Tunnel Vision

by Andrew Christie

  “No. The experience.”

  “Oooh. The experience, eh?” She held up both hands and made quotation marks in the air on either side of her greying head.

  “Never mind,” Manny said. “What’s her name, this woman we’re meeting?”

  “What?” Ruth cupped her hands behind her ears.

  “Piss off.”

  Ruth laughed and shouted back, “Her name’s Ilona. Stefan calls her Ili.”

  “Ilona?”

  “Yeah. Ili.” She looked around again. “Do you think I can smoke here?”

  Manny just shook his head and looked around at the people waiting to get drinks from the bar. The stack of speakers behind them made the music resonate in his chest. He wished he had a beer and someone to dance with. He watched a woman walk past them then pause to sip at her plastic cup of beer. Nice arse, nice tits. She brushed her hair out of her face and licked spilt beer off her fingers before catching up with her boyfriend. Manny followed the flick and sway of her hips, her white bikini bottom glowing in the wash of UV light. Her companion, a young man with a blond crew cut and pierced nipples, glanced in Manny’s direction, no doubt wondering what he and Ruth were doing there, fully clothed and not drinking. Especially Ruth, sixty years old and looking it, dressed in her best sweet-old-Aunty-Ruth outfit. White blouse buttoned up to her scrawny neck, her gold-framed spectacles so thick she could have been looking up from the bottom of a pair of whisky tumblers. Manny grinned back at the young man and nodded. He would’ve raised a drink to him if he’d had one. The man turned away and said something to the woman. She glanced over at them, laughing as she took her boyfriend’s hand then led the way down the steps to the pool deck. Manny watched her arse all the way, until it disappeared beneath the water’s fog-covered surface.

  Ruth’s hand on his arm brought his attention back. “I think this is her.”

  Manny looked around to see a tanned, fit-looking woman heading towards them. Probably in her forties, with an ID tag on a lanyard around her neck, she was dressed as if she were working on a cruise ship: white T-shirt, blue shorts, and bright white sneakers.

  “Mrs. Wexler?” The woman spoke to Ruth, but her glance drifted to Manny.

  “Ilona? Lovely to meet you, dear.” Ruth held out her hand. “It’s ‘Miss,’ actually, but call me Ruth, dear. This is my nephew, Manny.”

  “It’s a pleasure to meet you.” Although Ilona’s English was good, her accent was strong. She gave both of their hands a quick, firm shake. “We can go somewhere quieter. Where we can talk.”

  Manny and Ruth followed Ilona through an arched doorway and along a tiled corridor towards the back of the main building. She led them up a flight of stairs and ushered them into a small, bare meeting room. She lifted three plastic chairs off a stack in the corner and placed them around a small table. “Please. Sit.”

  “Thank you.” Ruth gave her a big smile. “Your cousin, Stephan, said to say hello.”

  “He is well?”

  “Oh, yeah. He’s in fine form, old Stephan. Louisa too, and the rest of the family. They’re all well.”

  “Good.” Ilona laced her fingers in front of her on the table. “That is good.”

  “So…” Ruth began.

  “So you want to know about this Harry Kovacs?”

  “Yes, dear,” Ruth said. “We all went to school together: Harry, me, and my brother, Ron. And Stephan of course. Haven’t seen Harry for years. Must have left England back in the late seventies. Sometime around then.”

  “And you want him, why?”

  Ruth gave a sheepish smile and shrugged. “Oh, you know, old times’ sake, I suppose. We were quite good friends for a while back then. Him and me.”

  The woman sniffed and glanced at Manny. He shrugged as well, as if it had nothing to do with him.

  “This Harry Kovacs is not a good man. He is criminal. You know that, yes?”

  Ruth spread her hands. “Well, we were all a bit wild when we were young, love. Most of us grew out of it, though.”

  Ilona watched Ruth, not saying anything.

  Ruth glanced down, twisting the rings on her finger. “We were close, for a time. Me and Harry.” She smiled and looked back up. “It’s been a long time, but it would be really nice to see him again.”

  “Harry Kovacs is wild still. Has not grown out of it. As I said, he is criminal. Dangerous criminal.”

