Sharp Shooter

by Marianne Delacourt

  Wal beat me inside Mona.

  ‘Yeah, yeah,’ he said as I spun the wheels on the gravel. ‘Sounds good.’

  Chapter 43

  VIASPA’S MEN FIRED SEVERAL shots as I fishtailed down the alley and out onto the bitumen road.

  Jamming the Wembley Ware between my legs to keep it from breaking, I prayed no bullets hit my car. I couldn’t afford the stress of the panel beating.

  ‘Did they get me?’ I shouted at Wal as I ran a red light. ‘Wal?’

  But Security Chief Grominsky had done his bit for Tara Sharp Consultancy today. He was asleep, head lolling against the window.

  Meanwhile, Brains had climbed her way up the seatbelt and was calmly perched on his shoulder. I clucked my tongue to soothe her and she dropped a giant dollop that ran like a small lava flow down Wal’s neck. For some reason, that struck me as more funny than disgusting. I began to laugh and couldn’t stop.

  By the time I reached Mr Hara’s cottage thirty minutes later and parked in the driveway, my nose was streaming. I couldn’t see anything for laughter tears.

  Hysteria, I told myself sternly.

  And started giggling all over again.

  Mr Hara tapped on the car window.

  My giggling became hee-haws.

  He opened the door. ‘Missy?’

  I undid my seatbelt and fell out onto the footpath at his feet, still holding the marron plate – continuing to deliver my best hyena impression.

  He left me there, and soon afterwards I felt a set of weight lifter’s arms lock around me and carry me inside.

  Mrs Hara plopped me on the couch in the Wembley Ware room. As she removed the marron from my grip I heard her breath catch. She placed it reverently on the sideboard alongside the plasma, drew a blanket from somewhere and tucked me up like a rolled roast.

  The world didn’t begin to right itself until I’d drunk half a scalding-hot cup of sugary tea and chewed my way through a plateful of minestrone thicker than pack ice.

  Mrs Hara came and went from the Wembley Ware room, a worried expression on her face. Mr Hara sat opposite, fingers steepled together, legs crossed neatly, face serious, aura burning intensely.

  ‘Bird?’ I croaked at him.

  ‘Missy’s bird is in the aviary with the cockatiels.’

  Brains would probably kill them all in an hour, but I couldn’t summon the words to explain.

  ‘Wal?’ I asked instead.

  ‘Missy’s friend is in Mrs Hara’s guest room, taking a nap.’

  I nodded, relieved, and tried to sit up a bit straighter. My bread rolled off the tray onto the floor and under Mr Hara’s chair. At the sight of it disappearing, I burst into tears and sobbed for a while.

  Mrs Hara did a sweep of the room, using the handle of a feather duster to retrieve the roll. Then she dropped a box of tissues on my knees.

  I snorted and blew myself back into composure.

  Mr Hara laid his arms along the armrest and stretched his legs out like Buddha unwinding from the lotus position. ‘Missy, tell me now?’

  I nodded, and splurted the whole story out: Delgado, Viaspa, Tozzi – even the bit about the bonus.

  He gave frequent little nods and his aura sped up when I got to the last part about Sam Barbaro and the shooting.

  ‘Very serious. Very bad. Missy go to the police?’

  ‘No,’ I said hoarsely. ‘No one believes me, least of all Nick Tozzi. It’s only because I can see things, that I know that the mining lease document is important, and that Lupi is somehow involved. I still can’t really prove any of it.’ Plus there was the added problem that I’d been trespassing.

  ‘See, see,’ said Mr Hara. ‘I fix it with Mr Delgado.’

  ‘No!’ I yelped. ‘H-he’s t-too d-dangerous, and this is m-my f-fault.’

  Mr Hara jumped up and stood to his full tiny height, fixing me with a stern look. ‘No, Missy, not you. Mrs Hara has done something very bad.’

  ‘Oh?’ was all I could think to say.

  The house phone trilled.

  Mrs Hara answered it in the hallway. She spoke in Italian, becoming more animated by the moment.

  Mr Hara listened intently to her responses. When she marched into the room her face flushed, neither of us had to read her aura to see something was wrong.

  She and her diminutive husband exchanged rapid information. He wagged his finger at her and she bowed her head in guilt.

  I wobbled to my feet, feeling completely at sea. ‘Trouble?’

