Black Teeth (35 page)

‘Hi.' He smiles through the grime.

‘What the fuck are you doing?'

‘Watch!'

Rudy raises the hammer. I arch across the garden to a safe distance and watch him bring the iron weight down onto the south wall, dislodge another brick that plummets to a great pile of them rising up against the ground floor, climbing over each other to get back where
they belong. He swings again, grunts, swings again and crash, another brick, his face red and intense, glowing with the accomplishment of having destroyed so much of a solid, fit-for-purpose dwelling.

His exertion triggers a coughing fit. The sledgehammer drops aimlessly to the bricks below and Rudy grins like I've caught him pulling the wings off a fly.

‘I thought I'd…' He gestures at his destruction like it's a big joke. ‘The roof almost collapsed on me. I mean, it
did
collapse on me. It almost killed me.'

My bafflement only makes him more excited.

‘Imagine these…' he points to three thick timber beams. Before the first floor became a sundeck, they probably held up the rafters. ‘…and all this falling on you. Now look at me.'

Rudy pulls up the sleeves of his T-shirt, points to his face.

‘Not a scratch. It's amazing.' He laughs, waits for my amazement.

I force a smile. If someone relayed that story at a cocktail party, I would be amazed. But that's not where we are. I stagger across the strewn bricks, as close to the remaining structure as I'm prepared to get, fan dust from my face.

‘Why are you doing this, Rudy?'

‘Listen,' he says, climbs awkwardly off the ravaged top tier of the studio and onto the bricks, still with exhilaration in his eyes as he reaches me. ‘Tonight's it. The night.'

Another shiver crowds my neck.

‘What do you mean?'

‘I'm doing it.' He lowers his voice, self-conscious. ‘I'm doing it tonight.'

‘But…' Today is Tuesday. I checked. ‘What about the insurance?'

Rudy grins, shakes his head, looks at his wrist where there's no watch.

‘If I died right now, Beth would get a million dollars.'

‘What?'

‘We went yesterday. She took me. After we saw you. It was her idea. We went to this place, Tatham…Tatam Insurance, and I got this thing…provisional thing. It means I'm insured now. Starting now. So we don't have to wait for Friday.'

From the back of my mind, I hear a slow clap for Elizabeth Cannon.

Rudy senses my disbelief.

‘I tried to call you. I tried to call you when I got home. But there wasn't…Something weird happened with the phone…'

‘But what about our policy? My policy? It's illegal to have more than one.'

‘Yeah, but your one hasn't come through, right? They told me at the place that you could just cancel it and that's all. I had to pay them the fee but…but that's okay. It's not like I need money anymore.'

‘What about all the work I put in, Rudy?' This is me clutching at straws.

Rudy smarts, doesn't get my irritation.

I'm like, ‘How are you going to pay the premiums?'

‘Beth said she would.'

‘Does she know what we're doing? What we're planning?'

Now Rudy hesitates, which means he told her. She acted surprised and supportive. And
she
told
him
there was a way for it to be over with tonight. That's what his hesitation means.

And that's why she's calling me. She wants to give me her side of the story. Smooth things over. Keep me in her corner.

‘How do you know she didn't go to the police? She could be talking to them right now.'

‘She wouldn't.' It's Rudy's turn to be irritated. He thought this was good news. ‘She reckons Glen Tyan's got it coming. She was proud of me. She wouldn't dob me in. She…'

He's right, of course. She wouldn't do that, not now that she's actually in line for a million actual dollars. Bravo, Beth.

‘Did you do a disclosure statement?'

‘What?'

‘A medical statement.'

‘What?'

‘
Did you tell them about your heart
?'

I'm not supposed to know about Rudy's heart, but at this particular moment I think I can drop that particular masquerade.

Rudy blanks. ‘I don't…'

‘I managed to fudge it for
my
policy, Rudy. If they find out about your heart problem, they'll withhold the coverage.'

‘I don't have a…what heart problem?'

‘AVRC or whatever it is. The same as your dad.'

He shakes his head, tiny titters of denial. ‘My heart is normal.'

