Heiress On Fire

by Kellie McCourt

  ‘Where on earth did you get a taser?’

  ‘Abby’s office,’ she said nonchalantly. She finally noticed Henry passed out on the bed. ‘What’d you do to him?’

  ‘Valium,’ said Josephine. ‘Not such a small dose, he’ll be out for a few hours.’

  A smile spread across Esmerelda’s face as she looked more closely at Henry. She gave a short chuckle. ‘Dude.’

  There was a knock at the suite door. We all froze.

  Josephine and I looked at Esmerelda. ‘What?’ she said.

  ‘What did you do?’ I asked.

  ‘Nothing. What did you do?’ she said defensively.

  ‘Nothing,’ I replied.

  We looked at Josephine. ‘What?’ she said. ‘I actually work here. I’m supposed to do things.’

  Okay, she had us there.

  There was another knock, this one more persistent. We all looked towards the door.

  A male voice from behind the door said, ‘Halle? Halle it’s me. Open up.’

  We looked down at the bed. A subtle moaning was coming from Halle.

  ‘I don’t suppose that’s not Halle?’ Esmerelda said to me, pointing hopefully at Halle.

  I slapped myself on the forehead.

  Josephine shook her head at Esmerelda and dropped down to her knees beside the bed and began fanning Halle with a square cushion.

  The door handle rattled.

  I felt sick. I was about to get caught in a brothel suite with a man who was not only drugged but also fully ‘awake’, a sex worker who had been tasered by my personal shopper who I suspected was a felon, and who was currently dressed like a French maid, and a second sex worker who could appraise a diamond from across the room. Both of whom were in their underwear, and I had a brothel lookbook stuffed in my underwear.

  ‘Oh no you don’t,’ Esmerelda said to me. ‘Dude, if you chuck I’ll friggin’ taser you too, I swear to God.’

  Esmerelda darted across the room to the four-poster bed, leant over Halle’s body and shook her. ‘Lady, there’s someone at the door for you!’

  Halle moaned, but did not wake. The door handle ratted again and I could hear the distinctive click of metal against metal.

  ‘Dude, I’m like, totally sorry,’ said Esmerelda. Then she delivered what looked and sounded like a fairly violent, albeit restrained, open-handed slap to Halle’s face.

  This got Halle’s attention. Her eyes flew open. She focused on Esmerelda standing over her.

  ‘You!’ Halle cried and promptly punched Esmerelda in the nose. Closed fist. No restraint involved.

  Blood appeared under Esmerelda’s nose. She touched her hand to her face and examined the blood on her fingers. A strange expression came over her face and she silently grabbed Halle’s feet. Halle began kicking and screaming as Esmerelda dragged her by the feet, thump, off the bed, across the luxe carpet and towards the window. Josephine launched herself at Esmerelda, landing on her back. But Esmerelda was a machine. She had Halle’s feet in a vice grip and none of Halle’s kicking, or Josephine’s clawing slowed her.

  Esmerelda locked both of Halle’s feet under one arm and used the other arm to open the suite’s large bay windows. We were six storeys up. I was certain they would be sealed shut, but then again I was also certain that my life would always be a series of fashion shows, social engagements and bland, bi-annual, Bran Muffin sexual encounters with my husband. I had been wrong before.

  My feet were glued to the floor. I tried to move, but I just could not make it happen.

  ‘Esmerelda!’ I roared at her. ‘Stop that at once!’

  Nothing. Well not nothing; it looked like she might have found a slider or a latch on that window. And Josephine was now desperately pulling on Esmerelda’s hair.

  ‘Esmerelda, please!’ I pleaded. ‘Stop that at once. You cannot throw my friend out of a window. It just isn’t done.’

  Esmerelda, with one foot out of the window, which was now at least two foot open, stopped in place. ‘Did you say please?’

  Halle, being held by her feet, her head on the carpet, her stocking-clad calves halfway over the windowsill, stopped struggling. ‘Did you call me a friend?’

  Josephine, clinging to Esmerelda’s back, her La Perla knickers and half bra miraculously in place, stopped and looking at the handful of Esmerelda’s hair she had grabbed, said to her, ‘Are these highlights natural? They’re amaze.’

  ‘Boy oh boy, Mrs Hasluck-Royce-Jones-Bombberg,’ a male voice said from behind me, ‘you’re just full of surprises.’

