The Bear Pit (23 page)

Norman Clizbe squinted at them from either side of his barricaded nose. “I'm making no charges—”

Malone held up a hand. “It wasn't attempted murder, was it, Mr. Clizbe? We're interested only in those sort of things. A little stoush between friends—Is Joe St. Louis a friend?”

Clizbe hadn't lost his sense of humour; he grinned, but it seemed to hurt as his nostrils stretched. “I wouldn't call him that. He just forgot himself.” He touched his nose. “I was in the way.”

“
It happens,” said Phil Truach, who had told Malone on the way down that he had known Clizbe for years. “Relax, Norm. We just came to talk about the general situation.”

But Clizbe wasn't comfortable. His desk looked like a rubbish tip of papers; whether it was his usual filing system or just today's, he looked as if he was floundering. One hand shuffled papers, but it was just a nervous gesture, not an attempt at putting his desk into some sort of order.

“Why aren't you across the road talking to Party head office?”

“We've been there, Norm.” Truach lay back in his chair, legs crossed, as if he came here to this office every day. “Inspector Malone has had me over there twice. They're as pure as the driven slush, as someone once said. You wouldn't see more clean hands in an operating theatre.”

Clizbe thought about that for a while; then nodded. “So we're the bunnies.”

“Looks like it.”

“Norm—” Malone felt that Clizbe, if not exactly rushing to be cooperative, was not antagonistic—“we know that you here in this office were looking at ways of getting The Dutchman to call it a day. Or am I putting it too mildly?”

“No.” Clizbe's eyes had started to quicken. “You're putting it exactly.”

“Then why are you sueing Channel 15 for stating the obvious?”

Clizbe looked at Truach, the old friend; or anyway acquaintance. “Is that what this is? To get us to lay off his daughter?”

“I wouldn't even think that if I were you, Norm,” said Truach.

“He might be even more dangerous than Joe St. Louis. He's a heavyweight, Joe's only a middleweight at the most.”

Clizbe looked back at Malone. “Sorry—”

“That's okay, Norm. We're not here about Channel 15 or my daughter—that just slipped out . . . Were you out at the Harding electorate office trying to persuade Mr. Kelzo to keep out of the Boolagong pre-selection?”

“Why would I be doing that?”

“
We've heard a rumour that Mr. Balmoral wants that seat.”

“Where did you get all this garbage?” He sounded suddenly irritable.

“Moles, Norm. They're everywhere.”

“Your daughter, wasn't it? Is she undercover for you?”

“Careful, Norm,” said Truach, still relaxed in his chair. “You increased union members' fees recently. That would of added up to quite a sizeable amount. What were you gunna do with it, Norm?”

Clizbe's hand roamed like a rat over the rubbish tip of papers.

“Mr. Kelzo has his own pet nominee for Boolagong,” said Malone. “A Garry Fairbanks. You know him?”

“He's assistant-secretary of Allied Trades. He'd be Kelzo's puppet, a real dickhead.” Then he looked up as his office door opened. “Not now, Jerry—”

But Jerome Balmoral wasn't going to be excluded. As sartorially neat as ever, like a model out of the fashion pages of a men's magazine, he came in and sat down in the spare chair at the end of Clizbe's desk. He looked at the clutter with distaste; one knew his own desk would be as clean as an ice rink. He glanced at the two detectives, then sideways at Clizbe.

“Maybe you need some back-up, Norman.”

This bloke has talent, thought Malone. Or ego, gall, whatever you want to call it. He's telling his boss what Norm needs. “Maybe you
can
help, Mr. Balmoral. You're hoping to get the Boolagong pre- selection?”

Balmoral looked at Clizbe, who hesitated, then said, “His daughter told him.”

“Watch it, Norm,” said Malone. “Is it true, Mr. Balmoral?”

“Yes.” As if the result were a foregone conclusion.

“Is Joe St. Louis an acquaintance of yours?”

“After what he did to Norman?” His indignation was perfect.

“I said an acquaintance, not a friend.”

“Yeah, well, yes, we know him. In Labor circles,
everyone
knows him.”

