The Bear Pit

by Jon Cleary

  Maureen had noted that over the past couple of years no one in the nation seemed to be able to get through a statement without using basically. She was waiting for a priest to remark that The Lord, basically, was God. Jerry Balmoral had no ambition to be God, but that was only because, basically, the voters didn’t believe in the Eternal.

  “—I came to see if we can’t come to terms.” He had sat down, arranging his trouser-legs; the creases could have cut one of Gert’s pavlovas. He was in a beige summer suit, a darkish blue shirt and a tie that suggested he was in favour of the Olympics but only discreetly. Maureen, against her will, admitted he was handsome, good to look at. “I think if I get pre-selection, I can win this seat easily, keep it in the Party—”

  “We think Mr. Rix can win just as easily. Don’t you, Miss Malone?”

  “With no effort at all,” said Maureen, slipping with no effort at all into the role of minder. “This is, basically, a blue riband seat for Labor, always has been. With no branch-stacking.”

  “Barry—” Balmoral turned to Rix as if Maureen hadn’t spoken. “You’ll be looked after—we can find you a job in Macquarie Street, maybe in the Upper House—”

  “I’ve worked my arse off here,” said Rix and for a moment appeared to change character; he seemed to forget that his ex-boss’ wife and Maureen were there beside him. “I’m owed, Jerry. I’m not gunna roll over for some whipper-snapper from Sussex Street—” Then he remembered he was in the shadow of the boss’ wife: “Gert here wants me to run and I’m gunna do just that. No argument.”

  “Barry—” Balmoral was all patience—“the branch has a hoodoo on it. Hans has—forgive me for mentioning this, Mrs. Vanderberg—” He was like an undertaker trying to excuse the delivery of the coffin. “Hans has been shot. Your assistant secretary—what’s his name?”

  “Marco Crespi,” said Gert Vanderberg. “His name was in every newspaper and on radio and TV. You must have missed it.”

  “I must have,” Balmoral admitted; one could almost see him wiping sarcasm off the beige suit. “Yes, Marco Crespi was bashed up. Someone wants to destroy the tradition of this branch. We don’t know why—”

  “Yes, we do,” said Gert Vanderberg.

  “Why?” Balmoral had learned the trick of looking innocent, which comes in handy in an environment of skulduggery. But she dodged that question, put one of her own with brutal force: “Do you know who killed my husband, Jerry?”

  “No, no.” He was off-balance for a moment. Then: “Well, yes. The police are said to have a suspect—have they?” He looked at Maureen.

  “My father doesn’t confide police business in me. He might now,” she said. “Now I’m Mrs. Vanderberg’s minder.”

  “But you do know, don’t you, who bashed up poor Marco Crespi?” Mrs. Vanderberg wasn’t going to let him off the hook. Under her dowdy queenly air there had always been an affable lady; but now there was iron in her soul, she was a widow who wanted revenge. It surprised her how revengeful she felt. “It was that crowd from Harding, wasn’t it? Kelzo and his mob.”

  “I don’t know—”

  “If you don’t know, you must be the only one in the party who doesn’t. We know, don’t we, Barry?”

  “Yes,” said Rix, but sounded apprehensive.

  “You can try your luck, Jerry, and run for pre-selection here, but you are going to be wiped like a snotty nose.” She didn’t sound at all queenly now, at least not a Christian one with afternoon-tea manners and a retinue of elderly courtiers. “Go back to Sussex Street and tell them you’re as welcome out here as the plague. While you’re at it, tell your mates out at Harding that if Joe St. Louis comes into this electorate again, I’ll have the local police lock him up.”

  “What for?” Balmoral had had no experience of Gert Vanderberg at close quarters; she was giving him a crash course in a woman’s power. He was a success amongst younger women, or thought he was, but this old battle-axe was another proposition altogether. He was so off-balance he repeated himself: “What for?”

  “For threatening me.”

  “Has he?”

  Her smile threatened to cut his throat. “I’m Saint Gertrude around here. Nobody doubts my word. Goodbye, Jerry.”

  He stood up, looked at all three of them, searched for some warning to spit at them, found none and left. The room seemed to expand with his going, the old posters on the walls took on an added shine like old victories revived.

