Simone Kirsch 01 - Peepshow

by Leigh Redhead

  The phone rang. It was my mum.

  ‘You’re home, I don’t believe it. How’s work?’

  ‘Great, fantastic,’ I lied.

  ‘I worry about you, you know. Not so much the peepshows but the bucks’ parties. What if the guys get out of hand? What if it turns violent?’

  ‘It’s really not dangerous. There’s always heaps of security. And the bucks are more scared of us than we are of them. Just last weekend—’

  ‘It irks me. It just does.’ She actually said irk. I wondered if I’d heard anyone say it in conversation before and decided I hadn’t.

  ‘I know.’ I started craving a cigarette.

  ‘And apart from your physical safety I worry about your psyche.’

  ‘My psyche?’ I would have killed for a cigarette. And something a bit stronger than wine. I leaned back in the canvas director’s chair and put my bare feet up on the balcony railing.

  ‘It’s got to affect you, pandering to men, reinforcing ridiculous stereotypes about women, buying into the whole Madonna/whore thing—’

  ‘I don’t buy into—’

  ‘I know you don’t but by working in that industry you perpetuate the myth. And to think I named you after Simone de Beauvoir.’

  My mum was an old school feminist who lectured in women’s studies and I couldn’t win an argument with her. I turned into a petulant fifteen-year-old every time I tried.

  ‘It’s an art form, Mum, like . . . like Josephine Baker or Gypsy Rose Lee.’

  ‘Did Josephine Baker do “floor work” and show the world what she had for breakfast? I think not.’

  I picked at an ingrown hair on my leg and didn’t say anything until she changed the subject: ‘I heard from Jasper.’

  ‘What’s he up to?’

  ‘He’s doing really well, said to say hi. He’s in New York doing some stuff for GQ, then he’s off to Canada for fashion week in Montreal.’

  My brother had scooped the family gene pool and worked as a model. I considered asking my mother if she didn’t think modelling was similar to stripping but restrained myself.

  ‘How’s Steve?’ I asked instead. Steve was my mother’s ‘partner’. They met a few years after the Russell episode and had been together ever since, eventually moving to Sydney where my mum became an academic. Steve ran courses in mud-brick housing and solar power at the College of Adult Education.

  ‘He’s great, really busy though, organising a rally against the government’s stance on greenhouse gas emissions.’

  ‘I’ve got my inquiry agent’s license,’ I said. ‘There might be some work coming up.’

  ‘Why don’t you finish your degree? You’ve only got one semester to go and you could finish it in Melbourne.

  I’ve looked into it.’

  ‘I’m a bit busy at the moment.’

  ‘You could study part time. A qualification would get you out of the sex industry.’

  ‘I dunno about that, heaps of strippers have arts degrees.’

  There was a beep on the line. Call waiting. Halle-lujah. ‘Mum? I’ve got another call, I have to go.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Simone,’ Chloe sounded out of breath, ‘you’ve got to come quick. Someone’s trying to kill me.’

  Chapter Two

  My 1967 Ford Futura shuddered to a halt next to the cop car. Chloe’s ground floor unit was on the beach at Parkdale and pink and indigo clouds swept the evening sky.

  I knocked on the door and a female officer answered.

  ‘I’m Chloe’s friend,’ I said.

  Chloe’s place was tiny—one room full of stuffed animals and Marilyn Monroe posters with a kitchenette and small bathroom. Chloe sat cross-legged in the middle of her sofa bed, clutching a woolly lamb. This would have been the time to give her a hug but I’m not much of a huggy person. I looked around. Everything appeared normal except that her wizard-shaped bong was absent from its usual place on the coffee table, probably hidden under the sink.

  ‘What happened?’ I asked

  A fifty-something male cop came out of the bathroom with a page from a magazine in his hand. Chloe pointed to it.

  ‘That was on my bathroom mirror.’

  He held it up for me to see. It was a nude shot of Chloe torn from Picture magazine and the glossy paper had been shredded across her neck, boobs and pussy. Red ink stained the gashes and a message read: Die Bitch.

  Nice.

