Tunnel Vision

by Andrew Christie

  “If you thought I’d be pissed off, you’re fucking right.” John banged his fists on the steering wheel. “What did you think would happen?”

  “I…”

  “What?”

  “We didn’t think it would…” They hadn’t known Baxter would get hurt. How could they? They hadn’t expected the cops to get involved. Billy hadn’t thought about much, other than making sure the rigged crutches worked. Rashmi had figured she’d get kicked out of school, which didn’t worry her. It wouldn’t be the first time. Billy figured he might get kicked out too if they found out he had helped her, but Rash said she wouldn’t tell and he believed her.

  “Did you think at all?” John sounded like he was trying not to shout. “About what would happen? Even without that teacher getting hurt… For fuck’s sake, Billy, you can’t assault a government minister. You’re a bright kid…you had to know.”

  Consequences. Billy wondered when John would get to that. That was what teachers always went on about. He waited for the rest of it.

  “She’s fucked now,” John went on. “Rashmi is. Her whole life. Fucked. Totally…fucked. She’ll probably have a criminal record.”

  “It was just a—”

  “A fucking prank? Yeah, till some poor bastard smashed his skull. Jesus, Billy, there’s an election next year. This government has been itching to make an example of someone. You think they won’t? You’re fucking kidding yourself. And do you know what that means? Any dreams Rashmi had of a career…she’s well and truly fucked. And you too, mate. Maybe she’ll get some sympathy, pretty little disabled girl. Family tragedy. But you, mate, the fucking smart arse who put her up to it. The tech guy. That’s the story they’ll run. Doesn’t matter if it’s true or not.

  “And me. My house, my tools. For what? A gesture. A self-indulgent poke at the bastards. It won’t make a blind bit of difference out in the world. Just a teenage girl’s revenge fantasy for her dead cousin.”

  “She won’t tell,” Billy said. “About you. Or me either.”

  “Oh, you reckon? You’re sure about that, are you? When the Feds and ASIO and all that lot get hold of her? Because they will—they’ll want to know who she’s connected to.” John smacked the steering wheel again. “Fuck me. And what about Tony? What about the pumps he borrowed from the university? They’ll put him in the frame too. It’ll be a conspiracy.” John was breathing hard.

  They both were, sitting in the dark, neither of them talking now, just watching the street in front of them. Billy hadn’t thought about the police, or the fact that John and Tony might be dragged into it. Tony was a medical researcher at the university. He had gotten hold of the plastic tubing and pumps for Billy’s “science project.” Billy realised that if the cops found out about Tony, they’d think he’d stolen the pig’s blood too. He hadn’t; Billy had got it from a wholesale butcher in Glebe.

  He wanted to leave; he wanted to get out and slam the door. Instead he turned to John. “We were just trying… It’s all over the Internet, some of the story. They’re talking about Rashmi, about her cousin. All over the world, everywhere.”

  “Big fucking whoop, Billy. They’re talking about how irresponsible and selfish she is. About how that teacher might die. They couldn’t give a shit about her cause…and tomorrow some stupid cat will be all over the Internet, and Rashmi will be forgotten. This whole thing will be forgotten by everyone except the bastards you embarrassed in front of the world. They won’t forget it. Or you. Ever. Once the machinery starts rolling, it doesn’t stop. They’ll come after you with everything they’ve got. Which is a fuck of a lot, believe me. But as you say, Rashmi got lots of clicks, so yeah, that’s okay then.”

  Billy sat blinking, the moths blurred now by the tears filling his eyes.

  “Get out,” John said. “Just get the fuck out.”

  “I…”

  “What?”

  “Sorry. I’m sorry.”

  “Damn it, Billy, go say sorry to that teacher. To his wife.” John gulped some air; it sounded like a sob. “I keep thinking about Annette Morgan. About the people we don’t mean to hurt. You should’ve told me.” John shook his head then lowered his voice. “Piss off. I’m too angry to talk now.”

  Billy got out, crossed the road, and stood on the footpath outside his mother’s house, only turning when he heard the ute start up. John drove away through the tunnel of giant fig trees that framed the road, the ute’s wake stirring up eddies of dead leaves.