  Gert Vanderberg, looking neither queenly nor saintly, settled back in her chair. “You’re downsized as my minder, Miss Malone. Now what was it you wanted to talk about as a TV reporter?”

  Maureen took out her tape-recorder. She hoped Mrs. Vanderberg, a mincer if ever she’d seen one, would not mince words.

  III

  Outside the Clontarf nursing home Malone picked up the car-phone and rang Jack Aldwych’s home at Harbord. It was only ten minutes’ drive from here and he felt like some relaxation after the frustration with August. He always enjoyed any sort of encounter with Aldwych.

  “Yeah?”

  “That you, Blackie? You don’t sound like the butler.”

  “Who’s this, smartarse?”

  “Scobie Malone.”

  “Oh shit—sorry, Mr. Malone.” Blackie Ovens had been with Aldwych for thirty years. He had been an iron-bar man, had had a reputation, had done time time and time again. Now, like his boss, he was retired, spent his days as general factotum around the Aldwych big house. “The boss ain’t here, he’s over at the office with young Jack. Once a week he goes in there, plays the big businessman. Don’t tell him I said that. He ain’t been as good-humoured lately, not like he used to be.”

  “I’ve never grassed in my life—”

  “Neither have I, Mr. Malone.” He was one of the old-style crims, always polite to senior officers if they weren’t being manhandled.

  “I know, Blackie, and I respect you for it. Call Mr. Aldwych and tell him Sergeant Clements and I are on our way and to wait for us.”

  Malone and Clements drove back into the city and to the AMP Tower where Landfall Holdings, the Aldwych family company, had its offices. There was no hint of Aldwych Senior’s past in the offices; rather, they suggested a company that had come out with the original settlers and convicts, but with credentials, in 1788. The discreet gilt lettering on the double doors named seven companies, but Landfall was the umbrella. The attractive brunette on the reception desk, the granddaughter of one of Aldwych’s one-time brothel-keepers, was as soft-spoken and genteel as any girl out of Jane Austen.

  “Mr. Aldwych is expecting you, Inspector. Shall I bring coffee?”

  Malone and Clements went into the big inner office. Out beyond the large windows the harbour and the Opera House caught the eye at once; the only mote in the view was the large block of apartments that development greed and civic maladministration had allowed to be built. It sat in front of the Opera House like a huge outhouse.

  “Scobie—” Aldwych didn’t rise from his chair; kings let their manners be taken for granted. But his smile was genial, that of a commoner; he always met Malone on equal terms. “Some good news?”

  “Maybe, maybe not.” The two detectives sat down, looked at the two Aldwyches. “Did you know Janis Eden is out of jail?”

  The receptionist brought them coffee, strong and rich, not instant. “No sugar, just milk for you both, right?”

  “How’d you know?” asked Clements.

  She gave him a smile that would have earned her grandmother’s girls an extra quid or two. “I keep a file.”

  After she had left the room Malone said, “You’ve trained her well, Jack.”

  “Not me. Her grandmother,” said Aldwych. “So the slut is out?”

  Out of the corner of his eye Malone waited for a reaction from Jack Junior, but there was none. The younger Aldwych had lived with Janis Eden for a short period; the relationship had appeared deep, at least on his part. Then his father’s command and his own awakening to the totally selfish
Janis had frozen the relationship. He had supplied the money that was to pay for the drugs for which she was arrested; it had been the pay-off, the cold way of saying it was all over. She had kept her mouth shut during her trial, had never attempted to contact him. He knew, however, that she would always feel that he should have gone to jail with her. Like most selfish people she never blamed herself for what had happened to her.

  “Four months ago, out of Mulawa,” said Malone. “She’s dropped out of sight, hasn’t been heard of. But—”

  “But?” Aldwych was doing all the talking; his son sat saying nothing. “There’s always a but with women.” His wife Shirl would have clouted him for that, no buts about it. “That’s why you’re here. But.”

  Malone said admiringly, “You haven’t lost your touch, Jack. A bit heavy, but still there.”

