.’
‘Bring him home to me,’ the woman said.
Mak nodded. ‘Don’t worry.’
They walked back to the front of the house, and Mak left her client with her arms crossed, silhouetted by the glow of the slowly sinking sun.
‘I’ll be in touch again later this week,’ Mak assured her.
‘He didn’t run away,’ the woman said once more, adamant.
Mak thanked her for her hospitality, neither legitimising her belief that her son could not possibly have run away, nor refuting it. But the way that flyscreen had come off made her think it had been removed many times before.
‘I was just wondering, has Adam ever travelled to America?’
‘America? No.’
Mak supposed he could have got the coin anywhere. ‘If you could get that list of Adam’s friends to me as soon as possible, that would be helpful. Thanks again for your time. I know this is hard for you. I’m confident we’ll find him.’
The early evening air felt refreshing as she gained distance from the house, and from Mrs Hart, who stood in the doorway watching. The hire car engine started with a splutter. It was not the most glamorous exit, Mak reflected, but as she drove away, she felt lighter.
CHAPTER 10
Lush red theatrical curtains were pulled back to reveal a nearly bare stage. Off to the right, a small band assembled, looking artfully dishevelled in tatty tuxedos—a guitarist and an androgenous-looking drummer surrounded by her kit.
The round drum was painted in old-style lettering.
LE THÉTRE DES HORREURS
A drum, lonely for other instruments, rolled its rapid rhythm, and on cue two young women appeared, both petite and dressed in classic burlesque attire: blood-red corsets, fishnets and tiny velvet hats set over the side part in their tightly curled blonde wigs. The makeup gave them the look of goth twins, their lipstick black, skin white. One pushed a cart like a restaurant trolley; the other carried a vintage-style placard:
ARSLAN LE CONTORSIONNISTE
The audience watched as the woman with the placard shimmied her way across the stage, striking little poses and making gestures in Bettie Page pin-up fashion—a smile here, an eyelash-heavy wink there—ensuring the placar
d was noticed by all. She daintily placed it on an easel stage right and joined her twin.
The audience waited, anticipation palpable.
Finally, the wheeled trolley was pushed to the front of the stage. On the trolley sat an ornate box not even half a metre wide, about the size of a minibar or large overnight bag. With lace-gloved hands the two attractive women stroked the box lovingly, making clear something of value was inside.
‘Arslan le contorsionniste,’ came an announcement in exotic-sounding French. ‘Amoureux tordu…’
The women gracefully reached down and locked the wheels of the cart so it would not move, then stepped away in their stiletto heels, blowing the mysterious object fond kisses and disappearing from view beyond the vaudevillian curtain.
The box sat centre-stage on its elevated cart, unmoving.
Again, the audience waited.
A full minute of suspense followed, seeming like an impossibly long stretch of time, the lone drummer tapping out a low roll. Finally, a striptease beat began, the guitarist strumming exotic, sensual sounds, and centimetre by centimetre the doors of the box opened, as if they had a life of their own.
Oh!
The audience collectively gasped as one hand appeared, and then another. Incredibly, a full-grown man was emerging from the box before the stunned audience, the empty space beneath the cart making it clear that this was no trick. Arslan the contortionist had not just appeared from a trap door under the floor, or from a hidden container within the trolley. A whole person had folded himself into that box, and he now rose, extending one arm and then the other, stepping out, unfolding himself limb by limb, and making a show of unfurling fingers and toes and placing his spine back into a more natural, upright alignment.