Peepshow (17 page)

Mick finished setting up, came over and gave me a long, passionate, get-a-room kiss.

Betty was staring at us from the other side of the bar.

‘I missed you,’ he said. It had been three hours.

‘Betty’s off her head,’ I told him.

‘She usually is.’

‘You haven’t told anyone about my day job, have you?’

‘A few, but I killed them straight after.’

‘Ha ha,’ I said.

Mick leaned against the bar. ‘That scumbag copper contacted you yet?’

‘No, but the scumbag drug-lord did. I spoke to Chloe, she’s OK. She’s a clever girl. I think she’s made the hired muscle fall in love with her.’

‘Smart.’

‘It’s just Sal I’m worried about. I’ve heard things about him. Bad things. He’d be prepared to kill her even if Blue wouldn’t. I have to find a way to convince him Farquhar’s the killer.’

‘We’ll come up with something. You should tell Aurora, she’s smart, she’ll help you out.’

‘I probably will.’

The band headed up to the stage and Mick reluctantly joined them.

‘Come dance up front,’ he said, ‘where I can see you.’

‘Viva Las Vegas’ blared out to the usual rockabilly suspects and backpackers who’d wandered down from the dorms upstairs.

I danced after a couple more champagnes. It was hot and crowded at the front of the stage and Mick winked at me. Sweat slid down my back and between my breasts and bass notes thudded inside my chest cavity.

Someone grabbed my arm from behind. Betty?

I turned and my stomach contracted and blood rushed to my head. It was Alex. Had he come to collect me for Farquhar’s favour?

‘I need to talk to you.’ His face was stony as he shouted in my ear.

‘Come to do Dick’s dirty work?’ I shouted back.

‘No.’ He gave me a disparaging look as he pulled me out of the crowd. I shook him off.

‘Then what the fuck do you want?’

‘To talk. It’s urgent.’

‘Why should I talk to you? You sold me out to Farquhar.’

‘It wasn’t me, I tried to warn you off him.’

Alex walked towards the door and I followed him, venting my frustration, whispering loudly into his ear:

‘He’s charged me with unlicensed prostitution if I don’t do what he wants, when he wants. He broke into my flat and got my files. You’re his little right-hand man, aren’t you? Visiting illegal brothels, getting your cocks sucked together.’

Alex had led me out of the pub and down a small side street. He whirled around and grabbed me by the shoulders.

‘Will you shut up for a second and listen to me?’

He hissed between his teeth, looking around: ‘I want to bring Farquhar down just as much as you do. I’m undercover for Ethical Standards and I’m putting my whole operation on the line here by telling you, but I need your help. Together we can bring down Farquhar and half the department. I’m trusting you—’

‘Well I don’t fucking trust you. Why should I?’

‘Are you drunk again?’

‘No I’m not drunk. I’m happy. I’ve only had three—’

‘What the fuck’s going on here?’ It was Mick.

‘Piss off, mate.’ Alex’s hands were still on my shoulders. ‘This doesn’t concern you.’

Mick’s eyes gleamed, he was all keyed up. ‘Get your hands off her. You’re that fucking cop, aren’t ya?’

‘It’s not Farquhar,’ I told him, ‘it’s Alex.’

Alex took his hands off my shoulders and looked Mick up and down. ‘Is this hillbilly your boyfriend?’ he sneered. ‘Spare me.’

Mick was on him in a second. He pushed Alex’s chest then swung a punch. Alex dodged and Mick’s fist bounced off the side of his head. Alex staggered back a couple of steps and then came at Mick.

Mick was taller than Alex, and more muscular, but Alex had some pretty nifty moves he must have picked up at the police academy.

Alex squared up to punch Mick in the face and when Mick put his fists up and leaned back to avoid it, Alex kicked his feet out from under him and Mick hit the ground. Alex jumped on top of him and Mick sucker punched him in the mouth before Alex grabbed his hands and then they were rolling around in the gutter, silently wrestling.

There was something kind of sexy about two hot guys grappling around like that.

‘Hey,’ I said, ‘do you even know what you’re fighting about?’

They wrestled for a bit longer, grunting with exertion, slowed down gradually and eventually stopped.

They stood up and Mick spat on the ground. Alex wiped blood off his lip with the back of his hand and both kept eye contact like a couple of alley cats. If they’d had tails they would have swished them slowly from side to side.

