Heiress On Fire

by Kellie McCourt

  ‘Oh well,’ I said to Esmerelda. ‘We tried.’

  ‘Want me to go back and get your granny’s gun?’ she asked. ‘Like, I’m sure we can blow that lock right off.’

  I looked around in desperation. I was not adding perpetrator of gun violence to my résumé.

  There was a small rectangular window above the back door. It was open a few centimetres. I grabbed the empty milk crates from alongside the wall and stacked them like a pyramid under the open window. I could not get past the second layer of my three-layered construction. Every time I stepped up on the crate, my heel would slip though the crisscross pattern in the hardened plastic, pushing me off-balance and toppling the crates. Chunky or no, my heels were not wide enough to keep from falling. Shocking that Dolce and Gabbana did not consider that in their design plan.

  After falling unceremoniously from the crates for the fifth time and—I am almost positive—spraining my ankle, I sent Esmerelda back to the SUV limousine for help. She came back with a bottle of Cristal and a can of No Sugar Vanilla Coke.

  After my fourth glass of Champagne I said to her, ‘Surely you should know how to pick a door lock. What were you doing in prison when all the other criminals were upskilling? Braiding hair? Learning to knit?’

  ‘I upskilled!’ she said defensively. ‘And like dude, I’ve been able to pick a lock since I was eight.’

  I gaped at her in astonishment from my crate pyramid.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘Yep, totally can,’ she said downing the rest of her No Sugar Vanilla Coke (I did not expect her to drink diet but Grandmother does not do sugared sodas).

  ‘Then what the hell am I doing?’ I shouted, getting to my feet and pointing to the back door.

  ‘I just thought that you might like, do some Heiress on Fire shit.’

  She made a mystic kind of motion with her hands. As if I could conjure flames from thin air and coerce them into opening the back door.

  I gestured around the alley, ‘With what? What could I possibly set fire to? I am not a Marvel comic character! I am a … I am a …’ I did not know what I was. But I was most certainly not some mythical creature. If anything, I suspected I was more circus act than superhero.

  Esmerelda slouched over to the door, pushed my crate pyramid aside and within seconds had picked the door lock using only the pull top from her empty soda can and a tiny pocket knife.

  ‘Thank you,’ I said as sarcastically as possible.

  The back door opened into a short twisted passage that opened up to a small tiled room. There were four doors exiting the room. The one we had come in from, which led outside. One directly in front of us which was a doorway with no actual door. Through the door-sized gap we could see industrial stoves, ovens and bench tops—the kitchen. To the left was a door marked ‘larder’. I guessed that was the larder. And to the right was a white door with silver edging and a giant latch that protruded from the wall. Even I knew that meant walk-in refrigerator.

  Looking dead ahead you could see the dining room beyond the kitchen. The walls and floors in the kitchen were all white tile and white paint, in direct contrast to the all-black dining room. It was really very light inside the kitchen. So much so that the light seemed to pour out of the kitchen into the tiny four-way vestibule we stood in. It made navigation a little easier. Was that right? Could that much light flow from one room to another? The vestibule was so bright. Too bright. I looked up. Skylights. There were hefty, rectangle skylights cut into the ceiling above the vestibule and the kitchen beyond. There was no flat, apartment or condo in the ceiling. The only thing in that ceiling was ceiling. And skylights. And possibly insulation batts.

  I did not know whether to feel relieved or deflated. The only emotion I could safely put my finger on was hunger. This place was full of delicious Italian food. And quite possibly wine.

  ‘I’m hungry,’ I said to Esmerelda and I strolled into the kitchen searching for gnocchi.

  ‘What about the dude?’ Esmerelda wanted to know.

  ‘There’s no dude,’ I said opening up cupboards in the kitchen with no luck.

  ‘No dude?’

  ‘No. No dude,’ I said giving up on the cupboards but spotting the glint of a shiny wineglass inside the dining room. The bar.

  I strolled boldly through the kitchen and turned directly into the bar. I opened the glass-fronted fridge under the bar to find myself face to face with my old friend Shaw & Smith sauvignon blanc. Now all I needed was a nice scampi.

  I snatched a bottle with a convenient twist top and wondered where the food was hiding. The larder?! I headed back through the kitchen, Esmerelda trailing me.

