Dark Summer (30 page)

“I think you'd be too smart to be there just before it happened. But why were you, Les Chung and Denny Pelong all there in the restaurant tonight?”

“Coincidence. The sorta thing that buggers up evidence in a court.”

“Not always. Anyhow, you ran this town once—” Aldwych didn't deny that: he
had
run it and Christ help anyone who tried to dispute it. There had been no urbanity in him in those days. “You must have a hint of what's going on, even today. Something
is
going on, Jack. Russ and I are building up enough murders to fill a morgue. I was hoping you could help us out.”

Aldwych took his time; then he said. “Les Chung and me were discussing it the other day. Someone is trying to muscle in on Denny. I dunno who. And according to Les Chung. Denny dunno, either. That's all I can tell you, Scobie.”

“What are they trying to muscle in on? Drugs, girls, gambling?”

“Drugs, I think. What am I saying? I'm giving information to a copper.” He smiled at Jack Junior. “Your mother would love me for it, if she knew.”

“Jack—” Malone was speaking to Aldwych, but he was watching the son. The younger man was
as
alert as one of the bull terriers outside might have been. “Have you ever heard of an ex-con from Melbourne named Dallas White? Snow White. He has an offsider, a huge bastard called The Dwarf. His name's Gary Schultz.”

Aldwych shook his head. “Sorry, Scobie. They're new to me. I never had anything to do with the Melbourne mob. They were a vicious lot,” he said piously, Sydney Greenstreet now playing the Pope.

“Oh, indeed,” said Malone, equally pious.

All four Sydneians sat a moment in silence, looking down their noses at the Melburnian lowlife. Down south the high-life of Melbourne had an equal contempt for the citizens of Sydney, high or low. It was what Federal politicians, when away from home, called the spirit of nationalism.

“I shouldn't say this in front of Dad,” said Jack Junior, “but if these crims are killing each other off, shouldn't that please you?”

“My loving son,” said Aldwych, but he was smiling, un-offended by his son's public spirit.

“We'd gladly sit back,” said Malone, “except that the media and all the law-and-order do-gooders keep beating their drums.”

Janis came to the door. “Jack darling, I can't find a tray.”

Jack Junior hesitated, not wanting to lose his grasp on this interview. But Janis stood stock-still in the doorway, firm as a wife. He got to his feet and followed her out to the kitchen, closing the door there behind him. At once she attacked him:

“Don't you ever do that again! I am not your bloody tea-lady!”

“Janis, I had to get you out of there. You were ready to start baiting them—you're baiting Dad, too—”

“He's baiting me—haven't you noticed?”

Jack Junior had found a silver tray, was putting cups and saucers on it. “Make the tea strong, that's how Dad likes it.”

“Don't tell me what to do! He'll get it as it comes!” Then she simmered down, took the tray from him. “Are there any biscuits or cake or anything? What are they talking about in there?”

Jack
Junior found a tin of biscuits. “They mentioned a couple of guys from Melbourne, a guy named White and his mate, someone called The Dwarf. What's the matter?”

“What? Nothing.” She had kept from him, at his demand, the names of anyone with whom she was involved in the drug smuggling. He had agreed to supply the finance, but, in the early stages, he had said, he wanted to know no more than was necessary. It was contrary to his usual business practice, but what he was doing was contrary to anything he had ever done in his life before. His mother's ashes were spinning in the wind.

He put his hand on her arm, his grip hurting her.
“Come on!
Do you know these guys?”

The electric kettle was boiling. She jerked her arm away, turned and poured the boiling water into the china teapot; for a mad moment she had the urge to pour the water over him. She hated men who hurt her physically: Jack Senior would be interested to know she was
not
a masochist.

“You said you didn't want to know any names—”

“I want to know now! Come on. Are they working for you?”

She put the teapot on the tray, added a milk-jug and sugar-pot. She had noticed the quality of the china; Jack's mother had spent his father's money well. When she made her own money she would not spend any time in a kitchen, but she had remarked that this kitchen was the sort that would give the average housewife, which she was not, a culinary orgasm.

