Now and Then, Amen

by Jon Cleary

  Tewsday hadn’t sat down when he entered Fingal’s office. He stood on trembling legs, wanting to leap at the smug old man behind the desk but knowing he could never bring himself to that peak of violence. Cowardice is a good self-defence. “I’ll get you, Hourigan! I’ll break this corporation—”

  “If I owned a bakery, you couldn’t break a piece of stale cake. You’ve only got as far as you have because I’ve let you. You’re a number two man, Jonathan, you always will be . . . Goodbye!”

  He swung his chair round, disappearing from Tewsday’s view behind the high back of his chair. Tewsday stood a moment longer, fury making him ugly; but there was no one to see it, not even the man at whom it was directed. He was full of words, but they were incoherent, even in his head; it takes a cool mind to be properly abusive. He spun round, almost toppling over on his unsteady legs, and galloped out of the office. This was the highest office in the land, the peak where he had always dreamed of sitting, and he had just been kicked out for ever. He felt he was falling from a great height.

  Going home to Pymble he sat in sullen silence in the back of the Rolls-Royce. Gawler said nothing till they were held up in stalled traffic on the Pacific Highway. Then, without looking round, he said, “Have the police been back to see you, Sir Jonathan?”

  “Eh?” Tewsday came back to the back seat. He had been miles away in the past, a region he hadn’t visited in years. “You mean this afternoon? No. Why?”

  “I didn’t like the sound of their questions this morning.” There had been time for only a brief discussion on the short ride up to the Reserve Bank that morning. “That Inspector Malone, I don’t think he’d ever take maybe for an answer.”

  “No,” Tewsday agreed. “But we have to sit tight.”

  “Yeah,” said Gawler, but for once he sounded less than cool and distant.

  Tewsday had not mentioned to Fiona the ultimatum Fingal had given him; till five o’clock this afternoon he had refused to admit, even to himself, that his career with Ballyduff was finished. Injustice had been done; which is more soul-destroying than justice being done. Though no one had ever accused Tewsday of having a soul, not even Fiona.

  “What are you going to do?” she said when he told her he had resigned. She didn’t believe his resignation had been voluntary, but she did not want to humble him. He looked sick and she felt a certain pity for him; love had finished up as pity, but the latter was still a genuine feeling. “Why don’t you retire? Don’t look for another position.”

  “No, I’m too young—” Though he felt older than he had ever dreamed he would be. “I have to see Fingal go first—”

  “Don’t get too worked up.” She recognized the signs. He had never told her of his hatred for Fingal Hourigan, but he had never been able to hide it from her. She was still a good wife in that respect, keeping a husband’s secrets, even though he had not revealed them to her. “We’ll go away on a holiday. Somewhere on the Barrier Reef, Lizard Island, perhaps—”

  “No, I can’t go now.” An earthquake was about to happen and he wanted to be there when the victims were counted. Including, he hoped, Fingal Hourigan. Then he said, “Can I sleep with you tonight?”

  “It’s still a double bed.” She said it kindly, almost with some of the old love.

  IV

  In the morning he was half-dressed for the office when he remembered he would not be going to Ballyduff any more. After breakfast, which he only nibbled at, he wandered about the house, getting in the way of Sally Gawler, till finally he was told by her would he mind going into his library and staying there. There is no one so demanding of the territorial imperative as a woman doing housework. Fiona went off in the BMW to one of her charity meetings; his daughters, as usual, were at their weekly boarding school. At last he went out into the garden where Gawler was cutting back a big camellia bush.

  Gawler said at once, “I’m worried, Sir Jonathan. There’s a car parked up the street with two guys in it. It was there early this morning when I went down to the gate to pick up the papers. It’s still there.”

  “Police or someone else?” But who else? Fingal no longer had any interest in him.

  “I’d lay money it’s police.” He snipped at the bush with the big sharp secateurs. “I think I’d like to take a vacation.”

  “You had your holidays only—oh, I see.” He shivered with the cold; or so he thought. A southwest wind was blowing, bringing hints of an early winter; a brown snow of leaves blew across the lawns. “It’d be foolish to start running away, Gary. That would only raise suspicion.”

