The Bear Pit

by Jon Cleary

  “Whatever happened to law’n’order?”

  “I dunno. In cases like that, I ain’t gunna enquire. You don’t want to do anything about it, do you?”

  “No. But tomorrow morning I think we may pay another call on Sussex Street. See if we can put Mr. Clizbe’s nose back in shape.”

  He drove home through a bottleneck of road rage. The day’s heat had flattened everything, including motorists’ tolerance. Blue was his favourite colour, but this evening’s sky was pitiless. He never turned on the radio in the Fairlane, so that he didn’t hear the drive-time jockeys telling the world it would be even hotter tomorrow. He never listened to radio news, it never told the full story. And he had learned long ago that, until you heard the full story, there was no point in having an opinion or getting excited.

  A woman in a Honda Prelude screamed abuse at him as he prevented her from cutting in. He gave her a Humphrey Bogart smile, a baring of the teeth, but she wasn’t Ingrid Bergman and yelled at him again, blasting her horn as she fell in behind him. He drove on, exaggeratedly turning up his collar against the blaring of her horn and her abuse.

  He pulled the car into his driveway, waited while the garage door swung up, then drove in. He sat a moment, like a sailor who had come safely into home port through a rough sea. He knew that in many places home was not the safest haven, but this house, this ambience, was the best end to a day.

  “What sort of day did you have?” asked Lisa as she stood in the front garden hosing the gardenias and camellias.

  “Don’t ask. You?”

  “Don’t ask.” She turned off the tap, coiled the hose.

  “If ever the house burns down, you’ll do that. Coil the hose afterwards.” “Waiting for the next fire.” She kissed him. “I’m becoming pessimistic.” “Let’s sell up and retire.”

  “Where to?”

  “Tibooburra.” Where the sun fell off the end of the world and crime was a diversion and not a pain in the head. He pinched her behind. “You have a lovely arse. The best one I know.”

  “Don’t try getting to know a better one.”

  He followed her into the coolness of the house, stopped in the hallway at the door to Maureen’s room. She was sitting at her computer, motionless, staring at the half-finished line on the screen.

  “More Mills and Boon? Has Clothilde or whatever her name was lost her boobs again?”

  She turned round as if glad of the interruption. “I found out something else today. I was out at St. George’s hospital. Mr. Crespi talked to me—there was no one else there and I think he was glad of any visitor. His face is all dressings, but I held his hand and gave him a whiff of the Arpège.”

  “You’re worse than Clothilde.”

  “I kept my shirt buttoned up. He told me that your friend, Jack Aldwych, gave two hundred and fifty thousand dollars to the Boolagong election kitty. Mr. Balmoral heard about it and that’s one of the reasons he wants the Boolagong pre-selection. With all that money to spend, following in the footsteps of someone like Hans Vanderberg, he can’t lose.”

  “Why did Jack Aldwych part with so much money? I’ve never heard of him being charitable.”

  “Mr. Crespi didn’t know. It was something between Aldwych and Vanderberg. Mrs. Vanderberg knows about it and she’s hanging on to it as if it’s her housekeeping money.”

  “Why did he tell you all this?”

  “I told him I was Jerry Balmoral’s deadliest enemy. And that we were gunning for Joe St. Louis.”

  He sat down on her bed and patted her knee. “Mo, don’t get too involved in this. There’s been another bashing—well, not exactly a bashing, but a brawl. Joe St. Louis broke Mr. Clizbe’s nose. They’re fighting amongst themselves now. If some outsider like you gets in the way, they’re not going to pull a punch. You’ll cop it for just being there.”

  “This is a big, serious story, Dad—”

  “I know that, Mo. That’s why they’re going to be very serious about keeping it to themselves. I don’t want Romy calling me up, telling me there’s someone I know lying on a slab in the morgue—”

  “Oh, come on, Dad—”

  He hadn’t meant to be so melodramatic, but having said it, he meant it.

  She saw that he did. She bit her lip. “You’re really worried for me?”

  He nodded, afraid of words.

  She put her hand on his cheek, the most affectionate gesture she had made in ages towards him. “I’ll take care, Dad. I promise.”

