by Peter Ralph
“I’m not doing anything. I just can’t hear over the jets and blowers.”
“Maybe we should call it a night?” she said, in a slightly slurred voice.
“Fine, but let’s finish the wine first,” he said, topping up her glass, while lowering his right arm so that his hand was just touching her shoulder. He felt her tense, but she didn’t move, and he bent over pulling her toward him, kissing her hard on the mouth. She recoiled, as if struck by a cobra. “No, stop it!”
“What the fuck, you little teaser,” he growled, pulling her closer to him, while trying to tear her bikini top off.
“No!” she shouted, her cries drowned out by the thumping of the jets. Desperate, she drove her wine glass through the turbulent water, crashing it into his hardness.
“Bitch!” he snarled, drawing back his left fist.
“No, no,” she screamed, “I can’t, I’m gay.”
“You’re a fucking dyke?” he barked, “but you smiled at me that day at Jeremy’s.”
“I didn’t. You just thought I did and, when I accepted the job, I didn’t think it included sleeping with you,” she yelled, tears streaming down her face. “You bastard!”
“What about when you were in my office with your dress crawling up your thighs. Christ, you nearly winked at me.”
“You’re a filthy bastard!”
“A fucking dyke! I employed a fucking dyke. I should have guessed by your weight lifter’s body. Are you fucking all the girls at gym?”
Kelly scrambled out of the Jacuzzi and wrapped herself in her towel. “You low life. There was nothing for me to do in Hong Kong was there? You just brought me up here so you could get me into bed, didn’t you?”
“I want your resignation.”
“I have no intention of resigning, and if you fire me I’ll have you up before the equal opportunity commissioner, sexual discrimination authorities, and the courts, and I’ll make sure your favourite person, Fiona Jeczik, finds out all about this trip.”
“Don’t threaten me,” he growled, but his voice, for the first time, was shaky. His head was pounding and a wall of stress had built up behind his eyes. “We can’t work together now.”
“Why, because I’m gay?”
“No, because of tonight.”
“I can forget tonight, and you should think yourself lucky that I can. We can still have a formal working relationship,” she said, turning and walking toward the elevators.
The rumbling water of the spa compounded Aspine’s headache while images of the Wanchai bar girls flashed through his mind. He knew what would make him feel better.
The concierge knocked on Aspine’s door. “You wanted to see me, sir.”
“Come in,” Aspine said, motioning to a chair adjacent to a coffee table which had a small pile of US dollars on it. “I need a girl tonight. Can you organize it? I want someone young and attractive,” he said, downing his third Jack Daniels.
“We don’t normally do that, sir,” the middle-aged Chinese man responded.
Aspine felt a sharp pain behind his eyes and winced. “But you do make exceptions, don’t you?” he snarled, picking up the notes, one at a time until there was four hundred dollars on the table directly in front of the concierge.
“We do, sir, but that will only cover the girl.”
Aspine knew that he was lying but, after all, it was Mercury’s money, so he put another hundred down and the concierge reached down, and put the notes in his pocket. “Don’t send me a dog.”
“I’m sure you’ll be happy, sir.”
Twenty minutes later there was a light tapping at Aspine’s door. When he opened it a young Filipino girl was standing there smiling at him. She was wearing a black business suit, matching high heels, skirt about five inches above the knees, and a white blouse. Her hair was done up in a bun and her glasses were shaped like the eyes of a cat. She was petite with fine features, and her smile turned to one of amusement as Aspine ogled her. “My name’s Vanessa. Aren’t you going to invite me in?”
“Of course,” he said, standing aside so that he could check her out from the rear.
“Do you like what you see?”
He was taken aback by her confidence but, before he could respond, she said, “I’m an account executive during the day, and only do this occasionally for the excitement. Today’s your lucky day. Why don’t you just sit on the sofa and relax?”
