Donna Joy Usher - Chanel 02 - Goons 'n' Roses (5 page)

It only took a few minutes of walking before the sweat started beading on my forehead. I took off the sweater and slung it over my right shoulder in an attempt to partly shield my arm. Finally I passed New York New York and saw the The Monte Carlo ahead of me.

The air conditioning of the store washed over me in a cool wave as I moved down the aisle. I found the exfoliating gloves quickly and placed one in my basket, but while I was searching for the hydrogen peroxide I saw the price of the stay-on lipsticks. I added five lipsticks in with the glove. Then I grabbed a foundation, mineral powder and mascara, thought about it, and grabbed another one of each.

I felt guilty about starting my shopping without Martine, but justified it with the knowledge that I was doing market research to help make her choices easier. I added the hydrogen peroxide to my load, paid for my purchases, and headed back to the hotel.

By the time I got back, my fantasy of soaking in a pool of warm water had changed to one of lying in an ice bath. The problem was that the bath in my room wasn’t really big enough to do any real soaking. I was in the elevator, contemplating the logistics of my problem when the doors opened to reveal Trent.

‘Hey,’ I said. ‘Where’s Mum?’

‘Getting dressed,’ he said. ‘She’ll be down in about fifteen minutes. Where have you been?’

‘Buying stuff to remove this ridiculous tan. Problem is,’ I said, ‘I need to soak it, but the bath in my room isn’t big enough.’

‘Use ours,’ Trent said. ‘It’s a spa bath.’

Mum answered the door with a dreamy satisfied smile on her face that made me wonder if they had already tried out the spa bath.

Their suite was much bigger than my room. A partial wall separated the bedroom from a lounge that housed an enormous flat screen television. The bedroom opened onto a large bathroom, the star of which was a ginormous free-standing spa bath.

‘Mind if I use your bath? I need to soak this,’ I waved my arm at her, ‘so I can scrub it.’

‘Sure, but don’t go overboard. You don’t want it to scab.’

She had a point. That would probably look worse.

I put the plug in the bath, turned on the taps, and wandered out to watch her get ready.

‘What’s the plan for tonight?’ I asked as she applied her mascara.

‘Well, we have a dress rehearsal at 1am.’

‘That’s late.’

‘They’re closing the club early for us.’

‘On a Friday night?’

‘It’s Thursday night here.’

It was going to take a while for me to get my head around the different time zones. ‘And then tomorrow night is the first performance?’

‘Uhuh.’

I watched her apply her lipstick and then checked on the bath. It was three quarters full and the perfect temperature.

It took longer than it should have to get my clothes back on. I tripped on the cuff of my pants and cracked my head on the corner of the vanity, and then I couldn’t get my arm back through the sleeve of my shirt. It was still hooked up around my bra-line when I scooped up my sandals, dumped them in my bag, and then opened the door slowly till I could peer down the hallway.

I could see Mum, with Mickey, Tommy and Riley, hopping into the elevator. I contemplated running for the elevator and playing a giddy, excited girl on her first visit to Las Vegas (which wouldn’t have been a stretch for me because until 5 minutes ago that was exactly what I was), but if they knew who Trent was, then they probably knew who I was.

The only advantage I had at that moment was that they didn’t know I had seen them take Mum. I didn’t want to blow that one thing.

As soon as the doors closed I raced down the hallway, hoping that the second elevator might be close by. It was on the ground floor.

‘Fuck,’ I said, tears of frustration welling.

I turned to the fire escape but a large sign warned me that an alarm would go off if I opened the door. I contemplated doing it anyway but the last thing I wanted was confusion caused by an alarm. It could possibly work against, not for me.

‘Come on, come on,’ I muttered as the elevator slowly rose to the tenth floor.

It felt like an hour, but it couldn’t have been more than a minute, before the doors started to open. Trent was about to step out when I barged into him and hit the ground-floor button. I slapped at the close-door button, holding it down until the doors started to shut.

‘They’ve got Mum,’ I said, my voice trembling. I must have looked a sight. My feet were bare, my shirt was still hooked up around my bra, and my arm was still bright orange.

‘Who?’ he said, his voice tense.

‘Mickey, Riley and Tommy Tiger.’ I plucked at the edge of my shirt till I had freed it.

‘Did you get a look at them?’

‘Not great, but I could I.D. them if I had to.’

‘Did she take her handbag?’

‘They wouldn’t let her.’

‘Fuck.’ He slammed his hand against the elevator wall.

My phone started to ring but I ignored it. I knew Mum’s phone would be in her handbag. It felt like forever before the elevator informed us we were on the ground floor. We squeezed through the still-opening doors, scanning the surroundings for any sign of Mum. A large group of Chinese were checking in, trolleys full of their bags blocking a large portion of the walkway.

‘There,’ I said, pointing at the front doors.

We moved as quickly as we could through the milling tourists. I tripped over the edge of a trolley, banging my knee painfully. Trent hauled me back to my feet and dragged me through the crowd behind him.

‘They’re getting away,’ I said, urgently. ‘What’s the plan?’

‘We see what car they get into and follow them if we can.’

‘That’s it?’ I asked in outrage.

