‘Sorry, I forgot,’ Santo said, smiling maliciously. ‘She’s the older woman. That’s why she hassled you into getting hitched, Ad. So she wouldn’t be left on the shelf with a bun in the oven, eh?’
‘Storming back into the house won’t help anyone,’ Primo heard his mother say. ‘It doesn’t work that way.’
Primo heard Santo laugh. He looked up into his crunched-up face.
‘It’s okay, Mum,’ Santo was saying. ‘Adrian’s taking care of it all as we speak. Aren’t you, mate?’
Primo looked across at Adrian and held his brother’s gaze. You haven’t told Santo, have you? Please, Primo prayed under his breath, please tell me you haven’t told Santo.
Adrian grinned ridiculously and nodded.
‘What does that mean?’ their mother asked, her tone concerned. ‘Adrian?’
Primo let his gaze move across the four faces at the table: his father, Santo, Adrian, and his mother. Only his mother looked slightly perturbed.
‘Nothing, Mum,’ Adrian said finally. ‘It means nothing. It’s just Santo’s way.’
‘Santo?’
‘Well, in a manner of speaking, yes, it is my way,’ he said cryptically. ‘And I’m glad to see that all the balls in this family aren’t at this end of the table, eh Dad?’
The old man reached for the vinegar and attempted to pour some into his glass. Santo, sitting closest to him, snatched it off him.
‘Why you here?’ the old man asked. The question seemed to be general.
Santo poured out a glass of wine and handed it to his father.
Primo stole a glance at his mother. Her chin had dropped, her lips were pursed and he thought she was trying to work out Santo’s comment.
‘I very good driver,’ the old man announced, steering an imaginary car around an imaginary corner. ‘I want buy new car. A Fiat 500. Red one. The Bambino with suicide doors.’ He smiled at his family, then picked up his fork and stabbed another slice of zucchini.
‘You already ...’ Primo’s mother began, but the words evaporated and she looked down at her empty plate.
Primo felt the usual bile rise in his throat. His father’s comments were becoming more unpredictable. It was frightening. Primo looked at his father closely, at the deep furrows that had formed on his face, the lines that dug into his skull.
‘Thanks for dinner,’ he said and made to rise from his place. Santo motioned firmly for him to sit.
‘You haven’t heard my news yet,’ Santo announced. He looked at Primo and smiled. ‘You want to hear my news, right, Primo?’
Not really, Primo thought. I don’t really care what you’re up to, apart from thinking the Fiat is somehow automatically yours.
‘Sure,’ Primo mumbled, lowering himself back into his chair.
Santo clapped, startling the old man, who dropped his fork with a clutter and swore loudly.
‘I know there’s been a lot of, well, a lot of challenging news lately, let’s say,’ he began, and Primo saw Adrian become engrossed with the pasta dregs on his plate.
‘Papa, Mum, little bros.’ Santo got to his feet. ‘I’m going to reopen the ufficino, the workshop. With the help of some good friends of mine. Local boys.’
There was silence. Santo stood where he was, arms out as though for an embrace, looking around the table, settling on Primo.
Unsettled by the grin shot at him, Primo said the first thing that popped into his head, ‘The same friends you went into the sunglasses business with? The one’s who tried to pass forgeries off as the real deal?’
Santo huffed and tapped a finger on the tip of his nose absentmindedly. ‘All the important bits and knobs are there already, Mum,’ he said, ignoring Primo. ‘Dad didn’t sell anything. Sure, I need to get some modern gear in there too. But really, all I need is two good experienced mechanics, maybe an apprentice, and someone to oversee the operation. Someone to get the clients through the doors. Oh, and they won’t be wooden anymore,’ he continued. ‘I want a classy shop front. Something that will bring in clients with cars that matter. Beemas, Mercs, Alfas, and of course Fiats. The odd sixty-nine HT Monaro GTS 350 maybe, top end stuff like that, yeah?’
Primo looked at his mum. He knew she was thinking exactly the same thought. Yes, it can fail. But his mother stayed silent, and Primo decided it would be prudent to do likewise, at least for the time being.
‘And that’s where Bambino comes in.’ Santo smiled and lightly, yet reverentially, touched the old man on the shoulder. ‘I’m going to put Bambino on display in the window, for all to see. The cashed-up car enthusiasts, they see the 500D, and they’re in.’
