Prophets and Loss (A Johnny Ravine Mystery)

by Martin Roth

  Chapter Four

  Back in the lobby the receptionist gave the same raised-eyebrow smile of greeting, as if she had flung a switch that controlled her facial muscles. But this time she added some words. “The Roman Room. Down the end of the corridor on the left. Briony’s waiting for you, Johnny.”

  My first visit to Melbourne’s most famous brothel, and everyone I met knew who I was.

  I slipped over the fee, then opened the same door that Rohan had emerged from, and found myself in a much larger reception lounge, with a plush green carpet and pale pink walls adorned with nineteenth-century French art prints of ladies in their underwear. The place was empty. A faint musk smell permeated the air. In one corner was a small bar, with a line of spirit bottles hanging upside down. Half-a-dozen armchairs and some bar stools were arranged in groups. Frank Sinatra crooned from surround-sound speakers.

  How different from the dark-alley bars of Kramat Tunggak in Jakarta. There you seldom felt anything but dirty as you tried to enjoy a furtive coupling with a frightened teenage girl - probably sold to the establishment by her parents - to the din of barking dogs and the smell of the street vendors’ grilled satay chicken. By contrast, this place was almost sanitized.

  Leading off from La Rue’s bar was a long corridor. I walked down it, past more nudie art prints and several closed doors, each with a name painted in bright, flowery writing: New Orleans Room, Madame Trousseau’s House of Bondage, Paper Moon, The Can-Cantina.

  Near the end of the corridor a door was open, and right inside the doorway a lady was standing. She smiled at me.

  “What’s cookin’ good lookin’?” she asked in a raspy voice.

  I paused and looked at her. She was of medium height, which meant a little taller than me, and with a hard angular body which made her look like a triathlon competitor. Her tanned face was dotted with freckles. Little lines were appearing around her mouth and her blue eyes. She did not have on a trace of make-up. Yet she was fearsomely beautiful. Back in Jakarta she’d be reserved for the police chiefs and top military officers.

  She wasn’t young: probably in her mid-thirties, like Melissa. Only the smart ones lasted that long, the ones who stayed off drugs, cared for their bodies and knew how to manage their money.

  She was wearing a blue denim skirt that showed a muscular pair of legs, and a tight white blouse with lacy frills on the front. Her long, wavy, honey-colored hair seemed to reflect the light. I thought that she would look equally good on my towel at the beach or on my arm at the opera.

  “Are you Briony?” I asked.

  “Yep. Are you Johnny?”

  I nodded.

  “Briony and Johnny. We’ll get along good.” She looked me straight in the eye as she spoke. Her hoarse laugh was almost a cackle.

  “Entrez pardner,” she said, as she made way for me. I walked inside, and she closed and bolted the door behind me.

  My eyes quickly took in the scene. The place was surprisingly small, not a lot larger than my living room. Much of it was occupied with a giant four-poster bed, covered in a bright red cotton spread. A couple of fake columns against the near wall framed a mural of raven-haired nubile beauties dressed in see-through togas. They were cavorting around an apple tree. A blue-upholstered armchair, a small bar fridge and a dressing table with a giant mirror were against the side wall. Colored lights created an effect like a high school disco.

  “Pay for an hour and you get the real Roman Room,” said Briony. “With the spa pool.” She sat with delicacy on the bed, her legs crossed and an expectant look on her face, as if she were about to take dictation. “Wow, look at that tan,” she said. “Which beach have you been lying on?”

  “I’m from East Timor. Next to Indonesia.”

  “Book me to Bali. Are they all hunks like you?”

  I eased into the armchair. “Briony, I’ve come about...”

  “I know why you’ve come, lover. How do you want it?”

  “I’ve come about Grant.”

  “Just teasing. Sad isn’t it? Such a good man. Killed. In the other room.” She pointed next door with one thumb. “Do you want to see the bondage room? Whips. Manacles. The lot. That’s where he was. On the ground. Like this.”

  She lay back on the bed, thrust her arms behind her back and flung her head back. She opened her mouth wide and rolled her eyes. Then she giggled and sat back up on the bed. “Do I give good corpse?”

  “You should see a talent agent.”

  “But honey,” she drawled in a kind of Mae West style. “I see them all the time.” She crossed her legs again in a deliberate movement, and raised her eyebrows in a “who wants to know” gesture. “He gave me a Bible. Not every customer does that.”

  “Grant did? He was a customer?”

  She smiled. “He was a man of many talents. Customer? Bible teacher? Whatever. They ripped out a page from the Bible and stuck it in his mouth. Is that what you call blasphemy?”

  The refrigerator was next to my chair. I opened it and pulled out a bottle of mineral water. “Tell me...”

  “It was a page from the Old Testament,” interrupted Briony. “About an eye for an eye. Revenge. The police have taken the Bible away. Forensic.” She tapped the side of her nose to emphasize that she had said something weighty. Then she realized that I was looking for a bottle opener. She sprang off the bed, took my bottle and uncapped it on an opener attached to the dressing table.

