Dragons at the Party (16 page)

“Lee’s not taking any calls from us, not since we asked him if he’d take the Timoris.”

“The same with Suharto in Jakarta. He’ll be furious with Garuda when he hears they gave Paturi a free ticket.”

They sat in silence again for a while, pondering their isolation. The clamour outside subsided and there came the faint tinkle of temple bells on the warm breeze that blew in the open windows. The servants came forward with tea and cakes and the generals’ wives came in from their respective wings, floating in like large pigeons, six of them looking to see what the seventh was wearing. Madame Kerang, however, had not yet plundered Delvina Timori’s wardrobes.

“Let’s hope they kill the Timoris,” said General Kerang, astride the Equator. “Both of them.”

“
They?” said the wives. “Who?”

“Anyone,” said the generals and looked at each other, wondering who was paying Seville, the foreigner, to kill their ex-friend.

5

I

MALONE CAME
awake, his mind still soured by Sunday night’s failure. He had felt certain they would nab Seville along with Pinjarri. He did not claim to be an expert on the terrorist mind; that was for the psychologists, virtually all of whom had never met a terrorist at large. But he did know the criminal mind, the thinking that ran counter to society’s rules and morals, and he knew how desperate it could become when events turned against it. He had banked on Seville’s coming out into the open to meet Pinjarri, but Pinjarri, the unwitting Judas goat, had disappeared before the prey had been sighted. Or had he been sighted and let go?

When Malone had come back to the group of civilians, after going round the traps with Clements and finding nothing, he had noticed that the group had diminished. “Where are they?”

“I let ‘em go, Inspector,” said a suddenly dismayed Andy Graham. “They all looked in the clear. I couldn’t hold ‘em—there was one old duck who belted me, said she was gunna sue . . .”

“In future, Constable, ask me for instructions, okay?” But he knew he had been wrong in not giving instructions without being asked.

Then there was a shout from the far end of the waiting hall. The body of the young policeman had been found wedged between the abandoned car and the wall. When Malone and Clements reached the car and looked down at the blood-stained body, the pale-blue shirt a dark ruby from just below the breast-pocket down to his belt, Clements said, “Pinjarri? He’d carry a shiv.”

“Maybe. But so might Seville. The wogs carry knives, too.” He was tired, fed up: all his latent prejudices, his father’s, came out of him. He would be ashamed of it later, but for now it was said. “This is getting to be a massacre. Three murders.”

“
Christ,” said Clements, and chewed his lip, “there goes the holiday. We’re gunna be working on this for weeks.” He, too, was tired: he was unaware of his insensitivity till Andy Graham, the enthusiast, looked at him. “What’s the matter with you?”

“Jesus, Sarge, the man’s dead!”

“Don’t I bloody know it! Christ Almighty!”

“Right,” said Graham, suddenly sensitive to Clements’ tiredness.

“Calm down,” said Malone and led the two of them away from the body, leaving it to two of the dead man’s uniformed mates. When they were some distance from the car he said, “Seville was here, I’ll bet on it. Did he get the gun from Pinjarri or not?”

“The dead guy’s gun was gone,” said Clements.

Malone shook his head. “Seville’s not going to use a handpiece to kill Timori. I read that report on him from Interpol—Joe Nagler sent it across from Special Branch. Seville’s not going to sacrifice himself by getting close to Timori—he’s not that sort.”

“What sorta bastard is he?” Clements sounded bewildered as well as tired.

“I don’t know. Cold-blooded, I guess is one description. But I suppose that applies to most terrorists, the ones who plant bombs in cars and blow up women and kids. Seville has done that, but for the past two years he seems to have become a solo hit-man. He just specializes in political killings. He wouldn’t have anything to do with the Mafia or the Chinese triads, any of those mobs.”

“Maybe that’s why he’s lasted so long,” said Graham. “Because he works solo.”

“He
works
solo—but not for himself. Someone pays him. Maybe we’d do better looking for whoever is paying him for this job.” He looked back towards where the dead policeman was being laid out on a stretcher someone had brought from the station’s first aid room. Nobody had paid Seville to kill the young officer; that had been something Seville had paid for. Or would, Malone vowed. “Do a report on that young feller, Andy. Ask one of his mates to inform his next-of-kin, whoever it is.”

