The Ice-cream Man (9 page)

9

Rick had a plan. It mightn’t get the freak off their backs, but at least it would keep him off the streets for a while. The idea had come to him early Monday morning, right after the ice-cream man had paid Rick a visit, but he’d dismissed it, knowing it wasn’t the smartest thing to do, knowing it could get him in a ton of trouble if he were caught. But after what the ice-cream man had told Marty on the phone, Rick was no longer worried that the freak would go to the cops. Besides, things had changed. He’d actually threatened Marty – threatened all of them. There was no way Rick would let him get away with that.

Marty and Aaron left the billabong around five o’clock. Rick stayed till the sun set, mulling things over and absorbing the sense of peace the billabong gave him. He hadn’t told the others what he had planned. They’d only try to talk him out of it.

Finding the ice-cream man wouldn’t be a problem. For the past two afternoons the freak had trawled Rick’s street – two, three, even four, times. There were a lot of families on Drover Street, so the ice-cream man had no trouble getting customers. All Rick had to do was sit and wait for him to come.

Rick made his way through the scrub, arms up to protect his face from low branches, eyes straining to keep the track in sight. He wasn’t worried about getting lost. Easily visible through the trees, the houses of Mountain View were lighting up one by one.

He didn’t see or hear the ice-cream man on his walk home, but he could sense the freak’s presence. A frangipani-scented breeze ruffled his hair, drying the sweat on his neck and making his skin prickle. He wondered what state he’d find his mother in.

Rick let himself into the house and made his way through to the kitchen, briefly registering his mother’s prone form on the couch as he passed the lounge room. The kitchen was as he’d left it: empty cereal bowl and cup in the sink. He tried to remember when his mother had last eaten and couldn’t. How long could a person go without food? Rick was sure he’d learnt that at school last year – or maybe it was on TV – but for now at least the information was lost.

He took a tray of sausages and a carton of eggs out of the fridge. The food he’d picked up on the way home from school on Monday wouldn’t last long. His mother was out of cash, so he’d have to find out where she’d hidden her card. She hadn’t trusted him with it since he’d taken it off her in a desperate attempt to stop her drinking.

After Rick finished eating, he retrieved his mother’s plate from the microwave where it had been warming and took it in to her. ‘I’ve made you some dinner, Mum,’ he said, moving the empty bottle and placing the meal on the coffee table. He shook her shoulder.

‘C’mon, you’ve gotta eat something.’

His mother groaned and opened her eyes.

‘Whassamatter?’

‘Food. See?’ He picked up the plate and held it in front of her bleary eyes.

She made a retching sound and pushed it away.

‘Juss leave me lone, Ricky.’

Rick slammed the plate on the table. ‘Okay, I’ll leave ya alone. I’ll leave ya alone forever if that’s what ya want!’

He stormed from the room and into the hall, lashing out at anything that got in his way. Why didn’t his mother just kill herself and get it over with? At least then he wouldn’t have to worry about her anymore; wouldn’t have to be always trying so hard to hold the tatters of their lives together – the lives his father had wrecked when he’d driven out of the driveway for the last time.

Rick stopped before his father’s model room door, chest heaving. It was all his friggin’ dad’s fault! He kicked the door as hard as he could, then kicked it again and again until the latch popped and the door crashed open. Rick strode into the room and swung his arm in a wide arc, clearing the first shelf he reached. He swept his arm along the next, and the next, until his father’s entire collection of model planes littered the wooden floor.

‘Stop it! Stop it!’ His mother staggered into the room, eyes and hair wild.

Rick watched her come, his breath rasping down his throat, pounding into his lungs like a fist. Nothing felt real. He glanced around the room as though for the first time, not believing what he saw. The mess resembled the world’s worst air massacre.

‘I . . . I . . .’ he began.

‘Look what you’ve done!’ his mother screeched.

‘Get out! Get out of my sight!’ She tottered over to the work table and fell against it, head bowed.

With the sound of his mother’s hacking sobs loud in his ears, Rick backed through the doorway and ran to his room to retrieve the can of black spray paint he’d bought on Monday. He’d wait outside for the ice-cream man. If he stayed in the house a moment longer his brain would burst.

The cool evening air was just what Rick needed. He sat by the front fence, partially hidden from the street by a gangly hibiscus bush his mother had planted the day they’d moved here. If the memory were something solid he could hold in his hand, he’d pound it into dust in a second. He didn’t want any reminders of his old life – his happy life. Rick was tempted to rip the hibiscus out by its roots and shred every leaf. He closed his hand around a branch and with the satisfying crack of splintering wood came the unmistakeable tinkling of the ice-cream van.

‘Bring it on,’ Rick whispered.

Several drawn-out minutes later the van turned into his street. The ice-cream man had a way to come yet – the street ran for several blocks – but Rick had all the time in the world. He clutched the spray can to his chest and grinned. If only he’d bought fluorescent paint. How friggin’ marvellous would that be? But black would have to do. It would stand out well against the pink paintwork.

The ice-cream man’s progress was agonisingly slow. Whenever he started to move off someone else would run into the road waving a fistful of coins. Rick considered moving further down the street. What if the ice-cream man got near his house and no one stopped him? Rick supposed he might be able to run behind the van and spray it at the same time – the ice-cream man certainly drove slowly enough – but he’d rather not have to do it that way.

The van was on the move again. Rick tightened his grip on the can and rose to a crouch. If it stopped on the next block, he’d make his move.

