The Bear Pit

by Jon Cleary

  He pulled the unmarked car in behind a Bentley turbo that was being guided into a line of expensive cars cordoned off by a long red rope. A parking valet, like the grey bombers of the parking police out on the streets, appeared out of nowhere.

  “Not there, sir. You can’t park there—”

  “Why not?” said Clements, who knew the purpose of the exclusive area.

  “That’s for regular clients, sir—”

  “You mean the high rollers?”

  “We-ell, yeah—”

  “We’re high rollers,” said Malone, stepping out of the nonexclusive Holden Commodore and showing his badge. “We roll anyone who gets in our way, that right, Sergeant?” Then he grinned at the young valet. He stepped out of the way as a Ferrari rolled in behind him, its exhaust thrumming like a gambler on heat. “We shan’t be long, son. We may be bringing someone out. The less fuss the better, isn’t that what your bosses would want?”

  He and Clements went into the casino and up to the main gaming floor. In the four years the casino had been operating Malone had never been in the place. He was not a gambler; when the kids had been at school they had had difficulty in persuading him to buy a raffle ticket at the school fête. His money never came out of his pocket looking for chances; if he was not guaranteed at least an equal return, forget it. He was the low roller of all rollers.

  He stood for a long moment looking at the scene. The banks of poker machines stretched away in all directions, their fronts showing more expression than the faces of the humans pulling the handles. Beyond the poker machines were the gaming tables, where the players seemed capable of more expression, even the odd burst of excitement.

  “You notice?” said Clements. “Three outa five players are Asians. They come here, do their money, keep coming back. All wanting to be rich tomorrow. The land of milk and money.”

  They moved on. Malone, not a man of much aesthetic perception, found himself looking at the surroundings and the decor. Long ago, on the trip to London when he had first met Lisa, he had gone to an exclusive gambling club, tracking a suspect. It had been a discreetly opulent atmosphere, good taste in every drape and every stick of furniture; but that had been years ago, before taste had gone downhill in the world. This was Las Vegas Down Under; he found it hard to believe that so much bad taste could be under one roof. Perhaps it was psychological, designed to keep the gamblers on edge.

  They came to the blackjack tables. Malone looked along the row of them, recognized Janis Eden at the far end. She had changed, he had to look hard and long at her. But it was she, all right: if nothing less, the old coolness was still recognizable, like a favourite dress.

  “You know the game?” Clements asked.

  “I know the rules of two-up and that’s about it. What are your chances of winning at blackjack?”

  “I’d rather bet on the horses. You take your cards from the dealer and they’ve gotta total 21 or less. You win if your total is higher than the dealer’s. There are over 1300 different ways two cards can total the numbers from 2 to 21. There are 560, maybe a few more, two-card combinations worth 16 or more. That’s all you have to remember,” he said with a grin and moved towards the end table. “Let’s go and talk to Janis.”

  She looked up as they approached, gave no hint of recognition. “You wish to play, gentlemen?”

  “Not here, Janis,” said Malone. “Could you have someone relieve you? We’d like to talk to you.”

  She frowned, only slightly. She glanced around her; for a moment it seemed she might try to flee. Then she gestured to a supervisor, said something to him in a low voice, then jerked her head at Malone and Clements and led them away from the gaming tables.

  “What’s this all about? Are you going to make trouble for me here?”

  “It’s got nothing to do with all this.” Clements gestured around them. “How’d you get the job? You been doing a blackjack course while you were in Mulawa?”

  “I worked in Las Vegas eleven years ago. They were looking for an experienced dealer. I got the job.”

  “Why’d you change your name?”

  “It’s my real name. My birth certificate, my passport—Joanna Everitt. Janis Eden was the name I invented for that other game—in case I got caught, I guess. My mother was very strait-laced North Shore—” She paused a moment and Malone wondered if there was still a spark of decency in her. “The name I went to prison under.”

