Cassidy

by Morris West

  There were a few of those in the crowd, too – but only the successful ones whose names were always mentioned in Royal Commissions, but never seemed to show up on a police charge sheet. There was a whole omelette of immigrant tribal groups – Lebanese, Italians, Greeks, Turks, Chinese, Viets, Celts, Anglo-Saxons, Dutch, Serbs and Spaniards – all acknowledging their debt to Charlie Cassidy and showing their voting strength to his successors.

  The Requiem Mass was said in Latin – ‘a tribute,’ said the Cardinal, ‘to Charles Parnell Cassidy, a fine Latinist.’ Then he launched into a eulogy so stuffed with platitudes that Cassidy must have been writhing in his coffin. He talked of ‘distinguished public service and charities dispensed in secret… a Christian life maintained amidst all the temptations of a political career… a colourful personality in whom resided a spirit of extraordinary simplicity.’ He talked of ‘those quiet dinners at which Charles Cassidy opened himself to me and told me of his hopes and fears and his ambitions for this great country of ours…’ He talked and talked and talked… and what Cassidy thought of it all remained a secret between him and his Maker.

  But – I must be honest – under all the windy rhetoric there was a genuine emotion, an affirmation of essential brotherhood between the cleric and the politician. They had been friends a long time, hammered out hard bargains together. They were both Irish by origin, both absolutists by nature, both caught in the same dilemma: that whatever the rules or the dogmas, you had to bend them to make the social contract work. If you didn’t, you got blood in the streets.

  As I nodded off into reverie, with the eulogy only half done, I remembered the tale Cassidy had told at his last dinner in my house.

  ‘The Cardinal’s a shrewd old humbug. He tells me what I ought to do. I tell him what I can do. He huffs and puffs a bit and gives me a few quotes from Augustine or Aquinas. I make a bad joke and leave with the confessional vote in my pocket. It’s not as big as it used to be, but it’s still there, a negotiable bill like the hard core Marxists and the Total Disarmers. Fact is, sonny boy, I admire folk who have convictions – but they’re dangerous tools at best. The only thing I’m sure of is that man is a mad animal and you only make him madder by backing him into a corner. You’ve got to give him space and sexual release and enough of whatever drug he’s prone to, so he can work off the fury in safety…’

  The choir intoned the ancient versicle, ‘Eternal rest give to him, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon him. May he rest in peace.’ Then abruptly it was over and I was one of six men, marching in slow lockstep down the nave with Cassidy’s coffin perched precariously on our shoulders. Even then I felt no grief, no prickling of unbidden tears. It was only when I stood in the cemetery, shaking hands, murmuring ritual thanks for the condolences, that I felt a sudden onrush of shame and remorse. This wasn’t all panoply and political humbug. Cassidy had been a big man. He had left a large space and the two clowns I had dined with last night were not half big enough to fill it. I wasn’t big enough either. I had neither grace enough to forgive him, nor generosity enough even to embrace him on his first and last night in my house.

  It was then that the tears came and with them a terrible sense of solitude. I was the outlander now. People were kind, but they didn’t quite know how to deal with this hybrid with his English clothes and his formal speech, and the tears rolling down his cheeks.

  The Premier and Loomis drove me back to the hotel. It was their show and they’d stage-managed it pretty well. I thanked them on behalf of the family.

  ‘Our pleasure,’ said Loomis with a shrug. ‘He deserved a good send-off.’ He handed me a sealed envelope. ‘That’s the material you asked for. Keep it in a safe place.’ Then, with unexpected grace, he offered a compliment: ‘You gave a good performance today. I didn’t know you were hurting so much. A solo performance like that – it’s rough.’

  ‘Tomorrow, it will get rougher.’ The Premier was gloomy. ‘We were warned a long time ago: “After Cassidy, the bloody deluge!”’

  5

  Before the first rains came, I hoped to be long gone. I knew, too well, the whole sorry routine of a witch-hunt. The press shouted the scandal. The public was roused to self-righteous fury. The Government instituted a Royal Commission with power to call sworn evidence from all and sundry. The Commission dragged on until the last juice had been squeezed from the scandal – and the last drop of passion drained from the argument. Indictments were filed against the readiest scapegoats. Then, with the public bored into silence, it was business as usual for the wide boys.

