Heavenly Pleasures (13 page)

‘We need your help in a rather delicate matter,’ I said. He smiled at me. I had never seen him so relaxed. Jon worked for a charity which fed people in all the nastiest places in the world. If it was drought stricken and starving or under a hundred feet of mud, Jon would be there, directing food convoys and arranging to buy local crafts to pay for replanting a forest so the mudslide didn’t happen again. Or arranging a water system so the local women didn’t have to walk miles carrying it. He spoke eight languages. He was one of the most genuinely kind people I had ever met so this sort of job took a huge toll on his emotions. But he was very good at it, and it looked like it had brought that reward which virtue is always supposed to yield and somehow never does.

Jon’s apartment was basically beige, which shows up the fierce colours and strange shapes of the carved masks, painted hangings, woven tapestries and silk fabrics which decorate and occasionally surprise. I had got a real shock from a snarling demon mask the last time I had visited the lavatory.

There was a wave of scent: black pepper, lemon, cumin, garlic. Yummy. Kepler, wearing red silk brocade pyjamas, was reclining on the sofa, which was draped in ikat weaving, staring blankly into space. A chess game was laid out on the ebony coffee table but he was not looking at it. One sensitive hand groped for a laptop and he started to type, still not looking at the keyboard. He seemed to be entranced.

‘Come in,’ said Jon. ‘Kepler will be back with us soon. He’s working out a software problem. Glass of wine?’

‘Thanks,’ I accepted for both of us and took a basketwork chair. ‘Is he often like this?’ I sipped. It was very good wine.

‘Sometimes it can be hours,’ said Jon. ‘What’s the matter, Corinna?’

‘We have a Romeo and Juliet story developing under our very windows,’ I said, and told him about the Chinese boy and Selima. Jon poured himself a glass and thought about it.

‘I gather that the Turks wouldn’t accept the boy?’

‘Not a chance,’ Daniel answered. ‘This is an old country paterfamilias here, and the girl has defied him already by refusing to marry the man he told her to marry.’

‘And no respectable Chinese family would be happy with a choice of bride from another religion as well as race,’ said Jon. ‘How sad!’

Kepler snapped out of his trance and shut the notebook.

‘What’s sad? Why are you telling my Jon sad things?’ he demanded of me.

‘Life is sad,’ I replied. ‘Sometimes. We want your help to try and make it better.’

‘What do you want me to do?’ he asked instantly. You couldn’t help liking Kepler. He wasn’t in any way foolish, but he did have a quality of innocence. No one else could have carried off those red brocade pyjamas.

‘Tomorrow at one I want you to talk to the boy,’ said Daniel. ‘If I try and catch him he might panic. But you can speak Cantonese and Mandarin.’

‘Between us, Jon and I can speak a lot of languages. Very well, we will catch your bird for you.’

‘That is a beautiful chess set,’ said Daniel.

It was made of glass. The black pieces were a deep green. It was very decorative.

‘You play?’ asked Kepler.

‘A little. But I don’t have time for a game today and we are interrupting you. Meet you at Heavenly Pleasures at, say, ten to one tomorrow?’ asked Daniel. ‘Don’t go into the shop. That little ratbag George isn’t telling me something, and it might be about Selima or her boyfriend. Thank you,’ said Daniel, and we left.

I had the odd feeling that intimacy was closing behind us as we went, like ink colouring water, spreading and deepening, wrapping the two of them together again in their perfect content. They had a rapt closeness which would have made me feel lonely if I hadn’t been with Daniel.

We collected Horatio and the esky and ascended to the roof. The rain had eased but it was too wet to sit in the bower. We joined Trudi in the temple of Ceres. There seemed to be a lot of feathers on the floor, which Trudi was sweeping out.

‘It is him,’ she explained, indicating Lucifer with her chin. He was sitting smugly on her shoulder as if he had just done something really diabolical and the devil was about to call him a good cat and let him eat some sinners. ‘He caught pigeon.’

‘But he’s tiny,’ I said. ‘How could he?’

‘He pounce,’ she chuckled. ‘Pigeon struts along, then— bang!—Luce jumps on its back. Hangs on. Pigeon takes off, I drag Luce off by lead, otherwise he’d still be flying. But lots of feathers fall off pigeon. Come on, Luce, we go put feathers in compost.’

I dread to think what he’s going to be like when he grows up,’ I said. Daniel poured me a drink.

‘A very scary prospect. Putting that harness on him was a lifesaving idea. Though I wouldn’t put it past him to ride his pigeon to the ground safely. What do you have to do today?’

