Frankie (7 page)

I perch on a stool in the front of the shop and lean my forehead against the glass. The crack in the Emporium's front window might be giving Smith Street its cheesiest grin, but I'm giving it one hell of a scowl. My breath fogs up the glass.

‘Are you going to mope around this place all day? You're scaring off customers.' Vinnie's on her knees, filling up the drinks fridge.

There's only one couple in the shop, eating their Magpie Kebabs in silence (no actual magpies were harmed in the making of the kebabs – just don't ask what happened to the chickens).

I draw a frownie face in the huffed-up glass. Maybe I will stay here. Maybe I'll never leave. Ever.

‘Do your homework. Didn't they give you a heap when you first got suspended?'

‘Done it.'

The fridge door slams shut. Vinnie grips the handle to pull herself up. ‘I'm not even going to act like I believe that.'

Outside, a tram rattles uphill, cutting through the rain shooting down at an angle. People walking past hold their umbrellas out in front and duck their heads.

Vinnie's got nothing to worry about. I've been totally productive this morning. I made a list: Xavier's pros and cons.

Pro: He brings me dumplings.

Con: He lied to me about the vinyl.

Pro: He's the only other person who knows what it means to be the spawn of Juliet Vega.

Con: It looks like he might have inherited some of her less desirable traits.

Pro: He's a stupidly talented artist.

Con: He might also be a stupidly talented con artist.

A dark-grey sedan parallel parks in front of the outlet across the road. The driver has to back in and out three times before he gets it right. I'd laugh but my one and only driving lesson ended five seconds after it started; apparently driving instructors don't like it when you fail to indicate and then call them a ‘dog's arse' for ticking you off.

I press my nose against the window, squishing it up like a pig's. A guy stops to peer at the menu pinned to the window and doesn't see me right away. He jolts when he does, his eyes bulging and his hand gripping his chest.

I laugh – now isn't that much better? He flips me the bird before walking off.

‘Get away from the window, Frankie.'

‘Why? Are you ashamed of me?'

She lugs the empty boxes to the counter and tosses them over. ‘You get in fights, get suspended from school, shoot your mouth off every chance you get and stiff me with thousands of dollars worth of medical bills and I still love you. What do you reckon?'

I lean my elbows on the bench. She forgot to mention God Knows Who.

Sigh.

Four Eminem CDs for a record probably worth hundreds of dollars? I am such an idiot. That's ‘stupid' in all caps, underlined, bolded and in some weirdo font that makes it look like the title of a horror film.

But do I believe his revised version of events? He
did
seem pretty embarrassed when he admitted why he'd lied.
But
, he's clearly not averse to stealing: just ask my neighbours.
Although
, he didn't actually steal anything – that was all Shia LaBeouf.
However
, is being a lookout just as bad?

Man, morality is so blurry.

Vinnie walks up behind me, planting a kiss on the top of my head. ‘You know, honey, there's a Frankie-shaped tumour in my head but I love you anyhow. Course, if you want to tell me why I'm paying for some rich brat to see a plastic surgeon about his nose, that'd make me real happy. I just don't understand –'

‘Isn't that Marzoli?' I point at a guy climbing out the passenger-side door of the badly parked sedan. It looks like him: same tan trench coat and potbelly. He walks the length of the car, inspecting the park. The driver gets out and starts waving his hands around.

Vinnie presses my arm down. ‘It's rude to point.'

‘You reckon he's coming here?'

‘Sooner or later Marzoli's going to realise this is a legitimate business now. Either that or he'll get sick of me busting his balls every time he sticks his ugly face into my shop. He can search this place all he likes; he's not finding a bloody thing.'

Search?

Shit. What if the record
is
stolen? Can I go to prison for being gullible?

Double shit. Can they arrest me for profiting from a crime?

Triple shit. What if they think
I
stole it?

