Sharp Shooter Read Free Page A

a person’s culture?’
    ‘No, no, no. I say you gotta watch out for that. Sometimes the rules change.’ His face got a peculiar sort of intensity when he said ‘rules change’, like he was listening for a winning number. ‘Some stuff you just know,’ he added, tapping his finger to his temple. ‘But you can learn as well. Makes the difference between being kooky and being rich.’
    My stomach fluttered. Rich? I’d settle for solvent.
    ‘You study with me, learn enough, you start your own business.’ This time he slid his fingertips together like he was rustling dollar notes.
    ‘But . . .’ I looked around. I guess Wembley Ware tickles some collectors’ fancy, but other than that, Mr Hara’s home was less than modest.
    He read my thoughts instantly. ‘You think this all we got? This just for the tax guy. Mrs Hara owns a chalet in Hokkaido and an apartment in Sydney. Keep them in her name.’
    I stared at him, flabbergasted. I mean, really , could I . . .
    should I, believe the little perv?
    Doubt crept back in to my mind as I watched his aura dance around his body. I didn’t know what it was trying to tell me, so I fell back on the estimation of the straightest person I knew, Bets. Surely she wouldn’t stitch me up with a whacko.
    ‘But how do I repay you for your teaching time? I-I’m unemployed and utterly broke,’ I said, honestly.
    ‘I run a business. Sometime too much work for me. You do one job for free. We quits. You do it good, then I give you more work, cut you in.’
    ‘Cut me in?’
    ‘Percentage.’
    ‘How much percentage?’
    ‘Thirty. Plus expenses.’
    It sounded fair. But then I’d never been a good judge of those things. I once answered a ‘make three hundred dollars a day from the comfort of your own home’ ad. The job turned out to be phone selling an abdominal exerciser – the Ab Fab. It cost me four hundred dollars in sales training, and I never sold a single damn one.
    But Mr Hara didn’t appear to be hiding any upfront costs, so I stayed, and talked, agreeing in the end to become his student.
    Much later, as I drove us home, Bok relived his gastronomic evening.
    ‘She’s the most amazing cook, T. Really. After the soup, there was gnocchi, veal, artichoke tart, and for dessert there was vanilla gel –’ ‘Shut up,’ I interrupted.
    I had a headache from hunger pangs and from listening to Mr Hara’s peculiar Aussie-Amero-Italio-Japanese accent. Bok’s swooning wasn’t helping one little bit. If he hadn’t been doing me a favour in the first place I would’ve dumped him on the roadside and left him to walk home. Thankfully, he fell into a food coma when we reached the highway, and I had the rest of the drive home to reflect on the strange direction my life had just taken.

Chapter 5
    M Y CLASSES WITH M R Hara started the next week.
    To my annoyance, when I arrived, Bok was there drinking miso and eating meatballs. I ignored his jaunty wave as Mr Hara led me through the kitchen – part of the desensitising process for Mrs Hara.
    Thankfully our lesson wasn’t in the sitting room with the spooky Wembley Ware. Instead, Mr Hara led me to a tiny office at the front of the house crammed with books and curling certificates blue-tacked to the wall, proclaiming his martial arts expertise in aikido, kendo, jujitsu and karate. It was a comfy room, and I set myself the task of being a model student.
    ‘Here, you like chocolate biscuits, Missy?’ said Mr Hara, pulling a packet of Tim Tams from between two large hardbacks, and offering me one.
    Chocolate! ‘Yum,’ I said, and took one.
    He settled into an old studded-leather swivel chair and helped himself to several more. ‘Mrs Hara not like me eating this. Says it makes me fat,’ he said and rubbed his muscled belly.
    I choked down an envious sigh. I had a good metabolism, but not that good.
    ‘Now you tell me some stuff first,’ he said. ‘Then I teach you.’
    ‘Tell you what?’ I asked, getting comfortable on a