Dark Fires Shall Burn (32 page)

Templeton draws up a chair and turns pieces over in his hands, not comprehending the relationship the fragments bear to the larger image on the box.

Tipper is in a jovial mood. ‘Okay, this is an old one, from Chicago. Here we go.' She smiles. ‘Two young couples are honeymooning in a hotel. They meet over dinner one night. The next morning the young husbands are waiting in the lobby. “Where's your wife?” asks the first. “Upstairs, smoking. And yours?” answers the second. “Mine's hot, too,” the first guy says. “But not smoking!”' She slaps her knee.

‘Tipper, that's terrible,' Templeton groans.

‘Your generation just lacks a sense of humour.'

‘Whatever you say,' he indulges her.

‘How about this one. Are you ready for another?'

‘Do we have a choice?' Nellie says, nudging Templeton.

‘Alright, alright. “Is she a natural blonde or a platinum blonde?” one guy says to another. “Neither,” the second guy replies. “She's a suicide blonde.” First guy asks, “A suicide blonde? What's that?” Second guy says, “Dyed by her own hand!”'

‘Errrr.' Templeton wrinkles his nose.

‘Oh, come on. That is wit. You don't think that's funny? Dot would think that's funny. Hey, Dot!' she hollers. ‘Come down here and tell the sprat how funny I am.'

Dot comes down the stairs, her hair askew, looking exhausted. Templeton fixes her a drink, and she takes it gratefully.

‘How is she?' Nellie asks, serious.

‘She'll live.'

‘That's good news.
Cin-cin
!' Tipper raises her glass and they join her. ‘So, Dolly is still sweating in jail, is she?'

‘Apparently so.'

‘Snowy too?'

‘He's in the hospital with a split head.'

‘And your sister? Where is she in all this?'

‘Still at Dolly's. Or, at least she was a day or so ago. Jack Tooth came and cleaned her out.'

‘Hmm. Cleaned her out, I'm sure he did. But did she give it willing?'

‘What's that supposed to mean?' Templeton bristles.

‘I'm no good at these bloody things.' Nellie throws a puzzle piece across the room.

‘Ah, forget it, boyo. I didn't mean anything.' Tipper waves her hand, dismissing it.

At a quarter past ten there is a knock at the door. ‘We're not open yet,' Tipper hollers.

Nellie shimmies over and slips the spyhole open. ‘Oh
fuck
.' She puts a hand to her mouth and ducks just in time. There is a bang and a bloody great hole where the lock was a moment ago.

‘Get behind me,' Tipper roars and is on her feet and snatching up her gun.

Templeton places himself in front of Dot, fear striking deep in his bowels. Dot picks up a knife from the table. Nellie runs and hides behind the bar counter.

The door bursts off its hinges and Jackie swaggers into the room. Behind him is Errol, holding a Winchester Model 12. Jackie's razor swings back and forth by his trouser leg, unsheathed.

‘G'day,' Jackie sneers. ‘Hello Dot.' He nods in her direction. ‘It's been awhile.'

‘What in God's name is going on here?' Tipper plants her feet wide. ‘What do you think you're doing, bursting in and ruining my door? You have some cheek, lads. Some cheek indeed.'

‘It's Tipper, am I right?' Jackie says. ‘Sorry, don't know if it's Mister
or Missus.' He reveals his teeth in a snarl.

Errol grunts. ‘We could take its clothes off and see.'

‘We don't have no beef with you,' Jackie tells her. ‘There's just a small matter of some unpaid debts. Seems two of your girls have been a little light-fingered. I'm here to collect.' He points at Dot. ‘Five pounds, plus interest.'

‘Annie paid you already. I know it for a fact. So I do not know what you think you are doing here, but I would advise you to leave.' Dot sounds confident, but Templeton can hear her heart banging behind him.

‘Nellie Flanagan, is she here?' Errol asks.

‘No, she's not. I don't know where she is,' Dot answers. Templeton wills himself not to betray Nellie's hiding spot with an errant glance.

‘What do you want with her?' Tipper stares down her gun barrel.

