Sharp Turn (2 page)

I plopped into the brown leather armchair and cleared my throat. Time to be a businesswoman. ‘Err . . . Lloyd Honey said you wished to discuss some potential work.’

‘Aaah, Lloyd. Dear man.’ Madame Vine slipped one outrageously long, diamanté-studded fingernail between her lips and sucked on it, then removed it to stroke an equally ridiculously long eyelash. ‘He claims you have a unique ability to read situations. Is that so, Ms Sharp?’

‘Tara, please. And yes,’ I said, ‘my business is reading paralanguage and kinesics. I usually lean towards investigative jobs but I do consider other things. What did you have in mind?’

Madame Vine got up from her chair and moved around to stand directly under the air-conditioning vent. She couldn’t have been much over five feet tall and her shrewd, plump face was shiny with moisture. A red aura punctuated with blue flashes fanned her ample frame. I mentally reviewed the aura colour code Mr Hara had taught me. People with red auras tended to be materialistic and pragmatic. The brilliant turquoise flashes signified energy and influence. This woman could probably move mountains if she set her mind to it.

‘I run a superior business, Tara, and I’m always looking for ways to improve the quality of the service we give. And to be honest, the global financial crisis hasn’t been kind to the more . . . expensive establishments like us.’

I nodded encouragingly and she went on.

‘I sense some . . . problems amongst my girls but haven’t been able to get to the bottom of it.’

‘What kind of problems?’

She hesitated. ‘Someone in my employ is disgruntled. Dead animals on the doorstep, threatening text messages, that sort of thing. I wondered if you might be able to work with them for a few days, maybe a week, and see what you can learn.’

‘Work with?’
What the hell did that mean?

Madame Vine picked up a long, thin, ivory-handled envelope knife. ‘The girls get together regularly in the client lounge. I can introduce you as a new employee – that way they’ll be relaxed about your presence.’

‘Let me get this right. You’re suggesting that I pretend to be one of your . . . workers?’

She gave me a keen smile. ‘You wouldn’t need to take on any clients. Just participate in the mingling part. The remuneration would be substantial.’

I clutched my sequinned beach bag, trying to ignore the thought of my mother’s reaction if she heard about me ‘mingling’ in a brothel. My sweat snap-froze on my skin. It suddenly felt hard to breathe.

‘I-I’m not sure this is really my line of work. And frankly, Madame Vine, I’m sure your girls would see through me in a heartbeat,’ I managed to gasp out.

‘I can see my proposal has taken you by surprise. Perhaps you should think on it and we can talk again?’ she said.

I nodded and sprang up, eager to be on my way.

Madame Vine pressed her intercom. ‘Audrey. Please see Ms Sharp out.’

Audrey appeared, taking care not to trip over the fringe of the silk floor rug. Her eyebrows lifted slightly and her aura surged towards Madame Vine’s. I felt a slight snap of a mild electric shock as their energies met, before she led me out into the corridor. These two definitely had it going on.

As I passed the archway that opened into the front lounge area, I couldn’t resist a peek inside.

Two men sat at the small bar. One, his sharp-looking Zegna suit not quite hiding a middle-aged paunch, was skimming a newspaper. He glanced at me then kept on with his reading.

The other was drinking from a bottle of Coke while he pored over paperwork of some kind. And, God save me, I knew him.

My mouth fell open. ‘Whitey?’

His head jerked up, the bottle halfway to his mouth. ‘Sharp?’

It was a bit hard to know where to go from there.

I knew Greg Whitehead – Whitey – at school. After graduation he’d asked me out on a date and, to my utter disappointment, had turned out to be a horny toad. I’d avoided him ever since. But Whitey became a cop, and not so long ago he turned up to a crime scene I’d accidentally stumbled upon. Short story; long outcome. A photo of Whitey and me appeared in the local paper that made his jealous wife, June, furious.

Now it looked like Whitey had found another way to well and truly piss her off. And, as usual, I happened to be in the right place at the wrong time to see it.

‘It’s only ten in the morning! Can’t you keep your fly zipped until after lunch?’ The words fell out of my mouth before I could stop them.

Mr Zegna Suit sank further behind his newspaper.

‘Are you offering your services?’ Whitey fired back at me.

‘
Not
if you were the last shag on earth.’

Ignoring Audrey’s disapproving look, I flounced out of the front door on enough indignation to float a hot air balloon.

Chapter 2

I
PARKED
M
ONA OUTSIDE
my parents’ home on Lilac Street, Eucalyptus Grove, and stomped down the driveway to the birds’ cage, which was back in its usual spot at the front of the house. Recently, Brains and Hoo, my parents’ pink and grey galahs, had had a short holiday outside my back door when I’d been trying to protect them – and me – from a guy called Sammy Barbaro. I hadn’t done such a great job and Brains had been abducted. Fortunately, I’d found out where Barbaro lived and went right over and got her back. I also got shot at, but we’ll skip over that bit.

Hoo barrelled straight up to me, but Brains was still a bit skittish after her bird-napping and wouldn’t come unless I had food in my hand. Scrabbling in the bottom of my beach bag, I found a bit of stale pie crust and made clicking noises with my tongue to woo her over. She sidled along a branch and swiped at the crust, which crumbled and fell to the floor.

‘Serves you right,’ I told her and went back to scratching Hoo.