  Esmerelda’s eyes moved from me to the man behind me. She instantly dropped Halle’s feet; they landed on the window frame with a painful thud, and an expletive from Halle. Esmerelda used her newly freed hands to slap at Josephine’s arms, attempting to undo her iron grip on her shoulders (using a rather effeminate slapping-tapping motion) while simultaneously attempting to shrug the svelte blonde model-escort-sex worker off her back.

  Josephine yielded, letting go of Esmerelda’s shoulders. She slid down Esmerelda’s long frame like a fireman on a pole, her flawless bottom landing with a soft thump on the carpet just inside the suite.

  That voice. I knew that voice. But for the life of me I could not place it. How was this place so full of men I knew! Again, my feet refused to move. I could no longer fathom the type of humiliation that was my life. I wanted to swap places with Halle and have Esmerelda throw me out of the window. It would have been the psychologically and socially humane thing to do.

  ‘I hate to interrupt the slumber party, ladies, but the madam seems to be missing a maid and she’s starting a room to room search. I’m guessing it’s best she doesn’t find you, eh Esmerelda?’

  I began to salivate and my face flushed hot. Oh damn. I knew that mouth water.

  ‘Detective,’ said Esmerelda pulling her tiny maid skirt down an inch or two over her bottom (which was as far as it would go) and stepping over the two beautiful women at her feet (one of whom was clad only in her underwear). ‘So stoked to see you again.’

  ‘Fuck me, Searing,’ said Halle, putting a hand to her still-red cheek. ‘It’s about bloody time you got here. She’s crazy!’ she said, pointing to Esmerelda. ‘She tried to throw me out the fucking window!’

  ‘Oh, I’m tardy?’ Searing shot back. ‘I’ve been trying to get a hold of you for over a week! Until thirty minutes ago you’d been conveniently incommunicado.’

  Halle managed to look incensed. ‘I’ve been busy minding my own business. Staying healthy.’

  Searing rolled his eyes, then he gave a small grin. ‘Isn’t there a fire escape outside that window?’

  Both Josephine and Halle craned their necks over the precipice of the windowsill and peered out.

  A smile spread across Josephine’s face. ‘Oh, so there is! Silly!’ she said turning to Esmerelda. ‘You weren’t going to throw Halle out the window, were you?!’

  Esmerelda looked sideways at me. ‘Sure,’ she said by way of response.

  Josephine was the only person in the room who believed that meant no.

  Halle shook her head. ‘I’ve worked in this shithole for two years, how did I not know that?’

  ‘Well,’ said Josephine, getting to her feet and helping Halle up. ‘To be fair, we never use the windows. And Abby always said they were sealed.’

  ‘Abby,’ snorted Halle. ‘That women can’t even tell the truth about a fucking window.’

  I was saved the indignity of turning to face Searing when he strolled past me to check for himself that there was indeed a fire escape platform outside the window.

  ‘Cousin,’ he said as he passed Halle. ‘I’d hug you hello but, you know.’

  ‘Yeah. Back at you,’ said Halle.

  ‘You’re cousins?’ I stammered. Perhaps not the most pertinent fact to be exploring just then, but still a valid line of enquiry.

  ‘Like very distant cousins. Like cuz, cousins,’ said Esmerelda knowingly.

  I had no idea what she was saying. I had dista
nt cousins but none of them had managed to turn up at Magic Models in the middle of the night. Although now that I thought of it … okay, best not to think of it.

  Esmerelda answered my blank stare. ‘Dude, she’s a CI. A snitch.’

  ‘A snitch? Halle cannot be a “snitch”. She is not in prison,’ I said, feeling like I at last had a small footing in this world. I had seen Ruby Rose in Orange Is the New Black. Once. At an official screening. It might have been a fundraiser screening. Still, I knew things.

  ‘Dude,’ said Esmerelda, thumping herself in the side of the head with the heel of her palm and giving me a disgusted look.

  Searing bounced on the fire escape a few times.

  Halle shook her head at Esmerelda, shushed her and said in a low voice, ‘Just stop with all the snitch talk. He used to be financial crimes. That hardly even counted.’

  He was what now?

  Before I had a chance to question Searing or Halle, he was back in the room.

  ‘If you don’t mind, ladies,’ he said. ‘I think it’s best we left through the back door, so to speak.’

  I stared at him. Was he speaking to me?

