Broken Toys

by Jackson Lear

  “I know we shouldn’t be into trying to outclass each other in the self misery department, but at least you still have a job,” said Amanda. “The whole unemployment angle isn’t exactly doing wonders for my self esteem.”

  “You’ve kicked arse on Broadway,” said Josh.

  Amanda shot out a quick breath of air. “Please. I had two plays in Edinburgh and one in New York, none of which got me anywhere close to what I needed. The writers were tried and tested, the actors knew what they were doing, I even had a lingerie scene in one, for fuck’s sake, because the producer insisted that it would draw in a bigger crowd. We were on the street handing out flyers, going to clubs and doing promo shoots, rallying everyone together. These were not massive productions. Four actors in one, six in the other two. Simple sets. I couldn’t even get my own friends to come because the tickets were too expensive. Four years went by without me even looking at a script. I have a stack of them at home waiting to be read. I don’t remember giving up. I just needed a job to keep me going for a while. One contact moved away, another fell pregnant and became a stay at home mom, another completely left the industry, someone else opened up a restaurant and got swallowed by debt, and the last I heard of one guy was that he became a lecturer for theatre production. I’m so far removed from it now that there just doesn’t seem to be any point in trying again.”

  “It’s never too late.”

  “I know. Every day I’m flooded with motivational quotes. I know to keep going, I know it’s supposed to be a challenge or everyone would be doing it, I know you should never give up on your dreams, but these were the dreams of a teenage girl whose bigger claim at that age was being the lead in a school production. Maybe I only loved it because it meant that I didn’t have to be in class, or that I got to do something fun. Or maybe it’s because every guy I’ve ever dated has been a, ‘let’s be realistic,’ type of person.”

  “Fuck being realistic,” said Josh. “As someone who only recently got his heart stomped on and lost a girlfriend, I say go for it.”

  “I just don’t know if I want to do it because I remember wanting it so badly twenty years ago, or what. Some people just need to do it as though they can’t breathe unless they’re living that life. I just don’t have that level of enthusiasm. It’s high, but not that high.” Her phone buzzed with Dr Frankenfurter’s “How’d you do I ...” She reached over and checked the message.

  Josh eased into a smile. “Let me guess.”

  “Yeah, I got bored and changed my phone settings,” said Amanda. She fired off a quick reply.

  Josh pulled out his phone and sent Amanda a smiley face. Three whistle-like notes burst from her phone.

  “Stop that,” said Amanda.

  “Now I’m trying to figure out what the tune is.”

  “From the Mission Impossible theme.”

  “Oh. Why?”

  Amanda rolled her eyes at Josh. “You mean, why would I choose a tune that was all about charming your way into people’s lives, breaking and entering, being caught out of bounds, and escaping by the skin of your teeth?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Because I already used the Muppets for someone else.” She clicked ‘send’ and laid her phone back on the table.

  “How often are you guys texting each other?”

  “Twenty times a day,” said Amanda, as she beamed.

  “Yeah, you guys are not complicated at all.”

  “How’d you do I ...”

  Amanda looked over the new message. “He says ‘hi.’”

  “Hi in return.”

  “How’d you do I ...”

  Amanda checked her phone again. “Apparently you’re getting a message.”

  Josh’s phone vibrated. ‘Gemma has taken the kids to her sister’s. She says it’s not safe in Luxford. I agreed.’ Josh placed his phone carefully on the table again and needed a moment to process the absolute train wreck that was happening that evening. “We’re getting drunk. You might have to sleep with him tonight.”

  Amanda glared at Josh and she looked as though she wanted to slap him. “I’ve been trying to do just that since I got here!”

  “Well, step it up another couple of gears! Go for the impossible shot. Call on every favour the universe owes you and snap some sense into him. We probably have fifteen minutes before he gets here.”

  Amanda nodded, finished off her beer, and hurried upstairs to change.

  73

  Josh

  The sound of the doorbell ringing puzzled him. Normally it was a quick bing bong from someone familiar quickly tapping it. This was an elongated biiiiing bonnnng. Whoever it was had never rung Josh’s doorbell before.

  “I’m not ready!” Amanda called out from upstairs.

  Josh edged towards his front door. A lump was building in his throat as he ran through every possibility of the mystery guest. It was the police. Had to be. They were there to bring him in for questioning for something to do with Catherine Shievers. Or they were there to tell him that Hannah had died in a car crash. Or it was Brooke with a packed suitcase telling him that she had just left her husband. That one caused a flutter in Josh’s chest. He reached the side window and considered the likelihood of it being her as too remote to consider. But he knew that every so often karma allowed the wonderful to happen.

  Then again, it could easily be James McIntyre armed with a hammer.

  Josh pulled back the curtain beside the door. A short man and a shorter woman, both in their sixties, glanced at Josh.

  Whoever they are, they have the wrong house, he thought. He flicked the lock and pulled the door open. “Hi.”

  The two retirees smiled gently at the man of the house. “Hello,” said the man. “I’m David Shievers, this is my wife Susannah.”

  A burst of confusion hit Josh in an instant as he shifted gears from ‘you are about to hear the worst news of your life’ to ‘shit, I found your dead daughter.’ Much to his surprise, Mrs Shievers reached out and pulled Josh in for a hug.

