Living With Liz

Liz Street rammed a bent Marlboro in between her cracked lips. "You know what your problem is, doncha luv?" she asked, squinting around to find her lighter.

Shandalier retrieved Liz's Bic lighter from on top of the Flemington Trots racing form and handed it to Liz. She looked around the cramped bedsit of Melbourne's former leading drag diva, located in not-so-leading Hopper's Crossing. Liz had had to move there after she'd defaulted on the mortgage of her Shepparton pig farm. Another slide downwards. Shandalier sighed. "Why don't you tell me what my problem is, Liz."

Liz lit up and sucked at her ciggie so hard that nearly half of it had been reduced to ash by the time she'd copped a lungful. "Your problem is that you're too fucken noice."

"How do you figure that, Liz?"

Liz sucked up the other half of her Marlboro and flicked the stub over towards the sink that smelled of last week's fried eggs and bacon from the Not Quite Right Shop. The stub didn't quite make it that far and landed instead on a puddle of something purpley-green that Shandalier hadn't found the courage to approach, let alone clean up. "You gotta be tough," Liz insisted. She balled her bony left hand into something vaguely resembling a fist. “You gotta show ‘em whose Queen fucken Bea around ‘ere.” She thrust her fist into the air, causing her underarm fat to wobble and bounce like turkey giblets. “I never took no shit from no one. Not at Pokies and not at that other place where I starred before that.”

“You mean Fitzroy Street, corner of Grey Street?”

Liz puzzled that one, like someone trying to recall the name of her first-born. “What was the name of that club?” she asked.

“Skip it,” Shandalier told her with a heavy sigh. She got to her feet and wandered over to Liz’s picture window: it overlooked the Werribee Sewage Farm. As she gazed out on the plumes of reddish brown smoke she wondered how glam her life had been just a day or two ago. Audience adulation at the Sassy Palms, gorgeous gowns of intricate fabrics, Franklyn's devastating pecs and rippling abs and a close encounter with the enigmatic Senior Detective Dirk Flynn --- he of the long, knowing looks; he of the wide, strong hands. Amorous dabblings with Franklyn was one thing - he was always good for a quick pick-me-up-and-throw-me-down, but Senior Detective Flynn. Well now, he was a cowboy of quite a different pony. There had been sparks, had there not? That buzz of electricity that crackled between them when he'd leaned in close. Surely she hadn't been imagining it. Surely he'd felt it too. But it was too late now. She was under suspicion and he was The Law. But oh, what could have been in another time and another place...

"ARE YOUSE LISTENIN' TO ME, OR WHAT?" Liz's voice cut through Shandy's thoughts like cubic zirconia on cheap glass. "I sayed," Liz insisted "that you gotta be a strong woman. Oh, I haaaate to think where I'd be now if I hadn't been stronger than an East German lesbian. Imagine what would have become of me."

Shandalier looked around her and wondered if Melbourne's former leading diva---

Suddenly Liz's suspiciously sticky telephone rang. Liz lit up another Marlboro, pushed it to the side of her mouth and picked up the receiver. "Yeah? Who? You want what?" Liz sighed and thrust the phone towards Shandy. "It's some old broad arksing for ya."

Shandy carefully took the phone - it had a slightly slimy feel to it that only a microbiologist could love. "This is Shandalier," she said hopefully.

"Shandy, my dear, it's Mausie, Mausie McQueen here."

"Mausie...?" Shandalier repeated. Unconsciously she gripped the telephone tighter. "Wha...? How did you know...?"

Mausie let out a warm laugh. "Oh sweetie. I'm Iva and Carmene's landlady - do you really think there's anything I don't know? What a time you've had, eh?"

Tears began to moisten Shandy's eyes. Thank heavens she had had the foresight to apply some Diane von Furstenberg Flirting Glances Volume Mascara - Cyclone Tracy couldn't budge that stuff. "Oh Mausie...oh Mausie..." was all she could muster.

"The accusations of murder, the arson, not to mention those horrid blood stains on your gorgeous new tiling. As if that wasn't enough, they've gone and flung you out here in Hopper's Crossing. I mean Hopper's Crossing for gawd's sake. Not even Daryl Somers deserves that. Good lord, this place is depressing with a capital DUH."

"Wait Mausie," Shandy gasped, "what do you mean out here in Hopper's Crossing...? Where are you?"

"Mausie?" Liz demanded. "Who the fuck is Mausie? Didn't she do that Footballer's Balls show at Three Faces?"

Shandy ignored her hostess.

"Look out the window," Mausie told her.

Shandy rushed back to the window and looked down at the treeless street. There, standing next to a crimson Ford Mustang convertible was Iva and Carmene's landlady, a mobile phone in one hand and with the other she was waving up at Shandy. "We've come to get you out of here."

"We?" Shandy cried, barely able to credit her luck.

At that moment the driver behind the wheel of the Mustang turned around and looked up towards where Shandy stood. It was Senior Detective Dirk Flynn. Mausie handed her mobile phone to him. "Miss Wilson," he said, his voice deep and thick like melted Belgian chocolate, "All the accusations against you have been false. I know that now. I want to help you ---"

But Shandalier heard no more. She flung the phone towards the decrepit Liz who was by now three beers beyond understanding what the hell was going on. In a swift yet ladylike swoop she collected up her Francesco Biasia Orvieto Short Shoulder bag (the one contoured coordinated color top stitching and the polished silver hardware accents) and flung herself through Liz's front doorway and into Dirk's waiting bulging comforting brawny powerful protective arms. He pressed his lips against her jewel-encrusted lobe. "I'm here," he whispered, as she sobbed into his perfectly darling Mediterranean aqua blue Dolce & Gabbana button-down shirt, "I'm in your corner."

She pressed her body against his. And with any luck, she thought to herself, by nightfall you'll be in my pants. But that would have been inappropriate and unladylike so instead she whispered back, "I know, I know..."

"We're going to get to the bottom of this," he told her, "But in order to do that there something we must do. Something dangerous..."