  He turned her hand over, kissed her palm, got up and went out of the room. Out in the hallway he blinked away the tears that suddenly blinded him. Then he was aware of Lisa watching him from their bedroom doorway.

  “You’re learning,” she said, touched his arm and went past him on her way to the kitchen.

  Then at the back of the house he heard Tom say, “What’s for dinner?” It was as good a way as any to resume normal transmission.

  IV

  “What’s Mr. Balmoral like?” asked Gertrude Vanderberg.

  “Politically, he’s gunna be brilliant.” But then Barry Rix wrinkled his nose. “As a bloke, he’s the sort toasts your health with an empty glass.”

  “He should do well in politics then.” Illusions, like virginity, were gone forever. She had never regretted losing her virginity, though it had not been to Hans, but she did regret that her illusions had gone. Because she had loved him, she had never blamed Hans for that.

  They were sitting on a park bench at Brighton-le-Sands looking out at Botany Bay. Mrs. Vanderberg was in a summer dress that looked like a fireworks explosion; she sat beneath a sunshade of green-and-yellow stripes. Beside her Rix was a monotone of pale grey. In the late afternoon passers-by stopped or slowed their step to greet Gert and she smiled at every one of them as if they were her extended family. Hans had had the political smile, than which there is nothing more false, but hers was genuine and everyone knew it.

  “We have to keep him out, Barry. We can’t let him succeed Hans, not here in Boolagong. Mr. Balmoral isn’t interested in Boolagong or even New South Wales—they are only stepping stones for him. Hans, for all his skulbuggery, as he called it, really loved this State. He lived for it. We’re not going to let Mr. Balmoral have it.”

  “He’s using a lotta pressure, Gert. He wants that money we’ve got in the kitty.” He looked out at the wide bay turning dull as the sun dropped behind them. A laden tanker was coming in the heads, low in the water, dark and menacing against the horizon. He said casually, “You know why Jack Aldwych and his mates gave us the money, don’t you?”

  “No, I don’t, Barry. Should I know?” She smiled at another passer-by, another voter, and bobbed her sunshade up and down like a reverse plunger.

  “I dunno, Gert.”

  She waited. She knew Hans had always seen honesty in politics as an elastic band, to be stretched as far as the situation called for. She knew of the skulbuggery (she loved the word, but never told him so) that wove State politics together like a scatter-rug designed by travelling salesmen not sure if their next sale would be their last. She had loved The Dutchman (though she had never called him that and never allowed anyone to use the nickname in her presence) and, as the young would say, she owed him. Even if she had to protect more skulbuggery.

  At last, still staring out at the bay, Rix said, “Hans was gunna put through a bill authorizing a casino up at Coffs Harbour. Just a small one, to cater for the tourists and the retired people up there.”

  “How small?”

  “I dunno, I never saw any plans. Smaller than Harbour City, bigger man the Panthers Club up at Penrith. I don’t think Aldwych and his mates wanna turn Coffs Harbour into Las Vegas.”

  “If we get you elected, will you promote a casino bill?”

  He was still gazing out at the bay, as if waiting for Captain Cook to come in and rescue him. “I dunno, Gert. I’ll be just a backbencher. Ordinary members’ bills don’t get much of a run.”

  “What about Billy Eustace? If it wa
s his bill?”

  “Billy would want his share of the 250,000 bucks. He wouldn’t promote the Second Coming unless he was paid.”

  She thought a while, nodding almost mechanically at another voter as he went by. Then she said, “I think we should talk to Mr. Aldwych.”

  “He’s got partners. Four Chinese. Two of ‘em are women. I hear Chinese women are tougher than their men.”

  “We’ll see.” Gert Vanderberg brought down her sunshade. “Arrange it, Barry. Somewhere discreet. I don’t want it to be conspicuous.”

  Wear black, he told her silently. But he helped her to her feet and they walked back to his car, he pale as a winter shadow beside the aurora borealis of her dress.

