Challis - 03 - Snapshot by Garry Disher Page A

of her
fucked-up mother, followed by an afternoon ripping off gear in South Yarra. He
told her so.

    Thank you, kind sir.

    Straight, Andy continued, but sexy.

    Eighteen years old, still at school,
but she could pass for a yuppie chick out shopping for her yuppie pad in
Southgate, where all the yuppies lived, and thats what mattered to Andy and
Natalie.

    It went like this: the people they
worked for owned pawnshops in the city and a discounted homewares outlet on the
Peninsula, which made for a two-way flow of stolen gear. Andy liked the
neatness of it: goods from the city ended up on the Peninsula, goods from the Peninsula
ended up in the city. The Chasseur frying pan that he and Natalie might
shoplift in South Yarra went straight to Savoury Seconds (frying pan,
savouries, get it?) in Somerville. The cops werent likely to venture outside
of the city to look for a stolen frying pan, even if it did cost $300.
Meanwhile the pawnbroking stores in the city sold gear burgled from homes on
the Peninsula. A retiree down in Penzance Beach isnt going to stumble by
chance on her VCR in a barred shop window in Footscray. The people that Andy
and Natalie worked for werent too worried by tax audits or CIU inquiries
either. They had paperwork to prove that the new Chasseur frying pan in
Savoury Seconds had come from a bankrupted shop in Cairns, the VCR in Footscray
pawned by a waitress in Abbotsford.

    Andys and Natalies first hit today
had been Perfecto Coffee, in Chapel Street, the shelves stocked with coffee
pots and machines, filters, ring seals, milk frothers, you name it; Bialetti,
Gaggia and other big names. Coffee beans, too, but the order was for espresso
machines, percolators and plungers. Natalie, in her long, loose woollen
overcoat over tailored pants, leather shoulderbag and artfully tousled hair,
browsed the shelves while Andy chatted up the shop assistant. No security
cameras that he could see. Then Nat was at his elbow, doing her sulky lookCan
we go now?as if shopping, and Andy, and this shop, made her dangerously
bored, not something you wanted to see in a beautiful woman. Andy slipped the
shop assistant a winkshe sympathisedand followed Natalie out of the shop,
Natalies overcoat barely registering the spacious hidden pockets that were now
full of top-end coffee making machines.

    They hit a couple more places, had
lunch in a bistro, and now, mid afternoon, were nearly home, Waterloo free of
fog at last. Andy dropped Natalie outside the tattoo parlour next to the
railway line. She had a fistful of money in her pocket: most would go to her
mother, but she wanted a new tatt, a butterfly, high on the inside of her right
thigh. Then she was going to score some dope. Andy didnt do dope, or booze, or
anything else. Hed saved twelve grand so far, down payment on a BMW sports
car.

    Tomorrow, yeah? You up for it?

    Yeah, she said.

    He drove to the McDonalds on the
roundabout for a Quarter Pounder, and read the local newspaper while he waited.
Turned to Police Beat on page 10. He liked the irony: here he was, a thorough
crook, reading about the work of other crooks while sitting just across the
road from the cop shop. Unimaginative crimes, too. A ride-on mower stolen in
Penzance Beach. A woman robbed at syringe point outside an ATM in Mornington. A
purse snatched here in Waterloo.

    Andy Asche glanced up from his
paper. The noon-to-four shift cops coming off duty, heading across the road for
their Big Macs. And fuck me, there was John Tankard, his footy coach, getting
out of a Mazda sports car with some female cop.

    * * * *

    John
Tankard and Pam Murphy logged off, deeply fatigued with one another, the only
distraction during the long afternoon having been their encounter with Lottie
Mead. They separated, showered, changed, then happened to meet in the staff
carpark afterwards, Tankard noticing the gear that Pam was wearing: black lycra
shorts, sweater and trainers. Great legs, notwithstanding the goosebumps from
the cold air.