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Yes, Mrs Hasluck-Royce-Jones-Bombberg. You and your post-modern, surfing-geisha friend both need to vacate. Unfortunately, the front door is no longer an option.’

  Esmerelda bristled. ‘I don’t completely understand what you just said, but I’m like totally racially insulted.’

  ‘Really? Perhaps I should call you the totally rad ninja server. Is that better?’ said Searing.

  ‘No,’ retorted Esmerelda. ‘That’s radical profiling.’

  ‘Racial,’ said Josephine helpfully. ‘It’s racial profiling.’

  Searing shook his head in frustration. ‘It’s not racial profiling if it’s true. It seems a slender woman, about five ten, of Asian descent knocked out one of the waitresses, stripped her down to her underwear and stuffed her under the receptionist’s desk.’

  ‘It’s still radical racial profiling because not all chicks of Asian descent could pull that shit off,’ Esmerelda said.

  ‘You got me there,’ said Searing. ‘Especially considering that the receptionist was also found stuffed under the desk along with the waitress. A tight fit I imagine.’

  It was difficult to defend Esmerelda when I was pretty sure she was guilty of both stuffings. I felt shamefully proud.

  ‘I was totally stuck behind that crappy little desk in Abby’s office, going through her drawers, when the French-maid-waitress-chick busted me,’ Esmerelda said by way of explanation.

  ‘And the receptionist?’ I asked.

  ‘By the time I caught up with the waitress she was like, up the hall telling the receptionist chick. Dude, I totally had no choice.’

  ‘Why’d you strip the waitress?’ Searing asked.

  ‘To like, blend in,’ Esmerelda said.

  Obviously.

  ‘If you weren’t from financial crimes you’d know about stuff like that,’ said Esmerelda defensively.

  Searing smiled tightly at Esmerelda. ‘As it happens I’ve been in homicide for some time now. Which is how I find myself here, in the presidential suite at Magic Models at two in the morning with a billionairess murder suspect and her bizarre bodyguard. And I’m pretty sure I have the number for your parole officer, Stretch,’ he added.

  ‘You know I always liked you Searing. You’re sharp,’ said Esmerelda, immediately changing direction. ‘And cool. Very cool.’

  ‘Billionairess? She’s a billionairess?’ said Josephine, turning from Searing to me and then plopping down on the bed in astonishment.

  Searing nodded.

  Then Halle nodded.

  ‘You knew?’ Josephine asked Halle looking betrayed.

  ‘I only worked it out half an hour ago,’ Halle defended. ‘After the wig came off and you valued those insane earrings. That’s when I called Serpico here. I’ve been a bit busy since—’ she widened her eyes and tipped her head towards Henry ‘—to fill you in properly.’

  ‘The earrings,’ said Josephine more to herself than anyone else. ‘I should have known.’

  ‘Sì, sono bellissimi orecchini,’ said Henry.

  All eyes turned to the bed. Henry was sitting up. His nether regions, which had maintained their Viagra vigil, sat up with him. He looked around with half-closed eyes and a dopey smile, and said with a thick tongue and a thick accent, ‘Raspberries?’

  This could not be good.

  ‘Dude!’ said Esmerelda, sighting his master-at-arms and leaning in for a closer look. ‘That’s some serious tackle.’

  ‘How many Valium did you give him?’ Halle whispered to Josephine.

  Josephine held her right hand up, five fingers outstretched. She then gingerly added two fingers from her left hand: seven.

  Esmerelda looked impressed. ‘What the frig does this dude look like without Valium?’

  ‘Okay. Just stop. Everybody just stop. This situation is compromised,’ said Searing, attempting to take control. ‘Everyone, including Mr Happy, out the window.’

  ‘No way,’ said Halle. ‘I’m not compromised and I’ve got a mortgage to pay.’

  ‘Halle, you own four apartments in the city, a townhouse in Paddington and a holiday home in Byron Bay,’ said Searing.

  ‘And I intend to own four more before I retire,’ she said, digging in.

  We looked to Josephine.

  ‘I’ve almost got my pilot’s licence,’ she said apologetically. ‘And I have my eye on a really sweet little Embraer Phenom. I’m this close.’ She pinched her forefinger and thumb together.

  I was fairly certain that a sweet little Embraer Phenom cost about $7 million.

  ‘Second-hand,’ she said amiably. ‘So, so close.’

