Sharp Turn - Marianne Delacourt [3]
‘I can see my proposal has taken you by surprise. Perhaps you should think on it and we can talk again?’ she said.
I nodded and sprang up, eager to be on my way.
Madame Vine pressed her intercom. ‘Audrey. Please see Ms Sharp out.’
Audrey appeared, taking care not to trip over the fringe of the silk floor rug. Her eyebrows lifted slightly and her aura surged towards Madame Vine’s. I felt a slight snap of a mild electric shock as their energies met, before she led me out into the corridor. These two definitely had it going on.
As I passed the archway that opened into the front lounge area, I couldn’t resist a peek inside.
Two men sat at the small bar. One, his sharp-looking Zegna suit not quite hiding a middle-aged paunch, was skimming a newspaper. He glanced at me then kept on with his reading.
The other was drinking from a bottle of Coke while he pored over paperwork of some kind. And, God save me, I knew him.
My mouth fell open. ‘Whitey?’
His head jerked up, the bottle halfway to his mouth. ‘Sharp?’
It was a bit hard to know where to go from there.
I knew Greg Whitehead – Whitey – at school. After graduation he’d asked me out on a date and, to my utter disappointment, had turned out to be a horny toad. I’d avoided him ever since. But Whitey became a cop, and not so long ago he turned up to a crime scene I’d accidentally stumbled upon. Short story; long outcome. A photo of Whitey and me appeared in the local paper that made his jealous wife, June, furious.
Now it looked like Whitey had found another way to well and truly piss her off. And, as usual, I happened to be in the right place at the wrong time to see it.
‘It’s only ten in the morning! Can’t you keep your fly zipped until after lunch?’ The words fell out of my mouth before I could stop them.
Mr Zegna Suit sank further behind his newspaper.
‘Are you offering your services?’ Whitey fired back at me.
‘Not if you were the last shag on earth.’
Ignoring Audrey’s disapproving look, I flounced out of the front door on enough indignation to float a hot air balloon.
Chapter 2
I PARKED MONA OUTSIDE my parents’ home on Lilac Street, Eucalyptus Grove, and stomped down the driveway to the birds’ cage, which was back in its usual spot at the front of the house. Recently, Brains and Hoo, my parents’ pink and grey galahs, had had a short holiday outside my back door when I’d been trying to protect them – and me – from a guy called Sammy Barbaro. I hadn’t done such a great job and Brains had been abducted. Fortunately, I’d found out where Barbaro lived and went right over and got her back. I also got shot at, but we’ll skip over that bit.
Hoo barrelled straight up to me, but Brains was still a bit skittish after her bird-napping and wouldn’t come unless I had food in my hand. Scrabbling in the bottom of my beach bag, I found a bit of stale pie crust and made clicking noises with my tongue to woo her over. She sidled along a branch and swiped at the crust, which crumbled and fell to the floor.
‘Serves you right,’ I told her and went back to scratching Hoo.
She didn’t like that either and bit Hoo on the foot. Much squawking and fluffing of feathers ensued.
People say galahs are as smart and selfish as three year olds. Frankly, JoBob’s – my collective name for my parents – birds were smarter than a lot of adults I’d met and their selfishness made them extremely honest pets. In galah language, Brains had just said, ‘Pay attention to me, not him!’ You can’t get much more direct than that.
I left the birds and headed down to my flat/apartment/garage where things were in their usual state of immaculate order: my entire wardrobe on the couch, laptop buried underneath somewhere, microwave door open with half a packet of popped corn inside, and a sticky fruit treat (for the birds) attracting a small army of ants on the sink. Moving back home meant my mum knew way too much about what I was doing, but at least being in a detached flat in the back garden meant I still got to be as messy as I liked.
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