22

TEDDY

As they left Choker’s office – paperwork done, holiday mode reactivated – Teddy saw a car in the side mirror pull away from the side of the road and follow them. It was a compact white SUV, the same as every other Uber in town, and she was only paying attention because she always did. There was no reason to be worried; Cole was found, and they were done.

Art, driving this time so that Nina wouldn’t see Teddy behind the wheel when they got back, said, ‘What are you going to do with your day off tomorrow?’

‘I don’t know,’ Teddy said. ‘Sleep. Maybe head to the beach, pester Alice. Or I could leave her alone.’

‘Why start now?’ he asked, and she poked him in the side.

Five months ago, at the start of summer, Alice, Teddy and Art had gone to the beach next to Art’s parents’ place. They stopped by his house to get sandcastle equipment – five different bucket shapes, three spades, and a handful of perfect scallop shells kept in a jar just for these moments. Art always took seashells or glass or driftwood home with him when he left the beach, even though Teddy told him they needed to stay there to wear down into future sand. ‘Fuck the future,’ Art would say, and because they loved him, they’d agree.

Teddy had found an attractive man under a big umbrella with some friends, and had gone out to swim with him alone. Alice and Art built a sandcastle so large that people stopped to admire it. Art said, ‘It’s all Alice; she’s the best at this.’

‘Why do you keep saying that?’ she asked him, after another family had left.

‘Because my father never says my mother’s the best at anything. Or even Nina,’ he added. ‘Since the two of us moved out, he’s never even called Nina, did you know? He just doesn’t care.’

‘I didn’t know,’ Alice said. ‘And I’m sorry. But it’s a lie.’ She gestured at his turrets: neater, higher, more numerous.

He considered. ‘But they can’t see the things you are good at. None of our friends or family can watch you be the one who wins fights because you have better instincts, or knows how fast you can drive us away from a heist. If nobody can see what you’re good at, then you’ll never get the praise you deserve. So I guess this is – what do they call it in medicine? Referred pain? This is referred praise.’

Alice had told Teddy about it afterwards; it was a nice story. Now, Teddy watched Art pull up to a traffic light and check his phone. Teddy saw Nina’s name onscreen, heard him curse under his breath.

‘What’s the matter?’

‘Nothing.’

Teddy had never once let something go. ‘What kind of nothing?’

He sucked at his teeth and ignored her.

Teddy said, ‘Is it about you stealing her car?’

‘Shut up,’ he said. ‘It’s about money, all right? What I owe Dan is, like, more than I earn in a year, and he’s at me, okay?’

Teddy put up her hands. ‘I’m sorry.’ She settled in her chair and said, ‘But you earn more than thirty thousand a year working for Choker, right?’

‘What?’

‘You said it’s more than you earn in a year, but you owe him thirty k.’

He rolled his eyes. ‘Come on, you of all people are at me for exaggerating, when it’s basically your largest personality trait? I mean I don’t earn so much per year from your godlike boss that I can cover all of my expenses, pay Dutch, and look after my goddamn sister when she—’ he broke off. ‘When she’s being Nina, you know? I help her out because if she asks my parents for anything, they’ll cut her off, because they think she’ll use all her money for drugs or booze, which is offensive, seeing as she only uses seventy per cent for that.’ He gave a weak smile.

Teddy put her hands in her lap and stared at them. Alice knew all about trying to help a sister like Nina; Teddy couldn’t understand, not like Alice did. So he stole a little cash out of one of Choker’s tills. It wasn’t like it would bankrupt the man.

She could say sorry, which she almost felt, but instead she asked, ‘Can we stop for snacks? I’ll buy you a couple of those beers I didn’t let you get before.’

He smiled at her. ‘Only if we say “a few” because “a couple” means two, and I want you to feel bad enough to get me at least four.’

Ten minutes later, he pulled into a side street, charting course to their favourite independent deli, the one with the good cheeses and a whole shelf of mead. The SUV had been trailing them on the main roads, but here, it didn’t turn with them. Teddy smiled into the sun.

She checked on Alice’s location again; her dot had stopped by the side of a road. Maybe Teddy would call in a few minutes, if she still hadn’t moved.

Art passed the supermarket, parked a hundred metres further up by the side of the road to annoy Teddy, then told her to enjoy the walk.

She bought a loaf of bread, a jar of peanut butter, four beers for Art, and a single apple, for health. She was walking to the car, wondering if she should go back for a second apple, when she saw, parked behind Art’s Mercedes in the distance, the white SUV.

