Cherry Pie (13 page)

‘Andi was too. When I first got a look at her I thought she was so sweet and innocent with those big brown eyes peeping 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.

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.

‘Remember me? I was at Jouissance the other night looking for Andi? God, what a disaster that turned out to be!

Anyway, her mum hired me so I’m just going around and, like, talking to everyone who knew her. Do you think you could spare a couple of minutes?’ I looked over his shoulder.

No sign of the wife.

The frown relaxed a smidge. ‘I’m pretty busy …’

I decided to throw a bit of ego massage into the mix.

‘Sure, no worries, I can come back later if you like, but can I ask you something before I go? This might sound crazy, but are you an actor?’

He stood up a little straighter, flipped his hair out of his eyes and the corners of his mouth twitched. ‘Yeah.’

I did a little bounce. ‘Oh man, I knew it! Me and Chloe were arguing about it the other night. I said you were on
Secret Life of Us
and she insisted it was
Blue Heelers
.’

‘Both.’

‘Ohmigod that’s so cool. What you working on now?’

‘A short film I wrote, directed and starred in. I’m actually editing it at the moment.’ He pointed his thumb over his shoulder, toward the back of the house.

‘I love short films! You gonna enter it in Tropfest?’

‘Uh-huh.’

‘Fantastic.’ I gave him a starry eyed gaze, then made a show of snapping out of it and looking at my notebook. ‘Is there a time I could come back tomorrow?’

Dillon glanced from his watch to me. ‘I could talk to you now, I guess, if you don’t mind sitting in while I edit. I’m on a tight schedule, want to lay down the soundtrack before work.’

‘No, that’d be awesome. I’d love to have a peek!’

Dillon opened the door wide and put his finger to his lips, inclining his head toward one of the bedrooms, and I tiptoed inside and looked through the half open door into a nursery containing a large white cot, padded change table and a mobile of bunny rabbits hanging from the ceiling. Stuffed bears, lambs and tufty-tailed tigers stared beady eyed from their lair atop a chest of drawers, and the room smelled of wet wipes, powder and the not entirely unpleasant aroma of regurgitated milk. I spotted the kid mercifully asleep under a lemon yellow crocheted blanket, mouth open, one fat fist flung above its head.

‘Gorgeous,’ I cooed, recognising it was cute, much like Dillon was handsome, and that they both left me cold. ‘Girl or boy? How old?’

‘Boy. Eddie. He’s, um, eight months?’

He took off down a wide hall and I followed, treading lightly on floorboards of polished Baltic pine. When we entered the lounge I revised my initial estimate and added a couple of hundred thousand to the value of the house. The massive living room opened into a designer kitchen, and was furnished with expensive looking items—wide grey couches, a matching rug, and some brown cylindrical vase things with twigs and spiky grass poking out. There was no mess or clutter and the only personal touches were a large painting hovering on the wall above the plasma TV and framed photographs on a mantelpiece.

‘Eddie’s a cool name.’ I wandered over to take a closer look at the photos while Dillon walked into the kitchen.

‘It’s short for Edwin. After Holly’s real dad.’

‘He must be flattered.’

‘He’s dead.’

‘Oh, sorry.’

Dillon shrugged. ‘I never met him, died when Holly was a kid. I’m having a coffee, want one?’

‘Sure.’

He retrieved a tin from an enormous silver fridge and fiddled around with a stainless steel coffee maker that gleamed under the downlights.

Most of the photos were cheesy eight by ten studio shots of Dillon and the rest were of the baby and the three of them as a family. No one else. I checked Holly out closely as I hadn’t got much of a look at her when she’d stormed into Jouissance.

She was shorter than Dillon, a little wide in the hips and had dark brown hair that curled forward under her ears in a mumsy bob. A thin patina of freckles floated just under the surface of the skin on her pale, round face. She was attractive, sure, but nowhere near Dillon’s league, and I wondered if that’s why she was so possessive. Perhaps she had to contend with hot chicks throwing themselves at him all the time, actresses and drunk girls like Chloe hanging around his bar. Although I had to admit Dillon hadn’t struck me as that much of a slut. I picked up a curiously asexual vibe from him and his flirting with Chloe had seemed more of an act, as though he were channelling Tom Cruise in
Cocktail
, than a serious attempt at cracking on.