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The taxi came into the pine plantation on two wheels. It wobbled a moment then went over onto the roof, wiping off the plastic taxi sign on the limestone track. It continued to slide on its roof, the driver upside down, belted to his seat, holding onto the steering wheel as though it were of some use. There was a dead guy on the roof next to him in the front, and another guy in the back screaming and scrambling amidst an assortment of firearms and blood. There was a beautiful woman in the back too, upside down with her seatbelt on. Her shirt was missing. The taxi continued to slide in slow motion between the trees like a boat sailing up a jungle river at dawn.

On a dark and lonely road at the frayed edge of the suburbs, Simon drove the same taxi, when it was new. It still had plastic on the trim. There was only three hundred kilometres on the clock. Simon flicked on the temporary dispatch radio.

A scratchy female voice came through. ‘Simon?'

‘I'm done. Lights out and going home.'

‘See, you made it.'

‘Yeah. Like falling off a horse.'

‘I think that's getting back on the horse, sweetie.'

‘Night, Cheryl.'

Simon turned off the two-way then flicked off the taxi sign on the top of the car. He tried to blink out a glitch but the thing in his eyes stayed there. Way out in the darkness beyond his headlights was a red dot. The dot got bigger and became two brakelights at a T-junction.

Simon pulled up, his headlights on the car in the ditch across the road. It had failed to turn right or left and was nose down in the drain, its back wheels still spinning in the air.

Simon sat at the junction, his taxi in gear, looking at the car. Its headlights were on, bouncing back off good dark river dirt. Dust or smoke formed a drifting haze around the car.

Simon looked left and right along the dark country road but there was no one else. He sighed and put the taxi in park. He took off his seatbelt and walked slowly to the other car, rolling his neck a little stiffly and settling his shoulders. The engine whined shrilly. He entered the brake-lit red of the exhaust smoke and looked down to the driver's side, but the windows were tinted.

‘Hey, you'll burn out the motor. Hey.' Simon stepped off the bitumen and onto the gravel shoulder and carefully tapped on the boot. ‘Hey.'

Simon looked down into the ditch, where the half-buried headlights kicked back some light. There was rubbish but the ditch had not seen rain for a year now. He stepped down and knocked on the driver's window. ‘Hey.'

The engine stopped revving. After a moment the window came down. A middle-aged man in a shirt and tie blinked out at him. Then he peered at the other side of the ditch. ‘I'm stuck.'

‘You sure are.'

‘I gotta get home. Late for dinner.'

Simon looked into the darkness. There wasn't even a farm light on this late. The engine began to tick as it cooled.

The man fumbled for his mobile, dropping it somewhere in the car. He bent forward, banging his head on the steering wheel. He waved a hand in the air, giving it up.

Simon said, ‘You want me to call you a tow truck?'

‘Hey, yeah. Great. I got a rope in the boot.'

‘No, what I meant was...'

The boot popped up.

‘If you give me a tow out, then I can get home.'

Simon stepped back as the door swung open. The man swayed out of the car, hung for a moment on the door then sat down on the side of the ditch. ‘Woaw, I'm fucked.'

‘I'm Simon,' said Simon, not very loudly. He looked at the guy a moment then stepped up out of the ditch and looked back at his own taxi headlights across the road.

‘Simon?'

‘Yes.'

‘My name's Frank.' He was standing now.

‘Glad to meet you Frank.'

Frank reached his hand out and Simon took it, and Frank started pulling, so Simon got some purchase and hauled Frank up to the back of his car, where he stood looking into the ditch. ‘Fuck, eh.'

Simon looked in the boot. There were lots of little cardboard signs.
Granny Jo's Pies.
There was some rope under the signs. ‘You sell pies, Frank?'

‘Fucken A. Sold more fucking pies than any other bastard last month is what I did. Shitload of commissions. King of the pies.' Frank looked up at the sky and howled at it like a wolf.

Simon had the rope, hefting it. It was nylon, and he doubted it would be strong enough. ‘I'll give this a try, but I don't like our chances, Frank. My taxi's new, and I don't know whether the pistons...'

Frank, who had been peering across the road, suddenly pushed himself up off his car and yelled, ‘Taxi!' He stepped towards it. ‘There's a taxi.'

