Rubdown (28 page)

‘Any proof he was involved in either accident?’

‘Nuh. Still, funny how anyone who fucks with Wade ends up dead.’

I’d been dwelling on that myself. ‘It’s a laugh a minute, Curtis, take it from me. Is Elizabeth still alive?’

‘Yeah, I visited her in this nursing home.’

‘She have anything to say?’

‘Man, I didn’t talk to her. One look and I could tell she was non compos mentis, all dribbling and shit. Nursing homes freak me, got out of there as soon as I could.’ He grabbed a cracker, piled it high with salami and cheese and started crunching. All of a sudden he coughed and his eyes bugged out.

Chloe leapt off the floor and whacked him on the back. ‘What is it, baby? Oh my god, are you alright?’ She smacked so hard the remaining biscuit flew out and landed on the rug. He just sat there with his mouth open and eyes wide, staring straight ahead.

‘What?’ she demanded. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘Give me your hand?’ He said.

‘What?’

‘Just do it! Give me your hand.’

She stuck her palm out and he held her wrist and lowered it to the crotch of his trendy flat front pants.

‘Oh. My. God,’ she said.

Curtis was laughing ecstatically, practically weeping.

She turned to me. ‘Simone, I swear I will never ask you for anything again if you just let us—’

‘Go on.’ I waved toward my bedroom door. She whooped and dragged him down the hall.

‘Just one thing,’ I yelled.

‘What? Anything!’

‘The name of the nursing home Wade’s mother’s in?’

‘Bayside Aged Care,’ Curtis shouted from the bedroom. ‘Why?’

‘Who the fuck cares why?’ Chloe slammed the door.

The home was more Bentleigh than bayside, a sprawling single storey building off Centre Road constructed of pale brick and surrounded by privet hedges. I walked up the concrete ramp and entered a lobby with sickly green walls and a speckled vinyl floor.

I explained I was there to visit Elizabeth Wade, my long lost great-aunt, and a nurse with short grey hair, white shoes and a blue cardigan led me to her ward.

On the way down the corridor we passed old folks sitting in wheelchairs and the further we travelled into the facility the stronger the smell of urine and decay became. I glanced at a woman with sparse white hair, gnarled hands, and wrinkles like fissures. She looked back with hard blue eyes. A young woman’s eyes. I had an awful feeling that maybe, trapped inside the collapsing body, was a twenty-five year old, wondering how it could have come to this.

I imagined myself in the same situation, my pulse skyrocketed, and I quickly looked away. Straight into a tiled room on the other side of the corridor where a naked man with wasted legs and arms was strapped to a plastic chair, an orderly hosing him down. The orderly talked to him kindly, in tones you’d use with a child.

I’d thought Curtis was being harsh, but now I knew what he meant. I resolved to live fast and die young. Entirely possible the way things were going.

Elizabeth Wade’s ward had four beds, two on each side of the room. Hers was by a window overlooking the car park. The nurse drew the curtain and asked if I’d like a cup of tea. I said yes and sat on an orange plastic chair studying Emery’s mother. She was nearly bald, and through the few strands of grey plastered to her scalp I saw a jagged scar that ran from her crown to the corner of her left eye. One cheekbone was depressed and her toothless mouth gaped, exposing red gums. Her eyes, the same sea-grey as her son’s, were blank and dull.

The nurse came back with a plastic mug of sweet, milky tea, a Scotch Finger biscuit propped on the saucer. I took a sip and nearly gagged. The urine smell was so far up my nose the tea tasted like piss. I didn’t dare try the biscuit.

I kept breathing shallow and took Elizabeth Wade’s hand. The skin was loose and cool and the hand weighed nothing, like a dead bird. I cleared my throat then spoke softly.

‘Mrs. Wade. Elizabeth. My name’s Simone Kirsch and I’m having a bit of trouble with Emery, your son. He knocked off his stepdaughter, tried to have me killed and I’ve heard he’s responsible for your husband’s death and your current, um, condition. Thing is, no one can prove it, which is where you come in.’ I squeezed her hand. ‘Do you remember anything about the accident? Anything at all?’ I looked into the cloudy eyes. Her pupils did not waver. I kept my hand still in case she pressed back, gave some sign. Nothing.

