Dragons at the Party

by Jon Cleary

  “I don’t mean the newspapers will cause the trouble,” said Sun. “They will just broadcast it. We have to worry about a government body they have here, something called the Corporate Affairs Commission.”

  “Bloody busybodies,” said Hickbed, who had run up against the Commission several times.

  “That’s what democracy is, a nest of busybodies,” said Timori, and was pleased he had never fallen for it. The generals back in Bunda would learn their lesson. He decided he might wait a month or two before he attempted to go back; he would let the rebels stew in democracy, a real mess. “How much shall we have to tell them?”

  “They are only concerned with what we have set up here in Australia. Mr. Ouirke tells me everything is legal. It is just the amounts we have invested that will cause comment—Australians are always interested in money, especially large amounts. It will give you and Madame Timori bad publicity.”

  “Will it be made public?” said Madame Timori, who had never avoided publicity.

  “As I understand it, no. But as I also understand it, Australia is what they call a leaky place—whatever that means.”

  “It means government departments are full of holes,” said Hickbed. “The media seem able to get any information they want.”

  “I’d shoot anyone who did that in Palucca,” said Timori, who had indeed done that on two occasions. “Can’t the Prime Minister put a stop to something like that?”

  “Not by shooting them. Anyhow, Corporate Affairs is a State thing.” Hickbed could see the leaks ahead and the mud forming. “Premier Vanderberg isn’t on your side, I’ve told you that.”

  “Perhaps we should seduce Mr. Vanderberg,” said Madame Timori.

  Timori smiled at his wife. “I saw a picture of the gentleman, darling. I don’t think he would know what seduction is, not as a victim anyway.”

  “I mean with money. Everyone can be seduced by money, even the rich.” Seduced by it herself, she knew its powers. She was not carrying the bag of emeralds this morning; she had, reluctantly, entrusted them to the security of Hickbed’s safe. She felt penniless without them.

  “Not The Dutchman,” said Hickbed. “I tried it once. He’s not interested in money. Just power and spite, that’s all. If he could topple Phil Norval from the Prime Ministership, he’d think of himself as the richest bastard in the world.”

  “Perhaps we could help him topple Philip,” said Madame Timori. “He’s been no help to us so far.”

  All three men, even Sun Lee, looked at her in astonishment. Then Hickbed said, “But he’s our little mate! For crissake, Delvina, what are you saying? Without him you wouldn’t be here!”

  “True. But what has he done for us since we arrived? We could approach Mr. Vanderberg and suggest a quid pro quo.”

  Before the men could respond, the Hickbed housemaid, an Asiatic, appeared. “There is an Inspector Malone . . .”

  “Oh Christ,” said Hickbed, whose only communication with the Lord was in expletives. “Do we see him or don’t we?”

  “Tell him to go away,” said Madame Timori.

  “Can one do that in Australia?” said the President. “Just like back in the palace in Bunda?” He looked at Sun and smiled. The latter smiled in reply, but it was as if he were trying to express himself in a foreign gesture. “Let’s see him. Otherwise how shall we know how close they are to catching Seville? Remember, it is my head that is in Mr. Seville’s sights.”

  Inside the house Malone was examining what he could see from the big entrance hall. A curving staircase led to the upper floor: Lisa dreamed of having a curving staircase, but it was difficult to fit such a feature into a one-storeyed house that would fit into this one six times over. The black-and-white tessellated floor was matched by the black-and-white abstract paintings on the walls; Malone would not have guessed that Hickbed was a lover of abstract art, but perhaps they reminded him of profit-and-loss graphs. Through an archway he could see an ornate drawing-room where the carpet looked so thick that the sheep might be lying there crushed with the virgin wool still on their backs. Lisa would love all this, and he wondered how he could suddenly build the fortune to buy it.

  Nagler, whom he had met out in the driveway, had been equally impressed by the house and the way Hickbed lived. “I have an uncle who used to live like this in Hungary.”

  “What does he do now?”