Mick pulled a crumpled rollie from his shirt pocket and lit it. A vein in his temple throbbed and his hair was damp with sweat.

Alex tucked his expensive olive shirt back in and coughed. ‘Anyway, Simone, give me a call.’ He walked towards Barkly Street and for a second it looked like Mick was going to go after him. Instead he dragged so hard on his cigarette it imploded at the butt.

‘Fucken jacks, what did he want?’

‘He says it wasn’t him who dobbed me in to Farquhar.

He wants to help me.’

‘He wants to fuck you.’ Mick laughed mirthlessly.

‘What?’

‘It was obvious, the way he looked at you. He was all over you.’

I shook my head in disbelief.

‘Are you going to call him?’ he asked.

‘Fuck Mick, I don’t know. Probably. I need to get Farquhar off my back.’

‘Fine.’ He turned and stalked up the lane to the pub and I was left standing there thinking, what the hell was that all about?

I got back to the pub as the band started up again and sat at the bar drinking champagne until the gig was over. Mick didn’t look at me once. The band began to pack up their gear and one of the backpackers put Oasis on the jukebox and cleared out most of the rockers.

Betty disappeared into the toilets for a really long time. I had to pee myself so I went in. One of the cubicles was locked and I bent down to look under the door and saw her two-tone saddle shoes. I used the next cubicle.

‘You all right in there?’ I asked.

‘Yeah.’ Betty sounded funny.

I flushed and went out to wash my hands. The lock on her cubicle clicked open and Betty came out with her head back, holding a wad of toilet paper to her nose.

‘Fucking nosebleed.’ She threw the bloodied paper in the bin and looked at herself up close in the mirror.

After ten seconds a fat trickle of blood seeped from her left nostril.

‘Aww fuck.’ She returned to the cubicle for more toilet paper, sat on the lid and tipped her head back again.

‘Do you want me to get Johnny?’ I asked.

‘I said I’m fine, just fucking leave me alone.’

Back in the bar the band had packed up and Mick was talking to the blonde with the tattooed wrist over by the stage. She was touching his forearm again, tapping it to make a point, and they were both laughing.

Blood rushed to my head and I marched to the bar and ordered a double Jameson, straight up. I knocked it back in no time flat and ordered another. Mick and the girl were leaning against a wall now, still talking. Cosy.

Betty came out of the bathroom and her and Johnny sat off in a dark corner. It looked like she was crying.

They got up and Johnny put his arm around her and she leaned on him as he walked her out of the pub.

I couldn’t stand it anymore and went up to Mick, stood there. They ignored me.

‘Hi,’ I said. Both glanced over and kept talking.

‘Are you pissed off at me?’ I addressed the question to Mick but blondie looked at me and smirked.

‘I’m not pissed off at you.’ Mick’s voice was flat.

‘You can do what you like.’

‘Well fine, I will then.’ I looked in Mick’s eyes and didn’t know what I saw there. Fathomless pools? A murky swamp? He looked away and I walked out of the pub.

I wanted to go straight-backed and dignified but was so pissed I bumped my hip into the pool table on the way out.

I crossed Barkly Street and tried to hail a taxi. All occupied. Johnny and Betty were down the lane beside the pub. Betty vomited in the gutter and Johnny held her hair back. I started walking, stunned, numb. How had everything shifted so suddenly between Mick and me?

I became aware of a car slowing down behind me, following. Not again. I turned and saw four hoons in a hotted-up Monaro with Pplates and a thudding stereo.

‘Hey, babe.’ The guy in the front passenger seat leaned out the window. ‘How much?’

I ignored them and kept walking.

‘Don’t be like that, we got money.’ He held out a ten-dollar note. ‘How much for a suck, baby?’

The other guys laughed and I felt rage, red hot, behind my eyes. I approached the car and kicked the passenger door, over and over, until the metal buckled.

The car sped up and the hoon yelled back at me: ‘You’re fucking ugly anyway, slut.’

I cried drunken tears as I wobbled home on my high heels. When I got there I drank some more and listened to every depressing song in my CD collection. Mick didn’t call.

The next day I called Alex from a public phone and arranged to meet him on the hill at Point Ormond, near Elwood beach. I jogged there, ducking down cobbled lanes and sprinting across sports fields to shake off any surveillance. It was a bad day for a run, clouds hung low and heavy and the air was thick, oppressive. As I laboured up the hill towards the white wooden beacon my neck itched with sweat and my puffy eyes stung from crying the night before.

