Black Teeth

by Zane Lovitt

  She nods, grabs my jacket sleeve and I know the wind is cold against my neck but I can’t feel it.

  ‘He said a salesman came to his house and he bought the policy.’

  ‘Okay. Did he say anything else?’

  ‘Only that…’ her cheeks, blanched from the cold, turn scarlet. ‘He said I’m the one who gets the money.’

  Rudy hasn’t gone twenty-four hours before telling Beth what yesterday he so keenly didn’t want her to know.

  ‘Riiiiiiight,’ I say, performing a realisation. ‘That’s interesting.’

  What is Marnie doing? Breaking into my flat? Is she at the edge of the catwalk listening in? The rain is a thousand simultaneous slaps on the corrugated roof above her so she can’t possibly hear us. Even so, I peek past the clothesline along the back of the block, past the puddles in the mud and the wild grass, untended like Rudy’s front yard. Not an inviting escape route.

  ‘But he really scared me,’ she says. ‘On the phone. I asked him why he was doing it and he wouldn’t say. He totally just…wouldn’t tell me anything. So…Tim?’

  ‘Yes?’

  She sucks back her lips like she’s sucking back on courage. ‘I want to go to the police.’

  ‘No—’

  ‘You said he might be planning something bad. Is he?’

  ‘We’re going to go to the police. Believe me, every minute of the day I’m about to go to the police. But the agreement I’ve made is to find out as much information as I can before I do that. I’m sorry.’

  ‘What agreement?’

  ‘I really can’t go into it. But I can tell you it’ll all be over by next weekend. You just need to sit tight.’

  She wipes a raindrop from her cheek that could almost be a tear. ‘I’m sorry, it’s just…it’s got me in a tizz…’

  ‘I know, I’m sorry.’ And I snort. ‘If either one of us apologises again, we should just get married.’

  That makes her giggle. It is a moment, interrupted by the sound of footsteps on the stairs.

  Beth must see the fear in my eyes, shrinks into the wall.

  A tall figure with a golf umbrella emerges from the staircase and trudges toward the street. She’s wearing about a thousand jackets, at least one with a hood that’s over her head, blocking her peripheral vision. There are gloves and a scarf and her favourite red leather boots. Proper armour against the day.

  The figure makes a cursory assessment of the green Volvo, if only because she doesn’t recognise it, then moves off down Rapproche Street, headed for the bus stop.

  I relief-smile at Beth.

  ‘Come on upstairs.’

  ‘No, I should go home. I just…I’m not comfortable with any of this, the insurance…I want you to know that.’

  ‘I do know.’

  ‘I’m supposed to go over there and photograph his furniture.’

  ‘It’s better if you don’t. I’m sorry.’ And in this second I would marry her. ‘You just need to wait a week.’

  She doesn’t answer, mind elsewhere.

  ‘Beth?’

  ‘Okay,’ she agrees, absent. ‘I just want Rudy to be okay. I know he’s kind of strange but he couldn’t hurt anybody. You’ll watch out for him, won’t you?’

  ‘Yeah,’ I say. Like of course I will.

  And I’m about to qualify that with something like, ‘If I can,’ when she leans up and pecks my cheek. I catch gratitude in her eyes and she probably catches lust in mine before she turns away and trots into the rain.

  The Volvo starts with a splutter of old age like Tyan and his cigarettes and I can’t see into the cabin to know if she’s waving but I wave anyway.

  32

  This is Melbourne’s Nuremberg rally and I’m the strange-o with his hands in his pockets, leering at the MCG from right outside it, leaning furtive against a white pole that travels a hundred metres into the sky with massive floodlights at the top and they’re on even though it’s daytime. Through my clothes I feel the cold of the metal numbing my shoulder.

  I am as conspicuous as this pole.

  The rain’s stopped and the city is gathering, wearing their colours, eating their junk food, scolding their children. I face an actual-size bronze effigy of a man named Keith Miller and someone has decided that the pose that best captures him is one where he’s falling over. Across the PA system comes an announcement that isn’t a recording but which continues without interruption and is incomprehensible.

