Dark Summer (24 page)

“He had a gun in the glove-box of his car when they found him. Did he ever show it to you, tell you what he intended doing with it?”

“He never owned a gun in his life!” Tuesday was vehement, sitting bolt upright on the lounge. Malone had seen other women like this, the ones who would never bury the men they had loved. “He was too smart for that! He hated guns!”

Malone put down his coffee cup, changed tack: “Did Sally Kissen ever have a man come here named Normie Grime? A little middle-aged feller, very neat, not much bigger than a jockey. He lived down the road, in the 'Loo. That's him, when he was much younger.” He passed over the photo he had taken from Grime's flat, of Grime and his parents.

The
two girls looked at the photo, then at each other. Then Ava said, “Yeah, I think that's him. He used to come here. Not regularly, maybe once a month. I bumped into him once or twice when I was going out or coming in. He never said much, but he was friendly, sort of. We never knew his name, though. That was one of the rules Sally had in the house—no names. It was one of the rules from what she used to call her “better times.” In those days she used to have big-money clients. Politicians, businessmen, one or two of the big gangsters.”

Malone fired a wild shot: “She ever mention Denny Pelong? You've heard of him?”

“Sure. You work around the Cross, you hear all the names like that. But Sally never mentioned him.”

“Did Leroy?” Malone looked at Tuesday.

“I told you, Leroy never told me nothing. I didn't wanna know.” She looked resentfully at Ava as she made the admission.

Malone changed tack slightly again: “So those initials on that calendar you showed me, they could have meant nothing?”

“I dunno. They could've been true initials, but no names.”

“When did you last see this little feller, Normie Grime?”

Ava looked at him shrewdly. “Wait a minute—why are you asking about him? Did he have something to do with Leroy?”

“I don't know. He died the same way as Leroy, a poisoned needle in his bum.”

Tuesday retched; for a moment Malone thought she was going to throw up. Then she found her voice: “You mean both of 'em, Leroy and this feller you're talking about, they died the same way as Sally?”

Malone nodded. “Whoever killed them all used to come to this house. This place is the only connecting link.”

“Jesus!” Ava clasped her hands together; the knuckles showed white. “You better get out of here, Tuesday, find somewhere else.”

“
What about you?” said Malone.

“I'm going home to Wagga, soon's I get a referral from my counsellor. She said she'd help me.”

“What's her name? Your counsellor?”

“Janis Eden. You know her?”

“I've met her, but I don't know her. Did she know Leroy was your supplier?”

“Yes, I told her. Why?”

“In her job, she's probably heard of all the dealers. She just might know something you and Tuesday don't.” He stood up. “Well, good luck. Both of you. Find somewhere else to live, Tuesday, but ring me and let me know where. I'm not going to harass you—” as he saw the look on her face, “I just want you to stay alive, love, that's all.”

Ava followed him to the front door. “You married, Inspector?”

“Yes. Why?”

“I wouldn't have minded going to bed with you. Just social, not professionally.”

“Thanks for the compliment, Ava. But I'm happy with the bed at home.”

“Lucky you. You'd be surprised, the number of guys who aren't. Half our clients are married guys.”

“How's business, now the recession's on?”

“There's more bargaining. I'm glad I'm giving it up. It's getting that way, it's like selling it at K- Mart.”

IV

Malone went back to Homicide, got there just as Clements arrived back from Bondi. “How'd you go?”

“His uncle didn't seem particularly upset—I got the feeling he thought Leroy's death was good riddance. He said he'd tell the family down in Victoria, they can come up and claim the body.”

“You think Uncle is involved?”

“
In the drugs? Not a chance. Uncle wants to keep his nose clean . . . I got him to take me along to Leroy's flat. He lived well. The flat's right on the end of the beach, beaut view of the bare tits at the southern end. Everything that opens and shuts in it—he must've spent a fortune on electronic equipment. Hi-fi, video . . . Uncle was chewing his teeth with envy.”

“You find anything?”

“Nothing with names in it. Only this—” He handed Malone a folder.

Malone opened it. He scanned the list of names in the portfolio statement, the single sheet the folder contained, “I've never heard of any of these companies. No blue-chip stuff.”

