Sharp Shooter (22 page)

‘Can we take a short detour? I just need to check out a place close by,’ I said.

Edouardo shot me a quizzical look. It was amazing how handsome his face was at any angle in any light; even the sulphur yellow of the Bunka street lights.

‘You thinking of buying property out here?’ he asked.

I peered out the side window looking for something familiar. ‘Not unless I can afford a full-time security guard. There! Slow down and turn into that lane.’

He did as I asked, and the Subaru bumped up the laneway alongside Johnny Vogue’s compound. There were no lights on and everything seemed quiet.

‘Stop the car and kill the lights,’ I whispered.

Edouardo complied, then slid his arm along the headrest of my seat and leaned towards me. ‘Tara?’

Oh my god. Asking him to pull over in a dark place had given him totally the wrong message. Trust a man to think a back alley in Burnside could be sexy.

Then again . . .

Edouardo’s lips brushed my hair and his breath fanned warmth on my ear. He smelled of garlic and Indian spices. ‘We didn’t have to drive all this way to –’

I grabbed his hand in a very un-sexy manner to jerk him out of his hormone surge. ‘Edouardo, this is going to sound a bit demented. But I just have to check something out in this warehouse. Nothing illegal. I just need to have a look inside. Can you sit tight and wait for me?’

He sat back in his seat surprised. ‘Wha-at?’

‘Look, it’s a really long story which involves too many people you don’t know and questions I can’t answer. So I can’t go into it all now.’

I flipped off the seatbelt. ‘I just want to look in the window and then we’re out of here. OK?’

It was a bit dark to see his face now, but I guessed he was looking dubious, and a little offended. I would be too, if someone had knocked back my perfectly good sexual advance. I was guessing it didn’t happen to Edouardo too often.

‘I s’pose so. But I don’t want trouble with the police, Tara. I’m trying to get a career going. My agency would drop me in a second if they –’

I traced my fingers across his chest. ‘Cross your heart. No trouble.’ Then I uncrossed my legs. ‘Back in a jiffy.’

I jumped out of the car and surveyed the options for climbing the eight feet-tall fence. At least there was no razor wire.

I stuck my head back in the window. ‘Do you have a torch?’

He sighed and pulled the key from the ignition. ‘There’s a little torch on my key ring.’

‘Wonderful. Now I need a leg over.’

He climbed out of the car and joined me on the bonnet. ‘How will you get back?’

‘I’ll find something on the other side to stand on.’

‘You sure? What if you can’t?’

‘I will,’ I reassured him. ‘It’s a warehouse. Warehouses always have things lying around that you can stand on.’
Hopefully.

The hoist over was ugly but effective and I crashed down the other side like a cat with no legs.

‘Alright?’ Edouardo asked anxiously.

‘Dandy,’ said I, picking myself up. Now I was in here, adrenaline was shooting out through my toes. What if I’d missed noticing guard dogs? Or a security person?

I sprinted across the crumbling bitumen yard to the building.

Chains and padlock on the door, chicken wire over the dirty glass windows. I spent a few minutes locating a broken crate to stand on to look inside. Edouardo’s little torch worked a treat but the dust on the windows might as well have been curtains. If I could find a little gap to peer in through . . .

Before giving it deep amounts of thought I reached down and slipped off my heels. Positioning the heel spike inside a loop of chicken wire, I hammered down on the shoe with the palm of my other hand. A chunk of glass cracked off and fell in.

The alarms went off as I flashed the tiny torch around and got a good look. The building was wall-to-wall machinery. Huge scraper extensions and excavator buckets lay on the ground between the machines like giant discarded shoes. Most of them wore the Caterpillar brand emblem. What was Johnny Vogue – drug baron of the west – doing with a warehouse full of heavy equipment? Was it his?

Dragging the broken crate behind me I dashed back to the fence. The dogs across the lane in the refrigeration yard were going crazy, baying like hellhounds. Edouardo was pacing up and down next to the car.

‘Hurry
up,
’ he cried.

The crate collapsed on my first go and I had to reassemble it and prop it against the fence. This time I got up and over, leaving a good scraping of my skin behind. Hopefully the Burnside cops weren’t up on DNA testing.

I fell into the car and threw Edouardo the car keys. He put the pedal to the metal and we were back in traffic before I could do my seatbelt up.

‘What happened?’

‘Accidentally broke a window,’ I said.

He took a deep breath and I noticed his hands were shaking on the steering wheel. ‘Let’s get your car and get out of here. Then you owe me an explanation and a lot of vodka.’

He seemed to be taking it well.

‘OK. Deal,’ I said.

Chapter 34

W
E ARRIVED AT
B
OG’S
yard five minutes later. Bog was sitting on the bonnet of my car drinking beer straight from the carton – no esky in sight – under a spotlight.

He waved and slid off the bonnet when he saw me. Edouardo drove the Subaru up alongside.

I lowered the window. ‘Evening. Got your message.’

Bog didn’t answer but he stepped out of the way so I could see Mona. She was clean as a whistle, shiny orange but . . .

‘What’s that?’ I gasped staring at the black swirls across the bonnet and down the side.

‘Flames,’ said Bog. ‘You said you wanted to race her. Thought I’d throw in an extra for you. Had a set of transfers hangin’ around.’

‘N-i-ce,’ I managed to get out. My car looked like a hell-beast Transformer.

In the seat next to me Edouardo sounded like he was choking.

‘Don’t you think it might attract attention?’ I asked Bog.

