*
The feelings of romantic bliss had quickly dissipated away and the wily veteran of domestic chaos returned in their place.
At 8pm the peak hour traffic was still sticking around like taxes, slowing Furn to well below the speed limit. Finally, however, he reached his destination, or at least close enough to it - the RIP may not have had much of a reputation in law enforcement circles, but it did provide carte blanche when it came to parking. He pulled to the side of the road to be next to a fire hydrant, under a No Parking sign, but most importantly with a good view of 142 Glenferrie Road. The tooting horns of blocked cars and the bitter taste of the bourbon in his hip-flask would combine to keep him awake for a long stretch of the night.
Fortunately, however, it wasn’t long before his mobile was ringing with May Jones’s number on the display.
Furn snapped the phone open. ‘Hi.’
‘When are you coming home?’ came May’s sweetly beguiling voice.
‘Not till late, darling. I’m on a stake out.’
‘That’s too bad. How late are you expecting to be?’
‘It might be an overnighter, depending on events. Are you home already?’
‘Yes, I am.’
‘Any sign of that stalker?’
‘No.’
‘That’s good. Well, don’t wait up.’
‘I miss you.’
‘I miss you too. Now make sure the doors are locked.’
‘I will.’
Furn was tempted to reveal that her new-found stalker was likely in fact an unhinged co-worker of his. His vantage point, however, was too good to throw away without giving Azu Nashy’s suspicions a chance to play out, so he kept it to himself.
‘Ok. Good night,’ May said with a yawn and hung up.
With some kind of reaction to the call that had been, Furn found himself calling up his horoscope: the raunchy tone of the voice at the other end of the line, however, gave him pause to wonder if he had not in fact called a sex line by mistake – the numbers of all these services were so similar. Still, it was therapeutic to hear an unfamiliar voice. The woman talked about life changes coming from unexpected sources and Jupiter having something to do with it. There could have been some truth to it. It certainly wasn’t the aesthetic value of the run down, russet brick apartment block that had attracted Nashy’s interest here: single bedroom, kitchen and sink accommodation frequented by students and those who had not studied a single thing. Probably every second balcony was being used to dry out weed rather than laundry. The lights were bright in apartment 309, the thick curtains not betraying so much as a silhouette. Thanks to a central court layout he was at least going to get a view of the front door when it opened. Hopefully it would reveal one of May’s handful of single-mother friends and he could clear his head and set his focus for the scientist and the medically useful brother.
The horoscope done, he tuned into the talkback radio and listened to some old gruff voice complaining about rising crime rates. “Where are all the police these days?” he bemoaned, and Furn smirked ruefully: ‘Drinking warm whiskey,’ he murmured back at the radio and took a gulp from the hipflask.
At least one thing May was not going to put him through tonight was a long wait: her metallic green Ford Fairlane pulled into the 142 driveway and reverse parked into the vacant #309 spot. The familiarity with these actions was plain to see.
Her long, shapely legs led her out of the car. She strode up the stairs under the bright courtyard lights. There was sheen indicative of her wearing the full complement of her bedside box of cosmetics. The biggest horn honk so far blared up Furn’s exhaust pipe. It was a fortuitous demonstration of May’s tunnel vision, for she didn’t give it the slightest glance. Furn wasn’t taking any more of this. He rushed out of his car, almost losing his door to the SUV tearing around him. He manufactured a break in traffic, getting across Glenferrie Road just as #309’s front was opening for May.
With a flirtatious flick of her thick ginger hair May stood her ground a moment. There was a man’s silhouette in the doorway, too dark to be recognised from the street. But his large hand came into the light as it wrapped itself around May’s backside. Instead of chopping it off at the wrist, as Furn would have approved of, she let it be, merely adjusting the strap of her glittering black handbag on her shoulder. The hand slowly submerged into the back pocket of her blue jeans and with a surge of strength hauled her into the apartment. The door snapped closed behind them.
Furn was inexplicably calm as he walked that way. Perhaps it was the sudden sense of danger, helping this to seem as professional as it was personal. One left hand had been enough for that.
Furn took position in front of the spy hole, ignoring the fact it might prove a close cousin to a sniper’s telescopic sight; the apartment wasn’t particularly modern in the first place but it aged another ten years with the doorbell’s tired rendition of ding dong.
The apartment’s occupants were apparently not yet settled, the door opening quickly. The man behind it was a two metre giant with a black beard and a serpent tattoo that was being squeezed up his neck by a tightly stretched black t-shirt. He was wearing Oakley sports sunglasses and a gold necklace engraved with “Johnny”. His stringy hair had been oiled into poor-man dreadlocks.
‘Detective Sergeant Maroon,’ he said with a Greek Australian accent, ‘this is a surprise.’
‘Not to me, Condrey,’ Furn returned. ‘There aren’t a lot of players around missing the ring finger of their left hand.’
Condrey laughed and held up his left hand, the ring finger gone from below the knuckle. ‘Can’t get married, can I? No place to put the ring. Did you know it was bitten off in a fight? A strong jaw that kept the finger but lost its teeth. Now what can I do for you? I didn’t order takeaway.’
Furn’s smile resembled two strips of meat frying on a hotplate. ‘You’re on parole, aren’t you? So you mustn’t be carrying a weapon. But if by some chance you are, you’ll be going straight back in the slammer. Either way I couldn’t be feeling safer.’
He had pressed the right button to bring a little uncertainty to Condrey, probably because there was an unregistered firearm tucked into the back of his belt at that very moment.
‘Now don’t get the wrong idea,’ Condrey said. ‘I wasn’t stealing your girl.’
‘Well, the right idea couldn’t be too right. You’d better explain.’
The Condrey confessional grin, last seen during the armed robbery interrogation, was making reappearance. ‘She’s my girl. I sent her to you while I was doing time.’
‘Why would you do that?’
‘Better it to be with an enemy than a so called friend.’ Condrey shrugged. ‘The man with power knows what others really want and then orders them to do it. May was watching you when you testified at my trial. So, while the jury was waiting to convict me, I was already appointing myself social director for the world that would carry on without me.’
Furn’s eyes darkened.‘The last time I kicked your ass it was merely professionalism.’
Condrey took a step back, holding out a cautionary hand. ‘I may be violating my parole in my back pocket and I may not, but I wouldn’t recommend you go to the pains of finding out. Taking out the guy who’s taken out your girlfriend wouldn’t look good.’
‘I see. And what about a reason that’s actually going to stop me?’
‘The big difference between cops and robbers is that cops figure out the answers before they start shooting. You start shooting now and I guarantee you there will be ricochets.’
‘I have zero idea what you’re talking about. You couldn’t just point out that you’re a big son of a bitch and my own paper-weight is in another ex’s shoebox.’
‘Paper-weight?’
‘Yeah. Once I blow off some scum’s head all I get is paperwork. So, that’s how my piece gets used most of the time. Seems like that’s what’s going to happen again.’
Furn slapped aside the buffering hand. ‘Anoth
er difference between cops and robbers is that cops are cold blooded, even when it’s a crime of passion.’
‘Was that your problem with May?’
Such a big guy, there were so many places to put a punch. Furn chose the tip of his nose. There was no one in a gym working out his nose and this one seemed to be packed with tomato sauce.
Condrey stood his ground. He rummaged inside his pocket for a plug.
‘Not so cold blooded after all.’
Furn headed back down the stairs. ‘I’m not much of a cop.’
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