Black Teeth (41 page)

Tyan gapes at me.

‘Fuck.'

I want to look at Rudy for some hint of what has happened but I can't. Something is preventing me from turning. What is that? Why is that saucepan
ringing
and
how
is it that loud?

To find the rope that has lassoed me I wave my hands around my waist like a hopeless nightclub dancer. Tyan responds with an appropriate, ‘Oh fuck, Jason.'

No rope that I can find. What I feel is how slippery my belt is. I dab at my stomach, feel the wet even through the leather of my gloves.

‘Oh, wait…'

I collapse and the moment the back of my head hits the lino the ringing stops and I hear my own screaming. A monotonal complement to the voice in my head:
this is happening this is happening this is happening this is happening this is happening.

Any expectation that I could get shot and then bitterly prop myself against the wall and ask for a cigarette is properly laid to rest now when I defecate slightly.

A thumping noise from Rudy, like he's punching the door and I can hear him moan. Is Tyan hurting him? I can see only the piercing fluoro tube on the ceiling, press down on my stomach because that's
what you're supposed to do with wounds.

Tyan is there. He hasn't moved. Stands by the light switch, gazing at me like he's just realised for the first time he has a son.

‘Fuck,' I slur. ‘You shot…'

Tyan steps closer. Eyes as big as eggs. Points aggressively at the fridge.

‘It bounced…I didn't…The bullet bounced.'

When I cough I feel fluid in the crack of my arse.

‘Don't hurt Rudy.'

‘
What?
'

‘Don't shoot Rudy.'

I cough again, feel the fluid suction against the floor.

‘
Rudy
,' I shout. ‘
Rudy, man…You gotta go…
'

Tyan's sweaty face, its grey whiskers and chapped lips, it turns to look at where Rudy must still be cowering against the door.

Tyan blinks.

‘Rudy's dead.'

‘Don't shoot him…Please don't shoot him.'

‘I'm not going to shoot him. He's dead.'

Tyan steps out of my eye line, leaving only the light on the ceiling.

‘Don't shoot him,' I rasp.

Tyan's voice from somewhere. A soft voice. Equable.

‘I won't. Don't worry, matey.'

The effort it takes to roll and look there at the door, a place only inches away but which feels like football fields, prompts a sleepy wave to crash on me and suck me under water then let me back up. The pain in my stomach has numbed like a burn.

Tyan stands over Rudy and he blocks my view but I can see feet and some legs and they're not moving. Two of Tyan's fingers press against Rudy's neck and he draws them away at a speed that indicates how much of a pulse they found.

‘You said…' I have to summon my voice like an angry parent. ‘You said they weren't real bullets…'

‘They're not.' His disapproval of Rudy returns to his voice, disapproving this time of his mortality. ‘There's no wound. He just died.'

Tyan shifts and there's Rudy's face. A child sent to the electric chair. An angel so surprised by something that he expired. One leg bent awkwardly beneath him because his personal comfort is no longer at stake.

‘Fuck,' I say again with a weird sob.

Tyan murmurs, ‘I don't know what happened…'

And I figure Rudy doesn't know either. Piers Alamein's AVRC. His heart condition. Risen again in his son. His last gift to Rudy in a long line of shitty gifts. The Alamein curse claiming one more oblivious victim.

‘Ambulance?' I say. I really do phrase it like a question. Tyan was a cop; for all I know he's got a quick-solve for heart conditions and bullet wounds and people dying on your kitchen floor.

‘Don't worry,' he says. ‘Someone heard the shots.'

I roll on my back and cry out at the wet slapping sound that depicts just how much blood there is beneath me.

‘Where is it?'

‘What?'

Tyan raises the gun, but really he's just pointing angrily at me the way he would with a finger.

‘The confession. Blake's confession.
Where is it
?'

‘It's
not
…' I blurt. ‘It's not…'

‘What?'

‘It's not…'

Tyan steps closer. Now he really shakes that gun like he's going to shoot me. On purpose this time.

‘It's not
what
?'

‘It's not real. I just said that. I bullshat you…To make you tell.'