He poured himself another Jack Daniels without offering her anything, and parked himself at the end of the couch, while she slipped a disc into the sound system and the sultry voice of Tina Turner echoed around the suite. She stood about a metre in front of him moving to the beat of the music, and put her hands up to her head, undid her bun and her long black hair fell to her waist. Then she took her jacket off, waving it briefly around her head before throwing it across the room. Slowly she undid the buttons of her blouse and it fell away to reveal a small black lace bra barely covering her surprisingly large breasts. Aspine reached out for her, but she deftly danced away from him. “You’ll spoil it,” she laughed, shimmying out of her skirt, revealing a tiny waist, a tinier g string and long, darkly tanned legs. He drained his glass in one gulp and refilled it in one motion. His head was pounding and he didn’t need the teasing or the dancing − he just needed sex, desperately.
Gyrating in front of him, she reached behind her back and unhooked her bra. She moved forward and leaned over as if to place her voluptuous breasts in his face, and then recoiled in shock as Aspine reached up and groped them roughly. “What are you doing?” she shrieked.
“Don’t scream,” he snarled, backhanding her hard. She fell to the ground in front of him and, with one hand clenched tightly around her breast, he tore her g string off with the other.
“Condom, condom,” she whimpered.
“Fuck!” He’d nearly forgotten. He opened his wallet and threw a packet on the floor next to her. “Put it on with your mouth, and be careful.”
Fifteen minutes later his headache was gone, replaced with self-loathing and disgust. Not because of what he’d done, but because of his need for hookers, and he cursed Kelly. He could hear the Filipino girl sobbing and washing her bruised body in the bathroom. “Hurry up, I want you out of here,” he shouted.
Aspine woke early in the morning and buzzed Kelly as if nothing had occurred in the pool or in his room. “Get us out of here and back to Melbourne as fast as you can.”
- 24 -
AS SOON AS Craig Chisholm told Charlene Deering that he was Fiona Jeczik’s producer, she’d agreed to meet him. Now, as she sat opposite him in a coffee lounge in Chapel Street, he was stunned by her youth and beauty, and wondered what she’d ever seen in Aspine? She was surprisingly open, telling him about the abortion, the apartment, the MGB, the clothes, and how she’d been Aspine’s mistress. Despite her willingness to help, and her obvious hate for Aspine, she knew little of his business practices.
“He must have talked about the business with you at times,” Craig pushed.
Charlie closed her eyes, and placed her hands under her chin, trying to recall any business conversations, before shaking her head. “He really dislikes Mercury’s former CEO, Harry Denton.”
“Why?”
“He said he was an old fuddy-duddy who was interfering with how he wanted to run the company.”
“Anything else?”
“Not really. I’m sorry. Oh, there is one other thing. He hates your boss and, if he could get away with killing her, I’m sure he would.”
“Fiona’s made lots of enemies who are big on threats, but they’ve never amounted to anything.”
“No, it’s worse than that,” Charlie said, relating what’d occurred the night she’d gone to the wine bar. “He punched me, but he really thought he was punching Fiona.”
“Bastard!”
“Then he raped me,” she scowled.
Craig mused that they’d known that Aspine was a bastard but, despite Charlie’s willingness to help, she’d given him lit
tle he could use. “Did he talk about his wife?”
“Only that she was always whingeing about not having enough money to pay the bills or spend on their children.”
“Did she know he was paying for your apartment, and the MGB?”
“I doubt it. I was tempted to anonymously let her know after he kicked me out of the apartment, but I didn’t see any reason to hurt her. Can I ask you a question?”
“Sure.”
“Why is Fiona so intent on bringing him down? It can’t just be ratings.”
“It’s a long story. One day, when I have more time, I’ll tell you. Suffice to say she’s had some personal experience dealing with the Aspines of this world.”
“It was nice to meet you, Craig,” Charlie said, standing up. “If I can do anything to help bury the bastard, please phone me.”
