Five-Ring Circus (4 page)

“It used to be like that talking to you, Jack,” said Malone, and the old man gave him a Chinese smile. “How much have you got in this venture?”

Aldwych sipped his coffee, nibbled on a Monte Carlo biscuit; then: “A hundred and twenty million.”

The two detectives looked at each other and Clements shook his head in wonder. Then Malone, who thought a two-hundred-dollar suit was an investment, said, “That's a lot of money, Jack. You're as solvent as that?”

“You're not being very polite,” said Aldwych with a grin. “Yeah, we've got it . . . Scobie, d'you know what Olympic Tower is gunna be? It'll be almost a small city on its own. A five-star hotel, offices, shops, restaurants—the lot. It's gotta be up and running eighteen months before the Olympics. The main part of the hotel is already booked—the International Olympic Committee, the IOC you're always hearing about, they've booked it for all their top delegates. The rest of the hotel, we're aiming for top-of-the-market bookings, no package deals, no prizewinners from
Wheel of Fortune
or
The Price is Right.
The cream, that's what we're after and what we're gunna get. The IOC booking guarantees that.”

“All this time ahead, the project nowhere near finished,” said Clements, “how did you manage to collar the IOC booking?”

“
Strings, Russ, strings. I wouldn't of gone into this deal unless I knew there were strings to pull. There are more strings in this town, Russ, than there are in a trawler net. All you have to do is find out which ones to pull.”

“And you knew?” said Malone; then held up a hand. “Don't tell me. All we'll want to know is if strings were pulled in these three murders . . . Don't be offended, Jack—but would you bump somebody off to protect your investment?”

“Scobie, I'm not offended, just surprised you asked. Of course I would.”

Malone looked at Clements and the two of them smiled. “He's on his own, isn't he?” said Clements. “They don't make ‘em like him any more.”

“Of course they don't,” said Aldwych, joining in the humour.

The three of them were silent a while in contemplation of his uniqueness.

Then Malone said, “Jack, what about the Triads? I mean, you're in this with all Chinese partners—”

This time the smile was that of a kindly uncle towards a not-very-bright nephew. “Scobie, all the time I was in the game I never met a Chink said he was in a Triad. But then—” the smile widened—“I never met a Dago said he belonged to the Mafia or the Camorra or what's this new one, the Ndrangheta?” He used the terms Chink and Dago without embarrassment or apology, the back of his big tough hand to political correctness. “But that ain't to say all of ‘em don't exist.”

“Let's stick with the Triads. Would they be in this?”

Aldwych shook his head. “They've been here for years, they were going when I was in the game. The Sun Yee Ho, 14K, Wo Hop, Wo Yee Tong—” He knew the names like a racecourse punter might know the names of champion racehorses. “They were and still are the biggest importers of heroin into this country. I never had anything to do with them, because I never had anything to do with drugs.” For a moment he succeeded in looking pious, even though it was a mask. “Back in the eighties some heroin syndicates were run by local mugs, blokes like Neddy Smith and a lot of small-time no-hopers. Then some of ‘em got greedy and they started killing each other off. Then the Lebanese and the Vietnamese moved
in
—but you know all this.”

“Go on,” said Malone. “We're talking about the Triads.”

Like all retired men, criminals can't help reciting history: memories are as sweet as an acquittal. “Then there were the Dagoes and the Roumanians and the Colombians and the Russians and now the yakuza are here. This is virgin territory for a lot of ‘em—they couldn't believe we were so ripe. But then they had their donnybrooks, started killing each other. But all the time that's been going on, the Triads have just sat back and played wily buggers. Any problem came up, they sat down and talked it out. They're in the game for money, not war.”

“So you think we can wipe them from tonight's killings?”

“Forget them. If they'd wanted to muscle in on Olympic Tower, they'd of talked to Les Chung and he'd of talked to us.”

“And what would you have done?”

Again the smile, not pious this time. “Told ‘em to get stuffed.”

“Would they take any notice of you?”

“I dunno. They're a ruthless lotta bastards, but they're sensible. I think they'd of listened to me.”

“Okay,” said Clements, “have there been any threats from any other direction?”

“Meaning who?”

