7

I

HANS VANDERBERG was a male chauvinist right down to his toe-nails, which his wife cut for him. He was proud to be up there with the likes of St. Paul, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John and at least a hundred popes, archbishops and ayatollahs; but don’t tell the religious voters. He admired the good sense of Henry VIII, of Napoleon, Stalin, Mussolini and Churchill and at least nine out of every ten American presidents. Given his way he would have had no women ministers in his State Cabinet; but things did not work that way in the Labour Party. Caucus nominated its choices and he had to shuffle the roosters and hens as best he could. Like all leaders of all political persuasions he would have preferred to run the whole show himself, convinced he could do it better. Democracy had more drawbacks than were admitted by the faithful, most of whom, of course, aspired to some day be the leader.

One of the hens, who could hold her own in any cockpit with any of the roosters, who aspired to sit here in his own chair some day, now sat across from him. Penelope Debbs was ready for battle this morning.

“It’s a beat-up by the press, you know that, Hans.”

“No, it ain’t, love. You forget I’m also the Police Minister—I get to hear things you people never do.”

“You should tell us all you know in Cabinet. That’s what Cabinet meetings are for.”

“And scare the daylights outa half of you?” His grin had all the malevolence of an old vulture trying to be human. “Come off it, Penny—” He was the only man who ever got away with calling her that. She had remonstrated with him several times, but he had been stone deaf, a political handicap he could call up at will. “You and hubby down there in Canberra, you held out your hands and Mr. O’Brien dumped some shares in them. How many?”

“I’ve told you, Hans, we have no shares.”

“I didn’t say you have them now. I said you had them. Past tense.”

She arranged the skirt of her green Zampatti suit, patted the bow of her white silk shirt. The Dutchman, a sartorial wreck, the despair of the party’s image makers, watched with dry amusement this playing for time. His own playing for time, when needed, was accomplished with no more than a vulture’s or an eagle’s stare. He looked like an old bald bird and the avian description never worried him. He had soared above all his rivals and critics and unloaded on them from a great height.

“It was over three years ago, when you first made me Minister for Development. I thought I was doing something worthwhile for the States.” She sounded pious, fingering her pearls as if they were rosary beads.

“Giving mineral rights to a shelf company, one that had never even dug a hole in a garden? Bull, Penny.” He was a vulgar old man, but he never swore in front of a woman. His wife Gertrude, if she had heard that he had committed such a social sin, would have chopped him down as no party faction ever could. “That company was a front for laundered money—that’s what the NCSC is enquiring into now. They can’t prosecute on that score, but they’ll pass it on to me and then I’ve got to do something about it.”

“I knew nothing about the laundering of money!” Her hand jerked at her pearls.

“Did Arnold?”

“No!”

“All right, Penny, don’t jump outa your girdle.” But his tone wasn’t soothing; he wasn’t letting up: “How many shares did you get?”

She let go the pearls, fiddled with the bow of her shirt again. “Fifty thousand. Twenty-five thousand each.”

“How much did they cost you?”

“Ten cents a share. I don’t know what the fuss is all about, Hans. It was all so long ago.”

“It’s a long lane that’s always turning.” His aphorisms were famous; no one wasted time trying to work them out. They made Zen riddles simple and explicit by comparison. But, though he never read philosophy, he knew, better than any philosopher, that the sound of one hand clapping was the death-knell of any politician. The voters were going the other way, the wind behind them. “There’s always a journo who meets someone who knew someone who knew something. That’s why I’ve never taken anything, Penny, not a penny, and that’s why I’ve lasted so long. What happened to the shares?”

“O’Brien bought them back from us six months ago.”

“How much?”

“Fifty cents a share.”

“So you made four hundred per cent profit? That’s not bad.” Then he grinned again, swung his chair round and looked out the window. They were in his office on the eighth floor of the government office block; the window afforded him one of the best views in Sydney. The harbour stretched away to the east; immediately below him was the green sweep of the Botanical Gardens. Few politicians in the world had a view like this. But he was not a man for views, unless they were political. The vista before him did not appeal: he was looking out towards electorates where the voters always returned Opposition members. The Opposition leader, he knew, was just waiting for the scandal to break open. He swung back to Penelope Debbs. “But that’s nowhere near as much as you’d have made if you’d hung on to the shares, eh? They’ve gone as high as seventeen dollars. O’Brien did the dirty on you.”

“Arnold and I were satisfied,” she said, trying to look truthful.

“No, you weren’t, Penny. None of you ever expected anything to turn up on those mining leases. When they hit that gold reef, you must’ve all got a hernia.”

“You can be quite crude at time, Hans.”

“You wouldn’t be the first who’s told me that. Don’t tell me you didn’t feel quite crude when you heard the news of the strike. O’Brien diddled the lotta you, buying back all those shares a month before the company announced the strike. You two weren’t the only ones, I’m told. He knew the same day as the strike was made and he rushed out there and paid off all the crew to keep their mouths shut.”

“How do you know all this?” She and Arnold knew and so, she guessed, did all the other dupes.

“I know. Now he’s sitting on a fortune and it’s not gunna do him a bloody bit of good. If the NCSC don’t get him, someone else is gunna do it. They’re gunna shoot him, they tried to do it last night. It wasn’t you and Arnold, was it?”

She had been accused of many things, but never of murder. She was shocked he should think her capable of it; and frightened, too. It made her wonder how far his own ruthlessness would go. “Good God, no!”

It was impossible to tell whether his stare was disbelieving or not. “I think it would be a good idea, love, if you resigned. Get sick or something.”

“Why should I?”

“It’s an ill wind that gives everyone pneumonia.”

She lost her temper. “Oh, for Christ’s sake, Hans, stop all that wise man’s crap! If I resign now it’ll look suspicious, as if you want to get rid of me before this thing gets too hot—”

“You put your dainty digit right on it, love.”

“But nothing may come of it! There’s nothing to link us with what the NCSC is enquiring into—the laundering of money, the insider trading—”

“I wouldn’t lay money on it if I were you. No, get sick, Penny. Resign for health reasons. Get that thing RSI, everyone else does.”

“Repetitive strain injury?”

