The Easy Sin

by Jon Cleary

  “Thanks, Valerie. How's your grandmother?”

  “Fine, thanks, Mr. Malone. She's in a nursing home, reminiscing with some of her old clients.” She widened her smile to include all three men and went out.

  “A treasure,” said Aldwych. “Just like her grandmother. So what can we do for you, Scobie?”

  “Seven or eight years ago, Jack, maybe nine, you had a run-in with a Japanese bank, the Kunishima Bank.”

  “What a memory,” Aldwych said to his son; then he looked back at Malone. “That in your running sheets on me?”

  “No, Jack. I'm just relying on memory. They were a bit suspect at the time, weren't they?”

  It was Jack Junior who answered: “Yes. But they've established a steady reputation since then. They work quietly, no blowing their own trumpet.”

  “What's their main business?”

  “Investment. They're also into venture capital. This is something to do with I-Saw, right?”

  “You're as sharp as your old man,” said Malone.

  “I taught him,” said Aldwych and for a moment actually looked like a proud father. Which would have shocked some of his old colleagues and some cops. “What's on your mind?”

  “They've sent the receivers into I-Saw.”

  “That's no surprise,” said Jack Junior.

  “What else is on your mind?” Aldwych had been a successful crim because his mind had always been two steps ahead. Which was why, having turned respectable, he was so far ahead that no one could accurately guess his wealth.

  Malone always liked dealing with the old man; at cricket he had always enjoyed bowling to a formidable batsman. “We're not sure whether Errol Magee, of I-Saw, was kidnapped or whether he's pulling a scam. That's just between us, okay?” He trusted Aldwych, who could have run any intelligence organization, but he wasn't sure about Jack Junior. Honesty, and Jack Junior had the reputation of being honest, can breed leaks. “But whoever's behind it, whether it's Magee or someone else, they're asking five million ransom. They suggested the Kunishima Bank might come good.”

  The two Aldwyches looked at each other, then the father looked back at Malone and shook his head. “No way, Scobie. They wouldn't bail out Buddha.”

  “Why?” said Malone and tried to look innocent, no mean feat for a Homicide cop. “The yakuza still run it?”

  “As I said, what a memory.”

  “Jack, I worked on that case eight or nine years ago. They were just getting started, but we knew the yakuza had something to do with them. They're much more respectable now, right?”

  “Yes,” said Jack Junior. “But the yakuza still runs them. It's their money behind the bank.”

  Out on the harbour there was a faint bellow of protest from a ferry as some idiot on a water-sled shot across the front of it. A window cleaner abseiled down outside, like a suicide who had changed his mind and was trying to slow his dive.

  Then Malone slowly nodded his head. “You rich buggers really know how to complicate things.”

  Aldwych grinned. “Not us, Scobie. I thought you blokes would of known.”

  “Fraud probably does. Homicide, we don't go looking for extra worries. Have the yakuza gone in for stand-over stuff out here?”

  “Not the way they do, or used to do, in Japan. They don't pack company AGMs and threaten shareholders,” said Jack Junior. “Nothing like that. But yes, behind scenes we've heard they apply pressure.”

  “And Securities and the A-Triple-C haven't enquired into them?”

  “If they have, none of it has got into the media.”

  “These blokes are sophisticated, Scobie,” said Aldwych. “And rich. Some bloke wants to shoot his mouth off, they either make him disappear or they buy him off. Either way, he disappears.”

  “Would they buy Errol Magee, pay the ransom?”

  “I doubt it,” said Jack Junior.

  “Have you had any dealings with them?”

  It was a delicate question and Malone did his best to ask it delicately. Once again the two Aldwyches looked at each other, then Jack Junior said, “They approached us once when they heard about a project we had going. We said no.”

  “Politely,” said Aldwych with a grin.

  Malone took his time, observing the two men. They were both handsome, the father more ruggedly so: he had been scarred by razor, club and bullet. Jack Junior was smoother, immaculately dressed, expensively barbered. There was no mistaking their relationship, but Aldwych had got older, even somehow smaller, since Malone had seen him last. Or was it that the old man had lost the menace he once had? For twenty years he had boasted he had retired but not reformed and one had been prepared to believe him. But now he looked—soft? Malone wondered.

