by Brown, Honey
‘We were about to order some pizza. Want some?’
‘No, thank you.’
Billy took a cigarette out, put it in his mouth, didn’t light it, put it back in the packet. He scratched his eyebrow with his thumb. He was, for the first time, nervous. Adam looked at him. He looked at Jason. Couldn’t work it out.
‘That’s pretty bad sunburn.’
‘He knows.’
‘It’ll blister.’
‘No, it won’t.’
‘He’s certainly got that “I’m under William’s spell” look.’
‘No, he hasn’t.’
‘Do you do modelling?’
‘No, he doesn’t.’
‘Stop talking for him.’
‘He likes me talking for him.’
‘How do you know each other?’
‘You wouldn’t get your head around it, Jase. Trust me.’
‘Oh for God’s sake . . .’
‘I’m helping him. All right?’
‘By dressing him in a matching top, renting a room with one bed, and looking like you’ve both robbed a bank or escaped from prison? Genius. Helpful, all right.’ Jason stood up. ‘You expect me to drive the two of you to Queensland, don’t you? That’s what you want. That’s why you called. Why don’t you ever say what you really want?’
Billy crossed his feet, leaned against the edge of the dresser. He held his friend’s gaze, passed a message. Not him, just me. Adam wasn’t blind.
His friend walked towards the door. ‘You make it impossible.’
‘Don’t go.’
Jason did, left the door open, and began down the hallway. ‘Call me when you’re a normal human being with a normal life.’
Billy shouted after him, a sudden high note to his voice, ‘What do you think I’m trying to do!’ He went to the door. ‘Why don’t you say what you really mean – I’m not fucking good enough for you!’ Billy slammed the door.
The room felt empty after Jason had left.
When the pizza came, Billy only ate one piece. He lay down on the couch. Adam sat on the bed, with the pizza box beside him. Billy had also ordered garlic bread. It came wrapped in foil. It was a toss-up, which thing Adam liked more – pizza or garlic bread. He overate and lay on his side. Billy wasn’t asleep. Adam turned off the lamps.
Sunburn made sleeping difficult.
Adam got up and opened the window to let the breeze in, pushed back the drapes. Neon colours lit the room. The two of them lay there in silence, listening to the late-night sounds from the street, occasional laugher, thuds and stumbles out in the hotel hallway.
When Billy spoke his tone was flat; there was a quietness and stillness that Adam hadn’t heard in him before.
‘I’m gonna tell you something. It’s big, I suppose. No, I don’t suppose – it is big. At that shed, the woman and the man, you said you remembered that man? Kovac. What I didn’t know, not until I saw her, was that I’d seen that woman before. She used to buy puppies off Kovac, years ago, back in Harp Street. I didn’t put it together until I saw her. I never knew her name, or maybe I did but I’d forgotten it. I don’t reckon I ever knew she was a Vander, though; I would have remembered that. What I’m saying is I didn’t know she was Joe’s sister.’
Adam looked up at the ceiling, at the colours and the long shadows cast. He nodded, as much to himself as to Billy.
‘It’s just . . . I didn’t know she had anything to do with Joe. She was always hanging around Kovac. Never could work out why he put up with her. I supposed it was because she bought a puppy a week. He was always going on about her reselling them . . . Anyway, you said about remembering a market?’ He waited.
‘Yes.’
‘Well, that woman was at this market once. Kovac was there selling puppies. He’d taken me to look after the litter.’
Billy fell silent for a while.
Adam blinked in the dark. He could not recall a time of being so relaxed. He was lying in the centre of the wide bed. The bedspread was pillowy and soft. His skin was on fire from the sunburn and his chest was growing tight with a feeling like he might cry at any moment, but his body and his mind were at ease. He was not afraid. Not on any level.
‘At that market a boy was taken,’ Billy said. ‘Stolen. You know? It was big news at the time. You still see it on TV sometimes. The kid taken was about four . . . It’s gotta be you. Hasn’t it?’
Adam lay there. The urge to cry left him. He was empty. Light. Hollow maybe. Although feeling nothing, he knew he must be feeling something, must be experiencing something, because he didn’t move, he didn’t talk, there were no words, no thoughts, no actions, and that couldn’t be right – he should ask questions, should sit up, turn on the lamp, discover this, find out more. It was time to talk. He searched inside himself for a way to do that. Closed his eyes.