I blink back in time to my conversation with Tristan Whaley. Am I remembering this right? The interview with Piers Alamein…

‘I heard that you did. That he did.' I say this meekly, my face one tight knot of confusion.

‘Where did you hear that?'

My feet tremble over the bricks. The unstable ground beneath me is a brilliant metaphor.

‘I don't know,' I peter out. ‘I guess I'm just…'

Maybe Piers wasn't talking about a heart condition when he said he'd left Rudy ‘the blessing of a short life'. Did he have some inkling, even back then, that his son couldn't go the distance? Did he look up from a game of draughts one day and think, ‘This kid is just as batshit as me.'

‘Today's the day, Anthony. I thought you'd be happy.'

‘I am, Rudy. It's just…Don't be hasty.'

‘Uh?' He picks up the hammer, cracks it gently into the rubble. ‘If anything I have to make up for not…I'm not hasty enough.'

‘But tonight? You don't know if Tyan will be home.'

‘We'll see.'

‘He's a cop. You won't be able to corner him.' This is my real life spray-and-pray.

‘He's old.'

‘He might have a gun.'

‘I don't care.'

‘Just let it sit for a couple of days. Think about it.'

‘
It's all I think about
.' Rudy screams this and his voice fractures and I flinch, can't help a derpy glance at the fences around us, hope this is private. He notices, waves the hammer at the outside world.

‘
They all think I'm like this total monster.
' His anguish is not what I expected. His self-awareness absolutely not what I expected. ‘And I
am
. I'm not
normal
, right? And now I can cancel it all out.
So that none of it exists anymore. You see?'

His eyes squeeze shut, seem to force down what's erupting inside. The hammer thumps blindly into the bricks.

And he's like, ‘This has to end.'

Beads glisten on his dusty bald head and tears blossom in his eyes again, just as ready to ambush him as they were yesterday. He grabs at his face, squeezes it between his palms, mangles his cheeks and eyes.

‘This has to end.'

He's right. It does have to end. If only because he's got nowhere to sleep anymore. The point of demolishing this bungalow is to ensure he goes through with it. Not like last time with Beth's car. Scorched earth, applied against himself.

And Tyan will be pleased. That it's going to end tonight. The sooner he finds out, the sooner he can limber up.

‘I have to go, Rudy. So…'

He sways for a moment, slumped and sullen, then climbs down off the second storey and approaches and I extend my hand.

We shake. For a moment I glimpse the two sets of black teeth. They almost touch, then don't.

‘I don't like goodbye,' he says. ‘Goodbyes. It was hard with Beth.'

For him it probably was.

He says, ‘I know you're looking out for me. That makes you a good…good.'

‘You're good too, Rudy.'

I want to tell him how stupid it was that I ever thought he could harm his own mother. But everything I can say has been said.

‘See ya later, I guess.'

He turns back to his wreckage.

I stumble through the bungalow, out the door, back onto the cobblestones. As I trudge away a window opens behind me. Rudy on the first floor.

‘Don't worry about me, Anthony.' The grey soot within takes its chance to escape, like a bomb just detonated. ‘The roof fell on me and look, you know? Not a scratch. Nothing can hurt me today!'

60

Tyan's like, ‘There you fucking are.' Forever the parody of himself. ‘Come on in.'

He isn't smoking at this very moment, but you wouldn't know it from the smell. I make for the kitchen, get there and turn to face him. ‘I have news.'

His hairy white legs have followed me, wearing the same skimpy shorts as always. It's warm in here and I'm glad to have shed the polar fleece. Maybe the cigarette smoke accomplishes that, but also the heater burning high on the kitchen wall, a string hanging from it like it's fishing for plastic dongles and it's caught one, not reeling it in, enjoying the moment.

‘So do I,' Tyan grins. Great. Everybody has news.

He comes past me, finds his cigarettes. ‘You first.'

‘You said you didn't want to wait, you don't have to wait. Rudy says he's coming tonight.'

Tyan lights up, takes the stick from his mouth. Smoke oozes out of the hole it leaves.

‘Tonight?'

