by Jon Cleary
“I’ll try posing as a conman. Not long ago banks welcomed them with open arms.”
Malone and Clements, dressed in their Sunday best, had shown their police badges at the door to the main ballroom of the Hotel Congress and the usher had shown no surprise. “Just a security measure,” Malone had said, making no mention of Homicide, and the usher had been satisfied with that. Bankers, from what he had read, had recently become paranoid about security.
“Are John and Andy here?”
“They were coming in through the kitchen,” said Clements. “There they are. John looks more like a banker than you or me, but Andy looks like a bank clerk.”
The two junior detectives, at the rear of the big room, saw their seniors and just nodded across the heads of the rippling crowd. The air was a babel of voices, though English, the lingua franca of finance, predominated. The French, naturellement, were speaking only French; ils ne pouvaient pas comprendre pourquoi les autres ne faisaient pas la même chose. The Americans, articulate only in four-letter words during their work-day, were having difficulty with their vocabulary in the company of women other than their secretaries and wives. The British, stiff-upper-lipped, were resisting advice from the Russians on the Royal family: “No revolution! It does not work!” The Italians and other assorted Latins were pinching bottoms, not all female. The Germans and the Japanese were politely congratulating each other on the possibility of a new Axis. And the Australians were becoming increasingly garrulous as they discovered bankers from other nations who were even more heavily loaded with bad debts than themselves.
Malone turned round in the crush and found himself face-to-red-face with Harold Junor, who looked as if he had fortified himself with several whiskies before arriving. “Inspector! On duty?”
“Sort of. You hear from Mr. Palady?”
“Matter of fax, yes. Sorry. Fact. I got a fax in just before I left the office. In code, of course. Old Ishmael has a thing about codes. He once worked for the CIA, did you know that?” His tongue was whisky-oiled, Scotch but with no burr. “Takes all types to make the CIA . . . Anyhow, the gist of the fax was that everything’s been sorted out in Hong Kong. The money’s on its way back. I gather the Honkers boys got an offer they couldn’t refuse. From the Japs, savvy?”
Malone nodded. Junor melted away, some feat considering his bulk, and Malone was left alone. He scanned the crowd till he found Cormac Casement in the midst of a small group of men in a far corner. At the instant he saw the banker, Casement saw him. The older man’s glasses flashed as he raised his head, then he said something to those around him, left them and came towards Malone.
He was blunt: “What are you doing here?”
“Just looking.”
“Looking for what?” Casement seemed nervous, ill at ease.
“Mr. Tajiri, maybe. Are Mr. Kushida and Mr. Isogai here?”
“I haven’t seen them. There are private parties, I understand, in some of the suites.”
Then Ophelia’s party surrounded them. The three Bruna sisters attracted their usual attention, even from those who didn’t know them. Their beauty, their dressing, always drew the eye, but there was something more: someone else’s malice always adds extra burnish to the object. Under the froth of gossip there could be heard, faintly, the whisper of envy. The men, Sweden, the two Aldwyches and Adam Bruna were just background to their women, plush to the diamonds.
“I’m surprised to see you here, Inspector,” said Ophelia.
“Just keeping an eye on our deposits,” said Malone, smiling to show he wasn’t spoiling for another fight. “All these bankers . . . Do customers ever get invited to these conventions?”
“Do bookies ever buy the punters a drink?” said Sweden.
“They all look so sleek and successful!” said Bruna, who looked sleek and successful. “One imagined they would all be down-in-the-mouth, out-at-the-elbows. The world must be picking up. Perhaps people will start buying paintings again!” He brightened, like a suddenly restored fresco.
“Whoever thought I’d be hobnobbing with them?” said Jack Aldwych. “I wonder what some of the local ones’d say if I walked up to „em and said I’d held „em up back in the old days?”
“Let’s try it,” said Juliet, eager for fun and mischief. “Point one out.”
“For God’s sake, Julie!” But Rosalind included Aldwych in her disapproval.
