The Bear Pit (15 page)

“What fucking proper channels?”

He had raised his voice. All six women on the verandah lifted their heads; one woman put a hand to her ear. The kookaburra abruptly took off, as if it had been offended by August's language.

“We have our sources.”

August glared at both of them. He was still red-faced; a strand of hair had fallen down over his brow. Then with an obvious effort, like a cripple arranging his limbs, he relaxed, sat back against the hard wood of his chair.

“Why me? Why the fuck are you picking on me?”

“John—” Malone kept his voice casual. Neither he nor Clements had shifted their positions in their chairs; they were as relaxed, even more so, as August. They could have been discussing tomorrow's delivery of Meals on Wheels. “You were the only one on the list of customers at the Sewing Bee who had a record. You went to the window, we were told, and looked across at the entrance to Olympic Tower. Not once, but twice. You told the woman who runs the place you were interested because you were once an architect. John, we looked up your CV. You never even got close to designing a garden shed or an outdoor loo.”

“Well—” He waved a hand, looked unexpectedly embarrassed. “You know how it is. You bullshit—”

“Of course. We all do it—occasionally. But not now, John. We're not bullshitting you now. Do you know Janis Eden?”

“No.” He was climbing back into the skin of the man at ease. “Describe her.”

That, Malone suddenly knew, was where he and Clements had made their mistake. It was nine years since they had last seen Janis Eden; she was a faded image, viewed through the astigmatic eye of memory. Both men had sat opposite her in a Bondi cafe while Romy's father had held the poisoned syringe against her wrist; it was the only time that Malone had taken out his gun and threatened to shoot a
man
in cold blood. It was Peter Keller's image that was burned in their brain, not hers. They had attended her trial for only one day, to give evidence in the witness box. In the dock she had changed her appearance, done something with her hair, but Malone couldn't remember how. She would be thirty-five or thirty-six now and he knew that women could be more chameleon-like than men.

“Dark-haired. Attractive.”

“No,” said Clements. “Auburn-haired. You know, sorta dark red.”

“Dark-haired, auburn-haired, attractive—that could be a helluva lot of women.” August shook his head in amusement. “If she's one-legged, it'll help.”

Malone had to admire him. “Do you ever lose your sense of humour?”

“Occasionally.” No longer amused. “When you keep pestering my partner.”

“It's regrettable, John, but we may have to keep doing it.”

“No,” he said. “You don't have to. I'm no hitman and my partner's problems are her own.”

“And yours, too, John.”

He stared at them a long moment, then he nodded. “You two married? Happily married?” It was their turn to nod. “So you understand?”

“Yes.” Malone stood up. He knew now they were going to achieve nothing with August by beating him into the ground. He would never crack that way. “We'll keep in touch.”

“You're not gunna leave me alone? Get off my back?” He had not risen, sat looking up at the two big men.

“Afraid not. It's what we call Chinese water torture. We're good at it.”

“I'll bet.”

They left him there under the camphor laurel; the sun had moved and he looked a little vaguer in its shade. They waved to the old ladies on the verandah and the two with sight waved back. Malone paused for a moment and looked at the long verandah. The six figures sat there like a frieze of statues, waiting for the last door to open and welcome them. Then the six figures shrank into four; four familiar faces stared at him. His father and mother, Lisa's father and mother: he turned away and headed for the
parking
lot. We too often close books we don't want to finish reading.

II

Gertrude Vanderberg, unlike her late husband, was a monarchist. That is, she saw herself as queenly; it was her only vanity and self-delusion. Never in front of The Dutchman, always behind him, she had, nevertheless, reviewed the troops with an eye as searching as his. She knew the domain of Boolagong better than he, she had spent more time in it. Attending fêtes, to which she always donated her home-baked pumpkin pavlovas; visiting sick voters, sometimes even if they were not Labor; housekeeping, such as checking the branch's accounts. The rest of the State she left to Hans. Queens have better recognition in small domains; empresses are acknowledged only on coins. Everyone in Boolagong knew Gert Vanderberg.

“You're from
where
?” She made it sound like Antarctica.

“Channel 15,” said Maureen.