  “So you’re clean? Joanna Everitt is okay with the Gaming Squad and the casino people? They’re tough with their checks on whom they employ.”

  “I’m clean.”

  She was holding something back, but Malone didn’t press her. Police divisions don’t interfere with other divisions unless asked; one had enough troubles of one’s own. If the Control Authority had cleared her he wasn’t going to wise them up.

  “I’m making a fresh start,” she said. “Isn’t that what we’re supposed to do when we come out of prison? I’m rehabilitated. Now what’s all this about?”

  The cool exterior was brittle now. She was a good-looking woman who had started with a barely attractive face and built on it. Her dark auburn hair was thick and lustrous, the sort of unbelievable hair one saw in TV commercials; Malone bet that she would get more men players to her table than women. Her figure was good, suggesting sex but not easily available. Men wouldn’t pass her by without looking at her. Women would pass her by, sniffing.

  “Righto, Joanna. Do you know a man named John June? Or John August?”

  She shook her head, eyes blank. “What does he do? Come here to play?”

  “He might. Or to talk to you. He shoots people. A hitman.”

  She was not the type who would ever shriek with laughter; but she put her hand over her mouth now as if afraid that she might. She looked from one to the other. “You’re joking!”

  “I don’t think we are.”

  “Oh, for Crissakes—” She looked as if she might walk away from them. “Why would I know a—a hitman?”

  “How do you feel about your ex-boyfriend?” asked Clements. “Young Jack Aldwych?”

  “Candidly?” She might have been telling them what she thought of the latest fashions; the composure was thickening. “I hate him. His father, too. But what’ve they got to do with this—this hitman?”

  There was a shout from one of the tables; someone had just won a jackpot or something. Heads turned, but nobody moved: everyone was chasing his own fortune.

  “Don’t you read the papers? Look at television?” said Clements. “The Aldwyches were on either side of Premier Vanderberg when he was shot. The shot could of been meant for either of them.”

  “So—” If she was acting, she was good at it. Maybe nine years in Mulawa had taught her never to show her true face. Prison is an education, one way or another. “So you think I might have arranged it? Do me a favour, gentlemen. Get lost. You’re going to lose me my job here. The security guys are watching us.”

  Malone glanced towards the two big men standing ten or fifteen metres away. They had security written all over them, like an invisible logo; they were in suits and wore badges, but the badges were superfluous. They moved towards Joanna and the two detectives.

  “Something wrong, gentlemen?”

  “We’re police,” said Malone. “Miss Ed—Everitt had her home broken into and we think we’ve got the feller who did it. We’d like her to come with us, identify some of the stuff we took from the bloke.”

  “You didn’t tell us, Joanna.” They were both huge young men; side by side they could have blocked a freeway traffic lane. “Why not?”

  “Excuse me,” said Clements. “This is police business. Are you suggesting you should of handled the case?”

  The security man who had spoken backed down. “No, of course not. We just are concerned for those who work for the casino.”

  “It’s okay,” said Janis Eden; or Joanna Everitt. “I’ll go and see if any of my stuff has been picked up. I’ll go when I finish my shift. That
all right?”

  “Yes,” said Malone. “Just call me when you’re coming. Good luck back at your table.”

  “Do you play?” asked one of the young men.

  “Only solitaire. I’m not very trusting.”

  He and Clements left then, not hurrying, almost strolling past the tables and the poker machines. Every machine was fronted by a player, each of whom sat there like an animated doll, faces dead as plates. An elderly woman turned to look at them; her grey hair was in a clenched perm, the sort that Malone thought had gone out years ago; the plate of her face was cracked, her eyes dull. He recognized the type: she would have begun at bingo games years ago, seeking not fortune but just company. Now the machines had imprisoned her. He tried not to be judgemental, but the blind eye only works with sympathy. He had seen too much addiction, of all kinds, and sympathy had worn threadbare.

  At the top of the escalators a young man, too slim to be a security guard, joined them and rode down with them. “Constable Gregan, Inspector. I’m keeping tabs on Miss Everitt, we’re working shifts. You’re not taking her in?”

