by Ann Michaels
The Lost Women
Ann Michaels
copyright 2016, Ann Michaels
Index
Chapter 1. Bondi
Chapter 2. Swinging Doll.
Chapter 3. Chantoozie Floozy.
Chapter 4. Perusing La Persouse.
Chapter 5. Always Looking Up
Chapter 6. Singing Days Done
Chapter 7. Spy in the House of Love
Chapter 8. Become a Philosopher
Chapter 9. A Job to Do
Chapter 10. Empty Hands and Empty Hearts
Chapter 11. Wired
Chapter 12. Fired Up
Chapter 13. A Night to Remember
Chapter 14. You Burn Me
Chapter 15. Quiet Interlude
Chapter 16. Fast Women
Chapter 17. Women Troubles
Chapter 18. Parting Sorrows
Chapter 19. Journey Down
Chapter 20. All at Sea
Chapter 21. Firebrand
Chapter 22. Lost at Sea
Chapter 23. No Way Out
Chapter 24. All at Sea
Chapter 25. Born to Rule
Chapter 26. ….Almost a Year later
The lost women
Chapter 1
Thursday, November, 17, 1988
Dana Roberts is Sally Brown
Bondi
I froze as he said, ‘take off your top sweetheart and walk around a bit’. My face must have momentarily registered my real feelings, as he shot me a strange look; luckily, I remembered that I was supposed to be an ‘outgoing and bubbly drinks’ hostess’, and I slipped off the clingy, silk shirt that I was wearing, and pranced about in my tight, leather skirt and dagger like heels, pretending that I was not discomforted by his reptilian gaze and white, sucker-like hand, kneading the shiny, black tub-chair, in which he sat like some supreme ruler.
He let me strut around on the bile coloured carpet a bit longer, as the air-conditioner rattled and buzzed menacingly in the background; just long enough for me to begin to throb with discomfort and for seeds of suspicion to take root within my highly distrustful brain. Then he smiled, showing a fence of fake teeth, and drawled in almost bored manner, ‘you’ll do’. He scribbled something on a piece of paper and handed it to me; waved his pale appendage toward a glass door, and said, ‘go through there doll and Candice will sort you out’.
I nodded and bent down to pick up my discarded shirt, and saw his cold, almost colourless eyes sweep across my body again: something unfathomable, flickering in their depths. It took all my will power not to shudder with disgust and aim some projectile at his balding dome. Instead, I quickly slid the shirt on and stalked toward the door at which he pointed. I was already wondering what sort of assignment I had got myself into, and whether it was too late to get out of this particular covert operation. But then, I was through the door, into a stuffy room, and faced by a tall woman with a scraggy mane of orangey hair, and a face like a constipated giraffe.
She immediately lurched toward me and snatched the paper and without lifting her eyes to even look me over, pointed to the right, and said, out of the side of her mouth, ‘over to rack and grab a uniform’.
‘Uniform’ was not quite the appropriate word for the teensy, triangles of the bikini top, with matching, micro miniskirt. I stared hard at the cheap threads of white, which looked even trashier, as I moved into the harsh sunlight flowing through the window. The Giraffe snatched the outfit from my hands, and pushed it into a plastic bag, sealed it, and handed it back. With a sour twist of her mouth, she scanned me over fleetingly, as though I was a thing, not even capable of speech, and shoved a piece of type written paper into my hand, with an address and many instructions.
‘You need to be at that address’, she said, in a dead kind of voice, pointing a long freckly finger, at the top of the paper, ‘and you must follow these recommendations’. I glanced down the page, at a shit-load of rules of behaviour, which I didn’t bother to read. I shoved the paper into my oversized, imitation, snakeskin handbag, along with the uniform, and I left from the door, which had a huge plastic ‘Exit’ sign emblazoned above it.
As I departed the double storey, Old South Head Road, building, I noticed a long, serpent-like line of hopeful, young women, standing patiently in the baking sun, who also wanted to land a job as a party hostess, for a man who was said to be one of the richest in Australia.
This was 1988 and men still ruled and dominated. The established money may have been in decline, and the nouveau riche and corporate cowboys in the ascendency, but the doors of success were still locked for most women, whose options were mostly low-wage, servile occupations, like hostessing.
