‘Fuck, you’re a bit of a glamour compared to the chicks we normally get. City girls don’t wanna come all the way up the Hill. You look familiar, but. I seen you somewhere before?’
I shrugged and tried to utilise my panic the way actors drew on stage fright. I’d once seen a doco on Marlon Brando and the Stanislavski method. I
was
a skanky yet up-myself bogan stripper-princess, slightly bored by the proceedings but fully aware of my sexual power.
‘
Hustler
,
Penthouse
,
Picture
,
Oz-Bike
.’ I ticked each one off on a finger. ‘Plus I’m branching out into acting. You seen
I
Cum in a Land Down Under
?’
He shook his head.
‘It
was
mainly for the overseas market . . .’ I talked through my gum.
‘Where’s all your stuff ?’ He nodded to my small bag. ‘Youse girls usually come with suitcases full of costumes and props and shit.’
‘Don’t need any.’
‘No?’
‘Nah, I kinda use whatever or . . . whoever comes to hand.’
Trev grinned. ‘Sounds hot.’
‘Fucken oath.’
‘Have to be to top the shows we got on tonight.’
I shrugged again. Like, whatever.
Trev stood aside to let me in. The entrance led to a small antechamber, obviously another security precaution, and he locked the outside door before opening the inner one. The interior of the building was a large, square open space with a corner bar in front of a large glass-fronted fridge filled with booze. The Harleys were parked inside next to a garage roller-door and the furniture consisted of bar stools, a few old couches and a couple of chrome tables. There were no windows, just a fierce air-conditioner and an extractor fan to ensure no one suffocated. A large painting took up one wall—a picture of a grinning devil head with the name ‘Red Devils’ above and the club motto below: ‘Dead Man Riding’. Other walls were plastered with posters of naked chicks and bikes, individually and together, some relatively tame like the ones Chloe had done for
Picture
magazine, others looking like something out of a gynaecology textbook. The place smelled of oil and sweat and cigarette smoke. A plasma screen TV over the bar was playing a porno, but the sound was off and the fifteen or so bikies weren’t paying attention to it anyway. They were huddled around in a rough circle as AC/DC blasted out of a huge silver sound system. ‘Thunderstruck’.
‘That’s Channelle.’ Trev nodded towards the crowd as he led me into the room. ‘She’s doing a beer show.’
‘Cool,’ I said, no idea what a beer show was.
‘C’mere, darl.’ He grabbed me around the waist and hoisted me up on the bar so I could get a good view. I had the feeling Trev was flirting, coming over all gallant and knights of the round table.
Channelle was dancing around the centre of the circle naked but for a shiny satin suspender belt, fishnet stockings and chunky heels. Her hair was shoulder length, bleached and permed and her makeup harsh: bright blue eye shadow teamed with hot pink lipstick made her look older than she was, which I guessed was late thirties. She was quite thin, but sort of flabby, like there was no muscle tone underneath. A faded rose had been inked onto one boob and when she turned I saw a washed-out shamrock branding one sagging flank. After she’d finished dancing around the circle she headed for one of the walls of the clubhouse and everybody let out a roar. She did a handstand and came to rest upside down, heels ripping the edge of a girlie magazine poster. Little by little she moved her legs until they made a wide V and all the blokes swarmed in close for a good look at her shaved pussy. You could always tell shaved from waxed: had a raw look, sort of a rash, like the stubble was trying to poke through the skin.
One of the guys, who was, strangely enough, shirtless and wearing a pair of Biggles-style aviator goggles on his forehead, ran to the fridge. The crowd roared as he returned holding aloft a stubby of VB. He twisted the top off and foam dribbled down the side. I suddenly got it. We weren’t in Kansas anymore, Toto.
I tried not to look shocked as the shirtless guy went over to Channelle, tipped the stubby upside down and inserted it into her vagina up to the neck. It balanced. Channelle smiled bravely, her face red and puffy from the sudden rush of blood.
The guy slid the goggles over his eyes and removed the bottle, still holding it upside down, so the crowd could see that no liquid remained. I couldn’t help thinking a fanny full of beer couldn’t be good for you, the yeast alone likely to incite a terminal case of thrush.
Goggle-guy lay down on the floor, on a plastic drop-sheet. Channelle flipped expertly out of her handstand so that she was standing above his face. He opened his mouth and for a few seconds nothing happened, then the beer foamed out and he drank it, gargling and poking out his tongue. The gang went wild.
