Bich turns to Lyle, a seriousness across her face.
‘And, Lyle, I trust you’ll answer truthfully,’ she says.
She fixes her hands on my thigh and turns me towards Lyle.
‘Go right ahead, Eli,’ she says.
Lyle sighs, shakes his head. I keep my head down.
‘Bich, this is—’
‘Have courage, boy,’ Bich says, cutting off Lyle. ‘You better use that tongue before Quan here cuts it out and drops it in his noodle soup.’
Quan beams, raises his eyebrows at the prospect.
‘Bich, I don’t think this is necessary,’ Lyle says.
‘Let the boy decide,’ she says, enjoying this moment.
I have a question. I always have a question. I always have too many.
I lift my head, stare into his eyes.
‘Why are you dealing drugs?’ I ask.
Lyle shakes his head, looks away, offers nothing.
Bich sounds like my school principal now. ‘Lyle, the boy deserves an answer, doesn’t he?’
He takes a deep breath, turns back to me.
‘I’m doing it for Tytus,’ he says.
Tytus Broz. The Lord of Limbs. Lyle does everything for Tytus Broz.
Bich shakes her head: ‘The truth, Lyle.’
He dwells on this for a long moment, digs his fingernails deeper into the armrest. He stands, picks the Styrofoam ice box up from the living room carpet.
‘Tytus will be in touch about the next order,’ he says. ‘Let’s go, Eli.’
He walks out the sliding doors. And I follow him because there was care in his voice just then, his love was in it and I will follow that feeling anywhere.
‘Wait!’ barks Bich Dang.
Lyle stops, so I stop too.
‘Come back here, boy,’ she says.
I look at Lyle. He nods his head. I shuffle cautiously back to Bich. She looks me in the eye.
‘Why did you not rat on my son?’ she asks.
Darren is now sitting up on a kitchen benchtop running off the living room, eating a muesli bar as he silently observes the conversation unfolding before him.
‘Because he’s my friend,’ I say.
Darren seems shocked by the admission. He smiles.
Bich studies my eyes. Nods her head.
‘Who taught you to be so loyal to your friends?’ Bich asks.
I throw my thumb immediately to Lyle.
‘He did.’
Bich smiles. She’s still staring into my eyes when she says, ‘Lyle, if I might be so bold . . .’
‘Yes,’ Lyle says.
‘You bring young Eli back again some time, you hear, and maybe we talk about a few opportunities that have emerged. Let’s see if we can’t consider doing business between ourselves.’
Lyle says nothing. ‘Let’s go Eli,’ he says. We walk out the door, but Bich Dang still has one more question. ‘You still want your answer, Eli?’ she asks.
I stop and turn around.
‘Yes.’
She leans back into the lounge, dragging on her long white cigarette.
She nods, blowing out so much smoke from her mouth that a cloud of grey masks her gaze. The cloud and the serpent and the dragon and the bad guys.
‘It’s all for you.’
Boy Receives Letter
Dear Eli,
Greetings from B16. Thanks, as ever, for your correspondence. Your letter was the best thing about a month I was glad to see the back of. Worse than Northern Ireland in here lately. Few blokes have gone on hunger strike, protesting about cramped conditions, overpopulation in the cells, not enough activities for rec days. Yesterday, Billy Pedon got his head dumped in the 4 Yard shit bucket for giving a bit too much lip to Guigsy, who was bitching about the cold outside. Now they’ve put a little rim inside all of the shit buckets so they’re too small to fit a human head inside. I guess that’s what ya call progress? Big scrap broke out in the caf on Sunday. Old Harry Smallcombe drove a fork into Jason Hardy’s left cheek because Hardy took the last of the rice pudding. All hell broke loose and, as a result, the screws took away the television from 1 Yard. No more Days of Our Lives. Take a Boggo con’s freedom, take his rights, take his humanity, take his will to live, but for God’s sake, please don’t take his Days of Our Lives! As you can imagine, the boys went apeshit over that and started dropping shits throughout the prison like they were apes. I wonder if that’s where apeshit comes from? Anyway, all the boys are keen on hearing any updates outworlders might have on Days, so any insights would be greatly appreciated. Last we saw, Liz looked like doing a lag for shooting Marie – dumb slut she is – even though it was an accident. She still hadn’t found the silk ‘C’ scarf that I reckon will be her undoing. My shitter broke on Tuesday because Dennis had the runs from a bad batch of lentils they fixed us. Dennis used up his toilet paper ration and he had to start using pages from an old copy of Sophie’s Choice we had lying around. Of course the pages didn’t break down and just choked the shitter so the whole of One Division could smell Dennis’s inner demons. Did I tell you about Tripod in the last letter? Fritz found a cat creeping through the yard a while back. Fritz has been behaving well lately so the screws let him look after the cat during day rec. We all started keeping a bit of food from lunch to feed the cat and now it skips on through our cells at its leisure during day rec. Then one of the screws accidentally closed a cell door on the cat and the poor blighter had to be taken to a vet who gave Fritz’s little kitty a troubling ultimatum: expensive surgery to have a leg removed or it was a bullet between the eyes (not quite what the surgeon said, but you get the picture). Word spread round about the crippled cat and we passed a hat around and we all put our month’s wages into surgery for Fritz’s bloody kitty. It had the op and came right back to us walking around on three legs. Then we had a lengthy discussion about what we were gonna name the cat whose life we all saved and we all settled on the name of Tripod. That cat’s become bigger than The Beatles in here. Glad to hear you and August are doing so well at school. Don’t slack off on your studies. You don’t want to end up in a shithole like this because you don’t want to find yourself all souped up on chloral hydrate and butt-fucked through the laundry fence by the Black Stallion because that’s what can happen to kids who don’t keep on top of their studies. I’ve told Slim to keep me posted on yours and August’s report cards, good and bad. In answer to your question, I guess the best way to know if a bloke is wanting to knife you is by the speed of their steps. A man with a killin’ on his mind starts to show it in his eyes, there’s an intent to them. If they’re carrying, you’ll see them approach their victim slowly, eyeballing them like a hawk from afar, then, when they get closer, they’ll quicken their steps. Shuffle, shuffle, shuffle. You want to be coming at the victim from behind, shove the shiv in as close as you can to the kidneys. They’ll drop like a bag of spuds. The key is to shove the shiv in hard enough to get your point across, but soft enough to avoid a murder charge. A fine balance indeed.
Tell Slim his garden has never looked better. The azaleas are so pink and fluffy it looks like we’re growing fairy floss for the Royal Show.
Thanks for the picture of Miss Haverty. She’s even prettier than you described. Nothing sexier than a young schoolteacher in spectacles. You’re right about that face, like a dawn sunrise. I guess you won’t tell her if you know what’s good for you,