I leaned against the wood and stretched out my quads. You could see everything from the Elwood hill, the city skyline, the Westgate Bridge, the Bellarine Peninsula on a clear day. Alex walked up from the other side, past a grove of scrubby bushes where guys cruised for other guys.

‘You look like shit,’ he said.

‘Who’s talking?’

His lip was cut and swollen and his cheekbone grazed.

‘Nice guy, that boyfriend of yours. You’ve done well for yourself.’

‘Forget him,’ I said. ‘Let’s talk about Farquhar.’

‘What happened when he arrested you?’

I told Alex about the arrest, Farquhar threatening me, and my flat being broken into. ‘Has he contacted you yet?’

‘No. Maybe he’s forgotten about it. Maybe he just wanted to scare me off.’

Alex shook his head. ‘He’ll contact you soon. I know him, he’s got something in the works. He’ll want you to have sex with someone while he films it.’

‘What?’

‘That’s the way he operates. What did you think he’d want you to do? Run a couple of suits to the cleaners?

‘We think he’ll contact you at work. It’s pretty hard to hide a wire when you’re naked, so we want you to wear these.’ He pulled a small brown envelope out of his shirt pocket and tipped a pair of earrings onto his palm, big and gold, with a cluster of fake pearls.

‘I can’t wear those,’ I said.

‘Why not, you’ve got pierced ears?’

‘They’re off, totally eighties. I wore something similar to my Year Ten formal.’

‘They need to be big to hide the transmitter. Besides, I hear the eighties are back. Put them on.’

I slipped them in my ear lobes.

‘It’s the only way,’ said Alex. ‘Farquhar’s not going to approach you anywhere that might be bugged so I want you to work the Red tonight, every night until he shows up. Go along with everything he says. Someone from my team will be following you until this thing goes down. Wear the earrings everywhere until then, OK?’

His mobile rang and he answered, listened briefly, then hung up. ‘The transmitter works fine.’

‘Go along with everything he says?’ I repeated.

‘When exactly does the cavalry come and rescue me?’

‘We want you in the room with the mark because we need all the evidence we can get. You don’t actually have to go through with it though, unless you want to.’

‘Prick.’ I punched him on the arm and he smiled for the first time, then winced as blood oozed from his lip.

‘You never told me who you’re working for,’ he said.

‘I’m guessing the family?’

‘Yeah,’ I said, and left it at that.

‘Don’t get too involved with them, they’re into some pretty heavy stuff. You don’t want to be tied up in it when it comes crashing down around them. And it will.’

‘I won’t,’ I said. I wanted to tell him then about Chloe but I couldn’t. I still didn’t completely trust him.

I didn’t trust anybody and I wasn’t going to shoot my mouth off with radio transmitters for earrings. ‘There’s just one thing I want for helping you out.’

‘What’s that?’

‘A copy of Frank’s autopsy report.’

Alex groaned. ‘I can’t—’

‘Yes you can, if you set your mind to it.’

‘I’ll see what I can do. Thanks for helping us out, Simone. I had the wrong idea about you. You’re a smart girl.’

‘Woman, Alex. Are all you cops so un-PC?’

‘’Fraid so,’ he grinned.

At home I lay in bed with tea bags on my eyes to bring the swelling down and fell asleep for a couple of hours.

I woke at five and got ready for work, washing my hair, putting on makeup and painting my nails. I was about to leave when I heard a knock.

So much for the security door downstairs.

I took a deep breath and reached for the knob.

Farquhar? Sal?

I opened it.

Mick leaned against the hallway wall, looking the worse for wear. He was smoking a cigarette and held an almost empty bottle of bourbon under his arm.

‘Can I come in?’

I nodded and he walked past me and sat down heavily on the couch.

‘Did you call him?’ He swigged from the bottle.

‘Who?’

‘Who do you reckon? That fucking jack.’

I sat next to him and whispered in his ear: ‘That fucking jack is going to help me with the you-know-who situation.’ I shook my head. ‘Jesus, what’s your fucking problem, Mick? Everything was going fine and then out of the blue you attack him then act like you don’t even know me for the rest of the night. That really hurt.’

‘You’ve got to understand—’

‘No, you’ve got to understand. I’m not going to put up with this shit. I went through it years ago. It’s so unnecessary.’