Free White Dog by Peter Temple

fucking thing makes you itch. Enzio makes me get the blankets and wrap it up like it’s a Frenchantique.’ She shook her head. ‘Had to throw away the blankets. Good blankets.’
    ‘Well,’ I said, ‘he tells me it
is
a French antique. Chucked out in some refurbishment of the Melbourne Club.’
    We entered the stove’s new home. Enzio, scowling, his expression of choice, was on a ladder, painting a wall. He was wearing tracksuit pants and a singlet and he had sprinkled paint on his thinly covered scalp, his stubbled face, the exposed hairy parts of his body, on his garments.
    ‘Jack, Boz,’ he said. He pronounced her name Boss.
    ‘Good colour,’ I said. ‘Ancient nicotine. When’s opening day?’
    It couldn’t be soon enough for me. I’d had no home in Brunswick Street for months, not since Neil Willis, absentee owner, wedding-reception gouger, sold Meaker’s, my hangout of too many years, to some jewellery-hung wise boys looking for a place to run drug money through. They’d sacked the staff and accused Enzio, the cook, of stealing from the kitchen. It had taken some doing but I’d managed to wring the workers’ entitlements out of Willis, including Enzio’s superannuation, fourteen unpaid years of it. Meaker’s was now called Peccadillo. My hope was that when they nailed the new owners, it would be for some offence to which that term did not apply.
    ‘So?’ said Enzio to Boz. ‘Where my furniture?’
    I could see that being able to look down at her for once had empowered him.
    Boz gripped the stepladder with a big hand, gave it a little shake, an exploration. Enzio cried out. The balance of power had been redressed.
    ‘Waiting down the street, mate,’ she said. ‘You’re going to have to make room out front. Two spaces.’
    ‘I got a plan for that,’ said Enzio. ‘Carmel!’
    Carmel the waif waitress sacked from Meaker’s appearedin the kitchen door, paintbrush in hand. She was wearing a skullcap and looked about twelve. She was thirty and knew much of men and the world.
    ‘Move the cars,’ said Enzio. ‘The furniture’s coming.’
    ‘Listen,’ she said, ‘I’m not being paid for my time here.’
    ‘Please,’ said Enzio.
    ‘That’s a first,’ Carmel said. ‘That’s a personal best for you. Move them where?’
    ‘The lane. Two minutes.’
    ‘Keys?’
    ‘On the counter.’
    She went out.
    ‘Here’s your lease,’ I said. ‘You are now legally occupying this building. Rent’s due the last Friday of every month, paid straight into the bank. The account number’s written on the first page.’
    Enzio came down the ladder. He took the envelope, held it in both hands. He went over and put it on the counter, patted it. ‘Never thought,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘Never thought.’
    ‘Yes, well. When?’
    He looked at me. I thought I saw a glint in the black eyes. He cleared his throat. ‘Monday,’ he said. ‘Monday we open. Six o’clock, we have a little drink, champagne. Okay?’
    ‘Okay. See you on Monday.’
    He followed me to the door, took my sleeve. ‘Jack,’ he said, barely audible, ‘listen, I want to say to you, I want to …’
    I said, ‘Enzio, don’t say anything. Monday, I’m having poached eggs with the lot. Soft. I’ve had it with hard poached eggs.’
    ‘I hold them in the boiling water,’ he said, showing me a cupped hand.
    ‘Ordinary cooking methods will be fine,’ I said. ‘It’s just a matter of the timing.’
    At the office, my two rooms, tailor’s table, two chairs and a framed degree certificate, I made a pot of tea and sat behind the tailor’s table to read the three-page report on Mickey Franklin.
    The work was by Simone Bendsten Associates, specialists in due diligence and the lice-combing of candidates for jobs with share options and performance bonuses and a company jet. Once the firm was just Simone, a Scandinavian-Australian refugee from the finance world working from home. Now it was three people in an office off Brunswick