by Jon Cleary
“No.” There was an obstinacy in his voice that was a challenge.
“It was a deal, I thought, that you didn’t go gallivanting off on your own. Are you going to tell me where you’re going, who with?”
It was a moment before O’Brien said, “Okay, I’ll give you an address, but that’s all.”
Then Malone understood: he was going to see Anita. He knew how he would feel if someone tried to stop him from seeing Lisa.
“Righto, I guess that’ll have to be it.” He looked at Waldorf. “I hope you’re not thinking of pissing off somewhere after the show tomorrow night?”
“I’ll come straight home with you. We’ll hold hands, if you like.”
“I’d rather hold hands with the soprano, unless she’s fat and fifty.”
“She’s not. She’s slim and sexy and thirty. We used to hold hands at one time, but I couldn’t keep up with her. There’s nothing worse for your constitution than a sexy soprano with too much stamina. I thought one night I was turning into a castrato.”
“Do you opera singers talk about your partners all the time like this?” O’Brien sounded positively prim. That’s what true love does to you, Malone thought.
“All the time,” said Waldorf. “The biggest gossips in the world are in opera companies. Whispering is a nice change from all that yelling.”
I like him, Malone thought as they stepped out of the lift: he doesn’t take anything, least of all himself, seriously. Except, of course, the distant family in Germany.
“Do you sing in the bathroom?”
“I will if you want me to.”
“Do you know „Carry Me Back to the Lone Prairie’?”
Waldorf and O’Brien looked at each other, for once joined in distaste if not in taste, then they looked at the Philistine. Then they saw that he was grinning and, all smiles, the three of them got out of the lift.
They nodded good-night to the security man sitting in his chair outside the front door, went into the suite and O’Brien, married to the telephone, went at once to the phone in the living-room and switched on his recording machine. The first two messages were business calls, both asking him to call back at once, no matter what the time. He jotted down the numbers given.
The third call asked for no reply, gave no number: “So the three of you are together? That makes it easier and more convenient for me.” The voice was soft, not threatening, almost comforting. It began to sing in a whisper, as one would putting a child to sleep: “Three green bottles standing on a wall / And if one green bottle should accidentally fall . . .”
III
Malone spent a restless night; as did Waldorf in the other bed. At four o’clock Malone got up and went out into the living-room in his pyjamas. O’Brien, in a green silk dressing-gown with an emblem on the pocket (was it the seal of the High King Brian Boru? Malone wondered), was sitting on a couch with his feet up, reading a business folder. He closed it as Malone sat down in a chair across from him. The drapes were closed and two table lamps were lit.
“I’m not game to look out the windows,” O’Brien said.
“Stay away from them. Christ knows where he is. He could even be here in the hotel as a guest. I’ll check with Reception in the morning, find out who’s checked in here in the last twenty-four hours.”
“I don’t think he’d be that obvious.”
“Neither do I, but you never know. The bastard’s got to make a mistake sooner or later. Let’s hope it’s sooner.”
O’Brien was silent for a moment, then he seemed to put Blizzard out of his mind. He nodded to a tray on the coffee table. “There’s coffee and orange juice there. I made it myself. Did the blender wake you?”
Malone shook his head, took a glass of the juice. “Brian, I don’t think this is going to work out. I don’t know where the hell he is, but he’s got us in his sights.”
“Can’t you send a search squad through all the buildings that overlook us?”
“Like you said, I don’t think he’s going to be that obvious. He won’t be squatting on some roof-top waiting for us to walk by a window or for us to walk out of the hotel. We don’t even know if he cares whether he’s caught or not. If he’s got us all together, maybe he’ll just come out in the open, shoot the three of us and then just give himself up or let himself be shot down.”
There was a long pause, then O’Brien said, “Okay, then we go our separate ways. That’s what I’ve wanted to do all along.”
Malone finished his juice before he said, “You sound as if you don’t care much now what happens.”
