The Bear Pit (10 page)

The quick eyes were still again. “Every politician has rivals.”

“True. It's part of the game.”

“We don't see it as a game,” said Balmoral and you knew he never would.

No
one was more experienced at parrying questions than Clizbe; you knew that soon Balmoral would be just as good. It was against the grain to be open and frank; Frank, so the joke went, was the bloke who would never learn. Malone guessed that it was like this world-wide, ever had been. Julius Caesar would have been at home in Sussex Street.

Malone took up the attack. He sometimes saw himself (though he would never admit it) as the police equivalent of the old fast bowling combination of Lillee and Thomson. He was Lillee, moving the ball both ways through the air and off the seam, bowling the occasional slower ball. “So there may be some contenders for Mr. Eustace's position? How will that go down with the voters? Factional warfare two months before the election? Vanderberg would never have allowed that.”

“Neither will we,” said Clizbe, forgetting for the moment that this was not home base.

Malone moved the ball a little wider. “What can you tell us about Mr. Kelzo?”

“He's a loyal, hard-working party member.”

“We understand Vanderberg didn't think so. Loyal, that is.”

“The Premier didn't always have his finger on the pulse,” said Balmoral.

“I think that would surprise a lot of people. He was Police Minister as well as Premier—there wasn't anything he didn't know about the Service. And you're telling me he was out of touch with his party?” Then he bowled a beamer, right at the head: “Do you have a loyal member on your books named John June?”

“The name doesn't ring a bell. But we have thousands of members. Look—” Clizbe sat back, his elbows on the arms of his chair, his fingers interlocked; he could have been explaining the birds and the bees to the kids at the Happy Hours Child-Care Centre: “In this business there are always rumours and counter-rumours, lies and counter-lies, misunderstandings, back-stabbing—metaphorical, that is—”

“I'm surprised anyone survives. Aren't you, Russ?” Malone stood up. “We'll be back, Mr. Clizbe. We're only just starting—”

“We'll help all we can,” said Clizbe, who hadn't helped at all. Both he and Balmoral were now on their feet, ready to sweep the police out of the office, get on with cleaning up the business. “This is the
worst
thing that's ever happened to the party. Ever and in Olympic year. But if there's any light at the end of the tunnel, we'll let you know.”

“Do that. But too often the light at the end of the tunnel is the track gang clearing up the wreckage. I think the party's come off the rails. You'll be flat out getting it back on them before the election.”

“You're a Coalition voter?” said Balmoral.

Malone grinned. “My dad would shoot me if I were. He was fighting for the Left before you two were born. They used cricket bats and sling-hooks and pieces of four-by-two. They didn't use snipers with a night-'scope. It was brutal, but it had a certain honesty about it. Whoever ordered the hit on The Dutchman didn't show any of that. Good-day.”

Then Clements, the other bowler, took up the ball: “We understand there was some discussion at one of the branches as to whether a political assassination was a Federal or State police matter. You hear anything about that?”

Clizbe looked at Balmoral, who said, “Yes, we'd heard about it. Your other daughter told you, did she?”

Clizbe's eyes galloped. “His other daughter?”

“Yes, she works for Iverson and Gower, who are supposed to be working for
us
.”

Clizbe looked at Malone. “Your daughter brings home clients' confidential information?”

“No, she doesn't.” Malone could be haughty; he had learned it from Lisa. “Mr. Balmoral had a casual conversation with her. Right?” Balmoral hesitated, then nodded. “Working for the Labor Party's law advisers she's naturally interested in finding out who killed the Premier. Where was the meeting where the discussion came up?”

Clizbe couldn't have been quicker; he was answering before Malone had finished the question: “That'd be branch business. We can't help you there.”

Malone just looked at the two of them, then smiled, nodded and led Clements out of the office. Behind them another argument had started, in whispers, but the argument this time was not with an
outsider.

Down in the street Clements said, “You almost blew your top in there.”

“They got up my nose.” He got into the car, got out again, took the parking fine slip from under the wiper, tore it up, dropped it in the gutter and got back into the car again. “Those buggers couldn't care less that The Dutchman was murdered. All they're thinking about is the succession.”

