by Jon Cleary
Out in the street a waste disposal truck went by, homeward bound. Its driver tooted the horn. Kelzo had once read that the major waste disposal companies in the United States were owned by the Mafia and he had decided that if anyone knew where a profit was, it was the Mafia. He had bought two waste disposal companies and money rolled in as the garbage rolled out. The four men clinging to the back of the truck turned their heads right and saluted Kelzo, like tank captains saluting their commander. They were Maoris and hated their dago boss, but he paid their wages and turned a blind eye to their sorting the waste before it got to the dump. He thought of himself as a philanthropist, a good Greek word, but there were few who agreed with him.
“That’s two wrong guys who’ve been done, Joe—”
“I had nothing to do with The Dutchman copping it.”
“I’m not saying you did, Joe. That was lucky—collateral damage?” He looked at Gandolfo.
“Yeah, in that case, yeah. But how do we know the hit was meant for Jack Aldwych?”
“We don’t. Maybe it was meant for The Dutchman. In which case, who hired the hitman?”
The three of them sat there, faces as stony as the two statues hailing them. George Gandolfo’s was the stoniest of the three. He had worked for Pete, excuse me, Peter Kelzo for fifteen years, first as a clerk in his building business, then as his general handyman in everything but mostly politics. Yet he had still not learned the secret Peter Kelzo, the one buried deep inside the bonhomie of the public man. Gandolfo had, by accident, discovered several secrets that Kelzo had never revealed and he had learned that his boss was much more ruthless than he had believed. He wondered now if Kelzo knew more about the hitman than he showed.
Then Joe St. Louis, a man who had no secrets but wasn’t lovable because of that, said, “I could go and visit a few guys down the Trades Congress or at the unions. That guy Balmoral might know a thing or two. We done him a favour, like.”
“We done him nothing of the sort,” said Kelzo, wondering why these two dickheads were his closest associates. But knowing why: George Gandolfo could count in his head quicker than a calculator and Joe St. Louis was the best stand-over man in the business. “All we done is stirred up Mother Vanderberg and she’s gunna be twice as tough to deal with. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. That’s an old Greek saying.”
Neither of them contradicted him; they had little knowledge of literature and took no notice of a woman’s fury or her scorn. “We done nothing to her,” said St. Louis.
“Of course we did, dickhead!” He was losing his patience, on which he had a frayed rein at the best of times. “Joe, we let her know we’re not gunna let her run Boolagong. We let her know we were gunna put our own man up for pre-selection.”
“Who?” said George Gandolfo: this was another of Peter’s fucking secrets.
“Garry Fairbanks.”
“Garry—? That dummy?” Gandolfo knew a dickhead when he saw one. “He couldn’t count the runners in a three-horse race.”
“He does what he’s told.”
“Pete—Peter, you ever listened to him? He says he’s a lateral thinker, he doesn’t know what it means.”
“What does it mean?” asked St. Louis.
“His brain is wider than it’s deep. He’ll be a dead loss, Pete. Peter.”
“He’s our man,” said Kelzo stubbornly. “I’ve arranged it. I’ll do his thinking for him. Laterally, right side up, arse up, whatever.”
“I hear the cops’ve got a suspect,” said St. Louis. “I could go looking for him.”
“And do what?” said Kelzo.
“I dunno. Talk to him, ask him who paid him, like. Do him over.” He had a simple approach to truth.
“Why would you wanna do him over?” asked Gandolfo. “He done us a favour.”
Kelzo shook his head at the problems these two gave him. “George, he could be looking to do us next.”
Gandolfo said nothing; then Joe St. Louis said, “We got another problem. Then Channel 15 mob, we gotta do something about them.”
“It’s that girl who’s been nosing around,” said Gandolfo. “She’s getting to be a real pain in the arse. Something I found out—she’s that cop, Malone’s daughter.”
“Then we can’t touch her,” said Kelzo.
“Why not?” said Joe St. Louis.