‘He and Beth went and got him a real insurance policy. Not like a bullshit one, a real one. He's covered as of today, so he's doing it tonight.'

‘Thank Christ,' Tyan says. ‘I thought the wait might put him off.'

‘I don't think anything's going to put him off.'

More thoughtful smoke dribbles out as Tyan tips back against the kitchen bench.

‘This Beth. How involved is she?'

‘Rudy told her the whole plan. But she stands to make a lot of money if Rudy dies, so she'll keep quiet. She knows I'm working for you but she doesn't know that you're my…we're related. Probably related.'

‘Good.'

I remember that she only hooked up with me for the angle it provided, feel that memory laugh at me then dip back under water. ‘I doubt anyone would believe her if she did come forward.'

‘Who have you told about me and you?'

‘Nobody.'

‘Not your mates?'

‘I don't…no.'

‘What about Facebook or something.'

‘Don't use it.'

‘Who have you told about Rudy?'

‘Nobody.'

‘Just Beth?'

‘Just Beth.'

‘Your phone records will say you've been in touch.'

‘My phone isn't in my name. I'm a freak when it comes to privacy.'

A sideways glare as Tyan leans to ash his cigarette. When it returns to his mouth he's contemplative.

‘Today's the day.'

‘Apparently. So don't knock yourself on your arse like you did the other night.'

‘Hey?'

‘When you got pissed. What…two nights ago.'

Nothing from him but big eyes, trying to remember.

‘When you told me that story. Of that dude you shot.'

‘
Hey
?'

His horror is genuine.

‘Yeah…' Nothing to do but keep talking. ‘You were going to lock him inside and tell the police it was a siege or something. But then he died. Or something.'

If I tore my face off and revealed myself to be Lee Harvey Oswald,
Tyan would react like this. His dafuq face. Eyeballs straining, bottom lip trembling, the rest of him paralysed. The heavy drinker's no-archive directive. With a derpy scratch of my elbow I try to change topic. ‘So what's your news?'

He scowls, breaks from his trance.

‘Ummm…I got a phone call. This morning. From Ralph Yates. He's a senior in the Homicide Squad. Said he got a tip that Rudyard Alamein was planning something, didn't know what. But I should be careful because it sounded like the kid was nuts.'

His face fills out with a smile.

‘What that means,' he explains, ‘is that now, any deadly force used by me is justified because I've been
told
that Rudy is dangerous. So of course I'm going to shoot to kill.'

‘Great.'

‘I don't know what you did, matey. But it worked.'

‘I rang a reporter at the
Daily Sun
. Nina Chiancelli. Do you know her?'

‘Yeah. She's done the crime desk for fucking decades.'

‘I told her I was Rudy, said that something was going to happen. Didn't mention you.'

He nods, assessing. ‘Sounds like we're laughing.'

‘But I said it'd be Friday. Not tonight.'

The same nod. ‘Who cares? It'll only matter that he's wacko.'

‘Your mate…He's not going to, like, put surveillance on Rudy or anything?'

Tyan's use of cigarette smoke is a gift. It communicates without words. This time it snorts out his nose.

‘What, you reckon they're made of fucking money? He knows I can handle myself.'

The hand with the cigarette comes at me and I flinch. But the hand rests on my shoulder.

‘Listen. You did a good job. Anybody else your age would have shanked it.'

I don't notice the smoke that's wafting up my nose.

Tyan's like, ‘I'm trying to tell you that I'm…'

But he draws his arm away and drags on the cigarette. ‘What's that?'

‘What?'

‘That.'

He points to my elbow. I look and see the chessboard there. It was still in the car from yesterday and I came in with it.

‘That's, um…That's a gift for you.'

I offer it.

‘It's a chessboard. Or a draughts board. It doesn't have the chess pieces.'

Tyan drags again, says nothing.

‘It used to belong to Rudy. It's old.'

His big man hands take the set, hold it up for appraisal. ‘Expensive, is it?'

‘I guess. I don't know. I thought we could play some time.'

Tyan unsnaps the gold lock and looks inside at the red felt and the marble pieces. ‘Nice,' he says, closes it. Inspection over.