The Easy Sin (22 page)

“Whatever you like.”

“I'll ask our mate what he likes. He doesn't think much of your cooking.”

“He's lucky we're feeding him.”

Corey stood up, pulled on a blue hood, went out of the kitchen and down the hallway to the
third
bedroom. “How you feeling, sport?”

Errol Magee was strapped to a rocking-chair, one of Darlene's scarves wrapped round his mouth and tied at the back of his neck, gagging him. Corey took off the gag and Magee said, “You bastard. I fucking near swallowed my tongue.”

“That would have solved our problem,” Corey said to himself.

“What?”

“Sorry, sport. But we couldn't trust you to keep your mouth shut, you might of started yelling your head off and then I'd of had to clock you. Tonight for tea we're having upside-down cake, pineapple. You want cream or ice-cream on it?”

“Why? You going to send me out for it?”

Corey grinned inside the hood, shook his head. “You're on your own, sport. You're not shit- scared any more, are you?”

“No, I'm just pissed off. You getting anywhere with the ransom?”

“Not so far.”

“What were you going to do with it? I mean your share?”

“I dunno.” He sat down on Darlene's bed. “I used to be a dreamer, when I was a kid. I got outa the habit, I guess. Probably bought a bike, a BMW or a Honda, gone travelling. You ever seen the rest of Australia?”

“Only from the air.”

Corey stopped dreaming before it had begun, got serious. “Things are getting complicated, sport. They've kidnapped your girlfriend Kylie.”

“They've what?” Magee tried to sit up straight, just set the chair rocking.

Corey leaned forward and steadied the chair. “Or she's done a bunk. It was on the news this morning. Alan Jones and John Laws are making stars of you, you're right up there with Tom and Nicole. You're the only news on talk-back radio.”

Magee was frowning, deeply troubled. “Something's happened to Kylie. She wouldn't just
disappear
, not of her own accord.” He looked across at Corey. “You're having me on.”

“Mate, have I lied to you yet? But you lied to us. Where's that forty million you've salted away?”

“That's bullshit. Propaganda. You dunno what banks and receivers are like. They're always talking about missing funds, loot that's been salted away somewhere. It's easy, it covers up their own mistakes. I'm telling you, there are more liars and rumour-mongers in business than there ever are in sport or the entertainment game. I didn't know it till I started to move up the ladder, it was a real eye-opener. Forty million!” He coughed a sneer, almost believing what he was saying. “You think I'd still be hanging around for the receivers to move in? I'd be outa sight, overseas, with a new name.”

“You sound disappointed you're not.”

“Wouldn't you be?”

“Sport, you think that's where your girlfriend is? She's found out where the money is and she's over there trying her luck. She bright enough for that?”

The thought horrified Magee for a moment; then he knew it was an impossibility. Kylie couldn't add up a grocery account. If American Express didn't send her a bill every month she would think the world was a giveaway.

“No, no way. She wouldn't have a clue—” He had said too much.

“She wouldn't have a clue where you've put the money? Sport, you've just told me you do have forty million—”

“No, no! For Crissakes, will you stop harping on it? I meant she hasn't a clue about business—she thinks American Express runs the world. If she's missing, someone's grabbed her—”

“Who, for instance?”

Magee took his time. “I'm guessing and you're not going to believe me—”

“Try me.”

“The
yakuza
.”

“Who?”

“The
yakuza
. Japanese gangsters, like the Mafia.”

The
blue hood fluttered as if a wind had blown through it; Corey was laughing. “Errol, I think you're going off your head—”

“You blame me? Cooped up like this, tied up like a fucking chicken? No, I'm telling you the truth. Or guessing at it. The
yakuza
own the Kunishima Bank. I only found out a week ago.”

Corey leaned back on his elbows on the bed. It was a neat room; Shirlee came in every morning after Darlene had left for work and made it neat. Darlene had never been the sort for posters on the walls, not even as a teenager; Mum would have removed the posters of pop stars and suggested she get neatly framed photos of INXS and Whitney Houston. Foulmouths like Eminem and other unwashed wouldn't have been allowed in the house, tacked to the wall or framed. A Hans Heysen print of gum trees in central Australia, a region as remote from Darlene's imagination as the Siberian tundra, hung on one wall. It had been chosen by Shirlee and it hung perfectly straight, the sidebars of its frame absolutely parallel to the junctions of the walls.

