Murder Song (20 page)

“Is that your boat down there? Do you ever go out in it?”

“Every chance I get,” said Waldorf. “That's my main relaxation.”

Clements turned back to face him. “Leave it alone for a while. This guy could pick you off easily while you're out there on the water.”

Waldorf looked at the glass of beer in his hand, which he had hardly touched. Then he set it down on the marble-topped coffee table in front of him, put his hands lightly on the table and looked at them. “I'm shivering all of a sudden. Did the others do that when you warned them? Did you, Scobie?”

“Yes.”

“I'm not used to playing hero—most baritones have to play villains.”

“That's the last thing we want, you playing hero. Leave that to Russ.”

“Thanks,” said Russ.

“We can't afford to give you around-the-clock protection—What do we call you? Sebastian, Seb, Sam?”

“What do you call Horrie O'Brien?”

“Brian. Sometimes when I'm feeling Irish, I call him Brian Boru.” He could see that Waldorf, or Sam Culp, was just talking while he tried to glue the pieces of himself together again. Talk often held a person together more than the person himself realized. “Will Seb do?”

“
My wife always called me Sebastian.” He spoke in the past tense, as if reconciliation was out of the question and he had said goodbye to her. “She never liked the Aussie habit of cutting names down.”

“Righto, Sebastian it is, but I dunno how long it'll last. It's a mouthful.”

“So's Brian Boru.”

“I think you'd better pack a bag and we'll take you back to town with us. He doesn't know it, but you're going to move in with Brian Boru and me for a night or two till we can get something arranged for you. He has a suite at the Congress. You'll have to sleep with a cop, me, but there are twin beds.”

“I once slept with a tenor, a lyric tenor—a cop'll be no worse. I have to sing tomorrow night, you know. I'm Papageno, the bird-catcher in
The Magic Flute.”

“Can't you get out of it?”

Waldorf shook his head. “We're short on singers. This bloody „flu that's going around has flattened two of the other baritones. I'm not being heroic—I'd be more than happy to bow out. I'd leave for Germany tomorrow, if I could. But I can't.”

“The show must go on?” Clements' tone was faintly sarcastic, he still hadn't warmed to the opera singer. I'll have to have a word with you, Russ, Malone told him silently.

“You think that's all bullshit? Show business is no different from any other business, Russ. You keep it going if you possibly can. You don't cancel performances and throw the money back at those who've bought tickets, not if you can help it. I'll go on tomorrow night, but not because I think I'm starring in some old Hollywood movie with Mario Lanza.”

Then the phone rang, just as it did in old Hollywood movies. It was picked up elsewhere in the house; Miss Vigil evidently had answering privileges. Waldorf half-turned towards a phone on a buffet against one wall, then changed his mind and turned back to Malone and Clements.

“That's probably the company's assistant manager—there's a quick run-through tomorrow morning.”

“I'll get O'Brien to have one of his security men go to the Opera House with you.”

“You think that'll be necessary? Blizzard won't try his luck there, he's not going to be the
phantom
of the opera.” Waldorf seemed to be regaining some of his flair; or he was as good an actor as he was a singer, something Malone had read was not usual with opera singers.

“How will it affect your singing?” There was no sarcasm in Clements' voice this time, more just a tinge of reluctant admiration.

“There's a duet in the last act where I sing my name with the soprano. We have to stammer. I sing the first syllable of Papageno forty-eight times before I get my name out. I'll be perfect tomorrow night!”

Then Miss Vigil came to the door, her attractive looks pinched with puzzlement. “I'm sorry to interrupt, Mr. Waldorf, but that was some chap who said to give you a message right away before Inspector Malone left.”

“What message?” said Malone.

“It was a man, he didn't give his name. He just said to sing this—” She looked at the three men, smiled in embarrassment, then began to sing in a soft voice a song Sebastian Waldorf would never have taught her: “
Three green bottles standing on the wall
/
And if one green bottle should accidentally fall
/
There'd be two green bottles
. . .”

