by Peter Butler
'Jezabelle! What you up to, sweetie?' the woman called from beside the Winnebago.
Dillon saw a small rock near his foot and bent to pick it up. Jezabelle rushed towards him, growling and barking even louder. He was just about to launch the rock at Jezabelle when the fat woman called out again. This time more urgently.
'Jezabelle...! You get your furry little ass back here. You come and do your pee-pee where momma can see ya, there's snakes and bears and all sorts of dangerous things in them there woods.'
Weirdly, the dog seemed to understand what the woman had said and Dillon watched as it quickly turned and scurried away towards the cleared area.
'Ah..! There you are sweetie,' came a relieved voice. 'You come here to momma and give me a big kiss. You gave momma a big fright.'
As Dillon made his way, quietly back to his bike he recalled a cartoon he had once seen of an extremely fat woman standing in her living room and calling for her pet dog that was nowhere to be seen. In the next frame the woman is still calling the dog but she is shown from the back. The long-dead little dog can be seen firmly wedged in the crack of her backside. He wondered if Jezabelle would remain quick enough to avoid the same fate. The fat tourists were going to be here for some time and he had to get to work, that meant he had to find a way around them.
Suddenly he heard a male voice shriek out, 'Beryl! Bring my damn fishing-rod back with you. I just saw two of the biggest fish go charging by in that, there river.'
'Sure thing, darlin.' she replied with a sing-song lilt in her voice.
Dillon shook his head and grinned. At the speed you two move, by the time you get there, pal, they'll be in China. He pushed his bike as quietly as he could through the underbrush. A few minutes later he glided silently past the Winnebago, wondering how they must look sitting side-by-side in the front as they motored along.
FIVE
Dillon rode into the lumber yard of Rafferty's Hardware at full speed, beside the vertically stored rack of mouldings, past the racks of plywood and at the very end, in the open, beside the rough-cut timber. He braked hard and leaned his shoulders to the left as the rear wheel locked and skidded. The rear of the bike slid around to the right which he countered by leaning in and putting his foot out near the ground to fine tune his turn. He stored his bike against the shed that the yard store-man used as his office and made his way into the main hardware showroom.
Herb Drinkman greeted him, 'You did not pick a good day to be late, Dillon.' He shook his head to emphasize his seriousness. 'The boss is in one big shitty mood. He's been asking where you are. Tread carefully Lil' Buddy.'
'Thanks for the heads-up, Herb.' Dillon said as he rushed by, heading for the broom closet to start sweeping at the back. He was intercepted by Travis before he made it to the closet.
'Ace the broom today, Dillon,' he said, grabbing him by the shoulders and turning him around, 'the boss and your dad are out in the alley and they want you to help 'em.'
'The alley?'
'You'll understand when you get out there.' Travis gave him a conspiratorial wink.
Larry had put on a pair of white overalls for the job he had taken on. Thick rubber gloves covered his arms up to his elbows, a white ventilation mask covered his mouth and nose, and a pair of safety-glasses took care of his eyes. He could easily be mistaken for a medic dealing with an pandemic outbreak. He was complaining to Jerry for the fifth time how the paint-stripper fumes gave him a rash and blocked his nose up when Dillon walked up to them.
He said, 'Wow!' and both men stopped scrubbing and turned to face him.
'Not wow, Dillon! Graffiti,' Larry said after he had pulled down his mask. 'Some twerp with a flea-size brain has taken the liberty of spraying horrid cartoons and illegible words all over my wall in oil-based paint. Your father and I have been working all day to...' he stopped suddenly, then said, 'You're late, Dillon. What is your excuse?'
'Sorry boss, I had to help that old lady I get the groceries for. She had a light bulb pop in her lounge room. I had to fix it. Couldn't chance her falling over in the dark.' Dillon often used Mrs Kemsley as his excuse when Larry confronted him. He had understood very early on in their relationship that Larry had an almost morbid fear of ending up like Mrs Kemsley. It wasn't empathy, more like an unwanted premonition of a direction his own life might take.
