8

TEDDY

To fortify themselves for the not particularly long drive to Elizabeth – who was both nearby and available in an hour – Teddy and Art had stopped for a late lunch at a pizza joint on Springvale Road called Giacomo & Sons. When they arrived, Teddy realised that they had been here before; she remembered it from the sound of the chair when she pulled it out from the table. It wasn’t a memory she enjoyed.

About six months ago, just before Christmas, Alice, Teddy and Art had arrived here after a job stealing a tiny papillon spaniel in a knitted jumper from somebody’s front yard, and they’d been arguing about it: were they retrieving the dog from an ex-partner or a scammer or someone who just wanted her? They didn’t know. Alice had wondered if the dog had been in its normal home and the woman who had hired them to steal it was the thief. A teenage waiter had arrived in the middle of this, and Art had ordered three sarsaparillas and the waiter snorted.

Art said, ‘Excuse me?’

‘We don’t have sarsaparilla,’ the waiter said, looking embarrassed for him. ‘No place I’ve worked at has it.’

‘You better check,’ Art said.

‘I know we don’t,’ the waiter said. ‘Maybe try a Diet Coke, if you want something different?’

Art stood up. At the same moment, Teddy and Alice realised that they were the only customers there, and something in the air had changed.

Teddy said, ‘I prefer Coke anyway.’

Art didn’t even look down at her. The waiter said, ‘It’s not there. I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

Art said, ‘Ask.’

It was a voice so dark it coloured the whole room.

A door rattled, and one of the line cooks was standing by the counter. ‘Artie,’ he called out, ‘come on, he’s new. You gotta be nice.’

The only sound was Art’s breath – too heavy, too big. He took a long moment to let the waiter sweat before his face cleared and his smile returned. ‘I’m always nice,’ he said. ‘Not only that, I’m lovely.’ He shook the waiter’s hand, said, ‘My bad, bud,’ then shouldered past him – gently? they couldn’t tell – and went over to the counter, disappearing through the kitchen doors with the cook. The kid looked after him.

‘You okay?’ Alice asked him.

‘Who the fuck drinks sarsaparilla?’ he said, and pushed the chair beside him back in with a violent squeal.

Now, months later, Teddy and Art were next to the table they had occupied the last time, and the kid wasn’t there. It was lunchtime, and somewhat busy; there were two waiters who were old and short and annoyed that people were placing orders and interrupting their conversation. They didn’t flinch when Art went out the back to speak to the kitchen, or when he came back a few minutes later, with two sarsaparillas.

Teddy ignored hers, and said, ‘I don’t like Heidi.’

‘I guess her son didn’t either,’ Art said.

‘You think that’s the reason he’s left?’

‘I think it’s a better reason than that she killed him. I mean, what’s in it for her?’

Teddy sat for a moment, stringing the hollow ice on her straw and thinking. ‘Was he getting in the way of something?’

‘He didn’t seem to be in the way of anything for her, right? I mean, it seems like he was hardly around. I wonder if he was at her for money, and that’s why she was sensitive about it.’

‘He had a job, though, right? A steady income?’

Art laughed so loudly that the table next to them turned to stare. ‘You think any kid with a job isn’t still at his parents for money?’

Teddy was quiet while she waited for her food. Witi and Heidi and Cole turned over each other in her mind, but she’d landed on nothing solid by the time her pizza arrived – white base with potatoes, caramelised red onion, spinach, pine nuts. The garlic bread was potent, hot and crunchy. Last time, she had been so thrown by Art picking a fight with a waiter – when they were all usually persistently polite to retail and hospitality workers – that she couldn’t remember what she’d thought of the food, but now she knew why Art came back.

‘How do you find these goddamn places?’ she asked.

‘It’s one of my many skills,’ he said. ‘Like how yours is finding missing dingbats who have run away from home.’

‘What do you think the girlfriend will give us?’ Teddy asked.

‘A neatly typed list of his favourite haunts, and we’ll find him in the third one,’ Art said. ‘It’ll be a breeze.’ He leaned on his elbows and looked at Teddy through his eyelashes. ‘Do you think she’ll like me?’

‘Don’t be gross,’ she said, pointing a crust at him. ‘You know Choker has a rule about messing around with witnesses.’

‘You mean the rule we had to be reminded of because you got railed by that guy whose sister got her car stolen?’

‘Yes, exactly,’ Teddy said crankily. ‘You want to get hauled into HR too? You be normal with her.’

‘I always am,’ he said. ‘I’m the good cop, remember? I leave all the hard shit to you.’ He looked at his watch. ‘Including,’ he said, ‘the driving. Eat up. Let’s go find our man.’