Simone Kirsch 02 - Rubdown

by Leigh Redhead

  No way was I getting out my wallet. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Bitch.’ The one behind tugged at my bag.

  I spun around. ‘Get off!’ I was angry at the little twerps but I was also scared. Visions of blood filled syringes danced in front of my eyes.

  ‘Hey!’ Over the road a squat woman in widow’s black waddled out of the corner store, waving a straw broom. ‘Leave the lady alone.’

  They turned to her. ‘Fuck off, you old cunt.’

  ‘I call the police on you. I do it!’

  They lost interest in me and crossed the road to her. She shuffled back inside and locked the door. I figured she’d be okay and hurried down the block until I came to the number Sean had given me. It was an empty commercial space that had sold re-conditioned fridges and washing machines, according to the sign.

  The door was chained and a pile of junk mail and free community newspapers mouldered on the step. A cobbled lane ran down the side of the building and when I checked it out I found a rusted spiral staircase that led to a flat over the shop. I checked to make sure the junkies weren’t following but they were leaning against the old woman’s store, smoking cigarettes.

  The steps wobbled and my boots made a tonging sound as I climbed. When I got to the top I could see roofs, aerials, and the high walls of Victoria Park football stadium. To my right Johnston Street bisected Yarra Bend Park, where the muddy river meandered past reserves and ovals. That band of green was all that separated Abbotsford from the exclusive suburbs of Hawthorn and Kew.

  Wherever you were in Melbourne, the riffraff were never far away.

  I raised my hand, knocked once and the door swung in a couple of inches.

  Not good. Really not good.

  Had I been a cool American PI I would simply have unholstered my gun, held it to my chest, and entered the flat sliding my back along the wall. Unfortunately the most dangerous thing I carried in my handbag was a plastic bottle of Mt Franklin spring water, so I stuck my ear in the gap, stayed very still and listened. Nothing.

  I pushed the door open, slow and quiet, and entered a hallway.

  The carpet was old and the floral wallpaper outdated, but it was otherwise neat. I rested my head against the wall, trying to pick up sounds or vibrations. There was no movement or noise. So why was I scared?

  Soon as I asked, an image of Lulu dead, bloody and staring flashed into my mind. Jeez, I had to get a grip. I crept down the hall and peeked into a tiny laminex kitchen.

  Christ. Someone had turned the place over, wrenched cupboard doors off hinges and shattered crockery all over the floor.

  A packet of Nutrigrain appeared to have exploded and the old gas stove was lying on its side. The lounge room was the same.

  Shredded couch, broken lamp, shelf overturned and the white tiled bathroom was a mess of spilt shampoo and broken glass. Further down the hall I saw two closed doors. I opened the one at the end of the hallway first and let out a breath when I realised it led to a dusty flight of wooden stairs.

  The final door had to be to Lulu’s bedroom. I turned the handle slowly, steeling myself for the worst. Surveying the room, I gradually unclenched my fist, dragging the nails out of my palm.

  Thank god. Sure, the place was trashed, but there was no body. No dead, staring eyes.

  I picked my way past an upended ballerina jewellery box, torn clothes and disembowelled stuffed toys. The white canopy bed was in pieces, the mattress propped against the wall and razored open.

  Same with the broderie anglaise doona. A matching vanity was tipped over, drawers emptied. Posters of Britney, Beyoncé and even Blaine Wade were crumpled on the floor. My eyes watered from a broken bottle of Christian Dior’s Poison and I wondered what someone had been looking for and whether or not they’d found it.

  Had there been a struggle? Impossible to tell, but I hadn’t seen any blood. I was thinking Lulu had probably packed up and left before this happened until I saw the cosmetic case. It was the same one she’d had at the Good Times Club and all her pots and pencils were spilled on the floor.

  Would Lulu, who always had a face full of immaculately applied makeup, have gone anywhere, voluntarily, without it?

  Hell, I wouldn’t have, and I didn’t use half the gunk she did.

  I was turning to leave when I heard the soft but unmistakable creak of someone sneaking up the wooden stairs.

  Chapter Twenty

  I froze among the wreckage of Lulu’s room. Perhaps it had been the old wood, settling or something.

