Murder Song (22 page)

“He'd have had to go into Wollongong, I guess. What sort of movies was he interested in? Horror films?”

“Not as far as I remember. Detective movies, cop shows. He asked me to go with him once, we went to see a private eye movie with Paul Newman,
Harpoon
something like that—”

“Harper
,” said O'Brien, a film buff, “I saw it, not with him, though.”

“Remember there used to be a TV set in the recreation room? He'd get up and sneak down there and watch the Midnight Movie. I saw him there one night, all the lights out and him sitting practically
in
the set, with the sound turned down. He told me once he'd seen Dick Powell five times in
Murder,
My Sweet.”

“That was from a Raymond Chandler book,
Farewell, My Lovely.
They made it again in the seventies with Mitchum.”

“Was that what he wanted to be? A private eye?”

“Maybe,” said Malone. “His aunt told me he was always reading Raymond Chandler and other mystery writers. But there was no work for private eyes in Australia in those days, we didn't know anything about industrial espionage then. It was always just divorce work. He'd have wanted more than just peeping through a bedroom window.”

“The thing that always puzzled me,” said Waldorf, who appeared to remember more of Blizzard than the other two could, “was that, in his own quiet way, he was anything but dumb. Why the hell did he need to cheat in that exam?”

“Unless he wanted to come top of the class,” said O'Brien, who understood ambition. “If you came top of the class, you never got posted to the bush.”

Their first course was brought by an Oriental Ruritanian whose epaulettes looked like sliding off his narrow shoulders. There was
pâté de fois gras
for Waldorf, with Murrumbidgee truffles, whatever they were; native bush food had lately become a fad, as if all the white citizens were expected to become honorary Aborigines. Malone and O'Brien had oysters; Malone had been abroad only twice in his life and had never tasted anything to compare with the local breed. The main course was served with a flourish that embarrassed Malone, who did not like attention from strangers. Three waiters arrived and gold covers were lifted high from the dishes and Malone waited for them to be clashed together like cymbals. There was duckling
à l'orange
for Waldorf and steak for O'Brien and Malone. There was a bottle of Leeuwin Estate Chardonnay „84 and one of Grange Hermitage „68. All three had coffee but no dessert, cheese or liqueurs. Malone caught a glimpse of the size of the bill as O'Brien signed it and he heard the fishhooks in his pockets rattle in dismay.

Going back up in the lift Waldorf said, “If you're doing nothing, would you care to come to the opera tomorrow night?
The Magic Flute
isn't hard to take.”

Malone
hesitated, then said, “I'll come. My wife's had me watch the opera on TV a couple of times.”

“Did you stay awake?” Waldorf recognized a non-aficionado.

“With all that yelling?”

Waldorf laughed. “What about you, Brian?”

“I have a date tomorrow night. Anyhow, I think the soprano might be a bit loud for me. My favourite singer is Peggy Lee, slow and easy.” He saw Malone looking at him. “I was going to tell you about the date. I'll be okay.”

“You going to take one of the security men with you?”

“No.” There was an obstinacy in his voice that was a challenge.

“It was a deal, I thought, that you didn't go gallivanting off on your own. Are you going to tell me where you're going, who with?”

It was a moment before O'Brien said, “Okay, I'll give you an address, but that's all.”

Then Malone understood: he was going to see Anita. He knew how he would feel if someone tried to stop him from seeing Lisa.

“Righto, I guess that'll have to be it.” He looked at Waldorf. “I hope you're not thinking of pissing off somewhere after the show tomorrow night?”

“I'll come straight home with you. We'll hold hands, if you like.”

“I'd rather hold hands with the soprano, unless she's fat and fifty.”

“She's not. She's slim and sexy and thirty. We used to hold hands at one time, but I couldn't keep up with her. There's nothing worse for your constitution than a sexy soprano with too much stamina. I thought one night I was turning into a castrato.”

“Do you opera singers talk about your partners all the time like this?” O'Brien sounded positively prim. That's what true love does to you, Malone thought.

