Bleak Spring (7 page)

When they stood beside their cars in the street outside, Clements said, “To begin with, Bezrow is Sydney's biggest bookie, weight-wise and betting-wise. But on-course punting isn't as big as it used to be—the TAB has taken a lot away from them, the crowds don't go to the races like they used to, so Bernie wouldn't rake in what he used to. But that doesn't mean he's on the breadline.”

“If he's so loaded, why would he use a small-time solicitor? Why wouldn't he use a big firm, the sort of lawyers who know all the tax lurks? Let's go and talk to him.”

Clements got into his Toyota and Malone walked along to his own car. He paused for a moment and looked across towards the Oval. Some cricketers were at one end of it, wearing baseball mitts and playing catch, testing their arms in preparation for the coming season. He had had a good arm in his day, able to put the ball right over the stumps from anywhere on the boundary; he felt the urge that all old players feel, to go over there and show the youngsters how good he had once been. But, of course, the arm wasn't there any more, not the way it used to be.

He got into the Commodore and drove up to see Bernie Bezrow, someone else for whom, it seemed, the good old days had gone.

2

I

TIFLIS HALL
was a Coogee landmark. It stood just below the crest of the ridge that was the southern rim of the valley that ran down from Randwick to the beach. It stood in about an acre of terraced gardens, a small mansion with two towers, topped by copper cupolas, like bookends holding up the wing of the house that faced the street. Balconies bulged in the upper storey, inviting fantasies of fairytale princesses imprisoned behind the grey stone walls and the barred windows. Four Chinese rain trees, bare but for a sprinkling of early spring green, stood beneath the balconies like the skeletons of lovers who had forgotten their ladders. A high iron-spiked fence surrounded the property and two white bull terriers roamed through the blaze of azaleas and marigolds like two red-eyed demons in the wrong fairy-tale illustration. Coogee, in its day, had had its share of eccentricities but most of them had been human. This house had outlasted them all, was well over a hundred years old.

Malone announced himself and Clements through the intercom beside the big front gate. A moment later there was a piercing whistle over a hidden sound system and at once the dogs came at full gallop out of the azaleas and went up and round the side of the house. Then the gate-release buzzed.

As they walked up the long flight of stone steps Malone said, “They don't build 'em like this any more.”

“Who'd want to?” said Clements, for once showing some aesthetic taste.

The front door, thick enough to have withstood a tank attack, was opened by a Filipino maid, who turned pale and looked ready to flee when the two tall men said they were Inspector Malone and Sergeant Clements. But Malone smiled and told her they were not from Immigration and she stepped back and gestured for them to enter. Then she led them into a big room off the wood-panelled hall.

Bernie
Bezrow looked like a half-acre of fashion-plate. He was no more than five nine, Malone guessed, but he weighed at least three hundred pounds. He wore a cream silk shirt, a caramel-coloured alpaca cardigan, beige trousers, yellow socks and brown loafers, polished till they looked as if they had been cut from glass. He was sixty years old, but looked at least ten years younger; his unblemished skin was stretched tightly across the good bones beneath it. His dark eyes, unlike many fat men's, were not trapped in rolls of fat; he had a well-shaped nose and a wide mouth in which the slightly turned-out lips sat one on the other like steps. Only his chins did not assert themselves; there the fat, firm as it was, had taken charge. The steps parted in a bookmaker's smile, the cousin of a politician's.

“A Sunday morning visit from the police?” He had a light voice, too light for his size; Malone had expected a bass. “Inspector Malone, I've heard of you. How is it we've never met?”

“I'm with Homicide.”

“Ah, that explains it.” Bezrow was quick; he would never be slow to calculate the odds. “I hope this hasn't something to do with a homicide?”

“I'm afraid it has.” Malone told him about the murder of Will Rockne. “I thought you might have heard about it on the morning news.”

“Inspector, I don't own a radio.” Malone raised an eyebrow and Bezrow smiled and went on: “I hate being chattered at. There is enough pollution in the air without all those voices. How was Mr. Rockne—
murdered
?”

“Gunshot, in the face.”