“From shaking too many voters’ hands. Or think up something else, anything to do with your health. You don’t look too healthy right now.” Again the malevolent grin; for a moment she did feel like actual murder. “Have the letter on my desk here in half an hour. We’ll announce it for the afternoon press and radio. Don’t give any TV interviews. The TV cameras can always tell when you’re lying.”

She stood up. “I’m surprised they’ve never found you out.”

“I always tell the truth, love. A little bent sometimes, but the mugs out there looking at the news think it’s just been a technical hitch. Half an hour, Penny. Make it short. You’re supposed to be too sick to write a long letter.”

“What about Arnold? Are you gunning for him, too?”

“He’s not my problem.” The Dutchman never concerned himself with the Federal Labour Party. Sydney and Canberra, he always said, were as far apart in their interests as Washington and London. He was neither a patriot nor an egotist: he had no ambition to be Prime Minister. He ran New South Wales as old American political bosses had run their domains; his idols were not Keir Hardie and John Curtin, but Huey Long and Ed Crump. He was more honest than Crump had been and he despised the out-and-out crooks such as Frank Hague and Jim Curley, but he ran his parish with all the flint-hearted efficiency of those bosses. Power was his sustenance and at State level was where one found it. “I’ll be talking to Canberra in a coupla minutes, they can make up their own mind what they’re gunna do with Arnold.”

“He might kill you,” she said recklessly, knowing Arnold’s own reckless temper.

“He’ll have to find someone to do it,” said Hans Vanderberg, off whom threats bounced like soft rubber balls. “Someone more efficient than last night’s hitman.”

II

O’Brien and Waldorf at first did not hit it off together. There were differences in the basic make-up of the two men that prompted a mutual suspicion, more on O’Brien’s part than on Waldorf’s. The former was serious, especially more so now: to have one’s life under threat, to have one’s career and empire falling apart, to be in love with a woman and know their affair had no future: such despair did nothing to lighten the mood of a man who had always been serious about anything he attempted. Waldorf, on the other hand, was apparently all frivolity: though afraid, he played to the threat against his life as if it were another operatic exaggeration; he would have his hand between the soprano’s legs while she stroked him with a dagger. Malone knew within five minutes of bringing Waldorf to the Congress that he had made a mistake. But it would have been a bigger mistake to have left him alone to take care of himself.

“Why the hell did you bring him here?” O’Brien demanded in a fierce whisper. Waldorf had gone into the second bedroom to unpack his two bags, but the bedroom door was open. He was humming to himself and Malone hoped he and O’Brien were not in for a musical fortnight or however long. “Why didn’t you ask me?”

“There wasn’t time.” Malone explained about the phone call to the house at Yowie Bay. “Russ Clements and I went down to see Blizzard’s aunt, down the South Coast. He called her while we were there, then he called Waldorf’s house. He’s getting closer, Brian.”

“Okay, but why bring that guy here? What am I supposed to be running, a communal safe house?”

Malone sighed, giving in. “Righto, I’ll move him as soon’s I can find a place for him. The Department’s going to have to come to the party and provide a safe house for all of us.”

“I’m not moving out of here.”

“You’re getting to be a pain in the arse, Horrie.”

“Don’t call me Horrie!”

“Well, then stop telling me how to do my job!” The humming had stopped in the second bedroom; there was the sound of a drawer being slammed shut, like a pistol shot. “If they take me off this one, you could be stuck with a cop who’ll handle you like some rent-a-crowd demonstrator. I’m in this thing up to my eyeballs, as deep as you or the opera singer inside there—the only thing is I have to catch Blizzard as well as dodge his bullet. All you have to do is keep your bloody head down!”

Malone’s outburst made O’Brien step back a pace. He was interrupted from making a reply by Waldorf’s coming to the bedroom door. “I heard most of that. If I’m in the way, Horrie—”

“For Christ’s sake, stop calling me Horrie!”

All at once, worn out by the whole day, Malone fell down into a chair and started laughing. It wasn’t hysterical laughter, but it sounded like it against his usual dry amusement. The other two men stopped glaring at each other and looked at him as if he had done something totally bizarre, like fainting. Then, Waldorf, the frivolous one, the one with the easiest laugh, began with a smile that quickly volumed into a deep laugh. O’Brien, the odd one out, looked for a moment as if he would turn his back on them and retreat to his bedroom. Then slowly the big wide smile spread across his face. He started to laugh, a distinctive sound that Malone suddenly remembered from the past, as uninhibited as a child’s. He could be ruthless, but there was no malice in him nor petty temper. If there had been, Anita Norval would not have fallen in love with him. The big living-room rippled with laughter, though none of them really had anything to laugh about.

“Okay, you win, Scobie. I’m sorry, Sam—”

“Don’t call me Sam,” said Waldorf, still laughing.

He had got over the shock of the threat on his life quicker than Malone had expected. Once Malone had told him he would have to move out of his house he had acted efficiently and quickly. Miss Vigil, who had evidently brought her bags straight from the airport, expecting overnight lessons, had been sent packing. Waldorf had taken her to another part of the house and two minutes later was back with Malone and Clements.

“She’s taken my car and gone home to her mother. She’s a bit upset.”

“He might follow her,” said Clements. “You didn’t tell her you’d visit her, did you?”

“Well, I—”

“That’s out,” said Malone firmly. “You’ll just have to give her lessons at the Opera House, if you want to see her. Is it serious between you two?”

Waldorf smiled, as if the thought couldn’t be taken seriously. “Nothing’s serious, Scobie, not unless you’re married. She’s a nice girl, but I’m twice her age. My elder boy is only four years younger than she is. She—” Then he stopped, the smile fading. He was one of those who could never help themselves, who always told too much about themselves. It was plain that he was serious about only one thing, his family. And, it seemed, he had lost them. He went on after a moment, “Rosalie will be all right. I shan’t go near her, not till after you’ve caught Blizzard.”

Then he had disappeared again into another part of the house, and come back ten minutes later with two large suitcases, a topcoat, a raincoat, and a suede hat.

“How long are you expecting us to take to nab Blizzard?” said Malone.

Waldorf laughed, looked at the suitcase. “Caruso never went anywhere without a truckload of trunks.”

“But he was a tenor, wasn’t he?”

“That’s true. And as far as I know, no one ever tried to shoot his balls off. I’ll leave one of the bags behind.”

