Five-Ring Circus (19 page)

“Till Friday night,” said Malone. “They were gone Saturday morning.”

The phone on the desk rang and Darren picked it up. He frowned, then said, “Tell her to come back later.”

Malone was on his feet ready to leave. Something in Darren's face made him pause; the young Chinese this time was not inscrutable or had not practised enough. “Madame Tzu?” Malone said.

Darren frowned again. “No.”

Malone turned swiftly, crossed to the door that led to the outer office and opened it. “Miss Feng?”

Camilla Feng turned back from the main doors. “Inspector Malone! Why, what a nice surprise.”

I'll bet.
“Care to come in and join us? Better than coming back later, as Mr. Sun advised.”

She went past him into the corner office. She was dressed in a black suit with a single strand of pearls and matching ear-rings; she wore black crocodile shoes and carried a matching bag. She looked most elegant, but if animal welfare activists had fired on her Malone was sure she would have fired back.

Both Sun brothers came forward to kiss her on the cheek; it was obvious all three were old friends. Then she turned to the two detectives and did her best to look on them as friends. She certainly looked more at ease than the Suns.

“Were you expecting me?” she asked.

“No,” said Malone. “To be honest, you weren't on my mind at all—someone else was. But now you're here . . .” He recounted the conversation he and Gail Lee had had with the Sun brothers. “Did you know all this?”

The
hesitation was almost imperceptible; but Malone caught it. “Yes.”

“Why didn't you tell us when we came to see you at your home?”

“I didn't know it then.”

If she was lying, it was difficult to tell. Malone sighed, an act he was good at. “Seems that everyone around here arrived at a lot of information pretty late in the piece. Wouldn't you say so, Constable Lee?”

Gail nodded; she hadn't yet learned the change-the-bowler act that Malone had developed with Clements. But she wasn't entirely clueless: “Exactly why are you here, Miss Feng?”

“Ms. Feng,” Camilla corrected her; it was the first time Malone had heard one woman correct another on the title. “For the moment I am running my father's company. And he was in partnership with Darren and Troy's father on a number of other things besides Olympic Tower.”

“Good,” said Malone, deciding for the moment to leave out what the number of other things might be. “We're starting to get some focus here. So what are you planning to do? The three of you?”

The three of them looked at each other; then Darren said, “Continue with Olympic Tower.”

“What are you going to do about the shortage of capital?” said Gail.

Good on you, thought Malone. A Chinese woman counting the money.

Camilla turned to the Sun brothers. “Haven't you told them?”

“Not yet,” said Darren, anything but inscrutable this time.

“Told us what?” said Malone.

The brothers were distinctly uncomfortable; then Troy said, “We are trying to negotiate something with General Wang-Te.”

“And who the hell is General Wang-Te?” Malone's patience was now paper thin. Even Gail Lee looked exasperated.

The three Chinese were silent a moment; then Camilla, the most composed, said, “He arrived yesterday from Shanghai. He is the financial comptroller of the Southern Command army. He is here to try and have the money in those frozen bank accounts returned to China.”

“
And you think he might be seduced into putting the money into Olympic Tower?”

Camilla smiled, still more at ease than the Sun brothers. “Seduced is hardly the word, Inspector—I wouldn't go that far.”

Malone returned her smile, keeping her in good humour. “Not for fifty-one million?”

“If it was for myself . . .” She gave her smile this time to the Sun brothers, who both looked even more uncomfortable. “No, Inspector, we are trying to talk to General Wang purely on commercial terms.”

“Does the Chinese army go in for commercial deals?” asked Gail.

“That's what we are hoping to find out.”

“Where is General Wang now?”

“Staying with Madame Tzu.”

II

“Gail, you stay here with these gentlemen, see they don't make any phone calls to Madame Tzu or General Wang.”

Darren was highly offended. “Don't you trust us?”

“Absolutely,” said Malone. “It's just that we cops are so damned suspicious. May I use your phone?”

“Have we any choice?”