'Well, that's an acceptable excuse, you need to look after vulnerable people like her. But, it comes off your time, not mine. I will expect an extra quarter hour from you tonight. I, myself will be staying back an extra six minutes.'
Dillon looked at his father who was just shaking his head in bewilderment. Jerry knew Dillon well enough to know he had made up the Kemsley story. He was secretly proud of his son for the way he handled Larry. Dealing with those who had slightly different mental wiring was like walking a delicate tightrope and Dillon had proved to have the gift of not falling.
Larry and Jerry had managed to remove about two-thirds of the non-commissioned mural. The paint stripper followed by the scrapers and wire brushes had got most of it off but the tiny pores in the bricks and mortar still contained small pockets of unwanted color. Dillon tried to make out what had been painted, but like most of these things only the hand that sprayed it knew exactly what abstraction was being depicted.
'Is that meant to be a fat white sausage with red sauce on one end?' Dillon asked, as he pointed to the section that hadn't yet been attacked by the two men. He was keen to move the subject away from his late arrival.
His father squirmed at the question from his sixteen year-old son and answered appropriately, 'Yep. That'd be my guess.'
Larry took it as an academic question and answered accordingly. 'The thin blue tail coming from the other end makes it more likely to be an exaggerated depiction of a used tampon.'
Dillon and his father gasped in unison.
'Oh, come on,' Larry said smugly, pleased to be able to showcase his superior intelligence. 'It's obvious. Can't you see it?'
Dillon looked at Larry dumbfounded, pulled a pained face and shook his head. 'No... Yuk! Never.'
Jerry felt his son's embarrassment and he knew it was beyond Larry's emotional range to see what he was saying was causing discomfort, so he did the good father thing and changed the subject.
'Is that an equal sign, or some sort of fat Z in the corner?'
That snapped Dillon out of his mental anguish and he suddenly put it all together. The mention of a Z, plus the spray cans he had discovered just before and now the giant tampon. Zac - the asshole! Why didn't he see it sooner?... Zac had accused him of having tampons in the shopping cart that very morning. A subject clearly on the jerk's mind - because of this graffiti he did last night. Dillon shook his head. This was all about punishing him, not Larry.
Larry watched as Dillon shook his head as he studied the wall, seemingly deeply distracted by something.
'If it's not a Z, then what do you think it is, Dillon?'
After a long pause, he answered cautiously, 'I have no idea.' A worried look crept over his face. What he had thought of as simple macho rivalry had, apparently, been ramped-up to something serious. And it was escalating.
***
As he had ridden back from the hiding place in the woods Jordy had rubbed his knee, a small spot of blood from a graze was visible through his pants resulting from his fall. Ahead of him, Zac and Wood hadn't given his discomfort a second thought and had pedaled as hard as they could.
Zac was taller and better built than both Wood and himself; he was the undisputed leader of the small gang, but not only because of his size - friendship with Zac came with perks. Zac's accommodation within the family compound not only came equipped with the biggest wide-screen T.V's and sound gear, it also had the latest Xbox and PlayStation and most of the top games. Best of all was summertime when the three of them spent most of their spare time in Zac's pool. The water was wonderful as was the horsing-around they got up to, but the biggest bonus was Zac's nineteen year-old sister, Lissy,
who spent a lot of time lying on one of the lounges, working on her tan. Both Jordy and Wood had a big thing for Lissy.
She didn't know they existed, except that they were noisy children who occasionally needed to be brushed aside along with unwanted insect intruders who dared to trespass into her exclusive, designer-clad world.
Zac was the only one of the three who didn't wear a backpack. It messed-up his jacket, he told them, but both knew that if the cops ever stopped them and found the spray-cans, it would be them taking the fall, not Zac. Zac was no fool and his years of listening to his father talk around the family dinner table had inspired him to store his spray equipment far away from his own home. If trouble happened, Zac's father, Douglas Cramer, would make sure his son remained unscathed. Being the founding partner of Cramer Legal, Douglas had a total of fifty-two junior counselors to make sure his wishes turned into reality. Both Wood and Jordy's families could barely afford bus fare, let alone a lawyer. Despite being aware of their flimsy, disposable positions within the group, Wood and Jordy considered it a major win to be included in Zac's gang.