No one flagged the van down till it was three houses away from Rick’s place. He let out his pent up breath when he spotted Mrs Henderson waddle out her front gate, closely followed by her three-year- old triplets. The kids were causing a right racket chanting, ‘Ice-cream! Ice-cream! Ice-cream!’ at the top of their lungs.

Keeping his face averted, Rick sprinted down the nature strip with the spray can tucked out of sight under his shirt. He caught a glimpse out of the corner of his eye of a hulking shape through the van’s serving window as he passed. Then he was safe behind the vehicle with his back pressed to the hot metal. Fumes belched from the exhaust pipe, making his eyes water and his nose itch. If he didn’t hurry he’d soon be sneezing so hard he wouldn’t be able to hold the spray can straight.

Rick quickly scanned the street behind the van, turned and sprayed the word FREAK in large letters across the pink paintwork. With his ears thrumming, and a grimace that was an equal mix of exhilaration and fear, he moved to the side of the van facing the road. He was just getting started. There were at least two more words he could think of to describe the ice-cream man, one of which also happened to begin with an ‘F’. As he raised the can someone yelled,

‘Hey, kid,’ and Rick heard the sound of feet slapping the road.

Without looking to see who it was, Rick dropped the can and bolted in the opposite direction. He ran as fast as he was able, but it wasn’t fast enough. His pursuer tackled him before he reached the corner. Rick hit the ground with a bone-rattling thump that knocked most of the wind out of him. He tasted blood.

‘Got you, you little brat.’ Rough hands grabbed

Rick by the shirt and flipped him onto his back.

Rick gagged as the neck of his T-shirt cut into his throat. When the hands let go, he sat up and spat out a gob of blood.

‘You better not run, kid, or I won’t go so easy on you.’

Rick looked up at the tackler. He didn’t know the guy to talk to, but he recognised him as the gym- junkie who lived two houses down from him. The guy stood there bare-chested, wearing nothing but Lycra bike shorts, flexing his muscles. Rick laughed and then gagged as more blood gushed from his split lip. ‘Whatta ya gonna do?’ he said.

The gym-junkie reached down and hauled Rick to his feet. ‘How about we ask the ice-cream man, eh?’

He dragged Rick towards the van.

The Henderson triplets, all clutching dripping cones, stood in a line on the nature strip and watched wide-eyed. Their mother took one look at Rick and the gym-junkie and herded the kids through the gate out of harm’s way. Rick saw his next-door neighbour peering over her front veranda rail and gave her the finger. The neighbour jerked as though punched. The woman from number sixty-three, who was standing on the kerb opposite keeping someone updated on proceedings via a mobile phone, relayed this latest development in a shrill voice. Rick went to give her the finger too, but the gym-junkie wrenched his arm back and shoved him towards the ice-cream van’s serving window.

‘Little brat just painted the back of your van. Say the word and I’ll ring the cops.’

Rick’s heart slammed into his ribs. The only thing he felt grateful for was that he wasn’t alone with the freak.

‘Well, well, look who it is. My little mate, Rick,’ the ice-cream man said. He leaned across the serving counter so his huge smiling face filled the open window.

Rick stared back, refusing to break eye contact. The ice-cream man wasn’t at all what he’d expected. One of the man’s front teeth was missing and his left eyebrow was pierced with a gold ring that looked completely out of place on his doughy middle-aged face – a face that would have looked right at home in a Santa beard.

Rick gulped. ‘Go on, ring ’em. I dare ya.’

‘Here, you can use my phone,’ said the woman from number sixty-three. She ran onto the road, slippers flopping. Rick watched her come, wondering how on earth he was going to make a run for it with all these people around.

He turned back to the serving window. It was empty.

‘No need to involve the police,’ the ice-cream man said. He’d got out of the van and was now so close to Rick’s ear that he jumped. The ice-cream man grinned and pushed a rope of lank hair behind one ear.

‘The boy and I can sort this out, can’t we, Rick?’ What did he mean by that? Rick tried to pull away,

but the gym-junkie stopped him. Whatever else he did Rick mustn’t show the freak his fear. He cleared his throat. ‘Nah, I reckon you should ring the cops.’

‘Hear that?’ the gym-junkie said. ‘He wants you to ring them. Flaming kids will do anything for attention.’

‘You should make him scrub that paint off with a toothbrush,’ Mrs number sixty-three said.

‘Thank you for the suggestion, ma’am. I just might do that,’ the ice-cream man said. He gave her a cheek-splitting grin and she walked back across the road, obviously satisfied she’d done the public a great service.

‘And give his backside a good kick while you’re at it,’ the gym-junkie added.

‘Thank you for your help,’ the ice-cream man said.

‘I can take it from here.’

‘Right. I’ll leave you to it then.’ The gym-junkie puffed out his chest and did an about-face.

A gust of wind raised the hairs on Rick’s arms. He shivered. In the space of a heartbeat he’d been abandoned by his accusers and was now alone on the dark street with the nut-job who’d been stalking him and his friends for the best part of a week. The guy might look ordinary, but wasn’t that how psychopaths always looked?

Now the ice-cream man no longer had an audience, his smile vanished. His eyes narrowed, boring into

Rick.

‘Wh-whatta ya gonna do?’ Rick said, his tongue thick in his mouth. Already his bottom lip had begun to swell.
Run
, his mind screamed. But all he could do was stand there staring into the eyes of the ice-cream man as though hypnotised.

The ice-cream man fingered the little goatee sprouting from one of his chins. ‘Don’t you worry none, Rick. When it’s time to pay the piper you’ll be the first to know.’