Erotic Amusements (9 page)

“Rocky warned you off him?”

Flipp thought that she might have said too much. There was a glint in Jeremy’s eye, and he’d picked up that tidbit like a dog snatching a bone between its jaws. He wasn’t going to let go, by the look of him. And anyway, he looked nothing like the kind of person Rocky would be friends with. He had floppy hair and gold-rimmed spectacles and looked as if he might enjoy a game of croquet.

“Well, you know, not in so many words,” she mumbled, looking away.

“But Rocky works for him? Cordwainer? So I could contact him via the arcade, perhaps?”

“I could tell him you were looking for him,” Flipp asserted, unprepared to offer anything more in the way of favours. “What was your name again? Jeremy what?”

“Oh, it doesn’t matter. I’ll catch up with him myself, I’m sure. So you and Rocky haven’t been together long? He
is
your boyfriend, is he?”

Flipp had no idea how to answer this and the barrage of questions was starting to make her feel hot and uncomfortable.

“You tell me,” she said, hostility spilling from behind her guard. “You seem to know all about it.”

“Flipp. Oh, don’t be like that. Stay and finish your drink.”

For she was on her feet now, looking around for an easy route to the door.

“Sit down, please do. I won’t talk about Rocky anymore if it upsets you, I promise. But you must finish your drink. Come on. Sit with me a little while longer and I’ll fill you in on the hot spots of Goldsands—the places to be and the places to avoid. Do you like live music?”

“Yes.” Flipp reseated herself with some reluctance. “Are there any venues here?”

“Well, apart from the Pavilion, which just does musicals and rock-and-roll tribute shows, there are quite a few pubs that host live bands. The Fairhaven used to be the best, but it’s changed hands recently and I think the new owner is going down the sports bar route. The Queens is excellent though—near the station. And if you like a bit of old-style jazz and blues, there’s the Showboat.”

They eased then into a conversation about musical tastes and favourite artists.

“You’re not such a rocker as Rocky, then?” Jeremy enquired slyly after a long paean to various postpunk and new wave acts that had left Flipp a little breathless.

“We aren’t joined at the hip.”

“No, of course not. Just that at school he was renowned for his air guitar stylings. Shame he couldn’t sing or play a note.”

Flipp chuckled. “I bet he can dance, though.” She thought straightaway that she would have to get him to a club where they could shimmy hips at each other to a sweating, pounding beat under flashing lights. She imagined the damp hair hanging in his eyes, the T-shirt clinging to his back, the well-muscled arms reaching out for her.

“I don’t know. I don’t remember him dancing. You’ll have to try and instil a bit of culture into Rocky perhaps.”

“What was he like at school?” she asked, finally relaxed enough to let her curiosity off the leash.

“Very much as you’d expect. A rebel. A bit of a loner. Quite bright, I think, but liked to hide it. Only used his brains to come up with new and epic ways to subvert the orthodoxy.”

“He strikes me as cleverer than he likes to make out.”

“Yeah. I don’t think he bothered to turn up for his GCSEs though. And there were always stories about his dad. He was a bit legendary in Goldsands, mostly for lots of the wrong reasons. Boozer, fighter, general all-round badass, you know.”

“I didn’t,” Flipp commented thoughtfully, trying to fit her image of Rocky around this new information. A bad boy from a bad home. A messed-up kid, kicking against the pricks. Easy prey for a man like Cordwainer, if he really was as ruthless as Rocky implied. “Poor Rocky. Was he popular? With the girls?”

“No, not really. He grew into his looks—at school he was gangly and awkward and all nose and hair. Quite spotty too. He was on the periphery of various groups but didn’t seem to have particular friends.”

“So you weren’t his particular friend but you want to find him. Why?”

Jeremy smiled tightly, seemingly annoyed with himself about something. As if in response to a silent plea for help, a couple of women suddenly crowded the back of his chair, one of them ruffling his hair.

“Jezzy baby,” she cooed. “Come and say hello. It’s Fi from Ad Sales’s birthday and she’s getting the round in.”

“Oh right.” He flicked a glance rapidly between Flipp and the other women. “I’ll be over in a sec.”

“Is he interviewing you, love?” the second woman asked Flipp. She laughed raunchily. “You want to watch him. They call him the Griller. He’ll lull you into a false sense of security then drop in a couple of killer questions and next thing you know, you’re the talk of the town.”

“Interview?” Flipp wrinkled her nose, regarding Jeremy quizzically.

“You’ll be on the front page of the
Gazette
tomorrow.” The woman nodded with mock gravity.