  “Can you give me the name of someone to see at Kunishima? Someone with clout.”

  “Mr. Okada.” Jack Junior had hesitated a moment, but his father had nodded at him. Aldwych might have retired, but he was still the boss. “He's not yakuza, but he knows where the money comes from.”

  “Is he likely to open up on Mr. Magee?”

  “Good luck, Scobie,” said Aldwych and in his smile there was a hint of the gang boss he had once been. “You could read my face when we ran into each other—”

  “Like an open book, Jack.”

  “It's not like that with a Japanese face. Good luck.”

  II

  Malone stood outside the AMP Tower for almost five minutes before he took out his mobile and rang Clements at Homicide. “Meet me outside the Aurora building in twenty minutes. We're going to talk to a man at the Kunishima Bank.”

  “You told me I was to stay off the case—”

  “I need you, mate, you're the finance expert.” He explained what he had learned in the last half- hour.

  “Do we mention the yakuza if we're getting nowhere with this Mr. Okada?”

  “Let's see how we go.”

  He walked up Macquarie Street, past the brass plates of hundreds of doctors whose consulting rooms looked out on the Botanic Gardens; you could stand by a window and be told you had six months to live and look out on the greenest spot in the city where life came out of the earth year after year after year. He found a bench and sat on it, soaking up the sun. It would never have occurred to him to spend the time having a coffee; his throat and taste buds were never as dry as his pocket. Starbucks would never have come to Australia if there had been a nation of abstainers like him.

  Clements arrived within twenty minutes in an unmarked car. He parked it in a No Parking zone, the Police Service's refuge, and walked back to where Malone sat waiting for him. “You think we're gunna get anything outa this Okada guy?”

  “We've come up against dead-ends so far. Another one won't make any difference.”

  “Now you're about to be promoted, are you losing your—what's the word?—enthusiasm for this case? You'd rather leave it to me?”

  “I'll let you know,” said Malone, non-committedly.

  The Aurora complex is a Renza Piano-designed project that stands where a black glass block, known as the Black Stump, had once stood. The Black Stump had housed government departments, or their senior officers; the State Premier's office had been on an upper floor. There Malone had begun the journey that had taken him to London to arrest the Australian High Commissioner for murder and where he had met Lisa. As he passed through the doors of the Aurora building the Celt in him sensed the past, like fog on the terracotta walls of the foyer.

  The Kunishima Bank had two floors high up in the building; it never had to worry about hoi polloi coming in off the street to make a deposit or complain about bank fees. The receptionist was Japanese, though not a geisha; she was as smart and modern as Valerie at Landfall Holdings. She was polite but firm: “Mr. Okada never sees anyone without an appointment.”

  “Miss,” said Malone, equally polite, “this is a police badge I am showing you. Now tell Mr. Okada we'd like to see him right away, immediately, or all hell is going to break loose.”

  Her look was as dead
as a blank computer screen; then she turned and went into an inner office. “All hell is gunna break loose?” said Clements. “I must remember that one.”

  “I heard a TV cop say it the other night.”

  The receptionist was gone for several minutes and Malone started to become impatient. Clements picked up a business magazine from a side table and leafed through it. “It says here, globalization is the new imperialism. History just repeats itself, it says.”

  “Everything repeats itself,” said Malone, who believed it.

  Then the receptionist came back, gave him and Clements a small bow and said, “Mr. Okada will see you.”

  Mr. Okada was a Westernized Japanese. He was short and broad with thinning black hair, like a splintered helmet. He wore a double-breasted blue suit, a white shirt and, though Malone didn't recognize it, an Oxford University tie. With him were two other men, both small and thin and immaculately dressed. Real bankers, thought Malone, and wondered which one was the man from the yakuza. For he was sure that was the reason for the delay in seeing him and Clements.

