Slights (38 page)

  He performed his first detective task; kept watch on Mr Harris's front door.

  It opened at 9pm, one hour after the crowd had departed for the show.

  Mr Harris stood on his front step, smoking his pipe. Just casually, as if he was going for a stroll. He looked up the street, saw no one. Alex was well-hidden. Alex took a photo of his smug face. Mr Harris tapped out his pipe and tucked it into his back pocket. He never went anywhere without his pipe, and told the story of where he'd found it, what it was worth, what he'd got it for, why he couldn't let anyone touch it. He had beaten his son Sam till the boy ran screaming into the street one time, defended himself by saying, "He actually sucked on my pipe, the little shit. Clenched his teeth around the stem."

Sam was a wonderful mimic; he did a great version of his father, standing tall and purveying the world like he owned it. It was this, perhaps, rather than the sullying of the sanctity of the pipe, which distressed Mr Harris so much.

  Mr Harris crossed the road, sauntering to a place he wasn't welcome.

  Alex wanted to smash his head in with a stone, shoot him, make him bloody. But he followed, once Sally had allowed the man into her home. She left the front door ajar, as Alex had told her to do and disappeared into the darkness of the hallway.

  Alex didn't have the strength or the age to beat Mr Harris.

  Alex had been reading a lot of true detective magazines; he knew how these things were done. He crept up the hallway and then he had to wait until the photo he took would be undeniable proof.

  "I don't like it," Sally said.

  Mr Harris squinted at her. "You just haven't got used to it yet. Just think how happy your boyfriend will be when he finds out how experienced you are," he said.

  "Alex isn't like that."

  "All men are like that," he said, nodding.

  Then silence, for a minute, two minutes. Alex realised he didn't know what he was listening for. Sally whimpered. He pushed open her bedroom door, camera wound, flash ready, he was armed like a cop. He lifted the camera to his eye, knowing his chance would be very short.

  Through the viewfinder, he saw Sally sitting on the bed, her eyes shut, her mouth open. He saw Mr Harris, his trousers down, his Yfronts down, knees against the bed. His eyes were shut, too, and his mouth open, though the differences in their expressions taught Alex something he never forgot; Feelings rarely match because people never do, even when they are doing the same thing.

  Alex snapped the picture and ran. He

wanted the film safe. He locked himself in his parents' bedroom, which was at the front of the house, and called Sally from the phone by the bed.

  "Are you all right?"

  "He's gone. He's really angry."

  "Scared, more like."

  "What are you going to do now?"

  "Call the police."

  "Can't you just keep the picture in case he does it again?"

  "I can't watch him all the time, Sally. And if it's not you, it'll be someone else. He has to be stopped. Men can't take advantage of women that way."

"But everyone'll know I'm not a virgin."

  "Sally, everyone will know it wasn't your fault. No one'll hold it against you."

  "You'll have to look after me now, Allie. My family won't want me."

  "I can do that," he said. His father was listening to music on headphones, doing a crossword.

  Mr Harris crossed the front lawn.

  "He's here. I have to get off and phone the police."

  Mr Harris banged on the front door.

  "Open up, you little shit. Open the fucking door." Alex wondered briefly if his father would intervene, but knew that wouldn't happen.

  Alex called the local police to tell them there was an intruder. He thought it was the best way to get them there quickly, and it worked, but it told against him later. They said he'd lied, and that made him

untrustworthy. They didn't accept the photo evidence; said he'd probably tricked it up.

  "How?" he said, but that was too smart for a fifteen year old boy.

  He was not to lose his virginity to Sally. That happened at a school dance where somebody had smuggled beer in, and he lost it in a two-minute fumble against the science block. He remembered the girl's name only because she followed him around for the rest of the term, wanting to belong to him. Wanting to make him forget Sally. Because Sally was gone to him. And Alex was no longer considered a worthy neighbour – he had told of things best kept secret, revealed the underfelt of their lives. They feared his childish honesty, were nervous of him revealing back-fence hopping, drunken gropes, those kisses exchanged after cocktails. He was too young to understand human sexuality. He didn't know about need. The Searle family were no longer considered neighbourly.

