The Bear Pit (25 page)

“Of course,” said Malone. “Have you any idea what she does?”

“I think she's a hooker. Her sister, the one in Mulawa, was. She was in for rolling men—the sister.”

“We'll pick her up. Let's hope she backs your story.”

“Look, if you pick her up, will you charge her? It'll all come out if it gets to court—bang goes my job—” She was looking worried now, the concrete turning to sand.

“Joanna, if you can afford this—” He waved a hand around him. “If you've got money stashed away, why is the job at the casino so important to you? You're not making a fortune there unless you're milking the kitty.”

She smiled at that, but without humour. “We're under more surveillance there than you cops could ever mount. I want the job and the experience—I've got my eye on something else—”

“What?”

“A job as a supervisor or even a manager at a casino they're trying for up at Coffs Harbour.”

“Who?”

“I don't know. I heard about it at work. Casinos don't like competition—even as far away as Coffs Harbour. It won't happen for at least twelve months or more, probably longer, but by then I'll have had the experience and worked my way up from the blackjack tables to the high rollers.”

“There's been nothing about it in the papers. Well, good luck, Joanna.” Malone stood up. “We'll find Ruby Griatz, let you know what she tells us. Her story had better check with yours. Any questions, Gail?”

“Yes,” said Gail, leaning forward as if at last coming into the scene. “Where else do you have money stashed away, Joanna?”

“I've already told Inspector Malone that. There's an account at the Commonwealth Bank in Martin Place.”

“We've looked into that. The balance on Monday was twelve thousand and a bit. That and a
hundred
and forty thousand in the credit union and your salary—we know that, too. Unless you're eating into capital, that doesn't add up to what you're paying for this apartment or if you hope to buy it. Where's the money you told Inspector Malone you got from the sale of your mother's house and that you invested? We checked on what you got for the house—seven hundred and ninety thousand.”

Malone tried not to look admiringly at Gail. She had read the computer print-outs through a magnifying glass.

“How do you pay your rent of six hundred dollars a week? We can go to the agents, ask them, cash or by cheque?”

Janis/Joanna took her time; then: “Okay, I have another account with the National, in George Street. I pay my rent from there.”

“Why all the accounts? What are you trying to hide and who from?”

“The tax man.”

That stopped Gail for a moment: it was odd to see her without a word. Then Malone stepped in: “Righto, Joanna, so long as we don't let the tax man know, you won't mind if we look at the National account? We'll need an authorization. You don't have half a dozen accounts somewhere else?”

“No.” She stood up, moved no further for a long moment, then crossed to a sideboard. She took a pad out of a drawer and wrote on it. She came back and handed the note to Malone. “If the bank manager wants to verify that, tell him to call me. Now I have to go to work.”

“We'll let you know when we've got in touch with Ruby Griatz.”

“Don't bother. I hope I've heard the last of her. Goodbye, Constable Lee. You must come to the casino and try your luck. You sound as if you have a grasp of how money works. Is that the Chinese in you?”

Malone remarked again how much sharper women were at insults than men.

“It could be,” said Gail. “But you seem to know how it works, too. What's that in you?”

“Experience.” She opened the front door for them. “Tell the dummies downstairs I'll be going out in a few minutes, to the casino.”

“
Somehow I don't think you'll ever make that casino up at Coffs Harbour,” said Malone. “Take care, Joanna.”

Out in the street Malone said, “What d'you think?”

“She's told us only half the truth.”

“Is that Chinese intuition?”

“No, it's feminine intuition.”

“I'll gamble on that,” he said, but only because he wouldn't have to lay out any money. He crossed the road to the surveillance car, motioned to Gregan and Styron to remain in it. “If Miss Everitt visits a bank, let me know. We know two of her banks and a credit union.” He named them. “We think there's more. You might fake losing her for a while, give her some rein, see if she goes to another bank. But if you lose her completely, you're for Tibooburra.”

Gregan and Styron looked at each other. “I think the inspector is fair dinkum,” said Gregan.

