Thrill City

by Leigh Redhead

  ‘Nerida Saunders get into any strife?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Desiree.’

  ‘Not at all. She was a lovely, polite young lady despite her unsalubrious past. It was all a lot of fun, and to tell you the truth it reminded me of being on school camp, many years ago. Why do you assume there was trouble?’

  ‘Isabella’s dead, and someone wants to kill Nick, JJ and Desiree. The only connection I’ve got between them is that roadshow. I dunno. Maybe I’m clutching at straws.’

  ‘My god, I wish I could help, but there really was nothing . . . unless something happened that I didn’t know about. I suppose that’s possible. The younger members of our troupe were thick as thieves, used to stay up late drinking in the local pubs while all us oldies were tucked up in bed. They never acted as though anything bad had happened, except for a few nasty hangovers. If there was any trouble they kept it very well hidden. Writers are observers, you know, so I’d like to think that either myself or one of the others would have noticed something.’

  ‘Okay, well, thanks for your time.’

  She must have picked up on the disappointment in my voice.

  ‘Sorry I couldn’t help. Actually, there are some pictures of the trip, if you’d like to have a look. They’re on a photo-sharing website. Isn’t this new technology just marvellous? I’ll give you the address. Maybe you’ll be able to find a clue.’

  Yeah, right, I’ll get out my magnifying glass. I didn’t say it; no need to be a moll. She was a nice lady.

  I typed in the URL and was redirected to a site called Flickr.com. I scrolled through the online album. In the first picture the group posed with their luggage around a white Tarago van, waving. Subsequent photos had them posing in front of town signs, and there were candid shots of all the authors conducting talks and workshops and signing books.

  In the first photo Nick and Isabella were on opposite sides of the van, and it was interesting to note how they moved closer in successive photos, until in the last one Nick’s arm was around her shoulder and her hand had twined around his waist. The group stood in front of a two-storey sandstone pub with a nineteenth-century gold-rush look about it. The large second-storey veranda was decorated with latticed ironwork and held up by ornate columns you’d have tied your horse to at the turn of the century. A sign on the front said Empyre Hotel.

  Knowing what had happened to them made the photo kind of poignant, and I studied it for a moment. They looked so happy, and so damned young. Less than three years had passed since then, but Nick didn’t have the dissipated, slightly bloated look he’d sported when I’d first met him, or the haunted, haggard appearance I’d seen when he’d burst into my flat. He looked fresh-faced and boyish; Isabella, with her longer hair and very little eye makeup, could have passed for twenty-one.

  I checked out the rest of the photos. JJ wore a natty suit with a skinny black tie and trilby hat. Thomas Finch was so tweedy he should have been holding a pipe, Albert Da Silva looked like an eccentric swinger uncle with his long grey hair, open-necked shirt and velvet jacket, and Cecelia was clad in a print dress that made her look like someone’s grandma, which she probably was. Desiree wasn’t there as she’d only shown up in Broken Hill, but there was another guy hovering at the edge of the photograph who looked completely unaware that he was in the shot. At first I assumed he was a local because of his red-checked flannelette shirt, Ned Kelly beard and worn Blundstone boots, but I quickly realised he looked familiar. I’d met him, or at least seen him, somewhere before.

  It wasn’t the guy who’d attacked me. The nose and mouth were all wrong. So where the hell did I know him from? My worn-out brain wouldn’t give it up so I called Cecelia back.

  ‘Sorry to disturb you again, but the guy in the last photo with the flannie and the beard. Do you know who that is?’

  It took a little while for Cecelia to boot up her computer and connect to the internet. I heard her tapping on the keyboard and humming softly. Finally she said: ‘Oh, him. He was a bit of a weirdo. Knew Nick from university, lived in the area, and just showed up at one of the readings. Afterwards he ended up coming out to lunch with us. One of those antigovernment, hermit types. Lives alone with no electricity or phone, no car. I don’t remember what his name was, but I remember thinking he must be schizophrenic, the way he was going on about spy satellites and surveillance and the military sending out radio waves that get inside your head. He ended up having a huge argument with Thomas about politics. Thomas is quite conservative and this chap was actually an anarchist, I believe. Nick looked terribly embarrassed by the whole thing.’

