Look to His Like

Chapter Thirteen

When I opened my front door, Wolf darted out between my legs and disappeared beneath the rose bushes. Feeling guilty for neglecting him, I plopped an extra large serving of chopped steak into his bowl and used it to tempt him back inside once his toilet had been completed. A snooty expression and agitated tail twitching denoted his ill humour, however he fell on the steak and soon his snuffling purrs relayed the forgiveness message. Ah, to be so easily pleased! Wishing I were a cat with such simple needs that an empty bladder and full stomach meant happiness, I dragged myself upstairs for a shower and to get ready for my meeting with Jerry Doolan.

The flashing red light on the answering machine drew my attention. I staggered to it at once, my thoughts flying to Drake. With curious crashing disappointment, I listened first to my mother expressing a plaintive wish for me to visit them soon, and second to Lori breathlessly enquiring of the progress of my relationship with 'Prince Apollo'. My mother's message incited fresh guilt, for it had been a while since I had been to Wagga, and Lori's reassurance that she had knew plenty more "hot night spots" in the event that Filiberto had not "turned out", left me groaning. The encounter with Sawyer Staal had completely turned me off venturing again to singles bars, although it seemed I had no choice but to get used to it.

Distinctly fuzzyheaded and queasy from too little sleep and too much coffee, and not a little emotional from the events of the past twelve hours, I showered and dressed in my Calvin Klein stretch jeans, a green buttoned linen shirt from Country Road and bronze leather Emanuela Passeri sandals to cheer me up. Deciding I had achieved the appropriate outfit for weekend work, I heaved Harry's box to my hip, said goodbye to a now-satiated Wolf, and left the house to head for my car, parked some way down the street.

Rose Bay, the location of Jerry Doolan's law office, is a harbourside suburb, about fifteen minutes from Sydney's CBD on a good traffic day. It is also one of Australia's most exclusive suburbs, where real estate agents talk in telephone numbers for homes with peerless views north over the harbour to Bradley's Head and Taronga Park Zoo. Upmarket shops, boutiques, bars and restaurants for the "beautiful people" who strut their stuff in this sophisticated, inner-city village, distinguish its main street. Walk down any street in Rose Bay, any day of the week, and you're guaranteed a brush with someone rich and famous. Figuring I needed some eye-candy as compensation for my torrid weekend so far, I dwelt rather too long on examining the footpaths for a sign of Orlando Bloom - well, it's good to have lofty ambitions, isn't it? - with the result that I nearly missed the turnoff to Doolan's business address.

Given the locale, I had speculated Doolan owned a thriving sole practice, possibly in some lush suite overlooking the marina. The reality was starkly different.

The address on his business letterhead had led me to an old yet elegant block of units on the fringes of the Royal Sydney Golf Club. The number of his 'office suite' was a ground floor unit. I buzzed to be allowed into the building and when I knocked on the unit's unmarked door, an angular, middle-aged woman with ragged short grey hair and unsmiling eyes behind thick-rimmed glasses opened it. Those eyes went briefly to the lump on my head, but she showed no change in expression.

"Come in," she said crisply before I could say anything and stepped aside to allow me to cross the threshold. "Jerry's waiting for you in his office."

As I entered a small lounge room, furnished with sombre and heavy antique furniture, the air redolent with the rich aroma of beef hot pot, I concluded Jerry worked from home, and that this woman was either his wife or other relative. Dressed in a pleated skirt of dark green tartan, white short-sleeved shirt, brown knit vest and sturdy brown brogues, the woman bore a forbidding, no-nonsense air. She led me down a long, dim hall to a closed door, which received a brief sharp rap with her knuckles before she pushed it open.

"Jo Butler here to see you," she announced, waving me inside.

Jerry Doolan's cluttered desk lay side-on to French patio doors, overlooking a postcard-sized stretch of lawn surrounded by low, overgrown shrubs. At first, I didn't see anything of him but white, gnarled bare feet resting on the desk, for the high back of his black leather recliner hid most of him from our view; however, when I entered, the feet were withdrawn hurriedly from the desk and he swung around in his chair.

As he struggled to stand up, the woman's thin lips pressed into a severe line and she cast me an embarrassed look.

"Really, Jerry, keep your feet off your desk! And have you been drinking again?"

If she was worried about my reaction, she needn't have been - slovenly habits and drinking are not uncommon in the legal profession in my experience. So I smiled at her politely and turned my curious regard to the man who had had the first professional study of Harry Jarup's native title claim.

He was a short, bald man with a wobbly beer belly beneath a gaping pale blue shirt and sagging over faded jeans. He set down a bottle of Crown lager on the desk and looked abashed. "Sorry, my dear," he murmured. Blood shot eyes in a slack jowled, creased face flickered to me, also lingering in vague curiosity on my head injury. Keeping my gaze determinedly from the lint filled belly button exposed between two straining shirt buttons, I stepped forward, holding out my hand.

