Sharp Shooter

by Marianne Delacourt

‘Wha-at?’

  ‘You heard me. I’ve got my street directory open, I just need some landmarks.’

  ‘Why would I know that?’

  ‘Because you drove taxis to put yourself through university. Perth’s not a very big city.’

  He sighed again. ‘I always forget you know so much about me. Look north of the railway line on your map, right on the border of the next suburb. There’s a triangular-shaped wedge of land. The north-east freeway runs along one side of it, and . . . I don’t know . . . Lucas Road, I think, runs the other side.’

  Lucas Road. I flipped quickly to the index and back. ‘Got it. Thanks Gartho.’

  ‘Tara,’ he said quietly. ‘What sort of trouble are you in?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘When did you last call me Gartho?’

  OMG, he was right. Knowing someone well worked two ways. It seemed anxiety was leaking out of me in endearments. ‘Gotta go. Talk to you later.’

  I hung up and glanced at my watch. My meeting with Delgado was on Saturday morning. That gave me about forty or so hours to work out what was going on and how to handle it.

  I rang Wal. ‘Wal, it’s Tara Sharp. I need you to ride shotgun with me to Bunka.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Now. This afternoon.’

  ‘No can do. Gotta set up for a gig at the Subi.’

  The Subiaco Hotel was only a fifteen-minute drive away from Lilac Street. ‘What time will you be finished?’

  ‘Around 4 pm.’

  ‘I’ll pick you up then.’

  ‘Gotta be back by midnight to pack up.’

  ‘No problem.’

  ‘Ah . . . should I bring any . . . deterrents?’ he asked with a hopeful note in his voice.

  I thought about the dead galah on my windscreen. ‘Yeah.

  Please do.’

  ‘Sweeeeet,’ he said.

  Chapter 38

  I DRESSED FOR BUNKA in jeans and runners then snagged a jacket over my shoulders. Then I added a cap that I could pull down over my hair.

  I took a look in the mirror. Too designer still, I decided, and swapped the jeans for some worn but fitted track pants. The tracks clung too closely too my legs but at least they didn’t scream money.

  Satisfied, I locked up the flat, and tipped the birds’ crunched seed husks into a dead pot plant. The birds were still a little flustered by their change of location and Brains tried to bite me when I reached in with fresh seeds.

  ‘Silly bird,’ I said sternly.

  She took another swipe and nicked the tip of my finger.

  ‘Owww!’ I snatched my finger away but Hoo sidled up against the bars, clicking at me. He wanted a cuddle.

  I scratched him with my non-injured finger and he purred like a cat, cocking his head at an impossible angle so I could get under his chin. Brains kept a baleful distance, attacking the sunflower seeds.

  Why did they remind me of Fiona Bligh and Bill Barnes?

  It was still a bit early to put on their night cover so I slung the canvas over one corner of the cage and left them fighting over a peanut.

  I pulled into the car park of the Subi just after 4 pm. My phone rang as I undid my seatbelt.

  ‘Tara? It’s Ed.’

  ‘Edouardo?’

  ‘Yeah, him too,’ he laughed.

  ‘Are you OK?’ I asked. ‘They said you had food poisoning.’

  ‘Must have been the Indian food,’ he said innocently.

  ‘Must have,’ I agreed. ‘Listen. I’m sorry. That was a lousy date.’

  ‘I wouldn’t call it lousy . . .’ he said. ‘More . . . interesting.’

  ‘Yeah well . . . I’ll make it up to you some time.’

  ‘How about tomorrow night?’

  Yikes! He actually wanted a second date. ‘Err. Got some work on.’

  ‘Saturday night?’

  ‘Su-ure.’

  ‘You don’t sound certain?’

  He was right on that score. I mean there was Delgado to think about, and the triathlon. And then there were my mixed-up feelings for Nick Tozzi. ‘What are you like at body massage?’

  ‘S-say again?’ he spluttered.

  ‘I’m running in a team triathlon at Perry Lakes on Saturday morning. I might need reviving.’ For all sorts of reasons.

  ‘I can’t think of anything I’d rather do,’ he said in his sexiest voice.

  My mouth went totally dry. I mean . . . I’d been joking. Was he? My turn to splutter. ‘T-talk to you l-later then.’

  ‘I’ve got all of Saturday off, so I’ll come and cheer for you at the finish line,’ he said, and clicked off.

