Black Teeth Read online

  His voice asked, ‘Did he tell you why he was there?’

  ‘Yeah, but…everyone knew about Piers Alamein.’

  Attached to the pillar was a landline with TELECOM etched onto it, covered with dust and fading to yellow. Half of Rudy’s face peeked around, chewing on the inside of his lip.

  Anthony said, ‘Was it your mum that he…?’

  ‘He didn’t. It wasn’t him. He wasn’t even here.’

  Anthony looked around himself with a sudden shock.

  ‘This is where it…?’

  ‘Yeah. Upstairs. She was…died in the bedroom.’

  Anthony couldn’t help a glance at the ceiling. Sick paint peeled in strips and hung down like a disgusting chandelier, laid bare rotten plaster and the hump of an electrical cable.

  Rudy followed his gaze.

  ‘I don’t go up there anymore. I don’t…I mean.’ He turned to the windows. ‘I always sleep down there. Like you said.’

  He pointed at the bungalow. Then he murmured, almost whispered:

  ‘It’s so funny. It’s so funny that you came…just showed up. Like, now. Out of the woodwork.’

  ‘I’ll say.’

  ‘No.’ Rudy rushed to his seat, perched on the edge. ‘I mean it’s really funny.’

  For the first time Anthony noticed Rudy’s actual teeth, like claws in his slack mouth.

  ‘Because my dad’s dead,’ Rudy whispered, eyes shiny. ‘But the man who got him put in jail, who lied…’ A snarl formed on his face, one of someone consciously turning pain into anger. ‘The man who lied to the newspaper…he’s still alive.’

  Rudy glowered, baring his determination.

  ‘Do you understand what I’m…I mean?’

  ‘I don’t know. You’re saying—’

  ‘He’s going to bleed out. In his bed. Like Dad did.’

  Anthony had to stop himself from recoiling, maintained their proximity. In the green tyranny of the garden a wind rose up. Every branch and leaf trembled.

  He said, softly:

  ‘You’re going to go to this man’s house?’

  ‘Yeah. While he’s sleeping. Tonight.’

  ‘Tonight?’

  ‘Yep. With the insurance, there’s not anything to…no reason to not.’

  ‘Look, Rudy, I loved your dad. Really. But even if…You can’t…’ His shoulders hunched tight. ‘They’ll put you in Severington.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘So then what?’

  For Rudy, the answer was obvious.

  ‘So then I wait thirteen months.’

  Now Anthony did recoil. He slumped back in the chair and it protested, sharp, like the cane was snapping into pieces.

  ‘Wow.’ He shifted. ‘You really hatched a plot, didn’t you.’

  ‘I thought about it for a long time. I’ve thought about it for…it’s thirteen years.’

  ‘Who’s the beneficiary?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Who gets the money?’

  ‘Oh.’ He shook his head. ‘That’s just a friend.’

  ‘What’s his name?’

  ‘It’s a girl.’

  ‘Right. A girl…friend?’

  ‘Not a girlfriend. Not like that.’

  ‘What’s her name?’

  ‘Um, Elizabeth. Elizabeth Cannon. She just started, like, this furniture company. Or shop.’

  ‘You must like her a lot.’

  ‘I don’t know if it’s a shop. It’s furniture…’

  ‘What’s she done to deserve one-point-five million dollars?’

  ‘Because she’s, like, the only friend I’ve got.’

  ‘Well…’ Anthony managed to hold Rudy’s eyes this time. ‘Let’s say you’ve got one more as of today.’

  An embarrassed smirk spread across Rudy’s face, then cooled.

  ‘She doesn’t know, if that’s what you think.’

  ‘Doesn’t know she gets the money?’

  A hand sliced through the air. ‘Doesn’t know that. Doesn’t know I’m going to do it. Doesn’t know anything. She doesn’t have to know anything, does she?’

  ‘I guess not.’

  ‘Good. Good. I want it to be a surprise.’

  ‘Have you told anybody else?’

  ‘No. Nup.’

  ‘You sure?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘Okay. Don’t tell anybody else. You shouldn’t have even told me. And don’t tell me anything else. I don’t want to know who this bloke is. What he did. Or anything. Nothing, okay?’