  The cop slid the page into an envelope. ‘We’ll send this off to the lab. If you get any more threats, call me.’

  He tossed his card onto the bed and made to leave.

  ‘Hang on,’ I said, ‘my friend’s had her life threatened.

  What are you going to do to protect her?’

  ‘I have a feeling she’ll be fine.’ He glared at Chloe.

  ‘What are you talking about?’ I asked.

  The female officer spoke: ‘She probably defaced the picture herself.’

  ‘I never!’

  ‘Let me tell you about your friend.’ He consulted his notebook. ‘This is the fourth time in as many months a unit has attended these premises. She reported a prowler, a breakin there was no evidence of and an obscene phone call. On each occasion she appeared inebriated and on the last she attempted to seduce the responding officers. Tying up police resources is an offence.’ He looked at Chloe. ‘This is your first and final warning, young lady. Keep carrying on like this and I’ll charge you with public mischief.’

  He slammed the screen door as they left.

  ‘Attempting to seduce responding officers?’ I said.

  ‘The first two went for it. The last one must have dobbed me in.’

  Just when I think she can’t be any more of a nut-job she goes and surprises me.

  ‘Pack a bag,’ I said. ‘You’re coming to my place.’

  An hour later we sat in my lounge room in our PJs. Mine were a pair of old trackie daks and a singlet, and Chloe’s were short and made out of pink satin. The radio played softly as she sat cross-legged on the floor packing dope into her travel bong and I reacquainted myself with the wine cask. We were waiting for pizza from Pavarotti’s.

  Carbs are permissible the week before your period or immediately after death threats.

  ‘I should hire you to find out who’s trying to kill me.’ She clicked her Bic against the cone and the water bubbled.

  ‘No one’s trying to kill you.’ I opened the sliding balcony door to let out some smoke. ‘Someone’s trying to scare you though. What about your ex?’

  ‘He’s a gutless wonder.’

  ‘Ripping up a picture’s a gutless thing to do. Any obsessed customers?’

  ‘I wish. Maxine told me that in the eighties this stockbroker was so hung up on her he bought her a BMW. Man, that shit doesn’t happen these days.’

  A George Michael song came on the radio and Chloe leapt to her feet and turned it up.

  ‘This is fucking awesome, this is my new stripping song.’ She began dancing around the room. The security buzzer squawked and I picked up the receiver. ‘Hello?’

  ‘Pizza.’

  ‘Come on up.’ I pushed a button to open the security door.

  Chloe lay on the back of the couch doing pelvic thrusts, rubbing her breasts and singing along. There was a knock on the door and I grabbed a fifty and opened it.

  I thought, that’s weird. There were two pizza guys, older than usual and wearing suits. One was holding the pizza. The other was holding a gun.

  Chapter Three

  Chloe shrieked, fell off the couch and hit the carpet with a thud. I backed up until my legs bumped the dining table. George Michael was singing about being a sexual freak. The men came in and shut the door behind them.

  The one with the pizza sat in my armchair and put the box on the coffee table. He was dark and expensive looking, and his musk-scented aftershave hit me from two metres away. Gun guy turned down the stereo. He had spiky red hair and the wide, lumpy appearance of a rugby league player who’d seen
better days. His suit appeared to have been purchased at Lowes. He pointed the gun at me and my limbs tingled and my mouth went dry.

  ‘Get up.’ Pizza guy had an accent. I couldn’t pick it.

  Chloe popped up from behind the couch like a meerkat at the zoo. She quivered like one too. ‘Do you know who I am?’ he asked.

  ‘You’re Frank’s brother, Salvatore? I danced for you at the Red once,’ she said.

  ‘Do you know why I’m here?’

  Chloe shook her head but I’m sure we both had a fair idea.

  ‘She didn’t kill him.’ It didn’t even sound like my voice.

  ‘Of course she didn’t, look at her, five foot nothing in her stockinged feet. Blue—’ He addressed the red-haired guy who went over to Chloe, grabbed her hair and put the gun to her head.

  ‘Owww,’ she cried.