  I got out of the car and walked into the band lounge of the Subi, sporting a blush that could have lit up half the brothels in Northbridge. Fortunately, the place was empty apart from the roadies.

  Wal was crawling around on the stage, with a rollie about to burn up his lip, and a bunch of electrical leads in one hand. I watched him connect them through puffs of smoke, and wondered how the hell he could see what he was doing.

  When he’d finished, he spat the rollie out on the stage, not even bothering to stamp it out, and stood up. Collecting his jacket and backpack from the back of a chair he headed down towards me.

  We didn’t speak but, as we reached the door, a bunch of cat whistles pierced the air from the roadies over at the sound desk. One of them offered to lend Wal a stepladder.

  Wal stiffened and hustled me through the door.

  ‘Next time, wait outside,’ he said gruffly.

  ‘Oh?’ I said, confused.

  ‘You’re killing my rep-u-tay-shun.’

  It took me nearly to Bunka to swallow that down. Like before, when we’d been having coffee, part of me wanted to giggle. Then there was the other part of me that wanted to kick him in the kneecaps.

  He broke the silence finally as we cruised past Burnside train station. ‘So, what’s the story?’

  I looked out for Cass, but the platform was full of nine-to-fivers, knocking off early. I wondered if Thursday afternoon was like that everywhere in the world.

  ‘I probably won’t need you to do anything,’ I said. ‘I just want to check out some things in an office out here. Got chased when I brought the car out to Bog.’

  Wal took out his tobacco and started rolling another smoke. ‘Yeah. Bog heard about it. They reckon you can run pretty damn quick for a chick.’

  I gave him a sideways look. ‘You heard about it?’

  He shrugged. ‘Bog’s shut up shop for a while. Cops been sniffing around.’

  I wanted to ask more but I didn’t. Less I knew about ‘Wal’s World’ the better. There was one thing I couldn’t resist asking, though. ‘What’s in your bag?’

  He rolled the numbers on the chain lock and unzipped it. ‘Just my working kit. Nothing flash.’

  ‘OK, put it away,’ I said, after glimpsing the butt of a pistol and a knife sheath. ‘You got a licence for that stuff?’

  He stuck the rollie between his lips and lit it with a zippo he pulled from his pocket. ‘Yeah. Sure.’

  I had a moment of complete panic as we turned down Lucas Road. I was driving in a car with an armed and dangerous man. And I’d invited him. What was wrong with me? Then I thought of the galah, stiff and ant-eaten, left under my windscreen wiper. Wal was my insurance.

  We cruised up and around the government land strip until I located SUP’s lab building. It was an ugly little demountable adjacent to a more solid steel-framed government warehouse. I parked a way back from the driveway, and told Wal to stay put.

  ‘That all?’ he asked.

  ‘For the moment. If I can’t find out what I want, we might have to hang around for a bit. You know, until it gets dark.’

  ‘Sweet.’ He opened the door and stuck his feet up in the vee of the hinge. A bag of sandwiches materialised out of his kitbag. Egg by the smell of it.

  I raised my eyebrows at the odour, but he ignored me, so I hustled down the long driveway to the demountable.
<
br />   The blonde desk-girl had a comb in one hand and was rummaging in her handbag with the other. ‘We’re closed,’ she said without ceremony, pulling out a packet of menthol cigarettes.

  ‘I’m looking for a business, and I’ve lost the address.’

  She frowned, clearly not in a helping mood. ‘What kind of business? I’ve gotta catch a train.’

  ‘Mining,’ I said. ‘Got an appointment with some bloke called Mitch. I sell diggers.’

  Her annoyed look was amplified by the way her aura was zipping around her body like a go-kart on the speedway; a dull red aura with not much going for it other than its speed.

  ‘It’s a really important meeting. Twenty bucks in it if you can help me,’ I said, waving a note.

  ‘Joey, can you come out here? Someone’s lost. I’m late.’ She shrugged towards the guy who appeared from a back room. ‘Try him.’

  I scrambled for an excuse to keep her in the office a bit longer. ‘Are you catching the 4.30 to the city?’ I asked.

  ‘Yeah. Why?’ Her eyes narrowed.

  ‘Haven’t you heard? There’s a strike. No trains until 5.30 pm. I just drove by the station. It’s crazy down there.’

