The Easy Sin

by Jon Cleary

  “No.”

  “Did your wife know what you were up to? Siphoning off that forty million?”

  “Jesus, will you drop that!”

  “Then why are the, whatd'youcall'em, the yakuza? That it? Why are the yakuza after you? That how they usually play the game, kill off bankrupts?”

  Magee ignored the question. “What are you going to do with me?”

  Corey sat up. “We're still making up our minds, they don't come good with the ransom.”

  “You'll top me?” Magee tried to sound casual, but he was suddenly deathly afraid.

  The blue hood stared at him. “It's on the cards.” Then: “What's the matter?”

  “I wanna go to the toilet! Quick!”

  III

  Tajiri, driving a Honda Legend, dropped Kylie off at the Macquarie Street entrance to the apartment block. By that time they had reached an air of affability, each certain of his and her judgement of the other. For Kylie, though he had threatened to kill her, he had an attitude of politeness about him that was a contrast to that of the men she was accustomed to. She would not trust him not to kill her, but over the past hour she had gathered together resources she hadn't realized she had possessed. The selfish are often the last to realize their own core.

  Tajiri, for his part, had come to accept that risks had to be taken. Miss Doolan, a woman he would hate to be married to, had convinced him that she had had nothing to do with the kidnapping of Errol Magee. He had left her in the warehouse and gone out to his car and phoned Kenji Nakasone, like his father, a collector of wisdom. The latter had told him of the visit by the crude detective, Malone, and for a few minutes they had discussed whether the police were a threat and decided they were not. Then Tajiri had suggested that they should let Miss Doolan go.

  “Does she know who you are?” asked Nakasone.

  “No. I shan't be coming back to the office and I am booked out on Qantas tomorrow afternoon for Tokyo. I'm going home, Kenji,” he said and sounded sentimental.

  “I envy you, Tamezo. I'm tired of the crudeness here.”

  There was crudeness back home, especially in politics; but Tajiri didn't mention that. He was also not without humour: “Come on, Kenji, you enjoy it. Think of the time it saves in business, being crude. And with the women.”

  “Were you crude with Miss Doolan?”

  Only when I threatened to kill her. “No, not at all. I think she can be trusted. She is only concerned for her own welfare.”

  “Like most women,” said Nakasone, thinking that was wisdom. “Let her go. Don't go back to your apartment, the police may be watching.”

  “Where will I go?”

  “Try Cabramatta, it's full of Asians, so I read. The police don't know one of us from another. Be Korean.”

  “You're joking, Kenji,” said Tajiri and hung up.

  So now they were drawing up outside the apartments at Circular Quay. Kylie looked at him, then smiled, empty as a salesgirl's smile. “It's been an experience, Mr. Ikura, that's all I can say.”

  “For me, too, Miss Doolan. Let's put it down to that—experience. Do we keep it to ourselves?”

  “Who are you going to tell? The bank?”

  “That was a lie, Miss Doolan,” he said, lying with ease. “I don't work for Kunishima. I work for an organization that won't forgive Mr. Magee for stealing from it. When you see him again, tell him that. He'll understand. Be careful, Miss Doolan. It was a pleasure meeting you.”

  She stared at him, suddenly chilled again. A couple of joggers went by, a man and a girl running through agony to be healthy; she had never been a jogger, just a treadmill walker at gym twice a week. She didn't know it, but her own face suddenly looked as strained as that of the girl jogger. She got out of the car, stumbling a little as she realized there was little strength in her legs. Somehow she crossed the pavement and went in through the revolving door of the apartment block, her mind spinning like the door. Mr. Ikura drove away, out of her life, she hoped.

  When she entered the apartment she was relieved to find it empty, though she was not sure who might be there. She dropped into a deep chair, kicked off her shoes, put her head back and closed her eyes. When she opened them Caroline Magee, the bitch, was standing in the doorway of one of the bedrooms. The main bedroom, where she and Errol slept, for God's sake!

  “What the hell are you doing here?” She sat up straight, but didn't rise.

  “Stocktaking. Supervised by Detective Decker—” She looked across the big living room to Paula Decker, who had come out of the kitchen. “All above board, as they describe it. Right, Paula?”