  ‘Hey!’ I wanted to run at him but my legs wouldn’t move.

  ‘Who’d you get to cut Francesco’s throat?’ Sal inquired, opening the pizza box and taking out a slice.

  ‘No one!’

  Blue cocked the gun. ‘Tel him, and I’ll make it quick.’

  ‘It’s true,’ I said. ‘She didn’t have anything to do with it.’

  ‘And who are you exactly?’ Sal took a bite.

  ‘She’s a stripper,’ said Blue. ‘Works with this one at the Shaft.’

  Sal chewed the pizza and wiped a piece of mozzarella off his chin with the back of his hand. ‘Sorry,’ he said, ‘you probably didn’t have anything to do with the murder. Just in the wrong place at the wrong time, what you gonna do?’

  God. That sounded so final.

  ‘You don’t have to do this,’ I said.

  ‘My brother is dead.’ Sal threw the rest of the pizza back in the box and the corners of his mouth turned down. ‘I now have two responsibilities. To avenge his death and to send a message that anyone who hurts my family or my business interests will suffer.’

  This prick was serious. Chloe stood there paralysed and I knew I couldn’t run, couldn’t grab her and dive through a window. All I could do was talk.

  ‘What if I could tell you who really killed Frank?

  What if I could prove it?’

  Sal cocked his head to the side. ‘What do you know?’

  ‘Well nothing yet, but I could. Easily. I’m a private investigator.’

  Blue sniggered.

  ‘Check my purse.’ I nodded at my bag on the coffee table. Sal picked it up and opened my wallet. He found the inquiry agent’s license, turned it over and laughed.

  ‘Simone Kirsch, private detective. How are you going to find the killer if the police can’t?’

  ‘Because,’ my mind was racing, ‘I can go undercover at the club. People will tell me things they won’t tell the police. I’ll find out and I’ll come straight to you with the information. You can waste the guy, send a message to the underworld, cops won’t even connect the killing to you. No mess, no fuss.’

  God, that was lame. I was fucking dead. We both were. I hoped I lived long enough to be able to scrawl the bastard’s name on the wall in blood.

  No one spoke. The tick of the clock on the wall was deafening.

  ‘OK,’ said Sal, ‘you’ve got a week.’

  ‘A week’s not long enough. I need a month at least.

  I have to build up trust, it’s essential to undercover work.’

  All the stuff I’d learned in class was coming back to me.

  ‘Two weeks. No longer than that. You better be a good private detective.’

  ‘I am,’ I lied. ‘I’m great at it.’

  ‘OK.’ Sal stood up and wiped his hands together to get rid of the last of the pizza crumbs. ‘We’ll be in touch.’

  I couldn’t believe it was that easy. Soon as they left we could call the cops. Maybe we’d have to go into witness protection.

  Blue kept his hand on Chloe’s neck and dragged her towards the door.

  ‘Get your fucking hands off me,’ she spat.

  ‘Whoa,’ I said, ‘I thought we had a deal.’

  Sal smiled. ‘She’s the insurance. It will encourage you to find the killer and ensure you don’t involve the police, some of whom, by the way, are close personal friends of mine. We’ll be watching, and listening.’

  ‘Simone!’ Chloe struggled against his grip.

  ‘Please—’ I begged.

  ‘Shut up,’ said Blue, and they were gone.

  I raced out to the balcony and saw them get into a black sedan but it was too dark to see the make or numberplate. The car took off up Broadway towards St Kilda and I grabbed the phone, ready to dial triple zero. I hesitated, trying to predict what the police would do. Come over here for a start. What if Sal had someone watching the flat or had bugged it? I searched under the coffee table and around the stereo but couldn’t see anything. What if he had someone outside with a directional microphone? We’d learned about those in class. Oh shit. I walked around in circles. Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit. If I called the police and Chloe ended up with a bullet in her head I’d never forgive myself.

  Tears filled my eyes and I remembered when I first moved to Melbourne and found it really hard to make friends. Then I met Chloe when I started stripping at the Crazy Horse and she’d taken me around and shown me all the secret bars down alleyways and the best places to get a souvlaki at four am. Oh god.

