Donna Joy Usher - Chanel 02 - Goons 'n' Roses

by Donna Joy Usher

  ‘She didn’t know if they were, but she didn’t want to risk it. Besides,’ he smiled fondly, ‘you had left the coop and she was bored.’

  ‘Speaking of handbags,’ I said, ‘what’s the big deal with Mum’s?’

  ‘I put a tracker in the lining.’

  A tracker? That was a bit more James Bond than I was used to. ‘None of that explains why this is your fault,’ I said.

  Bernadette returned with three of the biggest glasses of Coke I had ever seen. ‘There you go,’ she said brightly. ‘Are you ready to order?’

  ‘We’ll have pie?’ Martine said.

  ‘Apple?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Would you like that with cream, ice-cream or topping?’

  I felt like screaming, ‘Bugger off,’ but instead I smiled sweetly and said, ‘Cream please, for all of us.’ I didn’t really think we would be eating the pie.

  Trent was looking down at the table, pushing a crumb around with a finger. When she left he sighed and said, ‘I’ve been working with Interpol on the disappearance of a couple of Australian girls: Melanie Taylor and Rachel Brighton. Their last known movements were in Las Vegas. They wanted to be showgirls.’ He pushed away from the table and slumped back in his chair, running a hand through his hair. ‘There has been a dramatic increase in missing girls in the last six months. All of them young and attractive…’

  ‘And let me guess,’ I said, ‘all of them wanted to be showgirls.’

  He nodded. ‘I told Te ummm Lorraine about it and she suggested she look up some of her contacts while she was here to see if they knew anything about it.’

  ‘You call her Tess when you’re alone?’

  He nodded his head.

  It made sense. He never called her Lorraine in public. It was always Babe or Sweety, or something else just as sickening. I wanted to be angry with him. I wanted to be furious, but the problem was it wasn’t him I was angry with. I was angry with Mum. I was angry with her for not trusting me enough to tell me any of this. Deep down I knew she had been trying to protect me, but where she was concerned, I was sick of being in the dark. Besides, there was one thing that didn’t make sense.

  ‘It’s not your fault,’ I said to Trent. ‘Mum being taken – that has nothing to do with those missing girls. She hadn’t even started to make enquiries.’ I could see Bernadette returning with our pie. It smelt really good. I waited till she had deposited it in front of us before continuing. ‘There’s some other reason Mum was taken and that’s what we have to find out.’ I broke a piece of pie off with my spoon and put it in my mouth. It tasted as good as it smelt and suddenly, I was ravenous.

  ‘What are we going to do?’ Martine asked in between mouthfuls of pie.

  ‘We need to go to the police,’ I said.

  Trent shook his head. ‘Crooked cops. That’s why I got sent in to investigate. Interpol doesn’t know which of the local cops they can trust. I can contact Interpol for help, but until that turns up we’re on our own.’

  ‘What are we going to do?’ I slumped back in my seat.

  ‘We are going to trust your instincts,’ he said.

  ‘My instincts?’

  ‘Let me clarify. We are going to use your shit magnet to home in on some criminals.’

  ‘How on earth is that going to help?’

  ‘The different arms of crime always know what the other arms are up to.’

  I put the last bit of pie in my mouth, swirled it around my taste buds and swallowed. ‘So you want me to find a criminal and pump him for information?’

  ‘I wouldn’t have put it that way, but yes, that’s exactly what I want you to do.’

  ***

  Trent paid for our pie and Coke and we left the diner. It was attached to a service station and we paused to let some cars exit the boulevard and enter the station. While we were waiting, a low growl came from further down the road. I watched as a group of bikies slowed their motorbikes and rumbled off the bitumen and into the station.

  My eyes focused on the lead rider. He swung off the bike and removed his helmet, running his hands through his hair before turning to the petrol pump. Black leather jacket, black tight jeans and dark blonde hair. I could feel my lips part as I watched him move, his leg muscles flexing through his jeans.

  He unzipped his jacket and laid it over the back of his bike before pulling his wallet out of his back pocket. He swiped a card through a pay-at-the-pump facility and then picked up the petrol nozzle. His biceps bulged under the edge of his black t-shirt and ‘Bad to the Bone’ started playing in my head.

