Five-Ring Circus

by Jon Cleary

  “What’s the betting the Golden Gate job and Mr. Zhang were all done by the same gun?”

  “I wouldn’t take money on it,” said Clements the punter, “not if I was a bookie.”

  “What more do we know about the corporations in Olympic Tower?”

  “Sheryl and I have an appointment with a nice young man from the Securities Commission,” said Gail. “He does weights with her at gym.”

  “Where are you talking to him?” said Malone.

  “At the gym, at lunchtime,” said Sheryl. “If we turn up at his office, questions might be asked. We don’t want that yet, do we?”

  “Not if they want us to be official—that just wastes time. Can he get his breath to answer questions while he’s lying on his back pumping iron or whatever it is you fitness fanatics do?”

  “He can when I lie beside him,” said Sheryl.

  “What are you going to do, Gail? Pump iron or just make notes?”

  “I think I’ll just watch.”

  Then Kate Arletti was knocking at the glass panel of the security door. Kagal got up, went across and admitted her; Malone waited for him to kiss her on the cheek, but they were as formal as strangers. Except for Kate’s smile. She’s still in love with him, thought Malone.

  “Tell us what you know, Kate.”

  She sat in Kagal’s chair and he stood behind her, like a guardian. “The Feds got in touch with us a week ago—they asked us to look into it, they were up to their necks in something and couldn’t afford the staff. It’s not strictly our line of work, but things are slow with us—”

  “Swindlers turned honest all of a sudden?”

  “Could be. Anyhow, I looked into it. The Commonwealth Bank and a few other bods were worried about a couple of deposits in two of their accounts, one at Bondi, the other at Cronulla. Cheque accounts held by two Chinese students.”

  “The plot thickens,” said Andy Graham, and instantly looked embarrassed. “I read that somewhere.”

  “Go on, Kate,” said Malone, and could feel the familiar rising of adrenaline that always came when another piece of the jigsaw fell into place.

  “These two are students, mind. Overseas students, from China. Their names are—” she glanced at her notebook—“Zhang Yong, he’s the one from Bondi. The other is a girl, Li Ping, she banks at Cronulla. Zhang opened an account with the Commonwealth six months ago, with modest transfers from Hong Kong. Three weeks ago he had twenty-eight million deposited in the account—”

  “Twenty-eight million?” The amount registered on everyone’s faces as if it had been rung up on a cash register; except there was no cash register that could flash up that amount. Its till would fly open like Andy Graham’s mouth.

  “Wait,” said Kate, “there’s more. The girl at Cronulla had twenty-three million deposited in her account on the same day.”

  “The bank branches must of thought they’d won the lottery,” said Clements, “It would make head office look sick. Can you imagine a branch manager having that much handed to him in one whack?”

  “Where did the money come from?” asked Malone.

  “They’re still tracing that, the actual sender. But both amounts came through a bank in Hong Kong. And Hong Kong banks are like what Swiss banks used to be. Hear no money, see no money, speak no money.”

  “Whoever sent it must be bloody dumb,” said Clements. “Did they think amounts like that wouldn’t raise suspicion? Could you imagine the commotion there’d be if someone sent amounts like that into China, deposited in some student’s account?”

  “Is the money still in the accounts?” asked Gail.

  “The bank’s frozen them—they invented some excuse about foreign credit control,” said Kate. She was obviously enjoying her visit and her information: she was back in Homicide, even if only for the moment. “There’s an act called the Cash Transactions Reporting Act. Any transaction involving more than ten thousand dollars has to be reported if there’s a suspicion there might be money laundering. We used it earlier this year to put the Drug Squad on to a gang.”

  “What currency were the transfers in?” asked Clements.

  “That’s the intriguing part—or part of it. It was in American dollars. So someone at the Hong Kong bank had to be in the scam. If that’s what it is.”

  “Righto, John, you and Gail go out to Cronulla, get Miss Li Ping’s address from the bank and have a talk with her.”

  “If she’s still there,” said Kagal sceptically.