  “He lives like it in Melbourne. Made his money in property. Every year he sends me a Christmas box, thinks it’s the Christian thing to do. Being a Hungarian, he always asks for a receipt.” Nagler had looked up at the big house. “I doubt very much if Mr. Hickbed has ever done a Christian thing in his life. But that’s just a Jewish thought.”

  “You’re not happy here, Joe.”

  Nagler nodded. “All of them are a bunch I despise.” All his wry humour had abruptly disappeared. “I don’t think I’d mind if this guy Seville wiped out the lot of them.”

  “What’s security like here? Easy?” The narrow street outside was jammed with a small crowd of demonstrators, media cars and vans and two police cars. There were no locals: public curiosity was something the Point Piper natives would never descend to. Curtains occasionally moved at windows, but that could have been the breeze of gossip disturbing them. Gossip was a permitted indulgence.

  “Bloody difficult. Look around you.”

  There were several large blocks of flats nearby and on the high side of the street there were big houses that overlooked the Hickbed mansion. It would be difficult to police every square foot of the surrounding properties, especially at night and more especially if the owners refused access. Which they were more than likely to do, since President Timori and his upstart consort were such unwelcome neighbours.

  “I’m glad it’s your problem, not mine.” Then he had an idea that had been niggling at him ever since he had interviewed Tidey and Quirke: “Joe, what’s your contact like with ASIO?”

  “What’ve you got in mind?” Nagler at once was suspicious, but he smiled.

  “Do they ever tap the phones at Kirribilli House when visitors are staying there?”

  “I could ask them, but that doesn’t say they’ll tell me. What do you want to know?”

  “What overseas calls went out of Kirribilli while the Timoris were there and where the calls went to. You can tell the spooks I’m trying to find out who’s paying Seville.”

  “Okay, I’ll try, but don’t hold your breath. How are you going on Seville?”

  “No good so far.” He knew Nagler would understand. They both had too much experience to believe that mistakes were never made. “But I hope I don’t have to explain why to the Timoris. You heard about what happened to me this morning?”

  Nagler nodded. “I didn’t like to bring it up.”

  Now Malone was in the house and the housemaid was coming towards him. “Mr. Hickbed will see you, sir.”

  Malone followed her out to the back of the house, taking in everything he passed; Lisa would grill him tonight when she learned he had been here. He stepped out on to the terrace, saw them all dressed for the morning’s heat and asked if he might remove his jacket. He figured this meeting, no matter how short, was going to be hot anyway.

  “Of course,” said Madame Timori, assuming (or presuming) the role of hostess. “You must be at boiling point, if only from frustration. Mr. Hickbed heard on the radio about your adventure with that dreadful terrorist, what’s-his-name.”

  What’s-his-name: so casual, as if Seville meant nothing in their lives. “Yes. We talked about you and the President. But he didn’t tell me who was employing him or why he wanted to kill the President.”

  “A pity,” said Timori. “One should always know the reasons for one’s murder.”

  Hickbed wasn’t interested in what’s-his-name: “We’re surprised to see you so soon. Mr. Sun has told us about your interview with Mr. Tidey and Mr. Quirke. You’ve over-stepped the mark. That’s for Corporate Affairs, not the police.”

  “Oh, I explained t
hat to them, Mr. Hickbed. They chose to talk to me.” He looked at Timori. “Before I came in, sir, I spoke to Sergeant Kenthurst out in the street—”

  “Who?” Being a dictator and not a politician he had never had to bother about remembering names.

  “The officer in charge of the Federal Police, the ones who are guarding you. I don’t have the personnel, so they and Special Branch are going to interview every one of your staff individually—”

  “Grill them, you mean?” Delvina Timori knew how the police worked; or anyway, the Paluccan police. She had herself given orders. Not all Paluccans, as Sun had claimed, were gentle. “What if we refuse to allow such a thing?”

  “I don’t think the courts would allow you to claim diplomatic immunity for all of them, Madame. And it wouldn’t be good public relations.” He could feel himself getting hot and it wasn’t all due to the morning sun. He looked back at Timori. “I’m sure you’ll see it’s better to co-operate, Mr. President.”

