I ARRIVED AT CLUB Eighteen as the afternoon shift swapped over with the evening bar staff, and had to wait while Edouardo pried himself away from a fresh lot of gym junkies. At least Mrs Honey-to-be wasn’t one of them.
‘You must get tired of that,’ I said to him as we ran out to the car park before they could follow him. ‘My friend Bok has the same problem. Though not as badly as you do.’
‘I didn’t think he looked like your brother.’
I grinned, though I doubt he could see it in the dark.
My phone rang as Edouardo unlocked the car. It was Wal.
‘Bog called me. Your car’s ready. He wants it out of there tonight,’ he said.
‘Tonight?’ I gasped.
‘He’s got a load coming in. Needs the space.’
‘But it’s 8 pm.’
‘Load’s not in till midnight. He’ll be there all evening. Can you do it?’
‘What if I can’t?’
‘He’ll likely park it outside the compound. Course it might not be there in the morning.’
I thought of Bunka. ‘Tell him I’ll be there before midnight.’
‘Right. Ahhh. Take some company. Not the place for wimmen at night.’
That so?
I got inside Edouardo’s 2002 Subaru, and we sat with our knees pushed up around our ears. ‘Nice car,’ I said. ‘Cosy.’
He laughed. ‘Got it for my eighteenth birthday. Then I grew eight inches.’
‘Wow!’ I said. ‘You must be from the same gene pool as Bok. Happened to him too. Scrawny little punk at seventeen; major tall hunk at twenty.’
‘So where are we going?’
I fixed him with my best smile. ‘Actually, Edouardo, I have a favour to ask.’ I gave him a lean account of the abridged version of Mona’s plight, leaving out the nature of the graffiti, how I knew Bog, and that I had a little scouting in mind.
‘Sure, no problem, Tara. Haven’t been out to the east side. Time I learned my way around Perth. Mind if we eat first though?’
‘Sounds like a plan. You know Northbridge?’
‘Sure. My modelling agency’s got their office in there.’
‘Well there’s a great Indian restaurant in James Street and it’s kind of on the way to Bunka (in the way that following the North Star is the way to Jesus in the crib!).’
Edouardo drove into the city and we found a lucky park on busy William Street. ‘My modelling agency is right over there.’ He pointed across the road to a shop window full of black and white photos on easels.
We ran across when there was a break in the traffic and I ogled the male models.
‘That you?’ I asked, pointing to a particularly hot body wearing only a mask and a pair of boxers.
‘That’s me,’ he said. ‘Advertisement for Bonds.’
I swallowed hard, taking in the silky skin, and abs like rippling sand dunes. His curly hair had been straightened and he looked like something from Man Power only much, much more gorgeous. And tall!
‘Yeah. You like it?’
I stuck my fingernails into my palms to help collect myself and shrugged. ‘Not too shabby for a country boy.’
He laughed again. ‘Anyone ever tell you, you’re pretty cool? Most girls I show this one to come over all man-eater.’
‘Uh?’ My ego detector began to swivel. ‘So I’ve passed the test then?’
He flushed. ‘Yes . . . no . . . what I m-mean –’
I punched him in the arm. ‘Let’s eat.’
We chatted our way through two serves of onion bhaji, a madras curry and cucumber raita. Edouardo was a witty conversationalist – interested in everything. It’s never been this easy with a guy, I thought. Not on a first date. Maybe he’s gay?
In fact, he seemed so sweet that I was beginning to feel guilty about dragging him out to Bunka. Then again, maybe he needed to pass a couple of my tests too.
We split the bill and walked back to the Subaru.
I directed him onto the bypass and out east, remembering my last trip on this road in the Cayenne. I wondered if Nick was enjoying his first night in my house.
‘Take the next exit,’ I said.
We left the highway and merged into the local traffic doing their perennial laps around the streets of Burnside. A crowd of people were street drinking on the embankment near the station. I wondered if Cass and her gang were there.
‘Can we take a short detour? I just need to check out a place close by,’ I said.
Edouardo shot me a quizzical look. It was amazing how handsome his face was at any angle in any light; even the sulphur yellow of the Bunka street lights.
‘You thinking of buying property out here?’ he asked.