“All the time,” said Waldorf. “The biggest gossips in the world are in opera companies. Whispering is a nice change from all that yelling.”

I
like him, Malone thought as they stepped out of the lift: he doesn't take anything, least of all himself, seriously. Except, of course, the distant family in Germany.

“Do you sing in the bathroom?”

“I will if you want me to.”

“Do you know „Carry Me Back to the Lone Prairie'?”

Waldorf and O'Brien looked at each other, for once joined in distaste if not in taste, then they looked at the Philistine. Then they saw that he was grinning and, all smiles, the three of them got out of the lift.

They nodded good-night to the security man sitting in his chair outside the front door, went into the suite and O'Brien, married to the telephone, went at once to the phone in the living-room and switched on his recording machine. The first two messages were business calls, both asking him to call back at once, no matter what the time. He jotted down the numbers given.

The third call asked for no reply, gave no number: “So the three of you are together? That makes it easier and more convenient for me.” The voice was soft, not threatening, almost comforting. It began to sing in a whisper, as one would putting a child to sleep:
“Three green bottles standing on a wall
/
And if one green bottle should accidentally fall
. . .”

III

Malone spent a restless night; as did Waldorf in the other bed. At four o'clock Malone got up and went out into the living-room in his pyjamas. O'Brien, in a green silk dressing-gown with an emblem on the pocket (was it the seal of the High King Brian Boru? Malone wondered), was sitting on a couch with his feet up, reading a business folder. He closed it as Malone sat down in a chair across from him. The drapes were closed and two table lamps were lit.

“I'm not game to look out the windows,” O'Brien said.

“Stay away from them. Christ knows where he is. He could even be here in the hotel as a guest. I'll check with Reception in the morning, find out who's checked in here in the last twenty-four hours.”

“
I don't think he'd be that obvious.”

“Neither do I, but you never know. The bastard's got to make a mistake sooner or later. Let's hope it's sooner.”

O'Brien was silent for a moment, then he seemed to put Blizzard out of his mind. He nodded to a tray on the coffee table. “There's coffee and orange juice there. I made it myself. Did the blender wake you?”

Malone shook his head, took a glass of the juice. “Brian, I don't think this is going to work out. I don't know where the hell he is, but he's got us in his sights.”

“Can't you send a search squad through all the buildings that overlook us?”

“Like you said, I don't think he's going to be that obvious. He won't be squatting on some roof-top waiting for us to walk by a window or for us to walk out of the hotel. We don't even know if he cares whether he's caught or not. If he's got us all together, maybe he'll just come out in the open, shoot the three of us and then just give himself up or let himself be shot down.”

There was a long pause, then O'Brien said, “Okay, then we go our separate ways. That's what I've wanted to do all along.”

Malone finished his juice before he said, “You sound as if you don't care much now what happens.”

O'Brien looked at the closed folder, then tossed it on the coffee table. “My life's turned into a blind alley, Scobie. Does that sound melodramatic? Yeah, sure it does. But what we're talking about right now
is
melodramatic. They make movies or operas out of our situation. Maybe that's what Blizzard wants, he is, or was, a movie buff. Maybe he'd like to sit in jail and watch the movie of all this. Mel Gibson and Bryan Brown playing you and me. Or the other way around.”

“Your tongue's just dribbling.” Malone's voice was low but sharp, like a slap to the face. “Get yourself together!”

O'Brien frowned, as if he hadn't expected to be rebuked. His face closed up and he looked away; Malone could see a muscle working in the lean jaw. He expected O'Brien to swing round and reply
with
an outburst. Instead O'Brien turned back slowly and nodded, the tension going out of his face.

“You're right. I'm starting to feel sorry for myself. I've never done that before.”

“It happens to all of us.” But Malone couldn't remember its ever having happened to him: Lisa would have jerked him out of such a mood before he had even put a toe into it.

