‘What about the club?’
‘He just manages. Deals a little on the side, but it’s smalltime stuff.’
‘Maybe the Assassins lent it? He’s in with them, right?’
‘You’ve got to be joking,’ JJ laughed. ‘Maybe Nick sold his house?’
‘All his assets are frozen. House. Bank account. Rights to his books.’
‘Well, shit, I don’t know. How does someone get hold of a million dollars?’
And suddenly I knew. I couldn’t believe I’d been so stupid, but it had all happened so fast, there hadn’t been time to think it over.
Nick didn’t have the million. Nick was the million. The bikies were handing him over to Rod Thurlow. Wanted, dead or alive. It made sense. The long hugs, faraway looks, him feeling he should say something profound. The story about disappearing was bullshit so I’d go along with it and help him.
And I had. I’d helped him kill himself.
‘Well,’ said JJ, ‘however he managed it, I’m glad it all worked out in the end. You’d better get into the delivery room or you’re gonna miss the birth. It’s the most amazing experience, watching a new life come into the world.’
‘Send Chloe my apologies and give her this.’ I handed him the champers. ‘There’s something I have to do.’
In the hospital lobby I used the payphone to call the taxi driver who’d driven us in from the airport and picked up Nick. He pulled up in front of admissions and I got in.
‘Remember me?’ I took a fifty from Liz’s envelope and handed it over.
‘The good tipper.’
‘You picked up a fare from the Bauxite Hotel about half an hour ago. Guy with black hair and a goatee. Where did you take him?’
The driver hesitated. I gave him another fifty.
‘Red Devils’ clubhouse,’ he said. ‘Outskirts of town.’
‘Take me there.’
‘I’m not sure it’s such a good idea for a young lady to go out there on her own.’
‘And I’m not sure I’m what you’d call a lady. There’s another hundred in it for you, on top of the metered fare.’
He put the car in drive.
chapter fifty-one
We were in an industrial area on the south side of the giant mullock heap and everything was quiet, factories and warehouses dark behind chain link fences and steel roller-doors. The occasional street light emitted pale pools of radiance and signs warned of twenty-four-hour security patrols. Not that I could see any. The streets were empty of traffic.
I had no idea if Nick was alive or dead, although I had a feeling Rod Thurlow would want him alive, if only for a little while. What had he said? I want him to suffer like Isabella suffered.
We pulled up on a corner. I couldn’t see anything resembling a clubhouse, not that I would have known. I’d heard some bad stories about biker do’s and had generally avoided them, so my knowledge was pretty much confined to B-grade sixties films starring Jack Nicholson and Peter Fonda.
‘Where is it?’ I asked.
‘A block up. They have surveillance video. Sure you want to do this?’
‘Yep. Drop me off right in front of the place. I want them to see me on the cameras.’
He sighed, but did as I said.
‘Why you want to go there anyway?’
‘Trying to find a friend.’
We stopped in front of a building that looked like it had once been a small factory or workshop, although it was hard to tell—the perimeter was encircled by a heavy steel fence. He was right about the CCTV cameras. They were on the posts in anodised metal housings, the kind that swivel around and follow your every move.
‘Here.’ I gave him a hundred and fifty. ‘Wait for me where you stopped before, yeah? If I’m not out in an hour call the Broken Hill police. Ask for Detective Talbot.’
‘What’s going on? Never heard of a local copper named Talbot. This something to do with that raid on the pub?’
‘I’ll tell you everything in an hour. Best gossip you ever heard. And I’ll give you another hundred, swear to god. Just stay out of sight of the clubhouse.’
I got out of the cab and walked up to the gate. Solid steel, no handle or gap to look through. There was an intercom, though, and it hit me that I was often behind tall gates talking into them. Probably because I always had to question dodgy pricks who needed to protect themselves from the world.
I knew the drill so I pressed the buzzer and popped some gum in my mouth while I waited, thankful as hell for my new blonde hair.
‘Who is it?’ Gruff male voice.
‘Candy.’ I turned my voice a bit westie, stepped back so the camera got a good view, sucked in my stomach and pushed out my boobs. ‘I’m the entertainment.’