  “Fuck you.” Billy said it aloud, to the street. To the world.

  “Billy boy!” Mary Sheehan yelled up the hallway as he opened the front door. His mother was slumped in her armchair but still flying. Shit faced, but in a good mood at least. “Where’ve you been, mate? Come and meet Roy. Roy, this good-lookin’ young fella here is me boy, Billy.” She waved the bony hand that wasn’t holding a can of beer, drawing him from the hallway and into the living room.

  An enormous bong shaped like a skull sat in the middle of the coffee table, a new addition to the decorations, which mainly consisted of empty beer cans and pizza boxes. The television blared in the corner. The man sitting on the old stained yellow lounge had limp brown hair and a hooked nose. A T-shirt that might have once been blue was stretched over his gut, and his flabby white thighs were splayed wide, leaving scary black caves beneath the legs of his too-loose shorts. Billy was glad the only source of light in the room was the big TV screen. Roy pulled his red-rimmed eyes away from it just long enough to check out Billy. He managed to mutter a “G’day,” before the magnetic pull of the screen dragged his eyes back.

  He was younger than the blokes his mother usually brought home. Fatter too. Billy nodded, gave Roy a “Hey,” then drifted back down the hall towards his bedroom. His mother had already lost interest in him, her eyes glued to an ad for small loans featuring a man dressed as a rabbit. As Billy unlocked the padlock on his door, he hoped Roy-boy wouldn’t be hanging around too long. He had put the lock there after one of his mother’s previous boyfriends had stolen the bike that John had given him for his sixteenth birthday. Nothing was safe here.

  In the shower, he stood for a long time with the light off, letting the hot water stream over his head. He’d never seen John so angry before. He knew he’d be pissed but… What they did, what Rash did—they were trying to do something. It wasn’t nothing.

  He was sorry about Mr. Baxter. Of course he was, but what could he do about it now? He was sorry they’d gotten John and Tony involved too. He could understand why John was pissed off. With his having been in the SAS, the cops and media would go crazy if they found out. They weren’t going to, though, not from Rashmi. John was wrong about that; she wouldn’t tell on him.

  Chapter 2

  Professional Development

  11:19 a.m.

  One minute later than the last time Dave McPhedran had checked his watch. The van was nearly five minutes late now. Be cool, he told himself. It’s not a problem. Just city traffic. The timetable is just a guideline; it’ll be here.

  He was sitting at a table outside a café on Burwood Road, watching a line of traffic crawl past. Next week, when the schools were on break the roads in Sydney would be less busy. A lot of people would be heading off for their Christmas holidays, up and down the coast. Between Christmas and New Year, things went a bit crazy back home in Brunswick Heads. People coming up from Sydney and down from Brisbane, all the campgrounds full to overflowing. The grass would keep growing back at home, though; you could rely on that. Up there it was always warm, and there would always be grass needing to be mowed.

  Sydney was all traffic and noise, the footpaths so crowded you could hardly move. People from all over the place. Round here in Burwood, they were mostly Chinese; the main drag was full of Chinese restaurants. Dave wondered if the people in Sydney ever did any cooking at home. Maybe all they did was watch cooking shows on TV and eat at restaurants.

  He sipped his coffee and scanned the street again, north towards Westfield and back sou
th to the railway station. Everyone was busy with their Christmas shopping. Nothing out of place, no one paying any particular attention to him. Or to the bank. No one who looked like they were trying not to pay attention either.

  That stupid stunt Rashmi had pulled with the blood last week…the timing couldn’t have been worse. The cops were all over her and Sally, and he hoped to hell they weren’t getting curious about the rest of her family. He had dropped in on his daughter and granddaughter when he’d arrived in Sydney. Not something he usually did. Normally he was in and out, hopefully unnoticed. But with Rash having raised this shit storm, Dave needed to know if he and Al were coming up on the cops’ radar.

