Baby Did a Bad Bad Thing

by Lord, Gabrielle

  She walked over to the group of kids, reminded of the Ratbag’s predicament. They all looked away, hoping that she wasn’t trouble. Thinking of that little kid, and all the others alone in the world on the savage streets of Kings Cross took her mind off her anguish over Steve.

  She pulled a twenty-dollar note out of her wallet. ‘Have any of you guys seen a young kid around, not Koori. About twelve, thirteen? Dark hair. Thick eyebrows. Worried look on his face. Wearing a green parka, pretty grubby.’

  Two of the kids didn’t even turn at the sound of her voice; the others shook their heads. Gemma pulled out one of her business cards from the same pocket.

  ‘This is me,’ she said. ‘I’m not a cop or a social worker. I don’t want to make any trouble for you kids. But if any of you see this kid, or find out where he hangs, give me a call on this number and I’ll make sure it’s worth your time. Okay?’ She handed the note and her card over to the oldest girl. ‘Get yourselves something to eat, eh?’ she said.

  The girl looked at the business card and then shoved it in a pocket. One of them jiggled his feet and they were silent. It was almost as if she didn’t exist, that she hadn’t just spoken to them, given them money.

  ‘Where are you kids from?’ she asked, suddenly touched by their youth, their lostness.

  The smallest girl tossed her wild hair. ‘All over the place,’ she said. ‘Come from everywhere, us mob.’

  ‘You let me know?’ Gemma asked again. ‘If you see this kid?’

  ‘Your kid?’ the girl asked.

  Gemma shook her head. ‘No,’ she said. ‘I’m just a friend. He’s run away from his mother in Melbourne. He doesn’t know anything about living on the streets.’

  ‘He’ll learn pretty quick,’ said one of the boys. The silence fell again.

  Gemma walked back to the café, trying not to think of where Steve might be with that beautiful girl. She noticed two black Mercedes drive by and for a moment, thought some eccentric funeral was taking place. It was almost impossible to see into the interiors through the tinted windows. The two cars turned the corner and into Macleay Street, vanishing from her sight.

  At the café she saw Kosta sitting morosely at the same table she’d vacated twenty minutes before. He’d almost finished a half bottle of red as Gemma approached.

  ‘I thought you weren’t going to show,’ he said, raising his droopy eyes to her. ‘Grab a glass.’

  ‘I was here earlier,’ she said, ‘but I had to leave. Something came up.’ She turned her glass over and he poured her some wine. Gemma tossed it down and felt the glow of it spreading downwards. It hit her behind the knees and she realised she hadn’t eaten for too long.

  ‘Trouble?’ he asked.

  Gemma shrugged. There were more people at the tables than had been there earlier and as she looked around, she caught the waiter staring at her. Kosta looked heavier and more compressed than she remembered from the last time she’d seen him. She wasn’t sure how he supported himself these days but she knew he’d made a living of sorts in the past as a small-time dealer, buying several grams and cutting them to sell on. He had moved in and out of various rehab places, and generally made himself available to anyone who could use either him or his services. He’d tried to be a standover man, but as Shelly had told Gemma years ago, he just didn’t have enough mongrel in him for that. Even now, despite the bloating from too much beer and baklava, and the wear and tear of substance abuse, shreds of good nature still showed in his face.

  He looked miserable. Was it because, Gemma wondered, he really had cared for Shelly, or was it because a reliable meal ticket was gone for good? She pulled out her note book. Kosta waved it away.

  ‘No, no,’ he said, a little blue and black evil eye earring wobbling on his right earlobe. ‘Before you get going, let me tell you, I got something for you.’ He wagged a forefinger at her. ‘You know that diary the cops were looking for everywhere? Naomi had it all the time. She said her mum didn’t want the police to get hold of it. She said it’s okay for me to give it to you.’ He pulled out a good sized black leather diary and placed it on the table.