  “This is about Mr. Errol Magee?” Okada came straight to the point, but with a smile. He had lively eyes that suggested he might have a sense of humour, but he wasn't going to start joking, not yet. Malone hadn't expected him to be so blunt, but maybe he had become Australianized as well as Westernized. Circumlocution was not a local habit, except with politicians. “You have found him? Safe, I hope?”

  “No, Mr. Okada,” said Malone and looked at the other two men.

  Okada smiled again. “Forgive me. Mr. Nakasone and Mr. Tajiri.”

  The two men were not thoroughly Westernized; they bowed, faces impassive. Malone almost bowed in return, but checked himself and just nodded.

  “No, we haven't found Mr. Magee yet. We aren't even sure if he was kidnapped or arranged the kidnapping.” He waited for a reaction, but there was none. You can’t read a Japanese face . . . He went on, “There was a call from a woman this morning, asking for five million dollars ransom. We don't know whether she is part of a kidnap gang or whether she is in collusion with Mr. Magee. She suggested you should be approached for the ransom.”

  The impassive faces cracked. There was merriment from Okada and even Nakasone and Tajiri smiled. “Oh, Inspector—” Okada got his merriment under control. “Our bank—ransom Mr. Magee? Why?”

  “The woman must have got word from someone. Mr. Magee, maybe?”

  All five men were seated, on opposite sides of a large desk; like delegates at an international conference. This was a corner office, like Jack Junior's, with a view over the Botanic Gardens and out to the heads of the harbour. It was not furnished Japanese style: there was thick carpet on the floor, the desk was big and heavy with a leather top, the chairs leathered with comfort. Only the Japanese prints on the walls suggested Okada might pine for home.

  “Mr. Okada—” Clements spoke for the first time: taking up the bowling. “We're from Homicide—”

  “Homicide?” All three looked puzzled.

  “Yeah, Homicide. You heard or read about the murder of Mr. Magee's maid?”

  “Oh, the maid.” Okada sounded as if a budgerigar or some other household pet had been despatched. “Oh, of course. So she is your interest?”

  “Part of it, Mr. Okada. If she hadn't been killed, we would not be on the case. But now we are, we have to cover every aspect of it. How much did Kunishima invest in Mr. Magee and I-Saw?”

  Okada on the surface was thoroughly Westernized; but he had read the teachings of Yamamoto Jocho in Hagakure. He knew the dignity of the closed mouth; but it had nothing to do with wanting to be a samurai. A closed mouth told no secrets; it also gave one time to think. Despite the suddenly impassive face, Malone and Clements could see that Mr. Okada was thinking. Deeply.

  “I'm afraid that is confidential,” he said at last.

  “No one can be more confidential than we are,” said Clements.

  Okada smiled again, as if surprised that a police officer could have a sense of humour. “I'm sure you can, Sergeant. But we are in different territory—”

  “No, we're not, Mr. Okada—”

  Malone wondered if he should step in, but decided to wait and give Clements his head. The big man had knocked down stone walls before, not always with a sledgehammer. Nakasone and Tajiri had shifted a little uneasily in their chairs. Go for it, Russ . . .

  “You see,” said Clements, “we've done due diligence on your bank and its investments here. I- Saw is your only bad investment. Three hundred million dollars, your original investment, has gone down the drain.”

  “Then why are you asking?”

  “Because in Homicide we're like you bankers—we like everything confirmed. It helps in prosecution.”

  Okada was impressed. “How do you know so much, Sergeant?”

  Malone got Clements out of that one before the latter might be tempted to explain how he had lost sixty thousand dollars: “You'd be surprised how much investigation we have done before we got to Kunishima.” And how little the investigation had produced. “We don't want the Securities Commission getting in our way—and I'm sure you don't, either. So let's talk friendly, just between ourselves, and see what we come up with.”

  Okada stared at him, not hostilely, then he looked at Nakasone, who said something in Japanese. Okada listened, nodded, then looked back at Malone. “Mr. Nakasone is from our head office in Osaka. He doesn't speak English.”

  Not bloody much he doesn't, thought Malone. He had read too many faces, Japanese or otherwise, to know when a conversation was not understood. Nakasone and Tajiri had understood every word that had been said since he and Clements had come into the office.

  “So what has he suggested? From head office?”

