Rubdown (13 page)

‘Yeah. Thanks for letting me, um, stand in.’

‘No worries. I don’t mind being in a room with two beautiful women. I know it’s warm in here, so feel free to take your clothes off if you want.’

‘Jon!’ Lauren smacked his arse. ‘Don’t be cheeky. She’s not working.’

He grinned in a way that probably melted his mother’s heart and encouraged her to do his washing every week. ‘No harm in asking!’

Lauren grabbed a blue tinted glass container off the top of a lacquered Chinese cabinet, poured oil in her palm and propped the bottle between his legs. She rubbed her hands together and slicked it over his back in long strokes, from his buttocks to his neck.

I stood there, rocking slightly on the balls of my feet, wondering what the penalties were these days for being busted on unlicensed premises.

Lauren nodded at the oil. ‘Why don’t you do his legs?’

‘What?’

‘Seeing as you’re here, you might as well help out. You look silly standing there with your arms crossed.’

‘Okay. But just the legs.’

‘Alright!’ said Jonathon.

I picked up the slippery bottle and rubbed oil between my hands, onto his mercifully clean feet and halfway up his thighs.

Anything further was Lauren’s territory. Jonathon’s leg hair was rough on my fingers as I dug my thumbs into his calf muscle.

‘Feels great,’ he said.

‘So what do you want to know?’ Her hands moved in a practised fashion as if she didn’t have to think about what she was doing.

‘Were you and Tammy good friends?’

Absentmindedly she slid her fingers down between his legs and tickled his balls. He thrust his buttocks in the air, exposing his crack.

‘I wouldn’t say we were
great
friends.’

His arse kept rising, his back arched dangerously and his groin hovered a foot off the table. Not the most flattering angle for a man. I looked from his backside to Lauren and as I caught her eye a flood of giggles bubbled up my throat. We immediately looked away from each other but it was almost too late. From the corner of my eye I saw her shoulders silently shaking and I pursed my lips together, breathing deeply through my nose, desperately trying to stop a small mewling sound escaping my mouth. Jonathon was oblivious. After a few deep breaths and an in-depth study of the oriental rug, I was sufficiently composed to glance at Lauren again. Thankfully she’d moved up to his head and was massaging his shoulders while he stared at the bush in front of him like it might reveal the meaning of life. The airborne groin had settled back on the table.

I cleared my throat. ‘So, not great friends.’

‘No. We partied a lot, went clubbing. You know those friends you have that you probably wouldn’t be friends with if you didn’t take a whole heap of E’s together?’

‘Tell me about it,’ said Jonathon. ‘That’s like, half the people I know.’

‘Tammy ever talk about her life when she was all googly on E? Tell you about any problems she was having?’ I asked.

‘Not problems exactly. When she got out of it she liked to rave on about moving up the Gold Coast, starting her own business.’

‘What sort of business?’

‘Oh, massage, same as this. With the laws up there girls can work from their own homes. Tammy figured she could make twice the money, work half the time and spend the rest lying on the beach. Lulu was going to go up with her because there aren’t many trannies apparently. Thought they’d have the market covered.’ Lauren tapped a metal pad on the floor with her foot and the table lowered. When it was knee height she jumped on, straddled Jonathon and slid her torso up and down his back, triceps tightening with the effort.

He said, ‘Mmm.’

‘She ever talk about buying an apartment?’ I asked.

‘All the time. She wanted to buy so she wouldn’t have to worry about hassles with landlords. They’re not too keen on giving permission to use their places for sex work. Then she found out that its illegal for more than one girl to work from the same flat, so she decided she’d buy two studio apartments. One for her, one for Lulu. She wanted to get a good business together, work till she was thirty-five then retire.’

‘Where was she going to get the money for the property?’

‘That’s the problem. Tammy was skint. She made a lot of money but it all went up her nose or down her throat. I saw her take ten E’s in a weekend once.’

‘Five’s my record,’ Jonathon said.

‘I asked how she’d be able to afford it. She just smiled and said she had a plan.’ Lauren hopped off, pressed the pad and the table raised up. ‘You can turn over now, Jonathon.’

He twisted and lay on his back. His dick was standing to attention, taut and quivering.

I rubbed his arches while she slathered it in oil. ‘You ever work for Neville at Good Times?’