  ‘Okay.’ Rudy grinned and rocked in his seat, a big overbite grin. ‘I knew you’d understand. After what you…with the teeth.’

  There was a twinge behind Anthony’s eyes and before he could stop himself he was stretching, fists in the air; a yawn popped his ears.

  ‘You know, coming here today, I thought this would be a waste of time. Especially on a Friday afternoon. I can never sell a policy on a Friday afternoon.’

  His customer sniggered at the irony. The two smiled.

  ‘But Rudy,’ he got serious. ‘You can’t do this thing tonight.’

  ‘Why not?’

  Anthony pushed a thumb and forefinger into the bridge of his nose. The brown leather scratched. He wasn’t accustomed to wearing gloves.

  ‘Because if you’re arrested, some stickybeak at the office could hold up your application, stamp you as an unnecessary risk. And no one will underwrite you once you’re in prison. But you see, once you’re covered, you’re covered. They can’t withdraw it.’

  ‘So…’

  ‘So you’ve got to wait.’

  ‘Until when?’

  ‘Until the policy is active.’

  ‘How long does that take?’

  ‘It depends. But also…’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I need to think about this. Over the weekend.’

  ‘Think about what?’

  ‘About this. Now that you’ve told me, I could go to jail. And I didn’t like it so much that I’m pining to go back. Maybe I shouldn’t arrange this policy for you. Maybe I should just go and forget all about it.’

  ‘But…you loved him. You said…You said—’

  ‘I said I need to think about it. I’ll call you Monday.’

  Anthony stood, snapped the case shut and hauled it off the table, willing now to brush at the chewed fingernails adhering to its base.

  ‘I promise,’ he said.

  ‘No.’

  The tightness of Rudy’s voice was obvious to Anthony, who moved purposefully to the kitchen entrance and into the hallway.

  ‘No,’ he heard again, tighter.

  Anthony’s speed picked up past the stairwell.

  ‘I’ll call you on Monday!’

  Bounding footsteps. Rudy was agile, despite his flaccid frame and the need to hold up his pants. He slipped between Anthony and the wall and halted Anthony’s march to the door.

  ‘Please,’ he gripped the deadbolt. ‘My dad…I’ve done the waiting.’

  ‘I know, dude. I get it. Really. But—’

  ‘He didn’t!’ Rudy’s mouth seemed to rupture with these words. ‘My dad didn’t do it. They told me he didn’t.’

  This surprised the insurance man.

  ‘Someone told you that? Who?’

  The outburst faltered.

  ‘A…A man.’

  ‘What man?’

  ‘A tall man.’

  ‘Who was he?’

  Rudy’s eyes rolled up like he was trying to find the information in his brain.

  ‘Lawyer.’

  ‘Your father’s lawyer? Of course he said—’

  ‘No,’ Rudy growled to shout him down. He took a threatening step forward, Anthony a flinching step back. ‘Not him. Someone else. Someone else came. He came here and told me.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘I don’t know. A lawyer. He got for me this…power…power…’

  ‘Power-of-attorney?’

  ‘Yeah. Power-of-attorney. I got the house. He didn’t want
me to pay him or anything. He said that dad didn’t do it.’

  ‘How would he know?’

  A choking sound. Rudy was trying to speak but couldn’t.

  ‘Dude…’ Anthony adopted a soothing tone, inhaled long and deep, hoped Rudy would do likewise. ‘Even if we signed the papers today, you’d have to wait until the policy is active.’

  ‘When? How long is that?’

  Anthony looked at his watch, calculating…

  ‘A week.’

  ‘A week?’

  ‘It’s a big policy. It takes time. I’ll call you next—’

  ‘Let me do it now,’ he said, that incessant blinking. ‘You can think about it or whatever, but let’s get the papers done and like…done.’

  ‘Ummm…’

  Rudy smelled weakness.

  ‘You have to. I can’t wait more than a week.’ He twisted his body like he needed permission to use the toilet. ‘You have to.’

  ‘All right.’ Anthony raised his arms in surrender. ‘You want to do it, we can do it.’

