Rubdown (24 page)

I had another vodka while I waited for a cab, and when it arrived I directed the driver to take me to the Greyhound. I could have a drink, walk up Carlisle, then maybe head to the Espy.

The driver took me down Royal Parade and onto Peel Street past the Queen Victoria Markets. I had taken little bottles of booze from the mini bar—scotch, bourbon, gin—and I drank them on the way.

Further on, the rain turned Kingsway into a blurred mess of tail-lights, trams and late model cars. How anyone could afford a forty thousand dollar vehicle was beyond me. And a house?

I couldn’t work out how straight people did it. And what was a straight life like anyway? I imagined it would entail barbecues in the back yard of a brick veneer, everyone standing around drinking Fosters and discussing real estate values.

I flashed to a fat husband in a polo shirt and deck shoes, holding court around the Beefmaster. I saw two tow-headed kids screaming, their nostrils encrusted in snot, and me with a Doris Day haircut, wearing a frilly apron and pulling a White Wings cake out of a shiny new oven. I shuddered.

The cabbie dropped me on the corner of Carlisle and Brighton Road. It was good to be back in the neighbourhood. I crossed at the lights, pushed into the public bar thick with smoke and noise, and was delighted to see my favourite band, Doug Mansfield and the Dust Devils on stage. They played songs about drinking and strippers and love gone wrong, and any pub I saw them in was instantly transformed into a beer-drenched honkytonk. The band members did a nice line in Western shirts and hats, and wore their scuffed cowboy boots well, unlike a certain washed-up pop star I knew. I ordered a whisky with a champagne chaser and leaned back on the bar to watch them. They were playing a cover of ‘The Road Goes On Forever’ and I skolled the whisky and started on the champagne. Country honkytonk. This was more like it. Fuck jazz. Fuck Sean. Fuck Alex and, what the hell, fuck Miles Davis too. I looked up expecting lightning to strike me down. Amazingly, I was spared.

I wriggled my hips to the music and could see the usual grungy dudes glance over, trying to figure out if I was there with anyone, wondering if they were drunk enough to approach. The bass player looked at me. His name was Jack and I’d flirted with him once. I winked and raised my champagne. The band played a couple of encores, finished up and Jack wandered over. He was all in black, tall, with thick dark hair and eyes somewhere between green and brown.

‘Simone, right?’

‘Good memory.’

‘Hey, I found out what you do.’

Last time I’d told him I couldn’t reveal my occupation, else I’d have to kill him. A tired old line that had seemed pretty witty after five mini bottles of champagne.

‘Oh yeah?’

‘You’re a PI.’

I shaped my hand into a gun, held it to his head.

‘Want a drink?’ he asked.

I did but the secret of successful flirting is always leave ’em wanting more. I drained my glass and slammed it down on the counter. ‘Sorry, sport. Gotta go bag me a trannie.’

The rain had stopped but a cold wind whipped down Carlisle.

Didn’t matter, the fire water was warming me from the inside out.

It had also stripped me of every last shred of shyness and I approached every working girl I saw, described Lulu and asked whether they’d seen her around. No go. I was almost at Acland Street when a plump redhead with a prominent Adam’s apple told me she might know something.

‘What’s it worth to you?’ Her voice was gruff.

I handed over a fifty and she stuffed it into her bra. ‘I haven’t seen her.’

‘Fuck’s sake.’

‘But someone else was asking after her last night. Big guy.

Body builder. Fucking prick tried to cop a feel.’

So Jurgen hadn’t found Lulu. She wasn’t dead. Thank Christ.

Maybe she’d pissed off interstate. I would have.

The McDonald’s across the road beckoned and I went inside, hung a leak and bought a large fries, squinting in the fluorescent brightness. I took the contraband out to the tram stop and sat there, shovelling greasy chips into my mouth and licking salt off my fingers. To my left was a Club X adult store, across the road Luna Park glowed under coloured lights and the roller-coaster ricketed up wooden tracks. Attractive couples walked past arm in arm, throwing their heads back and laughing like they were in an ad for expensive booze.

I felt a pang, wiped my fingers on my jeans, took my mobile from my bag and called Sean.

‘How’d it go?’ I heard noise in the background, like he was at a pub.

‘Great. We’ll have something ready to go by tomorrow afternoon.’

‘Where are you?’

‘Belgian Beer Café. Having a drink with Alex.’

‘So I’ll see you back at the hotel soon?’