‘Yes, there is, Frank. Just over there.'

‘I gotta go. Gotta get home for dinner.' Frank started across the deserted road towards the taxi.

‘What about your car?'

Frank didn't turn. ‘Fuck it.' He raised his hand and waved down Simon's taxi.

Simon tossed the rope into the boot and closed it. Then he went down into the ditch again and turned off the headlights and got Frank's keys from the ignition. He locked up and went to his taxi. As he got in the driver's seat and turned on the ignition, Frank said, ‘Fifteen Royal Court, The Pines, mate.'

Simon started the meter. ‘You got it.'

‘Simon?'

‘How ya doing, Frank?'

Simon drove back through Middle Swan where good flood plain country had turned from melons and pumpkins to vineyards, and then wineries with restaurants. On weekends you had to dodge 50cc scooters and tour buses, but some sagging stalls outside the old farmhouses still sold cheap oranges and table grapes.

Frank lived in a boutique housing estate wedged between the wine
country and a huge pine plantation. Simon turned in to a cul-de-sac filled with McMansions in different shades of terracotta with big double garages and tiny neat lawns.

Simon pulled into number fifteen, and turned to find his passenger dozing. ‘Frank. Frank. We're here.'

‘Huh, oh, right.'

‘That's twenty-eight forty.'

‘What?'

Simon pointed at the meter. ‘Call it twenty-eight. Well, you can call it more, too. That's up to you.'

‘You stopped to help me.'

‘Yes. That's probably why I was hoping it might be more.'

‘You stopped to help me, as a ... as a ... Not as a taxi driver.'

‘Ah. I see.'

‘You gave me a lift, didn't you?'

‘Well, the thing is, Frank, it's on my meter now. You know, if you don't pay, I'll have to.'

‘You bastard. No. You're not ripping me off. No way.' Frank flung open the passenger door and staggered towards his house.

Simon got out and followed. Frank was leaning on the door and wrenching at the handle. Simon jangled Frank's keys next to his ear.

Frank turned. ‘Simon. Good on ya.' He took the keys, unlocked the door and went inside.

Simon watched the door close. He stood a moment longer, rolling his neck again, teasing out the tightness. He went to the rear passenger door of the taxi and closed it gently, then to the driver's seat. He put his seatbelt on, backed out of Frank's driveway and drove out of the culde-sac.

It was hot. Sweat beaded on Grace's temple and dampened under the arms of her dress. Grace was reading Jim Thompson's
The Rip-Off
at the tiny beer can–covered table of a small caravan. Her lips moved as she read.

A beer can popped. Johnny Johnston sat at the same table, bulging out of his slacks and an unbuttoned turquoise silk shirt. He took a gulp of the beer and looked over at Grace. ‘What you reckon was the best place we went?'

Grace looked up from her paperback.

But before she could answer, JJ said, ‘France was the best. That was the best place ever.'

JJ burped. He was looking at the empty beer cans on the table but thinking about France.

Grace started to think about France too. The Ibis Hotel in Paris. She was blonde back then, not dark-haired like now. And skinny. She remembered lounging in a bikini in the sun that hit the glass at one end of the indoor pool.

A cute young guy in tight black pants and a white shirt had two drinks on a tray. He put them down, smiling at Grace, not hiding that he liked what he saw. ‘Mademoiselle.'

‘It's madam. Merci,' said Grace trying to soften her Aussie accent.

‘Monsieur.'

‘Yeah, right garsonne. Beauty.' JJ took his drink and raised the glass towards the sun. ‘How good is this, babe? How fuckin' good is this?' JJ was trim then, still fit and handsome and happy.

‘It's good,' said Grace.

‘Bet it's raining in Australia, now.'

Grace smiled at the pool as she sipped her vodka and tonic. Two days in the hotel and they hadn't yet set foot in the rest of Paris. ‘What do you want to do JJ?'

JJ waved his drink at the pool and rooms somewhere above them. ‘We can do whatever we want. Whatever we want.'

JJ was remembering the Ibis Hotel too.