“Bring „em both. Russ will help you carry „em out to the car. I have a bad back and I have the rank.”

“Get stuffed, Inspector,” said Russ and headed for the front door without offering to pick up a bag.

Malone grinned. “You see? Discipline hasn’t changed since you were in the force.”

Driving into the city from Yowie Bay, Malone sat half-turned round in the front seat, looking back. It was a while before Waldorf recognized that he was looking right past him. “Someone following us?”

“Not as far as I can tell. But he followed us down to Minnamook and he must’ve followed us back here to your place. He’s good at it.”

“I’ll lay money he’s already gone home,” said Clements. “He’s made his point for the day. He’s started you sweating. Me, too,” he added, as if what he had said might have sounded insulting. “Do you want me to hang around tonight?”

“No, put your feet up, study your stock market hints. First thing tomorrow, though, get on to the TV stations, borrow all their tapes on the crime scenes and the funerals, if any. Call in Jack Chew and Hans Ludke. The three of you go through those tapes, pick out any faces you see more than once and trace them.”

“I’ll get the tapes delivered this evening. We can’t take our time on this one.”

“No.” He read the concern for himself in Clements’ voice. “Thanks.”

Closer to the city Waldorf said, “What’s Brian Boru O’Brien like? I can barely remember him as Horrie O’Brien.”

“He’s likeable,” said Malone. “Ten per cent of the time.”

“Five per cent,” said Clements.

But now, half an hour after Waldorf’s arrival, the two men at last looked as if they might be getting closer to compatibility. “Do you have to sing tonight?” O’Brien said.

“No, tomorrow night. We give the throat a rest two or three nights a week. Union rules.”

O’Brien looked at his watch. “It’s early, but let’s go down for dinner. We’ll go to the Gold Room.” He saw Malone’s dubious look. “He’s not going to poison the whole restaurant to get at us. We’ll be safe.”

“I wasn’t thinking about that. The police per diem doesn’t run to eating in the Gold Room—I’ve seen their prices. Does the Congress have a McDonald’s?”

“I’ll pick up the tab.”

“I’ll split it with you,” said Waldorf.

“No.” O’Brien’s emphasis was a little hard-edged. He had that self-conscious aggression that self-made men have who always pick up the tab, as if to allow anyone else to do it would topple them from the peak they had achieved. “It’s on me.”

Malone, the comparatively poor man in the room, watched this small encounter; he guessed that Waldorf was also a man always first to reach for the bill. He felt embarrassed, even though, as Lisa said, she always had to take the fishhooks out of his pockets before she sent his suits to the cleaner’s. But, the practical cop, he raised a point that had nothing to do with picking up the tab: “Do we take one of the security fellers down with us?”

“Do we need to?” said O’Brien. “I’m tired of being haunted by those guys.”

“Better them than Blizzard.”

“We’ll take the risk,” said O’Brien, as if the decision was his alone. The phone rang and he picked it up. “Hullo? . . . Just a moment.”

He looked hard at Malone and the latter waited for him to say that the nursery rhyme was about to be sung again. “Blizzard?”

O’Brien frowned; then shook his head. “No. I’ll take it on the other phone. Hang up for me, will you? It’s my friend.”

He went into the bedroom and closed the door. Malone hung up the phone and looked at Waldorf. “He has a friend he wants kept out of this.”

“Who wouldn’t? In a way I’m glad my family are in Germany. I’ll call „em tonight when we come back from dinner. The kids will be home from school for lunch. They’re going to special summer classes to learn German. That’s what they’re going to grow up to be—Germans.”

“Do you speak German?”

Waldorf nodded. “But I always thought I’d die an Australian. Maybe I will.”

“Forget that sort of talk!” Malone was surprised at the sharpness in his own voice.

Waldorf nodded again, all the light frivolity gone from his manner. “Sure, it’s stupid to talk like that. Sorry. But I read the papers while I was in the bedroom, about what happened here last night. You were lucky.”

“Last night’s thing had nothing to do with Blizzard.”

“You want to tell me about it?”

“No, I’ll leave that to Brian. They were after him, not me.”

He had called Lisa and the children in Noosa as soon as he had returned to the hotel late this afternoon. Then he had called Claire at Holy Spirit. She had been told by the day girls at school what had happened last night at the hotel, that his name had been mentioned, and she had sounded worried and all at once very young again. He had done his best to reassure her, but when he had got off the phone he had felt as if he had somehow betrayed her and Maureen and Tom. It was illogical to think so, he had only been doing his job, taking risks that were part of it. But logic has nothing to do with love: if it did, mathematicians would all be Don Juans or doting fathers. He wondered what Waldorf would tell his family in Germany, how much he would explain to them.

O’Brien was on the phone to Anita Norval for twenty minutes. During that time Waldorf went into the second bedroom again to change. When he came out he looked all set for a fashion commercial, in a double-breasted navy blazer that had more gold buttons than could be found on a fleet of admirals, a pale blue cashmere turtleneck sweater and cavalry twill trousers with creases so sharp they could have sliced bread. O’Brien’s door then opened and he, too, had changed: into a double-breasted navy blazer with more gold buttons etc. Malone, the standard-bearer for the unfashionable, grinned.

“How about that? I’m going to dinner with Tweedledum and Tweedledee.” His mother had never read him nursery stories, but he had heard Lisa reading them to the children. It struck him all of a sudden that he had never heard her reading anything about green bottles standing on a wall, though he had known that rhyme as a child.

O’Brien went back into his room, came out in a grey sports jacket. “That better?”

The mood between the three of them had lightened; O’Brien’s mood, in particular, had improved considerably. The conversation with Anita had been the next best thing to holding her in his arms. It had been the one bright spot in his whole day.

“How did things go with the NCSC?” said Malone on the way down in the lift.

O’Brien shook his head. “They’re holding my head under water. I’m struggling.”

“I’ve been reading about your troubles,” said Waldorf diffidently. “Does it help to wish you luck?”

“Thanks, but not much. I need more than luck.”

