Take a Life

by Phillip Gwynne

  But when I grabbed the edge of the rug and pulled it up there was a trapdoor underneath.

  The rest was pretty straightforward: using the ring, I pulled up the trapdoor. Steps led down. I followed them into a storeroom, but there was another door, locked with a deadbolt from the outside. I undid the lock.

  ‘PJ?’ I said as I pushed the door open.

  She rushed to meet me.

  ‘I knew you’d come,’ she said, wrapping her arms around me, squeezing tight. ‘I told him you would.’

  I’m glad she knew it, because I sure as hell hadn’t been so certain.

  ‘Let’s get out of here!’ I said, and we made for the stairs. I followed her.

  ‘Take the back door,’ I said when we’d reached the top, but PJ said nothing.

  The man I’d seen fleeing through the back door – short, chubby, maybe in his fifties – was sitting in a chair, like he’d been waiting for us all along.

  I’d been right about one thing: he had a gun, a very serious-looking one, too. And it was pointed at me.

  ‘Do you really think I would fall for such an amateurish effort?’ he said.

  I felt ashamed – he’d nailed it: totally amateurish.

  ‘Don’t take any notice of him,’ said PJ.

  How couldn’t I? As far as creepy went, this dude was right off the creepy meter. Creepy and smart, a dangerous combination.

  But as soon as I had that thought I knew it was the wrong one. Yes, he’s smart, but so are you, Dom.

  ‘And do you really think I’m that amateurish?’ I said, trying to get some ’tude back into my voice. I saw the tiniest flicker of something cross his face and I knew I was on the right track. Keep talking, Dom. And keep it smart.

  ‘You think I would come into a place like this without a backup plan?’ I said. ‘Without a contingency?’

  Another flicker across his face.

  ‘You don’t think I told somebody where I was?’

  ‘Really?’ he said, and I wondered if I’d overplayed my hand.

  ‘I can show you the text if you like?’ I said, reaching for my pocket.

  ‘Actually, I’d quite like to see that,’ he said.

  I took out my iPhone, and held it up so that he could see the message: dad if i’m not home by 12 then come to the 45 frank condon drive, mermaid waters.

  The man sat there, silent.

  The gun, I noticed, was now pointing to the ground.

  ‘There is no criminality here,’ he said. ‘Priscilla came here of her own free will to sort out her family’s finances. Isn’t that right, dear?’

  PJ nodded. ‘That’s right.’

  I looked hard at PJ – what the hell was going on here?

  ‘Brandon owes him money,’ she said.

  ‘Quite a lot of money,’ said the man, smiling like he’d just had some victory. Then he lifted the gun up, pointed it at me and pressed the trigger – a small flame appeared at one end.

  It was a cigarette lighter.

  He laughed and said, ‘Get the hell out of my house.’

  I didn’t need any further invitation: I grabbed PJ’s hand and made to get the hell out of his house.

  PJ wouldn’t budge, however.

  ‘Where’s my stuff?’ she said.

  ‘You’ve got some cheek, haven’t you?’ said the man, and I was pretty much in agreement with him on this one.

  But like I said, PJ wasn’t about to budge.

  ‘My phone?’ she said.

  It took a while but eventually the man got up out of his chair, went over to the kitchen. He opened a drawer, and held out a phone.

  PJ took it from him. ‘My spray?’

  He handed her a can of what looked like pepper spray.

  ‘And my money?’

  ‘You know how much your brother owes me!’ he said.

  ‘Him, not me,’ said PJ.

  But the man still had a you’ve-got-to-be-kidding look on his face.

  I picked up the gun/cigarette lighter. ‘Give my friend her money,’ I said, trying to get some of that Hound-style menace into my voice.

  It didn’t really work.

  ‘Or what, you going to light a smoke?’ he said, laughing.

  I moved over to the control panel for the CCTV, pointed the gun at the circuit.

  ‘They’re a good unit, the Boscan,’ I said. ‘But I’m just not sure they’re fireproof.’

  Immediately the man took out his wallet, pulled out some notes and handed them to PJ.

  ‘You tell your brother I want my money,’ he said.

  I grabbed PJ’s hand and pulled her towards the door.