VI
Balmoral had wanted to take Camilla Feng to the Golden Gate. It was expensive as Chinese restaurants went, but was bargain basement compared to some of the other establishments around town.
“Why?” she had asked.
“Well—” He was a ladies’ man, but he was still working his way through the infinite variety of them. “Well, I just thought you liked Chinese food. You know, national dishes . . .”
“You notice I’m Chinese, but I don’t dress Chinese? No cheongsam? I do like Chinese food, but I also like French and Italian and Vietnamese.”
“Not Australian?” His smile could be quite charming.
“Some of the best chefs in the world are Australian, but they don’t cook Australian. I’d like to go to Ampersand.” She saw his smile stiffen and she added, without her own inner smile that tickled her, “I’ll go Dutch.”
“No, no.” She heard the catch in his throat, like a missed key on a cash register. “I’ll book. The Ampersand it is.”
So here they were at Ampersand, a hundred and eighty dollars for two, plus drinks. Bargain basement compared to London, Paris and New York, but Balmoral had never had to pick up the check in those exotic places. Delegations these days do not worry about expense and he had been on two delegations overseas. Taxpayers never knew what they were paying for.
“What does ampersand mean?” she asked, though she knew. Feigning ignorance is a form of flattery, especially in male company.
“It’s that curly piece, the symbol that stands for and.” If he had not known, he would have looked it up before coming here. He would not have been fazed by the Dead Sea Scrolls or the Book of Han Fei in the original script. He was looking at the menu, running his eyes down the prices as if reading some dreaded writing on a wall. His pocket could be fazed, Camilla thought: he’s mean. “What would you like?”
She was a swift reader of menus as well as men: “I’ll have the jelly of lobster and the rack of lamb.”
She turned to look out at Cockle Bay, a revived name dredged up from the waters of Darling Harbour. Her father, dead from a killer’s bullet, one of the victims of the jinx on Olympic Tower, had told her of his arrival here in this back inlet on a rusty freighter from Shanghai. Drugs and gold had been smuggled in here as ships docked at the wharves, now gone. Though she did not know it, Jack Aldwych had been a gold smuggler and Con Malone had fought pickets and police on those wharves. Now both sides of the inlet were devoted to pleasure and entertainment: convention centres, tourist shops, an aquarium, restaurants and cafes. History was sunk beneath the murky waters.
She looked back at him. “Are you interested in history, Jerry?”
“Political history, yes. The other sort?” He shrugged. “The future is more interesting than the past.”
“How can you know?” She was leading him on. “Is that because you’re ambitious?”
“Yes. There’s no point in being ambitious about the past, is there? It’s contradictory.”
A waiter poured some wine for them, took their orders and went away. He was different, she noted, from Chinese waiters, who always gave the impression of doing you a favour by serving you.
“No, I suppose not.”
“Are you ambitious?”
“Yes,” she admitted without hesitation. “I want to be rich and accepted.”
“Not as Chinese but as yourself?” She nodded and he went on, “You and I would make a good pair, Camilla.”
She had not expected him to come on so soon; maybe he wanted to get out of here before dessert and coffee. She was still smiling inwardly at him. “In what way?”
“Would there be a better-looking cou
ple, ever, in The Lodge in Canberra?”
Migod, he’s unbelievable! “You’re going to be Prime Minister?”
“Eventually.” He took a sip of wine, smiled at his own conceit. “You think I’m swollen-headed, right? I may be, but modesty never got you anywhere in this country. The voters like you to be up-front.”
She knew nothing of the past political history of the nation; she had heard her father speak of Ben Chifley, a modest man, but she couldn’t remember whether he had been PM or Premier. He was a dim figure from another age, when maybe modesty had been an admired attribute. Jerry Balmoral was right: salesmanship was the order of today.
“Are you proposing to me, Jerry?”
Again the charming smile: she could see it on television screens in the future, women falling on their backs at the sight of it. “We could consider it.”
“Like one considers a mortgage?” she said with her own smile. “Ask me when you’re PM.”
