The Easy Sin. Jon Cleary

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СКАЧАТЬ like that.’

      ‘Not good enough,’ said Shirlee and even beneath the hood one could see the jaw setting. ‘Someone’s gunna pay for you,

      Mr Magee. All the money you’ve been worth don’t just disappear into thin air.’

      ‘Mum, let me handle this –’

      Mum? He’d been kidnapped by a gang run by Mum? If he got out of this alive, nobody would believe him; or they would laugh him out of town. He had lunched with Bill Gates, had sat with leading lawyers in London, Paris, New York; the PM here in Australia had once called him Errol, like an old mate. And now Mum and daughter (he wondered what her name might be) were holding him to ransom. He was a snob, but that had been his mother’s fault. She had never let him call her Mum.

      ‘Errol,’ said Darlene, like an old mate, ‘someone is going to pay for you, so let’s cut out the bullshit –’

      ‘Wash your mouth out,’ said the other blue hood.

      ‘- and give us a name. What about your girlfriend Kylie?’

      Somehow he managed a laugh. ‘She’d put me on her credit card – that’s all she ever uses. I told you, I’m broke –’

      ‘All right, you told us that.’ Shirlee was losing patience. She had neatly planned everything, like a Christmas package, and now all the string was coming undone. ‘But it don’t matter. You’ve got contacts, they’ve got money … I been reading about it, Big Business sticks together, it don’t matter about the battlers –’

      ‘You’re battlers?’

      ‘We won’t be when we get the money for you,’ said Darlene.

      ‘Look, Big Business, as you call it, doesn’t run a fund for kidnapped businessmen –’ Then he shook his head, as if he had only just understood what he had said. ‘Call my office, see what they can do.’

      ‘We 11 do that,’ said Darlene and she and her mother stood up. ‘You want some breakfast? Mum does nice sausages and bacon.’

      His stomach heaved at the thought. ‘No, thanks. Just some yoghurt and coffee.’

      ‘Where does he think he is?’ snapped Shirlee and whirled out of the room.

      Darlene checked the straps that bound him, then fingered his dress and jacket. ‘Versace?’

      ‘Yeah. How’d you know?’

      ‘I’ve been adding up what I’m gunna buy when we get the money for you. Try and get some sleep after breakfast.’

      ‘Sitting up?’

      ‘Imagine you’re in economy class.’ Behind the hood one could almost see the smile. ‘You’ll be back in first class, Errol, soon’s we get the money.’

      2

      ‘What do you know about a software firm, I-Saw?’ said Malone at breakfast.

      Tom paused as he was about to bite into his second piece of toast and home-made marmalade. He was a big young man, bigger than his father, with a good blend of his father’s and his mother’s looks. He had recently graduated with an Honours degree in Economics and a month ago had started with an investment bank at 35,000 dollars a year, almost half of what his father was earning after twenty-seven years service in the police. He was already an expert on world economics, on how to run the country and an authority on other experts. He was still young, God bless him.

      ‘Are we talking about last night’s murder?’ said Lisa. ‘There is a golden rule in this house, in case you’ve forgotten. We don’t talk shop at breakfast.’

      Malone gave his wife what he thought of as his loving look. She was still beautiful, at least in his eyes, and had that calm command that was like oil on the family’s occasional troubled waters. She wore no make-up at breakfast, was in shirt and slacks, always gave the appearance of being ready for the day.

      I am just trying to get some payback for all the years we’ve supported him –’ He looked again at his son. ‘What do you know about I-Saw?’

      ‘I wouldn’t put money into it,’ said Tom. ‘In fact, people are taking money out of it, if they can find suckers to buy their shares. Have been for some time. It’s dead.’

      ‘What killed it?’

      ‘Hard to pin down. Too much ambition, not enough capital – it could be a dozen reasons. Errol Magee’s not everyone’s favourite character. Sometimes he’s seen at the right places, but he never gives interviews or makes statements. There’s virtually nothing about him on the internet, him personally, I mean. Everyone’s heard of him, but no one knows him.’

      ‘Except his girlfriend. And his wife.’

      ‘He has a wife?’ Lisa looked up from her Hi-Bran.

      ‘What’s happened to the golden rule?’

      ‘Don’t beat about the bush. You made a mistake, mentioning a girlfriend and the wife in one breath.’

      ‘Never misses out on gossip,’ Malone told his son. ‘Righto, he has a wife no one suspected, least of all the girlfriend. She flew in yesterday from London. Mr Magee was expecting her, but forgot to tell the girlfriend.’

      ‘What’s she like?’ asked Lisa.

      ‘Who?’

      ‘Both of them.’

      ‘We’re breaking the golden rule,’ said Tom, grinning.

      ‘Shut up,’ said his mother. ‘What are they like?’

      ‘Good lookers, both of them.’ Then Malone took his time. A man should never rush into explaining other women to his wife. He would have to explain that to Tom at some later date. ‘They’re out of the same mould, I think. Both calculating, but the wife would have the edge. More experience.’

      ‘You must have spent some time sizing them up,’ said Lisa, like a wife.

      ‘Actually, I hardly looked at them. I made all that up.’ Then he looked at Tom: ‘What are the women like at the bank?’

      ‘Calculating,’ grinned Tom. ‘I’m still looking for a woman with some mystery to her, like you told me –’

      ‘He told you that?’ said Lisa.

      ‘You’re still a mystery to me,’ said Malone.

      ‘Glad to hear it. Hurry up with your breakfast. It’s wash day.’

      Late last year she had given up her job as a public relations officer at Sydney’s Town Hall and since then worked three days a week as a volunteer with the Red Cross. Claire, their eldest, was now married with a baby son and Maureen was living with a girlfriend while she picked and chose her way through a battalion of boyfriends. Tom, devoted to his mother’s СКАЧАТЬ