  ‘Where’s Naomi now?’ Gemma asked.

  ‘She’s at school,’ he said. ‘She comes home on the weekends.’

  ‘Home?’ Gemma said.

  ‘She goes to Shell’s mum at Rockdale,’ he said. ‘Her grandmother’s place.’

  ‘A few years ago Shell told me about her stepfather,’ said Gemma. ‘From what she said he’s not fit to be anywhere near a young girl.’

  ‘He had me bashed once,’ said Kosta. ‘But it’s okay, Naomi’s safe. Shell’s mum kicked him out a while back.’

  Gemma turned her attention back to the diary in her hands. ‘Tell Naomi thanks for this,’ said Gemma, thinking of the motherless fifteen-year-old. ‘Tell her I’m very sorry about Shell. And I’m not going to rest until the person who killed her is locked up.’

  She turned the diary over and flicked through it. There seemed to be a lot of entries, names, addresses, phone and email contacts. She wondered how long she could decently hold on to this piece of information too, knowing that the police were looking for it. Strictly speaking, she’d have to hand it over to Mr Right pretty smartly. But after the shock of seeing Lorraine Litchfield, nitpicking issues like withholding information didn’t seem to matter much anymore. They’re as important as my licence, she reminded herself, recalling the promise she’d made to herself at the El Alamein fountain, to remain faithful to her professional standards. It’s all a girl’s got when the shooting starts, she remembered Angie saying a long time ago. Gemma leaned down and stowed the diary safely in her briefcase.

  ‘I really miss the Shell, you know,’ Kosta was saying. ‘We were together on and off for nearly fifteen years. Since I was twenty-five. It’s a long time.’

  ‘It is,’ said Gemma whose history with Shelly covered roughly the same period.

  ‘I’d do anything to get the bastard who done that to her,’ he said.

  ‘That lawyer who was hassling her to sell up,’ said Gemma. ‘What do you know about him?’

  Kosta leaned forward. ‘That pig. For sure he’s acting for George Fayed,’ he said. ‘He was putting the pressure on Shell. He wants to take over everything, the houses, the girls, the Litchfield dealers and distributors. My mate reckons he wants to own Sydney and everyone in it. I just saw him in his Mercedes with his baboons behind him.’

  Gemma recalled the two black cars while Kosta upended his glass of wine and drained it, then leaned forward, looked around to make sure no one could hear him.

  ‘I reckon Fayed had Shell killed,’ he said, ‘because she wouldn’t sell Baroque.’

  ‘The police don’t think that,’ she said. ‘It looks like the work of whoever’s been targeting the sex workers.’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Kosta. ‘Him! It’s the same person!’ His manner revealed that he thought it was obvious. ‘He’s got thugs out there bashing them, getting them off the streets. He doesn’t want them taking the custom. He wants to frighten them off the streets so that all the mugs have to use his places.’ He put his glass down. ‘Whatcha drinking?’

  ‘Scotch and ice,’ she said. She pulled out a twenty and Kosta took it to the bar, returning with the drinks. Either there was no change, or he’d pocketed it. He sat down, delighted that he had Gemma’s attention.

  ‘You heard of the French Connection?’ he asked.

  Gemma nodded. Here we go again, she thought.

  ‘His thugs pick you up, keep you somewhere for a few days, keep injecting you, then chuck you out again. Just like in that movie.’

  ‘Kosta, listen to me. Men like Fayed don’t waste time and valuable substances like that. They just break people’s legs.’

  Kosta raised a scolding finger, suddenly looking very Greek and patriarchal as he waggled it f
rom side to side, the little evil eye earring bobbing.

  ‘No, no,’ he said. ‘You don’t get it. It’s like his mark. He likes to do that. You know how animals mark their territory? Like that. Plus, he’s showing he doesn’t care about wasting gear, he’s got so much of it. He’s showing off. He wants to be king of the city.’

