Cassidy

by Morris West

  Punctually at eight, Laura Larsen joined me for breakfast in the suite. We kissed chastely and talked selfconsciously for the opening gambits. Then she said brusquely, ‘Let’s stop this silly game, Martin. We know what we feel for each other. Let’s be open about it. Let’s admit that we don’t want to add new complications to our lives…’

  ‘I admit. You admit. So where does that take us?’

  ‘To Bangkok first, and your meeting with my father. You’ve got to understand how important that first encounter is going to be.’

  ‘Laura, my love! How can I understand it? I’ve never met your father. I have only the sketchiest idea of his relations with Cassidy. As to his personal activities… what can I possibly know? On the other hand, all these years I’ve meant nothing in his life. Why am I suddenly so important?’

  ‘Martin, you said you trusted me.’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘Then why do you lie to me? You said you were going to Canberra to confer with a lawyer. That was perhaps not a lie, but it certainly wasn’t the whole truth. You were picked up at the airport by a Federal Police driver. You spent the morning at police headquarters. You lunched with the Commissioner at the Commonwealth Club, you went back to headquarters and were driven in a police car to catch the 5.05 flight to Sydney. Last night, just after you arrived, two new guests checked in. My security staff thought they might be police officers. They’re usually right about such things. Well?’

  ‘In other words, you’ve been having me shadowed.’

  ‘I told you from the beginning. You’ve got my father and you’ve got me, whether you want us or not.’

  ‘Is your father a criminal, Laura?’

  ‘What did the Commissioner tell you when you asked him that question?’

  ‘Your father provides services for criminal elements. He has never been convicted of a crime.’

  ‘Everyone provides services for criminal elements – the builder, the baker, the shoemaker, the cab-driver, the hotel-keeper. So what?’

  ‘As you say, my love, so what? But I think you’ll agree my position is somewhat special. A long time ago, I walked out of Cassidy’s life and took his daughter with me. From that time on there was a blood-feud between us. Then a couple of weeks ago he turns up on my doorstep in London a dying man. He asks me to be his executor. I accept. It’s a formality, a routine service… Like hell it is! I’m not half way through his papers and I realise that Cassidy’s set me up. I’ve got all his records. So either I’m the new king of the castle, or I’m the pretender who has to be knocked off before a new king takes over. Either way, your father’s got a vested interest in my fate. My prime interest is in staying alive, which is why I went to talk to the Federal police. I don’t feel half so secure with the local boys who were running things in Cassidy’s time.’

  ‘Will you tell my father that?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Will you tell him what you disclosed to the police?’

  ‘Yes – and I hope he’ll be equally direct with me.’

  ‘He will. Be sure of it. That’s why he and Charlie Cassidy got along so well. They both knew exactly where the bottom line was – though they often disagreed on how to get to it.’

  ‘What’s the bottom line now, for your father?’

  ‘I am,’ said Laura Larsen.

  Demure as a Dresden shepherdess, she waited for my reaction. I wasn’t impressed. Daddy was solicitous for his little girl’s future. I was solicitous for my daughter, too. Wasn’t everyone? The melody was simple, if not without charm. I told her it needed some orchestration to lift it out of the commonplace.

  ‘You’re not a very friendly audience.’

  ‘Try to remember I’m sitting in the middle of the theatre, right under the big chandelier. If it drops, it falls on my head. I’m not hostile, just wary.’

  As she talked, haltingly at first, then eloquently, I began to see another woman altogether, more subtle, more versed in history and its consequences than the little Miss Owl-Eyes who had snared me between London and Bahrain and held fast to me ever since.

