Hit (23 page)

Mak thought about that. He was right, of course—by one type of thinking, anyway.

‘My baggage comes in being a good coffin-maker and a failed rock star,’ he said. ‘Yours comes in psycho killers and being a smart woman who has been treated like an idiot for half your life. And someone else’s is different.’

Mak’s throat tightened. His comments were so close to the mark, they cut. ‘I think you know too much about me already,’ she said stiffly.

‘I’m sorry. I didn’t offend you, did I?’

‘No,’ she said. But his comment had rubbed her the wrong way. It brought to mind all kinds of things she didn’t want to think about. Maybe it was the late hour, or the forced intimacy they had shared in the club, but she found his frank insight confronting. She wanted to get home, and get to bed.

‘You seem older than you are, Makedde,’ Bogey told her.

As Bogey pulled the car into an available spot outside the Tolarno, there was an uncomfortable silence. Neither seemed to know what to do or say to one another.

‘I enjoyed spending time with you, Mak.’

‘Um, thanks again,’ she said, a touch distant, and walked inside. She resisted the urge to look back, but sensed that he was waiting in his car, watching her go and making sure she got inside safely.

Marian Wendell arrived at her office at nine o’clock sharp, seven days a week. The first hour of her workday was taken up with paperwork and chasing the progress of her active sub-agents so she could keep track of them, and keep her clients informed. Makedde’s phone rang at four minutes past nine—first cab off the rank. The phone rang only once before Mak picked up. She had been expecting the call.

‘Good morning, Marian,’ she said, tired but smiling. ‘I can’t believe you come in at nine on Sundays, too.’

‘Investigations don’t stop for the weekend.’

‘No, they don’t,’ Mak agreed.

She lay on top of her hotel sheets in her underwear, slowly stretching and trying to wake herself up. She’d taken her suit out of the closet and draped it over the chair, and then fallen back onto the bed. The previous evening’s adventures at the Thunderball Club had gone late, but she felt that it had been a successful night’s work.

‘What’s the update?’

‘It’s going well so far, I think,’ Mak said. ‘I’m confident I will find Amy Camilleri later today, and she should know something of Meaghan’s private life. She is shacked up with the owner of the strip club she works in. I’m going to pay a visit, but I need a car. Can I get a rental? Can we budget that in?’

Marian paused. ‘I’ll organise for it to be sent to your hotel in the next hour or two. You need it urgently?’

‘No. An hour or two is fine. I have some things I need to do first.’

Like get some more sleep.

‘What are the expenses so far?’ Marian asked.

Mak reached for her investigations notebook, which she had open on the bedside table. She listed the exact hours she had worked and the price of the taxi fares, the club entry fee, and then the cost of the private dance that had brought her the latest information. Marian liked to keep her clients updated as to the precise amount each day of investigation was costing them, so that there were no surprises when it came to billing. Most jobs could be resolved in under a week, but some investigations stretched on for a month or so and could rack up quite a bill. Mak hadn’t been on one of those jobs yet, but she dreamed of it. Being paid handsomely for a long assignment might help her save enough to lease a nice office and some furniture for her practice.

‘Did you say you spent 250 dollars in…private dancing?’ Marian asked.

‘Yes.’ Mak paused. ‘Well, it was only one private dance, but it was a good one. The dancer is the one who told me where Amy is holed up. I think Jag was right about Amy and Meaghan being very good friends, because Amy hasn’t been coming to work since Meaghan’s murder. The girl last night said that Amy sounded upset.’

‘You have receipts for everything?’

‘I don’t know if you have ever tried to get a receipt for a lap dance,’ Mak said, ‘but it tends not to work that way.’

‘Of course, of course—but you have receipts for everything else?’

‘Yes.’

‘Good girl,’ Marian said. It was a turn of phrase she tended to use a lot and, coming from a woman like her, Mak didn’t mind it. It was as if she viewed her sub-agents as her own children. ‘Don’t spend too much more of this guy’s money down there. It took a little to convince him that you needed to go interstate.’

‘Well, Meaghan’s parents, bless them, didn’t know that much about their daughter’s comings and goings. Amy should, though. I’m planning to be back by late this afternoon.’

‘Okay, give me an update again this afternoon and let me know when to book the flight,’ Marian told her. ‘Your client will be happy to know how long he will have to pay hotel bills for.’

‘No problem.’

Mak hung up the phone and rolled over, burying her head in the stiff white hotel sheets. Her body sank gratefully into the mattress. She slept like that for another forty-five minutes.

