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(This first 500 words of a crime novel was Highly Recommended in the Ballarat Writer’s Centre Competition, June 2006)

It’s a little recognised fact that smoking in a horse-hair wig and gown is a hard thing to do unnoticed, like a penguin on fire. People have many expectations of barristers, and loitering down bin-lined alleys sucking on ciggies isn’t one of them. Well, maybe it’s expected of criminal barristers but not respectable ones. I jigged from foot to foot trying to thaw out my toes; pointy shoes are a bitch in cold weather and the two-inch metal pins were digging into my numb heels.
Graffitied and stencilled brick walls loomed either side of me in the short dead-end alley, with just a sliver of Melbourne sky, winter-grey above. The bay breeze eddied leaves and dust, kicking squints into my eyes as I smoked and something rotting and white ran down the blue stone channel. Not a glamorous hide out and not a particularly good one, if I’d known so many people wanted to find me I might have gone somewhere else.
‘Are you Morgan Yen?’
‘Yeah.’
‘You’re blonde.’
‘Go figure.’ The woman before me was dressed in a thin synthetic suit, with thighs too large for her short skirt and no pantyhose.
She shrugged. ‘I’m delivering a message.’
‘I’m not on duty yet, ‘ I said flatly, drawing on my cigarette and avoiding eye contact.
‘What’d you mean you’re not on duty yet?’
‘I mean – if you want Morgan Yen, corporate and insolvency specialist, she has an chambers two doors down the road.’ I pointed with my cigarette down Little Bourke in the general direction of my building. ‘Get you’re solicitor to call my clerk. This Morgan is having a smoke just now, as you can see, and is not available to take, make or facilitate legal enquiries.’
‘Shit, I’m not goin’ do that?’
‘Ancient tradition, sorry.’
She laughed in a very unfunny way. ‘This ain’t that kinda matter,’ she sneered. She pointed her ample bosoms in my direction, as though they were ray guns. Maybe they were.
‘Watch yourself.’
‘That’s it.’
‘Yeah.’
‘Well, thanks I’ll remember that.’
‘You don’t know who I am do you.’ The lip rose up to her nostrils, and the voice was mocking. I shrugged to indicate the obvious, And?
‘Ah shit.’ She deflated like my soufflés would if I ever cooked. ‘All lawyers are cunts. Howz about a smoke then?’
I shrugged and wordlessly offered her my pack not ready to argue the virtues of lawyers with a woman who apparently had scores to settle with the profession.
‘Menthols?’ Her lip curled.
I waited for the repulsion and the no thanks, but it didn’t come. Menthols are an acquired taste. She drew out the dainty white cigarette and lit it with a match drawn from the box in her pocket and struck in a single smooth action under her palm – an admirable feat. A bright pink ring from her lipstick glowed on the end as she twitched the cigarette above her eye-level; the smoke pumping out her nostrils, a Barbie-fied dragon.