  Amanda trotted down stairs in a dress just as Josh closed the front door. Her make up was fresh, she smelled glorious, and she looked … confused. “That wasn’t him?”

  “No,” muttered Josh. “That was Mr and Mrs Shievers … giving me a cheque for ten thousand pounds …”

  Amanda raised both eyebrows. “Holy shit!”

  “I know.”

  Amanda held onto a moment’s worth of silence before she guffawed. It was as much to her own surprise as Josh’s. “I mean, if someone handed me a cheque for that amount ...”

  “Yeah, I’m going to have to give half of this to Anthony. He did help. And I did kinda nudge his marriage towards a divorce.”

  “He did that himself and it was already heading in that direction,” said Amanda.

  Bing bong.

  “That’s him,” said Josh. He checked to make sure Amanda was ready before he opened the door.

  “Hey. I need to see all of your maps and notes for where you thought Catherine was buried,” said Anthony.

  Amanda slumped forward in a move that was noticed by the one person she tried to hide it from.

  “What’s going on?”

  “Just … life,” mumbled Amanda, as she went to the kitchen to grab herself a beer.

  “Did you bring the scotch?” asked Josh.

  “No. Why?”

  “’Cause we’re celebrating.” Josh raised the cheque up to Anthony’s face.

  Anthony simply nodded. “Oh.”

  Josh slumped forward as well. “You know I’m splitting this with you, right?”

  “Good.”

  “So go home and break out the eighty pound scotch.”

  “Later. The police still haven’t found James McIntyre.”

  “You have to be patient,” said Josh. “They know what they’re doing.”

  “Sure they do, but until they pull their finger out of their arses I need you to have a think about something.” Anthony reached into his bag and pulled out a couple of maps of
Luxford, complete with circles and scribbles.

  It looked a lot like Josh’s Catherine Shievers collection. “You’re actually looking for a madman?”

  “Yeah. Now, I don’t know where every empty house in town is, but I have my theories.” Anthony handed across a map of Strachen Road. “There are twenty houses along here. Two are empty, one is burnt down. I went through the empty houses this morning.”

  “You what? You went through the most likely houses of a madman who has a gun?”

  “I didn’t go into the houses, I just went through the garden and looked inside the windows. I didn’t find him.”

  “You could have been killed.”

  “I was careful. I had my binoculars and I took my time.”

  “Still ...” said Josh, shaking his head.

  “I remember his friends from school. Loomer, I think. I don’t know his real name. And Nicholas Kalistar.”

  That clicked closer in Josh’s mind than he cared for. “Right. What about them?”

  “I was hoping for their addresses,” said Anthony.

  “Those two don’t live here anymore. I don’t think their parents are here any more either. Why?”

  “I’m just checking their places as well. If you were hiding from the police, and staying in Luxford, where would you hide?”

  Josh sighed and stared upwards. “Honestly? You know that three storey block on Gilmore? I’d probably hide on the roof. I’d bring a tent and stay there all day, climb down at night.”

  Anthony drew in a sharp breath and shook his head. “That wasn’t exactly the answer I was going for. I thought you would’ve said something about our childhood, like finding a secret place that you thought no one would know about, and go back there. Like hiding out in Patrick’s shed, or something like that.”

  “So you think James is hiding near Nicky Kalistar’s old house?” Josh asked.

  “Yeah. Why not?” Anthony pulled out another map. “I’ve highlighted in green all of the shops in town that deal with food. In pink I have all of the restaurants. The closer he is to food, the less likely he is to be caught out on the street. The farther away, the longer he’s exposed. So, maybe there’s an empty house within these radiuses that we could check out.”

  Josh glanced off into the corner. “Would it be ‘radii’?”

  Anthony rolled his eyes and sighed. “Every empty house within the area I’ve highlighted. How’s that?”

  “Radiuses might actually be right.”

  Amanda strolled out to the deck outside and closed the door behind her.

  “Are you going to help me or not?” asked Anthony.

  “Of course. But I get to ask you one question right now and you have to tell me the truth, no matter how much it might suck, okay?”

  Anthony sighed and feared that Josh was derailing the conversation. “Fine.”

  Josh dropped into a whisper. “Would you be happier with Amanda as the woman in your life, or Gemma?”

  “What the fuck?” whispered Anthony.

  “I’m going to help you find James but only after you answer that question.”

  “Fuck you.”

  “Then I won’t help you. Even though I know the answer is Amanda and that it has always been Amanda, I won’t help you until you tell me if it is her or Gemma.”

  Anthony gritted his teeth and would have given anything in the world to have the power to send a rush of telepathic agony through Josh. “Amanda.”

  His whole chest expanded as a smile took him over completely. “Good.”

  “So you’ll help?”

  “I’ll help.”

  “Thank you. And now that we’re being not so private, was that whole gay experience with Mr Big Schlong real?”

  “Pffft, no,” said Josh. “I’ve had that story locked and loaded for whenever I needed a particular moment. If I was going with something funny I would have said that he had a tiny little dick. But no, you needed something that would distract you for a while.”

