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Ned eased up the steps onto the veranda and to the front door. He tried the screen but it was locked. He started to twist the handle harder but it wouldn't give. He peered through the flywire at the closed door just beyond. He knocked on the frame of the flywire. Then he stepped back a full step and aimed the pistol, waiting.

Simon sat looking at the car horn. Although his hands remained on his legs, his fingers were flexing.

He knew Ellis was watching. He also knew he was cheating. Although he left his nearest hand up waving where Simon could see it, his left hand had drifted down. Wherever it was, it must be close to the knife.

Then Simon saw something ahead. He peered out along the headlights beam at a girl walking towards them along the road. She was carrying a plastic bag.

Simon turned to smile at Ellis. ‘I'm not going to hit the horn. But I am going to do something with my hands.'

Ellis tensed.

‘Even if I hit the horn, it's too late now. They'll just come to the door to see who's ordered a taxi. What I am going to do is bring up my hand, but keep it forward of the steering wheel. That way, even if I try to make a fast move for the horn, the steering wheel will be in the way.'

Ellis watched, then suddenly grabbed up the knife and looked at Simon's left arm, as though it might lash out. ‘What you trying to do, Simon?'

Outside the girl stepped into the headlights.

It was quite important that Ellis watched every gesture Simon made, waiting for the final magic trick move.

‘See, I'm bringing my hand up behind the steering wheel. I'm leaning forward to get it up there, so I'm easy to stab. I can't defend myself.'

‘What?' asked Ellis, impatient now.

‘The headlights, see.'

Simon flicked the headlight switch from high beam to street. The girl disappeared into the new stretch of darkness.

‘I'd left them on.'

Ellis suddenly looked out the front window into the dark.

‘They're still on.'

‘Right. Turning them all the way off. You going to let me do that.'

‘Do it.'

Simon reached around again, using his right hand in slow motion up under the steering column to get to the lights. ‘I was sitting here thinking about the horn, I have to admit, Ellis, and then I knew I couldn't.'

Simon was looking at Ellis as he flicked the lights up to high beam for a flash before turning them all the way off.

‘What did you do?' Ellis had seen the flash out of the corner of his eye.

‘Turned the lights off.'

‘What did you do?'

‘I saw we'd left the lights on, Ellis. I didn't want you to blame me for leaving them on. Thinking I was pulling something on you. But I also thought, if I just said I've left the lights on, you'd think that was a trick to make you look so my hand could get close to the horn.' Simon looked out into the darkness. He couldn't see anyone.

‘You did something. I'm going to take this knife and I'm going to push it in slowly, Simon. It's going to hurt. Tell me what you did.'

Suddenly Ned was in a lot of light. No one had answered his first knock and he'd had to do it again, and still no one had come. He finally found a button that sent a sound inside. And then the porch light came on with Ned standing right under it, holding the pistol pointed.

The door opened before Ned was set.

The man looked out through the flywire. ‘Yeah?'

Ned stood, embarrassed to not be ready.

The man looked down to what Ned was holding out to him. He stood looking at it.

The gun fired.

He fell back into the hallway, clutching his stomach. He started screaming.

Grace dropped the bag of beers where she stood in the garden and started running for the house.

In the taxi, Simon had a good view of the front veranda in all the white light.

Ellis urged, ‘Finish it, Ned. Finish it.'

Simon closed his eyes.

The shot man lay in a growing puddle of blood in his hallway trying to push his hands at his stomach.

Ned turned towards the taxi and took a step to run but made himself go back. He edged up towards the hole in the flywire and aimed the pistol at his head. A woman in a green dressing-gown came out of a door at the other end of the hall. She had white cream on her face. Ned looked at her, trying to work out why Ellis hadn't told him about the woman.

She was running towards him. Ned lifted the gun and fired, but the shot went into a picture on the wall. She was still coming, yelling, ‘Tim!' Ned tilted the gun and fired at the man, then ran.

Grace was coming round the side when the big man came down the steps and knocked her over. He ran off towards the taxi on the road, its lights back on showing two other men waiting.

She got to the first step but turned to see Luke come over the fence with a rifle. ‘The taxi!' she yelled, pointing.