‘Go and see Letty White and have my fingerprints taken. She said she might know something about my climber by now.’

‘Do you want me to come with you?’

‘If you like.’

‘I like,’ he said, and we drank our drink in silence.

There is nothing to be said for the architecture of the St Kilda Road Police Complex, so I won’t say it. After being searched, stared at, labelled and escorted to the lab to have my fingers stained with black gunge, we found Letty White in her office. It was just a cubicle, but she did have a window. With unparalleled views of sky.

‘Miss Chapman,’ she said briskly. ‘Is this your man?’

She laid a photo on the desk. I sat down in the visitor’s chair. I nodded.

‘Your uninvited guest was Jim Ronaldson, known as ‘the Cat’. For fairly obvious reasons.’

‘He’s a cat burglar,’ I said, getting my breath back.

‘He’s hired muscle,’ said Daniel. ‘His father was a climber. I seem to remember he died on Everest. Son took to crime.’

‘That’s our Jim,’ said Letty. ‘Rest of the family accepted his father’s death, he never did. Nasty record. Children’s Court for everything except actual murder.’

‘Doesn’t he hang out with the Twins?’ asked Daniel.

‘Yes. Not nice men.’ Letty White tucked in the corners of her mouth in disapproval.

‘I don’t understand,’ said Daniel. ‘They’re guns for hire. Who could have hired them? They cost serious money. Isn’t there anything you feel you ought to be telling us?’

‘Can’t,’ said Letty promptly. ‘I’ve asked and they said no. Sorry. But it ought to all be over soon.’

‘How soon?’ I asked.

‘Three weeks. No more. Just keep a eye out for these two, and ring us if you see them.’

She laid another photo down. Two hulking, middle-aged men. They had dark hair and eyes and moustaches and were, as far as I could see, identical twins.

‘Caused us a lot of trouble until we found out there were two of them,’ commented the senior constable. ‘They kept giving each other alibis. Tait and Bull Smith belong to a famous criminal family and they are always armed and dangerous, probably even when asleep. So take care.’

‘Thanks a bundle,’ I muttered and we left the building, turning in our badges and regaining our possessions.

‘This is bad,’ said Daniel as we crossed the road to the tram stop.

‘No shit,’ I agreed.

‘But, Corinna, the Twins? They do, as Lepidoptera says, belong to a famous criminal family, but they were thrown out of it some years ago.’

‘For?’

‘Being too violent. And indiscriminate. Our criminal underworld tries to keep all its little quarrels in the family. It very seldom involves innocent bystanders, because that invites attention and police officers and trouble like search warrants. But the Twins …’

‘Don’t tell me.’ I stepped up into the tram. The light glow of my gin and tonic had entirely worn off and I felt very cold. I found two tickets and put them into the machine, only dropping them twice, which was quite good considering how chilled my fingers were. I had left my red gloves at home.

‘All right, but what I’m trying to say is that they are for hire, they are freelancers. Like the Teutonic Knights, with whom they would get on very well.’

‘Come in, Georg, let’s quaff some of this stolen wine by the bright fire of this massacred village, sort of thing?’

‘Just so, ketschele.’ His hand was warm in mine. ‘And Jim the Cat is a known associate of theirs. They use him to get up to an office, say, and then to open or break the window, get in, and let them in.’

‘So you think that our recluse was their target?’

‘I can’t imagine who else it would be, can you?’

‘The only new person is Mrs Dawson,’ I answered. ‘And we know a lot about her. I’m sure that she could mastermind a criminal family if it took her fancy, but somehow …’

‘I can’t see her doing anything that tacky,’ he agreed.

We got off the tram at Flinders Street. Lately going home had been a whole new world of nasty surprises. I was getting positively superstitious about approaching Insula. But the only person waiting for us when we got there was Sister Mary.

‘There you are,’ she said, as though we were the people she had always wanted to meet. ‘Daniel, can you come to MAP tomorrow? Your old friend Nails wants to talk to you. I’ll be there at about ten. And Darren is still causing trouble. I’d appreciate your help,’ she said.

There was no use arguing with Sister Mary so we agreed. We might, at least, find out if the Twins and the Cat had anything to do with that fake messiah. Assuming he was talking to anyone, of course.

‘Crocodile swamps?’ asked Daniel.

‘Moat monsters, electric fence, answering machine, deep pit to catch elephants,’ I said, and we went in to bar the door and make dinner and then make love and other things that people do when they aren’t being interviewed by police or frightened out of their wits by burglars with funny names. Thursday looked like being difficult. I fortified myself against the cold with Daniel, who was always warm.