I stopped short, my arm falling back to my side. Doolan's solid right hand and arm held a small brown creature with huge brown eyes in a piquant face beneath large pointed ears. The beast - I belatedly recognised it as a Chihuahua - stared at me with obvious malice, its tiny sharp teeth barred in a lip-curling growl. If that wasn't disconcerting enough, it was dressed in a frilly pink tutu and pink jewelled collar.

Now, I have to say, just because I like cats, doesn’t mean that I can't summon similar affection for dogs. However, I have always regarded Chihuahuas with bemusement if they catch me on a good day, deep suspicion at all other times - being a country girl, I'm accustomed to butch, useful dogs. Chihuahuas butch? Puh-leeze! Useful? Well, maybe if your aim is to reduce an intruder to hysterical giggles as he stole your best silver, while your Chihuahua yapped at his ankles.

This mutant rodent in Doolan's arms had not caught me on a good day. If I'd had claws, they would have sprung out immediately. As it continued to growl at me like rolling thunder, Doolan crooned "Shush, Suzette," and shifted it to his other arm and holding out his right hand. "Nice to meet you, Jo. Looks like you've been in the wars."

As we exchanged greetings, I murmured something vague about how I'd incurred the lump on my head. Suzette struggled in Doolan's hold and snapped perilously close to my forearm. Suppressing a cat-like hiss, I slunk, bristling, to a seat on the opposite side of the desk.

"Suzette! Who's being a naughty girl then?" said Doolan mildly, and nauseatingly dealt the dog a smooch. I glanced at the stern woman, noticing the line of her mouth growing thinner as she watched the display of affection. Perhaps feeling my regard, she looked at me, and a sense of solidarity flashed between us. We exchanged small, wry smiles.

"I'm Doreen, by the way," she said in a friendly enough fashion, adding, "Jerry's wife. Can I get you a coffee or tea?"

Feeling coffee-logged, I declined and asked for a glass of water instead. Doreen nodded and without another glance at her husband, spun heel and left the room.

As soon as the door closed behind her, Doolan cleared his throat with a repellently phlegmy "Hwooaaark" as he returned to his seat. Suzette took it as a cue to imitate him, opening her little mouth wide so I could see right down her throat, contracting her body and expelling an almost identical noise. Doolan did not appear to register the discordant duet, an indication it had been performed unconsciously and that I could be in for more of the same. My sympathy for Doreen Doolan heightening, I steeled myself to ignore further renditions and extracted a legal pad from my case.

"So," said Doolan, arranging Suzette on his lap and stroking her glossy, brown hair, "You're taking on the Jabujawarra case?" Despite being under the influence of drink, his eyes were now sharp and shrewd as they rested on me. My confidence in the worth of this meeting surged to the fore.

"Yes - well, I hope to. I need to persuade the partners of my firm to take it on, of course."

"What firm?"

"Gilden Hawke," I replied. "I hope to show them that ---."

"You're friggin kidding me, right?" burst out Jerry. Suzette began to growl at me again. I shifted uncomfortably. "Shit, that firm's more likely to want to take on the developer as their client! You're dreaming, Angel Face!"

My teeth snapped together in annoyance. "My name's Jo," I grated out. "And I'm not dreaming. I'm confident of being able to take on the case, not the least because I believe I will be made a partner soon."

"Really?" He relented and looked impressed at that, not noticing that I had probably blushed from uttering a half-lie. "Well, that's different. As a partner, you can bring on whoever you like, I guess."

"Exactly," I mumbled, realising I now had an excellent reason to do whatever I could to earn that promotion. "Now, what I wanted to get from you is any ideas you may have had concerning how best to run the case. Obviously what needs to be done first is a filing of an ---."

"Injunction against the developers," finished Doolan, nodding. Excitement of the challenge suddenly crackled between us and we smiled at each other with the meeting of our minds. He leaned forward to pull a legal pad towards him and picked up a pen. Squashed by his belly, Suzette gave a yelp, wriggled free and scampered to a cushioned basket beside the French doors; there she turned several circles before throwing herself down with a grunt. Out of the corner of my eye, I perceived her pinning me with her malevolent stare. Absently, Doolan opened a drawer beside him, rummaged inside and tossed a white candy in her direction; the horrid little Mexican jumping bean interspersed it mid-arc with a flying leap, before returning to her basket and crunching the candy loudly, the sweet scent of peppermint wafting into the air. It seemed I had witnessed yet another routine, unconscious act.

"This is what I thought," began Doolan.

-------

Doreen brought my water, and later, plates of steaming beef hot pot and rice for both of us. By the time Doolan and I had exhausted what we needed to discuss, I had filled three quarters of a legal pad with notes, and lights had been turned on to combat the night. In her cushioned basket, Suzette rested with her chin on her front paws, still staring at me, her sleek body vibrating with growls audible only to me.

Despite frequent throat clearing, peppermint tossing and the growling, I had somehow managed to remain preoccupied with the discussion, and had even experienced a reluctant admiration for Doolan's sharp brain and his appreciation of the ethics of pursuing this case. Recognising that the habit was not borne of sexism, I could even disregard his various nicknames for me. Looking at him with new eyes, I leaned back in my chair.