The Congress hotel was owned by some Japanese yakuza, who had managed to buy reputable front men here in Australia; the major hotels were being taken over by foreigners, as if they had come to the country, sampled the service and decided it should be better. The developer, a true-blue Aussie, who had built the Congress, had piously swallowed his xenophobia, grabbed the proffered millions and retired to the Queensland Gold Coast. There he had bought a penthouse in a high-rise development owned by more Japanese. All the horses on the merry-go-round carried money, but the bets were in yen.

The Gold Room had not been designed for serious eaters. The food was just reasonable though elegantly served, but the restaurant was meant to be a showcase where the performers paid to be seen. It was all gold-flecked mirrors, gold frames and gold carpet, the monotony relieved only by the white linen and the green marble pillars along each wall; green and gold were the national colours and Malone wondered if the room had been designed by an Olympic coach who had gone mad on steroids. The waiters, mostly Asian, wore gold epaulettes that made them look like Ruritanian generals; the plate and glassware were rimmed with gold. It was enough to turn over any sensitive stomach, especially that of any commodities dealer in today’s falling gold market. Malone noted that most of the diners were the hotel’s foreign guests, Japanese, Americans and the odd bod from the Middle East. The natives, who had flocked here before the Crash of „87, were conspicuous by their absence. Once sheeplike in their rush to be seen at the “in” places, they were no longer willing to be fleeced. Malone looked at the gold-trimmed menu and figured that his per diem would have bought a bowl of soup.

The three men ordered; then Waldorf said, “I wonder what Blizzard’s eating tonight?” Malone and O’Brien looked at him coldly and he smiled and went on, “We haven’t talked about him since the three of us got together. Here’s a man trying to kill me and I don’t know a damn thing about him.”

“We know bugger-all ourselves,” said Malone, “except that when he was young he was a crack shot. He still is, apparently.”

“I’ve been racking my brains to remember anything, anything at all about him, and all I’ve come up with is that he was a nut about movies. He told me once that he’d only discovered them when he came to Sydney. Didn’t they have cinemas down where he came from, Minnamook or whatever it is?”

“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.

IV

At eight o’clock Malone called Holy Spirit convent and asked for Claire. She came to the phone bubbling with excitement. “We’re just about to leave, Daddy. Are you all right?”

“I’m fine. I just called to wish you happy holiday. Don’t break a leg.”

“You take care, too, Dad.” The bubbling subsided for a moment. “Don’t get shot or anything.”

Against all the grain of his temperament he wanted to shout at her, Don’t talk like that! But all he said, quietly, was, “I’ll be all right, love. Just enjoy yourself.”

He hung up and turned to find Waldorf watching him from the bedroom door. “Your wife?”

“My daughter, the older one. She’s going on her first skiing holiday. She’ll be fourteen soon, time for me to buy a shotgun.”

“Kids are a worry. But we should be so lucky.” He went back into the bedroom, already halfway home (even though it wasn’t home) to Germany.

By the time Malone got to Police Centre, having checked the guest list at the hotel and found no one suspicious had checked in in the last twenty-four hours, having seen off O’Brien and Waldorf to the NCSC and the Opera House respectively, like a single parent making sure his charges would not be late, Clements, Jack Chew and Hans Ludke had been through the television newsreel clips several times.

“All the scenes of the crime clips and Terry Sugar’s funeral,” said Clements. “The head with the most appearances, apart from a coupla TV reporters, is guess whose? Scobie Malone’s. You notch up seven appearances all told on all the channels.”

“You mean I’m the chief suspect? I’m sorry I suggested all this.”

“There’s nobody looks in the least suspicious,” said Chew. “I mean aside from that dumb-faced curiosity you see at funerals and crime scenes when the crowds gather. As if they’re ashamed to be there, but can’t help sticky-beaking.”

“Who were the TV reporters?” Malone asked.

“That smart-arse kid from Channel 15 and one from Channel 7. They’re both too young to be Frank Blizzard.” Clements drank his coffee and munched on the doughnut that was his breakfast. It was his idea of a slimming diet. “No, Scobie, he’s too smart. He’s not gunna put in an appearance. He’s read all those detective mysteries. He knows the danger of coming back to the scene of the crime.”

“What about Mardi Jack and Jim Knoble? When are they being buried?”

“Up till yesterday afternoon the coroner hadn’t released the bodies. But he’s been told to get his finger out. The Department is giving Jim an official funeral, it’s down for Monday. So’s Mardi’s, tentatively. The bodies should be released today.”

“We’ll go to both of them if the times don’t clash. You fellers right for Jim’s funeral?” Malone looked at Chew and Ludke.

“Yes,” said Ludke. “Are we supposed to be on the look-out for Blizzard?”

Malone nodded. “I still think he’s getting too much of a kick out of these murders to stay too far away from them. And he’s still got his eye on me.” He told them of the phone call to the hotel last night.

Clements wiped doughnut sugar from his mouth. “Think of the headlines if he shot you at Jim Knoble’s funeral.”

“No, you think of them. I’d rather not.”

“Sorry, mate. I said that without thinking. I’m tired, the bloody brain’s in neutral.” Then he sat up straight, opened his running sheet file. “I’ve got more on our little friend Joe Gotti. The Melbourne boys passed it on—they’d got it from the Federals. Gotti went up to Canberra twice in the past month. The first time he was met at the airport by Billy Lango, Tony Lango’s son.”

“I thought his record was that he’d had nothing to do with the Mafia?”

“Neither he had. This was the first time he’d ever been seen with them.”

“Did they follow him?”

“The Feds weren’t asked to put a tail on him. They had enough on their plate—there were three demos that day, the students, the Abos and the gays. Someone had got his dates mixed and given „em all a permit to demonstrate on the same day.”

“I’d have liked to be there,” said Ludke, who played first grade rugby union. “It would’ve been better than a punch-up against Warringah.”

“I wonder why we never have a Chinese demo?” said Chew. “If ever I turn up at a demo, all they want to do is throw their arms around me and tell me they’re against all race discrimination.”

“You should try the National Front some time,” said Clements. “They’d throw their arms around your neck and break it.”

Malone sighed patiently. “Righto, you police thugs, do you mind if we get back to Mr. Gotti?”

All three thugs grinned and Clements went on, “All the Feds were asked to do was report when he arrived and left Canberra. He came and went on the same day. The same when he came back a week later.”

“Did the Langos pick him up that time?”

