The Bear Pit (26 page)

“Righto, thanks. Can you do a check on any bank account she might've had? We're looking for a deposit of something around fifteen thousand.”

“In a hooker's account?” The voice now sounded incredulous.

“It's a strange world,” said Malone, hung up and told Clements the news. “Janis knew the girl was dead. I'll take a bet, too, that the girl doesn't have a bank account, not one with fifteen thousand bucks in it.”

“What do we do?”

“Right now I'm going home. I've had enough frustration for today. Go home and play dolls with Amanda.”

“She tears the head off them. Says she learned that at her day-care centre.”

“I wonder if Mrs. Masson, from Happy Hours, is tearing the head off her Mr. June? With Dakota and Alabama and Wombat Rose cheering her on?” He put on his pork-pie hat. “I don't care. See you in the morning.”

He drove home, unabused by raging drivers, opened the garage doors to find the Laser parked in there. Ready to abuse, he went round the side passage, was about to go in the back door when he saw Maureen floating in the pool. He opened the gate in the pool fence and went in. “Who had the Laser today? You or Mum?”

“I did.” She climbed out of the pool. “Oh sorry, Dad. The garage doors were open—”

“Open for me and the Fairlane. The boss.”

“I wasn't thinking—I just drove straight in.” She took off her bathing cap, shook out her hair. She was wearing a pale blue one-piece that might have shaken up the life guards down on Coogee beach or got her a walk-on in
Baywatch
but should not be worn in front of fathers and brothers. “I've had a bugger of a day, Dad. Sorry—I'll back it out now.”

“No, sit down. What sort of a bugger of a day?”

She sat down on a poolside chair and he sat beside her. She draped her towel round her, but
didn'
t look cold. “Peter Kelzo came to the studio today. He'd been invited to go on
State Hour
, but he'd ignored the invitation. Then this morning he rang, said he was ready and turned up for the taping this afternoon.”

State Hour
was the only current affairs programme that Channel 15 ran and then only under pressure that it might lose its licence. Its argument was that infotainment was as deep as the average viewer wanted to paddle, but Canberra occasionally stumbled back on to the straight and narrow and it had insisted that Channel 15 run a current affairs programme or else.
State Hour
was run on a budget that, said those who worked on it, ran out at a dollar a minute. It was hosted by an alcoholic ex-newspaper hack who managed to stay sober for the forty-eight-minute run and sometimes asked questions that stabbed the guests in their complacency. Up till now, though, it had never made waves that rocked even the flimsiest boat.

“Why were you there?”

“Because they were working from my material. I wasn't on the show. I was behind the cameras with the floor manager, but he saw me—Kelzo, I mean—and snarled something in Greek and glared at me.”

“Did he mention you on the show?”

“Not by name. He just called me the bitch who'd been raking up muck about him—”

“I'm surprised you didn't go on camera and deck him. You'd have been on
Sixty Minutes
next week.”

“I felt like it, but the floor manager held me back. Things started to get dirty then. Larry Cotter—”

“The host?”

“Yeah. He suddenly got sharp and nasty. He asked Kelzo a couple of personal questions and Kelzo flew at him. They had a donnybrook right in front of the cameras—the whole lot is on tape—Kelzo knocked Larry out of his chair, then tried to bash the two guys on the cameras—”

“Was Joe St. Louis there?”

“No, thank God—that would've been a real stoush. There was just George Gandolfo. He was
trying
to quieten Kelzo down, but for a minute or two it was like that Muhammad Ali video,
Rumble in the Jungle
. Kelzo even made a swipe at me—” She put her hand on Malone's arm as he stiffened. “I ducked, he didn't connect. He did his block completely, Dad—he was trying to hit everyone in sight. Then two security guards came in and got him under control. George Gandolfo took him off and the producer came down—”

“Where was he while all this was going on?”

“Up in the control booth, getting it all down on tape, telling the cameramen to get up off the floor and keep rolling. Producers are never where the action is. He came down when it was all over, clapping his hands like a kid at a party—they're going to run it in full on Sunday morning—nobody will look at
Meet the Press
or anything else—”

“It was tape, not live?”

