Through the Cracks (16 page)

At a drive-through bottle shop they went up to the counter. The man was sitting on a stool behind the cash register. He was watching cricket on a small TV. Billy bought some smokes and asked about the clothes pinned to a board above the fridges. A carton of beer had to be bought to get them. Billy turned his back on the man and slid another note from the bundle.

They walked out with a cardboard box of stubbies and a T-shirt and a jumper wrapped in plastic. Billy put the beer down by the kerb, left it there.

Down from the bottle shop was a motel with a neon sign in the shape of Ned Kelly. With each blink of the fluorescent tubes the gun he was holding lifted higher. Inside the motel foyer was a statue of Ned in all his armour. The woman at the counter looked up from the book she was reading. Her hair was in a ponytail. She switched her stony look back and forth between Adam and Billy. Leisurely she straightened in the chair, walked to a drawer and pulled it out. Billy glanced at Adam. He winked. She closed the drawer, dropped a set of keys on the desk.

‘Twenty-five dollars.’

‘For a double?’

‘Yes.’

‘Got something better?’

‘A suite?’

‘What’s that?’

‘It’s got its own bathroom, and a —’

‘We’ll have that.’

‘It’s sixty bucks.’

‘That’s okay.’

She went to the drawer and came back with a different key. ‘Breakfast is included with the suite.’ She pointed across the foyer to a glass door and a darkened room beyond it. ‘It’s served till nine a.m. Check out is ten.’

‘Do you have room service?’

‘Kitchen’s closed. But there’s a pizza shop across the road. They deliver.’

‘Okay. Thanks.’

‘You’re on the second floor, down the end . . . On The Run Pizza,’ she said as Billy paid. ‘Dial one to ring out.’

The stairs were carpeted. The room numbers were painted on small metal plaques in the shape of Ned Kelly’s helmet. Billy unlocked the door and held it open with his back. Adam went down the short passageway. The room was large. It had a boarded-up fireplace and a double bed, a couch and a coffee table. The dresser was dark wood with small silver handles. Heavy red drapes. A section of the neon Ned Kelly sign was right in front of their window, blinking and flashing. You had to look through the fluorescent tubes to see down to the street. Billy came over and closed the drapes. He turned on the lamps. Inside the dresser were a TV and a fridge, an electric kettle, cups, tea, coffee and sugar. The bathroom was through a narrow door off the passageway. It had a claw-foot bath and the cleanest toilet Adam had ever seen. Dazzling white.

‘This is really nice.’

‘You reckon?’

‘Can I have a bath?’

Billy got it running and arranged the shower curtain so that it hung outside the bath. He left. Adam locked the door.

The bath filled. The soap was pink and wrapped in rose-printed paper. Adam undressed. Steam fogged the mirror. He stepped in when the bath was half full, held the edge and lowered to a crouch. He’d only ever dipped his feet or hands in water. Joe had never let him swim in the pool. Immersing his body into water felt nothing like showering in it. Adam eased down lower. He kept a tight hold of the sides of the bath, moved his toes underwater. The bath continued to fill. Holding on with one hand he reached and put his fingers under the tap flow. When the water was as high as his chest he turned off the taps. Bath water stung his sunburn. After a short while he let go of the sides. For a few long moments Adam sat there. Tears wet his cheeks.

He soaped his body, eased his arms and shoulders under. Carefully he turned onto his tummy. In the other room Billy was talking. Adam stopped moving about to listen.

‘You sound pissed off. I thought you’d want to say goodbye . . .’

There was no response. No other voices. Billy was on the phone.

Adam climbed out of the bath. The skin on his fingers and toes had wrinkled. He dried himself. He pressed his sweet-smelling palms to his nose. He dressed again in his old clothes, opened up the door. Billy was sitting on the bed, the phone to his ear. He put his finger to his lips to stop Adam speaking. Adam went to the window and cracked the drapes. He looked through Ned’s leg, down at the street, to the cars passing, the shopfronts and people.

‘On the Run Pizza,’ Billy said. ‘It’s on Dryden Road.’ He checked his watch. ‘Okay.’ He got up off the bed. ‘All right. Yeah. Bye.’

Billy hung up, went into the bathroom and shut the door. Bath water gurgled down the plughole. The shower curtain rustled, the shower started running.

Adam tried to work out how to turn the TV on. It didn’t have an obvious on/off switch. Adam tried the buttons. Nothing worked. Billy came out with a towel wrapped around his waist. The arm bandage was wet. He unwound it and took a fresh bandage from the backpack, re-dressed the wound. He tore at the soft plastic wrapped around the bottle-shop jumper. He tossed the plastic wrapped T-shirt towards Adam.