C
_HA
PTER ELEVEN

Four am, but for a change I was not underslept, and the coffee tasted unusually good. When I got down the steps I found work had already started. Jason was making a heavy dark Welsh bread called bara brith, stuffed with dried fruit. I mixed the first batches of rye and pasta douro and drank more coffee. I had brought Jason a tray of French bread, bacon, tomatoes and sausages, which Daniel, with a degree of self-sacrifice I would find hard to overpraise, had cooked for us. Jason scoffed the lot in moments.

I ate mine in a leisurely fashion, relishing the different tastes and textures. The bacon was crisp and the tomatoes mushy, just as I liked them. The sausages had been made from contented pigs and the toast was very good. So far, I was enjoying Thursday.

This was not to last. Kylie, who had managed a one-night stand with Jon last month, had just heard about Kepler and Jon, and she wasn’t taking it well. She was green today, hair and eyes and all.

‘After I put on my best dress for him,’ she mumbled. ‘I thought we had a thing.’

150

‘You may have had a thing,’ I responded, ‘But this is another sort of thing.’

‘Is it worse being left for a man?’ she asked passionately, leaning over the cash register and displaying inches of perfectly flat chest.

‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘It’s not nice being left at all: let’s not go there, eh?’

‘There was this episode of the Simpsons,’ she said, and I stopped listening. The habit of anyone under twenty-five of referring any large ethical or moral issues to the judgment of the Simpsons, which no one told the kids was a satire on how not to either have a family or run a uranium plant, is trying to a grown-up mind. I didn’t know how much Kylie was actually hurting, so I let her babble on about Homer and Marge, though I would have been happy never to hear those names again. A curse on the Simpsons. Bring back the sterner philosophers, like Epicurus. Now Epicurus could give Homer Simpson a run for his money, Duff beer or no Duff beer. I had a feeling that Epicureans could hold their drink …

‘… and Marge came back to Homer so it was all right,’ she concluded.

‘Good. Don’t judge the entire world by the Simpsons. It’s a satire,’ I tried.

‘What’s a satire?’ asked Kylie, wide-eyed, and I gave up. We sold bread and muffins until it was time for me and Daniel to go to the prison to talk to his old friend, Nails.

‘And he is called Nails because …?’ I prompted, when we were on the tram.

‘You don’t want to know,’ he told me.

He was right. Normally a fiend for information, in this case I didn’t. Daniel looked gorgeous in a dark blue sweater. I was wearing my prison-visiting black suit.

‘This had better be important,’ said Daniel. ‘I ought to be back at Heavenly Pleasures, or looking for Selima.’

‘By the way, I am dining with an old female friend tonight. Can you amuse yourself?’

‘Certainly,’ he said with a grin. ‘I’ll go and get Kepler out of bed to replay the game. It was the Immortal Game by Adolf Anderssen, 1851. He had it set out. You looked at the chess
men,’ he said, wondering why I was puzzled.

‘Only because they were pretty chessmen,’ I replied. ‘We’re here.’

MAP was just as it had been before and we got in with the same walk down the featureless corridor. Daniel was right about the smell. I hadn’t got used to it. Halloran was there. He looked worried. Even his nose had gone pale.

‘I hope you can do something about this, sir,’ he said to Daniel. ‘Everyone’s jumpy. The place is at boiling point, so it is, and something must be done with that creature, for all the good Sister says that he is faking. And her not a woman I would willingly cross.’

‘Hey, me neither,’ said Daniel. Nails was brought in after a short wait. He was a tall lad with innumerable piercings and a Celtic tattoo on his arm. I didn’t enquire about the rest of him. He seemed uneasy. I personally wouldn’t have liked to meet him down a nice sunlit street at noon, much less a dark alley. He was escorted in and sat down.

‘Dude,’ he said to Daniel.

‘Hey,’ Daniel replied. ‘What’s the haps?’

‘Dude, we gotta witch,’ said Nails.

‘Darren the God Boy?’ Daniel laughed. Nails didn’t.

‘I tell you, man, this is serious. He’s got everyone spooked. He put the evil eye on Jonesy, and the next day he fell off a ladder and broke his leg. He put a curse on Fats Farren and he fell into the chip maker. He’s in hospital.’

‘Isn’t Fats Farren a child molester?’ asked Daniel. ‘Are you sure that he fell into the oil on his own?’

‘I swear, man, there wasn’t no one near him.’ Nails leaned forward. ‘Listen, someone’s going to off him if you don’t do something. Or the sister.’