“No, but we always like to ask.” He picked up the phone, dialled Homicide. “Russ? Meet me down at the Vanderbilt, wait for me in the lobby.”

“When?” said Clements. “I'm up to my navel in paperwork—”

“Now.”
He hung up. “Do you have a car, Ms. Feng?”

“It's down in the garage. Are you going to borrow it?”

“No, I'm asking you to drive me in to see Madame Tzu and General Wang.”

“As Darren asked, do I have any choice?”

Malone
grinned. “Of course you do. But you wouldn't like to be suspected of complicity in theft, fifty-one million dollars, would you? That money General Wang is trying to retrieve was stolen, wasn't it?”

“Put like that—”

“There's no other way to put it.” He turned to Gail: “Think up some more questions for the gentlemen, Gail.” He looked back at the brothers: “Who knows who Mr. Shan really was?”

“Only us and Camilla,” said Darren. “And of course our fathers knew.”

“And Madame Tzu. Keep it that way. Anyone comes to talk to you. General Huang is still Mr. Shan.”

Going down in the lift Camilla said, “Are you any closer to finding out who murdered my father?”

“A little closer,” was all Malone would tell her.

Then two girls got into the lift, discussing some male yahoo who made Bruce Willis look like Prince Charming, and Camilla and Malone rode the rest of the way in silence. When they got out in the garage she led him to a blue Mercedes.

“I thought you'd be a BMW girl.”

She slid in behind the wheel. “This was my father's car. I do have a BMW, but not for business. This is a fringe benefit.”

She drove out of the garage, handling the heavy car expertly, found her way on to the approach to the Bridge. “Do you have the toll?”

He glanced sideways at her. “You mean a car like this doesn't have a piggy-bank?”

“It does, but I'm not here by choice. Two dollars, please.”

He fished in his pocket, gave her two dollars. “You'd have paid two bucks to get home to Drummoyne.”

“I go home by way of Gladesville Bridge—there's no toll.”

“My family think I'm tight-fisted. I think you'd give me a run for the money.”

Her
gaze was intent on her driving. “My father began life mixing and selling herbs in the old Paddy's Markets. He built his fortune by saving pennies.”

“You're going to do the same?”

She turned her head for a moment. “No, I'm saving bigger denominations than that.”

“Do you and Madame Tzu have much in common?”

“What sort of question is that?” But she gave him an answer after driving some distance in silence: “Yes, we possibly do. Does that worry you?”

“It might—some time,” he said.

She turned her head again. “That's an enigmatic answer.”

“It's the Irish in me,” he said, and she threw back her head and gave a full-throated laugh. She looked all at once a different girl.
How many sides are there to her?

“Are you married, Inspector?”

“With three kids.”

“What a pity.”

When they achieved a parking space in Macquarie Street right opposite the Vanderbilt Malone felt his luck might be in. General Wang might prove more co-operative than anyone else involved in Olympic Tower. But he made no immediate attempt to get out of the car.

“Last Saturday you said Madame Tzu was your mother's cousin.”

“Second cousin, actually.”

“How long have you known her?”

She appeared co-operative, almost too friendly. She had turned in her seat, leaning back against the car door, facing him squarely. “She just turned up out of the blue about a year ago. She sort of adopted us.”

“How did your father get on with her?”

“Dad would fall over like a puppy if a good-looking woman looked at him.”

“How did your mother feel about her second cousin?”

“
She didn't trust her.”

“Is there a Mr. Tzu?”

“There was. She says he's dead. He was a banker or something in Hong Kong. But we have only her word for it.”

“You're like your mother—you don't trust her?”

“I can handle her.”

“I'm sure you can.”

As they got out of the car Malone looked up; the sky was black, clouds spewing up like oil smoke. Then there was a deafening crash of thunder and a blaze of lightning in which the buildings across the road seemed to tremble.

“Do you believe in omens?” Camilla said as they crossed the street.

“All the time.”