  “Not yet. Get back up there and don’t let her out of your sight. Bring her over to Homicide when she comes off work. Has she cottoned on to you?”

  “No, sir.” He was small, barely medium height; he had blond hair and a cheerful freckled face. “I’ve been playing the pokies, had a coupla games at the tables. Looking like I’m here for the fun.”

  “Who’s financing you? Office petty cash? You must be made of money over at Surry Hills.”

  “No, my own cash, sir. I like a flutter now and again.”

  “Righto, flutter back up there again and keep an eye on her. Don’t get glassy-eyed in front of a poker machine.”

  “No, sir,” said the young officer and looked at Clements as if to say, Is he a Jehovah’s witness?

  As they walked across to their car Clements said, “You were a bit rough on him.”

  “Yeah, I know. I thought I’d forgotten all about Janis, but I haven’t. She still gets up my nose. That young bloke was just unlucky I got narky on him and not her.”

  The parking valet dropped the red rope to let Clements take the Holden out from between the Ferrari and the Bentley. “No luck, sir?”

  “We’ll be back,” said Clements. “Keep our spot.”

  II

  Detective Constable Gregan and another young officer introduced as Detective Constable Styron brought Joanna Everitt to Homicide at 4.45. She came into the big room, smiled at the half a dozen detectives there as if they were casino clients and strolled into Malone’s office. He asked her to sit down, then went out to the two young officers from Surry Hills.

  “Go down and wait for her, but keep out of sight. I’ll send her back home in one of our cars—I still want you to keep tabs on her. Where does she live?”

  “She has a flat in Neutral Bay, not a cheap block,” said Gregan. “She’s renting at the moment, but she’s trying to buy it.”

  “You’ve done your homework. How much?”

  “She’s paying six hundred a week, furnished. The guy who owns it wants five thousand a week during the Olympics. She’s either got to buy it from him or move during the Olympics.”

  “How much does he want?”

  “Eight-fifty thousand, the agent says.”

  “Has she got that sort of money?”

  “We dunno. Our ticket wasn’t to look into her bank balance.”

  There was just a little cheek in his answer, but Malone let it pass. His own tongue had not always trodden the straight and narrow. “Righto, keep up the surveillance on her. She thinks you were just detailed to bring her in, nothing else?”

  “No, sir. I chatted her up on the way in, she thinks we were on routine stuff around the casino when we got the word to escort her in here. She’s very pleasant.”

  “Yeah,” said Malone.

  “Is she the one, sir?” Styron was an overweight young man with a bushy black moustache and bushy hair. His voice, however, was soft, as if he would rather reason with crims than bounce them. “Paid the hitman?”

  “We’re working on it. But your guess is as good as ours at the moment.” It was a concession to the two young men to state that, but they were the ones who had found her. “We’ll see what we can get out of her.”

  When he went back into his own office, Clements had already joined Joanna. “I’ve offered her coffee, but she says she only drinks tea. But she’s like you, she won’t take tea-bags.”

  Malone sat down. “You’ve got taste, Janis. Sorry, Joanna.”

  “I always have had.”

  She had changed out of her casino uniform and now wore a beige suit with a green silk shirt. Her auburn hair had been let down and contrasted well with the shirt; it also softened her face. She had tan shoes, a tan handbag and a thick gold bracelet that winked just below the cuff of the shirt like a hint of hidden wealth. She looked rich enough to be a high roller. She certainly did not look like someone who had recently spent nine years in jail. Unless it was rehabilitation taken beyond Corrective Services’ aim.

  “Well, Joanna—”

  “Miss Everitt. I don’t like strangers calling me by my first name—you sound like those familiar types on office switchboards.”

  “I didn’t think we were strangers.”

  “You’re not friends. And I’m no longer Janis. It’s Joanna.”

  “I like that,” said Clements.