O’Brien looked at the closed folder, then tossed it on the coffee table. “My life’s turned into a blind alley, Scobie. Does that sound melodramatic? Yeah, sure it does. But what we’re talking about right now is melodramatic. They make movies or operas out of our situation. Maybe that’s what Blizzard wants, he is, or was, a movie buff. Maybe he’d like to sit in jail and watch the movie of all this. Mel Gibson and Bryan Brown playing you and me. Or the other way around.”
“Your tongue’s just dribbling.” Malone’s voice was low but sharp, like a slap to the face. “Get yourself together!”
O’Brien frowned, as if he hadn’t expected to be rebuked. His face closed up and he looked away; Malone could see a muscle working in the lean jaw. He expected O’Brien to swing round and reply with an outburst. Instead O’Brien turned back slowly and nodded, the tension going out of his face.
“You’re right. I’m starting to feel sorry for myself. I’ve never done that before.”
“It happens to all of us.” But Malone couldn’t remember its ever having happened to him: Lisa would have jerked him out of such a mood before he had even put a toe into it.
“This Blizzard business is only the half of it—for me, anyway. The NCSC are going to put me down the gurgler, they’ll recommend I be prosecuted. That folder there is George Bousakis’ summing up of our chances—they’re about zero. If I don’t go to jail, then those guys who sent that hitman after me last night are going to finish me off. On top of that, the worst of all, is that Anita and I are never going to have a happy ending. My chances there are worse than with the NCSC
“Is that her choice? Is she breaking it off?”
“No-o. But she’s an intelligent woman. We could run off together, but neither of us wants to live the rest of our lives in Brazil or Paraguay or somewhere where they can’t extradite me.”
Malone said nothing, then got up and went to the bathroom. “Can I use yours? I don’t want to wake Sebastian.”
O’Brien nodded, his thoughts suddenly as remote as Brazil or Paraguay. He had begun to daydream of himself and Anita as if both of them were young, unfettered and innocent, at least of his crimes. He had compared her with all the girls and women he had known and he had had to smile at his own judgement: he had created in his imagination a goddess at whom Anita herself would smile. Love isn’t always blind, but at times it can be cross-eyed. If only all women were like her . . . But then women, all women, would fall in love with each other and the men would be left out.
The fortunate thing was that all women were not like each other, no more than all men were like each other. Thank God there were few women like Penelope Debbs. She had called him yesterday at his office to tell him she had resigned from the State Cabinet. He had just come back from the NCSC hearing and when his secretary had told him there was a lady on the phone—“She wouldn’t give her name, just said you’d want to hear from her”—his heart had leapt. Anita never called him at the office, but today he was glad she had taken the risk: he wanted to hear a sympathetic voice. What he heard was a voice that sliced him like a salami-cutter.
“You sonofabitch,” said Penelope Debbs, bitchy as it was possible to be, no lady on the phone, at least not today. “You’ve ruined me! That old shit Vanderberg has made me resign as Minister. It’s in the afternoon paper—it’s already gone out on the radio—”
“I’m sorry to hear that, Penelope—”
“Don�
��t bullshit me, Brian!” When he had been in the pop music business he had been sprayed by more four-letter words than melodic chords; but, coming from a woman of Penelope’s maturity, the words made him wince. Anita swore at him when making love, but that was different: bed was the incubator for the fundamental slang words. “You’ll fucking pay for this—”
“Ease off, Penelope. All my phones are supposed to be tapped—” It was a lie, but he was good at lying.
She believed him: there was an intake of breath at the other end of the line. She was silent for a moment, as if she were trying to remember what she had said. Then: “Well, what’s said is said. Maybe it will interest those who are tapping the line to know just how many people you have ruined.”
“You’re exaggerating. You’ll come back. In another year or two no one will remember me and you’ll be back on the front bench.”
“You’re that close to being finished?” she asked maliciously. “Oh, I’m delighted to hear it! That makes me feel better.”
“I thought it would. All you have to do is be patient, old girl. You’ll finish up as Premier yet—Vanderberg can’t last for ever.”