  ‘Well,’ Martine said, ‘that didn’t take long.’

  ‘Big, fat, magnet,’ Trent replied.

  Bahbababababaaad… dadaahdadaahduh… Bad to the Bone.

  He hung up the nozzle and sauntered over to one of his bikie pals, his jeans moving mesmerizingly with his gluteus maximus muscles.

  ‘What are you waiting for?’ Trent asked as he elbowed me.

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘Get over there before he leaves.’

  ‘You want me to go with him?’

  ‘You’ve got your phone?’

  ‘Ahuh.’

  ‘Then yes.’

  ‘Go get him tiger.’ Martine slapped me on the arse.

  ‘Ouch,’ I said, rubbing it. Sometimes Martine forgot how strong she was.

  I took a deep breath and ran my hands through my hair a few times to try to fluff it into some sort of sexy devil-may-care look. I was sure that my mascara had run and that I still had remnants of the snot bubble on my face, and of course my arm still looked ridiculous, so I doubted this was going to work. The only thing I had going for me were ‘the girls’. I leant down and pushed my boobs further up into my push-up bra.

  ‘Work it baby,’ Martine called out.

  I huffed out a big sigh before slinging my handbag over my shoulder. Then I walked towards him, swaying my hips in time to ‘Bad to the Bone’.

  He saw me approaching when I was still about ten metres away. It was a little hard to pull off a full-on-sexy walk in reef sandals, but I was giving it my best shot. He watched me with a small smile pulling up the left side of his mouth. I noted he had a little dimple in his cheek.

  ‘Hiya,’ I said. Christ. Did I really just say hiya? I felt like I was twelve.

  He didn’t answer, but he gave me a slow, heated look that travelled from the top of my head, right down to the tip of my reef sandals and then back up to my cleavage, where his gaze lingered.

  ‘Going somewhere?’ I asked.

  ‘The question is,’ he said to my boobs, ‘are you going somewhere with me?’

  Oh geez. I know that that was the ultimate aim of all this, but I couldn’t help but feel that, with this one, I was in way over my head. I glanced back towards Trent and Martine. Martine was flapping her hands at me and Trent was making get on the bike motions. Either that or he was telling me he needed to go to the toilet.

  I looked back at my bikie and said, ‘You got room on that thing?’

  He laughed. ‘Never,’ he said, pulling a spare helmet off a peg, ‘call a man’s bike a thing.’ Still holding the helmet he wandered back to one of his gang.

  ‘Kingy,’ he called out. ‘I’ve got a live one.’

  Oh crap. When I found her, Mum was really going to pay for this.

  Kingy glanced over at me, his head tilted to the side while he appraised me with intelligent eyes. He was long and rangy and if I hadn’t seen the leader first, I would have quite happily dry humped his leg. Were all the bikies in Las Vegas hot?

  ‘I’m going to take her for a scenic and then we might stop at that café.’

  Kingy finished his surveillance of me and nodded once. He threw a leg over his bike and revved it a few times before leading the rest of the gang back out onto the boulevard. I felt safer knowing I only had to deal with one of them.

  ‘What do I call you?’ I asked.

  ‘Billy.’ He placed the helmet on my head and did the buckle up
under my chin, all the time keeping intense eye contact with me through the open face helmet. Then he picked up his jacket and held it out for me. I thrust one arm into it and swivelled so I could get the other one through. He lifted the jacket up so that it was seated over my shoulders before turning me back around. Then he manipulated the zip ends together. I felt a flush creeping up my cheeks at the feel of his hands so close to my crutch.

  Then he zipped it up. I’ve had men undress me before, but I’ve never had one dress me. It felt nice in a really weird way.

  ‘Now you look even hotter,’ he said.

  ‘I look good in a helmet do I?’

  ‘That,’ he said, smiling his crooked smile, ‘and I can’t see your orange arm any more.’

  Before I could say anything in response he vaulted onto the bike and held a hand out for me. When I was sitting snugly behind him he flipped on his own helmet and started up the bike. ‘Hang on,’ he said, his voice loud and clear from within my helmet. He scooped an arm back around me and pulled me forwards.