  She looked sideways at him on the couch, as if the lower orders had spoken. “Thank you, Sergeant. I don’t think my mother had you in mind when she chose it.”

  Both men laughed, settled back. Malone, because of the three women in his house, enjoyed an intelligent woman. Which was not to say that he wanted to enjoy Joanna Everitt for too long. “How are you fixed for money, Miss Everitt?”

  “Asking a question like that proves we’re not friends. I’m comfortable.”

  “You’d saved something from your drug sales before you were arrested?”

  There was a pause before she answered and her eyes hardened for a moment; then, without heat, she said, “No. My mother died while I was in Mulawa and I sold our house. I bought shares with the money and doubled it. Commonwealth Serum Laboratories. Drugs again.”

  Malone looked at Clements, the stock market punter, who said, “CSL. They’ve gone up six or seven hundred per cent since they were floated. Honest drugs for honestly sick people.”

  “Thank you,” said Janis/Joanna.

  “Would you object if we asked to look at your bank account?” said Malone.

  “Yes, I would. Why do you want to look at it?”

  “To see if there have been any large withdrawals lately. Say fifty to a hundred thousand dollars. Or maybe less, maybe twenty thousand. Shooting one of the Aldwyches would cost less than a hit on the Premier. Unless you’re a Coalition voter?”

  “Of course I am, I’m a conservative through and through. But there are other ways of getting rid of politicians than by shooting them. Voting against them, for instance. I’ll admit I wouldn’t have wept at all if either Jack or his father had been hit, but I didn’t pay anyone to do it.”

  “We can get a court order to look at your account. Or accounts.”

  She considered for a long moment; she was never going to be hurried. Malone wondered if she paused as long as this before she dealt the cards in blackjack. “All right, I’ll sign permission.”

  “Which bank?”

  “The Commonwealth, in Martin Place. Will they charge me for letting you look at it? They charge for everything else. Things were cheaper in jail.”

  Maione nodded agreement. “The Colombians are on their way here. They’ve heard banking is more lucrative than drug-running.”

  She smiled. “I should have gone into banking. I might’ve stayed out of Mulawa.”

  The mood now was easier. “The account—what name? Jam’s Eden or Joanna Everitt?”

  “Joanna Everitt.”

  “Do you have one somewh
ere else in the name of Janis?”

  The smile had gone. “No. Janis is dead. I’ve got a new life.”

  “But you still remember Jack Junior?”

  She was very still; even her lips didn’t appear to move. “Yes.”

  “Have you been near him, gone to his office or his home?”

  “No. He’s married now and I have no fight with his wife. I’m not a home-wrecker.” She sounded almost prim; buttery words wouldn’t melt in her mouth. Then she changed the tack of the questioning, asked one of her own: “How did you find me?”

  “I haven’t checked yet. Maybe the hitman told them where you could be found, that you’d changed your name.”

  She smiled again, but this time it looked an effort. “You never give up, do you?”

  “Never. You’ll always be Janis with us.” He stood up. “I’ll have a car take you home or wherever you want to go.”

  “New York?”

  “Don’t try it. Not till we’ve cleared you. Thanks for coming in.”

  Clements escorted her out, turned her over to Gail Lee to take her home. Malone sat on in his office. An Indian mynah walked up and down the sill outside the window, chirping at its reflection in the glass like a busker telling a competitor to get lost.

  Then Phil Truach came in, plumped himself down in the chair Joanna Everitt had just vacated. He looked in need of a cigarette or two. “Are you in a good mood or have you got shit on the liver?”

  “You’ve got bad news?”

  “It could be. For you. Your two daughters are in a legal stoush. Claire has just issued a writ, on behalf of Clizbe and Balmoral at the Trades Congress, against Channel 15 and Maureen in particular. Evidently they put out something on the midday news.”

  III

  “You should settle out of court,” said Tom, “if you want an economist’s opinion. It’s always cheaper, out of court. The lawyers don’t like it—”