Cherry Pie (15 page)

‘You’re pathetic.’ I turned and walked away, crossing the road and heading up Acland. My car was parked somewhere behind the Esplanade hotel. I hadn’t got very far when I heard a shout.

‘Hey, Stripperella!’

I turned. Gordon was standing on the opposite footpath, hands in the pockets of his grey jacket, bobbing up and down on the balls of his feet. ‘I can tell you one thing,’ he yelled.

Somewhere down Carlisle a car revved and tyres squealed.

Bloody hoons.

‘What’s that?’

‘You’re completely on the wrong track. You’re so on the wrong track it’s fucking funny to watch. You don’t know what the hell you’re doing, do you?’ He shook his head, and started walking toward Fitzroy Street.

I got so angry a pale red wash seemed to cloud the air.

I’d had enough and I wanted to wrap my hands around his throat and throttle him, or at least kick the bastard in the shins. I stepped off the kerb and was about to run across the road when I spotted the dark blue sedan and jumped back. It had turned off Carlisle and was speeding up Acland, doing at least eighty in the fifty zone. The car passed me, swerved, mounted the kerb opposite and ran straight into the back of Gordon’s legs.

Time seemed to slow down and shuttle forward, frame by frame. The car scooped Gordon up and somersaulted him backwards onto the bonnet, smashing his head into the windscreen. He didn’t stop there, the momentum propelling him upward, flipping the chubby little chef like an aerial skier, until he’d cleared the car and torpedoed head first into the middle of the street. The crack when his skull hit the asphalt was the most nauseating sound I’d ever heard. The car tore off.

At the cafés down the road women screamed and a couple of guys came running, calling for help on their mobile phones.

I got to Gordon’s body before them, desperately trying to remember my first aid training. Check breathing. Roll to the side. Find a pulse. Was that the right order? Shit. He was lying flat on his face in a pool of sticky blood and I turned him over.

His features were pulped, flesh scraped off and nose mashed, white shards of bone poking through. One eye was swollen closed and the other half open, staring over my shoulder, pupil big and black. Even worse was the fissure cleaving his head from eyebrow to crown. Loops of pink tissue speckled with burst blood vessels bulged through the fleshy crack. My stomach heaved. I looked away from his head and put my fingers on his wrist. I thought I felt a pulse, weak but …

More shouting. I looked up. The guys who’d been hurrying over to help were now running in the opposite direction as the blue car raced back down Acland. I lurched to my feet and jogged towards the cafés, looking back to keep an eye on the vehicle. It went straight for Gordon’s body and one of the tyres bounced over him, splitting the skull wider, forcing more blood and brain to gush onto the road. I stumbled into the gutter and fell, hitting my hip.

The car reversed back over his devastated head then turned and pointed towards me. I made out a guy in the front seat, square jawed, sunglasses, cap, but I wasn’t sticking around to get a full description. I sprang up from the pavement and bolted for Greasy Joe’s, probably moving faster than I ever had in my entire life, dimly aware of bystanders screaming at me to run.

The engine revved as it picked up speed and became louder as the car caught up with me. Any second I expected to feel the bumper biting the back of my legs but I didn’t look back, just ran towards the outdoor dining area and, as soon as I was close enough, dived over the wall, onto a table of four, eyes squeezed shut, forearm shielding my face.

Half a second later the car hit the bricks in an explosion of crunching metal and splintering plastic. At the same time I slid off the table, taking crockery, food, tumblers and beer bottles with me. I hit the ground covered in broken glass, kicked off a chair that had fallen on me, struggled to my feet and ran straight through the restaurant, pushing gawkers out of my path. No way did I want to find out what sedan guy had in mind for plan B. Dashing past a couple of startled chefs I punched out the screen door into a back lane, veered up a side street and wound my way around, finally closing in on the Espy and my car. I got in, fired her up, turned left onto the Esplanade and headed for my place, filthy, cut, bleeding, hands and elbows scraped raw.

I felt no pain, but my heart was racing at a thousand miles an hour and my breath came out in panicky little gasps. Shit.

I couldn’t go to my place, what if they knew where I lived? God, they probably knew my car. I had to go to the cops. But who’d believe a hysterical woman ranting about hit and runs, crazed chefs, three-ways and money laundering, all the while stinking of burgers and booze?