  Malone nodded, “If she’s still there . . . Thanks, Kate.” He escorted her to the security door, opened it for her, said quietly, “Everything still okay?”

  She understood the question. “So far. Don’t worry about me, boss. I’m a big girl now.”

  “You’re neater, too,” he said with a grin, noting that every button on her shirt was done up.

  “That’s John’s influence. He does a beautiful job with the ironing.”

  “Glad to hear it,” said Malone, who wouldn’t have known the front end from the back end of an iron. He had been blessed with a mother and a wife who had protected him from the drudgery of everyday life.

  He watched her go down the hallway and wondered how he would feel if some day Claire or Maureen came home with a bisexual lover. Probably throw an iron at him. Then Kagal said behind him: “She should still be working for us.”

  Malone took his time. “I know that. But you two put the kibosh on that.”

  “Office romances, you mean? I’ve seen them work.”

  “Not in our job. I couldn’t send you two out as partners on, say, a domestic. You walk in, a feller has killed his wife, or vice versa. You’re a husband-and-wife team investigating that?” He shook his head.

  Kagal didn’t split hairs by saying that they were not husband and wife. “We wouldn’t have to work as partners.”

  “John, sooner or later you’d be rostered together—” He was dodging the real question in his mind: how long was Kagal going to remain faithful? He had no idea if the temptation for a bisexual man was double that of a heterosexual; he was not going to enquire, least of all of Kagal. “I’m sorry, John. It’s just not on.”

  Then Gail Lee came across the room towards them. “Boss, I was going with Sheryl—”

  “Now you’re not—” He couldn’t help the sharpness in his voice; but it wasn’t really meant for her. “You’re going out to Cronulla with John, find that girl student. You may be needed to translate.” He looked past her at Sheryl Dallen, who had joined them. “You can handle that young man from Securities on your own. Do some push-ups, pump iron, do whatever you like, but get some info out of him.”

  He walked across and into his office; Clements followed him. The big man stared at him a moment, then said, “I heard all of that. You’ve really got shit on the liver. If you’re going anywhere this morning, I’d better come with you or we’re gunna have a lot of unhappy troops in Homicide. What’s biting you?”

  Malone slumped down in his chair. “I don’t know. Watching Kate with John got me started—d’you think I’m trying to play father to her?”

  Clements remained standing in the doorway, as if blocking out the troops. This was something between the two senior men: the guardians. “Maybe. I don’t think about Kate and what she’s got herself into—”

  “That’s because your daughter is only a year old. Mine are older.”

  “Okay, I’ll give you that. But I worry when I send Gail and Sheryl out on a job, if it’s a messy one and the killer’s still loose. That makes me a chauvinist, I guess, and the feminists would tell me to mind my own business, that women can look after themselves. Maybe Gail and Sheryl would, too, if they knew how I felt.”

  “So what are we supposed to do? Be like the British generals in World War One?” Con, his father, the anti-imperialist, had told him about that. “Don’t give a stuff for the troops?”

  “Come on,” said Clements, giving up the argument, “let’s go in and talk to Union Hall.”

 
Malone stood up, reached for his hat and jacket. He always wore his pork-pie, even if it made him look like a detective out of the fifties; but he was not going to fall victim to sun cancers. Clements never wore a hat, which was just as well: two images from the fifties would have been too much. No crim would have taken them seriously.

  “Let’s go in first to Olympic Tower, to the site. That’s at the centre of all this and I’ve never looked at it, bar when I’m driving past.”

  It was only five minutes’ drive from Strawberry Hills, in to George Street, the city’s main street, and only a long stone’s throw from Town Hall. They were pulled up at the main gate by a security guard. They asked to see the site manager and were directed to a parking space beside a demountable administration hut. “But put these on soon’s you get outa your car,” said the guard and handed them two safety helmets.

  Malone put his on, looked across at Clements. “Why does everyone look such a boofhead in these things?”

