The Bear Pit Read online

  “Maybe they should have The Dutchman’s State funeral from here,” said Clements.

  The local Labor Party’s branch was above a row of lock-up shops in a small shopping centre; from its windows there would be a good view of the Olympic stadium. Malone and Clements climbed the narrow stairs and found only three men in the long narrow hall. Malone had expected a crowd. He had been wrong: a lot of voters were still on summer holiday and there would have been difficulty in getting a crowd for Judgement Day. The voters knew their priorities and politics was not amongst them.

  They walked down the hall to a dais where Peter Kelzo sat behind a large table. The other two men were standing on the floor just below him. They turned as the two strangers walked in.

  “Sorry, mates—you from the press?”

  “No,” said Malone. “From the police.”

  “Oh.” All three men looked at each other as if two hold-up men had come in.

  Then Kelzo got up from behind the table and stepped down to the floor of the hall. He was almost six inches shorter than either of the two detectives, but you knew he would never be afraid of big men. He put out his hand, the left hand raised as if to pat the head of any passing child; his smile was wider than that of a game show host. I’ll bet he kisses babies, Malone thought.

  “Anything we can do to help? This is George Gandolfo. This is Joe St. Louis.”

  Gandolfo was a thin fidgety man in his middle forties, hair worn thin by his speed through life. You knew he would run up escalators, saving 7.3 seconds in 30 metres, a saving that, if asked, he wouldn’t have known what to do with. At school he would have tried to shorten long division, to no avail. Over the past year, according to the red-tabbed files, he had tried to hasten the Premier’s retirement, also to no avail.

  “Pleased to meetcha.” He put out a hand, gave the sort of handshake that said he was everybody’s friend, so long as everybody voted the right way.

  Clements recognized Joe St. Louis. “G’day, Joe. When did you get into politics?”

  “This year, mate. It ain’t much different to the ring.”

  Joe St. Louis was a pale-skinned Aborigine in his late thirties. He had been fighting for almost two decades, beginning in side-show tents, moving on to eight-rounders in clubs, once fighting for the middleweight title. He was good-looking in a battered way, his eyes wary under scarred brows, like beetles under chipped rocks. He had form, besides his ring record, as a stand-over man.

  “I’m Greek, like you know.” Kelzo sounded as if he were reading from the branch brochure. “George is Eye-talian. And Joe, he’s fair dinkum Austrayan. We try to be as multicultural as we can, basically. Very Austrayan.”

  “Lebanese, too?” asked Malone. “We believe you’ve got a lot of new members, mostly Lebanese.”

  “We got no prejudices here. We even got some Turks. That’s something, ain’t it? Greeks and Turks in the same club. We welcome all sorts.”

  “Even the Irish?”

  “Ah, you don’t catch me like that. Inspector Malone? Of course the Irish.” He beamed at Gandolfo and St. Louis as if St Patrick himself had just walked in. “Who better to have in politics than the Irish? Some of the great names in Labor—Cahill, Dolan, Crean, McMullan—”

  “Saints, every one of them. Could we sit down, Mr. Kelzo? Maybe a cup of coffee? We want to be sociable. That’s what this is called, isn’t it?” He had seen the sign above the downstairs door. “The Labor Social Club?”

  “Of course. Where’s me manners? Joe, get some coffee, would you?” Joe St. Louis, it was evident, was the gofer. Malone wondered what other errands he did. “Milk, sugar? There’s some biscuits in a tin, Joe. Iced Vo-Vos. Very Austrayan.” He pulled some chairs into a circle. He and Gandolfo sat together, a team. “Okay, fire away.”

  “Wrong phrase,” said Malone with a grin.

  Kelzo returned the grin with a wide smile; he was unabashed. “Sure, sure. We gotta pay our respects to a Great Man.” You could read the capitals in his voice. “He’ll be missed.”

  “Very much. We understand you are standing for pre-selection here?”

  Kelzo nodded. “I’m told I’m what you call a shoo-in.”

  The Harding electorate had been named after an American president by a cynical electoral commissioner who knew a corrupt administration when he heard of it. The commissioner was long dead, but he had been more prescient than he knew. Kelzo ran this branch like a grace-and-favour estate.