He had taken her arm as they dodged the traffic and now she squeezed his hand between her arm and ribs.
Cut it out;
but he didn't take away his hand.

Clements was waiting for them in the lobby. “You haven't met Ms. Feng?” said Malone, removing his hand now.

“No,” said Clements, impressed but cautious. Then to Malone: “What are we doing here?”

Malone explained what he had learned at the Sun office. “The madame doesn't know we're coming. Let's hope the general is still with her.”

“He will be,” said Camilla. “He's expecting me. This was to be my next call.”

“Then you owe me two bucks,” said Malone.

She opened her handbag, gave him two dollars with a smile and led the way to the lift. Clements raised his eyebrows enquiringly, but Malone just shook his head. He could smell a Chinese stew on the menu.

There was no doorman in sight to announce them to Madame Tzu and as they stepped into the lift Malone said, “If they ask who you are over the intercom, don't mention us. We'll just follow you in
when
they open the door.”

“You may get a blast from Madame Tzu,” said Camilla.

“Just so long as it's not from a gun,” said Malone, and was instantly sorry when he saw her wince. Even Clements, used to Malone's sometimes loose tongue, looked at him.

The door was opened by the maid, who looked at the two detectives in surprise, then scurried away into the apartment, saying something in Chinese. Only a moment or two passed before Malone and Clements followed Camilla into the big living room, but Madame Tzu, it seemed, had already prepared herself.

“Why, Inspector, how unexpected! The gentleman with you is also a policeman?”

She's warning the general
“Sergeant Clements, our Supervisor at Homicide. And this gentleman is . . .?”

“General Wang-Te.”

Malone had had no experience of Chinese generals. He had a dim image of Chiang Kai-shek from a documentary he had seen months ago on the Soong sisters; the generalissimo had appeared to have more than the usual straight-backed arrogance of Western generals. Wang-Te was thin, stoop-backed and wore glasses; he was in a black suit and stiff white collar and looked like the cliché bookkeeper. Perhaps that was why he was the financial comptroller. He just smiled a big-toothed smile at the two detectives, but said nothing.

“Does the general speak English?” Malone asked.

“Fluently,” said Madama Tzu. “And French and German.”

“We'll stick to English, our French and German are a little rusty. May we sit down?”

“Of course, how rude of me.” She said something in Mandarin to the general.

“What did Madame Tzu say?” Malone, rudely, asked Camilla.

Camilla looked at the older woman, who said, “I told the general, one can forget one's manners after a day or two amongst Australians.”

Malone ducked his head in mock acknowledgement. “Take no notice of her, General. We're
not
really rude, it's just our rough-and-ready ways—”

There was another tremendous crack of thunder and the building seemed to shake. Then beyond the windows the rain fell down in a thick curtain, silvered by lightning.

There was silence in the room for a moment, as if everyone was waiting for another avalanche of thunder; then Malone said, “I understand you are here to try and recover some millions of dollars that ex-General Huang seems to have misappropriated?”

“That is correct.” Wang had a soft precise voice. “Fifty-one million. A large amount.”

“When did you find out the money was missing?” said Clements, taking over the bowling.

Wang-Te might look like a bookkeeper, but he had a general's appreciation of rank. “You are only a sergeant?”

“A senior sergeant, actually,” said Clements. “Licensed to ask questions of anyone of any rank.”

Good for you, thought Malone; but looked at Madame Tzu. “Madame, I think things will go better if we stop trying to score points off each other.”

The general and Madame Tzu exchanged glances; then she nodded. “As you wish. Inspector.”

Wang-Te looked at Camilla Feng. “What have you told the gentlemen, Miss Feng?”

She didn't correct him to
Ms.;
she knew an irredeemable chauvinist when she saw one. “Nothing they didn't already know.”

Nice one, thought Malone: looks like we're in for a little prevarication.

“Inspector—” said Wang-Te, ignoring the senior sergeant. “We only learned of the missing money three weeks ago. It had, of course, been coming here for some months—not
here,
exactly, but into Hong Kong on its way here.”