  “It’s already raised.” Gawler knew an ill-wind when it blew, warm or cold; he had been chased in all climes. “Those guys aren’t sitting out there just because they like the neighbourhood.”

  “Have you said anything to Sally?”

  “No. She’s right outside this, okay?” There was a threat in his voice.

  “Of course, of course. We mustn’t panic. Let things take their course.” But he really didn’t know how the police worked. They were in a different business altogether.

  He watched Gawler cutting the camellia bush; the secateurs sounded as if they were slicing through bone. He said, poised ready to run if necessary, “I know all about you, Gary.”

  Gawler paused, the blades open round a branch. “You know what?”

  “About what you did in Vietnam, in Bangkok, back in the United States. Everything. Alphonse Brown, Ray Karr. Everything.”

  Gawler lowered the secateurs, held them like a dagger for an upward thrust. “How long have you known?”

  “Since about a month after you killed that junkie who attacked me.”

  “Who told you?”

  “It doesn’t matter. Your secret’s safe with me.”

  “Is it safe with the guy who told you?”

  “Yes. Alphonse Brown. Alphonse? Did you have a French mother or something?”

  Gawler smiled; the secateurs were hanging loosely in his hand now. “No. My daddy worked for Al Capone, Alphonse Capone, when he first come up to Chicago from the Kentucky hills. He was only small-time, the old man, but he thought Capone was the greatest. Capone used to call himself Al Brown one time, I dunno why. My daddy thought he was doing me an honour, y’know? What kid would want to be called Alphonse?” Then he raised the secateurs again. “So what are we gonna do?”

  The wind had dropped; the cold seemed more deadening now. In the garden next door Tewsday could hear Mrs. Prunello calling to her cat: like to like, as Fiona would say. He wondered if she had heard any of their conversation. Fiona had warned him that she had ears like satellite dishes; gossip was her energy current. He lowered his voice, which in his own ears sounded as if it had a shiver in it.

  “We just trust each other, Gary.”

  Gawler looked at him, cool and distant again. “We better, Sir Jonathan. We better.”

  Malone and Clements arrived at lunchtime. Tewsday was not surprised to see them; just depressed and afraid. He had had home-made pea soup and hamhocks for lunch; they curdled in his stomach when he opened the door to the two detectives. “Why, Inspector Malone!”

  “Sir Jonathan,” said Malone, too tired for preliminaries; jet lag had started to catch up with him again, “we’d like to talk to you about your driver Gary Gawler.”

  Tewsday hesitated, then stood aside. “Come in.” He led them into the library, closing the door so that Sally Gawler would not hear what he knew was about to be said. “What’s all this about, Inspector?”

  “We went to Ballyduff House, but they told us there that you resigned yesterday afternoon. A bit sudden, wasn’t it?”

  “It’s going to be announced today, after a board meeting. My health has not been good. Blood-pressure, heart—I’ve been advised to take a long break.” He felt ready for intensive care. “What about Gawler?”

  “We’ve got two reports on him, one from the FBI in Washington, the other from the CIA.” Joe Nagler’s contact in ASIO had used his contact in the CIA; even in the world o
f spooks, Malone had remarked to Clements, it was not what you knew but whom you knew that counted. “Maybe you’d like to see them?”

  Tewsday glanced at them, making a pretence of his surprise. “I never knew . . . His references were excellent!”

  Malone took back the telexes. “I think these are more reliable. Where is he?”

  “Over—over in his flat.” He was trapped; Gawler would not take the rap on his own. “Is—do you think he’ll be dangerous?”

  “I hope not.” But Malone looked at Clements. “You’d better get the two fellers from out in the street, Russ. Just in case.” Clements hurried out and Malone turned back to Tewsday. “Why did Sister Mary Magdalene, Teresa Hourigan, come to see you the night she was murdered?”

  “Eh?” He put out a hand to steady himself, it fell on the big antique globe beside his desk; the world spun round, giving him no support at all. “The Archbishop’s niece? She wasn’t here! Where did you get that—?”