The bell jangles as our only customers finish up and leave, their table a mess of wrappers, drips of garlic sauce and used serviettes. The sound sends a shiver down my spine – any second now Marzoli's going to come in here and that jingle jangle might as well be my death knell.

Vinnie sighs and heads to the counter. She grabs a cleaning tray. ‘Just keep away from the window.'

Marzoli and his partner hover on the other side of the street, looking for a break in traffic to cross.

I pull my phone out of my pocket and rest it on the bench. No new texts, seven missed calls since yesterday, all from the same number: he who shall not be named.

As soon as a white Volvo passes, Marzoli grabs his partner by the arm and drags him halfway across the road. They wait for a stream of cars to pass before they jog the rest of the way. I wonder if I can make a citizen's arrest for jaywalking.

On the kerb outside the Emporium, Marzoli pulls out his notebook and starts flicking through. The other guy opens an umbrella, holding it over Marzoli more than himself. Marzoli flips through his notebook for a while and then he looks up, like he senses being watched, and stares straight through the front window of the Emporium. At me.

Cripes.

‘Get a hobby if you're bored,' says Vinnie. ‘Do kids knit these days?'

Marzoli and I stare at each other. Like a high-noon stand off, except it's three pm. He lifts a hand and holds it just out in front of his face in a frozen wave.

I lift mine too, but I'm too confused to know what to do with it once it's up there. I think we're waving at each other.

Me and a cop. Waving.

I lower my hand. Marzoli does the same thing.

‘How about you take up ballet again?' says Vinnie.

I remember the day they arrested Uncle Terry. I never liked the guy if I'm honest. I was always wriggling free of his hugs. ‘Give Old Terenzio some sugar,' he'd say, stabbing a finger against his stubbled cheek. He wasn't a total perv, just handsie. When I was eleven he moved into the Hoddle Street house because he'd gotten into some kind of trouble. Vinnie wouldn't tell me – she just said ‘shush' whenever I asked. He bunked in my room and I slept on the sofa with the cats.

He was never home much, which suited me, but it made Nonna and Vinnie yell at each other in the kitchen. ‘He's your son,' Vinnie would yell. ‘
È tuo, questo figlio buono a nulla!
Sort him out.' Nonna would just get hysterical and start wailing. She said he was cursed. ‘Vega men are no good,' she'd say. ‘
Siamo tutti maledetti!
'

Just the men? So how do you explain Juliet, Nonna?

They came in the middle of the night. Makes it sound like an alien invasion, doesn't it? It actually felt like it. Men with guns, torches attached to the ends, the light strobing through the house as they dragged Uncle Terry into the lounge. They handcuffed his arms behind his back and shoved his face into the carpet. There was so much shouting, Nonna loudest of all.

And then Marzoli arrived, complete with tan coat and stained tie. He came in right at the end when Uncle Terry was crying into the carpet and the men had lowered their guns. Vinnie kicked Marzoli in the shins and called him a low-life but he didn't arrest her. He just shouted for someone to get Terry into the back of the divvy van and that was that. Fifteen years for multiple armed robberies.

I pick up my phone and type
: I'm still mad at you but keep away from Smith Street. Someone left the gate open and the pigs are loose. I repeat: the pigs have left the farmyard.

Send.

‘. . . and you looked so cute in your little pink tutu. Frankie? You listening?'

I'm leaning so far forward I almost fall off my stool. Marzoli and his minion are still standing out the front of the shop, not looking at me in a looking-at-me kind of way.

‘Ballet,' says Vinnie, her bangles clunking against the tabletop as she wipes. ‘I really think you ought to give it another go.'

Oh god. I've got zero explanation for why I have a possibly stolen, rare and incredibly awesome vinyl in my room. I can't take the risk.

‘Are you listening, Frankie?' Vinnie stops swishing the cloth back and forth and stands straight, giving me her most concerned look: the full brow collapse and the downturned mouth. ‘Do I need to worry about you? More than usual, I mean? Maybe we ought to have that talk.'