  ‘Barbaro and Lupi are looking for you. It is safer that you stay elsewhere while Mrs Hara sorts things out.’

  ‘Mrs Hara?’ I squeaked. I mean she was scary, sure, but she didn’t carry guns, or work for a crime gang.

  ‘Missy, Mrs Hara misled Mr Viaspa and Mr Delgado. They employed you because they thought you would sleep with Mr Tozzi and learn his secrets.’

  ‘What-at?’ I gasped, my voice cracking over the word. My mind cracked a bit too. ‘Why would Mrs Hara do that?’

  He sighed and his aura reddened. ‘I told you, Missy. My wife is a jealous woman.’

  ‘I know she was pissed over the chocolate thing but why would she be talking to the likes of –’ ‘Mrs Hara is good friends with Mr Viaspa’s older sister.’

  I sat down again. Had all the air been sucked from the room? And here I’d been thinking the fact that Wal lived near Sam Barbaro was ridiculous.

  A slamming life lesson, Tara Sharp: don’t get mixed up in small-city crime.

  ‘They went to school together.’

  Well that explained, at least, Delgado’s attitude towards me – looking my legs up and down. He thought I was a hooker.

  ‘C-can Mrs Hara get Barbaro to leave me and Wal alone?’

  ‘You lay low for a few days, Missy. Mrs Hara try and fix through her friend.’

  I nodded. ‘OK. I’ll stay with my aunt. She’s in security apartments.’ I pictured Wal asleep, drooling on one of Liv’s Persian rugs. ‘At least, I think she’ll let us stay. Can you keep the bird for a few days?’

  Mr Hara nodded. ‘Sure, sure. Wasser name?’

  ‘Brains. She likes peanuts and vanilla slice.’

  Chapter 44

  AUNT LIV – BLESS her beautiful tangerine aura – was a trooper. She opened her door to Wal and me like we were invited guests, and told us we were welcome to stay as long as we needed – although she did make Wal push the fold-out bed into her sumptuous laundry. ‘It’s only proper,’ she told him. ‘In case people call in.’

  Wal didn’t bat an eyelid.

  In fact from the moment Liv opened her door, dressed in a black silk shift with her hair piled high off her lovely pearl-encased neck, he’d acted as dopey as a newborn lamb. Even his aura changed from smoky grey to something much bluer.

  I didn’t think my mind or stomach could handle the way his lips were trembling, so I excused myself and had a long, cleansing shower.

  Liv left a voluminous Hawaiian muu-muu on the spare bed for me and I emerged clean and slightly more composed. She handed me a cup of herbal tea and curled up on the couch next to me.

  ‘Wal?’ I asked.

  ‘I sent him to the corner shop to get wine and cheese.’

  I stared at Liv in amazement. She’d always had a knack with men. And she knew a lot of men.

  That prompted a thought. ‘You’ve met plenty of government types through your art, haven’t you Liv?’

  ‘Don’t remind me, darling,’ she drawled. ‘I’ve been to more fundraisers and white-collar do’s than you’ve done scatterbrained things.’

  I grinned. Coming from Liv it sounded like a badge of honour. From my mother it would have been a cry of despair. ‘You haven’t heard about anyone who might be in bed with Johnny Viaspa?’

  She shook her head, but her eyes began to sparkle. ‘Supremo Crimo? Ooh, but I love the smell of corruption.’

  ‘This guy was overweight and wearing a suit. He acted nervous. Glancing around, hurrying.’

  ‘You were spying on
him?’ She sounded quite breathless.

  ‘Liv,’ I said sternly. ‘Of course not. I happened to be watching some premises and he happened to be there with Viaspa.’

  ‘Hmmm. Well, you’ve just described half the politicians in the state,’ she said. ‘Overweight and sweaty.’

  I sighed. ‘That’s what I thought.’ I was starting to get a major headache. ‘I think I’ll sleep on it.’

  She patted my arm. ‘Good idea. You look a little peaky.

  There are some painkillers in the bathroom.’

  I yawned and headed for the bedroom, raiding the bathroom cabinet on the way. Sleep claimed me as soon as the pills hit my stomach and my head hit the pillow.

  I momentarily surfaced a while later to the sound of Led Zeppelin and clinking wine glasses, and hurriedly resuccumbed.

