Baby Did a Bad Bad Thing

by Lord, Gabrielle

  ‘Sure,’ he said. ‘I’ll see you later. With a bit of luck, when you turn this on next, the only email you get will be email you want.’

  She waved goodbye, leaving him at her computer making his list of nasty words, while she checked her notebook for Peter Fenster’s address and left.

  •

  Gemma pulled up in the narrow street. This was it. She got out of her car, noticing a plastic gilt icon of Agios Yiorgos dangling from the rear-vision mirror of a bronze Mitsubishi Scorpion parked outside the address, a one-storey terrace house. She walked in through the rusted open gate. Weeds grew among the pavers of the front path, rows of cacti in rusting tins decorated the length of the verandah and two wintering rose bushes struggled to survive in the cemented front yard. She stepped up onto the verandah, past the cacti and pressed the bell. Nothing happened. She tried again and waited. She was about to press the bell yet again, thinking that she might have to come back another time, when a man opened the door.

  ‘Peter Fenster?’ Gemma asked, flashing her private investigator’s ID. His heavy gold watch glinted and his mouth twisted into a smile as he took and read Gemma’s licence, molten brown eyes narrowing in a tanned face.

  ‘So?’ he said in a deep voice that matched his solid body. ‘Who wants to know?’ He looked at her card again. ‘“Gemma Lincoln”’ he read, ‘“Mercator Security and Business Advisers”.’ He handed the card back. ‘Not interested,’ he said. Gemma couldn’t help noticing the way his eyes travelled over her body. Some men are offensive from the moment they open their eyes in the morning, she thought, and Peter Fenster was one of them.

  ‘I’m a private investigator,’ she said. ‘May I come in?’ She had to roar her request because next door had suddenly started a chainsaw.

  ‘No way, lady,’ said Peter Fenster. ‘What’s this all about?’ He scowled. ‘If it’s anything to do with that bitch I divorced—’

  ‘It’s about a vehicle registered in your name reported as being involved in a vicious attack on a young woman,’ Gemma interrupted, watching his face closely.

  ‘I reported my car stolen,’ he said quickly. ‘It’s been missing for days. Nothing to do with me.’

  ‘So you say,’ said Gemma, noticing the way he’d immediately excused himself. But then, to be fair, he’d already been through this with the police. ‘Must be inconvenient,’ she said.

  ‘Very,’ he said. ‘I don’t know nothing about an attack.’

  ‘What were you doing on Monday night?’

  ‘Like I said. No car, no transport. I was here.’ He drew back. ‘I don’t have to answer your questions anyway.’ He started to close the door but couldn’t resist a parting shot. ‘Those women ask for it, you want my opinion.’

  ‘I don’t want your opinion,’ said Gemma. ‘For your information, this girl weighs about forty-five kilos. She may lose the sight of one eye.’ She could feel the anger boiling up in her. ‘Do you think she asked for that?’ Calm down, she told herself. Don’t bite. The man’s just a prick. It’s not worth losing your cool, girl.

  ‘Those sluts do anything. Go with anyone. Just for money.’ He paused, warming to the topic.

  Gemma changed it fast. ‘That Mitsubishi parked down there,’ she said, pointing to the parked car. ‘Whose is it?’

  He didn’t answer.

  ‘Why don’t you answer my question, Mr Fenster?’

  ‘Why should I? I don’t have to talk to you. Women like you—’

  ‘Yes?’ she snapped. ‘Women like me what?’

  Stop it, she told herself. You’re losing control of this. This is the second time recently you’ve been riled by this phrase. She took a breath and deliberately kept her voice quiet and calm. ‘The person responsible for these attacks,’ said Gemma, ‘just can’t help himself. He has to go out and hurt someone, because he’s a sick, ugly, bastard.’ She said the last three words slowly and pointedly before continuing. ‘The girl who was attacked has given us a very good description of the offender. Tall, dark, deep tanned skin. Brown eyes.’ She kept her own eyes, hard and unblinking, on his, noting the film that seemed to overlay their surface like an oil slick. She was aware of his scent, a mixture of strong aftershave and his own slightly acidic notes.

