Dragons at the Party

by Jon Cleary

  “How do you know we’re coming?” said Clements.

  Rimmer tapped his nose. “There’s a certain smell. No offence. It’s like back home in the mulga where I come from. We could always smell the wild donkeys and the wild camels and the buffalo.”

  “You mean we’re just bloody wildlife down here?”

  Rimmer grinned once more. “No offence.” Then he noticed where they had pulled up. He looked back at Pinjarri, no longer grinning. “Here? You left it with young Albert?”

  “Not just with him,” said Pinjarri sheepishly.

  “Jesus,” said Rimmer despairingly, looking out at the house, shabbier than the rest, its windows blocked with a sheet of galvanized iron, its front door black from fire. Whoever lives in there, thought Malone, is at the bottom of the heap.

  A young boy stood in the open doorway staring out at the police car. His blunt-featured face was a mixture of fear and belligerence; it was difficult to know whether he was going to come out fighting or flee for his life. He peered into the car, saw Pinjarri and suddenly looked as if he might weep.

  “Go easy with the lad, Scobie,” said Rimmer. “This kid’s been in trouble since he was nine years old. His old lady’s a wino and Christ knows where his dadda is. I thought I had him straightened out—” He looked back at Pinjarri. “I dunno why I bother with you, Dallas.”

  Pinjarri said nothing. Then Malone got out of the car and motioned for the young Aborigine to follow him. As they did so, Cassell pulled in behind the police car in a shabby, gasping Toyota. He got out, but then stood irresolute in the middle of the pavement, saying nothing. By now a dozen Aborigines had congregated, muttering amongst themselves and one or two of them offering to support Pinjarri.

  “Tell ‘em there’s no trouble,” said Malone. “It’s just business between you and me.”

  Pinjarri passed the message on. Then, as if wanting to get everything over and done with, he abruptly pushed the boy Albert ahead of him and went into the house. Malone motioned to Clements and Rimmer to remain in the police car. After a moment’s hesitation and a challenging look from Malone, Cassell decided to stay in the street.

  The house stank, a mixture of smells that Malone didn’t care to analyse. A woman’s drunken voice shouted from upstairs, but no one took any notice of her. Pinjarri led the way out to the kitchen at the rear; even he looked with disgust at the condition of it. Dirty pots and pans were in the sink, on the blackened stove, even on the floor; food was caked in them like mud. The remains of what looked like several meals were on the table, which was covered with stained and torn newspapers. Empty wine flagons were piled in a corner like discarded fishing lamps and a mangy mongrel dog was curled up in a filthy piece of sacking. The floor and the walls were dirty and grease-marked; the ceiling looked just as bad. There was a smell that made Malone, a fastidiously clean man, want to retch. Jesus Christ, he thought, Happy Australia Day! He wouldn’t describe this place to Lisa tonight. This was a house of hopeless, busted lives and he knew there was nothing he or any other police officer could do about it.

  “Where’s the gun, Albert?” said Pinjarri. The boy just looked at him, as if bewildered by this invasion, and Pinjarri went on, “It’s okay, mate Nothing’s gunna happen. I’m handing over the gun to the Inspector here. Where is it?”

  “Geez, Dallas—” The boy looked ready to run. He backed up against half a dozen banners, rolled tightly round their poles, standing against a wall. The calico of the banners looked new: Malone guessed they were to be used tomorrow in some demonstration. “I didn’t know—he rung up—we was at the other place, you know—”

  There would be no phone in this house, Malone knew; he doubted if even the electricity was still connected. “What other place?”

  “No,” said Pinjarri, “leave ‘em out of it. Where’s the gun, Albie?”

  The boy gulped. “I give it to him this morning. Geez, Dallas, I thought I was doing the right thing, you know? Here, here’s the cash and the cheques—”

  Pinjarri looked at Malone; he couldn’t disguise the triumph in his dark eyes, but Malone chose to ignore it. Standing here in the midst of all this defeat and degradation, he couldn’t bring himself to resent the Aborigine’s exultation, silent as it was. Or perhaps, he thought with horror, I’m glad Seville has the means of getting rid of Timori. This case was upsetting all his sense of values. Pretty soon they would smell like this house.