Despite being a woman, I had a job as a plainclothes constable with Parramatta Detectives; a job which I had landed through sheer hard work and almost desperate determination. Presently, I was going undercover to investigate the multi-millionaire, Peter Ruslan, who had links to money laundering through Australian real estate. But my investigation wasn’t aimed in this direction. My job was to see what I could find out about the disappearance of three young women, in the last few of months, all of whom had been associated with Ruslan.
Ruslan wasn’t like Skase and Bond and those entrepreneurial buccaneers whose names were on everyone’s lips these days; shocking many with their excesses, as they took advantage of the financial deregulation and dismantling of trade barriers. I sniffed the air; I reckoned I could almost smell the stink, which would soon hit the fan, when paper empires inevitably crumbled.
Ruslan, it seemed, had been born into wealth and privilege, but he had lost the lot about five years ago, when a perfect storm of bad business deals exploded in his face. Now, it seemed that Ruslan was rebuilding his empire in various ways, like running a number of high class brothels and an illicit market selling prescription sedative drugs, like Quaaludes and Rohypnol - illegally. He would then launder the illegitimate funds through a system of property renovations.
Sargent O’Brien had warned me on the quiet that I needed to step carefully during this investigation, as bringing Ruslan down, might also bring down a raft of corrupt politicians, criminals, socialites and people from all walks of Australian life, which could spark public outrage and lead to civil unrest. I sighed, I liked a challenge, but this assignment was beginning to look like a mine-field. I hoped I didn’t take a fatal misstep, in a job where missteps were often unavoidable.
I jumped into sauna-like interior of the rented, white Ford Sierra and drove into the febrile sunlight, down toward Bondi Beach, where I would be living for the time being, in a cheap, rented apartment, a few streets back from the beach. Tabra Hayden, the first woman to go missing, who had been associated with Ruslan, also used to live around here, in the same building in which I would be living, in fact. The other missing women had also hailed from the eastern suburbs, so the location was convenient.
I parked the car behind the main drag, in a laneway which was run down and grubby, smelling overwhelmingly of urine and cheap frying oils. But it did the job and saved a few bob on parking expenses. I was at heart a frugal cheapskate, and also, generally, I tried very hard to keep my expenses down when on assignment; although, there had been times when I had ripped through some money, when the case demanded it.
I walked quickly down a dingy side street, my high heel shoes tapping a staccato rhythm, and onto the baking main road, which faced the beach and the expanse of foaming ocean. A blast of summer heat hit me like a blow, as I came out into the hard, muscular sunlight. The aroma of coconut oil, the smell of the sea, and frying fish, caused me to feel hungry and to begin thinking about summer holidays. But I kept walking.
The missing, Tabra Hayden, had last worked as a waitress at
a seedy kind of restaurant here, named Cosmos. I thought that I would call into Cosmos for lunch, and have a bit of a scout around the place. Hayden had also worked as a so called ‘glamour model’, which essentially meant that she posed in her underwear for calendars and mens’ magazines. She had also ‘done time’ as a topless waitress at the Cambridge Tavern in Petersham and a few other ‘meat market’ establishments.
I sat down at a metal table outside the restaurant, which was set in a snug little shady corner, and I began to peruse the scanty menu. Most of the tables were empty though, as it was just after midday and this place looked down-at-heel and uninviting. I sat for a moment and absorbed the sweeping view of blonde sand, carpeting the iconic Bondi Beach. But then, my gaze was diverted by the various British tourists and narcissists, parading about, hoping that someone would spot them, and perhaps, offer a modelling contract. Don’t scoff! It happens, but not in the way you might think. A teenage neighbour of mine was set upon by a modelling scout, a couple of years ago, on her first trip outside the walls of the psychiatric unit, of Prince Henry Hospital, where she was being treated for Anorexia Nervosa. True story.
I ordered a plate of fettuccine and a salad, and as I ate, I went over the details of my undercover identity in my mind. My name was now Sally Brown, not Dana Roberts: nice and plain and hopefully forgettable. But I already felt attached to my new name: it felt honest. My fabricated back story was pretty generic, though; I grew up in the ‘burbs and went to state schools, then secretarial college and I wanted to get into glamour modelling, but all that was coming my way were waitressing gigs. None of this was close to my own story, except that, I did grow up in the suburbs; not around here, though, but in Newcastle, a steel town further north.
The ‘bubby drinks’ hostess’ job was still two nights away, on Saturday night to be exact, so I had a bit of time to fill in. I felt a fizz of anticipation; I simply couldn’t wait to get inside Palais Royale, the lavish, fortress-like, bay side home and pleasure palace, which belonged to Peter Ruslan. This mansion was rumoured to be worth a truck load of money, and I was deeply curious about it. And I felt in my gut that I would find important clues to the missing women there.