Of course there was nothing. What the hell had I been thinking? Talk about clutching at straws. I’d obviously seen one too many movies where the catatonic patient is jolted out of their coma by a word, a phrase, the voice of the killer and sits up, wide eyed and gasping. Either that or I was completely losing it. Maybe the alcohol withdrawal was messing with my mind.

I had to face the fact that I was going to lose my licence, have to change my name and move to a caravan park in Bumfuck New South Wales where Wade couldn’t find me. I’d be able to get a job in the local supermarket and if I really applied myself and worked hard maybe, just maybe, I could work my way up to a managerial position in ten years. For some reason I couldn’t visualise a husband, but imagined having an affair with the guy who owned the local car dealership. Receding hair, big belly and gold chains.

Tears welled up as I felt sorry for myself again. Jesus. And I’d always thought I was such a tough chick. I tipped my head back and opened my eyes wide to stop the tears spilling. And that’s when I saw it, hanging from the curtain frame. An octagonal red feng shui mirror like I’d seen nailed above the doorway at Fong Chan Travel.

The nurse poked her head around the curtain. ‘Sorry to interrupt you, dear, but we’re about to serve lunch. You can come back when afternoon visiting starts.’

I rose from the chair, still eyeing the mirror. ‘Who put that there?’

‘Oh, the good luck charm? We’re really not supposed to have things hanging from the beds or railings but I couldn’t see the harm. It was Mrs. Wade’s only regular visitor. Comes in every Sunday at two on the dot. Lovely Chinese lady. Mrs. Chan.

I drove back to my place and when I got out of the Futura I could hear them going for it from the street. Chloe made love like other people got stabbed to death and I knew the body corporate was going to be bringing some grief my way in the next few days.

Inside the flat I grabbed some items I thought might come in handy, slipped them into a manila envelope then headed back to the nursing home to wait out of sight, across the road from the car park.

A couple of minutes to two a silver Holden Astra pulled up and Wu got out, dressed in a hot pink, shot silk suit. I took a couple of photos of her entering the building and when she emerged twenty minutes later I was leaning against her driver’s side door. I was shit scared but knew I had to suppress it and conjure ‘tough broad’. Hell, I could act. I used to work in the sex industry, for god’s sake.

‘Hey,Wu.’

She stopped, looked shocked for a second, then closed down her face and crossed her arms over her chest. Her nails were long and false, the same colour as the suit.

‘Simone Kirsch,’ I said. ‘You may remember me from such unmitigated disasters as the Tullamarine shootout.’

‘Get away from my car.’ Her voice was clipped. Up close her skin was flawless and although she must have been mid-forties she didn’t look a day over twenty-five.

‘Not until you tell me why you’ve visited Elizabeth Wade nearly every Sunday for the last two decades. I’ve been racking my brain and the only thing I can come up with is Emery must have hired you and Neville to do the hit on his folks and you’ve had a bad case of the guilts since then. Am I right?’

Her mouth was a hard line. Her eyes were hidden behind Gucci sunnies. ‘You’re crazy. Get away from my car or I’ll call the police.’

‘I’ve already spoken to them,’ I lied. ‘They’re after Wade and were very interested in my theory. They want to speak to you and are prepared to offer immunity from prosecution, and witness protection if you testify against Neville and Wade.’

Watching all those episodes of ‘Law and Order’ had served me well. I saw her hand start trembling and she licked her lips and looked around like a SWAT team was about to leap out from the shrubbery.

She said, ‘I wouldn’t speak out against the father of my child.’

‘That’s romantic and beautiful, Wu. Obviously you don’t know what he’s up to.’

I threw her the folder. ‘Go on, have a look. It’s Neville and your right hand woman, Ling Sun. I’ve also got transcripts of their conversation—he’s taking up with her. And that nest egg of cash you’ve got in your safe? They’re pissing off with it.’

‘You’re lying.’

‘Take a look at the pictures.’

She flipped through and her nostrils flared. Her hands shook violently. ‘If Wade finds out I’m talking about him he’ll kill me and my son. I can’t.’

‘Well, you’re going to have to because if you don’t, I’ll tell him you have. You’re fucked either way.’

She stepped forward and slapped me once, very hard, on the face. I didn’t react. I was getting used to pain and, besides, I knew I deserved it.

‘Neville’s still in hospital, yeah? Think it over for a couple of hours then call me. My card’s with the photos.’ I moved away from the car and she got in and threw the folder on the passenger seat before gunning the engine and squealing off.

