Page 17 of I Am the Messenger

I pause and look at him. His lawyer tells him to keep his mouth shut, but he doesn't.

Quietly, he says, "You're a dead man. You just wait...." His words attack me, faintly. "Remember what I'm telling you. Remember it every day when you look in the mirror." He almost smiles. "A dead man."

I fake it.

Composure.

I nod and say, "All right," and move on.

God, I pray, give him life.

The courtroom doors shut behind me, and I walk out into the foyer. It's caked in sunshine.

A policewoman calls me back and says, "I wouldn't worry about that, Ed." Easy for her to say.

"I feel like skipping town," I tell her.

"Now listen," she says. I like her. She's short and stocky and looks sweet. "By the time that chump's been through jail, the last thing he'll want is to go back." She considers it and seems confident in her appraisal. "Some people go hard in jail." She jerks her head back to the court. "He isn't one of them. He spent all morning crying. I doubt he'll be after you."

"Thanks," I reply. I allow some relief to filter through me, but I doubt it will last very long.

You're a dead man. I hear his voice again, and I see the words on my face when I get back in the cab and look in the rearview mirror.

It makes me think of my life, my nonexistent accomplishments and my overall abilities in incompetence.

A dead man, I think. He's not far wrong. And I pull out of the parking lot.

Six months.

He got six months. Typical of the leniency these days.

I've told no one about the threat, choosing instead to take the policewoman's advice and forget about him. In a way, I wish I didn't read about his jail term in the local paper. (The only good fortune is that early parole was denied.) I sit like normal in my kitchen with the Doorman and the Ace of Diamonds. The newspaper's on the table, folded over. There's a sweet picture of the gunman as a child. All I can see are his eyes.

Days pass, and gradually it works. I forget about him.

Really, I think, what's a guy like that going to do?

It makes more sense to look forward, and I slowly work my way toward the addresses on the card.

First up is 45 Edgar Street.

I try to go on a Monday but don't have the courage.

I make a second attempt on Tuesday but don't manage to leave the house, reading an awful book as an excuse.

On Wednesday, however, I actually make it out onto the street and head across town.

It's nearly midnight when I turn onto Edgar Street. It's dark, and the streetlights there have been rocked. Only one survives, and even that one winks at me. It's light that limps from the globe.

I know this neighborhood quite well because Marv used to come here a lot.

He had a girl here, on one of these slummy streets. Her name was Suzanne Boyd, and Marv was with her back in school. When the family picked up and left, almost without a word, he was devastated. Originally he bought that shitbox car to go and look for her, but he didn't even make it out of town. The world was too big, I think, and Marv gave up. That was when he became extra tight and argumentative. I think he decided he'd only care about himself from that moment on. Maybe. I don't know. I never give Marv too much thought. It's a policy I have.

As I walk, I remember all of that for a while, but it disappears as I edge forward.

I make it to the street's end, where number 45 is. I walk past it, on the other side of the road, and head for the trees that stand up and lean all over each other. I crouch there and wait. The lights are off in the house and the street is quiet. Paint flakes from the fibro and one of the gutters is rusting away. The flyscreen has holes bitten into it. The mosquitoes are feasting on me.

It better not be long, I think.