She didn’t like that either and bit Hoo on the foot. Much squawking and fluffing of feathers ensued.

People say galahs are as smart and selfish as three year olds. Frankly, JoBob’s – my collective name for my parents – birds were smarter than a lot of adults I’d met and their selfishness made them extremely honest pets. In galah language, Brains had just said, ‘Pay attention to me, not him!’ You can’t get much more direct than that.

I left the birds and headed down to my flat/apartment/garage where things were in their usual state of immaculate order: my entire wardrobe on the couch, laptop buried underneath somewhere, microwave door open with half a packet of popped corn inside, and a sticky fruit treat (for the birds) attracting a small army of ants on the sink. Moving back home meant my mum knew way too much about what I was doing, but at least being in a detached flat in the back garden meant I still got to be as messy as I liked.

I plopped onto my bed and buried my face in my pillow. What would Whitey tell the cops at the Euccy Grove station?
Tara Sharp’s working in a brothel
. The very thought of my mother hearing about my visit to Madame Vine made me want to run to the toilet and sit there for a day.

Mum and Dad are comfortably off, semi-retired Euccy Grove gentry. While Mum worships at the sacred altar of snobbery, Dad is her quiet backstop, preferring Foxtel to the Euccy Grove social scene. I sometimes wonder how they ever got together, then I witness their perfectly complementary rhythm: Joanna says it and Bob does it. Unless, of course, he gets really ticked off about something. Then watch out!

Unfortunately for them, they gave birth to a slightly offbeat, flaky daughter who showed an aptitude for contact sport quite early and got into frequent fights with the boys at primary school (usually, I might add, to protect my best friend, Martin Longbok). Joanna tried in vain to nurture a more ladylike and refined streak in me, but I just kept coming up with impulsive and boisterous. On top of that, I kept on growing – until I was bigger than either of them and most of the guys I knew. It was about then she gave up the battle and let me be. Well, sort of.

My phone rang. ‘Sharp.’

‘Tara?’

Every molecule in my body melted into one gooey mass. Nick Tozzi: hunky, filthy rich and
married
. Why did I keep thinking about him and wondering if he would work things out with his wife, socialite and cokehead Antonia Falk? I hadn’t spoken to him in quite a few weeks. Not since he’d brought me flowers in hospital to thank me for saving him from financial ruin and other things.

‘Yo, Tozzi.’

‘How are you?’ he enquired politely.

Words poured out of my mouth like tap water. ‘I just ran into a policeman I know in a massage parlour in Leederville. Now he’s going to tell the entire force I’m a “working” girl. It’ll get back to my mother and she’ll disown me and throw me out of home. Apart from that . . . everything’s shiny.’

‘And you were in a brothel for what reason?’ I could hear the edge of laughter in his voice.

‘Business,’ I said stiffly. ‘Now what can I do for you?’

‘I’m ringing on business as well.’ His voice sounded a bit strangled still, like he might let a guffaw slip at any moment.

‘Oh?’

‘It’s an unusual job. So I thought of you straightaway.’

‘I’m listening.’ It had to be better than Madame Vine’s offer, didn’t it?

‘I’m working from home today – what say I drop past and take you for a coffee? We can talk about it in person.’

I sat up. This sounded good and bad. Seeing Tozzi was good. Not knowing what to wear was bad. ‘How do you know I’m even free?’

‘I’ll be there in ten minutes,’ he said and hung up.

TEN MINUTES! I needed longer than that to work a miracle on my appearance, especially when I didn’t have either of my two fashion advisors on hand. My best friends Martin Longbok and Jane Smith-Evans – aka Bok and Smitty – were busy being upright citizens. Smitty was at home being a three-sprog mother, and Bok was at his office being a hot-shot magazine editor.

I checked the time. Noon. Smitty might have a window of opportunity. I called her.

‘Ya-a-s-s?’ Smitty always sounded her most la-di-dah when she was stressed.

‘It’s me.’

‘T,’ she cried. ‘Thank fucking buggery. I thought you were going to be one of the kindergarten mums.’

‘Nope. Definitely not. Problem?’

‘Yes. But I won’t bore you with it.’

‘Bore me,’ I said in my saintliest BFF manner. Eight minutes left.

‘Joe punched one of the other kindy kids and gave him a bloody snout. The mother’s been ringing me threatening legal action.’

‘Legal action!’ I shrieked. ‘That is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.’

Smitty groaned. ‘Thank God you said that. I thought I was losing it. I have to meet with the mother on Thursday.’

‘Shall I come with you?’

I was offering out of guilt not saintliness. I was the one who’d taught Joe how to punch.

I babysat Smitty’s kids when she went to Pilates, and occasionally when she and her doctor husband, Henry, had a dirty overnighter at one of the classier hotels. Champagne and Cock Night, Smitty called it, without even a flush of her expensively creamed cheeks. Anyway, babysitting was a chance for me to make sure Smitty’s kids learned some decent life skills. Some kid had been picking on Joe so I’d taught him how to defend himself. Xavier, his twin, wanted in on the action after that, and so did Claire, their gorgeous nine-year-old sister. Claire suffers from Crohn’s disease and her thin frame and constant fatigue meant she wasn’t up to punching, kicking and blocking. Instead I’d shown her the eye gouge (to be used only in case of assault, of course) and coached her in how to verbally tear shreds off bigots and bitches.