Donna Joy Usher - Chanel 02 - Goons 'n' Roses

by Donna Joy Usher

  ‘He knew that the Mob was after us. How do you think they found us this morning?’

  ‘Ohhh.’ Her eyes went wide and her mouth made a perfect circle. ‘You think he’s with them?’

  ‘It makes perfect sense. He’s the only person I told where we were going for breakfast. Plus, why else would he have been watching the Russians when Tommy Tiger went in? He didn’t seem at all surprised that the Russians tried to kill me.’

  I wanted her to defend him. I really wanted to believe that he wasn’t involved. But unfortunately there was nothing to defend. She sank back onto the other chair and sighed.

  ‘Is Mum back?’ I asked.

  ‘Not that I could tell.’

  ‘What the hell are they up to?’ I was really getting tired of worrying about her.

  ‘Do you think they got her again?’

  ‘Well they didn’t have her this morning. I’m assuming that’s why they wanted us.’

  ‘To use us as bait?’

  ‘Or hostages. I don’t understand how they knew about all of us? From the very beginning they knew where we were and who we were. It doesn’t make sense.’ I hopped up and started pacing around the room. ‘I mean, how did they even know we were coming? The only people who had all of that information were the competition organisers.’ I stopped pacing as bits and pieces started to fall together in my head. ‘Oh my.’

  ‘What is it?’ Martine asked.

  I waved a hand at her while I thought some more, unwilling to let go of my train-of-thought in case I lost it. It made sense. All of it. Right down to Billy’s involvement.

  ‘The competition,’ I said, spinning to look at Martine.

  ‘What about it?’

  I looked at her. ‘What if it were a sham?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Trent said the man that mugged Mum recognised her.’ I started pacing again as I worked my way back through the sequence of events.

  ‘But she moved to Sydney in case she’d been recognised.’

  ‘Yes, but what if he weren’t alone?’

  She stood up as well as she reached the same conclusion I had. ‘And the first man told the others about her before he tried to get her handbag.’

  ‘Or else they all saw her and he was the unlucky one that went after her.’ I stopped and ran my hands through my hair, pulling out my bun to release the pressure building at the base of my skull.

  ‘Then they follow her to Sydney and keep her under observation so they don’t spook her into running again,’ Martine said.

  ‘And they design the competition to get her back to Las Vegas.’

  ‘Because of Lou the Brain?’

  ‘Because she is the only witness to Lou the Brain’s murder.’

  ‘When was his body found?’

  I thought about it, working back through time. ‘Well Big H said the body was found about a year ago.’ Right before Mum was hit by the car. The timing was perfect.

  ‘It’s a bit expensive to bring us all out here, isn’t it?’

  ‘Small price to pay to eliminate the only witness to a crime,’ I said. ‘Besides, this is the Mob we’re talking about. It’s probably small change to them.’

  ‘So we arrive, and they already have our details.’

  ‘And what we look like,’ I said. ‘Mum had to provide them with copies of our passports and credentials to organise that immigration clearance.’

  ‘So then what happened?’

  ‘Well,’ I said, ‘we turn up and they snatch Mum, but she gets away. And then we stumble on the Russians in our search for Mum.’

  ‘How are they connected?’

  ‘I have no idea, it doesn’t make sense. They appear to be working with the Italians but then they killed Tommy. Whatever it is, I’m sure it’s the same reason they want us dead.’

  We were silent for a few moments as the seriousness of the situation settled down around us like a heavy, suffocating blanket.

  ‘We need to find Tess,’ Martine finally said.

  ‘And get out of here alive.’

  ***

  It felt weird going to The Big Blue knowing the club, or at least some of the people working there, were part of the elaborate conspiracy to kidnap Mum. My instinctual dislike of Barney Stilton made sense now. But hey, in all fairness to the man, I think my instinctual dislike of him was more to do with his natural creepiness than anything else. I certainly hadn’t taken an instant dislike to Billy.