  “I always have to laugh whenever I see politicians wandering around wearing these. It only makes ‘em look more at a loss than usual.”

  “Let’s hope none of ‘em comes down here asking for a helmet.”

  The site manager was in his thirties, professional written all over him. White shirt, striped tie, mobile hanging from his waist like a weapon: he wore a different badge from the workers. He was not happy to be interrupted by a couple of boofheaded detectives.

  “Look, you should be talking to the bosses, not me—”

  “Actually, we don’t want to talk to you,” said Malone. “We’re just doing you a courtesy. We want to talk to the chief union delegate.”

  “What about?”

  “That’s confidential, unless the union man wants to tell you. Now may we see him?”

  “Okay. At least you’re less demanding than the other cop who was down here.”

  “Oh. Who was that?”

  “Thin guy. Foster, Fosgate—no, Boston.”

  “He won’t be troubling you again,” said Malone, not looking at Clements. “The union delegate?”

  The manager rang his mobile and the two detectives moved away. “Boston?” said Clements. “What was he doing here?”

  “Maybe we’ll find out when we meet the union bloke.”

  “You’ve got shit on the liver again.”

  “Do you blame me?” Malone nodded at the manager. “I can’t remember when I was last on a case where everyone was so bloody uncooperative.”

  “Maybe he’s just concerned for our safety,” said Clements, and adjusted his helmet which had slipped sideways on his head.

  “He’s coming down,” the site manager called out and went back into his office.

  The two detectives stood under the honeycomb of the many storeys that had already gone up. Noise reverberated through the shell of the building, sounds that had their own mark, that of modern construction. Jackhammers pummelled the nerves; steel clanged against steel; the drum of a nearby cement truck whirled like a lottery barrel spilling pulverized marbles. Men came and went, all under the white or yellow toadstools of their helmets. A whistle blew and a huge girder was swept up into the sky like an exclamation mark that had broken loose.

  Then a voice said, “G’day, Scobie, you wanted to see me?”

  Malone turned round. “Roley! What’re you doing here?”

  Roley Bremner was a small hard ball of a man; his mother might have hand-rolled him when he was an infant. His white helmet sat so high on his head it could only have withstood a hit from directly above; ginger hair stuck out from beneath it like thin dry weed. He was dressed in a white boiler suit that gaped at his prominent beer belly.

  “Ah, I left the Wharfies. They brought in all this waterfront reform, I seen there was no future for me—enterprise bargaining don’t do no good for old union blokes like me. I come across to the Construction mob—I’m the site delegate, they know I got years of experience with bosses. It’s tougher. Back on the wharves we had the bosses in our hand—here, it’s a different kettle of fish. Especially—” He leaned closer, his gravelly voice dropping back into his throat; against the noise of the site Malone and Clements had to lean down to hear him; they looked like two uncles listening to the secret of a short fat nephew. “Especially when you’re dealing with Asians. Kee-rist, some of ‘em think we’re fucking peasants, you know what I mean? So what can I do for you?”

  Malone explained the circumstances of what had brought him and Clements here. “We heard you’d had some union trouble—”

  “What’s that gotta do with these murders you’re talking about?”

  “Maybe nothing, Roley. But which union would profit, you or the other blokes, if the current bosses were eliminated?”

  “Depends who we had to deal with. Jack Aldwych’s got his finger in the pie—we could deal with him. He’d be tough, but he’d be fair, we reckon. He might try a bit more of the standover stuff, but in the end he’d talk turkey. Jack’s never been against the workers.”

  “Only because you weren’t worth robbing,” said Clements. “When did you have dealings with him?”

  “When I was on the wharves. He was running a gold smuggling racket for a while—came to me and offered me dough to turn a blind eye.”

  “Did you?”

  “None of your business, mate . . . But you’re barking up the wrong tree, you think anyone here had anything to do with the murders. The other crowd wouldn’t have ten per cent of the workers on this site, though they’re trying their hardest to get guys to move across to them. See that big guy over there?”