The waiter brought their first course and she dug her fork into the jellied lobster. He had ordered the savarin of blue swimmer crab, which, she had noted with her quick eye, was more expensive than her own order. Maybe, she decided, he had become reckless, in for a penny, in for a pound. Or perhaps he thought it was what Prime Ministers would order.
“But where do you start?” she asked.
“I’ve started.” He was enjoying the crab; or enjoying himself. “I’m aiming to get the pre- selection for the Premier’s old seat, Boolagong.”
“If you get it, what then?”
“Two terms, then I’ll run for a Federal seat. I’ll have established myself by then, be a minister in the second term.”
She wanted to shake her head at his certainty of himself; but she was not here to play superior. “If you win Boolagong or whatever it’s called, will you have any influence? Because it was Mr. Vanderberg’s seat?”
“Of course.”
She was still finding it hard to believe his self-assurance. “Would you use it?”
“Yes. That’s what politicians are for, to use their influence. What can I do for you?” Again the smile, round a piece of blue-eyed crab.
“You don’t think Boolagong is—what do they call it?—a danger zone? That someone doesn’t want a Labor member?”
He looked at her shrewdly. “You know something about politics? I thought—”
She hurried to cover her mistake: “Only what I’ve read in the newspapers, seen on TV. You won’t be afraid to step in there?”
“Not at all.”
She wasn’t sure whether it was bravado or confidence. “You won’t have any opposition?”
“None that can’t be handled.”
She changed tack: “If you get the pre-selection, will it cost much to run a campaign?”
“You want to contribute?”
She hesitated, then said, “We—I might.”
“We?” He hadn’t missed her slip.
She was proving to be less competent than she had expected; he was not yet in politics but he was already a politician. “I meant our family company.”
“No.” The smile this time was less charming. “You meant Olympic Tower.”
She waited while the waiter took away their plates; she was glad of the interruption, gave him a smile like a tip. When he was gone, she said, “What makes you think Olympic Tower would want to give you money?”
“You gave it to Hans Vanderberg.”
“How do you know?”
“Let’s just say I know. Is that why you came to dinner with me?”
She dodged that one. “Who else knows?”
“Besides me, those on my side? Nobody. I don’t think anyone in the Boolagong branch knows, outside of Mrs. Vanderberg and Barry Rix. What were you buying from The Dutchman?”
She took her time, waited while the waiter came back to pour more wine.
“Your main course will be here soon.” He was a young man who obviously enjoyed serving good-looking women who smiled at him. “We never rush our guests.”
“We like to take our time,” said Balmoral, winking at Camilla. “Don’t we?”
He was a mixture of gaucheness and smoothness. But he was not alone: she had met scores of men like him.
When the waiter had gone away again she said, “I don’t think you will ever take your time.”
“Oh, you’re wrong there, Camilla. You’d be surprised at how patient I can be to get what I want. What was it you wanted from Hans Vanderberg?”
She was still re-gathering herself, though outwardly she looked at ease. “You would have to talk to my partners about that.”
“Will I have to take all of them to dinner, too?” But he said it without malice.
“They are never dinner partners,” she said and realized for the first time that it was true.
“Do you know what they want?”
“Yes.” She looked at him across the table, all at once regaining her composure; sure of herself but surer of her partners. This PM-aspirant opposite her would be no match for Jack Aldwych and Madame Tzu. “But I didn’t come to talk business.”
“Why did you come?”
“You intrigue me. I’ve never met anyone at the bottom of the political ladder, someone who hasn’t yet got his foot on the bottom rung.”
He had time to recover from that. The waiter brought their main courses, the rack of lamb for her, grilled john dory for him. His, she had noted, was the higher priced; he was dining haut prix as well as haute cuisine tonight. She wondered if an expense account would be presented at Trades Congress tomorrow morning. Somehow he had found an expansion to his credit card without causing him to collapse.
At last he said, “I think we must get to know each other better.”
“You really think I could help your career?” She was not a good flirt, but she was trying.