  The street withdrew support for the Searles, as if they, as a whole, had deliberately and cruelly set out to destroy the fantasy of a happy place. Mr Horton, who mowed everybody's nature strip, no longer mowed the Searle's. Alex's father sought a transfer, and they moved.

  No one offered to help. The whole street stood on their own front lawns, watching as the family loaded box after box into the hired van. No one waved as they drove away.

  Alex and his family did not find a new home straight away. They wanted something perfect, his parents; they didn't learn the lesson of perfection, how dangerous it could be. They went to Mr Searle's family home; his parents were happy to have them. They loved Alex's energy, and his brother Dominic's quiet wit, and Sebastian's obedience.

  The Searles thought they would be safe there. But there are no secrets in a small world, and when Mr Harris (and he would never be anything but Mr Harris; he didn't have a Christian name; he didn't have a Christian burial) came for Alex, his mind on violent, bullying revenge, he didn't imagine Alex would have the strength now to stand up to him. He was unprepared; Alex was even less ready. It wasn't blind rage, because in his mind's eye Alex could see each detail; the look on Mr Harris's face as he sauntered towards Alex. Smug, greedy, angry. Alex saw the fists clenched, the heavy boots. He could feel the smile stretched across his face, its foolishness deliberately deceptive. His hands clenched too; his logical brain said, "No, he's an adult, nothing but trouble, who would believe he provoked you, that's if you
do
win, which you won't because he's bigger than you." Alex found his hands took their signal from a part of the brain he could not control.

  His grandfather saw it all. Saw Mr Harris – though he didn't know it was Mr Harris, not till later, when the papers had his face on their missing person pages – come up the front path, trip over the cricket set left there by Dom. Heard him bang on the door, shout, "Come out, you little shit." Grandfather saw and heard all this.

He heard the fight downstairs and ventured to help his sixteen year old grandson, but he saw his grandson fell Mr Harris with a blow, the body fall.

  Alex's grandfather alone saw Alex bury the body in the backyard, because it was night and dark and the others were out. He did not help; he didn't reveal himself. He never told Alex what he'd seen, but he told his wife. They loved their Alex. They knew he was the future of the Searle family; already it was clear that Dominic would not be having children. He never told anyone but his wife. They were the only ones who could protect Alex; they could provide him with sanctuary. Alex's grandfather had killed at war; he knew how shallow human life was. So they decided that the best way to protect Alex was to let him stay when he needed to, and they would leave their home, with its secrets, to him.

  Alex wouldn't know that his grandfather knew; that when Alex thought the house was empty, his grandfather was upstairs. Alex's parents never knew about Mr Harris.

CW twenty-nine watch:

Chew Wang bought the watch from a friend, in exchange for entry into a group of wealthy children-lovers.

AM seventy-two lighter:

  Albert Mitchell, an elderly man, but age is no defence. War criminal intentions. I fought for you, he says, as if that excuses the pain he inflicts. I fought for you. The lighter came from a grateful mate's will, ooh, they shared some memories. Good times, girls with rotting cunts, like rock-melon left in the sun, all warm and seedy, but cost a pittance and who ever imagined your dick could fall off, make you a mad man, madman, this is what I think of dirty cunts, and this. This is what you get.

CS thirty-three coin:

It was lucky, the old coin, very old, very lucky for Chris Stepanos. It was worn thin around the edges from owners rubbing, saying please please please. Please don't let my daughter tell.

RR fifty-eight bottletop:

The bottletop was squashed flat and no longer sharp; it was from Rex Robert's first beer. He liked a beer, did Rex, and his women, though women were not so keen on him. That was fine. At least they moved when he fucked them. Moved and screamed. He was past all that, though. Too old. Just him and the movies, it was now.

GT fifty-five ring:

Alex met him in a milk bar where they were both buying cigarettes. He was first in line, and dithering, deciding. He spun a broad silver ring on his middle finger, a nervous man.

  Alex wanted to be away from there; he wanted to return to life. He considered time spent shopping, waiting, travelling, as necessary but also a cessation of life. He'd rather be rolling the giant blue plastic ball to his daughter, watching in delight as she grabbed and fell into its soft centre.