  “After the branch-stacking?” said Clements.

  Kelzo saw he had made a mistake; he was saved for the moment by the arrival of the instant coffee and the Iced Vo-Vos. “Where did you hear that?”

  Clements changed tack: “Amongst your new members, do you have a man named June? John June?”

  “No,” said Gandolfo.

  “Hundreds of members and you know ‘em all? Including the new ones?”

  “He has a photographic memory,” said Kelzo.

  “And after you’re elected,” said Malone, “you’ll be a strong supporter of the new Premier, whoever he might be. Assuming, of course, that Labor is returned.”

  Joe St. Louis had sat down beside his two colleagues; they looked a formidable trio. One could not imagine that in the Harding branch there would be much give-and-take discussion with the members. “I been around the traps. We’re gunna be re-elected.”

  “Basically,” said Kelzo, “We can’t lose.”

  “And who’ll be the Premier? Billy Eustace?”

  “Who else?” said Gandolfo, but didn’t sound as if it mattered.

  Sure, who else? thought Malone. Eustace was a rubber doll; he would be manipulated. At present he was the Minister of Transport and Communications, known in the trade as the Ministry for Mates. He had more mates than a discount hooker.

  “What about the Minister for the Olympics, Mr. Agaroff? He’s suddenly become ambitious, we’re told.”

  “Where do you get all your information?” asked Kelzo, looking a little worried, though still smiling.

  “Sergeant Clements’ daughter is on the Internet. All sorts of information comes up there, she tells us.”

  Clements didn’t deny that his three-year-old daughter was an Internet fan. “You remember all the Clinton stuff that came up on Internet?”

  “Terrible, terrible,” said Kelzo. “Nothing’s private any more.”

  “Would you back Agaroff?” asked Malone. “Do you have any Russians on your multicultural list? His parents were Russian.”

  “No Russians,” said Gandolfo, starting to fidget, looking for an escalator to get them out of this questioning.

  “Do you know anyone who would want to kill Hans Vanderberg?” said Clements bluntly.

  Moments are expandable, small balloons of time. This moment was stretched; one could almost hear an echo of Clements’ question. The three men did not look at each other, but just stared at the two detectives. The three monkeys, thought Malone; then Kelzo said, “He had enemies, but nobody we knew.”

  “Nobody,” said Gandolfo, all at once very still.

  Clements looked at St. Louis. “Joe? You’ve been around the traps, like you say.”

  St. Louis shook his head. “Nobody.”

  Malone put down his coffee cup. “We’d like a list of all your members, new ones as well as old.”

  “They’re confidential—” said Kelzo. One could almost see him putting up shutters, running the barricades into place, thumbing through the Freedom of Information Act. He was abruptly non-cooperative.

  “No, they’re not, Mr. Kelzo. Explain to him, Joe, what we can do with a search warrant.”

  “You have no right—” said Gandolfo, racing to his place at the barricades.

  “Mr. Gandolfo,” said Malone patiently, “you don’t seem to have much idea what powers the police have.”

  “Of course, of course.” Kelzo beat a retreat as quickly as he had put up the shutters. He offered the plate of Iced Vo-Vos: “Another biscuit? We’ll fax the list to you this afterno
on—”

  “No,” said Malone. “We want it now.”

  Again there was the stretched moment; then Kelzo said, “Of course, of course. George will have to go to the bank to get it—”

  “The bank? You keep your membership list in a bank?”

  “You gotta be careful—”

  “Why?” said Clements. “Because of the branch-stacking?”

  “Well—” But Kelzo wasn’t going to divulge too many secrets. The in-fighting in the Party was the Party’s business. “You just gotta, that’s all. George will be back in ten minutes—”

  “No,” said Malone, rising. “We’ll go with you, George. Just in case you’re waylaid.”

  “Waylaid?” said Gandolfo.

  “He means done over,” said Joe St. Louis and grinned at the two detectives. “It happens, don’t it?”

  “All the time, Joe,” said Malone. You’d know, Joe. “It happened last night.”