  Gemma remained unconvinced. Men like Fayed, just like anyone in the public eye, attracted the products of the rumour mill. But Kosta had warmed to his subject.

  ‘He’s been buying up all the houses. Then he puts his own addicted girls in and doesn’t pay them nothing except their medication. When they’re really sick, he just chucks them out. My mate I mentioned to you? He worked bodyguard for Fayed. Says you never saw anything like the security. Won’t drive anywhere without his two cars. And other cars a little way behind him to make sure no one’s on his arse. External and internal security all through his place, closed circuit cameras everywhere. In every room.’

  Gemma looked up with renewed interest. She remembered Angie telling her about the closed circuit television inside the Fayed fortress. She could corroborate this part of the information herself. Maybe Kosta’s mate was a reliable source after all.

  ‘He doesn’t trust no bastard,’ Kosta was saying. ‘He has terrible nightmares.’ He finished his drink. ‘No way the Shell was going to let someone like that get his hands on her house.’ He swayed a little in his seat. ‘George Fayed likes to kill women. He’s gutless.’

  ‘He’s killed at least one man,’ said Gemma. ‘He got rid of Terry Litchfield.’

  Kosta again raised his admonishing finger. ‘Let me put you straight on that point, Gemma. I know for a fact he did not,’ he said.

  ‘What are you saying, Kosta?’

  ‘I know that everyone thinks Fayed killed Tezza,’ Kosta was saying, ‘but I know for a fact it was his missus. That blonde bitch, Lorraine. She did for him.’

  ‘Are you sure about that?’ Gemma said, picking up her drink again.

  ‘True,’ he said. ‘She’d been playing up. Some rich buyer from interstate. You know the type,’ he said. ‘Tall, dark, handsome. Armani shirts.’

  Steve! Gemma thought.

  ‘Lorraine gets really keen on this bloke and has poor old Tezza knocked off for twenty-five grand.’

  Gemma tried to think rationally. Terry Litchfield’s been dead for months, she thought. But the way Kosta was telling it made it sound like Steve had been around for quite a while. She felt a chill all through her body.

  Kosta raised his empty glass to a waiter who walked straight past him.

  ‘Darryl Tunks did the drive-by. Right outside the bloody mansion poor old Tezza had just bought for the bitch. Straight through the gates. Poor bastard managed to get out onto the street and that’s as far as he got.’ He paused to attract another waiter. ‘Some women,’ he added, as the waiter took his glass.

  ‘Who told you this?’ she said, trying to keep her voice normal.

  ‘Friend of Darryl’s.’ He sounded vague.

  ‘Can you tell me his name and address? I want to talk to him.’

  ‘He hangs around here.’ Kosta waved vaguely in the direction of the street. ‘Dunno where he lives.’

  Gemma cross-referenced the two versions: Terry Litchfield killed by George Fayed or killed by his wife. Either way, Steve’s presence was very much part of the drama. Either he was Lorraine Litchfield’s lover in reality and had been for some time, well before the period of the undercover operation, giving Lorraine a good reason to get rid of her husband, or Steve was invited in as part of the wronged widow’s revenge on Fayed. Both stories were completely possible; both worked. But which version was the truth? One version just lodged quietly in her mind like any other information. The other broke her heart and made her mouth dry up just contemplating it. She remembered the conjecture she’d been assuming, that the police had enough evidence to convince Lorraine that it was Fayed. If Lorraine had killed her husband, she’d know that the police ‘evidence’ against Fayed was bullshit right from the start. So why team up with them in the first place? There was only one answer to that and she resisted it vigorously. But the more she fought it, the more plausible it seemed. Lorraine Litchfield wanted Steve so badly she was prepared to set up a phoney deal with Fayed to draw him into a relationship with her. To give him the keys to her kingdom: the wealth, the glamour, the good life in paradise, Sydney. But what if Steve had been intimately involved with the woman all along? He wouldn’t be the first DUC to find himself with a leg in both camps. And he wouldn’t be the last, she thought. What if the two of them, Steve and Lorraine Litchfield together, had planned the destruction of Fayed with the aim of becoming the new king and queen of the Sydney crime empire?

