Cross Off Read Online Free PDF

prostitution. He worked as a standover man and debt collector and served brief terms of imprisonment for possession of marijuana and receiving stolen goods. A big win on a fixed horse race gave him a sizeable stake which he doubled by investing in a major cocaine buy. He bought an interest in several sex shops, a pornographic video distribution network and the Bayswater Road strip club. In the big-spending 'eighties he became the sole owner of the club which he redecorated and named 'Renata's' as a slap in the eye to his respectable parents who had long since virtually disowned him.
    In 1985 he met Ava Reed, who was working as a call girl.
    'Call woman, actually,' she had said to Vance. 'I'm thirty-five.'
    Vance was already unbuckling his belt. Big, blonde women were his meat. 'So am I.'
    Ava was lying. Vance was telling the truth. It didn't matter. Their wants and needs corresponded exactly. They were married a month later. Thinkingback, Vance could never pinpoint when things had gone wrong or why. Ava had got a bit fat, but then, so had he. She drank too much and was a slob around the flat, but he was the same. Perhaps it was when he found out that she was two years older than him and, as a result of multiple abortions, could not have children. He'd been disappointed, but the subject of children hadn't ever loomed large until he met Shelley.
    Vance was thinking about Shelley when he phoned Grant Reuben, responding to a request to call, two days after the solicitor's visit. As a remand prisoner, he had unlimited telephone access to his lawyer.
    'Vance? I need a bit more information.'
    Belfante had rationed the Camels. He lit the last one. 'Yeah, what about?'
    'The person we were discussing. Understand?'
    'Yeah.'
    'Birthplace.'
    'Queensland.'
    'Where in Queensland?'
    'Right up the fuckin' top. What's it called . . . Capetown?'
    'Cooktown?'
    'That's it. Why?'
    'Did the person ever express a wish to go anywhere particularly?'
    'I don't get you.'
    'Come on, Vance. Hassle you to take a trip, a holiday. "Take me to Bali, take me to Byron Bay." That sort of thing.'
    Belfante drew deeply on the cigarette and filled his lungs with smoke. He coughed and almostchoked as he fought for breath. Jesus, he thought, these have got stronger or my lungs are packing up.
    'Vance? Vance? You all right?'
    'Yeah,' Belfante said. 'A resort up that way. Port Douglas.'
    It wasn't the way Dennis Tate liked to do business—approaching principals, putting pressure on them, even. But he had no choice. This Federal witness protection outfit was obviously good. They'd wrapped Ava Belfante up tight and squirrelled her away somewhere very safe. He'd done a careful recce of the likely places—around Renata's in the Cross, the Bellevue Hill flat where the Belfantes lived and the clubs and pubs they frequented. He clocked up a lot of kilometres on his Subaru sportswagon. Nothing. She was gone. A contact at a radio taxi base gave no joy and the money he outlaid at Ava's hairdresser and florist yielded no return. Then he got a whisper of a possible sighting in Balmain. Nothing definite, different hair colour, but maybe.
    'Where?'
    The voice on the phone was hesitant, trying to please but unsure. 'Jeez, I dunno. Comin' out of a travel place.'
    'Which one?'
    'Dunno. Darling Street.'
    Tate controlled his anger. 'Not blonde?'
    'Nah. Reddish. Looked like Ava, but I'm not real sure.'
    'Thanks. I'll see you right.'
    It was enough. It hadn't been hard to work outwho his client was, given the circumstances, and the style of the commission had pointed straight to the lawyer—Reuben. The telephone interview had been uncomfortable on both sides, but necessary. Reuben's information from Belfante put Tate well on the track. A little doctoring of the photograph he had of Ava, use of a phoney police ID card and a lot of shoe leather had confirmed that a tall, good-looking redheaded woman had selected brochures for the Oasis Resort at Port Douglas and seemed confident that