  Peter Fenster almost smiled then sniffed. ‘She’s doing pretty good for only one eye,’ he sneered.

  Gemma kept her voice calm and steady. ‘We’re building up a picture of the wanted man,’ she said. ‘It’s only a matter of time before he gets put away for a nice long stretch.’ She was aware of a sudden shocking silence as the neighbour stopped the chainsaw next door and her last few words filled the void.

  ‘You can piss off,’ Fenster said, stepping back. ‘I don’t have to answer any of your questions. I’ve already had the bloody cops trying to push me around.’ He slammed the door shut.

  Gemma stood there, heart racing with fury. I shouldn’t let men like him get to me, she was thinking as she turned to walk past the dead garden and festering cacti plants. But I got to him, she realised. I rattled his cage.

  She went back to her car and sat there, about to drive away when she heard the door of Peter Fenster’s house. Quick as a flash, she pulled out her video camera and waited, lining him up in the viewfinder, zooming in, getting a good shot of his upper body as he stamped down the path and out onto the street. He didn’t notice her.

  •

  When Gemma got home, Mike had left, locking up after him. She wanted to switch on her computer and see if there was an improvement, but she decided to wait till the morning. She made herself two grilled cutlets, a grilled tomato and some leftover fried rice for tea, munching it in solitary grandeur at the dining table with a glass of chardonnay, looking at her reflection in the sliding glass doors opposite, backed by the impenetrable darkness of the winter night.

  Peter Fenster’s words stayed in her mind. A man with those attitudes could do anything to a woman, Gemma thought, especially one whom he believed he had the right to dispose of in any way he wished. And the world was full of men like that. The ugliness of his words faded as Taxi smoodged around her feet, rubbing his cheeks against her ankles, rolling and turning almost inside-out around the legs of the chair, purring like mad. Then he stood up on his hind legs, digging his claws into her knees. She pushed him down, then lifted him up, draping him over her leg. ‘No,’ she told him, ‘you’re not getting any cutlet. There’s some perfectly good hard tack for you, mister.’ She set him down and he stalked away, to sit on the arm of one of the lounge chairs, a plump ginger delta-shaped cushion with his back to her, tail twitching.

  Although she didn’t like admitting it to herself, Kit’s words of the night before were still troubling her. Am I really a driven victim, helpless in the face of unconscious urges? she asked herself. And if so, how can I ever discover what they are? She picked at the rice, barely tasting it. It was troubling to think that in some deep way she was not the person she thought herself to be; a person who made decisions based on reason. Our whole society rests on the assumption that we are logical creatures. Although, she had to concede, she’d seen precious little evidence of the truth of that premise in her own family life. She remembered the vivid nightmare, the meteorite hurtling through space towards her as she stood near an ancient lake. Some strange power in us drives our dreams, she thought. I don’t make them up. It was worrying to think that inchoate inner forces might drive her waking life as well as her dreams.

  She cleared away, tossing out the last of the wine because it had gone bitter in the few days since it had been opened. I must be improving in some ways, she thought. I don’t do the whole bottle in one sitting anymore like I used to. Angie’s invitation reminded her that it had been a long time since she’d gone out for fun. She remembered the heady nights of hot rock’n’roll and strangers in her bed. She stowed plates and cutlery in the dishwasher, wiped down the benchtop and
poured dried food into Taxi’s bowl. Then she went outside into the night. It was cold. She looked up at the sky. Hard to tell what it might do, she thought, leaning against the railing. Suddenly, she wished she were an ordinary married woman with a nice, safe husband sitting in a chair reading the newspaper while she oversaw baths and homework, a casserole in the oven, the kids’ lunches already cut and waiting in the freezer for the morning, tennis and shopping during the day till three o’clock, a nice normal life, without cyberstalkers, bashers and fire investigations. A simple world where her parents hadn’t died in dramatic and dreadful circumstances, where balancing the household budget and making lucky dips for the school fête were the most taxing chores of the day. Get real, she told herself, thinking of her married girlfriends who spent all day at work then had to push heavy shopping trolleys to the car on the way home, pick up kids, lug the shopping in, put it away, prepare dinner, put the washing on, bath the kids, serve up, wash up, hang washing out, make sure everyone’s got clean, ironed clothes for the morning and then go to bed with a man who can’t understand why his wife isn’t very interested in sex anymore.