  ‘…My father is a dynast, pure and simple. He is the summary of all his past. His future is without meaning unless there is a successor to whom he can transmit the tribal tradition. He is proud of his nobility – even though it is only a petty title. He is descended from some obscure Knight of the Order of Malta, but, because he’s Sicilian born, he is rooted in that tradition as well: the old inbred pride, the hatred of the foreign oppressor, the suspicion of the central Government, the conviction that the rogueries of one’s own folk are more easy to cope with than the virtues of the outsider… That’s what he built on, you see. That’s why the Mafia families in America accepted him and kept faith with him. He was above them, but not against them. He was bound by the same code as they. He might not approve them; he would never betray them. They could live together in trust…’

  I was reminded vividly of Cassidy’s apologia to the Commissioner… ‘Symbiosis, living together from a shared resource… It’s the human compromise. Without it you get the Police State: order in the streets and a blackshirt on every corner!’ I was tempted to tell her the thought, but I said nothing. She was plunging ahead with her own case for the defence.

  ‘…That was Cassidy’s tradition, too. I remember the long nights in our house in Connecticut when he expounded it to my father – Cromwell’s sack of Ireland, to hell or Connaught, the great extirpation, the great famine, the coffin ships, the Black and Tans, the Easter Rising, the bloody tyrannies of Norfolk Island and Van Diemen’s Land – all of it strung together like a bard’s song in that winning brogue he could turn on or off like a wine-spigot… Father and he were like brothers together, laughing, quarrelling, chasing women, talking up great plans and how to make them come true. Which they did, by God!… But the sadness was the same for both: there was no son in the house. Cassidy felt that you and his daughter had betrayed him. I’m an only child. I’m divorced. There’s no grandson in prospect either. So you see I really am the last of the line for my father. He’s built an empire, but there’s no one except me to take it over and run it. Left to themselves, without my father’s arbitration, the Families will rip it apart within two years… Are you answered, Martin Gregory?’

  ‘Almost. I’d like to ask you one more question. Clearly, after your father dies you’ll be rich and well cared for. How much do you really care what happens to his empire?’

  ‘Oh, I care!’ She was deadly serious now. ‘I’m a dynast too, you see. In a way you probably can’t understand, I’m ashamed of being childless – more ashamed because my father’s want is so great. But I’m old country, as he is. I want to end up a matriarch with my sons kissing my cheeks and my daughters bringing their boys home for my approval… So make no mistake, I care! And you, Martin?… You’ve talked to the politicians, you’ve talked to the police and the lawyers and me and Cassidy’s mistress – but where do you stand? What do you want? What will you say to my father when he offers you five million dollars for Cassidy’s records?’

  ‘I’ll tell him he can have them; but they won’t be exclusive any more. I’ve already opened them to the Federal Police. So they’re probably worthless to your father.’

  ‘He’ll appreciate your frankness. He’ll hardly commend your wisdom.’

  ‘Other climates, other customs. I owe your father no debts. He was Cassidy’s friend, not mine.’

  ‘Are you my friend, Martin?’

  ‘Yes, I am.’

  ‘Then what will you do when…’

  I leaned across the table and sealed her lips with my fingertips.

  ‘Please, my sweet! Because I am your friend, don’t try to commit me to decisions on “ifs” and “maybes”. As a lawyer, that’s repugnant to me. As a man, I hate being jockeyed into promises I can’t keep. Let your father tell me what he wants. I’ll reason with him about it. If it makes good sense to both of us – fine! – we’re in business. If it doesn’t, one of us walks away, with no hard fe
elings. It’s as simple as that.’

  ‘No, it isn’t.’ Her denial was emphatic. ‘My father is a very complicated man. I cannot explain to you how meticulously he measures his relationships with other people: his praise, his blame, his gratitude, his disapproval, the punishment he metes out for delinquency…’

  ‘Punishment! Who does he think he is – God?’

  ‘Sometimes, yes.’ She gave me an uncertain little smile and told me: ‘All right then. No “ifs”. No “maybes”. Just so we stay friends. What are your plans today?’

  ‘I’m at the bank all day with Arthur Rebus.’

  ‘Dinner tonight?’