“Come on, Jack,” said Malone, “don't play the Great Wall of China with us.”

Aldwych grinned. “Okay. No, there's been no death threats, none that I know of. Maybe on the site, union stuff, but none against me or Jack Junior. You sure the hitman was Chinese?”

“Well—no. He was wearing a stocking mask.”

“Everyone looks Chinese in one of those.”

“I guess so. Did you wear one when you were holding up banks?”

“They weren't fashionable in my day. The wife found one of them, a stocking, in my pocket, and she'd of cut my balls off. Even though she was a lady. More coffee?” He poured three more cups.
“
Look, I dunno everything there is to know about our Chinese partners, the ones from Shanghai. Jack Junior did all the due diligence on them and he's pretty thorough. But we discovered pretty early in the piece we were dealing with another culture.” Since his retirement he had not sat around reading only old newspaper clippings of his misdeeds; he was halfway into a belated education. “These blokes are hard-headed about money, for instance. But superstitious—Christ, I wanna laugh at ‘em sometimes, only I'm too polite. They have this thing feng shui—they won't shit unless the dunny is pointed in the right direction. They caused headaches for the architects. Even the starting date had to be—what's the word?”

“Propitious?” said Malone.

“That's it. We hung around for three days till the fucking wind or the stars or the sun were in the right place.”

“What about Les Chung and his partners in Lotus? Mr. Feng and Mr. Sun. Any superstition there?”

“They've been in Australia as long as Les—they were both born here. They knew better than to bugger me about with superstition.”

“What were they like?”

Aldwych shrugged. “Les vouched for them. They seemed straight enough. If they were any sort of problem, they were his problem, his partners.”

“What about the unions? The original project had a lot of trouble with them, just as they did on World Square.”

Aldwych nodded his head ruefully. World Square had been another vast hole in the ground for a number of years, but it, too, had been saved and the project was now close to completion. “Them days are gone—I hope. There's a union election coming up, but we aren't expecting any trouble from that. I had Blackie go down and talk to some of the organizers.”

“Carrying his iron bar?” said Clements.

“I don't think so. He just took a coupla heavies with him. He says he's like me, the old days are over.”

“
Who invited the Shanghai people into the consortium?”

“Les. There's plenty of Asians putting money into property here—Indonesians, Malaysians, Chinese from Hong Kong—the Chinks who got outa Hong Kong before it was taken back. I dunno when Les first got in touch with the Shanghai lot, but he's, you know, still
Chinese.
Mainland Chinese. It's in their blood, I guess.”

Malone stood up. “Righto, I guess that's all for now. How do you get on with your neighbours, Jack?”

Aldwych gave him a quizzical look. “You think they wish I wasn't here? I don't think so, Scobie. One of ‘em told me, since I been living here there's never any trouble in the neighbourhood. No break- ins, no domestics, no car-stealing. Even the hoons from down on the beaches never come up here.” He smiled, a guardian angel. “I think I've got ‘em all scared. Another thing—you notice I got practically a whole block to myself, surrounded on three sides by streets? Nobody hanging over the side fences stickybeaking.”

“What's on the fourth side?”

“At the back there's a retirement home for old nuns. Blackie goes over every coupla weeks, mows their lawns for ‘em. Every afternoon they go for a walk, see me sitting out on the verandah, they wave their beads and tell me they're praying for me. They're a harmless lotta old ducks, God bless ‘em—I don't like to tell ‘em they're wasting their prayers.” He smiled again, a pope this time.

“Will you go and live in Olympic Tower when it's built?” asked Clements.

“Shirl would come back and haunt me if I ever moved outa here. She made this my retreat, she used to call it.”

He looked around the big high-ceilinged room. It was furnished to his dead wife's taste. Laura Ashley prints, a floral carpet, Dresdenware on the mantelpiece,
nice
landscape paintings on the walls: no arid Outback stuff, no Whiteleys with sexual trees. It had surprised Aldwych that, after his wife had died, he had found, hidden away in a wardrobe, novels by Judith Krantz, Erica Jong. He wondered how he had let her down in their love life. His marriage had been the one honourable thing in his life and maybe he
had
honoured her too much.