‘Pretty good, aye?’ Trev helped me down from the bar-top.
‘Seen better.’ I shrugged. ‘There somewhere I can get ready?’
‘Yeah, out back. Tulsa and Arizona are in there, but it should be okay.’
‘So Channelle was just the warm-up bitch, huh?’
‘Yeah. If that’s for starters I can’t wait to see what you come up with.’
A door behind the bar led to a hallway at the back, with doors leading off, all of them closed. Maybe they’d once been storerooms or offices. The clubhouse was claustrophobic and I started to feel that coming here had been a really dumb idea. Nick probably wasn’t there anymore. At least I’d told the cabbie to call Talbot, but even if he did, could I stall them for an hour? And how would the cops get in without a warrant? Trev was hardly going to slide open the gate and roll out the welcome mat.
My mouth dried up and I started sweating again despite the powerful air-conditioning. Keep your shit together, I told myself. I had the gun. Six rounds, but there were fifteen of them, probably armed themselves, and I didn’t even know whether I’d be capable of shooting, if it came to that.
Trev knocked brief ly and opened one of the doors in the hallway.
The bedroom looked windowless, probably shuttered. A couple of thin, hard-faced strippers sat on a cheap floral bedspread under harsh fluorescent light. They wore long dresses in skin-tight, stretchy fabric, low cut, slashed up the thigh. The blonde’s dress was hot-pink and Trev told me her name was Tulsa. Arizona wore electric blue, her hair was dyed rock ’n’ roll black, and she looked up, startled, when we came in. They’d been deep in conversation and seemed totally wired, licking their lips and sucking at their teeth, pupils like black olives. Both were as skinny as Tiara and had the same twig arms, visible ribs and razor sharp clavicles. A glass pipe, identical to the one Tiara and Watto had used, sat on the bedside table, next to a lighter and a small square of folded foil.
‘Fuck, Trev,’ Arizona said. ‘You scared the shit out of us. No guys in the girls’ room, right?’
‘Sorry. This is Candy. She’s going on after youse. Craig sent her.’
Trev backed out of the room. The girls stared at me. Hard, crystalline eyes.
‘You’re the finale?’ Arizona said.
‘Uh-huh.’
‘What do you do?’ Tulsa, the blonde, asked.
‘It’s a surprise,’ I said, and they both rolled their eyes. ‘What do you guys do?’
Tulsa reached behind her and picked up a long, neon-pink object.
‘We’re the Texan Twins,’ she said, and I didn’t tell her that I was pretty sure Tulsa was in Oklahoma and Arizona happened to be a whole ’nother state.
At first I thought the item was one of those snake things you put at the base of doors to stop drafts, but a millisecond later I realised it was a double-ended dildo of similar length and girth made of some kind of pliable rubber. As she gripped it in the middle each bulbous end bounced up and down.
‘Your show must be pretty extreme,’ Arizona said, looking doubtful. ‘They don’t call us the backdoor beauties for nothing.’
If I ever get out of this damn clubhouse, I pledged silently, that’s it, I’m quitting stripping for good.
‘Cool,’ I said. ‘You guys know where the dunny is?’
‘Down the hall.’
‘Ta.’
I left the room and crept down the corridor, trying every door. All locked except for one at the opposite end, which turned out to be a small office. A desk sat in the middle and steel cabinets lined the walls. A table held a bank of TV screens displaying the CCTV footage. I saw the street I’d come in from, empty front and rear car parks and the beer show still going on in the main room. Another guy was lying on the tarp wearing the goggles this time. Who said vaudeville was dead? The final screen showed the strippers sitting on the mattress in their dresses, sucking from the pipe. The angle suggested the guys had installed a small camera in the light fitting. Pervy fuckers. Unfortunately for me there was no image of Nick bound to a chair in a storeroom, struggling like Penelope Pitstop tied to the railway tracks.
He wasn’t there. Made sense. No black van, either. No Elvis Mask. They’d probably taken him directly to Rod.
I had to get out. I looked wildly around the off ice, heart beating fast. The desk was a mess: papers, computer, overf lowing ashtray, biker magazines. I checked the top drawer and found a bunch of keys. Maybe they opened the locked doors. Maybe the locked doors led to a way out.