  When I finally roused properly it was 2 am, according to the digital clock in Liv’s spare room. I swallowed down some water and sat on the side of the bed listening. Everything was quiet other than Wal snoring on his bed in the laundry.

  Thank the lordey-oh!

  I thought about eating something, seeing as I’d slept through dinner, but I didn’t have much of an appetite. Mrs Hara’s minestrone was still on the way down.

  I picked my phone up off the side table. Three texts and two voice messages.

  The first text was from Craigo, reminding me to be at the track by 8 am.

  You’ll have to cancel, I told myself. Mr Hara told you to lay low.

  But no one would look for me at a triathlon, I counter-reasoned, and even if they did, no one would dare do anything at such a public event. The tri would be quite safe. Besides, a whole day spent cooped up in Liv’s apartment with Wal would see me back in Betsy’s office, holding my hand out for a prescription.

  The second text was from Edouardo – a sweet ‘hi’ and looking forward to tomorrow.

  Dammit! I wondered how Liv would feel about Edouardo lobbing over for dinner with Wal, her and me?

  I formed a mental picture of beautiful Ed, and smiled.

  Liv would be fine with it.

  The third text was from Tozzi. ‘Tara, ring me straightaway, whatever time you get this.’

  I hesitated. I was pissed with him. He thought I was a fruitloop. But even that couldn’t make my fingers stay off the call-back button.

  ‘’Lo.’ He wasn’t asleep but he sounded muzzy.

  ‘It’s Tara.’

  ‘Where are you?’ he asked.

  ‘Laying low,’ I said. ‘Some stuff cropped up.’

  ‘I need to talk to you – in person,’ he said.

  ‘What? Now?’

  ‘Yeah. Are you home?’

  ‘No.’ I hesitated, not wanting to bring Liv into this any more than I already had. ‘I’m . . . err . . . sleeping over at a friend’s place.’

  ‘Male?’

  ‘No. And so what if it is?’

  ‘Just asking,’ he said mildly. ‘Give me an address. I’ll pick you up.’

  I gave him Liv’s apartment block address and told him to call me when he was outside. Then I snuck into the bathroom and freshened up: face wash, some of Liv’s gorgeous parfum, and a rub of toothpaste around my gums.

  While I waited for him, I listened to the voice messages. The first was Lloyd Honey. ‘Ms Sharp, the only connection I could find between Nick Tozzi and John Viaspa was through their grandparents. Both were born in the same village in Sicily. In fact they lived in the same street. As for Nicholas Tozzi and his wife – no. Nothing significant in the familial sense.’

  Interesting.

  The second message was from Mr Hara. ‘Things not so good, Missy. Mrs Hara not able to help. Stay out of sight.’

  I didn’t have much time to think on what I would do now, because the call came in from Tozzi.

  Liv’s apartment was on the fifteenth floor. I stared out of her balcony window, but the only car in the spot lit by the faux door-torches was a white stretch limo.

  ‘What colour is your car?’ I whispered into the phone.

  ‘White. Limo.’

  White limos were gangster cars. My paranoia did a flip. ‘You don’t drive a white limo.’

  ‘I borrowed it from a friend.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Anonymity.’

  ‘Well. OK,’ I said

  I grabbed Liv’s door key off the coffee table and quietly let myself out. On the ride down to the ground floor, I somehow convinced myself that meeting Nick Tozzi in a limo at 2 am fell well within the parameters of laying low.

  I pushed opened the foyer door and did a quick reccy up and down the street. Claremont – even on a Friday night – was pretty quiet after midnight in the residential areas.

  Edouardo was probably just locking up at the club, and I felt a pang of guilt about meeting Nick, in a car, in the dark. I quickly quashed it. I mean, it wasn’t like Edouardo and I were together. One eminently suspect date did not a relationship make.

  The driver hopped out of the stretch and opened the passenger door for me. I looked in and to my relief it was Tozzi.

  But the moment my backside hit the leather I knew I should have stayed tucked up in bed. His white business shirt was unbuttoned and his smile sloppy. Nick was pissed.

  ‘’S’up?’ I asked, nervously.

  ‘Jenelle said you called. What’ve you been doing?’

  ‘You know . . . the usual . . . running around.’ I ran my fingers through my hair.

  Bad move.

  He leaned over and tugged it gently. ‘Yeah, I’ve seen you running.’ His voice was so deep that I felt like I was wading in it.

  ‘Nick?’ the driver crackled through his intercom.