“Oh, I am,” said Malone. “She's my pigeon and she's not going to get away.”

In the car going back to Strawberry Hills Gail Lee said, “Do you think she hired the hitman?”

He was silent for a couple of hundred metres, then he said, “I think so. One or other of the Aldwyches was the target, but the Premier was the unlucky one.”

IV

“What do the polls show today?” asked Billy Eustace.

“Not good.” Ladbroke tried to keep the satisfaction out of his voice. A week as Eustace's minder had been a wounding reminder of how much he had enjoyed the previous twenty-two years. Working for the Acting Premier was like working in watery dough; no matter how much you tried to shape him, he fell apart. Each time he appeared on television he seemed to be asking directions of the interviewer, like a traveller on a street corner in a strange city. He was suddenly blinded by limelight. “The Coalition and us are even-stephen, thirty per cent.”

“Thirty per cent?” The dough sat up straight, but looked bruised. “Who's got the rest?”

“
A couple of Independents have got two per cent each and that's it. Thirty-six per cent are undecided.”

“Unbelievable! Incredible!” Eustace wobbled his head, then stopped, as if afraid it might fall off before the voters got to it. “What's the poll as preferred Premier? Me and whoever gets it for the Coalition.”

“Twenty-four per cent each.” Ladbroke swallowed his satisfaction; it tasted sweet. “Undecided, twelve per cent. Couldn't care less—”

“
Couldn't care less
?”

“That's what the pollsters say. Couldn't care less, forty per cent.” Ladbroke closed his file. “Basically, Billy, it looks like the end of the day.”

Eustace sat slumped in his chair. It was a leather, high-backed chair and even after a week in it he still didn't look comfortable. He gave the impression of someone waiting at a bus stop for a bus to take him somewhere else: the stranger in the strange city again. Or perhaps, thought Ladbroke, it was the ghost under the buttocks goosing him. The Dutchman was still in the corners of this big room, still prowling. Ladbroke himself still felt the presence.

“Jesus, Jesus—” Eustace wasn't praying; he was an atheist, though he didn't work at it. Atheism never won one enough votes to get one elected. “What are we gunna do, Roger? We can't let those other bastards into government—not with the Olympics coming up—”

“If the police could come up with Hans' killer—”

“Yes, yes, that's it! How's it coming?”

“I understand they have a suspect—” He wondered why Eustace, as Acting Police Minister, wasn't
au fait
with every aspect of the case; or didn't Eustace care? “They can't pin anything on him, unfortunately. They're still not sure whether the hitman meant to get Hans or Jack Aldwych.”

“It's gotta be Hans! We'll lose the sympathy vote if it was meant for that old crim Aldwych. Jesus!” For an atheist he kept hammering on the wrong door. He wobbled his head again, then ran his hand over it, as if looking to check if his baldness had increased in the past week. Then he looked up as
his
secretary put her head in the door. “Yes, Wendy?”

“It's Mr. Balmoral—he has an appointment—”

“Yes, yes, of course! Show him in—” He stood up, almost as if glad to escape the chair. “Roger, give me something encouraging to say on the polls. Some convincing bullshit . . . Jerry! Come in, come in! You know Roger—”

Ladbroke went out and Eustace sank into his chair, looking back over his shoulder as if checking to see that it wasn't already occupied. Balmoral, cool and immaculate in Armani navy blue, sat down and arranged the creases in his trouser-legs. He looked around the large office as if about to make a bid for it. He had never been here before: Hans Vanderberg had had no time for minor union officials.

Then he said with something like a sigh, “We're going to lose the election, Billy.”

Eustace managed not to reply at once. He never felt at ease with these up-and-comers. He came of the old breed of trade unionists and these kids with their polish and education had to be handled carefully. At last he said, “Maybe, maybe not. I'll be re-elected, personally. You still have to get pre-selection. How's it going?”

“I need help, Billy.”

“I've already helped you.” At three per cent above bank rate.

“Not financial help. Political help, Party help. Clout. Gert Vanderberg thinks she owns Boolagong.”