‘We’ve already got entertainment.’ The voice sounded puzzled.
‘Now you’ve got some more. Open the gate, mate.’
It didn’t open. I was sweating, and not just from the heat.
‘What did you say your name was?’
‘Candy.’ I rolled my eyes, chomped the gum. ‘Craig sent me.’
‘Craig who?’
‘Murdoch. Who do ya reckon?’
‘I didn’t hear anything about it.’
‘’Cause I’m supposed to be a surprise. For the celebration.’
‘What celebration?’ Suspicious.
‘Fuck should I know? I get a call from Craig at Port—we go way back—and he says how quick can I get on a plane to Broken Hill? Boys are having a special party so they need a special show and he knows me show’s not the sort of thing you see every day, so, like, I said, Craig, I know we’re mates ’n’ all, but fuck off, I’m not going out the back of Bourke for one fucken strip. And he offers me a grand, plane ticket and a motel room, so I say, okay, whatever, fuck it, and here I am. Look, you don’t want the show, that’s fine. I’ve already been paid, I’ll just go back to me motel and drink bourbon and watch telly before I fly back tomorrow. Easy money. Craig’ll be pissed off, but it’s not my problem he went to all this trouble to surprise yas and yas didn’t let me in, aye?’
Something clanked and the metal gate rolled back. I waved the cab driver off and sauntered in, trying to sway my hips nonchalantly and give the impression I did ‘special’ shows at biker clubhouses every day. The building was squat and concrete, a bunker with no windows, heavily fortified with the same Colorbond steel as the fence. The car park that surrounded the building was empty, no van, not a single Harley. I remembered news reports about clubhouses being firebombed and shot up by rival gangs. One mob had actually crashed a van through a security gate and blown it up. Then there were the coppers to worry about. No wonder security was tight. Bikes were probably parked inside.
A door opened on the right side of the building and a fat bearded bloke who could have been a bikie from central casting poked his head out and waved me over. I ambled across, trying not to clutch my bag too tightly, hoping desperately they didn’t search you before you went in, and that they wouldn’t try calling Craig to check out my story. The gate clanked shut behind me.
I chewed my gum while he looked me up and down. He seemed plenty pissed, hyped on uppers, but he liked what he saw.
‘Trev.’ He stuck out a meaty palm.
‘Candy.’ I shook it. ‘Grouse ta meet ya.’
‘Fuck, you’re a bit of a glamour compared to the chicks we normally get. City girls don’t wanna come all the way up the Hill. You look familiar, but. I seen you somewhere before?’
I shrugged and tried to utilise my panic the way actors drew on stage fright. I’d once seen a doco on Marlon Brando and the Stanislavski method. I was a skanky yet up-myself bogan stripper-princess, slightly bored by the proceedings but fully aware of my sexual power.
‘Hustler, Penthouse, Picture, Oz-Bike.’ I ticked each one off on a finger. ‘Plus I’m branching out into acting. You seen I Cum in a Land Down Under?’
He shook his head.
‘It was mainly for the overseas market . . .’ I talked t
hrough my gum.
‘Where’s all your stuff ?’ He nodded to my small bag. ‘Youse girls usually come with suitcases full of costumes and props and shit.’
‘Don’t need any.’
‘No?’
‘Nah, I kinda use whatever or . . . whoever comes to hand.’
Trev grinned. ‘Sounds hot.’
‘Fucken oath.’
‘Have to be to top the shows we got on tonight.’
I shrugged again. Like, whatever.
Trev stood aside to let me in. The entrance led to a small antechamber, obviously another security precaution, and he locked the outside door before opening the inner one. The interior of the building was a large, square open space with a corner bar in front of a large glass-fronted fridge filled with booze. The Harleys were parked inside next to a garage roller-door and the furniture consisted of bar stools, a few old couches and a couple of chrome tables. There were no windows, just a fierce air-conditioner and an extractor fan to ensure no one suffocated. A large painting took up one wall—a picture of a grinning devil head with the name ‘Red Devils’ above and the club motto below: ‘Dead Man Riding’. Other walls were plastered with posters of naked chicks and bikes, individually and together, some relatively tame like the ones Chloe had done for Picture magazine, others looking like something out of a gynaecology textbook. The place smelled of oil and sweat and cigarette smoke. A plasma screen TV over the bar was playing a porno, but the sound was off and the fifteen or so bikies weren’t paying attention to it anyway. They were huddled around in a rough circle as AC/DC blasted out of a huge silver sound system. ‘Thunderstruck’.