‘No. Look, we might be here for a while, so don’t wait up.’

Don’t wait up. I pressed end, hard, but it was nowhere near as satisfying as slamming down a receiver. I balled up the Macca’s bag, lobbed it into a bin and made my way up the hill to the Esplanade Hotel. The bay was on my left, dark and choppy. Skinny palm trees bent in the wind. To my right the Novotel, then a mixture of thirties flats and seventies high rises.

I reached the big white pub and climbed the staircase to the front bar, smiled at the Maori bouncer and he smiled back.

Whaddaya know? Maybe my run of bad luck with the big guys was over. There were instruments on stage but no sign of the band. I sat at the bar close to the small dance floor, ordered another whisky/champagne combo and lit a cigarette.

Staring at the stage I remembered the night I’d first seen Mick Halliday up there with his Elvis sideburns, tattoos and guitar. Our two week affair had ended badly four months earlier, but I still juiced up every time I thought about the sex. So passionate and intense you thought it might kill you, but you didn’t even care.

Why was it the arseholes were always so damn good in the sack?

The band came on stage and the punters surged forward. The singer was tall and thin with shaggy hair and flared jeans. He introduced the band as the ReMains, direct from Nimbin. Not far from my old stomping ground. I hoped I wouldn’t be subjected to interminable hippy dross, but was treated to a loud dose of country rock and roll, complete with banjo and pedal steel. All right. I laid my fake fur jacket on the stool and was first on the dance floor, doing some stripping-inspired moves, all hips and hair.

I thought about Alex and Sean while I danced. Damn Alex for making Sean feel guilty. Damn Sean for being so easily manipulated. I caught the eye of a guy leaning against a pillar. Tall, checked shirt, dirty jeans. Nowhere near as good looking as Mick, but if you had your beer goggles on, which I did…

I smiled and he sauntered over and began dancing with me, not very well, but what the hell. I moved in close and rubbed my boobs on his chest, turned around, lifted my arms up and leaned back into him, pushing my arse into his crotch. He grabbed my hips and did a series of pelvic thrusts, and when I looked back I saw he was making faces at his mates in the corner. They raised their beer jugs, egging him on.

When the band played a slow song I wiped the sweat off my face and took him by the hand. ‘Let’s have a drink.’

I bought us both a can of VB and a double Jameson’s and wondered exactly how much of Vincent’s money I had left. When I slammed down the whisky in one go he looked impressed. We sat close on bar stools, smoking.

‘What’s your name?’ he asked.

‘Vivien.’ My old stripping name. Tonight I felt more Vivien than Simone.

‘Steve. Watcha doing here on your own?’

‘My boyfriend would rather be out with
his
boyfriend.’

I tipped my head back and rolled the icy can around my neck.

‘He a fag?’

‘He’s a cop.’

‘Fucken pigs.’

‘You said it.’ I clinked my can on his. ‘Guess what? I used to be a stripper.’

‘What a coincidence—I love strippers.’

The band started a fast song. The lead guy sang: ‘Sick sister wanna come with you, you make my rocking dreams come true…’

I tried to pull Steve back onto the dance floor, but he resisted.

‘Hang on, let me finish my smoke.’

I couldn’t hang on, so started moving where I was, sexy lap-dance style. I bent over in front of him, turned around and fondled my tits, put my hands on his knees, tipped forward and dangled my hair into his groin. The whole pub was watching and he looked kind of embarrassed, but I was beyond caring. I was getting that old performance high and it felt great. I slipped my t-shirt off and spun it round my head, dancing in my black lace bra. Sliding my arms around his neck, I jumped onto his lap and started grinding my hips.

A tap on my shoulder. I ignored it. A big hand pulling me off him. I turned around and the bouncer shoved my t-shirt at me.

He wasn’t smiling. ‘Okay, let’s go.’

I dug my heels into the floor, but he dragged me out by my elbow. People were laughing. One girl said, ‘Slut.’ At the bottom of the stairs I struggled into my t-shirt and eyed off the hotdogs on a roadside stand.

‘Vivien!’

Steve was jogging down the stairs with my jacket and handbag. After a couple of attempts I got my arms into the sleeves and slung the bag over my shoulder.

‘You’re fucking crazy,’ he said. ‘Let’s go back to my place.’

