Frankie (16 page)

The only noise comes from the bats flapping overhead as Nate and I stare daggers at each other. Now there's a superpower you don't see enough: someone who can shoot actual daggers out of their eyes. I could have used that power about a minute ago.

We try and outstare each other. There's a crease between his brows as he looks at me. I figure I've got dirt all over my face or maybe I'm actually asleep and this is one of those late for an exam/walking down the street naked kind of dreams. I look down to check.

‘Are you waiting for another psycho to come along and kill me?' I fold my arms across my chest.

He leans against the side of the house. ‘Would it get you off my case or would you just come back and haunt me?'

‘Nothing,' I say, ‘will stop me from annoying you until I get what I want. When I was ten I really wanted a My Little Pony. I followed Vinnie everywhere: “Can I have a My Little Pony? Can I have a My Little Pony? Can I have a My Little Pony?” I sang
Horses
by Daryl Braithwaite two hours straight. And I only know one line of the chorus.'

‘
You
wanted a My Little Pony?'

‘I was ten.'

He laughs. It only pisses me off more – which is probably the point.

‘I know you have information about Xavier.'

He groans. ‘How drunk are you?'

‘Not drunk enough.'

I can't stop looking over my shoulder, half expecting Dave to come running at me out of the shadows. Why can't I stop shaking?

Nate sighs. ‘If I answer your stupid questions what's in it for me?'

Ha! I win.

‘They won't be stupid and I promise never to bother you again. How does that sound?'

‘Perfect.' He frowns, dusting some paint flakes off his jacket. ‘Follow me.'

Nate leads me into an overgrown back garden – the ideal place to bury a dead body.

Shit. Why'd I have to think that?

Jogging up the back steps of the house, he approaches a door that is actually just a bit of plywood half-nailed to the frame.

He pulls back the board and lights the way with the torch app on his phone.

As soon as I squeeze through, I'm hit by the stench of dust, grime, smoke and rotting food. Eau de Filth. I think about saying something, but one look at Nate's scowl and I think better of it. Nate pushes a hand in the centre of my back to keep me moving. I shiver from the cold.

We're in the laundry. It's slowly being reclaimed by nature through the cracks in the floorboards. The walls are mouldy, covered with cracks and holes (probably filled with rats) and tagged by someone called ‘Killer Bob'. Deeper inside the house, some guy starts singing the blues. He actually has a nice voice, but I want to know why the hell he didn't answer the front door when I knocked. I've got the Left-Outside-in-the-Cold-with-Druggie-Dave Blues.

Nate leads us up a corridor that could have come from a post-apocalyptic film. One where major landmarks like the Opera House or Federation Square are totally overgrown, with monkeys hanging off the chandeliers and sharks in swimming pools.

‘Watch for holes,' says Nate. ‘I don't want to have to deal with you when you're injured.'

‘And rats.'

‘Huh?'

‘I'm pretty sure I should be watching for rats. And spiders and snakes and Killer Bobs and, in the long term, some serious lung complaints – have you noticed the mould?'

‘You were expecting the Ritz? No such luck. Welcome to the Shitz.'

The corridor opens into a wide space; all the windows boarded up. It might have been a lounge room when the house was functioning as a house but right now it looks like a squat. Which it is. There are sleeping bags, clothes, shoes and junk scattered all over the floor. Most of the sleeping bags are full.

I can't hear the blues anymore.

‘You live here?' My voice echoes through the crumbling space, returning to my ears with more disgust than I'd intended. I look apologetically at Nate but he's got his eyes on his boots. ‘I didn't mean –'

The sleeping bag next to my foot rustles and a groggy voice tells me to shut the fuck up.

Nate yanks me to him before I can kick Mr Rude in the sleeping bag.

He leans close and I realise that, weirdly, he smells like chlorine. Same as Mark. Is there some male cologne – Eau de Swimming Pool – that I don't know about? More importantly, why do I find it so appealing?

‘Your housemates are arseholes,' I say, but I'm not sure if ‘housemate' is the right word.

‘Just whisper, okay? People are trying to sleep.'

‘Then what are we doing here?'

‘You practically begged me to invite you in and now you're complaining?'

We get shushed again.

‘No,' I say with as much anger as a whisper will allow. ‘I mean, how are we going to have a conversation with all the shushing and the rude people?' My voice gets a little loud on the ‘rude people' part so something small, white and pillow-shaped flies past me, just clipping my shoulder.