  I tightened my thighs on either side of his and then flung an arm around him. The other one clutched my handbag, which was wedged between my chest and his back.

  The bike began to roll forwards slowly. ‘I’m Chanel,’ I yelled in his ear. I wasn’t sure if he heard me or not, because at that precise moment the bike leapt forwards like a frisky racehorse and suddenly we were racing up Las Vegas Boulevard.

  The initial momentum took me by surprise and it took a few moments to get my breath back. By then we were weaving through traffic. ‘You can talk normally,’ he said, as we raced along the strip. ‘These helmets are linked with blue tooth.’

  He took a left at Circus Circus and threaded through suburbia for a while. Then, suddenly, we were free, tearing along an open road towards the mountains.

  I felt a large smile spread across my face. The sensation of the wind rushing past me, the exhilaration of the speed, the feeling of oneness with my surroundings, the beauty of the mountains and the desert…

  ‘Yahoooo,’ I screeched, clutching him tighter.

  He looked over his shoulder at me, his huge grin mirroring my own. And then he kicked up a gear and really opened up the throttle.

  ***

  An hour later we rolled back through the streets of Las Vegas. He pulled off into a parking lot near the Stratosphere Hotel and Casino. I clambered off the bike behind him and stared up at the Stratosphere.

  ‘Holy shit,’ I said, clutching his arm. ‘Someone just jumped off that tower.’

  He let out a low laugh. ‘That,’ he said, ‘is the Sky Jump. It’s the highest thrill ride in the country.’

  I watched in amazement as another person hurtled down the side of the tower. ‘How far is that?’

  ‘A long, long way,’ he said. His voice tickled the side of my face and I realised he was standing really close.

  Oh crap. It was show time.

  ‘What’s so special about this café?’ I asked, looking at the battered tables and array of plastic chairs.

  ‘They do great coffee.’

  I took a seat facing away from the Stratosphere and out over the side street we were parked off. Watching those people fall was only going to make me feel more anxious.

  Billy hovered for a minute before taking a seat next to me. Eeeep! I had at least been expecting him to sit across from me.

  ‘Do you want to talk about it?’ he asked.

  ‘About what?’ I said. Shit. He knows.

  ‘Your arm.’

  I smiled and said, ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  A waitress with a dirty apron wandered slowly to our table. ‘Whadda ya want?’ she said.

  ‘Coffee,’ we both said in unison. I was more in the mood for strong alcohol but I didn’t want him getting the wrong idea.

  ‘What sort of bike is that?’ I asked.

  ‘She’s a Harley. A Softail Heritage Classic,’ he said, a proud smile on his face. He was extremely cute.

  ‘Ahhh,’ I replied knowledgeably.

  A black car turned off the main street and dribbled past the café. It looked awfully like the car I had last seen Mum in.

  ‘So Chanel,’ he said, ‘what do you do for a crumb?’

  ‘Ahhh,’ I said, tearing my eyes away from the car. It was too far away to see the number plate, and to be totally honest, I couldn’t remember it anyway.

  Did I tell him I was in the Australian Police Force?

  ‘I’m a hairdresser,’ I said. It wasn’t a total lie.

  We moved aside for the waitress to dump two cups of black coffee in front of us. She grabbed a bowl containing packets of sugar and creamer and thumped it down beside my coffee.

  ‘Good coffee?’ I said to Billy.

  ‘The best.’

  I nodded sceptically and mixed some creamer and sugar into my cup. It looked mucky.

  ‘And you’re from New Zealand?’ Billy asked.

  I snorted. ‘You just want me to say the word sex.’

  He looked at me with a puzzled expression.

  ‘It’s one of the obvious words that differentiate between Australian and New Zealand accents. When New Zealander’s say the word six it sounds like sex. Us Aussies pronounce it properly.’

  The car did a U-turn further down the street.

  I took a sip of coffee and spurted it back out of my mouth. It was cold. ‘Good coffee?’ I said, pulling a serviette out of the holder to mop up my mess.

  Oblivious to my faux pas, Billy watched the black car pull up in front of the building opposite the café. I realised it wasn’t the coffee he was here for. The car stopped and the driver hopped out. He had on a long black trench coat.