‘No, but I’ve heard all about him.’

‘Would Tammy ever try to extort money from him?’

Lauren’s short blonde waves bounced as she shook her head.

‘Tammy could get quite drug-fucked when she wanted to, but she wasn’t an idiot.’ She bent over and rubbed her boobs on Jonathon’s cock a few times, then took it in her hand and cooed, ‘Oooh , it’s so big,’ which was, quite frankly, a bit of a lie. It did swell and go red, however, and I was glad I was down by the feet and not up at the business end.

‘You can touch it if you want,’ Jonathon said and gave me a look first patented by puppies in pet shops.

‘I’ll be right,’ I said.

The flute playing pygmies had segued into Gomez’s ‘Tijuana Lady’ and I hummed along, rubbing Jon’s big toe with my thumb.

I had some more questions to ask but figured now wasn’t really the time. Lauren tugged at his member, slowly at first, then faster and faster, her fist a blur, fingers squelching wetly. He scrunched his face and bucked his hips and I thought how odd it was to be observing a penis you had no emotional investment in.

As Jonathon began to come, Lauren leaned back out of range.

There must have been a fair bit of pressure building down there because the first spurt hit his chest and the next got him on the cheek. Lauren looked at me and I pursed my lips again and stared at his big toe. When he was done she wiped him down with tissues and sent him to the shower.

While Lauren stripped towels from the table I wiped my hands with a Wet One.

‘You mentioned Lulu,’ I said. ‘Do you know where I could find her?’

‘I don’t know where she lives or anything but she usually performs in the drag revue at the Greyhound on Saturdays. Me and Tammy went once and it was an absolute hoot. Lulu and this Asian trannie called Geisha did a song from The Mikado . Fuck it was funny.’

I shrugged into my jacket. ‘Did Tammy ever talk about her family?’

‘No. I knew who her brother was, but she never spoke about it. Must be hard, having a relative who’s a sporting hero.’

‘Is there anything else you can tell me? Anything at all?’

‘That’s it, sorry. Your best bet is to talk to her ex-boyfriend.’

‘Tammy had a boyfriend?’

‘Kind of. I don’t think they were exclusive.’

‘Who is he? Where would I find him?’

‘Name’s Damien Trentham. Deals a bit, E’s, speed, coke sometimes. I only met him a couple of times but my boyfriend recognised him from St Augustine’s . Apparently he was in the year below.’

‘Private school?’

‘Don’t look so surprised. Those rich kids get into the party scene early. They’ve got the money. You can usually find Damien at Wicked, the day club in Prahran, on Sunday mornings. Don’t tell him I put you onto him.’

‘I won’t.’

‘I want to help, you know. I’ve been thinking about Tammy a lot. I mean, maybe she’d run out of serotonin from all the pills she was taking and got real depressed, coming down. But she didn’t seem the type to kill herself. She was a fighter. Kicking against the pricks, she always said.’

I was on the train back to the city when Sean rang.

‘Lulu’s real name is Leon Rousseuu. She lives in Johnston Street, Abbotsford.’

I changed at Flinders Street for the Epping line and got off five stops later at Victoria Park. The station hovered above Johnston on a railway bridge and I scuffed down a concrete ramp twined with bell-like purple flowers and headed up the street, checking out numbers.

I passed a chemist, newsagent and a takeaway that smelled like deep fried batter. The further I walked the more I noticed Johnston was a weird mix of stores selling expensive furniture and luxury cars, and deserted shops, doors padlocked and windows opaque with grime. Despite the looming council flats on Hoddle it was finally joining the gentrification boom. Kinda.

I buttoned my denim jacket. The temperature had dropped and the sky was thick with cloud. A dirty wind picked up, scraping rubbish along the footpath. A couple of old chip packets chased each other around my ankles and road grit blew into one eye.

I stopped and blinked, stretched the lid so tears would wash it clean.

As I stood there three skinny guys in nylon tracksuits left the pub and crossed the road to my side of the street. Their hoods were pulled up and their steps were bouncy, like the ground was one giant trampoline. I wiped a black speck from the corner of my eye, clutched my bag strap a little tighter, and strode on, head held high.

Just because they were wearing ugly tracksuits didn’t mean they were going to mug me. Even junkies needed to get out for a stroll every now and then.