“This Blizzard business is only the half of it—for me, anyway. The NCSC are going to put me down the gurgler, they'll recommend I be prosecuted. That folder there is George Bousakis' summing up of our chances—they're about zero. If I don't go to jail, then those guys who sent that hitman after me last night are going to finish me off. On top of that, the worst of all, is that Anita and I are never going to have a happy ending. My chances there are worse than with the NCSC

“Is that her choice? Is she breaking it off?”

“No-o. But she's an intelligent woman. We could run off together, but neither of us wants to live the rest of our lives in Brazil or Paraguay or somewhere where they can't extradite me.”

Malone said nothing, then got up and went to the bathroom. “Can I use yours? I don't want to wake Sebastian.”

O'Brien nodded, his thoughts suddenly as remote as Brazil or Paraguay. He had begun to daydream of himself and Anita as if both of them were young, unfettered and innocent, at least of his crimes. He had compared her with all the girls and women he had known and he had had to smile at his own judgement: he had created in his imagination a goddess at whom Anita herself would smile. Love isn't always blind, but at times it can be cross-eyed. If only all women were like her . . . But then women, all women, would fall in love with each other and the men would be left out.

The fortunate thing was that all women were not like each other, no more than all men were like each other. Thank God there were few women like Penelope Debbs. She had called him yesterday at his office to tell him she had resigned from the State Cabinet. He had just come back from the NCSC hearing and when his secretary had told him there was a lady on the phone—“She wouldn't give her name, just said you'd want to hear from her”—his heart had leapt. Anita never called him at the office, but today he was glad she had taken the risk: he wanted to hear a sympathetic voice. What he heard was a voice that
sliced
him like a salami-cutter.

“You sonofabitch,” said Penelope Debbs, bitchy as it was possible to be, no lady on the phone, at least not today. “You've ruined me! That old shit Vanderberg has made me resign as Minister. It's in the afternoon paper—it's already gone out on the radio—”

“I'm sorry to hear that, Penelope—”

“Don't bullshit me, Brian!” When he had been in the pop music business he had been sprayed by more four-letter words than melodic chords; but, coming from a woman of Penelope's maturity, the words made him wince. Anita swore at him when making love, but that was different: bed was the incubator for the fundamental slang words. “You'll fucking pay for this—”

“Ease off, Penelope. All my phones are supposed to be tapped—” It was a lie, but he was good at lying.

She believed him: there was an intake of breath at the other end of the line. She was silent for a moment, as if she were trying to remember what she had said. Then: “Well, what's said is said. Maybe it will interest those who are tapping the line to know just how many people you have ruined.”

“You're exaggerating. You'll come back. In another year or two no one will remember me and you'll be back on the front bench.”

“You're that close to being finished?” she asked maliciously. “Oh, I'm delighted to hear it! That makes me feel better.”

“I thought it would. All you have to do is be patient, old girl. You'll finish up as Premier yet—Vanderberg can't last for ever.”

“I'm aiming higher than that.” That was her one weakness, that she couldn't hide her ambition, it was like a wen. Politicians are never expected to be modest, it is a contradiction in terms, but trumpet-blowing is only tolerated when one has reached the peak. O'Brien knew she had as many enemies in her own party as on the Opposition benches.

“I knew you were,” said O'Brien, “but I didn't think you'd want them to tap into that.”

She hung up in his ear and he sat back and smiled for the first time that day.

But
now at 4.30 in the morning of the next day, in the shank of the night when dreams sometimes turn sour, he had nothing to smile about. He stood up, picked up the folder as Malone came back from the bathroom. “I'm going back to bed. Wake me at 8.30, would you, if I'm not awake?”

“Do you want me and Sebastian to move out?”

O'Brien sighed wearily, resignedly. “What's the point? Let's get it over with, one way or the other. If we all go out together, that'll be operatic. That'll please Sebastian.”

He went into his bedroom and closed the door. Malone stood alone in the middle of the big living-room, fighting against the resignation that O'Brien, another Celt, had smeared on him like a weed-juice that couldn't be rubbed off.