Animal Kingdom (14 page)

Ezra looked at him and started to laugh. ‘You're right,' he said. ‘That is what I'm there for. Thank you.'

J was lost now. ‘I didn't do anything,' he said.

‘No, you did. Thank you,' Ezra laughed. ‘Thank you for putting it so succinctly. That's what I'm there for. And what are
you
there for?'

J didn't know what he was getting at, but it sounded like he was telling him something. ‘I'm just there,' he answered.

‘Thank you,' Ezra repeated, still laughing. ‘That's what I'm there for.' And, looking back at the road, he concluded, ‘And that's what you're there for, too.'

J still didn't get it, and they drove the rest of the way in silence.

Back at the house, Ezra was snorting some lines off a CD cover on the table. He'd dropped J off in the city, done a bit of running around picking up a birthday present for his kid and now was back here giving a report.

‘There wasn't a good feeling in the room,' he said, pinching at his nose and feeling that exhilarating
zing
as the coke hit his brain. ‘Leckie was running the whole
Yesterday you were very helpful
routine,' he continued.

Pope and Darren were sitting in armchairs, listening closely as he continued, ‘That was probably for my benefit but I dunno. He's just a kid. Kids are stupid. They're weak. He may think he's doing the right thing but really his foot's covered in dog shit and he's got it stuck right in his mouth.' He stripped off his court shirt to slip into his tennis gear. He had a friendly match with a Land and Environment judge a little later. ‘I'm pretty surprised you've let him get anywhere near you, to be honest.'

Pope looked at Darren, snarling, ‘I told you to go get that car.'

‘No, you didn't,' Darren spat back.

Pope wouldn't have it. ‘I told you to go get the car.'

‘No, you didn't!' Darren said, in that whiny, defensive tone that came so naturally to him. ‘You never fucking mentioned it to me once, Pope.'

‘I don't want to hear any of this,' Ezra said, walking away and trying to remind them of the dignified position he held in the law, to their considerable benefit. ‘You've just got to be worried about what he's been doing.'

Standing in the shadows in the corridor outside, J was petrified as he listened to it all.

‘He's a big kid,' Darren said, trying to wash his hands of it. ‘He can look after himself.'

‘Can he, now?' Ezra answered, intent on giving Darren a lesson in psychology. ‘Can he handle police? Can he handle their pressure? It's a totally different kettle of fish.'

‘What can we do?' Darren asked.

‘I'd start by keeping an eagle eye on him, that's for sure,' Ezra said. ‘Where is he now?'

He was in the corridor shitting himself, that's where he was. He'd overheard Ezra's voice and figured his
knownothing
stance might be in need of revision.

‘He's in his room with his girlfriend,' Darren answered.

Ezra looked like he'd been slapped with a salami. ‘Is he?' he asked.
You fucking idiots. Why didn't you tell me?
didn't need to be said because it was written all over his face. ‘And what's she doing here?'

These clowns didn't deserve to be running around creating havoc; they deserved to be right in the place the police obviously wanted to send them.

Nicky was sitting on the bed talking on the phone to a girlfriend when J walked back into the room. Looking up, she could see something was wrong, but he wasn't talking. His mind had gone into shutdown and he wasn't thinking straight as he tried to calm himself, sitting away from her on the edge of the bed.

Ezra had no such trouble. His mind was soaring with the eagles. ‘Is he talking to her?' he asked.

‘How should I know?' Darren answered. He resented that J had suddenly become
his
problem. Just because they'd ridden around on bikes together when they were kids didn't mean he owned him. He hadn't even seen him for ten years.

‘Mate, I can't help you with the
how
part,' Ezra said. ‘You just gotta be looking out for this shit, you know.'

‘What? So he's my responsibility now?' Darren protested, overwhelmed by the unfairness of it all.