  Gemma felt shaken. Don’t go down that line of thought, she told herself. Get back onto one of your cases. You’re here to investigate the death of your friend. She recalled her conversation with Shelly in the hospital lift.

  ‘Shelly said she was working for a pair of psychologists,’ she said to Kosta, whose eyes were clouding over fast, as the latest drink started taking effect. ‘Sex therapists. Did she mention this to you? Some sort of sex surrogacy?’

  ‘Don’t know about that sort of stuff,’ Kosta said, shaking his head. ‘You’ve lost me.’ But then he thought of something and visibly brightened. ‘You mean the can’t-get-it-up clinic?’

  ‘That would be one name for it,’ Gemma said.

  ‘I can even tell you where it is,’ he said, pleased to be helpful.

  Gemma duly noted his directions. Her heart was heavy, her head spinning from the late night and the smoke-filled bar. She stood up. ‘I’ve got to go, Kosta,’ she said, pulling out a twenty-dollar note. ‘Thanks for giving me the diary.’

  For a moment he looked as if he were going to say something more, but his eyes filled with tears and he cleared his throat instead. Gemma touched his shoulder before she left.

  •

  Gemma wasn’t sure how it was that she found herself in Indigo Ice some time later, nursing a ten-dollar glass of fake champagne, watching the flashing couples on the crowded dance floor, her head filled with the thump thump thump of the bass speakers. In front of her snaked a jet-black man, fabulous in cool white chinos, with a golden woman, their dancing so beautiful, so provocative and synchronised that Gemma envied their harmony. She was staring at them, lost in admiration and the incessant beat of the music when the couple danced away from each other in order to come together again in a sinewy pas de deux. Through the gap suddenly opened between them, another couple was revealed, the woman with her arms around the man’s neck, the man holding her closely around the buttocks, as they swayed together.

  Gemma froze. The woman was Lorraine Litchfield and the man holding her was Steve. Gemma jumped to her feet, unnoticed in the flashing light. Suddenly, the woman turned, and her eyes bored straight through Gemma in a syncopated, strobic stare. Gemma turned and fled, leaving her drink, pushing her way through the crowd, not bothering to apologise, blind with tears and jealousy.

  She hobbled up the sticky carpet of the staircase and back onto the street, clutching her briefcase. She almost ran all the way back to her car. In the safety of the locked vehicle she pulled out her mobile, aware of how her hands were shaking. Dialling Steve’s number, she was aware in some part of her mind of how stupid this was, but was unable to stop herself, her heart rushing with fear, anger and pain. She realised she was rocking herself with anxiety and jealousy, something she hadn’t done since she was ten.

  ‘Yes?’ His voice was cool and wary and behind him she could hear the noise of the dance club.

  ‘I’ve just left Indigo Ice, Steve. I saw you dancing with her! What the fuck do you think you’re doing?’

  ‘My job,’ he said. His voice didn’t warm or change in any way. ‘I can’t give you a result right now, I’ll call you
later, okay?’

  ‘No, it’s not okay!’ she said, almost in tears.

  ‘This is not a good time to talk.’ Steve’s business-like voice inflamed her further.

  ‘I’ll bet,’ she yelled, ‘with Lorraine bloody Litchfield’s tongue halfway down your goddamn throat!’

  ‘I’ll call you later,’ he said, in the same flat voice. And then he was gone

  Wilfully, she rang straight back but he’d switched on voice mail. Furious, she tried again. But it was no use. Eventually, her breathing slowed down and she shoved the mobile back in her briefcase. What am I going to do? she thought, gripping the steering wheel so hard that a stab of pain seared through the injuries on the back of her fingers. She started the car, and screeched away, taking the back streets home, risking the Breathalyser.