‘I didn’t know Joe until after that. I would’ve thought something of it, if I’d known – that the woman was Joe’s sister. In my head I didn’t put Kovac and Joe together in that way. I didn’t realise they knew each other like that, hooked up with that; the market, I mean.’
Adam managed to say, without much thought, surprised by his own voice, ‘That’s okay.’
‘Well, it’s not really, is it? It’s about as far from okay as you can get. If I’d cottoned on, it would have been different, wouldn’t it? I would have put two and two together. But what it means is that you’ve got a proper family. People looked for you for ages. They’re gonna wanna know you’re okay . . . I didn’t know,’ he said. ‘It was only when I saw that woman that I started to think you could be the kid that went missing. Then the things you said. And Joe keeping you down there, trying to kill you, it all fits. I reckon Kovac took you, and Joe paid Kovac for you. That’s what I think. I know Joe paid for me – I saw the money change hands. Kovac wasn’t rich, not like Joe. And did you see the look on Kovac’s face when he saw you? He knew who you were. Your age is right. The kid taken had blue eyes . . . They said so on the news,’ he added after a pause.
Billy was lying on his back. Adam could tell because his words were being spoken towards the ceiling, left to drift across.
Adam didn’t direct his sentence either. He put what he said out there, into the dark, to go whichever way it liked. ‘And when you saw the tiger.’
‘Hey?’
‘You knew I might be that boy when you saw I had the tiger.’
Billy paused. ‘Nah.’ He switched to a casual tone. ‘I don’t think so. It was seeing the woman that made me put it all together. And what you said.’
Adam nodded, slowly, to himself again.
‘You were at the market?’ Adam asked after a moment.
‘Yeah. I didn’t go home with Kovac, though. Only heard what had happened later. On the news and stuff. It was real busy there, heaps of people. I didn’t hang around long. I kinda remember a search, but that’s about it.’
A lump formed in Adam’s throat. It felt about the size of the toy tiger. Lodged, hard to speak around. ‘Do you think I’ll find my parents?’
‘Real easy, I reckon.’
‘Do you think they’ll want me?’
‘Don’t start with that. Of course they’re gonna want you.’
‘I don’t know if I want to go and be with strangers.’
‘They won’t be strangers. It’s gonna be all right.’ Billy injected his old lightness into his voice. The playfulness. The gruffness. ‘What did I tell you, hey? We’d get the money and sort it out. We’ve done that. Yeah? Our luck has turned around. You think about it – Joe’s dead, Kovac’s dead, that sick bitch from the shed is burnt and probably brain dead. You’re gonna meet your family.’ Adam listened to him reach for his cigarettes, flip the lid, draw one out. He mumbled with it in his mouth, ‘At some point, it’s gotta even out. A bad run can’t run forever.’ There was a pause while Billy flicked the lighter and took the first puff. ‘Tomorrow I’ll take you somewhere. Get you set up to go to the police. You don’t have to be worried about it. You don’t have to be s
cared or nothing like that. It’s all gonna be fine. You’ll see. It’s all gonna work out good.’
If Adam wanted to, if he let himself, he could close his eyes and fall back, through years of dark, all the way back to that day, sounds of the market, sounds of the river, and the rocky bank beneath his yellow sandals, a toy placed in his hand.
Play with this. Stay here. Don’t be scared. Don’t cry.
For breakfast Adam had a Kelly Gang Grill. His fingers got greasy eating it. The orange juice was watery. Billy blew his cigarette smoke out the corner of his mouth, up and away from the table. He’d ordered scrambled eggs.
‘Jason’s a real proper snob,’ he said as though they’d already been talking about him. ‘Doesn’t know any different. He thinks some of the stuff he’s been through is hard. It’s hard to him; nothin’ to compare it to.’
‘I thought he seemed nice.’
‘Did you?’ Billy said brightly. ‘He is, you know. He couldn’t help out just ’cause he couldn’t. I know that. If I was him I don’t suppose I’d wanna jump in boots and all with someone like me either. At least he came. He coulda said don’t ring me. And he didn’t . . . Did he?’ Billy asked as though suddenly unsure.