  “How much did he pay you?” he said to the boy.

  “A thousand bucks.” Albert held out the fifty-dollar notes and the traveller’s cheques. His hand was shaking, as if so much money, more than he had ever held in his short life, was too much for it.

  Malone looked at the signature on the cheques: M. Gideon. “You sure it was him? A blond man with steel-rimmed glasses, a bit shorter than me?”

  “That was how he looked the other night when I seen him, last Sat’day night. But he didn’t look like that this morning.”

  “How did he look?”

  “He had dark-brown hair, about your colour.”

  “A dye job or a wig?”

  “I dunno. A dye job, I think.”

  “How’d you recognize him?”

  “I didn’t, at first. It was only his walk—he walks like a sailor. You know, he rolls a bit.” He wobbled his shoulders up and down.

  “Did he say anything to you? Where he was going, anything like that?” He didn’t expect a professional like Seville would say a word about where he was going or what he intended to do, but the questions had to be asked. He had made mistakes in the past by not asking the obvious.

  “Nah, nothing. He just give me the money, took the bag and buzzed off.”

  Malone looked at Pinjarri. “You said five thousand? When’s he going to pay you the rest?”

  “He said he’d send a bank draft.”

  “Where from?”

  “I dunno. I just trusted him—I had to. He said he didn’t have the ready cash.”

  That meant Seville could be running short of money. Malone handed the money and the cheques to Pinjarri, who looked at them in surprise.

  “I don’t think you’ll ever get the bank draft, Dallas. We’ll have him locked up before then.”

  Pinjarri was looking at the money in the same way the boy had, as if he didn’t believe it was real. But for a different reason. “You mean we can keep this? You’re not gunna confiscate it?”

  “I never even saw it, Dallas. Just don’t use it to blow up us honkies. Give it to Jack Rimmer and see if he can do something about things like this.” He looked around the kitchen. The money might never even get to Jack Rimmer, but that was a gamble Malone was taking. He already had Rimmer’s goodwill; now he was trying to buy Pinjarri’s. It was a bribe, just like the one Delvina had offered him; but he hoped it would do more good. The irony was that he was using a terrorist’s money. “Stay out of trouble, both of you.”

  As he moved out of the kitchen he stopped by the rolled-up banners and unrolled one a few feet. Big letters said: GIVE US . . . He unrolled it no further. “When’s the demo?”

  “Tomorrow,” said Pinjarri.

  “Nobody will be paying any attention, not tomorrow. But good luck.”

  He went down the hallway and out of the house. The mongrel, listlessly raising itself from its bed, barked after him; the whining wino’s voice shouted an obscenity from upstairs. He stepped out into the street, glad of the hot dry air that scoured the smell of the house from his nostrils.

  “You’re not busting them?” said Cassell.

  “I told you there wasn’t going to be one. You should trust us coppers more.”

  Rimmer got out of the police car as Malone opened the door. “Everything all right?”

  “Yes, Jack. Go in and see Dallas and that kid. Try and get the kid out of that house.”

  “I told you, I been trying since he was nine years old. He won’t leave it till his mumma drinks herself to death. You’ll never understand us, Scobie.”

  “You�
�re wrong, Jack. I do understand. I just can’t do a bloody thing about it. Hooroo.” He got into the car and slammed the door. “Get me out of here, Russ, before I start swearing.”

  III

  To the north, west and south of the city the sky was brown with smoke. The bushfires had been raging all day and all thoughts of celebration had been burnt out in the fringe suburbs. The professional and the volunteer firefighters, who had been told to stand by in case the celebration fireworks got out of hand, were now fighting something fiercer and more horrifying. Almost every year they faced this hazard, a seasonal peril of a country where the bush could turn tinder-dry almost in a week; it had been so since time immemorial, long before the white man with his carelessness and the fire-bug with his insanity had come to this great brown continent. This year, like nature’s protest at the anniversary of its rape, the fires were the worst in living memory.

