The Bear Pit (22 page)

“I was overseas, working in France and Italy. I'm passable at French and Italian—in Mulawa there wasn't much to do, so I studied. I spent six months in France before I met Jack. There was an old boyfriend there—a little word—” She smiled. “He came good with a reference, said I'd worked for him as his secretary, he's in computers. Like I said, you know someone . . .”

“What about your passport?”

“Jesus, Jack, you should've been a cop!”

“I know how thorough they can be. Unless you knew someone there who didn't ask for your passport and the visas?”

She relaxed again, smiled: one crim to another. “You know how it is, Jack . . .”

“I could let the casino people know.”

They stared at each other. She hated this old crim, wished him dead. “You'd grass on me?”

He smiled. “Relax, girlie. You've hit my one soft spot—I've never grassed. You're not working today?”

She led him to the front door, opened it. “I go on at four o'clock. I'm waiting for a man to come and fix some kitchen cabinets. Goodbye, Jack.”

“Look after yourself, Janis. I'd hate anyone to do you some harm before I can.”

She said nothing in reply to that, but gave him a stare that should have chilled him. He was, however, unchillable and she should have known that.

He fitted the panama carefully on his head and went down the stairs, breathing easily, looking like a gentleman caller who'd just had a pleasurable visit to a willing girl. It pleased him that, at his age, he
could
still frighten the shit out of someone. The feeling was almost sexual.

Outside in the narrow street Blackie Ovens waited for him in the midnight blue Daimler. “How'd it go, boss?”

“We just have to wait and see, Blackie. If she's the one she's gunna slip up sooner or later.”

“They always do. Women, I mean.”

“True, Blackie. That's why we fellers still run the world.”

The Daimler purred away from the kerb, like an echo of their self-satisfaction.

III

“Scobie, I hear you've got a suspect.”

“Just the usual suspects, Jack. Like in Casablanca.”

“Not one of my favourite fillums. All that honourable sacrifice bullshit. And I never understood what Ingrid Bergman saw in Humphrey Bogart.”

“That's because you're not a woman, Jack. That's what my wife and daughters tell me.”

“I can find this bloke you're suspecting.”

“Don't threaten me, Jack. Not if we're still friends. When I'm sure we have the right bloke, I'll let you know. But stay out of my paddock. I don't want to have to run you in.”

“What for?”

Malone laughed. “With you, Jack, do you think I'd have to look for offences? I could dig up something from twenty years ago, just to hold you and keep you out of mischief. And out of my hair.”

“Have I ever been in your hair?”

“You were today, Jack. You paid a call on Janis Eden.”

“You've got a tail on her? I was just seeing if she needed any help. The poor girl's just come outa jail.”

“When did you join the Salvation Army? Stay away from her. We're keeping tabs on her, she won't disappear. Take care, Jack.”

“
I always have, Scobie.”

Malone hung up, reached for his jacket and hat. He wore the hat, a pork-pie model, against sun cancers, but it was starting to look a bit old and limp. Much like he felt. He came out of his office into the big room as Phil Truach came in the main security door. Truach looked satisfied, as if he had just smoked two cigarettes at leisure.

“They're fighting amongst themselves now.”

“Who?”

“The guys at the Trades Congress and Kelzo's mob over in Harding. Seems Clizbe and Balmoral went out there to complain about someone—meaning Joe St. Louis—bashing up Mr. Crespi. Sussex Street sees Boolagong as their turf. St. Louis didn't like Clizbe's attitude and decked him. He has a broken nose.”

“Whatever happened to law'n'order?”

“I dunno. In cases like that, I ain't gunna enquire. You don't want to do anything about it, do you?”

“No. But tomorrow morning I think we may pay another call on Sussex Street. See if we can put Mr. Clizbe's nose back in shape.”

He drove home through a bottleneck of road rage. The day's heat had flattened everything, including motorists' tolerance. Blue was his favourite colour, but this evening's sky was pitiless. He never turned on the radio in the Fairlane, so that he didn't hear the drive-time jockeys telling the world it would be even hotter tomorrow. He never listened to radio news, it never told the full story. And he had learned long ago that, until you heard the full story, there was no point in having an opinion or getting excited.

