Remembering the intense way he’d stared at me when he said it made me swallow involuntarily and I felt a familiar tingle run up and down my inner thighs. Maybe it was just as well no one was answering the buzzer. I felt like a bit of a dick, though, not having asked the cab driver to wait.
‘Hey,’ someone shouted from the street adjacent to Alex’s.
I turned. An old man in a wide-brimmed hat and long-sleeved shirt stood in the front yard of a brick bungalow. He wore gardening gloves and held a pair of pruning shears.
‘Who you looking for?’ he said.
‘Alex Christakos.’ I crossed the road so we wouldn’t have to shout. ‘Friend of mine.’
‘The copper with the dicky arm?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Just missed him.’
‘Damn.’
‘Went down the tavern.’
‘Tavern?’ I checked my watch. It wasn’t quite ten.
The guy saw me looking and grinned.
‘It’s twelve o’clock somewhere, love. Mentone Arms. Down Beach Road just before the surf club.’ He swiped sweat off his forehead with his shirtsleeve. ‘Might head down myself after I finish this.’
‘Thanks. Maybe see you there. His wife’s not with him is she?’
‘No, why?’ A sly grin.
I found the tavern fifty metres down the road, in between the surf club and a fish ’n’ chip shop. It was a squat brick building with a board out front advertising pensioner lunch specials: pork roasts, chicken schnitzels and discounted pots of beer. The inside was dark and cool, with a low ceiling and bar on the right-hand wall. Televisions screened racing and football, and an arch to the left led to a TAB area for betting. I heard faint, chirruping chimes and guessed the poker machines were hidden somewhere further back.
The only patrons were a couple of old codgers sitting at the bar, who turned and looked when I walked in, and Alex, sitting at a high round table, who didn’t. He was busy sipping a pot of beer and studying a form guide. My heart picked up again, drilling so fast I thought it might give out. I took a second to study him from behind.
He wore much the same outfit he’d had on at Christmas, faded black t-shirt and an old pair of jeans. He still hadn’t cut his hair and it curled almost to the collar of his t-shirt, the fabric of which was so thin it outlined the bones of his broad shoulders and the curve of his back. I was overcome with a sudden urge to press my breasts against him, smell his neck and run my fingers down his spine.
I took a deep breath. Christ, I was worse than a bitch on heat. Could have done with a bucket of cold water, or maybe a quick spray with the hose. I tried to think of Sean, but his face had gone all blurry and he seemed far away, as though he’d never come back from ’Nam. I had to approach before Alex turned and saw me ogling like a playground pervert.
‘Hi,’ I said.
He glanced up and it took him half a second to realise who I was.
‘Simone.’ He smiled, then frowned. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘Just passing, thought I’d drop in. Your neighbour told me you’d be here.’ I climbed onto the bar stool opposite.
‘Want a drink?’
‘Nah, I’m trying to cut—’
‘Give me a break. I’m already living with one reformed alcoholic.’ He got up, went to the bar and soon returned with a whiskey to supplement his beer, and a glass of champagne for me. He carried both the glasses in one hand, not a good sign. Meant his right arm wasn’t back to normal.
‘Whiskey in winter, champagne in summer, yeah?’
‘That’s right.’ I couldn’t believe he’d remembered. I’d said that to him, what, a year before? ‘So, Suze back off the booze?’
‘And coffee, sugar, preservatives, non-organic vegetables, deep-water fish.’ He counted them off on his fingers. ‘We’re trying for a baby.’
‘Oh.’ My guts clenched, but I shouldn’t have been surprised. Alex had already told me having kids was one of the reasons he wanted to get hitched. ‘Good luck.’
We clinked glasses.
‘Seems like everybody’s popping out sprogs these days,’ I said, thinking of Chloe.
‘Even you?’
‘Huh?’
‘Put on a bit of condition.’ He poked me just above the waistband of my hipster jeans. ‘Thought you might be in the family way.’
‘
Bitch
.’ I involuntarily sucked in my stomach. ‘That’s low.’
Alex laughed.
‘Settle down, Simone, looks good. Men don’t mind a bit of extra padding, gives us something to hang on to.’
That gave me an image I really didn’t need. There was a short, not entirely comfortable silence in which we sipped our drinks and I feigned interest in a replay of a Manchester United game on one of the TV screens.