“No.” Clements paused, ran his tongue along his teeth; it could have been a pause for effect or he could have been cleaning his teeth of the last of the doughnut’s sugar. “He caught a cab, went straight to Parliament House. He had an appointment with the member for East Gregory, Old Pavlova-Head himself, Arnold Debbs.”

Chew and Ludke now sat up straight; Malone, weary from lack of sleep but also weary from too many surprises over too many years, remained relaxed. “Did anyone ask Debbs why Gotti visited him?”

“Not as far as I know. They had nothing on Gotti at that time.”

“Where’s Debbs now?”

“I’ve checked that. He’s up here in Sydney. I’ve made an appointment for you and me to see him at his electoral office in an hour.”

Ah, what would I do without you, Russ? Don’t ever let anyone smarten you up, don’t ever let Lisa run a steam iron over you. You’re just right as you are, the perfect intelligent slob. But Clements had made one mistake: in making sure Debbs would be where they could find him, Debbs had been warned and, being a politician, he would have all his answers ready in advance.

Then Chief Superintendent Danforth appeared in the doorway of Malone’s office. “You didn’t tell me you’d be having a conference this morning.”

“It’s just routine, Harry. I’d have brought the results to you later.” Why am I sucking up to him like this? Why don’t I just tell him to get stuffed? “I thought you were too busy to be bothered with detail.”

“I am, yes. Yes, I am.” Danforth tried to look busy, something he’d never achieved in forty-three years in the Department. He usually slumped into the first chair at hand, but decided he would look busier if he stayed on his feet. He magnanimously waved to Ludke, who had half-risen from his chair, to remain seated. “No, stay there, Hans, I’ve got things to do. I’ve been up and down ever since I got in, like—like—”

“Like a toilet seat in a dysentery plague?” said Clements straight-faced.

“Yeah.” Danforth grinned, not sure that he wasn’t being laughed at. “Yeah, that’s a good one. The media bastards have been on to me. They want to know, Scobie, why you were so handy to O’Brien the other night when Gotti took the shots at you.”

“What did you tell „em?”

“I said no comment.” He was good at that; it never required much intellectual effort. “But sooner or later they’re gunna find out about the hit list and make a connection between all the murders.”

“Maybe we should tell „em?” said Ludke.

Malone shook his head. “Not yet. Let’s wait a day or two, see if Blizzard gets in touch with the papers or one of the radio gurus. If he’s after publicity, maybe he’ll say something that’ll give him away.”

Danforth considered this a moment, then nodded. “Okay. You got anything new on Gotti?”

Clements told him about the advice from the Victorian police. “He went up to Canberra to see Tony Lango and Arnold Debbs.”

“Debbs? The MP? You sure?”

“The Feds gave us their word on it,” said Clements. “After I got the advice from Melbourne, I rang the Feds in Canberra half an hour ago.”

Danforth ran the ham of his hand over his short-back-and-sides, scratching for a coherent thought. “That’s gunna complicate things. What’ve you got in mind?”

“Russ and I are going to see Debbs this morning,” said Malone.

“Well, don’t lean on him too hard. You know what these bloody politicians are like.” He looked at Chew and Ludke. “How are you two going?”

“I think it’s moved out of our areas,” said Jack Chew; it was difficult to tell whether he was relieved or disappointed. “I don’t think we’re going to find out much more than we know now, I mean about Harry Gardner and Terry Sugar. That right, Hans?”

“I think the next act is going to be here on Scobie’s turf,” said Ludke.

“Act?” said Danforth. “What d’you think this is, some sorta bloody musical comedy?”

“An opera,” said Malone. “It won’t be over till the fat lady sings.”

“What fat lady?”

We’d better stop baiting him, Malone thought, or he’s going to turn nasty. “It’s just a saying, Harry. I’ve been listening to Sebastian Waldorf.”

When Danforth had gone, Clements said, “I thought the fat lady sang after American baseball games?”

“Maybe she does, I dunno. Let’s go and see Arnold Debbs and see if he has anything to sing. Thanks for coming in, Jack, Hans. Russ’ll let you know how we get on. We’ll see you at Jim Knoble’s funeral.”

Malone and Clements went down to the garage. As they got into their usual unmarked car Malone said, “Did you tell Debbs why we wanted to see him?”

“I didn’t speak to him, I spoke to his secretary. I said we were voters who wanted to make a donation to the Party, one that we didn’t want to trust to the post.”

Ah, Russ, how could I have doubted you?

They drove out to Debbs’ electoral office, less than two miles from the heart of the city. It was an area of light industry, rows of old one-storeyed terrace cottages, half a dozen towering Housing Commission blocks of flats, rundown stores, a seedy-looking pub and a scrubby park where four winos lay under a tree discussing the state of the nation as viewed from the bottom of the heap. Debbs’ electoral office was in a single-fronted shop, one of six facing the park. On one side of it was a butcher’s shop and on the other a fruiterer’s, each of them advertising in rough lettering the bargains of the week. On the window of Debbs’ store was: Arnold Debbs, Your Federal Member.

“Is he the bargain of the week?” said Clements as he and Malone got out of the car.

“Not in my book.”

There were half a dozen people sitting or standing in the front section of the shop when the two detectives entered. They were all battlers, some of them looking as if they had already lost the battle and surrendered. Malone looked at a young mother, thin and poorly dressed, a baby in her arms and a two-year-old clutching her knee; he turned away, unable to stand the misery and hopelessness in her pinched, already ageing face.

Those waiting looked up curiously at the newcomers and Malone saw the instant stiffening of four of them; this was an area where the natives recognized a policeman by his smell. The thin young man behind the reception table, his bony face sallow from overwork and too much time spent in party rooms, looked with the same suspicion as the constituents at the two policemen.

Clements introduced himself and Malone, mentioning nothing about the earlier phone call. “We’d like ten minutes of Mr. Debbs’ time.”

“I’m afraid Mr. Debbs is busy. These people have been waiting, some of them more than an hour.”

That’s right, Malone thought, make the cops out to be gatecrashing bastards who don’t care for the rights of others. He turned to the voters. “We’re sorry to butt in, we’re Labour like you—” He hadn’t voted formally in ten years and he was pretty sure that Clements had the same outlook towards political parties. “Blame our visit on the Federal government. You know what the Liberals are like.”