  “Of course. You’re determined to save my life, aren’t you, Inspector?”

  “If it’s possible, sir,” said Malone, not offering him too much hope, and hoping Joe Nagler could not hear him. He hated the man for his policies and his corruption, but could not help liking him for his stoical humour.

  “Who do you start with?” said Delvina, feeling she was losing command.

  “Mr. Sun,” said Malone and looked directly at the Chinese.

  “But you’ve already interrogated him, haven’t you?”

  “Not really.” Malone smiled, as if implying there were whips and blackjacks and worse in the closet.

  Timori said, “I’m sure Mr. Sun will co-operate. There is an explanation for everything that’s troubling you. Except, of course, who is paying to have me killed. I don’t think Mr. Sun will be able to help you there.”

  “Who else is going to be interviewed?” said Hickbed.

  “You,” said Malone, glad of the opening. “I’ll be doing that.”

  “When?” Hickbed didn’t like being besieged at any time, least of all on his own territory. BHP, the nation’s largest corporation, had once tried to take him over and had finished up so badly bruised from its efforts that it had stayed away from him ever since. A mere police inspector could be crushed into a powder.

  “Now would be as good a time as any.”

  Hickbed took off his glasses; they had steamed up again. He made a noise like a wild boar grunting in the scrub; but he was dressed in Italian linen amongst the camellias and azalea bushes and the effect wasn’t quite the same. “I’ll make up my own mind about that.”

  Delvina, dressed in the best Chinese silk and as smooth, rose from her chair. “Inspector, would you come for a walk with me?”

  Malone raised his eyebrows, looked at Timori. Did you ask permission of an ex-President to go for a walk with his wife?

  But Delvina had never asked permission of her husband for anything. She just walked away without a backward glance. Malone looked again at Timori, who smiled and nodded, then he followed Delvina.

  She led him down steps on to a lower terrace, stood against the white stone balustrade with a statue of Aphrodite smiling conspiratorially over her shoulder. Malone knew nothing of Greek goddesses, but this one looked a shrewd sister to Delvina. The sculptor had been cynical rather than romantic.

  “May I call you Scobie?” She was wearing a musky perfume that Malone could smell above that of the roses in the big stone urns along the terrace. She smiled at him, no longer the imperious wife of a President.

  Malone, too, smiled. “Go ahead. May I call you Delvina?”

  “No. I have my position to keep up.”

  “I have mine, too. But go ahead—Scobie will do.” He laid his jacket over the balustrade, thought about taking off his tie and decided against it. There was danger in being too relaxed around Delvina Timori.

  “We’re in a delicate situation,” she said. “And a dangerous one, too. I know we’re not popular here, but Australians don’t understand how things have to be run in Palucca.”

  “What about the Americans and the British and the French? They don’t seem to understand, either.”

  “Till you’ve lived there, you don’t understand. I didn’t, not till I’d been there two or three years. My husband is what I suppose the ignorant would call a dictator, but some countries need a man like him. Palucca does. So does Australia,” she added, as if waiting for Abdul to be asked. “We are doing our best to see he returns to Palucca.”

  “Who’s we?”

  “Me,” she said. “I was using the royal plural.”

  “It suits you,” he said with a grin.

  She had the grace to smile; she wasn’t all poison and steel. Then she was sober-faced again. A pity, he thought: she looked almost beautiful when she smiled. “Scobie, what’s the point of all this investigation? We’ll be gone from here in a couple of weeks. Either back to Palucca or to Europe—we shan’t stay here.”

  “Why not?”

  “Well, I mean, who would?”