Out of the dark pub and under the streetlights I could see he looked nothing like Mick. His nose was too big and his eyes were too small and his lips were dry and thin. He bent down and sucked on my neck, then kissed me, his raspy tongue flitting spastically around my mouth as though it were searching for a bit of food stuck between my teeth. I jerked back and hailed a taxi over his shoulder. When it pulled up I ran and dived in, locking the door behind me.

He followed, knocked on the window, flicked the door handle and said, ‘Hey!’

I lolled on the seat, fumbling with the belt. ‘Drive,’ I said.

I was dying.

No. I was already dead and this was what it felt like to slowly decay. My eyeballs shrivelled painfully in their sockets. Blind worms burrowed through desiccated brain tissue and a decomposing tongue leaked rank fluids into my blackened mouth. It was the worst hangover I’d ever had. And that was saying something.

I opened one eye and tried to ascertain exactly where I was without moving my head. Shit, I was in my own bedroom, lying on the bed fully clothed. I even had my boots on.

The night before came back in fragments, images pulsing in time to the sickening throb in my temples. The Greyhound. The hookers. Dancing at the Espy. I hadn’t, had I? I moved my eyeballs to check out my t-shirt. It was inside out.

What kind of madwoman got half cut on vodka, spent the evening following whisky with champagne chasers and topped it all off with beer? My guts lurched just thinking about it and I raced to the bathroom, making it just in time to vomit into the toilet bowl, throat stinging, tears running down my face.

I flushed the loo and rinsed my mouth out in the sink, trying to avoid looking at the red-eyed zombie in the mirror. I couldn’t believe it. I hadn’t spewed since I was thirteen years old, underneath the community hall with a bottle of Bundy rum and a townie guy called Scrounger, who’d been intent on relieving me of my virginity—until I’d chucked up all over him.

My shaking hands fumbled with the blister pack of pain tablets.

Generic brand. Maximum codeine, minimum price. I swallowed four, stripped off, and washed myself sitting down in the bath, under the shower. I brushed my teeth, brushed my tongue and almost vomited again. When the hot water ran out I dried off, dressed in an ugly old tracksuit and wandered into the kitchen where I drank a glass of water and a cup of coffee and ate a couple of cheese singles from the pack in the fridge.

A wave of dizziness overtook me and I leaned my head on the kitchen counter until the brown spots in front of my eyes went away. This was not good. I had to call Sean, I had to get out of here and I had a terrible feeling I had to do something very important involving the police. It wasn’t going to be pretty, but there was only one way I’d be able to get through the day.

I opened the cupboard above the fridge and there, next to Chloe’s emergency bong, was a Jameson’s bottle, half full. I poured a tumbler and forced myself to sip it, hand shaking like a derro, fighting back the gag reflex with the power of my mind. Half a glass later it was starting to work. I had some water. More whisky.

I found my bag next to the bed and turned on my phone.

The message symbol was blinking. I called Sean.

‘Where the fuck have you been? I thought Van Annen had you.’

‘Got drunk. Stayed at my place.’

‘You know that’s not safe.’

‘After yesterday I didn’t think you gave a shit one way or another.’

‘I’m coming to get you. Guys from the Tactical Response Squad and Homicide are going to be here in an hour. We’re sending you in to talk to Wade this afternoon.’

I stayed on the couch, alternating water with whisky until I heard the buzzer go. I popped five Tic-Tacs in my mouth, went down-stairs and collapsed into the passenger seat of his Saab. The day was overcast, cold. Just as well, I couldn’t have dealt with sunshine and heat. Sean didn’t talk until we were stopped at the intersection where Barkly Street turned into Queen’s Parade.

‘I’m sorry about yesterday,’ he said. ‘I just felt like such an arsehole after I spoke to Alex.’

‘Well you didn’t have to take it out on me. It was awful, you made me feel like a piece of shit.’

‘Jesus, Simone, it wasn’t that bad. So you weren’t the centre of attention for five minutes. Are you that insecure?’

‘I’m not insecure. That market’s been cornered by you Virgos.’

‘Enough with the starsign bullshit.’ A van in front stopped and he hit the brakes hard. I jolted forward and almost threw up.

‘Will you just listen to me?’ he said. ‘Alex and I had a long talk last night. About you. He’s not pissed off anymore. He came to the realisation that, although he’s attracted to you, the two of you aren’t suited at all. He reckons you’re slightly crazy and he’s always thought that about me, so he actua lly said we’d be good together. He finished the night wishing us well.’