Sharp Shooter (9 page)
‘So what do you do now?’ I asked.
‘When I quit playing I missed it so much, I kinda went out and . . .’ He glanced at the wall and then the ceiling.
‘And what?’ I asked suspiciously.
‘Bought the team.’
It took a few seconds for what he’d said to sink in. ‘You mean the Western Thunder?’
He nodded and I wondered if the flush creeping up his neck was embarrassment or annoyance.
I bit my lip. ‘You’re Nick Tozzi, owner of the Western Thunder.’ I had to say it out loud just to be sure I got it right.
‘Yeah,’ he said mildly. ‘Sounds like I should apologise?’
I shook my head. ‘No. But I think I’ll go home now and crawl under my bed.’
‘Why?’
‘I can’t believe I didn’t know who you were. You look different on TV,’ I finished lamely.
To my relief, I saw Peter Delgado shouldering his way back to us with a couple of drinks in his hand. Not so shiny was the ship sailing in his wake, Johnny Vogue.
‘I mean I’m not just a fan, I used to play,’ I babbled on.
Delgado was sliding towards us as quick and determined as a snake after a rat.
‘I know,’ Nick said softly. ‘I remember you.’
D
ELGADO STOPPED IN FRONT
of us and thrust a drink into my hand, insinuating his way in between Nick and I with his oily manner. ‘Nick. You know John?’
Johnny Viaspa stepped into the middle of our cosy little tête-à-tête, splitting it like an arrow through an apple. Heads were turning our way again – a ripple of interest: Nick Tozzi and Johnny Vogue?
Where the sheer size and energy of Nick’s aura had me stepping back, Johnny Vogue’s made my skin crawl. It was stained yellow, the colour of pus.
‘Tozzi,’ said Viaspa.
‘Yeah. Fancy.’
The air was so thick with conflicting charges that I felt a rush of nervousness. As usual it got me opening my mouth. ‘I’m Tara,’ I said.
Johnny Vogue mustn’t have heard me. There wasn’t even a twitch, or a flicker in my direction.
‘Tara Sharp!’ I said louder.
Nothing again.
‘I think the lady is speaking to you,’ said Nick.
Vogue turned his head ever so slightly and our eyes made contact. It wasn’t an experience I ever wanted to repeat again. I’d felt bad karma with people before; I mean, Peter Delgado had enough. But no karma was even worse. There was a guy one time at uni, a friend of Bok’s. The three of us hung out for a few months but I always found it uncomfortable because Tikki had no aura. Thing is, he died not so long after in a car accident. If I see people without auras these days, I don’t make friends.
That wasn’t Johnny Vogue, though. What he was carrying around was diseased. I could see the black blotches in it. Even as his pinned-out eyes held mine, I was aware of his aura flaking: sloughing small bits onto the furniture, and the floor, and my clothes. It made me want to run home and stand under a hot shower for a few hours.
Satisfied that he’d quelled me, he turned back to Nick. Not a word had passed between us, just a look and a whole lot of karmic buffeting.
‘How’s that team of yours going? Heard the recession’s hit you hard.’
‘The Thunder is doing just fine,’ said Nick, flushing.
The words they were exchanging were civil, pleasant even. Delgado was smiling, Nick was smiling, and Johnny Vogue had his mouth set in a way that could have been a smile. But their auras were conducting a private war and I felt like my head was sticking too far out of the bunker.
Fortunately, diversion came in the form of a tall, slim blonde leaning against the entrance to the ballroom.
It wasn’t just our happy group that paused to ogle her either. This girl was a room-stopper. I mean she wasn’t beautiful, she was
beautiful
. And the dress! A hugging, low-scooped white tunic embroidered with Swarovski diamonds. Her ‘D’ cup looked natural but couldn’t have been – nobody could be
that
slim with breasts so big, it’s just not physiologically possible. I mean, you can’t just order your fat to stay in that one place. Her hair was like her legs, long and honey coloured, and her face was the kind of perfection that made you breathe deep. I couldn’t even be jealous; you gotta bow before a goddess when you see one.