  Malone and Clements looked towards the man supervising the unloading of the cement truck. He was tall and all muscle: dressed only in tight jeans and a skimpy blue singlet, he displayed shoulders and pectorals that would have been an advertisement for any gym. Under his helmet his long black hair was pulled back in a pony-tail that hung down his back like the tail of an animal hidden under his helmet. He looked across at Bremner and the two detectives and made no attempt to hide his stare. There was an arrogance about him that seemed to upset Roley Bremner. His hat wobbled on his head and he had to steady it.

  “He’s with Allied Trades—he likes to think of himself as their enforcer.” The bile in the roly- poly man’s voice was like spit on the air. He had seen what real enforcers could do on the wharves in the old days: the swung hook, the packing-case suddenly dropped, the blow on the back of the head and the push into the harbour. He had survived all that. “I’ve never seen him try the rough stuff, but the size of him, that build, he just stands over some of the guys, then they come and tell me maybe they’ll join Allied Trades—”

  “All that muscle,” said Clements, who had allowed most of his muscle to sink beneath softer flesh. “Stick a pin in him and he’d squirt steroids. Is he into body-building?”

  “He was on The Warriors, that TV show where they whack each other over the head and call it entertainment.”

  “He gave up that for this?” said Malone.

  “He didn’t give it up—they just sacked him. Told him his IQ wasn’t high enough for such an intellectual show—I got that from another guy who tried out for the show. Don’t ask him two questions in a row—his eyes’ll glaze over.”

  Malone shook his head in mock admiration. “You live amongst such interesting types, Roley—life is nothing like this in Homicide. What types have you got in your union? Any standover men?”

  “Amongst ourselves it gets a bit rough at times—but you expect that, you’re in union business. But it ain’t like the old times, mate. The politicians are less interested in us than they used to be, there ain’t the pressures. How’s your old man?” Roley Bremner and Con Malone had once worked on the waterfront together. Malone was just glad that, as a cop, he had never been called on to face the two of them when there had been trouble on the wharves. “He was a great union man, hated the bosses. He’d go stark raving mad, he was working on this job.”

  “So there’s a lot of hatred of the bosses
?” said Malone.

  Bremner shrugged, so hard that his helmet wobbled again. He steadied it, but said nothing. Malone had come to know that the only rival to a hardened crim in the tight-lipped stakes was a hard union man.

  “Six or seven years ago,” said Clements, “on the original job, before it closed down, there was trouble. A coupla guys disappeared, right? We were never called in, there was no proof of homicide, but the guys never reappeared, did they? They go interstate or what?”

  Bremner considered a moment, as if he had had enough of the detectives and their search for information; then he said, “I wasn’t here, right? I was still on the wharves. All I know is hearsay. You know, things get talked about, it’s like telling funny stories. The two guys, they’re foundation members.”

  Both detectives looked quizzical. “You mean—”

  “Sure. They’re buried in the foundations.” Bremner jerked his thumb downwards. “Five storeys down, the bottom level. You gunna start digging?”

  “Roley,” said Malone deliberately, “we didn’t hear what you just said and don’t bother to repeat it.”

  “You shouldn’t of asked,” said Bremner, and grinned.

  “Do you have any Asians working here?” said Clements.

  “Half a dozen—Vietnamese. And there’s two Chinese on the white-collar staff.”

  “Locals?”

  Bremner shook his head; the helmet wobbled again, “From China. They’re engineers, they work for the Hong Kong crowd, the Bund Corporation. I think they’re here to keep an eye on things, day to day.”

  “They trouble you?”

  “They’re uppity buggers, a pain in the arse. But I take no notice of ‘em.” Roley Bremner had been doing that all his working life, taking no notice of those over him. Con Malone would have been the same: two stalwarts at the barricades. Another world, another time, when unions had been a force, had controlled seventy-five per cent of the workers, instead of thirty-five per cent as now. Things would never be the same again.

  “Where are they now?”

  Bremner nodded towards the administration hut. “Give ‘em my regards.” He raised his middle finger.