Gone...

The idiots upstairs, next door to Doris, were drug dealers. These were possibly the most stupid people I've ever met. He was English, she was an Aussie girl and between them they had barely a brain cell to rub together. They had a V6 Holden Commodore which she'd chosen because she wanted something that most closely resembled the comfort she'd once experienced in a taxi...
Neither of them worked. Her daddy had bought them the apartment under the proviso that she paid for the annual insurance. Hardly onerous that, but she always forgot to pay it, so daddy had to pay that too. She told Jade she didn't have a mobile phone because she kept leaving them places, like in nightclubs, so she decided not to have one at all. The last mobile she had was lost in some dodgy club up in Kings Cross. The following month she got a bill for $8000, mainly due to many direct line calls to Colombia, well, and also the fact she’d not bothered to tell the mobile phone people she’d lost it. Of course, daddy paid that bill too.
Now, the English idiot, he had this little moped. It took him ages to get it started and sometimes it just didn’t happen and after half an hour he'd give up and slouch back indoors, dragging his thonged feet as he went.
Other times the machine would burst into life and he'd hop aboard and putter off down the drive, fighting for balance. He didn't always succeed and sometimes fell off on the front lawn before he even reached the road. When that happened he'd just untangle himself from the moped, abandon it and slouch on in again. Once we had both the moped and The Bloke's mangled pedal bike on the front lawn so it began to look like a secondhand bike lot. One day I caught an old woman standing there staring at it and she looked at the mess and said, "will the artist be taking commissions?"
When The Idiot did manage to get to the road and still remain on the moped he'd always be back within about 20 minutes so we figured he must have been dropping drugs off somewhere local. One day he came putt-putting out of the driveway as I was sitting outside in a car waiting for Jade to lock the flat up. I was doing some freelance motoring writing at the time so every week I had a different car and I guess he didn't recognise me. Anyway, we decided to follow him. I carefully kept my distance like I'd seen in the films (actually, unlike in the films - I did keep my distance. In Hollywood blockbusters the only person who wouldn't see someone following him is Stevie Wonder).
So, The Idiot goes off up the road and then he takes a right-hand turn and goes into Woolworths' car park. We follow him and he goes out the other side of Woolworths and we think, this is getting very exciting indeed. Then he starts looking around, side-to-side and glancing behind him. We hang right back. We reckon he must be looking to see if he's been followed.
"He's checking, just in case the drugs squad are on to him," breathed Jade and I nodded tersely.
All of a sudden he jammed the brakes on and the little moped's back wheel bounced up and down as the brakes locked, then he let the brake off and swerved into someone's drive, fighting for balance. We drove slowly by and saw him falling off the bike into some rubbish bins. We couldn’t stop because he might have seen us, so we drove on. We were pleased though. The pursuit had begun.
From then on we took a keener interest in his comings and goings. We started by keeping a log because we knew that sooner or later the Drugs Squad were going to raid their flat and arrest them and then we would be prime witnesses in the ensuing trial.
Two days later the bike disappeared. We expected to see him driving a new Ferrari, bought on the proceeds of his illicit drugs dealing. But nothing turned up.
Another day or so passed and all was quiet, save for the lesbians who were throwing each other against the walls with increasing regularity, and Doris's visitors who were almost as energetic, though for much shorter periods - typically two and a half minutes by my Swiss watch.
Then one day Jade bumped into the drugs girl while she was putting the washing out and they got chatting and drugs-girl said, "He had to get rid of his bike. Business was not so good." Jade nodded, and she continued, "Used to be they wouldn't stop ringing, all hours, asking for all sorts of exotics, all sorts of extras and some of them just weren't available straight away, you know?"
"Well, they wouldn't be," said Jade, thinking of Columbian Marching Powder, whatever that is.
"And really that bike. It never went properly and if he was late they'd give him hell. Say they'd ordered it an hour ago, they would. They'd go mad sometimes, threaten him with physical violence. It just became too dangerous out there."
 "Yeah," said Jade fishing, "we noticed he had to go out all hours."
The girl said, "Well, that's pizza delivery for you."
Okay, okay, we all make mistakes. Anyway, that was all well and dandy, but a month later they had a break-in and they didn't report it for three days and when they did the police came around with sniffer dogs and a helicopter hovered overhead and then they took them away and for a while at least the door banging ceased. Doris, on the other hand, kept her banging up, and so did the lesbians, although it seemed to us that the girls' relationship was well and truly on the rocks and we hoped, we prayed, that it could only be a matter of time before some relative quiet descended on the apartments.