Mrs. Vanderberg was not in good temper. She was still feeling not only the death of Hans but the manner in which he had died. She had always recognized that politics was a dirty business; but murder was a horror she could not come to terms with. She knew the pain of losing someone; her and Hans' only child had died of breast cancer ten years ago; she was not new to grief. She was here in the Boolagong branch office in the main street of Rockdale because she had found the house, hers and Hans', too lonely. She had sat there in the rooms for the whole weekend, still hearing the sounds of him, feeling his presence like a visible ghost. The grief and loneliness had been too much for her and she regretted that she and Hans had never had more children. Friends and relatives came and sat with her, but they didn't fill the space that had been left. Today, escaping the loneliness, she had come here to the office to comfort Barry Rix, who was still shaken by his own narrow escape. And now here was a damned TV reporter intruding.

“What do you want?”

Maureen was not yet case-hardened; she knew she was intruding. But her producer, a man
isolated
by the distance of his office from any door that had to be knocked on, who saw the world at one and sometimes two removes, had insisted she come out this morning and follow up the branch-stacking story. The maw of television is the black hole of entertainment and infotainment: reporting cancer cure as a divertissement. That was enough excuse, the producer had told Maureen, for any intrusion.

“We are preparing a story on branch-stacking—”

“Not here,” said Mrs. Vanderberg and looked at Rix. “Not here, Barry?”

“No,” said Rix and made coffee for the three of them. If he won pre-selection he might need all the media help he could get. He brought biscuits. “Home-made. By Mrs. Vanderberg.”

“Very nice,” said Maureen and bit into a sweet pumpkin cookie.

This branch office was not a social hall; it was two medium-sized rooms. The Dutchman, coming here once a month, had seen the advantages of having voters waiting for him out on the pavement; there is no public value in having all your supporters packed together out of sight. Mrs. Vanderberg, Rix and Maureen were in the inner room, its walls plastered with old posters from the days before TV commercials. Maureen had looked around at them with the curiosity of the young looking at old campaign recruiting posters; indeed, she would not have been surprised to find The Dutchman glaring at her from a poster, finger pointed: YOUR COUNTRY NEEDS YOU! In the outer room there were half a dozen people, two volunteer workers and four supplicants. One never calls voters beggars.

“No,” said Rix, “we've never had any stacking here. The Boss would never have stood for anything like that.” Nor would he have needed it.

“No,” said Maureen, “not here. Not yet, I'm told.”

“Not ever,” said Mrs. Vanderberg. She was not wearing widow's weeds, which might have been more flattering; she was in an orange blouse and a green skirt. “We don't go in for that sort of thing here. Mr. Rix—”

“We understand Mr. Rix is going to have opposition for pre-selection—”

“You're young, Miss—?”

“Malone. Maureen Malone.”

Mrs.
Vanderberg gave her an acute look. Like her husband she had a memory for names: they are the blood cells of politics. “Mr. Rix told me an Inspector Malone is handling the investigation into my husband's murder—”

“My father,” said Maureen and wished her name was Lewdinsky or McTavish. “He doesn't know I'm here—I have my own job to do—”

“Of course,” said Mrs. Vanderberg and made it sound as if there were far better jobs than being a TV reporter. “You're young, Miss Malone, and you will find out that rumours are like the whipped cream on my pavlovas—they go off after a week.” The aphorism was one of her husband's, but she didn't mangle it as he had. Then she looked past Maureen: “Why, here comes a rumour himself!”

Jerome Balmoral stood in the doorway. One knew that when he got into parliament he would be Jerome and not Jerry; Labor was the Old Mates party, but it would not be Jerry, mate, when he became Prime Minister. He looked at Maureen with a very unmate-like stare.

“What's she doing here?” He sounded as if he already owned the office, that there was no need for pre-selection, he was already selected and elected.

“She's here at my invitation,” said Gert Vanderberg, not looking at Maureen.

“You're letting her go ahead with their dirty muck-raking?”

“No.” She looked sideways at Maureen; it might have been a motherly glance or a keep-your-mouth-shut look. “She's just been taken on as my assistant. My private secretary, if you like. Or my minder, as my husband used to call them.”