“When was it ever different?” said Clements. “Except for the killing. Where to now?”

“We're going out to talk to Mr. Kelzo.”

“What makes you think we'll find him at his branch?”

“This morning, mate, every branch in the State—Labor, Coalition, the Greenies, the lot—they're all going to be at their branch offices. The election is only two months away and it's wide open. The Olympics are less than nine months away and everybody wants to be up there in the eighteen-hundred-dollar seats as the Melbourne Cup winner comes galloping into the stadium with the torch between its teeth.”

“They're gunna have a horse do the last lap?”

“It'll save a fight between the swimmers and the track and field.”

“Boy, you do have shit on the liver this morning.” Then as they drew away from the kerb Clements said, “What was Maureen doing there?”

“Channel 15 have been doing an investigative piece on Labor's faction fighting.”

“It could get dangerous. You're gunna let her keep shoving her nose in? If my daughter ever gets into investigative journalism—”

“Your daughter is three years old. By the time she's Maureen's age they won't be leaving home to do any investigation. They'll do it on the Internet or whatever it's called by then. Maybe the Prynet.”

“Wouldn't it be nice if we could work that way?”

They drove west, over the beautiful Anzac Bridge with its suspension cables a fragile contrast to the heavy steel arch of the Harbour Bridge further downstream. The Harding electorate covered three suburbs on the Parramatta River, the harbour's main tributary. It was a mixture of Federation houses,
smaller
houses from the twenties and thirties and one or two new developments that appeared to make the Federation houses rear back as if affronted by upstarts. From certain streets one could see the Olympic complex, genuflected to by some as a cathedral.

“Maybe they should have The Dutchman's State funeral from here,” said Clements.

The local Labor Party's branch was above a row of lock-up shops in a small shopping centre; from its windows there would be a good view of the Olympic stadium. Malone and Clements climbed the narrow stairs and found only three men in the long narrow hall. Malone had expected a crowd. He had been wrong: a lot of voters were still on summer holiday and there would have been difficulty in getting a crowd for Judgement Day. The voters knew their priorities and politics was not amongst them.

They walked down the hall to a dais where Peter Kelzo sat behind a large table. The other two men were standing on the floor just below him. They turned as the two strangers walked in.

“Sorry, mates—you from the press?”

“No,” said Malone. “From the police.”

“Oh.” All three men looked at each other as if two hold-up men had come in.

Then Kelzo got up from behind the table and stepped down to the floor of the hall. He was almost six inches shorter than either of the two detectives, but you knew he would never be afraid of big men. He put out his hand, the left hand raised as if to pat the head of any passing child; his smile was wider than that of a game show host. I'll bet he kisses babies, Malone thought.

“Anything we can do to help? This is George Gandolfo. This is Joe St. Louis.”

Gandolfo was a thin fidgety man in his middle forties, hair worn thin by his speed through life. You knew he would run up escalators, saving 7.3 seconds in 30 metres, a saving that, if asked, he wouldn't have known what to do with. At school he would have tried to shorten long division, to no avail. Over the past year, according to the red-tabbed files, he had tried to hasten the Premier's retirement, also to no avail.

“Pleased to meetcha.” He put out a hand, gave the sort of handshake that said he was everybody's friend, so long as everybody voted the right way.

Clements
recognized Joe St. Louis. “G'day, Joe. When did you get into politics?”

“This year, mate. It ain't much different to the ring.”

Joe St. Louis was a pale-skinned Aborigine in his late thirties. He had been fighting for almost two decades, beginning in side-show tents, moving on to eight-rounders in clubs, once fighting for the middleweight title. He was good-looking in a battered way, his eyes wary under scarred brows, like beetles under chipped rocks. He had form, besides his ring record, as a stand-over man.

“I'm Greek, like you know.” Kelzo sounded as if he were reading from the branch brochure. “George is Eye-talian. And Joe, he's fair dinkum Austrayan. We try to be as multicultural as we can, basically. Very Austrayan.”

