Dragons at the Party

by Jon Cleary

  But the room was full of a woman’s private things: he couldn’t face them, suddenly felt an odd respect for Miss Kiddle who possibly had never had a man, other than a plumber, in this most private of rooms. He went out, found a second bathroom, relieved himself, pressed the cistern button and went back into the living-room. He had taken off his right glove to handle his penis and now he put it back on again as he settled back at his post.

  It was almost dark when President and Madame Timori stepped out and began their after-dinner stroll. They stood for a moment looking down at the spectacle of the lighted boats on the harbour. Seville raised the rifle, found his target distinct against the cross-hatch of the „scope. The Timoris were standing close together; there would be the opportunity for two shots in quick succession. He would present Madame Timori to the client as a bonus at no extra charge.

  The demonstrators, evidently alerted that the Timoris had come out of the house and were in the grounds, were now shouting and chanting at the top of their voices. “Death to Dictators!” was one chant, and Seville took it as encouragement. His finger eased gently on the trigger, then tightened. At that moment he saw the other figure come right into the centre of the „scope, but it was too late to hold the shot.

  When Seville realized he had shot the wrong man, panic, something he had never felt before, shot through him. His hand trembled; he looked at it with amazement, as if it didn’t belong to him. By the time the shaking had stopped it was too late for another shot. He hastily dismantled the rifle, fumbling in his haste and cursing himself for his awkwardness. He stuffed it into the squash bag, took a quick look around to make sure he had left nothing behind, then headed for the front door. He let himself out of the apartment and ran down the stairs.

  He had reached the bottom flight, was halfway down it, when he saw the elderly couple outlined against the glass front doors. They were about to come into the building, but had turned back for a last look at the demonstrators.

  Seville missed his step, almost plunged down the last few stairs. He swung round at the bottom and turned back behind the staircase. There was an alcove there, a storage place for buckets and brooms for the building’s cleaner. Seville pressed himself into the small dark space, waited for the elderly couple to come in and go to their flat. He had recovered his composure; he was prepared to kill again if he had to. It would be another close-to death, perhaps two, but that could not be helped.

  The front door was pushed open and the elderly couple came in. Seville could not see them, but he could hear their hesitant footsteps on the stairs above his head. And their remarks:

  “I’d lock ‘em all up,” said the elderly woman.

  “Those fellows across the road?” said her husband. “Norval and his gang? I’ve been saying that for years.”

  “No, stupid. Those young people in that crowd. Making all that noise and what for? What did noise ever do for anyone except give headaches? Have you got the key?”

  “No, you have it.”

  “I gave it to you, stupid!”

  “Keep your voice down. You’re making a noise.”

  They had stopped on the first-floor landing. Seville stepped out from the alcove, then froze. A uniformed policeman stood right outside the front doors, clearly seen through the glass. Seville hesitated, then he shoved the squash bag back into the alcove, dropping it into a bucket. His mind had worked swiftly. He did not want to be stopped and questioned as to what he was carrying in the bag. The noise from the demonstrators had suddenly stopped as they realized something had happened in the grounds of Kirribilli House. The police would be more alert now; even as Seville looked at him, the policeman suddenly moved off at the run as a whistle sounded. Seville stepped across the front lobby and out into the street.

  The demonstrators were being herded back up the street. They were going quietly, some of them looking shocked; they had evidently been told of the shooting. Seville hurried to catch up with the stragglers. A policeman appeared out of nowhere and grabbed Seville by the arm. His first reaction was to stop and struggle, but the policeman, a big burly man with cauliflower ears, was too quick for him.

  “Don’t try any rough stuff, son, or you’ll finish up in the wagon!” He gave Seville a shove, then a boot up the behind. “Git!”

  “Don’t argue with him,” a young girl warned Seville. “That’s the Thumper—he’s a menace to democracy.”

  “You’re bloody right I am!” said Thumper. “Now git before I put me boot up your bum, too!”

  The girl jerked her fingers at the sergeant, but ran up the street, dragging Seville with her. A moment later he was lost in the crowd of demonstrators, losing the girl too.

