The Mak Collection

by Tara Moss

  ‘Let’s get a drink,’ she suggested to Bogey, and led him to the right. They sidled up to one of the main bars and took position on a couple of stools. Mak swivelled around to face him. ‘What do you want?’ she offered.

  ‘What are you having?’

  It didn’t look like the sort of place that would do a satisfying mojito.

  ‘Vodka, lime and soda,’ she said.

  Bogey flagged down some service while Mak observed the establishment from her barstool vantage point. There were women everywhere, almost outnumbering the men, but Mak was quite possibly the only female there who wasn’t working at the place. A few patrons looked in Mak’s direction and appraised her openly before refocusing their attention on the undulating performers. Already she was starting to think that having Bogey with her was of some genuine value. He was helping her to blend in, and was quite possibly preventing her from being propositioned as well. She was certain that she could manage fine without him, but clearly his presence was going to make her job easier.

  An impossibly large-breasted, bleached blonde bartender appeared, drawing Mak’s eyes to the bar once again. She wore an over-strained gingham tie top that could have been made from a cocktail napkin, and looked to be a few days out of high school.

  ‘What can I getcha?’ the bartender asked, smiling brightly with a full set of braces.

  Oh dear.

  Bogey smoothly gave the scantily clad young woman Mak’s order of vodka, lime and soda, and asked for a bottle of the Japanese beer Asahi for himself. They didn’t have it. ‘Heineken?’ They didn’t have that one either. ‘A bottle of Crown?’ he asked. She plonked one on the bar and popped the top. Bogey didn’t touch it, evidently waiting for Mak to get her drink before he started his beer. If he had ogled the girl’s breasts while he ordered, Mak somehow hadn’t noticed it. And she had been watching.

  Impressive.

  Mak had to admit that Bogey wasn’t really eyeballing the visions of fake-tanned flesh surrounding them, much less howling for them to ‘take it all off’. And the women really were surrounding them—on the many performance stages, walking past slowly in lingerie, leaning wantonly on pillars in mesh slips and pouring beers wearing improbable tops. It was a visual feast of toned flesh and Worst Dressed List–worthy outfits such as Mak had never seen. Bogey was probably being polite for Mak’s sake. His discipline might change after a few beers, she guessed.

  Bending over the bar and with breasts jiggling, the bartender presented Mak’s drink and Bogey paid for it before Mak could stop him.

  ‘You remember what I said about the client?’ Mak reminded him.

  ‘Your tab covers drinks?’

  ‘Everything,’ she replied, and took a sip through her straw.

  It wasn’t the best drink she’d ever tasted. They had some good vodkas displayed along the bar, but she was guessing that none of those had been used to make her drink.

  ‘It must be nice that you can drink on the job and get paid for it,’ Bogey commented.

  ‘That’s one of the perks of being a private detective and not a public one,’ Mak explained. ‘The cops have so much regulation. Rank. Superiors. Inspectors watching their every move. Every step they make has to be taken thinking that it might be investigated in court and ripped to pieces by a defence barrister. Whereas with me…well, so long as I don’t break the law too badly, I can do just about anything to get the job done. And there’s no law against drinking on the job, either. In fact, there’s a rather illustrious history of partnership between investigators and their booze.’

  Bogey smirked, seeing that she was at least half joking. ‘I’ll keep that in mind.’ He shook his head and did another of his little huff-laughs. ‘You sure are surprising,’ he said, and lifted the beer to his lips.

  Concentrate, Mak. Stop trying to impress this guy and just do your job.

  Mak leaned one elbow on the bar and worked on her drink, watching the room for anyone who resembled Amy Camilleri’s picture. There were a disproportionate number of blondes, as one might expect, but still no sign of anyone with Amy’s face. Mak noticed, to her surprise, that a number of the male customers were actually on their own, or in sedate groupings of two or three. It wasn’t the screaming buck’s night crowd she’d expected to see.

  She also observed with interest the various interactions: lots of looking but no touching, unless it was the girls touching the men. Some ladies working the floor actually leaned against customers as they chatted, seemingly relaxed in their underclothes despite the layers of suits or jeans the men wore. And she noticed that there were a lot of surveillance cameras but, apart from the guard at the front door, Mak had not yet spotted any of the stereotypical frowning no-neck bouncers. They would be there somewhere, she was sure, but they were subtle. Security was probably briefed to keep a low profile so the customers could relax.