'I want to ride past the hardware joint, to see how good it looks in daylight,' Zac called out to the other two as their bikes swept around the fork-in-the-road that led back to town.
'Then we're goin back to your place, right Zac?' Jordy called back.
'Nah... not tonight. We'll go back to your place and hang out until it gets dark.'
Jordy knew it was because they had the spray-cans with them that Zac wouldn't go back to his home. But there was upside for them. Zac didn't like the vegetarian food that Jordy's mother offered and usually suggested they have some burgers and chips instead. His shout.
'It's vegetarian lasagna tonight,' he shouted to Zac.
'Ooh! She uses that eggplant, stuff... Don't like that,' Zac yelled. 'What if I get us some pizzas and coke?'
'There's a plan,' Wood happily agreed.
'Fine by me,' Jordy called out, a grin appearing on his face. Perks.
A short time later Zac pulled over to the side of the road a short distance from Rafferty's Hardware.
'Okay. We just cruise by, nice and slow,' Zac said, as Jordy pulled up beside Wood. 'Spread out, ten seconds apart, so we don't look like we're together... and don't stare as you go by until you've checked there's nobody looking back at you.'
Zac went first and was almost level with the alley when Wood started to pedal after him. He watched as Zac quickly turned his head to look down the short private alley, he did a double-take, his head suddenly jolted back and the bike started to wobble. Zac's head shot back around to look at the wall a second time and Wood could see, even from as far back as he was, that Zac was really mad at something.
Zac continued down the road, and moments later Wood rode past the alley. He saw immediately what had pissed Zac off. Even with the white van blocking most of the view he could see two men were almost finished removing most of Zac's artwork. It didn't bother Wood that much as he only got involved with the spraying because Zac demanded it. It was Zac's mark on the world, his Urban Art - that's what he called it. A way to be creative and piss-off the establishment at the same time. Zac's ultimate aim was to cover the external walls of Cramer Legal with his offerings, but, as yet, he hadn't been able to work out a way to do that as the building was fifteen stories high and most of the walls were made of inch thick glass and the paint could be easily scraped off. He was trying to figure out a way to get up high and do it, which was essential anyway as Cramer Legal only occupied the top five floors. He claimed he was getting close to a solution.
Wood looked back at Jordy, who was just passing the alley, and saw his reaction. Jordy felt the same as Wood about this activity but they both knew how badly Zac would take this new development. They didn't have long to wait to find out.
Zac had stopped around the next corner and was filling the air with expletives when Jordy caught up.
'Freakin retard,' he was yelling, 'First the prick refuses to sell me the spray-cans, then he kicks me out of his stupid little shop. Now the shit messes up my art.' Zac's face was red with anger, the blood vessels in his neck were bulging and small amounts of spit shot out of his mouth as he formed certain sounds. 'I've got a good mind to go back there and put my fist through the old fart's ugly fuckin face.'
Jordy was about to reason with him; to say that it was the guy's wall, after-all, but one look at Zac's face and he checked himself. Zac was like an erupting volcano, spewing lava all over the place - words were not going to make it stop. He and Wood waited for the lava-flow to end.
Zac seemed to be running out of swear-words, so Jordy made an attempt to get him on to another subject. 'Just as I rode by that weed Dillon joined them and started helping the guys clean off the paint.'
This had the opposite effect to the one Jordy was looking for. 'That piece of shit is in on it, too?' Zac exploded.
'He works there after school,' Wood said.
'I've been looking for an excuse to mess-up his pretty-boy face,' Zac looked threateningly at the other two. 'The bastard's been trying to nail Emily Kane. That makes two strikes against him.' Zac drifted off in thought, then rounded on the other two, 'there's been a change of plan for tonight...'
***
As Zac, Wood and Jordy pedaled off a van with multiple ladders piled on it's roof pulled into the alley and parked behind Larry's van. Two men got out and walked over to Larry. They both wore overalls emblazoned with "DayNight CCTV" on the front and back.
