LITMIR.BIZ

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mate,” the cop said, taking in the number. “It’s your house. Be prepared for a shock.” He waved the Cobra up onto the footpath, where we left it standing with its emergency lights flash­ing, adding its twenty cents’ worth of glitter to the festivities. We proceeded on foot. The driving license got the three of us through two lines of tape with Do Not Cross written in endless sequence. Outside the caved-in front fence and gate a detective sergeant I knew of old was talking to some guys in hard hats. He turned, recognized me.

      “Who the hell are you?” Detective Rebeiro said.

      “Occupier,” I said. “This is the landlord.”

      “Fuckinjesus H. Christ,” Mauricio screamed, “what cunt’s done this to me fuckin property there’s a fuckin Mack parked in the hall fuckin truckies they’re all on pills you know no fuckin sleep for forty-eight we’re talking fifty-six hours straight this cunt probably started in Brisbane and got lost south of Wang and thought he was parking the family wagon in the carport in fuckin Perth these guys are so off their faces I take it the cunt’s dead?”

      “There’s no one in there,” Rebeiro said.

      “Fuckin truck driving itself?”

      “Wonders never cease,” the cop said.

      §

      “You hungry?” I asked Share. A grinding noise told me the whole front of the mansion wanted to lie down for the night. Half the old places in the street had been turned into moderately upscale of­fices, used only during the day and for some occasional skulking at night, but those occupied by accountants on the rise and abortion­ists on the decline were flooded with light from open doors. Half a dozen people stood on the footpath, or nervously in doorways. “Are you mad? I couldn’t eat if I was starving.” That didn’t make much sense to me, and perhaps not even to her, because she added, “What I need’s a stiff drink. Oh, and you can write me out a check for the sable.”

      She took a deep breath for some more complaint, and I liked the effect.

      “You can be sure my insurers will have the matter in hand on Monday morning,” I said reassuringly. “I’d offer you a double malt, but unfortunately the drinks cabinet has half the staircase on it.” Something rumbled, and more crashings sounded inside. A pasty faced local from two doors up bared his teeth in the flash­ing blue light, unable to decide whether to go back inside his own place and hope for the best or run for his life. “Let’s retrieve Mau­ricio and get a bite to eat. I’ll stand you a drink.”

      “You are mad.” She peered this way and that. “Where the hell did I leave my car?”

      “Probably on the far side of the Mack.” The huge truck’s arse stuck out into the street. She stalked away. I called, “Look, calm down, okay? Stick with us, we’ll go for a drink to steady your nerves, then I’ll bring you back to your car, okay?”

      Mauricio had abandoned his conversation with the cop and was now staring straight into the bright lights of a television crew. “The vicious animal that done this has to be hunted down and prosecuted to the full vigor of the law and they’d better throw away the key before the dog ruins any more priceless Australian icons like my property here. It is typical of the gutless wonders of today’s modern criminal class that he runs away from the scene of the crime and doesn’t face the music like a man.”

      “Was there anyone inside, Mr. Cimino?”

      “Only my tenant, and he’s a harmless Fang Suet Master who doesn’t have an enemy in the world he’s a man of peace and tran­quility it’s part of his philosophy.”

      I took Share by the elbow. “Come on, we’ll leave Mauricio to it. There’s nothing for us to do here. We can come back for your car.”

      For a second it looked as if Share was going to march straight up to the cop with a view to helping him with his enquiries. With bad grace, she allowed herself to be escorted back under the two strands of tape. Silently she opened the Cobra’s passenger door and slumped into the seat.

      I had just bumped the car over the gutter and completed a three point turn when Mauricio slammed into the back compartment of the Cobra. “They won’t wait for daylight, they’ve got some heavy haulage tow truck coming,” he said, face theatrically black with rage in case any of the cops were watching, tone creamy with satisfaction. “You won’t be sleeping there tonight, Purdue. I hope you’ve made arrangements.”

      I turned my head, muttered directly into his ear, “Shut up, for fuck’s sake.” He ferreted under the back of my seat, fished out his gun from under my leather jacket and casually disappeared it under his suit coat. “Christ,” I said with a certain bitterness, “that was thoughtful of you.”

      “Well, I couldn’t very well cart the thing around in front of the cops, could I? C’mon, what are you hanging around for? I could eat a horse.”

      “He could probably arrange that for you,” Share said wither­ingly. I thought, If only she knew.

      The cop let me through, and I drove back into Royal Parade, headed north. “No, they still don’t serve horsemeat to humans in Melbourne,” I said. “Raw fish, yes. Anyone fancy sushi? Sashimi? With a bowl or two of hot saki? Just what you need to soothe the nerves after your house has been demolished by a raving lunatic.”

      “You’re going the wrong way,” Share said. “The best Japanese is in East Melbourne, Albert Street, opposite the Fitzroy Gardens.”

      “That’s wall to wall surgeons’ consulting rooms,” Mauricio said.

      “They have to eat too,” she said. “The Nippon Tuck got four stars in the Age Guide.”

      “I have a better idea,” I told her. The Cobra hummed up Syd­ney Road between a lumbering green tram and more four wheel drives than you could shake a yuppie at. People still buying SUVs, amazing. Something had happened to Brunswick lately. I shook my head sadly, and took a left into a bumpy alleyway between a closed-down book store and a classy new fish shop that looked like they’d style your hair while they grilled your batter-free piece of fish. “Have you ever eaten at the Alasya?” I asked Share.

      “What, is that place still open? When I was a student nurse.”

      “Noisy, but the food is good and Mauricio won’t be tempted to shoot anyone in such a public place.”

      He punched me sharply in the back of the head for that, so it was a good thing I’d found the rear of the shop I was looking for and parked the Cobra next to a huge and moderately smelly indus­trial-grade Dumpster bin.

      “We can walk from here,” I said.

      §

      I pulled my jacket on for form’s sake and nipped in to buy several reasonable bottles from a pub that had improved its game mark­edly since Share was a student. At the eatery, the guy carving hot spitting gyros nodded me upstairs to the private room. They serve you fast at the Alasya. Mauricio undid the top button of his pants and tucked in, shoveling flat bread into plates of pastel dips and chewing it up with black oily olives, lamb chops, sliced lamb, lamb kidney, minced lamb and some other foodstuffs derived from the sheep family. Even Share got into the spirit of the thing after a couple of glasses of rather attractive Delatite 1998 unoaked char­donnay. I stuck to red, and it stuck to me, taking away the stiffness in my neck and shoulders and with it my desire to beat Mauricio into a pulp. Most of it.

      “That was a really fucking stupid thing to pull, Mauricio.”

      “Purdue, you’re a loser, you know that? Can’t tell one bloody day from the next,” he confided to Share. “What kind of business­man is that?”

      “I’m not a businessman, you fucking thug,” I told him with dignity. “I’m a feng shui master. I prefer to be addressed as Sensei Purdue.”

      §

      I stumbled a little as we went back down the alley from light­-smeared Sydney Road, so I put my arm around Share’s shoulders to make

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