“Right,” said Graham and walked briskly away.

Malone winced and looked at Clements. “Right?”

“
No bloody fear,” said Clements. “Nothing’s right. Can we go home now?”

Now Malone had woken up beside his wife. He had lain staring at the ceiling for some minutes; when he turned his head he saw that she was awake and gazing at him. She said softly, “Why don’t you give up?”

“Give up?”

“Take a desk job. You take everything to heart so much.”

“I’m not taking this to heart. I don’t care a damn about the Timoris.”

“You care about that old woman and that young constable last night.”

He said nothing for a moment, then he nodded. “Why should those two die because of something that doesn’t concern them in the least? What have Timori and his generals got to do with them? I wonder how the politicians are feeling now? Does Phil Norval still want us to have hands off?”

“That’ll depend on what the papers say. He’s very touchy about editorials.”

“They won’t say much in this morning’s editions. What happened last night would have been too late for any editorials. The
Sun
and the
Mirror
will have a go this afternoon.”

She put her arm under his head and drew him to her. “It’s only seven o’clock. Forget about the afternoon papers.”

He could feel the soft warmth and comfort of her. As always when he held her close to him like this, his crotch told him he was home. He rolled over, felt her and knew she was ready for him without any lead-up. He slid between her legs.

Then someone landed on his back, almost giving him a rupture. “Who goes there? Fred or foe?”

With Tom still clinging to him, he rolled off Lisa while she burst into near-hysterical laughter. Then Claire and Maureen were bouncing on the foot of the bed and love, or any love-making, went limp beneath the sheets.

“We saw you on TV last night,” said Maureen, seven years old and a TV addict. Though Lisa forced books on her, she never read a line; but she could reel off commercial jingles and the characters in soap operas as if facing an invisible prompter. She was blonde and bouncy and Malone could only hope
that
her abundant energy would eventually drag her away from her TV addiction, though he doubted very much if she would settle down to a book, good or bad. Lisa had tried switching off their set, but then Maureen had just gone in next door, where the neighbours’ two kids were real TV junkies. “You looked quite good. Miranda thinks you’re better than Sonny Crockett.”

Miranda was the eight-year-old hophead next door. Malone looked at Lisa. “Who’s Sonny Crockett?”

“I think he’s in
Miami Lice
.”

“
Vice
!” yelled Maureen. “
Miami Vice
!”

“What’s Vice?” asked Tom, now sitting on his father’s chest.

“It’s all the bad things,” said Claire, the reader, the lover of books, “drugs, rape, porno movies—”

“Righto,” said her father, “get out to the kitchen and eat your cornflakes.” He thrashed a threatening hand and the children, squealing and laughing, tumbled off the bed and ran out of the room. He lay back beside Lisa. “For God’s sake—porno movies, rape . . . What sort of books do you let her read?”

“Mills and Boon.” Lisa got out of bed, slipped off her nightgown, stood nude. “Relax.”

Malone looked at her, admiring her and, as ever, marvelling at his luck. “How can I when you flaunt yourself like that?”

“I don’t mean your crotch. I mean, relax about Claire and the others. They’re all right. They’re all pretty sensible—for a policeman’s kids.”

“What d’you mean by that?”

But she just smiled and went into the bathroom. Women, he had learned, always liked the last word or gesture. Then Claire came to the bedroom door and threw the morning paper at him. He opened it and Madame Timori stared out at him. She had been photographed with a long-range lens entering the front door of Russell Hickbed’s mansion. Someone must have called to her, for she had turned her head and was staring straight at the camera, her mouth open in what he knew would have been an angry and caustic last word.

He
put the paper down and listened to the noise coming from the kitchen. The children were squabbling, but laughing at the same time: it was a sound he had come to love, but that he heard too seldom. In the bathroom Lisa was half-singing, half-humming under the shower. The number was “Moon River”: she could not have been more than a year older than Claire was now when she had first heard that. He listened to the small inconsequential sounds: they were like balm on the wounds he felt. He should take a desk job, give himself more time to listen to such music.