At 11 a.m., just as she had returned to her room from a delicious full breakfast and a mountain of lattes, Mak received a call from the front desk to tell her that her rental car had arrived. It was sitting out the front of the hotel. She walked back down to take a look.

To her dismay, the rental car was bright orange.

Nice. That won’t make me stand out at all.

Mak may not have approved of the colour of her allotted rental vehicle, but at least she had something to get her from A to B. The car was a small Hyundai automatic and easy to drive, a good, suburban-looking model. But orange? Mak could not imagine a more conspicuous colour. She did not want to stand out more than she had to. What if she had to watch the house for hours or tail someone? A non-flashy suburban car was perfect for the work, but not an orange one. As it was, she was likely to be driving the ugliest car on the block. Who could fail to notice that?

She changed into a lightweight suit and wore a low-cut black singlet underneath with one of
her reliably impressive push-up bras, which she felt might come in handy.

Mak grabbed her supplies and headed out. She cringed as she approached the car, and started it up.

I hope I don’t run into anyone I know…

Larry Moon, the owner of Thunderball, had a residence in the suburb of Essendon. It took Mak only thirty minutes to find it using the street directory. She drove past casually at first—or as casually as an orange car could—and then parked a block away from the address. The houses in the area were mostly stucco or faux Tudor, she noticed, but Larry’s was a fetching brick veneer with fancy stained-glass windows across the front. Though it was on the same size block of land as the rest, the house was huge, looking as if it might spill onto the neighbouring properties at any moment. Without fear of competition, Larry had the most grand and ostentatious home on the block. Through the slim view provided by the front gate, Mak could see that he also had a jacuzzi built onto one side of the house. She imagined him hosting bikini parties with the girls from the club. Mr Moon was making a lot more money than his employee Amy was, that much was certain.

There was movement in the yard, but Mak couldn’t make out who it was through the fence. At least someone was home. Mak
approached the house and walked up the tiled driveway to a closed front gate taller than she was, flanked by two artlessly carved stone lions. The gate was electronic, and there was an intercom video system to one side with a small round lens. A high, near-impenetrable fence encompassed the property on all sides. This guy liked his security.

Mak thought about her approach. There was some possibility that Amy would answer, but more likely it would be the club owner, Larry. With that in mind, she took off her suit jacket, slung it over one shoulder, adjusted her top and let her hair out of the ponytail.

She pressed the intercom button.

Okay, Amy. Let’s hope you’re in there…

After about a minute, during which time she heard movement in the yard, the intercom was answered. ‘Yeah,’ came a gruff voice. It certainly didn’t sound like Amy.

Mak smiled and leaned towards the round intercom video lens, which she suspected would capture her from the waist up. ‘Hi, I’m looking for Larry.’ She put her hands on her waist and flicked her hair when she spoke.

‘That’s me,’ came the voice, a lot friendlier.

‘I was hoping we could, uh, chat for a moment…’ she said, with a hint of seduction.

‘Come right in,’ the voice said almost immediately, and the gate swung open.

Yes!

Mak walked through swinging her hips. She wasn’t intending to be dishonest exactly, but she was happy for this guy to think she was there for other reasons. If it helped her get through the gate, that was just fine. She’d figured out long ago that some people were going to see her as a sex object whether she liked it or not, so she might as well use it when it came in handy. It might not seem possible now, but who knew—maybe when she was sagging and grey she might even miss the approaches of sleazy men she had endured over the years? She thought it doubtful.

Makedde walked along the driveway and stopped in her tracks beside a low, silver Maserati, dripping alluringly from a recent wash.
Nice.
She forced herself to keep moving, taking in everything she could. She noticed that the garden was brimming and well kept, with stone carvings of female nudes set into water features against the fence. The house itself looked even more surreal up close. The stained-glass detail pictured nude women variously reclining over one another or dancing through green fields with flowers in their hands and their pendulous breasts free to the wind.

She arrived at the front door.

Behind her, the gate shut again. She felt a slight ripple of panic.

The brass doorknob turned and the front door opened. An oversized figure loomed in the doorway. It must be Larry.

Larry Moon, owner of one of Melbourne’s most successful gentlemen’s clubs, answered his front door wearing a partially soaked white T-shirt stained with dirt, a pair of green gumboots and red Speedos. Mak saw the square bulge of a packet of cigarettes tucked into his rolled-up T-shirt sleeve, in the style of a young Marlon Brando. But Larry was no young Brando. He was vastly overweight, and Mak thought he looked a bit like
Hustler
’s creator Larry Flynt, only without the wheelchair.

