Chapter 31

Ducking and weaving

When I should have been leaving

Yet Another Time I Stuffed Up, J Cassady

Joel saw the early school bus swing by.  Long gone by the time he reached the bus stop.  Impeccable timing.  He rubbed his arms and stamped his feet, hardly noticing the cracking cold.  He felt as hard and dry as a week-old piece of orange peel in the gutter.

A car appeared on the horizon … dark, large … grey Falcon.  He didn’t give it a second look.

Mama bear had been caring that morning.  ‘Did you get much sleep, love?’ she had asked, red-eyed and white-cheeked herself.

‘None,’ he had answered truthfully, cruelly.  ‘And don’t worry about breakfast.  Got to get to school early this morning.  You know, tidy up my affairs.’

She had said no more, her mouth a bloodless scar, but stuffed an extra sandwich in his lunch bag.

Here it came now.  Over the hill, the ultimate symbol of wealth and power descended.  Joel blew out a long stream of dragon fog as the Mercedes pulled up.  A blast of warm air hit him when he jumped in, a reek of smoke-impregnated calf-skin.

‘This better be good,’ Marcus said as the big car purred off the gravel and onto the bitumen.  Joel glanced at the unsmiling profile and thought this could be very, very bad.

Marcus drove in silence.  Halfway to town, he turned into a single lane between farms and kept on at high speed.  After a further turn-off, he pulled up amongst a copse of wattles in a dip.  Birdsong through the glass.  Without looking at Joel, he lit a cigarette, and the smoke curled past Joel’s nose on its way to the window.

Joel wiped his moist hands down the length of his thighs, shifted in his seat, went to undo his seat buckle, changed his mind, sat on his hands.  This sullenness was unnerving.  Usually, there was sarcasm and banter.  Even so, it was time to take control.

‘I’m being sent away’ – Marcus’s profile was granite – ‘which is why I rang you last night.  In fact, next week I won’t be here unless … unless something’s done about it.’

Marcus took a long drag.

‘Because, the thing is, I don’t want to go.’

Another drag, a languid stretch, a glance at the gold watch on the wrist of the hand that still held the gold cigarette lighter.  Marcus was dressed for business in grey and white and discreet maroon stripes.  His suit hung a little loosely today, perhaps.  Joel looked down at his own cramped denim legs, his musty windcheater.  He was dressed for business too.

As he told his story, he watched the glowing tip of Marcus’s cigarette pass up and down.  He started from the beginning.  Why not?  Marcus didn’t look surprised by any of it.  Bad Blood’s attack, the principal’s backhanded call to the father, the father’s consequent fury, the Queensland decision – it all came out.  Joel listened to himself, his voice sounding muffled and small.

Marcus flicked ash at the tray and tapped the leather-covered steering wheel.

Joel went on.  Yes, he’d been slack and was barely coping at school.  His voice became tinnier.  Yes, he would not get enough marks for law.  Why didn’t the man react?  For fuck’s sake, couldn’t he see where this was leading?

Joel faltered mid-sentence, waiting.

‘Poor you,’ Marcus said without shifting his gaze from the windscreen, without a flicker of a smile.

‘So I need to get out of going to Queensland and –’

‘Why?  Beautiful climate.’

‘I don’t want to go.  I need someone to … to talk to Dad.  To get him to change his mind and let me stay.’  It sounded like begging.  If only begging would work.  Joel looked into Marcus’s face – the L-shaped jaw, the inert eyes – and knew what he had known last night as he had chundered onto the ground outside the phone booth.  That begging was never going to work.

‘And I’m asking … well, you can see what I’m asking.  Because Dad would listen if you put in a good word for me.  I’m not suggesting a glowing reference, just … just that you need to have me around because of the work I do for you.  Yeah, something like that.’

With a snort, Marcus butted his cigarette and brought his hand to the key.  Red lights sprang up on the dash.