  “Right.” Paula was fed up with these bloody Magee women, but she managed to remain professionally calm. “Where have you been?”

  Kylie stayed in her chair, still unsure of her legs. She looked from one woman to the other as she marshalled her lies: “Visiting friends.”

  “Balls,” said Paula, who didn't mind using male terms. “We tried all your friends, we found them in your address book. You went to see someone at Kunishima. They're not your friends. Nor Errol's, either.”

  Kylie ignored her, looked instead at Caroline Magee. “Stocktaking? Of what? Have you been going through my things?”

  “I wouldn't bother,” said Caroline, suggesting Kylie's things weren't worth a garage sale. “I don't think you understand the situation. I am Mrs. Magee. Errol and I separated, but it was never a legal separation. We were never divorced. I'm entitled—”

  Then there was the sound of a toilet being flushed in one of the bathrooms. Kylie started up from her chair. “Who's that? Is Errol back?”

  “No,” said Paula. “It's your sister Monica.”

  “What's she doing here?”

  “She was concerned for you. Are you surprised?” said Paula with almost a sneer and went out to the kitchen, taking out her mobile to ring Clements at Homicide.

  Then Monica came into the room. She wore a floral-print dress, a sleeveless white cardigan and carried a white handbag on a long strap over her shoulder. She was the least well-dressed of the women, including Paula Decker; she was the one with her prospects behind her, but she wasn't defeated. She stopped abruptly, put her hand to her mouth, then rushed at Kylie and embraced her.

  “Oh God, where have you been? I kept thinking the worst—”

  “I'm okay, Monny. Really, I'm okay—”

  “We were outa our minds, Clarrie and me—”

  “Clarrie?”

  “Yeah, Clarrie! Okay, he was concerned for me—but he was concerned for you, too!” Suddenly she let go of Kylie, stepped back and sat down as if certain there was a chair behind her; there was. She wiped her eyes, looked slowly around her, then back up at her sister. “But you don't have to worry, do you? You've got it all—”

  “No,” said Caroline Magee. “She hasn't, Monica. There's an old saying I've heard men say—two-thirds of five-eights of fuck-all. Excuse the language. But that's what she's got. What we've both got. Errol's got the lot, if he's still alive.”

  “I never met him,” said Monica. “I'm glad now that I didn't.”

  “He's a bastard, but he's not a monster,” said Kylie and looked accusingly at Caroline. “You married him. You must of seen something in him.”

  Caroline was cool, unoffended. “Of course I did. I think it was his ambition. It was a sort of—of aphrodisiac. What woman wants to marry a no-hoper?”

  “Too many,” said Monica; then looked defensively at her sister: “But not me.”

  Then Paula Decker came back into the room. “Inspector Malone will be here soon. You'd better get your story sorted out where you've been, Kylie. We've been buggered about on this case and I think Mr. Malone will be running out of patience. Now, coffee, anyone?”

  “I'll help you,” said Monica and headed for the kitchen, as if it were the only place she would feel comfortable.

  Kylie and Caroline were left alone. Caroline remained standing, leaning her buttocks against a low sideboard; one might have gained the im
pression that she was the one who lived in the apartment. Kylie dropped back into her chair, still unsure of her legs. Caroline, the intruder, looked around her.

  “Errol and I lived in two rooms in London, in Fulham. We went to work by bus, used to eat a couple of times a week at McDonalds. A big night out was at an Angus Steak House. You know London?”

  “No.”

  “He never took you away?”

  Kylie was reluctant to answer; but she wasn't going to learn anything about this bitch if she kept her mouth shut. “We had just the one trip. He took me to San Francisco and LA. He went to London two or three times, he never took me. Did he look you up?”

  “Yes.”

  “What happened?”

  “You mean, did I go to bed with him? Relax, Kylie, I had someone better at the time.”

  “But not now. Is that why you've come home?”

  Caroline smiled. “Don't start asking questions. You'd better get used to answering them. We all want to know where you've been.”