  ‘I’m not sure. There’s a lot to do before I leave for Bangkok. May I call you later?’

  ‘Of course. Have a good day.’

  She kissed me lightly on the lips and was gone. I called for Mr. Paul the butler to remove the breakfast things while I made ready for my session at the bank.

  The man the Commissioner had sent us to study the Cassidy files was a pink-cheeked, baby-faced fellow, with an alto voice and a mind like a mantrap. His name was Donohue, his rank was Detective-Sergeant. His first act was to take possession of the pistol I had found in Cassidy’s safe. He put it in a cellophane bag which he tagged and sealed and shoved in his briefcase. Next, he produced two bags of glucose powder, identical in size, weight and marking with those which contained the heroin. Having switched the bags, he turned his attention to the stones, which he examined one by one with a jeweller’s loupe, checking the description of each one against the notations on the packets. Finally, he announced the Commissioner’s decision that the monies, stones and glucose could be handed over to Standish and Waring in settlement of the share transaction with the Macupan Pharmaceutical Company in Manila. The stones and the currency were traceable elements; but the Commissioner had had a crisis of conscience – political and personal – about releasing a kilo of heroin onto the open market. He added an off-hand postscript.

  ‘Of course, Mr. Möller’s going to be hopping mad when he discovers the switch. So watch your back, Mr. Gregory.’

  ‘I hope you fellows are watching it for me.’

  ‘If that’s what the Commissioner promised, I’m sure we are.’

  ‘And what about the lady?’ asked Arthur Rebus. ‘She’s at risk too, isn’t she?’

  ‘Possibly. But she leaves the country on Saturday. Möller won’t get the stuff until she’s gone… Anyway, the Commissioner’s not really interested.’

  The way he said it wasn’t encouraging. Our lives were the Commissioner’s pigeon. They were a matter of supreme indifference to Baby-Face.

  After that, the three of us settled down to view the remaining microfiches in Cassidy’s briefcase and the papers I had removed from his safe. Both Donohue and Rebus were goggle-eyed at the variety of information available: extracts from share registers, confidential reports on senior police officers, depositions from the divorce cases of Cabinet ministers, bank statements, copies of betting slips, patronage lists, a suicide note, transcripts of telephone conversations, reports of Shire Council meetings, a list of brothels in the metropolitan area, each classified for cleanliness, security, entertainment value; a similar list of gambling establishments with the ownership of each, nominal and actual.

  For my part, I was beginning to be wearied by the stuff. Important as it might be to the mechanics of venal government, or as an ultimate weapon in the fight for reform, it was becoming less and less relevant to me, because I could not act on it. My power, if indeed I had any, lay elsewhere, in the manipulation of money. So the only thing I was looking for now was a document, if such existed, that appointed me delegate of the Rotdrache trustees. Finally, towards the end of the afternoon, we came upon a single microfiche headed:

  ROTDRACHE TRUST EXTRACT OF INFORMATION

  The extracts were set down thus:

  Settlor of Trust Marius Melville

  Date of Determination Ten years from date of settlement

  Trustees Horstman and Preysing, Zurich

  Beneficiaries As listed in Deed of Trust

  Delegate of Trustees Martin Gregory (upon decease of C. P. Cassidy)

  Documents All documents are held in the offices of Horstman and Preysing, Zurich

  ‘Bingo!’ said Arthur Rebus softly. ‘You’re in!’

  ‘I wouldn’t advertise it,’ said Sergeant Donohue. ‘We worry about people with high financial profiles. When do you go to Bangkok?’

  ‘Sunday. Why do you ask?’

  ‘I’d hold up delivery of this stuff to Mr. Möller until after you’ve left.’

  ‘I have a suggestion, too,’ said Arthur Rebus. ‘Today’s Thursday. I’d like to get you out of town first thing tomorrow morning, take you cruising on Pittwater for a couple of days and then deliver you straight to the plane on Sunday.’