Flipp stood, bristling and icy-eyed. “The
Gazette
? You’re a reporter?”

Jeremy spread his palms, trying to look apologetic. “I’m interested in Rocky. We really were at school together.”

“Whatever dirt you’re digging, you won’t get anything from me,” Flipp said. She stalked off, noticing the murderous glare Jeremy was treating his two unmaskers to on her way to the door.

Outside, it was late now, and the funfair lights were off. Beyond the pier, only blue-black darkness was visible, accompanied by the gentle lapping sound of the waves. Farther down the Esplanade, drunken singing and the screams of teenage girls chased Flipp all the way back to her bedsit where she lay long on her unmade bed, wondering who the man—to whom she had given her body and heart so willingly—really was.

Once she was seated on the pier bench, looking out to the salty sea and squealing seagulls, Laura took the little plastic bag of chopped onion out of her handbag, opened it and peered inside for as long as she could bear.

It was true what they said about onions, she noted, snapping the bag shut and gazing into her mirror compact at red streaming eyes. They really did make you cry. She hoped she’d managed to make herself look distressed enough without having to endure a reddened nose. She always wanted to slap crying girls and tell them they were ruining their looks. They could at least wear waterproof mascara if they insisted on blubbing everywhere. She let the tears run down her cheeks until they glistened, two perfect dewdrops on the peachiest part of the skin, then she replaced the mirror compact with a balled-up tissue and strode purposefully into Caesar’s Palace.

Flipp wished she had a mobile phone. How much less tedious her long stints in the change booth would be with the enhancement of sex texts from Rocky, or perhaps an inappropriate voice mail or two. Right now she would kill to hear that whiskey-over-gravel voice in her ear again. But Rocky had not been in the arcade that afternoon, and she supposed she shouldn’t be accessible by telephone anyway. The plan was to stay incommunicado, and she knew how important it was to stick to the plan.

She blinked at the clearly distressed young woman who approached her—a shining vision flanked by blaring one-armed-bandit attendants. Not the usual class of customer, Flipp noted. Well-dressed, healthy hair, good skin—what was she doing in here? And why was she crying?

“Can I help you, love?” she asked, working hard to keep the usual indifference in her tone.

“Has Rocky been here?” the girl asked, with an unnerving shudder of her shoulders.

“Rocky?” Flipp continued to feign bored ignorance despite the sudden sensation of a knife twisting in her chest. “Dunno, love. What do you want him for?”

The girl’s face pressed close to the Perspex and Flipp felt a surge of jealousy at the modelesque perfection of it. She felt quite sure that she didn’t want competition of this calibre for Rocky’s attentions, if competition she represented.

“The same reason everyone does,” she sobbed.

Flipp, nonplussed, simply watched her visitor emote for a few moments before taking pity on her—or succumbing to her curiosity—and inviting her into the small area behind the screen.

“Don’t cry,” she said helplessly, offering a tissue. The girl scorned Flipp’s gesture, reaching for her own fine cotton handkerchief instead, but she rewarded her with a tiny smile.

“Thanks. Sorry. You must be wondering what the hell’s going on. I don’t suppose you get a lot of weeping girls in here.”

“Nah. Mainly drunk teenage boys in back to front baseball caps. You’re a refreshing change, actually. Are you okay, then? Do you need…Rocky…urgently?”

“Depends what you call urgent. I’ve had a bit of a shock. I need to talk to him about it…but he probably won’t want to know.”

“Is he…are you…some relation of his?”

There was a bark of laughter, devoid of mirth. “In a way. You could say that…now. The mother of a man’s child is a relation of his, isn’t she?”

Flipp’s fist closed on the tissue, balling it up at lightning speed.

“His
child
?”

“Unborn.”

“Oh. Right. Yeah. That’d be a shock.”
And not just for you
. “I can put the kettle on if you want.”

“Oh yes, why not? Tea solves all problems, doesn’t it? Except it doesn’t. Especially the kind of problem that hangs around your neck like a millstone for eighteen years eating your time and money.”

“Babies aren’t all bad, are they? You might…want it. Or if you don’t…” She left the implication unspoken.

“I know all that. I know. But I won’t let him get away with what he’s done to me scot-free. I want him to know and I want him to pay. I’m not joining the other mothers of all the Rocky Junior bastards he’s fathered around town, moaning about maintenance at the school gates. I’m going to make damn sure he acknowledges this and accepts his responsibility.”

“Rocky Juniors? Are there many?” Flipp’s dismay was trickling down her spine like cold gravy. She felt sick.

“He’s like a one-man stud farm, darling. What’s your name, by the way?”

“Flipp.”

