Bleak Spring

by Jon Cleary

  “What about him?”

  She put the paperweight back on the desk. “He couldn’t have cared less. I was just someone who’d given him a good weekend, a bit of young stuff. I don’t mean Mrs. Rockne is old, but you know what I mean. Do we really have to go on with all this?” She said it almost with boredom; she was a mixture of gauche-ness and sophistication. But it was disco sophistication, a veneer as skimpy as the clothes they wore to the clubs. “To tell you the truth, I would’ve gone looking for another job. Only they’re so scarce, the recession and that.”

  Malone put the gun in a manila envelope. “I’m taking the gun with me, okay? Now let’s get back to what I asked you before. You said there were one or two clients he kept to himself, played things close to his chest. Who were they?”

  She gazed at him a moment, but she appeared to trust him now. “Mr. Bezrow was one, Bernie Bezrow the bookmaker. He was our landlord, too.”

  Even Malone, who hadn’t the slightest interest in horse-racing, who hadn’t known Phar Lap was dead till he’d seen the movie, knew Bernie Bezrow. “Who was the other one?”

  “He just called himself Mr. Jones, but I never believed that was his real name. I asked Will about him once and he just smiled and said not to worry my pretty head about it. He actually said that, my pretty head. He could be bloody annoying at times.” She was beginning to sound as if she was not regretting Rockne’s death after all. “Mr. Jones came here twice, I think. He was tall and well-dressed and, I suppose, not bad-looking. He had an accent, but I couldn’t tell you what it was.”

  “Was he dark? Fair? Bald?”

  “He had dark hair, but I think it was thin on top. I remember thinking, I dunno why, he was like an expensive car salesman, you know, Rolls-Royces, cars like that.”

  “I’ve never been in a Rolls-Royce saleroom.”

  Somehow she managed a weak smile. “Neither have I. But you know what I mean.”

  “What about Mr. Bezrow?”

  “Oh, he never came up here to the office, he couldn’t get up the stairs. He’s so fat—he’s huge. He came here once in his car, he has a Rolls-Royce, he had someone driving it, and I had to go downstairs and give him an envelope. Will wasn’t here.”

  “Are there any letters to him in the files?”

  “None. That’s what I meant by Will playing things close to his chest.”

  “You didn’t suspect there was something fishy going on with Mr. Bezrow and Mr. Jones?”

  She looked down at her lap; her hair fell down again. She was dressed in grey slacks and a black sweater, the casual style for a death; the slacks were tucked into black suede boots. She was very still for a while, then she sat back in the chair, seeming to go limp. She tossed her head back, the hair flopping away from her brow. She was giving up, but Malone was not sure what: her job, her love or infatuation for Rockne.

  She said quietly, “Of course I did. But everything’s fishy now, isn’t it? Men get away with murder—well, no, that’s the wrong word this morning, isn’t it? They get away with shonky schemes, or they did, and everyone thought they were heroes, the government gave them decorations. My mother and father are old-fashioned, they believe in morality and honesty and all that, and I was brought up that way. But out in the real world . . .” She looked past him out at the sky above the sea; but there was no evidence written there of the real world. Then she looked back at him, pausing as if wondering whether she was wasting her words on him. “I knew Will was up to something fishy, as you call it. But I didn’t know what and I didn’t want to know. I just wanted to hold on to my job.”

  He stood up. “That’ll be enough for today, Jill. I’m taking the cash box, the safety-deposit box and the gun with me—I don’t think they should be left here, not even in the safe. I’ll get you to sign a release. Either I or Sergeant Clements will be back tomorrow or the next day. You’ll be opening the office?” She nodded, the hair falling down again over her brow. He was standing beside her now and he reached down and pushed back the hair. “That’s been annoying me.”

  She looked up at him, suddenly smiled, a full-toothed effort. “It annoys my father, too.”

  “Thanks,” he said with a grin. “That puts me in my place.”

  They went out to the outer office where Clements sat with two people who didn’t want to speak to him or to each other. Jason stood up at once. “You okay, Jill?”

  “Sure. How about you?”

  “I’m fine. Can you give me a lift back home?”