  Anthony shrugged it off. “Well played.”

  “Ta. So after I dropped you two off, what’d you two get up to?”

  “I went home as quickly as I could.”

  “Too much temptation?”

  “Neither of us were in the mood,” said Anthony. “So listen, Gemma can’t find out about any of this. Not of Amanda, not of us going after James, none of it.”

  “I understand.”

  “I wasn’t second guessing your bounds of secrecy. I mean to say that we have to do this thing without her ever finding out. So, how do we hunt down this arsehole without my family getting caught in the crossfire?”

  “I guess you’re going to have to trust Amanda and I to go exploring on our own, and keep you on the sidelines.”

  Anthony gritted his teeth again and shook his head.

  “There’s no way Gemma is not going to be suspicious of something, and she’s most likely going to think that there’s something going on with you and Amanda, not you hunting down a local arsehole.”

  “How do I stay in the loop?”

  “How about, once a week I come over to Woodards, and once a week you come over here. We share what we have. And in the meantime we hope like hell that the police catch James before he ...” Josh trailed off.

  “Strikes again?”

  “Yeah, I was trying to avoid that.” They both knew that Josh was referring to Daniel or Ian as the next targets, and it fired a new incentive to get working on it as quickly as possible.

  “I don’t like feeling this useless,” said Anthony.

  “You have full time commitments that you can’t avoid. But if we find anything we’ll let you know right away. We will, however, not be doing this tonight.”

  “Why the hell not?”

  “Because a night of scotch is on the table, my friend, and I’ll be too drunk to drive. So will you.”

  “I will, will I?”

  “I hope so. I have to make a quick run for booze. There’s Vallium and condoms in the medicine cabinet.”

  “…Why?”

  Josh stared back at Anthony. “Really? ‘Why?’ I mean, Jesus Christ …” He shook his head in despair and went out to the shops.

  74

  Josh

  By the time Josh returned, Anthony had cornered Amanda around Josh’s dining table looking over every map he had of Luxford.

  “We’re not celebrating?” asked Josh.

  “Of course we are,” said Anthony. “But we’re also doing this.”

  “And we’re having a lot of fun,” said Amanda, flatly.

  “Then more fun is on the way!” Josh pulled out a four pack of vodka pops.

  “Oh my god,” murmured Amanda.

  “I know, right! Bring us back to the good old days?”

  “They’re nothing but sugary alcohol flavoured water.”

  “And we drank a gazillion of them,” said Josh, beaming. He popped three open and handed them over. “Plus, if you drink them fast enough, they don’t actually taste so bad.”

  Anthony took a swig. “Yeesh.”

  “These things are for everyone under eighteen,” said Amanda.

  “I also have a very manly bottle of scotch and some decent beer.”

  “What about something womanly?” asked Amanda.

  “I’ve seen you drinking beer upside down. Scotch is about as womanly as you get.”

  “That’s not true,” said Anthony. “I once saw her drink a cosmopolitan.”

  “Just … pass me the scotch,” said Amanda.

  Josh flicked through several aerial print-outs with a lot of red crosses over them, tapped the bundle against his lips, and finally dropped it all onto the table.

  A thump from the side of the house froze them all to the core. After a quick glance from one person to the next to confirm that it wasn’t just their imagination, Josh reached for wooden katana and crept to his side window.

  Anthony drew in a careful breath while Amanda braced herself against a violent crash through the window.
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  The thump returned. Josh rose himself up onto his tiptoes, peered through the window, and lowered himself back down. “It’s the guy next door.”

  Josh eased back and returned to the dining table. “James has no money, no food, no supplies, no change of clothes, and he’s been hiding pretty well for the last couple of days. Food in particular is the big indicator here. If someone reported a break in and their fridge was ransacked, the police would be all over it. The same with restaurants. But, nothing.”

  “He’s still here,” said Anthony. “He wants revenge on Ian and Daniel.”

  “Then why wait?” Josh looked from Anthony to Amanda as neither of them volunteered an answer. “The guy collected cars, right?”

  “And they were all by the side of his house, damaged, or in need of repair,” said Anthony.

  “Then he’ll know how to rip them apart and hot wire one.”

  “Except no one has reported a stolen car. It’d be all over the news if he had done so. I’m betting everything I have on his determination to do to Ian and Daniel what he did to Warrick.”

  There was another thump from outside, followed quickly by what could only be Josh’s next door neighbour taking the bin out to the side of the road.

  “Maybe Toads already killed him,” Amanda said.

  “Or James has a secret bunker that’s stocked for an apocalypse.”

  “Are there any garages or storage sheds in the area?” asked Anthony.

  “Thousands,” said Josh. “I walked around enough of them when I was trying to find Catherine.”

  Anthony ran his hand across his chin, pausing briefly as the stubble dug into him. “Come on guys, help me out here.”

  Amanda poured him a quick glass of scotch. “Alright. The easiest way to remain hidden is to stay in someone’s furnished and fully stocked house. Maybe he’s killed them and they’re slowly decomposing in a locked room, maybe they’re on holiday. He’d have access to the Internet, TV, food, bed, a change of clothes, everything.”