“You've got a problem, sport.”

Magee nodded. “Yeah—with you and them. I think I might be safer with you.”

“Don't build your hopes . . . What about your wife? She's turned up, did you know?”

“Yeah.” Magee said nothing more.

“Did your girlfriend know about her?”

“No.”

“Did your wife know what you were up to? Siphoning off that forty million?”

“Jesus, will you drop that!”

“Then why are the, whatd'youcall'em, the
yakuza
? That it? Why are the
yakuza
after you? That how they usually play the game, kill off bankrupts?”

Magee ignored the question. “What are you going to do with me?”

Corey sat up. “We're still making up our minds, they don't come good with the ransom.”

“You'll top me?” Magee tried to sound casual, but he was suddenly deathly afraid.

The blue hood stared at him. “It's on the cards.” Then: “What's the matter?”

“
I wanna go to the toilet! Quick!”

III

Tajiri, driving a Honda Legend, dropped Kylie off at the Macquarie Street entrance to the apartment block. By that time they had reached an air of affability, each certain of his and her judgement of the other. For Kylie, though he had threatened to kill her, he had an attitude of politeness about him that was a contrast to that of the men she was accustomed to. She would not trust him
not
to kill her, but over the past hour she had gathered together resources she hadn't realized she had possessed. The selfish are often the last to realize their own core.

Tajiri, for his part, had come to accept that risks had to be taken. Miss Doolan, a woman he would hate to be married to, had convinced him that she had had nothing to do with the kidnapping of Errol Magee. He had left her in the warehouse and gone out to his car and phoned Kenji Nakasone, like his father, a collector of wisdom. The latter had told him of the visit by the crude detective, Malone, and for a few minutes they had discussed whether the police were a threat and decided they were not. Then Tajiri had suggested that they should let Miss Doolan go.

“Does she know who you are?” asked Nakasone.

“No. I shan't be coming back to the office and I am booked out on Qantas tomorrow afternoon for Tokyo. I'm going home, Kenji,” he said and sounded sentimental.

“I envy you, Tamezo. I'm tired of the crudeness here.”

There was crudeness back home, especially in politics; but Tajiri didn't mention that. He was also not without humour: “Come on, Kenji, you enjoy it. Think of the time it saves in business, being crude. And with the women.”

“Were you crude with Miss Doolan?”

Only when I threatened to kill her
. “No, not at all. I think she can be trusted. She is only concerned for her own welfare.”

“Like most women,” said Nakasone, thinking that was wisdom. “Let her go. Don't go back to
your
apartment, the police may be watching.”

“Where will I go?”

“Try Cabramatta, it's full of Asians, so I read. The police don't know one of us from another. Be Korean.”

“You're joking, Kenji,” said Tajiri and hung up.

So now they were drawing up outside the apartments at Circular Quay. Kylie looked at him, then smiled, empty as a salesgirl's smile. “It's been an experience, Mr. Ikura, that's all I can say.”

“For me, too, Miss Doolan. Let's put it down to that—experience. Do we keep it to ourselves?”

“Who are you going to tell? The bank?”

“That was a lie, Miss Doolan,” he said, lying with ease. “I don't work for Kunishima. I work for an organization that won't forgive Mr. Magee for stealing from it. When you see him again, tell him that. He'll understand. Be careful, Miss Doolan. It was a pleasure meeting you.”

She stared at him, suddenly chilled again. A couple of joggers went by, a man and a girl running through agony to be healthy; she had never been a jogger, just a treadmill walker at gym twice a week. She didn't know it, but her own face suddenly looked as strained as that of the girl jogger. She got out of the car, stumbling a little as she realized there was little strength in her legs. Somehow she crossed the pavement and went in through the revolving door of the apartment block, her mind spinning like the door. Mr. Ikura drove away, out of her life, she hoped.

