Free Between the Devlin and the Deep Blue Seas by Robert G. Barrett

bloke.’
    â€˜No. He was all right.’
    The girl looked at Les and seemed to be quickly sussing him out. ‘I’m Sandy,’ she said. ‘I live in flat three.’
    Ahh, so you’re Sandra Jean Garrett, the famous artist, eh? mused Les. Wouldn’t I like to get my hand on your palette! ‘Nice to meet you, Sandy,’ he said, throwing in his number one smile.
    â€˜You too, Les,’ she replied brightly.
    Norton watched her peg out another pair of jeans as he went back to making a pretence at gardening. ‘How long have you been living here, Sandy?’
    â€˜About three or four years.’
    Four years? Christ! Why would a doll like you want to spend four years of your life in a dump like this? ‘You must like it here?’
    Sandy shrugged. ‘It’s okay. It was better. But it’s cheap, plus I’ve got a lot of friends are artists who live across the road and... a friend who’s a doctor at the hospital.’
    â€˜Hoppy told me you were an artist.’
    â€˜Did he?’ smiled Sandy. ‘What else did he tell you?’
    Norton shrugged. ‘Not much. Just you were an artist, that’s all. And he told me a bit about old Burt and the others who live here. I only spoke to him for a while before I drove him to the station.’ Norton watched her peg out the last pair of jeans. ‘So how is the art world? You doing okay?’
    â€˜I get by.’ She flashed Norton a smile of pure ivory that made him feel like smashing up all the bricks holding Blue Seas’ excuse for a back garden together. ‘I also sell T-shirts and things up at the Paddington Markets on Saturday.’
    Hello, another bloody dropout from the Paddo stalls. ‘So between the two you’re not starving, Sandy.’
    â€˜No, I’m not starving. What about you, Les? How come you finished up here?’
    Norton looked at the tall, sexy redhead for a moment. Sandy, he thought, you’ve got to be one of the best sorts I’ve come across, but somehow at this stage of the game I don’t think I should be telling you too much.‘I’ve only been down from Queensland a little while and this came up. It’s free rent with a few bucks thrown in and... well, it ain’t actually the Burma railway.’
    â€˜So it looks like you’ll be the live-in caretaker for a while Les?’
    Live here in this cockroach castle? thought Les. Not fuckin’ likely. But then again, with a honey like you living just across the hall, why not? ‘Yeah,’ he drawled easily, ‘it sure looks that way. I reckon I might even get to like it.’
    â€˜You’ll love it, Les. This place has got character.’
    Norton reflected on the two million or so cockroaches he’d just killed and the blood-spattered walls of flat five. ‘It’s sure got something,’ he answered.
    Sandy hung up the last pair of jeans and straightened them out.
    â€˜Okay, Les,’ she smiled. ‘It’s been nice talking to you, but I have to be off. I’ll probably see you again.’
    â€˜Sure, Sandy. Anytime you need something, just give me a yell. You know which flat it is.’
    She gave Norton another smile that made the Macleans girl’s teeth look like a row of bombed-out houses, then walked out the front. Les watched her climb into an old white Holden utility and drive off in the same direction as the blue kombi. Sandy bloody baby, where did they find you? He watched the old ute disappear around the hotel comer and shook his head. Cockroaches, bed bugs, giant rats — I don’t give a stuff. I’m gonna move into that shithouse of a flat. For a while anyway — until about the first night I get into your tight-fitting pants. Then, Cinderella, I’ll let you know it’s really Prince Charming in flat one come to take you away from all this. He pottered around a bit longer, trying to get interested in what he was doing but