  The front room was still random unused tables and chairs, like an estate waiting to be executed. Half a dining table was buried beneath an upturned writing desk. Anthony placed his briefcase on the other half. Dust rose and dissipated.

  Not daring to hesitate, Rudy dropped quickly into a settee that coughed up another cloud of dust. He swiped at the air, quizzically, but at the sight of the contract he sat on his hands.

  Anthony reclined in a swivel chair, pulled a ballpoint from his pocket.

  ‘Is Rudy short for something?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘What’s your full name?’

  ‘Rudyard. Rudyard Christopher Alamein.’

  Anthony wrote this into the contract. It occurred to him that he should ask how to spell it, but before he could, Rudy said:

  ‘It really has to be a week? I’ve got to wait till Friday?’

  ‘Friday is the fastest it can be. That’s with me pulling all the strings I can. But the good news is that in special circumstances I’m empowered to waive the initial premium. How does that sound?’

  A petulant shrug. ‘Great.’

  ‘Rudy…’ Anthony planted a fist on his knee and looked him in the eye. ‘You’ve waited eleven years. You’re going to have to wait another seven days.’

  They did the remaining work in silence, but for Anthony reading out questions from the application—‘Have you ever been diagnosed with a malignant growth?’—and Rudy’s stilted responses, which were invariably ‘no’, except where something needed explanation—‘What’s a malignant growth?’—after which the answer was invariably ‘no’. He appeared to have no medical history whatsoever. By the time they were finished, night had fallen.

  ‘Geez,’ said Rudy. ‘Lots of questions.’

  ‘It’s a lot of money. You’ve got to do more than just raise your hand.’

  ‘I know…I know.’

  He initialled each page without reading back, signed three times on the last, went on chewing his fingernails. Anthony signed too, above Fortunate Australia representative. Then he stood and filed the document gently into his briefcase.

  ‘I have to hurry back to the office, get this into the system.’

  Disappointment tugged at Rudy’s face.

  ‘All right…’

  ‘The sooner this gets done, the better for you.’

  ‘I know. I know.’

  ‘If there are any problems, I’ll be in touch.’

  It was disappointment, Anthony realised, at his departure. For all the impatient talk, Rudy didn’t want his new friend to leave. He flicked the door lock with contempt, like it was the only thing in the world over which he held power and he had to make it count.

  ‘That’s really nice of you,’ he said, another tear in his eye. The streetlights caught it as the door opened.

  ‘It’s the least I can do.’

  ‘Right. And, like, the least I can do is go ahead with…with…’ He waved his tattooed hand. ‘On Friday. Like, as soon as this is ready. Friday night.’

  ‘Rudy, your dad knew you loved him. You don’t need to hurt somebody to prove that.’

  ‘No,’ he said, swaying. He seemed to be expecting this line of argument. ‘No. He didn’t know it. I didn’t say it. I mean…yes, I did say it. But that’s not anything. You can’t just say it. You have to do it.’ ‘I’ll call you.’

  With a final clap on Rudy’s shoulder, Anthony moved directly across the untended garden to the gate and the footpath and kept walking, felt Rudy’s gaze on him as he reached his car. When the motor turned over he looked and Rudy was there on his porch.

  He followed Grand Street to Kings Way, past the casino and over the river and through the west end of the CBD, peak hour easing its chokehold. At Flagstaff Gardens he turned right, saying back to himself some of the things he’d said to Rudy. What Rudy had said there at the end.

  Then he realised that he’d pulled over. He was in Carlton. Anthony stared through the windscreen, through the early evening air and the brittle city wind to a dying tree near the intersection, just twenty metres ahead. The engine was running. It was a quiet street, idyllic at any time of year. There were no moving cars or headlights that Anthony could see. But he wasn’t looking.

  He took off both gloves and gazed at the marking on his hand, thoughts of Rudy Alamein washing over him.

  There was the black ink in the pores of his skin. Two or three skinny blond hairs poking through. He licked his finger and rubbed.

  It didn’t give way at first, then it did: the teeth swirled into a storm cloud, then a deep green bruise, then black clots of skin that rolled across his webbing. Then nothing.