Marnie's final words. Risen again in me.

At that, Tyan grabs at his hairline like this is too much information.

‘I
knew
it. You
fucking stupid
…'

He whirls away in disgust, considers the room. The corpse against the door. Holds his hand to his head to help him think.

‘Okay. You'd come to visit. We were sitting in the kitchen. And then he came in.'

I say, ‘No.' But Tyan doesn't hear.

‘You'd never met him. He didn't know you. He came in, and I had this…' He holds up the black firearm, so shiny it could be wet. ‘I warned him but he said he was here to kill me.'

And I say, ‘No, Dad.'

‘We saw the toothbrush. It looked like a knife. He ran at me—'

‘
I'm not lying anymore
.' My guts are in my throat.

‘What?'

‘I'm gonna tell.' I try to repeat it but don't have the strength.

‘Tell them what?'

‘
Fuck you
.'

‘But…'

And he gapes at me. Gun limp. All the regret of life in his face. I'm turning dog.

Slowly this time he turns away, considers the room again as if he's just found himself here and doesn't recognise it. The muscles in his forehead twitch, widen his eyes in bursts.

‘I gonna tell them,' I manage. But there's no need because he gets it.

‘You know what that means?' Tyan says, fretful. ‘You know what has to happen next?'

I want to be cool when I say this, but I'm mugging at the brightness of that fucking fluorescent oblong on the ceiling. Still, my voice is nice and hoarse.

‘What happens next doesn't matter.'

71

He gazes at my wound, or at least, where my gloved hands are piled over my wound, weakly stemming the flow. And he's sad, like I'm already dead and he's grieving. Like there's nothing to be done.

Then he moves into the hallway, out of sight.

I shut my eyes. All I can see is the blood in my eyelids because of the kitchen light. I guess it's nice to know there's still blood in there somewhere.

Tyan returns. He's got a new-looking tracksuit on and the gun in his hand is different. It's silver while the black one is tucked under his arm. He seems to unfold the silver gun and a series of droppings fall into his waiting palm. Then he puts the black one down on the counter along with the bullets and puts his keys there as well and he comes at me with the silver gun.

I know he's not going to shoot me. I mean, I know that.

Down on his knees now like he's going to say a prayer over me. I feel compelled to demonstrate for him that I am in fact still alive.

‘Fuck…' I say.

‘You stupid bastard,' Tyan wheezes. ‘You stupid, stupid bastard.'

He pats at my pockets, pulls out my phone with two delicate fingers, then he lifts my lifeless right hand, blood-smeared and dripping, yanks on the glove to get it off.

It's a father's-discipline face. A this-is-going-to-hurt-me-more-than-you face.

‘I'm sorry, matey.'

The glove comes away with a gross thwacking sound and he drops it like a soggy condom to the floor. Then he presses the revolver into my hand, inches my finger over the trigger. The hand and the gun fall to the floor.

‘You stupid bastard. I was going to do the test…the DNA test…'

‘Why bother?' My voice is a slithery grunt. ‘I know who you are.'

He stands, backs away, moves to the sink and washes his hands. Washes
my
blood off
his
hands.

It takes every muscle in my body to raise the weapon so that, when Tyan turns back and sees, it's pointed at him. But it's hardly pointed at anything. It's swaying like I'm drunk.

If this thing was loaded, I'd miss.

Still, it stops Tyan dead. His shoulders collapse and his stomach appears to expand, like he gives in. He scrutinises this bloodied harmless fool on his kitchen floor, waiting for it to happen.

And I pull the trigger. And the trigger goes click. And the hammer goes click. And that's all it does.

But it appears to trigger something in Tyan. His face curls into an outrageous grimace and his eyes bind shut and a sob bursts through his tautened mouth and he looks away to hide himself. Like my gun has shot him through with raw emotion.

His pudgy frame lurches to Rudy's corpse, stops short of it and leans across. He locks the door, lowing in long draughts through his nose. A funny way of crying, a cow in labour. I've never heard anything like it. Something wholly new, a musical note undiscovered until now. You'd think he was the one who'd been shot by his own father.