‘How’s Graham?’ I asked. Alex’s Burmese.
‘Most people inquire after my wife.’
‘Your cat’s friendlier.’
He grinned and swung his leg under the table so that our knees were touching.
‘Tell me,’ he said, ‘why are you really here?’
‘Somebody wants to kill me.’
‘What’s new?’
‘Shit, Alex, I’m serious. I really need your help.’ I pulled out the note in the plastic sandwich bag and slid it across the table.
He gave it a cursory glance and shrugged. I moved my leg away because my knee was tingling and it was getting hard to concentrate. Alex frowned, just for a moment.
‘That’s not all,’ I said. ‘I think the same guy slashed my tyres and ran my car off the road. I wasn’t driving, but I could have been.’
‘What do you want me to do about it? Call the cops like a normal person. Christ’s sake, you’re shacked up with a serving member of the state police. How hard can it be?’
‘Sean doesn’t know.’
Alex shook his head.
‘Can you promise to keep a secret?’ I asked.
Alex gave me a disparaging look. ‘Simone, I’m really not in the mood for any girly
let’s keep a secret
bullshit, especially when it comes to my best mate.’ He downed the rest of his whiskey, chased it with a sip of beer and turned his attention back to the form guide.
The dismissive act made my face prickle. Who did he think he was? I didn’t so much want to sniff his neck as slap his face. I was sick of his superior attitude and the fact he was a total hypocrite.
‘No bullshit girly secrets? You told Sean and Suzy about what happened at your buck’s party, then?’
‘Of course not.’
‘Well?’ I asked.
‘Well nothing. You think you’ve got something over me?’
‘Not any more than you’ve got over me.’
We stared at each other across the table. His expression was flat and I knew there was no reasoning with him. So I told him what was going on, and why I didn’t want to inform my boyfriend, and after I’d done that I asked very nicely for him to not mention to Sean that I was looking for Nick Austin.
‘Just tell him.’
‘I can’t.’
‘You don’t really have much choice.’
‘But if you could make some inquiries . . . You have lots of good mates in the service and it wouldn’t be corrupt, just helping out a friend.’
‘I’m not working for the Ethical Standards Department anymore and I don’t really give a shit about corruption so much as what happened last time I
helped out a friend
. . .’ He held up his arm and concentrated on making a fist, but his fingers wouldn’t fold. ‘And the time before that.’ He jerked down the front of his t-shirt to show me the puckered bullet scar on his shoulder.
I didn’t know how to respond. Everything he said was true. Helping me out had left him near death and out of work. He had every right to be pissed off. And if I was honest with myself, was it really his help I needed, or did I just want to be near to him, getting off on the amphetamine rush of infatuation? If so, then I was a selfish, immoral bitch. Sorry for myself, too, I noted as my eyes filled with tears. Somewhere in my conniving little head I must have hoped the crying would placate Alex, but it just made him colder.
‘You know, I was glad when I heard you were moving to Vietnam,’ he said.
‘What?’
‘Yeah, Sean told me and I thought, thank Christ, I’ll finally have her out of my life. More fucking trouble than she’s worth.’
I sat there with my mouth open, trying to work out exactly what Sean had said.
‘But I haven’t—’
‘Canberra first, then Ho Chi Minh? I can’t imagine even hitmen want to spend time in our nation’s capital so you’ll be quite safe there. Maybe you should leave now.’
I searched his eyes. They were triumphant, venomous. I should never have come. Alex was right. We weren’t friends. We had nothing in common except Sean and a grubby sort of attraction to each other. He had his form guide and his procreation and his expensive flat that he was probably trying to trade in for a family home further out in the suburbs, and unless I was up for some quick, dirty encounter that was too meaningless to even make a blip on his moral radar then he didn’t have much use for me. Screw him.
‘Fine. I will leave.’
‘Good.’
‘Bye then.’ I stood up and felt a mix of shame, anger and unrequited bullshit slop around my veins. ‘Have a nice life, Alex.’
‘Oh, I will.’ He finished his beer and turned his attention to the form guide as I walked out the door.
I
called Liz from a public phone in the park opposite Alex’s place, pretended to be someone else in case her phone was tapped, and arranged to meet her at one pm in a café in Albert Park.
