Now and Then, Amen

by Jon Cleary

  “She ought to know better,” said Fingal. “Are you religious, pious, full of faith, all the rest of the bulldust?”

  “Yes, I think so. You do good in the world, if you’re a priest.”

  “And if you’re not? You think I’m not doing any good in the world?”

  “I don’t know. You never tell me or Brigid anything about what you do. You make a lot of money, and that’s all I know.”

  There’s no need for you to know, thought Fingal; better that you don’t. His interests were so wide now that no one who worked for him, not even his accountants, knew the full extent of his holdings or his pursuits. Only this year, after several years of legitimate business, he had slipped back to the criminal side, lured by the money available. He had recently taken over the gold smuggling racket between Hong Kong, Bombay and points west; Sydney was the half-way house, the exchange point, and he now owned the ships that brought in the gold. Taking charge had involved the elimination of certain opposition, though they had never known who their opposition was. Crooked cops had taken care of the elimination, though they never knew who paid them. One competitor, a businessman as well-known as Fingal, had held out, but he had been disposed of by being thrown off the back of a ferry one night into the harbour; the two thugs who had done the job had never known who paid for their services. The body had been recovered, half-eaten by a shark, and the coroner had put death down to suicide brought on by worry about the deceased’s health. There had been a big funeral attended by politicians and prominent businessmen, including Fingal Hourigan. He had sat in a back pew of the Anglican cathedral, listened to the eulogies, hidden his smile and added up what the gold smuggling would bring him each year. It would be several million pounds at least. More than even the most venal cardinal would ever make.

  “That’s my religion,” he said. “Making money is what makes the world go round. Not love or prayers.”

  “Don’t you believe in God?”

  “No, But don’t tell the Jesuits—they’d be here on my doorstep as soon as you mentioned it. You believe in God, if you like, but I don’t need Him.” In his mind he used the pronoun with a lower case h.

  Kerry looked worried. “He could strike you dead for that. Aren’t you afraid?”

  He had been afraid ever since he had left Chicago nineteen years ago, afraid that some day Capone, or someone sent by the Big Fella, would catch up with him. That is, until a year ago, when Capone, racked by syphilis, hatred for the Internal Revenue men and regrets for his lost empire, died in Florida of an apoplectic seizure. Fingal had said a prayer that day, but no one had heard it, probably least of all The Lord.

  “No,” he said. “Fear is for cowards. Are you a coward?”

  Kerry thought about it, then said, “I don’t think so. I’m like you, Dad, in lots of ways.”

  “Except about religion. Go away and think about wanting to be a priest. I won’t say no if you’re stuck on it, but don’t expect me to give you my blessing.”

  Kerry grinned and his father grinned in return: they were growing closer. “That would be sacrilege, Dad.”

  “Sure. Don’t tell the Jesuits.”

  Kerry left him then and he sat in his living-room in the house in Bellevue Hill and looked down towards the harbour, where he could see one of his ships heading for Hong Kong and another shipment of gold. The house was more than large enough for him and the children and the housekeeper, but it was still too small: the memories of Sheila crowded him. He would build another house, one down on the water at Vaucluse. He began to dream of a castle, something that Al Capone had never owned.

  When Brigid came home on a weekend pass from Rose Bay Convent, another expensive school, Fingal took her into the Hotel Australia for lunch. It was the first time he had taken her out alone and she looked at him with a sceptical eye far too experienced for a ten-year-old.

  “Why are you doing this, Daddy?”

  “I’ve been a neglectful father. You and I should get to know each other better.”

  She played with a chocolate éclair. “I don’t know anything at all about you, Daddy. You’ve never told us anything about where you came from. Do Kerry and I have a grandfather and grandmother, I mean from your side?”

  “No. Some day I’ll tell you about myself, when you’re older. I was an adventurer.” He changed the subject. “Did you know Kerry wants to be a priest?”

  “No. He’s like you, he never tells me anything about himself.”

  “Do you want to be a nun?”

  “Hell, no!”