‘Wow!’ I muttered under my breath. ‘A fallen angel.’
‘You’ve met my wife before, have you?’ asked Nick Tozzi.
I hadn’t. But I’d seen her alright. Antonia Falk. Her family were big-time mining magnates. Capital ‘L’ loaded. Somewhere along the track I’d missed the fact that she’d hooked up with Nick Tozzi. Probably happened when I was four-wheel driving that toad, Pascal, around Cape York so he could see real live crocodiles. Shoulda fed him to them.
‘Nicky?’ the angel tittered, then swiped a drink from the hovering waiter’s tray. She staggered a little, clearly stoned.
Nick Tozzi crossed the space between them in two giant strides and they spoke some quiet, tense words to each other. Their auras mingled uneasily, her fire-red psychic energy bleeding into his, diluting the caramel colour, as he took her arm and directed her back out the door.
I felt a little deflated as I watched them go. Of course he’d be married, I told myself. Only married men know how to flirt like that. Still, it had been fun for a few moments.
I glanced back at Johnny Vogue. He was watching them too – his eyes glazed with preoccupation. And it didn’t look like it was
Nick
Tozzi he was thinking about. Then his cell phone rang, and he and his unhealthy aura disappeared through another door to answer it.
‘Gotta go to the ladies!’ I announced, and dashed off to the loo before Delgado could pin me.
The loo was nearly as grand as the ballroom – green and black marble, and a vase of fresh-cut flowers the size of King’s Park. I washed my hot face in the gleaming handbasin and patted it dry with a fresh, white handtowel from the pile the maid was restocking. Garth had been right about Peter Delgado, and I tried to think of a discreet way of begging off the job. I ended up deciding to cut and run instead. I’d mail his retainer back to him.
Scooting out of the toilet, I headed deeper into the house looking for a back exit. But as I rushed past an impressive living room the sound of Johnny Vogue’s muffled voice stopped me in my tracks. It was coming from the patio outside the French doors. Unable to quell my curiosity, I sidled up to the curtains and turned the handle of the door, opening it just a crack.
‘– find a way to bring the arsehole down. Tozzi won’t get away from me this time, even if I have to plant coke up his arse. Give it six months and he’ll be ruined. She’ll come begging.’ He paused. ‘Yeah. See you at the Bunka warehouse on Monda–’
OMG.
‘Ms Sharp?’ Peter Delgado’s cold fingers grabbed my elbow.
‘Oops!’ I let go of the handle. ‘There you are. I was on my way back from the loo and I must have taken a wrong turn. Then I heard a voice and I was about to ask for directions.’ My excuse sounded ridiculously lame.
He stepped past me and pushed open one of the French doors. He and Johnny Vogue exchanged looks. Vogue shut his phone then inclined his head in an abrupt semi-nod which could have meant anything.
Delgado grabbed my arm and steered me back towards the ballroom. I didn’t like the way his fingers were digging into my flesh. His face had lost all the colour it had gained from ogling Nick Tozzi’s wife, and was now a furious kind of white.
‘Look,’ I said, trying to pull my arm away. ‘I’m not sure I’m the right person for this job you have in mind.’
‘Well, I’d think twice before making a decision like that. What did you just hear, Ms Sharp?’
‘When?’ I asked dumbly, as we re-entered the ballroom.
His fingers dug deeper. ‘Don’t bullshit me.’
‘N-nothing,’ I said. ‘Nothing. Just a muffled voice.’
‘Well, I would stick to that story if I was you.’
I felt sick. Delgado knew I’d overheard something I shouldn’t have. And now the arsehole was
threatening
me. For the second time this evening I wished Bok was with me. He knew how to handle even the most practised slime balls. Hell, the fashion industry teemed with them.
I
WAS SPARED ANSWERING
Delgado because an explosion of uniformed police suddenly piled in the doors, one of them holding the leash of a sniffer dog. A couple of the party-goers tried to bale out the windows but there were more cops waiting outside with torches and tasers.