One or two of the voters nodded, too-bloody-right-they-knew-what-the-bloody-Libs-were-like; but a couple of young men leaning against the wall just sneered. They knew what bloody cops were like.

The secretary stood up, tall and gangling. If he was aiming some day for pre-selection as a candidate, he had everything, in these days of charisma above talent, against him. “I’ll see if Mr. Debbs is free.”

He was back in ten seconds, ushering a Greek woman out ahead of him. She glared at Malone and Clements and didn’t move out of their way as the two detectives stepped round her and followed the secretary into the back room of the shop. He introduced them and went out, closing the door behind him.

The office was a small room papered with posters of Debbs and party promises. There was also a poster of Penelope, as if to remind the voters that the Debbs represented them also at State level. Malone wondered if the Debbs had had any children, whether they would have installed a son or daughter in the local town hall to look after local government. But ambition had made the Debbs too busy to have children.

Debbs didn’t look surprised to have the police visiting him; in this electorate, with his mix of constituents, it wasn’t unusual. He sat behind a table on which were half a dozen files, some letters waiting to be signed and a small metal stand of foreign flags grouped around the Australian flag, a salute to multiculturism. Malone further wondered if a new flag was added every time a constituent of a new nationality moved into the electorate. The secretary outside looked as if he would have the nose of an immigration officer.

“Inspector Malone—” Debbs rose and put out his hand; then he offered it to Clements. It was a politician’s hand, moving of its own accord. “It must be important, to bring you way out here.”

Way out here: two miles at the most. But, Malone guessed, Debbs probably felt no more at home here in this area than those voters who had recently arrived from Greece or Italy or the Lebanon.

“We shan’t take up too much of your time, Mr. Debbs—” Malone went for the throat. “Do you know a man named Joseph Gotti?”

“One of my constituents? The name doesn’t ring a bell. I’m not the sort of politician who remembers everyone’s name.” Debbs smiled, being frank.

“No, he’s not one of your voters. He came from Melbourne, came up to see you in Canberra a week or two ago. An Italian, smallish build, young. A professional hitman.” Malone delivered the last like a professional hitman, right between the eyes.

Debbs didn’t blink, but the pale blue eyes abruptly hardened, became thin blue screens behind which his real eyes had retreated. “Oh, him. I didn’t take to him at all. But a hitman? You exaggerate, Inspector, surely? No, you don’t, I can see that. Where is he now?”

“In the City Morgue. I shot him the other night.” Another professional hit right between the eyes; but again Debbs didn’t blink. “It was in the papers.”

“Of course! I heard it on the radio—but I didn’t take any notice of the man’s name. Who was he shooting at? You?”

“We think it was your friend Brian Boru O’Brien.”

For a moment the real eyes were pressed against the blue screen, showing venom. “Did Mr. O’Brien send you to see me?”

“No. Why did Gotti come to see you, Mr. Debbs?”

Debbs sat back in his chair. He wore an expensive shirt and tie under the cheap dark blue woollen cardigan, part of his disguise when he came to honour the locals with his presence. This was a safe Labour seat; he would never be voted out, no matter how he treated the natives. But this area was not really his scene, though he had been born not five miles from here. Like his wife he was not really Labour, if the truth was ever to come out; both of them could just as easily have been Liberal or even National, the conservative rural party, though the latter possibility would have made even the farmers’ sheep laugh. They had chosen Labour because the party talent at that time had been at an all-time low and they had known they could easily beat the competition for pre-selection as a candidate. They lived in Strathfield, a solid middle-class suburb halfway between their respective electorates, and looked upon these duty visits to their parishes as penance for sacrificing their real self-interest. The cardigan, worn to impress the locals of his humble origin, felt like a hair shirt every time he put it on.

“Inspector, for a month there I was acting-Shadow Minister for Immigration. Gotti came to see me about an uncle of his who wants to emigrate from Italy. I told him I could do nothing for him myself, but to see his local member, Nick Odskirt. When you’re in Opposition there’s not much one can do,” he said sadly, but sad for himself not the voters.

“Did Gotti give any references, say who’d recommended he come and see you?”

“No, he just turned up. He seemed a young man with a lot of initiative. I mean, to come all the way up from Melbourne.”

“Did he say why he didn’t come up to see the Minister?”

“Yes, he told me he’d been given the brush-off. He said he was a Labour voter. A hitman!” He shook the big white head, as if hitmen were unknown in the Labour Party.

Clements was bursting to smile; instead, he said, “I have a note from our informants, Mr. Debbs, that a week before, Gotti came up to Canberra and went to see Tony Lango. Did he mention Lango as a reference?”

Debbs frowned, as if trying to remember another voter’s name. Then he raised his eyebrows; they went up the teak-coloured face like white grubs. “You mean Tony Lango, the one mentioned in the Crime Authority report in the newspapers? The Mafia man? Good God, no! If he’d mentioned him, I’d have had him thrown out at once. Was he an associate of Lango’s? Good Christ, and he was asking me to sponsor one of his uncles! The uncle could have been a don or a godfather or whatever they call them!”

Malone recognized a blank wall, even one hung with a cardigan. He stood up. “Righto, we won’t take up any more of your time, Mr. Debbs. The voters outside have probably got more problems than we have. Can we get you here if we think of anything else?”

“No, I’m going back to Canberra right after lunch. I’ll be there for the next fortnight, Parliament is in session.” He stood up, held out his hand; the screen slid away from his eyes, they looked almost friendly. “Why was Gotti trying to kill my friend Mr. O’Brien?”

“We don’t know,” said Malone. “Do you, Russ?”

“Haven’t a clue,” said Clements, giving Debbs back his hand. “But something’ll turn up. It always does.”

The two detectives went out through the outer office, Malone now apologizing to the now considerably larger waiting crowd. “Great feller, Mr. Debbs. He’ll do everything he can for you. Vote for him every time.” He looked at the secretary. “Right?”

“Every time,” said the secretary, waiting for his MP to retire or die so that he could put his own name up for pre-selection.

Out on the footpath there were more people waiting. Malone was surprised at the patience on their faces, as if waiting was a lifelong habit. These were the unlucky ones in the Lucky Country; he felt helpless and angry just looking at them. He knew there would be precious little help inside for them, Debbs had his own problems.