  An anarchist. I knew who the guy was. I minimised the internet window and clicked on the downloads icon, hoping the photo was still there. It was. Nick and Jenny at the Socialist Alliance meeting, and the wild-eyed guy with his fist raised. Even though it had been taken twenty years before I could tell it was the same person. David Geddes.

  An anarchist who lived like a hermit in some bush shack. No friends, no phone, the perfect guy to hide out with. I recalled the worn red flannelette shirt and dirty Blundstones Nick had been wearing when I saw him last. There were a lot of flannies in the world, and it could have been a coincidence, but . . .

  ‘Where was the photo taken?’ I asked, blood pumping.

  ‘Castlemaine. An hour and a half north of Melbourne. It’s just past Daylesford.’

  I considered calling Detective Talbot, but stopped at the thought of a bunch of cops turning up at what might be Nick’s hideout. I probably hadn’t convinced the police he was innocent, and even if I had, Nick didn’t know. What if he and Geddes came out waving guns? Victoria Police had a reputation for being trigger happy at the best of times. I couldn’t risk it.

  Still, if I went up there on my own, or with Sean as backup . . . I didn’t know if he’d be in it, but it might smooth things over between us if he was. I reckoned half the reason he was pissed off at me was because I hadn’t included him. Sean hated injustice as much as I did, and if I laid out all the evidence he wouldn’t want Nick punished or killed for something he didn’t do.

  Just before logging off the computer I checked my inbox. There was a new email and I felt a weird flutter when I saw the sender. Mark Koputh. My dad. Stupidly excited, I opened the email straight away. After a few lines, I wished I hadn’t.

  Hello Simone. It was a surprise to get your email after so many years. Since there was no contact after your last visit I’d assumed, given the unfortunate ‘incident’, that we’d mutually come to the conclusion that it was best not to stay in touch. After all, we hardly know each other, haven’t lived together since you were an infant and have only seen each other once in, what is it, the last fifteen years? I apologise that I took so long to get back to you, but I’m afraid I wasn’t all that sure how to respond. Suffice it to say, I’ve talked it over with Beverly, and we both feel that it’s probably for the best if things remain the same. Tyler and Ashley are in their late teens and don’t need any distraction from their studies, or any sort of harmful influence. I’m sorry if this sounds harsh, but we’re well aware of the lifestyle you’ve chosen and, quite frankly, I don’t think we have anything in common, or that I’ve got anything to offer you. Best to nip it in the bud. No hard feelings, and I wish you all the best in your future endeavours.

  Mark

  Some chicks might have cried. My first reaction was boiling rage. Who did that fat fuck think he was? All the best in your future endeavours? That was the corporate equivalent of ‘piss off and die’. He was supposed to be my flesh and blood. Jesus, even my mother wasn’t such a stone cold bitch. I couldn’t believe Mark and his neat-freak wife were still angry about the ‘incident’. I’d been a teenager, for god’s sake. A teenager visiting LA who’d just been through a whole world of shit. Sure, I’d got high, brought some stranger home and broken house rules, but wasn’t that par for the course? It was bad behaviour, but adolescents did that sort of stuff all the time; what about forgive and forget? I was sure
it was all coming from Beverly, the puritanical slag. Still, my dad should have stood up for me.

  I didn’t dignify his email with an answer. Instead I went straight to the room I was sharing with Sean. The cop protecting me was so engrossed in his newspaper he hadn’t even noticed I’d left.

  I let myself in and found the bed empty. Sean wasn’t in the bathroom or having a cigarette on the balcony either. He was gone. Really gone. He’d left a scrawled message on hotel stationery. I can’t do this anymore, was all he wrote.

  chapter thirty-nine

  I picked up the Ford Futura from outside my place, drove through Elwood and St Kilda, spent about ten minutes weaving around deserted streets in South Melbourne, and when I was sure I wasn’t being followed turned onto Kingsway, hit the Westgate Freeway and sailed over the curve of the bridge, heading for Castlemaine.

  There was hardly any traffic, and below me the fuel refineries and container yards sparkled in the sun.