“No, tape. It's stored in a room, the Programme Room, till they run it Sunday morning. It'll be headlines on the Sunday night news and Monday morning's papers. And, hopefully, Peter Kelzo will be dead politically.”

“I doubt it.” He held out his car keys. “Put my car in the garage. But get changed first—I don't want your wet bum on the driving seat.” Nor did he want her out in the street stirring up the blood of the male neighbours. He was turning into an almost Muslim father.

He followed her into the house, stopped in the kitchen and kissed Lisa. It might not be more than a brush of his lips against the back of her neck, but even after all these years it was not perfunctory.

“She told you about the scrap at Channel 15 today?” said Lisa.

“Yeah. I wish she could get a job at the ABC. They're never in trouble with anyone except the government. How was your day?”

“Lord Mayor Amberton has suddenly had a rush of blood to the head. He wants to know why
he
can't open the Games, instead of the Prime Minister. He says they are the Sydney Games and he's the Lord Mayor of Sydney.”

“Did you put out a press release on that?”

“
No, we bound him hand and foot and gagged him. Figuratively.”

“The best way. Saves calling in the police. What's for dinner?”

“Greek meatballs.”

“I'll give Peter Kelzo a call and invite him over.”

II

At 2.50 the next morning a security guard at Channel 15 was hit on the back of the head and rendered unconscious. Five minutes later the Programme Room went up in flames and everything in it, including the tapes for Sunday's
State Hour
, was destroyed.

Maureen went to work and Malone called her as soon as he reached his office: “What's happening? You okay?”

“I'm all right, Dad. But everyone here is in shock. This sort of thing doesn't happen to TV people—it only happens on TV. The local police are here.”

“There been any threats? Phone calls?”

“No. Da-ad—” Usually when Dad was split into two syllables by his offspring he was about to be asked for something. But not this time: “Don't worry about me. I'm not going to shove my neck out, not any more. I'm not stupid.”

“What's going to happen to that story you were investigating?”

“I don't know. At the moment it's on hold.”

“Leave it there. Take care, Mo.”

“I will, Dad. I promise. I love you,” she said and hung up in his ear.

He stared at nothing, flooded with good fortune.

There were no headlines, just a secondary item on Channel 15's news that evening and a news brief on the inner pages of the
Herald
and the
Telegraph-Mirror
.

Members of Strike Force Nemesis, alerted to what was on the
State Hour
tapes, interviewed Peter Kelzo, George Gandolfo and Joe St. Louis. All three of them said they were at home in bed,
separately.
Truth is stranger than fiction, especially when told by consummate liars.

III

“Where's Gail?” asked Malone at the morning briefing.

“Offsick,” said Clements. “A summer cold. She sounded pretty sniffly when she called in.”

“What's the roster?”

Clements told him. Then Malone looked at John Kagal. “You're the only one free, John. Let's go out and talk to Mr. August about why he was driving up and down Janis Eden's street.”

“I thought you'd never ask.”

But Kagal grinned as he said it and Malone had to take him at face value. There was no doubt that Kagal, easily the most capable of the detectives still without rank, had so far been no more than a dogsbody on the Vanderberg case. Malone had not deliberately overlooked him; it had just happened that Gail Lee and Phil Truach had been the best in particular circumstances. Nothing would be lost by taking Kagal along with him now.

Malone went back into his office and checked with the two officers tailing August: “He's out here at the Happy Hours Day-Care Centre, sir. He's fixing some windows—some hoons threw bricks through them last night.”

“In
Longueville
?”

“The locals are in shock. It's the end of the world, sir. Will we let our man know you're coming?”

“I don't think so. We'll be there in half an hour.”

