Simone Kirsch 03 - Cherry Pie

by Leigh Redhead

  ‘Shoot.’

  She repeated the number.

  ‘Thanks. Look, even though I’m searching for Andi I’m still available for shows. What you got this weekend?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’ve already got dancers booked.’

  ‘What about a last minute, or if someone calls in sick?’

  ‘Got three girls on standby already. Oh, hang on, there is one spot I haven’t filled. You want it?’

  ‘Shit yeah, what is—’

  ‘Jelly wrestling.’ Her smug tone infuriated me and I slammed down the phone. What the fuck was her problem?

  Why was everyone being so mean?

  I rang Patsy and he answered straight away.

  ‘Despite the debacle of the other night I’m still investigating Andi’s disappearance,’ I told him. ‘I know Yasmin and Trip don’t want to speak to me about her but I was wondering if you would.’

  ‘Of course, darl. I’m so worried. Anything to help.’

  My shoulders loosened and my chest expanded. Finally.

  ‘Thank you so much. And you won’t mention this to anyone else at Jouissance?’

  ‘I won’t if you won’t. Yasmin’d fire my arse. I’m just on my way to the gym, but why don’t we meet after, say, one?’

  ‘Sure, where?’

  ‘Lobby at the St Kilda Sea Baths Fitness Centre.’

  ‘See you then.’

  I became aware of a chemical, burning smell. Shit. The omelette. I pulled the pan out to find the top a blackened mess of blisters, swollen and bursting, like buboes from the plague.

  I chucked the pan on the side of the sink, let it cool and then dug out a bit with my fingernails. It was probably highly carcinogenic, but the bubonic cheese tasted great.

  The Sea Baths were sandwiched between the beach and Jacka Boulevard, opposite the Espy. The big white Esplanade hotel had been built at the turn of the century and if a pub was a person she’d be one of those old women you meet in bars, with the dyed hair and drawn-on face, wearing leopard skin and drinking a martini, once glamorous and beautiful, now ravaged and only just keeping it together. Exactly how I imagined myself at seventy. The Espy held a lot of memories for me. It was where I’d seen Doug Mansfield and the Dust Devils for the first time, picked up one of the best roots of my life, and been kicked out for an impromptu striptease at the tail end of a drinking binge. Not all on the same night. At least I’d have stories to tell when it was my turn for animal print and gin.

  The baths, also alabaster and grand, had been built around the same time as the pub. They’d fallen into disrepair and had been done up a few years back. Now the complex had a state of the art gym and a new pool, and restaurants and cafés sprouted round the perimeter like mushrooms at the base of a tree.

  I entered the foyer and sat opposite the reception desk, looking around. It was ritzy alright, everything shiny and new, and you had to flash your membership to the door bitch before he’d let you up the stairs to the gym. I picked up a brochure on the table beside the designer couch but it didn’t mention the cost. I guess you couldn’t afford it if you had to ask. I imagined annual fees would cover ten years’ membership at my no frills fitness centre with enough left over for a couple of weeks at a Thai spa. The patrons coming and going were better looking here too. No sagging singlets, no back hair and definitely no guys in those awful nylon running shorts that ballooned so you could see their jocks, if they were wearing any. Just lots of tight, tanned, polished flesh.

  Speaking of which, I spotted Patsy trotting down the stairs in immaculate tracksuit bottoms and a tight white t-shirt that hugged his segmented chest and straining biceps. His thick black hair was brushed back off his tanned face, his eyebrows were better than mine and I could just picture him in a tiny red G-string and fireman’s helmet, six pack undulating as he bucked a hose suggestively between his legs. He waved, exchanged a few words with the buff dude at the front desk and approached, offering his hand. It was warm and slightly damp from the shower and he smelled sweet and musky. I recognised the upmarket deodorant my brother modelled for. The ads always cracked me up: Jasper draped limply over an expensive couch, his shirt open, pouting and making bedroom eyes.

  Patsy suggested one of the cafés downstairs and we ended up under an orange canvas umbrella at a wooden table outside, him ordering a protein shake and me a beetroot, carrot and apple juice. Although it was a week day people were everywhere, eating, drinking, strolling the promenade. First day of warmth and sunshine and Melbourne goes gaga.