  Now, twelve hours later, he sat in this small bedroom in a pub in Rozelle, two or three miles from the heart of the city. He had found Sydney booked out for its 200th birthday party; it was an obliging taxi driver, after driving around for an hour, who had found this drinking hotel which, miraculously, had a room to rent. It was not an establishment that catered much, if at all, for accommodation; it made its money out of drinkers, not guests, and it entertained the drinkers with rock bands that had no talent but thunderous volume. The noise and the surroundings had done nothing to decrease Seville’s dislike of Australia and Australians.

  He was cursing the loss of the rifle; he still had the task of killing Timori but now he had no weapon. He had coolly walked through security screens before, in Rome, Milan, even Tel Aviv; but he had never done so carrying a weapon immediately after an assassination or massacre. This job had come too quickly, Timori’s movements had been unpredictable and Seville had had no time for proper planning. He was a precise killer and this time he had been anything but that. He was not accustomed to failure and it hurt like a bullet wound.

  He was forty years old and perhaps it was time to retire. But he could not go out on a botched job, with the target still alive and walking around. He needed another gun; but where did one buy a gun in Sydney on a holiday weekend? Guns were being fired all over the city, but they were firing blanks for celebration. Then he remembered the black militants he had met on his last visit to Sydney. The Aborigines, if they were like the Indians of Argentina, would be the last people taking a holiday to celebrate the rape of their country.

  II

  “This house is so small; said Madame Timori, trying to look hemmed in and not succeeding. “Our palace back home has eighty-eight rooms.”

  “Perhaps Australians have a better sense of modesty than us.” President Timori, homeless, was doing his best to be polite. He was training for exile, just in case the worst proved permanent.

  “I’m Australian,” said his wife. “Or anyway half-Australian. Do you live in a modest house, Inspector?”

  “It’s no palace, Madame.” Malone thought of the three-bedroomed house in Randwick that would fit almost twice into this one.

  “Do you have a swimming pool?”

  “Yes, a small one.” That had been a gift for the children from Lisa’s parents, a gesture that at first he had resented.

  “This house doesn’t. Can you imagine, a Prime Minister’s house with no pool? An Australian Prime Minister’s! I’ll bet there’s a barbecue somewhere, though.”

  She’s more than half-Australian, Malone thought. She’s one of those expatriate Aussies who can’t resist knocking their home country. He wondered if she ever mentioned Malaysia, her mother’s country. He was not chock-a-block with patriotism himself, but a little of it didn’t hurt, even a traitor.

  “You can always go next door and bathe in the Governor’s pool,” said the President.

  “The Governor-General.” She had a passion for accuracy: she wouldn’t have missed if she had been firing at her husband. “But who’d want to? He hasn’t sent one word since we arrived here. He’s probably waiting on the Queen to tell him what to do. And you know what she’s like, so damned stuffy about protocol.” Then the First Lady seemed to remember some protocol of her own. “I hope you’re not taking any of thi
s down in your little book, Inspector.”

  “No, Madame. Now may I ask the President some questions?”

  They were sitting out on the terrace on the harbour side of the house. Out on the sun-chipped water the yachts were already gathered like bird-of-paradise gulls; once, Malone remembered, the sails had all been white but now a fleet looked like a fallen rainbow. A container ship, all blue and red and yellow, was heading downstream towards the Heads, its hooting siren demanding right-of-way from the yachts, which seemed to ignore it till the very last moment. On the far side of the water the expensive houses and apartment blocks of Darling Point and Point Piper, silvertail territory, sparkled like quartz cliffs in the morning sun. There was little breeze and the heat lay on the city like a dark-blue blanket. It was going to be a scorcher of a day.

  “I don’t see why it’s necessary,” said Madame Timori, throwing cold water.

  Malone ignored her. “Mr. President, we have a lead on the man who tried to shoot you. We think it is Miguel Seville. He’s an Argentinian, one of the world’s leading terrorists. Maybe the leading one.”