“Yes.” She picked up the tray, paused and looked at him, taking delight in the fact that she knew she was going to shock him: “They are the ones who tried to kill this Denny Pelong.”

“Jesus Christ!”

“Open the door,” she said calmly.

He stared at her, seeing for the first time the icy calmness of which she was capable. All at once he was frightened of her; he had none of the gangster's gorilla courage that had enabled his father to survive so long. He opened the door, following her out of the kitchen, his mind quickening again, wondering already how he was going to get rid of her and get out of this venture that looked as if it might turn into an unholy bloody mess. He knew that if he had his father's character, the simplest solution
would
be to kill her: or have the killing done for him. But he also knew that he could never go that far. He was his mother's son as well as his father's. He had inherited his father's greed for power, but his weakness would always be his mother's morality, there in his genes like another disease.

In the living room the tea was poured and handed around with the biscuits, “Iced Vo-Vos?” said Malone. “I haven't had 'em in years.”

“My favourite,” said Aldwych. “Them and Monte Carlos. My wife always had old-fashioned tastes.”

Just like Sally Kissen, the whore, thought Malone. He wondered if Arnotts, the biscuit manufacturers, had ever thought of calling on them to appear in their commercials.

“If Denny Pelong falls off the perch,” said Aldwych, chewing on an Iced Vo-Vo, “I wonder who'll take over?”

“Maybe the Triads.” Clements had been quiet up till now; but he had seen that Malone's mouth was full of biscuit. “Or the Vietnamese. Nice cuppa, Miss Eden.”

“Thank you. The Asians, they're a problem?” She hadn't even considered them, despite the killing several weeks ago of Trang, the Vietnamese.

“They're going to be,” said Malone, swallowing the biscuit. “Do your clients ever talk about them?”

She shook her head, the light glinting on the auburn shine of it. She's a looker, Malone thought; and a lady, though he had learned from experience that not all ladies were to be trusted. She held her cup delicately, little finger raised; she had the knack of biting into a biscuit without leaving crumbs around the corner of her mouth. Something told him she would wield a knife with the same delicacy, whether on a plate or at someone's throat.

“No,” she said, “my clients never mention the Asians. Are they the ones who are doing these needle killings? It sounds sort of Oriental.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Well, Occidental killings—”

“
That's a good one,” said Aldwych. “Occidental killings.”

She gave him a smile that chilled the tea in his cup. “Okay, Western killings. They are cruder, aren't they?”

“Would you say they are, Jack?” Malone looked at Aldwych, the expert.

“Killing is killing, Scobie,” said Aldwych, still the Pope. “It's still a crime. Except like now, in the war.”

“I didn't know that,” said Malone, finishing his tea.

Aldwych smiled. “I like you, Scobie. It's a pity you and me were never on the same side. We could of run this town.”

“I thought you did it pretty well on your own, Jack.” He got to his feet. “I'm sorry to've kept you up so late. But Russ and I had to clear up that you had nothing to do with the shooting of Pelong. You can sleep easy now.”

“I always have.” Aldwych stood up.

“Do the bull terriers bite on the way out?”

“Never my friends, Scobie. Come back and see me when
you're
retired.”

Jack Junior showed Malone and Clements out, past the fangs of the bull terriers who, if they knew that the police officers were now friends of their master, preferred the tear—'em-apart enmity of the good old days. Once in the car Malone said, “We're going to see that Eden woman again. She keeps turning up too regularly.”

Inside the house, when Jack Junior came back to join him and Janis in the living room, Aldwych, playing himself this time, said, “All right, what are you two up to? And don't try any bloody lies with me!”

II

Malone was sitting at the computer, putting yesterday's and last night's events into the system. He had run back the data, but it read like nothing more than a shredded crossword puzzle. There was a
thread,
but it kept breaking off; and there was one element in the puzzle that eluded him. Who was the needle killer and why?