  ‘But we haven’t finished with the microfiches yet. There’s at least another day’s work.’

  ‘You’ve lost interest,’ said Sergeant Donohue coolly. ‘Your judgement’s not reliable any more. We’re the people who’ll be using the material. Leave me to finish the run through and I’ll deliver the briefcase to your plane on Sunday.’

  ‘He’s right,’ said Arthur Rebus, in his amiable but acid fashion. ‘Now that I’m sure you’ve got the key to the milking machine, I want to keep you close to me – at least until I’ve collected my fees!’

  Suddenly I felt humiliated by their bland assumptions. Suddenly I remembered Cassidy’s last letter to me:

  ‘…Material will be abstracted, key documents will be lost until the whole potent pattern is destroyed. You, of course, won’t have to worry. You’ll be Martin the Righteous, sleeping the sleep of the just with the receipt for a failed reformation tucked under your pillow.’

  I remembered something else, too, much further in the past, when he came into the office waving a copy of Moss Hart’s Act One. He perched himself on the edge of my desk and read out one sentence. ‘In theatre, the greatest enemy is fatigue.’ Then he launched into one of his famous monologues. ‘It’s the same in the law. We wilt under the pressure of detail. We are smothered by verbiage. Whole passages in a brief become a blur… That’s when we’re most vulnerable and our clients most at risk!…’

  I was not only wilting, I was beginning to lose even my anger. I looked from Rebus to Donohue and then told them flatly, ‘You’re patronising me, gentlemen. I don’t like it. We’re going to finish this job together. I couldn’t bear it if either of you knew more than I did. I’d hate to think I knew less than Rafe Loomis.’

  ‘That’s a sudden change of heart.’ Arthur Rebus pricked up his ears at the reference. ‘Thinking of going into State politics, are we?’

  ‘It’s been suggested – by the same Rafe Loomis, no less.’

  ‘Well, at least you could afford it… You two start work. I’m going to send out for some drops. This scanner is making my eyes hurt.’

  We worked right up to closing time. Donohue had filled a notebook with ciphered references. We all agreed that one more day should see us through. Rebus invited us to his club for drinks. Donohue declined. He wanted to call the Commissioner and then get home to his wife, who was expecting a baby. Before he left, however, he presented me with a small problem of protocol, which might blow up into a large problem of jurisdiction.

  ‘…You’ve already discussed this material with the Premier and the Attorney-General of New South Wales. You agreed to make whatever is relevant to criminal matters available for inspection by the State police. Now you’ve come over their heads to us… And you’re about to dispose of certain items like money, jewellery and drugs which the Attorney-General thinks or knows you have. How do you propose to handle the situation; because, while you can defer it, you can’t duck it.’

  It gave me a perverted pleasure to hand the question straight to Arthur Rebus.

  ‘…Now that your fees are guaranteed, Arthur, let’s have full opinion.’

  ‘With pleasure,’ said Art
hur Rebus. ‘The situation appeals to my sense of irony… We haven’t gone over anyone’s head. Your first recourse was to the State authorities. Then we decided it was desirable to seek advice at Federal level… All protocols have been observed. Sunday you’ll be gone, taking Cassidy’s briefcase with you. Miss Rhana will also have left town. Which leaves me sitting here, pretty as a picture, with four bags of documents and porno pictures from Cassidy’s safe, plus a consignment of glucose powder – which still bothers me, by the way – precious stones and currency which, prima facie, are consideration for an offshore transaction. On Monday I call on Loomis, display my power of attorney and ask him how he’d like to handle the whole business. You’re in the clear, I’m your noble and true servant at law. If Loomis is as cute as I think he is, he’ll thank me and send me home while he thinks out a position. If he claims that he’s been denied access to any documents, then I’ll suggest that he ask the Commissioner to make the Sergeant’s transcripts available… You’d be happy about that, wouldn’t you, Sergeant?’