Sharp Shooter (23 page)

I grabbed my keys and handbag, and headed out of the flat. ‘Course you are. You thrive on stress. Can’t you get an interview with someone else?’

‘I’m trying. No one of any significance wants to do this sort of thing on short notice. They want photo shoots in Bali and blah blah.’ He sounded bone weary.

‘Crapski. Sounds like we need a pizza and DVD night.’

‘Yeah. Anyway, how are things with you? Anyone tried to run you down since we spoke. Or shoot you?’

‘Very funny,’ I said as I left the driveway and walked down the street towards my car. ‘I’m fine. That is . . . oh, bugger . . . I’ll call you back.’

There was a cop car parked behind Mona, and two cops were looking in the windows.

As I got closer I recognised Greg Whitehead and his partner, Tony, both lit up by a street light.

‘Whitey?’

He glanced up, smirked, and came over to me. ‘Your car been pimped, Tara?’

‘Some nut case graffitied it. I had to get it painted. Nice, huh?’

Tony looked me up and down. ‘You’re the girl without her pants.’

I gritted my teeth. One little slip-up and they couldn’t let it go.
Men.

‘Leave this one to you, Greg, my whopper’s getting cold.’ Whitey’s partner retired to the car and proceeded to bury his face in a Macca’s bag.

‘What’s the problem, Whitey?’ I asked impatiently. ‘I’m in a bit of a hurry.’

‘Got a report of an abandoned car in Lilac Street. Might have guessed it was yours.’

‘It’s not abandoned. I just parked it up the street a bit because –’

‘Hey, you look hot.’ Whitey stepped up closer and leered down my cleavage. The way things were between me and the local constabulary I didn’t want to punch a cop, but surely a little shove couldn’t –

My hand shot out and contacted Whitey in the chest, but he grabbed my wrist and held onto it to lessen the impact. We stood there for a frozen few seconds, me glaring, him leering, until the blue BMW roared around the corner and swerved dangerously close to us.

We both leaped back onto the pavement, the beautiful moment between us broken. Then Whitey dropped my hand and pelted back to the squad car shouting, ‘Park your car in front of your own house in future.’

With those pearls of wisdom he, Tony and the whopper were gone, chasing the BMW.

I drove well under the speed limit to The Cocked Dog, not trusting my nerves or my current run of luck to not lead me into a speed trap. I parked in the same car park as the previous night and checked my watch. Five minutes early.

I sat in the car and fiddled with my hair using the rearview mirror. It was shoulder-length and dark at the moment and didn’t take much work, which was just as well. I studied my face.

‘You have a strong face, Tara,’ Aunt Liv liked to say. ‘Strong and handsome.’

‘What? Like a guy?’ I’d retort.

‘A character face. Perfect for that physique of yours. You’d look silly if you were too pretty.’

Oh. OK, thanks, Liv. I think.

Right now my reflection told me that my ‘strong, handsome’ face looked slightly harassed. Wild even.

It also told me that the mysterious blue BMW was parked behind me, wedged under a street light between a slightly bashed-up, old diesel Pajero, and a 300 series Mercedes Benz.

I flung the door open. This is Australia, the only weapon women carry here is their handbag. Totally effective when it’s weighed down with half a bottle of orange Powerade, breath mints, too many loose coins, and a trashy novel.

I advanced on the BMW with my Mandarina Duck satchel and lethal intent, but halfway across a hand grabbed my elbow and swung me around – Nick Tozzi looking altogether too damn fine to be alone in a car park.

‘Tara? Where are you going? You look like you’re about to murder someone.’

‘Th-the car that tried to run me over d-down at the jetty, and then again a few m-minutes ago, it’s over th-there,’ I stuttered.

I pointed.

He swivelled and looked across. ‘Are you sure?’

I nodded.

‘Stay here,’ he said. ‘I’ll check it out.’

I went to follow him, but he turned around and stopped me with a ferocious look. ‘Stay! Jazz, come with me.’