"Jerry, thanks so much for his," I said fervently. "You've been a great help."

He pushed his chair back and in a fluid movement that denoted he was accustomed to the action, reached behind him, opened a bar fridge and extracted a bottle of Crown. "No worries. I'm glad to help Harry, to be honest - oh, and you of course. Want a drink?"

I half-stood to examine the contents of the fridge and indicated a bottle of green apple Smirnoff Twisted. Doolan snapped the tops off both bottles and pushed mine towards me.

"You're a friend of Harry's?" Doolan asked, avidly curious, before raising his bottle to me in salute and taking a gulp of beer.

"No, not really," I said. "I just met him recently. He asked me to look at the case in payment for his matchmaking services." I saw no reason to hedge on my association with Harry - after all, Doolan had indicated Harry had helped him out of a fix as well, and I presumed his "fix" had been similar to mine.

"You a dyke?" asked Doolan, without a trace of judgment, leaning back in his chair and resting his feet on the desk again.

"No," I said, suppressing a sigh and trying not to look at the crusty state of his soles. "I just have certain requirements in a husband and marriage. I need a business arrangement, to put it in a nutshell. Some friends of mine recommended Harry. And he has been helpful," I insisted. After all, it wasn't Harry's fault that Apollo Filiberto hadn't worked out.

Doolan said nothing, only watched me in heightened curiosity as I took a slug of the Smirnoff. I'm not a huge drinker - not least because it doesn't take much imbibing for alcohol to have an effect on me - however, I figured my jangled nerves required some anaesthetising after my week of tension, and I admit I fell on my drink as if I was parched and it was water. Sure enough, after a mere half a bottle, I was feeling sufficiently relaxed to lift my own feet onto the desk, and to regard Doolan benignly enough to satisfy his curiosity.

"In another nutshell," I said after regaling him with the whole sorry story as to why I needed to toe the Gilden Hawke line and get married - and feeling like I was presenting a dodgy legal argument to a sceptical judge - "I'm involved with someone else - a childhood friend, as it turns out - who will not be in a position to marry me for another five years. So my 'business arrangement' has to be temporary, and without sex."

Doolan raised an eyebrow at that. "That's a tough one - why no sex?"

I sighed, finishing my drink in a hefty swallow. "In addition to the fidelity issue," I began self-righteously, "there is the fact that I have an unfortunate tendency to become fond of men I have sex with. And the better the sex, the greater the likelihood of my emotional involvement. And so, given that the marriage has to be temporary --."

"I see," interrupted Doolan with a dismissing wave of his hand. "You don’t want such unpleasantness as fondness or, dare I say, love, complicating the conclusion of the arrangement."

Fuzzily, I wondered if there had been sarcasm in his statement, but I was not quite up to re-analysing his words so dismissed the notion. "Egads!" I shuddered. "No, most definitely not l-l-love!"

Doolan twinkled a bit at that, although I had been serious. "Seems like you have it all worked out," he said, and frowned. "So, you're saying you don't think you'll get this partnership after all, unless you show you're a respectable heterosexual?" Evidently he was wondering if he had just wasted six hours talking with me about Harry's case, when there was a chance I would not be able to take it on.

Determination sobered me and had me clenching my hand around my bottle. "I will get it," I said. "Because I do intend to find my trophy husband - and soon!"

"Hmm." Doolan brushed off the last of his beer and again engaged in the automatic movement to extract two other bottles from the fridge. "Why do I get the impression that you're not happy with the idea of this marriage, then?" he asked, snapping the tops off and pushing another Smirnoff in my direction.

I took several long swallows of my drink before answering. "You know," I mused, "I think I would be if it wasn't for --." I stopped. For some reason, I didn't want to mention Drake - not to this man who seemed, despite his inebriation, to see far too much.

Typically, Doolan didn't miss a thing, as his brain ticked along like a Swiss watch. "Aha!" he said in glee. "You've met someone."

I sighed. "Yes - but he's completely unsuitable!"

"Why?"

My tongue not doing quite what I wanted it to do, I said, "He's a penniless obscure stage actor, who admits he's not husband material - but who just so happens to be mega-shaggable."

"Aha!" said Doolan again. We drank in companionable silence for several minutes, contemplating the dilemma. "That is a problem," Doolan admitted at last. "Even if Mega-Shaggable was to agree to your business arrangement marriage, you'd probably be going at it like rabbits in no time - messy, messy!"

I peered at him suspiciously, but decided I had been mistaken in thinking he was humouring me. I was about to agree with him, when he expelled an annoyed sigh, laid down his beer bottle with a bang that made me jump, and pinned me with a cross glare.

"I can spot bull shit a mile off," he said. "Listen here, you may be able to fool your friends, you may even be able to fool Harry Jarup, and it looks like you're doing a darned good job of fooling yourself - but you can't fool me! Now, why don't you just admit the real reason why you want to get married, Glamour Girl? And the real reason why you don't want love in this marriage?"