Cherry Pie (2 page)

‘Uh-huh. Saw a band at Max’s Petersham Inn, turfed out

’cause you decided to stage dive, ended up at a pool hall …’

‘Totally kicking arse until we got into a fight with that bikie over the two shot rule. He chased us down Parramatta Road and we had to duck into a brothel to escape!’

‘Jesus,’ I said, ‘just as well we never hung out more. Maybe you should leave, before we get in trouble again.’

‘Nah, I’m straight now,’ Andi said, motioning for another beer. ‘Mostly. You?’

‘Except for this.’ I picked up my glass and clinked it against hers. ‘So what are you doing here?’

‘I moved to Melbourne last year. Finally got into journalism at RMIT. I’m still waitressing but I’m so fucking over it. You know I called you when I first moved down but you never got back to me.’

I vaguely remembered the message, and meaning to ring, but …

‘Sorry, I—’

‘Yeah, I was really cut.’ She frowned and stared into her beer but I knew she was just messing with me. The glint in her eye gave her away. ‘Wanna make up for it?’

‘How?’

‘I need a detective. I want to hire you for a job.’

‘You need a detective?’

‘Uh-huh.’

‘Why?’

‘Until we’ve got a contract all I can tell you is it’s to do with an article I’m working on. I need some surveillance. I’d do it myself but I’m flat out with uni and working and the people involved might recognise me. I hear you’re good at that sort of shit. Been reading about you in the paper.’

‘Ordinarily I’d jump at the chance, but I’m saving to open my own agency and what with surveillance equipment, a new car and an ad in the Yellow Pages I’m gonna need at least twenty grand. It’s footy finals this month and I’m so damn busy the only thing I’ve got time to investigate is my bikini line, for ingrown hairs. I can recommend someone for you …’

I thought of my old boss, ex-cop Tony Torcasio.

‘I’ve rung around but they’re all so expensive. I make good tips but not that good. I thought maybe you could do me a deal, sort of like …’

‘Mates’ rates? Give me a break.’

‘C’mon, Simone. We go way back. Remember when you were three and I was four and I used to pull you round the concrete yard in that little red wagon? Remember how you cried when your mum got you Tonka trucks for Christmas, and I gave you my Baby Alive?’

‘You repossessed her on Boxing Day.’

‘And wouldn’t it be a good idea to get back on the horse before you open your business? I reckon you’re sick of stripping. You seemed a little bored out there.’

And I’d thought I looked orgasmic. Stripping was funny.

When I didn’t do it I missed it. When I did it gave me the shits.

‘Is this what they teach you at journalism school? To pester someone till they give in?’

‘I call it persistence.’

‘I can’t accept the case if I don’t have a clue what it’s about.’

Andi glanced left and right, like we were dodgy Cold War spies, and whispered, ‘I reckon I’ve got something big on someone in the hospitality industry. Pretty explosive stuff.

Can only tell you on a need to know basis. Aren’t you dying to find out?’

‘Not really, but I’ll help you ’cause I feel bad about not returning your call. Maybe I can slot in the surveillance between shows.’

‘Fantastic.’ Andi skolled her beer, burped loudly and checked her watch. ‘Shit. I’ve got to get to work. Meet me tomorrow at four and all will be revealed.’ She scribbled her mobile number and an address in Elsternwick on the back of a coaster and looked at me, head tilted like a bird. ‘Your mum ever talk to you about the old days?’

‘Not really, thank god. Don’t think I could face another lecture about how it’s impossible to be a good feminist while flashing one’s gash. Why?’

‘No reason.’ She slid off her seat and clapped me on the shoulder. ‘Good seeing you, Simone.’

‘Which bit?’ I asked.

‘Jelly wrestling.’

‘What?’

‘Phoenix called in sick for jelly wrestling this arvo, could you …?’

Chloe clutched my arm and bounced up and down, boobs nearly spilling out of her white crocheted bikini top. We were on the aft deck of the River Princess, gliding underneath the Bolte Bridge, industrial wharves on our right, the shiny new high-rises of the Docklands complex on our left. This was Chloe’s first annual Footy Fever Boob Cruise and she was freaking out.

‘Babe, you know I don’t do that shit,’ I said.

‘It’s an emergency. Just this once.’

‘Uh-uh. Rolling around in a wading pool of lime jelly. It’s ridiculous. What if some future client saw me?’

‘You don’t mind people seeing you naked.’