I saw Delgado reach into his pocket and dump a dozen or so capsules into the drip tray of the ice statue. With his other hand he punched some keys on his cell phone. From the few grunted words he uttered, I guessed that Johnny Vogue had managed to get clear of the fracas.
Delgado flipped his cell shut, his mouth set in a grim line. I didn’t need to have ESP to know he was trying to figure out who’d tipped off the cops.
I searched above the heads of the milling crowd but couldn’t see Nick Tozzi. Lucky for him, he’d left before the cops arrived, and taken his wife with him.
A cop stood up on a chair and told everyone to
quieten
down!
He then explained that it was a raid – doh! – and that each person would be searched for illegal substances. No one was allowed to move unless instructed to do so. The search would proceed as quickly and painlessly as possible – but no attempts to evade the search would be tolerated.
Sweat ran down the inside of my LBD. I didn’t take drugs, I didn’t have any drugs on me, and yet I felt as guilty as hell. Maybe it was because I was standing next to a gangster’s lawyer.
The cops had told us not to move so I was stuck there. The best I could do was turn away from Delgado and study the ice statue, pretending we were accidentally caught next to each other, and I didn’t know him.
I wondered how many others were trying that one.
The cops worked their way through the crowd while the sniffer dog ran around the room. When the dog stopped beside me I thought I might faint. It flung its paws up on the ice statue table and began to yelp. In a flash I was surrounded by cops.
Not only that, but the water around the ice statue was slowly turning blue.
One of the cops produced a vial and scooped up some of the coloured icy water. ‘Could be trail mix,’ he said, holding it up to the light and peering at it.
Trail mix?
What in fuck’s name was that? I glanced behind me. Delgado had taken advantage of the surge of cops around me and slipped further back.
‘Identification please, Miss.’
I jumped.
Dammit!
The cop was talking to me. I fiddled in my clutch purse and found my driver’s licence.
‘Step this way, Ms Sharp,’ he said, after looking at it.
Two cops escorted me back to the entrance hall and then into a side room. They told me to stand in the centre of the room and that they’d be searching me as soon as female police officers were present.
One of them closed the door and leaned casually against it while the other walked around me in small circles. I felt like puking now, and sweat was running down my legs into my shoes. Being caught with my pants off by Whitey was one thing, but being in a drug raid in Millionaires’ Row was quite another. I wondered if JoBob would put up my bail money. Or if Bok would stop laughing long enough to visit me in the clink.
‘You like a few party drugs, Ms Sharp?’ said the circler. He was average height – i.e. smaller than me – but solid and muscular, with lips set in sneer mode.
I shook my head. ‘No.’
‘How do you explain that you just happened to be the closest to a puddle of trail mix then?’
‘I can’t help where I was standing, and I’ve never heard of
trail mix
.’ I said it as honestly as I felt it, trying to hold back the irritation that was swinging in counterweight to my fear.
‘MDMA and Viagra. Ground up and mixed. Everything you could want for a night out,’ said the door cop.
‘If you’re a guy,’ I said.
‘“
If
you’re a guy.
If
you’re a guy”! What about “
If
you’re a
drug dealer
”?’ The circler raised his voice to a shade less than a shout. ‘You’re the one who’s in trouble here, Ms Sharp, so I suggest you start with the truth.’
Belligerence began to well up. I knew I should stay cool and sweet and do the
Yes sir, no sir
thing, but my mouth had its own ideas. ‘Why don’t you stop wasting your time on an honest citizen and get back in there and find the real crims.’
‘Upright citizens don’t come to parties on Coke Road,’ said door cop.
Coke Road. Great!
Door cop left his posse and came to join the Circler. I felt like a drowning swimmer between two sharks.
‘Everything alright, fellas?’ came a female voice, halting the sharks. Constable Fiona Bligh had entered the room and was standing with her arms crossed and a hard expression on her face.
‘Took your time, Bligh,’ said the Sneer.
‘Sarge needs you two out on the driveway. Barnes and Lund will be here in a minute to assist me with this search.’