  Sun Lee had come out of the house to stand in the background just behind Timori’s chair. The rest of the Presidential entourage, the men, women and children who had spent last night in one of the immigrant hostels, had moved down from the front of the house and stood in a group in the shade of some trees, looking as if they wanted an audience of the President but were not game to ask. But Malone noticed that they were all suddenly still, as if they had heard what he had said, and behind Timori the private secretary seemed to stiffen.

  Timori raised an eyebrow, but that was all. He was dressed in white slip-ons, white cotton slacks and a blue batik-patterned shirt: he could have taken his place on any of the cruising yachts out on the harbour or at any one of the barbecue picnics out in the suburbs. Except for his face: there was no holiday spirit there. He looked sick, older even than he had yesterday. Last night’s bullet hadn’t hit him, but he had read his name on it: it was unfortunate that poor Mohammed Masutir had had involuntary power of attorney.

  “Why would they hire a foreigner to kill me?” He sounded affronted as well as puzzled: for all his corruption he was a true nationalist.

  “Perhaps it was the Americans,” said his wife. “The CIA will hire anyone. Remember those Mafia they hired to try and kill Castro?”

  “But they were Americans,” said Timori. “No, it wouldn’t be the CIA. President Fegan is my friend,” he told Malone.

  “I’m sure he is, sir.” Malone did not voice his truthful opinion, that in top politics there were no friends, only expendable partners. He could not believe that Timori had read no history. “Have you had any trouble from terrorists in Palucca?”

  “None,” said Madame Timori. “I told you there were to be no political questions!”

  Pull your head in, Delvina. But Malone’s voice was still mild: “It wasn’t meant to be political, Madame Timori. I’m just trying to build up a picture in my mind so that we can do something about catching this man Seville before he makes another attempt on the President’s life.”

  “You think he’ll do that?” Timori had a soft silky voice; now it was just a whisper. “What sort of protection can you give me?”

  “I can give you none, sir. That’s up to the Federal Police and our Special Branch.”

  “What do you do, then?” Madame Timori’s voice was neither silky nor a whisper. Over under the trees the group was leaning forward, ears strained.

  “I’m afraid we’re always called in too late to prevent anything. That’s why we’re called Homicide—after the crime that’s been committed.”

  “Homicide? I thought you fellers had finished here?”

  Malone turned his head as the newcomer passed him, shook hands with Timori, then kissed Madame Timori on her upturned cheek. He was a barrel of a man, a mixture of muscle and fat, dressed in blue slacks and shirt and a raw silk jacket. Amongst all the sartorial elegance on this terrace—even Sun Lee looked like an advertisement for one of Hong Kong’s best tailors—Malone felt like someone who had just stepped out of a St. Vincent de Paul store.

  “I’m Russell Hickbed.” He was the sort of man who would never wait for someone else to introduce him. His broad, blunt-featured face had no smile for Malone; the pale-blue eyes behind the horn-rimmed glasses held no hint of friendliness. “You’re—?”

  “Inspector Malone.” Malone didn’t stand up or offer his hand. He sensed at once that only by remaining seated was he going to keep control of this interview with Timori.

  “Well, didn’t you get the message, Inspector?”

  Malone had never met Hickbed before but he had seen him on television, on Four Corners, Sixty Minutes and on the Carleton-Walsh show. Always laying down the law on the economic situation, on foreign policy, on equal rights: he was a nineteenth-century mind who shamelessly used a twentieth-century medium to preach his arch-conservative message. He had made his fortune in Western Australia in the construction business and the resources boom, then come East to take on the Establishments of Sydney and Melbourne and, according to his own estimate, beaten them to a pulp. Other Sandgropers, as Western Australians were called, had done the same, with varying degrees of success. The others still kept their bases in Perth, the Western capital, as if needing the moral, or immoral, support of their fellow millionaires; but Hickbed, folding his mansion tent on the Swan River, had settled in Sydney, buying an even bigger mansion on the shores of the harbour. Nobody knew how much he was worth, but if he lost a million or two on Monday he had usually recouped it by Tuesday. He had the rich man’s magnetism for money.

  “What message was that?” He’s expecting me to be a mug copper, so I’ll be one.