  ‘Drive,’ he ordered.

  The limo pulled away from the curb smoothly and headed down Victoria Avenue. I swallowed an overwhelming desire to open the door and fling myself from a moving car. I couldn’t see Tozzi’s aura but it felt like I was standing way too close to a fire.

  ‘Are you nervous, Tara?’ He dropped his fingers from my hair to the hollow of my throat. I’m sure he could feel my heart beating against my skin.

  ‘Depends,’ I said, lifting my jaw and swallowing hard. ‘On what you want from me.’ Sometimes a girl has to be straight up about things.

  His hand fell away and I instantly missed the heat of his touch. He frowned as if I’d taken all the fun out of his game. ‘Direct as ever.’

  I nodded. ‘Yup.’

  ‘How come you didn’t learn to play coy like all the other girls?’

  Coy? All the other girls? I had a sudden rush of anger. Not only had Tozzi been sceptical – pretty much rude – about my talents, but he’d turned up drunk in the middle of the night to hit on me. Neither behaviour suggested that Mr Western Basketball was treating me with much respect. And here I’d come gambolling down to meet him like an eager puppy.

  I fixed him with a hostile stare. ‘Look, Nick, what do you want? I have to run in a team triathlon tomorrow.’ I pressed the backlight on my phone. ‘In about six hours actually.’

  He stared back at me without saying a word.

  ‘Nick?’ I repeated.

  He sighed. ‘What would you say if I told you that I had a few drinks and wanted to see you. Nothing else. Just wanted to see you. Badly, Tara.’

  I started the swallowing thing again. It would have been so easy to let him lean forward and kiss me like I knew he wanted to, but it suddenly seemed really important that he didn’t.

  ‘I-I’d say . . . that’s nice. In fact, I’d say more than nice. One major problem though. You’re married, Nick.’

  Lame, I know. But I didn’t want Antonia Falk’s leftovers, or to be another notch in Nick Tozzi’s belt – whichever way it worked. I thought too much of myself for that.

  ‘My marriage isn’t what it should be –’ ‘Jees. Can’t you do better than that?’ I interrupted.

  ‘Yes. If you let me finish.’

  I waited. This should be good.

  ‘I fell hard for Toni
when we met. Bad. I mean . . . the way you do when you’re eighteen. You’ve seen her, Tara. Who wouldn’t? And it’s not just how beautiful she is; she’s so classy, and fun to be with.’

  Can’t say I’d seen much sign of that, but I kept that opinion to myself.

  ‘After we got married I found out that she had a cocaine addiction. The fun side only surfaced when she was stoned. The rest of the time . . .’

  ‘So you wanted out?’

  ‘No!’ he said with vehemence. ‘I loved – still love her, in a way. I tried to get her to go to rehab but she wouldn’t do it. I tried cutting off her allowance, but she got money in other ways. She believes she’s just a recreational user. First thing you learn about an addict is that they’ve got to want to kick the habit. For themselves. Not for anyone else.’

  He went quiet for a bit.

  ‘I’m sorry for you, Nick, but that doesn’t excuse you going around hitting on other women.’

  ‘Who says I do that?’

  I looked out the window.

  He swore. ‘Jenelle!’

  I shrugged.

  ‘Toni won’t sleep with me,’ he said abruptly.

  My head swivelled. Not sleep with him. Is she mad?

  ‘I’m trying, Tara, trying to make my marriage work, but she doesn’t seem interested. At the same time she says she doesn’t want a divorce. It doesn’t excuse my behaviour, you’re right. But sometimes I get . . . lonely. And you’re . . . you’re so different to her –’

  You got that right, Tozzi! But, Holy Mother, do I swallow that line, or punch him in the nose?

  ‘Why don’t you talk to her then? Tell her how much you want to make it work.’ I leaned forward and pressed the intercom button. ‘Back to the apartment please.’

  The driver glanced into the rear-vision mirror, surprised.

  Tozzi didn’t object, so the driver swerved the limo around the next corner and began to loop back to Liv’s. Whether Nick’s story was to gain sympathy or not, one thing was clear: his personal life was complicated.

  ‘Thing I don’t understand is, why does Johnny Vogue want to ruin you so badly? It couldn’t just be a random act. Is it a vendetta or something? I know your and his family come from the same town in Sicily.’

  ‘How do you know that?’