DAD’S VISIT LEFT A throbbing lump in my stomach. It wasn’t very often my saintly father got peeved with me, and the guilt was almost worse than the thought that someone in a blue BMW was trying to kill me. But nowhere near as bad as the thought that Brains had been hurt or killed because of me.
I fished around under the couch until I found my thongs and walked to the corner deli to buy some phone credit and a large bag of clinkers. The clinkers raised my blood sugar level sufficiently to narrow my panic from a gushing waterfall into a fast-flowing stream.
I fell into a Q and A with myself.
Who’s taken Brains? I asked.
The BMW driver.
Possibly. But who is that?
The crazy woman who rang me?
Yeah. But who was she?
Whitey’s wife?
Hmmm. She had been acting pretty crazy in the shop with Smitty.
Peter Delgado?
Nah. Never get his hands dirty.
A random?
Possible again, but unlikely given the dead bird and the photo.
Sam Barbaro?
He said he’d get me. Plus, he and Zach Lupi could have worked out by now that I was the snooper at the SUP labs.
Barbaro was the most likely.
My head hurt.
Then I had a brain wave. Maybe two different people were threatening me.
If that was true then there were still only two I was likely to be able to locate. June Whitey and Sam Barbaro.
Whitey lived in Mosman Park. That was a cinch. But how did I find out where Barbaro was, while he was out on bail?
It took me the entire bag of clinkers to come up with an idea. I dialled in the credit and then rang Bok.
He sounded harassed. ‘Can’t talk, T. Major crisis here. I’ve got a day to find another major profile for the first edition or I might as well give the Louies back.’
Louie was Bok’s name for his Louis Vuitton travel luggage. He’d been given it as a sweetener when he’d got the new job.
I wanted to cry on his shoulder, but I sucked it up. Bok had his own stuff going on; I couldn’t run to him every time I had a problem.
‘You’ll find someone,’ I said confidently.
‘Sure.’ After a bit more chitchat, he hung up.
In the time it had taken me to walk up and back to the deli, Dad had put a padlock on the cage door. Short of carrying the ten-by-eight-feet birdcage off the property, or using a gas torch, no one was going to get at Hoo.
Meanwhile the poor darling was busy trying to bite the lock off through the bars. I scratched his head but he was much too engrossed to stop.
I went into the flat and fell on my bed. My feet were sore from running, and I hadn’t felt this miserable since my ex-boyfriend, Mauritian Pascal, had cleared out of our semidetached with all our furniture and our share-buddy, Janis.
After some long aching moments of soul searching, I did what any desperate woman would do – I called a crazy, narcoleptic, ex-roadie for help.
‘Wal?’
‘You gonna let me work for you, Teach?’
I hesitated one last time before I sealed my doom. ‘Yeah.
OK. Deal. Remember, there’s no money to pay you with at the moment, but I’ll try and cover any expenses.’ As if!
‘Cigs?’ he asked.
‘No.’
‘Booze?’
‘No.’
‘Bullets?’
‘Errr . . . no.’
‘Hmmph.’
‘But I’ll get you a business card,’ I said, thinking of Bok’s colour photocopier. ‘Now, here’s your first job. I need to find a guy called Sam Barbaro, really quickly.’
‘Barbaro? Did he used to work at the servo on Forest and Gugeri? No forehead? Aggro?’
I remembered Barbaro’s angry surprise when he’d collided with me, his ugly expression. Then later on, Bligh’s inquisition.
‘He’s the one.’
I waited for Wal to continue, but all I got was the sound of heavy breathing.
‘Wal!’
‘Yo!’ he sounded startled.
‘Did you go to sleep?’
‘Who’s that?’
‘It’s Tara Sharp. We were talking about Sam Barbaro,’ I said, between clenched teeth. ‘I need to find him. Quick. Today. Wal, concentrate, please.’
‘Oh that,’ said Wal, collecting himself. ‘Too easy.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘He lives in the boarding house behind mine.’
‘For real?’
‘Yup,’ said Wal. ‘That mean you’d be coming over here right now?’
‘Why?’
‘I’m out of baccy. Champion Ruby.’
I gave an exasperated sigh. ‘Tell me your address.’