  Check out their faces…

  On one of the nearby stages a Latina with huge hoop earrings, a neon-yellow string bikini and clear platform stilettos wiggled and tapped her brown buttocks to the delight of a growing audience. The men seemed mesmerised but helpless, like diabetics in a candy store. They could look but not touch, and there was not much room for conversation with all that staring, so for the most part they just sat and stared mutely. A slim Japanese girl in a schoolgirl uniform shared the other half of the same stage, not working with the Latina dancer, but keeping her back to her and trying to win her own fans. She wore a white tie top and a micro-mini version of the tartan schoolgirl skirt, her white socks pulled up to her knees. An older man leaned forwards, staring at her with his mouth slack. When she kneeled down in front of him and caressed her small breasts through her top, he took a folded bill and slid it into a garter on her thigh.

  The goal was cash, and it was every woman for herself.

  ‘Is there anything you want me to do?’ Bogey asked after they had sat quietly for a while.

  ‘Nothing for the moment,’ Mak responded. ‘I just need to check things out for a bit. Is there anyone you want to look at?’ She gestured to the girls performing.

  ‘This kind of place isn’t my thing,’ he said dismissively. ‘I’m just happy wherever you need me to be.’

  ‘It’s nice of you to help out like this,’ she said, trying to figure out just exactly why he was being so generous with his time, particularly if he had a work project to start on first thing in the morning. ‘I know you have to work early.’

  Bogey gave her a slow smile. ‘Don’t say it like I’m a saint or anything. Accompanying someone like you to a place full of naked women is no chore for any man, and don’t let them tell you otherwise. I’m not complaining.’

  Someone like me?

  ‘About what you said before,’ Bogey went on. ‘I know you don’t need a babysitter. That’s not why I wanted to stay. I can tell that you can take care of yourself.’

  She waited for him to finish.

  ‘I just didn’t feel good about leaving you here on your own. It’s not a great part of town to be alone in at night.’

  ‘It’s all right, I think it’s a nice gesture,’ Mak assured him. ‘I didn’t take it the wrong way.’ With a different guy, with a different attitude, though, she might have. ‘If I wanted you to leave me alone, I’d have just told you.’

  ‘I believe you would too. Now, if you need me out of your hair so you can work, that’s no problem. But I’d really rather not leave you on your own here. I can wait outside until you’re done.’

  Mak laughed. ‘It’s too late now, mister. You can’t leave. You’re part of my cover. We are a couple who have come to Thunderball to spice up our sex life with a little titillating entertainment. If you leave me now it will look too obvious.’ She cast her eye towards some of the nearby male patrons. ‘And I think someone here might take too much notice.’

  He nodded, signalling that he understood.

  ‘I’m glad you’re here,’ she told him. ‘This is fun. Cheers,’ she said, and clinked his bottle with her glass
.

  ‘Cheers.’

  ‘Now check out some babes, will you? Otherwise people will wonder why we’re here.’ Mak swivelled her chair around and watched a group of patrons in chairs circling a platform where a girl was perched in her underwear. ‘Check her out, for instance,’ Mak said. ‘She’s on a train to Boresville.’

  A ring of beer-swilling men watched a stunning blonde in black briefs, bra top and classic stripper heels as she lay on her back on a small, circular stage and swirled her legs around occasionally, plainly bored. Her mouth was stuck in an unattractive line, the look in her eyes distant; she was clearly imagining some place she would rather be. She wasn’t even trying to appear as though she was into it. Mak caught her yawning and looking at her watch.

  Who could find that sexy?

  ‘Did you see that? She’s just waiting for her shift to end, poor girl. That can’t be good for business,’ Mak said.

  ‘It’s not,’ Bogey said. ‘Look…’ A handful of men wandered away from the platform, leaving the seats around her empty. Bogey finished his beer. ‘I’ll be back in a minute,’ he said. ‘Do you know which way the men’s would be?’