I needed to talk to Alex. He could vouch for me. He’d know who I should talk to and would come with me, hopefully. I pulled over on Ormond Esplanade, opposite the boats bobbing around the marina in the afternoon sun, and called his mobile. Thankfully he answered.

‘Someone just tried to kill me,’ I blurted. ‘I want to go to the cops but I need to talk to you first. You at St Kilda Road?’

‘No, I’m home, Mentone.’

‘Gimme the address.’

‘That’s not such a—’

‘They tried to run me over. They got Gordon from Jouissance. His brains are splattered all over Acland Street.’

‘Shit, Gordon Lamb?’

‘I don’t know what the fuck his surname is. Was. Please.

I need your help.’

He gave me the address.

Alex’s apartment was in a new block fronted with slatted wood and grey-blue concrete, one street back from the beach.

I parked and approached a corrugated iron gate, pushed through and crunched up a neat gravel path lined with spiky plants in square ceramic pots. I climbed the metal stairs to the landing and knocked on the back door. When Alex opened it he was wearing suit pants, a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up and a worried expression.

‘Holy shit. You’re bleeding.’

‘A bit. Most of its tomato sauce.’

He moved back and opened the door wide. The first thing that hit me was the view. A wall of tinted glass overlooked a wooden deck complete with a barbecue and outdoor setting.

Across the road a strip of green parkland gave way to the sand and then the bay where the sun was rapidly moving towards the horizon, reddening and swelling. I stepped into the room. The living area was open plan, granite and stainless steel kitchen by the front door, suede covered lounge suite and entertainment unit with a flat screen TV over by the picture window, glossy black baby grand to the right of the couch. All the furniture matched, and didn’t look like it had come from IKEA—or, in my case, the side of the road on hard rubbish day. The apartment smelled of clean washing and tumble-dried towels.

‘So what happened?’ he asked.

I leaned forward on the polished granite benchtop and told him everything.

‘Why didn’t you go straight to the police?’

‘I need you to come with me. You can explain about the fraud case so they know I’m telling the truth. Think Trip and Sam Doyle organised the hit on Gordon? He told me he knew a lot of stuff about Jouissance, but he wouldn’t give me any details. Why would they knock him though?’

Alex didn’t answer but there was something in his eyes.

‘The way you said his surname when I told you he was dead …’ I tilted my head. ‘You know something. What is it?’

‘I’m really not supposed to—’

‘They tried to murder me too.’

Alex sighed and leaned back on the counter. ‘Gordon’s the one that dobbed Trip in to the Fraud Squad.’

‘Shit.’

‘Shit is right. You’re not safe. After we see the police we need to find somewhere for you to stay.’

‘Sure, whatever.’ I checked my watch. ‘You wanna get going?’

‘I’ll call Homicide first and while I’m doing that you should have a shower. I can see a slice of pickle in your hair.’

‘Can I borrow a clean top?’

‘Sure.’

Alex’s bathroom was ensuite to his bedroom and I got a brief glimpse of a queen ensemble neatly made with a dark grey doona and matching pillow cases. Seeing Alex’s bed caused certain images to pop into my head but I banished them immediately. I knew thoughts of sex were a natural reaction to death but it was a bit goddamn sick getting the horn when you’d just seen someone’s head split open like a watermelon.

I soaped up with his nice shower gel, washed my hair with his shampoo, dried off with a big fluffy towel, decided it would be best for everyone if I didn’t spritz on a bit of his aftershave and dressed in my jeans, boots and an old grey Melbourne University sweater he’d dug out of the closet. When I emerged into the lounge room he was off the phone, standing at the kitchen bench, unscrewing the cap on a bottle of Jameson’s.

‘Want one?’ He tilted the bottle.

‘What do you reckon?’

He poured a generous slug over a couple of ice cubes and held out the glass. I’d thought I was doing alright but when I took hold of it my hand shook so violently that the cubes rattled and whiskey slopped over the rim.

‘You okay?’ His dark brows knitted together and he put his palm on the back of my hand. Sympathy was bad, guaranteed to make me lose it.

‘Sure.’ I pulled my hand away, bottom lip trembling despite myself.

He studied my face. ‘You could be in shock. Maybe I should take you to the hospital first.’

I forced a laugh, aiming for lilting and carefree but getting cackling and hysterical instead. ‘I don’t get shock, or post-traumatic stress, or anything. Seriously. We’ll finish these drinks, go to St Kilda Road and get this over with.’

