Murder Song

by Jon Cleary

  “We still have to attend to O’Brien,” Chung went on.

  “Get one of your guys,” said Pelong. “You Chinamen are supposed to be the expert killers, you been doing it for five thousand years, I read.”

  “You’ve been reading comics, Dennis. We’re a peaceful race.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “Okay, cut out the cackle,” said Aldwych, the last emperor, if not of China, then certainly of this room. “Why has O’Brien got this guy Malone with him? I know Malone. A nice guy, but he’s so bloody honest he turns your stomach. I had one of my blokes approach him years ago, when he was on the Vice Squad, and he beat the bejesus outa him and then give him a ticket for double-parking. He’s got a nice sense of humour,” he added appreciatively and smiled, an old man’s gentle grin. “What’s he doing with O’Brien?”

  “That’s where we may be lucky,” said Debbs. “Nil desperandum.”

  One of his political heroes had been a certain prime minister who had had a classical tag for every occasion. Debbs had had no classical education, but had bought a good dictionary and found the foreign phrases in the back of it.

  “What the fuck’s that?” Pelong had never looked into a dictionary.

  “It’s an old Confucian saying,” said Chung, ivory-faced. “He used to say it all the time. Never fucking despair.”

  Aldwych gave them a look that was like a gavel blow on the head. “Shut up! What were you gunna say, Arnie?”

  Debbs felt he was stepping on thin ice as he ventured into the sudden silence in the room; he had created the tense scene with his stupid Latin tag. “There’s some chap, an ex-police cadet named Blizzard, who has O’Brien, Malone and an opera singer named Waldorf on a hit list. It has something to do with something that happened years ago at the police academy. He’s already killed two other cops and an ex-police cadet like himself and he’s also killed a girl-friend of O’Brien’s. That was an accident, I gather.”

  “Where’d you get all this, Arnie?” said Lango and the others nodded in appreciation of Debbs’ information.

  He basked in their admiration, relaxing a little. Inside information was his only riches, all he had to put him on a par with these men; but he knew that he was standing on a temporary scaffolding, that any day they could tip him off it and he would drop way down below their level, unwanted any more. He was not in their pay, which was the only honest thing that could be said about their relationship.

  “Let’s just say it sometimes pays to be a politician.”

  “I thought it paid all the time,” said Aldwych and once again all the men, with the exception of Debbs, laughed. “So this guy—what’s his name? Blizzard? Like a snowstorm?—he’s trying to bump „em off?”

  “Can we get him to work for us?” said Pelong.

  “Why?” said Aldwych. He had no time for Pelong, who he thought was so dumb as to be dangerous. “He’s working for himself. All we gotta do is sit and wait. When he hits O’Brien, mebbe we can send him some flowers or something.” Again he smiled the old man’s gentle grin.

  “What if he takes too long?” said Lango. “The goddam NCSC is gunna get around to us pretty soon, asking questions. O’Brien’s probably spilling his guts every day he’s with „em.”

  “We’ll wait another week,” said Aldwych, who in fifty years of crime had never waited for anyone to elect him leader; he spoke, and the others agreed with him, if they knew what was good for them, “If he hasn’t killed O’Brien by then, we get another hitman, a good one this time. Leave it with me.”

  “What about Malone and this opera singer?” said Debbs. “I understand they’re with O’Brien all the time. They’re all holed up in the Congress Hotel.”

  “Jesus,” said Chung, a taxpayer when it was unavoidable, “are the police paying for that?”

  “If we gotta do it, we blow „em away, too,” said Pelong. “Nobody’s gunna miss a cop and a fucking opera singer.”

  Debbs brought out his fifteen-year-old malt whisky and they all drank to the death of O’Brien and anyone else who got in the way; Debbs, mouth dry at what he was toasting, didn’t waste the whisky as it went down. He knew the dangers of his being implicated in the murder of O’Brien: the police would trace some connection through the already dead Gotti. But he could not withdraw: he was more afraid of these men than of the police. He knew he was expendable, just like O’Brien.