  The weather didn’t match my mood. I was exhilarated, near breathless with anger and listening to Rage Against the Machine’s ‘Killing in the Name of ’. How many people had cast me off in the last couple of days? And all because I wouldn’t behave like they wanted me to. Alex because I wasn’t a compliant bit on the side, Mum because I didn’t align my chakras and finish my uni degree, Sean because I couldn’t be housetrained, and my dad had snubbed me because I wasn’t some white-bread, corn-fed, bible-studying yank goody-two-shoes with a dumb-arse name like Kimber.

  Screw them. I was a fairly average stripper and a damn good PI and I wasn’t going to change for anyone. I was going to find Nick, figure out who was threatening me, and to hell with everyone who thought I couldn’t. I turned the music up loud.

  An hour and a half later I turned off the Calder and onto the Pyrenees Highway, passing hills dotted with farmhouses and thickets of gum trees. The area was elevated, and puffs of white cloud skimmed the hilltops.

  As the speed limit dropped to sixty a sign welcomed me to Castlemaine, and I found myself driving down a wide boulevard lined with elm trees, their leaves deep green against the bright blue sky. It was hot and dry, and the air was spliced with crisp, medicinal eucalyptus.

  I turned at a roundabout where a sign announced ‘Town Centre’ and drove along wide, almost deserted streets past a mixture of grand old buildings and smaller, newer shops. The town hall looked like a castle and sat next to an old sandstone telegraph station. Ornate pubs and bank buildings lined the streets, alongside antique shops for the tourists and discount stores for the locals. I eventually spotted the Empyre Hotel and parked in front, grabbing the photograph I’d printed off at the hotel’s business centre. I’d zoomed in on David Geddes and cut out the others, and although it was black and white and a little blurry, he was still recognisable.

  As I walked up to the building I realised that it wasn’t actually a pub anymore. The downstairs area had been turned into a fancy restaurant, and a sign on the outside of the building advertised boutique accommodation upstairs. I peered through the open door where a young blonde waitress in a long black apron was setting tables. She saw me and walked over.

  ‘I’m sorry, we don’t open until midday.’

  ‘That’s okay.’ I held out the piece of paper. ‘I’m looking for this man. Name’s David Geddes. You don’t know him, do you?’ It was a long shot.

  She shook her head. ‘Sorry. Doesn’t look like the sort of guy who’d come here.’

  ‘Do you know where he would go?’

  One side of her mouth tugged up. ‘By the looks of him you might want to try the Commercial. Turn left at the corner and one block down. On the highway by the roundabout.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  I left the car and walked past a couple of cafés, an art deco theatre, Castlemaine Cycles and a toy store with crazed-looking stuffed sheep in the window and then I was standing in front of the Commercial Bar and Grill. The building was two storeys of cream and grey brick with a corrugated-iron awning and small windows covered with so much overexcited signage it was impossible to see in. Sizzle Steaks! Roasts! Seafood! 2 Pool Tables!!!

  The arse end of an air-conditioner poked out above the pub door, dripping water on the stoop, and a sign on the wall advised I was entering The Smoking Gun Bar. As I pushed the door in I hoped it wasn’t prophetic.

  There were five blokes inside wearing jeans and blue singlets. A couple of them were in flannelette shirts, which made me feel like I was getting closer to finding Geddes. Two were playing pool, three sat at the bar, and when I walked in they all turned and stared at the same time. It was like something out of a western and I wouldn’t have been surprised if one of them had spat on the floor and said, ‘Looky here, Jed, thar’s a stranger in town.’

  I felt like hitching up my jeans and tipping an imaginary cowboy hat, but just nodded and slid onto an empty stool. The barman, thin and tall with a shock of thick grey hair, stared at me with a faintly alarmed expression.

  ‘Glass of champagne, mate,’ I said, instantly wishing I’d said bourbon or beer. What if they didn’t have any? But he walked through to the bistro, dug around in a fridge and pulled out a fresh bottle. While he was fiddling with the cork I looked around.

  The public bar was the size of a large living room, with scuffed, unpolished wood floors, brown walls, and old lace curtains hanging from the windows. The furniture consisted of a few raw pine tables and chairs and a potted ficus lurking over by the toilets. On the wall above the bar there were some rather odd murals, including one of King Kong with a teeny Faye Wray in his simian palm. Directly above the top shelf liquor—ouzo, Jack Daniels, Southern Comfort—a sign read Welcome to the House of the Mouse.

