Sharp Turn - Marianne Delacourt [27]
I sure didn’t iron mine.
‘You new here?’ asked Bolo.
I took his lead, pretending that we didn’t know each other. ‘Yeah. My name’s Tara and this is my . . . err . . . Cass. We’re going to be filling in for Jim until he gets over his bad back.’
‘I’m Bolo Ignatius,’ he said. ‘Run one of the teams here. This is Lu Red. He rides for me.’
‘Hi,’ I said. ‘Well, what can I get you, Bolo and Lu?’
As I copied down their order, I checked out Lu a bit more. Drivers and riders were all, without exception, risk junkies. Most of them were small as well. Didn’t work well if you were too big for your bike or had trouble fitting your legs behind the steering wheel of your racing car. Most of them tended to be on the intense side too, and Lu had a wound-up expression like he might pop a spring and bounce right on out of here at any moment.
Bolo clearly didn’t want anyone, even his own rider, knowing what I was doing, so I served them up their two beef rolls with mustard and two cans of Coke and they went on their way. I watched them walk back to the roller-door lock-up garage section in the pits. There were only a handful of those, the rest were mesh cages. Looked like Bolo could afford the best.
‘All done?’ asked Cass.
I heaved a sigh. ‘Yeah. I’ll disconnect the power and meet you at the gate. Why don’t you go and say goodbye to T-Dog? See if you can find out anything else.’
Cass nodded, slipped the apron over her head and ducked out the door. I locked up the van and went to do a bit of my own snooping around the pits.
Not much was happening behind the stall sign that said Team Chesley; just a mechanic curled up asleep on a pile of rags next to a Kawasaki.
Two stalls down, Team Bennett was all locked up. But further along, Team Riley were in a small group meeting, all gathered close and sitting on upturned containers and drums. Two bikes sat beside them, one of them covered. The uncovered one was a Suzuki.
I walked straight on in without hesitation. Sometimes it was the best way to get involuntary reactions and see auras.
‘Hi,’ I said brightly. ‘I’m from Jim’s Food Van. You want to get any early orders in for tomorrow?’
Of the four guys at the meeting, three of them responded with mild surprise and not much else. But the aura of the fourth guy, the one talking, flared sulphur yellow. I swear I could almost smell rotten eggs. I took a step back. Mr Hara always said sulphur yellow was an aura to run from.
‘What the fuck are you doing just walking in here unannounced?’ the man demanded.
The others looked uncomfortable but nobody spoke up. I figured, being the oldest one there, he must be the boss. That and the fact that he wore a casual suit and expensive shoes while the rest were dressed in jeans and grease-stained tees.
‘Like I said, I came to offer an early-bird discount on lunches, but the deal just got cancelled on account of the potential customer being an arsehole.’
This was not the way to go about gathering intel – making an immediate enemy of your suspects – but I hadn’t bargained on being verbally attacked. Tozzi had been right: these guys took the whole racing thing damn seriously.
I eyeballed the suited guy and backed out until I was standing in the daylight again. Then I turned and strode back to the van. By the time I’d unhooked the power and driven over to the gate, Cass was waiting for me.
‘I didn’t talk to T-Dog – he’s over the other side of the track spreading sand.’
Job-skilling aka slave labour!
‘Tomorrow,’ I said. Tonight, though, I had a lot of homework to do on Bolo’s problems and some hard thinking about how I might help Madame Vine.
Chapter 9
WE EXCHANGED VEHICLES AT Jim’s place and I gave him the takings. After a quick debrief, we were on our way home. It was 3.45 pm and the sou’wester was howling in. Crisp cool mornings in Perth were heavenly; cool windy arvos