  “Do they teach you to swear at Rose Bay? Still, I’m glad to hear it. You’re too pretty to be wasted in a convent.”

  “There are pretty nuns. You don’t have to be ugly to be a nun. I just don’t want to be one, because I want to grow up and be an artist.”

  “Are you any good?” He had never seen any of her work, not even any of her schoolwork. I’m a terrible father, he thought, but would only have given himself a hernia if he had tried to dredge up any guilt.

  “The sisters say I’m very good. They don’t like what I draw, but that’s because they’re old-fashioned.”

  “What do you draw?”

  “Naked men and women,” she said, and suddenly he saw Sheila in her.

  She was a remarkably pretty child, with her mother’s eyes, but there were already hints that the prettiness would fade and some day there would be a strong-boned handsome woman in her place.

  “You can hold back on those. Wait till you leave school and I’ll send you to an art school, a good one.”

  “I want to go to Paris and live with Pablo Picasso.”

  “Paris is no place for a young girl, especially with Picasso. Stay at home and marry a rich young man in Sydney. You can still be an artist.”

  “It wouldn’t be as much fun. I think I’m like you, Daddy, in lots of ways. An adventurer.”

  Perhaps they were right, perhaps there was more of him in them than he saw.

  Paddy Regan died in January 1950 from a surfeit of hops and lost hopes. A month later Sheila died; there was a wild happy look in her eyes, as if she had caught sight of The Lord in the moment before He took her. She was buried privately and there was no announcement in the newspapers. Fingal did not look at her when she was laid out in her coffin; she was a stranger, he was not burying his old one true love. The children cried, but with fear more than grief. Two deaths in a month: it was too much for children to be faced with such mortality.

  A month later Kerry entered the seminary to study for the priesthood. He still wanted to be a cardinal, an ambition he did not confess to the monsignor in charge. Brigid showed promise at school of being a talented artist; she had given up drawing naked men and women, a retreat greeted with relief by the nuns. She still dreamed of going to Paris and living with Picasso, a dream she did not confess to the mother superior.

  Fingal Hourigan went on making money. Then in 1955 he took into his employ Jonathan Tewsday, a crook as devout as himself.

  6

  I

  BROTHELS ARE like parliaments: no one there ever believes the intentions of the rest of those present. Not even when the police come calling.

  “I never expected it of you, Inspector. You’ve come back for a pay-off.”

  “Why would I do that, Tilly? I’m not on the Vice Squad.”

  Tilly Mosman looked at him dubiously. “Why did you have to come back now? It’s the girls’ rest period.”

  “Better now than when they’re working. I don’t think your clients would be too happy if I’m sitting on the end of the bed asking the girls questions.”

  Malone had gone from the cathedral back to Homicide, picked up the fax photos of Paredes and Domecq and come here to the Quality Couch. Tilly Mosman had invited him in, but reluctantly.

  “They go back to work at eight. Have you eaten? You can have supper with us. It’s only light. The girls don’t like to work on a full stomach.”

  Malone grinned. “Theirs or their clients’?”
<
br />   “No crudity, Inspector, I don’t allow that.”

  Tilly Mosman prided herself on her taste; it was what distinguished her establishment from similar ones around town. As Malone followed her through the downstairs drawing-room into the small dining-room at the back of the house he noted the expense and good taste. Even the nudes in the paintings on the silk-hung walls had a look of class about them, high-priced whores who posed only for the best painters. The two Vietnamese maids who were emptying the ashtrays and cleaning up after this afternoon’s trade did not look like Saigon bar-girls; dressed in demure black uniforms with white lace aprons, they would not have been out of place in a Point Piper mansion. To which Tilly Mosman some day aspired.

  Half a dozen girls, dressed in cotton wraps, their make-up removed, sat around the dining-table eating quiche, salad and cake. They looked up as Malone entered and all of them sat very still. “It’s all right, girls,” said Tilly. “It’s not a raid. This is Scobie Malone. He’s come to ask questions about that poor nun they found outside yesterday morning.”

