Peter Corris - Burn and Other Stories

‘I imagine so. Nevertheless, the disability your brother suffers has nothing to do with genetics, at least as far as you’re concerned.’

‘What do you mean?’

I had to resort to my notes, but I pride myself that I gave it to her clearly and accurately. I explained the medical terms and stressed that the whole Rhesus tragedy could be easily averted by today’s technology. She sat perfectly still and absorbed it all. Tears were running down her face by the time I’d finished. She pulled a tissue from her leather shoulder bag and blotted the tears. Through all the distress her mind was razor sharp. ‘If what you say is true, how is it that I was born normal, and Carl had this terrible thing?’

‘I’m not very sure of my ground here,’ I said. ‘It could be a matter of chance, but if not, I think you know the answer.’

‘Different fathers?’

I nodded. ‘And the reason for your mother’s behaviour. Guilty people can be strong and vice versa. When did your father die?’

‘A few years after Carl was born. They were very unhappy, my mother and father. They fought terribly. I was very young and didn’t understand much. I thought it was because of Carl, or the money. But perhaps…’

She was sobbing now. I put my arm around her shoulders, and she rested her head against me, “You’ve got a lot to think about,’ I said. ‘Most of it’s very painful, but not all. You don’t have to think of yourself as cursed or tainted. I don’t want to push things, but Adamo’s a good man. I don’t see many, but I recognise one when I do. I think you’d find him understanding and sympathetic…’

She lifted her head and sniffed. ‘He’s very smart, too, isn’t he?’

I remembered Adamo’s firmness of purpose, his confidence that he could set things right if he just got a little help. ‘Smart enough to run a small business profitably,’ I said. ‘I’m here to tell you that’s tough. And smart enough to be in love with you and to hire me. Yes, I’d say he’s pretty bright.’

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‘Good afternoon, sir,’ the woman behind the table said. ‘My name is Marcia. Do you want someone in particular, or a special service?’

‘In a way,’ I said. ‘I’d like to see Ruby.’

Marcia was a nice-looking woman, thirtyish, with short curly hair and a humorous expression. The fact that her ruffled blouse was open almost to the waist and her make-up would have looked garish out of the dim orange light was to be expected. This was The House of Ruby, massage parlour and relaxation centre in Darlinghurst Road, Kings Cross, and the woman behind the table wasn’t selling raffle tickets. She pressed a red button on the desk. The blue button, I knew, summoned two or three women in various states of undress. The red one, appropriately, summoned Ruby.

‘Cliff, my love, you came.’

‘Once or twice, Ruby,’ I said. ‘It’s good to see you looking so well.’

Ruby is about fifty, and carries a lot of flesh on a large frame, but she carries it with style.

Her hair is red and luxuriant, like her lipstick. She was wearing a purple silk dress that outlined her charms rather than displayed them. The dress was short, however; Ruby has great legs and them she displays. She reached for me with her ruby-ringed fingers and red-painted nails. ‘Just you come in here, love, and I’ll give you a drink and tell you a story that’ll make you weep.’

‘Private eyes don’t weep,’ I said.

Ruby burst into laughter, and I heard the woman behind the desk snigger a little too. Definitely the place to go to be appreciated for your wit, Ruby’s. She took me through a door and down a short passage to her private suite, which is fitted out like an erotic dream-silk and velvet hangings, black and red decor, pornographic paintings and photographs. Ruby poured generous measures of scotch into tall glasses and added ice. ‘Put you in the mood, Cliff?’

‘Sure,’ I said. ‘But it’s just a bit overdone. I kind of get out of the mood from having been put in the mood, if you follow.’

She nodded. ‘Me too, but it’s what the punters like.’

I lifted my glass and drank down some good, nicely iced scotch. ‘How’s Kathy?’

‘Fine. Two kids.’

Kathy was Ruby’s daughter, who I’d found one time after she’d run off on learning that her mother was a whore and a madam. Kathy was a convent-educated teenager at the time, and I’d taken her back to my place, where my tenant, Hilde Stoner, and I had talked to her for several days about life and the world. I’d shown her a bit of it, in the Cross and around Darlinghurst, and she got a different perspective on things. She’d been her mother’s greatest supporter ever since, and Ruby was a friend of mine for life. I could’ve fucked my brains out for free forever if I’d been that way inclined. As it was, I’d availed myself of Ruby’s services but twice, in moments of distress.

‘So, what’s the problem, Ruby?’ I said. ‘The girl out front looks nice-you seem to be keeping up your usual standards. Are you still catering to the taste for older women?’

Ruby drank deeply, which was a worrying sign; she usually sipped for a while and then forgot she had a drink. ‘Of course. Best decision I ever made. You get a better class of client and a more mature employee-less trouble all round. And Marcia out there? She’s the best. Professional woman, in the true sense of the word. She’s a doctor, would you believe? Runs a small practice part-time and does an elegant job here as well.’

‘So what is it? AIDS? Fred Nile picketing you?’

She waved her hand dismissively; the red stones in her rings glittered. ‘AIDS. Nonsense. As safe here as in Turramurra. Safer. Not that it hasn’t hurt business. All the publicity, I mean. But no, nothing like that. Sammy Weiss’s trying to put the squeeze on me.’

‘Sammy? Never.’

‘Can you believe it? He owns the building, or most of it. I know that, and he knows that I know. So I pay him rent, on a lease. Fine.’

‘He’s putting up the rent?’

‘No. He wants a percentage of my earnings, and he wants it to appear on the books as rent. He’s negatively geared all over the bloody place. It’s no skin off his arse, but I simply can’t afford it. Not a hike of two hundred per cent.’

I’d been sinking down in my velvet chair a little, lulled by the scotch and thinking the story wouldn’t have much bite. Now I sat up. ‘You mean double?’

‘No, I do not mean double.’ Ruby finished her drink in a swallow. ‘I don’t know what I mean. All I know is he wants the rent to go this month up by as much again as it is now and by that much again next month. What’s that? He calls it two hundred per cent.’

‘I’d call it treble,’ I said.

‘I call it ruin. Will you talk to him, Cliff? I pay that and I’ve got to run this place like a cattleyard — use kids, junkies, all that shit. I’d rather close up, and that’d put some decent women out of work. And I’m helping Kathy’s husband get started as a nurseryman. I’ve got commitments. You know Sammy. I can’t think what’s got into him. He used to be a reasonable guy. Will you talk to him, Cliff? Please? I’m asking as a friend, and I’m paying. This is a business expense.’

I didn’t like to see Ruby knocking back the scotch as if she needed it, or the desperation in her eyes, so I said I’d talk to Sammy. That night I had nothing much else to do after I’d finished escorting a big gambler from the club in Edgecliff to the night safe in Woollahra, so I went looking for Sammy. Night is the only time to see him; that’s when he eats dinner at the Jack Daniels Bar ‘n’ Grill and pays visits to several strip joint nightclubs in which he has an interest. What he does in the daytime I don’t know-sleeps or counts money, maybe both.