Kick Back

Seventeen

Of the four thousand prostitutes in Melbourne, nine hundred work in legal brothels. Escort agencies, street trade, and a thriving cottage industry account for the remainder.

Two were run by Ken Sala. Cher and Simone operated out of a two-bedroom townhouse in the Caribbean Apartments, a converted bluestone factory in Fitzroy, turning tricks for clients in hotel rooms or in the townhouse itself. On a good weekend they could each pull in fifteen hundred dollars, and another fifteen hundred during the week. Ken, who lived in one of the adjacent apartments, gave back only a third, but he paid all their bills and didn’t steer any creeps their way, so they weren’t complaining. Anyway, as he was always reminding them, he was just a cog. He pocketed a thousand bucks in commission and the remainder went to some syndicate in Sydney.

It was three in the afternoon and Ken was starting a new day. First he did the paperwork for the weekend’s takings. The deal was, he collected from Cher and Simone on Monday, did all the paperwork on Tuesday, and waited till the bagman came around in the evening to collect.

Five thousand, six hundred bucks. About average. There was a travel agents’ convention starting Friday, so things would pick up a bit then. He stuffed the money into a cash box, locked it and shut it in the bottom drawer of his desk.

Every afternoon at this time he liked to wander down Lygon Street. He’d tried Brunswick Street but the style there was more your ponytails, ‘fifties gear and anaemic punk birds dressed in black. Lygon Street was more his scene. He went into his bedroom and put on the baggy electric-shimmer trousers with the pleated front, a black silk shirt, a drape jacket with broad shoulders and discreet checks, and low profile Italian slip-ons so slight they felt like slippers. He finished by gelling his hair. He looked at his face. Not one you’d mess with.

Three-twenty-five. Time to cruise. ‘Hey, Ken,’ the guys would say on Lygon Street. ‘How’s tricks?’ He hadn’t seen the joke at first, but now he did, and knew it meant that he was accepted.

His buzzer rang. He put his eye to the spyhole. No-one there. The courtyard was empty.

‘Who is it?’ he said.

No answer.

It was the kind of thing kids were always doing. This one kid would come around delivering the Herald-Sun and ring on every bell whether the person took that paper or not. Ken opened the door. He’d soon sort the little bastard out.

It was the kind of thing that happens in a bad dream, the two men wearing balaclavas coming through the door at him. Something-the door?-split his lip open. The men punched him, pushed him against the wall, kicked the door shut. It was over in about five seconds.

Less than a minute later they had him in an armchair and one, a fat one smelling of mints, was waving a gun in his face, going, ‘Kenny, we want the cash.’

The other one, a slender, fluid, hard-edged looking guy, did a quick check of the other rooms and came back and leaned in the doorway. There was an air of stillness about him.

‘What cash?’ Ken said.

The hard-looking one stirred. He said, ‘He’s wasting our time. Take the place apart,’ and started to rip prints off the walls and tear the covers off the Penthouse magazine and the Stephen King paperback on the coffee table.

The fat one pulled out a knife and slit the grey and pink leather sofa, three thousand bucks in Scandinavia World.

‘What the fuck are you doing?’ Ken said. His voice squeaked a little. He tried again. ‘Who are you? What do you want?’

The hard one said, ‘The cash. The week’s takings.’

‘You don’t know what you’re letting yourself in for,’ Ken said. ‘I’m connected. There are going to be some pissed-off people as a result of this.’

‘So you admit to the cash?’ the fat one said.

‘There’ll be fucking trouble. Plus which’-and Ken’s treacherous voice rose again-’how the fuck am I going to pay them back?’

The hard one looked at him. ‘Just get the money.’

On the way out the fat one grinned and the hard one said, ‘Like the threads, Ken.’

It was three-thirty. They had been in and out in less than five minutes.