  It was too cold to stay outside any longer. Gemma walked back into the apartment, closed the sliding doors and pulled the curtains against the darkness. You’ve got a good life, she told herself. An interesting life. Some interesting challenges.

  Nine

  Gemma was aware that the circuit for legal street soliciting, agreed on by the workers and Kings Cross police, takes in a large part of William Street, apart from the corners which are forbidden because of traffic safety. Other areas in Forbes, Bourke and down to Yurong Streets are tolerated unless the police decide to be tough, and several narrow dark lanes closer to Taylor Square are used by girls who don’t want to share their takings with a house. Girls like Robyn Warburton. At least, Gemma thought, it’s not raining tonight.

  She found the address of the safe house, a narrow terrace on a corner, and walked straight inside, wondering why there was no security. Then she felt a presence behind her and spun around. It was the doorman, a stooped, burly fellow in his fifties, jeans hanging under his gut, following her down the hall.

  ‘Is Shelly here?’ Gemma asked. ‘I’m supposed to be meeting her.’

  ‘She’s coming in later tonight,’ he said, ‘but she left something for you if you’re Gemma. She told me to be sure you get it.’ He walked ahead of her and hunted around on the floor behind a chair, passing her a plastic shopping bag.

  Gemma took the bag from him and glanced into it. Carefully wrapped in a silk scarf was a long, dark wig as well as a long hairpiece and an envelope filled with hairpins. Underneath the hairpiece was a poster. ‘Have you seen this man?’ was printed on a sheet of A4 paper above an identikit-style drawing of a man with deep-set eyes and a very firm jaw. Did he look familiar to her in any way? Gemma scrutinised the sketch. Could it be Peter Fenster? Probably not.

  ‘Is there somewhere I can go and change?’ Gemma asked the doorman who was now busy with a form guide for the trots.

  ‘Use one of the rooms,’ he said, jerking a finger down the hall. ‘No one’s here yet.’ He grinned. ‘Hey,’ he added, attempting a joke, ‘I won’t even charge you.’

  Gemma walked into the nearest room and closed the door. It was serviceable, with a bed, a table with a dim lamp and a box of tissues, long curtains and a rug on the floor. She took off her clothes, self-conscious and wary. She’d heard that some of these places had video cameras running all the time and peepholes. She looked around. There were so many places for a covert camera to be hidden in the fittings of the room that she decided just to get on with what she was here for. She pulled off her jumper, blouse and slacks, took her mobile out of her pocket, and laid out the clothes she’d carefully chosen—a tight dark skirt, a black voile blouse, suspender belt, her black satin Special Blessings bra, sheer black stockings and a pair of black ankle-strapped sandals that she’d only worn once because they had such high heels. She dressed, wriggling into the skirt, cursing because it was tighter than it had been last winter, sucking in her tummy to do up the zip, tucking in the blouse, leaving the two top buttons undone so that her cleavage showed, and pulled on the stockings, attaching them to the belt. ‘We express who we are in everything we do,’ she heard Kit saying as she fastened the second suspender. She straightened up. Is it true, she asked her dim reflection in the mirror on the wall at the end of the bed, that something in my psyche has led me here, to this room in a brothel, dressing like a sex worker, making myself the bait on a hook to catch a man who hates women? She dismissed the idea. Her sister saw things that weren’t there, she decided. I’m just doing my job.

  She scrunched her tawny hair up into a short ponytail and pulled on the wig, tugging it down each side, adjusting the forehead section. It fitted her head well, she thought as she looked in the mirror, surprised at the way the dark hair completely changed her appearance. Perhaps not Ally McBeal, but now she definitely looked Mediterranean. She tried adding the hairpiece for extra bulk, but got into such a mess that she decided against it, rewrapping it carefully up again in the silk scarf and putting it away. She opened the tiny, almost never-used beaded evening bag she’d brought along for the night and fished out her make-up container from where it nestled up against the capsicum spray on top of her wallet. She’d removed the credit cards and the only cash was a twenty-dollar bill for a cab. She added more smoky black around her eyes, and a darker, deeper colour than she usually wore on her lips. By the soft light from the bedside lamp she studied herself. The black clothing diminished her physical presence, but she wasn’t sure that she looked thin, let alone wasted, so she used the eye shadow to make dark contours under her cheekbones.

