Free Shooting Star by Peter Temple Page B

me.’
    He couldn’t look up at me, just sniffed and said, ‘Not a word, I swear, I promise you.’
    ‘Do that, your lovely bride-to-be’s family won’t have to murder you. Why’s that?’
    He nodded, eyes closed.
    On the way back, in the sluggish highway traffic, I said, not looking at Orlovsky, ‘Arsehole skills. Not too rusty, are they?’
    He took a long time to answer, lit another stolen Camel, one of the last. ‘The difference between us,’ he said, ‘is that I’m just doing this for the money. You’re another matter entirely.’

‘ONE OF those things with sliding doors,’ said the tweed-jacketed Malcolm Cherry of Hayes & Cherry, a narrow shop in Revesdale Street that sold bathroom fittings. ‘A pretty battered one with curtained windows. Tarango? Durango? A name like that. People movers, I understand they’re called. What does that make your ordinary car?’
    I looked at the price tag on an impressive piece of plumbing, chrome-plated pipes forming a sort of shower cage. Showering once a day, roughly a dollar a shower for twenty years. ‘This is not your ordinary shower,’ I said.
    ‘Nice, isn’t it? Prince Philip has one.’
    ‘He always looks clean. This vehicle?’
    ‘Parked in our loading zone. People do it all the time. Run off to get something, back in minutes. There’s a marvellous deli two doors down. Some of them are coming in here, God forbid you’d complain.’
    ‘But the people mover?’
    ‘Repeat offender. Not the vehicle, the people in it. Before they were in an old stationwagon. White.’
    ‘The same people. You’re sure? How many?’
    ‘Absolutely. Two. The vehicle pulls up, passenger gets out, well, falls out is closer. He could use a shower. He’s always in a tracksuit.
    A garment not too familiar with the Surf, I can tell you. And a baseball cap. Red.’
    ‘Anything on the cap? A logo, anything?’
    ‘Makita. And he wears these huge runners. Big plastic things. Like boats. Grotesque. And off he goes. Then the driver has the effrontery to think he can lounge around until the other creature comes back.’
    ‘Did you get a look at him, the driver?’
    ‘Not a good look. Too much facial hair. And dark glasses and some kind of headgear. It looked like a back-to-front cap with the peak cut off. Strange.’
    ‘The passenger. Wear glasses?’
    ‘Those ghastly black frames like Buddy Holly. Or is that Roy Orbison?’
    ‘How old?’
    ‘Hard to say. Fifties. More.’
    ‘And this happened again on Thursday with a different vehicle?’
    ‘Again, only worse.’ Malcolm Cherry flicked a finger at something on his tie. ‘This Tangelo thing pulls up and, lo and behold, the older dero-type gets out. Wearing the cap. I thought, bugger this, this time I’m ringing the council, get the bloody parking inspector around here from wherever he’s hiding. I’m at the back, on the phone, waiting for someone to answer, when the vehicle leaves.’
    ‘What time was this?’
    ‘Just before five, I suppose. But hold on, hold on. A minute later, the young fellow who works part-time here goes out and what does he find?’
    I could feel the tiny pulse in my throat. I shook my head.
    ‘The bloody vehicle’s in the lane. Someone’s reversed it into the lane. That’s private property. Only three businesses are entitled to use the lane. Us, the record store and the florist. I said to James, that’s it, and I’m out the front door.’
    He paused. ‘And at that moment, out comes the Tarango or whatever and off it goes.’
    ‘Didn’t get the rego, did you?’
    ‘No. Didn’t really think about it. Get it next time.’
    ‘What was he doing in the lane? Young fellow see anything?’
    ‘James says the driver was just closing the sliding door when he walked by. Wasn’t picking up anything from the shops, checked straight away. Business vehicles only, that’s the agreement.’
    ‘James,’ I said, ‘I wouldn’t mind a word with him.’
    Malcolm looked at his watch, a big chrome-plated