  Suddenly all the fidget went out of Gandolfo. “You mean someone might shoot us?”

  “You never know, George,” said Malone, piling it on. “Let’s go. Which bank?”

  3

  I

  “I REMEMBER once, you said trying to get information out of the Chinese was like banging your head against the Great Wall of China. Mr. Kelzo and his mates could be Chinese.”

  “Russ, the Great Wall of China is going to run for bloody miles in this case. Get ready for a bruised forehead.”

  They had collected the membership list from a safety deposit box at the local bank, had got one of the bank staff to copy it—“We’ll have to charge you, sir.”

  “I’m asking you as a police officer—”

  “It’s not me, sir. The bank charges for everything these days—you must of read all the complaints.” The young bank clerk had lowered his voice. “It’s a dollar a page.”

  “Six pages. Send the bill to Police Headquarters, the Commissioner will send you a cheque. Then you’ll charge a fee on the cheque, right?”

  “It’s the system, sir.”

  “Send the bill to us,” said Gandolfo, fidgeting.

  They had driven him back to the branch headquarters, dropping him there, and now were on their way back to Strawberry Hills under a sky in which huge clouds stumbled, growing darker as they clashed and merged. The air-conditioning in the car was working only intermittently and Clements had opened his own and the passenger’s window. One could taste the thick bitter air.

  “Did you notice what was in that deposit box?” said Clements.

  “Money, four stacks of it. It could’ve been a thousand bucks or ten thousand—the top notes were all hundred-dollars. Is that what they call petty cash? Or was it welfare for the branch-stacking? There was also something wrapped in a hand-towel that George didn’t want us to see. A gun?”

  “Could of been. I left it to you to ask him what it was.”

  “I passed. We might need another excuse to come back to them.”

  “Would Kelzo employ a hitman?”

  “I dunno. He employs Joe St. Louis. A hitman is only one step up from a stand-over man.”

  In the Homicide office Gail Lee was waiting for them. They came in sweating; she looked cool and unrumpled, as if she had spent the whole morning in the air-conditioned office. But she hadn’t: “I’ve been to Mr. June’s bank. He has three thousand eight hundred dollars and twenty-four cents in his account. No big deposit in the last six months. The Happy Hours Day-Care Centre also has its account there. The manager wouldn’t tell me anything about it, but he let slip we weren’t the first to enquire about it. I got on to a friend in Children’s Services—”

  Malone nodded appreciatively. Friends were better than clues.

  “—Happy Hours isn’t so happy. It looks as if it may have to close—it’s up to its eyes in debt. It never recovered after the Federal government cut back on child-care subsidy—”

  “How much in debt? Did your friend know?”

  “She got back to me. Sixty thousand.”

  “Thank your friend. Send her a police tie.”

  “Just what she needs.”

  He grinned at her; his mood had suddenly improved. He looked at Clements. “Would someone pay sixty thousand to have the Premier knocked off?”

  “They’d want more than that, unless they did it for political idealism.”

  “Is there such a thing in this state? No, if August or June, whatever we call him, did the deed he asked for money. The only idealism would be that he might’ve done it to get his partner and the Happy Hours out of a hole. Has the task force got a tail on him?”

  “Yes,” said Gail. “But he knows it. Two of the guys watching him called in to Police Centre. Said he came across to them and said, ‘Don’t you know a watched pot never boils? I’ll let you know when and where I’m going, if I’m going, so’s you can’t lose me.’”

  “He’s too smart,” said Malone, all at once feeling more certain about August. “Why isn’t he blowing Christ out of us for harassing him? Upsetting his partner? He’s not angry enough for an innocent man. What’s the report from Ballistics?”

  Gail looked at the sheet in her hand; she always seemed to have everything to hand. “One bullet, a .308. The gun could have been a Winchester or a Tikka—there are half a dozen with the same rifling characteristics. There was no shell casing at the scene of the crime.”

  “Righto, try all the gun shops—see if anything like that has been bought in the past month. Unless he belonged to a gun club?”

  “I’ll check that, too,” said Gail Lee.

  “How did the search of his flat go?”