“You’re beautiful, you’re smart and from what I’ve read, Chinese women are the strength behind their men.”
“That depends on the woman.” She thought of Madame Tzu, who didn’t need men to show her strength. “You’ll have to learn to temper your flattery. You’re too—too direct.”
“That’s how a politician should be. The voters suspect you if you soft-soap them with flattery. They like you to be direct, even if they dislike you. Will you marry me?”
She hoped he was joking. “No. Is that too direct?”
He nodded appreciatively, the charm back in his smile. “You’ll be an adornment to The Lodge. We can make it multi-racial.”
“Wouldn’t it be better if I were also part-Aboriginal?”
“One can’t have everything,” he said, but one knew he would never settle for less.
As he looked at the bill, his face stiffening in apparent pain, he said, “Your place or mine?”
She wanted to laugh; but said, “Mine.”
“Where do you live?” He had picked her up at the Feng offices in Chinatown.
“Drummoyne. On the water.”
“Nice.”
He had a Mercedes, one that she guessed was at least twelve years old. She judged him to be the sort who would always choose an imported luxury car, even one second—or third-hand, to anything local. That might have to change when he became a politician, but for the moment vanity was at the wheel.
He drove well, with flair. He really is well-rounded in everything needed to get ahead, she thought: vanity, flair, ambition. And, she was sure, buried under all that, ruthlessness.
Drummoyne is on the south bank of the Parramatta River. It is in the Harding electorate; Peter Kelzo lived two streets away, though she had never met him and had no desire to. The Mercedes drew up in the quiet dead-end street and Balmoral looked out at the large modern house between the street and the water.
“Very nice. You live here alone?”
“No,” she said and kissed him on the cheek. “My mother always waits up for me.”
VII
Next morning she told her senior partners: “He knows about the money, but he doesn
’t know what it’s for.”
“Could he be useful?” asked Les Chung.
“Not yet. Maybe in the future. He wants to be Prime Minister.”
Aldwych shook his head. “He won’t be any use to us there. You don’t buy influence down in Canberra, unless you’re looking for tax concessions. You shop for influence in Macquarie Street. That’s what State governments are for.”
Les Chung smiled. Democracy had been defined.
“If he knows about the money, will he talk about it?” asked Madame Tzu.
“If he does,” said Aldwych, “I’ll get my man Blackie Ovens to talk to him. Blackie can come out of retirement for a day or two.”
“No,” said Jack Junior, second youngest and least bloodthirsty. “How is he getting on with you, Camilla?”
“He wants to marry me.”
“Really?” The four men and even Madame Tzu were surprised.
“Love at first sight?” asked General Wang-Te, who was shortsighted when it came to love. His wife had been a bride of convenience, an inconvenient one when he discovered she thought sex was a sin. American missionaries were more insidious than their CIA.
“No.” She gave them the smile she had given Balmoral when she had kissed him goodnight. “He thought I was his mirror.”
But Madame Tzu remembered the advice of the Emperor Tai-zong. If one used others as a mirror, one might learn of one’s achievements and failures.
Jerry Balmoral might be brighter than they thought.
5
I
“THEY’VE TRACED Janis Eden,” said Clements.
“Where’d they find her?”
“She’s a blackjack dealer at the Harbour Casino. Changed her name to Joanna Everitt. They never miss, do they? Always the same initials.”
“They’re the smart ones, just in case they’ve got something with their initials on it, something they want to keep. Have they picked her up?”
“No, they’ve left it to us. She was our pigeon originally, they said.”
“That was what Pilate said. Everybody washing their hands.”
“It’s the system, mate. That was why God invented water.”
Malone and Clements drove over to the big casino complex just across the water from the western edge of the city. It was a huge futuristic concept, like the set for an Arnold Schwarzenegger movie. A vast arc of steps, or steppes, led up to the main entrance, an ideal stage for a massacre. Clements drove round to come in a wide entry where escalators led up to the main gaming floor.
