I notice these details, and I notice the smell – stronger now – and I notice that I don’t seem to be able to do anything but stand here. My fist is still raised.
I lower my hand slowly, take deep breaths through my mouth. Take the step over the lintel of the house. I seem to do that without thinking. I stare at the girl and breathe. My skin is tingling.
A buzzing sound – my head swings sideways without volition. Another body lies on the floor to my right. A guy this time, in trackie pants and a tie-dyed T-shirt. The movement I’ve made, the change in the air currents, makes all the flies on his body lift and swirl around so I can see a mottled face, a beard.
I stand stock still. Listen. The whole house is quiet.
I should be looking for sample bags, loose cash, gold A4 envelopes. I need to do those things. If I don’t…
Leon’s black-marble eyes swim in my vision.
I make myself move. Walk through the kitchen, into a front living room. Again, natural light from the windows makes everything seem brighter. A mustard-yellow retro couch faces the windows, a bong standing on the coffee table in front of it. Flies circle a guy in jeans sitting on the couch, his hands splayed out to the sides and his brains soaking into the cushions behind his head. He’s wearing thongs.
I hear Leon’s voice inside my skull:Talk to Skunk – scruffy-looking guy, wears thongs. Right. Looks like I’ve found him.
Hands clenched, I move further to the left, into the hallway of the house. There are three doors along the hall. I open each door with my hoodie sleeve over my fingers. Behind the door to the first room: nothing. A messy bedroom with the maroon curtains drawn. In the second room: more flies. A guy is half-fallen off the bed, his body slowly sinking into the brown-stained carpet. The smell is powerful here, probably from a gut shot. I check the third door, find another empty bedroom. The bathroom is empty, too.
I go back the way I came, try not to jump when I pass the second room and the couch in the living room. The bloated buzzing of the flies seems to be merging with a hot electric prickle on my skin.
I get back into the kitchen. There’s an ashtray, a set of electronic scales, a stubby, and two coffee mugs on the table near the girl’s head. The chocolate-y liquid in the mugs is skinned over, drying. A pair of latex gloves sits in the congealed black puddle under the girl’s ear. I don’t look at the matted black crater in the back of her head.
I move around to her front. My brain feels dry. All my goosebumps are stabbing me with tiny needles. An empty ziplock bag is clutched in the hand resting in the girl’s lap. No samples. No cash.
The buzzing in the kitchen swirls together with the buzzing in my head. I walk out the kitchen door, down the wooden stairs, turn left onto the concrete path. The smell of the house is still in my nostrils. I take the path through the creaky gate, walking as fast as I can with my limp. More than anything in the world right now I want to be in the Pitbull, clutching the wheel, driving.
I’m only two metres out the gate when a car passes me slowly on Tulane Road. It’s a police car.
Shit.
I keep my head low, walk faster. The Pitbull is close. No, wait – getting into my car now is a dumb idea. They’ll remember the car.
I limp briskly up to the car, pass it, keep walking. Turn the right-hand corner. Walk to the end of the block. An old man is sitting on a plastic lawn chair in his garden, watering his plants. I turn the corner, right again. I’m sweating. My hoodie is sticking to me.
What the fuck am I doing? I’m moving without direction. The police have seen me walk away from Tulane Road. Did they see me leave the house? I don’t know.
I limp halfway down this block, then swing around, double back. The cop car is just coming out of Tulane Road. It noses onto the main drag, goes straight ahead. I wait until it’s further down that street, then limp as fast as I can around the corner, until I’m at the Pitbull. I slide into the car, keep the engine quiet, peel off the verge. Drive in the opposite direction to the police.
Where am I driving to? Can’t drive to Leon. If I lead the cops to him, he won’t be best pleased. Amblin Court is out, too. Gotta get off the street, just for a few hours. But if I drive through town, every man and his dog will see where I’m headed.
My mental directory is coming up blank. Then I remember: Amie’s Mildura house is a little north of here. Maybe only a few blocks away. I pull my phone out and call her, driving one-handed.
‘Harris?’ She sounds sleepy, like she’s just woken up from a nap.
‘Amie, I’m in trouble.’ I can’t keep the shake out of my voice. ‘I need to get off the street, and I’m on the north side.’
She replies without hesitation. ‘Number seventeen, Jubilee Court. No one’s home but me and Nani.’
‘Is that off Walnut Avenue?’ I’m close. I’m so close I can almost touch her.
‘Yes, but come in the other way, off Ontario. That’s quicker.’
‘Five minutes,’ I say, and disconnect, because it’ll be more like two.
I turn left onto Fifteenth Street, try to keep my brain disconnected from my body. Try to just act and do and be, without thinking.
I can’t manage it though. The girl’s face comes back to me, with the black hole in the middle of her forehead like a third eye. The smell in the house sits in my throat. The buzzing echoes inside me. It’s infecting me, burrowing its way into my guts like a maggot squirming into dead meat…
I turn right onto Ontario Avenue, pull the car over. Open the driver’s side door, lean and sick up onto the street. Cough everything out, spit, wipe my mouth on my sleeve. Take a shaky breath and close the door. Drive on.
Jubilee Court is only one block further.