  The last thing I wanted was a summons to appear before Her Majesty’s Commissioners to testify on oath about Charles Parnell Cassidy. So, every day was precious to me. At three in the afternoon, before the flowers had begun to wilt on Cassidy’s grave, I went to Micky Gorman’s office for a preliminary conference about the estate.

  Gorman – he who handled the affairs of the press baron – was a big, florid fellow with a jolly laugh and a shrewd eye and a fund of drolleries to divert the unwary. I knew him from my salad days and had a healthy respect for his skill. I showed him the copy of the will and the trust deeds. He gave them a cursory glance and told me: ‘I drew the documents. I can act on them if you want.’

  I told him of my dinner with the Premier and the Attorney-General. He groaned.

  ‘Loomis is a fat bully. I can handle him. There’ll be no delay in probate. All the properties in the schedule are clean and taxes are paid up to date.’

  ‘Loomis was suggesting there are other interests – not clean.’

  ‘Did he offer any proof?’

  ‘He gave me what appears to be a list of foreign corporations and trusts. He claims Cassidy was connected with them, and that they in turn are connected with criminal operations. He demanded that I hand over to him any of Cassidy’s papers relating to names on that list.’

  ‘Do you have the list with you?’

  I passed him the envelope Loomis had given to me. He scanned the contents quickly. It seemed he was not happy about what he read. He handed it back and asked, ‘Do you, in fact, have any of Cassidy’s papers?’

  ‘None at all, other than those on your desk.’

  It was a careful piece of casuistry. Microfiche records are not papers. They are photographic copies. Gorman seemed relieved.

  ‘That lets you out.’

  ‘Not quite.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘As executor, I’m charged to assemble and dispose of the estate. Cassidy’s papers are part of it. So I need to know who’s holding them and where. You must have some in this office.’

  ‘Some, yes.’

  ‘Where are the rest?’

  ‘First,’ said Micky Gorman, ‘I’d better tell you about the birds and the bees. You’ve been away a long time. You and Cassidy were sworn enemies. What could you know?’

  ‘What indeed?’ Ignorance was my strongest shield. Micky Gorman doled out his next words like gold dust.

  ‘In politics and in law, Cassidy was a natural. He understood governance – every goddamned nuance of the game! When you saw him in action it was like watching a great tennis player – mind, muscle and emotion perfectly harmonised and driving towards the kill.’ He grinned and gave a small, embarrassed shrug. ‘Forgive me. I’m not usually so eloquent. But I admired the bastard – envied him too. He seemed to do everything so easily – even the bullshit and the blarney, which is the hardest act of all for an intelligent man. Well, he had a very simple theory of Government: the ruler ruled; the Premier was what his title said – top man on the totem pole; the democratic process was just that, a process by which power was attained. He applied the notion right down the line. He was the one who called the shots. Look! My biggest client, Gerry Downs, runs a nationwide chain of newspapers and TV stations. He’s spent millions over the past decade trying to nail Charlie Cassidy. He’s never managed to do it. Now, of course, he’ll destroy the underlings, and the local machine – but Charlie’s dead and home free! How did
Charlie manage it? He used every ploy in the book: bribery, blackmail, patronage – assassination too, if you come right down to it! – but his hands were always clean. When I was offered Gerry Downs’ work, the whole climate of the situation was, to say the least, unusual. Cassidy had sold out of our partnership, but he was still our client. Downs was offering me, in fees and retainers, more money than you could poke a stick at. I went to Cassidy. I told him I was concerned about conflict of interests. Cassidy shrugged the whole thing off with a grin. I remember word for word what he told me: “Micky, I couldn’t give a hoot in hell what you do. I’ll lay you long odds I sleep more soundly than Gerry Downs. If he wants to wean you away from me, that’s fine. There’s not a document in your hands that won’t stand up to scrutiny in open court. If Gerry Downs ever asks you – which he won’t – you tell him what I said.”’

  Gorman broke off and sat slumped in his chair, toying with a paperknife. I prompted him.