  I yanked open the larder door and let out a gasp. It was heaven. There were jars of foods stacked to the ceiling: roasted capsicums, sundried tomatoes, Kalamata olives, pickled pears and apples. There were stacks of fresh breads, sourdoughs and ciabatta. Baskets and beeswax bags filled to the top with fresh, semi-dried pasta: spaghetti, linguine, pappardelle. Sacks of arborio rice. Rows of balsamic vinegars and olive oils, whole rounds of parmesan cheese, bunches of dried rosemary and basil, plaits of garlic. This room was quite possibly the sexiest thing I had ever seen. Possibly sexier than Searing. Or James. Not both, but it was close. Which of course begged the question: what was in that walk-in fridge?

  I opened the dreamily perspiring wine, tucked a loaf of sourdough under my arm, and tasked Esmerelda with the job of bringing olives and sundried tomatoes. I exited the larder and walked the three strides across the tiny vestibule to the industrial fridge. I snagged the long silver latch with my elbow and walked backwards to pull the door open.

  My view of the fridge interior was obscured by the open door. But Esmerelda, who was walking two steps behind me and had a clear view into the walk-in fridge, stopped dead.

  ‘Frig me,’ she said in astonishment.

  There must have been something amazing in that fridge to stump Esmerelda.

  And there was.

  ‘There’s a yeti in this fridge,’ she said, now sounding somewhat impressed. A flaming heiress and a yeti in one room? It was her lucky day.

  I poked my head around the corner of the thick fridge door and there was, well, a yeti. Sort of.

  Sitting on the floor of the giant walk-in commercial fridge was a man holding a deep metal tub of what I was fairly certain was chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream, in a headlock-style grip. He was eating it with a giant wooden spoon.

  He had a full white beard, long white hair and was dressed in a white fur coat. He looked about seventy, but he might have only been forty-five. It was hard to tell. He was well on his way to Santa Claus-size, but was not quite there yet. Finishing off that 20-litre tub of ice cream would certainly help him on his way.

  Scattered across the floor around him was a whole side of sliced smoked salmon, a tray of lasagne, an industrial-sized tiramisu, a white plastic tub full of what looked like floating baby bocconcini in brine, but it could have been baby mozzarella, a square stainless steel container of grilled lobsters, a Glad-wrapped ceramic plate containing raw calamari, a side of raw wagyu beef and a ball of what was either leftover pizza or bread dough. The whole culinary explosion was dusted with fresh herbs, heirloom tomatoes and a scattering of strawberries.

  Esmerelda was right. It was impressive. In a terrifying, disgusting kind of way. Like watching a giant, white gorilla gorge itself. Mesmerising, but deeply disturbing.

  With an increasing sense of dread I noticed a large butcher’s knife lying beside the raw wagyu beef and a trail of blood dripping down the yeti’s grizzly white beard. And the white coat on closer inspection was not a man’s coat. It was a woman’s faux fur jacket, a woman quite a bit shorter than the yeti. It came up to the yeti’s elbows and sat just above his belly.

  I need not have concerned myself with being gunned down by a mad biker thug. We were going to die in this freezer. The yeti was going to eat us. The yeti got unsteadily to its feet and roared at us. It was truly terrifying. No
t in the least part because its filled-past-capacity denim jeans were filthy with food stains. It had yeti muffin tops. The yeti made a swipe for me, but I was too far away. Now normally at a moment like this I would run screaming, but the fact was I had never experienced a moment like this before, and as it turned out my instinct was not flight. It was fight.

  I have had my own personal trainers since I was six and even though I have no doubt eaten my own weight in Happy Meals, I have also trained for at least two hours a week since pre-puberty. From the time I realised that men were unreliable and bound to break your heart—at sixteen, thank you Dylan Moss—I have incorporated some boxing into my training sessions. Please don’t misunderstand me, there is no punching bag hanging from the ceiling in my bedroom or anything, but the words jab-right cross … jab-jab-cross … jab-cross-left hook … jab-cross-hook-cross … jab-cross-left uppercut-cross … jab-right uppercut-left hook-right hand … right cross-left hook-right cross are etched in my brain. And it turns out I have wonderful muscle memory.