  I waited until the girls had finished the show and were in the change rooms before I started snooping around. I had wanted to go while they were performing but if they needed me, and I wasn’t there, it would become obvious to the staff. I didn’t want anybody asking questions about my whereabouts.

  It was like the night before. All of the rooms had their lights out and doors closed except the one at the end of the corridor.

  Why did it have to be the one at the end of the corridor? Why couldn’t it be the first office? Then I could take a quick peek and get the hell out of there, instead of having to creep all the way down the hallway.

  I was planning on pretending I was looking for the toilet if I got caught, but it had sounded much more convincing when I hadn’t thought they were doing anything wrong.

  I was in quite a state by the time I made it to the room; each creak of the floor ratcheting my nerves tighter and tighter until I wanted to run screaming back the way I had come. But I didn’t. Instead, I stopped outside the room and took a few deep breaths to calm my staccato-ing heart.

  If Barney were in there – and I really hoped he wasn’t, because the thought of being alone with him was seriously creeping me out – I could always pretend that I had come out to thank him for the chance to play in his club.

  If Mum were there I was going to spank her.

  I took one last breath, which I held as I slowly put my head around the corner.

  The room was empty.

  I walked across thick carpet to the large desk I had found Mum slumped over. There was a stack of files and some loose sheets of paper lying haphazardly on its surface. The flowers had been changed since I was here last – red roses this time. I tried not to breathe in their scent as I scanned the rest of the room.

  A bookcase lined the back wall of the room, part of it covered with books and the rest with ornaments. A couple of filing cabinets and a large printer sat on the side wall.

  It looked like a normal office. But if the person who organised the dance competition was the person who killed Lou the Brain, then it was possible that this was their office. And if they had organised Mum’s kidnapping, that meant that Mickey, Riley and the late Tommy Tiger – may he rest in peace – worked for them. Which meant that whoever killed Lou the Brain was the same person who was now in charge of The Mob. Which meant…

  I looked around nervously, my eyes falling on the vase of half open blooms, and I realised I was standing in the office of the Mob’s secretive new boss.

  Was Barney Stilton The Rose? Or was there somebody else hiding behind the main players who wore that title?

  I walked to the table, lifting the files to read the names on them. Most of them looked like files for suppliers, and the pieces of paper were lists of items that needing ordering.

  It seemed like too normal a room to be an office for the Mob boss. I wasn’t sure what things I thought would constitute a Mob boss’s room. A gun rack on the wall? A dead body in the corner?

  Perhaps the events of the past few days were making me jumpy. Perhaps this was just an office for the person who ran the club.

  As I turned away from the desk I saw the corner of a piece of paper sticking out from the top drawer. I pulled on the drawer but it was locked. There was just enough paper for me to grab with the tip of my nails. I tugged on it gently, sliding it from side-to-side until finally, I had it out.

  It was a printout of a spread sheet with a list of names running down the left-hand side. Different columns denoted: date; country of origin; age; and address. The last column ha
d an amount written in it.

  I scanned my eye down the list of names. All girls. All in their late teens, early twenties. Was it an audition list? A lot of girls came to Las Vegas and clubs like this hoping to make it big.

  And then I realised I recognised two of those names.

  Melanie Taylor and Rachel Brighton. It had them listed as being 20 and 21 and staying at the Moonshadow Backpackers. The last column had $10,000 written next to each of them.

  ‘Holy shit.’ I stared at the page in disbelief.

  Melanie Taylor and Rachel Brighton had been here in January. Had they auditioned? What had happened to them afterwards?

  And then I realised, that that was the key. What had happened to them afterwards.

  I remembered Tommy Tiger arriving at the Russians’ empty-handed and leaving with a briefcase.

  They had chased us that night, and were still determined to kill us because they thought we knew something, had seen something. And we had seen something; a dungeon capable of holding multiple people for an indefinite period of time.

  My God. The Italians were selling the names and accommodation details of young, good-looking girls to the Russians. Girls far from home, with no family to protect them. Tommy had been collecting the money.