‘That’s the idea.’ He tossed the can away and ripped open another. ‘We got a deal though. Remember? You race, I wrench.’

‘But you’re a spray painter,’ I protested.

‘Yeah, only cos . . . well I got my reasons. But I got my trade as well. As good a mechanic as you can find.’

‘Oh,’ I said, stumped. ‘Fair enough. I’ll keep it in mind.’

Bog cocked his head as a truck turned into the street, headlights off. He flicked us a salute. ‘Time you folk went.’

I got a cold, shivery feeling. If Bog was up to something illegal I didn’t want anything to do with it. I’d pushed my luck enough for one night. ‘Sure.’ I glanced at Edouardo. ‘Follow me home. We’ll have that drink at The Cocked Dog.’

Edouardo nodded; a tight jerk of his head that told me he was thinking the same thing as me. It was time to go.

I jumped out of the Subaru and into Mona. The engine fired up sweetly – so sweetly, I swear Bog had tuned her as well. With one slight depression of the accelerator, and a swing of the steering wheel, I flew out of Bog’s yard and headed down the street towards the incoming truck.

A quick glance in the mirror told me Edouardo was sticking tight to my tail.

As we crossed paths – two innocent cars happening to be on the same street as a dirty-great-big unmarked truck – two police cars screamed around the corner, sirens blaring.

Before I took the same corner, I glimpsed the truck being pulled over to the side of the road at the gate of Bog’s yard.

The rest of the trip home was uneventful apart from my thumping heart, clammy hands, and the hoons that tried to drag me at every set of traffic lights.

Flames. My flipping car’s got flipping flames
.

How was I going to park it in Lilac Street?

Worse! How would I tell Bok? Bok loathed all things bogan.

By the time I turned off Stirling Highway into the car park of The Cocked Dog, I’d pretty well justified myself to Bok in my mind, by deciding the whole thing was his fault anyway.

Edouardo ended up buying the bottle of vodka and drinking most of it – among other things – and I ended up driving him home. Not before he accidentally tossed a flaming Drambuie over his shoulder (instead of into his mouth) and nearly set fire to the barman’s dreads.

About then the management decided it was time for us to go, and possibly not return for some time.

I saw Edouardo to the door of his ground-floor unit in a salmon-brick apartment block in Graylands.

‘Thanksh, Tarah,’ he slurred. ‘Never hadda night witha girl like that befoe.’

I put his key in the lock and opened the door.

‘Yeah, well,’ I said, feeling guilty. ‘Sorry.’

He threw his arms around me and hugged me tight. ‘Don’ ’pologise. ’S’fun,’ he mumbled in my ear. ‘Scary but fun. Like you.’

I laughed, pushing him away. ‘You’re a cool dude, Edouardo. Take care.’

His face dropped as he grabbed the door jam. ‘Don’ you wanna mess around?’

I leaned forward and kissed him firmly on the cheek. ‘Some other time.’

Chapter 35

I
PARKED
M
ONA
A little way up Lilac Street so that it wasn’t the first thing JoBob saw when they looked out of their bedroom window in the morning. Then I crept down the driveway into my flat, past the sleeping birds.

I was still churned up, so I got on the internet and surfed. By about 3 am I’d established that the machinery I’d seen in Johnny Vogue’s warehouse was mining plant: wheel loaders, dozers and excavators.

Weird.

I fell asleep on that thought and woke up six hours later with another.

Nick Tozzi’s exploration lease.

There had to be a connection.

I rang Nick before I got out of bed.

‘Tozzi,’ he answered.

‘Sharp,’ I replied.

He paused. ‘Yes?’

‘We need to meet. I have some . . . information for you.’

Another pause. ‘Important?’

‘Maybe.’

He sucked in breath. I couldn’t tell if it was in annoyance, or out of concern for what I might have found out. I ran with the latter.

‘I’m having drinks with some business associates at 7 pm tonight. The Cocked Dog. Come along and we can talk there,’ he said.

‘Oh,’ I said, thinking of Edouardo and the flaming Drambuie.

‘Is that a problem?’

‘Err . . . well. Can we meet outside?’

‘OK. But why?’

My turn to sigh. ‘I was there last night with a friend. We kinda got . . . kicked out.’

‘Don’t tell me . . . you vomited into a pot plant.’

He hung up, laughing, before I could spit out an indignant reply.

I spent the rest of the day washing my clothes and moping around the flat wondering what to do with what I’d learned. Did it mean anything at all? I mean, it’s not illegal to own mining gear. Yet the disturbance around those lease documents had been strong.

By late afternoon I was feeling antsy so I threw on my runners and went for another jog. Things went better this time. I stuck to the fairly level route towards the highway and got through four k’s without any ill effects.

Feeling cheered up by that, I showered and nibbled on some dry crackers and the last corner of brie. Then I read the daily news on my computer before I got ready to meet Nick.

Bok rang as I was hunting out one of my old handbags.

‘’Lo babe. Where were you last night? I called around.’

‘Had a date,’ I said smugly, shovelling things into a worn but still stylish Mandarina Duck satchel.

‘You? A date? Who with?’

‘Not telling. How’s the ’zine coming along?’

‘One minute I think we’re going to make deadline and then the next I lose my lead story.’

‘Huh? Really?’

‘My major celebrity interview’s fallen through. They’ve coughed up the withdrawal fee but I still don’t have a cover. I don’t think I’m cut out for this type of stress.’