  What was it with the long trench coats? It was far too hot for long trench coats.

  The man paused to look around and Billy turned to me and said, ‘I sure would like to hear you say the word sex.’

  I threw back my head and laughed, swinging around so that I was facing him. The driver turned away from the street and headed up a footpath to the building opposite us, but I had seen enough of his face to recognise him. It was Tommy Tiger.

  I couldn’t believe it. Tommy Tiger going into that building? Surely it had to mean that Mum was in there.

  I could feel my heart pounding and suddenly I was breathless. I wanted to run over there and demand they give her back, but I had a feeling that that sort of behaviour wouldn’t end well. Besides, I didn’t know why Billy was watching them. Perhaps he was their sentry.

  I was going to have to bide my time and come back later with Trent and Martine.

  Tommy knocked on the door and looked around again while he waited for a response. Billy looked back at me and laughed as if I had just said the funniest thing. I slapped him on the arm playfully and fluttered my eyelids. It wouldn’t do for him to realise I knew what he was up to. The door opened and Tommy entered the building. I couldn’t see who had opened the door.

  ‘This coffee sure is great,’ I said.

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Sure. You should drink yours before it gets cold.’ I nodded encouragingly at him and made drink-up motions with my hands. If I had to taste that shit, then so did he.

  He took a big gulp and bravely swallowed.

  ‘Good huh?’ I smiled sweetly.

  ‘Yummy.’ He shuddered and wiped the back of his hand across his mouth.

  ‘So Billy,’ I said, ‘what do you do for a crumb?’

  ‘I’m a bouncer,’ he said. ‘I work at The Big Blue.’

  Wow. That was way too weird. ‘You’re kidding?’

  ‘You know it?’ For the first time since we had sat down he gave me his full attention; his navy-blue eyes boring into mine.

  ‘My Mum choreographs for a troop of drag queens. That’s why I’m here.’

  ‘You’re a drag queen?’

  I laughed. ‘No, I got a jolly out of it. They’re performing at The Big Blue.’

  ‘Well that explains your very tall friend.’
<
br />   ‘You should see her with her evening wig on. Are you working tonight?’

  ‘Night off,’ he said, giving me a significant look.

  Hunnhh. That was a total pity. I would have liked to ask him what he was doing with his night off, but I doubted he was planning to help Trent and me break into that building, and that was my priority for the evening.

  ‘Oh,’ I said, ‘well I guess you won’t see them perform tonight. They’ve got a dress rehearsal.’

  ‘And are you a part of this dress rehearsal?’ he asked, leaning towards me.

  I saw the front door on the building across the road open and we both swivelled to watch. Tommy hurried down the stairs and hopped into the driver’s side of the car. He was carrying a briefcase that he hadn’t had on the way in. That was interesting.

  I looked back at Billy a moment before he glanced back at me. I smiled a ditzy smile and shook my head, as if I hadn’t realised his interest in Tommy. ‘Not really,’ I said, ‘but I am the executive producer so I have to be seen to be doing something.’

  ‘Pity,’ he said.

  ‘Pity,’ I repeated.

  ‘I’ve got some business I need to attend to,’ he said, peeling a ten dollar bill out of his wallet, ‘but I’d really like to see you again.’

  If he was able to lead me straight to Mum, he might be able to help us with those missing girls. ‘And I’d really like to see you again too,’ I said.

  We both stood and headed back to the Softail to put on our protective gear.

  ‘Where are you staying?’ he asked.

  ‘The Luxor.’

  ‘Nice.’

  He helped me onto the bike behind him and turned right onto The Strip, heading towards The Luxor. It didn’t take long before he was pulling up in front of the giant, black pyramid.

  ‘See you tomorrow?’ he asked once I was off the bike.

  ‘Sure. Do you want to go for a drink?’ There was no way I was having coffee with him again.

  ‘Sounds good. I’ll meet you here at, what, four?’

  ‘In the afternoon?’

  He nodded and pulled his helmet back on before kicking his bike into gear. I waited till he was out of sight before hurrying up to Martine’s room.