“
You know, of course, that he's the main suspect in what happened to Marco Crespi out at Rockdale? He just did the wrong man. If he'd scared off Barry Rix, the way would be open for you in Boolagong, wouldn't it?”

“Are you suggesting we might have hired Joe to beat up Barry Rix?”

“Leave me out of this,” said Clizbe and seemed to retreat behind the dressing on his nose.

“I'm not suggesting anything, I'm just asking questions. Like politicians do, what I guess you're hoping to do when you get to Macquarie Street. In the meantime, before then, how were you going to finance your pre-selection campaign and then, if you got it, your chances in the election? We understand Mrs. Vanderberg holds the purse-strings out at Boolagong.”

“Have you been talking to Mother Gert?” asked Clizbe.

“Not me personally. We've been talking to
everybody
, Norm. You have no idea the number of people we've talked to.”

“And you still haven't come up with who killed The Dutchman,” said Balmoral.

“Touché, Jerry. But someone like you, hoping to get into parliament, shouldn't be surprised at how many dead ends there are in the world. We'll get there eventually.”

“Not talking to us, you won't,” said Clizbe.

“Oh, we never give up. You might know more than you think you know. For instance, do you know a man named John August?”

There was nothing apparent to suggest that the name meant anything to either Clizbe or Balmoral. There was no frown, no narrowing of the eyes, not even that frozen reaction that is a silent lie. Yet in their very calm, their momentary silence, they had given themselves away. They had failed to recognize an interrogator who had been reading silences for twenty-five years.

“No,” said Clizbe after a silence that could not have been more than three seconds but seemed like thirty to Malone. “Who's he?”

“He's a member of Allied Trades. Under his other name of John June.”

Clizbe's recovery was quick: “You asked about him the other day. I don't know him.”

“
Do you, Jerry?”

“No.” His recovery now was perfect; he could have been asked if he knew John the Inuit from Greenland. “What does he do?”

“He's a handyman. He does everything . . . Well, good luck out at Boolagong. Watch out for Mother Gert.”

Out in the street Phil Truach, forty minutes without a cigarette and looking ready to expire, took the parking ticket from behind the windscreen wiper and stuffed it in his pocket. “They know August?”

“I'd say so. Wouldn't you? In this mess everyone seems to know everyone else. What is it they say about six degrees of separation? Someone sooner or later is going to prove there's no separation at all. You want a smoke? Go ahead, but stay out of the car. I'll make a phone call.”

He called Clements: “Get someone from the task force—keep us out of it—to get a warrant to look at any withdrawals from the accounts of Clizbe and Balmoral.”

Clements' surprise was like a puff against the ear. “You think they might of had something to do with August?”

“I don't know. But they
know
him.”

“It figures. In the Labor Party everyone knows who carries the knives. Or guns.”

“And it's not like that in the Coalition?”

“Of course. They just never let the blood show.”

“Righto, get on with the bank search, but keep us out of it. I want to keep going back to ‘em.”

“Jesus—” He could almost hear Clements shaking his head. “We've got more starters in this than in the City to Surf marathon.”

“You wouldn't want it otherwise. I've gotta go. Phil is ready to start on another cigarette. I've got to save him from lung cancer.”

“He won't thank you.”

Malone hung up, waited while Truach butted his cigarette and got back into the car. He
popped
some gum into his mouth, looked at Malone. “Where to now?”

“Let's go out and talk to Mother Gert.”

“How much separates her from everybody else in this mess?”

“The width of Botany Bay, I'd say.”

II

But Gertrude Vanderberg wasn't at home. Wearing a grey outfit with flounces that made her look like a giant dove ruffling its feathers but also made her as inconspicuous as she would ever get, she was having lunch in a private room at the Golden Gate restaurant in Chinatown. With her were Jack Aldwych and Leslie Chung, the two owners of the restaurant; Madame Tzu and Camilla Feng; and General Wang-Te. And Barry Rix, who sat quiet and ignored, like an afterthought.

“We were great admirers of your husband,” said Les Chung as they sat down.

“So was I,” said Mrs. Vanderberg.

That left a little silence into which Madame Tzu finally put her foot: “He was a pragmatic man.”

