Cherry Pie (22 page)

Trip returned to the table and handed Doyle a shot glass.

Sam sniffed it, then took a small taste.

I glared at Trip. ‘He said he last saw Andi leave a staff party and catch a cab on Fitzroy Street, but I have witnesses who saw her going home with him and Yasmin.’

Sam frowned.

Trip shrugged. ‘Okay, I lied. Yeah, she did come back to mine for some fun and games but I didn’t say anything ’cause I was being discreet, for once. Didn’t want to screw and tell.’

‘So what happened?’ I asked.

‘You want details, baby? I knew you weren’t as straight as you made out.’

‘Just tell her,’ Sam sighed.

‘Okay. Nothing.’

‘I find that hard to believe,’ I said.

‘You’re telling me. We hung out for an hour or so, more drugs, more drink, then just as I suggested the girls should kiss, you know, get the ball rolling, Andi’s got a text message and she reckoned she had to leave. Ripped off!’

‘Who was it?’

‘How should I know?’

Sam signalled to a passing waitress for another round of drinks. ‘Why do you think Trip would harm her?’ he asked me.

I didn’t want to mention the fraud stuff, so I said, ‘Hell, I dunno. Thought it might have been a B&D session gone wrong. I just got suspicious when he lied. Why did you lie?’

‘Yasmin didn’t want anyone to know, thought it would undermine her authority or some shit. And it was kind of fun messing with your head.’

Jesus, what a dick. I couldn’t believe I’d actually been turned on before.

‘You came to Sydney to question Trip and me?’ Sam crushed out his cigarette.

‘No. I came to Sydney because someone tried to kill me, right after they killed Gordon.’ I looked into Sam’s eyes. Even in the dim light I could see they were a bright, intense blue, but completely unreadable. I imagined he’d be damn good at poker.

‘Tragic, although I can’t say I liked the guy myself. And they’re sure it was no accident?’

‘I was there. Some thug driving a stolen car ran him over.

Twice.’

Sam sipped his tequila. ‘And you’re wondering if I had anything to do with it. The waitress too. You’re barking up the wrong tree. I was here in Sydney, a dozen people can vouch for me, and like I said to the cops, why would I go knocking off my own employees?’

I couldn’t mention the money laundering so said, ‘Gordon, I don’t know. Andi because of the article. It was about the Melita Kracowski case in nineteen eighty. You know, Melody?’

Sam didn’t react, just lit another Lucky and studied my face.

‘And there’s the fact that Andi’s credit card was used in this bar, and her handbag was found on the back step of La Petite Courgette this morning.’

‘Duval mentioned that. I showed him security footage from the restaurant. We saw you, right before the camera was broken, but there was no sign of Andi Fowler in the alleyway. No footage of anyone dumping the bag.’

‘But how?’

‘The camera has a blind spot. If someone stayed flush to the wall they could have placed it on the step without being filmed.’

‘So someone planted it?’

‘I can’t imagine why else they’d be sneaking around.’

‘You think someone’s trying to frame you?’

‘It wouldn’t be the first time.’

‘Why?’

‘I’m an easy target. Shitkicking Balmain boy made good. Australia, people just love cutting down tall poppies.’

‘Who?’

He shook his head and laughed. ‘Take your pick.’

Trip had been sitting silent, apparently fascinated by the mirror ball patterns sliding across the wall. Now he piped up.

‘Have you thought that Andi might have faked her own disappearance? Maybe she’s a vanilla bean short of a crème caramel.’

I almost mentioned Andi’s desperate phone message but stopped myself just in time. They didn’t need to know she’d had her mobile, even though I was now convinced Trip had nothing to do with her disappearance. He wasn’t a good enough liar. And Sam? The man was a little gruff, but basically affable and answering every question I threw at him. Hard to get my head around when I’d been expecting the Lord of Darkness himself. I liked to think I had good instincts about people and my gut feeling was telling me he wasn’t a threat. Of course he could have been some kind of evil genius with a talent for lulling unsuspecting PIs into a false sense of security, seducing them with his so-called ‘Hollywood’ charm. I’d seen it in Mafia movies, the wiseguys all laughing and drinking, slapping each other’s backs and then bam, one was garrotting the other with a length of piano wire. Sam had even managed to tame a wildcard like Trip. He was sitting there as docile as a pony in a petting zoo. That took talent.