  Hickbed looked at the Timoris. The President seemed uninterested; but the First Lady was tense and angry. “The police here seem to be a law to themselves!”

  Hickbed took off his glasses and wiped them; somehow his face looked blank and less aggressive without them. “Is that so, Inspector?”

  “Perhaps you should ask the Premier.” Malone knew that Hickbed and The Dutchman were enemies who would cross an ocean to avoid each other. “The politicians make the laws in this State.”

  “This has nothing to do with the Premier or New South Wales.”

  “I’m afraid you don’t know the law, Mr. Hickbed. Homicide is a State offence, not a Federal one. I think it has something to do with States’ rights.”

  Hickbed recognized the barb. Before he had come out of the West he had been one of the nation’s most vociferous advocates of States’ rights. Then he had finally realized the real power would always remain in Canberra. That was when he had become leader of the kitchen cabinet that had taken charge of Phil Norval.

  He put his glasses back on, looked threatening. “You’re making trouble for yourself, Inspector.”

  Malone looked at him, then at Madame Timori, finally at the President. The latter might appear uninterested, but it struck Malone that he had missed nothing of the exchange between himself and Hickbed.

  “They warned me of that the first day I put on a uniform. A policeman’s lot . . .”

  But Hickbed had never listened to Gilbert and Sullivan. “You’re a pretty uppity policeman, aren’t you?”

  Malone put away his notebook and stood up. “It must be the surroundings. I was once in the Mayor’s mansion in New York—I got a bit light-headed there, too. I must be more ambitious than I thought.”

  “Oh, you’re that Malone!” Hickbed looked at him with new interest, if no more respect. “The one whose wife was kidnapped or something with the Mayor of New York?”

  “With the Mayor’s wife, actually.” Malone turned away from Hickbed; he also turned away from Madame Timori. “I’m not giving up on the case, Mr. President. I’d still like to nail this feller Seville before he tries to kill you again.”

  Timori stood up, getting out of his chair with the stiff movements of an old man. But his eyes seemed to have come al
ive; he put out his hand to shake Malone’s and his grip was firm. He smiled, a gold tooth that Malone hadn’t seen before all at once suggesting the raffish look he once must have had. He’s a bastard, Malone thought, corrupt as a rotten mango. But you might find yourself liking him.

  “I’d be grateful if you can—nail?—him, Inspector. It was always my ambition to die in bed, preferably beneath a beautiful woman—” The gold tooth winked at the First Lady; she gave him an unladylike glare and Hickbed, unexpectedly, looked embarrassed. Malone just grinned, “I don’t want to die from an assassin’s bullet. I hate surprises.”

  “We’ll do our best, sir. Well, I’d better go. Just one more question—” But he looked at Sun Lee, not at the other three who had been expecting the question. “You’ve heard of Miguel Seville, haven’t you, Mr. Sun?”

  Sun hadn’t been expecting the question: he wasn’t entirely ready with his answer. “Me, Inspector? I—why should I have heard of him?”

  “You must read the newspapers, Mr. Sun, even in Bunda. Did you ever hear of him coming to Palucca? Private secretaries usually know all the gossip. At least they do in this country.”

  “Mr. Sun has no time for gossip,” said Madame Timori, who had once provided so much of it and still did.

  Sun took his cue from her. He shook his head, gave Malone a cold stare: “I know nothing about Mr. Seville.”

  Malone returned his stare, then nodded and turned his back on the Chinese. He said his goodbyes to the Timoris, ignoring Hickbed, and left the terrace, going round the corner of the house past the group still standing like an abandoned bus queue in the shade of the trees. In the front of the house, his jacket over his arm and his tie loosened, was Russ Clements, talking to Detective-Inspector Nagler of Special Branch.

  “G’day, Scobie. You don’t look happy.” Joe Nagler was a thin dark man with a sad face that belied his sense of humour. He was one of the few Jews in the force, but that didn’t prompt him to waste any sympathy on the newer ethnics in the community. He divided the world into, as he called them, the goods and the bads and where you or your ancestors came from made no difference. “Madame Timori been rubbing you up the wrong way?”