  7

  I

  TASK FORCE Nemesis was on a not-so-merry-go-round. John August was still under surveillance, but he went about his handiwork as if he hadn’t a care in the world. Surveillance was also kept on Joanna Everitt, who appeared calm and untroubled most of the time, though once or twice she gave the middle finger to her watchers, but in a ladylike, almost regal way. An eye was also now being kept on Joe St. Louis, but his arrogance was a challenge to them to do what they liked, they hadn’t anything on him. Discreet enquiries were made to trace hidden bank accounts, if any, but nothing was uncovered. The media blared criticism and Bev Bigelow and other Opposition shadow ministers demanded to know if New South Wales was on its way to becoming the New Russia. There were clarion calls for Lorne Order to come riding into town again. Civilization was falling apart and what, for Crissakes, was that going to do to the Olympics? Things had to be kept in perspective.

  Malone and Phil Truach went down to Sussex Street to talk to Norman Clizbe. Despite the forecast, the weather heat, if not the political and media heat, had eased; the air had a sparkle to it, there was a spring in pedestrians’ step. Road rage was still fermenting, but one couldn’t ask for everything. They parked the car in a Loading Zone and went up to the tenth floor of the Trades Congress building.

  Norman Clizbe squinted at them from either side of his barricaded nose. “I’m making no charges—”

  Malone held up a hand. “It wasn’t attempted murder, was it, Mr. Clizbe? We’re interested only in those sort of things. A little stoush between friends—Is Joe St. Louis a friend?”

  Clizbe hadn’t lost his sense of humour; he grinned, but it seemed to hurt as his nostrils stretched. “I wouldn’t call him that. He just forgot himself.” He touched his nose. “I was in the way.”

  “It happens,” said Phil Truach, who had told Malone on the way down that he had known Clizbe for years. “Relax, Norm. We just came to talk about the general situation.”

  But Clizbe wasn’t comfortable. His desk looked like a rubbish tip of papers; whether it was his usual filing system or just today’s, he looked as if he was floundering. One hand shuffled papers, but it was just a nervous gesture, not an attempt at putting his desk into some sort of order.

  “Why aren’t you across the road talking to Party head office?”

  “We’ve been there, Norm.” Truach lay back in his chair, legs crossed, as if he came here to this office every day. “Inspector Malone has had me over there twice. They’re as pure as the driven slush, as someone once said. You wouldn’t see more clean hands in an operating theatre.”

  Clizbe thought about that for a while; then nodded. “So we’re the bunnies.”

  “Looks like it.”

  “Norm—” Malone felt that Clizbe, if not exactly rushing to be cooperative, was not antagonistic—“we know that you here in this office were looking at ways of getting The Dutchman to call it a day. Or am I putting it too mildly?”

  “No.” Clizbe’s eyes had started to quicken. “You’re putting it exactly.”

  “Then why are you sueing Channel 15 for stating the obvious?”

  Clizbe looked at Truach, the old friend; or anyway acquaintance. “Is that what this is? To get us to lay off his daughter?”

  “I wouldn’t even think that if I were you, Norm,” said Truach.

  “He might be even more dangerous than Joe St. Louis. He’s a heavyweight, Joe’s only a middleweight at the most.”

  Clizbe looked back at Malone. “Sorry—”

  “That’s okay, Norm. We’re not here about Channel 15 or my daughter—that just slipped out . . . Were you out at the Harding electorate office trying to persuade Mr. Kelzo to keep out of the Boolagong pre-selection?”

  “Why would I be doing that?”

  “We’ve heard a rumour that Mr. Balmoral wants that seat.”

  “Where did you get all this garbage?” He sounded suddenly irritable.

  “Moles, Norm. They’re everywhere.”

  “Your daughter, wasn’t it? Is she undercover for you?”

  “Careful, Norm,” said Truach, still relaxed in his chair. “You increased union members’ fees recently. That would of added up to quite a sizeable amount. What were you gunna do with it, Norm?”

  Clizbe’s hand roamed like a rat over the rubbish tip of papers.

  “Mr. Kelzo has his own pet nominee for Boolagong,” said Malone. “A Garry Fairbanks. You know him?”

  “He’s assistant-secretary of Allied Trades. He’d be Kelzo’s puppet, a real dickhead.” Then he looked up as his office door opened. “Not now, Jerry—”

  But Jerome Balmoral wasn’t going to be excluded. As sartorially neat as ever, like a model out of the fashion pages of a men’s magazine, he came in and sat down in the spare chair at the end of Clizbe’s desk. He looked at the clutter with distaste; one knew his own desk would be as clean as an ice rink. He glanced at the two detectives, then sideways at Clizbe.