  Anthony didn’t stop until all the black was gone. As much a memory as anything Rudy Alamein had said.

  2

  Something happens first.

  This is in the pimped and plushy halls of the County Court, epic and glassy so you at least feel like you can breathe. Half the stooges that come here are verging on a meltdown, so all this light and space is meant to keep you based, keep you breathing. Meltdowns can wait for the tram ride home.

  The actual courts have been running for an hour so the morning bottleneck is done, leaving only the whir of the escalator and the occasional dork like me waiting for my cue. I’m sat on a bench of chairs all attached and facing the court doors and I’m on my phone, trolling random e-celebs for keks and such, when I see them. Way down the way, a man and a woman and a child and the child is not quite a baby now. They’re waiting too, outside their respective court, but they’re not waiting like I’m waiting. They don’t have the vibe of people who sometimes give evidence for a living. Everything about Dad, the red in his eyes, how he’s dressed, everything, the hair on his face, it all scans like he’s here for sentencing. That his right to just walk around like the rest of us is about to be abruptly, absolutely withdrawn. Or maybe I’ve reverse-engineered that, the obviousness of that, because of what happens.

  The boy is trying to stand up. Dad’s got him by the hands, is gently raising him off the carpet and this kid seems to understand what he’s supposed to do, seems to be right there mentally, but his fat fleshy legs aren’t voting with the majority. They don’t take weight like they’re supposed to, instead squish into the floor and this frustrated boy, sitting there on his nappied arse, he starts to cry. Dad smiles and Mum strokes his head.

  How I know it’s a little boy is: I just know.

  I go back to noodling on my phone but when I glance up Mum and Dad are speaking with sad faces and the little stooge is pushing himself off the ground with his hands. Mum and Dad aren’t even looking when he swings back, stands awkwardly like a drunk gymnast. Without thinking I yell, ‘Oi!’ They don’t hear, but then the kid wails with his own surprise, prompts both adults to whirl around and see him take three tiny steps, teetering all the way, then collapse four victorious inches back down to the carpet.

  What happens next is, Dad makes a sound like I’ve never hea
rd before. Something wholly new, a musical note undiscovered until now. He reaches with his giant hands and clutches the boy and pulls him into a hug, tight and strong and he might be hurting him but of course he isn’t. Big dad tears on a hairy face are all I can see and those teeth and then Mum’s crying too and that’s when I stop watching because I can’t anymore, just stare at the ground and listen to that man cry and thank god a greybeard in a green uniform comes out of the court and calls my name, loud and roaring like I’m not right there in front of him.

  ‘Jason Ginaff.’

  3

  It’s not paranoia—everybody stares at you when you enter a courtroom. The judge and her associate, throbbing with objectivity; the barrister who called you as a witness, standing now at the bar table and smiling his thin lips, no longer the laconic chadwick you met last week, now a man appearing; the instructing solicitor who wordlessly communicates his support; the opposing nest of hostiles who wordlessly communicate their whatever; and a plaintiff who deep down knows all the things you’ve come to say, seated right there in the first row of the gallery, ring binders piled either side of him like a fort he’s built against the truth.

  If this was a jury trial there’d be six randoms on the far side of the room, staring harder than anyone because that’s kind of what the judge would have told them to do. So at least they’re not here doing that.

  We reach the witness box and the tipstaff blurts fast, words he’s blurted a thousand times before. I’ve been in enough courts to know there’s a script taped to the wall of the box, one that only he can see, but this craggy old Anzac doesn’t need it.

  ‘Would you like to swear on the bible or make an affirmation?’

  ‘An affirmation.’

  ‘Do you solemnly and sincerely declare and affirm that the evidence you shall give will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?’

  ‘I do.’

  He turns away and sits at his station beneath the judge. She smiles, reassuring.

  ‘You may sit or stand, Mister Ginaff. Whichever you prefer.’

  I sit. Perry clears his throat, shuffles at the lectern, reads from his notes there and says, ‘If you would, Mister Ginaff, please direct your answers to Her Honour.’