  These girls would have auditioned at heaps of bars during their time in Las Vegas. Throw some crooked cops into the equation and the probability of it ever coming back to The Big Blue was slim, if at all possible.

  Some of the girls on the list would still be in Las Vegas in seedy brothels. Drugged and restrained. Some men didn’t care about that sort of thing.

  Other girls, the particularly beautiful ones, would be sold to the highest bidder. I’m sure there were a lot of private jets that flew into Las Vegas each year. It would only take a few greased palms to get these girls onto those jets.

  All of a sudden finding Mum and getting out of there took a back seat. I had to get this information to Trent so he could do something. And if not Trent, well I had to get it to Interpol.

  I could take this list with me but if they realised it were missing they would shut the whole operation down. Those girls would never be found.

  I had to get a copy of it.

  I lifted the lid on the printer and placed the piece of paper on the copier, changing the number of copies to five. If push came to shove, surely one of those pieces of paper would make it out of Las Vegas safely.

  ‘Come on, come on,’ I said as I watched the bright strip of light slowly scan the document. It seemed to take forever for the five copies to emerge from the bowels of the machine. I was about to lift the lid when I heard the door at the far end of the corridor swing shut and footsteps heading in my direction.

  Shit. I just had enough time to grab my copies and dive into the shadow beside the far filing cabinet before Barney Stilton entered the room. I held my breath, desperately hoping my stomach wouldn’t choose that precise time to growl or do something ridiculous like that.

  He strode to the far side of the table so that his back was to me, and then he picked up the phone and punched some numbers into it.

  While he waited for it to ring he reached out and repositioned the long-stemmed roses in the vase, moving them around till he was happy with their new arrangement. Then he stiffened slightly and said, ‘I got your text.’

  The scent of the roses wafted down to me and my nose started to twitch. I squeezed it with my fingers and tried not to think about sneezing.

  ‘Where did you find her?’ He laughed and then said, ‘In her daughter’s hotel room? Surely she would have known we were watching it.’

  More silence and then he said, ‘Very well, bring her here. But not till we’ve closed.’ He slammed the phone back down and laughed gently. Then he smoothed back his hair, straightened his jacket, and left the room.

  I stayed frozen where I was for several minutes after he left, contemplating the awfulness of the phone call.

  They had Mum.

  They’d captured her again and they were bringing her here.

  10

  A Clown And An Orangutan Went Into A Bar…

  Martine and I were sitting in her hotel room, to-ing and fro-ing with different ideas. ‘We have to go to the police,’ I said. ‘There’s no other option.’

  There were other options, but none of them were good. All of them included Martine and my single-handedly busting into The Big Blue to save Mum. Considering our track record to date I couldn’t see us pulling that one off.

  ‘What about what Trent said?’

  ‘We don’t have much time. I think it’s a risk we’re going to have to take.’ The Big Blue would be closing in an hour. One of the barmaids had told me it normally took them another forty-five minutes for the staff to finish cleaning and exit the premises. That gave us at least an hour and forty-five minutes till Mum showed up.

  We caught a cab to the nearest police station.

  ‘I was wondering why the cab driver wished us luck,’ Martine said as we stared at the crowded room.

  The chairs that lined the walls were full. I was guessing by the fact that the patrons were hand-cuffed to the chairs that they wouldn’t be going anywhere for a while. Some of them appeared to have been in fights and others were rambling in the non-cohesive fashion caused by drugs or alcohol.

  We approached the desk and waited for the short policewoman to look up from the computer.

  ‘Take a number,’ she said without looking up.

  I looked around and noticed a machine near the entrance that dispensed tickets. Most of the people in the chairs were holding a small square of paper in one hand, which I was guessing was the ticket. If we had to wait for all of these people to be processed it would be too late to save Mum.

  I cleared my throat, until the woman looked up at me. I was guessing by the look on her face that she wasn’t that happy about it. ‘I want to report a kidnapping,’ I said.

