They sat staring at each other for a long time. He was the only one who could hold her baleful stare for any length of time. It was an unacknowledged game they played, to see who blinked first. A waitress came with her breakfast and to take his order so they could both withdraw from the field with honour.
‘What do you want?’ she said as she cut into her eggs benedict.
‘I want you back on the wagon,’ he said. If the loaded fork hesitated on the way to her mouth it was virtually undetectable. ‘I have a job and you’ll need your wits about you.’
‘I’m not interested in the scraps from your table.’
‘I wouldn’t offer them. This is one I can’t do. I’m too well known by the subject.’
‘Who?’
‘Sharon Kitchen.’
‘Ben Bovell’s squeeze?’
‘She know you?’
‘Nup. Lately, she’s been on the box a bit.’
He nodded, satisfied.
‘You’re the mysterious “friend who didn’t want to be named who helped police with negotiations”?’ She semaphored quotation marks with her knife and fork.
He nodded again.
‘What do you think she’s done?’
‘I hope she’s as clean as a fresh coat of Teflon.’
She chewed some more egg. ‘Should I use harsh abrasives?’
‘As much as needed to test the warranty.’
‘You’re almost sexy when you talk like that,’ said Maeve.
‘I know what women want,’ he said with all the sincerity of a chocolate-coated Ryvita.
11
The Rose Garden was a brothel.
And Rose Garden – christened Rose Garden Smith, truncated for professional reasons – was a madam.
Rose was the madam of The Rose Garden and co-owner of The Rose Garden and its sister establishment The Crimson Grotto. Rose had been a whore for more than two quarters of her life and a madam for about its last quarter. She and her silent partner owned fifty percent each of Rose Bed Enterprises, which consisted of the two brothels, a thriving escort service facilitated through the front desk of The Rose Garden, miscellaneous real estate and a share portfolio. The girls called him Big Boss and her Little Boss. It was a reference to size not power, but it was a sobriquet never uttered within Rose’s hearing.
When Rose first became a madam and a partner in The Rose Garden her share was a mere twenty percent. Her first partner in business, who’d retained the lion’s share, had needed her for a front otherwise her portion would have been much smaller. Her first partner was a man she feared.
Her present partner was a man she loved. This was recognised – and discreetly acknowledged – by all those who worked at The Rose Garden, save Rose herself and the object of her sublimated affection. Perhaps Rose resisted conscious recognition of her feelings because she was old enough to be her partner’s mother.
It was her present partner who was the subject of her present conversation.
Rose was in her office at The Rose Garden talking to Charlotte O’Brien. Charlotte was one of the brothel’s receptionists. She had worked here for – what? Rose tried to remember – it must be at least two years. Rose had thought Charlotte wouldn’t last two days when she hired her. She’d been very young, naive and wide-eyed then. She was still young and naive, but not so wide-eyed.
Charlotte had a crush on her employer. Not Rose, her partner. She’d held this crush from the moment she laid eyes on him two years before. Unfortunately, if he was too young for Rose, he was too old for Charlotte, and in more than just years. Although it was clear to everyone else at The Rose Garden that any feelings he returned were paternal in nature, Charlotte remained steadfast and maintained her romantic affection.
And that was the issue at the heart of the present exchange.
Charlotte sniffed loudly and Rose stripped another two or three tissues from the box and handed them to her. She received a soggy wad of paper pulp in exchange.
‘Thank you, Charlotte,’ Rose said dryly.
‘ ’S okay, Rose,’ Charlotte said damply.
Rose sat and waited until Charlotte got her moisture under control. She was uncomfortable with this motherly role. Her style was more Dean of Women or dominatrix.
Charlotte breathed a deep sob. ‘I thought he was such a kind man,’ she said sorrowfully.
‘Kind? No he’s not a kind man, Charlotte, never that,’ said Rose. Charlotte looked at her with mild surprise. She’d expected Rose to defend him. She wanted Rose to defend him. ‘The other side of the “kind” coin is “cruel”,’ Rose continued gently – for Rose. ‘He’s not cruel.’ Charlotte’s wet gaze held on Rose and her head moved in agreement. ‘He’s a ruthless man, Charlotte. The other side of that coin is compassion. That’s a currency I prefer to carry in my purse.’
‘It wasn’t what he did,’ snuffled Charlotte. ‘It was what he said. When he did it.’
‘What was that?’
‘Wax on, wax off. When he hit them. That’s what scared me. It was the way he said it – like a joke.’
‘Wax on, wax off?’ Rose was puzzled.
‘It’s from an old movie,’ Charlotte said blowing her nose. ‘The Karate Kid. I’ve seen it on television.’
Rose was still puzzled. She didn’t understand the reference. She didn’t watch much television. ‘You’d better tell me the whole story, right from the beginning,’ she said.
‘What, The Karate Kid?’
‘Charlotte,’ Rose groaned.
‘Sorry,’ Charlotte sniffed.
They had come into The Rose Garden somewhere around eleven the previous evening. There were two of them. They were very young. It was difficult to judge their ages. They were very big boys. Charlotte placed them in their late teens, early twenties at the most. Their clothes were sloppily casual with expensive brands. They swaggered and spoke loudly with the braggadocio of the novice or what the girls called ‘the tourist’. The curious kid or Rotarian, wound up by their mates, come to ogle, look but not touch, to exit sniggering, feeling sophisticated and superior. Saturday night fever.
Charlotte was on the phone arranging an escort date for an interstate politician. She smiled her most winning professional smile – in Charlotte’s case, indistinguishable from her real one – pushed a copy of the house ‘menu’ across the desk towards them and raised one finger to indicate she would be with them in a minute. They took the menu and walked away from the desk perusing it with sotto voce whoops and guffaws and making dirty little schoolboy sounds. They quickly became bored with that and one wandered towards a door from which trickled the sound of a piano; the other turned and stared intently at Charlotte. Something about his expression made her feel uneasy, exposed. She turned her back on his gaze as she finalised the details with the pollie’s minder. When she looked back the reception area was empty.
Rose liked to call the room where the workers and their clients made first contact ‘the parlour’. It was a large dark wood and leather room of soft colours, soft furnishings, low tables and low lighting. There was a bar at one end where the girls could