‘Maybe you can put Dad on part-time,’ Primo said, his resolve to keep calm sullied by his brother’s cockiness. But his brutal sarcasm was too obvious to invite laughter, even from Santo.
Santo said, ‘In time I’ll buy out your shares in the place.’ He pointed at his brothers. ‘And Kath’s too. Not straight away, you understand? Got to get the old place making a profit first. But it can’t take long, eh?’ He grinned and ruffled Primo’s hair. ‘You’re a one-fourth owner of a business venture, little man. Think about that. Pretty cool.’
‘No, not one-fourth, Santo,’ Primo heard their mother say. ‘One-sixth. There are six of us. Six.’
When he looked at her, Primo saw that his mother was smiling thinly, her eyes fixed on him.
Santo mumbled, ‘Yeah, yeah, that’s what I meant, of course, sure,’ and he sat down heavily, reaching for the glass by his plate, realising only when he had it to his lips that it was empty.
Primo drummed his fingers on the dashboard, watching the house through a light mist of rain.
‘Your old man, Prims, does he get what Santo’s wanting to do?’ Tone asked and took another slug from his can. ‘Prims, no offence, but Santo doesn’t know the first thing about cars, apart from driving them. Maybe he should get Alfie to run the place for him, seeing as he now has to run his business out of the backyard, eh?’
‘The old man has nothing to do with it,’ Primo replied. ‘This is something Santo has dreamt up. Just like when he dreamt up getting Mum to back him in the sunglasses venture. That went straight to hell, too.’
Tone snuffled a laugh and nodded. ‘So why get the workshop up again?’
There was someone crossing the road in the direction of the house Primo was watching, but it wasn’t a woman. It was a kid wheeling a bike. Primo turned slightly in his seat and looked out the rear of the hearse, but a van had pulled up behind them, blocking his view.
‘The way Mum tells it, Dad expected Santo to follow him into the trade,’ Primo went on. ‘But Santo doesn’t like getting his hands dirty, so Dad banked on Adrian stepping in. Adrian, though, couldn’t tell a brake pad from a headlight, so that left –’
‘You?’
‘No, not me, Kathleen,’ Primo corrected him. ‘But Kath was a girl so there was no way the old man was going to even consider training her to run the business. I reckon that’s partly why she moved out,’ Primo continued. ‘By the time I came round a few years after Kath, Dad had lost any desire to keep the workshop open and shut it down.’
Tone shifted heavily in his seat. ‘So you never even got a look in, Prims?’
‘I guess the old man never figured the runt of the litter would want to take on a smelly, back-breaking job as a mechanic,’ Primo said. He glanced at Tone. He’d never told him about why his father had shut down the business, and saying it out loud made Primo oddly sad.
‘I never really gave that much thought to the sixteen-year gap between Santo and Ad, until after Dad went into the Home, but I figure those years were when my old man was at his peak in the job. And then suddenly out pop three more mouths to feed in the space of six years. And now Santo is going to resurrect the shrine. Santo,’ Primo said meditatively. ‘Saint. Santo. He’s a saint isn’t he, for bringing the workshop back to life, eh? In his own eyes at least.’
Tone wrapped both arms around the steering wheel, leaning heavily into it
, staring out the rainsmeared windscreen. ‘That’s a lot of guesswork right there, Prims,’ he said.
‘Not really,’ Primo replied without hesitation. ‘Me and Mum are on our own a lot. If you listen carefully, and read between the lines, sometimes you get dropped into the dark corners where all the secrets are hiding.’
‘Yeah, right,’ Tone mumbled uncertainly. ‘Secrets and shit, yeah.’
Several minutes later he said, ‘So, tell me again, Prims, why are we here? Apart from it being part of the weird fest you seem to be on lately.’
‘I don’t know exactly,’ Primo said honestly. ‘I just want to see what this woman I took a dead dog to looks like.’
‘We took,’ Tone corrected him. ‘And then?’
‘Dunno, Tone,’ Primo answered.
‘You reckon it might be better if you went to see Madds, instead of hanging around here?’ Tone said flatly. He was cleaning under the cuticle of a finger with a pocketknife. ‘You seen her Facebook status?’