  “Andy Graham and Sheryl did that. No gun, nothing, not even a penknife.”

  Malone went on into his own office and rang Channel 15.

  “Channel 15. Darlene-Charlene speaking.”

  Nobody had surnames any more. He wouldn’t look forward to the day when Wombat Rose answered the phone. “Maureen Malone.”

  “Who shall I say is calling?”

  “Homicide.”

  “Putting you through.” As if Homicide called every day.

  Maureen came on the line. “That you, Dad? Sorry I had to blow past you like that this morning—”

  “Get over here. Now.”

  “I can’t, Dad. We’ve got a meeting on in half an hour—”

  “Now. Or I’ll send two uniformed cops to bring you in and I’ll let Channels 7, 9 and 10 know, and the ABC, if they’ve got a spare camera, and they can run it tonight and your bosses won’t like that—”

  “I can get our own guys to film it—”

  “Now! Don’t fartarse with me, Mo, I’m serious—”

  He hung up, surprised at the sudden anger that had welled up in him. He went out to Clements’ desk. “Maureen is on her way over here. I want you in my office when she comes in. I don’t want her to get the idea that this is a father-daughter discussion.”

  “What am I supposed to play? Uncle Russ?”

  “No, you’re the Supervisor, backing up the Boss. With capital letters.”

  Clements looked up at him, sat back in his chair: playing Uncle Russ. “Simmer down, mate.”

  Malone took a deep breath, tried to relax. “I know. I don’t want her to have anything to do with the case. But how can I tell her to get lost? All she’s doing is her job. But—”

  “Yeah. But. It was bound to happen sooner or later, coming up against her. The media are like taxes, a pain in the arse—but they’re always with us. You’re just unlucky your daughter has joined the enemy. Just keep saying your prayers that some day you don’t finish up in court with your other daughter defending some crim you’ve picked up.”

  “Why do I ask you to tell me my fortune?”

  When Maureen arrived Malone and Clements were waiting for her in Malone’s office. She had never been to Homicide before and those on the staff who had never met her studied her as if she were a candidate from the Most Wanted gallery. She was power-dressed, evidently ready for the camera. Bei
ge suit, black shirt with the collar spread out, hair styled, discreet ear-rings: and wearing ambition. Malone, looking at her through the window of his office, saw it full-on for the first time.

  She came in, flushed and angry, ready to jump hurdles or knock ‘em over. She’ll never be a loser, Malone thought, even when she’s lost.

  “My producer is bloody wound up about this—”

  “Sit down, Mo.” Malone was calm; his own anger had gone. “Sergeant Clements and I want to ask you a few questions—”

  “Sergeant Clements?” She turned a fierce eye on Clements. “Are you in on this, Uncle Russ? This is abuse of freedom of the press—”

  “Bullshit,” said Clements. Maureen’s head went back as if she had never heard the word before, certainly not from him. “Shut up, Mo, and listen to your father.”

  “Inspector Malone,” said her father.

  All at once the anger drained out of her; she flopped back in her chair and laughed. “You two should be on TV—I’ll let my producer know. Okay, Inspector Malone, waddia wanna know? Is that how crims talk?”

  Malone shook his head. “Stay behind the camera, Mo. You’re a bloody awful actress. Now let’s cut out the play-acting and get down to business. What were you doing at Sussex Street this morning? What was that fight with Clizbe all about?”

  “He didn’t tell you?”

  “I wouldn’t have wasted my time sending for you if he had. Come on, quit stalling.”

  She looked sideways at Clements, suddenly looking like her mother; Lisa had a trick of looking out of the corners of her eyes, a sceptic’s glance. Clements said, “It’s serious, Mo.”

  “Okay.” But she took her time. She fiddled with one of the ear-rings, then took it off and rolled it in her fingers like a gambler with a coin. Malone had seen the trick before and recognized it now for what it was, a time-waster. At last she said, “Jerry Balmoral is going for pre-selection in Mr. Vanderberg’s electorate. Against the wishes of Mrs. Vanderberg.”

  “She’s got no clout in the Party. She doesn’t hold any position.”