7

I

HANS VANDERBERG
was a male chauvinist right down to his toe-nails, which his wife cut for him. He was proud to be up there with the likes of St. Paul, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John and at least a hundred popes, archbishops and ayatollahs; but don't tell the religious voters. He admired the good sense of Henry VIII, of Napoleon, Stalin, Mussolini and Churchill and at least nine out of every ten American presidents. Given his way he would have had no women ministers in his State Cabinet; but things did not work that way in the Labour Party. Caucus nominated its choices and he had to shuffle the roosters and hens as best he could. Like all leaders of all political persuasions he would have preferred to run the whole show himself, convinced he could do it better. Democracy had more drawbacks than were admitted by the faithful, most of whom, of course, aspired to some day be the leader.

One of the hens, who could hold her own in any cockpit with any of the roosters, who aspired to sit here in his own chair some day, now sat across from him. Penelope Debbs was ready for battle this morning.

“It's a beat-up by the press, you know that, Hans.”

“No, it ain't, love. You forget I'm also the Police Minister—I get to hear things you people never do.”

“You should tell us all you know in Cabinet. That's what Cabinet meetings are for.”

“And scare the daylights outa half of you?” His grin had all the malevolence of an old vulture trying to be human. “Come off it, Penny—” He was the only man who ever got away with calling her that. She had remonstrated with him several times, but he had been stone deaf, a political handicap he could call up at will. “You and hubby down there in Canberra, you held out your hands and Mr. O'Brien
dumped
some shares in them. How many?”

“I've told you, Hans, we have no shares.”

“I didn't say you have them now. I said you
had
them. Past tense.”

She arranged the skirt of her green Zampatti suit, patted the bow of her white silk shirt. The Dutchman, a sartorial wreck, the despair of the party's image makers, watched with dry amusement this playing for time. His own playing for time, when needed, was accomplished with no more than a vulture's or an eagle's stare. He looked like an old bald bird and the avian description never worried him. He had soared above all his rivals and critics and unloaded on them from a great height.

“It was over three years ago, when you first made me Minister for Development. I thought I was doing something worthwhile for the States.” She sounded pious, fingering her pearls as if they were rosary beads.

“Giving mineral rights to a shelf company, one that had never even dug a hole in a garden? Bull, Penny.” He was a vulgar old man, but he never swore in front of a woman. His wife Gertrude, if she had heard that he had committed such a social sin, would have chopped him down as no party faction ever could. “That company was a front for laundered money—that's what the NCSC is enquiring into now. They can't prosecute on that score, but they'll pass it on to me and then I've got to do something about it.”

“I knew nothing about the laundering of money!” Her hand jerked at her pearls.

“Did Arnold?”

“No!”

“All right, Penny, don't jump outa your girdle.” But his tone wasn't soothing; he wasn't letting up: “How many shares did you get?”

She let go the pearls, fiddled with the bow of her shirt again. “Fifty thousand. Twenty-five thousand each.”

“How much did they cost you?”

“Ten cents a share. I don't know what the fuss is all about, Hans. It was all so long ago.”

“
It's a long lane that's always turning.” His aphorisms were famous; no one wasted time trying to work them out. They made Zen riddles simple and explicit by comparison. But, though he never read philosophy, he knew, better than any philosopher, that the sound of one hand clapping was the death-knell of any politician. The voters were going the other way, the wind behind them. “There's always a journo who meets someone who knew someone who knew something. That's why I've never taken anything, Penny, not a penny, and that's why I've lasted so long. What happened to the shares?”

“O'Brien bought them back from us six months ago.”

“How much?”

“Fifty cents a share.”

“So you made four hundred per cent profit? That's not bad.” Then he grinned again, swung his chair round and looked out the window. They were in his office on the eighth floor of the government office block; the window afforded him one of the best views in Sydney. The harbour stretched away to the east; immediately below him was the green sweep of the Botanical Gardens. Few politicians in the world had a view like this. But he was not a man for views, unless they were political. The vista before him did not appeal: he was looking out towards electorates where the voters always returned Opposition members. The Opposition leader, he knew, was just waiting for the scandal to break open. He swung back to Penelope Debbs. “But that's nowhere near as much as you'd have made if you'd hung on to the shares, eh? They've gone as high as seventeen dollars. O'Brien did the dirty on you.”

