THE STRANGER ON THE BUS

 

                                      Episode 4      

                               Message for Shaw

 

   I don't know if I'm losing my marbles or what.

   It's two days since the kid keeled over , and the evidence is about as suspicious as a gas bill in a church letterbox. If anything dirty is coming down, whoever's responsible must be awful handy with the Glen-20. This isn't just a cover-up. I can't smell so much as a dirty joke. Maybe it's just a case of too many late nights and bad cigarettes.

   One thing I do know is that in this business, paranoia is an occupational hazard. When you've lived most of your life on the street, you get used to the noise, the filth, and the violence. It's like a smoker's hack. You don't enjoy it, but it comes with the territory.

   So here I was, lookin' out the busted window of a Wednesday morning 730, waiting for Lady Luck to come and tap me on the shoulder.

   "Hi, Nick."

   I turned. This was no lady. This was Karen Davies.

   "Yeah. Hi," I replied.

   "Same old Nick," she laughed.

   Now don't get me wrong. There was nothing between us. Not any more anyway. Karen Davies wasn't the kind of girl you stayed hung up on for long.

   Not that a guy wouldn't take a second look: blonde hair, blue eyes: she was a real Barbie-doll of a woman. Trouble was, unlike Barbie, Karen talked, and in a voice that sounded for all the world like the squeal of a strangled cat. It was a rotten shame. She really was one good-looking broad.

   "It's been a long time," she said.

   "Guess so."

   "Quick, quick!" the voice squealed, "tell me what it is you've been doing with yourself?"

   "Nothing."

   Cocking her head, she retorted in a way that tried to be funny and didn't quite make it: "Oh Nicky, you're so full of it."

   I wished she wouldn't call me that.

   She took a glance out the back window at the trail of leaked petrol in the 730's wake, and giggled: "You wouldn't want somebody to drop a match at the other end of that, would you?"

   "No. I'll have to start chucking my butts out the other side," I guessed.

   "Oh, Nicky," the girl oozed, "haven't you kicked that revolting habit yet?"

   I wished she wouldn't call me that. And the answer was no.

   "I won't have my beau giving himself lung cancer," lectured Ms. Davies with as close an emotion to sincerity as your average Barbie-doll was likely to muster. It made me uncomfortable.

   "Go easy, would ya baby?" I requested.

   It was then that one of the Artline scribbles on the seat in front caught my eye.

   "Nick 4 Karen".

   Damn. I'd meant to get that one cleaned off. It was bad for my reputation.

 

                   *        *        *        *        *        *        *        *        *        * 

 

   Ten past eight a.m. School was pretty quiet  today. If I hadn't been so fazed, I might have given it a second take. A quiet school is something like an unexploded grenade. You don't go playing baseball with it. Unless you like walking around with a bodyful of ventilation holes- holes that go all the way through.

   The Sergeant Major's blackboard called out my name.

              "MESSAGE FOR SHAW  N.    URGENT." 

   It didn't look too urgent to me. It was a monogrammed envelope: clean enough: Urban Transit Authority of New South Wales. But something screwy was going on. There was nothing inside.

   My brain was jogging in circles. It didn't square up. People don't post empty envelopes and then go marking them urgent.

   Then I felt it. No, the package wasn't empty: not quite. My message was glued- in cut-out newspaper letters- to the inside of the envelope. And the words hit me like a bullet between the eyes.

 

         GEt  ofF  tHE  CAsE  ShaW

                   drOP It NoW

   gET  oFf  THe  cAsE  oR  bE  In  oNE

 

   That was it. Case re-opened.

   It was time for Nick Shaw to step on the gas.

   That was, if he lived that long...