Spare Key

immediately like a bop bag, still chattering away, that stopped him. With some people it was just futile trying to stop them once they were in the swing.

‘Anyway,’ the agent made an exaggerated show of checking his chunky, plastic watch and hope bloomed in Ben’s chest. ‘I should be letting you settle in.’ He held out the keys for a moment but then gently placed them on the bench when Ben made no effort to take them.

‘I’m just so glad to finally rent this place out you know. The landlords are a nice old couple. Good people. Sort of got suckered into buying this place by another firm. Lot of bastards out there you know. Didn’t tell them the history. They had no idea how hard it would be to rent.’ The agent paused and leaned forward conspiratorially. ‘Also as a quiet aside, there was a bit of a bet back at the office. You my friend have just won me two hundred bucks. The boys thought it would be impossible to rent this place again after the last guy legged it. Been empty a couple of months now, even with the rental crisis…’

The agent beamed at Ben but then looked embarrassed when he merely stared back stone-faced.

‘Oh, I’m sorry. Blathering away again. I’ll leave you to it. Just remember six-fifty a month. Cheque or money- order. None of that fancy bank-transfer stuff. Just drop it into the office.’

Ben nodded and gratefully trailed the agent to the door. It doesn’t matter, I won’t be here in a month anyway. The thought formed automatically and Ben had to remind himself that it wouldn’t be like that this time. That he would be settling down. Looking for work. He wouldn’t need to be gone this time, he thought as he watched the agent waddling down the driveway past the flickering light outside number three.

He tried his best not to glance at the strip of light visible through the chink in the curtains next door but his eyes drifted to it of their own accord.

* * * * *

Sam Tramontano glanced back over his shoulder as he shuffled across the road towards his immaculately polished Kingswood. The guilt was heavy in his stomach, making him feel all gassy and bloated. He knew his indigestion would be acting up again tonight.

Shit, almost spilt the beans a couple of times there, he thought as he unlocked the door and heaved himself into the seat. And maybe I should have…

Yeah but then what? He’d probably want to go to the police or at the very least not want to stay there anymore and he really needed his commission on this one. Not to mention that extra two hundred. He needed to get that fucking bookie off his back. The smug prick was sending final demand letters and Christ, friggin’ Maria had almost got the last one.

And then the landlords would find out too. Sam shook his head as he slotted the key into the ignition. It was just lucky he’d got there first. Got to scope it out a little. Had a chance to clean up before they’d dropped by.

As he started the engine, Sam tried hard to convince himself he’d done the right thing but didn’t quite succeed. Shit, what could he have done, huh? He needed the money and the landlords would have just freaked out. Besides, he didn’t really know what had happened to the last tenant. The man was a fucking nutcase and with that friggin’ ridiculous get-up he used to go around in… There could have been any number of explanations for the stains. Guy was probably holding some sort of satanic rituals in there or some shit.

Despite his justifications, as he shifted into gear and pulled away from the curb, Sam still couldn’t help feeling guilty. Maybe he should have said something. Given the new guy a heads-up. The guy had seemed nice enough, a little spacey maybe, didn’t say much, but still…

…Fuck it. What could he do? He needed the money.

Nothing will go wrong, he assured himself as he pulled away into the night.

* * * * *

It took two trips to his beat-up Magna for Ben to move in. After pulling into the car park out the front, Ben made one trip to retrieve the inflatable lilo from the boot and a second to remove the two duffel bags from the back seat.

Even though he knew he shouldn’t, he couldn’t resist a peek on the last trip as he passed the chink in his neighbour’s curtain. He didn’t dare linger though and his glimpse revealed nothing more than a tantalising swath of colour. He needed to check things out first. Make sure she didn’t have a boyfriend like the last one. No one to disturb him. He needed to…

… He needed to take his pills, he thought as the door slammed shut behind him, shocked at how easily he’d dropped back into the old thoughts and trying to suppress the doubts as they bubbled up. Of course the pills would work. He was just being stupid. What the fuck would Mandy know about medicine anyway? She was a fucking PA for fuck’s sake.

Ben dumped the bags next to the lilo on the floor and crouched beside them. Carefully, he pushed the khaki one off to the side, wedging it against the wall. He still wasn’t certain why he’d retrieved it from where he’d stashed it. It wasn’t something that he’d need in his new life. When Slavia had finally signed off on his release from the clinic and he’d stepped up to the bus stop, he certainly hadn’t intended to get it. No, he’d headed straight for his brother’s house to begin getting his life back on track.

It wasn’t until he’d overheard the argument, until he’d heard Mandy say the word placebo, that he’d found himself heading over toward the footbridge that crossed the freeway at the end of Hope St. He hadn’t known that at the time though. It wasn’t until he was clambering down the scrubby embankment and levering himself up the concrete pylon into the underside of the bridge that Ben had realised where he was going.

What seemed a lifetime ago, he used to live in a small group of flats one block across in Cumming St. The spot where it had all gone wrong for him last time, and after the boyfriend had walked in to find him looming over her, he’d sprinted away desperately searching for a place to stash his tools before the cops caught up with him.

And almost instinctively his feet had taken him to the footbridge.

It was his special place from his childhood. Back when he lived in the commission house on Albion. An almost sacred place for him. The place where he’d hole up from all the unpleasantness; hide away from the horrible rasp of her voice. The place where he could just escape it all for awhile, daydreaming as he stared at the underside of the bridge. The place where revenge had first crossed his mind. Where the Red Room had first come to him, slowly coalescing as he’d stared in frustration at the lines of cigarette scars littering the lengths of his arms like sucker marks from a tentacle.

His special, secret place that he had told no one about…

And when he’d clambered up onto the concrete ledge, just over a year from the day he’d stashed his tools, he’d just known that they would still be there. I don’t have to use them again, he clearly remembered thinking as his hand had probed around the girder and found the crack in the cement underside. It would just be… nice… to have them. And he had felt a sort of completeness when his fingers had finally found the strap and he’d dragged the bag clear. A sort of completeness that now, as he stood peering at it against the wall, seemed totally unfathomable to him.

He deliberately forced his eyes away from the bag even though his fingers were twitching to open it. To rummage through and pull out his playthings. Instead he yanked open the blue bag and removed a bottle of Southern Joy Bourbon and, after a bit of further pawing through the change of clothes inside, a small, orange, plastic vial of pills.

Ben popped the top and looked at the little pastel pink spheres inside. He only hesitated briefly before shaking two out into his hand and washing them down with a swig of bourbon. He sat back for a moment and treated himself to a cigarette from the crumpled pack in his pocket as he waited for them to take effect. Each drag, however, only seemed to lead to more doubts.

Would they work?

Of course they fucking would.

It wasn’t long before the doubts forced him to his feet, dragging back deeper and deeper on his smoke until the last half disappeared in one suck. Frustrated, he dropped the butt to the floor and ground it into the carpet with