Peter Corris - Lugarno

I had one small glass of red with a plate of spaghetti in Leichhardt. Over the meal I pondered why the beautiful Sammy had needed to employ professional escorts and whether she’d had her first encounter with Jason in that capacity or as a poacher of Danni’s boyfriend. Maybe she just had a taste for commercial sex. Emotion-free, producing fewer lines and wrinkles. Maybe the escorts were good drug contacts. I bought a bottle of champagne for three times the price I was used to paying in case I needed an entry prop and then headed for Strathfield. The rain stopped and started and a blustery wind added to the discomfort and danger of driving. It was a night for any sensible person to stay at home, but I was hoping that the woman in the high-security house in Henry Street hadn’t called off her Wednesday night parties.

No worries. When I drew up outside the house the lights, the music and hum of voices and the fact that there was nowhere close by to park told me that there was a party going on. I parked on the other side of the street fifty metres away and watched while a taxi dropped a passenger. She was neither young nor old, fat or thin and she was dressed to the nines in a stylish frock and an elegant jacket that shimmered under the streetlight. I watched her go up the path and step inside. Open house, and not BYO.

Although I was never a Boy Scout I try to be prepared. I keep a tie, a jacket and an electric shaver in the boot of the car in case I have to tog up. I put the jacket on and tied the tie, taking three goes to do it as it’s something I don’t do that often. I customarily shave with a blade on account of my heavy beard, but I ploughed away with the shaver and got the stubble down to a sandpapery smoothness. A red Porsche sports car pulled up a bit ahead of me and a woman got out and activated the automatic locking. She was tall and slim to the point of gauntness and had silver hair flowing to her shoulders. Black velvet pants suit, high heels, white silk scarf. She crossed the road and headed for the house and I followed her, just far enough back not to be annoying but close enough to surf in on her stylish wake.

That’s how it happened. She went through the open doorway and I followed her into a well-lit passage that led to a big double room on the right. Party room. The music was Van Morrison down low, like the lights. There must have been about sixty people there and a preponderance of females. A waiter in dress shirt and bow tie cruised up with a tray of glasses and Silver Hair and I took one simultaneously. She noticed me for the first time and I smiled, confident now that I was in and had a glass in hand.

The dim light must’ve helped because she returned the smile. ‘Tanya Scott.’

I lifted the glass in a restrained salute. ‘Cliff Hardy.’

‘Available?’

‘Could be.’

She reached into the little bag hanging from her bony shoulder, took out a silver cigarette case and extracted a smoke. ‘Don’t play too hard to get, Cliff. You’re longish in the tooth for this gathering.’

I watched her flick a flame up from a lighter attached to the cigarette case. It all felt a bit Charles Boyer or even older, but she did it with style. I drank some of the champagne — very dry and cold and good, and looked around the room. She was right: most of the women were around my age, plus or minus, but the men were decidedly younger, and definitely better looking.

Tanya Scott blew some smoke over my head, not hard for her to do because in those heels she was as tall as me or taller. ‘Take a look around and see if you can come up with something better. I doubt if you can.’

‘OK,’ I said, ‘but I have to be polite. Where’s our hostess?’

She pointed with the cigarette extended in slender fingers with long, silver-painted nails. ‘Over there, but forget it. She’s given up sex.’

Of course I wasn’t looking for the lady of the house in order to meet her but to avoid her. In that crowd and smoky atmosphere it wasn’t hard to do. I moved across and stood in the archway between the two rooms and looked around. I don’t go to many parties and even fewer now than in days gone by, but I know that they’re all different. Some go with a bang from the first cork pulled or can cracked; some take a while to warm up and some just lie down and die. This one was curious. The people seemed not to know each other but to be keen to rub along. The women were cruising the men and some were getting attached and some were staying loose. Some of the women seemed more interested in other women than the men which evened the ratio up a bit. I got a few glances and smiles but I was way too rough to be high on anyone’s list.

I was an odd man out and it would only be a matter of time before I was brought to the attention of the hostess. I lifted another glass of bubbly and wondered if Silver Hair would give me the drum on what the gathering was all about, although by now I had a pretty fair idea. I looked across to where I’d left her but I’d missed my chance — she was deep in conversation with a tall, blond classical profile in an Italian suit.

I sidled past people, ducking and weaving with my glass, and when I was sure no-one was watching and there were no waiters about, I scuttled down a passage past the kitchen where three or four Asian women were working towards the back of the house. The place was a lot bigger than it looked from the front. The block sloped severely and the house was on two levels at the back. There was a sitting room and three smaller rooms on both levels, plus bathrooms top and bottom. I did a quick recce: double beds in each of the rooms. I flicked on a light and went into one — TV and VCR with raunchy videos lined up ready to roll; condoms, lubricant and three sizes of vibrator in a drawer.

I pushed open a door and stepped out into the subtly lit back garden: tall trees around the edges, a few shrubs and a little grass, but most of the space was taken up by a twelve metre pool and a number of cabanas built close around it. The joint could sleep two dozen people easy, or not sleep.

I walked down the terracotta path, skirted the pool and looked into one of the cabins. Very cosy. Light rain began to dapple the surface of the pool and I dashed back under cover. The door to the house swung open.

‘Just exactly what d’you think you’re doing?’

It was her, glass in hand, teased up hair, red dress and stoked. I moved towards her, twiddling my glass in my hand. ‘Nice party,’ I said. “Think I’ll get a refill.’

‘You will not! You’ll leave immediately. Good God, you’re the man…’

‘That’s right, I’m the man who came looking for Ramsay Hewitt, and you’re the woman who lied to me about not knowing him.’

‘You’re trespassing and being offensive. I’ll call the police.’

‘Will you? I wonder what they’ll say about the set-up here? All these fuck rooms?’

‘You’re revolting.’

‘I don’t mean to be. I’m open minded. It’s your business but it sure looks like a business and that could be your problem, Mrs…?’

She took a gulp from her glass and I wished mine wasn’t empty. It was an edgy kind of standoff for us both. In the dim light she came across as an attractive woman and if Tom Bolitho was right about her age and the surgical intervention, she’d done the right thing. Maybe she noticed and appreciated my evaluation, because she abruptly changed her manner and tone of voice.

‘I’m Prue Bonham.’

‘Cliff Hardy. And I’m still looking for Ramsay Hewitt.’

‘I can see I was hasty and underestimated you, Mr Hardy. I do know Ramsay of course. I know him quite well.’

‘If you can tell me where to find him I’ll be on my way.’

She drew in a deep breath and her breasts rose impressively under the red silk of her dress. But somehow I knew it wasn’t for me. ‘I’ll tell you what,’ she said. ‘Come back in and have that drink. Have a couple. I think you’ve cottoned on to what happens here. The numbers’ll be down to next to nothing in a couple of hours and we can talk.’