'Mr Rafferty, I'm Clive Glazer, we spoke on the phone earlier today,' he offered his hand to Larry, not realizing it was covered in a latex glove, which in turn was coated in paint-stripper and paint residue. The shake was accepted to Clive's regret. 'This is my assistant, Marty,' he added as he gestured to the other man.
Marty had seen what had just happened and kept his distance. He said, 'Hi!' and gave Larry a friendly wave.
'Hello, gentlemen,' Larry said, 'You can see why I need your assistance. Some fool has desecrated my lovely wall.'
'That's awful,' Clive agreed. 'I can certainly help you with the day and night vision cameras, sir. But not the other thing.' He smiled.
Jerry and Dillon had stayed in the background and taken no part in the conversation, so far. Larry had not found it necessary to introduce them as he regarded them as "not essential" to this phase of his plan. But Jerry's curiosity got the better of him and he couldn't help himself, 'What other thing?' he found himself asking.
Clive turned to him and said, 'Mr Rafferty, here, has a fine sense of humor,' he grinned. 'He asked if we could mount machine-guns beside the cameras we are about to install on the wall up there.' He pointed to a section of wall not far from the entrance to the alley.
'I assure you I wasn't joking, Mr Glazer,' Larry quickly cut in. 'If I was in a humorous mood I would ask if you also made pottery.' He waited a moment but nobody laughed. He assumed his audience just didn't get it. It never occurred to him that Clive Glazer heard supposedly clever lines about his surname a dozen times a day - and Jerry and Dillon knew better than to encourage him.
'I never intended to have them loaded with real bullets - blanks would have been enough!' he continued his explanation. 'The threat was the main thing I wanted to achieve.'
Clive gave him a sly smile. 'Never-the-less, Sir, the police take a dim view of weapons on the street, even fake ones.'
Larry pondered that for a second, then nodded his acceptance. 'I want the cameras high enough to be out of reach, but not that high that we will only get to see the tops of the perpetrator's heads. I've marked the spot on the wall.'
'Of course, Sir,' Clive agreed, 'We do this all the time.' He examined Larry's mark, then added, 'I'm happy to use your mark, but I would have mounted the camera a little higher on the wall, say, up another three feet.'
'No, use my mark. I want to be able to make out their faces,' Larry insisted. 'Your night-vision cameras will be able to do that?'
'Absolutely, Mt Rafferty. Unless th
ey're wearing masks.'
'That would seem unlikely, Mr Glazer. They would need clear vision to complete their horrid vandalism.'
Clive just shrugged. He'd already arrived at the conclusion that Larry Rafferty was someone who already knew everything, and it was not possible to have a discussion with people like that. As long as he got paid for his work, Clive would do as instructed, he could care-less if the results were not going to be great. Better still, he might even get a call-back to fix it.
SIX
'I still don't like that we've come here first,' Wood complained.
'Tough shit, Sunshine,' Zac answered with menace in his voice.
It was ten forty-five and most residents of Devondane were tucked up in bed, the lucky ones exploring the contours of another human body. Zac stood in the shadows beside Wood and Jordy. They were next to the alley that ran beside Rafferty's Hardware.
'We need to deal with those new cameras first,' he hissed at them in the quiet, chill night air. His breath formed a white vapor cloud as he spoke, giving the impression that the fire in his belly was a real one.
'How we goin to do that? They're too high to reach' Wood asked.
A thin grin formed on Zac's face. 'You're going to carry me on your shoulders, Wood. And I'm gunna spray black paint over the lenses.'
Wood said nothing which Zac took as questioning his idea.
'We'll both be wearing our headband torches. They're really bright. The cameras have to be set up for night-vision and when the strong light hits them they'll be blinded. Our faces will be invisible below two big splotches of white on the screen.' He laughed.
'I'm not so sure about that, Zac,' Jordy added, shaking his head. 'Those cameras gotta have the latest digital shit inside 'em, who knows what they've come up with recently.'