Lollypop on Gold

'Do you live around here?' he asks, at the pedestrian crossing on Alexandra Pde.

'Yeah, just down there.' The lights take ages at Gold St. I'm taking my time getting to work. Usually there's a cute girl ahead of me laughing with the lollypop man - the elastic cutting into her flesh a little at the hip. Today we're alone together in peak hour traffic.

'I hear Glen at the pub got stabbed last night,' he says.

'At the Leinster?'

'And his missus. He was closing up,' he says.

'Are they ok?'

'He's pretty bad. They caught two young blokes, one was 23, the other 17.'

'Any motive?'

'Robbery, I suppose ... hang on ... okay you're good to go,' he says, walking into the stalled traffic to bawl out the driver of a white four-door who had crossed the line.

Five minutes later I'm waiting for my tea to steep in the sun outside at Mixed Business. Geo beat me there - damned long cycle pedestrian crossing. She'd driven past the cordon around the Leinster ...

'Junkies. Probably junkies,' she said, sizing up her coffee.

'There's some left in Collingwood?'