Comeback (13 page)

I noticed something sticking a millimetre or so out of a pocket of the suitcase cover. I teased out a postcard-sized photograph. It showed three young women standing together in a linked, provocative pose wearing the appropriate clothing. One of them was the dead woman wearing a head scarf; one I didn’t recognise and the other was Mary Oberon. I took the photograph.

I left the way I’d come in except that I stayed in the network of back lanes until I emerged a few blocks from Little Seldon Street. I walked to my car and sat there for a couple of minutes. The dead woman looked to be in her twenties; she was beautiful with a fine body. From her hair and features I guessed she was African. From her voice she was educated, and she’d sounded rational and intelligent. I felt her loss, not just because of the information I’d never get from her, but because she was much too young to die and she’d died a long way from home.

I drove until I found a public phone. I rang the police number and said where to find a dead woman.

‘Sir, please give me your name and address.’

That ‘Sir’ at the start of the sentence. They pick it up from American television. It annoys me. I hung up.

■ ■ ■

Driving around with five thousand dollars in your pocket isn’t the most comfortable feeling, particularly when you’re heading where I was. The House of Ruby is a massage parlour and relaxation centre in Darlinghurst Road, Kings Cross. While being a hard-headed businesswoman, Ruby, the proprietor, is also something of a mother figure and mentor to Sydney sex workers. I’d done some work for her in the past, bodyguarding a couple of her employees and getting a threatening rival off her back. We’re friends.

Marcia, her well-constructed and immaculately groomed receptionist, raised an eyebrow as she buzzed me in.

‘Cliff Hardy, I heard you’d retired.’ Marcia had the voice all brothel receptionists have—smooth, reassuring, comforting, designed to put the punters at their ease.

‘I’m making a comeback. Is Ruby available?’

‘Upstairs, just follow your nose if that’s the only thing sticking out.’

The décor at Ruby’s is muted plush. The stairs are carpeted, the handrail is polished and the mirror at the first landing is set at a flattering angle. I went down a corridor to Ruby’s office. Music was playing inside—classical, which is as far as I could get to identifying it. I knocked and went in.

Ruby retired from active service years ago, but she has maintained her face and figure with a certain amount of surgical help. She was working at a computer and swung around on her chair.

‘Cliff, darling. It’s been a long time.’

She got up and came towards me, moving well, and elegant in a loose satin shirt and tight pants. In her heels she was almost as tall as me. She hugged me and stepped back.

‘Older,’ she said. ‘And wiser?’

‘Don’t know about that.’

She groped me gently. ‘Hornier? I live in hope.’

‘Couldn’t spoil a beautiful friendship.’

She sighed theatrically. ‘Business, as always. Have a seat.’ She turned a knob on the portable CD player beside the computer and the music subsided to a whisper. ‘Haydn,’ she said. ‘You look a bit grim, Cliff. At a guess you’ve just come away from something unpleasant. Drink?’

I nodded. She opened a bar fridge and made two stiff gins and tonic.

‘Lime or lemon?’

‘You choose.’

She chose lime. We clinked glasses. I handed her the photograph. ‘D’you know the girl in the middle, Ruby?’

‘I know one of them. First I have to know what trouble they’re in.’

‘The girl on the right’s not in any trouble as far as I know. The one on the left is dead. The one in the middle is my concern. Mary Oberon. She’s done some iffy things but nothing too serious, I don’t think. She’s involved in something I’m working on and she’s been threatened. I want to know who by because that might tell me who put her up to the things she’s done that have brought her to my attention. I don’t mean her any harm.’

‘You never do, but it goes along with the work you do, right?’

I didn’t respond. She had it exactly.

Ruby worked on her drink, still studying the photograph. ‘I’ve got it now. She’s involved in that Bobby Forrest thing that’s been all over the tabloids. So are you. You don’t think she killed him?’

‘She didn’t.’

‘But she knows who did?’

‘I think so. The African-looking girl said she knew. She implied Mary Oberon had told her. I went to see her and found her dead.’

Ruby raised her glass in a sort of salute. ‘I didn’t know her. The other one goes by the name of Isabella. She’s from the islands somewhere.’

‘Mary Oberon is a Fijian-Indian, I think.’

‘Yeah, partly anyway. You can’t find her?’

I took a good pull on the drink and shook my head. ‘I traced her to where some guy threatened her and that was it. Any idea where she might have gone?’

‘No. Back home?’

‘The African girl said she was illegally here. If Mary Oberon’s the same it’d be tricky to leave. The cops are looking for her, too. What about Isabella? She might be in danger as well if she knows what the African girl knew. Any ideas about her?’

Ruby finished her drink. She used a long fingernail to spike the slice of lime and ate it. ‘You wouldn’t dob them in to Immigration would you, Cliff?’

‘I might threaten to, but I wouldn’t do it.’

She laughed. ‘You’re an honest man, Cliff Hardy. Don’t meet many, especially in this game. All I can tell you is where Isabella works and probably these other girls as well. Place called Black Girls. It’s in Double Bay.’

‘Nice place?’

‘Not very, from what I hear.’

‘What else d’you hear?’

‘That it’s got high-level protection.’

‘Who from?’

She shrugged. ‘Hard to say, but you’d better be careful.’

I thanked her for the information and the drink and left. I heard the music surge up as I walked towards the stairs.

■ ■ ■

Black Girls had a website. It emphasised the exotic nature of its ‘ladies’ and promised luxurious and unusual settings as well as an outcall service. I waited until 9 pm before I called. ‘Black Girls, good evening.’

‘Is Miranda available tonight?’

‘I’m afraid Miranda is no longer with us, sir.’

‘How about Isabella?’

‘I’m afraid Isabella has commitments tonight, but I’m sure we ...’