  Ruth shrugged again. “I’m sure he can be, love, but he’ll be glad to see a friend from the old days. Catch up, have a laugh and a drink or two. It’s just a social visit.”

  “Perhaps.” She looked at Manny. “You know this man too?”

  “Before my time, I’m afraid. He used to hang out with my father and Aunty Ruth back in the day.”

  “Well, now he sells drugs. Or those who work for him do. They try to sell them here at the baths. They try to make us let them in. They put one of the managers in hospital last month.”

  Ruth sighed. “It sounds like old Harry hasn’t changed much. I’m sorry about your manager, love, but I’ve known Harry for years. We’re not interested in his business here. I just want to catch up. Like I said, for old times’ sake.”

  Manny couldn’t tell whether Ilona believed what Ruth was saying or if she just didn’t care. She probably just wanted to get rid of them as quickly as possible. “He has a bar on Dessewffy utca over near the railway terminus. That is where he…operates.”

  “What’s it called, this club?” Manny said.

  “Gold.”

  Manny and Ruth couldn’t help glancing at each other. “Could you write the address down for me, please?” Manny said, pulling a pen and notepad out of his jacket pocket and passing them across the table. “Dessewffy…utca?” he read upside down as she wrote down the address.

  “Yes.” Ilona slid the pen and pad back. “Show that to the taxi driver. You can go now if you want. The bars there will just be getting started. They don’t close till morning. Those people, they don’t like daylight.”

  Manny looked at his watch. Ten forty-five. “Thanks, we might just do that.”

  When they got back out to the pool area, a wall of pounding music hit them, forcing Ruth to give up her description of the dress Stefan’s daughter had been married in. Not that Ilona seemed interested anyway. She just wanted them gone, these English friends of her cousin. Manny didn’t think she had bought Ruth’s “young love” routine. Not that it mattered. He lingered beside the exit and gave the heaving mass of shiny, wet bodies one last look before Ilona ushered them out.

  It was well after eleven by the time they’d found a taxi and made their way across central Budapest to Kovac’s club. The cab pulled up in the middle of a narrow street, lined with old four-storey buildings and parked cars. Ruth stood in the road, watching a group of five young men entering the club through a pair of doors painted gold and trimmed in red leather. The men were excited, laughing, and jostling one another. Speaking in English too, Manny noted, thinking they were probably a bucks party. Come to Hungary for a sex-and-booze binge before the lucky man tied the knot—it was a thing now, sex tourism in Eastern Europe. Manny took a professional interest in the way the pair of bouncers on the door handled the group. Keeping enough distance to move quickly if they had to, with one of them watching the group, the other keeping an eye on the street. They were big, their blond hair clipped short, their eyes hard and set deep in their heads.

  As the bouncers ushered Manny and Ruth through the door, they gave them the same sly smiles they’d given the bucks-night group. The hostess who greeted them was all eyelashes and cleavage. If she thought Ruth’s presence at the club was unusual, she didn’t show it. They were handed off to another woman in fishnets, stilettos, and not much else who guided them through the heavy music and lurid red-and-purple lighting to a table between the bar and the stage. Manny ordered drinks: a vodka and tonic for Ruth and a beer for himself, while Ruth checked out the two girls on the semicircular stage. The pair were rubbing themselves against golden poles a
nd holding hands as they spun past each other through the splashes of yellow light that dotted the stage. The audience was mostly men and mostly young, with only a few couples scattered about the room. A few older guys were sitting at the bar. Ruth was the oldest woman in the club. If she looked out of place, though, she didn’t act it, nodding and smiling at the dancers, waving her cigarette at them. “They’re not bad,” she said, not taking her eyes off the bare-breasted women. “At least they know how to dance.”

  Manny was checking out the staff: a barman, three hostesses, and two security that he could see. Bound to be more he couldn’t. Any offices would be behind the stage somewhere, he guessed. “Can you see him?” he asked Ruth.

  She shook her head, her eyes glued to the dancer closest to them who was sliding headfirst down a pole with her legs splayed wide.

  “Enjoy that,” Manny said when their drinks arrived. “They’re bound to cost a fortune.”