“Arnold and I were satisfied,” she said, trying to look truthful.

“No, you weren't, Penny. None of you ever expected anything to turn up on those mining leases. When they hit that gold reef, you must've all got a hernia.”

“You can be quite crude at time, Hans.”

“You wouldn't be the first who's told me that. Don't tell me you didn't feel quite crude when you heard the news of the strike. O'Brien diddled the lotta you, buying back all those shares a month before the company announced the strike. You two weren't the only ones, I'm told. He knew the same day as the strike was made and he rushed out there and paid off all the crew to keep their mouths shut.”

“
How do you know all this?” She and Arnold knew and so, she guessed, did all the other dupes.

“I
know.
Now he's sitting on a fortune and it's not gunna do him a bloody bit of good. If the NCSC don't get him, someone else is gunna do it. They're gunna shoot him, they tried to do it last night. It wasn't you and Arnold, was it?”

She had been accused of many things, but never of murder. She was shocked he should think her capable of it; and frightened, too. It made her wonder how far his own ruthlessness would go. “Good God, no!”

It was impossible to tell whether his stare was disbelieving or not. “I think it would be a good idea, love, if you resigned. Get sick or something.”

“Why should I?”

“It's an ill wind that gives everyone pneumonia.”

She lost her temper. “Oh, for Christ's sake, Hans, stop all that wise man's crap! If I resign now it'll look suspicious, as if you want to get rid of me before this thing gets too hot—”

“You put your dainty digit right on it, love.”

“But nothing may come of it! There's nothing to link us with what the NCSC is enquiring into—the laundering of money, the insider trading—”

“I wouldn't lay money on it if I were you. No, get sick, Penny. Resign for health reasons. Get that thing RSI, everyone else does.”

“Repetitive strain injury?”

“From shaking too many voters' hands. Or think up something else, anything to do with your health. You don't look too healthy right now.” Again the malevolent grin; for a moment she did feel like actual murder. “Have the letter on my desk here in half an hour. We'll announce it for the afternoon press and radio. Don't give any TV interviews. The TV cameras can always tell when you're lying.”

She stood up. “I'm surprised they've never found you out.”

“I always tell the truth, love. A little bent sometimes, but the mugs out there looking at the news think it's just been a technical hitch. Half an hour, Penny. Make it short. You're supposed to be too
sick
to write a long letter.”

“What about Arnold? Are you gunning for him, too?”

“He's not my problem.” The Dutchman never concerned himself with the Federal Labour Party. Sydney and Canberra, he always said, were as far apart in their interests as Washington and London. He was neither a patriot nor an egotist: he had no ambition to be Prime Minister. He ran New South Wales as old American political bosses had run their domains; his idols were not Keir Hardie and John Curtin, but Huey Long and Ed Crump. He was more honest than Crump had been and he despised the out-and-out crooks such as Frank Hague and Jim Curley, but he ran his parish with all the flint-hearted efficiency of those bosses. Power was his sustenance and at State level was where one found it. “I'll be talking to Canberra in a coupla minutes, they can make up their own mind what they're gunna do with Arnold.”

“He might kill you,” she said recklessly, knowing Arnold's own reckless temper.

“He'll have to find someone to do it,” said Hans Vanderberg, off whom threats bounced like soft rubber balls. “Someone more efficient than last night's hitman.”

II

O'Brien and Waldorf at first did not hit it off together. There were differences in the basic make-up of the two men that prompted a mutual suspicion, more on O'Brien's part than on Waldorf's. The former was serious, especially more so now: to have one's life under threat, to have one's career and empire falling apart, to be in love with a woman and know their affair had no future: such despair did nothing to lighten the mood of a man who had always been serious about anything he attempted. Waldorf, on the other hand, was apparently all frivolity: though afraid, he played to the threat against his life as if it were another operatic exaggeration; he would have his hand between the soprano's legs while she stroked him with a dagger. Malone knew within five minutes of bringing Waldorf to the Congress that he had made a mistake. But it would have been a bigger mistake to have left him alone to take care of himself.