‘Yours. Hey, didn’t you wash your hair?’

‘I didn’t want to put my head under.’

‘You gotta wash your hair.’

‘Why?’

Billy went back into the bathroom, spoke from there. ‘Because it looks like shit.’

After a moment he came back out. ‘How’s this?’ He stepped into the open and stood with his arms apart. He was in his old shorts, the new black jumper on. He’d towel-dried his hair. His cheeks were gaunt and his eyes were still bloodshot. There were nicks and cuts on his legs and forearms, bruises and burns on his hands, grazes on his face.

‘You look okay.’

‘Bullshitting already, what’d I tell you?’

Adam put on the new T-shirt. It was black like Billy’s jumper, the same word was written in dark green across the chest.

‘You gonna wash your hair?’

‘I don’t want to.’

‘Come on. Let’s do it quick.’

Adam knelt at the side of the bath. Billy passed him a face washer and made Adam hold it against his forehead, over his eyes. He leaned Adam forward over the tub. Billy used the kettle from the dresser. He kept the bath tap running, refilled the kettle, shampooed and rinsed Adam’s hair.

Shampoo ran down the sides of Adam’s face. It got in his ears and wet his neck.

Billy pulled up the towel he’d draped over Adam’s shoulders. He rubbed Adam’s hair dry.

‘I have to go and meet someone. I won’t be long. I’m only gonna be across the road.’ He gave Adam’s hair one last scruff and fluff, tossed the towel on the chair. ‘Stay in the room. Don’t do nothing dumb.’

‘Why do you have to go?’

Billy went to the bathroom mirror and leaned close. He prodded the cuts and bruises, pushed his tongue behind the grazes on his cheeks. ‘Just gotta,’ he said while poking.

He turned around and leaned against the sink, gave a strange, unsure smile.

‘Do me a favour? When you hear me coming back, just duck in here for a bit, until you know I’m alone. If I’m with someone, stay in here, real quiet? You know? Yeah?’

B
illy waited out the front of the pizza shop. Adam watched from the motel window. A red car pulled up and a young man got out. He was in jeans and a short-sleeved shirt. He was tall with light-brown hair. He stood on the footpath. They greeted one another, standing back. Billy folded his arms and hunched his shoulders, looked down and kicked the toe of his sneaker on the footpath. For a while they both looked away in opposite directions. Neither of them seemed to speak. Something must have been said, or a look must have passed between them, an unspoken thing, because the man locked his car and they walked together across the road. Billy let the man get in front and he glanced up to the hotel window, like he knew Adam would be watching.

Adam took the backpack with him into the bathroom. Locked the door. He sat down on the chair beside the bath, put the bag between his feet and leaned forward on his knees. In the backroom there had been so few things to lose – a bed, a light, blankets. Outside the backroom the things to lose were so much bigger. No longer simply objects and items, but undefinable things, immense things. It was as though Adam only now had a life
to lose
. At stake were freedom, friendship, hope. He couldn’t lose those things. He couldn’t go back to a bed, a light, blankets. Wouldn’t. Searching through the bag, Adam couldn’t find the gun. Billy had taken it. His friend understood the fear. He knew the panic. No act too great to stay safe. Adam sat back, took a breath, listened to the hotel door unlock, listened to them come in. Dirty bath water had left a line around the enamel. Strands of hair were coiled in the plughole. No window. Only his bottle opener.

The man was first to talk. He had a drawn out, deliberate way of speaking.

‘Is this place for real?’

‘When did you get the car?’

‘Dad got it for me, for my birthday. Not sure I would have picked red. What’s wrong with your arm?’

‘Nothing. I pulled a muscle.’

It sounded like Billy moved across the room. When he spoke his voice was muffled. ‘How’s that go with work?’

‘I don’t smile too wide. I know what you’re thinking.’ The man used a higher voice, ‘
But your teeth were straight before
.’

‘Is that what everyone says?’

‘Without fail.’

‘They weren’t straight, though,’ Billy said. ‘Your bite was off.’

The man chuckled.

They were silent for a while. Floorboards beneath the carpet creaked. A bedspring squeaked. Something soft dropped on the floor.

Adam heard the man say, ‘Pulled muscles bleed now, do they.’

It was hard to make out Billy’s response. Whatever he said was brief.

‘Are you going to tell me what happened?’ the man said.

Billy murmured something, pitching his side of the conversation below what Adam could hear.

‘
You
disappeared,’ the man said, ‘
you
didn’t call.’ It sounded like he got up off the bed. ‘And now you’re still not going to explain. Just say what you want.’

Billy muttered a response.

‘It’s ridiculous. I’m here right now. Tell me now. Have you hurt someone? Is that why you have to leave? Who have you been fighting?’