The two policemen got into their car. Across in the park the winos were weaving and stumbling around on the brown, patchy grass, playing touch football with a sweet sherry bottle. The fruiterer came out of his shop and approached the car.

“You police?” He was a Greek, but he had the local nose. “Why you don’t arrest them bums? They a bloody nuisance.”

“They’re just playing football,” said Malone. “I thought they were South Sydney practising for the grand final.”

“I bet you barrack for them silvertails, Manly,” said the fruiterer, sour as one of his own lemons.

As they drove away Clements said, “What d’you reckon about Debbs?”

“He’s a liar, every slice of him. Now we’ve got to find out why.” V

“They’ve traced young Gotti to me,” said Arnold Debbs, cardigan discarded, now at ease again in his English-tailored suit; or as at ease as he could be in view of what he now knew. “They’ve traced him to you, too, Tony.”

Tony Lango edged a little closer to the log fire in the big stone fireplace; he always felt the cold, was never comfortable except at the height of summer. He was as wide as he was tall, not all the bulk of him fat. When he had first come to Australia thirty years ago from Calabria he had earned money as a part-time wrestler around the clubs and on late night television; now he was a full-time farmer and drug dealer. He had a broad swarthy face, a huge nose overhanging a thick moustache and deceptively merry eyes; children loved him, as they had Hitler. He had three sons and four daughters and seventeen grandchildren whom he doted on; and he had been responsible for the deaths of hundreds of other children, to none of whom he ever gave a thought. Late in life he had set his eye on respectability, but he had left his run too late. He would have been amused to learn that he and O’Brien had had similar ideas.

“How d’you know all this?”

“I have a contact.” The contact had given Debbs the information only a few minutes before Malone and Clements had arrived at his office that morning. “It’s reliable, Tony. That’s why I got on to all of you in a hurry.”

He had called the conference as soon as the two detectives had left his office. By chance, all of those he had phoned had been available and now they were all gathered here at the Debbs’ country retreat on the outskirts of Bowral, halfway between Sydney and Goulburn. He and Penelope had bought the thirty acres and the old colonial cottage three years ago, but they had never publicized the purchase and so far, fortunately, no media muckrakers had discovered it. Bowral was a retirement retreat for silvertails and none of the Debbs’ constituents would have looked with favour on their MP’s living the country squire life.

It was not a big house and the room in which the five men sat was small enough for them to fill it. Penelope, an unlikely pioneer type, had furnished it with colonial antiques; there was even a spinning-wheel standing in one corner, though it was useless for spinning lies and promises. There were woollen rugs on the polished floorboards and, appropriately, a print of a local, long-dead bushranger on a wall.

“Where’d you get this Gotti anyway, Tony?” said Leslie Chung. He was in his mid-forties, a refugee from Shanghai via Hong Kong; he was rumoured to be a Triad boss, but Debbs wasn’t sure if that was true. Chung was a jewellery and gem importer and that was all Debbs really knew about him; he doubted if the others in the room knew much more. Chung was balding, slim and always impeccably dressed: his clothes told more about him than his thin, impassive face. He was always polite, but in the manner of a royal executioner: he would bow before cutting off your head. “He wasn’t very efficient, trying to shoot down Mr. O’Brien in front of a crowd of witnesses, including a police inspector.”

“I was the one who recommended him.” Dennis Pelong was the brute in the room, a burly man with a face as blunt and hard as his huge fists. He had come straight from a golf course and Debbs wondered what sort of club would have him as a member. He wore a woollen beanie that made him look pointy-headed and did nothing for his unintelligent looks, a turtleneck sweater and a bulky golf jacket. He looked like an over-the-hill heavyweight just back from a training run. Nobody knew exactly where he came from. Debbs thought there was a streak of the tarbrush in him, but one couldn’t tell whether it was Aborigine, Maori, Tongan or anywhere south of the Equator. He ran one of the biggest drug rings in the country, had an animal ruthlessness about him and Debbs was afraid of him more than of anyone else in the room. “He done some good jobs for me, three or four. Don’t start fucking complaining, Les.”

“I was just remarking, Dennis, not making an issue of it.”

“Yeah, well . . .” Pelong couldn’t stand the Chink, he was so fucking uppity. Pelong was a racist, even towards his own mother, the dark-skinned woman whom he had last seen when he had run away from home on his fourteenth birthday.

“Let’s talk about what we’re gunna do, not what’s been done,” said Jack Aldwych. “We gotta wash out any connection with Gotti. You do anything about that, Arnie?”

Debbs kept his temper, which he never displayed in front of these men, knowing it would only endanger him. He hated being called Arnie; but he would never have chided Jack Aldwych for doing so. Big Jack, as he was called, was the biggest man in this gathering, biggest in physique and in his power. He was in his late sixties, handsome in a coarse, beefy way, with thinning silver hair, shrewd blue eyes that looked kinder than they actually were, and a voice like a gravel chute in full working order. He had a legitimate business empire of a chain of clothing boutiques, half a dozen hotels, real estate holdings and a medium-sized engineering plant that, a joke to those in the know, made safes for trusting businessmen. He had no investment in casinos or night-clubs—“You own one of them,” he had once told Debbs, “you always got the police sniffing around.” He was one of Australia’s ten richest men, but he never figured in any of the lists of the country’s richest. His real wealth, like an iceberg of green slime, was hidden beneath the surface.

“It’s being attended to, Jack. Gotti’s body is being sent back to Melbourne and the file on him will just sort of be put to one side.”

“Just like in Canberra?” said Chung, and all the men, with the exception of Debbs, laughed. They all had minor bureaucracies of their own, but Christ help any mug who put any business to one side, like they did down in Canberra.

Debbs admired and envied the power these men had: it was almost imperial. He aspired to such power, though theirs was based on the uses of evil and he was not, basically, an evil man. All that bound him to them was that they had all been duped by that bastard Brian Boru O’Brien. It was not the amount of money they had been duped of that made them so implacably resolved to kill O’Brien: it was almost petty cash to some of them. It was the knowledge that he could turn out to be the informer who could send them all to prison for years; or, in the case of Jack Aldwych, for the rest of his life. Debbs sometimes wondered why he had introduced O’Brien to them. But hindsight is everyone’s stroke of genius.