  “We’ve traced the cab driver who brought her here from Pymble station. We have another witness who saw her arrive.” But he did not name Mrs. Prunello; he didn’t want to start a neighbourhood war. “Why did she come?”

  The earthquake had started and he was to be the first victim. He had never been philosophical; there wasn’t a philosopher on the surrounding library shelves who could help him. The “good solid reads” were full of men like himself, successes who were flawed. But he had learned nothing from them.

  “She—she called me, said she wanted to talk to me about her uncle and a deal he was trying to put through with one of our companies . . .”

  “Austarm.”

  “Yes, yes! I agreed to see her because I wanted to stop the deal—it was bad for the corporation, bad for Australia—” He was babbling, wrapping the flag, anything, round him. “We were on the same side, she and I—”

  Then Clements came bursting back into the room. “He’s gone, Scobie—bolted! Raudonikis and Harris have been out in the drive, in front of the flat, ever since we came in here. But he’s not there—he must have scooted over the back fence.” He looked at Tewsday. “What’s at the back of your garden?”

  “A small reserve—a park. He can’t have—bolted!” He felt a prick of hope: with Gawler gone there would be no one to testify against him.

  “Get a call out!” Malone snapped. “Stay here, Sir Jonathan—don’t you try to bolt!”

  Malone and Clements left the room on the run; but Malone was back within a minute. Tewsday had slumped down in his chair and Sally Gawler, who had come in from the back of the big house, was standing beside him. She looked in bewilderment at Malone as he came back in.

  “What’s going on? I can’t get a word out of Sir Jonathan—who are you?”

  “Police. Who are you—Mrs. Gawler? Where’s your husband?”

  “Gary? He’s, I dunno, over in the flat. I was just going to call him for his lunch—why do you want him?” Suddenly she looked even more worried.

  Malone took the telexes out of his pocket. “Did you know any of this, Mrs. Gawler?”

  She read the dispatches, then shook her head dazedly. “The FBI? The CIA? My Gary?”

  “I think you’d both better come with me. I’ll take you into Homicide.”

  Tewsday at last regained his voice. “I’ll have to call my wife.”

  “Of course. I think you’d better call your lawyer, too.”

  “Does Mrs. Gawler need to come?” He was not totally taken up with himself: he saw how shattered she was.

  “Just for her own protection.”

  Sally Gawler was shocked at the suggestion. “Gary would never hurt me!”

  “I’m afraid he’s already done that,” said Malone and wondered again at the number of women who fell in love with the bastards of the world.

  V

  Malone managed, on one pretext or another, to keep Tewsday at Homicide and then at Police Centre for almost five hours. He wanted to hold him till Gawler had been picked up, but he spent the afternoon battling Fiona Tewsday, two lawyers, a State Member of Parliament and finally Commissioner Leeds himself.

  “You’ll have to let him go, Inspector,” Leeds said on the phone. “The Premier himself has been on the line.” And on my back: Malone heard the unspoken words. “If you can’t lay charges, let him go.”

  “Yes, sir,” Malone agreed reluctantly. “I was just hoping we’d pick up this other feller Gawler, put them up against each other.”

  “You can do that when you do pick him up. Tewsday’s not going to skip the country. I think you’d better come and see me when all this is over.”

  “When do you think that will be, sir?”

  “That’s enough, Inspector.” But the Commissioner’s voice sounded more sympathetic than sharp.

  Tewsday was released at six o’clock. He and Sally Gawler were driven back to Pymble by Fiona in the BMW. Fiona, a true All Black, drove straight at the assembled reporters and cameramen gathered outside the Police Centre, and the media crowd had to scatter for their lives. Accusations of mayhem, it seemed, bred thoughts of mayhem. Or maybe all the latent Kiwi antagonism towards Australians had come to her blue-rinsed surface.

  On their way back to Homicide Malone said to Clements, “I want a tail kept on Tewsday around the clock.”

  “Is the Commissioner still on our side?”

  Malone shook his head. “I think he’s had enough of me. It’s better that we go on our own on this one.”