It was a five-minute walk to the station, where I boarded a city-bound train and stared out the window and seethed all the way from Mentone to South Yarra.
As the train left Richmond I pulled myself together, strengthening my resolve, and by the time it shunted past the MCG I’d made up my mind. I’d forget about Alex once and for all and chalk down his buck’s party to a bout of bad behaviour never to be repeated or thought of again. It had been a crush, stupid and childish, and it was time to act like a grown-up instead of a boy-crazy teenage girl.
Sean was great, we got on really well, and as for his opinion on my stripping, well, I was kidding myself to think that any guy would be pleased I was doing it. Hadn’t Alex said as much? Sure, domestic life lacked the excitement of the early days of our relationship: a crazy fortnight of love triangles and flying bullets, hyped up on a cocaine-like combination of infatuation and adrenaline, but tough shit. That was life and life wasn’t a naff, straight-to-video action movie based on one of Rod Thurlow’s books. Well, not most of the time.
Moving overseas would be exciting enough and the job was a fantastic opportunity only a certified dickhead would pass up. I knew I’d be stuck desk jockeying at first, but if I kept my head down and worked diligently they’d eventually have to throw me some fieldwork, surely. Canberra was a bit iffy, but that was only for a few months.
As the train pulled into Spencer Street Station I realised I’d made my decision. I was going to Vietnam. I felt like calling Sean and telling him straight away, but thought it’d be better to do it in person, after a glass of champagne. He’d be stoked. I got off the train and looked up at the high, wavy ceiling and had an expansive feeling, like life was opening up rather than closing down and trapping me.
I breathed out, strode up the concrete ramp to Spencer Street to find a tram, and felt light on my feet. I’d made my decision, organised my life, put all my ducks in a row.
And
all your eggs in one basket
, whispered a voice in my head. I ignored it.
There was, of course, the small matter of the death threats, but I had a solution to that, too. I phoned my ex-boss while I waited for the tram.
‘Tony, can you talk?’
‘Sure, what’s up?’ He sounded wary. He usually did when I called. It was another good reason to leave. Everybody in this town had obviously had enough of me and I had no favours left to call in. Still, I wasn’t asking for favours this time.
‘I want to hire you.’
‘To do what?’ he asked.
‘Follow me.’
‘Huh?’
‘I think someone’s stalking me, and I want you to follow, catch him in the act and then hopefully I can identify him.
Don’t worry, I’m flush, I can pay.’
‘When?’
‘Tomorrow, say nine till five?’ I suggested.
‘I was doing some surveillance . . .’
‘If you can’t, then one of your subcontractors?’
‘Nah, I’ll do it, get someone else to take over the factory job. What’s the brief?’
‘Start outside my flat. I’m gonna leave about eleven am and just sort of drive around and run some errands. There’ll be some in-vehicle surveillance, some on foot. Sound alright?’
‘Too easy.’
‘I don’t need to tell you to make sure you’re not spotted.’
‘No, you don’t. How many years I been doing this?’
•
Victoria Road, Albert Park, was a wide street full of lattice-trimmed terraces that had been converted into restaurants, bookshops, clothing boutiques and the sort of stores that specialised in expensive scatter cushions and fancy lamps.
The café doubled as a deli, and built-in shelves held gourmet produce for sale: arborio rice, quince and plum pastes, imported spices in ornately decorated tins. A rack by the door contained flour-dusted spelt and sourdough bread. Ladies who lunch, latte-sipping mums and real estate agent types in suits and ties sat chatting, sounds bouncing off the polished wood floor.
Liz was squished into a table by a glass case heaped with cheese, olives and cured meat. I walked over.
‘Hi.’
‘Hey. I’ve just ordered a sandwich. You want something?’
‘I’ll go.’
At the counter I passed over the cheese plate and pinot for a chicken and avocado salad, black coffee and water, feeling slimmer, purer and more righteous by the second.
‘What’s going on?’ Liz leaned forward as I slid into the chair opposite. She looked even thinner than she had at the Stokehouse, if that was possible, her flicked-out hair more grey than blonde.
I told her most of what I’d found out and she seemed impressed that I’d tracked down Jenny and got an audience with Rod, even though I hadn’t actually learned much. Our lunch arrived and Liz took a bite of her turkey salad sandwich while I blew on my coffee.