I peered out the side window looking for something familiar. ‘Not unless I can afford a full-time security guard. There! Slow down and turn into that lane.’
He did as I asked, and the Subaru bumped up the laneway alongside Johnny Vogue’s compound. There were no lights on and everything seemed quiet.
‘Stop the car and kill the lights,’ I whispered.
Edouardo complied, then slid his arm along the headrest of my seat and leaned towards me. ‘Tara?’
Oh my god. Asking him to pull over in a dark place had given him totally the wrong message. Trust a man to think a back alley in Burnside could be sexy.
Then again . . .
Edouardo’s lips brushed my hair and his breath fanned warmth on my ear. He smelled of garlic and Indian spices. ‘We didn’t have to drive all this way to –’
I grabbed his hand in a very un-sexy manner to jerk him out of his hormone surge. ‘Edouardo, this is going to sound a bit demented. But I just have to check something out in this warehouse. Nothing illegal. I just need to have a look inside. Can you sit tight and wait for me?’
He sat back in his seat surprised. ‘Wha-at?’
‘Look, it’s a really long story which involves too many people you don’t know and questions I can’t answer. So I can’t go into it all now.’
I flipped off the seatbelt. ‘I just want to look in the window and then we’re out of here. OK?’
It was a bit dark to see his face now, but I guessed he was looking dubious, and a little offended. I would be too, if someone had knocked back my perfectly good sexual advance. I was guessing it didn’t happen to Edouardo too often.
‘I s’pose so. But I don’t want trouble with the police, Tara. I’m trying to get a career going. My agency would drop me in a second if they –’
I traced my fingers across his chest. ‘Cross your heart. No trouble.’ Then I uncrossed my legs. ‘Back in a jiffy.’
I jumped out of the car and surveyed the options for climbing the eight feet-tall fence. At least there was no razor wire.
I stuck my head back in the window. ‘Do you have a torch?’
He sighed and pulled the key from the ignition. ‘There’s a little torch on my key ring.’
‘Wonderful. Now I need a leg over.’
He climbed out of the car and joined me on the bonnet. ‘How will you get back?’
‘I’ll find something on the other side to stand on.’
‘You sure? What if you can’t?’
‘I will,’ I reassured him. ‘It’s a warehouse. Warehouses always have things lying around that you can stand on.’ Hopefully.
The hoist over was ugly but effective and I crashed down the other side like a cat with no legs.
‘Alright?’ Edouardo asked anxiously.
‘Dandy,’ said I, picking myself up. Now I was in here, adrenaline was shooting out through my toes. What if I’d missed noticing guard dogs? Or a security person?
I sprinted across the crumbling bitumen yard to the building.
Chains and padlock on the door, chicken wire over the dirty glass windows. I spent a few minutes locating a broken crate to stand on to look inside. Edouardo’s little torch worked a treat but the dust on the windows might as well have been curtains. If I could find a little gap to peer in through . . .
Before giving it deep amounts of thought I reached down and slipped off my heels. Positioning the heel spike inside a loop of chicken wire, I hammered down on the shoe with the palm of my other hand. A chunk of glass cracked off and fell in.
The alarms went off as I flashed the tiny torch around and got a good look. The building was wall-to-wall machinery. Huge scraper extensions and excavator buckets lay on the ground between the machines like giant discarded shoes. Most of them wore the Caterpillar brand emblem. What was Johnny Vogue – drug baron of the west – doing with a warehouse full of heavy equipment? Was it his?
Dragging the broken crate behind me I dashed back to the fence. The dogs across the lane in the refrigeration yard were going crazy, baying like hellhounds. Edouardo was pacing up and down next to the car.
‘Hurry up,’ he cried.
The crate collapsed on my first go and I had to reassemble it and prop it against the fence. This time I got up and over, leaving a good scraping of my skin behind. Hopefully the Burnside cops weren’t up on DNA testing.
I fell into the car and threw Edouardo the car keys. He put the pedal to the metal and we were back in traffic before I could do my seatbelt up.
‘What happened?’
‘Accidentally broke a window,’ I said.
He took a deep breath and I noticed his hands were shaking on the steering wheel. ‘Let’s get your car and get out of here. Then you owe me an explanation and a lot of vodka.’
He seemed to be taking it well.
‘OK. Deal,’ I said.