It took Malone and Kagal thirty-five minutes; traffic crawled and clogged like cooling lava. Kagal, who was driving, showed no impatience, but Malone fidgeted in his seat. He tried to relax, not wanting to appear less composed than the younger man. He had come to recognize that, spoken or unspoken, there was competition between Detective Inspector Malone and Detective Constable Kagal. Though Malone had no ambition to be Police Commissioner, he knew in his heart that some day he
would
be reading comments by Police Commissioner Kagal and he would spit and make some sour remark to Lisa as he sat in his rocking chair and his bifocals smoked up. He was not mean-spirited, just raging against the ageing. He was certain that Lisa would grow old gracefully, but he doubted that he would.

When they drew up outside the day-care centre there was no sign of the two police officers or of August's van. But there was commotion in the Happy Hours yard and Malone and Kagal got out to investigate.

“Oh, Inspector—” Mrs. Masson turned as they approached. She and her two assistants were surrounded by a couple of dozen excited children. “Not
now
, please! We've got a problem—”

“It's Fred!” volunteered Wombat Rose, all excited relish. “He's under there!”

She pointed at a small open door in the brick foundations of the hall. The foundations were no more than two feet high and one of the assistants was crouched down calling to Fred to come out. “Fred, darling, come out—we'll all talk to you—”

There was no answer from Fred; he wasn't talking to anyone.

“How long has he been under there?” asked Malone.

“Three weeks,” said Wombat Rose.

“Shut up, Rose,” said Mrs. Masson. “I don't know—five minutes, ten at the most. My partner was here a while ago—he would've gone under to get Fred out of there—”

“I'll go under,” said Wombat Rose.

“Will you please be quiet!”

“Where is Mr.—June?” asked Malone.

“He left, I dunno, ten minutes ago for another job—he's been repairing our windows—someone threw bricks through them last night—” She squatted down beside the tiny door. “Fred! Come out, darling—”

There was no answer; Fred had found his haven.

Mrs. Masson stood up. “We've got to get him out of there—there could be spiders—”

“
Yurk!” screamed Wombat Rose, Dakota and Alabama.

“Shut up!” Mrs. Masson was on edge; Malone guessed that his and Kagal's sudden appearance had thrown her. Then abruptly she looked at him. “Would you go under and get him? Please?”

Malone hesitated, then looked at Kagal. “You're younger than I am, John.”

Kagal took off his jacket and tie, folded the jacket and handed it to Wombat Rose, who took it as if she had been accepting men's jackets all her young life. He looked down at his trousers as if debating whether to remove them, too; then decided against it. He was not wearing Armani, but Malone knew that whatever it was it was better than his own Fletcher Jones polyester-and-wool.

Kagal must have read his thoughts because he smiled up at Malone as he lay down on the ground. “What the well-dressed speleologist is wearing.”

He edged his way through the narrow door, which was barely wide enough for his shoulders. There was a babble of encouragement from the children; Wombat Rose bent down and shouted to Fred that everything was going to be all right. There was still no answer from Fred, hidden somewhere in the darkness under the hall.

Malone watched Mrs. Masson, who looked as if she might collapse at any moment. “Relax,” he said quietly. “Fred will be out of there in a minute or two. Detective Kagal can be very persuasive.”

She didn't glance at him, just said, “I hope so.”

Fred is the least of her problems, he thought; he's just the feather that's going to bring everything down. Had the bank foreclosed on the Happy Hours?

It took Kagal five minutes to deliver Fred. He pushed the small boy, streaked with dirt and cobwebs, out of the door, then crawled out after him. “Fred's okay. He hasn't said anything, but he's okay.”

One of the assistants clutched Fred to her and the other children clustered around them. Then Kagal looked at Malone. “I'm going back in—it'll only take a minute. There's something interesting under there.”

Mrs. Masson was paying attention to Fred, but she straightened up as Kagal dropped down and
crawled
back through the tiny door. “Where's he going?”

“He's found something under there. It may be something left by those louts who broke your windows. We'll know in a minute—”

He didn't believe what he was saying. He had seen the expression on Kagal's face, the look of excitement from a man who tried never to show it. What was under the Happy Hours hall had not been left by some hoons throwing bricks at windows. It was, it had to be . . .