Ezra wasn't interested in Darren's crap. As far as he was concerned, if you can't stand the heat, don't smoke dope in the kitchen. The Codys had always been trouble. Most criminals were. That's what you realised, hanging around the law courts: most people who wound up there were dumb or otherwise challenged in one profound way or another. If you want to make money, you don't do it by hiding behind trees and jumping people, and you don't do it in the way the Codys did it, which was only one step up from that. A serious step, Ezra would have conceded, but only one step. Still, working for violent criminals suited his temperament, and he liked being the smartest coconut in the tree.

Picking up his suit and briefcase, he headed out the door. ‘I'll call you tomorrow,' he said.

After watching him go, Pope glared at Darren, who wilted, as he always did under his brother's murderous gaze. Shaking his head, he stood and moved back into the house, saying, ‘This is bullshit. This is such bullshit.'

‘Well, you know I'm not telling them anything,' J said evasively when Darren confronted him in the hallway.

‘Mate, the cops are serious about this thing,' Darren said, trying to make him see sense, ‘and they're onto you like a rash. So if you just stick close by, everyone'll keep calm.'

‘What am I supposed to do?' J asked, starting to get that Cody whine in his voice that made them all finally sound like whingers.

‘How the fuck should I know? Go in your room and do some colouring-in, mate!' Darren answered, his own voice cracking with tension and frustration.

Just then, Nicky came out of the room holding her phone and saying in that chirpy little singsong voice of hers, ‘Hey J?'

Oh, shit, why'd she have to come out now?

‘Danielle wants to tell you something.'

It was like she was Tinkerbell in the fairy kingdom, totally unaware of what was going on around her. Which was the way J wanted it, because she was his way out into another world, a release from this subterranean existence that was slowly burying him. But right now it was just annoying. It was like she was acting out a role in
Neighbours
. She didn't have a fucking clue.

‘Can you give us a minute here?' J said, looking harassed.

‘Why?' Nicky answered, interested. ‘What's going on?'

‘Don't be a sticky beak,' J replied.

That was probably the wrong thing to say. Actually, it was probably a really
dumb
thing to say, especially to a little firebrand like Nicky, but J didn't have many social skills even at the best of times, and these were certainly not the best.

Pushing her back into the bedroom, he shut the door on her as she protested, ‘Danielle just wants to talk to you for a sec.'

‘I'll talk to her in a minute,' he said.

There was no question, she was gonna give it to him later, but no matter how badly she gave it to him, she wouldn't be giving it to him nearly as badly as he was getting it from Darren right now.

‘Look, mate,' Darren said, coming back to the point, ‘I don't know if you want to hear this or not, but I would think pretty hard about giving her the flick.'

What was he fucking talking about? Give who the flick?

‘I don't know what you have or haven't told her …' Darren continued.

‘I haven't been telling her anything,' J protested.

‘Yeah, well, life will be easier if you just cut her loose,' Darren said. ‘Believe me.'

J was choking up. They were telling him to get rid of her now. His girlfriend.

‘She shouldn't be hanging around here right now,' Darren said.

‘This has got nothing to do with me,' J blurted, sick of all their drama.

Darren leaned forwards, hammering him with his finger. ‘Mate, everything has got to do with everyone!'

That was the entire ethos of this place. One in, all in. That was the only way they survived. If somebody got attacked, everyone came out swinging, even if it was their own fault. They were as clannish as a New Guinea tribe, and if you were a member of the tribe and you didn't toe the line, you were worse than any outsider: you were worse than scum. You were dead. And, right now, J was teetering precariously close to the edge.

J flinched away from Darren, who was cracking up.

‘Don't you fucking understand that?' Darren continued. ‘Do you understand that, J? J, do you?'

‘Yes!' J cried. He understood, loud and clear.

‘Thank you,' Darren said, turning away, leaving J frightened and broken.

The hollow, empty sound of a bowling ball striking a set of nine pins punched through the dark air in the half-empty building.

Up in the deserted snack bar, Nicky looked forlorn and round-shouldered, fiddling with the straw in her drink as J told her the news.

‘Maybe it's just for a little while,' he said, trying to ease her into it. ‘I just need some space and that.'