The only available flight out of Hong Kong was via Sydney, which had turned a nine hour trip into eleven hours. Aspine was jet-lagged and grumpy, when Brad phoned and insisted on seeming him at the Docklands. He’d intended to spend the day in the office and he snatched his keys off the desk and cursed. As he drove out of the car-park, it was drizzling and the roads were greasy. Being stuck in slow moving traffic crawling through the city blackened his already dark mood. Thirty minutes later he pulled up opposite three partly completed high-rises all erected to level five. The sites were hives of activity, and he mused that Jack Gillard’s trip to Las Vegas had been well worth it. His thoughts were interrupted by a morose looking Brad Hooper with two construction helmets under his arm. “What’s so urgent, Brad?”
“I want you to show you some apartments,” Brad responded, walking toward the nearest building.
“Just tell me what’s on your mind.” Aspine said, tired and annoyed.
“You’ll see soon enough.”
Aspine followed Brad up the stairwell to the first floor, along the corridor and into a two-bedroom apartment. “Listen,” Brad said, knocking on the wall to the adjoining apartment.
“What am I listening for?”
“The walls are paper thin. I reckon I could put my fingers through them. The quality of the Richmond apartments wasn’t great, but they were masterpieces compared to these. There are runs and blotches in the paintwork, and the taps and door fittings look like they came out of the Trading Post. Christ, we’ve increased prices and forgot about quality. How does that work?”
“So, you’re whingeing because you can’t sell them.”
“No, but we’re only selling to the suckers who believe the editorials and our bullshit advertisements. I’m telling you, it’s going to blow up when things get tough.”
“Why?”
“Because when those suckers try to sell, they’ll lose up to a hundred and fifty thousand an apartment. That’s unless you’re going to buy every pre-owned apartment that comes on the market,” Brad sneered. “You’ve got Brian Eppel designing purely on cost, Jack Gillard putting them up so fast that he’s forgotten about quality, and that new supply manager sourcing cheap second-rate fittings out of China.”
“Unless you’ve been appointed to do my job, design, construction and supply aren’t your concerns. All you have to do is fucking sell.”
“Doug, we can sell around the thin walls and hidden construction defects, but you’ve gotta fix the finish. A million dollar apartment with a shitty paint job and cheap and nasty fittings is a hard sell − even for me.”
Aspine smiled. Brad wasn’t worried about the structural integrity of the apartments or about the customers − he just wanted to make sure that sales were easy to make and that defects visible to potential buyers were fixed. He’d been worried that Brad was going soft or, worse, becoming honest. Now his faith in human sloth and greed was restored. “I’ll get Jack to touch up the paintwork, and I’ll make sure he pays more attention to the finish in the future. I’ll also talk to Brian about redesigning the fittings, but I’m not changing anything that’s already been finished.”
“If you make them half presentable we’ll sell 'em. We’ve already sold most of the completed apartments, but there’s only so many wood ducks out there.”
“How many times do I have to tell you not to call our customers that?” Aspine snarled. “I have to get back to the office.”
Craig Chisholm phoned Anthony Keen, who point blank refused to meet with him and denied leaking any information about Bert Stuart’s death. Keen sounded nervous and anxious to end the unwanted call. Aspine’s threat had worked a treat.
Sir Edwin was unusually inquisitive when Aspine phoned. “What were you looking at in Hong Kong, Douglas?”
Aspine’s mood hadn’t improved and he felt like responding, ‘none of your fucking business’, but curbed himself. “I wanted to look at joint venture opportunities with a few of Hong Kong’s builders who’d made contact with me.”
“To build apartments in HK?”
“That’s right.”
“How did your discussions go?”
“No good. I decided it wasn’t worth pursuing a JV. That’s why I came home early. I didn’t want to waste any more time up there.”
The sense of relief in Sir Edwin’s voice was apparent. “Good decision. Let’s not spread our resources too thin and, besides, it’s a very hard region to make money in. I’m surprised you didn’t stay up there a little longer. You could do with a few days break.”
“I’m too busy for breaks. I’d rather spend time at Mercury than anywhere else.”
“Don’t overdo it. We don’t want you to burn yourself out.”
“Fucking stupid old goat,” Aspine muttered after he’d hit the disconnect button.
