Dragons at the Party

by Jon Cleary

  He kissed his wife, said good night to Hickbed and left the room. He was the quietest, most relaxed of the three of them; yet when he left the room it seemed disproportionately emptier. Besides being a president he had been a sultan, and sultans, like kings, occupy a larger-than-normal space. His wife, never a sultana, a title she found ridiculous though fruitful, had her own space but it still had to expand. She had been working on that when they had been deposed.

  Hickbed went back to the window, looked out and saw the Federal police, two of them, down on the jetty. He knew there were six of them on duty at any one time and there were two New South Wales police cars parked out in the street, each with two men in them. If ten men couldn’t protect Timori in this house, then Seville deserved to get his target. Then Hickbed became aware that, standing exposed in his own huge window against the lights behind him, he himself was a target.

  He pressed a button and the white silk drapes slid across the window. The room, indeed the whole house, had been furnished by an interior decorator at great expense; nothing in it reflected Hickbed’s personality. He was rough and ready; the house was smooth and slick. He only felt at home in it because it told him, in every gold-plated nook and cranny, that he could afford it.

  He crossed the room, a small journey, and sat down next to Delvina on a couch that would have held ten people. “I’m not happy about you being here, love.”

  She made a moue of surprise; she could occasionally appear girlish, but it was atavistic. “I think the arrangement’s ideal. I don’t know why we didn’t come here in the first place.”

  “Del, how do you think I feel? You’re in the same house with me, my house, and I can’t get into bed with you.” He took her hand, the one not holding the bag of emeralds. “I could screw the arse off you, just looking at you.”

  “You’re such a romantic lover, Russell. Who taught you? Your wife?”

  She knew how to throw cold water. He dropped her hand, sat back. “Don’t mention her!”

  “You mentioned my husband, if only by inference. I can’t be unfaithful to him, not now. Not while someone’s trying to kill him.”

  “Who do you think it is?”

  “Why the generals, of course. Who do you think it might be?”

  “You.”

  She hit him hard across the cheek; fortunately, with the hand free of the bag of emeralds. Then she said quietly but coldly, “I could kill you. Make a remark like that in front of anyone and I shall kill you myself.”

  He felt his cheek, then straightened his glasses, which had been knocked askew. “Everyone’s a suspect. Including me.”

  “You’re not married to Abdul. We’re a pair, people always speak of us in the same breath. Like—like Tristan and Isolde.”

  “Who are they—a couple of Paluccans?” He had never been burdened by culture; the only legend he was interested in was the one he was trying to build. He tried another tack, but only slightly to windward: “If he is killed, we’re buggered.”

  “Not necessarily. One or two of the generals can be bought.”

  “You’ve tried?” He was surprised, but he should not have been.

  She nodded. “They’ve said no, but that’s only because they’re not certain about the future. They’ll listen if we go back again. One of them, General Paturi, is coming to talk to Philip about getting rid of us.”

  “I didn’t know that!”

  “Neither does Philip.”

  “How do you know, then?”

  “I have my sources.”

  He didn’t doubt that. She had learned of the generals’ plot two days before it had happened; she had telephoned Washington, Canberra, anyone who would listen. Everyone had listened; it wasn’t that they disbelieved her, they just didn’t want to help. She had her sources, but not to the hearts, or what passed for their hearts, of her political friends.

  “Phil won’t see him, not till after the celebrations are over. He’s not going to let anyone spoil his Big Party. You and Abdul have already done enough. Maybe we can invite General Paturi up here?”

  “Abdul would shoot him on the spot.”

  “What with? Christ, he hasn’t got a gun, has he?” He saw her sly smile and he shook his head; he was out of his depth with a woman like her. He was out of his depth with any woman, even his wife, but he would never admit it. “I never know with you two . . .”

  “No,” she said, “the only gun you have to worry about is the one that man Seville has.”

  “The police have that.”