  “You can come with me, Jay,” said Angela Bodalle. “I’m going back there—”

  “Thanks, Mrs. Bodalle, but I want to go with Jill.” It was rude, a slap across the face, but Angela showed no expression.

  The boy waited while Jill signed the release form she had typed out for Malone; the silence in the office was so heavy it made even the tapping of the word-processor keys sound like that of an old iron-frame portable. Angela Bodalle said nothing till the two young people had departed. Then:

  “Will you be coming back to talk to Olive?”

  “Not this morning. I’m sure you’ll tell her everything we’ve found here.”

  “Of course. If you should want me again, call me at my chambers. My home number is unlisted.”

  “Oh, we never phone,” said Malone amiably. “We just knock on the door.”

  She appeared to be looking for the last word, but couldn’t find it; she gave up and went clack-clacking down the stairs in her high heels. Clements let out a deep breath. “I been sitting here doing my damnedest to be polite—”

  “I wouldn’t worry, Russ. Not with her. Get on to Randwick, ask them to send someone down here and put a seal on the downstairs door and that front door there. We don’t want someone busting in here tonight looking for that cash and that bank statement. Ask them to keep the place under surveillance, at least till I talk to them tomorrow. Tell them the secretary will be coming in here tomorrow. When you’ve done that, you can tell me what you know about Bernie Bezrow.”

  Clements was, or had been, Homicide’s expert on the racing game. His luck at punting had been legendary; it was said that the horses ran with one eye on him on those days he was at the races. Then, some years ago, he had switched to punting on the stock market, a switch that Malone, an idiot when it came to punting on anything at all, had failed to understand. Clements had patiently explained to him that it had to be either shares or property; property meant possessions and he was not a man for such things. At least that had been his philosophy till he had met Romy Keller last summer and since then Malone had had no idea what was Clements’s attitude towards punting or possessions. He, Malone, was an old-fashioned man who did not believe you asked another man what lay in his secret heart.

  When they stood beside their cars in the street outside, Clements said, “To begin with, Bezrow is Sydney’s biggest bookie, weight-wise and betting-wise. But on-course punting isn’t as big as it used to be—the TAB has taken a lot away from them, the crowds don’t go to the races like they used to, so Bernie wouldn’t rake in what he used to. But that doesn’t mean he’s on the breadline.”

  “If he’s so loaded, why would he use a small-time solicitor? Why wouldn’t he use a big firm, the sort of lawyers who know all the tax lurks? Let’s go and talk to him.”

  Clements got into his Toyota and Malone walked along to his own car. He paused for a moment and looked across towards the Oval. Some cricketers were at one end of it, wearing baseball mitts and playing catch, testing their arms in preparation for the coming season. He had had a good arm in his day, able to put the ball right over the stumps from anywhere on the boundary; he felt the urge that all old players feel, to go over there and show the youngsters how good he had once been. But, of course, the arm wasn’t there any more, not the way it used to be.

  He got into the Commodore and drove up to see Bernie Bezrow, someone else for whom, it seemed, the good old days had gone.

  2

  I

  TIFLIS HALL was a Coogee
landmark. It stood just below the crest of the ridge that was the southern rim of the valley that ran down from Randwick to the beach. It stood in about an acre of terraced gardens, a small mansion with two towers, topped by copper cupolas, like bookends holding up the wing of the house that faced the street. Balconies bulged in the upper storey, inviting fantasies of fairytale princesses imprisoned behind the grey stone walls and the barred windows. Four Chinese rain trees, bare but for a sprinkling of early spring green, stood beneath the balconies like the skeletons of lovers who had forgotten their ladders. A high iron-spiked fence surrounded the property and two white bull terriers roamed through the blaze of azaleas and marigolds like two red-eyed demons in the wrong fairy-tale illustration. Coogee, in its day, had had its share of eccentricities but most of them had been human. This house had outlasted them all, was well over a hundred years old.

  Malone announced himself and Clements through the intercom beside the big front gate. A moment later there was a piercing whistle over a hidden sound system and at once the dogs came at full gallop out of the azaleas and went up and round the side of the house. Then the gate-release buzzed.

  As they walked up the long flight of stone steps Malone said, “They don’t build ’em like this any more.”