“Relax, dear, I know my place.” He took Malone’s arm and eased him away from the group. “I’m here with your gun at my head, you know that?”
“All you have to do is point him out, Jack. The Jap. Casement’s no help, he won’t play ball at all.”
“I wonder why?”
The two tall men looked at each other; then Malone said, “Jack, I think your relative-by-marriage is up Eastern Creek without a bike.”
“Is that the polite version of up shit creek without a paddle?” Eastern Creek had been a government-financed speedway venture that had been a disaster. “I think you’re right about him, but I dunno the details. Do you?”
“Some of them. Did you know the yakuza own twenty-five per cent of Casement Trust?”
“Yes. I’ve known it for a year or more, I got it from Les Chung. He got it from his mates in the Triads. They ever get together, the yakuza and the Triads, the Mafia can call it a day. Don’t buy shares in Cosa Nostra. When did you find out about the yakuza?”
“This morning. I should’ve come to you first, the day all this mess started.”
“You think I’d have told you anything?” Aldwych shook his head. Then he paused, his head held stiffly, his eyes squinting.
“You see him?” Malone looked in the direction of the old man’s gaze.
Aldwych continued to stare for a moment, then he shook his head. “No, not the Jap. I thought I saw the other bloke, the one who drove the car, but no, I guess I was mistaken. You know how it is, you see someone, there’s something about them . . .”
“Jack, I’ll bet you’ve never missed identifying a man, ever. You want to point the finger at someone, you could identify an Abo at a hundred yards in a coal mine. Who were you looking at?”
“He’s disappeared. Slim bloke with glasses, he might be the one who drove the car. He had a mo the other day, but I don’t think he’s got one now. He’s in a light-coloured suit, doesn’t look like a banker.”
Malone nodded admiringly. “You’re on your own, Jack. You notice the colour of his eyes from here? Excuse me, I’ll be back.”
On the other side of the room, behind one of the huge flower urns that flanked the room, Jaime Belgarda saw the tall younger man leave Jack Aldwych and come pushing through the crowd. He had been shocked to see Aldwych at this bankers’ function; he knew the old criminal’s past record and he hadn’t expected him to be a guest amongst these pillars of world banking. Of course back home in Manila the law-abiding and the lawless mixed with familiarity because corruption laid on a common veneer. But here in this Sydney ballroom Aldwych, though he looked like a banker, should have been as out of place as an Ermita pimp.
He had felt safe up till now. The horn-rimmed glasses and the hairless upper lip had changed his appearance; a dude all his life, his only mistake had been to wear the sharp light-grey suit amongst all the dark greys and blues. He carried a folded short-handled umbrella, but that didn’t make him conspicuous; it was raining heavily outside and he had heard arriving guests complaining about having got wet. The umbrella was his weapon, an air-gun that could shoot a dart with sufficient force to penetrate a layer of clothing and lodge in the intended target’s flesh. The dart was tipped with Ricin, a fast-acting poison that had first been used to dispose of a Bulgarian dissident in London back in 1978 and had been used selectively since by the more cultured assassins of the world’s espionage clubs. Belgarda, who had had medical training, was about to use it for the first time and looked forward to the opportunity. Tradesmen, even killers, know the pleasure of a new tool.
As he saw the tall man (a policeman
he wondered?) approaching, he slipped away from behind the big urn and lost himself in the crowd. He worked his way round the perimeter of the room towards Casement and the group around him. The glasses worried him: they were just clear glass and not prescription lenses, but the thick frames distracted him. Tajiri had insisted that Casement had to be eliminated this evening, before he cracked and started talking to the police or the Securities Commission. Tajiri, of course, had stayed safely at home, but Belgarda didn’t resent the fact. Tajiri was squeamish about actually witnessing a killing and had seen none of the other murders. It was a pity because Belgarda liked those who employed him to see and admire his work.