The word on the street was that this mansion was actually an ‘iceberg house’, with subterranean rooms. Or more precisely, it had a two storey basement extension, below the main house, which took up the entire floor area of the building. Beyond the usual luxury bedrooms and many bathrooms, it was said that Ruslan had a private theatre, pool, gun room, bowling alley and ballroom. It was also likely that, I wouldn’t even get into the main part of the house at all, but be ferried straight down to the basement ballroom by a lift. Anyway, I would find out soon enough.
The name of Ruslan’s mansion, Palais Royale, was somewhat pretentious, but it made me laugh just thinking about it, because back in Newcastle, we had a night club with the same name, which used to be a dance club. It was a huge place, like a farm shed, where plenty of the town’s people had met their first loves or life partners. But from what I knew of Ruslan’s joint, it was a very different place indeed. A meeting place for sure, but with no love involved.
Ruslen’s parties were decadent and extravagant. The music would play, the entertainment would roll, the food would be consumed and enjoyed, but it was said that Ruslen was a Gatsby-like figure, who stood aloof from the general revelry.
Rumours also circulated that, at the party, there would be a lot of beautiful, nubile, young women, and young men, bussed in, often wearing no more than loin cloths or body paint. There would be plenty of makeup and fake tans too, of course. You couldn’t escape the fake tans in such circles. The rest of the guest list would consist mostly, of suited business men, like high-flying real, estate agents, luxury car salesmen, accountants, lawyers and even some tradesmen and builders. But the serving staff role, the job which I would be doing, was deemed to be ‘professional’, even though we had to wear the skimpy, trashy outfits, we had to ‘maintain our distance from the guests’. But there would be a lavish spread of food, floods of alcohol, and an amazing array of entertainers: mime artists, jugglers, and nude wrestlers in body paint, opera singers, and acrobats. You name it.
I went inside the dark and dated restaurant to pay, and then, I made a detour to the Ladies’ Room, as I wanted to have a scout about. I strode down a bleak corridor, pushed open the heavy door painted in a shade of pealing, mission brown, marked with a 1950s style picture of a woman, and stepped in front of the mirror. The room was empty and a picture of gloom. A dripping tap echoed loudly and monotonously, and the cloying disinfectant couldn’t cover the ancient and ingrained, repellent smells.
As I became aware of the version of myself that was reflected back at me in that mirror, dotted with a leprosy of black spots, I felt disconnected from what I saw. With my flowing, blonde tresses, false eyelashes, thrusting breasts and carefully applied make-up, I looked like a bit of a bimbo. In my own life, I had plain, long brown hair, which was usually scraped back into a pony tail, for sheer utility, and no make-up. I was generally the type of woman that you wouldn’t give a second glance to, and that was the way I liked it.
I had to admit that as appalled as I was by my transformation, I was also intrigued by how a bit of ‘tarting up’, going blonde, and wearing a push up bra, had got me a job as a hostess for Ruslan, and how, it was influencing the eye movements of many of the males that I had passed on the street this morning. But, I concluded, as I often did that, it is indeed a mad world, where a bit of peroxided hair got you more attention than a good character. You may have noticed that I’m a bit of a cynic.
I stepped out of the ladies’ loos and glanced around the corner, where I saw another peeling, brown door ajar. I opened it, and walked through, and down a dark, tunnel-like corridor, where several red lights were glowing. I walked along the old, thin, wiry carpet, and I had just gone past the first door, when it flew open, to reveal a tiny woman, adjusting her shiny, red dress, and an overweight, middle-aged man, zipping up his fly, as he stepped out into the corridor, right near me. They both ignored me though, obviously thinking I was on my way to ‘work’, in one of the other rooms.
I continued walking and looking about; there were quite a few other doors, but all appeared to be locked, and so, I scooted out of that stifling, bleak darkness, and as I came into the lobby, which led outside, I passed that sleazy bloke, who been zipping up his trousers a few moments ago. He was standing at the public phone, almost blocking the whole passageway, and I heard him say, ‘Yes darling, I’ll remember to pick up the milk on the way home’. Another slime bag, I thought. But I didn’t linger about, because I had learnt something important. Tabra Hyden, the first missing woman, had likely had a job here, which involved much more than waitressing.