“I’m aiming higher than that.” That was her one weakness, that she couldn’t hide her ambition, it was like a wen. Politicians are never expected to be modest, it is a contradiction in terms, but trumpet-blowing is only tolerated when one has reached the peak. O’Brien knew she had as many enemies in her own party as on the Opposition benches.
“I knew you were,” said O’Brien, “but I didn’t think you’d want them to tap into that.”
She hung up in his ear and he sat back and smiled for the first time that day.
But now at 4.30 in the morning of the next day, in the shank of the night when dreams sometimes turn sour, he had nothing to smile about. He stood up, picked up the folder as Malone came back from the bathroom. “I’m going back to bed. Wake me at 8.30, would you, if I’m not awake?”
“Do you want me and Sebastian to move out?”
O’Brien sighed wearily, resignedly. “What’s the point? Let’s get it over with, one way or the other. If we all go out together, that’ll be operatic. That’ll please Sebastian.”
He went into his bedroom and closed the door. Malone stood alone in the middle of the big living-room, fighting against the resignation that O’Brien, another Celt, had smeared on him like a weed-juice that couldn’t be rubbed off.
IV
At eight o’clock Malone called Holy Spirit convent and asked for Claire. She came to the phone bubbling with excitement. “We’re just about to leave, Daddy. Are you all right?”
“I’m fine. I just called to wish you happy holiday. Don’t break a leg.”
“You take care, too, Dad.” The bubbling subsided for a moment. “Don’t get shot or anything.”
Against all the grain of his temperament he wanted to shout at her, Don’t talk like that! But all he said, quietly, was, “I’ll be all right, love. Just enjoy yourself.”
He hung up and turned to find Waldorf watching him from the bedroom door. “Your wife?”
“My daughter, the older one. She’s going on her first skiing holiday. She’ll be fourteen soon, time for me to buy a shotgun.”
“Kids are a worry. But we should be so lucky.” He went back into the bedroom, already halfway home (even though it wasn’t home) to Germany.
By the time Malone got to Police Centre, having checked the guest list at the hotel and found no one suspicious had checked in in the last twenty-four hours, having seen off O’Brien and Waldorf to the NCSC and the Opera House respectively, like a single parent making sure his charges would not be late, Clements, Jack Chew and Hans Ludke had been through the television newsreel clips several times.
“All the scenes of the crime clips and Terry Sugar’s funeral,” said Clements. “The head with the most appearances, apart from a coupla TV reporters, is guess whose? Scobie Malone’s. You notch up seven appearances all told on all the channels.”
“You mean I’m the chief suspect? I’m sorry I suggested all this.”
“There’s nobody looks in the least suspicious,” said Chew. “I mean aside from that dumb-faced curiosity you see at funerals and crime scenes when the crowds gather. As if they’re ashamed to be there, but can’t help sticky-beaking.”
“Who were the TV reporters?” Malone asked.
“That smart-arse kid from Channel 15 and one from Channel 7. They’re both too young to be Frank Blizzard.” Clements drank his coffee and munched on the doughnut that was his breakfast. It was his idea of a slimming diet. “No, Scobie, he’s too smart. He’s not gunna put in an appearance. He’s read all those detective mysteries. He knows the danger of coming back to the scene of the crime.”
“What about Mardi Jack and Jim Knoble? When are they being buried?”
“Up till yesterday afternoon the coroner hadn’t released the bodies. But he’s been told to get his finger out. The Department is giving Jim an official funeral, it’s down for Monday. So’s Mardi’s, tentatively. The bodies should be released today.”
“We’ll go to both of them if the times don’t clash. You fellers right for Jim’s funeral?” Malone looked at Chew and Ludke.
“Yes,” said Ludke. “Are we supposed to be on the look-out for Blizzard?”
Malone nodded. “I still think he’s getting too much of a kick out of these murders to stay too far away from them. And he’s still got his eye on me.” He told them of the phone call to the hotel last night.
Clements wiped doughnut sugar from his mouth. “Think of the headlines if he shot you at Jim Knoble’s funeral.”