  Then the visitors left one by one, Jack Aldwych going first, as befitted an emperor. Debbs walked out of the front door with him. The house was a long way from the road and hidden by a grove of English oaks; here in the cool, often very cold southern highlands, European trees flourished. The trees gave Arnold Debbs the privacy he wanted, especially today.

  “I’m worried, Jack. I keep hearing things about what’s going on at the NCSC. O’Brien’s being heard in camera, but I’ve had a few leaks. He hasn’t mentioned us by name yet, but he’s given them a few hints. I think he’s trying to get some sort of deal with them.”

  “Are they likely to give him one?” Aldwych shivered in the cold air.

  “I don’t think so. They’re not like the Crime Authority, they’re not after chaps like you.” Aldwych looked at him and Debbs shivered, but inside. “You know what I mean, Jack.”

  “Sure. Sure I do, Arnie.” He pressed Debbs’ plump shoulder; he was an old man but his grip felt like that of a young thug. “All you gotta do is not lose your nerve. We’ll come outa this okay. I ain’t lived this long to be chopped down by some little piss-ant like O’Brien.”

  He walked across to his car, a modest dark blue Toyota, and got in beside his son, who was his father’s driver and minder. He waved a big hand to Debbs and the Toyota went away down the long drive and disappeared past the grove of trees.

  The other three men left at intervals of two minutes, like starters in a motor rally. Lango went first in his gold Mercedes, driven by his son Billy; Pelong went off in a white Rolls-Royce, driving himself; and Leslie Chung got into his small BMW. He looked out at Debbs.

  “You didn’t choose well, Arnold, when you recommended us to Mr. O’Brien.”

  “I thought he was on the up-and-up—I had no idea—”

  “No, I don’t mean him. I meant our associates—particularly that dumb son-of-a-bitch Pelong.” For a moment the soft voice hardened, had a razor’s edge to it. “He advertises everything—that Rolls, for instance. I don’t know how he has lasted as long as he has. I’m afraid that if we don’t dispose of Mr. O’Brien very soon, Pelong will go after him himself. Then God knows what will come out into the open.”

  “Perhaps you should have him disposed of,” Debbs heard himself say.

  “It may be necessary,” said Chung, starting up the engine. “But I never expected you, of all people, Arnold, to suggest it.”

  8

  I

  WHEN O’BRIEN and Bousakis walked out of the National Companies and Securities Commission hearing, there were reporters and cameramen waiting on the pavement outside. O’Brien instantly about-turned and stepped back into the building. Bousakis, considerably bulkier, took a little longer to turn round and follow him, like an oil tanker trying to catch up with its tug.

  “What the bloody hell are they doing here?” O’Brien demanded.

  “I don’t know, Brian. I guess they know things are coming to a climax. Maybe they were expecting it today. All you have to do is shake your head and say no comment.”

  O’Brien looked out at the restless group being held back from charging into the building by two Commission security guards. All the channels were represented there: the four commercial channels, the ABC and even the SBS. Frustrated by the guards, the cameramen backed off and photographed each other, a regular habit, as if there were a union rule amongst cameramen that they should have as much exposure as the reporters.

  “Is the car out there yet?”

  “Not yet—yes, there it is now! You want to make a run for it?”

  O’Brien had a sediment of humour still left in hi
m; he looked at Bousakis and grinned. “You run, George. That’ll look better on TV than any shot of me.”

  He didn’t see the tightening on Bousakis’ face as the latter turned away. They pushed through the doors and went out across the pavement as O’Brien’s own security guard got out of the hired car and opened the rear door for them. The cameramen and the reporters swooped like scavenging gulls, squawking questions, but O’Brien dived into the car and Bousakis’ bulk blocked the microphones and cameras from getting too close to their quarry. Bousakis collapsed into the seat, the car seemed to subside on the rear axle; the security guard slammed the door and jumped into the front seat beside the driver. The car slid away from the kerb and the media gulls shrugged and moved off in quest of their next target.

  O’Brien and Bousakis didn’t speak till they had reached O’Brien’s office in Cossack House. Then Bousakis, without preliminary, said, “I think you’d better start preparing for the worst, Brian. That session this afternoon couldn’t have been worse.”

