Black Teeth (19 page)

These blunt assertions—this certainty
—
doesn't sound like Rudy, but then this is eleven years ago.

The story continues on page three, which Whaley has also provided. It features another picture of Rudy, still on the couch, but this time he's seated beside a suited, moustachioed man full of sympathy and honest concern. They face the camera stoically like Batman and Robin.

I feel my eyes dilate, check the caption.

The stupidity of that sentence makes me ice over with fear.

Detective Glen Tyan is Rudy's father?

But I read it again, recognise that I read it wrong, feel the adrenaline recede, leaving bafflement.

By the time I've finished it's raining a brass band against the window and the roof. Whaley has finished. His plaid shirt reflects his plaid face that's watching me.

‘You said you had nothing. No documents.'

‘Some items I keep for sentimental reasons.'

‘Why be sentimental about this?' I flash the pages in the air. Whaley draws in a long breath through his nose.

‘In particular, I was moved by the callousness of the publication. These are the uninformed comments of a child, and yet they ran it like it was fresh new evidence in the crime of the century.'

I shrug. ‘So what?'

The old man performs the shrug back at me.

‘You asked why I felt sorry for the boy. This is why.'

‘This is the reason you helped him?'

Whaley's chin jabs out as affirmation.

‘We're not all bastards, are we? Lawyers, I mean.'

And he smirks. Then he says:

‘I've got a very full day, so I think we'll have to adjourn this little chat.'

My eyes return to the photograph. Rudy and Tyan. Both of them somehow brighter, better illuminated than they are today. Tyan
has the same face but for that brown moustache. Rudy is calm but intense. They
could
be father and son.

‘May I keep this?'

‘Of course.'

I'm ushered out the red door, move slowly down the stairs, understanding more than I did on the ascent. Whaley never told Rudy that Piers was innocent. That's just what Rudy tells himself out of self-loathing: he might have failed to protect his mother, but so publicly betraying his father is some next-level shit. His revenge fantasy is the music he plays in his mind to drown out the guilt.

The wine boxes below have been moved and one is set on the floor by itself. When we reach the front entrance I spot a door under the stairs: the cellar, I assume, going by the placement of the boxes. And Whaley's special hiding place, his
real
cave, going by the cobwebs in his hair.

It reminds me of Tyan, when he scurried off to get my money. These old men and their hiding spots.

‘Can I give you my email address? In case you manage to find anything else.'

‘I suppose so. So long as I've not given you false hope.'

A pad from the side table is handed to me, along with a biro. The address I write is:
[email protected]
. I pulled the name Brett Sherez out of the clear blue sky and it's a gamble that this domain doesn't exist yet. But on the off-chance Whaley can unearth something to disarm Rudy, I'll register it when I get home.

We shake hands.

‘Give Rudy my regards. Though he may not remember much about me.'

‘He remembers how much you did for him. He holds you in very high esteem.'

‘Say hello from me.'

‘I will.'

And I leave. Run back to the car, protecting the photocopies from the rain. Tristan Whaley waves from his front verandah. Lingers there as if to make sure I'm leaving.

31

It's heavy rain when I pull into the driveway so I'm not sure it's
the
green Volvo parked directly outside my flat. Then I am sure because Beth is struggling to keep her circular frame dry beneath the stairs. She waves a few meek fingers, already seeming to apologise for intruding.

‘Hello. I'm sorry,' she says as I reach her.

‘That's all right. Come inside.'

But as I say this I hear a door close at the top of the stairs—a familiar sound.

‘Wait on.' And I usher her back under cover.

‘What is it?'

‘Nothing.'

I stare up at the concrete landing. No footsteps. Someone has their washing on the clothesline down here and it's getting soaked and for a moment I think it's Marnie's and she's on her way to rescue it. But these are shirts and boxer shorts—man-clothes. Then I hear the knocking.

Marnie knocking on the door of my flat.

‘I'm sorry.' Beth seems to think this is her fault.

She's wrapped in a long grey coat like women in the French Resistance and a cravat pokes up through the neck. It's drenched but it's still the only colour to be seen in the dreariness of all this concrete. Her glasses are comically fogged over and her hair is flat and moulded like she just stepped out of the shower. Like when we first met.

‘It's fine,' I say softly into her ear. The rain is too loud for Marnie to hear us. ‘We're just being super careful.'

Beth whispers, ‘Should we run to my car?'

I consider it for a moment, but fleeing with Beth would be about the most incriminating thing in the world that Marnie could catch me doing, so I shake my head, left with only admiration for this girl who doesn't know who we're hiding from, can barely see through those lenses, but she's down for whatever.

‘I want to know about Rudy?' More of those harsh Australian inflections. ‘He's been calling me and calling and he won't stop. He leaves messages? I know you told me not to speak with him again, but I had to. It was
weird
not calling him back.'

The stairs provide only inches of shelter and we're standing closer than I would usually be comfortable with. It doesn't seem to faze her.

‘But listen,' she says. ‘I found out about the life insurance.'

Another hard rap against my door above, powerful like a headache.

‘You did?'

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.