Not long after, Wesley pressed the buzzer. Chloe went downstairs first and Aurora turned to me at the front door: ‘Mick asked me to give you this.’ She handed me a present shaped like a CD, crudely wrapped in old Christmas paper. ‘I don’t blame you if you don’t want anything to do with him but for what it’s worth, he’s sorry.’
I opened the package when she left. It was the Lucinda Williams CD.
I tipped out the dregs of my champagne, brewed some more coffee and fried up bacon and eggs, no toast. I sat at the dining table and scarfed down my first meal in forty-eight hours while playing back the answering machine tape. There were messages from reporters, a couple from Mick and Aurora, one from Alex in the hospital, and the last from Tony Torcasio, asking me to call. I pushed my plate away and dialed his number.
‘A1 Investigations.’
‘Tony, it’s Simone. Do I still get the job?’
‘Simone Kirsch,’ he said slowly, ‘the one who was obviously absent from class the day I taught everyone that it’s not worth risking your life for twenty bucks an hour.’
‘I risked it for free.’
He sighed. ‘You’ve got balls, I’ll give you that. Even though you’re not right in the head.’
‘True.’
‘And you can’t take direction.’
‘I can work on that.’
‘And you lied about being a stripper.’
‘By omission.’
He was silent.
‘You’re right,’ I said, ‘I lied.’
Another pause. I screwed up my face. Please, please, please let him give me another chance. Then I heard the smile in his voice.
‘Famous PI like you, all over the news, might be a bit boring at my little agency.’
‘Boring’s good, I love boring.’
‘I suppose you could still be useful for the odd bit of surveillance, long as you don’t wear those sparkly swimmers.’
‘I live for surveillance,’ I said. ‘And I can piss in a funnel, I did it following Farquhar.’
Tony laughed. ‘That’s all I ask of my investigators, the ability to piss in a funnel.’
‘So I’ve still got the job?’
‘It’s just a bit of subcontractor work but, yes, it’s yours if you want it.’
‘Thanks, Tony. You won’t regret this.’
‘Just keep out of trouble till then.’
At that point I thought it was entirely possible.
Chloe got home at seven, drunk and hyped up from doing the show, a bag of McDonald’s in her hand. She went straight to the bowl and started mulling up.
‘How’d it go?’ I asked.
‘Great. I was freaking because we didn’t have anything choreographed but it went fine. Aurora’s very good at eating pussy.’
‘Really?’
‘Yep, and she’s got this wicked tatt, I want to get one just like it.’
Chloe had one, a Playboy bunny on her arse.
‘Aurora doesn’t have any tattoos,’ I said.
‘Ever been up close to her snatch?’
‘No.’
‘That’s where it is. Just to the side of her pubes.’
Chloe showed me the exact location by pulling down her capri pants and pointing to the edge of her neat racing stripe. ‘If you stopped waxing it would be totally hidden.
If you ever wanted to stop waxing.’ She shuddered at the thought.
‘What’s it of?’
‘It’s hard to explain. It’s like this ancient chick, with wings and snakes and a whip.’
My face felt hot and my stomach twisted. It was the exact same tattoo Mick had. ‘Did she say what it meant?’
I asked.
Chloe sucked back on the bong, the water bubbled and smoke escaped her mouth as she spoke. ‘It means passion.’
Chapter Thirty-one
The next day Chloe went home to get ready for filming and I visited the hospital. First I slipped into the old lady’s room and dropped off her stuff, then I saw Alex.
He was propped up on pillows, bandaged around the chest and left shoulder, and had tubes coming out of his arm. His eyes were glassy and he smiled when he saw me.
‘Hey.’
I kissed him on the cheek. He still smelled good, even swabbed in disinfectant.
‘How you doing?’ I asked.
‘Fine,’ his voice slurred. ‘Feelin’ no pain.’
‘No wonder,’ I said. ‘Your pupils are totally pinned.
What have they got you on?’
He laughed. ‘I dunno, but whenever I want more I just push this little button.’ He demonstrated and his eyelids fluttered closed.
I’d wanted to talk about the Parisi murder but I wasn’t going to get any sense out of Detective Morphine. Oh well, I could at least have fun watching a big macho control freak all helpless in bed, off his mind on painkillers.
He opened his eyes. ‘You shoulda told me about your friend,’ he said, ‘but thass OK. I forgive you.’