“She does, basically. She inherited it from Hans.” He was awkward acting close-mouthed.

“That's bullshit, Billy. Nobody
inherits
an electorate. At least, not unless they're going to take up the electorate themselves. She can't act the
éminence grise
.”

Eustace had always thought that
éminences grise
were masculine. But it wasn't a term that had been used in the Party, at least not back in the old days. Nowadays with so many bloody foreigners around, you never knew what they were going to spring on you next. There was no denying, however, that Gert Vanderberg was an
éminence, grise
or otherwise.

“There's another thing at Boolagong,” said Balmoral; Eustace had never seen him so on edge.
“
Peter Kelzo has got some guy named Fairbanks up for pre-selection.”

“Forget him. He's one of Kelzo's puppets.”

“So's Joe St. Louis. A bloody puppet that goes around beating up other candidates. He would've done me if I hadn't got out of the way. Norm Clizbe copped what I was supposed to get.” For a moment he seemed to be looking for somewhere to spit. “Maybe I should've joined the Coalition. I'm good- looking, I dress well—” He would never suffer from modesty, the politicians' bane. “I've
got
to get into parliament, Billy! Now!”

“What would you have done if Hans hadn't been shot?”

“I'd have run against you, Billy. You're almost as old as Hans was. That's why they made you only Acting Premier.”

Eustace was no stranger to cold ambition. But this young man had a freezing quality to him. The Acting Premier pressed against the leather behind him, protecting his back.

“That'll be all, Jerry.” He knew how to fight; the old union ways were not forgotten. “Find your own way out.”

V

The three men drifted away from the gaming table and Joanna Everitt looked at the woman who remained. She was beautiful and elegant, not the sort of late afternoon player at the blackjack table. Roulette, maybe, but not late afternoon.

“You wish to play?”

“No,” said Juliet Aldwych. “I'm just here to give you a warning. If you trouble my husband, John Aldwych, in any way I'll come in here and let your bosses know your jail record.”

Joanna gathered together the cards on the table, aware of the security guard watching her. “I'm not in the least bit interested in your husband. Your father-in-law has been to see me and I told him the same.”

“Let it stay that way,” said Juliet.

Then
the burly young guard came to the table. “Some difficulty, Joanna?”

“None at all, Lew. Madame is making up her mind whether she will play or not.”

“No,” said Juliet. “I was watching the game. I don't think I like it. There's no intellectual exercise to it, like bridge.”

She smiled at both of them, walked away and the guard said, “Who is she?”

“I haven't a clue,” said Joanna.

8

I

THE DOOR-KNOCKING
revealed that no one in Joanna Everitt's street had been expecting a handyman to call. No one had ever used Mr. June or even heard of him.

“So what the hell was he doing in that street?” Malone was clearing up his desk, ready to go home.

“You want to bring him in and ask him?” said Clements. “Forget it. He's half a lap ahead of us, but he's gunna stumble sooner or later.”

He was lolling on Malone's couch, looking exhausted. The Premier's murder was still the Big One, but there had been another two homicides in the past twenty-four hours. Politicians were talking of zero tolerance as the law-and-order policy, but out there beyond the rhetoric guns and knives were being used with no tolerance at all.

“I had a call from Police Centre,” he said. “The two guys tailing Janis said she had a visitor a while ago at the blackjack table. The woman had been watching Janis for ten minutes or so before she walked over and spoke to her. The air, our guys said, looked a bit chilly. One of them followed the woman down to her car, took the number. They checked it. It's a BMW750, registered to John Aldwych Junior. Is Old Jack getting Mrs. Aldwych Junior to carry his messages for him?”

Malone sighed yet again: the habit was beginning to annoy him. “We'll have a word with him. Tomorrow.”

Then his phone rang: “Inspector Malone? Detective Constable Bianco, Police Centre. Nemesis.” The voice seemed to stumble on the word, as if from embarrassment. “You asked for a check on a girl named Ruby Griatz. She was a prostitute, used to work the streets around the Cross. She was
picked
up last week, dead. OD'd on heroin.”