‘I don’t have time for this, Joel.  I thought you had something for me.’

‘But you need me to be the snout, don’t you?  I’ll be out of the skate comp if I go to Queensland.  We won’t be able to keep meeting, and you need me, don’t you?  Don’t you?’

Marcus lowered the handbrake.  ‘Need you?  No, sonny Jim, I don’t need you.  What ever gave you that impression?  In any case, it’s out of your small compass now.  No, you go and enjoy Queensland.’

Joel saw that the hand on the brake was unsteady.  He looked up, surprised.  Something was wrong with Marcus.  He was pale, preoccupied, he’d lost weight.  To sting him now would be an act of insanity.

And insanely, Joel kept on, out of options.  The morning sky, the sun above black-rimmed clouds, the waving feathers of wattle branches – none of it offered any help.

‘You see, Marcus, I’m desperate.  I’ll do anything not to go.  Even if … even if it means going to the police and telling them what I know about you if you don’t help me.  Oh, sure, they already know quite a lot, but they don’t know about our meetings and that you know about their operation.  They don’t know I’ve seen the … the dope in your hand.  And I don’t care what happens to me if I get sent away.  To be honest, I’d go to the cops even if it meant going to gaol.  No difference, in the big scheme, to being stuck at boarding school in the desert.  Do you see?’

One glance at Marcus and Joel knew himself for the worst kind of fool.  Marcus stayed very still, his hands suspended, his face calm.  Seconds – or was it minutes? – later, he switched off the engine.  Its tiny shudder was like the last breath of a slaughtered animal.  When he turned to Joel, his mouth was twisted in amusement.  He reached out as if to caress Joel’s face.  It was a gesture Sebastian might have made.  Instead, he held a single finger up, an inch from Joel’s eye.

Joel felt one of his legs tremble.

Marcus’s slow finger moved down Joel’s body, not quite touching his chest, his fly, the valley between his shaky legs, until it reached the glove box.  The catch sprang open, and Marcus took out a carton, gold like an ingot.  He didn’t close the glove box.  Without hurrying, he opened a new packet, lifted out a cigarette and lit it.

‘I see that time is running out for you, Joel, as it is running out for me.’  The smoke coiled from Marcus’s mouth.  ‘The question is, which of us has the quicker draw?’

The cigarette carton had been jammed on top of papers in the glove box.  Was that a camera underneath the papers?  Something bulging and hard, plastic or metal, black.  Joel stared, only half-hearing Marcus over the hammering of blood in his head, not daring to face the man now.  Knowing himself for a two-bit cretin.

‘Do you know, Joel – do they teach you this at school? – how frequently people top themselves around here?  Suicide, it’s a rural way of life.  There’s the farmer who hangs himself on the dashed expectation of plenty.  There’s the out-of-work labourer with six mouths to feed, who drops his pickled eyes and runs his car into a tree.  There’s the depressed teenager who sees no future.’

What was that underneath the envelopes?  Wrong shape for a camera.  It was the handle of something.  What was Marcus on about?

‘One of them just got out of hospital, as you know.  Your friend Kimberly.  She recovered, this time.  Sad but not surprising.  It could happen to anyone.  It could happen to you, Joel.’

It wasn’t plastic.  It was black metal.  It was small and solid.  It was no doubt loaded.  When you realised what it was, you wondered how you could have imagined it was anything else.

Joel’s hand twitched, but he made the mistake of looking at Marcus.  Marcus had turned right around in his seat.  His knee almost touched Joel’s.  His large hand hung over Joel’s seat, almost on his shoulder.  The attitude was one of curiosity and readiness.  Now Joel did want to beg, because he was sorry, sorrier than he’d ever been.  As the tears slid down his face, Marcus smiled.

‘Yes, sad though far from surprising.  You’re doing badly at school.  The teachers can attest to that.  The principal has given you an ultimatum.  Your overly strict father has flailed you for it.  It’s unlikely you’ll be able to get into the course of your choice.  Unlikely you’ll escape your Queensland fate.  So what do you do about it?’

