Peter Temple - White Dog

‘It should be.’

A bird walked into view on the terrace, a rock parrot perhaps, olive and yellow and blue, pecking with its tiny beak. Another followed, soon there were many, all pecking. Fights broke out.

‘Your mum misses you,’ I said. ‘All these years.’

Janene looked at me, away, hugged herself, put her hands inside her short sleeves, massaged her arms, shivered in the warm day. ‘What do you want? What do you fucking want?’

‘Tell me what happened,’ I said. ‘How you come to be here. Tell me about Wayne and Mandy Randy.’

She drew on the cigarette, smoke plumed from her nostrils, she went to the door, disturbed the birds, drew again, threw the stub away, a graceful movement, like tossing a dart.

‘I’ll have to go out and get that,’ she said. ‘He can’t bear to see a fucking breadcrumb, hair in the shower, a bit of grass, weed, whatever, it comes through a crack, he kills it with this fucking spray.’

‘My plane’s at 4.30,’ I said.

‘Go,’ she said. ‘I’ve been scared so long, this doesn’t mean a shit. Go. Goodbye.’

‘Sorry to have bothered you,’ I said, getting up. ‘I’ll tell your mum you’re alive, living in a nice warm house near the beach. She’ll be happy. She could fly over and stay for a while, get the cold out of her bones.’

I left the room, walked towards the big front door. I could feel her behind me.

‘What can I tell you?’ she said.

‘Good luck, Janene,’ I said, not looking back. ‘I’m finished with dead pimps and whores and their clients. If I can find you, anyone can. And will.’

She made a soulful sound, a groan and a sigh.

‘Wait,’ she said. ‘Wait.’

I turned. She was showing me her palms.

‘Come and sit down,’ she said. ‘I’ll tell you.’

I followed her back to the sunroom. She sat. I sat opposite her.

‘I was working for Wayne, doing escort jobs,’ she said.

‘Let me be clear,’ I said. ‘You were a call-girl.’

‘If you like. But it was all upmarket, businessmen, professionals.’

‘And Katelyn worked for Wayne too?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Donna Filipovic?’

‘Yeah, Donna too. Anyway, on the night, Wayne had a call from someone and he picked up me and Katelyn, it was dress-up, little black dress, we went to the River Plaza. It was about midnight. This bloke, black tie, was waiting for us, took us through the foyer. Wayne came up, that was for show, they took us to the suite.’

Janene got up and lit another cigarette, came back with a saucer for an ashtray. ‘I’m not supposed to smoke,’ she said. ‘He’s turned into a health nut.’

I waited.

‘Well, there’s four people there, three blokes and a girl, a woman.’

‘Did you know them?’

‘No. Well, I thought I’d seen one bloke before, the big one. But no, I didn’t know them.’

‘What happened?’

‘We stood around the bar and had some champagne. The big bloke, he’s pretty much off his face. There’s music, he wants to dance. Not interested in me, just Katelyn. I danced with the nerdy guy. We did a couple of lines, Wayne brought the stuff.’

‘Wayne was there?’

‘No. He just took us, came up in the lift and went down. The other bloke too, the one who met us.’

‘And then?’

‘Well, it went on for a while, The big guy’s lifting Katelyn up like a doll, his hands can meet around her waist. Then he wants an act, y’know.’

‘Act?’

‘He wants an act. I said no, that’s not in the deal. I mean, if he wanted an act he should have ordered one. I didn’t do acts, wanted to do acts for fuckheads I’d’ve stayed at the club. Anyway, he gets really pissed off, red face, pulls out money, like hundreds, throws it on the floor. The spunky guy calmed him down. So the prick does some more C, he vacuums it up, and he takes Katelyn off. I thought, shit, girl, sooner you than me.’

‘What happened to you?’

She gave me a direct look. ‘You want to know this stuff?’

‘Yes.’

She shrugged. ‘The spunky guy went off somewhere and I’m dancing with the nerd and the woman comes up close behind me and she lifts up my dress, so I reckon it’s a threeway. That’s okay, not the end of the world, and we go to the other bedroom and she wants to know my name, she’s really friendly. Anyway, it turns out they both like to watch, so it’s first her and then it’s him. She’s like a movie director, when she’s watching, she gives orders — do this, do that.’

It was warm in the room, sunlight on the carpet, outside, the exotic birds feeding. Janene put a hand under her T-shirt and scratched her stomach while she drew on the cigarette. She didn’t mind talking about sexual matters.

‘Also she liked the stick,’ she said. ‘She’s on me, he’s giving it to her. Christ, she made a noise. Then there’s a knock on the door, I thought it was someone to say turn it down. He goes to the door and there’s a bit of whispering. Then he comes back and he tells me to get dressed in the bathroom. So I get my stuff and go in and when I come out, they’re gone and the fucking door’s locked.’

Janene got up and sent out another cigarette end. The birds thought it was food and rushed.

‘Christ,’ she said, ‘I’ll have to run the air-conditioning for an hour.’

She lit another cigarette, leaned against the bar. ‘I knock and I wait, knock again, after a while I’m a bit panicky and I give the door a fucking good hammering. I’m thinking about ringing reception, only it’s going to be a bit hard to explain. Anyway, the door opens and there’s this guy, he’s very calm, he says there’s been a bit of a problem, nothing to worry about, Wayne’s on his way to pick me up. I calmed down. It was a few minutes, the door opens and it’s Wayne. Let’s go, he says.’

‘What about Katelyn?’ I said.

‘That’s what I asked. He said there’s been an accident. Then he grabs me and we’re out of there, no one to be seen. He took me back to my place. I was really fucking shaken up, I can tell you. I wasn’t tough, I’d never been on the streets, just clubs and escort, upmarket escort, nothing ever happened to me. Then he says, you’ve got to go somewhere safe for a while, these people are dangerous. I said, fuck, the cops, that’s where I’m going. He says, listen to me girl, you talk to the cops, we will both have to go and live down a hole in the fucking desert for the rest of our lives. You can’t help Katelyn, you’ve got to help yourself, help me.’

There was a faint sheen of sweat on Janene’s face. She hadn’t thought about the night for a while, had presumably never spoken about it.

‘Then he says, we’re sitting in the car, he won’t look at me, he says, they want me to kill you. Give you a hot shot. That or they kill both of us. I knew he was telling the truth. I knew we were in bad trouble. I said, Jesus Christ, who are these people? He says, they’re rich people, they’re powerful people, we’re fucking bugs.’

She sighed, closed her eyes, shook her head. ‘I said, Wayne, did you tell them you’d kill me? He says, yes, so for fuck’s sake, just do what I tell you or I will. I went upstairs and threw some stuff in a bag. We went to an ATM, I took out what I could and I gave Wayne the card and the PIN. That’s the last time I was Janene Ballich.’

She got up, left the room, came back, slid open the glass door. The birds backed off but they knew what was coming. She threw a handful of seeds onto the paving, closed the door.

I watched the birds pecking, waited for her to sit down.

‘How did you get here?’ I said.

‘We drove to Adelaide. I got on a plane.’

‘In what name?’

‘Jean Quinlan. Wayne got a Queensland licence for me in that name. He sent it with the rest of my money.’