The deed would have to be done quickly. He had lost sight of the tall man, but he knew he was somewhere in the crowd. Whoever had organized this reception must have anticipated only a percentage of acceptances to the invitations; instead of which it seemed that one hundred per cent had come along and brought their relatives into the bargain. He remembered Tajiri’s comment that Australians were the greatest freeloaders in the civilized world; this evening he was grateful for the natives’ fetish for a free drink. He moved amongst them, continually glancing back to see if the tall man was following him.
Malone, losing sight of his quarry, had paused by John Kagal, who could have passed for the youngest bank president in the room. “Jack Aldwych has picked out a feller he thinks may be one of those who took him for a ride the other day. Horn-rimmed glasses and a light-coloured suit.”
“I saw him, he looked like an SP bookie.” Kagal was a sartorial snob. “Who is he?”
“Haven’t a clue. But he could be the feller who ran Pinatubo Engineering, Belgarda—I’m only guessing. Get Andy, then you and he work that side of the room, I’ll go this way. If you get to him, take him quietly.”
“What if he’s armed?”
“Let him go, at least till he gets outside. Bankers have had enough potshots taken at them. Metaphorically speaking.”
Kagal grinned. “Wouldn’t life be grand if all shots were just metaphorical?”
On the far side of the room the Casement party had attracted a clotting of the crowd. Cormac himself had revived under the attention and respect given to him, an Establishment icon; flattery, though temporary, is a splendid cement for covering up cracks. Ophelia, basking in the glory of being Mrs. Casement, felt cheated that the reception was due to end at nine; she was a marathon runner when it came to the limelight. Juliet fluttered from male to male, a butterfly who knew just how long to hover at each stamen. Rosalind, more subdued, as befitted a politician’s wife, was polite to those who spoke to her but looked worried.
“What’s the matter with „Lind?” Aldwych and Sweden stood a little apart from the crush.
The Police Minister sipped the orange juice he had asked for in preference to the champagne. “Things are piling up on us, Jack. I imagine it’s what gang warfare was like in your day.”
“Derek, you could never imagine what it was like in my day. We never stabbed each other in the back, it was always up front. You look up the newspapers on it. A bloke was killed, he was always shot from the front. Who’s after you? The Dutchman?”
Sweden nodded, smiled wryly. “You wouldn’t like to come out of retirement, handle him for me?”
“He got something on you?”
Sweden nodded again, but offered no explanation. “He expected me to buckle under. I’m not going to.”
“I’d like to help, if I could. The last thing I want is a Labor government back in. The buggers are always talking reform. You blokes almost ruined things, looking for the underprivileged vote. Let the Salvos look after them. But I can’t do much about Vanderberg, Derek, not now I’m reformed. Well, retired . . . How’re things going, Adam? Sold any paintings?”
Bruna had materialized, his usual mode of entry. “Some Japanese have promised to come to the gallery tomorrow evening. I tried the Chinese and the Arabs, but the Arabs are crying poor mouth and the Chinese look surprised we have any artists. The Americans are only buying Aboriginal art. They think it’s kerygma-stirring, whatever that means.” He looked around, raised his glass of champagne to the room at large. “Let us hope that all these wonderful bankers can discover loose change again.”
Jack Junior joined the three men. “You listen to these guys, everything that’s gone wrong, they blame on everyone else. Mostly you politicians,” he told Sweden. “All around the world, you’re the ones who brought us to our knees. Rosalind is putting them straight.”
“She’ll do a better job than I would,” said Sweden, sounding as if bankers’ opinions were the least of his worries.
Jack Aldwych was surveying the room. He was wishing he had brought Emily Karp with him, to take her to dinner afterwards and enjoy her company; but if he was here to play scout for Malone he did not want her involved in any risk. It was some years since he had been involved in a situation like this and it irked him that he was not in control. He was not surprised that he had not seen the Japanese here this evening, but he wondered why the other man (the Filipino?) had put in an appearance.
He turned, caught Cormac Casement’s eye and smiled at him. Then behind Casement he saw the man in the light grey suit push through the crowd and bend his arm. Laid along the man’s forearm was what Aldwych at first thought was a sawn-off shotgun. Then he saw that it was a short-handled umbrella, the base of it with a barrel-like opening in it.