  “He has suggested we cooperate—”

  Up to a point: it wasn't said, but Malone read it.

  “Mr. Magee has been less than honest with Kunishima. As you may know—” Okada looked at Clements, as if recognizing he was the businessman “—the share price for I-Saw has gone down and down over the past six months. We bought from anyone who wanted to sell, but we couldn't prevent the slide. Then we found that one of the biggest sellers was Mr. Magee—he had shares under other names. But the money wasn't coming back into I-Saw. It had just disappeared. Forty million dollars.”

  “Gone overseas?” said Clements, sounding unsurprised.

  Okada nodded. “We presume so. But where?” He spread his hands, a Mediterranean gesture; Nakasone looked sideways at him, as if he had emigrated. These fellers don't trust each other, thought Malone. “Switzerland, Hong Kong, the Bahamas, the Caymans? Who knows? We are searching, but so far, no success.”

  “If we find Mr. Magee,” said Malone, “what do you plan to do?”

  Okada looked at Nakasone and Tajiri, said something in Japanese; all three men smiled. Then he looked back at the two detectives. “Persuade him to tell us where the money is.”

  “So you won't pay the five million ransom, even to get him back to persuade him to tell you where the forty million is?”

  Okada continued smiling. “As you Aussies say, no way, mate.”

  Only then did Malone say, “And what about your backers, the yakuza? What will they say?”

  Suddenly all the smiles were gone; the faces turned to stone. A gull appeared outside the big window, fluttering close to the glass as if trying to mate with its own reflection. Then, as if frightened by the atmosphere inside the room, it abruptly swept away.

  “You see, Mr. Okada,” said Malone, “as Sergeant Clements has said, we've done due diligence.”

  “Un-due diligence, I think, Inspector. You are wrong, very wrong.” The rs were indistinct, he had slipped back into his nationality.

  Malone, like most of his countrymen, was impressed with foreigners who spoke English so well, even if they had some difficulty with certain letters. He was also impressed that Nakasone and Tajiri appeared to have understood what Okada had said.

  “I don't think
so, Mr. Okada. We have our sources.”

  The three bankers looked at each other. The question could be read on the unreadable faces: what sources? where? Then Okada looked back at Malone: “This meeting is over, Inspector.”

  He stood up and bowed, suddenly no longer Westernized, and Nakasone and Tajiri followed suit. Malone hesitated, then he and Clements rose.

  “We'll be back, sir. Take that for granted.”

  He turned abruptly, rudely, and walked out, followed by Clements. Neither of them spoke as they crossed the reception area nor in the crowded lift as they went down to the lobby. There Malone paused and let out his breath, as if he had been holding it for the past several minutes.

  “What do you think?”

  “Like you said, we'll have to come back—” Clements led the way out into sunshine; it was like a blessing. “I think Okada is genuine, a banker. The other two—”

  “Nakasone probably is, too. But Tajiri—”

  “Don't yakuza cover themselves in tattoos? He had skin like a baby.”

  “He had eyes like a snake . . . Remember the Casement case? The last time we heard of Kunishima? The feller in that we were chasing, his name was Tajiri. Is that a yakuza name?”

  “I dunno. Are all Malones cops?”

  “Righto, you've made your point. He was the one I was watching when I mentioned the yakuza. He was the one who showed no reaction, nothing. He doesn't need tattoos to tell me where he comes from.”

  Clements grinned. “Maybe they've given up on tattoos, now all the idiots are into it. We'll keep an eye on him.”

  They walked down to their car and Clements said, “You think they'll do Magee if they get to him before we do?”

  “We'll have to see that they don't.”

  There was the usual parking ticket on the unmarked car. Clements tore it up and dropped it down a grating. They smiled at each other, glad of small consolations not due other voters.

  III

  Errol Magee, still in his blue dress, still bound to his chair, sat in the darkened room and began to wonder if he would get out of this place, wherever it was, alive. There was a callous coldness hidden in the blue hoods that came in every so often: the two men and Mum. The younger woman, the daughter, had left the house—“She's gone to talk to your friends at the bank,” Mum had said.