Page 9 of The Family Across the Street
‘Maybe, but I think something’s wrong,’ he says, frowning.
‘Don’t overthink, babes, just get on with the rest of your day and there will be a cold beer waiting for you when you get home. Maybe if I feel a bit better, we can drive down to the beach for a walk.’
Logan bites down on his lip. He knew Debbie would tell him not to dwell on the delivery. He is probably making things up, letting his imagination run away with him, but he can’t help the unease he feels. It’s almost a physical thing, a churning in his gut as though his body is telling him to pay attention.
‘A cold beer sounds good,’ he says, knowing that there’s no point in saying anything else. He can’t make Debbie understand because even he doesn’t get why he’s worried about some woman he’s never met in a house he’s never been to before.
‘It will be. Love you, babes. Enjoy the rest of your day.’
‘Love you too – rest and get better.’
Debbie ends the call with a kiss and Logan smiles. He rubs at his chin as he remembers the first time he met Debbie. It was at three in the morning in a hospital emergency room.
He was covered in blood from putting his fist through a window, woozy from the taser and shaking from the effects of his first try of the drug ice wearing off. The police had brought him in to have his hand seen to. Logan knows there were two of them and that one was a man and one was a woman, but when he thinks about it now, he can’t remember their faces at all. It had been a beautiful high to begin with, as his body flooded with dopamine and adrenalin rushed through his veins. He can remember feeling invincible, believing that he could simply put his fist through the glass door at the side of a house where he had found himself standing, with no idea of how he’d got there. He didn’t think it would hurt at all; he wouldn’t even feel the pain.
He now knows that he had run five kilometres from Nick’s place. Nick was his partner in crime, literally. A mate from the gym. Gym was the only place Logan felt at home – where he’d found people who understood him. Nick was small and thin, with an innocent baby face. He talked more than he worked out. He had a drug habit but he told Logan he kept it well under control. His parents had tried to help, his school had tried, therapists had tried – it seemed to Logan that the whole world had tried to help Nick get his life back on track – but Nick had no desire to actually be helped.
Together they had amassed a small fortune picking the right houses to break into. Together they had hit houses where cannabis was being grown in the basement, and those where meth was being made in the back. There was always money there, lots and lots of cash, and no one ever reported it to the police. It was dangerous work because there were also always guns and junkies and those who meant to protect what they were doing. But he and Nick were smart about things. They would hit a couple of places and then lie low for months, living off what they’d made. They’d been doing it for years, ever since they’d met when Logan was twenty-three and looking for a way out of the menial jobs he kept getting fired from because he’d mouthed off or hit someone. He didn’t do well with authority and he took all criticism personally.
He and Nick didn’t start off with drug houses.
‘I know this house, near where my parents live,’ Nick said one night over a beer. ‘They’ve just moved in but they’re not actually living there because they’ve just painted. The house is filled with stuff and no people.’
Logan frowned. ‘So what?’
‘So maybe we go in and help ourselves to some stuff. I know a guy who can get rid of it all. No mess, no fuss and they have insurance – they won’t even care.’
‘I’m not a thief, Nick.’
‘Yeah, what are you, Logan? Just looking to finish your medical degree?’ Nick raised an eyebrow at him, a smirk on his face.
‘Don’t be a dick.’
‘I’m not being a dick. I’m saying this is easy money. We get in, we get out and we enjoy the cash.’
And it had been easy money. Logan remembers the feeling of control as he counted the notes in the pile that was his share. It had taken them an hour and they had the money for the stuff two days later. He put fifty dollars in an envelope and posted it to Maddy, telling her to hide it well and use it to buy what she needed for school, knowing that cash in his parents’ house disappeared on cigarettes and alcohol pretty quickly. He felt like he was good at something for the first time in his life.
It wasn’t always easy. There were houses with alarms and barking dogs and enraged owners. They would leave if there was any noise, and by the time the police arrived, they were long gone.
It was Nick who suggested targeting places where the thin blue line was crossed every day.
‘No one calls the cops when you steal money they’ve collected from selling their product – no one.’ He was so sure of himself, and he always believed that he would get away with it. And he did – mostly.
Nick’s cocaine habit was still under control, or so he said, but he was starting to experiment with other things.
Logan has no idea why, on this particular night, they took some of the drugs as well as the money. Usually they left the drugs alone – that was part of their strategy. And that meant that they managed to get away with it for years.
Now, as Logan drives the van, he understands that whatever you do for a job, it’s better than not having one. At the end of the day, he can sit next to his wife and know that he has done something – if not worthwhile, then at least acceptable and helpful.
Logan dismisses thoughts of Nick, who is still in prison because his self-belief could not keep the police away forever, and who is still raging at the world. Still intending to go back to his old life.
He pulls to a stop in front of another house and gets out of his van, noting the large German shepherd standing rigid at the gate.
He searches the wall of the house, relieved to see a keypad with a bell. He pushes the bell and steps back as the dog stares at him. ‘You’re a protective bugger, aren’t you?’ he says to the German shepherd. The dog growls softly.
The door opens and a young girl dressed in shorts and a tiny tank top comes running down the path. ‘Sorry, sorry,’ she smiles. ‘James, you be a good boy. I’m going to open the gate and you’re not to move.’
‘His name is James?’ asks Logan as she opens the gate and he hands her the box.