  “Who’d want to?” said Clements, for once showing some aesthetic taste.

  The front door, thick enough to have withstood a tank attack, was opened by a Filipino maid, who turned pale and looked ready to flee when the two tall men said they were Inspector Malone and Sergeant Clements. But Malone smiled and told her they were not from Immigration and she stepped back and gestured for them to enter. Then she led them into a big room off the wood-panelled hall.

  Bernie Bezrow looked like a half-acre of fashion-plate. He was no more than five nine, Malone guessed, but he weighed at least three hundred pounds. He wore a cream silk shirt, a caramel-coloured alpaca cardigan, beige trousers, yellow socks and brown loafers, polished till they looked as if they had been cut from glass. He was sixty years old, but looked at least ten years younger; his unblemished skin was stretched tightly across the good bones beneath it. His dark eyes, unlike many fat men’s, were not trapped in rolls of fat; he had a well-shaped nose and a wide mouth in which the slightly turned-out lips sat one on the other like steps. Only his chins did not assert themselves; there the fat, firm as it was, had taken charge. The steps parted in a bookmaker’s smile, the cousin of a politician’s.

  “A Sunday morning visit from the police?” He had a light voice, too light for his size; Malone had expected a bass. “Inspector Malone, I’ve heard of you. How is it we’ve never met?”

  “I’m with Homicide.”

  “Ah, that explains it.” Bezrow was quick; he would never be slow to calculate the odds. “I hope this hasn’t something to do with a homicide?”

  “I’m afraid it has.” Malone told him about the murder of Will Rockne. “I thought you might have heard about it on the morning news.”

  “Inspector, I don’t own a radio.” Malone raised an eyebrow and Bezrow smiled and went on: “I hate being chattered at. There is enough pollution in the air without all those voices. How was Mr. Rockne—murdered?”

  “Gunshot, in the face.”

  Bezrow shook his head just a little; none of the fat wobbled. “The world is becoming too violent. But why have you come to see me?”

  “We understand you were a client of his.”

  “No, no. Not a client . . . I see you are taking notes, Sergeant. Is this going to be held in evidence against me?” He smiled again. “Only kidding. But I shouldn’t be, should I? This is serious.”

  Malone nodded, unsure of how he felt towards the bookmaker, whether he liked or disliked him. “I’m afraid it is. If you weren’t a client, what were you, Mr. Bezrow? We understand Mr. Rockne had some sort of dealings with you.”

  Bezrow folded small, well-shaped hands across the slope of his belly. “Dealings? I am—was his landlord. And he would occasionally come to me for advice, that was all. But no dealings.”

  “Advice on horses?” said Clements.

  “No, no. I don’t think he had the slightest interest in racing. No, I met him some years ago, he ran for alderman on the local council. We had a terrible lot in the town hall in those days—you may remember it, the newspapers had a field day. The council’s motto was an honest day’s work for an honest week’s pay. They used to boast none of them was afraid of work—they’d go to sleep beside it every Monday to Friday. I organized the campaign to throw them out. Surprises you, eh? A bookmaker involved in local politics? Why not? Politics is just another question of the odds, everything’s a gamble, isn’t it?”

  “Sergeant Clements doesn’t think so.”

  Bezrow winked at Clements. “I didn’t mention it before, Sergeant, but I’ve heard of you. You are, or should I say were, on every bookmaker’s poison-ivy list. We were always thankful you never betted hugely like some of those who shall be nameless.”

  The room in which they sat was a combination drawing room and library. Two walls were stacked to the high ceiling with books, many of them leather-bound. Bezrow spoke in a slightly literary way, as if whatever time he spent in this room had its influence on him. It was not a room for betting sheets, form guides and computers.

  “Back to Mr. Rockne?” Malone suggested.

  “Oh yes. As I say, he ran for alderman. He didn’t make it, but I was impressed by him.”

  “In what way?”

  “For one thing, he had a very analytical mind.”

  Argumentative would have been Malone’s judgement, not analytical. “So why did he keep coming to you for advice?”