  At home I googled what to wear to the football, and although I think I might be over-prepared with my two jackets and gloves and beanie and umbrella, Tyan arrives wearing just a bomber jacket and a T-shirt.

  He says, ‘You off skiing?’

  It’s good humoured.

  We join the flood of pilgrims making entry into the stadium and Tyan expects me to keep up and I do, through the bag search and the turnstiles and he’s already got the tickets.

  ‘Why didn’t you come last night?’ he asks.

  I scramble to keep close enough to reply.

  ‘My car was having problems.’

  ‘You could have called.’

  ‘I knew I’d see you today.’

  We lumber with the crowd towards an open stairwell, hike a marathon to the top storey and I’m winded when we get there but don’t admit it. The full glory of the arena reveals itself, encompassing a patchwork quilt of shades of green and you can see how much money they spend on grass. Below us a cliff face of empty seats falls away and below that are people, spread thick along the lower portions and all the way around the field. Their density and their proximity is surprisingly intense. I reach for the guard rail.

  Outdoors now we trudge up more stairs, reach the top of the grandstand where a giant video screen looms but up close like this it looks like the Matrix. We sit beneath it, in what is clearly the least popular part of the stadium: Tyan wants privacy.

  ‘So how did it go?’

  ‘Well…’ I say. ‘You were right. An intervention order isn’t going to help.’

  I recite for him my visit to the ramshackle terrace in Albert Park, Rudy’s plan to murder Tyan in his bed, his expectation that he won’t survive jail and his affection for Elizabeth Cannon. All the while bodies flood the field, worker bees in pink and green.

  The story culminates in the black teeth. How Rudy’s black teeth are everything to him.

  ‘That’s who he is,’ I say, filling the silence as I wait for Tyan to pat me on the head. ‘He isn’t anything else.’

  Hawthorn jog onto the field. I can tell by the yellow and brown muscle tops—I googled them this morning too. Tyan claps and so do I, doing my best to look on with pride. The crowd roars like someone slaughtered a Christian.

  ‘You done good,’ he says in a cowboy voice, can’t seem to look at me as he says it, straightens his back. ‘But what’s he going to do? Ring the doorbell and hope I let him in?’

  ‘I don’t know what the plan is exactly.’

  ‘And when? That’s the big question.’

  I realise I left that part out.

  ‘Friday.’

  The old man tips away, looks at me askance.

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘That’s the day I told him his policy would be active.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘He’s got a policy now. Or at least he thinks he does.’

  ‘You sold him insurance?’

  ‘There wasn’t a lot of choice, man. He’s an intense dude.’

  I take the contract from inside my jacket.

  ‘I told him it would be processed by Friday. He wasn’t happy that he has to wait. But he reckons Friday’s the day.’

  Tyan takes the contract from me and looks it over. The Hawthorn team tears through their banner and maybe the roaring ambience of the crowd grows by a decibel. The other team, according to the second scoreboard on the far side of the field, where the enormous lights loom over the stands like triffids, is West Coast Eagles. They prance into view and the crowd is silent for reasons I cann
ot determine.

  And Tyan’s question is: ‘Did he pay for it?’

  ‘I waived the fee. Out of solidarity. The teeth and everything. Also I don’t know how to pretend to process a payment.’

  ‘Why leave it until Friday?’

  ‘It was the first thing that came to mind. Sort of spur of the moment…’

  ‘Christ,’ he says with a sigh. He hands back the contract.

  ‘You still don’t want to go to the police?’

  ‘I told you, not until we’ve got him.’

  His tone is conclusive enough that I choose not to push it. Instead I allow a moment’s pause before I say:

  ‘Did you come to the football a lot with your dad?’

  A man dressed all in green stands in the middle of the field and holds a red ball aloft and the siren blarts and I have to block my ears. The crowd responds in the affirmative. The green man bounces the ball hard against the ground with both hands and two opposing players yearn for it, one of them grabs hold of it. Two others grab hold of him and someone near us yells, ‘Ball!’ They appear to be stating the obvious.

  ‘My dad was an arsehole,’ Tyan says, focused on the game. ‘He wouldn’t of taken me even if he wasn’t always pissed.’