  $4.5 million then.

  ‘Okay, I’m happy to let you ladies get back to it, but I can’t leave him here now. It’s too risky. And frankly, he’s starting to make me feel bad.’

  We all looked at Henry. He might have been blessed with Viagra just now, but there was little doubt he had been very seriously blessed long before the little blue pill was invented.

  I agree I’m a bad widow, but I could not help it. In my imagination Searing had nothing to be worried about.

  Searing, Halle, Josephine and Esmerelda spent five minutes trying to get Henry off the bed and into a standing position. He was a big man. A big naked man. Halle had one arm, Josephine the other, Searing was pushing from behind and Esmerelda was attempting to lure him forward with the bowl of raspberries. It was a slow process. He was full-sized, stoned, drugged and sedated. I was amazed he was still breathing.

  My feet were still planted to the spot. I had not moved since Searing walked through the door. I couldn’t help but wonder how they were going to get me out of the room.

  I heard a knock at the suite door. Abby’s voice sailed in from the other side. I couldn’t walk, but I could pass out.

  ‘Excuse me Mr Henry, girls, can I have a word with Violet? I need to find her little friend,’ said Abby’s voice.

  Searing abandoned Henry and began dragging an armchair across the room towards the front door.

  Henry looked to me, then to Esmerelda. His brain made the leap. He opened his mouth to respond and Esmerelda smashed the full bowl of raspberries over his head.

  Searing stopped dragging. We all gaped at her.

  ‘Oh my God!’ I said to Esmerelda.

  ‘Dude, I’m like on probation. I can’t get caught in this place. And if anyone saw me dressed like this it’d total my reputation.’

  Henry moaned and Esmerelda head-butted him square in the forehead. ‘Oh my God!’ I said again.

  ‘What the hell, Stretch!’ gasped Searing stepping towards her.

  ‘What? A hundred per cent, no bruises,’ she said, gesturing to his face. ‘Guaranteed.’

  Henry’s head slumped forward. Halle and Josephine could not hold his dead weight. Searing was fast, but not fast enough. He just missed as Henry’s arms slippe
d from Halle and Josephine’s grip. He dropped to the ground like a sack of wheat. Thud.

  ‘What’s that sound?’ said Abby’s voice and the door handle rattled.

  ‘Okay,’ said Searing looking towards the rattling door. ‘New plan. Call triple zero and tell them he had a heart attack. I’ll send an ambulance with a couple of officers planted in it and they’ll escort Mr Raspberry here down to central. I’m pretty sure we can find enough illegal pharmaceuticals in his bloodstream to make some decent charges stick. It’ll keep him out of circulation for a while.’

  ‘Or you could just find this big bag of coke in his pants,’ said Josephine, pulling a small-ish zip-lock bag full of white powder from his Armani pants pocket. I wondered if the drugs came with the suit.

  ‘Good enough,’ said Searing. In four strides he had crossed the room to me, grabbed my hand, crossed to the window and stepped out onto the fire escape taking me with him. Esmerelda followed suit pulling the curtain and window closed behind her.

  As the curtains closed I could see Halle dragging the armchair back into place and Josephine cooing over Henry’s finally disabled body.

  The last sounds I recalled while escaping down the fire stairs were Abby entering the room, Halle on the phone to triple zero and Esmerelda saying, ‘Fuck, I mean frig, she’s got that look again.’

  I passed out into Searing’s arms on the fourth or fifth step. I have a faint memory of Searing pressing his nose into my neck, just below my ear, and inhaling while carrying me. I might even have heard him moan a little. Or I could have been dreaming. Or he could have just been grunting and groaning from the exertion of carrying me down six flights of fire stairs. We may never know.

  At least I didn’t throw up on him. It was an absolute sign of growth.

  CHAPTER 18

  BANANAS

  I woke up in the pool house to the buttery waft of freshly pressed waffles and the heart-warming aroma of French pressed coffee coming from the bedside table. Lingering in the background was the scent of organic lemon cleaning products. That meant the breakfast tray had been recently delivered by Patricia. The soy milk would be full fat.

  I could not smell Esmerelda (thank God) but I knew she was close. I could feel her laissez-faire Doberman presence. Wait, I could ‘feel’ her. What was that? I was turning into my mother! Too bad I didn’t wake up one morning with her waistline and cheekbones. Funny how that works.