Read Online Something Fishy by Shane Maloney - Free Book Online Page A

knew Melbourne Upper like the back of her hand. Me, I suspected, she knew even better.
    â€˜Started drinking already?’ she said. ‘Hello, Rita.’
    Rita squeezed out a faint smile. ‘Hello, Ayisha. Got everything you need?’
    Ayisha laid a proprietary hand on my shoulder. ‘Except an emcee,’ she said. ‘Our guest comedian hasn’t shown up. Looks like you’ll have to do the honours.’
    â€˜Duty calls.’ I gave Rita a shrug, downed my drink and followed Ayisha’s ever-broadening backside towards the stairs.
    â€˜What a classic,’ said Ayisha over her shoulder. ‘You know she’s only here tonight because she knew you’d be coming. She had to satisfy her curiosity, get the gossip. Poor Murray, she’ll be able to tell the other ladies-who-lunch, what that man needs is a…’
    â€˜You make me sound like a train wreck,’ I said. ‘What’s the turn-up?’
    â€˜Thirty-two,’ she said. ‘Even fewer than last year. Frankly, I don’t know why they bother. We’ll be lucky to cover costs.’
    â€˜It’s not the money, it’s the participation,’ I reminded her, as we started up the stairs. ‘The only role left for rank-and-file Labor Party members is attending crappy fund-raisers that don’t raise any funds.’
    We found the party faithful seated at two long tables in the upstairs dining room, tucking into antipasto and forming themselves into teams for the trivia challenge.
    The lighting was harsher than downstairs, there were no flowers and the tablecloths were paper. But Tony’s special price included complimentary garlic bread and adequate quantities of wine and beer, so nobody was complaining.
    I knew almost everybody in the room. They were the bedrock of the local membership. Handers-out of how-to-vote cards and veterans of a thousand pointless meetings. Sentimentalists and failed opportunists. A retired tool-maker and his librarian wife. Three schoolteachers and a nurse. A kid so young he thought the White Australia Policy was an ironic marketing push for a new laundry detergent. I shook a few hands, patted some cardiganed backs, kissed some cheeks. Then Ayisha handed me a list of questions.
    â€˜Good evening, friends and comrades.’
    Jeers of amiable derision erupted.
    â€˜Let’s begin with an easy one. For ten points, in what year was the shearers’ strike that led to the foundation of the Australian Labor Party?’
    â€˜Point of procedure,’ shouted somebody up the back.
    By ten o’clock we were done. The questions were asked, the jokes shared, the raffle drawn, $235 raised for the collective coffers. For the thousandth time, the outrages of the current administration were reprised. I recited the party line that we’d fight our way back to power at the next election, but I didn’t believe it and neither did the troops. Our last years in government were a shambles. We just had to take our lumps and wait for the tide to turn. In the meantime, all we could do was gnash our teeth, rend our garments and commiserate with each other over spaghetti con vongole and Caterers Blend coffee.
    As soon as decency permitted, I split.
    Back downstairs, the clamour of a hundred diners was bouncing off the walls. Staff flitted between tables, trays laden. There was no sign of Rita. I asked the barman if Tony was in. He pointed his bow tie towards the kitchen door. ‘Office,’ he said. ‘Better knock.’
    Beyond the kitchen was a greasy-floored alley stacked with drums of cooking oil and cartons of tinned tomatoes. ‘Private,’ said the peel-and-stick sign on the door past the staff washroom. I gave a brisk rap.
    â€˜Come,’ came the command. If Tony was doing any handling, he was doing it very lightly.
    I opened the door a fraction and peered though the gap. The office was a windowless cubicle, its every vertical surface layered with