“You need a minder?” Balmoral was unimpressed. Or perhaps he was impressed, meant she would never need a minder.

“Occasionally,” said Mrs. Vanderberg.

Maureen was no actress; but she managed to remain blank-faced, which in television soap opera can be mistaken for acting. “Good morning, Mr. Balmoral.”

He ignored her. “Can I see you alone, Mrs. Vanderberg?”

“Of course not,” said she affably; she spread her hands to include Maureen and Rix. “We're a
team
here. What do you want, Jerry?”

For a moment it looked as if Balmoral would retreat; but in the Trades Congress such tactics were never taught. “Well, basically—”

Maureen had noted that over the past couple of years no one in the nation seemed to be able to get through a statement without using
basically
. She was waiting for a priest to remark that The Lord, basically, was God. Jerry Balmoral had no ambition to be God, but that was only because, basically, the voters didn't believe in the Eternal.

“—I came to see if we can't come to terms.” He had sat down, arranging his trouser-legs; the creases could have cut one of Gert's pavlovas. He was in a beige summer suit, a darkish blue shirt and a tie that suggested he was in favour of the Olympics but only discreetly. Maureen, against her will, admitted he was handsome, good to look at. “I think if I get pre-selection, I can win this seat easily, keep it in the Party—”

“We think Mr. Rix can win just as easily. Don't you, Miss Malone?”

“With no effort at all,” said Maureen, slipping with no effort at all into the role of minder. “This is, basically, a blue riband seat for Labor, always has been. With no branch-stacking.”

“Barry—” Balmoral turned to Rix as if Maureen hadn't spoken. “You'll be looked after—we can find you a job in Macquarie Street, maybe in the Upper House—”

“I've worked my arse off here,” said Rix and for a moment appeared to change character; he seemed to forget that his ex-boss' wife and Maureen were there beside him. “I'm
owed
, Jerry. I'm not gunna roll over for some whipper-snapper from Sussex Street—” Then he remembered he was in the shadow of the boss' wife: “Gert here wants me to run and I'm gunna do just that. No argument.”

“Barry—” Balmoral was all patience—“the branch has a hoodoo on it. Hans has—forgive me for mentioning this, Mrs. Vanderberg—” He was like an undertaker trying to excuse the delivery of the coffin. “Hans has been shot. Your assistant secretary—what's his name?”

“Marco Crespi,” said Gert Vanderberg. “His name was in every newspaper and on radio and TV. You must have missed it.”

“
I must have,” Balmoral admitted; one could almost see him wiping sarcasm off the beige suit. “Yes, Marco Crespi was bashed up. Someone wants to destroy the tradition of this branch. We don't know why—”

“Yes, we do,” said Gert Vanderberg.

“Why?” Balmoral had learned the trick of looking innocent, which comes in handy in an environment of skulduggery. But she dodged that question, put one of her own with brutal force: “Do you know who killed my husband, Jerry?”

“No, no.” He was off-balance for a moment. Then: “Well, yes. The police are said to have a suspect—have they?” He looked at Maureen.

“My father doesn't confide police business in me. He might now,” she said. “Now I'm Mrs. Vanderberg's minder.”

“But you do know, don't you, who bashed up poor Marco Crespi?” Mrs. Vanderberg wasn't going to let him off the hook. Under her dowdy queenly air there had always been an affable lady; but now there was iron in her soul, she was a widow who wanted revenge. It surprised her how revengeful she felt. “It was that crowd from Harding, wasn't it? Kelzo and his mob.”

“I don't know—”

“If you don't know, you must be the only one in the party who doesn't. We know, don't we, Barry?”

“Yes,” said Rix, but sounded apprehensive.

“You can try your luck, Jerry, and run for pre-selection here, but you are going to be wiped like a snotty nose.” She didn't sound at all queenly now, at least not a Christian one with afternoon-tea manners and a retinue of elderly courtiers. “Go back to Sussex Street and tell them you're as welcome out here as the plague. While you're at it, tell your mates out at Harding that if Joe St. Louis comes into this electorate again, I'll have the local police lock him up.”