Free Baby Did a Bad Bad Thing by Gabrielle Lord

pressure on me to sell. So’s Kosta. He wants the money. But I don’t want to sell. That house is my life. God knows I’ve worked my arse off for it.’ She became aware of Gemma’s face. ‘I know you don’t have a very high opinion of Kosta. But lately he’s been really sweet to me.’
    ‘Because he wants something,’ Gemma warned.
    Shelly ignored this. ‘The ex-client won’t say who the buyer is,’ she said, ‘but I know George Fayed has already bought up some of the houses in Kellett Street and Bourke Street.’
    ‘Fayed?’ Gemma was all ears.
    ‘You’d never know it. It’s all done with front men. The word is that he’s buying the brothels, stocking them with his own addicted girls and then just chucking them out without any pay when they’re too sick to work.’ She sighed. ‘One girl objected and ended up dead from an overdose. Then a girl gets bashed and that card is found beside her. Makes me think.’ She looked out over the balcony in the direction of the Cross. ‘Once this place had some sort of class. People would come here for a bit of Paris.’
    Gemma remembered the elegant clothing shops and shoe shops that had once enticed shoppers from the suburbs, now long gone.
    ‘They’d come to the Cross for a bit of glamour and wickedness,’ Shelly continued. ‘Now it’s just addicts and dealers and dirty little hangers-on.’
    These days, the main drag was filled with fast-food outlets, garish tourist junk shops selling plastic koala key rings, and strip joints with overweight spruikers bothering pedestrians. The back lanes were filled with rubbish, needles log-jammed the drains and barely conscious teenagers staggered against walls trying to sell themselves. And the only people from the suburbs here were the folk who’d come to gawk at or buy the services offered. Or their children, on the run from difficult parents.
    Her thoughts were interrupted by Shelly.
    ‘Naomi does her School Certificate this year.’ She plonked herself down on one of the chairs. ‘She wants to go to university. That’s when I’ll sell my house, so my daughter can go to university. I’ll get a nice little unit near the city. But not a moment before I’m ready, and certainly not to the likes of George Fayed.’ She paused a moment, reflecting. ‘That poor little kid lying in there is only a few years older than Naomi. What sort of life has she had? What sort of future?’
    ‘How well do you know her?’ Gemma asked.
    Shelly shrugged. ‘I’ve sort of kept an eye on Rob for a couple of years. She’s a good kid. She worked at Classique until she got busted for drugs. Once a girl’s using, no one wants them in a house.’ She blew out a jetstream of smoke. ‘She was stoned when she got in the car with him. Staying alive on the streets depends on a girl’s instincts. Once they start doing drugs, they’ve lost their best defence.’
    ‘I’ll want to talk to the other girls he attacked,’ Gemma said.
    ‘If you can find them,’ said Shelly. ‘I’ve heard they left town.’
    ‘Robyn’s very slight,’ said Gemma. ‘What did the other ones look like?’
    ‘You’re asking me if he goes after a type?’
    Gemma nodded. ‘Because if I’m going to be attractive to him, I need to look like his style.’
    ‘I can tell you now what his type is. He’d probably go for me if I was still on the street. I lost five kilos with Hep B at the beginning of the year. He likes that wasted Ally McBeal look.’
    He would, thought Gemma grimly. What sort of fight could an Ally McBeal put up against even a man of even average strength? Gemma looked down at herself with a critical eye.
    ‘I can lend you a dark wig and a hairpiece,’ Shelly said. ‘And if you wear black, and dark stockings and heels you’ll look a lot thinner.’
    Gemma made a face.
    ‘I’m not saying you’re fat,’ said Shelly with her rare smile. ‘It’s just that you haven’t really got that frail look. But if you want to give it a go