  She wrinkled her forehead. ‘Never heard nothin’ about it.’ She glanced at the computer. ‘I just shut down.’ She dropped her bag back down on the desk and started rummaging in it again.

  ‘Might be worth waiting till the worst’s over,’ I said, helpfully.

  ‘What you looking for?’ asked Joey, who looked like one haircut short of Cousin It. A wookie compressed into a medium-sized white lab coat.

  ‘A mining warehouse. I sell diggers.’

  Joey grunted and shrugged. ‘I can drive you around, to look, if you like?’ he said, hopefully.

  I ignored the offer. ‘You got anyone else out the back there who knows the area?’

  Joey went over to the back door. ‘Hey, Zach. Girl needs help out here.’

  Zach emerged a minute later. Slim, white lab coat, dark, oily hair and small scar on his chin. His aura was the colour of a pair of tan boots I used to own, and sprinkled with black dots.

  ‘What is this place anyway?’ I asked, looking around. ‘Pathology lab?’

  ‘Assay,’ said blondie, texting on her phone.

  ‘Assay lab? Think there’d be more of you.’

  ‘We’ve got another guy,’ said Joey. ‘His wife’s just had a baby though.’

  ‘Uh. Oh.’ I looked at slim Zach. ‘I sell mining equipment. Got an appointment with a guy – lost the address though.’ Now I had them all together, I dropped the bomb. ‘Think his name was Viper . . . no . . . Viaspa.’

  Bang. Zach’s aura expanded like popcorn. The other two didn’t change.

  Zach shook his head. ‘Never heard of him.’

  ‘No sweat. Thanks.’ I headed to the door as a text message chimed on Blondie’s phone. ‘Hey!’ she called out after me, ‘There’s no stri –’

  I slammed the door and high-tailed it down the driveway.

  Wal tucked his leg in and shut his door as I pulled away from the curb. ‘So?’

  I turned off Lucas Road at the nearest street, and pulled in between two parked cars. ‘I need to tail someone.’

  Wal looked at me. He’d been cleaning his teeth with dental floss and it hung out the side of his mouth still. ‘In this car? Thought you was smart.’

  ‘No choice.’ I peered out of my back window towards the SUP building.

  ‘You need a white car, or blue. Like that one.’ Wal tapped my shoulder and pointed to the car in front.

  ‘What do you mean?’ I said blankly.

  His hand fell to his backpack. ‘I got the gear here. Could wire it in a few minutes.’

  ‘You mean “steal” it?’

  Wal tongued the dental floss. ‘Borrow.’

  ‘Absolutely NO! And too late anyway,’ I said, as a red SUV pulled out from behind the demountable. It turned left onto Lucas in the direction of the train station. From what I could see, Blondie was in the passenger seat and Zach was driving.

  I swung Mona out and followed at a fair distance. ‘He’s dropping her at the train station,’ I muttered to Wal.

  But he’d already settled his head against the door and closed his eyes.

  Chapter 39

  I FOUND THE LAST space in the Burnside Station car park and slotted in there, craning my neck out of my window to see the SUV, standing illegally in the taxi bay near the steps to the platform. Zach and Blondie must have been having a deep and meaningful.

  ‘Hey, that you Tara?’

  I glanced around. Cass was leaning against the car-park railing, bathed in her freckly cinnamon aura; not sickly, but not quite healthy either. She wore thick purple eye shadow, a plain black shift and some tatty platform Goth boots. My handbag hung off her arm like a trophy. Her peeps ambled up behind her, smoking and sharing coolers.

  ‘Cass?’

  ‘Watcha doing out this way again?’ She ducked under the railing and came closer, staring in the window at Wal.

  He was breathing heavily with snoring imminent.

  ‘I prefer Nick,’ she said with a curl of her lip.

  ‘So do I.’ I grinned. ‘Wal and I . . . work together.’

  Wal gave a little snore.

  ‘Oh. OK. He looks kinda familiar.’

  ‘Roadie. Hey Cass, you know a lot of people around here?’ I asked.

  She inclined her head and fiddled with her nose-ring. ‘Sure, I guess.’

  ‘You know the guy driving the red SUV over by the steps?’

  Lifting her head, she squinted over the top of the parked cars. ‘Seen the wheels before. Lemme go look closer.’

  I lifted Wal’s tobacco packet up off his lap and passed it to her. ‘Be discreet, huh?’