The drinks arrived and I had a big gulp of champagne and asked the question that had been playing on my mind all night. ‘Do the names Joy Fowler and Peta Kirsch mean anything to you?’

He kept the poker face but I could’ve sworn something flickered in his eyes. ‘Never heard of them.’ He didn’t pause to think or even remark on the surnames. It was suss.

‘They used to live around here,’ I said. ‘Joy’s Andi’s mum, Peta’s mine.’

‘Sorry.’ He shook his head. If it had been me I would have asked what they had to do with anything. Doyle didn’t.

Trip had started to shift in his seat. ‘I’m bored with this. I’m gonna do a song. Anyone else wanna do a song?’

Sam and I shook our heads and Trip bounded off to put his name down. Sam stubbed out his smoke, drank some beer and checked his watch.

I asked him for a cigarette.

‘You don’t want one,’ he said.

‘Yes I do.’

He opened the first three buttons of his shirt and showed me his chest. A pink scar, raised and ropy, slashed straight down his sternum. ‘Triple bypass. Never thought life’d catch up with me, but it did. Don’t do it.’

‘Good advice, but it might have more impact if you weren’t downing tequila and sucking the guts out of those Luckys.’ I reached across the table and grabbed the pack. Sam laughed. He seemed amused that I’d given him shit.

‘I have a proposition for you,’ he said.

I really hoped he wasn’t trying to crack onto me. He didn’t seem sleazy, but I remembered what Chris Ferguson had said about him rooting all the dancers at the Love Tunnel. I lit the cigarette and drew back, waiting for him to go on.

‘Since someone’s doing away with my staff and trying to frame me, I ought to hire you myself.’

I tried to imagine what my mum would do if I swanned back into her place and announced I was working for Sam Doyle. Probably drop dead of a heart attack. A perverse part of me considered it … briefly.

‘I can’t I’m afraid. Conflict of interest.’

He raised an eyebrow that had a scar running vertically through it. Lines cut deep channels from his nose to his mouth.

‘I always pay above the going rate and if you’re investigating anyway, which you seem to be … how long you in Sydney for?’

‘Not sure.’

‘Where are you staying?’

‘Nowhere at the moment. I have to find a hotel.’

‘Stay at my joint. Villa.’

‘A little out of my price range.’

‘It’s on me. Trip’s staying there.’

Alex was too. It would be just like school camp.

‘I couldn’t.’

‘Why?’

I considered telling him it would be foolish to let him know exactly where to drop off the horse head, but said, ‘I’d just rather not.’

‘Suit yourself. I know you don’t believe me, but we’re on the same side here. Listen, think over the job offer, sleep on it, then call me in the morning.’ He took out a card, scribbled his mobile number and address on the back and handed it to me. I stared at him and he shook his head and laughed. ‘Look at you. You still think I’m a bad guy.’

‘I don’t know what to think. Someone’s had me under surveillance while I’ve been in Sydney. Following me, taking pictures.’

‘Believe me,’ he said, ‘it’s not one of mine.’

‘And here you are being all friendly and offering me a job and a hotel room. I don’t mean to seem ungrateful but it’s a little odd. The people I investigate usually try to beat me up, or at the very least threaten legal action. Why are you doing this?’

Sam leaned his elbows on the table and looked me in the eye. ‘I’ll tell you what I’m about, Simone. I’m a big fan of people who show a bit of get up and go, even though life wasn’t handed to them on a silver platter. Especially if life wasn’t handed to them on a silver platter. I’m keen to help them out, especially if they interest me. Christ, you wouldn’t believe how many boring fucking stuffed shirts I’ve had to deal with in the property business. It’s why I got into restaurants even though they’re shit from an investment point of view. It was a buzz and I met some real characters, same with the Cross. Of course round here’s nothing like it was twenty years ago. I blame your generation, so bloody straight. Forget live sex shows and cheap blowjobs, you all want lattes and wilted spinach.’

I laughed and Sam smiled at me. ‘You shouldn’t be scared of me.’

‘I never was.’ The champagne had boosted my confidence.

‘Is that why you nearly knocked over your drink when you heard my name?’

Damn, I thought he hadn’t noticed. ‘You have to admit, you’ve got a fucking terrible reputation.’

He gave me a wry grin, pushed back his chair and stood up. ‘Don’t believe everything you read.’

‘I liked that song you did, by the way.’

He smiled and his eyes crinkled at the corners. He looked genuinely pleased. ‘You like country?’

