I’d seen go out earlier came back and looked the better for the experience. The exodus slowed and the last couple I saw was female. The voices were fewer from the party room and then faded away altogether with the music — Ella Fitzgerald by now. The two waiters finished up and the kitchen hands got everything shipshape and gave me little salutes as they went out. I hung up my dishcloth, went across to the table that was serving as a bar and mixed a last weak Scotch and water.
Prue Bonham came into the kitchen, looked around and nodded approvingly. She crooked a finger. ‘Come in here. I can give you a few minutes now.’
I followed her back to the party room. It smelled strongly of smoke and wine and perfume. She waved her be-ringed hands in the air. ‘The only thing I don’t like about this is the smoke. Disgusting habit. I can’t think why they do it.’
‘Neither can they now, most of them.’
She sank into an armchair and gestured for me to sit close by. Her skirt rode up and showed her nice calves and knees. ‘You’ve surprised me,’ she said.
‘How’s that?’
‘Moon Teh says you’re a gentleman.’
‘When I have to be. In her case it’s probably a matter of racial guilt.’
She raised her artistically plucked eyebrows. ‘Why so?’
‘I killed a few Chinese guerillas in Malaya.’
‘You don’t look quite that old.’
‘Thanks for the quite. I was young and it went on longer than most people think. Can we get down to business?’
‘Fine. How did you know there’d be a gathering here tonight?’
‘You have a secret admirer in the street.’
Her hand flew up to her mouth in a gesture that was just a bit too young for her to carry off. ‘Oh, God. Old Tom. That poor old bugger.’
‘He’d be flattered you know his name. He doesn’t know yours.’
‘I suppose he’s told you all about my scarlet womanhood.’
‘As I said, he admires you. But he did let slip a thing or two.’
She said nothing for a moment and then drew in another of those figure-enhancing breaths. ‘Do you have any idea how many women in this city are sick and tired of having sex with their husbands? Oh, they might still love them and be committed to them, but the thought of going to bed with them bores them to tears.’
‘I don’t. Do you?’
‘Not really, but it must be thousands, tens of thousands most likely. I was like that. The tedium of it… Anyway, I provide an outlet, relief, an alternative. Call it what you will.’
‘For a fee?’
‘Of course.’
‘I’m not up on this but I’d imagine you’re breaking several laws to do with introduction services and so on, and your tax situation must be interesting. Your power bills’d be worth looking into and I wonder if your building modifications had council approval.’
‘Are you threatening me?’
I swilled the dregs of my drink. ‘Not at all. I couldn’t care less one way or the other about your lonely hearts club. I suppose I’m just encouraging you to tell me about Ramsay Hewitt.’
‘Hmm, you might not have as much leverage as you think. I paid a good deal to steer certain things through the council.’
‘Corruption.’
Peter Corris
CH24 — Lugarno
She nodded. ‘Grease to the wheels of enterprise, call it. And there are a couple of police who are not unaware of what goes on here.’
‘Good for you, but I suspect you’re smart enough to know how easily it could all come tumbling down. Ramsay Hewitt.’
‘I met him on an environmental demonstration. Don’t look so surprised; I have a life apart from this. He was so full of aggression and so vulnerable underneath.’
‘Yeah, and then with a good thick layer of self-pity under that.’
She let that pass. ‘I contributed some money to the cause and then sort of took him under my wing a bit. Not sexually, I thought I’d made that clear to him. I’m on a different path in that regard as I’m sure Tanya told you. But Ramsay turned out to be a very needy boy and I wasn’t about to give him what he needed. So…’
‘So you didn’t give him the Merc and the clothes and pay his university fees?’
She shook her head.
‘He wrote a note to his sister using your notepaper but blanking out the phone number. I’m told he stayed overnight.’
She shrugged. “There’s room.’
I was tired and not in the mood for a jigsaw puzzle. ‘You’ll have to tell me a bit more, Mrs Bonham. I’m puzzled.’
‘Don’t call me that! Call me Prue. I’m not some dried up suburban housewife.’
Her flare-up sparked me a bit and I straightened in the chair. I could tell her reaction wasn’t only to being called something she didn’t like. What was really bothering her was close to the surface now and I just had to ease it up.
‘Tell me,’ I said.
‘Did you take any notice of the men who were here tonight?’
‘Youngish, good-looking. Rent a bloke?’
‘Yes, some of them are escorts. Some are the male equivalents of the females.’
‘Very interesting,’ I said. ‘An overhead for you if you’ll excuse the expression. But where’s this going?’
‘I’m not proud of this. I told Ramsay to leave me alone. He was too clinging. He took it very badly. Before he went, he took some things he shouldn’t have, including cash. He just disappeared. I tried to contact him but I think he felt so guilty about stealing from me that he went to ground.’
‘So, you don’t know where he is now?’
‘No.’
‘He was here not so long ago.’
It was getting late and even under the flattering light she was beginning to wilt and talking to the likes of me about this subject hadn’t helped. But she was game; she got up and held out her hand for my glass. ‘I think I’ll have a drink. You?’
I nodded and admired her still athletic movements — nothing surgically enhanced there. She left and came back quickly, carrying glasses that seemed to hold the same sort of booze. I took a sip; it was better Scotch than she’d given me before. This woman knew the angles.
‘He came around a couple of times. He had a nice car and clothes. I don’t know. He was a little drunk. He paid me back some of the money he’d taken. I felt guilty.’
‘He’s an adult, sort of.’
‘Yes. You’re right. Sort of. D’you know why he’s like that?’
I thought I did, based on my past experiences with Ramsay, but I wasn’t telling. ‘Not sure doesn’t mean don’t know,’ I said. ‘Where do you think he is, Prue?’
‘With some woman, and living off her no doubt, but I don’t know who.’
I had the feeling that there were things she wasn’t telling me and wouldn’t, but I didn’t know what they were or whether I wanted to know. I finished my drink and left. She didn’t see me out.
When I reached the porch I smelled cigarette smoke and there was Silver Hair, standing in the shadows.
‘Hey, Mr Hard-to-get,’ she said. ‘I think I can help you.’
‘How’s that?’
‘I hung around for a bit out here with another prospect but he didn’t work out. I was eavesdropping. I know