‘That’s Channelle.’ Trev nodded towards the crowd as he led me into the room. ‘She’s doing a beer show.’
‘Cool,’ I said, no idea what a beer show was.
‘C’mere, darl.’ He grabbed me around the waist and hoisted me up on the bar so I could get a good view. I had the feeling Trev was flirting, coming over all gallant and knights of the round table.
Channelle was dancing around the centre of the circle naked but for a shiny satin suspender belt, fishnet stockings and chunky heels. Her hair was shoulder length, bleached and permed and her makeup harsh: bright blue eye shadow teamed with hot pink lipstick made her look older than she was, which I guessed was late thirties. She was quite thin, but sort of flabby, like there was no muscle tone underneath. A faded rose had been inked onto one boob and when she turned I saw a washed-out shamrock branding one sagging flank. After she’d finished dancing around the circle she headed for one of the walls of the clubhouse and everybody let out a roar. She did a handstand and came to rest upside down, heels ripping the edge of a girlie magazine poster. Little by little she moved her legs until they made a wide V and all the blokes swarmed in close for a good look at her shaved pussy. You could always tell shaved from waxed: had a raw look, sort of a rash, like the stubble was trying to poke through the skin.
One of the guys, who was, strangely enough, shirtless and wearing a pair of Biggles-style aviator goggles on his forehead, ran to the fridge. The crowd roared as he returned holding aloft a stubby of VB. He twisted the top off and foam dribbled down the side. I suddenly got it. We weren’t in Kansas anymore, Toto.
I tried not to look shocked as the shirtless guy went over to Channelle, tipped the stubby upside down and inserted it into her vagina up to the neck. It balanced. Channelle smiled bravely, her face red and puffy from the sudden rush of blood.
The guy slid the goggles over his eyes and removed the bottle, still holding it upside down, so the crowd could see that no liquid remained. I couldn’t help thinking a fanny full of beer couldn’t be good for you, the yeast alone likely to incite a terminal case of thrush.
Goggle-guy lay down on the floor, on a plastic drop-sheet. Channelle flipped expertly out of her handstand so that she was standing above his face. He opened his mouth and for a few seconds nothing happened, then the beer foamed out and he drank it, gargling and poking out his tongue. The gang went wild.
‘Pretty good, aye?’ Trev helped me down from the bar-top.
‘Seen better.’ I shrugged. ‘There somewhere I can get ready?’
‘Yeah, out back. Tulsa and Arizona are in there, but it should be okay.’
‘So Channelle was just the warm-up bitch, huh?’
‘Yeah. If that’s for starters I can’t wait to see what you come up with.’
A door behind the bar led to a hallway at the back, with doors leading off, all of them closed. Maybe they’d once been storerooms or offices. The clubhouse was claustrophobic and I started to feel that coming here had been a really dumb idea. Nick probably wasn’t there anymore. At least I’d told the cabbie to call Talbot, but even if he did, could I stall them for an hour? And how would the cops get in without a warrant? Trev was hardly going to slide open the gate and roll out the welcome mat.
My mouth dried up and I started sweating again despite the powerful air-conditioning. Keep your shit together, I told myself. I had the gun. Six rounds, but there were fifteen of them, probably armed themselves, and I didn’t even know whether I’d be capable of shooting, if it came to that.
Trev knocked brief ly and opened one of the doors in the hallway.
The bedroom looked windowless, probably shuttered. A couple of thin, hard-faced strippers sat on a cheap floral bedspread under harsh fluorescent light. They wore long dresses in skin-tight, stretchy fabric, low cut, slashed up the thigh. The blonde’s dress was hot-pink and Trev told me her name was Tulsa. Arizona wore electric blue, her hair was dyed rock ’n’ roll black, and she looked up, startled, when we came in. They’d been deep in conversation and seemed totally wired, licking their lips and sucking at their teeth, pupils like black olives. Both were as skinny as Tiara and had the same twig arms, visible ribs and razor sharp clavicles. A glass pipe, identical to the one Tiara and Watto had used, sat on the bedside table, next to a lighter and a small square of folded foil.