  “Do you really think he won’t get another?” She stood up, kissed him on the lips; her kiss was cold, even though she slid her tongue into his mouth. He felt he had been kissed by a snake and shuddered; all at once he lost all desire for her. “Good night, Russell. Don’t worry. Everything will turn out all right.”

  VI

  Six of the seven generals who had staged the coup in Palucca sat in the presidential reception room of Timoro Palace in Bunda, the nation’s capital. It was a highly decorated room, a marble menagerie of elephants, tigers and monkeys that seemed to hold up its four walls. Abdul Timori’s great-great-grandfather, who had built the palace, had been to Europe and been impressed by the use of marble in the palaces there; once all the marble statuary had been installed it had struck him as cold and dull and he accordingly had filled in the spaces between with gilt and gold-leaf. The effect was of elephants, tigers and monkeys ready to jump out of a rather dirty sunrise.

  It had been another whim of Abdul the First’s that the Equator should run right through the middle of the presidential reception room; he had liked to stand with his legs apart on the imaginary line and boast that his influence spread in both directions as far as the Poles. The Dutch, who had the real influence, had humoured him.

  The generals now sat on either side of the line and General Kerang, the oldest of them but with no influence at all, sat astride the Equator. It was an accident of place and he was seemingly unaware of it.

  “We have to turn over the palace to the people,” said General Guruh. His name meant thunder, but he was the mildest of all seven of them in temper, an idealist out of place in the junta.

  “Not yet.” General Simupang was the ring-leader, though the others involved in the plot had not thought of him as such; he would only become that if the coup failed and they were all brought to trial. “We can’t rush things.”

  “We have to give them democracy in small doses,” said General Mustopo from the southern hemisphere. He adjusted his chair, put a leg over the Equator. “I think we should stay here in the palace till things settle down.”

  They had occupied the palace as soon as the Timoris had departed. They had brought their families in with them and, with six wings to choose from, as if the architect of 150 years ago had anticipated them, had each taken a wing. It was another accident, or so it seemed, that it was General Kerang who had got the wing that had been the Timoris’ personal accommodation. There he and his elderly wife slept in the empire-sized bed beneath the green silk sheets and under the canopy decorated with birds-of-paradise plumes, looking like two corn husks in a giant jewel-box. Madame Kerang was still amusing herself going through Madame Timori’s many wardrobes, counting the seemingly countless dresses, coats and accessories therein. The wives of the other generals, deprived of that opportunity, sat in their wings and sulked and wondered why power, which had never occupied their thoughts before, had to be shared in the name of something called democracy. They began to have a secret admiration for Delvina Timori, who knew a good thing when she grabbed it.

  General Suwondo, in the northern hemisphere, watched a small green lizard circle his boot and then head south. He could smell the cloves outside in the gardens and, the financial mind of the junta, he began to wonder what money the harvests would bring this year. “We’re bankrupt, you know. I don’t think we can start talking democracy till we have some money in the Treasury. That’s what democracy’s all about, money in the people’s pockets. That’s how they
vote. I read that somewhere,” he added lamely as all but General Guruh looked at him accusingly.

  “We’ve sent Paturi to Canberra for money,” said General Godigdo, who sat beside Suwondo. He had a talent for stating the obvious, no drawback in a general.

  “What if he doesn’t come back?” General Kerang had not fired a shot in anger since 1942 when, as a junior lieutenant, he had killed a Japanese soldier who had been trying to rape his wife. He had since risen through the ranks to be a wise general. He might know little or nothing about strategy and tactics, but he was an expert on the venality of his fellow officers.

  “Oh, he’ll come back. He’s the most trustworthy of us all,” said Simupang, who was the least trustworthy.

  Now that doubt had been raised, Mustopo said, “Can we trust the Australians? They may be the ones who are trying to kill Abdul. They may kill Paturi. Or even us.”

  Suwondo shivered; it was winter in his hemisphere. “Are they so devious as to plan something like that? Inviting the Timoris and then Paturi to get rid of them?”

  “They didn’t invite either of them,” said Godigdo, stating the obvious again.