“Well, Flipp, I don’t know if Rocky has turned his devilish charms on to you yet, but believe me, he will. And when he does, don’t get caught out like me. Run for the hills. Run before you can’t move because he’s got you knocked up too. Get right away from him.”

Flipp was still not sure she recognised the heartless lothario being painted for her nonedification. She fidgeted with her bangles for a minute, trying to decide if it would be heartless to get rid of this unwanted visitor as soon as she humanly could.

“I don’t really know him, love,” she opened guardedly, but the girl hissed in her face, almost spitting the words.

“Don’t really know him. You’re fucking him, darling. How is that not really knowing him?”

Flipp, senses on alert, pressed herself against the back of the booth, preparing to strike if necessary. “What the fuck do you know about my sex life? Sorry, I didn’t catch your name.”

“You don’t need to know who I am. But you do need to know that Rocky is off-limits. Do you get me? Do you, Flipp, or whatever your name is? Eh?”

“Get out of here.” Flipp flung the little door at the side of the booth open and began to manhandle the other girl out of it, with considerable difficulty given her adversary’s stature. Coins were swept from the counter and hair pulled, then there was screaming and struggling that rose above the endless unmusical music and boom-boom of the arcade.

“Laura.”

The bundle of combined hair and teeth paused midwhirlwind, staring madly at the black leather apparition that stood glowering at them.

“What the fuck is going on?”

“Ask her.” Laura spat. “Ask your floozy.”

“I don’t know what you mean, but I think you’d better leave, don’t you?”

“She just came at me,” Flipp blurted, still shaking from the shock of it. “She says she’s pregnant.”

Laura held Rocky’s consternated gaze, level and fiery eyed.

“Yeah,” he said after a beat. “Well, call me cynical, but I think you’ll need to show me the test before I go out shopping for prams.”

“You’ll see,” said Laura, wild-eyed.

“Right. Here’s a tenner. Get down to the chemist and buy a test. And I want to watch you pee on the stick.”

Laura hesitated for a moment, then made a sound of inarticulate disgust and flew off, knocking Rocky’s shoulder in her haste to vacate the scene.

“You know she was lying, don’t you?” he asked urgently, stepping forward, bending down to Flipp’s draggled figure in the booth doorway.

“Who is she?”

“Nobody. Nothing.” Rocky, noticing a tear in Flipp’s lacy vest top, put a finger over the hole, the gloved pad of it cool against her scratched skin. He looked down at it, his breath held, his eyes in a place of distant trouble that looked as if it contained fighting and smoke, then he looked up at her and the sheer heat of it made Flipp tremble all the more. Unconsciously she moved towards him, pressing the finger farther into her flesh, her whole body wanting to be on his.

“Better…go upstairs. Can’t have Cordwainer guessing anything.”

Rocky swallowed and pulled himself away, walking swiftly to the office door without a backwards glance.

Laura slammed the tears out of her eyes with the heel of a hand, leaning over the pier railings to breathe in huge lungfuls of fresh sea air, hoping they would replace the sick feeling in her stomach—a sick feeling that had nothing to do with the impending joys of motherhood.

Staring at her shoes—the red slingbacks from Office—she became gradually aware of somebody behind her, then beside her, then a hand on the rail beside hers.

“Are you okay? Feeling faint?”

It was a man’s voice, vaguely familiar. Laura tried to quell her irritation at the unwanted company and muttered, “No’m fine, thanks.”

She took one last gasp of saline oxygen, straightened up, wiped her brow and looked at the speaker.

“Oh, you,” she said. “You’re…I’ve met you before, don’t tell me…you work for the
Gazette.
”

“Yes,” he said, clearly pleased to have a coveted spot in the golden girl’s memory. “Jeremy Weill. I interviewed you when you won the Carnival Queen vote.”

“That’s right. Jeremy.” She smiled in recollection of past glories. “You asked the most dreadfully bland questions of all time. Favourite nail polish. Did I have any pets? What were my ambitions?”

“Carnival Queen interviews aren’t meant to stir controversy.” Jeremy smiled back. “But I can do a no-holds-barred confessional now, if you like.”

Laura managed a laugh, her fury at Flipp and Rocky simmering down to a low boil. “Not sure about confessional,” she said. “But no publicity is bad publicity. Perhaps a periodic feature about my adventures in the modelling business—would you be interested?”

“There’s a thought. Could be interesting—glamour, showbiz, something to hook the younger readers. I’ll pitch it to my editor if you like. Tell you what, it’s…six-thirty now. Have you eaten? Can I buy you dinner? If you’re free, of course.”