‘Were they packing?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then that’s it. If they wanted to kill her they would have done it in the hotel room.’

I felt sick at the thought of letting Mum go with those goons. Panic was clawing its way up inside me, threatening to take control. We broke free of the tourist group and sprinted to the front in time to watch a black car pull away from the curb. I could see Mum’s flaming hair in the middle of the back windscreen.

I turned towards the cab rank. It was empty. Unfucking believable. There had been at least four queuing when I came back from the pharmacy, and now, when we actually needed one, there were none.

Trent groaned and muttered some numbers, which I realised a second later were off the number plate. I had to rely on Trent to get the make and model – beyond being black with 4 doors – I had no idea what it was.

‘2011 Cadillac CTS-V,’ Trent said.

‘What do we do?’ I turned towards him.

‘We find her.’

‘How? How?’ I could hear my voice, hysterical with fear.

‘We need to stay calm.’ He turned to face me and placed his hands on my shoulders. ‘We need to talk.’

‘Chanel,’ I could hear Martine calling my name from the hotel entry. ‘Since when did you stop answering your phone?’ She trotted over to us, took a look at my face and said, ‘No go with the fake tan?’

I shook my head as tears started to roll down my cheeks. I wanted to act. I wanted to fight. I wanted to claw the eyes out of the men that had taken Mum. But I couldn’t. I was useless. Worse than useless. I had let them take her.

‘It’s not your fault,’ Trent said, shaking his head.

‘Well she did go to sleep while it was still wet,’ Martine said.

I opened my mouth to talk but a low gurgle came out as my crying became more hysterical.

‘Is that a… snot bubble?’ Martine asked, staring in fascination at my nose.

I wiped the back of my arm across it.

‘It’s all right,’ she said, ‘we’ll fix this. It’s not worth tears.’

‘They took Mum,’ I wailed.

‘Shhh.’ Trent looked around nervously. ‘It’s all right, we’ll find her.’

‘It’s my fault,’ I sobbed. ‘If I hadn’t been there, she would have already left to meet you.’

‘If you hadn’t been there we wouldn’t know she was gone,’ he said. ‘This isn’t your fault.’

‘It is, it is… I should have stopped them.’

‘It’s not your fault,’ he said again, ‘it’s mine.’

Martine was staring from one to the other. ‘Somebody took Lorraine?’ she asked.

‘No,’ I said, shaking my head. ‘They took Tess.’ I turned back to Trent, anger starting to replace my tears. ‘I knew it,’ I said, ‘in my hospital room. I
knew
I heard you call her Tess. How do you know her?’

‘I think we should go somewhere more private to talk,’ he said, glancing meaningfully at the group of Chinese tourists that were staring at us.

‘There’s a diner up the road,’ I said, pulling my shoes out of my bag and slipping them on.

Martine walked quietly by my side as I stewed over what I knew. I dug around in my bag until I found some tissues hiding out in the bottom corner and used them to mop my face.

We found a booth in the far corner of the diner and slid in; Martine and I facing Trent.

‘Tell me everything you know,’ I said in a hard voice.

‘I will,’ he said, ‘but first tell me what you saw and heard.’

‘There was a knock at the door. I thought it would be you but then I heard a strange man’s voice. He called her Tess. Mum knew two of them – Mickey and Riley. The third one was Tommy Tiger, his dad was Sam the Suit – he’s dead now.’

I closed my eyes so I could remember more clearly. ‘I was squatting in the bedroom watching around the corner. They had their backs to me so I didn’t get a good look at them but Riley was tall and thin and Mickey was the opposite. Tommy looked like the muscle. He had the lightest hair – a sandy blonde. The other two had thick, almost black hair. Mum told them her husband was on the way up. They laughed and Riley pulled a phone out of his pocket and said you were having a drink. Were you?’

Trent swore quietly and nodded his head.

‘She asked if she could get her handbag and Mickey told her he wasn’t stupid. Then the phone rang and somebody on the other end said you were on the way. And that’s pretty much it. Oh wait,’ I said, ‘as they were leaving Mum asked them how Big H was and they laughed and said they don’t work for him any more.’

Trent groaned and put his head in his hands. ‘That means there was a fourth man.’

I tried to work out what he was talking about but Martine got there faster than I did.

‘They had someone watching you in the bar,’ she said. ‘Could it have been the driver?’

‘They don’t let you leave your vehicles unattended out the front. Potential bomb threat and all that.’

Shit. I got it. The car they had left in had only had room for five. So if the vehicle couldn’t be unattended, the driver had stayed in the car, three had come up to get Mum and one had been in the bar watching Trent. That man had still been in the hotel when they had left. He would have seen Trent and me running after Mum, and possibly also seen Martine.

‘It makes no difference,’ I said. ‘We were only here for a couple of hours and they already knew about you and what room you were in. We have to surmise that they have information on all of us.’

We were silent for a few minutes and then I said, ‘All right. Your turn.’

He ran his hands through his hair and leant back in the seat. ‘I met Tess when she was pregnant with you.’

I blinked at him, my mouth slightly open.

‘She fled her life in Las Vegas when she found out she was pregnant and immigrated to Australia.’

