The Tax Inspector

37

Gino Massaro was a greengrocer from Lakemba. He had a large, hooked nose and little hands. He had soft, lined, yellowish-olive skin which was creased around his eyes and cheeks. In his own shop, he was a funny man. He spun like a bottom-heavy top with a black belt above his bulging stomach. He would shadow-box with the men (duck, weave, biff), have sweets for the children, flirt with the women (‘How you goin’ darling, when you going to marry me?’) in a way his exquisite ugliness made quite permissible. In his shop he showed confidence, competence – hell – success. He had two kids at university. He spoke Italian, Australian, a little Egyptian. He had his name painted on the side of a new Red Toyota Hi-Lux ute – G. Massaro, Lakemba, Tare 1 tonne.

No one knew the Toyota was financed on four years at $620 per month. He also had a serious overdraft, and a weakening trade situation caused mainly by competition from the Lebanese – not one shop, three, and all the bastards related to each other – who were staying open until nine at night and all day Sunday as well. He also had a ten-year-old white Commodore with flaky paint and black carbon deposits above the exhaust pipe. On the Tuesday afternoon when he parked this vehicle in front of Catchprice Motors he had just spent $375 on the transmission and there was a folded piece of yellow paper on the passenger seat – a $935 quote for redoing the big end. He also carried – not on paper, in his head – four separate valuations for the Commodore from yards between here and Lakemba, every one of which told him that the car was not worth what he owed on it.

He parked on the service road, behind a yellow Cherry-picker crane. He touched the St Christopher on his dashboard, closed his eyes, and turned off the engine. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t and today it didn’t – the engine knocked and farted violently before it became still. Two salesmen in the yard stood watching him. Behind them was a red Holden Barina. He did not like the red or the flashy mag wheels. He did not like it that his son would say it was a woman’s car, but it was the right price range.

He was not a fool. He knew he should prepare the Commodore, have it wax-polished, detailed, present it as well as if it were apples at five dollars a kilo. But who had time? Every second he was away from the shop he lost money. He picked the pieces of paper off the seat, and the ice-cream carton off the floor and thrust them into the side pocket.

Then he got out of the car, locked it, and walked into the car yard. With fruit he was a different man, not like this.

He was already on the gravel when he saw the face. He would have retraced his steps, but somehow he couldn’t. The blond salesman was smiling at him in a weird kind of way, and Gino was smiling back.

Gino knew that his angelic smiling face was a lie, that he secretly and silently mocked his big nose, his fat arse, his car blowing too much smoke. But now he had come this far and he was somehow caught and caressed by the smile which made him feel that he did not care if he was despised and he had no will or even desire to turn back. It was the feeling you had with a whore. You knew it was not true, but you pretended it was. He thought: this kid with the yellow umbrella would rob me if I let him. But he could not turn back and so he walked across the gravel towards him. Lines of plastic bunting hung across the yard. They made a noise like wings flapping in a cage.