‘That's it.' I go to leave, but Nate grabs my arm and yanks me in the opposite direction.

‘This way,' he says.

We pick through the tangle of sleeping bodies and junk. Nate grips my arm; his hands are calloused and rough, strong too, which I guess they'd need to be to do all that breaking and entering.

We head into another corridor, holes in the floor and a giant mural on the right. I don't even need to find the little red ‘x' to know it's my brother's work.

This time, she's a zombie. She looks a lot like the angel but an angel on ice, with teeth decaying and dull brown eyes, her pale skin rotting, covered in weeping sores. She holds both arms out in front of her body. ‘Brains' is written in large, melting green letters above her. She looks how I currently feel.

Which is ironic considering I'm pretty sure it is me.

‘The little prick.' After all the whispering, my normal voice is a shock. I can't decide whether I'm flattered or furious. I fling a hand at zombie-me. ‘What's this supposed to be?'

Nate is leaning in an open doorway. Whatever's in the room behind him glows amber. He looks over my shoulder. ‘You mean the frighteningly realistic portrait of you? I like it. Anyway. Talk.'

‘So we're going to talk in the corridor? With the zombie?'

He glances at his feet. Combat boots. Like mine. ‘Sure,' he says.

I try peeking over his shoulder into the room behind him, but he's too tall.

‘What's in there? That looks cosy.'

‘No one goes in there.'

I stand on tiptoes. ‘Are those candles?'

‘No.'

‘They look like candles.'

‘They're not.'

‘Have you brought me to a day spa?'

He groans, rubbing his face with his hands.

‘I'm just asking.'

‘Fine.' He moves aside, all of five centimetres. The amber glow intensifies. ‘But I'm not happy about this.'

‘Gee, really? I couldn't tell.'

He doesn't budge. I try squeezing past, but he's still in the way. ‘You say anything smart-arsed,' he says, ‘and I kick you out.'

The amber flickers across his face, lighting up his eyes. The bruise around his right eye is turning yellow or maybe that's just the candlelight. There's a small cut on his bottom lip I didn't notice before. Guess I don't spend a whole lot of time staring at his lips. Why am I staring at his lips?

‘I promise I won't be a cow,' I say, gripping the doorframe behind me.

He leans back. ‘We'll see.'

I scramble the rest of the way in, almost falling face first into an acoustic guitar.

There are candles everywhere, flickering and smoking, some propped up in empty coffee cups, some in what I'm assuming are stolen vases – the spoils of Nate's day job. They're all shapes and colours, casting a warm glow over the room.

I'm guessing there's no electricity.

I look over my shoulder and Nate's watching me, eyes dark, arms folded across his chest.

‘It's nice,' I tell him. ‘Very . . . dystopian chic.'

I quickly look away again as his eyes narrow. I'll give him a moment to process that.

He doesn't have much stuff but there's a single-bed mattress on the floor, a doona flung halfway across it and a pillow, a decorative one meant for a couch. A milk crate/seat, which doesn't have my name on it, and there's even a lamp. No light bulb in it and it's not plugged into anything but it does make a handy clotheshorse.

There's a dictionary on the floor next to the bed.

He shoves past me and sits on the crate, shifting the guitar that had been leaning against it. ‘It's nothing,' he says. ‘Just somewhere to crash.' He points to the bed. ‘Sit.'

I shake my head. ‘I'm not going anywhere near your bed – I'm not that drunk.'

I look around, imagining zombie rats swarming up through the holes in the floor.

He grins and leans back, arms behind his head, a tiny strip of white skin showing between the top of his jeans and the end of his t-shirt. ‘The Velvet Underground' is written across his chest. ‘You have questions? Shoot.'

‘How do you take a shower? Does this place have plumbing?'

His arrogant smirk wavers. ‘I mean questions about your brother.'

‘Why did Dave hit you?'

‘See previous statement. Add a little more menace to the tone.'

‘How come you have your own room? Are you King of the Squat People?'

He doesn't bother saying anything because looks really can kill.

I chew my lip and wonder what it would be like to sleep here. To breathe in this chill, this stench, this hopelessness every single night. Note to self: be less of a judgmental bitch.

I lean against the wall and pray it doesn't give way. ‘Did my brother stay here?'

‘Sometimes.'

‘And you're his friend?'

‘Couldn't stand the little shit.'

