The heartlessness of these people who participated in this disposal was beyond belief. Life was cheap, whores only good for one thing and they didn’t deserve any compassion. So I decided the next time an angel fell that I would not allow her to be left nameless.
I unfortunately didn’t have to wait long before word spread that a girl had been found and removed from the club. I discreetly made a call to the ambulance. Before I knew it, the police were on the scene, so the girls immediately went into hiding, as did the punters. Ambulances and police cars blocked the road, police were interviewing everyone in sight, trying to establish the identity of the girl. By the end of the night the takings were a third of what they should have been. Everyone up and down the hierarchy was furious. But in the end no good came from it. No one knew her real name, and I’m pretty sure it wasn’t Roxy.
***
I was walking down the strip when I ran into Tracy. She was actually wearing my clothes and was with a friend who was wearing my shoes. Tracy ran up and gave me a big hug.
‘Oh Annika, it is so good to see you, I’m so sorry, but the police just walked in and told me that I had to be in court the following day, so they collected all the stuff in the wardrobe and shoved me in the car. I wasn’t allowed to call anyone because it was all so secretive.’
‘Really and did the police also take my money hidden in the Bible?’
That stumped her. She was leaving again that night and had a big bag over her shoulder.
‘Well, when do I get my stuff back?’ I said with complete command.
A crowd had gathered around us, as everyone was aware of my history with Tracy. She was now an outsider in the Cross, but this was a fact that was only now registering in her small mind. A lot of people resented her for being a narc. For that fact alone they were prepared to give her a serious pounding.
‘I’ve taken it back to our old hotel, he wouldn’t give me your new address. I wasn’t sure you would still be working here otherwise I would have bought it with me,’ she said. ‘I’m going to lose this bag then I’ll come back later and we can get something to eat, what do you say?’ She jumped in a taxi and was gone.
That was the last I ever saw of her.
I got home to the hostel and the guy at the door asked me whether I had caught up with my sister yet, she had been looking for me earlier. She had told him she was staying the night with me so he had let her into my room. I raced up the stairs two at a time. All my clothes were gone, and once again I was left with nothing. She had lied about James from the motel not giving her my address. She had lied to the manager of the hostel in order for him to let her in. I called Tony and he rang around a few places, but no one knew where she was. And they all wanted to know because she had stolen from them as well. I was devastated but used to it. I told everyone in Kings Cross that if they found her, they should bring her to me before they killed her. Not that I would have had her killed – severely hurt, yes, but not killed.
11
Guns and Threats
I met a stripper named Sonja, who seemed pretty sane. By day she worked at a bank in a shopping mall in a fairly senior position. We both admired each other for the simple reason that we didn’t shoot up. We became inseparable and she invited me to live with her in her mother’s house, which worked out well as neither of us had to pay rent.
I moved in overnight. Marc would pick me up for work then return me after work and the compulsory breakfast at Adam’s Hut. Living outside of Kings Cross and seeing normal houses with normal families, it made me question what I was doing. Men had begun offering me $600 and $700 dollars for sex, but I had become so strong, I wanted out of the sex industry for a while, so I refused every time.
I was busy working one night when one of the doormen delivered me a message: Joe wanted me at the café ASAP.
I began to sweat. He never asked for you unless there was something wrong. I walked into Adam’s Hut and noticed Joe and Frank, sitting solemnly in a booth. I was obviously meant to sit opposite them. I knew I was in trouble.
Joe started with small talk, how he was pleased my little kiosk was going well, then sprang it on me.
‘Annika, I am holding gun right between you legs under this table,’ he said in his heavy Greek accent. ‘Please give me one good reason why I shouldn’t shoot you dead.’
I sat there and the sweat was pouring out of me. ‘Give me one reason why you should have to kill me,’ I said.
‘You know the reason,’ he said. ‘You have been working illegally and I am about to lose my business over a $100,000 fine.’
‘I don’t know what you are talking about,’ I said. ‘You know me, I have always been a good girl, Joe. I have never taken drugs, I have never been late, I have never had a till that didn’t add up.’
‘A police officer saw you taking alcohol from the kebab store and selling it to the patrons,’ Joe said.
‘Yes, I do that,’ I admitted.