Simone Kirsch 02 - Rubdown

by Leigh Redhead

  Back at the Elsternwick Hotel I couldn’t find Sean in the public bar. I searched the gaming room, then the main bar with its dark polished wood and red chesterfield lounges. No dice.

  Jazz filtered through from the bistro. Of course. Pensioners’

  night. The oldies flashed their seniors cards for a six dollar roast and the baby grand got a workout by a band playing wartime hits.

  I walked through an arched doorway into the restaurant and there was Sean, in jeans and Converse sneakers, roaming around the room serenading the biddies with ‘I’ve Got You Under My Skin’.

  I leaned against the wall, crossed my arms and shook my head.

  Talk about the singing detective.

  He glanced over and smiled at me and I waved. A blue rinsed woman on her way back from the salad bar nudged me.

  ‘That your boyfriend, love?’

  ‘Sort of.’

  ‘He’s cute. You keep an eye out. They may look like sweet little old ladies, but they’ll tear him apart given half the chance.’

  Jesus.

  Sean finished the song and the seniors applauded and called for an encore. He shook his head and apologised, bowed and thanked the band for letting him stand in. His eyes were shining as he approached. Performance high. I knew the feeling but it had been a while since I’d had one myself.

  I clapped my hands. ‘You’re wasted in the police force. Think of all the good you could do in the world of dinner theatre.’

  He placed one hand on the back of my head and kissed me, then drew away.

  ‘Your hair’s wet.’

  ‘Spa.’ I ignored the questioning tilt of his eyebrows. ‘I know who attacked me.’

  We sat in the Saab across the road from Bootcamp Personal Training. It was eight thirty and the rain that had been threatening all day had finally arrived. Large splotches crackled on the windscreen and traffic signals, car headlights and neon signs all melted together. Cars swished past on the wet road.

  While Sean finished his cigarette I wiped condensation off the window with the arm of my coat. We were parked outside the furniture shop where Alex and I had kissed before our big fight, and looking at the spot brought back the taste of whisky on his lips, the soft wool jumper, his stubble scratching my cheek.

  Sean nudged my ribs. ‘I said let’s check the place out. Jesus. You’re a million miles away. Did something happen at the Daily Planet?’

  ‘Sean, if there had been anything other than a bit of light breast fondling, you’d be the first to know.’

  As we hurried across the road I heard him behind me: ‘Breast fondling? Really?’

  We strolled past Bootcamp’s glass door, noting the closed sign and the blinking alarm unit at the bottom of the stairs. A Perspex holder contained glossy leaflets and I plucked one out as we passed.

  Bootcamp Personal Training by Jurgen Van Annen. Drive, Discipline, Determination. The headline appeared in a military style font above a photo of a pair of weathered dog-tags.

  Up the street an internet café spilled fluorescent light onto the footpath.

  ‘Fancy a coffee?’ he asked.

  ‘I’d prefer a whisky.’

  We raced inside out of the rain, paid for an hour on one of the computers and ordered an Earl Grey and a long black. Rolling our padded chairs together we looked over the leaflet. Inside was a list of services and prices. Bootcamp offered one-on-one studio sessions with Jurgen or one of his hand selected personal trainers, and the outdoor group training that gave the business its name. Busy executives paying top dollar to run along the beach getting screamed at and treated like shit. No thanks. When I saw the photo on the back page I felt sick in the pit of my stomach.

  Van Annen’s arms were so bulky he could barely cross them over his pumped up chest. He wore a camouflage t-shirt and matching cap and his head was square, mostly jaw. He didn’t smile and his eyes were small, flat and mean.

  ‘Scary son of a bitch,’ Sean said.

  ‘Tell me about it. That’s him. I recognise the eyes.’

  Our drinks arrived and I sipped coffee in between reading out Jurgen’s bio.

  My name is Jurgen Van Annen and I was a soldier for two decades. During my service I did a Tour of Duty in the first Gulf war and spent time as a highly decorated commando in the Elite Special Forces Squad participating in many dangerous missions.

  I left the army in 2002 to start my personal training business. I have always been dedicated to fitness and have won many body building titles, most recently coming first place in the Victorian finals of the Pan Pacifics.