A woman in a Honda Prelude screamed abuse at him as he prevented her from cutting in. He gave her a Humphrey Bogart smile, a baring of the teeth, but she wasn't Ingrid Bergman and yelled at him again, blasting her horn as she fell in behind him. He drove on, exaggeratedly turning up his collar against the blaring of her horn and her abuse.

He pulled the car into his driveway, waited while the garage door swung up, then drove in. He
sat
a moment, like a sailor who had come safely into home port through a rough sea. He knew that in many places home was not the safest haven, but this house, this ambience, was the best end to a day.

“What sort of day did you have?” asked Lisa as she stood in the front garden hosing the gardenias and camellias.

“Don't ask. You?”

“Don't ask.” She turned off the tap, coiled the hose.

“If ever the house burns down, you'll do that. Coil the hose afterwards.” “Waiting for the next fire.” She kissed him. “I'm becoming pessimistic.” “Let's sell up and retire.”

“Where to?”

“Tibooburra.” Where the sun fell off the end of the world and crime was a diversion and not a pain in the head. He pinched her behind. “You have a lovely arse. The best one I know.”

“Don't try getting to know a better one.”

He followed her into the coolness of the house, stopped in the hallway at the door to Maureen's room. She was sitting at her computer, motionless, staring at the half-finished line on the screen.

“More Mills and Boon? Has Clothilde or whatever her name was lost her boobs again?”

She turned round as if glad of the interruption. “I found out something else today. I was out at St. George's hospital. Mr. Crespi talked to me—there was no one else there and I think he was glad of any visitor. His face is all dressings, but I held his hand and gave him a whiff of the Arpège.”

“You're worse than Clothilde.”

“I kept my shirt buttoned up. He told me that your friend, Jack Aldwych, gave two hundred and fifty thousand dollars to the Boolagong election kitty. Mr. Balmoral heard about it and that's one of the reasons he wants the Boolagong pre-selection. With all that money to spend, following in the footsteps of someone like Hans Vanderberg, he can't lose.”

“Why did Jack Aldwych part with so much money? I've never heard of him being charitable.”

“
Mr. Crespi didn't know. It was something between Aldwych and Vanderberg.
Mrs.
Vanderberg knows about it and she's hanging on to it as if it's her housekeeping money.”

“Why did he tell you all this?”

“I told him I was Jerry Balmoral's deadliest enemy. And that we were gunning for Joe St. Louis.”

He sat down on her bed and patted her knee. “Mo, don't get too involved in this. There's been another bashing—well, not exactly a bashing, but a brawl. Joe St. Louis broke Mr. Clizbe's nose. They're fighting amongst themselves now. If some outsider like you gets in the way, they're not going to pull a punch. You'll cop it for just being there.”

“This is a
big
, serious story, Dad—”

“I know that, Mo. That's why they're going to be very serious about keeping it to themselves. I don't want Romy calling me up, telling me there's someone I know lying on a slab in the morgue—”

“Oh, come on, Dad—”

He hadn't meant to be so melodramatic, but having said it, he meant it.

She saw that he did. She bit her lip. “You're really worried for me?”

He nodded, afraid of words.

She put her hand on his cheek, the most affectionate gesture she had made in ages towards him. “I'll take care, Dad. I promise.”

He turned her hand over, kissed her palm, got up and went out of the room. Out in the hallway he blinked away the tears that suddenly blinded him. Then he was aware of Lisa watching him from their bedroom doorway.

“You're learning,” she said, touched his arm and went past him on her way to the kitchen.

Then at the back of the house he heard Tom say, “What's for dinner?” It was as good a way as any to resume normal transmission.

IV

“What's Mr. Balmoral like?” asked Gertrude Vanderberg.

“
Politically, he's gunna be brilliant.” But then Barry Rix wrinkled his nose. “As a bloke, he's the sort toasts your health with an empty glass.”

“He should do well in politics then.” Illusions, like virginity, were gone forever. She had never regretted losing her virginity, though it had not been to Hans, but she did regret that her illusions had gone. Because she had loved him, she had never blamed Hans for that.