  So instead of running I ducked. This gave me an opportunity to place the bottle of sauvignon blanc carefully on the ground along with the bread. The yeti was propelled forward by the weight of his non-landing punch and hit a wire metal shelving unit, its racks stacked with fresh fruit.

  He bounced off the shelving and growled heavily again. A pineapple and a bunch of nectarines bounded off the still-wobbling rack and hit him in the head. He batted them away. It was like watching King Kong on the Empire State Building. This guy was large. Or perhaps the pineapple was small. I could smell the waft of Scotch on his breath.

  He was quick to shorten the distance between us and swiped at me with a slightly misdirected right cross. I blocked the small part of his fist that came within my space and responded with all seven of the basic boxing sequences.

  Jab, right cross.

  ‘What did you give Crystal?’ I asked him as I punched.

  Jab, jab, cross.

  ‘You gave her those explosives, didn’t you? Admit it!’

  Jab, cross, left hook.

  ‘How did Debbie die?’

  Jab, cross-hook, cross.

  ‘Did Richard kill Debbie?’

  Jab, cross, left uppercut, cross.

  ‘Did you know Richard?’

  Jab, right uppercut, left hook.

  ‘What do you know about the Mediterranean Men’s Club?’

  Right cross, left hook, right cross, jab.

  ‘Are you in federal witness protection because the prime minister is still upset about the whole oyster thing with my grandmother?’

  He looked a bit confused by the last question, but I thought while I was here it couldn’t hurt to ask, right?

  I think his tubbiness and beard insulated a lot of the blows, and I was probably not the strongest boxer in the world, or even in Surry Hills, and he may have been hampered by the tiny jacket and super-tight jeans he was wearing, and I think he might have been drunk, but still he was suitably dazed and confused by my boxing interrogation.

  On closer inspection I think the original red substance on his beard might have been pasta sauce not blood, but by the end he was bleeding real blood. Well a little. I felt a little guilty for the little blood. He looked pathetic as he plopped down defeated next to his side of wagyu. Esmerelda hacked off a chunk of Scotch fillet from another side of beef hanging from the right-hand wall and handed it to the yeti. He slapped it to the side of his face. He was getting a black eye. I had given him a black eye! I felt kind of powerful and then, to my utter astonishment the yeti burst into tears. That felt awful.

  I picked up my bottle of wine and filled up a beer glass that was cooling on one of the racks. I was going to need alcohol to face a crying yeti. Esmerelda declined my wine offer and opened a chinotto instead. I was impressed she even knew what a chinotto was.

  The yeti had his own stash of booze next to his beef: a bottle of Michter’s bourbon. Who knew yetis drank twenty-year-old single barrel whisky?

  ‘Okay,’ I said, pulling up a milk crate next to the yeti. ‘Are you going to talk to us?’

  ‘Are you cops?’

  Esmerelda burst out laughing.

  ‘Hey,’ he said to her, a glimmer of recognition in his eyes, ‘do I know you?’

  Esmerelda stopped laughing and angled her body away from him. ‘Nope.’

  ‘Are you Bob the Builder?’ I wanted to know. I was pretty sure he was, but best to check.

  ‘Did you guys break in here?’ he wanted to know.

  ‘Possibly,’ I said.

  ‘Define break in,’ said Esmerelda.

  He chuckled very lightly to himself and peeled off a fistful of smoked salmon slices and shoved them in his face. It was a truly disgusting sight. ‘Yeah, I’m Bob.’

  He was talking! I was getting answers! I would get my life back!

  ‘Right, well then, I need to know about Crystal,’ I said.

  ‘What about Crystal?’ he asked going for the cheeses.

  ‘Did she have a twin sister called Debbie?’ I asked calmly.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Did Debbie die as a result of bad plastic surgery?’

  ‘Yeah,’ he said, then pointing to Esmerelda said: ‘Hey … you … get me a chinotto.’

  Esmerelda bristled, but passed him one of the tiny squat bottles. Bourbon and Italian cola then.

  ‘Was Debbie your girlfriend?’ I asked.

  ‘Yeah.’

  Expressive, eloquent fellow.

  ‘What kind of explosives did you give Crystal?’

  ‘The invisible kind.’

  Wait, what?

  ‘What do you mean? Crystal came to you distraught because Richard killed Debbie in a surgery gone wrong, and you gave her explosives. For revenge,’ I said.