When she entered the apartment she was relieved to find it empty, though she was not sure who might be there. She dropped into a deep chair, kicked off her shoes, put her head back and closed her eyes. When she opened them Caroline Magee, the bitch, was standing in the doorway of one of the bedrooms. The main bedroom, where she and Errol slept, for God's sake!

“What the hell are you doing here?” She sat up straight, but didn't rise.

“Stocktaking. Supervised by Detective Decker—” She looked across the big living room to Paula Decker, who had come out of the kitchen. “All above board, as they describe it. Right, Paula?”

“Right.” Paula was fed up with these bloody Magee women, but she managed to remain
profess
ionally calm. “Where have you been?”

Kylie stayed in her chair, still unsure of her legs. She looked from one woman to the other as she marshalled her lies: “Visiting friends.”

“Balls,” said Paula, who didn't mind using male terms. “We tried all your friends, we found them in your address book. You went to see someone at Kunishima. They're not your friends. Nor Errol's, either.”

Kylie ignored her, looked instead at Caroline Magee. “Stocktaking? Of what? Have you been going through my things?”

“I wouldn't bother,” said Caroline, suggesting Kylie's
things
weren't worth a garage sale. “I don't think you understand the situation. I am
Mrs.
Magee. Errol and I separated, but it was never a legal separation. We were never divorced. I'm entitled—”

Then there was the sound of a toilet being flushed in one of the bathrooms. Kylie started up from her chair. “Who's that? Is Errol back?”

“No,” said Paula. “It's your sister Monica.”

“What's she doing here?”

“She was concerned for you. Are you surprised?” said Paula with almost a sneer and went out to the kitchen, taking out her mobile to ring Clements at Homicide.

Then Monica came into the room. She wore a floral-print dress, a sleeveless white cardigan and carried a white handbag on a long strap over her shoulder. She was the least well-dressed of the women, including Paula Decker; she was the one with her prospects behind her, but she wasn't defeated. She stopped abruptly, put her hand to her mouth, then rushed at Kylie and embraced her.

“Oh God, where have you been? I kept thinking the worst—”

“I'm okay, Monny. Really, I'm okay—”

“We were outa our minds, Clarrie and me—”

“Clarrie?”

“Yeah, Clarrie! Okay, he was concerned for me—but he was concerned for you, too!” Suddenly
she
let go of Kylie, stepped back and sat down as if certain there was a chair behind her; there was. She wiped her eyes, looked slowly around her, then back up at her sister. “But you don't have to worry, do you? You've got it all—”

“No,” said Caroline Magee. “She hasn't, Monica. There's an old saying I've heard men say—two-thirds of five-eights of fuck-all. Excuse the language. But that's what she's got. What we've both got. Errol's got the lot, if he's still alive.”

“I never met him,” said Monica. “I'm glad now that I didn't.”

“He's a bastard, but he's not a monster,” said Kylie and looked accusingly at Caroline. “You
married
him. You must of seen
something
in him.”

Caroline was cool, unoffended. “Of course I did. I think it was his ambition. It was a sort of—of aphrodisiac. What woman wants to marry a no-hoper?”

“Too many,” said Monica; then looked defensively at her sister: “But not me.”

Then Paula Decker came back into the room. “Inspector Malone will be here soon. You'd better get your story sorted out where you've been, Kylie. We've been buggered about on this case and I think Mr. Malone will be running out of patience. Now, coffee, anyone?”

“I'll help you,” said Monica and headed for the kitchen, as if it were the only place she would feel comfortable.

Kylie and Caroline were left alone. Caroline remained standing, leaning her buttocks against a low sideboard; one might have gained the impression that she was the one who lived in the apartment. Kylie dropped back into her chair, still unsure of her legs. Caroline, the intruder, looked around her.

“Errol and I lived in two rooms in London, in Fulham. We went to work by bus, used to eat a couple of times a week at McDonalds. A big night out was at an Angus Steak House. You know London?”

“No.”

“He never took you away?”

Kylie was reluctant to answer; but she wasn't going to learn anything about this bitch if she kept her mouth shut. “We had just the one trip. He took me to San Francisco and LA. He went to London two
or
three times, he never took me. Did he look you up?”