Page 60 of Sexy as Sin
He’d find a way. He always found a way.
First things first. Right now, Dave turned into a parking lot, pulled the car to a stop insultingly close to the entrance, and said, “This is it.”
A low, white building that surely wasn’t big enough for the purpose, shaded by palm trees. Pool-table-flat green grass around it like soccer fields, a few older people dressed in white moving around them, and not a single bit of neon. Brett asked, “Are you sure this is the bowling club?”
Dave gave him the usual stare in the rearview mirror, as if Brett were a not-very-bright goldfish dumped into the tropical fish tank, and said, “I ought to know, mate. I told you, my brother-in-law practically holds the place up by himself. Boring as fuck.”
Brett got his crutches and began the process of extricating himself from the car. “Your brother-in-law, or the club?”
“Both. You said you wanted to come, though.” He waited for Brett, then walked to the front door beside him and held it. “More fool you.”
“Mm.” Brett kept himself from laughing with an effort and followed Dave into a room halfway between a lounge and a restaurant, with a wooden bar along one end, a couple casual groups sitting at tables drinking beer, and big windows looking out at the soccer field, or whatever it was. “Wait. Where are the lanes?” Where was the noise, too?
More astonished stare. “Lanes?”
“Bowling.”
He hadn’t known Dave could laugh. Everybody in the room turned to look. “Lawn bowls, mate,” his driver told him around his grin. “It’s not bloody tenpin. Who’d have an anniversary dinner in one of those? That what they do in the States, then? Take the missus out for a romantic night of chips and beer?” He was still shaking his head. “Lanes. That’s a good one.” He was headed toward one of the groups, then, and Brett followed after and thought,Icebreaker. That’s good,in order not to feel quite so stupid.
Dave pulled out a chair at a table with three older men sitting at it, plopped himself into it, jerked a thumb at Brett, and said, “Brett Hunter. I’m driving him. Daft bastard asked to come with me today. He thought the bowling club meant tenpin, with the noise and the neon and all.”
Another excuse for some jolly laughter all around, and one of the men, a hefty guy who was balding on top, said, “Reckon you’re out of luck, mate, not that you could be doing much bowling of any sort, from the looks of you. Fortunately, we’re all just here for the drink.” He stuck a meaty hand out across the table. “Seamus O’Donnell. Married to Dave’s sister, for my sins.” He inclined his head toward the open window. “That’s the missus out there. With her cousin.” He made a face. “We’ll let them get after it. Can I shout you a beer?”
“A round for the table, maybe,” Brett suggested.
“Won’t say no,” a leaner guy, dressed in white shorts and shirt like everybody else, said, and Brett took himself over to the bar to buy it. Dave followed, still grinning, carried the bottles back to the table, and handed them around.
Brett levered himself down again and asked, “Question for you all. Does anybody actually drink Foster’s in Australia? I’m confused.”
Another round of laughter and some comparisons of beer to various bodily fluids, and Seamus said, “You’re in God’s country now. New South Wales. Tooheys it is, or James Squire if you want to be posh. Now, Aidan and Dave here hail from Victoria and will be polluting their guts with Carlton Draught if you don’t teach them better. Better than Four-X up in Brisbane, but it’s marginal.”
“Ah,” Brett said. “Regional preference. Got it.”
“Don’t you do that in the States, then?” asked Aidan, the thinner one, while the fourth man, a watchful type, listened and said nothing.
“Not so much,” Brett said. “If you’re broke, you drink what you can get. If you’re lucky, you drink something better.”
“Truth,” Seamus said. “Bit like closing time in the pub that way.” He closed one eye. “The girls all look prettier during six o’clock swill, but the fatter your wallet, the better you’ll pull.” The comedian of the group, apparently.
Dave was back to looking wooden again. “Hunter’s here to check out the scene of the crime, really,” he said. “He heard about the poisoning the other night. Knows one of the girls who was doing the serving.” A masterful piece of duplicity that Brett appreciated.
“Ah,” Seamus said. “That was a pity. I never touch mushrooms, myself. You’ll never get poisoned by a good meat pie, says I. That was why I wasn’t the one with my head down the dunny all night.”
“You were at the party, then,” Brett said.
“Of course,” Seamus said. “Both Aidan and I were, and so was the missus.Withher head in the dunny afterwards. Pity for Calvin and Myra Attenborough, having their night spoilt like that. Somebody should lose their license to serve meals, if you ask me.”
“Mm,” Brett said. “A shame, after a special family event.”
Aidan snorted faintly on his other side. “Or no?” Brett asked, and took a pull on his beer. It wasn’t bad, though a little thin for his taste. He didn’t drink during the day. Never mind. Research.
“Some of them may be,” Aidan muttered.
“Ah, mate,” Seamus said. “She can’t help herself. Fenella Attenborough,” he told Brett. “Married to Frank, Calvin and Myra’s oldest. Frank and Fenella. Sounds like a sitcom, and if it were funnier, it’d be one. Got to have her way, and to hell with anybody else. She’s run afoul of Aidan’s missus lately, and nearly every other soul in the place at one time or another. There’s always that one hen in a flock looking to outshine the rooster.”
“She’s the one who’s pregnant now?” Brett asked like a man who was interested.
“Not her,” Seamus said. “That’ll be her sister-in-law, their youngest. Cherie. Everybody’s darling. Nobody was best pleased to see her in hospital. Or Martin’s mum, either. Touch and go there for a while, I hear. Shame, really.”