  Things that they couldn’t control made them nervous. He had to know just how much of a risk this whole thing was. That teacher in a coma and the government bloke covered in blood—what would it mean for him and Al? There was no reason the cops should look in their direction, but there was no knowing how their minds worked.

  When he had cruised past Sally’s house three days before, there they were. A dark-blue Commodore was parked right outside. It was definitely police; no one else would put that many antennas on a Commodore. The car was empty, so presumably the cops were inside. He had parked up the road a bit and waited for the cops to piss off.

  It was a nice tidy little house, Sal’s place. She had done well, getting into the housing market before prices soared in Sydney. The little weatherboard cottage was probably worth a fortune now. Lots of street appeal, with its picket fence and flower garden at the front. Sal had never shown any interest in gardening when she was a kid. Not until she’d bought this place. According to Rashmi, she now spent all her weekends digging things over, weeding, planting.

  Sal always threw herself into things. No half measures, whether it was gardening, university, or trying to save the world. Dave admired that in her, even when it drove him nuts. After she graduated, she was overseas mostly. All over Asia and Africa, doing aid work. She ended up in Sri Lanka and hooked up with a local, a doctor. That was where she had little Rashmi. He supposed kids never did what you thought they should.

  She could have come home then, but she still wanted to save the world. Dragged little Rashmi off to Nigeria. Places Dave had never heard of, the middle of bloody nowhere. He had been angry about that, putting the little one at risk like that. He couldn’t understand why she would do it, and by the time they came back to Australia a year later, it was too late. Little Rashmi had gotten the polio, and Sally was paralysed by guilt. She had plenty of spirit, though, the little girl, which more than made up for her legs. She’d have a go at anything.

  This stunt with the blood wasn’t really a surprise. It was just the sort of thing she was always threatening to do.

  In the rearview mirror of his Land Rover, he had watched a man and a woman step out of the house and onto Sally’s veranda. They were dressed in dark suits, the man half turning back, as if he were going to say something, but the front door was already shutting. They didn’t look happy. Mustn’t have got what they wanted, Dave thought. Good. You two can fuck right off.

  He smiled to himself, head down, pretending to look at his mobile phone, as the Commodore drove past. Five minutes after the cops had left, a young woman came out balancing a pile of papers and a phone. She crossed the road and got into a red Corolla. Dave hoped the woman knew her stuff. Rashmi was going to need a good lawyer.

  11:21 a.m.

  It was getting hotter outside the café. No breeze, the sun blasting down on the road and the footpath. Even where he was, sitting in the shade of an umbrella, Dave felt the heat rising off the pavement. It was supposed to get to thirty-seven today, according to the weather.

  Sweat prickled his skin inside the coat he wore to conceal the sawn-off Browning pump hanging from a strap beneath his arm. The shoulder rig had a snap release that would drop the gun into his hands when the time came. The Browning was an ugly weapon. Big and dangerous looking, good for getting people’s attention. They hardly ever worried about getting a good look at his face when the black hole of the twelve-gauge muzzle was asking them if they felt like dying today. So far he’d never had to fire it during a job. He was proud of that, regarded it as a sign of professionalism. Of restraint. But he knew there was an element of luck in it too. It would only take someone looking to be a hero to fuck things up. Dave’s job was to make sure they didn’t get into that situation. Whenever anyone looked like getting brave, a sharp jab to the middle of the face with the shortened stock had worked well so far. A smashed nose makes it hard to think about much else.

  Dave tapped his knuckles on the tables wood-grain Formica. Each year the jobs got a bit harder. There were cameras everywhere now; they spent half their prep time checking out the cameras in the street and the bank. Before they even got around to checking the staff, they had to make sure that they weren’t being recorded, that they weren’t going to leave a bunch of CCTV evidence to come back and bite them in the arse later.

  He slipped his fingers behind his right ear, up under the edge of his wig, to scratch his scalp. This new wig was going to have to go after this job. The damn heat was making his whole head itch like a bastard. He'd gone back to dark with this one, after five years of being blond. It had been a mistake, next year he’d go back to the blond one.