  ‘I saw a sign to the left at the top of the staircase,’ Mak told him. She noticed pretty much everything when she was working.

  She concentrated on the room again, and her eyes were drawn to the bored blonde once more as she swivelled her legs, circling her ankles in one direction and then the other. Zoned out and distant, she was nothing more than a sensual automaton, unaware or indifferent to the fact that her audience had moved on. She looked every bit as pretty as a lot of the models Mak had worked with, and Mak could not help but wonder why a girl with that face was on a stripper’s podium instead of a catwalk somewhere. Did it pay that much better? She sure didn’t seem to be there because she loved dancing.

  Bogey had been gone for perhaps sixty seconds before Makedde felt a hand on her shoulder.

  Oh no.

  CHAPTER 31

  ‘The job is complete.’

  Luther Hand sat in the safety of his vehicle, blocks away from the crowded Surry Hills house and dismembered bodies of Mr and Mrs Tan. The first hit had gone smoothly, despite him needing to make a decision about the women trapped in that room.

  ‘How many?’ the man with the American accent asked.

  ‘Two. Man and wife,’ Luther informed his contact.

  There was a pause. ‘Fine,’ The American replied.

  There would be no specifics discussed over the phone.

  ‘And the other?’

  Warwick O’Connor.

  ‘Tomorrow. There was his wife,’ Luther explained.

  ‘Okay. Take care of that tomorrow as you wish. Your contact will visit you at the hotel on Monday with information about your next assignment. Unless there are any changes before then, you will not hear from me. Tomorrow, leave me a message to let me know it is done.’

  ‘Okay.’

  Luther hung up the phone.

  Sleep.

  He drove off, not towards the city but to the airport, to spend the night in the hotel he had chosen there. The Formule 1 hotel was an inexpensive automated accommodation with no check-in staff. It only required a credit card, of which Luther had many in a number of identities. He would return to his room at the Inter-Continental Hotel on Monday to get the information for his next assignment, but until then he would not be found there.

  While his client believed he was relaxing in the five-star Inter-Continental, Luther would be sleeping in the closet of the airport hotel, the bed plumped up with sofa cushions.

  It was one of many precautions Mr Hand had learned to take.

  CHAPTER 32

  ‘Hey, pretty lady, can I buy you a dance?’

  Makedde Vanderwall turned around to find a man in his mid-forties grinning moronically at her, puffed up to the human equivalent of a proud peacock. He was holding a glass of beer in one hand and her shoulder in the other. A trio of his less tipsy friends looked on from a metre further down the bar, watching him make his big move.

  ‘No, thank you,’ Mak replied, forcibly removing his hand and turning away on her barstool to further make her point. She put her purse on Bogey’s seat so no one would take the spot while he was gone.

  Did he say ‘can I buy you a dance?’ or ‘can I buy a dance?’

  Now Mak wasn’t sure which question he had asked. A flash of uncharacteristic self-consciousness caused her to do a rocket-fast self-appraisal: boots, black pants, suit jacket, cleavage carefully covered up. No, there was no mistaking her for one of the ladies working here. It was just the influence of the boys’ club atmosphere that had made her question herself. He had been out of line.

  Mak stayed sitting with her back to the Peacock Man, putting the minor disturbance literally behind her.

  The hand was back.

  ‘Come on, whoever you want. My shout.’

  Regrettably Peacock Man was speaking loudly enough that a couple of dancers, eager for the cash, had begun hovering around him at the bar, smiling seductively and touching his shoulder with an intimacy usually reserved for lovers. One was a naturally voluptuous blonde with milky skin wearing white lace lingerie and long fake pearls, hair flowing to her waist. She didn’t look anything like Amy’s photo, sadly. The other dancer was a slightly more demure and slim-line brunette in a tiny black lycra minidress, and diamanté earrings, bracelet and heels. She had the petite build of a ballerina. The blonde was the bold one of the two, and she leaned on the peacock’s shoulder, intentionally brushing one large breast against him. She whispered something into his ear.

  Oh, come on. Don’t encourage him.

  His mates remained uninvolved, except to eye off the two girls and raise a glass to their seemingly clever-as-a-fox mate.