They were sitting on a park bench at Brighton-le-Sands looking out at Botany Bay. Mrs. Vanderberg was in a summer dress that looked like a fireworks explosion; she sat beneath a sunshade of green-and-yellow stripes. Beside her Rix was a monotone of pale grey. In the late afternoon passers-by stopped or slowed their step to greet Gert and she smiled at every one of them as if they were her extended family. Hans had had the political smile, than which there is nothing more false, but hers was genuine and everyone knew it.

“We have to keep him out, Barry. We can't let him succeed Hans, not here in Boolagong. Mr. Balmoral isn't interested in Boolagong or even New South Wales—they are only stepping stones for him. Hans, for all his skulbuggery, as he called it, really loved this State. He lived for it. We're not going to let Mr. Balmoral have it.”

“He's using a lotta pressure, Gert. He wants that money we've got in the kitty.” He looked out at the wide bay turning dull as the sun dropped behind them. A laden tanker was coming in the heads, low in the water, dark and menacing against the horizon. He said casually, “You know why Jack Aldwych and his mates gave us the money, don't you?”

“No, I don't, Barry. Should I know?” She smiled at another passer-by, another voter, and bobbed her sunshade up and down like a reverse plunger.

“I dunno, Gert.”

She waited. She knew Hans had always seen honesty in politics as an elastic band, to be stretched as far as the situation called for. She knew of the skulbuggery (she loved the word, but never told him so) that wove State politics together like a scatter-rug designed by travelling salesmen not sure if their next sale would be their last. She had loved The Dutchman (though she had never called him that and
never
allowed anyone to use the nickname in her presence) and, as the young would say, she owed him. Even if she had to protect more skulbuggery.

At last, still staring out at the bay, Rix said, “Hans was gunna put through a bill authorizing a casino up at Coffs Harbour. Just a small one, to cater for the tourists and the retired people up there.”

“How small?”

“I dunno, I never saw any plans. Smaller than Harbour City, bigger man the Panthers Club up at Penrith. I don't think Aldwych and his mates wanna turn Coffs Harbour into Las Vegas.”

“If we get you elected, will you promote a casino bill?”

He was still gazing out at the bay, as if waiting for Captain Cook to come in and rescue him. “I dunno, Gert. I'll be just a backbencher. Ordinary members' bills don't get much of a run.”

“What about Billy Eustace? If it was his bill?”

“Billy would want his share of the 250,000 bucks. He wouldn't promote the Second Coming unless he was paid.”

She thought a while, nodding almost mechanically at another voter as he went by. Then she said, “I think we should talk to Mr. Aldwych.”

“He's got partners. Four Chinese. Two of ‘em are women. I hear Chinese women are tougher than their men.”

“We'll see.” Gert Vanderberg brought down her sunshade. “Arrange it, Barry. Somewhere discreet. I don't want it to be conspicuous.”

Wear black
, he told her silently. But he helped her to her feet and they walked back to his car, he pale as a winter shadow beside the aurora borealis of her dress.

7

I

TASK FORCE
Nemesis was on a not-so-merry-go-round. John August was still under surveillance, but he went about his handiwork as if he hadn't a care in the world. Surveillance was also kept on Joanna Everitt, who appeared calm and untroubled most of the time, though once or twice she gave the middle finger to her watchers, but in a ladylike, almost regal way. An eye was also now being kept on Joe St. Louis, but his arrogance was a challenge to them to do what they liked, they hadn't anything on him. Discreet enquiries were made to trace hidden bank accounts, if any, but nothing was uncovered. The media blared criticism and Bev Bigelow and other Opposition shadow ministers demanded to know if New South Wales was on its way to becoming the New Russia. There were clarion calls for Lorne Order to come riding into town again. Civilization was falling apart and what, for Crissakes, was that going to do to the Olympics? Things had to be kept in perspective.

Malone and Phil Truach went down to Sussex Street to talk to Norman Clizbe. Despite the forecast, the weather heat, if not the political and media heat, had eased; the air had a sparkle to it, there was a spring in pedestrians' step. Road rage was still fermenting, but one couldn't ask for everything. They parked the car in a Loading Zone and went up to the tenth floor of the Trades Congress building.