How Not To Commit Murder - comedy crime - humorous mystery by Robin Storey

work.’
    ‘They sound interesting,’ Reuben said, ‘but I’m afraid I’m not in a financial position to do any courses at the moment.’
    ‘Oh? I got the impression from your resume that you’d done quite well for yourself.’
    ‘Bad investments.’ He made a gesture of helplessness. ‘Lost all my savings.’
    ‘That’s a pity.’ She wiped her hands on a napkin and picked up a kiwi fruit. Her fingernails pierced the skin and peeled it back. Reuben cringed.
    ‘I’m only allowed one piece of fruit a day, so I make the most of it. I can make a kiwi fruit last half an hour.’
    She took a paring knife and sliced the kiwi fruit into delicate slivers. ‘We do tend to give preference to people who’ve done the courses when we’re hiring, but there’s always the chance that you’ll have just the right look that someone wants. I’ll be straight with you, though – and most agencies won’t tell you this because they just want your money.’
    She leaned forward and pointed the knife at him. ‘Don’t expect to get rich quick in this business. In fact, if you get rich at all, it will be a fluke. It’s a matter of taking whatever work you can get, no matter how mundane, and getting yourself known. And being professional – turning up on time, being courteous. Then you might just have a chance.’
    ‘I appreciate your advice,’ Reuben said . After I’ve paid my money . But still, it wasn’t as if he had any hopes of becoming the next Brad Pitt. Any work would be good, even doing a Wheat Flakes Ad. Or modelling. As he walked out to the street where he’d parked the Barbiemobile, he sucked in his stomach. Tomorrow he’d start jogging. Today, he had to solve the problem of Lucy.

CHAPTER 9
    Reuben stretched out on the living room couch, his most productive thinking position, reliving for the thousandth time his meeting with Frank in the Edinburgh Arms. He still couldn’t decide if Frank’s threat to take revenge on Lucy was genuine. If half the stories he’d heard in prison about him were true, Frank was more than capable of carrying it out.
    Frank considered himself a big-time criminal, part of Brisbane’s underbelly, although general opinion in prison was that he was a wannabe, trying to muscle in on established territory. It was rumoured that a small-time drug dealer, Edward Theodore, known as Eddie Teddy, who was working for Frank, had had a one-night stand with his ex-wife. As Eddie loitered one night outside a Narcotics Anonymous meeting waiting to do a drug deal, a car mounted the footpath, ran him down and killed him. It was general knowledge that Frank had organised it, although no-one knew why – why seek revenge on account of an ex-wife? Maybe he was still in love with her. Or perhaps he was trying to prove a point – mess with me and you’ll pay the price. The apparent irrationality of his motive made him all the more dangerous.
    It would be foolish not to take the threat seriously. But what to do? He couldn’t stand by and allow Lucy to be maimed or killed, knowing he could have stopped it. Not Lucy, of all the women in the world. If he warned her, she’d undoubtedly report it to her superiors and the police would become involved. Even if he asked her not to report it to the police because it would put his life in danger, he couldn’t be sure she’d take his request seriously. Was it true that Frank had friends in the police or was that just a bluff? There’d been rumours in jail that he had a well-known high-ranking police officer in his pocket, but you couldn’t put much credence on those – Frank may well have started the rumours himself. Even if it was a bluff and Reuben went to the police, they’d start digging around and set up surveillance on Frank and he’d find out, one way or another. Reuben didn’t have a lot of confidence in the ability of police to be discreet in their investigations – he’d witnessed and heard of too many bungles. He had to assume the worst-case