  Once outside, once beyond the gate, once safely in suburbia’s bland but safe embrace, only then did I allow myself to relax, my shoulders to drop back from where they’d been, up around my ears.

  ‘What was all that about?’ I asked PJ as we hurried up the street and turned into a main road.

  I expected, and reckoned I deserved, a pretty major explanation.

  ‘It’s complicated,’ she said.

  ‘But –’ I started, but PJ leant towards me and placed her finger on my lips. ‘Trust me, it’s better if you just leave it, Dom.’

  I’m not sure why I did it, but I bit her gently on the finger.

  ‘You really are crazy,’ I said.

  ‘Taxi!’ screamed PJ.

  Which would have been a pretty weird response, except that a vacant taxi had just passed us. It stopped, and in no time at all, PJ had the back door open and was in the back seat.

  ‘Well, what are you doing?’ she said.

  I looked up and down Frank Condon Drive. So ordinary. So creepy.

  ‘I’m coming with you,’ I said.

  ‘Well hop in then,’ she said, sliding over.

  ‘Mater Hospital,’ she said, once I was next to her.

  ‘Please,’ I added.

  The taxi driver, I could see, was giving her the once-over in the rear-vision mirror.

  ‘So you got the money for the fare?’ he asked.

  ‘Of course I’ve got the –’ I started, but I didn’t get to finish my sentence because PJ took out a fifty-dollar note and tossed it onto the front seat.

  ‘I reckon that might do the trick,’ she said.

  The driver snatched up the note and did what he was supposed to do – he drove his taxi.

  In the meantime PJ was leaning against me, and I felt the weight of her head on my shoulder. In about five seconds flat, she was asleep. Again I could see the taxi driver clocking us, his face a cartoon of disapproval.

  I was just about to say something to him when I thought, why bother? PJ was safe. I was safe.

  FRIDAY

  WEIRD HAPPENS

  It had occurred to me, quite a few times actually, that as far as learning stuff went, The Debt had been a much better teacher than my incredibly expensive school. Without The Debt I wouldn’t have learnt about the generation of electricity, about the legend of Yamashita’s Gold, how to hotwire a bulldozer, how SMS messages are sent; without The Debt I wouldn’t have learnt lots of stuff. I reckoned The Debt had taught me a lot about the future – not what was going to happen, nobody knew that, but how to cope with the future. Because, let’s face it, as exciting as the future is, it can do your head in. The Debt had taught me to expect anything, and everything, and while it was good to be prepared it wasn’t good to be too prepared, to expect it to go logically, or smoothly. The Debt had taught me that weird happens, and weird happens often.

  So as we sat in the taxi, PJ’s sleeping head on my shoulder, my first impulse was to wake her up, fire off a whole lot of questions: who was the creepy man you told me not to ask about, why are we going to the hospital, who’s at the hospital, and so on. But I had learnt to keep my mouth shut; I knew these questions would be answered soon enough, that the best thing I could do right now was exactly what PJ was doing: relax. Let my adrenalin levels return to something like normal. I put my arm around PJ’s shoulder, and leant into her. It felt nice. It fe
lt calm.

  ‘Hospital,’ announced the driver.

  Actually he said ‘hospedal’, but I wasn’t going to hold that against him.

  PJ woke up.

  She looked at me, puzzled, as if she couldn’t quite recognise me. Then it must’ve all clicked into place, because she said, ‘Grammar Boy, let’s go.’

  ‘How about the change?’ I said to the driver.

  ‘Fixed rate,’ he said.

  ‘Fifty bucks?’

  ‘Let him have it,’ said PJ. ‘Obviously he needs it more than I do.’

  PJ sure had a strange altitude to money, but she was already out of the door, so there was no time to argue.

  I followed her into the hospital. From the way she negotiated the lift, and the corridors, she’d obviously been here many times before.

  When at last we stopped at a ward I wasn’t surprised to see Brandon in one of the four beds. What did surprise me was how sick he looked.

  He’d been thin for as long as I’d known him, but now he was, what was the word – emaciated. And white. Boy, was he white! Compared to him, sheets were grubby. Snow was dirty.

  ‘Sis,’ he said, his voice soft and lispy. ‘What took you so long?’