‘No,’ I said, shaking my head, ‘she followed my father there. Harry. But he didn’t want to be with her…’ My voice trailed off as I realised the truth. ‘She didn’t follow my father,’ I said, ‘she fled from him.’

‘Not so much from him. She didn’t want to bring you up the way she had been. In the Mafia.’

Although I had known Mickey, Riley and Tommy were Mafia – I mean what other criminal body had names like Sam the Suit and Tommy Tiger? – hearing him say the word made it real. I had been scared before, suddenly I was terrified.

‘Lorraine… I mean Tess was part of the Mafia?’ Martine whispered.

‘Not an active participant. She was family.’

Which meant
I
was family. ‘Oh my God,’ I said, sagging back against the seat. ‘Oh my God.’ I could feel my breathing speed up. Bright lights started to swirl before my eyes. I swivelled to the side so I could get my head between my knees and concentrated on the feel of Martine rubbing my back.

When I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to pass out or vomit, I sat back up. ‘Keep talking,’ I said.

‘She left to protect you, but Interpol was watching her. They wanted her to give evidence on Lou the Brain’s disappearance. I was sent to interview her.’

He paused as a pretty, young waitress approached our table. ‘Hiyeee,’ she said. ‘I’m Bernadette and I’ll be your server today.’ She passed us menus. ‘Would you like any drinks while you decide on the food?’

‘Coke,’ Trent said, ‘all round.’ She smiled and wandered off to get our drinks.

‘What happened to Lou the Brain?’ Martine asked.

‘Nobody knows. They never found a body. Tess changed her name to Lorraine and disappeared. I didn’t see her again until you were in hospital.’

‘You said this was your fault,’ I said. ‘What did you mean?’

He blew air into his cheeks and then let it out in one big breath. ‘You remember when Tess got mugged last year?’

‘When that man tried to steal her handbag?’

He nodded. ‘She recognised the mugger. She thinks he was trying to get her wallet so he had some I.D.’

‘He was Mafia?’ I confirmed.

‘Yes.’

‘What was he doing in Hickery?’

‘They found credit card scamming equipment in his pocket. We think it was a coincidence he was in Hickery. Dumb blind luck.’

I thought through the series of events from last year. ‘That’s why she moved to Sydney?’ I said.

‘She wasn’t sure if her cover was blown or not, so she left. She thought it would be easier to hide in a big city.’

‘Why would they still be after her?’ I asked.

‘She didn’t know if they were, but she didn’t want to risk it. Besides,’ he smiled fondly, ‘you had left the coop and she was bored.’

‘Speaking of handbags,’ I said, ‘what’s the big deal with Mum’s?’

‘I put a tracker in the lining.’

A tracker? That was a bit more James Bond than I was used to. ‘None of that explains why this is your fault,’ I said.

Bernadette returned with three of the biggest glasses of Coke I had ever seen. ‘There you go,’ she said brightly. ‘Are you ready to order?’

‘We’ll have pie?’ Martine said.

‘Apple?’

‘Of course.’

‘Would you like that with cream, ice-cream or topping?’

I felt like screaming, ‘Bugger off,’ but instead I smiled sweetly and said, ‘Cream please, for all of us.’ I didn’t really think we would be eating the pie.

Trent was looking down at the table, pushing a crumb around with a finger. When she left he sighed and said, ‘I’ve been working with Interpol on the disappearance of a couple of Australian girls: Melanie Taylor and Rachel Brighton. Their last known movements were in Las Vegas. They wanted to be showgirls.’ He pushed away from the table and slumped back in his chair, running a hand through his hair. ‘There has been a dramatic increase in missing girls in the last six months. All of them young and attractive…’

‘And let me guess,’ I said, ‘all of them wanted to be showgirls.’

He nodded. ‘I told Te ummm Lorraine about it and she suggested she look up some of her contacts while she was here to see if they knew anything about it.’

‘You call her Tess when you’re alone?’

He nodded his head.

It made sense. He never called her Lorraine in public. It was always Babe or Sweety, or something else just as sickening. I wanted to be angry with him. I wanted to be furious, but the problem was it wasn’t him I was angry with. I was angry with Mum. I was angry with her for not trusting me enough to tell me any of this. Deep down I knew she had been trying to protect me, but where she was concerned, I was sick of being in the dark. Besides, there was one thing that didn’t make sense.

‘It’s not your fault,’ I said to Trent. ‘Mum being taken – that has nothing to do with those missing girls. She hadn’t even started to make enquiries.’ I could see Bernadette returning with our pie. It smelt really good. I waited till she had deposited it in front of us before continuing. ‘There’s some other reason Mum was taken and that’s what we have to find out.’ I broke a piece of pie off with my spoon and put it in my mouth. It tasted as good as it smelt and suddenly, I was ravenous.

‘What are we going to do?’ Martine asked in between mouthfuls of pie.

‘We need to go to the police,’ I said.

Trent shook his head. ‘Crooked cops. That’s why I got sent in to investigate. Interpol doesn’t know which of the local cops they can trust. I can contact Interpol for help, but until that turns up we’re on our own.’

‘What are we going to do?’ I slumped back in my seat.