  ‘And that’s what you’re telling me? By all your records, Charlie Cassidy was clean?’

  ‘Whiter than white.’

  ‘But you’re also telling me he was guilty of bribery, blackmail, murder… Do you know that – or are you guessing?’

  ‘I know it.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Don’t ask me. But once I did know, I bought Cassidy out of the partnership. I paid twice the face value of his holding. That ought to tell you something.’

  ‘I’m not trying to make trouble. I simply want to know whether anyone can prove charges against Cassidy.’

  ‘They don’t have to be proven now. Imputation, association, inference–that’s all that’s needed to discredit his memory. But there is tangible evidence against many of Charlie’s people; bribery, conspiracy to pervert the course of justice, intimidation – that sort of thing. Gerry Downs will be publishing a pretty formidable series which will be enough to bring down the Government at election time. The opinion polls run heavily against them even now.’

  ‘You still haven’t told me how Charlie managed to stay safe for so long.’

  ‘Are you sure you want to know?’

  ‘I have to know. I’m married to his daughter. My kids are his grandchildren. They’ll never forgive me if I start hedging on history.’

  ‘You want it. You get it.’ Gorman’s tone was suddenly curt. ‘Every novel you’ve ever read runs to the classic pattern. The criminals are the corruptors. They buy the cops. They blackmail the legislators. They terrorise the innocent. The Mafia, the Camorra, the Triads, that’s how they work. Right?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Charlie Cassidy did exactly the opposite. He ran the villains. He was the Godfather, the Lord High-Bloody-Panjandrum of the underworld. He was a power-broker, born to the role. He started rich, you see. He didn’t have to sell himself for money. There was enough Irish Catholic in him to keep him out of messy sexual situations. Oh, there were women in his life, plenty of ‘em, but he never got caught with his pants off, looking ridiculous. He was what my Irish grandmother called a steady man. He could pay his way into any alliance; but the ones he made were all offshore. That was his secret, don’t you see? Offshore money, offshore power. Hong Kong, Macau, Singapore, India, the Bahamas, Florida. You stick a pin in the map, Cassidy had a man there. And he had respect. That was the key to it. He had respect. If he needed a killer or an intimidator, he flew one in from outside; so he never had to depend on the local police or the local thugs. If he needed more capital he had offshore money to back him.’

  ‘But what was he offering in return? No individual can match the resources of the international crime syndicates.’

  Gorman brooded over the question for a moment then, sombrely, he gave me the answer.

  ‘Patronage! That’s what he offered. Grace and favour from King Charlie Cassidy! He could pledge this whole bloody State – the unions, the clubs, the rackets, the building permits, control of the transport lines, the ports and airfields. He dispensed the goodwill of the Federal Government, too; because Federal members depended on Charlie’s safe voters to win their own seats… That’s a hell of a lot of security, Martin. In the end, however, it wasn’t quite enough. These last three years Charlie was running downhill. He was losing ground every day.’

  ‘To what? To whom?’

  ‘Age… mortality. He didn’t have the heart or the muscle any more. The other thing, well…’

  ‘Let’s have it, Micky, please!’

  ‘The other thing was drugs. He always said: “If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.” You couldn’t wipe out the traffic but you could regulate it and limit its consequences. He was wrong. He couldn’t control the flow of narcotics. He couldn’t contain the marauders in the market or match the flow of new money they created… So his negotiable security was eroded. Sad, when you come to think of it.’

  Micky Gorman heaved himself out of his chair, walked to the window and stood staring out at the blue water framed between the skyscrapers. After a long moment of silence, he told me: ‘Martin, I’m having second thoughts. It will make a cleaner situation, all around, if you get someone else to handle Cassidy’s probate.’

  I felt a sudden surge of anger, but I managed to choke it back.

  ‘Just as you like. Bundle up the files you have. Prepare a final account. I’ll be back at midday tomorrow to settle up and take delivery of the documents.’

  ‘Thank you. No hard feelings?’

  ‘None at all, Micky. I’ll even bring a basin of water, so you can wash your hands!’

  ‘You go to hell!’