  ‘I had to see a dog about a man,’ she said.

  This was obviously some sort of family joke, because he smiled; his teeth were scummy brown.

  Then he noticed me.

  ‘What’s Grammar doing here?’

  Not even a ‘boy’ to go with it; for some reason it felt really insulting.

  ‘He’s helping,’ said PJ.

  She turned to me. ‘Can you stay here? I’ve got to sort something out.’

  I didn’t really want to stay with Brandon, but I didn’t see that I had much choice. When PJ left, I took the opportunity to check out the ward.

  Although there were three other beds in the room, only one of them was occupied. A man, maybe in his fifties, with lank long hair, was watching Who Wants to be a Millionaire on a portable television.

  ‘So, you and my sis are an item or something?’ said Brandon, in that winning way he had.

  To think I had actually gone to the bother of saving him from drowning once.

  ‘No, we’re just friends,’ I said, and then, because I was feeling sort of angry that PJ had left me with her loser brother, I said, ‘What’s wrong with you, anyway?’

  ‘I’ve got an incurable disease,’ he said, that typical joking tone. ‘I call it Paris Hilton, after Paris Hilton.’

  ‘Well done!’ I said, happy to go along with the joke.

  ‘Yeah, well, some of us are just born lucky, I s’pose.’

  ‘So let me guess,’ I said, going into a spooky voice.

  ‘You’ve got only six months to live.’

  His voice was even spookier. ‘Only two months to live, and then my brain is going to pretty much explode.’

  The Who Wants to be a Millioinaire man looked over at us.

  ‘Hey, can you delinquents keep it down?’ he said. ‘This is a shared ward.’

  Brandon and I smiled at each other – him with his scummy teeth, me with my hopefully not scummy teeth, united in our delinquency.

  PJ returned.

  ‘They don’t want you to leave,’ she said.

  ‘They never want me to leave,’ said Brandon brightly. ‘But I always do.’

  ‘Is that your final answer?’ asked the host on Who Wants to be a Millionaire.

  FRIDAY

  TAVERNITI’S

  Although everybody was waiting in the kitchen when I got home, it didn’t really register that it was me they were waiting for.

  ‘Der, like movie night,’ said Toby when I asked why they were all there.

  ‘Der, and it’s like your choice,’ added Miranda.

  I considered losing movie night, but when I thought about it, getting totally involved in a movie didn’t seem like such a – der – bad idea.

  And when I thought about it even further, an after-movie dinner at Taverniti’s didn’t seem like such a – der – bad idea, either. Because I was sure the Tavernitis had something to do with The Debt. So by going there, maybe something would happen, maybe I would finally get the last instalment. Maybe.

  When the five of us arrived at the cinema I scanned the board, before finally deciding on an action movie called Full Throttle!

  Miranda was appalled at my choice. ‘I can’t watch something called Full Throttle!’

  ‘Respect!’ said Mom, which was shorthand for the cardinal rule of movie night: we must respect each other’s choices, no matter how crap they were.

  ‘Well, at least it’s not subtitled,’ said Dad, throwing Miranda a look.

  The last movie she’d chosen had been Korean and pretty much half the screen had been taken up with subtitles. It was like having to read a book where you didn’t get to turn the pages.

  Actually, Full Throttle! ended up being a pretty good action film.

  But it was a really bad choice. Because instead of just letting it all wash over me, it got me thinking.

  People die really, really easily in action films.

  They get blown up.

  Sharks eat them.

  They get shot.

  But as I watched these people getting blown up, eaten by sharks and shot, I couldn’t help but ponder how, in real life, people don’t die so easily.

  After the movie was finished, we made our way outside. It was time for something to eat.

  I could see it in everybody’s faces: not Taverniti’s again. We’re sick of the calamari fritti and the garlic bread and the spag bol.

  So when Dad said, as he always did after the movie, ‘Where shall we put on the nosebag, then?’ there were plenty of suggestions.

  ‘There’s supposed to be this great new Mexican at Broadbeach,’ said Toby.

  ‘I’d just kill for some sushi,’ said Miranda.

  ‘Just no carbs for moi,’ said Mom.