‘Thanks,’ I said, looking him over. On the part of his torso not covered by bandage he had a chest rug Sean Connery would’ve been proud of. ‘You’re a hairy son of a bitch, aren’t you?’
‘Whaddaya expect? I’m a wog.’
I reached over and stroked the hair.
‘Lower,’ he growled.
I gasped and held my hand to my chest. ‘Detective Christakos, what’s gotten into you?’
‘Too much time with nothing else to think about.’
‘Don’t you have a nurse to give you sponge baths?’
I inquired sweetly.
‘Male nurse!’
‘Oh dear.’
There was a knock at the door and Detective McCullers came in, clutching an oversized white teddy bear with a red bow. She pulled up a bit short when she saw me and we nodded hello. Alex seemed happy to see her and started singing, badly.
‘Suzy! Suzy Q. Woo! I love you.’
Me and McCullers looked at each other and raised our eyebrows.
‘Less have a party,’ Alex said. ‘You know I had a dream about the two of you the other night. One of those dreams.’ He winked and McCullers’ eyebrows shot up so far I thought they’d fly off her head.
‘Detective McCullers,’ I said, ‘can I speak to you outside?’
She nodded, relieved, and set the bear down on a chair.
‘Seeya, Alex.’ I waved.
‘Aw, come back, don’t be like that,’ he said.
She closed the door on him. Out in the corridor nurses padded past in cushioned shoes.
‘Sorry about Detective Christakos.’ McCullers blushed.
‘He’s on some strong medication.’
‘I wanted to ask about the Parisi murder,’ I said. ‘Are Homicide sure Farquhar did it?’
‘Pretty much.’
‘Do they know why he killed Frank?’
‘I doubt anyone will ever know exactly what was going on in his head. But the general consensus is Farquhar demanded more money from Parisi, who then threatened to report him to Ethical Standards. Threat of exposure seems to have been the thing that motivated him to murder.’
‘Like that prostitute in the eighties?’
She nodded. I continued.
‘I just think it’s weird that Farquhar used a knife, when you guys found a whole stash of unregistered guns in his storage unit. I mean, a knife, that’s messy, personal, heat of the moment stuff.’
‘So you’re an FBI profiler as well as a stripper and an inquiry agent.’ McCullers crossed her arms. I ignored her comment.
‘And why would he keep the knife in his house.
Under his bed?’
‘He was going to plant it.’
‘But why keep it there? That’s just stupid.’
McCullers sighed, exasperated. ‘The public doesn’t seem to realise that most criminals are not evil geniuses.
They get caught precisely because they are stupid. And arrogant. The case is closed. Give it up, Simone.’
But I couldn’t g
ive it up. I went home and stewed about it and looked through my notebook. What I knew didn’t square up with the facts. Why would Frank Parisi go anywhere with Dick Farquhar? Where did Farquhar tie him up and kill him? How did Farquhar get Frank into the water?
I went over my notes until the words were swimming in front of my eyes. I was obsessing over it. But the alternative was obsessing over Mick and Aurora and their shared tattoo. Had they had a fling and celebrated it with a mutual tatt? Why had neither of them mentioned it? I told myself I shouldn’t care. I wasn’t seeing Mick anymore, and it was none of my business who he was screwing before we took up. But I did care—a lot.
Chapter Thirty-two
Chloe turned up at two-thirty wearing cut-off denim shorts and carrying plastic shopping bags full of munchies and cheap champagne. I asked how the filming had gone the day before.
‘It was so much fun.’ She sat on the lounge and put the bags down with a clink. ‘We did a re-enactment on a boat down at the marina, an interview at the studio and then got some footage of me dancing at the Red. The sound guy sat in as a lap dance customer.’
‘Jim didn’t mind?’ I asked.
‘Are you kidding? Free advertising. After the shoot me and the crew went to the pub. Man those guys can put away some piss.’
I didn’t ask what happened after the pub had closed.
‘So you’ll be infamous by Monday night.’
‘Yep.’ She pulled out a tiny plastic bag. ‘Bit of Louie before we go?’ Speed.
‘Nah. I’m starting with Torcasio next week. Better stay on the right side of the law.’