  The girls relaxed and two of them moved aside to let Malone sit between them. They piled his plate with food, like good wives, then offered him a glass of mineral water. “Tilly never lets us drink wine when we’re at work, says it clouds our minds,” said one of them. “As if it mattered.”

  She was a naturalized redhead, a pretty woman who might have been twenty-two or thirty-two; she had probably looked this age at sixteen. She had a husky voice, cultivated as part of her trade, and a smile with a touch of malice in it. For which Malone couldn’t blame her.

  “Is this all there are of you? Six?”

  “There are eight others. They go home to feed their hubbies or put the kids to bed.”

  Malone took the two photos out of the manilla folder and laid them on the table. “Any of you recognize either of these men?”

  The photos were passed around, like severed heads; the girls looked at them dispassionately. No matter what they might think of their own menfolk, if they had any, here in this house men were just livestock, bulls who paid. Malone knew that he could not have chosen sharper eyes or sharper memories.

  “Yes,” said a girl sitting opposite him. She was a mixed-blood, part-Chinese, part-European, part-something darker; she was beautiful in a striking way and Malone wondered how long it would be before some well-heeled client took her away from the Quality Couch. He felt the attraction of her and decided he would not tell Lisa where he had been tonight. “I’ve entertained him two or three times. Three.”

  She pushed one of the photos back across the table and Malone looked down at Max Domecq Cruz. “What about the other one?”

  He looked around the table, but all the girls shook their heads. They all looked interested and ready to help and even a little afraid: if a nun could be killed on their doorstep, why not one of them?

  “Sergeant Clements was here and you girls told him you had only two Spanish-speaking clients Saturday night.”

  “This man didn’t speak Spanish,” said the girl opposite him. “He said he was an American.”

  Malone looked at Tilly Mosman, keeping to protocol: “Can I take her into another room?”

  Tilly nodded. “Go ahead, Dawn. Don’t upset her too much, Scobie. She has to go back to work.”

  The girl led him out of the dining-room and into a small, exquisitely furnished side-room. Malone, conscious of all the elegance around him, wondered what the bedrooms upstairs were like. There had been a time when he had been almost totally unaware of his surroundings, when rooms were only furnished by the people in them, but Lisa had educated him to an appreciation of couch and table and drape. She had, he’d told her, also educated him to an appreciation of mortgage.

  “Is Dawn your real name?”

  “No. Why do you want my name?”

  “Righto, we’ll forget it for the moment.” He did not want to antagonize her; after all, she was entitled to some privacy if she demanded it. In an hour or so she’d have precious little. “What was this man’s name?”

  She arranged herself on a love-seat and gestured for him to sit next to her. The face-to-face seats had been designed for lovers; it was also an ideal arrangement for an intimate interrogation. Malone was surprised that he felt uncomfortable sitting so close to the girl. She was even more beautiful now that he had time to look at her closely; her skin was flawless and he could not find any of her features that was out of proportion to the others. Every gesture, every line of her body hinted at sensuality: he felt the attraction of her again and wished he had not sat down so close to her. The perfume she wore was thick in his nostrils, accentuated by the nervous heat of her body.

  “Is this what they call a love-seat?” She nodded, and he grinned and added defensively, “I should buy one for my wife and me.”

  She smiled, showing beautifully even white teeth. “Nobody’s ever said that to me. Nobody ever mentions their wife in this place, it’s taboo.”

  “What did our friend talk about? What was his name?”

  “Sebastian. Raul Sebastian. He never told me much at all about himself. Just that he lived in Miami.” She had put her arm on the division between them; her hand rested on his upper arm. It was an unconscious movement, a trick of the trade that she performed automatically. “I think he’s genuinely keen on me. He asked me if I’d like to go and live in Miami.”

  “You could do better than that.”

  “Here in Sydney? Don’t be silly. There are several guys who come here who say they’re in love with me, but none of „em would marry me. All his friends would know where he picked me up.”

  “Why’d you go on the game then?”