I turned and walked to a modular shelf unit made of big metal squares and started checking out books and photos, mainly so he wouldn’t see my watering eyes. Inclining my head I read the spines. Mailer, Hemingway, Proust. ‘Jeez, literature with a capital L.’

‘What did you think I’d read?’

‘You always struck me as a Wilbur Smith sort of man.’

‘Thanks.’

It was working. The joking around was drying my eyes.

I sipped my drink and examined the framed photos: Alex and Sean in full dress uniform with their arms around each other, graduating from the police academy; Alex and Suzy at their engagement party, him wearing a suit and her a pink dress and a beatific smile. I supposed she was pretty in a bland, girl next door sort of way. Another frame held a photograph of Alex and his family standing beside a whitewashed building in front of a bright blue sea.

‘Who’s who?’ I held it out and he strolled over from the kitchen and pointed. ‘Mum, Dad, my brothers Con and Theo, and my sister Athena. We were on Mykonos, couple of years back.’

‘Sister looks young.’

‘Just turned eighteen and she’s already at uni, studying law.

After three boys and fifteen years her arrival was a bit of a surprise. Shocked the hell out of me—didn’t think my parents still had sex.’

‘What do your brothers do?’

‘Theo works for the CSIRO in Canberra. I’ve never been able to figure out what he does exactly. Con went into the family business. My dad’s an electrician. I had an apprenticeship with him after I left school but it wasn’t for me.’

I moved to the couch to watch the sunset while I finished my whiskey. The sun was an enormous blood orange hovering over the ocean, silhouetting sailboats. Alex sat next to me.

The room was awash with peach-coloured light.

‘So how did a piano playing ex electrician end up in the police?’ I asked.

‘I knew it was a bad idea letting you in here to nose around.’

I heard a sound at the front door and jumped, expecting Suzy, but a short haired, glossy brown cat was nosing its way through the flap. It slunk across the room, yawned, stretched and leapt onto the couch, sauntering along the back. I stroked its sleek fur as it passed.

‘Meet Graham,’ Alex said. Graham dropped into his lap and looked at me haughtily while Alex scratched his chin.

‘Graham looks a bit up himself.’

‘He’s Burmese,’ Alex said, as though that explained it. ‘So, are you thinking of continuing your search for the missing waitress? I’d strongly advise against—’

‘Don’t worry.’ I held up my hand. ‘I’m so off this case you have no idea. Joy’s money’s almost run out and after what happened today Homicide are gonna pull out all the stops to find Andi. I’ll give them my case notes and that’s it for me. I’m a private detective, not a freaking superhero. I don’t have a death wish. That could’ve been me with my face scraped off and my brains spilling out onto … Jesus …’ The hand holding the glass started trembling again and I tried to set it down on the moulded Perspex coffee table but missed the edge and it fell to the floor, whiskey and ice soaking into the immaculate carpet.

I burst into tears. Not cute, dainty ones but gulping, shuddering sobs. Alex wrapped his arms around me and drew me to him but that made me cry harder. For a moment there I thought he might have been going to make a move, but he just held me close and squeezed my shoulder and patted my hair. Things usually got pretty steamy when we touched but not this time. I felt secure and comforted and kind of like a little kid, what with the oversized sweater coming down over my hands. I stopped blubbering after a minute or so, and realised that Graham had become sort of squished between the two of us, half on Alex’s lap, half on mine, and didn’t seem to mind. His eyes were closed and he was purring.

‘Check it out,’ I sniffed and rubbed the cat’s head.

‘I’ll get you some tissues.’

He put his hands under Graham but before he could shift the cat onto my lap I said, ‘About the other night, on the couch, I’m really sorry. I must have come across like some kind of freak. It was the wine on an empty stomach. I didn’t mean anything by it and I swear, it won’t happen again.’

He put his hand on my shoulder and said, ‘Simone,’ just as the front door opened and his fiancée walked into the room.

Alex pulled his hand back. A dumb move because it made him look guilty when we weren’t even up to anything. For once. Suzy was wearing a skirt suit, her dark blonde hair tied in a ponytail and her arms full of packages. Her eyes flicked over us, noting the whiskey glasses, Alex’s sweater and how close we were sitting, before she quickly plastered a bright smile onto her face.