I suddenly realised he wasn’t alone. There was a guy standing a little behind him, almost as tall but younger and slimmer, and wearing a cap despite the fact that it was dark; Jazz Broad, currently the best power forward in Australia.

My knees went weak.

I watched the two giants walk over and around the car, looking in windows the same way Whitey had checked out Mona.

A few minutes later they returned.

‘No one in there,’ said Tozzi. ‘What do you want to do?’

I patted my handbag. ‘I’ve got the plate number. I’ll take it down to the police station when I leave here. I’ve got a copper who’ll help me.’

Tozzi smiled; pale giant’s teeth. ‘That’s a relief. I thought they all wanted to put you in jail.’

‘Woah!’ exclaimed Jazz. ‘Who pimped that bitch?’

For one horrible moment I thought he was talking about me, and that I was going to have to punch Tozzi’s best player. To my relief though, I realised he was looking at my car. The flames on the bonnet were glowing fluorescent in the dark. I hadn’t noticed before.

Bog, what were you thinking?

‘Is that your – Tara, is that –’ Tozzi couldn’t seem to get the words out.

‘Someone trashed my car. I . . . err . . . got a cheap . . . paint job. The guy got a bit carried away.’

Tozzi and Jazz exploded in fits of laughter.

When they finally stopped, Tozzi wiped his eyes. ‘Jazz, this is Tara Sharp, a work colleague. Don’t go jogging with her.’ His last comment sent him off into fits of laughter again.

I stuck my hand out to shake Jazz’s, and rolled my eyes. ‘Is he always so rude? Nice to meet you.’

Jazz nodded. ‘You too.’

Nick collected himself again, and patted my shoulder. ‘Come inside and have a drink. I insist.’

‘But –’

‘I’ll square it with the manager. The owner and I are good friends.’

I looked up at him doubtfully. I could do with a drink but I felt embarrassed going in there under Tozzi’s guarantee. And knowing that the person who’d tried to run me down was close by made me want to camp by the blue BMW with a crowbar.

On the other hand, no one was likely to try to hassle me while I was out with two man mountains. And the truth was, any excuse to be around Nick Tozzi was a good excuse. ‘OK. Just one.’

One drink turned into two, and a lively discussion at the bar about the impending NBA finals and the latest changes in the AFL rules. Most of the team had joined us, and I was feeling pretty damn good. I mean, it wasn’t often I was the centre of attention with a bunch of guys who were all bigger than me and equally keen to talk trash and sport.

Nick dragged me away from an argument with Jazz over who’d win MVP for NBA for the season, and ushered me over to a booth.

‘What did you want to tell me?’

My mood sobered instantly. It had been a good hour of fun and distraction, and now it was over.

‘I accidentally saw inside Johnny Vogue’s warehouse in Burnside.’

He scowled at me. ‘What warehouse? What do you mean “accidentally”?’

‘When I went to pick up my car from the spray painter.’

‘How did you get out there?’

What was this? Twenty questions?
‘I had a date. He took me.’

‘You talked your date into taking you to
Bunka
?’

‘He’s new to Perth and he told me he had a fun time,’ I said, defensively. ‘Anyway, that’s beside the point. The warehouse is full of mining equipment: small plant.’

He stared at me calmly but I could sense his mind jumping, and his aura began to glow. ‘And you think what?’

‘Well it seems like a kinda odd sideline for someone like Vogue. I can’t help but think it might somehow be related to that mining lease of yours.’

Nick had probably made the same connection but his sceptical side wouldn’t let him agree with me. ‘Hold on a second. There could be a thousand reasons why Viaspa has a shed full of dozers. Maybe he’s going into the building industry.’

‘It wasn’t just dozers. There were loaders and excavators too.’

‘Still a weak connection.’

‘OK.’ I scowled at him and swirled the ice cubes around in my glass, clinking them annoyingly. ‘It was just a thought. No need to be condescending.’

His hand shot out to stop me, fingers curling around my wrist. ‘Don’t be childish, Tara.’