“Look at the names. Near East Land and Exploration. Cook Islands Catering—that's a good 'un. Macao International Bonding. They're all off-shore, they all sound as shonky as a two-dollar watch. His money was being laundered. It's not a big portfolio—what is it, three hundred and eighty thousand all up?—but it's not bad for a twenty-two-year-old. He was on his way.”

Malone looked at the name on the bottom of the folder. “How about that! Coolibah Investments Services. A good Aussie name, nothing off-shore there. No address, just a box number. Where's Phil?”

Phil Truach came in, shaking his head at having his name yelled aloud twice. “I've been having a leak, if that's all right? I can remember once, you could take your time about it, just standing there staring at the wall, listening to the gentle pissing sound—”

“We'll have to watch him, I think he's a pervert,” Malone told Clements. “Phil, what have you dug up on Coolibah Investments?”

“Nothing so far—”

“Phil, get to it, even if your bladder's bursting. Tell your contact in Companies Registration that if he doesn't come up with it in ten minutes, you'll be down to arrest him for obstruction of justice.”

“You're kidding. When was a public servant last arrested for not doing his job? I think it was about eighteen thirty-four—”

He went off with his usual sour patience, as if he had long ago worked out that life, not just
police
work, was no more than an accumulation of small items, that, come the end of the world, everything would be reduced to small pieces again.

Then Irving Rubens phoned. “Scobie? We got the beak to hold Mitre without bail for another forty-eight hours. If we don't come up with something by then, he'll let him go on bail of a hundred grand.”

“Well, I guess we're lucky to hold him for that long. Anything else?”

“Yeah, Fingerprints have just sent us a report on the gun we found in the Porsche—it should be on your fax. One set of prints belonged to Lugos. There's another set, which they checked with their records. They belong to—guess who?”

“Don't tell me. Denny Pelong? Have you been out to see him?”

“I went out there before I got the Fingerprints report. He wasn't home. His wife—she's a real bimbo, but a shrewd one—she said he was out playing golf, she didn't know where. What golf club would let him on its course? I play golf. I think I'll take up bowls or something if they're gunna let shit like Pelong on to a course. I wonder what his handicap is? Anyhow, I got the Rockdale station to let me have one of their boys keep an eye on the Pelong place, let me know when he comes home with his golf bag. Jesus! I wonder what Greg Norman would think?”

“Irv—” Malone was not a golfer; if Saddam Hussein and Denny Pelong played a two-stroke or a two-ball or whatever it was called at the Royal and Ancient, it would not worry him. Some day he would have to tell Rubens about the West Indian fast bowler who had got life for murdering his wife, though, thankfully, not with a cricket bat. “Irv, I sympathize with you. But Russ and I are going out to Sans Souci. I think I'd like a few words with Mrs. Pelong while we're waiting for Denny. I'll let you know what happens.”

“Okay, I'll wait to hear from you.”

Malone recognized the sudden change, the tone of voice of a cop being pushed into the background by someone of senior rank. It couldn't be helped, it was the way of the world. Ten, even five years ago, he had sounded exactly like that himself. You climbed the ladder of promotion: even if you had
the
best of intentions, the rung beneath your foot was always the neck of some other poor bastard. He consoled himself with the thought that Irv Rubens would occasionally tread on other cops' necks.

Malone and Clements were on their way out of the room when Truach came back, smiling as if he had just been permitted the pleasure of a long urination. “Coolibah Investments Services. A subsidiary of Thursday Island Holdings. Which is owned outright by Dennis and Luisa Pelong. That make you feel better?”

Clements drove himself and Malone out to Sans Souci in an unmarked police car. The heat had eased a little and a cooling nor'easter came in across the waters of Botany Bay. Far out, on the southern headland of the bay, Malone could see the oil refinery, now listed secretly as a possible terrorist target. In the past couple of weeks, since the Gulf war had turned serious, Special Branch had been working round the clock, day and night, trying to trace terrorists who, as far as Australia was concerned, had no track record. Maybe homicide was not such a tough job after all.