‘Suit yourself. Get hideously pissed. Throw up. I’ll be too busy talking some poor bastard into a corner to hold your hair off your face.’ Chloe went into the kitchen and poured Coca-Cola into a glass. She grabbed a teaspoon, scooped some speed out of the bag and stirred it into the drink, then licked the spoon and drank the coke in one go.
‘More lamb for me then.’ I took a lunchbox and a wooden salad bowl out of the fridge. The lamb cutlets were marinating in a mixture of Dijon mustard and chopped rosemary and the salad was Greek with Dodoni feta, kalamata olives and a sprinkle of fresh oregano.
Chloe had a party pack of Twisties, a jumbo box of Chicken-in-a-Biscuit and a quarter ounce of weed.
We caught a taxi to Prahran. The speed was kicking in and Chloe wiggled around in her seat, asking the driver if she could smoke and he could turn up the music.
I watched Punt Road slide by, feeling nervous inside.
I had to see Mick again, not to mention a whole bunch of people I’d lied to and deceived. And I wanted to find out about the tattoo, but couldn’t think of a way to bring it up without sounding like a jealous bitch.
The front door was open and we trekked through to the large back yard. Girls from the club and members of the band sat in the sun, drinking and listening to James Brown from speakers facing out the back door. Some had come with children and partners and the kids ran around in circles, screaming, just like at any normal suburban barbecue. Well what had I expected? It was just weird seeing everyone in the daylight, unnatural almost.
I did a quick scan and couldn’t spot Mick. His Ute hadn’t been out the front—maybe he’d already gone back to New South Wales.
Aurora and Betty stood by the barbie. It was a big Beefmeister, old and weathered with a rusted plate and rotted wood. The laminex kitchen table was full of salads and supermarket packets of sausages and chops.
Aurora waved us over.
‘We brought food.’ I held up my bowl.
‘Simone brought food, I brought Chicken-in-a-Biscuit,’ said Chloe. We put our stuff down on the table and Aurora kissed us and thanked us for coming. She handed us plastic cups filled with champagne.
I studied Betty from behind my sunnies. She wore fifties film star sunglasses, red with diamantes at the sides, and a rose printed halterneck dress with a full skirt. She looked thin and pale but otherwise all right. No blood streaming from her nasal passages, no convulsing on the ground.
Betty smiled. ‘If it isn’t the Agatha Christie of the stripping scene.’
She may have been insulting me but I decided to take it as a compliment.
‘I love your dress,’ I said. It was true.
‘A friend of mine got it for me from a vintage clothing store in LA.’
Well well. We were actually having a normal conversation. The day was looking up. If I could get on with Betty then everyone else was a cinch.
Chloe held up her clinking plastic bag. ‘Where can I stick these bottles?’
‘The fridge is pretty full,’ said Aurora, ‘but Johnny and Mick will be back soon with some ice.’ She looked at me when she mentioned Mick’s name and I kept my face neutral and pretended to be interested in the overgrown pumpkin patch by the back fence.
‘Well,’ said Betty, ‘I’ve had enough of being straight.
Who’s for a line?’
Aurora shook her head. ‘Later.’
‘No thanks,’ I said.
Chloe smiled. ‘Why the fuck not. I’ve got some Lou and some smoke.’ They linked arms.
‘Speed is such a gutter drug,’ said Betty as they headed towards the house.
‘Well la-di-fucking-da. You don’t have to have any.’
My cup was empty so I grabbed one of Chloe’s bottles and began unwrapping the foil.
‘When do you leave?’ I asked Aurora.
‘I fly out tomorrow afternoon.’
‘Soon.’
‘Yeah. Actually I was packing and there’s a whole bunch of books I was just going to throw out. You’re welcome to them if you want. I’d give them to Betty but she doesn’t read anything written after nineteen fifty-nine. There’s some true crime, a novel by Hanif Kureishi, and a great book on evolutionary biology.’
‘Sure, that’d be great.’ I popped the cork and Aurora waved to Jim and Flame, standing at the back door. He wore baggy shorts and had skinny white legs and she was practically unrecognisable in jeans and trainers, a baseball cap hiding her red curls. Even in flat shoes she had a good couple of inches over her boyfriend.
Aurora went over and hugged them. They both had the bewildered look of nocturnal animals, removed from their burrow in the middle of the day.
I stood alone by the table, feeling awkward. I wished I had a cigarette but they were in Chloe’s bag.
Dakota approached me, a little blond girl hanging on to her hand.