‘Well,' Errol rocks on his heels and pulls at his belt buckle, lifting up his trousers over his paunch. ‘The tart gingered me when I was having a root. Took me wallet right outta my back pocket. Five pounds in there too, dontcha know?'

‘Is that right?' Tipper says. ‘So all you two meatheads want is ten pounds between you. That's the reason you've come bursting in here, harassing my girls.'

‘What's the matter — didn't you know Nellie was round Dolly's a few days back, getting some of what you can't give her?' Jackie says, and Errol cracks up in mock laughter.

‘Shit,' Dot says under her breath, squeezing Templeton's hand. He looks down and sees that her other hand, holding the knife, is trembling.

Tipper says nothing, just keeps on looking at them over the sleek line of the gun.

‘Is she here or isn't she?' Errol asks. ‘If she ain't, then you can settle it. You're the one that foots her bills, isn't that right? You're her daddy. At least you think you are.'

‘She must have missed a bit of the old in-out, in-out.' Jackie thrusts his hips.

‘Oh, shit,' Dot murmurs again. Templeton grips her little hand in his larger one tightly, whether to show support or from fear he's not sure.

‘You deaf or something?' Tipper asks. ‘Dot already told you Nellie's not here. Now I don't know what you're thinking, busting up my place and asking me to pay money to some fucking eunuch who needs a gun fifteen times bigger than his cock to feel like a man. You're telling me my girl stole from you? Well, you shouldn't have been so bloody stupid in the first place! Why did you think she'd root you if it weren't to rob you blind: you think she liked it? You think she liked some rutting hog on top of her? You're dumber than you look, and that's fucking saying a lot.'

‘What do you know, you bulldagger?' Jackie lifts his razor but he pauses when Tipper shifts the gun from Errol, aiming it right between his eyes.

‘You're a bloody freak,' shouts Errol. ‘You're the third sex, that's what them newspapers say, freaks of nature. The Germans, they had the right idea putting all of you down. Like dogs.' He eyeballs Dot. ‘You too.'

Templeton sees the vein above Tipper's eye begin to pulse.

‘Although their one mistake was gassing you perverts. It don't hurt bad enough!' He glances back at Jackie, who is grinning, face red with silent laughter.

‘You think you're their daddy? Their protector?' Jackie steps forward. ‘You got a pair of tits too, love. Somewhere under that damn man's shirt and tie you're wearing, you're a woman. Did you forget that?'

‘What do you think, Jackie? Shall we pull 'er tits out and show 'em to her?' Errol laughs.

The muzzle of Tipper's gun flashes and Templeton sees Errol drop almost before he hears the bang.

‘You bitch!' Errol shrieks from the floor. He puts his palm to his stomach and it comes away soaked. ‘Fuuuck! She shot me right in the fuckin' guts.'

Dot and Templeton look wildly at the hole in Errol's stomach, until Dot begins to laugh. Nellie pops up from behind the kitchen bench like a Jack-in-the-box and kicks Errol's shotgun away from his reach, into the corner.

‘You were here the whole goddamned time, you fucken bitch,' Errol groans.

Jackie is rooted to the spot, his eyes black and unreadable. ‘You made a big mistake, darlin'. A big, big mistake.'

‘Just try it. You want to fuck with me?' Tipper points the gun at Jackie.

‘Help me, for fuck's sake, Jackie!' Errol whimpers, the end of his sentence pinched in a rising howl of pain. ‘I'm bleeding here. Get me out to the car. Take me to a hospital.'

‘Takes days to die from a shot in the guts,' Nellie says. ‘It's slow. It hurts.' She smiles as she nudges Errol with her boot.

‘You fucken whores, I'll fucken gut you all,' Jackie shouts, pocketing his blade and moving over to hustle Errol up onto his feet.

‘Take me to the hospital,' Errol grunts, one hand clapped against his middle. His face is white and taut like a rubber mask.

‘Better listen to your friend there,' Templeton ventures, daring to look up at Jackie. Inside he is quivering, but he sets his chin firm and strong in contempt, and looks into those flat affectless eyes.