She didn't wait to see what he did but heard the rifle shot as she reached the front door. Lisa wailed as she tried to prop Tim up and keep him out of all the blood. Grace stood outside the locked flywire with the three holes in it unable to reach them.

Luke pushed Grace out of the way and wrenched the flywire door open with one quick pull. ‘We need an ambulance. Grace, right now.' He spoke calmly, as if describing how to cook meat on a barbecue.

She fumbled out her mobile, dialling 911, before remembering it was triple 0.

Luke leaned down to look at Tim. ‘Grace, I need something to stop the bleeding. Sheets.'

Grace pushed past him and ran up the hall tracking footsteps of blood to the nearest bedroom. ‘Emergency. There's been a shooting.'

She heard Luke still being calm. ‘Lisa, I need you to stop crying darling. Tim, can you hear me? Tim, you old beanpole, wake up. Wake up. Lisa, he can't go to sleep, okay.'

Grace ran back with floral sheets, ‘Here. They're on their way.'

Luke took one and just balled it at the wound, pushing. ‘Lisa, can you keep the pressure on here.'

She did, then saw Grace as if for the first time. ‘They shot Tim. With a gun.'

Luke said, ‘Grace, can you ask JJ to come here?'

Grace said, ‘Oh.'

She handed Luke her mobile with the ambulance people still talking and stepped over Tim's legs again and went to the caravan. She felt like falling but kept from doing that – like there was a wind pushing her towards the top of a cliff. He wasn't in the caravan, but the cupboard door was open, his side empty, but his mobile phone was still on the table.

She went outside again to see him coming from the back door of Lisa's house with some car keys.

‘Got to get going, doll. Can't let the cops find me here. No way.' He went to Lisa's Camry. His bag was already in the back.

Grace stepped between him and the open driver's door. ‘No. You have to come and see them.'

‘What if they're waiting out there? What if they come back?'

‘Luke needs you.'

‘We have to get out of here.'

‘No. It's my sister. They've been helping.'

JJ pushed her. She fell back, cracking her head on the car roof as she kept falling across both front seats, her back catching the gearstick, sending all the air out of her. She felt JJ grab her feet and lift and push and twist her until her head went down into the passenger's foot-well.
Then JJ lifted her legs again and pushed them out of his way as he got into the driver's side and started the car.

Grace yelled, ‘Stop. JJ. Stop now.'

But JJ didn't stop. He didn't even change out of second gear until they were two streets away and even he noticed the screaming engine.

The wind was making a weird moaning at the back where the rear window had been blown to bits. The bullet must have just missed Ned's head as he'd dived in the back when Simon hauled arse. There was an interesting hole in the back strut where it went out again.

‘I got him. He came to the door and blam. Got 'im.'

Ned was pumped from the thing, but Ellis had that warm, dreamy feeling, like he'd just had some good soup with a big shot of rum. ‘Yeah. Pop, pop. Not so hard really, is it.'

‘Squeeze and blam.'

‘There's not so many hitmen in Australia, you know. Well, maybe Mr Rent-A-Kill or whatever, in Sydney.'

‘And Chopper Read.'

‘No, I'm talking about professionals. Not a bunch of Melbourne guys just killing each other. That's gang stuff. I mean men who you come to when you need it done.'

‘Yeah. Us.'

Ellis had been watching Simon, but getting nothing. ‘You're riding with the genuine article, Simon.'

‘We don't need him anymore. Job's done now.'

‘Give us the gun.'

Ned handed it over the seat.

‘You dipped the lights back there to attract attention,' said Ellis.

‘I told you what I was doing, and why.' Simon only rasped a little.

‘Should I kill you?'

Simon seemed to have some problem thinking about it for a while before he said, ‘No.'

Ellis said, ‘Beg.'

Simon turned to look at him mostly with the grey eye and said, ‘No.' He turned back to the highway. Cars were passing.

‘You're not like I thought.'

‘No, I've been a pretty big disappointment to everyone, Ellis. And I promised so much.'

‘Ha,' laughed Ellis, that Simon could keep surprising him. ‘This guy.'