An hour later he was driving into town, through a morning that presaged another hot day. The
Herald
had told him there were bush-fires raging on the city’s outskirts; the residents out there and the volunteer firefighters would not be celebrating anything. Tonight’s fireworks might be a bitter joke.

He expected, he
hoped
, it would be a morning of paper-work and maybe some interviews in the office; he did not want to have to do any leg-work in the promised heat. He turned on the car radio, something he rarely did because he did not like being chattered at and preferred to drive in silence. Someone was chattering at him this morning, one of radio’s sages:

“I’d like to ask how many innocent Australian citizens, ordinary people like you and me—” an ordinary citizen on two hundred thousand a year at least, Malone thought “—how many of them are going to be killed because foreign politics have been brought into this country? The police, I’m sure, are doing their best—”

Malone switched off the radio. There would be more of the same during the rest of the day; the newspaper editorialists and the columnists would be sounding the same message; they had run out of things to say about the Bicentennial. Phil Norval was now treading on dangerous political ground; pretty soon even his admirers would be asking questions. Who was more important, a foreign ex-President seeking asylum or ordinary Australian voters wanting no more than a safe ordinary life? Foreigners could kill each other, that was acceptable: Australians had always been tolerant in that direction. But it was a different matter when the bullets started to stray, or the rope and the knife claimed the lives of the natives.

Clements and Graham were waiting for him at his desk in Homicide. Clements still looked tired, but Graham might have just come back refreshed from a month’s leave. “We’ve come up with
somethi
ng, Inspector! I’ve been going through the computer lists of everyone we’ve checked in the hotels—”

Malone hung up his jacket, loosened his tie and sat down. “What have you come up with?”

“A name—Gideon. Michel Gideon, a Swiss. He’s on the hotel list, in a pub out at Rozelle, the—” he checked his notebook “—the Coach and Horses. I’ve also got his name here in my book—he was in that group at Central last night, but he told me he was staying at the Central Plaza!”

Malone wished his own excitement could match that of Graham; but all he felt was a sense that they were already too late. “Who was he?”

“A blond guy in some sort of white jacket—he was standing next to that troll you questioned.”

Malone stood up, reached for his jacket. “Righto, let’s go out to Rozelle. You come with me, Russ. Get back-up, Andy, the same as last night.”

“SWOS men?”

“We’d better have them. Let’s go out the back way. There’s some reporters outside—let’s see if we can do this without any publicity. At least till it’s over.”

“I wouldn’t count on it,” said Clements. “Those bastards are like ferrets.”

Today was not a public holiday; but absenteeism was a form of patriotism. The crowds were already on their way into the city hoping for a preview of what they might miss tomorrow. Clements drove through the streets at a good pace and Malone, beside him, began to feel the excitement mounting in him. Maybe they would not be too late after all, maybe by tonight this whole mess would be over and done with, at least as far as he was concerned. There would still be the Timoris, but they were the politicians’ problem.

They turned off a main road into a side street. “Is this it?”

“The pub’s down the far end,” said Clements. “I raided it years ago when I was on the Gambling Squad. All the pubs around here ran SP.”

“Righto, pull up. We’ll walk from here. I don’t want to get too close before the back-up arrives.”

They got out of the car and walked down the street, past the narrow-fronted houses and the
occasional
cheaply-built block of flats. This was a working-class area, inhabited by the ordinary people who would resent intruders like the Timoris and Abdul’s would-be assassin. Many of the locals had been foreign-born, but they had chosen this life here and they did not want it disturbed or, even worse, violated by the sort of violence that many of them had left behind them.

This was the sort of street where none of the houses had a garage. Cars lined the kerbs on both sides; men in singlets and thongs were tinkering with engines or washing the cars. Children were playing in the street and some women stood at a gate gossiping. As Malone and Clements passed them, the women abruptly shut up, turned their heads and looked after them.

“Police,” said one of the women in a foreign accent and the others all nodded and looked worried as well as curious.