Oh, my eyes. I think I might be scarred for life. Ugh!

Mak could not imagine any occasion for which Speedos and gumboots would be required, especially on a build like his. But she wrenched her attention away from his damp protruding stomach and the clear line of his cave-like bellybutton to look into his face, only to find that he was appraising her body right back.

‘Hi, beautiful,’ Larry said, continuing to undress her with his eyes. ‘I was just in the garden. I wasn’t expecting you.’

Ah, the garden.

‘I’m Makedde Vanderwall. May I come in for a moment?’

His eyebrows went up and he stepped back with an extravagant wave of his arm to allow her entry. ‘Certainly.’ He closed the door behind them and led her through an entry hall lit in a
strange kaleidoscope of colour from the sun streaming through stained glass. When they reached the base of a spiral staircase under a crystal chandelier, he asked, ‘How may I help such a lovely lady?’

Mak smiled with a mix of professionalism and seduction. Now that she was through the gate, there would be no more hair flicking and cleavage revealing. ‘Is Amy around?’ she asked point-blank.

Larry’s smile closed up and he narrowed his eyes.

‘Who are you?’ he demanded.

‘Larry, I’m a private investigator. I’m not a cop. I’m not with the state, or the Feds. I’m not with any collection agency,’ she reassured him. ‘I am just a private investigator trying to figure out why Amy’s friend Meaghan Wallace was murdered last week. I was hoping I could have a quick word with Amy to help my investigation. She’s not in any trouble, or wanted for any reason.’

He paused, eyes still narrowed. ‘What’s in it for you?’

‘It’s a job,’ she said simply. ‘But I have a feeling there is more to Meaghan’s death than the cops think.’

Mak wasn’t really sure what she thought, but her client clearly believed there was more to it, and she figured it sounded good to say.

Larry leaned on the banister contemplatively and reached for the packet of cigarettes tucked in his sleeve. He offered her one, and after she
declined he lit one and took a puff. Mak noticed that he had security cameras everywhere in the house, much like he did in the club. This guy was obsessed with both surveillance cameras and security, by the looks of that massive electronic front gate. Maybe he got a bulk deal on the stuff. And he was also obsessed with nudes—not particularly well-executed ones, either. There was a big bronze sculpture of a nude on a hall table next to the stairs. Instead of one of the classic poses, the female figure was on all fours, swinging a mane of hair back, face tilted up, eyes closed and mouth open, frozen in bronzed rapture. A stripper sculpture.

Classy.

More interesting to Mak, there were two pairs of women’s shoes scattered in the entrance hall: stilettos and some pink rubber thongs.

‘She got killed by some junkie last week, didn’t she?’ Larry said, smoke floating around his lips.

So Amy has mentioned it to him.

‘It looks like that might be the case. Maybe…’ Mak allowed room for doubt in her tone. ‘Do you remember Meaghan at all? She worked for you for a while.’

‘Vaguely.’

‘It was a few years ago, I believe,’ Mak said, hoping to refresh his memory.

‘Yeah. She was cute. Blonde, right? Petite. Tight body. She went up to Queensland to dance
at Trinity for a while, then back to Sydney. We didn’t have her for long.’

Mak remembered the T-shirt.
Trinity is a club.

She nodded. Standing there in his Speedos, puffing on a cigarette, Mak could see that Larry was not a man who was intimidated by women. Of course, that didn’t mean he wouldn’t allow himself to be manipulated by them. Mak guessed that he had been influenced to do a lot of things by a lot of different beautiful girls in his life, but when their use-by date was up, it was up. From the way he was looking at her, Mak hadn’t reached his perceived use-by date quite yet.

‘She was a lovely person, by all accounts,’ Mak said, turning up the charm a notch. ‘You didn’t keep in touch with Meaghan after she left?’

‘Me? Nah. Lots of girls come and work for me,’ he said offhandedly. She believed him. ‘What do you want with Amy?’ he asked protectively, with the tiniest level of concern in his voice.

Although Larry seemingly found Mak’s presence unthreatening, it was noteworthy to Mak that he still hadn’t invited her to sit down. They were stuck there at the base of his staircase, chatting in short, guarded sentences. There had to be a reason. Mak’s best guess was that Amy was home, and she explicitly did not want any visitors. Larry was protecting her.

‘I think Amy might be able to help shed some light on things. They were close friends. I just want to talk with her a bit. I want to learn the
truth about Meaghan. Meaghan’s mother didn’t know much about her life or the people in it.’

Mak heard a creak at the top of the staircase and she looked up. A shadow flitted across the wall.