‘You're a dead little son of a bitch.' Jack fixes on Templeton and then looks around the room wildly. ‘You're all fucken dead.'

TWENTY-NINE

Kate Durand lifts her knife and taps it against the boiled egg. The hat scissors off cleanly, exposing the just-set yolk. ‘Eat your soldiers,' she says across the table.

Nancy has scarcely eaten all week. She picks up a dainty finger of toast and applies it to her egg; it clings to the white flesh, and she drops it and wrinkles her nose. ‘I don't want them.'

Kate touches her carefully applied makeup. ‘Must make an effort,' she says under her breath. ‘Think of the child. Can't go to pieces.'

‘Mum?' Nancy looks at her questioningly.

‘Mmm-hmm?'

‘What are you talking about?'

‘What? Nothing.'

‘Right.' She sighs and rolls her eyes.

‘You have to eat something, biscuit,' Kate insists again.

Nancy knocks her egg against the table to see the craquelure spread across the shell. She imagines dropping it from chest height onto the plate to hear the crunch, like a head hitting a footpath.

‘A Mister John Tooth, known as Jack, wanted,' Mrs Roberts reads aloud from
The Sydney Morning Herald
, clinking her teacup down on its saucer. She has taken to having breakfast at the Durands most mornings now, filling the space Aunt Jo carved out for herself and gently making her presence known by delivering groceries and washing dishes. She ruffles the paper, shaking her head in scandalised dismay. ‘For defiling a young woman. And only a few streets from here, too. My goodness. After the Reed girl, so soon; what is the world coming to?' Her immense bosom wobbles with feeling.

Nancy, who had been toying with the toast on her plate, starts at the name and looks up. She tries to snatch the paper from Mrs Roberts, who holds on to it and chirrups in indignation.

‘Nancy! Don't snatch,' Kate says angrily. ‘Don't be so rude. I believe Mrs Roberts is reading that. She'll think you quite ill-bred.'

‘Let me see.' Nancy persists in their tug-of-war.

‘Here you are then, child.' Mrs Roberts relinquishes the newspaper. She puts her palms up in martyred surrender and looks at Kate. ‘Dearie me.'

‘For heaven's sake, Nancy! Why do you want that so much?' Kate asks. ‘It's morbid.' She turns her eyes to poor Mrs Roberts. ‘I'm sorry.'

‘I just do, is all,' Nancy says, and takes her prize to her room.

THIRTY

Bob Newham is hanging up his hat when he notices Nellie, on her hands and knees, scouring the blood off the floor: a great pool of it. She slops the gory rags into a bucket.

‘What the hell happened here? A man goes out to clear his head and when he comes back, it's Normandy?' He pauses, panic animating his face. ‘Roberta! What happened? Is she alright?'

‘Trouble,' says Tipper. ‘Trouble what looks like Jack Tooth. I don't think he knows you've been hanging around here. He came with Errol, Snowy's mate, chasing down Nellie. Blood is Errol's.'

‘Fucking hell,' says Bob, clenching his fist. ‘I'll kill that fucking bastard. He's dead.' His brow furrows. ‘Where's Roberta?' he asks as an afterthought.

‘She's upstairs. She's safe and doing as well can be expected,' says Dot, who has just emerged from checking on her. ‘Sit down, Bob.' She kicks a chair out from the table and nods at it. ‘I've got a few questions I'd like to ask.'

He's clearly still worked up about Jackie, but he takes a seat. ‘Get us a drink, will you, son?' He nods to Templeton, who sets a bottle of Haig's and a glass down in front of him obligingly.

‘So …' Dot begins as though she suddenly doesn't know where to start. Her fingers fidget for a cigarette.

‘I'll catch that prick. Mark my words,' Bob volunteers, his eyes dark with anger.

‘Look how well that has gone for you.' Dot gestures at his eye-patch and Bob reddens even more furiously, if that were possible.

‘You've got no bloody idea, woman. Look, okay, first things first. I'll give you the money for Roberta. I'm assuming you paid for it.'

‘Well, that's damned big of you.'

‘She got it from you, didn't she?'