  Then I heard it again. Creak. Shuffle. My shoulders tightened until they were up against my ears. I had to get out of this room without making a sound and then run to the front door. Unless of course someone was creeping up the spiral staircase at the same time, in which case I was royally fucked.

  As I tiptoed through slaughtered teddies and broken glass the cheery, positive, ‘I Can Sing a Rainbow’ part of my brain tried to suggest it was Lulu coming up the stairs. The instinctive, pre-historic sector that hung out at the base of my skull disagreed, and was telling me to run like hell. I was almost at the doorway when my foot tapped the jewellery box, flipped it upright and the ballerina started spinning to the brittle strains of ‘Fur Elise’. Shit.

  Heavy boots shook the stairs. No more creeping. I grabbed the doorframe and propelled myself into the hall, glanced back once and almost shat myself. A massive figure hulked at the top of the wooden stairs in black motorcycle leathers and a full face helmet. Balaclava guy, no doubt.

  I sprinted off and he thundered up the hall behind me.

  Halfway through the front door he grabbed my forearm and spun me round. I pulled the door towards me then slammed it into his head. His helmet cushioned the blow but its weight threw him off balance for a second and he loosened his grip. I jerked away and flew down the stairs, three at a time, with him clanging right behind.

  In the laneway I felt a searing pain as he grabbed hold of my ponytail. I surged forward and felt my scalp burn as hairs were torn out from their roots. I ran onto Johnston Street, saw a police car across the road and darted through traffic towards it. Two uniformed cops had the junkies against a wall, patting them down for drugs, and I barrelled straight into the coppers, turning back, pointing to—nothing. There was no one there.

  Back at Sean’s I pulled the Stoli from the freezer, filled a tumbler and forced half of it down. I found one Marlboro in a crumpled pack and took about a minute to light it. My hand was shaking so much the matches kept going out.

  The nicotine and alcohol worked. They usually did. My limbs stopped quivering and I could feel the blood slowdown in my veins.

  I leaned my elbows on the kitchen counter and rested my forehead in my hands. That was it. I was through with this case.

  I’d add up the hours and give Vincent back the difference.

  By now I was convinced there was more to Tamara Wade’s death than suicide, but was it worth dying for? No goddamn way.

  I knew instinctively that the guy in the motorbike helmet was the same one who’d worn the balaclava. Was it Craig Annis?

  I hoped so. After Wednesday Sean would have busted the lot of them and that would be the end of that. If it wasn’t Craig, then hell, maybe I’d have to move house, or go up to Sydney to stay with my mum until the whole thing had blown over. Her hassling me about finishing my degree and getting a nice, safe teaching job was a small price to pay for staying alive.

  I touched my scalp where he’d ripped the hair out and my fingers were speckled with tiny drops of blood. I was staring at them when Sean walked in.

  ‘What’s up?’ He hung his keys on a hook by the door and tilted his head.

  I held up my fingers. ‘Balaclava guy attacked me at Lulu’s. I only just got away.’

  He came over and hugged me, which made me a bit teary, but I blinked the tears back. He loosened my ponytail gently and lifted up the hair to inspect the damage.

  ‘Bald patch about the size of a ten cent piece. I’ll get some antiseptic cream.’ H
e came back from the bathroom with Savlon and dabbed it on while I held my hair up. The sting flared, then subsided.

  I told him everything that had happened and he asked whether I’d informed the cops I’d run into.

  ‘No, I just apologised and walked away. I think they reckoned I was high on something. I thought if they got my name they’d arrest me.’

  Sean shook his head and poured himself a drink. ‘I checked the system. Wade’s lodged a complaint about your conduct but it’s not like there’s a warrant out for your arrest, SWAT teams hunting you down.’

  ‘Good. But I’m through with this case. That’s the end. I’m going to let Vincent know tomorrow.’

  ‘I’d be the last person to tell you how to run your life, but I have to say I’m relieved.’ He took off his jacket and hung it on the wooden coat rack by the door, dug around in the pocket and took out his mobile phone. ‘I’ll call through a missing persons report for Lulu. Get someone round to check her place out.’