J hadn't had much experience in dumping girlfriends, so was feeling his way into it. Not that he wanted to dump her; he just didn't have the gumption to tell his uncles to get stuffed.

‘For what?' Nicky asked, looking up at him with her sad, red eyes.

‘Just some things I gotta do,' he lied. He couldn't tell her what was going down, because he didn't want to involve her. The less she knew, the better off she was going to be.

The same applied to him, only he knew too much already. He could feel himself being dragged in deeper and deeper every time he saw one of them. He still didn't know how he was going to get out, and he didn't even know how to think about it.

‘Do you want your bracelet back?' she asked, beginning to undo the silver good-luck bracelet he'd given her for her birthday.

‘No, no,' he said quickly. He wanted her to have it.

‘Do you love me?' she asked tentatively, looking up at him.

J didn't know how to answer that.

Did he love her? Did he love his mother? What did he love? He wasn't even sure he knew what it was. His mother had loved him, in her own way. He'd loved her; he
had
loved her, through everything—the boyfriends, the bashings, the overdoses. It wasn't that easy having a drug addict for a mother.

He didn't know how that happened to someone, how they let themselves go like that; he was just sure he never wanted it to happen to him.

He loved his mother, sure, but how do you love someone who wants to die? And when she did, it was like a door closing on something he'd never understood, as if his mother had made a final retreat into complete and absolute mystery without ever telling him what she'd wanted for herself or why she'd even had him.

He'd loved her, but she hadn't loved him, or maybe she hadn't loved him enough. The other love in her life was the only thing she really loved.

‘Do you … love me?' Nicky asked again.

‘Yeah,' he said, looking at her.

‘Why?' she asked.

‘'Cause you're nice,' he answered, trying to find the words and knowing how hopeless he was at saying things.

She was nice, she was soft, she didn't yell at him, she liked the things he did, the same kind of music, and there was nothing mean or heartless or cruel about her like there was about almost everyone else he knew.

Yes, he loved her.

‘Please don't get upset, Nicky,' he said, as she looked like she was going to crack up.

Girls crying, anyone crying, was more than he could stand. Why was there so much sadness in this world? He wanted a world where there wasn't anyone crying, where they weren't hurt or running or frightened or any of the things people were in this world. He just wished it would stop and people could be happy. Why wasn't that possible? Why did it have to be like this?

And why'd Leckie have to turn up then?

How had he known where J was? Were they bugging him as well? Well, if they weren't, Leckie certainly was. Bugging him big-time.

‘Hey, Josh,' he said, sitting down next to them, like they were best mates.

‘Oh, what the fuck?' J said, turning away. Just what he needed right at this minute: a bloody copper pretending to be his friend.

‘We need to talk, mate,' Leckie said familiarly.

‘No, we don't,' J answered firmly.

But then, seeing the state Nicky was in, Leckie asked her, ‘Are you all right?'

Like it was any of his business. Like he could do anything about it. When all was said and done, Leckie was a cop. He was just someone doing a job. At the end of the day, he went home to his wife and kids, to his nice suburban life, sat back, opened a stubby, turned on the telly and didn't give a rat's arse about the poor bastards he'd been giving grief to all day. So why did he have to pretend he actually
cared
?

‘She's fine,' J answered for her.

‘Am I, fuckwit?' Nicky answered for herself, standing as her sense of self-preservation kicked in.

Oh, great. Great. He'd almost pulled it off. His con.
I love you but I need some space
. He'd almost slipped it through and Leckie had come along and screwed it up for him.

‘Oh, come on,' J pleaded, swivelling around on his seat to follow her, ‘where are you going, Nicky?'

But she didn't answer as she stalked off into the dim light of the bowling alley. And then she was gone.

Turning to Leckie, J pleaded, ‘Can you just go away?'

‘We can either talk in here or outside,' Leckie answered, a cop toughness entering his own voice.

‘Well, there's nothing to talk about,' J said like a petulant kid, like a kid asking to be left alone with his grief and sadness.