I hung up. I drove to Double Bay and located the place a block from New South Head Road. I circled the block. Black Girls occupied a freestanding terrace that had undergone a lot of renovation—high cement wall with a security gate, new-looking tiled roof, side and back balconies with views of the water. Whatever had stood next to it as a pair had gone and the space had become a private parking area with a boom gate. Space for several cars, two in position.

I parked on the opposite side of the street three houses away under a spreading plane tree. There was a street light and I had a good view of the establishment. Over the next few hours the operational pattern became clear. Cars pulled out of the parking area with a woman sitting in the back seat. I followed one trip. The driver deposited a tall, slender black woman at an address in Point Piper. He waited for a little over an hour and drove her drove back to Double Bay. Back at the brothel, I followed the next car to leave. It took its passenger, a woman with a more than passing resemblance to Naomi Campbell, to a house in Randwick. The driver settled himself behind the wheel and opened a magazine.

I waited until he seemed immersed. I approached, opened the front passenger door and sat with the .38 held low, pointing up at him. He yelped and dropped the magazine. It fell open in his lap showing a double-page picture of a naked woman with enormous breasts.

‘Hands on the wheel,’ I said. ‘Stay very still and very quiet and you won’t get hurt. Do anything else and you get hurt, so does the girl and I take her money and this car. Understand?’

He nodded.

‘You take the girls back to their places sometimes, right?’

‘S ... sometimes, yeah.’

‘Where do you keep the addresses?’

He gulped. ‘Glove box.’

One of his hands moved and I brought the barrel of the pistol down hard on the knuckles. Keeping the gun very steady I opened the glove box with my left hand, felt inside and took out a slim notebook.

‘This it?’

‘Yeah.’

‘What’s the name of the woman you just dropped off?’

‘Naomi.’

‘Figures. Where does Naomi live?’

‘I dunno.’ He nodded at the book. ‘I’d have to look it up in there.’

‘Okay. You’ve been smart so far. Let’s see if you can stay smart. I’m going. You sit still and look at the tit pictures. You can wank away if you want to. Don’t say anything about this to anyone. You get the addresses from one of the other drivers and no one needs to know what happened here. Right?’

It was taking too long and I was talking too much. He made a sudden grab at the gun but he wasn’t quick enough. I bent my arm to take the gun out of his reach, then whipped it back and hit his windpipe hard with my elbow. He let out a high-pitched screech and scrabbled frantically at his neck as he tried to suck in air. I got out, walked back to my car and drove off.

■ ■ ■

I drove to a wine bar I knew in Double Bay and ordered a glass of red. It came with a glass of water and a bowl of nuts. I couldn’t remember when I’d last eaten so I ate all the nuts. I drank the water, sipped the wine and opened the notebook. The handwriting was large and round, easy to read. Miranda was there at Baxter Street, Bondi; Simisola was there at Little Seldon Street, Paddington. Isabella’s address was a flat at 29 View Street, Coogee. I drank the wine slowly and drove to Coogee. The block of flats was small and new with sophisticated security. There was no way to tell when Isabella would discharge her commitments. I was tired. I drove home.

I turned on the late news. There was a shot of the Little Seldon Street house and a brief report. A woman had been found dead with evidence of foul play. The police called on the person who’d reported finding the body to come forward and help with their inquiries. No name was given. No details were given of her age or appearance. A Muslim prostitute was super-sensitive territory in the current climate. I wondered whether the police would continue to suppress the information. Probably.

■ ■ ■

I locked the gun away and put the money in its envelope under my pillow. I was sleeping deeply but dreaming a lot. My dreams were all of women—some white, some black, some beautiful, some not. Some of them made sexual advances to me and I responded but they faded away before anything could happen. Jane Devereaux came to me with a letter she said would tell me who killed Bobby but it was in mirror writing and I couldn’t read it.

~ * ~

12

Prostitutes tend not to be drivers. They get driven a lot and many of them have drugs in their possession or in their system, making it not worth the risk of being pulled over. They also tend to get up late after a hard night’s work, but I was outside the View Street flats at 8.30 am just in case.

Isabella ran true to form. No car and she didn’t show until well after ten o’clock. Visually, she was worth waiting for: her brown skin seemed to glow in the early sunlight and her dark hair had the sort of sheen you see in television commercials. She wore a short, leopard-print jacket and loose black trousers, high heels. She walked with a dancer’s grace and the only men who didn’t stare at her were those looking the other way. She strode off towards the main drag, smoking, with a bag matching her jacket slung over her shoulder. I followed her.

The morning was mild with a light wind and the tang of the sea in the air. The early rush had subsided and there weren’t many people about—a few joggers, a few pram pushers, a few oldsters sitting under cover in the park. Isabella was at an outside cafe table. She butted the cigarette she was smoking and immediately lit another. She gave her order and sat back looking at the water. She was the only person in the cafe’s outside area. She took a mobile phone from her bag and made a call. She laughed, showing gleaming white teeth. I moved up quietly and sat across the table from her. I put the photograph on the table beside her bag.

‘Don’t be alarmed. I don’t mean you any harm. I have to talk to you. It’s about your friend Miranda, and this woman.’

She was older than she’d looked at a distance and from the way she moved. She was handsome rather than beautiful, but striking. She looked at the photo and blew some smoke, unperturbed at being accosted.

‘Simisola,’ she said in a New Zealand accent. ‘I suppose you’re a cop.’

‘No.’ I gave her my card. She glanced at it.

‘Even worse. What do you want?’

Her coffee arrived. Black. She tore the top off three packets of Equal and poured them into the cup. Her long nails were painted silver.

‘You haven’t heard the news this morning, have you? Or seen the paper?’

‘Baby, I don’t watch the news or read the paper. It’s all bad stuff.’