  “The Australians aren’t devious,” said Guruh. “All the British deviousness they inherited has been bred out of them on their sports fields. In another generation or so it will be better, when the Italians and the Greeks and the Lebanese have bred it back into them.”

  “Don’t forget us Asians,” said Simupang proudly.

  “They still have the Irish, too,” said Mustopo, who read the Australian papers, especially the National Times, the national muck-raker.

  “We still have to raise money,” said Suwondo doggedly. “Paturi has to get that twenty-two million back from the Australians. It’s not much against the overall debt, but it’ll pay the troops.” And themselves, the leaders of the troops.

  They sat in silence contemplating the bankrupt country they had been foolish enough to take over. In the background, against the far walls of the huge hall, amongst the elephants and tigers and monkeys, the palace servants hovered like ghosts from the past; which they were. Outside, beyond the palace gates, the crowd clamoured for rice, democracy and a share in the national wealth, all in short supply at the moment.

  “Do we send him on to New York and Zurich?”

  “Garuda gave him an excursion round-the-world ticket.”

  “Garuda don’t go round the world.”

  “Let’s ring up Lee Quan Yew and see what Singapore Airlines can do for us. We all might get tickets. Just in case.”

  “Lee’s not taking any calls from us, not since we asked him if he’d take the Timoris.”

  “The same with Suharto in Jakarta. He’ll be furious with Garuda when he hears they gave Paturi a free ticket.”

  They sat in silence again for a while, pondering their isolation. The clamour outside subsided and there came the faint tinkle of temple bells on the warm breeze that blew in the open windows. The servants came forward with tea and cakes and the generals’ wives came in from their respective wings, floating in like large pigeons, six of them looking to see what the seventh was wearing. Madame Kerang, however, had not yet plundered Delvina Timori’s wardrobes.

  “Let’s hope they kill the Timoris,” said General Kerang, astride the Equator. “Both of them.”

  “They?” said the wives. “Who?”

  “Anyone,” said the generals and looked at each other, wondering who was paying Seville, the foreigner, to kill their ex-friend.

  5

  I

  MALONE CAME awake, his mind still soured by Sunday night’s failure. He had felt certain they would nab Seville along with Pinjarri. He did not claim to be an expert on the terrorist mind; that was for the psychologists, virtually all of whom had never met a terrorist at large. But he did know the criminal mind, the thinking that ran counter to society’s rules and morals, and he knew how desperate it could become when events turned against it. He had banked on Seville’s coming out into the open to meet Pinjarri, but Pinjarri, the unwitting Judas goat, had disappeared before the prey had been sighted. Or had he been sighted and let go?

  When Malone had come back to the group of civilians, after going round the traps with Clements and finding nothing, he had noticed that the group had diminished. “Where are they?”

  “I let ‘em go, Inspector,” said a suddenly dismayed Andy Graham. “They all looked in the clear. I couldn’t hold ‘em—there was one old duck who belted me, said she was gunna sue . . .”

  “In future, Constable, ask me for instructions, okay?” But he knew he had been wrong in not giving instructions without being asked.

  Then there was a shout from the far end of the waiting hall. The body of the young policeman had been found wedged between the abandoned car and the wall. When Malone and Clements reached the car and looked down at the blood-stained body, the pale-blue shirt a dark ruby from just below the breast-pocket down to his belt, Clements said, “Pinjarri? He’d carry a shiv.”

  “Maybe. But so might Seville. The wogs carry knives, too.” He was tired, fed up: all his latent prejudices, his father’s, came out of him. He would be ashamed of it later, but for now it was said. “This is getting to be a massacre. Three murders.”

  “Christ,” said Clements, and chewed his lip, “there goes the holiday. We’re gunna be working on this for weeks.” He, too, was tired: he was unaware of his insensitivity till Andy Graham, the enthusiast, looked at him. “What’s the matter with you?”

  “Jesus, Sarge, the man’s dead!”

  “Don’t I bloody know it! Christ Almighty!”

