‘Plead your case, boy,’ she says. ‘Please tell us why exactly you are out at this time in your pyjamas flashing that cute white tush?’
I look at Lyle. He looks at Bich and I follow his gaze.
She takes a long white menthol cigarette from a silver case, lights it, leans back into her lounge as she draws in her first puff, then blows it out, her eyes sparkling as though she’s looking at a newborn baby.
‘Well?’ she prompts.
‘I saw the purple firework,’ I say. Bich nods knowingly. Fuck. I never realised how beautiful she is. She might be in her mid-fifties, early sixties even, but she’s so exotic and so cold-blooded exciting she has the presence of a serpent. Maybe she’s so attractive at this age because she sheds her skin, slips out of her own body when she finds a new one to wriggle through life in. She keeps me in her gaze with that smile until I have to look away from it, drop my head to fiddle with the drawstring on my loose pyjama bottoms.
‘And …?’ she says.
‘I … ummm … I followed Lyle here because …’
My throat thickens. Lyle’s fingers dig into his chair’s armrests.
‘Because of all the questions.’
Bich leans forward on the lounge. Studies my face.
‘Come closer,’ she says.
I move two steps towards her.
‘Closer,’ she says. ‘Come to me.’
I shuffle closer and she places her cigarette in the corner of a glass ashtray and she takes my hand to draw me so close that her kneecaps rub against mine. She smells of tobacco and citrus-scented perfume. Her hands are pale white and soft and her fingernails are long and fire-engine red. She studies my face for twenty seconds and she smiles.
‘Oh, busy young Eli Bell, so many thoughts, so many questions,’ she says. ‘Well, go ahead, ask away, boy.’
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.’
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