Their eyes slid over me as they approached. I was almost past when one side-stepped in front of me, and I had to pull up short.

‘Chasin’?’ He had a face like a rat. A rat with a really nasty cold sore.

‘No thanks.’ I went to walk around him but another one was there, blocking my path. I felt the third move in behind me. Not for the first time in my life I wished I had studied martial arts from a very early age—say, six months. I felt like a baby antelope separated from the herd, hyenas closing in.

‘Then giss a dollar.’ The one to the side bobbed up and down, wiping his nose with the back of his sleeve.

No way was I getting out my wallet. ‘Sorry.’

‘Bitch.’ The one behind tugged at my bag.

I spun around. ‘Get off!’ I was angry at the little twerps but I was also scared. Visions of blood filled syringes danced in front of my eyes.

‘Hey!’ Over the road a squat woman in widow’s black waddled out of the corner store, waving a straw broom. ‘Leave the lady alone.’

They turned to her. ‘Fuck off, you old cunt.’

‘I call the police on you. I do it!’

They lost interest in me and crossed the road to her. She shuffled back inside and locked the door. I figured she’d be okay and hurried down the block until I came to the number Sean had given me. It was an empty commercial space that had sold re-conditioned fridges and washing machines, according to the sign.

The door was chained and a pile of junk mail and free community newspapers mouldered on the step. A cobbled lane ran down the side of the building and when I checked it out I found a rusted spiral staircase that led to a flat over the shop. I checked to make sure the junkies weren’t following but they were leaning against the old woman’s store, smoking cigarettes.

The steps wobbled and my boots made a tonging sound as I climbed. When I got to the top I could see roofs, aerials, and the high walls of Victoria Park football stadium. To my right Johnston Street bisected Yarra Bend Park, where the muddy river meandered past reserves and ovals. That band of green was all that separated Abbotsford from the exclusive suburbs of Hawthorn and Kew.

Wherever you were in Melbourne, the riffraff were never far away.

I raised my hand, knocked once and the door swung in a couple of inches.

Not good.
Really
not good.

Had I been a cool American PI I would simply have unholstered my gun, held it to my chest, and entered the flat sliding my back along the wall. Unfortunately the most dangerous thing I carried in my handbag was a plastic bottle of Mt Franklin spring water, so I stuck my ear in the gap, stayed very still and listened. Nothing.

I pushed the door open, slow and quiet, and entered a hallway.

The carpet was old and the floral wallpaper outdated, but it was otherwise neat. I rested my head against the wall, trying to pick up sounds or vibrations. There was no movement or noise. So why was I scared?

Soon as I asked, an image of Lulu dead, bloody and staring flashed into my mind. Jeez, I had to get a grip. I crept down the hall and peeked into a tiny laminex kitchen.

Christ. Someone had turned the place over, wrenched cupboard doors off hinges and shattered crockery all over the floor.

A packet of Nutrigrain appeared to have exploded and the old gas stove was lying on its side. The lounge room was the same.

Shredded couch, broken lamp, shelf overturned and the white tiled bathroom was a mess of spilt shampoo and broken glass. Further down the hall I saw two closed doors. I opened the one at the end of the hallway first and let out a breath when I realised it led to a dusty flight of wooden stairs.

The final door had to be to Lulu’s bedroom. I turned the handle slowly, steeling myself for the worst. Surveying the room, I gradually unclenched my fist, dragging the nails out of my palm.

Thank god. Sure, the place was trashed, but there was no body. No dead, staring eyes.

I picked my way past an upended ballerina jewellery box, torn clothes and disembowelled stuffed toys. The white canopy bed was in pieces, the mattress propped against the wall and razored open.

Same with the broderie anglaise doona. A matching vanity was tipped over, drawers emptied. Posters of Britney, Beyoncé and even Blaine Wade were crumpled on the floor. My eyes watered from a broken bottle of Christian Dior’s Poison and I wondered what someone had been looking for and whether or not they’d found it.

Had there been a struggle? Impossible to tell, but I hadn’t seen any blood. I was thinking Lulu had probably packed up and left before this happened until I saw the cosmetic case. It was the same one she’d had at the Good Times Club and all her pots and pencils were spilled on the floor.

Would Lulu, who always had a face full of immaculately applied makeup, have gone anywhere, voluntarily, without it?