Mostly he was remembering Grace's legs and her perfect little feet with bright red nail polish. He looked up to see her sparkling happy eyes catching him looking. She was a beauty no matter what country you were in. He said, ‘I'll tell you what I want to do.'

Grace smiled back, dreamy like a cat.

JJ smiled in the cramped caravan far from France. He looked
at the green chipped walls. Sweat dribbled down his chest and slid sideways around his stomach. Grace was reading again. ‘You wanna do something?'

‘What?'

‘I suppose a fuck's out of the question.'

Grace paused ever so slightly before looking up from her book. ‘If you want.'

‘You never used to read, when I first met you. Maybe a couple of magazines. That's normal. Now you always got your head stuck in some book. Like you caught Readingitus in all those Ramada Inns. Always reading. Can't stop.'

Grace put her book down. ‘JJ, I said I would.'

‘Yeah, like some favour. Like...' JJ stood to pace, but there was only one step to the nearest wall. He banged his fist against the aluminium. ‘This is fucked up.'

She picked her book up again.

JJ looked at his mobile amidst the empty beer cans. ‘I'll see Mr Foster.'

‘Don't.' She wasn't asking.

JJ looked away. ‘Just to make sure it's still sorted out.'

‘You
decided that was the only safe move.
You
decided.'

‘Things change.'

‘Mr Foster, from Wooroloo?'

‘What other Mr Foster do you know?' said Ellis.

Ellis and Ned were walking through a shopping car park, looking for a car that wasn't locked.

Ned stopped walking. ‘I didn't know he was that ... um, heavy.'

‘Maybe he learned a few things in prison.' Ellis smiled at Ned to remind him that they'd had something to do with the lessons.

‘I only got a knife, Ellis.'

‘George has a rifle. A twenty-two.'

‘Oh.'

Ellis saw a woman with shopping. He nudged Ned and they headed towards her. She saw them, two unshaven men, one in shorts and a singlet, the other in filthy jeans and t-shirt. They were so obviously frightening, even in the middle of the afternoon in a shopping centre, that she ran the last steps to her car. Ellis and Ned stepped faster too. The shopper beeped the door unlocked and threw her plastic grocery bags into the front passenger seat, sending plums tumbling. She squeezed behind the steering wheel, pushed the key into the ignition and hit every button she could. The doors and windows locked and the hazard lights started blinking as Ellis reached her car door. Ned tried the back door anyway.

Ellis smiled one of his bad-toothed smiles. ‘Hey, can you give me directions? It's to um, oh, um, Hungry Jacks, yeah.'

The woman started screaming. Then she hit the car horn. She leaned on it and kept it going.

Ellis slammed his hand on the roof, but backed off, looking around to see who was coming. Nobody. Nobody cared, but the car was locked and the horn was still going, so he and Ned drifted away like they'd never seen that lady before.

‘Guess we can't go to George's,' said Ned.

‘Taxi. We'll get a taxi.'

Ellis was pointing. Over near the shopping centre was a line of taxis.

Ned looked at the taxi and back to Ellis who was looking at him and getting angry.

‘They'll be a witness. Is that what you think, Ned?'

‘No. I didn't think anything, Ellis. Honest.'

Ellis reached up and grabbed Ned by his thick throat, rough but not quite choking. Ned let him. ‘Maybe they won't be a witness cos maybe they'll be dead.'

The driver pulled some headphones off and tossed them into the glove box as Ellis and Ned got into the back.

‘How's it going, guys?' he said as though he cared.

Ellis said, ‘It's going good.'

Ned looked around the inside of the back of the taxi, touching the clear plastic.

The engine started. Ellis ordered, ‘Midvale. We'll tell you where, when you get there.'

‘You got it.'

‘Yeah, I know.' Ellis turned to Ned and winked.

The dogs started barking and Grace went out to see.

Tim was out the front, bent over the engine of a partly rebuilt stock car, but looking next door.

Luke, his neighbour, was standing behind his ute in the driveway there, dressed in overalls, yelling at his dogs. ‘Oi, stop that.' They did, like he'd flicked a switch. He looked up and saw Grace in front of the caravan and stood frozen, like some other switch had been flicked.

Grace smiled but he looked down and got busy with what he was getting from the back of the ute.