Laura looked over at Caesar’s Palace, at its garish frontage and battered paintwork. She didn’t belong there. She was better than that.

“Why not?” She smiled charmingly and took Jeremy’s proffered arm.

Over spaghetti alle vongole in a backstreet Italian place, Jeremy steered the subject, with some difficulty, away from Laura’s incessant self-promotional chatter and asked, “So, about that confessional. Are you secretly addicted to penny fountains?”

“No.” She laughed, puzzling over the Chianti glass.

“Fruit machines? Bike simulators?”

She caught his drift and looked away for a split second, gathering her wits.

“Of course not,” she said coolly.

“So what were you doing at Caesar’s Palace? It’s like bumping into the queen down at Poundstretcher.”

Laura, softened by the flattering comparison, let her guard back down.

“I was looking for Daddy. He does some business with Mr. Cordwainer sometimes.”

“Oh really? He’s a builder, though, isn’t he?”

“He owns a building company,” Laura corrected frostily. “The biggest one in the county, as I’m sure you know.”

“Sorry. Yes, I do know that.” Laura liked the way Jeremy put his head to one side and hid behind his eyelashes, like a schoolboy caught out in a misdemeanour. He was in awe of her. She liked that. And he was handsome too. Bonus points. “Is he building something for Cordwainer, then? More arcades?”

“Who’s a good little cub reporter, then,” trilled Laura, touching the tip of his shoe under the table with her stockinged toes. “You’re up to something, aren’t you, Jeremy?”

“I’m just taking an interest in my surroundings,” Jeremy said. Laura thought he had practised that innocent look in front of a mirror. It went so nicely with his enthusiastic response to her invitation to the footsie dance. “It’s my job to notice things, so I can’t really stop myself, even when I’m off duty.”

“I bet you’re never off duty.” Laura’s foot nudged his calf.

“I see things.” Jeremy’s breathing was a little laboured now. “And I just want to know what’s behind them. Like earlier on…I saw Rocky Anderson go into Caesar’s Palace…and then I saw you come out…looking upset…and it makes me wonder…”

Laura’s foot jammed its way between Jeremy’s thighs and landed firmly on the bulge in his trousers. A little too firmly, causing him to yelp a little and spill some wine.

“What’s your angle?” she asked harshly. “You’d better tell me what this is all about, sonny boy, or I’ll have you tied to the tracks right at the top of the Dive of Doom before you can say ‘investigative journalism.’ Oh. You like it when I play tough.” Suddenly the mound beneath her foot was like iron. She pushed at it, feeling for some give, enjoying the expression of ecstatic consternation on Jeremy’s face.

“I want to know about Rocky Anderson,” he blurted. “There are rumours. I keep hearing the same names mentioned. Cordwainer and his cronies. And Anderson is his heavy, isn’t he? His enforcer?”

“His goon,” said Laura disdainfully. “Go on. What sort of rumours?”

“Insider dealing. Gambling. Vice and drugs. All that.”

“In Goldsands?” Laura feigned wide-eyed shock before shooting Jeremy a teaser of a smile. “Seriously, you want to mess with Cordwainer? I wouldn’t if I were you.”

“Why not?”

Laura sat back, her gaze roving over the rumpled, slightly agitated but handsomely patrician brow of Jeremy Weill.

“Come home with me and I’ll give you a few pointers,” she said.

“I’ll get the bill.”

The Trewin residence lurked in leafy splendour near the edge of Goldsands’s least eroded cliff, its acres of garden ending abruptly at the chalk and limestone drop, but not before a pool, a croquet lawn and a tennis court with a view had impressed the visitor.

Jeremy was not treated to a tour of the extensive grounds on this occasion, however, finding himself bundled unceremoniously through the spacious lobby and up the stairs to Laura’s domain—a suite of rooms gathered around a terrace at the rear of the building, far from her father’s bedroom on the other side of the house.

“Daddy doesn’t forbid male visitors,” she explained in a low mutter, pushing him into a generous sitting room. “But he doesn’t like me to rub his nose in it. I’m still his little girl, you see. His little princess, winning Pony Club rosettes.” She smiled, rolling her eyes a little.

Jeremy refrained from countering with,
And he’s still your daddy. Despite his dodgy dealings in the seediest underbelly Goldsands has to offer.

Instead he sat himself down on a cream leather couch and looked through the picture window to the cliffs and the dark, dark sea beyond.

“Don’t you win Pony Club rosettes anymore?” he asked.

She turned around from the drinks she was mixing them and smirked.

“The glittering trophies I have my eyes on aren’t for dressage,” she said. “Not anymore.”