  ‘Where are the rest of Cassidy’s papers?’

  ‘I don’t know. At his house. At his bank. He hasn’t confided in me for a long time.’

  ‘I don’t blame him, Micky. Do you?’

  He didn’t answer. I didn’t press the point. Three minutes later I was in a taxi, driven by a Viet with an angelic smile and madness in his eyes, on my way to Cassidy’s harbourside home.

  6

  I had always remembered Cassidy in an Edwardian setting of walnut and mahogany and studded leather, of Waterford crystal and antique cutlery, of genre pictures in baroque frames and family photographs in silver ones. His whiskey was always poured from heavy square decanters, his wine dispensed from beakers with gilded lips. His favourite books were bound in tooled Morocco, with markers of watered silk. He opened his mail with an agate paper-knife. At ease in his study, he wore a velvet smoking jacket and monogrammed slippers. Clare used to call it his Trinity-squireen-look’, which was intended to convey an impression of ripe scholarship and material well-being and political wisdom.

  This house, however, was the habitat of a quite different man: a youthful, modern, ebullient fellow, who loved the sun and the dazzle of bright water and cool colours in his drapes and simple lines in his furniture and pictures pulsing with light. It was a three-storeyed town house built from road-level to the water’s edge, angled to the north-east with a breathtaking view of Sydney harbour and its traffic of shipping and pleasure-craft. The rooms were large and airy, the bookshelves and cupboards were all recessed into the walls, so that one moved freely from the mobile present of harbour traffic to a visionary past, captured and framed on every available wall space. I wondered which of his women had persuaded him to change his image and his life-style.

  Cassidy’s resident staff – Elena and Marco Cubeddu – received me into the house. He was immigrant Sardinian, very formal, very correct. She was a girl from Lazio, inclined to be voluble until she was hushed by a low– spoken word from her husband. They had come to pay their respects at the funeral, so they knew I was family. They seemed a little unclear as to my function as executor; but once they had grasped the fact that I was an avvocato as well as a son-in-law they were more at ease.

  While Elena went to make me coffee, I had a private talk with Marco. I told him first of Cassidy’s bequest to him and his wife – a hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Clearly, he had not expected so much but, a true Sardo, he still maintained a di
gnified reserve.

  ‘He was a great gentleman. It was an honour to serve him. We shall have Masses said for his soul.’

  ‘How did you come to him, Marco?’

  ‘Mr. Melville recommended us.’

  ‘You mean Mr. Marius Melville?’

  ‘Yes. I had worked for him in Milan. Then, when we decided to emigrate, he wrote to Mr. Cassidy, seeking a post for us.’

  ‘Will you go back to Mr. Melville?’

  ‘I don’t know. One waits to be invited.’

  ‘Marco,’ I chose the next words carefully, ‘Mr. Cassidy explained to me before he died that you were a man of trust. I need your help.’

  ‘In what particular, sir?’ He was a man of caution as well as confidence.

  ‘Like all politicians, Mr. Cassidy made enemies as well as friends. Now that he is dead, his enemies will try to blacken his reputation for political reasons.’

  ‘Sadly, that is normal in my country also.’

  ‘May I count upon your discretion not to discuss with anybody your period of service with Mr. Cassidy?’

  ‘I have already had approaches, sir. Visits from journalists, telephone calls from newspapers. I have given them all the same answer. He is dead. He has a right to decent silence.’

  ‘Thank you, Marco. My family and I are grateful for that, too. Another matter: no one is to be admitted to the house without my permission. No tradesmen, no repairmen… no one!’

  ‘That may be a little difficult, sir.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘The signorina has a key. She comes and goes. She sleeps here when she chooses.’

  ‘And who is the signorina?’

  ‘Mr. Cassidy told us to call her Miss Pat. Her real name is difficult to pronounce.’

  ‘But who is she?’

  Marco coughed discreetly and chose his words with care.

  ‘She is – how do you say it? – Mr. Cassidy’s donna di confidenza. She works on his private business. Sometimes she acts as his hostess with people from overseas.’ He picked up a silver-framed photograph from the coffee table. ‘Eccolà! There she is.’