  Out in the kitchen Monica was saying, “Will you look at this! It's like those incredible kitchens you see in magazines, never a grease spot, nothing out of place! Oh, I'd love to show this to Clarrie! He'd be baking more cakes than Sara Lee.” Then she smiled at Paula. “Do I sound bitchy? Envious?”

  “Envious, yes. But not bitchy. What woman wouldn't be envious of a kitchen like this?”

  “Not Kylie. She ever built a house of her own, that'd be the last bit added. From the time she was about ten she thought KFC and Pizza Hut made kitchens out of date. At school she thought cookery classes were a punishment. She thinks TV cookery shows should only be on at three o'clock in the morning.”

  Paula watched as Monica set out cups and saucers on a tray, looked for biscuits. “Monica, who's the happy one?”

  Monica paused with a cupboard open, looked sideways at Paula. “Me or Kylie? I am. Kylie will never be happy because she's never gunna get what she wants.”

  “What's that?”

  “I dunno. And I don't think she does, either. Trouble is, I've got two daughters who are starting to think like her. Nobody's satisfied any more.”

  When they went back into the living room Caroline, oblivious of their entry, was saying, “Did you love him?”

  Kylie thought a while, then said, “No-o. But I liked him.”

  “Not enough,” said Monica. “Coffee. And you could afford better biscuits, for God's sake. Iced Vo-Vos!”

  “Heritage stuff,” said Paula and smiled round one of the biscuits.

  Malone and Sheryl Dallen arrived twenty-five minutes later. Sheryl had driven with the blue light on the roof and the siren wailing, grinning at the look on Malone's face.

  “Keep your eye on the road,” Malone had said, feet ankle-deep in the floor.

  “You want me to slow down?”

  “No, I just want to get there and belt Miss Doolan about the head.”

  But he knew as soon as he entered the apartment that he was on ground as thin as a salt-pan crust. Some men: fashion designers, hairdressers, psychiatrists: some men flourish in female territory. Other more prosaic but wise men tread carefully. Malone looked around at the five women and decided, even though two of them were working for him, to take a light step, at least to begin with.

  “Miss Doolan, you've been missing. Have you told anyone where you've been?” He looked at Paula Decker, who shook her head. “Care to tell me?”

  “I don't know it's any of your business,” said Kylie.

  “Oh, I'm getting tired of that one. Till we find out who killed your maid Juanita, anything you and anyone connected with you, anything you do is our business. If you don't tell me where you've been, I think we'll take you in—” Sheryl Dallen and Paula Decker were standing behind Kylie; nothing showed on their faces, but they knew he was bluffing. “It's called helping us with our enquiries. We might let the media know. Now would you like to pack a bag or be sensible and open up?”

  “Be sensible, Kylie,” said Monica and put down the cup she had been holding. “Don't be so bloody stubborn!”

  “What would you advise her to do?” Malone looked at Caroline Magee.

  “Miss Doolan would never accept advice from me,” said Caroline and sounded as if she wouldn't offer Miss Doolan a rope if she were drowning.

  “Miss Doolan,” said Malone, “did you spend the night with Mr. Tajiri?”

  She stared at him, puzzled. “Who?”

  “He works for Kunishima Bank. A medium-sized bloke, slim, with wavy hair—a bit unusual for a Japanese.”

  She hesitated, then said, “He said his name was Ikura.”

  “And you spent the night with him?”

  “Spent the night with him? What are you talking about?”

  “Righto. Where did he take you?”

  “I dunno.” Her voice was unsteady, flattened; she was suddenly unsettled again. She sat in a chair, her hands gripping the arms as if the chair was charged. “Some warehouse—it was empty. There were two other guys—Australians. They wore ski-masks. But he didn't.”

  Monica, about to tidy up cups on a tray, housekeeping to keep her nerves under control, stopped and looked at her. “Why did you go with him, for Crissakes?”

  “He told me Errol wanted to see me. Then they—” Her hands tightened their grip on the arms of the chair; the last eighteen hours were spilling out of her, weakening her. “They put a pad over my face—I passed out—”

  “You're lucky you're still with us,” Malone told her. “Tajiri, or Ikura, whatever he called himself, he's yakuza. A Japanese gangster, like the Mafia. Did you know that, Kylie?”