‘Look, Nails, everyone listens to you. If you tell them this witchcraft shit is just bullshit, they’ll lay off Darren. Who is, and always has been, an extreme nutcase, you know that.’

‘Yair,’ said Nails. ‘I know he’s a nutcase. But I ain’t got no proof that he ain’t doing all this shit. I was in the kitchen when that boiling oil went over and Fats was alone. You gotta do something. If this place goes up, it’s hard time for all of us. I just want to get through my time and get home. My old lady’s got a new baby and I want to see him at Christmas. Way this is going I won’t see my son till he’s leaving school.’

‘All right,’ said Daniel. ‘I’ll see what I can do. Meanwhile, you keep the lid on it as much as you can, right, Nails? I’m relying on you.’

‘And I’m trusting you, dude,’ said Nails.

Sister Mary was brought in and Nails bobbed her something rather close to a bow as he was taken out.

Then there was a hissing noise, like an infuriated cat, and Darren came in. Actually he more slithered prone. Even in handcuffs and leg irons he moved easily, sliding across the floor as though he might have had scales on his belly. Sister Mary jumped to her feet.

‘Put him into a chair,’ she ordered, and two guards, very unwilling to do so, were forced by her imperious will into not only touching Darren but piling him into a chair.

‘You pay attention to me!’ said Sister Mary. She seemed to grow taller. ‘Stop this nonsense immediately!’

‘Sssss-ah!’ said Darren, recoiling from the cross on her pendant as though he had been blinded. He threw up his handcuffed wrists to cover his eyes. There was a ragged scratch, outlined with betadine, across his forehead.

‘Darren, you gotta stop this witchcraft shit,’ said Daniel. ‘Or someone is going to kill you.’

For a moment I could have sworn the unfocused eyes sharpened and then blinked. Daniel saw it too.

‘I know how Fats got burned,’ Daniel continued. ‘Just takes a bit of fishing line and a wedge to unbalance a pot. Jonesy would have fallen off a ladder anyway, he’s fried his brains on speed. But if you don’t stop this, someone will kill you dead. And by the way, thanks for the bomb threat, and how did you get in with the Cat and the Twins? They’re not your usual company.’

‘Ssss,’ replied Darren. Daniel glared. Sister Mary glared. I glared. Not that it did any good. Darren’s movements were snaky and he was really frightening me. And I’d only saw
The Exorcist
once. Fed on a diet of horror movies, I could imagine how the prison population was feeling.

‘Darren, if you think this is your ticket to a nice safe psych ward, you’re wrong,’ said Daniel. ‘They haven’t got a bed in any of the secure hospitals. You’ve made everyone here your enemy, and you’ll have to stay here, and someone will kill you. Have I made myself clear? You think about it.’

‘Sssscared you,’ said Darren.

‘In your dreams,’ said Daniel. He got up and called across the corridor. ‘Take him away, Mr Halloran.’

Darren hissed and slithered his way out. Sister Mary came as close as she ever did to swearing. ‘In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit!’ she said.

‘I’ve got a plan,’ I said as it burst fully formed into my head. ‘Let’s get out of here and I’ll tell you about it. We’ll need

to talk to the Prof, Daniel.’

‘The Prof?’ he asked, baffled.

‘Yes, I hope he’s home. And we have to get back to catch that Chinese boy. Sister, can you arrange to come back tomorrow, about ten?’

‘Yes. But I’m not bringing an exorcist, assuming we have one, which we don’t. I’m not bothering the bishop with this nonsense.’ Sister Mary was cross.

‘No need. You come along with a bottle of holy water and one of ordinary water and I reckon we can expose good old Darren as a fraud.’

‘We’ll need to have Nails along as a witness,’ Daniel was thinking fast. ‘He’s well respected. You convince him, you convince the prison. Good. See you tomorrow,’ he said, and we caught the tram for home.

‘What have you got in mind, Sherlock?’ he asked. I grinned at him.

‘You remember all that witchcraft history which Meroe made me read?’ I said. ‘There was a famous judge in England called Sir John Holt who single-handedly stopped the witchcraft persecutions there. I’m going to use a Sir John Holt trick on Darren the God Boy,’ I said, so pleased as to be bordering on smug. ‘And I bet it works just as well for me as it worked for Sir John.’

‘I’ll be fascinated,’ he said. I could tell that he was about to try to tease me into explaining, but it was time for him to go and check out the rest of the customers at Heavenly Pleasures and for me to return to my bakery.