  I had to calm down and stop panicking. Chloe’s Winfields were on the coffee table and I grabbed the packet and lit one. Cancer and heart disease were the least of my worries right now.

  The act of sucking in smoke worked like a meditation—my heart rate slowed and my mind cleared.

  Chloe would stay alive while I was investigating, so that’s what I had to do. It would at least buy me some time to think of a better plan. I took a deep breath, called the Red Room and asked if I could come in for a job interview. Now. The receptionist laughed and said it was great I was so keen and booked me in to meet the manager at one the next afternoon. I threw the pizza in the bin and drank wine until it was no longer possible to think or stay awake.

  Chapter Four

  Friday 14 November

  The Red Room was in a stately bluestone building on Flinders Street, around the corner from King and across the river from Crown Casino. The name was spelled out in neon above heavy wooden doors. I pressed a button on the intercom and looked around. It was the middle of the day and office workers hurried about like they were on important business. Lunch, probably. Slashes of deep blue sky were visible between buildings and the trees on the median strip had small green leaves.

  It was different after hours. When it got dark this area turned into a nightclub precinct and was jammed with cabs and Pplated cars. Young girls with bare midriffs shared the footpaths with hyped-up guys from the suburbs and minibuses disgorged drunken hens and bucks. Drive-by shootings of club bouncers happened from time to time.

  The intercom crackled to life: ‘Yeah?’ a man answered.

  I put my mouth up close: ‘My name’s Simone, I’m here about a job.’

  ‘I’ll be right down.’

  A minute later a key rattled in the lock and the door swung inward.

  ‘Simone? I’m Jim.’ He was early thirties, blond, boyish and a little bit crumpled. He held a cigarette between his thumb and index finger.

  ‘Nice to meet you.’ I stuck out my hand. He transferred the cigarette to his mouth and we shook. I noticed faded blue tattoos on his knuckles. Jim looked me up and down. I’d worn a black, knee-length skirt, slingbacks and a red halterneck top. Sexy yet sophisticated.

  ‘This way.’ He locked the door and I followed him up a flight of stairs, past a cashier’s booth and into the club. It was a cavernous, slightly shabby room and the predominant smell was stale smoke and beer. A bar took up the area to the right of the entrance and there was a stage on the left. Wooden podiums with brass poles dotted the room and red-upholstered couches and booths hugged the walls. I followed Jim across the crimson carpet, through an arch op
ening onto a hallway.

  The passage was home to the men’s and women’s toilets and a door marked ‘staff only’. Jim unlocked an unmarked door I hadn’t noticed was there. Opposite us was another arch draped in gauzy curtains. He saw me checking it out.

  ‘The private rooms are through there,’ he explained as he led me into the office. He sat down heavily in a leather swivel chair behind a large desk. I took a seat and glanced around the room. It was a bunker, small and grey with a concrete floor and no windows. A couple of filing cabinets were crammed into a corner and a bank of video monitors flashed onto different areas of the club. Jim rolled up his shirtsleeves and yawned.

  ‘Sorry, we had a big one last night. Haven’t been to bed yet.’ He lit another cigarette and held the pack out to me. I showed restraint and shook my head. ‘So, you worked tabletop before?’

  ‘No, but I’ve stripped.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Bucks’ parties, Crazyhorse. Also the Shaft, the adult cinema.’

  He laughed, ‘Fuck, that place has been around since the seventies. I reckon some of the girls have been around since then too. Stan still run the place?’

  I nodded.

  ‘The Shaft,’ Jim chuckled. ‘No offence, Simone, but you’re too good lookin’ for a dive like that. Peepshows are like a retirement home for old strippers, four kids, tits down to here covered in tatts.’ He placed his hands at waist level and mimed pendulous breasts. ‘You don’t have any tatts do you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Good. The customers hate it. We get the girls to cover ’em with makeup.’ He grabbed a folder from a pile on the desk, pulled out a photocopied form and wrote on it. ‘Tattoos? No.’ He looked up at me: ‘Measurements?’