“Lebanese, too?” asked Malone. “We believe you've got a lot of new members, mostly Lebanese.”

“We got no prejudices here. We even got some Turks. That's something, ain't it? Greeks and Turks in the same club. We welcome all sorts.”

“Even the Irish?”

“Ah, you don't catch me like that. Inspector
Malone
? Of course the Irish.” He beamed at Gandolfo and St. Louis as if St Patrick himself had just walked in. “Who better to have in politics than the Irish? Some of the great names in Labor—Cahill, Dolan, Crean, McMullan—”

“Saints, every one of them. Could we sit down, Mr. Kelzo? Maybe a cup of coffee? We want to be sociable. That's what this is called, isn't it?” He had seen the sign above the downstairs door. “The Labor Social Club?”

“Of course. Where's me manners? Joe, get some coffee, would you?” Joe St. Louis, it was evident, was the gofer. Malone wondered what other errands he did. “Milk, sugar? There's some biscuits in a tin, Joe. Iced Vo-Vos. Very Austrayan.” He pulled some chairs into a circle. He and Gandolfo sat together, a team. “Okay, fire away.”

“Wrong phrase,” said Malone with a grin.

Kelzo returned the grin with a wide smile; he was unabashed. “Sure, sure. We gotta pay our
respec
ts to a Great Man.” You could read the capitals in his voice. “He'll be missed.”

“Very much. We understand you are standing for pre-selection here?”

Kelzo nodded. “I'm told I'm what you call a shoo-in.”

The Harding electorate had been named after an American president by a cynical electoral commissioner who knew a corrupt administration when he heard of it. The commissioner was long dead, but he had been more prescient than he knew. Kelzo ran this branch like a grace-and-favour estate.

“After the branch-stacking?” said Clements.

Kelzo saw he had made a mistake; he was saved for the moment by the arrival of the instant coffee and the Iced Vo-Vos. “Where did you hear that?”

Clements changed tack: “Amongst your new members, do you have a man named June? John June?”

“No,” said Gandolfo.

“Hundreds of members and you know ‘em all? Including the new ones?”

“He has a photographic memory,” said Kelzo.

“And after you're elected,” said Malone, “you'll be a strong supporter of the new Premier, whoever he might be. Assuming, of course, that Labor is returned.”

Joe St. Louis had sat down beside his two colleagues; they looked a formidable trio. One could not imagine that in the Harding branch there would be much give-and-take discussion with the members. “I been around the traps. We're gunna be re-elected.”

“Basically,” said Kelzo, “We can't lose.”

“And who'll be the Premier? Billy Eustace?”

“Who else?” said Gandolfo, but didn't sound as if it mattered.

Sure, who else? thought Malone. Eustace was a rubber doll; he would be manipulated. At present he was the Minister of Transport and Communications, known in the trade as the Ministry for Mates. He had more mates than a discount hooker.

“What about the Minister for the Olympics, Mr. Agaroff? He's suddenly become ambitious,
we'
re told.”

“Where do you get all your information?” asked Kelzo, looking a little worried, though still smiling.

“Sergeant Clements' daughter is on the Internet. All sorts of information comes up there, she tells us.”

Clements didn't deny that his three-year-old daughter was an Internet fan. “You remember all the Clinton stuff that came up on Internet?”

“Terrible, terrible,” said Kelzo. “Nothing's private any more.”

“Would you back Agaroff?” asked Malone. “Do you have any Russians on your multicultural list? His parents were Russian.”

“No Russians,” said Gandolfo, starting to fidget, looking for an escalator to get them out of this questioning.

“Do you know anyone who would want to kill Hans Vanderberg?” said Clements bluntly.

Moments are expandable, small balloons of time. This moment was stretched; one could almost hear an echo of Clements' question. The three men did not look at each other, but just stared at the two detectives. The three monkeys, thought Malone; then Kelzo said, “He had enemies, but nobody we knew.”

“Nobody,” said Gandolfo, all at once very still.

Clements looked at St. Louis. “Joe? You've been around the traps, like you say.”