  She dropped the tobacco into her bag. ‘You mean, like in the movies?’

  I nodded.

  A light came into her bored face and she turned to say something to her peeps.

  Her boyfriend, Danny, came over obediently and slung his arm around her. They walked towards the SUV, entwined like they were totally engrossed in each other. When they got parallel to the car, they stopped, and started kissing.

  They stayed there, lip-locked, for a bit. Then Cass pulled away and rolled a smoke. She knocked on the SUV window.

  The window glided down the way electric ones do and she bent in, cigarette on her lips. Blondie extended an arm, lit the cig and the window went up again.

  Cass and Danny boy shared the cig in a slow unhurried way and then wandered slowly back into the car park. Cass sent Danny back to the peeps and sauntered over to Mona.

  ‘Slick work,’ I said.

  She gave a grin and shook her head in a way that made all the piercings in her ears shake. ‘I know ’em both.’

  I held my breath.

  ‘Karnie Foster. She wuz two years ahead of me at school. We did Saturday Ds together a few times. She finished school though. Got a job.’

  Detention. Why was I not surprised? ‘And the guy?’

  Cass’s lip curled. ‘She could do better. Sleaze bag. He’s name’s Lupi.’

  ‘Zach?’

  ‘Yeah, that’s it. Zach Lupi. Thinks he’s got some kinda big dick because he got connections to Sammy B and Johnny Vogue.’

  My body went cold. ‘You mean Sam Barbaro?’

  ‘Uhuh.’

  ‘You sure about that?’

  ‘Course. Sammy and Zach fixed my sister up with some amps. Turns out it wuz cut with baby powder or some shit. Put her in hospital. They never told her not to inject it. If I wuz a guy I’d smack ’em both down.’

  I screwed up my face in sympathy.

  ‘How come you know Sammy B?’ she asked. ‘You use?’

  ‘No. Just acquaintances,’ I said. ‘Listen, thanks. That helps me a lot.’ On impulse I fumbled in my glove box and found a card. ‘If you’re ever in trouble . . . I’ll help if I can.’

  Cass stared at it, frowning in concentration. Her aura flatt
ened and I realised she couldn’t read.

  ‘It’s got my phone number on it. You can call me.’

  Her face relaxed a little. ‘Wot’s yer job?’

  I ran through a few definitions in my mind. ‘Sort of like a private investigator.’

  Her face tensed. ‘You work for the cops?’

  ‘No. Definitely not,’ I said.

  She relaxed again. ‘I don’t do cops, Tara. Get it?’

  I nodded. ‘Completely.’

  Danny called out something I couldn’t hear. She sent him a scowl. No prizes for guessing who wore the pants.

  ‘Later,’ she said to me and walked off.

  Shortly afterwards, the SUV pulled away from the curb minus Karnie Foster. As she wobbled up the platform steps in her high heels, I eased Mona out of the parking lot and followed Zach Lupi.

  Most of the Friday traffic was heading towards the highway, so it was easy enough keeping him in sight as he doubled back through Burnside. Just on dark, he pulled into a shabby duplex in the next suburb over; one tree in the yard, no lawn, no fence and a gravel driveway.

  I drove past without being noticed. I think.

  Wal continued to sleep: three heavy breaths, nothing, and then a deep snore. With that symphony as my companion, I parked around the corner from Lupi’s house and settled in to wait.

  By about eleven, I was starving and desperate for a toilet. Wal had stirred once or twice to change positions. I considered waking him up for conversation’s sake then thought better of it.

  Instead, I pondered – again – on the identity of the suited man with Johnny Vogue at the warehouse. It was really bugging me that I couldn’t remember where I’d seen him.

  When I got tired of coming up with nothing, I moved on to an entertaining fantasy about who I’d choose between Edouardo and Tozzi if they both fell at my feet and begged me to have them. Edouardo was so sweet and so gorgeous but a little too eager, even when he was trying not to be. Tozzi had everything, including the attitude that goes with it. He was also married to a goddess.

  I glanced at my watch: 11.15. Wal had to be back at the Subi by midnight. I reluctantly admitted to myself that I’d just wasted four hours of my life. Then Zach Lupi emerged from the duplex and drove off.

  I followed at what I hoped was a fair distance, and in five minutes we were back in Burnside and Zach was turning into the street that harboured Johnny Vogue’s warehouse.