Marcus paused and contrived a pout.  Joel saw the fake sympathy through a mist of tears.

‘What so many people have done in your situation, Joel.  The very morning after the catastrophe, you take yourself out to a lonely road.  No one can stop you.  As your friend, I would have tried to talk you out of it, but you didn’t turn to me.  I haven’t heard from you in days.  In those last lonely hours, you feel you have no one to turn to.  You’ve stolen someone’s handgun.  It could have been mine, as mine has been missing from my glove box.  Come to think of it, I haven’t seen it since I met you last week.  I thought I’d left it at home …’

‘Please … no …’

‘Hence my question.  Is your draw quicker than mine?’

Joel’s chest rose and fell in great rolling sobs.  He had as much hope of controlling them as reaching into the glove box.  Marcus brought his hand to Joel’s hair and stroked.  His touch was tender and terrible, and Joel flinched against the door.

‘I think we both know the answer, son.’

Out of his dying eye, Joel saw the hand that had been on his head move back to the glove box.  He turned to the door, clutching for the handle.  It rattled uselessly, and the door remained closed.  He heard a click and had a fleeting vision of Sebastian’s rumpled bed, the tousy hair, the peaceful sleeping face.

‘Am I a monster?  I don’t know, Joel … I really don’t know.  All I do know is that there comes a point where you might as well go on.’

Joel whined and scratched at the lock.

The next sound was not a shot but a laugh.  ‘Get out!  You stink!’

Joel’s door fell open, and he toppled face-first into the dirt.  He got up on his hands and knees, ready to bolt, but the voice stopped him.

‘As it happens, there is something I need from you.  If you pull it off, I will speak to your father.  I’ll tell him whatever you want.  I’ll tell him I can make you a fucking High Court judge, how would that be?  That is, if you do this thing for me.’  Marcus’s laugh was a high whinny.  He shuffled over to the passenger seat and peered down at Joel.

‘What is it?  What do you want?’

From his position on the ground, Joel saw past Marcus’s laundered legs to the glove box, now closed.

‘The one thing I have not been able to discover.  The names of every police officer, undercover agent, and informer involved in this project.  If I had those names, it would be useful indeed.  Without them, well, I’m like you, Joel – nowhere left to turn.’

‘I don’t know how –’

‘Neither do I, but that’s your problem.  This is your chance, my boy.’  Marcus’s voice became soft and dangerous.  ‘This is your chance to prove that you have not been lying all this time.’

‘Okay, I’ll try.’  Joel struggled to his feet, recoiling at the smell of shit, the seat of his pants sticky and wet.

‘Yes, you will.  Next week, for the last time, we will meet here on this day at precisely this minute.  Thursday, eight thirty.  You will have those names, I hope.’

Marcus pointed through the door.  ‘You see that dam?  That’s your landmark.’

Beyond the trees and over the fence was a triangular ditch, three quarters empty.  A cow tossed its muzzle below the muddy surface of the water.  Had it nearly been witness to homicide?

Joel jumped as something landed beside him – his school bag.  The door closed, the window came down, the engine thrummed again.

Marcus leaned over, another cigarette already between his fingers.  ‘If you can’t get those names, Joel, don’t bother coming.  If you’re not up to it, I’ll understand.  My bon voyage card will be in the mail.  You should send me one, also.’  The man chuckled and all his gold flashed, like teeth.  ‘Oh, and one more thing which I hardly need add.  If you were to carry out your ridiculous threat, I would have just enough time – there’s always enough time – to do you.  And if I couldn’t find you, I would find your friends.  Or my friends would find them.’  The car moved then stopped again.  ‘Councillor Ginsberg’s son, for instance … would not be safe.’  Marcus’s unguessable stare.