  Hans Vanderberg came into his office in the State Office Block sweat-stained, smoke-begrimed and angry. He went into his washroom, washed his face and, still wearing his creased and sweaty shirt, came back and slumped down in his chair behind his desk. He had clean shirts in a drawer in his washroom, but if he was photographed when he left the office he knew the value of looking like a Premier who had just been sharing the worst with his voters. Most of those living in the fire-ravaged areas, poor buggers, were Labour voters.

  “I’ve just been out assessing the damage. Oh, my word, it’s terrible.” Besides being Premier, he held the portfolios of Police and of Local Services. It was sometimes said that he secretly held all the other portfolios in the State Cabinet, since he usually announced every new project, no matter what the field, and all the respective ministers got was the blame when something went wrong. But he knew whom the voters would rather listen to. “Bloody millions of dollars. It’s a bugger of a fire that doesn’t blow anyone any good.”

  “True,” said Ladbroke, wondering if he would have to translate that for the media before the day was out.

  “What’s happening with the Timoris?” said The Dutchman, suddenly changing tack.

  “They’re still safe,” said John Leeds. “But that fellow Seville is still loose.”

  “That was bad, him kidnapping your bloke Malone. My word, yes.”

  “Yes,” said Leeds, making a short word sound even shorter.

  Vanderberg looked at Assistant Commissioner Zanuch. “You in charge now? Otherwise you wouldn’t be here, right? What’re you going to do?”

  “I’m using every available man, Mr. Premier. Unfortunately there are not that many available. They’re all on special duty for the celebrations. All the senior men, superintendents and above, are on that.”

  “We’ve got to protect the public. They dunno how to look after themselves—they expect us to do it for them. If something goes wrong and someone gets hurt, they’re gunna complain we didn’t have enough crowd control. It’s the welfare state mentality.” Then he realized what he, a socialist Premier, had just said. “Did I say that?”

  “No,” said Ladbroke.

  Vanderberg swung his chair right round in a circle, getting only a quick glance out of the window at his back. He was edgy this morning; not nervous, but quickened by crisis. He would never be overwhelmed by events, but he could not remember such a conjunction of events as had happened this weekend.

  “We’ve got to get this feller Seville out in the open. How’re we gunna do that?”

  “If we bring him out in the open,” said Leeds, “some of the public may get hurt.”

  “That would depend where he came out,” said Zanuch, risking his Commissioner’s wrath. He had never had a direct audience of the Premier and he wanted to impress. After all, when it came time for Leeds to retire, it would be the Premier, the Minister for Police, who would appoint his successor. “If we chose the right place—”

  “Such as?” said Leeds and put paid to that suggestion. “We can’t risk any bizarre scheme, Hans. We have to play it safe.”

  “Bizarre? I was just going to suggest something bizarre. I have a pension for the bizarre, haven’t I, Laddy?”

  “You certainly have,” said Ladbroke with heartfelt conviction.

  Encouraged (if he needed it), Vanderberg went on, “I’m going to invite the Timoris to the Bicentennial Ball tonight. That should bring Seville out into the open,”

  “Yes,” said Zanuch. “That would give us ideal access to him. Tactics-wise—”

  Leeds was aghast, but managed to look calm. “I couldn’t promise to protect the public. Some of this State’s most prominent citizens, including you and me, Hans, might get in the way of the shooting.”

  “I wouldn’t be within a bull’s roar of them. If the voters saw me sitting with them, they’d never vote for me again. No, they can sit at a table near the PM. Or with him.”

  “But you’d be their host, if you invited them. You’d at least have to greet them when they arrived. You’re the host anyway tonight—it’s not a Federal do.”

  “John, the easiest thing in the world in politics is to shove your responsibilities on to someone else. What d’you think I’ve got a Deputy Premier for?”

  Deputy Premiers were expendable, by a bullet or any other means. “I’m still against the idea, Hans. How do you think all the guests at the ball are going to enjoy themselves if they see a couple of dozen police officers stationed around the ballroom with their guns bulging out of their dinner jackets? We’ll need the Tactical Response squad and the SWOS men. They’ll be wearing flak jackets with bow ties.”

  Even The Dutchman had to grin at the picture. “All right, all right, it’s too dangerous. But I was looking forward to it. I’ve got this General Paturi coming. Him and the Timoris together—that’d be quite something. Like putting a mongoose and a couple of rats in the one bag.” He dreamed for a moment, which even the most pragmatic of politicians sometimes do. Then he came back to the practical: “All right, no Timoris at the ball. So how do you catch this feller Seville?”