“No, you think of them. I’d rather not.”
“Sorry, mate. I said that without thinking. I’m tired, the bloody brain’s in neutral.” Then he sat up straight, opened his running sheet file. “I’ve got more on our little friend Joe Gotti. The Melbourne boys passed it on—they’d got it from the Federals. Gotti went up to Canberra twice in the past month. The first time he was met at the airport by Billy Lango, Tony Lango’s son.”
“I thought his record was that he’d had nothing to do with the Mafia?”
“Neither he had. This was the first time he’d ever been seen with them.”
“Did they follow him?”
“The Feds weren’t asked to put a tail on him. They had enough on their plate—there were three demos that day, the students, the Abos and the gays. Someone had got his dates mixed and given „em all a permit to demonstrate on the same day.”
“I’d have liked to be there,” said Ludke, who played first grade rugby union. “It would’ve been better than a punch-up against Warringah.”
“I wonder why we never have a Chinese demo?” said Chew. “If ever I turn up at a demo, all they want to do is throw their arms around me and tell me they’re against all race discrimination.”
“You should try the National Front some time,” said Clements. “They’d throw their arms around your neck and break it.”
Malone sighed patiently. “Righto, you police thugs, do you mind if we get back to Mr. Gotti?”
All three thugs grinned and Clements went on, “All the Feds were asked to do was report when he arrived and left Canberra. He came and went on the same day. The same when he came back a week later.”
“Did the Langos pick him up that time?”
“No.” Clements paused, ran his tongue along his teeth; it could have been a pause for effect or he could have been cleaning his teeth of the last of the doughnut’s sugar. “He caught a cab, went straight to Parliament House. He had an appointment with the member for East Gregory, Old Pavlova-Head himself, Arnold Debbs.”
Chew and Ludke now sat up straight; Malone, weary from lack of sleep but also weary from too many surprises over too many years, remained relaxed. “Did anyone ask Debbs why Gotti visited him?”
“Not as far as I know. They had nothing on Gotti at that time.”
“Where’s Debbs now?”
“I’ve checked that.
He’s up here in Sydney. I’ve made an appointment for you and me to see him at his electoral office in an hour.”
Ah, what would I do without you, Russ? Don’t ever let anyone smarten you up, don’t ever let Lisa run a steam iron over you. You’re just right as you are, the perfect intelligent slob. But Clements had made one mistake: in making sure Debbs would be where they could find him, Debbs had been warned and, being a politician, he would have all his answers ready in advance.
Then Chief Superintendent Danforth appeared in the doorway of Malone’s office. “You didn’t tell me you’d be having a conference this morning.”
“It’s just routine, Harry. I’d have brought the results to you later.” Why am I sucking up to him like this? Why don’t I just tell him to get stuffed? “I thought you were too busy to be bothered with detail.”
“I am, yes. Yes, I am.” Danforth tried to look busy, something he’d never achieved in forty-three years in the Department. He usually slumped into the first chair at hand, but decided he would look busier if he stayed on his feet. He magnanimously waved to Ludke, who had half-risen from his chair, to remain seated. “No, stay there, Hans, I’ve got things to do. I’ve been up and down ever since I got in, like—like—”
“Like a toilet seat in a dysentery plague?” said Clements straight-faced.
“Yeah.” Danforth grinned, not sure that he wasn’t being laughed at. “Yeah, that’s a good one. The media bastards have been on to me. They want to know, Scobie, why you were so handy to O’Brien the other night when Gotti took the shots at you.”
“What did you tell „em?”
“I said no comment.” He was good at that; it never required much intellectual effort. “But sooner or later they’re gunna find out about the hit list and make a connection between all the murders.”
“Maybe we should tell „em?” said Ludke.
Malone shook his head. “Not yet. Let’s wait a day or two, see if Blizzard gets in touch with the papers or one of the radio gurus. If he’s after publicity, maybe he’ll say something that’ll give him away.”
Danforth considered this a moment, then nodded. “Okay. You got anything new on Gotti?”