  ‘Anyone you want,’ he repeated and gestured to the blonde and the brunette, much as someone might offer dark chocolate or light. Before Mak could contain the situation, a third dancer had joined them. She was a hard dark brunette in a plunging red one-piece satin teddy, and by the look in her eye Mak thought she might have been working there a long time. She stood over the petite girl with her hands on her carved hips and her impressive chest pushed out, pouting. She was as tall as Mak, and she looked as tough as a Texas warden.

  ‘Which one do you want?’ the man persisted, now grinning his moronic smile while presenting all three with a sweep of his hand, like a game-show model presents a row of dishwashers.

  Short brunette fast rinse, blonde full wash or long, hard spin cycle? What’s your preference?

  Mak had to say something. ‘They are all stunning women, but honestly, no thanks. If I want a dance from one of these beautiful ladies, I will ask for one myself. I have my own money.’

  At her comment, the hard one shifted her focus to Mak, perhaps hoping to appeal to her as one tall woman to another.

  ‘Oh,’ the Peacock Man huffed loudly, evidently taking Mak’s comment as some sort of assault on his manliness—worst of all here, in this club, one of the last bastions of male freedom. In retaliation for this perceived assault, he dragged some crinkled fifties out of his wallet and waved them around proudly, much to Mak’s embarrassment.

  Fuck. So much for blending in and observing.

  It wasn’t long before the flash of cash attracted more girls. Two more arrived to see what was going on. Now there were five scantily clad women pouting and preening around him. This guy was a bloody genius.

  ‘I have money too,’ he boasted. A couple of the girls giggled like seasoned actors, pretending he was the clever Casanova of their dreams. He leaned in towards Mak with ill-advised confidence. She could smell the booze on his breath. ‘Babe, it would be a crime not to see you naked.’

  Oh, that’s it. Fuck you.

  Mak pictured the sharp heel of her boot digging into the top of his foot so hard that he crumpled and let out a yelp. But putting a hole in the man’s foot was not going to help her get what she needed. She was there for a reason, after all, and
it wasn’t to meet guys like him.

  Makedde pulled him close and whispered in his ear, ‘No, it would be a crime if I took my glass and smashed your face with it. Back off.’

  ‘Huh?’ he blurted, pulling back like he was burned.

  Mak smiled sweetly at the man, who now looked completely confused, still holding his money and staring. She ignored him and tried a new tactic, turning to the girl in the black dress and sparkly jewellery. ‘Oh, hi. You know my friend Amy, don’t you? You’re…um…Brit…’

  ‘Charlotte,’ the girl told her, looking a little confused herself.

  ‘Oh Charlotte, that’s right. How are you? Hey, is Amy working tonight?’ Mak pretended to look around for a moment, as if searching for the familiar sight of her good friend Amy.

  There was a flicker of recognition in the brunette’s face. ‘Um, yeah, Amy?’ she said awkwardly.

  But the Texas warden piped up straightaway, cutting the girl off. ‘Does an Amy work here, hon? I’m not so sure.’

  ‘Yes, she does,’ Mak said with certainty. ‘I’m sure you know Amy.’

  ‘I haven’t seen you in here before.’ She looked Mak up and down with new suspicion.

  ‘Oh, she works here,’ Mak retorted, standing her ground. ‘Amy Camilleri. Very pretty. Light blonde hair, about this long?’ She showed the length with her hand.

  ‘I can’t recall an Amy…’ the tall woman went on, lying so obviously that Mak doubted she was even trying to conceal it. She was being evasive about Amy, but why? Would she rather use the stage name—was that it? ‘Do you girls know her?’ the Texas warden asked, looking around at the others. But she didn’t give them an opportunity to answer, and by the looks of things they weren’t going to try to, either. ‘Nah…an Amy doesn’t come to mind right now.’

  ‘Right now’. Hmmm. What was going on? A sense of competition? Sisterly protection? A reaction to some kind of threat?

  Through all this, the overzealous patron still held his money up, watching the two towering women with a look of tipsy puzzlement as the strange conversation unfolded. He just couldn’t keep up. Mak resisted the urge to close his gaping mouth with one hand. His mates were huddled around their end of the bar, watching with a mix of apprehension and amusement.