  Clements gave him a quizzical look. “Tibooburra’s getting closer and closer. I can already hear the flies buzzing and the kangaroos bouncing up and down.”

  The phone was ringing in the house at Pymble when the Tewsdays arrived home at 6.50. Tewsday was first into the house and picked up the receiver. It was Gawler ringing from a public call-box.

  “Just a minute,” said Tewsday as Fiona and Sally Gawler came in the front door. “I’ll take it in the library. It’s one of the newspapers about my resignation.”

  “Tell them to get stuffed,” said Fiona, though her vowels were still rounded.

  He switched the connection, hung up and went through into the library and closed the door. “Where are you?”

  “I’m not telling. Listen—what did the cops want?”

  “You. They’ve been questioning me in the city for the last five hours. It’s bloody embarrassing.”

  Gawler laughed. “Embarrassing? You dunno what embarrassing is. Listen, I need money.”

  He had guessed that the demand would come some time. “How much?”

  “I want enough to get out of the country, get me set up again. I’ll go somewhere where there’s no extradition treaty. I’ll get my wife to meet me there. Fifty thousand, how does that sound?”

  “Are you trying to blackmail me?” He had expected a demand of perhaps ten thousand; he had lost track of the price of murder. “You don’t want to forget, she was still alive when you took her out of this house.”

  “Don’t bullshit me, Tewsday!” It was the first time he had ever heard Gawler raise his voice. “You knew what was gonna happen to her! The same will happen to you—”

  “Calm down,” said Tewsday, anything but calm. “I just can’t produce that sort of money out of the blue—”

  “You’re still bullshitting. I’ve seen the evening papers, they got it all about you resigning from Ballyduff. You got a big golden handshake, they said. What was it? A million, a coupla million? You owe me one, Tewsday, a golden handshake.”

  Tewsday had seen the papers; Sally Gawler had gone out at one point in the afternoon and brought them back. It had been the lead story on the financial pages: BOARDROOM WAR? one headline had asked. Suddenly he heard himself say, “Would you like a handshake of a hundred thousand?”

  There was a moment of silence, then: “Doing what?”

  “Getting rid of someone else.” In for a penny, in for a hundred thousand. “Fingal Hourigan.”

  “You’re outa your fucking head, you know that?”

&nbs
p; “No.” But maybe he was; madness, after all, was just another state of mind. “Do you want to earn the money or not?”

  There was another silence; then: “It’s not enough. Two hundred and fifty thousand.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous!”

  “You’re the one being ridiculous. More than that, you’re crazy. You want me to be crazy, too, that’s the price.”

  He sighed; he hated parting with his own money, even to win back a hundred times as much. Which he could do so, if Fingal was gone. “You’re a hard man, Gawler.”

  “You got to be in my trade. Is Sally there?”

  “I don’t think you should speak to her now. She’s pretty upset. I’ll tell her you called and you’ll talk to her tomorrow. Get the job done first.”

  “Payment first. Give Sally ten thousand in cash, just for starters. Tell her it’s my redundancy pay. The rest of it cable to my account in Switzerland. Take it down.” He gave an account number and a bank in Zurich. Tewsday was not surprised that Gawler should have such an account; there was still so much he didn’t know, and would never know, about the American. “If it’s not there within forty-eight hours, I’ll be back to take it out of your hide. You know what I mean?” He was cool and distant again, the professional killer. Tewsday felt weak, wondering that he should be dealing with such a man. “Where do I find Hourigan? At home or in the office?”

  Tewsday thought a moment. “At Ballyduff House. I’ll have him there at eight o’clock, in his office on the sixty-ninth floor. You be waiting for him.”

  He hung up, sat staring at his desk. He was mad, he knew that; but it was not much to live with if it brought him vengeance. He had lived for thirty-two years with ambition: perhaps that had been a madness, too, but he had weathered it, indeed thrived on it. Fingal Hourigan could not be allowed to win. He had to go.

  He picked up the phone, dialled the number at Vaucluse.

  VI

  “You’d better come with me, Kerry,” Fingal said as he hung up the phone. “That was Jonathan. He says he’s got something that concerns you. He wants to see me in my office.”