  I leave space for him to say more, but he’s in the spectacle now. Tribes of men seated below us drink beer from tiny plastic cups. Others arrive with more, as many as they can carry.

  One of them stands and declares, ‘Right. I’m off for a slash.’

  Another yells at the field, ‘Who to?’

  I say to Tyan, ‘I was thinking about purchasing the Jason Tyan domain name. Is that okay with you?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The domain name. Like, Jason Tyan dot com. It’s available, I checked.’

  Tyan doesn’t answer, appears to be fashioning a thought.

  ‘Is it true they used to call you the Polygraph?’

  ‘Where’d you hear that?’ Tyan asks, suddenly interested.

  ‘Internet.’

  It’s a gamble, bringing it up. Bringing up anything from Tyan’s past. He could respond with a glowing smile or a bayonet to my self-esteem. For now he seems pleasantly reminded.

  ‘Yeah. I suppose they called me a lot of things. Polygraph was one of them.’

  ‘You could always tell if someone was lying.’

  ‘I had a knack for it.’

  ‘They used to call you in to help with interrogations.’

  ‘If they had nothing else, they’d get me in. I’d give them my read and be on my way.’

  ‘They got a lot of arrests because of you.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know…’ But he’s loving this flattery. I’m loving it too. ‘If I helped out, then I’m glad.’

  ‘How did you do it? Like…’

  Something dramatic is happening on the field and everyone stands up. Tyan doesn’t. He looks at me with a passion for this topic.

  ‘Well, see, something you’ve got to understand is, there’s really no such thing as an unsolved crime. On any given case the whole fucking teams knows who it is. Five minutes in a room with the bloke and you know. All it means for something to be unsolved is that you’re not swamped with evidence. These days you practically need a video recording of the crime itself to get a conviction, but that doesn’t mean there’s any doubt. Cops are lied to every day. Every day of our lives. We know when someone’s bullshitting.’

  ‘Is that what happened with Piers Alamein?’

  ‘Yeah. Absolutely. One of the least gifted liars I can remember, because he wasn’t a career criminal, just a fucking turd. But it didn’t matter in the end because we got the goods on him.’

  The red ball floats to the far side of the field and I notice five boys seated nearby, unaccompanied. Their median age is ten or twelve and one of them shouts at the game, ‘Don’t fucking cry, Floritt!’

  ‘Do you remember…’ I try to sound vague and entirely innocent. ‘Do you remember a photograph of you and Rudy in the Daily Sun? It was just before Piers went on trial…’

  Tyan consults his memory.

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘You looked young. Like a proper cop. It said the two of you had formed a bond.’

  He scoffs. ‘Funny bond if he wants to kill me.’

  ‘Rudy was on the front page. Saying his dad should confess.’

  ‘Seems he’s changed his mind on that.’

  When the ball bounces into the crowd the energy settles. Seagulls swoop onto the field, dip their beaks in the grass. A grating man-cackle from somewhere far off.

  ‘My theory is that hating you is easier than accepting all the terrible shit that’s happened. His dad just died, he feels guilty about betraying him. Hating you gives him something to focus on.’

  ‘But why me?’

  ‘He thinks you perjured yourself.’

  ‘But how? And why? Why would I? Why would I fit someone up? I mean, why would I do it?’

  Despite how Tyan doesn’t appear to be talking to me, I nod in passive agreement. Doing that, I feel the telltale waft of heat in my head.

  I try to act normal, say: ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘What’s in it for me?’ he says, as if I hadn’t just told him that I don’t know. ‘Was I supposed to profit somehow?’

  My eyebrows pull my eyes open and I blink, shift in my seat. Flick at the lacker band on my wrist like there’s no place like home. Despite the Arctic breeze I’m boiling up. My heart beats. Tyan continues in that strange voice.

  ‘I’ll ask him that. When he comes. I’ll ask him why he thinks I could be bothered fixing someone up.’

  I rub at my neck, nod hard, try to hide what’s happening. My vision clouds. I scratch at my nose, tip forward, tip back, scratch my nose again, tip forward again.