  I have been featured on such television shows as Good Morning Australia, Today-Tonight and Mornings with Kerri-Anne, and have successfully trained many celebrities including Veronica and Blaine Wade.

  I believe my military background separates my Bootcamp sessions from the rest of the pack, helps my clients reach peak fitness and provides them with Discipline, Drive, Determination.

  While I was reading Sean had done a Google search on Van Annen. He was drinking tea and scrolling down the eighty-four hits he’d got. Most of them were linked to magazine articles about his training business and television appearances.

  ‘Aha,’ he said, and turned the computer screen around so I could see.

  It was a newspaper article from 2002.

  PERSONAL TRAINER CLEARED

  ON STEROID CHARGES

  Personal trainer Jurgen Van Annen was yesterday aquitted of importing steroids and injectible testosterone. His barrister, Emery Wade, told the media Van Annen had always maintained his innocence and had been confident of beating the charges.

  I leaned back in my chair and drank the last of my coffee.

  I was wide awake now. ‘Special Forces. Are they the kind that get trained in covert operations, assassinations, can kill a man with their bare hands and not leave a mark?’

  ‘The government denies it, but yeah, probably.’

  ‘Great. I don’t just have a regular bad guy after me, I’ve got a steroid pumped, psychopathic killing machine. What the fuck are we going to do?’

  ‘Go to the police.’

  ‘But the police don’t believe me.’

  ‘Not just any police. We go to Alex.’

  Chapter Thirty-five

  After the internet café we checked out Geisha’s place, a single storey terrace in Collingwood. No one was home and in the hour we sat in the car nothing happened so we headed back to the hotel.

  Sean called Alex when we got there, took his mobile out to the car so I couldn’t listen in and talked for an hour. I peeked out the curtain and saw him sitting in the Saab, chain-smoking and drinking vodka out of the hip flask, deep in conversation.

  I ate a tuna salad, drank some wine and lay on the bed watching TV.

  ‘What did he say?’ I asked when he finally came back in.

  ‘He’s going to help. He’s coming over here tomorrow afternoon.’

  ‘Good. There’s some tuna salad in the fridge. You could make a sandwich out of it.’

  ‘I’m not very hungry.’ He sat at the round table, lit a cigarette and poured another vodka.

  ‘You want to come to bed?’ I patted the brown striped spread and gave him a lascivious smile.

  ‘Not just yet.’

  He didn’t come to bed until after I was asleep. The next day it was still raining, coming down steady outside. Sean and I hung around the hotel, waiting for Alex to show up. I wasn’t looking forward to seeing him again, but hell, I didn’t have a choice. We were lying on the bed and some crap midday movie was on the TV. Sean was drinking tea and smoking Marlboro lights. I was next to him reading his Irvine Welsh book, and when I glanced up I saw he wasn’t watching the television. His eyes were focused somewhere in the middle distance.

  ‘You okay?’

  ‘Yeah, fine.’

  I put the book down and swung my leg over his. I could never resist him for long. I kissed his neck and trailed my hand down his t-shirt and underneath, to the red-gold hair that disappea
red into his jeans. I unbuttoned the fly and slid my fingers under the elastic of his underpants, touching the silken skin of his cock. He just lay there, smoking and staring at the screen. The usual hard-on was absent, but I felt sure I could rectify the situation and began stroking, my fingers cramped by elastic and denim.

  ‘Simone, I’m not in the mood.’ He pushed my hand away and zipped up.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’m just not, okay?’ He dragged hard on the butt and crushed it in the ashtray.

  I propped myself up on one elbow. ‘What’s your problem?’

  ‘I don’t have a problem. You’re the one with the problem. It’s not going to kill you to go without sex for five minutes.’

  ‘It might,’ I joked, but he didn’t crack a smile. Fine. If I couldn’t have sex I’d have cheese.

  I got off the bed and crossed to the bar fridge where I had stashed a pack of cheese singles. I pulled four individually wrapped slices from the packet and lay down staring at the TV. I loved cheese singles and had a particular way I liked to eat them. Unwrapping the plastic a little at a time and nibbling from the corner, like a rat.

  ‘Why do you eat those things? I bought Jarlsberg.’

