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 certain she was okay. Whistling, Mauricio stopped behind us, and I heard a zip unzip and a moment later a cascade of piss against a brick wall. It made my own bladder ache. When we turned into the loading area behind the store where Vinnie lived upstairs, someone was out cold in the driver’s seat of the Cobra.
Share touched my arm. I leaned over and shook a naked shoulder poking out of an ancient dinner jacket with its arms torn out.
“Wha? Mumph?”
“Time to go beddy-byes, Animal.”
Share whispered, “I don’t think you should—”
Animal convulsed, and was out of the seat like a scary jack-in-the-box doing its surprise. I looked down into a face that hadn’t seen the sun in about three years, eyes black with something so thick you’d expect the lids to stay gummed up after a single blink, and with more metal stuck through skin than you’d see in a fragged lieutenant in an Iraq tent. Sodium light from a pole high over the alley gleamed revoltingly from a mostly shaven scalp. One hand stuck out in my direction, quick as a flash, while the other beckoned demandingly. I shrugged and pulled out my wallet, placed a crisp new fifty in the outstretched hand. Share snorted, probably wondering if I’d succumbed either to a stand over job or a particularly sleazy invitation to a quickie. The banknote stayed where I put it. Before it could blow away I sighed and deposited another hundred.
“Come to tuck me in, then, daddy?” Animal said in a sulky voice. She gave Share an inscrutable glance.
Feet clattered: crazy Mauricio approached. Animal gave me a big kiss, then turned away and climbed the steps to the back of the shop.
“Hey, sweetheart darling,” Mauricio shouted. “I wish we’d known you were home, you could have eaten with us, Annabelle.”
My daughter had the door open to Vinnie’s cave by then, and was through it, banging it shut. “Not hungry. Come on, I’ll drive you back to your car.”
§
The heavy haulage tow truck arrived. The hapless Mack had been dragged into the street and half the front of the heritage protected mansion had come with it. The roof on the top floor had caved in. I pulled up a safe distance away, and Share was off like a filly. You could have heard the shriek in Flemington.
“Motherfucker!”
Mauricio had caught a cab home to Fitzroy, so he was well out of it. Wearily, I bolted the driving wheel again and followed her past the behemoth. Reversing it out of the front of the house, they’d managed to run the back wheels up the hood of the Audi and through the windscreen.
Share was shaking, white faced, clutching herself with clenched fists. I suppose she was cold, too, without her fur. Autumn in Melbourne is delightful, but even with El Nino and greenhouse it can cool down shockingly fast at night. I thought of lending her my jacket, but that would have involved getting nearer than I planned just at the moment. Gingerly, I held out my cellphone.
“You could call your husband, have him pick you up?”
“He’s in K.L. this week, don’t you listen to anything?”
Oh yeah, that had been somewhere after the second bottle of red.
“Well, a cab. I’ll call you a cab, Share.” I poked around in my jacket pocket, looking from her crushed car to my dismantled home. “I haven’t even got anywhere to sleep, you should think yourself lucky, Share.”
This time the shriek woke the elephants, or maybe one just happened to trumpet in sympathy. It was unearthly. She came at me with nails extended, and I had to hold her forearms or I’d have looked worse in the morning than Animal. Enraged words were pouring from her mouth. I suspected that her inner harmonies were not all they might be, not at that moment.
“I’ll see you in court, Purdue,” she sobbed, pulling herself free, stumbling away from me. “Every penny you own, and then some. I’ll have you in jail for this, you and your thuggish friend Cimino. You’ll hear from my solicitor on Monday morning. I could have you arrested for carrying weapons and, and felonious intent to scam your insurers. No, keep away from me.”
“Share, I was just going to offer you my jacket. You must be freezing.”
“Stay away.” People were peering from behind curtains. What an entertaining night this must have been for these burghers. “Let me drive you home, Share.”
“You’re drunk, you lunatic. Just piss off.”
I sighed heavily. We looked at each in silence for a while. Finally, I said, “So I suppose a fuck’s completely out of the question?”
It took a couple of moments. I suspected the top of her head was about to blow off, but then, thank god, she started to laugh. She leaned against a lamp post, and I smiled back at her as the makeup ran down her cheeks.
“Oh