‘He said ring when you’re normal.’
‘Yeah. He said that. And he could’ve said never.’ Billy snuffed a laugh. ‘But hey – never gonna be normal.’ He grew serious, looked down at his eggs. He hadn’t touched them. They’d gone cold. ‘Jase has got this thing about him, like he’s calm inside or something. Did you think that?’
Adam nodded.
Billy looked away. He took a final deep drag of the smoke, put it out.
‘You finished yet? We good to go?’
The sky was cloudy. Warm wind gusted. Adam was wearing the cap. He had the backpack. The gun was back inside it. The money was under Billy’s waistband.
Boxing gloves and barbells were painted on the cement-block walls of the co-op. Windowless buildings and narrow laneways surrounded it. Graffiti was scrawled everywhere. Traffic congestion, the roads they’d walked along, turns, tram lines, tunnels and lights all merged as one singular activity behind Adam, one dull noise. Bacon, eggs, toast, sausages and orange juice churned in his stomach. Steel grates covered the ground-floor windows of the co-op. A roller door sealed off the front entrance. The steel backdoor was locked. Billy knocked on it. When no one came he stood on top of a bike rack and threw a squashed Fanta can at the top storey window. The can bounced off the glass. The small window wound out. It wound back in.
A man dressed in football shorts unlocked the steel door. He squinted in the morning glare. His hair was dirty blond, long at the back, short at the top. He wore grey moccasins.
‘Mornin’.’
‘How’s it been, Hog?’
‘Ah, ya know.’
‘Much been happening?’
‘Nothin’.’
Adam walked in behind Billy. The lights downstairs had not been turned on. Hog went around flicking switches. Hallways lit up, the office in the corner illuminated, the Solo sign on the drink fridge blinked to life, and a plastic pair of red boxing gloves hanging from the ceiling glowed from within. In the main room were two boxing rings. The corner posts were padded. The ropes had springs attached. Through into the smaller rooms were weight benches, weights and foam mats on the floor, an exercise bike and a boxing bag.
‘Gonna take a piss,’ Hog said.
‘You mind if I go out back?’
‘Go for it.’
Hog scuffed down a hallway and disappeared up some stairs. Adam followed Billy. They went past the office, down a corridor and through a swinging door into the kitchen, turned on the light. There were gloves and padded helmets on the table. On the bench, alongside the tea and coffee, was a box filled with bandaids, bandages, creams and bottles of antiseptic. There was a tape deck on the stove with cassettes scattered around it. The floor had not been swept. Every room in the place smelled the same – old shoes and disinfectant. It was like a hospital had set up camp in the bottom of a shoe bin. Billy reached up into a cupboard and brought down another box of medical supplies. He took out a lunchbox container and sat down at the table with it, took off his jumper, made room in front of him.
Adam wandered around to the other side of the table. On the wall was a pin board covered in photographs. Snapshots of men and boys fighting in the rings, photos of black eyes and injuries, bloodied grins, sweaty beaming faces, middle fingers close to the camera, a man with his head over a toilet bowl, two men fighting in pink tutus, and a photo of Billy with a mouthguard in, gloves on, hands together on top of his head, muscular, enviably strong. A corner section of the board was dedicated solely to Billy. There were pictures of him when he was younger, pictures of him on the exercise bike, playing pool, a photo of him on Hog’s shoulders, arms raised, cheering, his legs dangling down the front of Hog’s chest.
A man in a singlet top and rolled-up trackpants came in through the swinging doors. He stopped. He was flushed and out of breath; he put his hands on his hips and puffed.
Billy put out his cigarette and unwound the bandage from his arm. ‘How’s it going, Nuts?’
‘Billy.’
Nuts looked at Adam, looked over his shoulder into the hallway. ‘Hog know you’re here?’
‘Yep.’
Nuts got a drink from the tap.
Adam eased a kitchen chair out. Lowered into it. He slid the backpack off and nursed it on his lap. Billy glanced across. He opened his hand in a calming gesture.