  ‘Don’t want Jarlsberg, want Kraft.’

  ‘It’s disgusting, it’s not even real food.’

  ‘I was never allowed plastic cheese when I was a kid. That’s why I eat it now. What do you care?’

  He shook his head and walked off to the bathroom. I heard him piss, flush and flick the seat back down. He was good like that.

  He opened the door and stood there holding one of the white hotel towels. ‘And do you think for once you could hang your towel on the rail instead of chucking it on the floor?’

  I glared at him.

  He grabbed his Marlboros off the bedside table, looked inside and crumpled the empty pack in his fist. ‘I’m going to get cigarettes.’ He picked up his keys and left.

  I lay back on the bed staring at the textured concrete ceiling and willed myself not to cry. A couple of tears welled up and spilled down my temples into my hair.

  He’d gone off me.

  Impossible. It took more than a week for infatuation to wear off.

  He was retreating emotionally before he went away to Vietnam because he’d just realised he was head over heels in love with me.

  Probably not.

  Who was I kidding? I knew exactly what it was. He was beating himself up over Alex.

  He took three quarters of an hour to buy cigarettes. By the time he got back Alex was due to show up. He took my bags off the single bed by the window, put them in the cupboard and messed up the blankets so it looked like it had been slept in.

  I stood watching with my arms crossed. ‘You’ve got to be kidding.’

  ‘I don’t want to rub his face in it.’

  ‘He’s a grown man. He’s thirty-five fucking years old.’

  ‘We’ve been friends for ten years.’

  ‘Good for you. Listen, I’m going to check out Geisha’s place again.’ I pulled on a jumper and my coat, stuck a baseball cap on against the rain.

  ‘You shouldn’t be out there by yourself. It’s not safe.’

  ‘Yeah, well, I wouldn’t want to hang around and risk hurting Alex’s feelings.’ Meow. I grabbed a cheese single for the road and slammed the door on my way out.

  Geisha’s place was off Smith Street, the end with all the factory outlets. Hers was a rundown brick house in a rare, unrenovated block. A triple killing had gone down in nearby Easey Street in the eighties and the Hoddle Street massacre had happened just up the road. Grey drizzle only served to make the location more depressing.

  I loitered outside the pub opposite for a second, drawn by the comforting smell of stale smoke and damp beer mats. A whisky was just the thing to give me courage to knock on the front door.

  No. Bad habit to get into. I had to learn to do my job sober.

  That was the good thing about stripping, you could go to work half tanked. In fact I’d usually done a better job with a couple under my belt. But this was the new improved straight Simone Kirsch.

  I compromised and decided I would have the whisky after, as a reward.

  I pulled my water bottle out of my bag, had a swig and crossed the road. The iron fence was rusted and a rectangular bin overflowing with Bacardi Breezer bottles had been wedged into the tiny porch. I knocked on the wooden door. No answer. If I was Lulu, hiding out from bad guys, would I answer the door? I doubted it.

  I stepped over the recyling to look through the front window. All I could see was encrusted grime and a tatty batik hanging.

  A cobbled laneway ran behind the houses, and I counted them off until I came to Geisha’s and peered through a gap in the sagging paling fence. A Hills hoist sprouted from the concrete and an old dunny had been converted into a makeshift shed. The back windows weren’t covered but I couldn’t see in from that distance.

  Time to jump over, Starsky and Hutch style. Suddenly I felt old and tired. Just do it, I told myself, and we’ll make the whisky a double.

  I walked back, then did a little run up and jump. Got my hands on the splintery top, strained my shoulders and scrabbled my feet trying to get over. Suddenly I felt pressure on my back.

  Someone had hold of my jacket and yanked me off the fence so hard I fell on my arse on the cobblestones.

  I looked up and saw a grizzled old guy standing over me. He was wearing a beanie and brandishing a length of two by four.

  ‘Don’t hit me,’ I squealed, and held my arm over my face.

  He raised the plank of wood. ‘Fuckin’ thieving junkies.’

  ‘I’m not a junkie. I wasn’t trying to steal anything. See? Check my arms.’ I pushed up my sleeves. ‘No track marks.’

  ‘Could shoot up between your toes.’