"Would you like me to go first while you're gathering your thoughts?" Alex said to the other customer.

  "Well, thank you. That would be kind."

  Alex snapped up his preferred brand, placed money in the palm of the tobacconist. The tobacconist winked. "See you tomorrow, Mr Searle."

  "Not if these kill me first," Alex winked back.

  Alex returned the next day. He changed his visiting times daily, always hoping to enter an empty shop.

  "Interesting character, that one," the tobacconist said. Alex raised his eyebrows.

  "Mr Slowpoke, from yesterday. Wouldn't know it to look at him, but he's the fella who killed his wife and got away with it.

  It didn't take Alex long to discover this allegation was founded. The report called it death by misadventure, but it was clear to Alex that deliberation played a major part.

  Gordan Truman wept in court for his wife, but there were strange things the jury didn't hear. This was his third dead wife. The first one had died in a car accident, the second in a farming accident, now this one had fallen off the roof. The jury also didn't know she had gone up there because he sent her. He wanted her to fiddle with the aerial, and if he'd been asked, the little boy next door could have testified the husband said, "Back up. Step to the right. Back further. A bit further," and that the wife had then stepped trustingly off the roof.

  It was this evidence the jury of the street heard.

  Alex waited in his car across the road from the tobacconist, and eventually Mr Slowpoke, Gordon Truman, appeared. He was a slow smoker as well; the tobacconist said he only came once a week or so.

  Alex followed. Truman drove to the other side of town, where he made a purchase from an adult video store. He emerged with his brown paper bag, lit a cigarette, and continued his journey.

  He went home.

  Alex liked to know people before they knew him, so he studied Truman, followed him, read his file, got to know him.

  Alex parked two blocks away and walked. It was dark enough so he would not be noticed.

  He knocked on Truman's door, knowing that Truman would be comfortable by now, perhaps naked, and he would be disoriented by any intrusion.

  And so it was. Gordon Truman answered the door with a robe on. He said, "What is it? I'm busy."

  "I'm afraid you are," Alex said. He showed his badge. "May I come in?"

  Truman was terrified. He had bought his tapes legally, but he wondered what he could have done wrong.

  "There is an alert on the tapes you purchased," Alex said. "We're interested in the sort of person who would purchase such things."

  Truman sucked saliva down the wrong way; choked.

  "But these aren't bad ones. Not really. Not compared to some of the other things they have there. They have some terrible things."

  "Everything's relative," said Alex.

  Truman passed the two covers to Alex. A classroom scene, naked teacher, glaring, legs spread as she perched on the desk. Called School for Punishment. And the second: two women, pink tongues, called The Clit Sisters. Alex clenched his teeth to keep from vomiting. Who would believe this could lead to the murder of an innocent woman?

  Clenched teeth, eyes staring, Alex looked insane.

  Now Alex smiled. "Is that what you said to your wife? That these aren't so bad?"

  "Sorry? But… my wife's dead."

  "Not dead. Murdered."

  "No, no. She died."

  "That's what the court said."

  "It's what I say. It's what she'd say, too. It was terrible."

  "What did your wife think of this business?"

  "She… liked it."

  "Of course she did."

  "She didn't mind it, anyway."

  "Did she really know about it?"

  "Not in detail, no."

  "That's not a good excuse."

  "What for? What are you on about?"

  "Why don't you pop one of those in and I'll point out what we find so offensive about them."

  Gordon Truman smiled. He thought he had Alex figured. Just a cop who wanted to get his rocks off.

  He bent to the video player, cocky now.

  And Alex shot him in the back of the neck.

  The removal of the body was always a challenge, though it wasn't necessary in every case. And with the blood there, it was clear something had gone on. Alex knew he was just trying to avoid a nasty and difficult task. His own backyard was the only place he could control the situation.

  He always liked to take his people home, where he could look out onto the backyard and think about the lives he'd saved, the futures he rescued. He never left any of his people where they fell.

  Truman was not a big man. Alex had entered the home with a large overcoat, three pillows tied beneath. If anyone noticed these extra pillows on Mr Slowpoke's marital bed, they did not say.

  He strapped the body into place and left. The neighbourhood rested, even curious little boys and inquisitive citizens.