  She sat back on the bed. “I know the Bible. I read it a lot. But I’m not a Christian. I’m spiritual. My Uncle Tony in Albury was a Christian. He was always praying. When his fishing dinghy sank he prayed that Jesus would help him find a new one. He told me once he was praying for my salvation. I said Jesus was too busy finding him a new dinghy to have time for me.”

  I took a slow swig of the water. My task was difficult. The girl was doing all she could to control the conversation. How easy it would have been in East Timor. A revolver or knife held to the throat was sufficient to loosen the tongues of all but the most hardened.

  “You want to know about my religion?” she said. “I work on Christmas and Easter. That’s when we get really busy. Lonely men at Christmas and bored men at Easter. And the other way round. But I always take a holiday on Anzac Day. That’s a sacred day. I don’t let any man touch me. Even returned servicemen.” She giggled again. “You’re from Indonesia. Do you know about Anzac Day?”

  “It’s the Australian war memorial day. One of the most important days in Australia.”

  “Full marks to the competitor from Indonesia. Still hasn’t used his lifeline. And for ten thousand dollars, your next question…”

  “Do you make fun of all your clients like this Briony?” I asked her softly. “Stuff them about? Keep them off guard? Stop them asking questions? Generally make them…?”

  Her face turned hard, as if it had suddenly been snap-frozen. “Oh, yes, you’re a client,” she interrupted. “I forgot. The client who doesn’t try to touch me. The client who looks harder at his mineral water than he does at me.”

  I was silent for a time, then I spoke slowly. “Briony, I’ve done things to girls like you that I can’t even talk about. You don’t want me touching you.”

  “Sounds exciting.”

  But I knew the initiative was mine. “When Grant was here why did he want the bondage room?”

  “He didn’t care which room we used. That’s all that was available. Are you married?”

  I shook my head.

  “Gay?”

  “No. My wife died.”

  “Lonely, huh?”

  “Sometimes.” I pulled out my card and gave it to her. She examined it.

  “‘Father and Son Investigations.’ Are you the father or the son?”

  “That man who was in here just before me. What did he want?”

  “What do all men want?”

  “You know what I mean. Didn’t he come here for something special?”

  “Of course he did. Whenever men want someth
ing special they come to me.” She unleashed her throaty laugh.

  “He’s a journalist. He was here for a story, wasn’t he?”

  “Let’s say that he’ll have fun trying to justify his expenses.”

  “Have the police said anything about how Grant was killed?”

  “Lots of policemen. Lots of questions.”

  “Briony. You’re making me pay for this visit. You said you’re just giving me thirty minutes. I need you to answer a few questions.”

  “Just answer a few questions for the nice gentleman,” she mimicked. “The nice gentleman whose wife’s dead but who still doesn’t even try to touch me.”

  “I’ll tell you something, Briony. My mother worked in a place like this.”

  That did the trick. She had no response.

  “She got raped and killed by Indonesian soldiers when they invaded East Timor. When I was fourteen.”

  She was mute for a little while. I waited. “My best friend Melanie got killed by a client,” she said at last. “At another place, where I used to work. He drowned her in the spa bath. Then he told the police he was drunk and didn’t remember what had happened. He said it was all an accident. That both of them were having too much fun. He didn’t even get charged. But I know he murdered her.” She paused. “The police just said that someone strangled Grant when I went away from the room.”

  “Why did you go away from the room? Is that normal with customers?”

  “He wasn’t a customer,” she said softly.

  “So why did he come here? You knew him from before, didn’t you? He used to be mixed up in owning places like this.”

  “He wanted me to forgive him.”

  “Forgive him?” That wasn’t an answer I expected. “What on earth for? What had he done to you?”

  “He said he’d used me. When I worked for him. He used to be one of the owners of this place. And now he was a Christian he wanted me to forgive him. And he wanted to talk. Some men want that.”

  “Talk about what?”

  “He told me he was a changed man. He wanted to talk to me about that. And about the Bible.”

  “Did he pay the usual fee to come here?

  “Doesn’t everyone?” Then her old nature returned. She giggled. “How is Mrs Melissa Stonelea?” She injected as much haughtiness as possible into the name. “Mrs High-and-Mighty. How’s she feeling now that her husband’s been killed? In La Rue.”

  “She’s as you’d expect.”

  “Tell her if she wants her old job back the girls are all waiting.”

  “Waiting?”

  “Waiting to beat her over the head.”

  “What do you mean, ‘her old job’?”

  “She’ll know what I mean.”

  I had learnt little. “Briony have you heard of the Dili Tigers?”

  “The Tigers. Sounds exciting. Are they a basketball team or football? Let me at them.”

  “Okay. Enough.”

  Suddenly I felt depressed and confused. And very old. I tried to think of my mother working in a place like this. And then I tried hard not to think of it. La Rue had done all it could to remove the guilt associated with sex. So why did my visit here so fill me with remorse?