  Aldwych nodded, sat waiting. Malone looked at him, then turned his gaze bluntly on Jack Junior. “Could the hit have been meant for you and not The Dutchman?”

  Father and son looked at each other, then Jack Junior said, “We’ve thought about it. But we didn’t figure it might be Janis—we just didn’t think of her—”

  “You never kept track of her?” asked Clements.

  “Why would I? I’m happily married—” He shook his handsome head. He was an imposing figure behind the big desk, every inch a corporation man. He and Juliet graced the better social events, but always in the background; an inheritance from his father, he had a deep aversion to being photographed. He and Juliet were never found amongst the miles of teeth on the Sunday social pages. “Janis was history, as far as I was concerned. I got myself into a mess with her, but I got out of it. You knew and I knew you knew. But I got out before you could pin anything on me.”

  “That’s frank enough,” said Malone and nodded approvingly.

  “I gave him a fatherly talk,” said Aldwych.

  “With an iron bar?” said Clements with a grin.

  “I’d have used it if it’d been necessary. It wasn’t, he was sensible. That’s all dead and gone now. History, like Jack says. But that’s not to say the bitch thinks the same way. Have you picked up the hitman yet?”

  “No.”

  “But you’ve got a suspect.”

  “We might have. How’d you know?”

  “Scobie—Russ—” He looked at them, old friends. “There are—what? Fourteen, fifteen thousands cops in the service? You think I don’t still have contacts? I don’t have any of ‘em on my payroll, not any more. But I ring ‘em up, they talk to me. If there’s a hitman out there and you got a suspect, they’re gunna let me know. A sorta civic duty.”

  “You must miss the old days, when you could buy cops like that?”

  “No, Scobie. The honest bastards are easier to deal with—you know where you stand. I never trusted Fred Krahe and those other shits. You were a pain in the arse at times, but I always knew you were never gunna stab me in the back.”

  “Can we get back to Janis?” said Jack Junior, looking pained at his old man’s revival of memories.

  “Sure,” said Malone. “If you were the target, either of you, where would she get the money to pay a hitman? We’ve estimated that if the target was Hans Vanderberg, the fee would have been anywhere between fifty and a hundred thousand. It would be less for either of you, but not much.”

  Aldwych grinned. “Thanks.”

  Jack Junior said, “You confiscated all the money she was holding when you picked her up. But she had other money coming to her—I don’t know how much, but it was considerable. She had bank accounts that I knew nothing about, the money could be in them. They probably weren’t in her name. If she got her lawyer to invest all that cash in shares or property or whatever, it would’ve been making money for her all the time she’s been put away. I don’t think Janis would’ve come out of jail stony-broke. It wouldn’t have been in her nature.”

  “Who was her lawyer?” asked Clements.

  But Jack Junior wasn’t going to get himself caught up in the net, not after all these years. “It would be in the court records.”

  “Leave us out of it,” said Aldwych. “We can take care of ourselves.”

  “With all your contacts,” said Malone, “what happens if you find her? Will you take care of her, too?”

  “That remains to be seen,” said Aldwych, and one knew once again that he might have retired but was not reformed.

  IV

  “Why did you go out to Rockdale today? I told you to stay out of this case.”

  “Are you having me tailed, for God’s sake?”

  “No, I’m not. But a watch is being kept on Mrs. Vanderberg and Barry Rix, just in case someone tries to do them over again. Mo, stay out of it.”

  “Dad—” She understood his concern for her; but she had to make her own way in life. That, unstated but recognizable, had been her aim since she was fourteen. “My producer sent me. If I’d said no, I’d have been told to get lost and he’d have sent someone else and I’d have finished up in a back room. I’m not shoving my neck out—”

  “May we get on with dinner?” said Lisa.

  “Dad,” said Claire, coming in from his right, “we’re not little kids any more—you can’t keep protecting us.”

  “Are you butting in on the case?”

  “I was in it—our firm was—before you came into it. You’re getting your chronology wrong.”

  “Chronology?” said Lisa. “If we’re going to have chronology, can we make dinner Number One?”

  “Can I get in on this?” asked Tom. “I’m the odd one out. Even Mum is in on it, indirectly.”