‘Yeah, but that’s erotic. That’s art.’

‘And this is a sport. You can’t be against sport. What are you, un-Australian?’

‘Forget it. Besides, I’ve got to meet someone this afternoon for my real job.’

Chloe pulled her mobile out of her bikini bottoms, punched some numbers and talked rapidly into the phone while I stood there in my bikini and thigh high boots, shivering as the sweat cooled, finishing off my champagne and the cigarette I’d nicked. All the guys were in the cabin clustered around a big screen TV, watching the game.

‘Okay,’ she said. ‘Brandy will come and do the wrestling but you’ll have to take over her shows. There’s a half time strip over in Richmond and another in Moorabbin at the end of the game.’

‘Chloe, I—’

‘Please. If I can’t come through with the girls I get a rep for being unreliable and Chloe’s goes down the tubes. Just change your appointment. I’m that desperate I’ll even let you keep all the money. Five hundred bucks for an afternoon’s work.’

I thought about it. That was a mini spy camera, half a vehicle tracking device, a tenth of an ad in the Yellow Pages.

And I was the one doing Andi a favour. She could wait.

‘Okay. I’m in.’

Below deck I got changed and called Andi. ‘Something’s come up, I can’t make it. How about tomorrow?’

‘I have to fly to Sydney tomorrow.’

‘How about when you get back?’

‘If you don’t want to do it, just tell me.’ She sounded pissed off.

‘No, it’s just …’ We’d docked at Crown and Brandy’s driver was waiting, ready to whisk me to Richmond. Chloe was busy setting up the wading pool on the rear deck and I got a waft of synthetic lime. The guys roared as someone scored a goal. It was hard to hear. ‘Look, I’ll call you or you call me, okay?’ I couldn’t tell if she hung up on me or the connection was lost.

I had Monday off and spent it sleeping in, exercising at my gym—a no frills place above a chicken shop on Glenhuntly Road—and poring through spy equipment catalogues, circling pinhole cameras and directional mikes. I got a little restless in the evening and could have gone out, but that would have meant spending my precious business savings. I’d become the world’s biggest tightwad in the previous four months, but it hadn’t been such a bad thing. I’d saved twelve grand and my hangovers were virtually nonexistent since I could only stomach a couple of glasses of cheap four litre cask wine. And without indulging in my usual hobby of seeing bands, getting fried and flirting with guitar players, I’d even managed to stay faithful to Sean.

Sean was my boyfriend, if that’s how you referred to someone you’d spent two weeks shagging and dodging bullets with. He was also the most unlikely cop I’d ever met, a red haired, chain smoking, vodka swilling vegetarian from Scotland who loved jazz, made me laugh, danced like a dream and spoke eight languages, so was very very good with his tongue. The perfect man. Except for a Virgoan tendency to alphabetize his CD collection and go mad at me for leaving wet towels on the floor, which I was sure we could work out. He’d been on an exchange in rural Vietnam for four months, with two more to go, and I hadn’t even kissed another man. Chloe was convinced pod people had taken over my brain.

I checked my email. Ads for Viagra and penis enlargements, but nothing from him. That was okay. Internet access was a little touch and go where he was. I sent him one anyway, grabbed a couple of cheese singles and lay down on the couch to watch a Russ Meyer DVD,
Beyond the Valley of the Ultra
Vixens
. It was great seeing those babes go, and nice to live vicariously for once. I’d had enough excitement earlier in the year to last me a lifetime. Things were quiet now. I was glad.

Tuesday I went for a run by the canal, did a lunchtime jug show at Hosies Tavern in the city, then an afternoon strip at the Clifton in Kew. After going home and showering I met Chloe at the Elwood Lounge, a groovy little hole in the wall just around the corner from my one bedroom flat. She’d called earlier and said she had a business proposition for me.

Coming from her that was a frightening thing.

The pool tables were occupied so I found her by the window overlooking the 7-Eleven and the Catholic church, sitting at a scratched laminex table with a bottle of champagne and a plate of dips. I kissed her cheek, smelling her usual aroma of Paris perfume and bong smoke, then pulled up a mismatched vinyl chair.

She’d gone for a bit of a winter wonderland look that day, billowing platinum hair, tight white jeans and a white PVC jacket with fake fur around the collar and cuffs. Her platform boots were silver and spike heeled. She hated being short and I had a sneaking suspicion she couldn’t actually wear flat shoes anymore, kind of like Barbie.