  Tyan says, ‘I’ll get everything straightened out. I’ll have him eating out of my hand by the time I’m done.’

  What am I doing here? What am I doing at the football with these men?

  ‘And just when he’s wondering how the fuck he got the idea that I’d done anything wrong, we’ll prosecute him up the arse for attempted murder and he’ll land in Severington just like his dad.’

  Now I’m standing up, discern with my big blinking eyes the location of the stairs, slur something and lurch for the handrail and muddle my descent, try to look like I’m ‘off for a slash’. The rail does most of the work, stings my hands with cold while sweat soaks my armpits.

  Into the bowels of the amphitheatre. I leave behind the rumble and the war and I’m still clinging to the rail, but you know, casual. It’s not exactly unpopulated, mostly more men carrying more beer, wearing more colours and shouting more profanities, but it’s dark and no one’s looking at me or talking to me like they’re my father.

  The causeway leads to an open area facing the field and the clamour of spectators is here again, but I’m behind it now. Feel the adrenaline recede. Wipe the sweat from my face with my hand and wipe my hand on my jacket and crack out a beta-blocker. I need something to wash it down.

  At the bar, where the plastic cups of booze are administered to a constant stream of swaggering males, I ask for a water and pay five dollars for it, chug the pill and take a moment to let the electricity slip away, slump on a bar stool.

  A brutal exclamation from the crowd. I don’t turn to see what it is.

  What I do turn to see is two uniformed police officers: blue, blue and more blue. Fat guns clipped to their thighs, walkie-talkies draped over their shoulders, vests that might be bullet-proof. They chat, friendly, in position at the stairwell, watching with as much fixation as the civilians around them.

  What if I went over and told them everything, like how Beth wants me to? Would they care? Would they superhero the shit out of this situation? Maybe Tyan would forgive me, secretly thank me for doing away with the danger that is Rudy Alamein.

  But then, what are two cops at the football going to do for me? They don’t want to hear a sob story. And surely they’re too young to be gen
uinely helpful. One of them looks about twelve. They’d tell me to call triple zero and barely take their eyes off the game.

  I reclimb the stairs. The siren sounds again and I flinch. The running players stop running and dick music kicks in at once, warbling from the tannoy. Spectators get to their feet and the distant stand becomes an ants nest of people. I glance at the scoreboard to understand what’s happened but it only plays a video commercial for SUVs.

  When I reach Tyan, he’s still seated.

  ‘Sorry about that,’ I say, manufacturing good cheer. ‘Call of nature.’

  ‘Listen,’ Tyan says, readjusting himself in his tiny seat, pulling on his belly to make himself fit. He’s not wondering why I left in such distress. Maybe he didn’t notice. ‘I’ve been thinking. I don’t want to wait until Friday.’

  ‘I’m not sure we have a choice.’

  ‘No, we do,’ he says. ‘You have to go back. Tell him the policy is active. Tell him to come tonight.’

  33

  Rudy holds it tight, looks across it like it’s a photograph, not a written document.

  ‘And that’s not all,’ I say. ‘I have news.’

  Behind me the Saturday traffic is light and muted. I hover on the verandah because it hasn’t occurred to Rudy to ask me inside. Probably he’s not used to asking people inside. He just stands in the doorway with his prize, wearing happy pants and a pilling cotton skivvy, confounded by my visit.

  Then panic: ‘There’s not going to be a problem with…She’s going to get the money, right?’

  ‘Oh yeah. For sure. That’s what the stamp means.’

  Before we left the football—ten minutes into the third quarter because Hawthorn was ‘getting thrashed’—Tyan picked up a bottle cap and dipped it in the tomato sauce left over from his second meat pie, pressed it down on the front page of the signed contract, leaving a jagged circle he filled in with a set of fake initials. It looked vaguely official. Even if it stank.

  Rudy sniffs, sensing something unusual, but what he smells only seems to make him prouder. A gentle finger runs across the imprint, dry now like the black teeth beneath my glove—Tyan drew those on too.

  I’m like, ‘That’s yours to keep. Can I come in?’