Why I hadn’t spotted it until then I don’t know. With its gleaming chrome and tinted glass it was like a peacock in a chookyard. A thin white arm reached out of the window in the front of the car and on the road side. It beckoned to me and I got out and went across to it and the car. The Cadillac was like one of the old, Gothic models that had been put on a diet. It was lower and sleeker but a longish walk would still be required to get round it. It carried cheeky gold and blue Californian number plates with the New South Wales plates mounted above them. The customised plate was MAC 1.

The arm belonged to a blonde. She had makeup in every place it could be applied and her almost white hair was curled and twisted in ways that cost money. She put a cigarette in her mouth and narrowed her eyes. At a distance, she’d have passed for eighteen, up close she looked as if she should be in the third form somewhere doing domestic science.

‘Can you give me a light, please?’

I shook my head. ‘You’re too young to smoke.’

‘I’m too young to do a lot of things,’ she giggled. ‘Doesn’t stop me.’

I glanced back towards The Reefs. The wrestler was laying down the law to my client but she shook her head and puffed smoke and didn’t seem concerned. The blonde didn’t like being looked away from.

‘Hey, are you sure you haven’t got a match?’

‘I’m sure,’ I said. ‘There’ll be a lighter on that flight deck somewhere.’

She shook her head. ‘There’s so many switches, and Mac won’t ever leave me the keys. He’s afraid I’ll just drive away.’

‘Can you manage a left-hand drive?’

‘Huh?’

‘Never mind. What’s Mac’s game? Hamburgers?’

She laughed. It was a sound she hadn’t worked on unlike her voice, which was stage-throaty. The laugh was clear and girlish and suddenly it all felt sad and smutty-the schoolgirl with the cigarette in the big, arrogant car. She was wearing a pink top and tiny shorts, spike heels and a thin gold chain around her right ankle. She saw me looking and poked her tongue out between her little white teeth.