Ned said, ‘We gotta shoot him, Ellis. Like you said, no witnesses.'

‘Except the woman, you mean,' said Simon.

‘The one who ran down the side?' Ellis shook his head. ‘She didn't see anything.'

‘The other one,' said Simon.

‘What other one?'

‘The one who was screaming. The tall guy screamed, then the woman screamed.'

‘That's right,' said Ellis, turning around to Ned. ‘I heard her too. Did you shoot her?'

Ned looked away. ‘I got the guy.'

‘The tall guy?' asked Simon.

‘What? Why do you keep going “the tall guy”?' asked Ellis mocking Simon's gravelly way of saying it.

‘How tall's Ned?'

‘What are you trying to do now?'

Ned said, ‘He's trying to mix us up.'

‘I couldn't see much but the guy looked a foot taller than Ned.'

‘I wasn't scared,' yelled Ned. He lashed out, punching Simon behind the ear.

Simon fell forward, going for the brake. The car pulled to the left as it lost speed, spilling Ellis back into the dash. He scrambled up onto the seat and turned the pistol to Simon, who was busy getting the taxi under control and looking out at the passing traffic.

Ellis turned in his seat again, ‘Ned, I swear to god, if you say another word, or touch anyone without my saying, I'll fucking shoot you.'

Ned started to open his mouth.

Ellis thrust the gun over the back seat. ‘Go on. Do it. One word.' When he could be sure Ned was going to behave he said, ‘Spit it out Simon.'

‘What?'

‘The tall guy?'

‘Yeah, well he looked pretty skinny, but he was the tallest jockey I ever saw.'

‘Fuck,' said Ellis. ‘Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.' He turned the gun back at Ned, reaching it out as far as his arm would go.

Ned closed his eyes, scrunched up his face and waited to die.

‘You dumb prick. That wasn't the jockey. Fuck.'

Ellis took a moment, centring himself. ‘A setback. I should have gone. Doing a hit is a bit more complicated than just “Go to this address. Get my bag.” Little more to it. Okay, turn around and we'll go back.'

‘You got it,' said Simon. He put the indicator on, getting ready for the next exit.

‘Wait. There'll be cops.' Ellis stared at Simon, distrustful again. ‘Quiet now, kids. Daddy needs to think.'

Simon drove. Some plastic in the back rattled in the wind from the missing rear window.

Ellis said, ‘Pull off the freeway. Find a phone. We'll call Foster.'

Grace was in a hot tub in Switzerland. Her long dark hair floated over her breasts, tickling a little, as she read
Sophie's World,
through the steam.

She stopped when JJ came out of the hillside apartment, muscular and naked, carrying two drinks. He stood a moment blinking at the distant snow-topped mountains then shivered. ‘It's cold.'

‘Do you think God is in everything?'

‘If you mean Foster, then yes I do. And I praise him for it.' He put down the drinks, staggering a little.

Grace looked out past the wooden decking to fields below where cows munched in the thin sunshine. ‘Spinoza says we're all part of everything, and everything is part of nature. So we can feel our little part of the whole universe and all eternity all at once.'

‘My little part is trying to crawl up inside me.' JJ jumped into the tub, sending a wave of water rushing out the sides of the hot tub.

Grace stood as quickly as she could, holding the book high above the splash.

‘Hot,' said JJ with a laugh, as he stood up out of the water.

Grace bent over to put the book safely up on a box of plants. She turned back to find JJ nodding appreciatively at her bare arse. She dropped back into the pool. ‘Have you heard of pantheism?'

JJ lowered himself back down into the tub, searching the edges for where he'd put the drinks. ‘I never heard of any of the things you're coming out with, baby. It's all like those French tapes you're practising on – fuckin' Greek to me.'

Grace smiled and when JJ reached his foot out and up to fit between her legs under the water, she giggled, going with the good feeling until she focused on something out in the world and asked, ‘Do you think animals have feelings?'

He followed her eyes to the cows in the meadow below. ‘Cows? Maybe. Sheep, no.' JJ took his foot away and drifted himself over to his drink. ‘Horses sure got moods.' He took a sip, admiring his mixing.