The young constable from the Rockdale station was parked at the end of the street, looking bored and sleepy; but he came awake and scrambled out of the car when Malone introduced himself and Clements. “Pelong's just come home, sir. He drives a white Rolls-Royce, it's parked there in the driveway. Watch out for the dogs, sir, they'll eat you alive.”

Most of the houses in the street were modest; Pelong's was easily the largest, built across two wide lots. It belonged to the Conspicuous Anonymity style of architecture favoured by celebrities and gangsters: no expense spared, then the whole lot surrounded by a high stone wall. The two Rottweilers bared their teeth through the bars of the iron gates. Then the gardener appeared, carrying a pair of shears in one hand and a gun in the hip pocket of his overalls. Malone showed him his badge.

“I don't need to show you this, do I, Fred? What's with the gun? You going to shoot bugs off the roses? Where've you been?”

“G'day, Mr. Malone, how ya going?” Fred Cargo was in his fifties, weatherbeaten and as tough as a jarrah stump, a stand-over man since his kindergarten days; he was an old-fashioned crim, the sort who gave no quarter to cops and expected none in return. It was a form of honesty. “I been up at
Bathurst,
doing a coupla years.”

“What's it like up there now?”

“Ah, bloody crowded. This business of stiffer sentences, it ain't gunna work, you oughta tell the government. Jail ain't what it used to be, fulla small shit. You announce yourself to the house over the intercom?”

“Just like at Government House. Only they don't have Rottweilers there.”

“They oughta, a whole bloody pack of 'em. All those bloody Arabs on the loose.”

“You expecting the Muslim Brotherhood to attack Mr. Pelong?” “The—Muslim Brotherhood? What are they, like Arab Masons?” “Sort of,” said Malone, the very occasional staunch Catholic.

The front door was opened by Mrs. Pelong, in shorts and a halter top. Her dark hair hung loose and she wore only lipstick; she looked wan and haggard: a wife, Malone thought, worried for her loved one. Then he saw the bruise under her jaw and the one on her upper arm and he changed his mind.

“The police—second time today! What'll the neighbours think? My hubby's out by the pool. He loves a dip after a round of golf. Do you two gentlemen play golf?”

“No,” said the gentlemen.

Malone's eyes were busy at the corners as they were led through the house; Lisa always wanted to know about the houses he visited, especially those of successful crims. He wouldn't know how to describe this one: everything looked cheaply expensive, or expensively cheap, like the furniture one saw on late-night TV commercials. “You like it?” said Luisa Pelong, missing nothing, not even the discreet sidelong glances.

“Very nice. Mr. Pelong's choice?”

“No, mine. My hubby has no taste for decorating.”

She seemed oblivious of how her hubby had decorated her with bruises; or perhaps she didn't care. She led them out on to a patio beyond which was a pool at least twice as large as the Malone pool at Randwick. Dennis Pelong, in swim-trunks, sat at a table under a large umbrella. Malone and Clements
took
off their jackets, accepted the offer of light beers from Luisa, who went back into the house to get them, and sat down. Pelong said nothing till his wife had disappeared, then he glared at Malone from under the black hedge of his brows.

“So what's this all about? The wife tells me she had a visit from another copper this morning.”

Fred, the armed gardener, had come round from the front of the house and was busy amidst a splendid display of roses along the back fence. He now wore a large straw hat under which his ears were cocked like microphones to pick up the voices coming across the still pool of water.

“I think you may be having a lot of visits from us, Mr. Pelong.” Malone had had nothing to do with Pelong up till now, so there was no first-name rapport. He indicated himself and Clements: “We're here because we're investigating the murder of Leroy Lugos.”

“I dunno nothing about that.”

“Scungy Grime? He was murdered, too.”

“Nup.”

“Jimmy Maddux?”

“Nup.”

That had been too pat: he hadn't asked who Maddux was, an obscure wharfie with no criminal record. Luisa came back with four beers in long glasses on a silver tray, handed each of the men a glass, took the fourth herself and sat down next to her husband. She put on dark glasses against the glare; Clements took a pair from his shirt pocket and put them on. Malone and Pelong remained squinting at each other, though Malone did tilt his hat forward over his eyes.