Plop! A lugubrious drop of grimy rain trickled down his neck.
"Damn!" he muttered, squirming as the liquid slid down his back, freezing the warm skin beneath the bulletproof vest and inconspicuous overcoat he always wore on assignment.
Wayne liked the night. It was a dark shield protecting him from the prying eyes that always peered from 100 fearful windows every time a bin lid clattered on the silent pavements.
But he hated the rain. Wet, incessant, insidious; rain was nature's terrorist, infiltrating every warm nook and cosy crevice in his taut, hard-muscled body.
Well, semi-taut and slightly muscled. Not teak-tough like Spillane's, but still pretty good for a 57-year-old ex-bailiff with a one-bedroom flat and a Nissan Skyline that burnt too much gas.
Because he did exercise. Every morning he walked out to the letterbox to get the paper. And the work he was doing now involved a lot of bending. And rummaging.
"Rummaging's good for you," the doctor had said last time he'd called in for his P.I. medical.
"You should do more of it."
Wayne smirked as he remembered the advice and, ignoring the unwelcome rain that always seemed to fall every time X-clusive sent him on assignment to Orwellington, the dank and secretive capital of the Cancerous Isles, he burrowed deep in the bin, looking for the elusive clue that would bust the case open.
"What's this?" he gasped, gripping something big and thick. A diary, perhaps? With incriminating details of secret meetings? Carefully, gingerly, just like he'd been taught back when he'd trained as an ARC dog ranger, Wayne lifted the object from its secret lair.
It was a book; The Economist's Guide to Love. "Jeez, this'll be short," murmured Wayne.
Then he remembered what Mo had said during Tuesdays Happy Hour at the RSA.
"Dey used to say," Mo had said, morosely sipping his Light Ice, "'if every economist was laid end to end, dey still wouldn't reach a conclusion'."
"So!?!" Wayne had snapped, picking a peanut out of his teeth.
"Well," Mo had continued, "now dey say, 'If every economist was laid end to end, no one would be d'least surprised!"'
With the revelation ringing in his ears, Wayne flicked through the soggy volume.
"Try this line," advised the author, John Maynard Keyes. "Hey baby, let's slip between the balance sheets and have a little ... foreign exchange.
"Or maybe, 'Oh, darling, my demand curve is rising'. That always works at the IMF."
There's nothing here, Wayne thought.
Then he saw it. A folded piece of paper nestled between the pages.
Hands shaking, he squinted to read the sinister document. "Dear D," it said, "You're too sober, man. You need to jazz up your image. Be more romantic. Love, Brian Connell."
"I'll take that. It's more use to my clients," said a gruff voice behind him.
Even in the darkness of an Orwellington night, Wayne recognised the voice. It was Magnum, the guy from that big Mangere agency, Field Investigations.
"Besides," Magnum continued, "you shouldn't even be here. I thought you was checking out guys like David Benson-Pope."
"Ahhh, dere's nuttin' dere," said Wayne, talking tough to impress Magnum. "Apart from a whole bunch of tennis balls wid names on dem. Oh, and a soccer ball wid the message, 'Dis one's for you, Don'."
"Hardly likely to cause a by-election," sniffed Magnum.
"You're right," Wayne acknowledged. "Then again, what we got here ain't gonna cause no leadership coup in th'Opposition neither. I mean, if you look at the polls dis week, ditching the Doc makes as much sense as Apple coming out wid a special announcement sayin' the only way dey can guarantee future growth is to scrap the iPod!"
"You got a point," mumbled Magnum. "The boy sure is hot. He's kinda like the iDon right now. But I'll find something to change dat."
Resisting the temptation to wonder why it was that whenever P.I.s met, they always talked like they was in a bad movie, Wayne tried another approach.
"I can't see why youse guys is rummagin' through bins anyway," he said. "I mean, you got stolen emails you been leaking. And somebody's tapping X-clusive's phone. I hoid da tapes on TV. Jeez, if you want ethical outrage, you got it right dere, buddy!"
"Ethical outrage? You been mixing wid da wrong people," snapped Magnum, slipping the Connell note into his pocket.
"You know what dey say in our business. Leave no stone unturned - except da ones ya crawl under!"
Magnum turned away.
"I think we've spent enough time lamely exploring moral conundrums in a bad parody of pulp fiction, don't you?" he said.
Suddenly, there was a flash of fire and a shot rang out ...
In next week's THRILLING episode ...
Could somebody please tell us what the hell the police, the SIS and the Diplomatic Protection Squad have been doing while all these private detectives were snooping around?
Is there a political editor anywhere in the country with the bottle to ask who's been tapping private citizens' phones?
And leaking the tapes to compliant reporters?
How come it's fine to steal emails and make their contents public but absolutely outrageous to hire a private detective?
If 98 per cent of people want stiffer prison sentences and 81 per cent want the Government to pay back their campaign funding, does anyone believe there's a bolter's chance of either thing actually happening?
Since the Brethren don't vote and won't vote, why would any politician in their right mind imagine the rest of us gives a toss what the Brethren think?
<i>Jim Hopkins:</i> Episode one of the thrilling life of intrepid P.I. Wayne
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