Claire McNab - Kookaburra Gambit

I was rather hoping to head for the barbecue area, but as no one else appeared to be eating yet, I advised my stomach to stop complaining and turned my whole attention to the weedy bloke. To start the ball rolling, I said, "You work for Lamb White, Steve?"

"I'd describe myself as Tami's right-hand man."

I couldn't think of a suitable rejoinder to this, so I kept quiet. An uneasy silence fell between us. Finally, I broke it with, "This place is really something."

I'd hit the conversational jackpot. Steve was delighted to show me the house and grounds while keeping up a running commentary. I'd realized this part of Rexford Drive in Beverly Hills was exclusive, but, Steve said, in COP's catalogue of buildings, this one was a jewel. The building's style, Steve told me authoritatively, was French provincial tweaked for American tastes. In short order, I knew more about French provincial architecture than I'd ever intended.

If the front of the place was imposing, the backyard was even more so. It had been elaborately landscaped as a sort of miniature Versailles gardens, Steve declared, a small version of the famous grounds where Marie Antoinette used to stroll.

"Why in the world would you copy Versailles in Beverly Hills?" I asked.

Steve stared at me. No one, he assured me, had ever asked him that question.

I was rescued from Steve by Alf, who flung his arm around my shoulders yet again and gave me another hard squeeze. I made a note to speak to him about that. "Kylie, old love," he boomed, "was wondering where you'd got to. Come and meet Rachelle. She's a ripper sheila."

Rachelle was almost certainly the new Lamb White receptionist. She turned out to be a breathless brunette with an impressive cleavage and masses of dark, curly hair.

"That Alf's such a card!" she squealed, as he was claimed by Tami and whisked away from us.

"Alf is one of a kind."

"One of a kind? Oh, that's so perceptive of you!"

Perhaps she always spoke in exclamations. I gestured toward the champagne she held.

"Nice champagne?"

"Nice! Oh, yes, of course! Cristal!"

"And that's good?"

She tinkled a laugh Melodie would have envied, then nudged me with her elbow, surprisingly hard. "Oh, you !"

I signaled to Chicka, who was standing forlorn with a champagne glass clutched in one large hand. "Over here, Chicka."

"Omigod!" exclaimed Rachelle. "Am I seeing double?"

Chicka came over and smiled down her cleavage. "G'day."

"You're twins, you and Alf!"

Chicka conceded that they were.

He looked astonished when Rachelle nudged him in the ribs the way she had me. She should register that elbow as a lethal weapon. "Omigod!" she shrieked. "You know what they say about twins!"

Alas, I was never to know what the word on the street was about twins, as Tami Eckholdt had turned up again. "Sorry to drag you away, Kylie, but there's someone Alf insists you meet. Someone special."

On these last two words her voice took on a reverent tone, so I wasn't too surprised to find a face familiar from the Web site. Brother Owen.

Alf was standing beside Brother Owen, and from his expression, was rather impressed by the man. I could imagine why he might be. Brother Owen did have an aura about him. Or maybe it was his cologne. I could smell a faint, musky scent.

He wasn't in his flowing white televangelist robes today but in a beautifully cut dark suit. Brother Owen's tie, I noticed, had little trumpet-blowing cherubs woven into the design. As he had on television, he looked sleek and well-fed. His neck bulged a little over the collar of his shirt, and the superb tailoring of his suit didn't quite disguise the extra weight he was carrying.

"God bless," Brother Owen said in a velvety bass voice. He put out his hand. His skin was soft and somehow creepy. Not sure whether I was supposed to bob a curtsy or maybe even kiss the fat emerald ring on his finger, I decided to shake his hand instead. "G'day. I'm Kylie."

"An Australian," he said approvingly. "Yours is a wonderful country."

"You've been Down Under?"

He smiled. Standard sparkling teeth, of course. "As it happens, just in the past few months, my dear. The Church of Possibilities is setting up a ministry in Australia."

Now this was interesting. "Really?" I said. "Where in Oz?"

"We're examining several sites, in both urban and country areas."

"Have you heard of Wollegudgerie?" I asked. "Alf and Chicka's family live near there. Opal-mining town."

"Wollegudgerie? I don't believe I ever have."

My Complete Handbook was quite stern about relying on gut feeling alone, but I was sure, absolutely sure, Brother Owen was lying.

My Aunt Millie arrived in Los Angeles late on Wednesday morning. I was at the international terminal at LAX to greet her. She wasn't hard to spot. She came out of customs pushing her luggage cart so pugnaciously that even seasoned travelers scattered before her.

I waved with as much enthusiasm as I could muster. "Aunt Millie. Over here."

She steered in my direction, narrowly missing an Italian family noisily reuniting. Aunt Millie was usually a ball of belligerent energy, but today she seemed subdued, tired. There was none of the usual fire in her voice as she looked me up and down and then declared, "You've lost weight. Doesn't suit you. Need meat on your bones."

"You look exactly the same, Aunt Millie."

And she did. Short, stocky, cantankerous. Her skin, still smooth and soft, was a much darker shade than mine. Her hair was graying, but her eyes were the same beautiful liquid brown. Right now they were squinting at me critically.

"Are we going to stand here all morning?"

I indicated no. We set off for the parking structure with me pushing the luggage cart and my aunt stomping along beside. "Good flight?" I inquired.

"Good? You're asking someone who's spent hours cooped up in a metal cylinder, squashed into a tiny airline seat, if it was good?"

I sighed. My chats with Aunt Millie rarely went swimmingly. "Did you manage to get any sleep?"

My aunt snorted. "Oh, yes, slept like a baby," she said with deep sarcasm. "Who wouldn't, with people clambering over you every five minutes to go to the loo, or trying to start idiot conversations?"

I spared a moment to send a sympathetic thought to Aunt Millie's traveling companions. They would quite possibly be vowing never to fly again.

We came to my boring rental car. Aunt Millie regarded it without favor. "Thought you'd have a convertible, Kylie. What's the point of living in Southern California if you don't have a convertible?"

"I can't imagine what I was thinking. I'll rush right out and get one."

That got a glimmer of a smile from Aunt Millie. Fortunately, underneath her snarl there lurked at least a ghost of a sense of humor.

"You do that," she said. "And make sure it's red. I like red cars."

She did actually, having a rather battered red sedan herself. My mum always said it was fortunate her sister had chosen a bright color, as Millie was the world's worst driver and people needed to see her to get out of her way.

"I'm taking you straight to your hotel, so you can freshen up," I said, darting into a tiny break in the traffic that seemed to roar around and around LAX's many terminals in an unending loop of frustrated drivers.

"You're not taking me to meet those Kendall & Creeling people you'd rather be with than your own family?"

"I'm saving that for later."

When we made it to the freeway, it was, as always, clogged with vehicles. "Humph. The traffic's worse than the last time I was here," my aunt observed. "Much worse."

I looked at her in surprise. I had no idea she'd ever visited the States. I knew she'd been to Fiji with her husband, Uncle Ken, before he died, but I couldn't remember her traveling much more than that.