Then the phone rang in his office. He got up slowly, tired and stiff; he felt as he had occasionally felt years ago, after bowling twenty-five overs on a stinking hot day. He had had only four hours' sleep and that mostly broken by a mind that had tossed and turned more than his body. He went into his office, half-expecting that the call would be the news that Denny Pelong had died during the night. The morning newspapers had carried stories on last night's shooting, but there had been no editorial comment, no remarks on the spreading of “the plague of murders.” Saddam Hussein was the target for today, both for bombs and editorial opinion.

The caller was Inspector Joe Nagler, from Special Branch. “Scobie? I bumped into Irv Rubens last night.”

Nagler was another of the few Jews in the Department. Malone wondered if the meeting last night had been accidental or whether, because of the Gulf war, Sydney Jews were gathering to form committees. Whatever they were doing, he had other things on his mind. “Yeah?”

“He told me about those murders you've got on your plate and that you think they have something to do with a drug war. That right?”

“I don't know, Joe. I've got a dozen loose strings and I can't tie 'em together.”

“I know how you feel. I've got enough loose strings to make a shark net, only the bloody sharks would probably still slip through. Anyhow, are you interested in a character named Dallas White? I think they call him Snow White.”

Malone sat up. “Very much. Go on.”

“Well, I don't know whether you know it, but we've been handling security at certain points with the Feds, I mean because of this Gulf business. We've had fellers out at Kurnell, at the oil refinery, and I've had a coupla guys hanging out at La Perouse.”

“La Perouse? You expecting the Abos to go to town for Saddam?”

“They've got more nous than that. No, we've just been keeping an eye out in case someone gets
ideas
about lobbing mortars or firing a missile—”

“Joe, come
on.”

Even over the phone Nagler's patience was apparent. “Scobie, you're more intelligent than that. Just because we've never had terrorism out here doesn't say there aren't people here capable of it. I don't know why I bother with you guys in Homicide—you live in your own little world of little murders—”

“Righto, Joe, I apologize.”

“Okay, then. Anyhow, we've had these guys on lookout at La Perouse, out on the point overlooking Bare Island. Yesterday afternoon there was a green Jaguar, an old model, parked there. Dallas White was in it on his own for almost half an hour, then a girl drove up in a red Capri and joined him. No kissing or any hanky-panky when they met—”

“Was she Jewish?”

“Pull your head in. They nattered together for twenty minutes or so, then they drove away independently. One of my fellers, an Abo, incidentally, took the numbers of both cars. I've checked this morning—the Jaguar belongs to Dallas White.”

“And the Capri?”

“That's registered to a Janis Eden.”

“Joe, I love you!”

“Watch it, sport, I'm a married man.”

Malone hung up as Clements came in, looking as if he, too, could have done with more sleep. He slumped down in Malone's spare chair, spread his heavy legs; never unrumpled at the best of times, he looked now as if he had slept last night in his clothes in the street. His thick-browed, heavy-jawed face had the slackness of a boxer who had stayed in the ring one punch too long.

“Pelong's still alive. I'm going out now to talk to Mitre, see if he can give us a lead. He goes up before the beak again this morning. You want him held?”

“Get the Police Prosecutor to put it to the beak that we don't want Mr. Mitre to be the next victim. Mitre himself might decide that it's safer for him to stay in custody. Talk him into it.”

“
I'm buggered.” Clements heaved himself out of his chair. “Did Phil Truach get anything out of Les Chung last night?”

“Nothing. But he got an earful from
Mrs.
Chung about getting them out of bed in the middle of the night.”

“She would've still got more sleep than I did. What're you gunna do now?”

“I'm going to talk to our girl Janis. Joe Nagler's just been on to me with some info. Janis is a friend of Snow White's.”

Clements opened his eyes wide, as if forcing himself awake. “Well, well. It's a small world, ain't it?”

III

Janis, too, had had a sleepless night. It had had nothing to do with the fact that she had been in a strange bed; she was not wanton nor a travelling saleswoman, but she had been in beds other than her own and never felt strange and restless. True, Jack had not come to her bedroom, but if he had, she would have kicked him out. She was still angry with him for his treatment of her last night. But he was the lesser of her troubles: Jack Senior was her big worry.