  “Right now Mum is trying to keep the whole thing away from this table,” said Lisa. “Now to change the subject—”

  She gave them her Dutch glare and the subject was changed. It was their weekly family dinner, a ritual she tried to preserve as much as possible. Claire came home for the evening without Jason, and Maureen and Tom made no dates. Lisa prepared the meal the night before and the girls helped her to serve it. The two men waited to be waited upon, true-blue old-time Aussies. Tonight’s dinner was Tasmanian salmon, cold, with a salad and new potatoes. The dessert was crème caramel, with slightly more cream than milk in the recipe and the sauce done to her own prescription. The wine was a West Australian white burgundy. They would like the meal or else. Dutch cuisine was not all cheese and schnapps, not for those Netherlanders who looked south.

  “You haven’t lost your touch, Mum,” said Tom, who would have said the same thing to an Eskimo over a blubber hamburger. His taste buds would never lead him to starvation.

  “Changing the subject slightly,” said Claire, “who is going to be the new Police Minister?”

  “Billy Eustace, for the time being. After that—” Malone shrugged, took a sip of his wine.

  “What does he know about the police?”

  “He knows we’re the ones who are supposed to stay out of jail. But that’s about all.”

  “If Labor loses the election, who gets to run the Olympics?” asked Tom.

  “Ask your mother,” said Malone. “She’s the Olympic expert.”

  “It will be a free-for-all,” said Lisa. “All-in wrestling. It’ll be a new event on the Olympic schedule.”

  “How will they get Nick Agaroff out of the box seat?” said Maureen. “They’ll have to shoot—” Then she waved an apologetic hand. “Sorry.”

  “Nobody else is going to be shot,” said Malone. “But throats may be cut and backs stabbed. Just your usual State politics.”

  Tom raised his glass. “Here’s to democracy.”

  Later in bed Lisa said, “Are you any closer to finding out who killed the Premier?”

  “If I listen to my bones—yes.” Malone lay with his arm under the curve of her back; she turned, putting her leg over him. They were experienced explorers of the geography of each other, knew every port of call. “But no Crown prosecutor would listen to my bones.”

  “Is there going to be more violence? More shootings,
more bashings? I hate the thought of Mo covering that sort of thing.”

  “I might have a word with her producer—”

  “She’d bash you if you did.” She put her hand between his legs. “Am I being too protective?”

  “Go for your life, Delilah.”

  V

  Peter Kelzo was at home. It was the Parthenon reduced to a suburban villa. He was, as someone said, more than one pillar of the community; there were at least a dozen holding up the roof of the house. Two fake Praxiteles copies of the female form stood on either side of the steps leading up to the front door, arms raised as if hailing the owner. The villa stood, not on the Acropolis, but on a slight rise that looked out on the Parramatta River. The Parthenon had had no resident oracle, but Peter Kelzo didn’t bow the knee all the way to tradition. He gave advice, whether requested or not.

  “You gotta be more careful, Joe, understand? When you do over a man, you gotta be sure it’s the right guy. What you did was collateral damage.”

  “No,” said George Gandolfo. “Collateral damage is when you kill civilians with bombs meant for someone else. The Americans invented it.”

  Did Socrates and Demosthenes need nit-picking advisers? “I’m not talking to you, George.”

  “Pete—” said Joe St. Louis.

  “Peter.”

  “Peter, I done the right thing, you know what I mean? I picked a dark place, no street lights, nothing like that, the car was Barry Rix’s, the guy gets out—what was I gunna do? Ask him for his driving licence before I whacked him? It was just one of them unfortunate things. Like George says, collateral damage.”

  They were sitting out on the front porch of the villa, between two of the Doric pillars. It was a ritual once-a-week meeting, except in inclement weather; Kelzo didn’t invite the local elements to call on him, but he liked to be seen; a family man at home with his friends. Down in the driveway Kelzo’s teenage son was washing the family Lexus 400. Mrs. Kelzo, a pleasant-looking woman but a wraith in the public gaze, was back in the house doing a woman’s work, whatever it was. Peter Kelzo was not as chauvinistic as Euripides, but he believed the playwright had a point in putting women in their place. The world would be a better place if the Greeks still ran it.