  She sounded like the expatriate snobs he had met on his one trip to London. He looked out at the harbour, a painting come alive by magic. The yachts were out again in force this morning, a chorus of gay notes swelling before the rising breeze. The tall ships, which had come from all over the world for the Bicentennial, were anchored in various bays for tomorrow’s sail past; he could see them, their masts and spars like symbols from the past, riding majestically above the smaller craft. He looked along at the mansions on this point, then across at the distant shore and the green oasis of Taronga Zoo. This was silvertail territory and those out on the harbour in the boats, big and small, weren’t short of a quid; but tomorrow wouldn’t be celebrated by the silvertails alone. People would be coming in from all over the city, from the bush too, the poor as well as the rich, and all of them, even if a little unsure of the history they would be commemorating, would be loud in their pride in what they had. Everyone, that is, but Dallas Pinjarri and Jack Rimmer and what Jack called the tribe, but he doubted if Delvina had ever given them a thought anyway.

  “I think I would,” he said quietly.

  “A real Aussie?” she said, but managed not to sneer.

  He nodded. “Get on with it, Delvina. You’re going somewhere in a couple of weeks . . . ?”

  For a moment she looked as if she might spit at him, something she might have done in Bunda but not in Point Piper. “That’s my point. We’ll be gone and everyone will soon forget the fuss.”

  “The fuss about Mr. Masutir? And the old lady over at Kirribilli and the young policeman who was killed last night? I don’t think I’ll forget it.”

  “Of course we shan’t forget them. We’re involved, you and us. But the public—do you think they remember those sort of things? They get all their news from TV and nobody remembers that. They’ll even forget all this, what’s going to happen tomorrow.” She gestured at the harbour.

  “Not if they’re here to see it. If they see it on TV, maybe yes. But not if they’re here. I hope to bring my kids to see it and I hope they’ll remember it for the rest of their lives . . . You forget one thing. No one’s going to forget you and the President too easily.” He looked up towards the house. Timori and Hickbed were still on the top terrace, gazing down at them. “You could bring down the Federal Government. Someone’s working on that right now.”

  “Who?”

  “The State Premier.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I don’t. But I’d lay money on it and I’m not a betting man.”

  “How much do you earn?”

  He smiled sourly and shook his head. “Don’t try that one, Delvina. I’m squeaky clean, always have been.”

  “No, how much do you earn?”

  “Forty-two thousand a year, plus a few perks. A week’s dress allowance for you, so my wife tells me.”

  “Newspaper exaggeration. I get a discount.” Charges of extravagance never worried her; life should be an expensive dr
eam. She put her hand on Aphrodite’s naked buttock, as if to emphasize her own penurious nakedness. “It’s not much, is it?”

  “It’s more than you ever earned as a dancer.”

  “Dancing was just a means to an end.” She looked around her, hoping this was not the end. She had met Malone only twice back in the old days of the dancing company; he had been on the Fraud Squad then and had come investigating a secretary who had been choreographing the books. They had never talked like this, but there had not been a situation like this. “I could give you a hundred thousand dollars.”

  “No.”

  “Two hundred thousand.”

  “I could arrest you—well, no I guess I couldn’t. Did the President know you were going to try and bribe me?”

  “No, it was a spur of the moment thing.” But he was sure she never did anything on the spur of the moment. Her emergency plans were as calculated as her ambitions. “Forget it, Inspector.”

  “Yes, Madame Timori.” He picked up his jacket from the balustrade. “Are you worried for the President’s safety?”

  “Of course I am!” She was regal again: having tried the common touch she had, being common, recognized it had its limitations. “How dare you suggest I’m not!”

  “I didn’t suggest anything. If he is killed, will the generals let you go back to Palucca?”

  “Probably not. I don’t know. Why?”

  “Nothing,” he said, trying to look enigmatic. He felt he had regained a little of the initiative from her, though he was still not sure of the direction in which to head.

  For the moment they headed back up the steps to the top terrace and the house. Timori watched them till they were only a few feet from him, his face as inscrutable as Sun’s standing just behind him. Then he smiled. “So what arrangements have you come to?”

  “None, sir,” said Malone.

  Timori pursed his lips. He had been sure the offer of the bribe would be accepted; Delvina had discussed it with him as an emergency ploy. He was nonplussed when he was faced with honesty, especially from a policeman. Dictators, in many ways, are uneducated in the ways of the world. “So the investigation goes on? And all the muck-raking?”