  ‘I don’t shoot up at all. I’m a private investigator.’

  ‘From the dole?’ He raised the wood higher.

  ‘No, no, no. Missing persons case.’ I fumbled in my bag and handed him my laminated ID card.

  He examined it, lowered the plank and helped me to my feet.

  The arse of my jeans was uncomfortably wet. Up close his ratty fisherman’s jumper smelled of tobacco and old tin cans and his wide spaced teeth were a murky yellow and brown.

  ‘Can’t be too careful,’ he said. ‘Been breakins up and down this street the past two weeks. Cunts did me over twice. First the tele then all me records. Original fucking vinyl. Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis. Can’t replace ’em. Been camping out in me back yard, waiting for the scumbags to come back. I’m ready for ’em this time.’ He waved me over to the house next door and disappeared in the back gate. I looked in. He’d positioned a striped, foldout chair to spy through a hole in the back fence. Above the chair a blue tarpaulin was strung over the clothes line to keep out the rain. A tartan blanket hung over the back of the chair and a thermos and lunch box sat on a milk crate.

  He opened the door to a corrugated iron shed and when I saw what was inside I put all my weight on my back foot, ready to sprint down the alley. Brass rings had been drilled into the walls, and hanging from the rings were lengths of chain and bolts. A baseball bat and iron bar were propped up in the corner. On another milk crate sat a piece of machinery that looked suspiciously like a blowtorch.

  The old guy smiled and puffed up his chest. ‘Cops don’t give a shit so I’m taking the law into me own hands. Gonna capture them sons of bitches and beat the shit out of ’em. Torture ’em ’til they tell me where me fucking records are. Whaddaya reckon?’

  ‘Nice set up,’ I said, adrenal glands pumping, preparing for fight or flight. ‘You haven’t seen an Islander girl next door while you’ve been keeping a lookout, have you? Well, she’s actually a guy but she dresses like a girl.’

  ‘You don’t mean the chink that don’t know whether it’s Arthur or Martha?’

  ‘No, not Asian. She’s tall, six foot, long black hair, coffee coloured skin.’

  He scratch
ed the white bristles sprouting from his chin and shook his head. ‘Nuh. There’s the chink, a blonde nancy boy,’ he flopped his wrist to give me the idea, ‘and this mean looking motherfucker. Big bloke. Hairy. Looks like one of them eye-rakis.

  Thought I should call the terrorist hotline. Dodgy fucker.’

  ‘You sure that’s all?’

  ‘Been watching this block for a week now.’

  The rain picked up and pattered on the tarp.

  ‘Thanks for your help.’ I backed away from the gate, ready for any sudden moves. ‘Good luck trapping the junkies.’

  I hurried down the lane and into the comforting warmth of the pub. It was my kind of place, unrenovated, with orange carpet, exposed brick walls and a dartboard. A couple of old guys in flat caps watched the trots and a barmaid with pencilled-on brows leaned against the counter reading Take 5 magazine. She poured me a double, no ice, and I took it to the window seat and watched the house, listening to the race callers and the muted card machine jingle from another room.

  The whisky warmed me from the inside out and washed away my disappointment at not finding Lulu. I realised I’d been harbouring a vain hope that I would stumble across her, along with the evidence against Wade. I’d seen myself taking her to the police, solving everything, being the hero of the day and totally showing up Alex and Sean, all in time for afternoon tea.

  At least I’d got out of the hotel. I could just imagine it. Alex being a bitch. Sean ignoring me. The two of them doing a bit of male bonding and me sitting there made to feel like the wicked temptress I so obviously was. Christ. I threw back the last of the whisky and decided another was in order. I was turning on my bar stool when I saw the old guy’s ‘eye-raki’ emerge from the gaming room and buy a packet of cigarettes over at the bar. He wore a bulky green army surplus jacket, had spiky black hair, stubble and a pair of aviator sunnies with dark, mirrored lenses. He looked like a Libyan hijacker from the seventies.

  As he walked back to the pokies unwrapping his smokes he glanced over and, to my horror, did a double take, like he recognised me. I grabbed my bag, slid off the chair and hurried to the exit. As I pushed open the door I saw his reflection in the glass. He was coming right at me.