Read Online The Whole Business with Kiffo and the Pitbull by Barry Jonsberg - Free Book Online

hadn’t wanted to interrupt, but I couldn’t help myself.
    â€˜What do you mean, you couldn’t hear? I was making enough noise outside to register on the Richter scale. The neighbours five doors down came out, for God’s sake. You must have heard.’
    Kiffo looked a little embarrassed.
    â€˜Yeah, well, I’m a little . . . well, deaf. Just in my left ear, you understand.’
    â€˜You might have told me this Kiffo, before you had me as lookout for you. If I’d known that letting off a cannon would have been the only way of attracting your attention, I might have been a little less willing to get myself involved in this mess.’
    â€˜What?’
    â€˜Never mind. Go on.’
    â€˜It was horrible, Calma. I was in her bedroom, checking things out. I hadn’t done nothing at that stage. I was wondering whether I should pee over her pet galah, when I heard her coming up the stairs. I had no time to get away, so I hid in her walk-in robe. It was awful in there. She had all these . . . all these . . . woman things hanging up. You know, underwear things.’
    The image of Miss Payne’s underwear was not one I wanted to dwell on.
    â€˜I had my face stuffed into something lacy with wires, Calma,’ he continued, his voice catching with emotion. ‘And a cocky was climbing up the insides of my trousers. The wardrobe was dark and smelly and I could hear her moving round. And then that bloody great dog started to bark. It was in the room with her. I thought that at any moment she would throw open the doors of the wardrobe and the dog would rip my throat out. If I’d known then that I would be spending the next nine hours surrounded by her . . . you know, things, . . . I’d probably have been glad if it had.’
    â€˜Nine hours! But you must have had some chance to get out of there.’
    Kiffo shook his head.
    â€˜Nah,’ he said. ‘There were a good few hours when the Pitbull was downstairs, but every time I went to open the door that bloody hound kicked up a helluva noise. She got really suspicious. Came upstairs about five or six times to check the place out. I could hear her growling. Her and the bloody dog. Could be relatives, them. The worst bit, though, was when she went to bed.’
    Kiffo’s face drained of colour and for a moment I thought he wouldn’t be able to go on. He looked in need of one of those disaster counsellors they have – you know, for victims of landslides and bushfires. He was about as traumatised by his experiences as anyone could be. To his credit, though, he swallowed and carried on.
    â€˜I could hear her undressing, Calma.’His voice shook.‘It was horrible. That must have been about eleven-thirty. And by that time the cocky was nesting in my bal— trousers and I couldn’t move and I wanted to sneeze and I couldn’t do that and my nose was really itching where her thingies were hanging against my face and . . .’
    â€˜Calm down, Kiffo. You’re safe now.’
    He took a few deep breaths and swallowed the rest of the coffee. Suppressing the shudders, he carried on in a calmer tone.
    â€˜I could hear the bed creak as she got into it. Must be a helluva bed that one. Reinforced, I reckon. And then, just when I thought it couldn’t get no worse . . . it did.’
    â€˜Why? What happened?’
    â€˜She had a CD player by the bed. I’d checked it out earlier. You know, one of the things I was going to trash. And she put on a CD. For, like, an hour.’
    â€˜So what’s wrong with that?’
    â€˜It was that Irish dickhead. You know, the one who stamps about on stage, feet wiggling all over the place, but the rest of him all stiff like he’s got a metal bar up his arse? That one. It was really gross, Calma. All those fiddles and accordions and things. I thought I was going to die.’
    I could see his point. It did seem unnecessary torture.
    â€˜But what about