Death Delights by Gabrielle Lord Read Free Book Online Page B

here, I thought, and now manages it. One look and she knew what I was. I wondered if she’d remember me from the old days, simply because I was one of the few she hadn’t serviced. She gave no hint of that, however, and took me into a room to the right of the entrance area where there was a bar and a lot of pink and gilt furniture. Bad paintings of naked women hung in ornate frames. Miss Juliana positioned herself near the bar and poured herself a lemonade. She didn’t offer anything to me. ‘Our licence is in order,’ she said, indicating the certificate on the wall behind the bar. ‘We’ve had fire doors installed. What’s the problem now?’ I looked at the frowning woman in front of me, her pencilled eyes, the red lipstick painted over the lip line on a narrow top lip, the sun-coarsened skin under too much make-up. A tiny tatt on her temple had smeared into an indecipherable bluish stain, and the smell of cigarettes staled her breath.
    ‘It’s about a missing juvenile,’ I said, finding some detachment in the jargon. ‘Jacinta McCain. We’re acting on information received that she was working here.’
    Miss Juliana swung round behind the bar and found a packet of cigarettes, pulling the cellophane off, getting one out, putting it between her lips.
    ‘Look,’ she said, ‘I’ve heard all that and it’s not on. I’ve got kids of my own. I’ve got a daughter. Just because I run an establishment doesn’t mean that I’m some sort of pervert. Hell, I told all this to the baby-faced kids who came round yesterday. I want a quiet life. I’m not interested in that sort of thing. I’ve had kids come here wanting to work and I’ve rung up Missionbeat or the Wayside Chapel for godsake.’ She swung round to face me. ‘I even talked one girl into using my phone to ring her dad and she waited here till he came and picked her up. No drugs, no under-age. House rules.’
    ‘Why do you think someone would make such an allegation?’ I asked.
    Miss Juliana started walking with me towards the door. ‘Use your head. Why wouldn’t they?’ she asked. ‘It’s a competitive business I’m in. There are illegal joints everywhere. If I wanted to put someone out of business, I’d start a rumour like that. Or say the place was used as a distribution centre for drugs. Say something like that, have the place crawling with bloody cops. Our gentlemen don’t like that sort of thing. They’d start going elsewhere.’ She paused on her way to the front door. One of their ‘gentlemen’ was going upstairs with the platinum receptionist. Miss Juliana took in the situation, flashed him a fabulous false smile, then hurried to the front door, opening it slightly, standing there till I joined her.
    ‘Can you tell me where I’ll find Marty Cash these days?’ I asked her.
    ‘Why should I?’
    ‘For old times’ sake,’ I tried. Miss Juliana peered at me. ‘I remember you. You used to work round here. And I also remember there were no old times.’
    ‘What about just for the hell of it?’
    ‘He used to have an office in Victoria Street, down near St Vincent’s,’ she said, frowning. ‘But he lost his licence. And I don’t know where he is.’ Satisfied, she opened the front door wide. ‘Now,’ she said, ‘I don’t want to see you lot again. It’s harassment. I do the right thing and it’s been nothing but trouble.’
    I stepped outside into the real world again, but the woman was still grizzling behind me. ‘I wish we could go back to the old days when we just paid the cops. Things were simpler then.’
    I walked away, and the door slammed behind me.
    •
    I drove home, all the while considering my impressions of Miss Juliana. The experts on counterfeit notes in the Fraud Squad spend a very long time going over and over the real thing, note after note, poring over each portrait and number, every little flourish and curl, every detailed area of cross-hatching, the different gradations of colour and density,