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young people use? – hang out with my daughter.’
    Wolfgang ran his tongue over the groove in the roof of his mouth. Slowly this whole conversation was beginning to make sense. A crazy kind of sense. ‘Is that the job?’ he asked. ‘Looking after Audrey?’
    ‘Not looking after her, Wolfgang – keeping her company.’ Keith watched a group of girls coming out of the pool. ‘She doesn’t have any friends. Her mother and I, we think it would be good for Audrey to spend a bit of time with someone her own age.’
    Wolfgang was watching the girls, too. One of them was Naomi Weston. He’d asked her out once. ‘What would I have to do?’
    ‘That’s up to you. Hang out with her. Be her friend.’
    ‘What if it doesn’t work?’ Wolfgang asked, following Naomi out of the corner of his eye. ‘ Are you kidding? ’ she’d said, loud enough to be heard by nearly everyone in the quadrangle. ‘I mean, she mightn’t want to be my friend.’
    ‘She seems to like you,’ Keith said. ‘But, yes, I realise this is a bit of a gamble. Women are fickle creatures at the best of times, and the Babacan women are worse than most.’ He laughed again – Heh! Heh! Heh! Heh! ‘So here’s my proposal. Give me that briefcase, will you?’
    A fat leather satchel lay on the floor between Wolfgang’s feet. He passed it to Audrey’s father, who flipped open an outer flap and withdrew a white envelope. Unsealing it, he removed a bundle of fifty dollar notes, counted off two, folded them in half and slipped them into his shirt pocket. The rest he returned to the envelope and handed to Wolfgang.
    ‘Four hundred dollars,’ he said. ‘All I’m asking is you talk to Audrey, exert that old Mozart charm. If nothing’s happening after a week, forget the whole deal.’
    ‘And keep the four hundred dollars?’
    Keith gave him a sly look. ‘Yep. Even if you do absolutely nothing, I won’t ask for it back. But I pride myself on being a pretty good judge of character, son – I think you’ll give it your best shot. Bernadette and I were both very impressed with you the other night. And Bernadette says she’s seen you at church.’
    Wolfgang turned the envelope over, tracing the slim outline of the notes with his fingertips. If he was a good Catholic boy, would he be taking this money? It felt wrong to be accepting payment to be someone’s friend – to pretend to be their friend.
    ‘Does Mrs Babacan know about the money?’
    ‘No, son. This is strictly between you and me. Men’s business.’
    The airconditioner hummed. When two boys came out of the pool and walked past the car, Wolfgang hid the envelope from view.
    ‘What about my job here?’ he asked.
    ‘Carry on as normal in the meantime,’ Keith said. ‘Obviously, even if you and Audrey do become friends, you won’t be spending all your time together. And she’s here every day anyway, I take it.’ He winked. ‘Perfect opportunity to get to know her, hmmm?’

11
    Wolfgang hardly slept that night. His brain kept going over and over what he was going to say to Audrey, obsessing about it, worrying she would reject him outright, do a Naomi Weston on him – Are you kidding? – or even laugh. And then it took him until four-thirty in the afternoon to build up the courage to finally approach her and blurt out the proposal that over the past twenty-two hours had become a mantra inside his head.
    ‘Audrey, I’ve got the day off tomorrow. Would you like to go to the zoo?’
    ‘Okay,’ she said from under her hat.
    Wolfgang smiled at Campbell – a victory smile – and the dog wagged its tail as if it understood. ‘Well, that’s great then,’ Wolfgang said. ‘I thought we’d catch the seven o’clock train, if that isn’t too early? That’d get us there by about ten. And then we could –’
    Audrey lifted her hat to one side. Her face was pale and pillowy, her expression vague. She removed both her earpieces. ‘Hang on a minute. Did you say zoo ?’
    ‘Y-yes,’