Bezrow shook his head just a little; none of the fat wobbled. “The world is becoming too violent. But why have you come to see me?”

“We understand you were a client of his.”

“No, no. Not a
client
. . . I see you are taking notes, Sergeant. Is this going to be held in evidence against me?” He smiled again. “Only kidding. But I shouldn't be, should I? This is serious.”

Malone nodded, unsure of how he felt towards the bookmaker, whether he liked or disliked him. “I'm afraid it is. If you weren't a client, what were you, Mr. Bezrow? We understand Mr. Rockne had
some
sort of dealings with you.”

Bezrow folded small, well-shaped hands across the slope of his belly. “Dealings? I am—was his landlord. And he would occasionally come to me for advice, that was all. But no dealings.”

“Advice on horses?” said Clements.

“No, no. I don't think he had the slightest interest in racing. No, I met him some years ago, he ran for alderman on the local council. We had a terrible lot in the town hall in those days—you may remember it, the newspapers had a field day. The council's motto was an honest day's work for an honest week's pay. They used to boast none of them was afraid of work—they'd go to sleep beside it every Monday to Friday. I organized the campaign to throw them out. Surprises you, eh? A bookmaker involved in local politics? Why not? Politics is just another question of the odds, everything's a gamble, isn't it?”

“Sergeant Clements doesn't think so.”

Bezrow winked at Clements. “I didn't mention it before, Sergeant, but I've heard of
you.
You are, or should I say were, on every bookmaker's poison-ivy list. We were always thankful you never betted hugely like some of those who shall be nameless.”

The room in which they sat was a combination drawing room and library. Two walls were stacked to the high ceiling with books, many of them leather-bound. Bezrow spoke in a slightly literary way, as if whatever time he spent in this room had its influence on him. It was not a room for betting sheets, form guides and computers.

“Back to Mr. Rockne?” Malone suggested.

“Oh yes. As I say, he ran for alderman. He didn't make it, but I was impressed by him.”

“In what way?”

“For one thing, he had a very analytical mind.”

Argumentative would have been Malone's judgement, not analytical. “So why did he keep coming to you for advice?”

Bezrow ran a hand over his head. He had dark wavy hair that lay flat on his flat-topped head; there were streaks of grey along his temples. His hand rested a moment on top of his head, like a child's
nervous
gesture, then he took it back to rejoin its mate on his lap. “Advice on local politics. Solicitors come up against local politics all the time. Is this conversation going to go on for long? Perhaps you'd like some coffee?”

Clements, who would have stopped for coffee in the middle of a hanging, nodded; but Malone said, “No, thanks. Are you telling us you are some sort of political boss?”

“No, no!” Bezrow held up a modest hand. “I'm
interested
in politics, not just at the local level, but all levels. People know that. Look at the books on those shelves, most of them political history or biographies, the good and the bad.”

Clements, denied coffee, got up and scanned the shelves. “He's right,” he told Malone. “There's a lot here on Russia, Mr. Bezrow. You're not a communist, are you?” The thought of a communist bookmaker amused him and he sat down laughing. “That'd be one for the books.”

Bezrow also laughed, a gurgling sound coming from within his huge frame. “I'm of Georgian descent. My great-grandfather came out here from Tbilisi in Georgia in eighteen-fifty-four—Tbilisi has sometimes been called Tiflis, hence the name of this house. Our name then was Bezroff, he was a count—though the joke used to be that anyone who owned three sheep in Georgia had a title of some sort. Could you imagine if I called myself Count Bezrow in the betting ring? The eastern suburbs ladies would be flocking back to the races. It was my great-grandfather who built the house. His son, my grandfather, became a horse breeder, thoroughbreds and remounts—he supplied a lot of the horses for the Australian Light Horse in World War One and for years he supplied horses to the Indian Army. My father took the interest in horses one step further—he became a trainer. He trained two Melbourne Cup winners. The next step—downwards, I suppose some might call it—was for me to have been a jockey. But you see—” The hands spread like upturned starfish on the beach of his stomach and thighs. “Bookies are not numskulls, Sergeant. Some of us know there is another world outside the racing game.”