‘How were the shows?’ She poured me a glass of champagne.

‘You know. Same old shit, different day.’

Her mobile started buzzing across the table and she glanced at it but didn’t answer. I peeked at the screen. Curtis. He and Chloe had hooked up a few months before. He’d been a journo for the girly magazine
Picture
, but had recently found success as a true crime writer, mainly by following me around and waiting for the trouble to start. I tolerated him, though it was hard to completely warm to someone whose articles got you shit-canned from your last job. He argued that if it hadn’t been him it would have been someone else, but still.

I raised my eyebrows and she tossed her hair over one shoulder and shrugged.

‘Why do they always get so clingy?’

I couldn’t answer that, since all the guys I went for ended up pissing off before I had time to get sick of them. My mobile started vibrating in sympathy. The screen read ‘Andi’.

Feeling bad about letting her down I chose the coward’s way out and didn’t answer.

‘So let me tell you about my proposition.’ Chloe dipped a thick finger of Turkish bread in bright pink beetroot dip and waved it in my general direction. ‘I’m expanding the agency—more boob cruises, male strippers on the books, tours to country Victoria and of course the jelly wrestling, which is huge right now. I can’t run Chloe’s from my flat in Parkdale anymore so I’ve found this shop in Balaclava with a two bedroom apartment on top. You take the shopfront for the detective agency, I’ll take the apartment as a home office. It’ll be perfect—we can share the rent and hang out more. What do you reckon?’ She jammed the dip in her mouth just before it splattered all over her faux fur.

‘Running an inquiry agency from the same address as Chloe’s Elite Strippers isn’t really the image I want to project to a corporate clientele.’

‘There are separate entrances.’

‘So?’

‘And with your reputation I seriously doubt the corporate types’ll be beating down your door. I mean, c’mon,’ she laughed.

I was hurt for half a second until a sudden rage bubbled up, blood rushing to my face along with a desire to tip the dip plate into her lap. I scraped my chair back and stood up.

‘Back in a tick.’

I headed for the loos at the back of the bar even though I didn’t need to go, locked myself in a cubicle and sat on the toilet lid, waiting to calm down. It wasn’t Chloe’s fault. I was only angry because I knew she was right: my reputation as a private investigator in Melbourne was shit. Not because I couldn’t do the job, but because things got out of control whenever I did. I’d be lucky to get any bloody work at all.

Tears welled up but I refused to cry and stared at the graffiti instead, waiting for my eyes to dry. My mobile beeped and I pulled it from my bag. The message icon was blinking so I dialled the number, put the handset to my ear and heard the recorded voice tell me I had one new voice message.

A clunk. Heavy breathing, and then, in between gulping breaths, ‘Simone, it’s Andi. I’m in big trouble. You’ve gotta come get me or I’m gonna die.’

‘So who is this chick?’

Chloe was smoking a Winfield and had the champagne bottle between her legs. We were barrelling down the Nepean Highway in my ’67 Ford Futura, heading for Andi’s place.

Elvis danced on the dash and the mirror balls and beads on the rear vision mirror shimmied and swayed.

I told her about Andi contacting me at the Royal, and how I knew her from my childhood. Memories of the time were coming back to me, hazy and fragmented, like a fading dream.

I remembered overalls, underarm hair, sweat and patchouli, trying to draw the feminist symbol and getting frustrated when I couldn’t get the fist right. I remembered my matchbox cars getting their wheels caught in the seagrass matting and the soft spikes of Mum’s new crew cut under my tiny palm.

I remembered Andi pulling me around in the wagon, and I remembered her mother, Joy. She was tall and brown skinned with a booming voice and a wild frizz of hair. I couldn’t conjure up any facial features, just huge braless tits undulating beneath a t-shirt that declared: A Woman Needs a Man Like a Fish Needs a Bicycle. She’d scared the shit out of me in those days, and I wasn’t sure if it was the boobs, the loud voice, or the way she’d take my mum’s side when I acted up.

‘Cut out the tantrum crap, Simone, she’s your mother, not your slave.’

‘Let me listen again,’ Chloe said. I chucked her the phone and she replayed the message. ‘It cuts straight off after she says she’s gonna die. Can’t hear any background noise but it sounds like she’s in pain. Should we take it to the cops?’

‘I dunno, Sherlock. I want to check her place first. Make sure it’s not a wind-up. She’s got a pretty warped sense of humour.’