  “Just dogged foot-slogging,” said Leeds, “and luck.”

  “Just like politics,” said Zanuch and got a glare from Vanderberg that set his promotion back about three places.

  The Premier then dismissed them just by saying, “Well, g’day,” and getting up and going into his washroom. Ladbroke escorted the two police officers out of the room, whispering apologies for his boss’s abruptness. Then he went back in and waited till Vanderberg came out of the washroom zipping up his fly.

  “Do you think Gorbachev has trouble with his coppers like I have with mine?”

  “Probably not,” said Ladbroke, but didn’t explain the reasons why he thought so. “What sort of release do you want me to put out on the bushfires?”

  “Make it compassionate. Say we’ll appropriate so much money to a disaster fund, but don’t say any figures. I dunno how much these bloody celebrations are going to cost us.”

  Ladbroke jotted down a note: A substantial appropriation. Political appropriations were like twenty-first birthday presents: most of them were forgotten after the thank-yous were said. “What about Paturi? Do we send a car for him?”

  “We’d better. Put him at my table—find out if he’s bringing a woman with him. If he’s not, ring up Mrs.—” He named a well-known society matron who was equally well-known as a free-loader.

  “She’s already on someone else’s list.”

  “All right, let him come on his own. How’s the dirt-digging going on the Timoris?”

  “Inspector Malone had a session this morning with Tidey and Quirke, their banker and lawyer. And Timori’s private secretary, that Chinese guy, Sun Lee.”

  Vanderberg grinned appreciatively. “How do you find out these things?”

  Ladbroke grinned in reply. “I do favours for people, they do favours for me.”

  “You oughta go into politics. How’d you like my job?”

  “I have my eye on it. Say in about ten years’ time.”

  Vanderberg nodded, knowing he was s
afe. “Get me that feller Malone. But tell him I don’t want his boss to know. I think it’s about time we started running this case ourselves. It’s too good to leave in the hands of the police.”

  IV

  “I was looking forward to dinner at Eliza’s,” said Claire, the connoisseur of expensive restaurants.

  “I told you, darling,” said her mother, “Eliza’s was booked out. I mentioned your father’s name, but they weren’t impressed.”

  “That’s because they didn’t see him on TV,” said Maureen, the ratings guide. “They should of been looking. We’d of got a special table. With a spotlight, prob’ly.”

  “I couldn’t see you,” said Tom. “You were in that white car all the time.”

  “The best place,” said Malone. “I don’t like the spotlight. Now what do you want? A cheeseburger or a Double Mac?”

  “Both,” said Tom. “What’s for dessert?”

  “Oh God,” said Claire, “just as well we didn’t take him to Eliza’s. He’s a real pig.”

  “No, Daddy’s a pig,” said Maureen. “That’s what they call a policeman on TV.”

  “With kids like you, who needs crims?” Then Malone looked at Lisa, cool and beautiful on a night when every other mother in this McDonald’s looked as if she had just come straight out of the kitchen. In these wrong circumstances, he suddenly longed to take her away somewhere for a second honeymoon. “I’m sorry, I wish we could have got into Eliza’s. Did you try anywhere else? Pegrums’? Prunier’s?”

  She smiled, knowing his credit card would have gone limp if he had taken them all to Prunier’s. “Everywhere. They’re all booked out—even TV stars like you can’t get in. I doubt very much if Sonny Crockett could get a table. I don’t mind.” She looked around the big crowded restaurant. “I’ve always liked McDonald’s. It’s sort of—of—”

  “Lower class,” said Claire, who had just been introduced by her mother to Jane Austen.

  “Shut up and enjoy yourself,” said Malone; but he couldn’t blame his elder daughter for being disappointed. He had promised them all a superior evening; instead he had brought them to this McDonald’s where they ate every Thursday night after they had done the week’s grocery shopping. He hated letting them down and he knew it happened too often. He looked across at Lisa, and said, “I’ll take my holidays when this is over and you can plan what you like for every day.”