  The look on her face changed from I’m-going-to-jump-over-that-desk-and-whoop-your-arse to mildly interested.

  ‘A kidnapping huh?’ she said. ‘And when exactly did this occur?’

  ‘Some time tonight. No, wait it first happened two days ago, but then she escaped and now she’s been recaptured.’

  The look on her face had hardened. ‘You know that don’t make any kind of sense.’

  ‘I know, I’m sorry. Is there anybody here we can talk to about it?’

  ‘You saying I’m not a person?’ She put her hands on her voluptuous hips and twitched her head from side-to-side.

  ‘Of course not. I meant somebody not as busy as you.’

  ‘Do you think all these dumb-arses would be handcuffed to chairs if there was somebody here not busy?’

  Oh boy, this really wasn’t going well.

  ‘Please,’ I said, tears starting to well in my eyes, ‘they’ve got my mother.’

  She stared at me for a few seconds and then let out a big huff of air. ‘Fine. I’ll see if Sergeant Turner will talk to you.’

  ‘Umm,’ I said, ‘this Sergeant Turner. Is he a few inches taller than me with strawberry blonde hair?’

  ‘That’s the one.’ She picked up the phone and dialled a number. ‘Got a couple of women here wanting to report a kidnapping.’ She listened for a few seconds and then hung up the phone and said, ‘he’ll be out in a mo.’

  ‘Thanks, we’ll wait over there,’ I said.

  ‘By the door,’ Martine added.

  We hustled back to the door and waited till the woman’s focus was fixed firmly on her notes. As soon as it was, I pulled open the door and Martine and I dashed out into the night.

  ‘What are we going to do?’ she said.

  ‘You’re gunna get in the car, that’s what.’

  I swung towards the gravelly voice and a tall man, holding a small handgun, stepped around the side of the police station. He was wearing a red suit with white and yellow polka dots and a fake nose. His shoes farted as he walked towards us.

  ‘You have got to b
e joking,’ Martine said, staring him up and down.

  ‘I might be joking but he’s not.’ He nodded in the opposite direction.

  We swivelled our heads till we could see the orangutan standing by a small, yellow and red VW. He was holding an uzi.

  ‘Why does he get the bigger gun?’ I asked.

  The man shrugged his shoulders and said, ‘He’s the better shot.’

  ‘If you think we’re coming with you then you are…’ I was about to say ‘sorely mistaken,’ but I happened to glance through the window into the police station. Sergeant Turner was talking to the lady on the front desk and she was pointing in our direction. I grabbed Martine’s arm and said, ‘absolutely right. Come on let’s go.’

  Martine looked at me and I mouthed, ‘Sergeant Turner,’ at her.

  ‘Hip hop,’ she said, ‘let’s not dither,’ and we raced the clown to his car.

  It’s a sad state of affairs when an orangutan holding an uzi appears to be the safest option.

  ***

  Martine and I squashed into the back of the brightly coloured car and waited for the clown and the ape to get in.

  ‘How fast can this baby go?’ I was watching the front door of the police station nervously.

  ‘Fast enough,’ the clown said in his raspy voice. He turned the ignition key and the car back-fired and crawled away from the curb.

  ‘Where are we going?’ Martine asked. The car was shaking from side-to-side and her voice vibrated in time to the movement.

  I couldn’t help it. I started to giggle.

  ‘Ya think this is funny?’ the clown said, gesturing his gun over his shoulder, but he leant forwards and hit a large orange button on the dash. The vibrating stopped immediately.

  ‘Is that the one that says bang?’ I asked him.

  He looked across at the orangutan in disgust. ‘You fired it? What did I say about firing it?’

  The orangutan put his hands over his ears and smacked his lips together a few times.

  ‘Don’t you go taking that attitude with me,’ the clown said.

  ‘I don’t mean to be rude,’ I said, looking at my watch. We only had one hour left till possible show time and Plan A had not come up trumps. ‘But we have no idea who you are. What do you want with us?’