‘Seriously dig it.’

‘Call me.’ He pointed to the card in my hand, then strolled away.

I glanced at the stage as I finished my drink and cigarette.

Trip was singing a Sex Pistols number, ‘Pretty Vacant’, thrashing around and swinging from a pole that must have been left over from the bar’s strip club days. The other patrons were looking faintly alarmed. I left him to it and walked down the stairs.

I knew I had to find a motel, get something to eat and buy supplies, but having a surprise encounter with Sam Doyle had left me a little hyped up and I needed another drink to level out. I bypassed the nightclubs with their swirling disco lights and chest thumping bass and ducked into the Goldfish Bowl.

On the video jukebox Billy Idol sneered and sang ‘Forgot to Be a Lover’ and the bar was crowded with backpackers, dodgy looking dudes, working girls and trannies. My kind of place.

I bought a champagne and took the only vacant seat, a stool by a bench facing a window that looked out onto Victoria Street. I was still reeling from the fact that Doyle wanted to hire me. There had to be more to it than his fondness for interesting people with a bit of ‘get up and go’, but I wasn’t sure what.

I also didn’t know what the hell his connection to my mother and Joy was and it was driving me crazy. The only thing I could think of was they’d been radical feminists and he’d managed a strip club. Maybe there’d been some sort of run-in.

I hoped it wasn’t too late to find a motel and I pulled my phone out of my bag to check the time. It was ten o’clock and I had one message. It was Andi’s friend Daisy telling me we could meet up the following afternoon at the Coopers Arms in Newtown, before her band played. She was a singer, apparently.

My heart sank. Newtown was my old stomping ground and the one place I’d wanted to avoid while in town. I considered calling and asking her to meet me somewhere else then decided I was just being paranoid. It had been five years since I’d moved away and it was doubtful any of the old crowd still lived around there. Hadn’t property prices gone through the roof? And even if they did, surely they’d gotten over the whole thing by now? I ought to have, too. It was a long time ago, water under the bridge.

I texted Daisy back, told her I’d see her at the pub at five, then realised my buzz was wearing off and drunkenness was setting in. I asked the bartender if he could recommend a cheap hotel and he said there was a whole bunch down Macleay Street. I left the pub and stopped by a 7-Eleven and bought a pack of cheese singles for dinner and a toothbrush and tube of paste. Deciding that my knickers wouldn’t dry by morning if I rinsed them out, I popped into a sex shop and bought the only pair of undies I could find that actually had a crotch: a black cotton G-string with ‘come and get it’ written on the front in red.

As I wandered down Macleay humming ‘In My Hour of Darkness’ and admiring the trees and the architecture I passed a side street whose name I recognised. Wasn’t Doyle’s joint down there? It wouldn’t hurt to have a squiz. I wandered along for a bit and came upon a mansion with columns, turrets and sweeping verandas. A glowing sign out front read The Villa, Boutique Hotel, Restaurant and Bar. If Andi had indeed been in Sydney then she may have checked it out. I still had her photo in my handbag, so figured I’d flash it then retire to the hotel bar for a nightcap. A double Jameson’s would surely provide the knockout blow I needed to sleep the night through in whichever scuzzy motel I decided on.

Entering the open gate I found myself in a modern take on a formal garden. There were hedges galore but they’d all been clipped to resemble rolling waves. Gravel paths snaked between the plants and terminated in alcoves where curved sandstone benches sat in pools of dim yellow light. Instead of a cupid peeing water, the fountain in front of the entrance consisted of three large metal balls stacked on top of each other, water sheeting down the silver surface. A three scoop ice cream? The Michelin man? Abstract art wasn’t exactly my forte.

I entered the marble reception area and approached the desk, black and s-shaped like the benches. The willowy young man standing behind it wore a crisp black suit with a mandarin collar and shook his head when I showed him the photograph, but told me I could find the bar to the right of the lobby.

Gold curtains draped the walls, spherical light fittings hung low and the chairs were curved and upholstered in gold and black and red. Apart from the structure itself, the whole hotel had no straight lines and I was starting to feel kind of seasick.

A few business types were scattered around and a white jacketed guy whose nametag read Jose was tending bar. I ordered a double Jameson’s that cost a whopping twenty bucks and showed him Andi’s photo. He studied it for a long time, which got my hopes up, then dashed them when he told me he’d never seen her before.