  ‘Yeah, no and no,’ he said and chugged an entire chinotto. He was a human garbage disposal.

  ‘You have to give me more than one-word answers,’ I said, exasperated.

  ‘What, that’s like a rule is it?’ he said looking up at me. Even drunk, disarmed, defeated and bleeding he was still scary. I did not think I had any more personal training moves in me.

  ‘I would very much appreciate it if you could expand your answers,’ I said as congenially as I could.

  He exhaled, then burped and thumped his chest with a giant meaty fist. ‘Yeah, Crystal came to me, but I told her Dr “The Bomb” didn’t do Debbie’s surgery. He refused. Said she’d had too much. So Debbie found some backyard hack and the guy fucked up.’

  My jaw was on the ground. ‘Richard did not kill Debbie?’

  ‘Nah man, Bombberg was crooked but he was a pro. Killing hookers is not good for business.’

  ‘Sex workers,’ Esmerelda interjected. ‘They prefer the term sex workers.’

  The yeti shot her a ‘who-gives-a-crap’ look.

  ‘What do you mean Bombberg was crooked?’ I wanted to know.

  ‘Anyone working for the Mediterranean Men’s Club and cutting for Magic Models and the Mutants is into shit that’s gonna get real at some stage,’ he said and plonked his hand into the white bucket of floating cheese. Definitely baby mozzarella. He ate three.

  ‘Thought you wanted to know about Debbie?’ he said between chews.

  Mental note; come back to the Mediterranean Men’s Club.

  ‘I do, I do.’ I thought for a moment, considering my questions carefully. ‘If Richard did not kill Debbie in a botched … whatever job it was, why did Crystal kill Richard? Why did she come to you for explosives?’

  ‘She didn’t. Crystal wanted to know the name of the surgeon who fucked up Debbie’s, what—’ he thought about it, ‘—third, fourth boob job?’

  ‘And?’ I asked.

  ‘I didn’t know. I knew Bombberg knew but.’

  ‘Are you saying Crystal did not get explosives from you?’

  ‘Nup.’ More eating.

  ‘She was not there that night to kill Richard?’

  ‘Nup.’ More whisky.

  ‘
She just wanted Richard to tell her who did Debbie’s surgery?’ I queried, slightly confused.

  ‘Yep.’ More smoked salmon. The man was an animal.

  ‘Dude,’ Esmerelda said, joining the conversation. ‘Like, we don’t believe you. Shit got blown up. Crystal was there. You’ve got access to explosives.’

  I nodded along with Esmerelda, although, I had to say, I believed him. Then, I had believed Richard was an orphan, so …

  He looked up at us and smiled. ‘Since you’re both in here illegally, and you’re a crim,’ he said eyeing Esmerelda, ‘and you’re a … I don’t know what the hell you think you are,’ he said referring to me, ‘and I’m in witness protection anyway, and quite fucking frankly I’m a little impressed you even attempted to kick my ass Heiress, I’m gonna tell you a little secret. Bombberg bombed his own fucking penthouse.’

  And he smiled broadly, a menagerie of foods showing through his teeth.

  ‘No,’ I said immediately shaking my head in denial. ‘There is no way he would have done that.’

  ‘The shit’s real,’ he said. ‘Got the email order from him personally and did the dispatch myself. He bought the explosives from us. Put it on tick. Come to think of it the fucker still owes me $40k.’

  ‘He emailed you asking for explosives?’ I asked in disbelief.

  ‘Dude. How do you know it was his email? Anyone can get an email address,’ Esmerelda chipped in.

  She was right. I could be santaclaus@gmail.com if I wanted to be. Assuming it was not already taken.

  ‘A,’ said Bob tucking into lobsters, ‘the address was richardbombberg@sydneyplastics.com.’

  That was Richard’s email address.

  ‘He’d emailed us about shit before loads of times. How do you think we paid the bills for all the boob jobs and lipo and inject-whatever shit that goes on at Magic Models?’

  ‘Why would the Mutant Motorcycle Club pay Sydney Plastics for the liposuction of sex workers employed at Magic Models?’ I prodded oh-so-innocently. God, I hoped I was a better actress than my supermodel mother.

  ‘Business expenses. The house pays and the girls pay us back. With interest.’