‘Tozzi?’

Antonia – Toni – stood only spitting distance from us, teetering over the edge of her heels and a fair dose of whatever. Her beautiful eyes were bloodshot.

Nick slowly released my hand and leaned back against his booth seat. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘I thought you were drinking with the boys tonight. Then I got a phone call that you were entertaining a woman.’

‘A phone call?’ He frowned. ‘Who from?’

‘Does it really matter?’ said Toni. From the way her lip was quivering, she was working up a storm of emotion.

I grabbed my handbag and got ready to abandon ship. ‘Well, Nick, I’ll leave it with you.’

‘Tara and I were talking about the burglary,’ he explained to Toni.

‘Does that require holding her hand?’ Toni’s quivering lip was joined by brimming eyes.

Waterworks alert.

I stood up. ‘He wasn’t holding my hand. He was trying to stop me throwing ice cubes at him for being such an arrogant, narrow-minded, ungrateful prat.’ I smiled sweetly. ‘But I guess you only see his best side.’

With that, and the quickest of waves to the Western Thunder boys who were watching proceedings with sly grins, I left.

Who the hell had phoned Toni Tozzi?

Chapter 36

D
EEP IN INDIGNATION, IT
took me a few moments of standing in the car park to realise that the BMW had gone. I stood staring at the empty car space.

Well, I guess there was one thing I could achieve today.

I hopped into Mona, and drove the three blocks to the Euccy Grove police station, stuffing two mints in my mouth before I went inside.

The copper on desk duty looked like a newbie.

I asked for Fiona Bligh.

‘Gone home, love,’ he said.

‘Can I leave a message for her?’

He handed me a notepad and a pen. ‘Go for it.’

I copied down the licence plate number and told her it belonged to the blue BMW that had been following me. I finished with my mobile number.

I gave the young constable a firm look. ‘Make sure she gets it, won’t you?’

He raised an eyebrow and turned back to his computer.

I called Bok from outside the station. ‘You still at work?’

‘Where else?’ he said.

‘Feel like pizza?’

He gave a sigh. ‘Why not? Meet you outside Kimmy Koo’s in fifteen minutes.’

I was only five minutes away, so I killed time by wandering up to Club Eighteen to see if Edouardo was working.

‘He phoned in sick,’ said one of the other barmen. ‘Said he ate something crook at an Indian restaurant.’

I nodded sympathetically. ‘If you think of it, can you tell him Tara called in?’

‘Wait on,’ he said, and added my name to a list with half a dozen other names on it. ‘There. Now I won’t forget.’

‘His fan club, huh?’ I said.

‘The rest of us should be so lucky,’ he sighed.

I walked back to Mona and drove sedately to Kimmy Koo’s. The streets were pretty quiet. Traffic hadn’t really caught up with Perth.
And long may it stay that way.
I wound down my window to let the balmy night air in. Early autumn was my favourite time of year. Short sleeves and brilliant days; long sleeves and brilliant nights.

But even the luminous night couldn’t negate Nick Tozzi’s casual dismissal of my theory.

By the time Bok and I sat down to eat a family-size cheese and pepperoni at the tables in Kimmy Koo’s courtyard, I was fit to burst about it.

Bok sat patiently through the whole tirade, eating, and playing with bits of mozzarella. ‘Aaah, it’s good to hear about someone else’s problems,’ he sighed when I’d finished.

‘He thinks I’m a space cadet,’ I pronounced, crunching a piece of extra-thin crust angrily.

‘Well, let’s face it, T. You do act kooky. Only those of us who know and love you understand that you see through entirely different eyes from the rest of the world.’

Bok never judged me on the aura stuff. Sometimes it’s like that when you’ve known a person as a kid. You accept things about them that you’d never allow if you met them as an adult. ‘I’m not sure about that anymore.’

‘’Bout what?’ he asked, scraping the fallen mushroom from the base of the carton.

‘There’s got to be other people out there in the world like me. Look at Mr Hara.’