  The barman set the champagne glass in front of me. ‘Four bucks.’

  I paid and took a sip. Better than the house bubbly in a lot of city establishments and the price was certainly right. I decided I liked the pub. When he brought my change I slipped a two-dollar coin into a tin raising money for local Vietnam vets.

  ‘Who’s the mouse?’ I asked.

  ‘The publican. He’s the mouse and, well, this is his house.’

  ‘Fair enough.’

  Everyone had stopped outright staring, and the click of balls meant the pool players had gone back to their game, but I could feel the surreptitious glances. The youngest guy at the bar cleared his throat.

  ‘Passing through?’

  He had a dark goatee, wore wraparound sunnies indoors, and tribal tattoos snaked from his shoulders to his wrists.

  ‘Actually, I’m looking for someone.’

  ‘Yeah?’

  The pool sounds stopped. Everyone was eyeballing me again. I could feel the weight of stares on my skin.

  I dug out my printed picture of David Geddes and handed it to Goatee, who passed it on to the bartender. The pool players came over, holding their cues.

  ‘Why you wanna find him?’ the bartender asked, handing the paper to a pool guy with squinty eyes and a shaven head.

  ‘You a jack?’ Shaven Head moved his mouth like a cow chewing its cud.

  The atmosphere had turned hostile and a small bud of fear unfurled in my stomach. Not enough to stop me, though. I’d seen the recognition in the bartender’s eyes. I drained my drink, asked for another.

  ‘Do I look like a fucking jack? Jesus, I’m not a cop.’ I leaned on the bar with an offended expression on my face, searching my brain for a ruse. Private detective would be on a par with copper. What to say? Sipping my second drink, it came to me.

  ‘It’s just . . . nah, don’t worry about it. It’s stupid . . .’ I shook my head.

  ‘What?’ Goatee leaned forward. I got the feeling he fancied me.

  I took the picture from squinty guy and I stared at it wistfully.

  ‘I . . . I think the guy in this photo might be my real dad.’

  chapter forty

  ‘Why didn’tcha say?’ The barman broke into a crooked smile and topped up my glass.

  ‘Whaddaya mean you th
ink he’s your dad?’ Squinty said, unconvinced.

  I took a big gulp of champagne and launched into a long, convoluted impro about a family New Year’s party that ended with me and my bush-pig older sister Sharon getting into a punch-up—my swollen cheek added veracity—after which she’d spat that her dad wasn’t my dad and had let slip that I’d been conceived when my parents split brief ly, many years ago. I made my fictitious mum out to be a bit of a slut, and said I’d talked to her and she’d narrowed it down to a couple of contenders for fatherhood and now I was on the hunt. By the time I’d finished the story and the third glass of champagne I nearly believed it myself.

  The blokes all exchanged glances and finally the barman spoke. ‘We know Davo. Lives around here.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Happy Valley.’

  Christ, it sounded like a mental institution.

  ‘Nearby?’

  ‘Ten minutes, just out of town,’ said Goatee. ‘I’ve picked him up hitchin’.’

  ‘Sure you wanna meet him?’ The bartender bit his lip.

  ‘Why wouldn’t I?’

  ‘Might not like what you find. He’s a bit . . . different.’

  ‘Don’t bullshit her, Rick.’ Goatee sucked on his bottle of premixed bundy and Coke. ‘He’s fucken mental.’

  ‘I don’t care. How do I get to Happy Valley?’

  ‘I can show you where I drop him off, on Collers Road,’ Goatee said. ‘Need a ride?’

  ‘Car’s up the road. I’ll follow if that’s okay.’

  He shrugged.

  Before I left I slapped a fifty down on the bar.

  ‘Thanks for your help, guys, next round’s on me.’

  The champagne, combined with success in locating David Geddes, had made me a little giddy so I slugged some water while I followed Goatee’s dust cloud. The road was unpaved and wound around farmhouses, paddocks and grassed river flats. When we turned off on Collers the road narrowed and climbed, and the forest became dense. Goatee pulled to a halt in what looked like the middle of nowhere and got out of his car. I stayed in mine, dust settling on my sweating skin. Magpies warbled, the engine ticked and his boots crunched gravel.