  O’Brien nodded morosely, working his big hands together. “Yeah. But I haven’t played all my cards yet. We can still make a deal.”

  “Brian, they’re not interested in those crims, Jack Aldwych and the others. That’s not their brief.”

  “They’ll have to be, if I get on to the Crime Authority at the same time. I’ll play one against the other.”

  “That’ll be risky.”

  “I got into this mess taking risks. Maybe it’s the only way out of it.”

  Bousakis shifted his huge bulk in his chair, like a hippo that had found a rock in its wallow. “I haven’t mentioned this before, Brian. But what happens to me if you go under?”

  “I haven’t thought about it, George.” O’Brien’s frankness somehow was not offensive; Bousakis had come to expect it. “You’ll make out. We’ll fix it so’s when you leave here you go with a decent handshake. Then when the roof falls in it’ll be too late for them to do anything about it. You’ll have no trouble getting another job. You’re clean.”

  “I shan’t get another job like this one. There’s a recession coming up, Brian, or hadn’t you noticed? Or anyway, banks are closing, all the foreign ones are packing up and going home. That’s all I know, investment, dealing in money.”

  “George, you’re an administrator, too, as good as any in town. I’ll write you a reference that’ll have corporations chasing you down the street as soon as you walk out of here.”

  “You think they’ll take any notice of a reference from you?” That was offensive and Bousakis meant it to be; he hadn’t forgotten the crack about how he would look on TV screens if he broke into a run.

  O’Brien had been about to reach for a tissue in a desk drawer; now he paused and looked up, all at once very stiff. “It’s got cool all of a sudden, hasn’t it? I mean in here.”

  Bousakis was as stiff and still as O’Brien; he had turned from a hippo into a rhino, ready to charge. “I didn’t get this firm into the mess it’s in—you did that all on your own. I thought Cossack was going to be my future, but now all of us, not just me, we’re going to finish up out on the street. All because you got so fucking greedy you couldn’t stop yourself!”

  O’Brien had never seen Bousakis so worked up; he was not an excitable Greek, he was the philosopher kind. Or so O’Brien had thought; but then he had never read any of the Greek philosophers, the closest he had come to Heraclitus and Socrates was listening to Nana Mouskouri. He closed the desk drawer, straightened up and blew his nose on the tissue, then dropped it into his waste basket. He knew the value of a silent pause, though in the pop world there had been none; he knew nothing of Greek drama, where the pauses could be long and trembling before the knife was plunged in. But his hand was empty, he had no knife for Bousakis.

  At last he said, “It’s done, George. What do you want me to do—turn the clock back?”

  “No,” said Bousakis after his own long pause. “I want you to give me first option, in writing, on buying out the controlling interest in Cossack Holdings. The bank will go under, but the holding company is a separate entity, it’ll survive. I want control of it.”

  O’Brien frowned, his way of showing surprise. Starting young in business, he had taught himself never to show that he had been caught unawares. In the laid-back world of pop entrepreneurs he had been almost horizontal. When he had moved up in the financial world, where experience and not pretence prevailed, where you were often in the shark’s belly before you knew you had been bitten, his coolness had been admired. One hand tightened into a fist, but it was out of sight under the desk.

  “That’ll take a lot of cash. I thought you were complaining a moment ago about being thrown out on the street?”

  Bousakis moved again in his chair; the wallow felt a little softer, the rock was crumbling. “It wouldn’t be my money, but I can raise it. We’d want a discount on today’s prices, but you’d come out with something stashed away for when you come out of jail.”

  “The NCSC would never approve the buy-out, not while the investigation’s still going on.”

  “They would if the minority shareholders got their money back. I’d see that they did—we’d promise that.”

  “Who’s we?”

  “I can’t tell you that, not yet. Just let’s say it’s your opposition.”

  “I’ve got plenty of that. Practically everyone in town.” There was no self-pity in his voice.

  “Yes.” The big round face was a moon of smugness.

  O’Brien studied him; then said, “Why did you take so long to bring this up?”

  The big face turned blank; it was difficult to tell if Bousakis was being hypocritical: “I was being loyal. It’s a Greek trait.”