My look is colder than the room. ‘While I appreciate your honesty, go fuck yourself.'

He smirks. ‘Go fuck yourself. I didn't ask you to come here.'

I fold my arms and stare at the holes in the floor. Come on, zombies, rise and feed off Nate's brain. Your queen commands it.

‘Why did you call my brother a little shit?'

‘Because he was. He stole anything that wasn't nailed down.'

‘You're saying that's a bad thing?'

‘X steals to buy shitty over-priced material possessions. And he'll rip off his friends too. I don't do that. Someone like Dave steals to feed his drug habit. And I don't have one of those.'

‘So when you steal it's like a political statement?'

Nate needs to be careful he doesn't choke on his own self-satisfied grin. ‘Yeah,' he says. ‘That's exactly it.'

‘You're telling me that those skinny jeans you're wearing are the twenty-first century's answer to tights and you're a modern-day Robin Hood?'

He scowls as he picks up the guitar and starts picking out a tune. Nothing I know but it's kind of nice. A little bit Nick Drake. I listen for a bit before I realise this means he's now ignoring me.

Okay. So I'm not sure this is how the cops would have interviewed Harrison's friends. I've got to start asking the right questions.

‘Do you know where my brother hangs out?'

‘Nope.' He doesn't take his eyes off his fingers. I need to get him a name badge: hello, my name is Petulant Nate and I'm a snarky little bitch.

‘Did he at least say where he was going after you saw him last?'

‘He said he owed his dad money. And a few others too. I guess he was going to pawn the stuff we stole and divvy out the cash. Maybe. I don't know.'

‘His dad hasn't seen him. How much would he have gotten? Four and a half grand?'

‘A couple hundred at most. Your neighbours have shit taste. Wait, four and a half grand?'

‘He stole his dad's credit card. Maxed it out to buy me a Joy Division record. No telling who else he ripped off and how much he actually owed.'

The music stops. ‘Four and a half grand? For a CD?'

I narrow my eyes. ‘Vinyl. Rare. Joy Division.'

He snorts and starts playing again.

I walk to the side of the bed and squat. There's something under the dictionary. A few somethings: records? ‘He called me Thursday,' I say. ‘Said he'd got the cash. More than enough. Where's he going to get that kind of money?' I reach out to shift the dictionary so I can see the records underneath. ‘I mean, if you – and I'm giving you a compliment here – if you couldn't steal four-and-a-half grand worth of stuff in one go then where's he going –'

My fingertips have only just connected with the top record when Nate dumps his guitar and grabs my wrist. ‘Hey, didn't anybody teach you it's rude to poke around in other people's stuff?'

He pulls me to standing and I overbalance.

‘Careful,' he says, holding me upright.

I open my mouth to give him a serve, but he's not just gripping my wrist; his other hand is pressed into my back. Is it 1950? Are we about to waltz?

I find myself looking into a deep blue stare. The kind you could get lost in.

But not me. I'm focused. One hundred per cent.

Maybe ninety.

He shifts closer. I don't move; my eyes flick to the cut on his lip. Eighty per cent. ‘At least tell me where Xavier would go to pawn the stuff,' I say.

He watches me. Silent.

Seventy per cent. I'm seventy per cent focused. So focused on his lips I don't notice how close we are until . . .

‘Shit.' I bump against the wall as I pull away. ‘I mean . . .'

He jumps back, tucks both hands under his armpits, giving the floorboards exclusive access to his blue-eyed stare. ‘Whatever.' The amber glow flickers across his cheeks. He clears his throat. Loudly. ‘If I give you the pawn guy's details, will you quit bugging me and stay the hell away?'

I nod. Vigorously. The room doesn't spin. Excellent.

He walks back to the bed and drops to his knees, yanking up one of the floorboards. There isn't, surprisingly, a swarming mass of zombie rats underneath, just a black backpack.

I peer over his shoulder. ‘Got any corn chips buried in there? I'm starved.'

He pulls out the backpack and riffles through, pulling out a black leather-bound notebook. Those expensive ones that Hemingway used. There are pages and pages filled with scrawl – words scribbled out here and there, mostly the writing is set out in long thin columns. Nate writes poetry? No way.

‘Is that your manifesto for world domination?'

He scribbles something on the corner of a blank page and tears it out. ‘The guy's name is Ted.' He stands, holding out the piece of paper. ‘I'm pretty sure you owe me. Again.'