Primo shook his head and stepped out of the hearse. He hadn’t bothered with Facebook in ages. He had too much real world stuff to worry about.
‘Single,’ Tone said, following Primo. ‘Maddie has changed her status from “In a relationship” to “Single”. The girl is moving on without you, bro.’
Primo flinched. ‘She can write what she wants on there,’ he said. ‘It doesn’t mean much.’
Tone folded the blade away, held his hand out at arm’s length and grinned. ‘You know exactly what that means.’
It means, Primo thought, that I have to get over myself.
‘You could’ve called her. You could’ve explained how you’re a stubborn, pig-headed, narrow-minded moron who thought scaring his girlfriend by driving like a lunatic was a way of showing love and concern.’
‘And you could mind your own business, but you don’t!’ Primo said.
Tone pulled back in mock fright. ‘Guess which frog won’t get another kiss from that particular princess?’ he said and winked.
Primo smiled despite his best effort not to.
‘And moving right along. If we see her, and if it is the her you think it is,’ Tone said, ‘what then exactly? You going to introduce yourself maybe, Prims?’
Primo didn’t answer. He huddled under a sprawling mulberry tree and folded his arms.
‘Look, mate, this is way boring, so I’ll wait in the meat wagon, okay?’ Tone said.
Alone under the canopy of the mulberry, Primo looked at the house, uncertain about why he was there, and what he might do if he set eyes on Crystal. It was, Primo reasoned, a pretty pathetic thing to be doing. And if Maddie ever found out about it? It didn’t bear thinking about just what depth of loser she’d think he was.
‘Juice? Hey, that you, my man?’
The voice snapped in Primo’s ears.
‘What you doin’ here? You lost?’
Primo coughed up a primitive grunt of pained surprise.
Ari’s face was in shadow under a grey hooded training top. He was standing side on, as though looking at whatever Primo was fixated on.
‘You come visit Ari? Is that it, my man? You finally decide it’s time to come pay your respects?’ Ari laughed, but his hands emerged from the pockets of the trainer, balled into two huge fists.
Primo’s throat constricted.
Shit! he thought. Shit.
A few short steps away Primo’s co-worker sniffled loudly and ducked his head as though avoiding a jab. He shuffled on the spot. The knotted barbed wire tattoo on his neck poked out of his hoodie, and Primo squirmed.
‘What you know, man?’ Ari asked. ‘You not doing the spy shit for the Boss Man, Juice? That wouldn’t be cool, man.’
The big guy took two steps forward, his breath fanning Primo.
Primo smiled, but his butt tickled with anticipation.
‘So, what you doing hanging here, Juice?’
‘Ari,’ a voice called, and they both turned to look at the dead dog house.
A young woman stood on the veranda, her hands lost in a dishcloth.
Primo felt the icy grip of fear squeeze his heart.
‘Shut up!’ Ari called back, then turned his attention back to Primo. ‘Bloody women. You got a sister, Juice? Big trouble they are, man.’
Ari leaned in toward Primo. ‘Why you here?’
Primo smelt the alcohol on Ari’s breath, saw the drool in the corners of his mouth where the drink had numbed his reflexes.
‘Why you reckon?’ Primo countered, hoping that his false bravado wasn’t betrayed by the quiver in his voice.
Ari seemed momentarily confused. He squinted one eye and snorted.
Seeing Tone climb out of the hearse, Primo said loudly, ‘My mate there, he wants to score some stuff.’
Ari turned sharply and staggered on the spot.
‘Ari,’ the woman called again. She jutted out her chin as though to take a better look, shrugged and said, ‘I don’t believe it, Ari. I just don’t get it,’ before retreating back into the house.
Primo walked a few steps toward the house, and didn’t notice Tone sidle up to Ari until his mate spoke.
‘What’s the holdup?’ Tone asked sotto voce. He looked around as though nervous. ‘Prims, just get the shit and let’s go.’
Ari leaned slightly back from the huddle Tone had formed by coming in close.
‘You got anything or not?’ Tone said, right into Ari’s face. ‘My mate here tells me we can score off you. He heard right or he heard wrong?’
Tone’s open manner obviously caught Ari by surprise because he moved forward suddenly and, with his eyes looking up and down the street, whispered incredulously, ‘You, Juice? You want some shit?’