  “Is it? That’s something the Irish claim. I didn’t know we had anything in common.” He got up and walked to the big window. On the other side of the street were the headquarters of the country’s biggest insurance company, a tower twenty storeys higher than his own building. There was nothing shaky or shonky on the other side of the street; it was impregnable, an Establishment mountain, a shareholder in half the nation. No one there had stripped assets, borrowed riskily without telling the shareholders, indulged in insider trading. There were two flagpoles on the roof of the tall building, just visible to O’Brien: the corporation flag fluttered from one, the national flag from the other. He noticed that the corporation flag was slightly the higher of the two.

  “I’ll think about it, George,” he said without turning round. “The offer . . .”

  He kept his back to Bousakis till he heard the loud creak of the chair as the other man rose from it, then the heavy tread across the carpet and then the closing of the door. He continued to stare out of the window, watching a man staring at him from a window across the street.

  Then abruptly he realized where he was standing, how exposed he was. He shivered with fright, moved quickly to one side and pressed the button that swept the drapes across the glass. He stood in the sudden darkness, feeling the trembling in his hands.

  It seemed that everyone was gunning for him and Blizzard was not the only hitman.

  Then the phone rang. It was a moment before he could move, then he stepped back to his desk, switched on a desk-lamp and picked up the phone. It was Malone.

  “Just checking. How’d you go today?”

  “Bloody dreadful. You making progress?”

  “A bit. Are you coming back to the hotel?”

  “No. I’ve got some work to do here. Then I’ll go straight out on my date. I’m due there at seven.”

  “Call me when you get there. Then I’m going to the opera. Seb has already gone. He has to gargle or whatever it is singers do before they sing. Brian?”

  “Yes?”

  “Take care. Don’t let Blizzard take a pot shot at you while you’re with the lady.”

  O’Brien hung up, all at once feeling better. There had been a note of concern for him in Malone’s voice. He had never had a friend, only acquaintances, and no
w he was looking for one. But, like love, friendship had arrived too late.

  II

  Jack Aldwych lived in a huge, old two-storeyed house overlooking Harbord, one of the small northern beaches, where he surfed every morning, summer and winter, with his son Jack Junior. The house had been built before World War One by a circus-owning family and Aldwych, who had been born and grown up in the district, had delivered bread here as a bread carter’s boy in the 1930s. The large grounds had always seemed full of midgets, grossly fat ladies, flagpole-tall men and acrobats who would come tumbling down the gravel driveway to take the dozen loaves of bread from him before the two big mastiffs, who roamed the grounds like loud-mouthed tigers, came tearing round from the back of the house to rend him limb from limb. He had coveted the house even then and twenty years ago he had bought it from the last of the circus family. Now it housed only him, his wife, his son, a housekeeper and two minders who roamed the grounds just like the mastiffs had done. Occasionally, in his more sentimental moments, which weren’t many, he longed for another sight of those acrobats, slim girls and muscular men, to come cartwheeling down the driveway to the big gates as Jack Junior drove him in and up to the house.

  Sitting now in his favourite chair on the big wide verandah he looked at his visitor, who couldn’t have cartwheeled if he’d been given a flying start by being hit by a car. “Why didn’t you get in touch with me first, Harry?”

  Chief Superintendent Danforth wished he had worn a topcoat; he hadn’t expected to sit out here in the cold. “I rang you first thing, Jack, soon’s I got the word they’d traced that kid Gotti to Debbs and Lango. But they said you’d gone shopping with your missus.”

  “My wife,” Aldwych corrected him. Shirl was the only woman in the world he respected. He also had some regard for the Prime Minister’s wife, whom he had never met but who Shirl said was a model for all women, and he had great admiration for Margaret Thatcher, who had a proper regard for what a boss should be. But he wouldn’t have lived with either of them, not even if they had asked him. “We go and do the weekly shopping every Thursday morning. She likes that, we’ve done it together ever since we first got married. We do the shopping, then we have morning coffee down in a coffee lounge on the Corso at Manly. Shirl likes that, she calls it married compatibility, whatever that is. She’s a great one for doing crosswords.”