‘Hi, Vivien,’ she said. ‘I heard what happened. How you going?’
‘I’m all right.’
‘This is my daughter Tahnee.’
The girl grabbed on to her mother’s miniskirt.
‘Tahnee, say hello to Vivien.’
I crouched down. ‘Hi, how old are you?’
‘Thwee.’ She hid her face against Dakota’s leg.
‘She’s shy,’ Dakota explained. ‘Not like her ma.’
She refilled her plastic glass with champagne. ‘You know I wanted to apologise for being nasty the last time I saw you.’
‘You were nasty?’ I vaguely remembered one time at the club when she had acted a little weird.
‘I feel really bad. It was after Sexpo. Ebony told me you were a private detective and I just thought you were, like, lying to us all, spying on us, so that’s why, you know.
But now I know about Sal kidnapping Chloe, well, I can see you were doing it for the right reasons. So, like, yeah, I’m sorry.’
‘That’s OK.’ God, how could I have been so naive as to think it wouldn’t have got all over Sexpo? I wondered who else had known I was investigating the murder. And when. I turned my gaze to the house where Aurora was talking animatedly to Jim and Flame. Johnny squeezed past them carrying two bags of ice, wearing frayed shorts, a Hawaiian shirt and lipstick.
‘We come bearing ale,’ he announced theatrically.
Mick was right behind, a case of Coopers on each shoulder, the sunlight hitting him. How was it that Mick always seemed to get himself lit
just so? On stage, in broad daylight, he seemed to catch the light and reflect it. I became aware of a voice in my ear.
‘. . . to the club?’ Dakota was talking to me.
‘Sorry, what?’
‘Are you coming back to the club?’
‘No. I’ve actually got some real life detective work coming up.’ I tried to focus on her but it was difficult.
‘How exciting. I should get you to check out my ex. He says he’s not working, to get out of paying maintenance, but I reckon he’s getting cash in hand.’
‘Can I have a cigarette?’ I could see Mick out of the corner of my eye, breaking down the bags and pouring the ice into a concrete laundry tub. He ripped open a carton and arranged stubbies in the ice. Dakota handed me a Horizon and lit it while Mick grabbed a beer and held the bottle to his forehead. He leaned back against the peeling weatherboard wall, twisted the cap off the bottle and looked directly at me as he drank. I felt an electric jolt in my chest and groin.
‘Hi, Vivien.’ It was Jim, grinning behind opaque black Raybans. His short-sleeved navy shirt showed off his jail tattoos and he stuck out his hand and I shook it.
‘Congratulations,’ he said.
‘What for?’
‘You’ve become a bit of a celebrity around town.’
I wondered what part of town exactly. ‘Shucks,’ I said.
‘You know I’m in negotiation to buy the Red from Sal’s wife,’ he said, ‘so if you ever need a job . . .’ He ripped a bourbon can from a four-pack and wandered off to talk to some dancers. I looked around, trying to avoid Mick’s gaze. The place was really filling up. At least thirty people stood around drinking, some more kids had arrived and a couple of dogs chased each other around. Johnny had started blackening steaks on the Beefmeister and the music was louder, faster, some kind of neo-rockabilly. Half the Red had turned up, as well as the rest of the band and their assorted hangers-on.
‘Vivien!’ Anais crossed the yard in pinstriped pants and a tight black singlet, the outline of her nipple rings visible. She threw a container of falafels and tabouli on the table and hugged me. ‘Way to go, knocking off that pig Farquhar.’
‘I didn’t exactly—’
‘Anais!’ Chloe bounded into the yard like an overexcited puppy and jumped on her so that they both tumbled to the grass, squealing. Chloe was going off today, and who could blame her? Stuck on a boat for two weeks. I wished I could have shared her enthusiasm but I felt kind of flat. Mick had disappeared from the laundry tub and I took the rest of the champagne over. I shoved the bottles in the ice, my fingers smarting from the cold, wiped my hands on the back of my jeans and went inside to the toilet. All that cheap champagne. When I left the loo I heard music coming from down the hall, Mick’s room. I took a deep breath and walked to his door. It was open and Mick sat on the bed playing his guitar along to a Johnny Cash record, a cigarette hanging out of his mouth. He put the guitar down when he saw me.
Simone Kirsch 01 - Peepshow Page 19