Adam strained to hear. He missed most of what Billy said, only caught: ‘ . . . might get back in.’

The man sniffed loudly. It sounded like he moved towards the window. ‘Do you know how many people have asked me where you are and how they can reach you? All year. What you walked away from is mind-blowing. Did you just not care?’

‘All I’m asking,’ Billy said, barely audible, ‘is for a few names and numbers.’

‘Why Queensland? Why not here?’

‘I want a change.’ Billy’s voice had lifted. He lowered it again. Adam barely heard, ‘I’ll get my own place. You could come up.’

‘Why are you whispering?’ The man’s sudden change in awareness was tangible. His voice became clipped. ‘What’s through there?’ His movements got louder. Floorboards creaked sharp and deep. The bathroom door handle rattled. The door shunted against the lock. ‘Why is this locked?’

‘I think it’s the door between rooms.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous.’

‘If you want the bathroom it’s out in the hallway.’

‘Are you for real?’

‘Jason.’

‘Give me a fucking break.’

Had Adam not changed his top and washed his hair he would have felt uncomfortable. Jason’s hair was soft and shiny. His shirt was ironed. He sat with his legs crossed. The jeans hugged his legs all the way down to his ankles. Although tall, he didn’t look old enough to be driving a car. He did have an Adam’s apple. His nose was long and his jaw was angular. Parts of him were grown-up. His fingernails were short and clean. He wiped his mouth, pulling back his lips, and Adam saw a thin band of silver across his teeth.

Billy was bare-chested, picking his jumper up off the floor. He seemed undecided about whether or not to put it back on. It was warm in the room. He was sweating. A patch of blood was showing on the new bandage. He left the jumper off.

‘We were about to order some pizza. Want some?’

‘No, thank you.’

Billy took a cigarette out, put it in his mouth, didn’t light it, put it back in the packet. He scratched his eyebrow with his thumb. He was, for the first time, nervous. Adam looked at him. He looked at Jason. Couldn’t work it out.

‘That’s pretty bad sunburn.’

‘He knows.’

‘It’ll blister.’

‘No, it won’t.’

‘He’s certainly got that “I’m under William’s spell” look.’

‘No, he hasn’t.’

‘Do you do modelling?’

‘No, he doesn’t.’

‘Stop talking for him.’

‘He likes me talking for him.’

‘How do you know each other?’

‘You wouldn’t get your head around it, Jase. Trust me.’

‘Oh for God’s sake . . .’

‘I’m helping him. All right?’

‘By dressing him in a matching top, renting a room with one bed, and looking like you’ve both robbed a bank or escaped from prison? Genius. Helpful, all right.’ Jason stood up. ‘You expect me to drive the two of you to Queensland, don’t you? That’s what you want. That’s why you called. Why don’t you ever say what you really want?’

Billy crossed his feet, leaned against the edge of the dresser. He held his friend’s gaze, passed a message.
Not him, just me.
Adam wasn’t blind.

His friend walked towards the door. ‘You make it impossible.’

‘Don’t go.’

Jason did, left the door open, and began down the hallway. ‘Call me when you’re a normal human being with a normal life.’

Billy shouted after him, a sudden high note to his voice, ‘What do you think I’m trying to do!’ He went to the door. ‘Why don’t you say what
you
really mean – I’m not fucking good enough for you!’ Billy slammed the door.

The room felt empty after Jason had left.

W
hen the pizza came, Billy only ate one piece. He lay down on the couch. Adam sat on the bed, with the pizza box beside him. Billy had also ordered garlic bread. It came wrapped in foil. It was a toss-up, which thing Adam liked more – pizza or garlic bread. He overate and lay on his side. Billy wasn’t asleep. Adam turned off the lamps.

Sunburn made sleeping difficult.

Adam got up and opened the window to let the breeze in, pushed back the drapes. Neon colours lit the room. The two of them lay there in silence, listening to the late-night sounds from the street, occasional laugher, thuds and stumbles out in the hotel hallway.

When Billy spoke his tone was flat; there was a quietness and stillness that Adam hadn’t heard in him before.

‘I’m gonna tell you something. It’s big, I suppose. No, I don’t suppose – it is big. At that shed, the woman and the man, you said you remembered that man? Kovac. What I didn’t know, not until I saw her, was that I’d seen that woman before. She used to buy puppies off Kovac, years ago, back in Harp Street. I didn’t put it together until I saw her. I never knew her name, or maybe I did but I’d forgotten it. I don’t reckon I ever knew she was a Vander, though; I would have remembered that. What I’m saying is I didn’t know she was Joe’s sister.’

Adam looked up at the ceiling, at the colours and the long shadows cast. He nodded, as much to himself as to Billy.

