Death in Brunswick Read Free Page A

fuckin’ shit, Cookie, we only serve munga here to keep the licencing boys happy—you know that.’
    Carl did know it and it made his position weaker than a cook’s usually is. Normally the management defers to the chef in some degree, cooks being notoriously temperamental and liable to storm out halfway through garnishing the Julienne of Yabby with Tamarillo Sauce.
    So Carl had to whine instead of bluster: ‘What about Mustafa? I got to have a kitchen man at least—who’s going to be the slushy?’
    â€˜Don’t worry about it, Cookie, one of the girls’ll do it—and as for that Turkish sheep-fucker Mustafa! Well, you know what he was doin’? Selling drugs!’ Yanni looked virtuously shocked.
    â€˜And yeah, I forgot,’ said Yanni with a snigger. ‘We told him you dobbed him in.’ He turned heavily towards the door and by the time Carl had worked this out the fat Hellene had gone, leaving Carl to stew with the Malaysian Beef Curry.
    *
    By seven-thirty the temperature in the kitchen was in the high thirties and Carl could hear rumbles of thunder above the exhaust fans. The first whine of electric guitars told him that it was time to set up the servery. He went out and switched on the lights. On one side was a glass-topped salad table, on the other a bain-marie. The salad table was supposed to be refrigerated but Carl had never known it to work. Dusty plastic vine leaves half hid the rusty pipes. He filled the gaps with mushy watermelon halves, scattered some roughly sliced oranges, and added bowls of potato salad and sliced ham, garnishing the whole with aged parsley. About this moribund smorgasbord hovered the tiny insects which Carl had never seen anywhere else but around rotting fruit. He stepped back and looked at it all. Jesus! But what can I do?
    It hurt him though.
    Resentfully he switched on the bain-marie and filled the trays with curry and spaghetti sauce; this was Mustafa’s job and Carl splashed his shirt doing it.
    â€˜Shit!’
    He threw the pots into the sink and grabbed a dish cloth.
    As he was rubbing the marks on his shirt, a short buxom young woman appeared through the gloom. She was carrying a large glass.
    â€˜Here you go, Cookie,’ she said, handing him the drink. ‘The boss says I’m helping you tonight.’
    â€˜Ah, Sophie—you little ripper, you! You’ve saved my life!’
    He tasted tequila and ginger ale and poured a long column of coolness straight into his stomach. In a second he felt better and realized that he had been trembling slightly for hours.
    â€˜What do I have to do, Cookie?’
    He looked at her with more attention. She wore a very short black gym slip and fishnet tights, a white shirt and a school tie.
    â€˜Jesus, Sophie, what are you got up as? You’re too big a girl to get round like that, ’specially in this joint!’
    â€˜Yeah, well, Yanni, he turns round last night and he goes: “All you barmaids’ve got to wear your old school uniforms.” It’s ’cause of the Divinyls playing tomorrow night.’
    â€˜The what? The Vinyls? What’s that? This is all getting a bit kinky.’
    â€˜No, Cookie, the Divinyls—you know, Chrissie Amphlett.’
    â€˜Oh, right,’ Carl muttered.
    He paid no attention to rock’n’roll bands these days, dividing them into the strutters and the jumpers.
    He looked at Sophie again. My God! He heard not so much the bat squeak of sexuality as a low cockatoo’s shriek. She looked so young and healthy. Maybe I …
    â€˜Listen, Sophie, just wash those couple of pots and I’ll put the rice and pasta on—back in a minute!’
    He hurried to the washroom and peered anxiously into the spotted mirror; his hair was holding up well, he thought.
    That hair gel did the trick. Pity I can’t see the back—I’ll make sure I don’t turn round. In the half light he didn’t look