  While Sean made his phone call I had a shower to wash off the cold sweat and as the warm water streamed down my body I felt most of the fear and tension wash away. I hadn’t realised how wound up I’d been until I decided to drop the case. Now my shoulders felt light and my neck was loose. I had a twinge of guilt over not finishing what I’d started, but Jesus, you had to know where to draw the line.

  I dried off, changed into jeans and the green top that made my eyes look really blue, and put on a bit of makeup entirely for Sean’s benefit. I knew a very good way to rid myself of any residual tension. Maybe tonight I would ask him to dance.

  Sean sat on the couch, Julie London on the stereo, taking dope from the mull bowl and packing it into his brass pipe. I refilled my drink and sat cross-legged on the floor on the other side of the coffee table. ‘Aren’t you worried about getting drug tested?’

  ‘Never have been yet. Besides, I’m on leave from next Friday.’

  He lit the pipe, screwed up his face as he inhaled it in one go and held in the smoke, tipping the detritus into the ashtray.

  ‘Want one?’ He offered me the pipe, smoke leaking from his mouth.

  I shook my head. ‘Nah. First joint I ever had my mum offered me, turned me off for life. You got the raid all set up for tomorrow?’

  ‘Oh yeah. All systems go. We’re gonna bust his arse.’

  We sat in silence for a moment, listening to ‘Black Coffee’.

  I studied him, the slightly messed-up red-gold hair, intelligent eyes, perfectly shaped lips. His sleeves were rolled up, exposing the freckles on his forearms. I wanted to lick each and every one. And then there were his hands. Square palms, long fingers. They’d felt so good on my hip I wondered what they’d be like in other, more sensitive regions.

  He noticed me checking him out. ‘What?’

  ‘You have nice hands.’

  He held them up. ‘What, these old things?’

  ‘Sway ’ started playing. Seductive, hip shaking Latin rhythms.

  ‘Wanna dance?’ I smiled. I’d thought he’d give me a wicked grin, leap up and spin me round the lounge room.

  Instead he rubbed his jaw and looked away. ‘Simone, we have to talk.’

  ‘What about?’

  ‘I’m not quite sure how to say this.’ He was playing with the pipe and the mull bowl, sliding them around the coffee table, and I got a cold, sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. It was the same feeling I’d had when Kirsty Page skipped across the quadrangle and gleefully informed me that Andrew Miller had told Todd Falks to tell Sharon Mason to tell her to tell me that I was dropped.

  ‘I’m really sorry about last night,’ Sean said. ‘I invited you here to keep you safe from some fucked-up rapist and then I try and crack onto you. It was sleazy.’

  ‘No it wasn’t. I didn’t—’

  ‘No. It was wrong. I wasn’t thinking. Plus, you know, I’m leaving for Vietnam in less than two weeks and—’

  ‘Do I strike you as the sort of girl who shags someone and wakes up the next morning all clingy and thinks she’s engaged?’

  ‘No, but…’

  I narrowed my eyes. ‘Did you see Alex today?’

  ‘Briefly. Why?’

  ‘Is that why you’re having second thoughts?’

  He scratched his forehead. ‘It’s not the whole reason.’

  ‘He’s seeing Suzy. He has no claim on me.’

  ‘Alex mentioned something happened between you the other night.’

  I waved my arm and took a big slug of vodka. ‘What? A pash when I was drunk and had a head injury?’

  ‘I really value Alex’s friendship and I wouldn’t want to do anything to jeopardise it. Don’t get me wrong, you’re a terrific girl.’

  A terrific girl who was getting the right royal brush off.

  Suddenly I was in year eight and Kirsty was telling me Andrew just needed his own space. His own space? He was fourteen fucking years old.

  Bloody Alex.

  I had to save face somehow so I tossed my hair like I really didn’t give a shit. ‘Cheer up, Sean. You look like someone died. I’m cool about it. Really. I think it’s great you have such respect for Alex’s friendship. Loyalty. You don’t see that much this day and age.’ What a crock.

  He packed another pipe and looked relieved. ‘Thanks for being so understanding.’

  Julie London was singing ‘Cry Me a River’ and Sean was looking as good as only a guy who has rejected you can look.

  My phone rang and I uncrossed my legs, got up with cracking knees and retrieved it from the kitchen bench. Curtis.