  Ruth shrugged. “This place is for tourists. We’ll just have the one; we’re not going to find Harry out here anyway. He’ll be in the back somewhere. Probably with one of the girls, Harry always fancied himself. Could never keep it in his pants.”

  They were finishing their drinks and about to leave when Ruth froze, watching a man at the end of the bar who had just come out from behind the stage. “Well, hello there, Harry,” she said under her breath. “You’ve put on a bit of weight, my son.”

  The man was tall and heavy, the skin on his face lined and pockmarked—a contrast to the dyed black hair slicked across his skull like a bathing cap.

  “That’s him?”

  Ruth nodded. “He’s looking his age, even with the dyed hair, but it’s definitely Harry.”

  Kovacs was talking to the barman around the cigarette he was lighting. The bartender laughed and set a glass in front of Kovacs, pouring him a vodka as Kovacs blew smoke out of the side of his mouth and slid onto a stool.

  “So now what?” Manny asked.

  “Let’s get out of here before he recognises me.”

  One of the security men came up to Kovacs and sat on the stool next to him as Manny paid for the drinks. He wished he’d enjoyed his beer more; it cost more than fifty quid.

  Out on the street, Manny approached one of the bouncers. “What time do you close, mate?”

  The man raised a scarred eyebrow.

  “Close? Closeky?” Ruth chimed in helpfully. “What time?”

  Manny waved at Ruth to shut her up and pointed to his watch, then mimed closing the doors. The bouncer nodded and smiled. He held up a hand with his fingers and thumbs extended.

  “Five? Five a.m., yeah?”

  The bouncer nodded. “Five. Yes.”

  “Cheers, mate.” Manny looked up and down the street before turning back to the bouncer. “A cab?”

  The bouncer pointed down the road, where the lights of a major street were visible. Manny nodded. “Cheers.” He ushered his aunt across the road to avoid another group of young men headed towards the club. Their pink skin was clean and scrubbed, their hair shiny and spiked with gel. Obviously keen to get on with their dirty night out, they were all talking and laughing with high-pitched excited voices. As the men filed past the bouncers and through the doors, Ruth nodded towards the alley that ran alongside the club. A man in chef’s whites was leaning against the wall, smoking beside a fire-escape door that was propped open with a brick.

  “That’s how we get to him,” Ruth said, slipping her arm through Manny’s.

  Chapter 6

  Airless

  Billy crossed the street outside Rashmi’s house, stepping out of the shade and into bright morning sunshine. He checked that no one was watching before he jumped the fence and slipped down the path alongside the house to her bedroom window. He waited there till he heard her moving inside, before he knocked gently on the glass.

  Rash’s head appeared, pushing the curtain aside. Her blue hair looked faded, her brown skin somehow pale. She opened the window. “Hey, Billy.”

  “Hey,” Billy said, passing his bag up to her.

  “Shit,” she said, feeling the weight. “What’s in it?”

  “My laptop and camera. Okay if I leave them here?”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  Billy grabbed the windowsill and hoisted himself up. He had one knee on the sill when the doorbell chimes rang through the house. Rashmi and Billy looked at each other for a moment. “I’ll wait out here,” he said, dropping back down onto the path as Rashmi pulled the window closed.

  Billy heard voices from the front of the house. Rash’s mother and someone else. He carefully made his way towards the street, stepping off the path onto the freshly dug-over soil just before the corner. Then he crawled up behind a big shrub where he could see the front of the house through the dense mat of dark-green leaves. A woman and three men were standing on the front path. They were cops. Had to be, in their dark suits on such a hot day. The men all had short dark hair and wraparound sunglasses, like a uniform. The woman had red hair pulled back in a long plait behind her back. She and the oldest-looking man, the one with a black moustache, were talking to Sally. The other two were looking around, checking out the street and the houses on either side. Billy stayed still. Movement is what gives you away; he knew that. It was the sort of thing John was always telling him, and sometimes what John said turned out to be useful. Billy wondered why there were so many of them. Four was a lot of cops in his experience. It usually meant they were expecting trouble or putting on a show. They might be trying to scare Rashmi and Sally. He hoped that was all. Surely they weren’t going to arrest Rashmi.

