The man who had kicked Billie was up now, standing on one leg like a cowardly flamingo and shuffling artlessly behind his small colleague. How considerate of them to stick together in a neat little cluster of stupidity for her to point her Colt at. They’d picked her as an easy target, clearly, as these two men were thin and about as smart as a pair of spoons. The two boys who had gone to work on her strapping assistant were larger and possibly more capable, though. She didn’t want to take her eyes off either of the gormless goons at the end of her gun. From the corner of her eye, however, she saw something large that looked like a sack of potatoes in a bad suit sail through the air into a line of garbage bins with a thundering crash. There were groans and cries and none of them in Sam’s voice. Billie felt more than saw that he was now up and in control and could sense the rage coming off him. He was moving quickly, a blur ofnavy, and now he had someone by the throat, pinned to a brick wall. She risked a glance, her attackers also temporarily distracted by the action on the other side of the alley. Yes, Sam was holding a man up with his injured left hand. It seemed not to be slowing him down, Billie thought. Not one bit. Not in a dance hall or in an alley. His right hand was pulled back, ready to strike. She fancied her own assailants looked a touch awestruck. She watched them over her Colt and heard a crunch as Sam struck again. It must have looked grisly, for their eyes widened and they began backing away.
“How about you fellas tell us about your employer, hey?” Billie said loudly enough to grab their attention and for Sam to hear. They froze in place. Sam looked over his shoulder at her, seemed impressed by what he saw, and let his right hand relax a touch. It was then that she noticed that the man he was holding didn’t have his feet on the ground. The body lying among the garbage bins moved a little and there was a groan; then all was still again.
Billie took a step toward her two assailants. “Come on, now, gentlemen. I want to hear some information, fast, or I might find my finger slips and one of you is relieved of something vital.” She lowered her gun to the closest man’s crotch and his eyes grew yet larger.
The four assailants remained silent in their respective positions.
“I don’t know, Sam,” Billie called. “I think I might have to—”
There was a terrible noise as the man amid the garbage managed to get up and flee, staggering and holding his injured body like a child holds a toy baby.
“That’s it, these two are going to get a bullet in the—”
“Moretti,” someone said in a small but clear voice. She didn’t catch who it was, though the one with the meat face looked guilty.
Vincenzo bloody Moretti.She’d half expected Boucher’s name, but Moretti? He was in this up to the part in his grubby hair. It figured.
“Where is the boy? Where is Adin Brown?” she pressed. “Come on, let’s hear it!”
The one with the meaty face shook his head.
“Where is he?” She moved up the end of her pistol to sit right between his eyes.
“It’s too late for him,” came the small, guilty voice. His eyes were averted.
Too late?
Now he turned and ran, moving his body out of the line of sight of her little Colt, his cowardly companion behind him. She lined him up and for one heart-stopping moment watched the man over her little shining barrel, then dropped the gun to her side. She wasn’t going to shoot a man in the back. Billie shrugged. She looked across at Sam and gave him a look, one eyebrow raised.
“Where is the boy?” Sam asked the man he was holding off the ground.
“I...” came a strangled voice. He clearly couldn’t speak. As she watched, Sam slowly released his grip on the man he’d been holding up like a nail to be whacked into the brick, but that other hand of his stayed poised.
“Where is the boy?”
“You’re asking the wrong guy,” the man said, trembling. “They don’t tell me nothin’. They just paid me a few shillings to rough you up, tell you to leave it alone. I don’t know nothin’ about why.”
When Sam finally took a step back, the man bolted.
Moretti. Vincenzo Moretti sent them.
A group of people appeared at the mouth of the alley, perhaps also coming from the auction if their finery was anything to go by. They watched the man running away, puzzled. Sam walked over to Billie, his aquamarine eyes a bit wild. “Geez. I didn’t see them, Billie. I’m so sorry.” He looked her up and down and seemed not to like what he saw. “Oh geez.”
“I didn’t, either. Never mind, it wasn’t a total loss. But let’s get out of here before those people wonder what we’ve been up to.”
Sam opened the car door for her and she slid inside, sore and disheveled. She’d sure feel that in the morning. And that stocking was beyond repair. A shame. “Unless you have good reason to protest, I’m taking you for a drink at my flat,” Billie said. “Frankly, I need one desperately and I don’t drink alone. And I don’t feel in a fit state to be seen publicly in these clothes. Any protest?”
“That’s not a real question, is it?” Sam replied, and started his car.
What a day it has been,Billie thought as she sank back into the passenger seat and willed her heart to slow to a more normal pace. She had woken to unexpected deceased company, had a pair of her mother’s valuable earrings stolen, faked a party-girl persona for the benefit of a couple of police officers, spent an afternoon among Sydney’s most wealthy, and been set upon by thugs in an Eastern Suburbs back alley. The morgue would be next on her dance card, neatly bookending her Sunday with corpses. Even by Billie’s standards, this combination was something memorable, particularly now that there were no longer shells falling. And she’d thought the world had become less violent.
“Your flat is a real beaut,” Sam remarked, standing like a soldier at the window of Billie’s living room and looking down over the Moreton Bay fig trees toward the water. The sun was setting, and it gave him a soft golden halo and illuminated his silhouette down to his waist. They had reached Billie’s place without anyone else trying to kill them or warn them off, but the adrenaline from their encounter in the alley had not yet subsided.
“I’ve not seen that kind of excitement since...” Sam’s voice trailed off.
“Tobruk?” Billie suggested.
Sam nodded. “Yes. And they didn’t have anyone like you there.”