The first door revealed a small storeroom packed to the roof with cases of booze. The second led to a closet with nothing in it except a patch of carpet on the floor. I lifted it and found a padlocked hatch, tried each key with shaking hands, but none fitted. Was it a way out or did they have something stashed down there? Weapons? Drugs? I put my ear to the hatch, knocked softly, called Nick’s name but heard nothing.
Right. I was seriously running out of time.
Another door opened onto a second bedroom, empty of people, and the last door onto a small workshop with bike parts and tools and a concrete floor. My heart sank, then rose. The back wall of the room was another roller-door. I hurried over. One key opened the padlock, the next the door itself. I winced in preparation for an ear-splitting alarm but it never came. Rolling the door up a little I slipped underneath and ran around the building looking for a way out. The fence was ten feet of slippery steel topped with razor wire. The ground was empty concrete and there was nowhere to hide. I raced to the front gate, praying the beer show was still in full swing and no one was in the office, scrutinising the television screens. I’d expected a mechanism beside the gate to open it, perhaps a handy red button, but there was nothing. Of course. Had to be in the antechamber Trev had led me through. I ran to the door I’d first entered but it was locked tight and none of the keys fit. My hands on the metal felt the thud of the music within. The thud suddenly stopped.
Damn. I ran to the back of the building, slid under the roller-door, closed but didn’t lock it, and shut the door to the workshop. I tried to compose myself before re-entering the girls’ room, but there wasn’t really time. Arizona and Tulsa stared at me.
‘Fuck happened to you?’ said the blonde. ‘Look like you just run the four-minute mile.’
I’d always worked well under pressure, necessity being the mother of invention and all that. I shook my head, held the bridge of my nose, tipped my head back and sniffed deeply.
‘Faaaark.’ I winced. ‘I have just done the biggest line of the strongest fucken Louie I’ve had in my life. I’m peakin’, mate.’
‘You still
snort
speed?’ the blonde asked, incredulous, just before she took another hit from the ice pipe.
I nodded, wiping my nose with the back of my hand as she handed the pipe to the brunette and leaned back on the mattress, eyes closed, enjoying the rush.
‘Old school,’ the brunette said, shaking her head. ‘That shit’ll kill you.’
The door opened and Channelle entered, naked and stinking of beer. Trev popped his head in.
‘Youse are on now,’ he told Arizona and Tulsa. ‘Right now. I mean it.’ He smiled at me before he closed the door and his small, even teeth made the grin look like that of an impish child—completely at odds with the beard and waistcoat.
‘Great show,’ I said to Channelle as she pulled a fluffy pink towel from her suitcase. ‘Uh, can I borrow someone’s mobile? Mine just ran out of juice.’
The others just stared, but Channelle said, ‘Sure, love, use mine. Just make sure you give it back when I get out of the shower.’
‘Thanks.’
‘No worries.’
I fiddled with the pink flip-out phone until she went to the bathroom, waited till the other two gathered their lube and dildo and left, then slipped through the workshop again and underneath the roller-door. I stuck close to the wall, out of sight of the cameras, I hoped, and my hands were trembling as I fumbled in my bag. Past the cold metal of the gun I found my wallet and slipped out Talbot’s card. No time to wait for the cabbie.
The line went straight to her messagebank. I rang three more times but she wasn’t picking up. I left a message:
‘Um, Detective Talbot? This is Simone Kirsch. You have to come save me. I’m being held captive at the Red Devils clubhouse in Broken Hill.’ Not exactly true but I was sure it soon would be. ‘I know where Nick Austin is,’ I added. Another lie, but it was sure to get her attention. If she ever checked her goddamn messages.
Just as I was dialling triple 0 I heard a familiar mechanical scrape. The front gate was moving. My god. I couldn’t believe my luck. Maybe some dude on a bike was coming in and I’d be able to slip past, run like hell to the taxi and escape.
I crept around the side of the clubhouse, staying in the shadows close to the wall, and peered around to the front. The gate slid open and the black van I’d seen at the pub began nosing in. I didn’t know what to do. Wait for Talbot? Try to call triple 0 again? Channelle would be looking for her phone soon, Trev and the boys searching for me—expecting a thousand bucks’ worth of depraved acts and getting awfully shirty if I didn’t put out. The van’s headlights were illuminating the empty car park, but I really needed to get out of there, and if I was fast enough . . .
I sprinted for the gate, heading straight for the metre gap between it and the van. Headlights blinded me, but just as I passed them I glanced up and saw the scooped-out rat face behind the wheel. Watto.