For a moment the affability had disappeared; there was sharp venom in the light voice. Clements showed no sign of resentment at being ticked off; but Malone, who had been reading his partner's signs for a decade or more, recognized what lay behind the blank stare on the big man's face. He
took
up the action again himself: “Did he ever come to you for financial advice?”

Bezrow quickly regained his good humour. “What makes you think bookmakers are financial experts? That's a myth, Inspector. There are as many bankrupt bookies as there are in any other business, especially in these times.”

Malone grinned. “I don't think you'd find too many punters who'd believe that.” Then he bowled a bumper, straight at the wavy-haired head. “Did he ever ask you about a bank called Shahriver Credit International?”

The dark eyes clouded for just a moment. “Shahriver? No.”

“We guess it's a merchant bank. Neither Sergeant Clements nor I have ever heard of it, but then we keep our money under the mattress. Banks don't have a very good reputation these days. Shahriver has branches in places like Kuwait and Beirut.”

“An Arab bank?”

“We don't know. We'll check on it tomorrow. But we thought Mr. Rockne might've mentioned it to you, especially since you say he came to you for financial advice—”

“I didn't say that, Inspector. You said it.” The smile was not quite a smirk.

“So I did. Well, anyway, he had a sizeable deposit with Shahriver. We don't think he would have put it there without advice from someone.”

“How much?”

Malone's smile was also almost a smirk. “Mr. Bezrow, do you tell the other bookies how much you have in your bag?”

Bezrow's smile widened. “Of course not. Sorry. I'm just surprised Mr. Rockne would have bothered with such an obscure bank.”

“I'm surprised you're surprised,” said Malone and bowled another bumper, two in an over, the allowable limit in cricket these days; but this wasn't cricket: “You didn't show any surprise when we told you Mr. Rockne had been murdered.”

Bezrow said nothing. He shifted slightly in the wide chair, a small couch, on which he sat; the
springs
beneath the green velvet upholstery sighed metallically. The hands were very still on his thighs; the fat of his face seemed to have turned to stone, or anyway hard putty. Then he said very quietly, “Nobody's death surprises me, Inspector. I'm a fatalist.”

“Is that the Russian in you?”

“It could be, except that no Georgian would ever call himself a Russian. Not these days, nor in my great-grandfather's day.”

“Stalin was a Georgian, wasn't he?” said Clements, not highly educated but a barrel of inconsequential data.

Bezrow ignored that and Malone said, “Did Will Rockne ever mention to you that he'd received a death threat?”

“Never. Why should he? We were not confidential friends, Inspector.”

“Did you ever have any falling-out with him?”

Bezrow's gaze was steady. “No. If you are implying did I threaten him . . .”

“No, Mr. Bezrow. Have you yourself ever received any threats?”

“Death threats? Yes, three or four times.”

“Did you report them to the police?”

“What would be the point? They were phone threats, I had no idea who they were.”

“Dissatisfied punters?” suggested Clements.

“You would understand their frame of mind better than I would, Sergeant. I've never been a punter, not on horses, just in politics.”

“Did you arrange for any protection?” said Malone. “A bodyguard?”

Bezrow shook his head, “I told you, Inspector, I'm a fatalist. You really are trying to connect me in some way with Mr. Rockne's death.”

Malone stood up. “No, Mr. Bezrow. But nothing any of us ever does is unconnected to anyone else. I read that somewhere. I'm working on the meaning of it.”

Clements rose, too, but Bezrow remained seated, as if the mere act of getting to his feet was
something
he avoided as much as possible. “Never send to know for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee . . . I don't think Mr. Rockne's bell is going to toll for me, Inspector.”

Malone could think of no literary answer, settled instead for, “We'll be in touch, Mr. Bezrow.”

“Just a moment till I call off the dogs.” He picked up a small microphone from the table beside him, put two fingers in his mouth and uttered an earsplitting whistle. A few moments, then Malone heard the two dogs, barking excitedly, go round the side of the house. “You have about two minutes before they'll be out front again.”