II
A few steps short of his intended death, Casement had a sudden recurrence of the unease that had plagued him since the late-morning phone call. All day memories, like iron filings, of a certain night had jabbed at him:
After Ophelia had gone to the opera he had gone downstairs and pressed the bell on the Swedens’ door. It had been opened by Rob Sweden, who had blinked as if he didn’t quite believe who his visitor was. “Cormac?”
“Expecting someone else? Ophelia, perhaps?” He pushed the door wider and walked in. “Close the door, Rob. You and I have something to talk about.”
“I’m expecting someone—”
“Another girlfriend? Close the door, Rob.”
He walked on into the big living room, went straight to the marble-manteled fake fireplace, turned round and stood with his hands behind his back. Even in his own mind’s eye he looked like a stern Victorian father, but he was establishing the stage. None of Rob Sweden’s guile was going to be allowed sway.
“Look, Cormac, I don’t want to be rude—”
Jesus, thought Cormac, how do mature women fall for this callow young bastard? The young man had looks, no doubt: strong jaw, aquiline nose, blond hair cut rather long: Casement, a poetry reader, was reminded of photos of Rupert Brooke. He was tall and well-built and always just the right side of being too well-dressed. Only his eyes let him down: so busy looking for the main chance, they suggested furtiveness. He had the gift of the gab, had supreme confidence in his own charm and, though he hid it well, equally supreme contempt for anyone over forty. Except women.
“Is the maid home?”
“No, I gave her some money to go out—”
“You have all the gall in the world, haven’t you? Setting up assignations in someone else’s place. Did Ophelia meet you here?”
“Assignation? Cormac, I don’t know what’s got into you—you keep mentioning Ophelia—”
“No crap, please. I know.” He straightened his glasses with one hand. He had beautiful hands for an elderly man and Ophelia insisted that he had them cared for regularly. “Rob, I don’t think you appreciate my position. I have some standing in this community, I’m not one of the Johnny-come-latelies who clutter up this country. You cuckold me—”
“For Crissakes, cut out all this old-fashioned crap!” Rob lost his temper; or made a pretence of it. “Assignations, cuckold—Jesus, that went out with—with—”
“With modern education? Perhaps you’re right.” He did belong to the old school; when school, in his eyes, taught you standards. He had resigned from the Sena
te of Sydney University a couple of years ago because he could not stand the new young professors. “All right, I know you’ve slept with Ophelia. And maybe your stepmother and Juliet, for all I know. And a dozen other men’s wives. I came down here to tell you it’s finished, all over. I would kill you before you got near my wife again. But that’s only part of why I’m here—”
Then he was aware of the three hooded men who had come in from the rear of the apartment and stood in the archway that led into the living room. At first he thought they were some sort of back-up to Rob, but then the young man turned round and he took a step backwards in shock. Rob looked over his shoulder at Casement.
“Jesus, what’s going on? What the fuck’re you gunna do to me?”
“It has nothing to with Mr. Casement,” said the shortest of the three hooded men. “We’re going to kill you, but we’re not working for him.”
Casement was the first to recover. “Who are you working for?”
“That may explain itself when we tell Mr. Sweden why we’re going to kill him.” The spokesman had a soft, thin voice with a slight accent. He was well-dressed; no, nattily-dressed, thought Casement. He even wore gloves; then Casement saw that they were white surgical gloves. “Mr. Sweden has stolen a lot of money. Or perhaps you know that?”
“Yes, I know.” He also knew now who had sent these killers; and was horrified. “That was the other reason I came down here, Rob. The twenty-five million you stole.”
Rob had taken a step towards the front door, but the two larger men had moved round in front of him. One of them had produced a gun and with gloved hands was screwing a silencer to it.
“Aw, come on, for Crissakes! It’s only money, I’ll give it back—none of it’s been touched—” He whirled back to face Casement. “Cormac, don’t let them kill me! Jesus, man, why? I don’t deserve to be killed—shit, guys are stealing money every fucking day—”