I whisper, ‘Hey…'

I try to speak but can't. I try to shout at him but likewise.

Tyan moves past me with a purpose, keeping a wide berth of something I can't see but which I assume is a river of my blood. At the sink he drops my phone and opens a drawer and brings out a kitchen knife and he's weeping now like slowmotion laughter:
heee…heee…heee…

He smashes the phone with the butt-end of the knife, runs water over it, twists it in his fat hands to be sure.

From somewhere now we both hear the sound of a police siren.

‘Hey, Polygraph,' I say again.

He drops the pieces in the pocket of his tracksuit and looks to me, already disappointed in what I'm going to say.

I say, ‘Come here.'

He steps closer, wipes tears from his face.

And I'm like, ‘There's something else I've lied about.'

The curl in his lip makes me lol. The confusion in his eyes is a blessing.

‘What is it?'

‘Can't you guess?'

‘Tell me.'

I only laugh because that's literally all I can do.

The siren closes in and Tyan looks to the sound, then back to me. His time is up. He takes the black gun from the bench and I see the tears shine on his face. When he looks at me for maybe the last time ever, I see red in his eyes. A shoulder-shudder. Tyan surveys the room for some kind of option but there's none. If there's any place in the world that isn't going to help you when your life is at a crossroads, it's this dismal kitchen. With another squeal, a child whimpering, he steps through to the hallway and he's gone. The door clicks shut, deadlocked.

The police siren is piercing now, and now it stops. Here's me, actually pleased to hear the party van outside. The irony. Tyan's keys are there on the counter, so no one's getting in without an axe or a brick through the window.

But first they'll evacuate the neighbours. That poor bastard next door with his bladder. Where's he going to pee while he's standing outside in his underwear?

I flick at the weapon, try to loosen my grip. My finger is caught against the trigger and I have to shake like it's molasses, not a revolver. Finally it gets free and skids across the floor. Not that it matters. My prints are on it. Which was the point.

The pain of staring into that light is too much and I turn my head away but all I'm looking at then is Rudy slumped in the corner, as witless now as ever.

Rudy's insurance won't pay out if he was on the verge of death
when he bought it, like being dead now would suggest he was. I don't know much about the insurance business, not as much as I once pretended to, but it seems obvious to say that Elizabeth Cannon will get nothing.

Which means she'll be disappointed. Doubly disappointed if I don't survive because she won't get to kill me herself.

I can't look at Rudy anymore so I turn back to the light, surprisingly calm. The shock or the blood loss has generated some chemical in my brain like diazepam.

Nothing from outside. Tyan will be there, telling his tale. He'll have gotten rid of the bullets and the pieces of my phone.

The only option is to wait. This is the sandwich Tyan has made for me. But it's nice to think there's nothing
else
I should be doing. Responsibilities fall away when you're shot in the guts. I only have to wait for Tyan's plan to fail, for the paramedics to rush in and sew me up, or else for the other thing. The permalogoff. The big AFK.

Another wave of exhaustion hits and I close my eyes and hang on while it subsides. No strength in my arms now, nothing applying the necessary
compression
but for all I know I'm not bleeding anymore. Maybe it's only a scratch and now it's clotted and healing and this
paralysis
is just in my head. The fluoro glows so bright that I struggle and manage to raise a hand to block it out, and in that cool darkness the lassitude takes hold and I think this is literally as relaxed as I've ever been.

When I open my eyes I see the teeth.

Scratched there into the webbing of the hand that protects me from the light. But somehow the light is breaking through my flesh and it peeks out the edges of the teeth like there's a fire burning in my veins and the teeth only darken, crystal-clear silhouettes so defined they're three-dimensional, raised from my skin, embossed there and floating. My relaxation deepens and I sink into the linoleum and still the black teeth hold me, glowing, tongues of flame dancing beyond them like this is the sun itself and I am adrift, simultaneously underground and in orbit. I let my hand drop and the light burns into my eyelids and through them and through my brain and through the floor and down to the very core of the earth, pinning me in stasis for the wait on our deliverance.