  “The money, what else? I’m lazy, too lazy to move somewhere else and start again. All I can hope is that some day I’ll finish up with my own house, like Tilly.”

  He looked at the lovely waste of her. Nature had made her perfect, then left her to her own devices. Or men’s vices. “How did Sebastian come here? Do they come in off the street or are your clients recommended?”

  “Oh, recommended!” She looked at him indignantly; she had her standards. “We’re the top of the class.”

  “I’m sure you are. Sorry. Who recommended Sebastian?”

  “I don’t know. Tilly takes care of all that. But I don’t think she’ll tell you.”

  “Let’s try her. Will you get her for me?”

  “I’m here,” said Tilly Mosman, appearing in the doorway. “I was eavesdropping. You’re a nice man, Scobie, but my policy is, Never trust any man. Dawn is right—I’m not going to tell you who recommended Mr. Sebastian.”

  Malone stood up, relieved to be away from the side of Dawn. He had always been a faithful husband; was he at last developing the seven-year itch? “Trust me this time, Tilly.” He told her who Sebastian really was. “He’s connected with the murder of Sister Mary Magdalene in some way, I don’t know how. You don’t want to be an accessory after the fact.”

  Tilly looked suddenly worried and a frown cracked the flawless face beside her. The women looked at each other, then Tilly said, “Is he dangerous? I mean would he come back and, you know, hurt Dawn or me?”

  “I don’t think so. If he comes back, get in touch with us—I’ll have men here within two minutes.” The Police Centre was only a few blocks away. “Who recommended him, Tilly?”

  She hesitated, jealous of her standards. Then: “Sir Jonathan Tewsday.”

  Malone kept his eyebrows in place. “Is he a client of yours?”

  “Not now.”

  So he once was. Malone had met Tewsday only once, years ago when he had been a young detective-constable on the Fraud Squad; he had also then met Fingal Hourigan for the first time. The Squad had been unable to lay any charges against Tewsday or Hourigan; both men had gone on to be ornaments of the Establishment, all tarnish scrubbed away by their wealth. It was said that Tewsday had bought his knighthood, but it would not have been cheap; the dead Premier who had sold it to him had never believed in
bargains. It was also said that Fingal Hourigan, the bargain hunter, Tewsday’s boss, had refused a knighthood because there was no discount.

  “What did Sir Jonathan say about Mr. Sebastian?”

  “That he was a gentleman who paid his bills in cash. I take credit cards, but I prefer not to.”

  Malone grinned. “What do you put it down to?”

  “I call it telex charges. It’s a form of communication, isn’t it? So’s what my girls do.”

  Malone looked at Dawn, who smiled lazily. He said, “Was he a gentleman?

  Dawn shrugged, but offered no comment. Then Tilly said, “He paid his account each night, though he made what I thought was an ungentlemanly remark. He said the devalued Aussie dollar gave him a cheap roll in the hay. None of my girls is a cheap roll in the hay, no matter what the dollar’s valued at.”

  She had her pride and so did her girls; Dawn gave a slow nod to emphasize what Tilly had said. Malone nodded in reply: he respected any professional, even some crims. “Righto, let me know if he calls again.”

  “You’re not going to get in touch with Sir Jonathan?”

  “Don’t worry, Tilly. If I do, he won’t know how I got to him.”

  “I’d like to believe that . . .” She knew the power of powerful men, both good and bad. “Don’t call again, Scobie, not unless you have to.”

  He smiled, knowing the brush-off wasn’t personal. He went through to the front door and Dawn, a good hostess, accompanied him. She put her hand on his arm; he felt the effect of her perfume and her attraction. “All the girls would like you to find who murdered that nun. Some of us are religious, in a sort of way.”

  “Sure, Dawn. Take care of yourself. And don’t go to Miami.”

  She kissed him on the cheek, looked unafraid but lazily so. Bed, he guessed, was her natural habitat.

  “I’ll probably never get away from here, not till I’m Tilly’s age. When I get my own house, come to the opening.”

  “I’ll do that. Can I bring my wife? Good-night, Dawn.”