  “Right,” said Graham, suddenly sensitive to Clements’ tiredness.

  “Calm down,” said Malone and led the two of them away from the body, leaving it to two of the dead man’s uniformed mates. When they were some distance from the car he said, “Seville was here, I’ll bet on it. Did he get the gun from Pinjarri or not?”

  “The dead guy’s gun was gone,” said Clements.

  Malone shook his head. “Seville’s not going to use a handpiece to kill Timori. I read that report on him from Interpol—Joe Nagler sent it across from Special Branch. Seville’s not going to sacrifice himself by getting close to Timori—he’s not that sort.”

  “What sorta bastard is he?” Clements sounded bewildered as well as tired.

  “I don’t know. Cold-blooded, I guess is one description. But I suppose that applies to most terrorists, the ones who plant bombs in cars and blow up women and kids. Seville has done that, but for the past two years he seems to have become a solo hit-man. He just specializes in political killings. He wouldn’t have anything to do with the Mafia or the Chinese triads, any of those mobs.”

  “Maybe that’s why he’s lasted so long,” said Graham. “Because he works solo.”

  “He works solo—but not for himself. Someone pays him. Maybe we’d do better looking for whoever is paying him for this job.” He looked back towards where the dead policeman was being laid out on a stretcher someone had brought from the station’s first aid room. Nobody had paid Seville to kill the young officer; that had been something Seville had paid for. Or would, Malone vowed. “Do a report on that young feller, Andy. Ask one of his mates to inform his next-of-kin, whoever it is.”

  “Right,” said Graham and walked briskly away.

  Malone winced and looked at Clements. “Right?”

  “No bloody fear,” said Clements. “Nothing’s right. Can we go home now?”

  Now Malone had woken up beside his wife. He had lain staring at the ceiling for some minutes; when he turned his head he saw that she was awake and gazing at him. She said softly, “Why don’t you give up?”

  “Give up?”

  “Take a desk job. You take everything to heart so much.”

  “I’m not taking this to heart. I don’t care a damn about the Timoris.”

  “You care about that old woman and that young constable last night.”

  He said nothing for a moment, then he nod
ded. “Why should those two die because of something that doesn’t concern them in the least? What have Timori and his generals got to do with them? I wonder how the politicians are feeling now? Does Phil Norval still want us to have hands off?”

  “That’ll depend on what the papers say. He’s very touchy about editorials.”

  “They won’t say much in this morning’s editions. What happened last night would have been too late for any editorials. The Sun and the Mirror will have a go this afternoon.”

  She put her arm under his head and drew him to her. “It’s only seven o’clock. Forget about the afternoon papers.”

  He could feel the soft warmth and comfort of her. As always when he held her close to him like this, his crotch told him he was home. He rolled over, felt her and knew she was ready for him without any lead-up. He slid between her legs.

  Then someone landed on his back, almost giving him a rupture. “Who goes there? Fred or foe?”

  With Tom still clinging to him, he rolled off Lisa while she burst into near-hysterical laughter. Then Claire and Maureen were bouncing on the foot of the bed and love, or any love-making, went limp beneath the sheets.

  “We saw you on TV last night,” said Maureen, seven years old and a TV addict. Though Lisa forced books on her, she never read a line; but she could reel off commercial jingles and the characters in soap operas as if facing an invisible prompter. She was blonde and bouncy and Malone could only hope that her abundant energy would eventually drag her away from her TV addiction, though he doubted very much if she would settle down to a book, good or bad. Lisa had tried switching off their set, but then Maureen had just gone in next door, where the neighbours’ two kids were real TV junkies. “You looked quite good. Miranda thinks you’re better than Sonny Crockett.”

  Miranda was the eight-year-old hophead next door. Malone looked at Lisa. “Who’s Sonny Crockett?”

  “I think he’s in Miami Lice.”

  “Vice!” yelled Maureen. “Miami Vice!”

  “What’s Vice?” asked Tom, now sitting on his father’s chest.