"From left," Kit pointed, "Rabbit MacArthur, Booty Jones, Don't Know, and Sal...um."
"Armstrong," Angie finished. "Don't-Know with the walkman is Carrie... Someone."
"Rabbit, Booty, Don't Know, Someone," Marek repeated. "Don't they have real names?"
"Those names are as real as mate, Mate," Kit smiled.
"Or Doggie and Biffer or whatever you called those cops," Angie noted.
Kit widened her eyes. "So Marek, why don't you take Angie over there so she can help you interrogate the witnesses. That way we can all find out who Carrie Thing is."
"Good plan," Marek agreed, taking the hint that it might also distract Angie.
"Scooter Farrell was here when we found the body," Angie volunteered, as she lifted a section of the counter top so she could get out from behind the bar. "But she had to go to work because she was relieving someone. Besides which, she had a cracker of a hangover and the thought of him," Angie cast a thumb towards the dance room, "was vomit-inducing."
Marek, muttering something silly about a compromised crime scene, escorted Angie over to the booth, whereon Rabbit MacArthur leapt up and thrust her hand out to shake his with all the enthusiasm of someone who always wanted to be a real detective but had never bothered to join the police force in order to make the dream even a vague possibility.
Kit returned her semi-detached attention to Dr Ruth Hudson and the two forensic staff who had joined her in the soundproofed - when the doors weren't folded open - Red Room. She wondered whether the guy had been killed in there overnight, or had just been left for effect.
Some bloody effect, she thought.
She rubbed her eyes and squeezed the bridge of her nose then tried to view her favourite haunt from a cop/crime-scene perspective. The huge three-sided (one short, two long) bar, at which she was sitting about thirty feet from the front door, divided the Terpsichore in half. The west side of the building, which looked out on St Georges Road - or would if it had windows - featured The Red at the rear, and ten booths lining the front half of the space.
Kit turned around to face east, where there were more booths and six pool tables in the area adjacent to the long side of the bar, which also had a small bistro-servery. Chairs and tables, and a grand piano occupied the front, or southern end of the building.
There were three ways in and out of Angie's: the front door, through the entrance foyer, off which were the toilets; an emergency exit at the rear of The Red; and the kitchen door beyond the servery. The Red and kitchen doors led into a side alley.
Well, that was singularly unhelpful, Kit thought, turning back to face The Red. Realising she was too disturbed by the imminent arrival of Parker to give a rat's arse about how the killer got into the premises, she debated whether to run and hide, but realised how unfair that would be on Angie. Leaving her to deal with Chucky alone would be grounds for dismissal from the friendship ring.
Bah! Who needs friends? Kit asked herself. Bugger Angie! I do not want to go to jail for involuntary prickicide.
Kit screwed her face into a serious pout. Bloody hell! It was bad enough that in the nearly four years of the Terpsichore's existence as a women's bar there'd never been any need to have cops on the premises - unless they were off-duty and women - but this particular need was beyond ridiculous.
The Terpsichore, commonly known as Angie's, was a nightclub, bar and poolroom with none of the attendant problems. Until now. Until the first time an uninvited bloke gets in.
Okay, Kit allowed, given his current condition the guy may not have wanted to get into Angie's but... Shit! Of all the cops in the state to get the right to traipse his little feet through her home away from home, it was going to be the traitorous Graham Parker.
Kit raked her hands vigorously through her short hair in a fit of frustration until she caught sight of the result, in the evil mirror behind the bar, and tried to pat it back into its usual dishevelled do. She closed her eyes, took a deep meditative breath, remembered she didn't have a clue how to meditate and then jumped in fright as a hand gripped the back of her neck to render her incapable of movement.
"Do I need to gag and handcuff you?" Marek asked.
"No. Why?"
"Your favourite Martian is here."
"Don't insult the non-terrestrials," Kit stated, swivelling on her stool in time to see Senior Sergeant Graham Parker slithering through the front door like the snake he was.
Kit couldn't help the snorting laugh that escaped her control while her senses rippled with a minor revelation. Having been, only mildly, concerned she'd be unable to resist the urge to ram the open Tabasco bottle somewhere in Parker where the sun didn't shine, she'd forgotten to remember just how distorted the nasty things in one's memory can get over time.
For here came the walking, breathing, insignificant proof: Graham Chucky Parker was so much less than she remembered. He was shorter, weedier, paler and balder. He still dressed very well and it still didn't give him any style; and he still walked as if he had a prickly golf ball up his bum.
Parker gave Marek a curious nod, glanced at Kit without recognition and continued on into The Red where he consulted Martin and his other detective, and was glared at by Ruth Hudson who waved him away from her space.
"Can I go now please Jonno?' Kit begged. "I'd really hate to go to prison for squishing that slimy little slugger-bug. If there was more to him it wouldn't be such a waste of my future."
Marek looked at Kit quizzically. "He didn't seem to know who you were."
"Ah well, the last time we saw each other I was in the middle of my bad hair year."
"What do you call this then?" Marek smiled, drawing a halo over Kit's head.
"Au natural. Remember that long-haired perm that looked like a crinkle-cut skull-cap when I wore it in a bun for work, and which went spackarse when it was loose. It's not surprising Chucky didn't recognise me as the snarling Medusa who threw hot coffee in his lap during our last encounter." Kit widened her eyes, "Speaking of snake heads."
"What are you doing here, Jon?" Parker asked. "Not checking up on me I hope, Boss."
"No," the boss stated, turning on his heel to face his colleague. Kit received Marek's follow-up you idiot by telepathy. "I'm having coffee with an old friend. You remember Kit O'Malley, I'm sure."
"Jesus! Um, yeah. You look - different, O'Malley. How come..." Parker ran out of words or wind or petrol, so he waved his hands around before anchoring them on his hips.
"Do you want me to brief you now," Marek asked pleasantly, "or are you going to tell me why it took you so long to get here?"
A surprised Parker hoicked his eyebrows at Kit while giving Marek a look that said either: 'steady-on Boss, not in front of the public - especially that member of it'; or 'I'll get back to you when I've thought of a good reason'.
Meanwhile Kit's insides smiled broadly as she counted three things she'd always liked about Jon Marek: he did not suffer fools, he made no allowances for dickheads and, while he did believe there was an appropriate time and place for most things, there were some occasions when he just didn't give a shit.
"You can fill me in, if you wouldn't mind," Parker said.
"The bar..." Marek began.
"A lesbian establishment I believe," Parker verified.
"Yeah, not that that's relevant right now. The bar is owned by Angie Nichols, who is sitting on the left with those women over there..."
Parker squinted. "Are they all women?"
Kit started squirming on her stool, so Marek squeezed the back of her neck where his hand still rested. "How about you take over, O'Malley," he said. "What time did Angie open up?"
"Twelve-thirty," Kit said,