Joel waited until he was sure he could no longer hear the Mercedes or even an echo of it.  Until he was sure it was at least ten kilometres away.  Until the morning fog had melted down the sky like runny icing on a cake to reveal a sparkling day.  When he left the shelter of the trees for the long trek home, he went across country through mud.  It wasn’t a quicker way, but he wanted to avoid the road, avoid seeing anyone he knew.  If anyone spoke to him now, he would not be able to answer.  All that would come out of his mouth would be high-pitched screaming.

***

‘Why weren’t you at school today?  I was so fucking worried.’

‘I have to see you.’

‘Where are you?  Did you talk to your mum?  Is she going to talk to your dad?’

‘No, I … something else.  Things are not looking up, Seb.’

‘I can hear that.  Meet me at the flat, okay?  Pinky will have ideas.’

‘I can’t tell anyone … Oh, all right.  Then we can run away.  I’m going with that option now.  We have to.’

‘See you at the flat.  Come right now.’

***

Joel sat with his eyes closed, thumbs to his temples.  He was alone in the middle of the couch in the sunroom that looked out onto Dave’s bare plum trees.  Sebastian had been sitting next to him, with an arm around him, but Sebastian was now by the window, having risen as soon as Joel made his confession.

It was the humiliation, Joel thought, listening to the stunned silence in the room.  The first thing that hit you was that you’d been a total dingbat.  You might have been pushed and bullied and scared for your life, but what came out was that you were a moron.

‘He tried to kill me,’ he repeated.  ‘Well, threatened to.’  Francie gurgled, but otherwise no one spoke.  ‘Oh, look, you had to be there.’

When he finally checked, none of them were laughing.

Claw muttered, ‘Our nutty professor’s really excelled himself this time,’ but shut up when Steph gave him a warning pinch.

Pinky jiggled Francie on his knee.  She gave him a questioning murmur and reached her little hand into his mouth, obviously surprised at the deep frown clouding her father’s face.

‘I’m going home,’ Sebastian said.

‘What?  Wait!’ Joel said.

He followed Sebastian to the back gate.

‘We have to plan how to get away now, Seb.  We’ve only got a few days.  Really, I’ve changed my mind.  I want to fuck off with you.’

‘So, you are going to the cops?’

‘Of course not.  I’m not going to put you in danger.  Not you or anyone.  But I’m not going to Queensland either.’

Sebastian shook his head and opened the gate.  ‘What I can’t believe,’ he said slowly, ‘is that you thought it was better to go to Marcus Monster than come and live with me.’

‘I just thought running away was impossible –’

‘Running away was never what I had in mind, Joel.’

‘Sebastian, please.  I’ve got one week.’

The gate closed with Sebastian on the other side of it.  ‘I have to think about it,’ he said, as if Joel was offering to flog him a deal of magic mountain mull that looked suspiciously like dried parsley.

‘One week, Seb.’

‘I know.’

Sebastian walked away.

When Joel returned to the sunroom, no one had moved except Pinky who was changing Francie’s nappy on the floor.

‘Looks like I’m going to Queensland then,’ Joel croaked.

‘There is something else you could do,’ Pinky mumbled through the pin in his mouth.  He whipped the clean nappy into something like a paper plane.  ‘You could get those names.  Of the coppers, I mean.  To give to Steph’s dad.’

Steph spoke up from Claw’s lap.  ‘But we don’t have them, Pinks.  And false names wouldn’t check out.  You don’t know my dad.  He’d be more pissed off than ever.’

Pinky held up the giggling baby then balanced her on his hip.  She pouted at him, her head on one side, puzzled.

‘You’re right,’ he said.  ‘Even if we had real names, it wouldn’t be fair to those people to hand them over.  He’d probably pop them.  Sounds like what he’d do, it’s his only hope.’

Joel shuddered.  ‘Write to me and let me know how the skate comp goes.’

‘You’re not gone yet, mate,’ Pinky answered, but his eyes were grave.

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