  Bezrow ran a hand over his head. He had dark wavy hair that lay flat on his flat-topped head; there were streaks of grey along his temples. His hand rested a moment on top of his head, like a child’s nervous gesture, then he took it back to rejoin its mate on his lap. “Advice on local politics. Solicitors come up against local politics all the time. Is this conversation going to go on for long? Perhaps you’d like some coffee?”

  Clements, who would have stopped for coffee in the middle of a hanging, nodded; but Malone said, “No, thanks. Are you telling us you are some sort of political boss?”

  “No, no!” Bezrow held up a modest hand. “I’m interested in politics, not just at the local level, but all levels. People know that. Look at the books on those shelves, most of them political history or biographies, the good and the bad.”

  Clements, denied coffee, got up and scanned the shelves. “He’s right,” he told Malone. “There’s a lot here on Russia, Mr. Bezrow. You’re not a communist, are you?” The thought of a communist bookmaker amused him and he sat down laughing. “That’d be one for the books.”

  Bezrow also laughed, a gurgling sound coming from within his huge frame. “I’m of Georgian descent. My great-grandfather came out here from Tbilisi in Georgia in eighteen-fifty-four—Tbilisi has sometimes been called Tiflis, hence the name of this house. Our name then was Bezroff, he was a count—though the joke used to be that anyone who owned three sheep in Georgia had a title of some sort. Could you imagine if I called myself Count Bezrow in the betting ring? The eastern suburbs ladies would be flocking back to the races. It was my great-grandfather who built the house. His son, my grandfather, became a horse breeder, thoroughbreds and remounts—he supplied a lot of the horses for the Australian Light Horse in World War One and for years he supplied horses to the Indian Army. My father took the interest in horses one step further—he became a trainer. He trained two Melbourne Cup winners. The next step—downwards, I suppose some might call it—was for me to have been a jockey. But you see—” The hands spread like upturned starfish on the beach of his stomach and thighs. “Bookies are not numskulls, Sergeant. Some of us know there is another world outside the racing game.”

  For a moment the affability had disappeared; there was sharp venom in the light voice. Clements showed no sign of resentment at being ticked off; but Malone, who had bee
n reading his partner’s signs for a decade or more, recognized what lay behind the blank stare on the big man’s face. He took up the action again himself: “Did he ever come to you for financial advice?”

  Bezrow quickly regained his good humour. “What makes you think bookmakers are financial experts? That’s a myth, Inspector. There are as many bankrupt bookies as there are in any other business, especially in these times.”

  Malone grinned. “I don’t think you’d find too many punters who’d believe that.” Then he bowled a bumper, straight at the wavy-haired head. “Did he ever ask you about a bank called Shahriver Credit International?”

  The dark eyes clouded for just a moment. “Shahriver? No.”

  “We guess it’s a merchant bank. Neither Sergeant Clements nor I have ever heard of it, but then we keep our money under the mattress. Banks don’t have a very good reputation these days. Shahriver has branches in places like Kuwait and Beirut.”

  “An Arab bank?”

  “We don’t know. We’ll check on it tomorrow. But we thought Mr. Rockne might’ve mentioned it to you, especially since you say he came to you for financial advice—”

  “I didn’t say that, Inspector. You said it.” The smile was not quite a smirk.

  “So I did. Well, anyway, he had a sizeable deposit with Shahriver. We don’t think he would have put it there without advice from someone.”

  “How much?”

  Malone’s smile was also almost a smirk. “Mr. Bezrow, do you tell the other bookies how much you have in your bag?”

  Bezrow’s smile widened. “Of course not. Sorry. I’m just surprised Mr. Rockne would have bothered with such an obscure bank.”

  “I’m surprised you’re surprised,” said Malone and bowled another bumper, two in an over, the allowable limit in cricket these days; but this wasn’t cricket: “You didn’t show any surprise when we told you Mr. Rockne had been murdered.”

  Bezrow said nothing. He shifted slightly in the wide chair, a small couch, on which he sat; the springs beneath the green velvet upholstery sighed metallically. The hands were very still on his thighs; the fat of his face seemed to have turned to stone, or anyway hard putty. Then he said very quietly, “Nobody’s death surprises me, Inspector. I’m a fatalist.”