Gert Vanderberg gave her a smile like an aid worker in a foreign country. She would teach Madame Tzu how aid worked. “Oh, he was that all right. So am I. A pragmatic woman.”

Aldwych had never had much time for the pragmatism of women, though he conceded that Madame Tzu could link cause and effect more effectively than any man he had met. Except himself, of course. He just hadn't expected Gert Vanderberg, the Mother Teresa of Boolagong, to be like this.

“That's what makes the world go round,” he said. “Idealistic bull—baloney, it never moves anything. You must of learned that, all the time you were married to Hans.”

Gert Vanderberg was the sort who thought everyone at a table should have a say: “What do you think, General?”

“In my country idealism died when the Great Leap Forward fell on its face.” He waited to be struck dead for such heresy, but here in the Golden Gate heresy was frequently part of the menu. Still, he hedged: “Basically, that is.”

Barry
Rix waited to be asked his opinion, but Mrs. Vanderberg had passed on: “We're talking—pragmatically and basically, that is—about the two hundred and fifty thousand dollars you put into my husband's election fund? Am I right?”

“You put your finger right on it,” said Aldwych.

She toyed with her prawns, looked at Rix, bringing him in from the edge of the world: “Was Hans going to bring in a casino bill, Barry? He never spoke to me about it.”

Rix had been brought in from the edge of the world, but he was still out on a limb; The Dutchman had had the same habit. “I think he liked the idea, Gert. Coffs Harbour has always been a dicey seat. With all the retired people up there, nothing to do but look at each other, play golf and bowls, things like that, he thought they'd welcome a casino. Be something else to do.”

“For the tourists, too,” said Les Chung. “People like to gamble. It's an Australian thing.”

“And a Chinese thing, too, I've heard,” said Gert Vanderberg. She ate a prawn. “Are you a gambler, Madame Tzu?”

“Not in casinos,” said Madame Tzu and sounded almost pious, a thought that brought on mild vertigo.

“What about you, Miss Feng?”

“Occasionally.” On men: but she didn't say that. She had been sitting quietly, comparing Mrs. Vanderberg and Madame Tzu, wondering which one would prevail in the deal that lay ahead. They were as dissimilar as two women could be. The one sleek, elegant, as cold as a Sinkiang wind, the other bluff, over-dressed, as warm as a westerly breeze: she wouldn't bet on who would win. But she saw more in Mrs. Vanderberg than the three men at the table did.

“I'm not a gambler,” said Gert Vanderberg. “People have come to me telling me how it's ruined their lives.”

“You can't change human nature,” said Aldwych, who had never tried unless he held a gun.

“It wouldn't be built in time for the Olympics,” said Rix, desperately holding his place in the conversation.

“
No, no,” said Les Chung. “It would be the end of the year at least before we could start. The plans have been drawn—”

“You were pretty confident?” Mrs. Vanderberg finished her prawns and wiped her fingers delicately on a napkin.

“No,” said Madame Tzu. “Well prepared.”

“That would always be your motto, Madame Tzu?” said Mother Gert.

“Always.” Madame Tzu recognized a worthy opponent.

Camilla Feng sat silent, learning from watching these two older women. She wished Jerry Balmoral were here, to learn how out-matched he would be if and when he ran up against them.

“I'd hate to see the Olympics spoiled by bad publicity,” said Gert Vanderberg. “That we are turning into a nation of gamblers.”

You're two hundred years behind the times, thought Aldwych. And what did she think last year's Olympic corruption scandal had been but a gamble? A gamble against being found out. He was always amused at the naivety of women.

Then she said, “Of course there was that corruption business last year. They should have all been shot. But we don't want anything more to give our Olympics a bad name. Hans' Olympics,” she added and for a moment Barry Rix thought she was going to bow her head.

“We'd hate to see it, too,” said Aldwych. “We're all right behind the Olympics.”

“What's your favourite sport?”

“Oh, the synchronized swimming.” Aldwych looked for amusement in all sport; it was the only way he could take sport seriously, except cricket. He was amazed at times at how unAustralian he was. “It's the funniest act since Wilson, Keppel and Betty.”