‘It’s just . . . I didn’t know she had anything to do with Joe. She was always hanging around Kovac. Never could work out why he put up with her. I supposed it was because she bought a puppy a week. He was always going on about her reselling them . . . Anyway, you said about remembering a market?’ He waited.

‘Yes.’

‘Well, that woman was at this market once. Kovac was there selling puppies. He’d taken me to look after the litter.’

Billy fell silent for a while.

Adam blinked in the dark. He could not recall a time of being so relaxed. He was lying in the centre of the wide bed. The bedspread was pillowy and soft. His skin was on fire from the sunburn and his chest was growing tight with a feeling like he might cry at any moment, but his body and his mind were at ease. He was not afraid. Not on any level.

‘At that market a boy was taken,’ Billy said. ‘Stolen. You know? It was big news at the time. You still see it on TV sometimes. The kid taken was about four . . . It’s gotta be you. Hasn’t it?’

Adam lay there. The urge to cry left him. He was empty. Light. Hollow maybe. Although feeling nothing, he knew he must be feeling something, must be experiencing something, because he didn’t move, he didn’t talk, there were no words, no thoughts, no actions, and that couldn’t be right – he should ask questions, should sit up, turn on the lamp, discover this, find out more. It was time to talk. He searched inside himself for a way to do that. Closed his eyes.

‘I didn’t know Joe until after that. I would’ve thought something of it, if I’d known – that the woman was Joe’s sister. In my head I didn’t put Kovac and Joe together in that way. I didn’t realise they knew each other like that, hooked up with that; the market, I mean.’

Adam managed to say, without much thought, surprised by his own voice, ‘That’s okay.’

‘Well, it’s not really, is it? It’s about as far from okay as you can get. If I’d cottoned on, it would have been different, wouldn’t it? I would have put two and two together. But what it means is that you’ve got a proper family. People looked for you for ages. They’re gonna wanna know you’re okay . . . I didn’t know,’ he said. ‘It was only when I saw that woman that I started to think you could be the kid that went missing. Then the things you said. And Joe keeping you down there, trying to kill you, it all fits. I reckon Kovac took you, and Joe paid Kovac for you. That’s what I think. I know Joe paid for me – I
saw
the money change hands. Kovac wasn’t rich, not like Joe. And did you see the look on Kovac’s face when he saw you? He knew who you were. Your age is right. The kid taken had blue eyes . . . They said so on the news,’ he added after a pause.

Billy was lying on his back. Adam could tell because his words were being spoken towards the ceiling, left to drift across.

Adam didn’t direct his sentence either. He put what he said out there, into the dark, to go whichever way it liked. ‘And when you saw the tiger.’

‘Hey?’

‘You knew I might be that boy when you saw I had the tiger.’

Billy paused. ‘Nah.’ He switched to a casual tone. ‘I don’t think so. It was seeing the woman that made me put it all together. And what you said.’

Adam nodded, slowly, to himself again.

‘You were at the market?’ Adam asked after a moment.

‘Yeah. I didn’t go home with Kovac, though. Only heard what had happened later. On the news and stuff. It was real busy there, heaps of people. I didn’t hang around long. I kinda remember a search, but that’s about it.’

A lump formed in Adam’s throat. It felt about the size of the toy tiger. Lodged, hard to speak around. ‘Do you think I’ll find my parents?’

‘Real easy, I reckon.’

‘Do you think they’ll want me?’

‘Don’t start with that. Of course they’re gonna want you.’

‘I don’t know if I want to go and be with strangers.’

‘They won’t be strangers. It’s gonna be all right.’ Billy injected his old lightness into his voice. The playfulness. The gruffness. ‘What did I tell you, hey? We’d get the money and sort it out. We’ve done that. Yeah? Our luck has turned around. You think about it – Joe’s dead, Kovac’s dead, that sick bitch from the shed is burnt and probably brain dead. You’re gonna meet your family.’ Adam listened to him reach for his cigarettes, flip the lid, draw one out. He mumbled with it in his mouth, ‘At some point, it’s gotta even out. A bad run can’t run forever.’ There was a pause while Billy flicked the lighter and took the first puff. ‘Tomorrow I’ll take you somewhere. Get you set up to go to the police. You don’t have to be worried about it. You don’t have to be scared or nothing like that. It’s all gonna be fine. You’ll see. It’s all gonna work out good.’

If Adam wanted to, if he let himself, he could close his eyes and fall back, through years of dark, all the way back to that day, sounds of the market, sounds of the river, and the rocky bank beneath his yellow sandals, a toy placed in his hand.

Play with this. Stay here. Don’t be scared. Don’t cry.