  “Of course not!” She shivered, her hands scratched at the chair-arms, then clutched each other in her lap. “He threatened to kill me—he was going to bash me—”

  Monica dropped the tray; a cup smashed. Malone said, “And he would have, Kylie. Why didn't he?”

  She put her hands back on the arms of the chair, as if she had to hold to something solid. She didn't look around her, but straight at Malone, who had sat down opposite her. She had suddenly changed, the police were here to help her: “Somehow, I dunno how, somehow I convinced him I didn't know anything about Errol's kidnapping. It was almost as if—as if he decided I wasn't worth killing. But he's gunna kill Errol when—when they find him.” She could hardly believe what she was saying. “If they do—”

  “Not if we find him first. When we pick up Mr. Tajiri, will you testify against him?”

  Kylie said nothing; it was Monica who said, “For God's sake, Kylie, do something to help them! It's not always gunna go away because you're ignoring it!”

  “It's easy for you to say—”

  “I know it is and I know it isn't easy for you. But Jesus wept—for once in your life stop thinking about yourself!”

  This was family. The others were just tableau: silent judgement. At last Kylie looked back at Malone: “I think I could take you to where he held me.”

  “Good!” Malone stood up, turned to Paula Decker: “Get on to the strike force, tell ‘em to pick up Tajiri, either at Kunishima or at his flat. You stay here, keep an eye on Kylie when Sheryl and I bring her back.”

  “I'll stay, too,” said Monica, and all at once looked as at home as she might at Minto; she was big sister playing parent again. “Don't argue, Kylie. I'll call Clarrie—he can bring pizza and one of his apple pies. I looked in your fridge—there's nothing there but milk and orange juice. All this—” she waved an arm about her “—and an empty fridge!”

  Somehow Kylie managed a smile. “You're on your own, Monny.”

  Monica put out a hand, touched her sister's shoulder. Malone and the other women turned away. Paula Decker went into a bedroom to phone Police Central and the strike force. Caroline Magee picked up her handbag and followed Malone and Sheryl to the front door as Kylie, excusing herself, went into a bathroom.

  “You're not staying, Mrs. Magee?” said Malone.

  “I don't think Miss Doolan and I will ever be m
ates. She's just lucky she has a sister like Monica.”

  “You have no family?”

  “I told you, I have a brother, but I've lost touch with him.” She smiled at him as Sheryl held open the front door for her. “Why the interrogation, Inspector?”

  “It's habit. Police work is all questions.”

  “What about answers?”

  “Oh, they come. But answers always start with questions. An old Welsh philosopher said that.”

  “You read philosophy?”

  “No, he's my boss. Why were you here?”

  They were out on the landing opposite the lift. Sheryl had pressed the lift-button and they stood waiting. Caroline, in the green suit she had been wearing yesterday, leaned back against the dull gold wallpaper of the landing. It was as if she knew the right background for her: she looked elegant.

  “I was looking for that forty million that is supposed to be missing.”

  “Looking for it here?”

  “Inspector, what do you know of money?”

  “I know how to hold on to it, so my kids tell me. Go on, educate me.”

  “When money was coin they used to take the loot away in sacks. When they invented paper money, there was still physical evidence, it was there. Then came cheques and then came electronics. I work in a stockbroker's in London, I know.”

  “Go on.” The lift had arrived, but they ignored it.

  “Errol has got that money of his salted away somewhere in a bank, the sort of bank that has secret accounts. I've been going through all Errol's computers, because he would have sent it electronically. Five out of every six dollars or pounds or whatever that go through the economy on any given day goes through computers. There's a clearing house in New York, it's called the Clearing House Inter-Bank Payments System, CHIPS for short. It pushes through just on two trillion, trillion, dollars a day. Errol's forty million, say a million at a time, wouldn't be noticed.”

  “So how do you hope to find it?” The lift doors had closed and the lift had gone.

  “Somewhere in the computer world there's a hard disk with Errol's secret account name and number on it. IT made his fortune, but now it's going to bite him in the arse.”