  ‘Hey, Simone. Me and Chloe are at the Tankerville Hotel for a buck’s turn. I told her you were staying around the corner and she wants you to come round for a drink and watch the show. I’ve found out some interesting shit about Billy Chevelle too. Don’t have the hard copies but I could give you a rundown.’

  ‘Sure,’ I said. Curtis hung up but I kept the phone to my ear, switched it off so it wouldn’t ring and kept talking.

  ‘No, nothing really. I don’t know. Maybe. But I don’t want a late night. Not like last time.’ Then I giggled and glanced over at Sean. He was staring into space, pretending he wasn’t listening.

  ‘You’re so bad. You’re wicked. I can’t.’ I paused. ‘Alright. But only one. Two at the most. Okay, see you soon.’ I pretended to hang up and turned to Sean.

  ‘I’m going out for a bit,’ I said. ‘Don’t wait up.’

  Chapter Twenty-one

  The Tankerville was a big two storey pub painted a curious yellow-beige. It hunkered down on the corner of Nicholson and Johnston, across the road from the servo. Signs on the windows and walls advertised Tatts Pokies and twenty-four hour trading. I pushed open the glass door, avoided the blinking, cooing machines and climbed a wide, red carpeted staircase to the function room upstairs.

  About fifty men crowded around a small raised stage in the corner. The buck was on all fours and Chloe was kitted up in black latex, sitting on his back, whipping his arse with a riding crop. Curtis was off to the side, hunched over a boom box on a chair, fiddling with the volume until Nine Inch Nails’ ‘Closer’

  went from loud to distorted. He looked different somehow.

  I walked over to a thirties style bar with gilded edges and square cut mirrors and ordered a tiny bottle of Jacobs Creek sparkling from a young bartender who couldn’t stop looking at the stage. The room appeared to have been recently renovated in an attempt to restore its former grandeur, although I wasn’t sure about the fake palms and swirly red pub carpet.

  I picked up a handful of cheese cubes and cabanossi from a trestle table full of chips and dips and headed for Curtis. As I got closer I realised what it was about him. His usual crumpled flannie had been replaced by a black jacket over a chocolate V-neck sweater and someone had chopped off the hair that had shagged around his collar and artfully mussed the crown of his head with ‘product’.

  I sidled up and spoke into his ear. ‘Stylin’.’

  He b
lushed and we moved to the back of the room to talk, Curtis keeping a protective eye on Chloe and me talking through a mouthful of cheese.

  ‘Chloe took me shopping,’ he admitted. ‘Melbourne people are so well dressed. Even the crims were more fashionable than me. You want to hear what I found out?’

  ‘I have to be honest with you, Curtis. I’m not on the case anymore.’

  ‘But I got such good dirt on Chevelle.’

  ‘Yeah, like what?’ I was still curious about the guy.

  ‘Oh, you wouldn’t care since you’re not on the case.’

  ‘Give it up, Curtis.’

  Chloe unzipped her black minidress and circled it around her head a few times before throwing it in our direction. Curtis swooped down and picked it up, beating a couple of others to the prize. She sat the buck down on a chair, straddled him and rubbed her studded bra in his face, waving to me over his shoulder.

  I waved back.

  ‘Billy Chevelle and Emery Wade went to school together in the sixties at Annerley College in Brighton,’ he said. 'They weren’t friends, though. Wade was a rich footy star and Chevelle, then known as William Kronk, was on a music scholarship. You know much about Chevelle?’

  ‘Enlighten me.’

  ‘Talented pianist and songwriter who also happened to be able to hold a tune. Got his break on “New Faces” in the early seventies and became Little Billy Chevelle. First album was a big hit, but his second one flopped. He was still doing sixties sha la la I love you songs and the rest of Australia was getting into AccaDacca and Skyhooks, you know?’

  Well, I’d heard.

  ‘Anyhow, he spent the next twenty years playing around RSLs, frittering away the fortune he’d made from his first record on cocaine and divorce payouts. Had a last stab at a comeback in nineteen eighty-eight when he wrote a musical about Ned Kelly.

  Thought he’d make it big, since it was the Bicentennial and all, and bankrolled most of the production himself. When it sunk he lost everything. Declared bankrupt in eighty-nine. Not long after he was arrested for assaulting his third wife but she dropped the charges.’