Nuts drank a full glass, poured another, rested it against his chest and breathed some more. ‘Better day out there today than yesterday.’
‘Yeah.’
‘Hog let you in?’
‘Why?’
Nuts took a towel from the back of a kitchen chair and wiped his face with it. He took a key from his pocket and hung it on a nail in the cupboard door. ‘No reason. What have you done there?’ He nodded at Billy’s arm.
In the shoebox were suturing supplies and small winged bandages. Billy was laying a selection of them out. Billy let Nuts see the wound.
‘Holy crap.’ Nuts leaned close. ‘Oh man . . .’
‘Bit worse than I first thought. Didn’t hurt much when I did it.’
‘The big ones don’t.’
‘Been hurting a lot since.’
‘Big ones do.’
‘You reckon Hog will give me some antibiotics?’
‘Not if you didn’t do it here . . . He let you in?’ Nuts pinched his nose and propped on the table edge. He wiped the sweat from his legs.
‘Why do you keep asking that?’
‘Did he say anything?’
‘Like what?’
‘Like Hayden’s looking for you?’
‘Nup.’
‘He’s really looking for you.’
Billy had laid out about ten thin sticking plasters. He pushed the lunchbox away and got up to look in the bigger first aid kit over on the bench. He took out a small dark bottle, shook it, put it down, kept on searching. ‘I don’t give a shit.’
Nuts lowered his voice. ‘That’s kinda what I’m gettin’ at, others do.’
The two of them looked up at the ceiling.
‘I think you better pack that to go,’ Nuts said.
‘When did he come?’
‘Yesterday arvo. Came back three times. Was here at lock-up. Sat out the front in his car for an hour or so after. See what I’m sayin’?’
‘What does he reckon he wants?’
‘Wouldn’t say, just that he has to see you.’
Billy sat at the table with the things he’d taken from the first aid kit.
As Nuts left he said, ‘Don’t say I didn’t give you fair warnin’.’
‘Nuts,’ Billy called. ‘Could you give us a hand with this?’
There was no answer. In amongst the gear on the table were open packets of jellybeans. Billy reached into the nearest pack. Fished out the black ones. He chewed, uncapped a bottle of a
ntiseptic.
‘Give us a hand, kid?’
Adam had to flush the cut with saline. He squirted it from a thick syringe. He had to paint the wound, inside and around it, with Betadine. He’d pulled up a chair beside Billy. The slash was freshly bleeding. It gaped. Adam dabbed the blood away. Billy’s forehead was down against the table. His feet wriggled beneath the seat.
‘The money doesn’t mean much to you, does it?’ Billy said while squirming.
‘What do you mean?’
‘The money isn’t the biggest thing for you.’ Billy winced when Adam touched a particularly tender spot. After a breath he continued. ‘You’re not thinking about it, because you don’t have to think about it. But it means a bit to me.’
Adam sat back to indicate he’d finished.
Billy straightened and looked at what he’d done. He blew on it, touched it to feel if the Betadine was dry. It was still sticky.
‘Thing is – we stole that money. Tell anyone about it and it gets taken off us. Stealing is stealing no matter who you steal it from. You can’t very well mosey up with four grand in your pocket, can you?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘I’m telling you, you can’t. If they find out about it, it’s gone. Without the money, I’ve got no way of getting out. If you want your half, I can keep it for you, but I’ll have to keep it for a while, until everything blows over.’ He ran his finger down the table surface, next to where he’d put the small sticky strips in a row, spaced how he’d like them spaced on the cut. He held his arm out straight. The wound pulled in. ‘Neat and tight.’
Each sticky strip was individually wrapped. Adam peeled back the paper.
‘We made a deal. I’m gonna stick by it. I know you’re nervous about fronting up. But more than ever you’ve gotta be quiet about me. If you start saying one thing, it leads to the next thing. Cops are pretty good at that. They won’t ask the obvious stuff. You can be telling them something without realising you’re telling them. You’re better off not saying anything about me at all.’
Adam put the first strip on. He began unpeeling all the strips, so that they were ready to go, one after the other. Billy lowered his head again while Adam put them on. They held fast when Billy sat up, bent his elbow and moved his arm around.