  “Maybe you need some back-up, Norman.”

  This bloke has talent, thought Malone. Or ego, gall, whatever you want to call it. He’s telling his boss what Norm needs. “Maybe you can help, Mr. Balmoral. You’re hoping to get the Boolagong pre- selection?”

  Balmoral looked at Clizbe, who hesitated, then said, “His daughter told him.”

  “Watch it, Norm,” said Malone. “Is it true, Mr. Balmoral?”

  “Yes.” As if the result were a foregone conclusion.

  “Is Joe St. Louis an acquaintance of yours?”

  “After what he did to Norman?” His indignation was perfect.

  “I said an acquaintance, not a friend.”

  “Yeah, well, yes, we know him. In Labor circles, everyone knows him.”

  “You know, of course, that he’s the main suspect in what happened to Marco Crespi out at Rockdale? He just did the wrong man. If he’d scared off Barry Rix, the way would be open for you in Boolagong, wouldn’t it?”

  “Are you suggesting we might have hired Joe to beat up Barry Rix?”

  “Leave me out of this,” said Clizbe and seemed to retreat behind the dressing on his nose.

  “I’m not suggesting anything, I’m just asking questions. Like politicians do, what I guess you’re hoping to do when you get to Macquarie Street. In the meantime, before then, how were you going to finance your pre-selection campaign and then, if you got it, your chances in the election? We understand Mrs. Vanderberg holds the purse-strings out at Boolagong.”

  “Have you been talking to Mother Gert?” asked Clizbe.

  “Not me personally. We’ve been talking to everybody, Norm. You have no idea the number of people we’ve talked to.”

  “And you still haven’t come up with who killed The Dutchman,” said Balmoral.

  “Touché, Jerry. But someone like you, hoping to get into parliament, shouldn’t be surprised at how many dead ends there are in the world. We’ll get there eventually.”

  “Not talking to us, you won’t,” said Clizbe.

  “Oh, we never give up. You might know more than you think you know. For instance, do you know a man named John August?”

  There was nothing apparent to suggest that the name meant anything to either Clizbe or Balmoral. There was no frown, no narrowing of the eyes, not even that frozen reaction that is a silen
t lie. Yet in their very calm, their momentary silence, they had given themselves away. They had failed to recognize an interrogator who had been reading silences for twenty-five years.

  “No,” said Clizbe after a silence that could not have been more than three seconds but seemed like thirty to Malone. “Who’s he?”

  “He’s a member of Allied Trades. Under his other name of John June.”

  Clizbe’s recovery was quick: “You asked about him the other day. I don’t know him.”

  “Do you, Jerry?”

  “No.” His recovery now was perfect; he could have been asked if he knew John the Inuit from Greenland. “What does he do?”

  “He’s a handyman. He does everything . . . Well, good luck out at Boolagong. Watch out for Mother Gert.”

  Out in the street Phil Truach, forty minutes without a cigarette and looking ready to expire, took the parking ticket from behind the windscreen wiper and stuffed it in his pocket. “They know August?”

  “I’d say so. Wouldn’t you? In this mess everyone seems to know everyone else. What is it they say about six degrees of separation? Someone sooner or later is going to prove there’s no separation at all. You want a smoke? Go ahead, but stay out of the car. I’ll make a phone call.”

  He called Clements: “Get someone from the task force—keep us out of it—to get a warrant to look at any withdrawals from the accounts of Clizbe and Balmoral.”

  Clements’ surprise was like a puff against the ear. “You think they might of had something to do with August?”

  “I don’t know. But they know him.”

  “It figures. In the Labor Party everyone knows who carries the knives. Or guns.”

  “And it’s not like that in the Coalition?”

  “Of course. They just never let the blood show.”

  “Righto, get on with the bank search, but keep us out of it. I want to keep going back to ‘em.”

  “Jesus—” He could almost hear Clements shaking his head. “We’ve got more starters in this than in the City to Surf marathon.”