  ‘Nice gym. Expensive?’ I asked.

  ‘Shit yeah. But I train people there in the mornings so I use it for free. My tips are good but not that good!’

  ‘Must keep you busy. Training and Jouissance.’ Small talk.

  Since I had no cop-like powers of persuasion it helped loosen witnesses up.

  ‘Sure does. I have to tell you though, I’ve had it with waiting tables. All the yes sir, no sir shit. I’ve been a waiter for, god, too long and I want to get out of it for good. I’m saving to set up a lunch place in the CBD. Kind of like fast food but really healthy—low carb, low fat, low GI, you know? I go into town and you can’t get anything that’s not on bread. I mean, all I want is a fucking chicken breast!’

  I held up my hand. ‘You’re preaching to the converted. Sounds great. I’d be there in a shot.’

  The waiter, a blonde in tight faded denim and an orange t-shirt to match the brolly, set down our drinks. We both watched his arse as he left.

  ‘Anyway,’ he said, ‘I’m seriously thinking of taking Chloe up on her offer. I need some extra money.’

  ‘You’d make it. Male strippers get paid more than females.’

  ‘Why’s that?’

  ‘Maybe ’cause there’re fewer around. Supply and demand?

  Maybe it’s danger money. Male audiences are mostly well behaved, they know the rules. Women tend to go a bit mental.

  Kind of attack the guy, scratching with their nails, grabbing for his bits.’

  ‘Really?’ Patsy’s eyes went wide and he paled some under his tan. He changed the subject for me. ‘So what did you want to know?’

  ‘Anything you can tell me about Andi. Everything you can tell me about the staff party, since that’s the last place she was seen. Any gossip you can dredge up. I want it all.’

  ‘Gossip, huh?’ Patsy grinned wickedly. The cute waiter was on his way past with a couple of Turkish pizzas for the next table. Patsy flagged him down. ‘Oh, fuck it.’ He touched my arm. ‘I’m having a Corona. Want one?’

  ‘I’ll pass.’

  ‘I try to be good ninety percent of the time so I can be naughty the rest,’ he said. ‘Everything in moderation.’

  ‘I don’t know what the word means. I’m an all or nothing kind of girl.’

  ‘Star sign?’

  ‘Scorpio.’

  He nodded sagely. ‘So’s my ex. I know all about you people.’

  His beer arrived and he pushed a slice of lemon in the top. Sunlight glinted off the bottle. I really wanted one, but then I’d want another, which would lead to champagne, whiskey, seeing a band, snogging some random guitar player, and then it’d be morning and my brains would feel like they were spilling out of my head as I extricated myself from underneath aforementioned random guitar player’s hairy arm, sick with guilt after cheating on Sean. I knew myself too well.

  Patsy swigged his beer and wiped his lips with the back of his hand. ‘Andi’s great. I really miss her. Your friend Chloe reminds me of her, actually.’

  My eyes must have been bugging out of my head ’cause he quickly said, ‘Not physically or anything. But for all her feminine wiles, Chloe’s a tomboy, am I right?’

  I nodded. Underneath the big tits and blonde hair I sometimes thought she was just a flannelette wearing, bong smokin’, fifteen year old boy.

  ‘Andi was too. When I first got a look at her I thought she was so sweet and innocent with those big brown eyes pe
eping out from under that short fringe, but boy, was I wrong. She could come up with some filthy stuff, and believe me, I’m not easily shocked. I’ll never forget the night she explained the definition of pugwash. Gross!’

  I decided not to ask. ‘Tell me about the staff party.’

  ‘Oh god.’ Patsy slumped back in his wooden chair, cradling his beer. ‘I was slaughtered. I drank so much, you know how you do when it’s all free? It was the shots that did me in. And someone slipped me an eccy but it didn’t straighten me out much. I was too far gone.’

  ‘Remember anything?’

  ‘Bits and pieces. It was our first night back at work after the young chef awards had been announced. We closed the restaurant and hung at the bar, just staff, couple of regular customers, a few friends of Trip. Lots of booze. Some drugs.

  Jesus, there was even karaoke.’

  ‘How twisted.’

  ‘I know! It was a wild night. Andi had a bit of coke. All of us did. She was talking to Dillon most of the night. You know when you’re on drugs and you get stuck in this really intense rave with one person, like, for hours?’