  When they all went inside, Billy slid over and leaned against the fence, wondering how long they would be, whether it was worth waiting. Safer to stay put, he decided. They might see him if he tried to get back out to the street.

  About twenty minutes later, as he was flicking ants off his legs and wondering if Rash could get him something to eat, he heard her shouting and crying, then doors slamming somewhere inside. The cops came out the front door soon after. Two of them headed straight for the car; the other two, the woman and the moustache cop, paused at the door to talk to Sally.

  “I’m calling our lawyer,” she said. “We’re not talking to you again without her.”

  “We don’t need your permission to make an arrest, Mrs McPhedran,” the woman said. “If we decide to go that way, we’ll just get on with it.”

  “Goodbye, Mrs. McPhedran,” the moustache cop said. “You’ll be hearing from us.”

  Sally slammed the front door as the cops made their way back to the car. Billy watched as they sat in their vehicle for a few moments; the woman was doing a lot of talking, the moustache man alternately nodding and shaking his head. After they’d gone, Billy crawled back out of the garden, brushed the soil off his knees, and knocked on Rash’s window again. When she pulled the curtain aside, her red eyes and sniffing nose replaced Billy’s reflected face. She was talking before the window was fully open. “Bastards are saying I’m a fucking terrorist. Saying it’s something to do with the Tamils in Sri Lanka. My father and his brother.”

  As soon as Billy was inside, Rash slammed the window shut and pulled the curtain closed. She threw herself backwards onto the bed, landing on top of piles of cushions and twisted sheets, leaving Billy standing by the window, unsure where he could safely step. Her room was usually really tidy but now there were clothes everywhere, all over the floor and hanging off the chest of drawers and desk. They were topped off by a coating of empty snack packets and drink bottles. With the window shut and the curtain pulled, it was hot and dark in the bedroom. Airless. Girl smelling. Bright summer light flared at the edges of the heavy curtain but didn’t make it far into the dark depths of Rashmi’s bedroom cave.

  “How can they blame your father? He’s dead, isn’t he?” Billy picked up his bag and carefully—trying not to step on anything breakable or on any girl underwear—made his way to the far end of the bed. Maybe leaving his stuff here wasn’t su
ch a brilliant idea.

  “Of course he is. But they say he was with the LTTE. They’re wrong. His brother was, not my father.”

  “What’s that? The LTTE?” Billy said.

  “The Tamil Tigers. They were the separatist army in the civil war. The ones that lost. But my father wasn’t in any army. He was a doctor.” She threw one of the multicoloured pillows at the door. “And anyway, he’s dead.” She lay down again, sniffing. “And what if he was involved with the LTTE? The government death squads were killing our people. They killed him. Pulled him out of his bed in the middle of the night and shot him.”

  The whites of Rashmi’s eyes shone wet in the gloom of the room. Billy wondered if she’d been there when it had happened. He couldn’t remember if she’d said she was in Africa then, or maybe back in Australia. She would have been very young, four or something. Does she remember it? he wondered. Or does she just remember what she was told? His own early memories were images of places or just feelings. A lot of them he wasn’t even sure where they were. His strongest memories were from his gran’s house, the sound of the big clock being wound up with the special key. Snick snick snick. That was a good sound. Tight. Safe. Billy often wondered what had happened to that big clock. It wasn’t there when John had bought the house, so he supposed the hospital had sold it. Probably someone rich had it now.

  “The stupid ASIO arseholes won’t listen to us. My father was a doctor. He saved people’s lives. It wasn’t his fault that his brother fought with the Tigers. It was a fucking civil war. My father could have left with Mum and me, but he stayed. He wanted to help his country. All those dickheads hear is Tamil Tigers, and they want to connect the dots, say I’m working with my uncle. They want to make me look crazy. Like I’m the dangerous one. A terrorist.”

  Billy wanted to touch her, tell her it would be all right. “They want everyone to talk about Baxter or terrorists,” he said, “anything but the refugees. To distract them from what you were trying to say about the boat people, about the government letting them die. All that. If they make you out to be a terrorist, no one will care what you say.”