Where things were going well. Jason, I noticed, was wearing a new t-shirt.

‘Got it from Chas Li,’ he said. ‘He came past with a bundle of them. On his way to the Vic market. He’s nothing like his brother, is he?’

‘No,’ I said, thinking of the dreamy Kepler and the bustling Chas.

‘I’m going to go over after we finish here and help him with the unloading,’ said Jason. ‘Catch up with the guys. I’ll be careful,’ he said, seeing that I looked worried. ‘I’m not going back to that life. Sleeping on the ground, cold, hungry, dirty, hustling for a fix. But some of them were nice to me,’ he added. ‘I want to see how they’re doing.’

When he had been a homeless junkie, Jason had hung out near the Vic market, where there was always a meal of sorts to be gleaned from the skips. If you weren’t too picky. I worried about this decision. Jason had only been off the gear for a month or so. But if he was going to backslide, then he would, and we’d deal with it when we had to. And one thing I didn’t suspect the capitalist Chas to be doing was selling drugs. On a risk/cost analysis, drugs don’t cut it unless you are only dealing with a few middlemen. Street dealers get caught repeatedly, because they are on the street. And they have to be on the street in order to deal.

‘Okay, but don’t stay out too late—I’m hoping for more of your chocolate muffins in the morning,’ was all I said, and even that might have been too much. Jason went back to his ovens and I sold more bread. But I didn’t have a song in my heart.

At ten to one Kepler and Jon came into the bakery. Kylie saw Jon and scowled, and then caught sight of Kepler and stared. Her little rosebud mouth dropped quite open. Her eyes were as round as a doll’s.

He was a very pretty sight. He was wearing his shadow-grey shantung suit and his long grey-streaked hair was held back by a silver clip. Jon loomed behind him.

‘Hello,’ I said, leaning over to tip Kylie’s mouth shut with a forefinger under her chin. ‘Kylie, this is Kepler.’

Kepler held out a hand. Kylie took it, still unspeaking. She wasn’t going to say anything, I realised.

‘Come along, gentlemen, we need to net our bird. Daniel’s at the chocolate shop. This way,’ I said, and led them into the alley. Kylie still staring at Kepler’s retreating back as we went out.

‘You do make an impression,’ remarked Jon. Kepler smiled deprecatingly.

‘It’s the suit,’ he said. Jon laughed.

We lurked outside Heavenly Pleasures, one shop along on either side. I was with Kepler, contemplating ladies’ underwear, and Jon was stationed near Mistress Dread’s, allowing himself to be tempted by a red leather corset with black facings. And spiked nipples. Daniel joined him there.

Time passed. I pointed out the relative merits of black silk camisoles against pink taffeta to Kepler, who nodded. Daniel nudged Jon, sharing a comment on the painful effect of embracing someone wearing that corset. Then, just as I had really run out of things to say about ladies’ underwear, in which my colleague could have no interest whatsoever, a slim Chinese boy in a suit slipped between us to look into the window of Heavenly Pleasures.

Kepler said something in a low voice and got no response. The boy was trying to see into the shop between the gilded clouds and cherubs. Then Jon spoke and he looked up and answered in the same tongue.

‘Cantonese,’ said Jon. ‘Come along with me. We need to talk,’ he said in English.

‘But, sir …’ said the boy.

Jon said something imperative, and the boy snapped to it and followed us like a lamb around the corner.

‘We need to talk to you about Selima,’ said Daniel in English. ‘I’m employed to find out what is happening in the chocolate shop and at the moment they are blaming it all on her.’

‘It is not her doing,’ said the boy sternly.

‘We know. Come along inside and we will talk about it. Or would you prefer to go into the cafe? It’s all right. We are not trying to kidnap you,’ said Jon.

The boy stared at Jon. It was incongruous, I expect, to have heard fluent Cantonese from someone as palpably Western as Jon with his Irish complexion and red hair. But when he looked at Kepler he saw someone not only Chinese but of wealth and status and that seemed to reassure him. He made up his mind.

‘I only have an hour,’ he said. ‘I’m on my lunch break. Can we go somewhere quiet? I’m so worried about Selima.’

‘My apartment,’ said Jon.

The apartment reassured the boy more. So did the Chinese tea which Jon produced. The boy named himself as Brian Chung, first year accounting student at RMIT, doing work experience with a large city firm. This explained the suit. Eighteen years old. Large family in Frankston. Required to do well and support his ageing parents. Sister doing medicine at Melbourne University and two more at home doing terribly well at school. Other siblings married and in professions. Jon said this was usual.