  ‘Yep. Were they good friends?’

  ‘Yeah. She was the only one who could stand to listen to him go on about his fucking short film.’ Patsy rolled his eyes.

  ‘Anyway, I danced on some tables—gosh, I would make a good stripper, wouldn’t I? Then Dillon’s wife Holly came in, looked none too happy to see him boozing on and dragged him out of there.’

  ‘He doesn’t seem the type to be married, let alone under the thumb. What’s all that about?’

  Patsy rubbed his fingers together. ‘Her folks have a lot of money. Sam Doyle, the other owner? He’s her stepdad.’

  I sat up in my chair. I didn’t know what the information meant exactly, but was sure it was significant. Patsy was on a roll so he didn’t notice my change in posture.

  ‘I think Dillon’s hanging around to get his hands on it. Gonna need a motza if he wants to try his luck in the States. He’s gorgeous enough to make it though, isn’t he?’

  Far as I was concerned, Dillon’s good looks had disintegrated when I saw how he treated the ‘little people’. But I just nodded.

  Patsy sighed. ‘I was so in love with him when I first met him.’

  ‘But he likes girls.’

  ‘Likes himself more, actually.’ Patsy tipped the last of the beer down his throat.

  ‘Meow.’ I curled up my fingers and scratched the air.

  He laughed and signalled for another Corona. ‘You did say you wanted gossip, honey. Where was I? Okay, after Dillon left Andi turned her attentions on Trip. Which was very weird as she was one of the few females I saw that never fell for his charms. We used to take the piss out of Trip, not to his face of course. Andi always said she couldn’t stand people who took themselves too seriously. I agreed.’

  ‘So she wouldn’t have liked Yasmin then?’

  ‘Oh no. And Yasmin didn’t like her. But Yasmin is the type who doesn’t like other women, if you know what I mean.’

  ‘What’s the story with her and Trip?’

  Patsy’s second beer arrived and he popped the lemon in the neck and sucked the juice off his fingers. ‘He knocked her over about a month after she started. It normally doesn’t take him that long but she knew what she was doing—he likes the chase. Then he promoted her to restaurant manager. Talk about sleeping your way to the top! Every night after service they have a knock off shag. Quite the libido, our Trip, and apparently he’s mad keen on the old bondage stuff. They used to do it in the office but now they’ve taken to using the ladies toilets. Thrill of discovery puts a little spice back in, perhaps.

  Of course they don’t live together and Trip still roots anything that moves. She puts up with it, just, ’cause she likes getting in the social pages. Thinks it’ll help her modelling career. What career? One tampon ad and some promotional work for the spring racing carnival does not a modelling career make.’

  ‘You are such a bitch,’ I said, impressed.

  ‘You love it.’ He took another big swig.

  ‘So Andi started flirting with Trip?’

  ‘I could hardly believe it myself. Of course she was on a bit of the Bolivian and we all know how frisky that gets a person.

  And despite being an arsehole Trip is a very attractive guy, especially next to that awful piggy Gordon and all those pimply apprentices, right?’

  ‘How’d Yasmin take Andi’s flirting?’

  ‘If looks could kill! Of course that didn’t work so she just sort of adhered herself to Trip like a limpet on a rock. It was so funny. Andi on one side, Yasmin on the other. Then Andi upped the ante by sitting on his lap! If Yasmin had been a cartoon there would have been steam bursting out her ears and a squiggly little black cloud above her head. I think I passed out not long after that.’

  ‘Can you keep a secret?’

  ‘Probably doesn’t sound like it, does it?’

  ‘Trip and Yasmin said Andi left by the front door and went off towards home that night. But I have a witness who saw her leave the back way, with the two of them. I’m just wondering where they were going and why they’d lie about it?’

  Patsy sat back and looked into the middle distance, pondering, a blank look on his face. Then his eyes widened, his mouth fell open and he slapped his forehead. You could practically see the light bulb flick on above his head.

  ‘Oh my god, I just had a flashback. From the party. Seriously. I can’t believe I forgot. It’s too fabulous.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It must have been just before I passed out. Andi was on Trip’s lap, right, then she slid off to stagger to the loos. Yasmin followed and in my fucked-up brain I thought they were going off to have more coke and I wanted some, even though I was so far gone it wouldn’t have done me any good. I opened the first door, but not the second, so I could hear them and they couldn’t see me. You would not believe what they were talking about.’