“We still have to attend to O’Brien,” Chung went on.

“Get one of your guys,” said Pelong. “You Chinamen are supposed to be the expert killers, you been doing it for five thousand years, I read.”

“You’ve been reading comics, Dennis. We’re a peaceful race.”

“Bullshit.”

“Okay, cut out the cackle,” said Aldwych, the last emperor, if not of China, then certainly of this room. “Why has O’Brien got this guy Malone with him? I know Malone. A nice guy, but he’s so bloody honest he turns your stomach. I had one of my blokes approach him years ago, when he was on the Vice Squad, and he beat the bejesus outa him and then give him a ticket for double-parking. He’s got a nice sense of humour,” he added appreciatively and smiled, an old man’s gentle grin. “What’s he doing with O’Brien?”

“That’s where we may be lucky,” said Debbs. “Nil desperandum.”

One of his political heroes had been a certain prime minister who had had a classical tag for every occasion. Debbs had had no classical education, but had bought a good dictionary and found the foreign phrases in the back of it.

“What the fuck’s that?” Pelong had never looked into a dictionary.

“It’s an old Confucian saying,” said Chung, ivory-faced. “He used to say it all the time. Never fucking despair.”

Aldwych gave them a look that was like a gavel blow on the head. “Shut up! What were you gunna say, Arnie?”

Debbs felt he was stepping on thin ice as he ventured into the sudden silence in the room; he had created the tense scene with his stupid Latin tag. “There’s some chap, an ex-police cadet named Blizzard, who has O’Brien, Malone and an opera singer named Waldorf on a hit list. It has something to do with something that happened years ago at the police academy. He’s already killed two other cops and an ex-police cadet like himself and he’s also killed a girl-friend of O’Brien’s. That was an accident, I gather.”

“Where’d you get all this, Arnie?” said Lango and the others nodded in appreciation of Debbs’ information.

He basked in their admiration, relaxing a little. Inside information was his only riches, all he had to put him on a par with these men; but he knew that he was standing on a temporary scaffolding, that any day they could tip him off it and he would drop way down below their level, unwanted any more. He was not in their pay, which was the only honest thing that could be said about their relationship.

“Let’s just say it sometimes pays to be a politician.”

“I thought it paid all the time,” said Aldwych and once again all the men, with the exception of Debbs, laughed. “So this guy—what’s his name? Blizzard? Like a snowstorm?—he’s trying to bump „em off?”

“Can we get him to work for us?” said Pelong.

“Why?” said Aldwych. He had no time for Pelong, who he thought was so dumb as to be dangerous. “He’s working for himself. All we gotta do is sit and wait. When he hits O’Brien, mebbe we can send him some flowers or something.” Again he smiled the old man’s gentle grin.

“What if he takes too long?” said Lango. “The goddam NCSC is gunna get around to us pretty soon, asking questions. O’Brien’s probably spilling his guts every day he’s with „em.”

“We’ll wait another week,” said Aldwych, who in fifty years of crime had never waited for anyone to elect him leader; he spoke, and the others agreed with him, if they knew what was good for them, “If he hasn’t killed O’Brien by then, we get another hitman, a good one this time. Leave it with me.”

“What about Malone and this opera singer?” said Debbs. “I understand they’re with O’Brien all the time. They’re all holed up in the Congress Hotel.”

“Jesus,” said Chung, a taxpayer when it was unavoidable, “are the police paying for that?”

“If we gotta do it, we blow „em away, too,” said Pelong. “Nobody’s gunna miss a cop and a fucking opera singer.”

Debbs brought out his fifteen-year-old malt whisky and they all drank to the death of O’Brien and anyone else who got in the way; Debbs, mouth dry at what he was toasting, didn’t waste the whisky as it went down. He knew the dangers of his being implicated in the murder of O’Brien: the police would trace some connection through the already dead Gotti. But he could not withdraw: he was more afraid of these men than of the police. He knew he was expendable, just like O’Brien.

Then the visitors left one by one, Jack Aldwych going first, as befitted an emperor. Debbs walked out of the front door with him. The house was a long way from the road and hidden by a grove of English oaks; here in the cool, often very cold southern highlands, European trees flourished. The trees gave Arnold Debbs the privacy he wanted, especially today.

“I’m worried, Jack. I keep hearing things about what’s going on at the NCSC. O’Brien’s being heard in camera, but I’ve had a few leaks. He hasn’t mentioned us by name yet, but he’s given them a few hints. I think he’s trying to get some sort of deal with them.”

“Are they likely to give him one?” Aldwych shivered in the cold air.

“I don’t think so. They’re not like the Crime Authority, they’re not after chaps like you.” Aldwych looked at him and Debbs shivered, but inside. “You know what I mean, Jack.”

“Sure. Sure I do, Arnie.” He pressed Debbs’ plump shoulder; he was an old man but his grip felt like that of a young thug. “All you gotta do is not lose your nerve. We’ll come outa this okay. I ain’t lived this long to be chopped down by some little piss-ant like O’Brien.”

He walked across to his car, a modest dark blue Toyota, and got in beside his son, who was his father’s driver and minder. He waved a big hand to Debbs and the Toyota went away down the long drive and disappeared past the grove of trees.

The other three men left at intervals of two minutes, like starters in a motor rally. Lango went first in his gold Mercedes, driven by his son Billy; Pelong went off in a white Rolls-Royce, driving himself; and Leslie Chung got into his small BMW. He looked out at Debbs.

“You didn’t choose well, Arnold, when you recommended us to Mr. O’Brien.”

“I thought he was on the up-and-up—I had no idea—”

“No, I don’t mean him. I meant our associates—particularly that dumb son-of-a-bitch Pelong.” For a moment the soft voice hardened, had a razor’s edge to it. “He advertises everything—that Rolls, for instance. I don’t know how he has lasted as long as he has. I’m afraid that if we don’t dispose of Mr. O’Brien very soon, Pelong will go after him himself. Then God knows what will come out into the open.”

“Perhaps you should have him disposed of,” Debbs heard himself say.

“It may be necessary,” said Chung, starting up the engine. “But I never expected you, of all people, Arnold, to suggest it.”