I slide off the stool and grab my jacket. ‘If it's about the birds and the bees you're a little late on that one, Vin. We had this guy come to school and he had a bag of bananas. Plastic ones and when you pulled off the skin it was actually a penis and we practised putting condoms on them and he showed us pictures – who knew the female reproductive system looked so much like a ram's head?' I hurry to the back stairs, the ones that lead to our flat.

‘Where are you going?'

‘Ah . . . nap time.'

‘Don't forget your shift starts at four.'

‘It's seared into my memory.'

The door closes with a bang.

__________

The alley is empty. It only took me a couple of minutes to grab the vinyl. And then a couple more to change my mind, change it back, then hug the vinyl to my chest cursing my shitty luck for forcing me to part with this most awesome of things.

I hurry to the bins; they're overflowing and stinking like a classroom of Year Seven boys on a forty-degree day. No cops in sight.

In case Marzoli gets all CSI with fingerprinting and shit, I wipe the record with my jumper. My heart squeezes tight as I lower this beautiful piece of musical history into the bin; I can't let go, my trembling fingers gripping tight. But it's evidence of a crime and a glaring reminder that my brother's shit seriously stinks so I reluctantly slide it under a bag of rotting tomatoes and meat juice and step back.

Goddamn it.

Shit.

I wonder if Marzoli's already inside the Emporium, riffling through our life. If he is, I'm going to kick him in the shins. And then I'm going to set Buttons on him.

I turn when I hear voices. Male. Pig-like. Down the other end of the alley.

Why aren't they in the shop? Good Frankie wants to run, put some serious distance between me and the evidence I just dumped in the bin. Bad Frankie sees a perfect chance to snoop and find out what the cops know.

I'm already in the ‘majorly screwed' basket and spying on a couple of cops is not how I claw my way out of this shitty predicament. Not when I'm supposed to be kiss-arse-ing my school and rehearsing my ‘I didn't do it/it wasn't my fault/please give me a second chance' speech. But I need to know exactly how much trouble my brother is in.

Bad Frankie wins.

A voice wafts up the alley. An unhappy-neighbour voice. ‘I've already told those other cops. What more do you want?'

It's coming from the house behind the block of yuppie flats. A crumbling semi that must have the developers drooling. My shoulder scrapes the bricks as I crouch low and edge closer.

‘Sure,' says a familiar gravelly voice. ‘But we've got a few more questions. Won't take long.'

‘I'm not inviting you in.'

I think the woman's called Marlee. I've seen her around – she's Collingwood through and through. ‘I've had it to here with you lot. Some prick robs a flat and you're all business. But I got complaints about those students two doors up with their doof doof and their beer cans on the street and you reckon you're too busy to do anything about it.'

I shuffle to where the wall is low enough for me to peek over the edge and . . .

Bingo. Two cops and a grumpy neighbour.

There's about four steps leading up to a weatherboard porch, white paint peeling back to the pink underneath. A half-dead jacaranda takes up most of the front yard; Tibetan prayer flags hang faded and ripped along the gutter.

Marlee's in her dressing gown, sucking on a cigarette. She's got reddish-brown curly hair and nails so sharp they ought to be illegal. She'd never get through airport security with them.

Marzoli's partner holds up a glossy piece of paper. ‘You know this kid, ma'am?' His voice is nasally, words-dripping-with-snot kind of nasally. ‘Seen him round maybe?'

She squints into the sky. ‘Nope.'

‘It'd help if you looked at the photo, Miss Ganan.'

I screw up my face and squint but can't see shit. I'm too far away and he's got it angled toward Marlee.

‘Two youths were seen near here on the afternoon your neighbours were robbed,' says Marzoli. ‘The one in this picture has a criminal record as long as my ex-wife's credit card bill. Don't you want us to catch the . . .' He consults his flip book. ‘. . . the “prick” who robbed your neighbours?'