  Dad held up both hands as if he was under siege and said, ‘Hold on, this isn’t looking much like a consensus to me.’

  I said just one word: ‘Taverniti’s.’

  My siblings looked at me like I’d totally betrayed them.

  ‘Looks as if everybody’s keen on somewhere different tonight, champ,’ said Dad, slapping me on the shoulder.

  ‘May I remind you all of the rules of movie night,’ I said. ‘Not only does the person get to choose the movie, they also get to choose where to eat.’

  ‘But we always go to Taverniti’s,’ said Toby, shifting into petulant mode.

  ‘Good, then you’ll be pretty familiar with the menu,’ I said.

  ‘I guess rules are rules,’ said Dad, smiling at me. ‘We’re going to Taverniti’s, then.’

  We walked there in silence; well, a sort of silence, because there was a lot of low-level grumbling going on. But everybody seemed to brighten up when we arrived and got the same excellent service we always did, maybe even better. And when the waiters insisted that Toby try some special bocconcini that had just come in from Italy he seemed to quickly forget how spagged out and totally bolled he’d been just a few minutes ago. Miranda just wasn’t the type to bear a grudge, though it was her movie choice next week and I was pretty sure it would be death by subtitle. Mom still didn’t seem happy, though. And it wasn’t as if there weren’t any carb-free options on the menu, either.

  We had our entrees and it was all very normal, so I figured a visit to the toilet was in order. Like the last time I was here, I walked past the toilet to the door that led to the lane at the back, pushing it open.

  There were cats everywhere, but no sign of old Mr Taverniti. I’m not sure why I was so certain he’d be here, but I sure was disappointed that he wasn’t. So disappointed I kicked the cooking oil can he usually sat on. Which sent it rolling, rattling, down the alley, the cats skedaddling in all directions.

  ‘Sto arrivando!’ came a voice from down the alley.

  And then old man Taverniti appeared from the gloom, buttoni
ng up his fly.

  ‘Sorry,’ I said, picking up the large oil can and putting it back in its place.

  He looked at me for a while before he finally said, ‘Il corridore.’

  I remembered from last time that this was Calabrian for ‘the runner’.

  ‘Si,’ I said. ‘That’s me.’

  Mr Taverniti sat down on the drum and took some salami and a knife from his pocket.

  What there was of his hair was all over the place, and he hadn’t zipped up his fly completely; I wondered if he was starting to lose it a bit. Even before he’d started cutting up the salami, the cats had reappeared and were taking it in turns to rub against his legs, to purr encouragingly.

  ‘Essere paziente gattini,’ he said to them. ‘Voi tutti ottenere un pezzo.’

  Now that I was right in front of him, I knew my hunch had been right: it was Mr Taverniti behind Mr Havilland in the photo on Imogen’s computer. Yes, it was a long time ago, but he hadn’t really changed that much.

  ‘Did you know Mr Havilland?’ I asked.

  ‘Mr Havilland?’ he said, his accent as thick as the salami he was slicing. ‘Il politico.’

  Even I recognised that word. ‘Si,’ I said. ‘Si.’

  ‘Ha avuto troppo avidi, quello.’

  ‘Sorry, I don’t understand Calabrian,’ I said.

  I took out my iPhone, turned on the Voice Memo function.

  ‘Mr Havilland?’ I prompted. ‘Il politico?’

  ‘Ha avuto troppo avidi, quello,’ he repeated. ‘Stava per rovinare tutto per tutti.’

  ‘What happened to Mr Havilland?’

  Again he answered in Calabrian: ‘Ho ottenuto i ragazzi a prendersi cura di lui. Gli hanno dato un’altra bocca. Rocco e Ron e Gnocchi.’

  But this time his words didn’t just disappear into the salami-scented air, this time they ended up in the phone’s memory.

  ‘Is Mr Havilland dead?’ I asked.

  There was no answer; instead the old man’s eyes seemed to be focused on a point beyond me, behind me.

  And he was now holding his knife by the blade.

  His wrist flicked.

  And the knife flew out of his hand.

  My first thought was that it was headed for me, that I’d asked too many questions and was now going to be de-questioned, to have my larynx sliced open by a steel blade.