‘No, not him,’ Tone cut in. ‘Me. You got any or not? I’ve been sitting here too long already waiting for you to rock up.’
When Ari hesitated, Tone grabbed Primo by the arm and started leading him back to the car.
‘How much you want?’
Ari was a step behind them.
‘Forget it,’ Tone snapped over his shoulder. He opened the passenger door and climbed across into the driver’s seat ahead of Primo, who scrambled in and pulled the door shut.
Ari jerked the passenger door open and leaned in across Primo. His face was hard and his breath was hot.
It seemed to Primo at that very moment he was slowly but irrevocably spinning out of the orbit of everything and everyone around him.
‘You guys trying to snake Ari, is that the way it’s going?’ Ari spat, grabbing the steering wheel with one huge hand.
‘Piss off!’ Tone hissed and punched at the hand. It didn’t budge.
With his upper body inside the car, Ari somehow got a hand into the pocket of his hoodie. He withdrew a small wad and wrestled it into view.
‘Two caps,’ he announced. ‘All I got left. Two hundred.’
Primo felt the weight of the big man on his chest and tried to push himself back in the seat. There was a hot pain pressing behind his eyes. This could all turn ugly very quickly, he decided. There was an intensity of anger that sat permanently on Ari’s lips, festering like a weeping wound.
Primo glanced at Tone and prayed his mate had two hundred dollars on him.
‘Juice,’ Ari spat. ‘Your mate not joking on Ari is he?’
Tone counted out two hundred dollars in fifty dollar notes and handed it across. Ari withdrew, dropping the wad into Primo’s lap.
‘Next time you ask me at work, Juice. I got plenty of shit there,’ Ari snarled. ‘Don’t you come round to my turf and hang about like a dead dog again. You listen to what I said?’
Primo stiffened and caught his breath. He hoped Ari hadn’t noticed.
‘Yeah, like, some loser he done dropped a dead dog on my house there, where my sister’s little ones can see it. You believe it, man?’ Ari went on. His fists clenched again. ‘You hear about it from the boys in the yard, for certain, eh, Juice? Lucky Crystal up early and she see the dog and gets me out to take it
away, eh?’
Primo stared straight ahead. His head pounded. Beside him he felt Tone’s black fear seep into the cabin.
‘Weak as piss bastard not man enough to settle with Ari, man to man, eh?’ Ari said. ‘That’s what I reckon anyway, to my sister and her kids when they cry and shit.’
The big man stepped back, checking out the hearse.
‘What for you driving this dead man’s car?’ he asked. ‘What’s wrong in your head you want to drive a car like this, man?’
Tone gunned the engine and pulled out into the street without uttering a word. It was only when they were around the corner that he said, ‘You owe me two hundred bucks, Prim. And your brother? He’s rooted.’
Then he lit a cigarette, passed it to Primo and lit one for himself. He blew smoke rings into the windscreen.
Primo sat in silence and looked blindly into space, the cigarette burning down between his fingers.
‘Crystal’s his sister,’ Primo said as though in a trance. ‘And she has kids.’
‘Two hundred bucks, Prims!’ Tone said through clenched teeth. ‘Two hundred.’ He reached over and picked up the wad lying on Primo’s lap. He held it up for Primo to look at closely.
‘What am I going to do with this shit?’ he asked after a moment. ‘I don’t do drugs anymore. But maybe it’s a good time to relapse, yeah. What do you reckon, Prims? We give the caps a shot and see what’s what?’
Tone chucked the wad out the driver’s window and punched the steering wheel, his face red, his nostrils flared.
‘I get caught with that shit on me and I’m inside this time. You understand me, Prim? I got to keep clean. No more police at my door. You hearing me, Prim? The dead dog was a favour because you’re my mate, but –’
‘SHUT UP!’ Primo yelled.
A wretched heaviness fell on Primo and he slumped in the seat. Ari would kill them all, Adrian included, if he ever found out the truth about the dead dog. If Crystal told Ari where the dog might have come from.
‘What if she tells her brother that the dog probably came from the scumbag she was having an affair with? What then?’ Primo said suddenly.
‘Would she do that?’
Dead Dog in the Still of the Night Page 8