Furn answered the phone expectantly. It was Wednesday morning and he was cross-crossing inner city streets, trying to determine if he was being followed. The seedier and darker, the better, daring an ambush, though possibly all he needed for that was to go home.
‘Well, if you’re planning to subpoena me, Detective Furn, it better come with breakfast included. You know a place?’
‘I’m not usually in any state to eat breakfast.’ Furn did not add that today was no exception.
‘Out of compassion for a policeman’s salary meet me at the Theodore Roosevelt Cafe. That’s next door to the place I usually go.’
‘When?’
‘Maybe you don’t have breakfast but you must at least know it comes before lunch.’
‘I’ll have you for insulting a police officer.’
‘The offense you’re thinking of is assaulting a police officer and you won’t have to worry about that so long as you keep to your side of the scrambled eggs.’
The line went dead. Furn tossed away his convenience store coffee, watched it splatter across the cracked pavement. He didn’t feel bad about it - he was in an alley where it would fit right in. And now he’d have something to order at the Theodore. He retraced his steps between South Yarra High School and its neighbouring brothels. At South Yarra Station he took a taxi and was reunited with his car. The fare told him he had walked too far.
The Theodore Roosevelt Cafe was on bustling Brunswick Street, where gold laced menus rubbed shoulders with those chalked in on blackboards. The Theodore’s blackboard said there was a special on bottomless cup refills.
Furn had eight of the ten tartan tables to choose from. He took a centre one and gave the other two occupied tables a long hard look as though wanting to clear them out as well. On one table a cuddly young couple was sharing a loving plate of bacon and eggs. At the other a depleted middle aged businessman was savouring the victory of successfully compensating anything else he might have sacrificed with a coffee and a newspaper. The two poles of non-platonic relationships Furn cynically concluded.
The two waitresses on duty wore light blue pharmacy-style uniforms. They were both tall and lanky. Furn ordered a black coffee, extra hot, and took off his dark blue jacket to get more comfortable.
Rish came in before its arrival. She wore a loose white cotton shirt, black trousers and black heels. It looked like she had dressed for whatever it was she planned to do for the rest of the day.
His waitress escorted her to the table with the kind of smile that tip seeking didn’t bring out. It suggested she was a more frequent visitor than she had let on.
Rish’s reciprocating smile did not linger long in the presence of Furn.
‘So tell me, am I a suspect in my own assault?’
‘It’s nothing like that,’ Furn said, admiring a peek of flat stomach as she sat down. ‘We appreciate that you were much more forthcoming in your statement than the other aggrieved party. Having said that your statement indicates you were with Catlett the entire day leading up to the home break-in and assault. And apparently this was the only noteworthy change in Catlett’s routine.’
‘First dates aren’t a crime in any country that stocks lipstick.’
The waitress returned with two cups of coffee. The way she eased Furn’s onto the table indicated it was just as hot as he wanted it.
‘The cow’s still in the fridge if you change your mind,’ she said, putting down Rish’s.
‘No need to disturb it,’ Rish replied.
The waitress left for the textbook she had been working with behind the counter.
Furn sought to put a dent in Rish’s stare. ‘If I wait for the outside temperature to match your eyes’ it’ll require a change of season.’
‘The initial call by Senior Detective Rory Wikkens implied I had something to fear. This is as close to fear as you’re going to get.’
‘That’s just the way he is. But it’s the reason I’ve never missed an office Christmas Party. We are simply interested in identifying Catlett’s connection with the Sapiens, however unintentional it might be. He has a few shady friends. The shadiest of them is now lying under the shade of a tombstone. It came after your assault and we think it’s owing to his going after the Sapiens. Furn slurped his coffee painfully.
Rish had not even looked at hers. ‘You are more concerned with Catlett’s assault than you are Masoo’s murder. ‘Cause only one does a good autograph?’
‘What if it wasn’t Catlett that drew the Sapien’s ire at all? There was that other victim in the house at the time.’
‘So I am a suspect. You just didn’t know what of. Is it time to invite a lawyer to pull up a chair?’
‘Lawyers slurp louder than I do.’ Furn took another noisy sip. ‘At the moment all I’m asking is you run through your movements with Catlett on the day leading up to the incident. Catlett might merely have shoved the wrong guy out the way.’
‘Believe me he was on his best behaviour. I spent the day introducing him to some of my friends.’
‘Want to tell me about it?’
Despite her shaking head Rish’s voice dramatically softened. ‘It would be much easier if I just showed you. I haven’t got anything else to do today. Is that what you would call cooperation?’
Furn felt a twinge of excitement with the realisation this might have been what she had dressed for after all.
‘If you keep calling me Furn it will be.’
‘Clancy required more persuading.’ Rish gestured to the fairy emblazoned wall clock. ‘If we’re going to start with the beginning we have to go now.’
Furn slapped down ten dollars next to his untouched coffee. ‘Let’s go.’
‘You drive. That’s the only time a man keeps his hands to himself.’
Furn neither declined nor disagreed. A woman so seamlessly put together would have aroused all sorts of impulses in all sorts of men. He stepped with her out the Theodore Roosevelt and into a day he had not experienced since his time at Melbourne University, before, with a badge egging him on, he had taken to associating with the wrong kind of woman. A morning workout of Body Combat at the Albert Park Women’s Sport Salon, where Furn’s badge proved almost as useful as at the Port Philip’s Correctional Facility. Then an olive oil drenched lunch at Jane’s By the Bay overlooking St Kilda beach. A stroll along the sand before a coffee at the Esplanade. From there it was off to the Men’s Gallery where Rish danced the early shift on the stage’s centre pole, the place where she had first met Catlett.
This was more like what Furn was used to. She looked great over a glass of Jack Daniels. Furn was in a great position to hook her g-string up with some currency, but as they shared a smile he sensed they were past that stage of a relationship.