The Whole Business with Kiffo and the Pitbull by Barry Jonsberg

that I only took chances verbally. Quick at shooting from the lip, but a bit of a sook when it came to anything else. Maybe old Kiffo, all action and adrenaline, would make a good partner, a Clyde to my Bonnie, a Butch Cassidy to my Sundance. I decided not to share this with Kiffo. I don’t think he would have liked it if I’d called him ‘Butch’. But what the hell? I’d come this far and like old Macbeth said: ‘I am stepped in blood so far that to go back is as tedious as to go o’er.’ Or something like that. And anyway, I was going to find out about the connection between the Pitbull and Kiffo, regardless of what he might think.
    We got back to my place and I invited him in for a cup of coffee.
    â€˜Thanks, but I’d better get back,’ he said. ‘Dad’ll be home soon, full of grog and wanting dinner. If it’s not ready for him, there’ll be trouble.’
    I watched as he walked off into the dark, a slight, bandy-legged figure, hunched and curiously vulnerable. I had little first-hand knowledge of the kind of life he led, but I knew that it was loveless and full of casual cruelty. I felt even closer to him then than normal. Not the sort of closeness you feel for the underprivileged, when your own comfortable existence is held up to theirs. Not the sort that is tinged with guilt. I just felt – and I know this sounds really obvious and almost childish – that we were both here and human. That for all our differences, we were still, like the rest of humanity, ninety-nine per cent indistinguishable from each other.
    Never mind that the bastard was lying to me.
    The Fridge was in bed when I went in. I had a hot shower and snuggled under the doona, the aircon blasting above my head. It felt great, the contrast between the artificial chill in the air and the sense of womb-like security in bed. I dozed a little and thought about the day. Curiously, I didn’t feel half so bad now. What had seemed a nightmare was only a bad dream and fading with every passing moment. I thought about Kiffo’s back as he walked off into the night, and the sense of security that gave. Most of all, I curled myself around an image of someone, carefully, lovingly, cleaning a photograph of a grinning young man.
    Yes, it had been a strange day. As I slipped under the surface of sleep, I was bothered by just one thought. I felt somehow that it was important to write down everything I was feeling, to record my thoughts in case they appeared stupid in the morning. Or, even worse, cloudy and insubstantial.
    Sometimes diaries are a really good idea, you know. It was a shame I’d thrown so many away.
    MARCH: Primary School, Year 6.
    You are pinned up against the school fence. You’re scared, but try not to show it. As you look up into the boy’s face, your eyes blink nervously behind large, multicoloured glasses. He is taller than you and a lot heavier. He has a stupid face, leaden and cruel. As he leans towards you, he prods you painfully in the shoulder with a blunt, dirty finger.
    â€˜You need to watch your mouth,’ he says. ‘You think you can say what you like about me, is that it? You think I won’t hit a girl?’
    He pushes his face further into yours and you can smell stale tobacco. His face buckles into anger as you say nothing. His right hand, cocked behind his shoulder, clenches into a fist. You close your eyes and wait.

Chapter 10
Every dog has its night
    FBI Special Agent Calma Harrison stepped from the shower. She got dressed quickly, paying no attention to the thin scar that ran down the side of her stomach. A memento of a fight in Beirut. Just before she had broken his neck, he had slashed her across the abdomen. Later, she had stitched herself with a sharpened twig and a length of twine she had fashioned from local native grasses. A neat job, even more remarkable because she had no anaesthetic. She preferred to bite on a bullet.One time, she