  He finished off the last of his raisin toast and took a sip of lukewarm cappuccino. If the van didn’t get here soon, he’d have to order another one, and then he’d need to take a piss. Al was waiting across the road, at a pub up past the bank, near the train station. “I’ll just have the one,” he’d said. “To settle me down.” It better be just one, Dave thought. Both of them were getting on now, Al especially. He had a bit of a gut these days too. Dave hoped they never had to actually run for it.

  The SPBC bank across the road from him wasn’t busy yet, just a few customers coming and going. That was good; the fewer civilians the better. Nearly everyone did their banking online now anyway. It was the way of the world. Lots of banks had closed, and the ones that stayed open had hardened up their security. Over the last couple of years, Al had talked about calling it quits, but Dave didn’t think Al could ever give it up. Neither of them could. It was what they did best. It was always a thrill when Al called him. “You ready, son?” he’d say. “This one’s easy money.”

  Christ, it would be thirty-five years they’d been working together next April. Not that they’d been robbing banks all that time, but a fair chunk of it. It was a hell of a long time staying off the radar, not getting caught. Just on the averages, it would be smart to give the game away soon.

  Give him his due, though, Dave thought. Al plans the jobs well. Always has an eye to the big picture, never cocky, never greedy. The jobs were spread out over time and location, and Al made sure they didn’t develop patterns. Different types of jobs, different frequencies.

  Sally hadn’t seemed very pleased to see him the other day. “What are you doing here?” she’d said through the crack of the front door. No smile as she pushed the screen door open and leaned out, looking past Dave, up and down the street.

  “They’re gone,” he said.

  “You saw them?”

  He nodded. “Thought I’d wait till they went. The lawyer too.” Sal was much smaller than him and, like her mother, a little knot of emotions. She’d long ago lost her freckles, but her hair was still blond. “How’re you holding up?”

  She looked up at him and blinked. “You’d better come in.” Dave followed her down the hall. Over her shoulder she said, “I suppose you’ll want a cup of tea?”

  “Wouldn’t say no. Where’s Rashmi?”

  “In her room. Leave her for a bit. She stormed off when that woman cop wouldn’t stop asking questions.”

  “How’s she doing?”

  “Shattered. Guilty about what happened to Jim Baxter, angry about Woodward and the government. The school’s administrators are being shits. First thing Rash did, when the cops let us come home, was write a letter to
Baxter’s wife. Said how sorry she was.”

  “How is he, the teacher?”

  Sally shrugged. “Not good.”

  Dave shook his head and sat down on a stool at the kitchen bench. “What about the cops? What did they want?”

  “Same as the other day. Wanted to know who helped her, where she got the blood. I’m pretty sure it was that boy she hangs around with, Billy.”

  “She’s got a boyfriend?”

  “Sort of. They’re not very lovey-dovey.” She shrugged again then filled the kettle and switched it on. “She’s been hanging around with him a lot, spending time at his house.”

  Dave couldn’t imagine Rashmi with a boyfriend. She’d always been his little mate. Over the years, they’d spent a lot of time together, up home and on the block. She’d come up and stay during school holidays so Sal could keep working.

  “Is he all right?”

  “Yeah, nice enough. And Rashmi doesn’t have any proper girlfriends. The girls at school are all—”

  “The polio?”

  “Yeah, but not just that. You know what Rashmi’s like. Prickly. Getting kicked out of that other school too. She doesn’t know how to be one of the girls, how to play nice.”

  Dave shook his head. “She’s intense. Like you were. The two of you think too much.”

  The kettle bubbled up and clicked off. Sally got out a couple of mugs and dropped tea bags into them. “I don’t know what she wants.”

  “She’s a teenager,” Dave said. “She wants everything.” He watched Sally pour water into the mugs. “Are the cops blaming you?”

  “Me? No. I had no idea what she was doing.” She looked up at him as she placed a carton of milk in front of him. “Why would they?”

  “What about the journos? They still giving you a hard time?”

  Sally shook her head. “They were here yesterday. The photographers were the worst.” She took her mug over to the sink and gave the tea bag a couple of quick dips before dropping it onto the draining board.