  ‘What?’ I was leaning forward now.

  ‘It was hilarious. Yasmin was negotiating with Andi. Said something like she knew Trip was after a threesome, and she’d do it, but it was strictly a one-off and she wasn’t eating any pussy.

  Then she said that Andi had better not go falling in love with him, and that if she ever told anyone she’d fire her arse.’ Patsy shook his head. ‘I can’t believe I forgot that. I must have been really fried. I remember giggling silently at the door, thinking, this is just too funny, and I was gonna run back in and tell everyone, but the next thing I knew it was four am and someone was hustling me into a cab.’

  ‘Andi went back to Trip’s for a three-way?’

  ‘I think so.’

  Like hell she did. She was looking for something and needed an excuse to get into his place. It sounded like just the sort of crazy plan I would have come up with, when I was drinking to excess.

  ‘Is there anything … suspect, going on at Jouissance?’

  Patsy laughed. ‘It’s a restaurant. Of course there’s dodgy shit happening. The scams I’ve seen in my time …’

  ‘Anything in particular?’

  ‘In my long and illustrious career I’ve made it my business to turn a blind eye. If I have to be a waiter I wanna work in a three hat place with big tips, not Luigi’s spaghetti emporium with a whole bunch of backpackers.’

  I tried to think of where to go next. I knew Yasmin would never talk to me so I said, ‘If I wanted to run into Trip, you know, by accident, where would be a good place to do it?’

  ‘He goes to this heavy metal bar in the city a lot. Chrome Lounge. But you’ll have to wait a few days. He’s just gone to Sydney to film an episode of Chef of Steel at Food Expo tomorrow night.’

  ‘Think Dillon would talk to me?’

  ‘If his wife didn’t catch him. I can give you his number and address, but don’t tell him you got it from me.’

  ‘Thanks. What about the sous chef, Gordon?’

  ‘What do you want to talk to that prick
for? Andi never had anything to do with him.’

  I shrugged. I thought Gordon might know about Trip’s scam, but I didn’t tell Patsy that. ‘Just trying to be thorough.’

  ‘You can catch him at Greasy Joe’s on Acland Street most days before work. Goes a burger and fries with the lot. The calories … I shudder to think.’

  On the way out I paid for the drinks. Well, Joy did.

  Chapter Seventeen

  As I drove along Beaconsfield Parade I thought about what Patsy had told me. Did his information square with my theory that Andi got busted snooping into Trip’s dodgy deals? From the conversation in the toilet it sure didn’t sound like Yasmin was onto her, but maybe Yasmin wasn’t savvy to the cash deliveries anyway. Hang on, she was the manager. How could she not be? And what about Trip? Was he pushing for a threesome so he could satisfy his depraved lust before disposing of Andi? If so, how come she still had her phone? None of it made sense and my brain felt like it was about to leak out of my ears.

  Dillon lived in Bridport Street, Albert Park. I could have just called him like I’d done with Patsy, but I had the feeling he wouldn’t be quite so eager to speak to me and I’d be better off fronting up. Harder for people to weasel out of talking when you’re face to face.

  Dillon’s house was a double fronted Victorian bungalow of immaculate cream brick trimmed in tasteful slate blue from its front door to its neat picket fence. Rose bushes sprouted from a tidy strip of grass in the narrow front yard and lined up in an orderly fashion, off-white blooms matching the brickwork.

  I was no property expert but I’d seen the inserts fall out of the local paper and figured, what with the location, you’d be talking at least six hundred thou, enough to make a bayside real estate agent squirt saliva. Not bad for an out of work actor and a stay at home mum. I rang the doorbell.

  ‘Dillon? Simone Kirsch.’ I stuck out my hand and he took it, but his perfect forehead crinkled and two hollows appeared under his already razor sharp cheekbones. I quickly weighed up how to play it. After posing as Kezza I knew more about him than he did about me and I reckoned a bit of non-threatening ditz would go down well, especially as he must already have thought I was an incompetent idiot after the display Chloe and I put on. I immediately giggled and tilted my head to the side.