  Then she rang Mike. ‘Where are you?’ she said.

  ‘Outside the Hellfire Club, about to get some amazing footage on the innocent little Belinda Swann. Boss, you should see her! Half-naked with leather all over the bits that don’t matter. I should be with you in an hour, depending on traffic.’

  Gemma was ringing off when she heard Shelly’s voice in the hallway.

  She slipped her mobile into the beaded bag and packed up her other clothes in the shopping bag she’d brought along with her. She was about to step out of the room when she nearly bumped into Shelly, who was coming in.

  ‘Wow!’ said Shelly. ‘What a transformation. Is that really you?’

  She walked around, checking Gemma from every angle.

  ‘You don’t look too bad yourself,’ said Gemma, self-conscious under Shelly’s professional scrutiny.

  Her companion stepped back, frowning. ‘I think you could button that blouse up, though. It’s bold enough as it is.’ She did up the buttons Gemma had left undone, and Gemma had a sudden memory of her mother doing the same with a little pink knitted cardigan. The memory vanished as soon as Shelly stood back, cocked her head and then nodded.

  ‘That’s it. Looks more classy. That’s what you’re offering them. Class. There’re plenty of girls offering tits. You’re projecting another image. Come on and I’ll show you your beat.’

  ‘What can I do with these things?’ she asked, holding out her bag of clothes.

  ‘Leave them here,’ said Shelly, ‘with Cyril. You’ll need to change here before you go home. Unless you want to go home in your work gear?’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ said Gemma nearly tripping in the unaccustomed high heels, forgetting how to balance herself. She tottered outside following Shelly into the chilly evening, shivering in her transparent blouse. So this is what it’s like, Gemma thought, as she looked up and down the street, stepping out in absurd clothes to catch a mug. Car headlights made streams of freakish reflected light on the roadway, mixing with the glowing flashes of coloured neon. Two young girls leaning against a building down the road looked her way. Shelly noticed her glancing in their direction.

  ‘It’s okay,’ she said. ‘I’ve told the
others that you’re not competition, even though you’ll be looking like you’re working near them.’ She threw another appraising glance at her companion. ‘Although the way you look, I don’t think they’ll believe me.’

  ‘Stop it,’ said Gemma. ‘I feel weird enough as it is.’ Then she realised something. ‘Shelly,’ she said, uneasy, ‘what do I actually do? What do I say when a man approaches me? I’ve got to seem like the real thing.’

  ‘We’re all the real thing, my dear,’ said Shelly drily. She gave a little laugh. Already, men in cars were slowing down, seeing the four women on the corner. ‘Develop a line that you’re comfortable with,’ said Shelly. ‘Like, “Looking for a girl tonight, luv?”’

  ‘Luv?’ Gemma was incredulous.

  ‘You’re creating a fantasy,’ said Shelly, ‘of sweetness and light. You’re like a girlfriend, except you never bleed and you never have a headache.’

  ‘I can feel one developing already,’ said Gemma. ‘These bloody shoes.’

  ‘Then you establish the price.’

  ‘Which is?’

  Shelly started to recite the rates agreed on by the William Street workers but Gemma interrupted in horror. ‘Fifty dollars for oral? You’re joking!’

  ‘Get the money first,’ said Shelly in her practical way, although Gemma hardly heard her. Although she didn’t plan to fulfil her part of the bargain, the thought of wrapping her mouth around some strange man’s penis was horrible. ‘Put the money somewhere safe,’ Shelly continued. ‘Have you organised a minder?’ She glanced at her watch.

  ‘Yes,’ said Gemma. ‘He’s on his way.’

  ‘Okay, then. Have you got all that?’ Shelly fussed round like a mother hen. ‘Especially about keeping the money safe?’

  ‘But I’m not going to do the work,’ Gemma protested. ‘I can’t take their money.’