‘Fuck, Trev,’ Arizona said. ‘You scared the shit out of us. No guys in the girls’ room, right?’
‘Sorry. This is Candy. She’s going on after youse. Craig sent her.’
Trev backed out of the room. The girls stared at me. Hard, crystalline eyes.
‘You’re the finale?’ Arizona said.
‘Uh-huh.’
‘What do you do?’ Tulsa, the blonde, asked.
‘It’s a surprise,’ I said, and they both rolled their eyes. ‘What do you guys do?’
Tulsa reached behind her and picked up a long, neon-pink object.
‘We’re the Texan Twins,’ she said, and I didn’t tell her that I was pretty sure Tulsa was in Oklahoma and Arizona happened to be a whole ’nother state.
At first I thought the item was one of those snake things you put at the base of doors to stop drafts, but a millisecond later I realised it was a double-ended dildo of similar length and girth made of some kind of pliable rubber. As she gripped it in the middle each bulbous end bounced up and down.
‘Your show must be pretty extreme,’ Arizona said, looking doubtful. ‘They don’t call us the backdoor beauties for nothing.’
If I ever get out of this damn clubhouse, I pledged silently, that’s it, I’m quitting stripping for good.
‘Cool,’ I said. ‘You guys know where the dunny is?’
‘Down the hall.’
‘Ta.’
I left the room and crept down the corridor, trying every door. All locked except for one at the opposite end, which turned out to be a small office. A desk sat in the middle and steel cabinets lined the walls. A table held a bank of TV screens displaying the CCTV footage. I saw the street I’d come in from, empty front and rear car parks and the beer show still going on in the main room. Another guy was lying on the tarp wearing the goggles this time. Who said vaudeville was dead? The final screen showed the strippers sitting on the mattress in their dresses, sucking from the pipe. The angle suggested the guys had installed a small camera in the light fitting. Pervy fuckers.
Unfortunately for me there was no image of Nick bound to a chair in a storeroom, struggling like Penelope Pitstop tied to the railway tracks.
He wasn’t there. Made sense. No black van, either. No Elvis Mask. They’d probably taken him directly to Rod.
I had to get out. I looked wildly around the off ice, heart beating fast. The desk was a mess: papers, computer, overf lowing ashtray, biker magazines. I checked the top drawer and found a bunch of keys. Maybe they opened the locked doors. Maybe the locked doors led to a way out.
The first door revealed a small storeroom packed to the roof with cases of booze. The second led to a closet with nothing in it except a patch of carpet on the floor. I lifted it and found a padlocked hatch, tried each key with shaking hands, but none fitted. Was it a way out or did they have something stashed down there? Weapons? Drugs? I put my ear to the hatch, knocked softly, called Nick’s name but heard nothing.
Right. I was seriously running out of time.
Another door opened onto a second bedroom, empty of people, and the last door onto a small workshop with bike parts and tools and a concrete floor. My heart sank, then rose. The back wall of the room was another roller-door. I hurried over. One key opened the padlock, the next the door itself. I winced in preparation for an ear-splitting alarm but it never came. Rolling the door up a little I slipped underneath and ran around the building looking for a way out. The fence was ten feet of slippery steel topped with razor wire. The ground was empty concrete and there was nowhere to hide. I raced to the front gate, praying the beer show was still in full swing and no one was in the office, scrutinising the television screens. I’d expected a mechanism beside the gate to open it, perhaps a handy red button, but there was nothing. Of course. Had to be in the antechamber Trev had led me through. I ran to the door I’d first entered but it was locked tight and none of the keys fit. My hands on the metal felt the thud of the music within. The thud suddenly stopped.
Damn. I ran to the back of the building, slid under the roller-door, closed but didn’t lock it, and shut the door to the workshop. I tried to compose myself before re-entering the girls’ room, but there wasn’t really time. Arizona and Tulsa stared at me.
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