Craig related the conversation that he’d had with Charlie to Fiona. “I’m sorry, he’s a first-rate bastard alright but there’s nothing new that we can use.”
“Of course there is. He violently attacked and raped her.”
“She didn’t go to the police, and our legal people will never let you air anything that’ll lead to a successful defamation action against the channel. You can’t prove anything, there are no witnesses, and even if Charlie wanted to take action now, it’s probably too late. Like I said, Fiona, we have nothing new that we can use.”
“Can we prove that he paid for her car and apartment? Can we prove that when he’d finished with her he had the car repossessed, and kicked her out of the apartment?”
“You can’t run that, all it will do is hurt his wife. Besides, plenty of businessmen have mistresses and affairs on the side, but we don’t pursue them.”
“Can’t?” she said coldly. “I’m going to bring this animal down and, when we air the story, who knows how he’ll respond or what mistakes he’ll make? When does the inquest into Bert Stuart’s death start?”
“Next week,” Craig groaned.
“Let’s turn up the heat on the coroner, and run something that ensures he hands down an adverse finding about Mercury and its lack of compliance with the Occupational Health & Safety legislation. At the end I’ll raise Charlie, and Aspine’s treatment of her, so the public, and the coroner, get to know the true character of Mercury’s CEO,” Fiona said, her face devoid of emotion.
“What about his wife?”
“An innocent victim caught in friendly fire, but if she’s decent she’ll be glad that we’re exposing him for the slime that he is. Our ratings have stalled, so make sure there’s plenty of publicity before we go to air on Monday night.”
Aspine never worked with his door closed, but that was before he knew that he was working next to a dyke, who could hear every word of every conversation and phone call that he made. He no longer liked or trusted Kelly, but he was stuck with her, without the slightest possibility of getting into her pants. He pressed the button on his desk and barked, “Get Kurt Metzger and Steve Brogden to come and see me,” pressing it again before Kelly could reply.
Five minutes later there was a light knocking on his door. “Come in,” he yelled, cursing Kelly yet again. “Shut the door and grab a chair, Kurt
. Steve, you’re doing a great job, and my accounts people tell me you’ve managed to reduce the prices that we’re paying for all our major materials. How’s Anthony taking his demotion?”
“Thank you. He’s been very helpful.”
“He hasn’t been disruptive or undermining you with other employees?”
“If anything, he’s been supportive.”
“But he must have said something to you when you were screwing the prices down of suppliers who’d previously been stitching him up?”
“I changed a lot of suppliers, and the only thing that Anthony said was to make sure that I didn’t lose continuity of supply for a few dollars.”
“Shit!” Aspine growled, catching Kurt’s eye and noticing the hint of a smile. “What’s funny, Kurt?”
“Nothing, Douglas.”
“I want you to get rid of him today.”
The mirth in Kurt’s eyes disappeared. “You want me to dismiss him?”
“In case you don’t know, it’s one of the HR manager’s responsibilities,” Aspine said sarcastically, enjoying the worry etched on Kurt’s face. “Work out a termination amount that’ll make it hard for him to take legal action.”
“But you really don’t have a reason to terminate his services. He’s financially independent, and money won’t stop him from suing. He’s a man of principle.”
“I don’t have a reason?” Aspine snarled, nodding his head toward Steve. “This man’s saved the company a fortune and I want to reward him, but I can’t so long as I’m paying the wages of two supply managers. That’s fucking reason enough!”
“Yes, but it would’ve been easier if he’d caused Steve trouble, but he hasn’t.”
“I’m so fucking sorry I can’t make your job easy. Don’t make me do it for you, or we’ll end up with two HR Managers, and we wouldn’t want that, would we, Kurt?”
“No, Douglas,” Kurt replied, getting out of his chair.
Wes Bracken sounded agitated. “Douglas, she was on Channel Sixteen’s morning show, saying she’s going to expose a prominent businessman’s double life. They’ve also been advertising Monday night’s Your Family Today non-stop.”