When I got home Curtis and Chloe had left. They’d changed my sheets and Chloe had left a thank you note in her customary loopy writing with hearts dotting the i’s. She’d even cracked a few windows to get the smell of sex out of the air. Considerate to a fault.

I called Alex for some advice but when his message bank clicked in decided not to leave one. He’d just scold me for going out on my own. Tony too. But if I had something concrete, well, they’d forgive my methods.

Three hours later Wu still hadn’t called and I began to realise the stupidity of my makeshift plan. What if she’d gone straight back and told Neville and Emery? I closed all the windows, drew the curtains and deadlocked the door.

In between regretting what I’d told her, I thought of Sean. I lay on the couch and felt his absence like a solid weight on my chest.

I wondered what he was doing and imagined him wandering through a night market, the moist air full of smells: exotic flowers, spices, rotting food. I listened to his CD, then turned it off because it was making me cry, sipped water and thought about how when you weren’t drunk the night stretched on forever. It was kind of terrifying.

At nine the phone rang and I jumped.

‘Hello?’

It was Wu. ‘Alright. I believe you. I want that bastard to go down. Emery too. I never liked the prick.’

‘So you’ll come to the police with me?’

‘No. I know what happens to so-called protected witnesses.

But I’ll get you some evidence that proves Wade had his father killed. Meet me at Golden Sun Noodle on Springvale Road tomorrow at eleven. No cops.’

Eleven am. My hearing was at two. It was doable.

‘Thanks,Wu,’ I said.

‘Fuck you,’ she replied.

I arrived at the Golden Sun Noodle bar at quarter to eleven and ordered a duck soup, then sat by the window and watched the street. The restaurant was brightly lit and laminated. Red and gold paper lanterns hung from the ceiling and incense burned at a shrine in the corner.

My soup arrived with a small saucer of chili and soy and pot flask of green tea. Red-skinned roast duck floated between noodles, bok choy and spring onions. I sipped salty broth and nibbled on fatty duck meat. Delicious, but my heart was beating double time and I was way too nervous to eat. I doubted my plan again. What if it was a set-up? Why didn’t I have any back-up? What back-up?

Sean was gone, Alex had a life and Tony Torcasio a business to run, despite a major liability in the form of yours truly. I’d caused enough trouble as it was, made a mess of things and fucked up my life. But if Wu came through I could fix it. I’d be the one to bring Emery Wade down.

At eleven fifteen I thought she must be running late. Eleven thirty I imagined she’d been knocked. Twenty to twelve my soup was cold and I felt like a fucking idiot.

The phone rang behind the counter and the waiter answered, then yelled out: ‘Simo? Simo Kirs?’

I scraped back my plastic chair and hurried over. It was Wu.

‘Where the hell are you?’ I hissed.

‘About to board a plane to somewhere no one will ever find me, with my son and retirement fund in tow.’

My heart sank. ‘Why’d you even bother calling?’

‘Wasn’t lying about that evidence. It’s in my best interests to have Neville and Wade put away.’

I was back up again. A delirious joy. ‘What is it?’

‘A video recording Neville made in eighty-three. He liked to keep up with the new technology and never trusted Wade as far as he could kick him, he said. Wanted some insurance in case things went wrong. It’s in the safe in the office at the GT Club. In the wall behind the filing cabinet. Combination 31-15-72.’

I grabbed the waiter’s pen and scribbled the number on the back of my hand.

‘You’re going to have to hurry though,’ Wu said. ‘I’m supposed to pick up Neville from the hospital at midday. When I don’t show he’ll eventually call a cab, come home and find out I’ve cleared out the safe.’

‘How much?’

‘Enough. More than enough where I’m going. I replaced the cash with the photos of him and Ling Sun.’

‘Nice touch.’

‘After that he’ll head straight to Good Times to check the safe there. It contains another twenty grand as well as the tape and he’ll take both. I know him.’

I did some quick calculations in my head. Neville could get home at one, be in South Melbourne by half past. The clock above the cash register said it was eleven fifty.

‘Shit, Wu, that’s not enough time to contact the police, get a warrant.’

‘Well, you’ll have to go there and get it.’

‘Won’t be admissable as evidence.’

‘Not my problem. I’m out of here.’

‘Wait. There’s just one thing I want to know before you go.’