THE STRANGER ON THE BUS

 

                                     Episode 3

                             The Grocery Store

 

   Six thirty, Monday evening: another day in the can. Here I was, killing time under a dirty street light on the corner of William and Blue, on my last cigarette, watching the last Volvo swing into the northbound traffic jam on Miller.

   The sun slipped slowly to bed behind the Blue Mountains, dragging Sydney's smog layer over its head for a blanket, as the office towers across the harbour started lighting up like giant November Christmas trees.

   I stubbed out my cigarette, took a deep breath of smog and began to make my way down the filth of the Blue Street sidewalk. It was seven o'clock. Nick Shaw had an appointment with the underworld.

   When the reek of old garlic and Parmesan cheese reached out of a doorway and grabbed me by the nostrils, I knew I was standing at No. 22. I shoved open an oak veneer door and lurched into the Mediterranean gloom of Capitano's Pizzeria.

   As the piped croon of Julio Iglesias swirled like cigarette smoke through the vinyl and laminex of Mama Capitano's eatery, I blindly felt my way to the darkest corner and my usual table. A half-whispered greeting leaked out of the dark.

   "Sit down."

   I did.

   "Alone?"

   "Yeah."

   It was Charlie, alright. He used words like most of us use pepper. Sparingly. A real Clayton's conversationalist. But I wasn't complaining. In our business, you generally live longer that way.

   "Hope you like Cappucino," he commented, without much sincerity, as the waitress placed a cup of rusty froth on each cardboard coaster. I waited for her to return to the pizza ovens, then slowly turned to my unseen associate.

   "Okay, Charlie, you know I don't come here for the atmosphere. One kid's dead already, and my gut tells me there are more on the way. What's happening, Charlie? What's the tune?"

   I must've sat for two minutes like a cigarette in a wet ashtray, watching Charlie stir his Cappucino slowly with his right hand, until I finally got a reply.

   "No tune. Nothing happening."

   Now that was strange. I'd known Charlie Ling for as long as I'd known the Underworld, and he hadn't failed me yet. At least, until now. I may not be any Remington Steele, but I know when I'm being lied to.

   "Come on, Charlie, give it to me straight. I smell filth."

   "No filth. Nothing happening," he repeated as his right hand slowly circled his cup.

   Something dirty was going on. I could taste it. I leaned across and flicked the spoon from his hand onto the cheap white lino under the table to his left. He leaned down to pick it up, hesitated, and inexplicably sat upright again.

   "Pick it up," he said.

   It was as I'd feared.

   "What's wrong with your hand, Charlie?" I asked.

   He sat inscrutable.

   "I know you're a left-hander. What's wrong with your arm? Who knifed you, Charlie?"

   It was then that the mask broke. Ling leapt to his feet, and, thrusting his arm into the air over my head, yelled out to the restaurant.

   "Nobody knifed me! Nothing's happening. Just let it go, mate! Just leave me alone!"

   And there I was, sitting alone in the corner of Capitano's with nothing but a cup of Cappucino and a gutful of fear to keep me company. I glanced down at the froth, and there, spreading like some monstrous red flower to the rim of the cup, sat a drop of human blood. Suddenly I didn't feel like ordering a pizza any more. Street violence isn't the tastiest appetizer.

 

                   *        *        *        *        *        *        *        *        *        * 

 

   It was one o'clock a.m. Suburbia had closed down for the night, but the lowlife were just coming out to play. I crossed Blue Street to the Station, known more commonly to friends and associates as The Grocery Store.

   The grocery store had no shelves. But, provided you looked hard enough, you could always find the man who sold "flour," the man who sold the little bags of "compost" and the man with the "biros" and "re-fills." There weren't too many customers in The Grocery store, but those who were, were customers for life...

   Yet something was very wrong. Midnight to dawn were peak business hours, yet the place was as empty as an ashtray in a health club. The platform was silent: no salesmen: no dealers. The Station was clean. And that worried me.

   The streets were so clean they stank.

   There was no doubt about it, Charlie Ling had been silenced- by a flick-knife in the arm. This was the handiwork of an old friend.

   I knew.

   I still had the scar myself...