She broke into a run, until she could see them both, Art and this other person, standing between their cars, tense. Art looked like a cat ready to spring, and the driver looked awkward, puffy and padded in a down jacket, arms held out from their sides like they didn’t know how to stand. They were maybe five ten, wearing a blue beanie pulled low, sunglasses and a face mask. Unidentifiable. Probably a man.

‘What’s going on?’ Teddy said.

‘Nothing you need to worry about,’ the driver said. His voice was forced and hoarse. She realised: he was trying to disguise it. Teddy opened the car, dropped all of her food in the footwell, and pulled her gun from under the passenger seat, keeping it out of sight when she stood up.

‘I think I do need to worry,’ she said, ‘seeing as you followed us all this way.’

‘You didn’t fucking say anybody was following us,’ Art said, his voice clenched.

Teddy was not listening to him right now. There was something wrong in this man’s stance, and in Art’s defensiveness. She had missed something at the start, and she did not know what.

‘Let’s just talk this out,’ she said.

‘Not in front of you,’ the man croaked out.

‘Not without me,’ she said.

‘Drop it, Ted,’ Art said. ‘I’ll speak to this fucker later.’ He pointed at the guy and said, ‘I don’t know who you are, and I don’t care. I paid somebody to deal with it, so take it up with them.’

The man took a step closer. Art flinched. Teddy brought her gun in front of her, and everybody stopped.

‘What the fuck, Teddy?’ Art hissed. ‘You had that in my sister’s car this whole time?’

‘It’s always nearby,’ she said, stone-faced. ‘And it’s only here to make this guy leave.’

The guy took another step.

Teddy took the safety off, and said, ‘Come on. This is the suburbs. Just go.’

He looked around. The leaves of a great silver gum tree shuffled like cards in the breeze. A rattling old Honda Accord drove past; a myna darted by. Somewhere nearby, a ball hit a basketball ring.

‘I need answers,’ the driver said. ‘And I’ll get them from you.’

‘Give me the gun,’ Art told Teddy.

She hesitated – she made it a point never to let anybody else hold it – and in that brief moment, the man sprang between them. Teddy tightened her grip, fingers away from the trigger, pulling the gun away; the driver had his hands on the barrel, tilting it away from his face and hers. He let out a hard oof as something – Art, she was sure – made contact with him, and he pushed forward, unbalanced, falling on her, sending them both into the hard dirt of the nature strip. She held tight enough to bleed but he was stronger, and the gun was gone, out of her hands, and she screamed.

There was another thud of fists (feet? knees?) on skin, another gasp from the man who was still partly on top of her as she scrambled to stand and saw in his hands, the gun, easy in his grasp, pointed at Art. The man’s paper mask was stained red with blood. Art was unharmed, his hands up, in surrender.

‘How about—’ the driver said, and paused. His voice had been normal, for a moment. Teddy tried to remember it, relate it to something, her mind scrambled from the fight and the fact the gun was in the hands of the wrong person.

He tried again, breath sucking at his mask. ‘How about,’ he said, forced, ‘the woman leaves, and we talk.’

‘Why would I leave my friend with you?’ she said.

‘Oh, so you think you’ve helped?’ Art said to her, and his voice was worse than the driver’s. ‘You just gave this fucker a gun. I don’t need you.’

Teddy pushed down the shame at his words, and said, ‘We can talk. We have time. No hurry. Let’s work it out. If you need money, we’ll find it.’

The sunglasses turned to her, slowly. ‘It’s not mon—’

Art ran at him. He was fast, and he had training, and the guy was looking away, at Teddy, which was part of the point, of talking, to distract him, to get him looking away, so someone could run at him, reach for the gun, get it and—

The driver swung at Art’s movement, and then the men were both on the ground, and the fight was getting loud, and Teddy surged forward to help but there was a sound, and it was Teddy’s gun and—

Something had punched her in the arm, and she looked down, and there was blood, and the ground had turned white and—

Somebody yelled her name, and there was another bang and a thud, and something about time wasn’t real anymore, and there were distant voices, and a car starting and—

Nina’s Mercedes was sideways now, and she wanted to move, but she had been stopped by a gun. By a bullet. She was on the ground: she realised it now. She needed to move to see her Art. Arthur. She clawed at the footpath with the one hand that was listening to her until she was sideways again, but a different kind of sideways, and also, she thought she was too warm at the same time as being cold – very cold. She clawed and she moved in the warmth and the cold and pain – it was there, she knew it, but it was so much, it was like she could see through it – she moved until she could see Art, and then when she did, she wished she had never looked, because he was on the ground because he was dead, and maybe she was too. She was not sure about herself, but she was sure about Art, more sure than anything she had known in her life.

She would not remember it later, but Teddy reached out for her friend, in the blood and the more than blood, there in the suburbs, and held his hand.