“No, I'll die here.”

He escorted them to the front door, pushed open the screen door. “Blackie put this on yesterday. The summer flies are starting to buzz.”

Malone turned as the screen door closed. “Jack, what would you do if these killers came after you?”

The hall light was behind him; he looked big and menacing behind the wire screen. “I'd come outa retirement.”

IV

When Malone got home Lisa was in bed but still awake. “How'd it go?”

“Dead ends, so far.”

“That's what you like. You look disappointed when it's an open-and-shut case.”

He was folding his trousers and putting them on a hanger as she, with her Dutch neatness, had taught him. “You're kidding.”

“Maybe. But sometimes . . .” Her hair was pulled up under a net, her face creamed. A woman lost half her looks with her preparations to stay beautiful. But he would never say that, not with three women in the family. “Darling, let someone else handle this one. Russ.”

He slid into bed beside her, naked; he gave up pyjamas the middle of spring the way some people put on tweeds the beginning of autumn. “I can't give it up. I was
there—”

“So were we.” She sat up against the pillows. “I saw it happen. I looked down towards the back of the restaurant when Mr. Chung looked down there—I saw the expression on his face, he was scared stiff. I didn't see the men in the booth, the ones who died, but I saw the man fire his gun—” If she shuddered, it was inwardly; she always seemed to be in control of her emotions. “I was just glad that Tom and the girls didn't see any of it.”

“How are they?”

“
Quiet. They said practically nothing all the way home, you'd have thought we were on the way to a funeral. Or driving away from one . . . Maureen drove. You know what she's like, talks all the time at the wheel. Not a word tonight.”

“You want me to discuss it with them in the morning?”

“No, not unless they bring it up.” She turned her head. “Be careful, darling.”

“Nobody's going to come after me. For Crissake, darl—” He put a hand on her thigh under the sheet, pressed it. “I've got to handle it, but I'm going to be perfectly safe.”

She kissed him. “Like you say to everyone, take care.”

He turned out the bedside lamp, put his arms round her, licked his lips. “What's that? Ella Baché?”

“Who else? She's been coming to bed with us ever since I started to lose my looks.”

“Tell her she needn't have bothered.”

He put his leg between hers, the love-lock.

2

I

SATURDAY WAS
not normally a work day at Homicide, though there were always detectives on call and usually one or two came into the office to catch up on paperwork. Expecting the office to be practically deserted this morning Malone had chosen to call in a probationary detective and sack him.

“I'm giving you a week's notice, Harold—”

Harold Boston was in his middle-thirties, a senior constable, had been in uniform fifteen years and three months in plainclothes. He was already two weeks behind on his paperwork. He worked at the frenetic pace of a hospital cleaner and could stretch Monday into Wednesday without effort. Worst of all, he had neglected paperwork on a particular homicide and the Director of Public Prosecutions had sent a blast to Malone.

“I'm recommending you for Police Archives, Harold. There'll be no pay disadvantage and you can work at your own pace. History was never meant to catch up with the present—”

“With respect, you're being pretty bloody sarcastic—”

“I mean to be, Harold. You've got me a blast from the DPP like I've never had before—I'm proud of this unit. Here in Homicide we rarely catch a murderer red-handed, but we do like to get him before he dies of old age and leaves a confession in his will—”

Boston rose. He was of medium height and bony, with a square-jawed face, calculating eyes and slanting eyebrows that gave him a malevolent look. He looked particularly malevolent at the moment. “I won't forget this—”

“Don't,” said Malone. “You had the opportunity here and you buggered it. Learn a lesson, Harold.”

Clements
came into the big outer office as Boston went out to it. The two men looked at each other, but said nothing; it was Clements, as Supervisor, who had had to assess Boston's work and finally turned thumbs down on it. Clements put some papers on his own desk, then came into Malone's small office, slumped down in his usual position on the couch beneath the window. He was dressed in a blue skivvy, slacks and a double-breasted navy blazer with gold buttons; anyone else might have looked like an elegant yachtsman, but somehow he gave the impression that he had been hauled out of the drink and allowed to dry in the sun. Neither he nor Malone would have got nods of approval from Armani or Zegna.