Bear Pit. Jon Cleary

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СКАЧАТЬ that Malone, a prejudiced cynic, thought only Orientals could achieve.

      ‘We meet again.’ Two years before he had met Madame Tzu and General Wang-Te on a case that had threatened to ruin any chance of Olympic Tower’s being a successful venture. The same case on which the Chinese girl, screaming at him, un-bland as a cornered animal, had tried to kill him. ‘Murder seems to bring us together.’

      ‘Is he dead?’ The bland look dropped from Les Chung’s face.

      ‘No, but he may soon be – they’re not hopeful. It was attempted murder.’

      ‘It wasn’t – what do you call it? – a drive-by shooting? A random attack?’

      Madame Tzu might have been asking if the Premier had been attacked by a wasp. It was impossible to tell her age within ten years either side of the true figure; but whatever it was, she wore it well. She had a serenity that was a sort of beauty in itself; men would always look at her, though not always with confidence. Men, particularly the natives, tend to be cautious with serene women: it is another clue in the feminine puzzle. She wore a simply cut gold dinner dress, a single strand of black pearls and an air that didn’t invite intimacy.

      ‘No, Madame Tzu, it wasn’t a random shooting. They knew whom they were after. You and General Wang are staying here at the hotel?’

      General Wang-Te had sat silent, not moving in his chair. He was a bony man on whom the skin was stretched tight. Last time Malone had met him he had worn cheap, round-rimmed spectacles that appeared to be standard government issue in China then; tonight he wore designer glasses, rimless with gold sidebars, Gucci on the Great Wall. As he looked up at Malone the light caught the lens, so that he appeared sightless.

      ‘The general is,’ said Madame Tzu. ‘We’re directors, remember.’

      ‘Owners,’ said Wang-Te, speaking for the first time.

      ‘Where are you staying?’ Malone asked Madame Tzu.

      ‘I still have my apartment in the Vanderbilt. I’m not a hotel person.’ She made it sound as if five-star hotels were hostels for the homeless.

      Clements spoke to Chung. ‘Have you had any threats against the hotel, Les?’

      Chung was one of the richest men in the city, but the two detectives knew his past history. Years ago, before Clements had joined Homicide, he had arrested Leslie Chung on fraud charges. Chung had got off, but ever since he had been Les and not Mr Chung. Arrest doesn’t breed friendship but it makes for a kind of informality. It is a weapon police officers always carry.

      Chung shrugged as if he had been facing threats all his life; they were dust on the wind. ‘One or two. The usual nutters –anti-development, anti-foreign investment, that sort of stuff. But they don’t go around shooting people.’

      ‘Then you’d say this had nothing to do with the hotel? Or the whole Olympic Tower project?’

      ‘Nothing,’ said Chung, and Madame Tzu and Wang-Te together added a silent nod.

      ‘Do you have any enemies in China?’ Malone asked them.

      They didn’t look at each other; it was Madame Tzu who said, ‘Of course. Who can claim that in one point two billion people all of them are friends?’

      She’s smothering her answer with figures. ‘So, eliminating all the nutters and the one point two billion of your countrymen, would you say the shooting was political?’

      The three Chinese gave him a blank stare: the Great Wall of China, he thought. He wanted to scrawl the graffiti of a rough remark on the Wall, but that would be racist. Not, he was sure, that any of them would care.

      At last Les Chung said. ‘I think it would be politic to say nothing.’

      Madame Tzu and General Wang-Te, like intelligent puppets, nodded.

      Malone grinned at Clements. ‘Wouldn’t our job be easy if cops could be politic?’

      ‘Let’s go home,’ said the big man. ‘I’m tired.’

      When the two detectives had gone, Madame Tzu said, ‘If Mr Vanderberg dies, what happens?’

      ‘Nothing that will affect us,’ said Les Chung. ‘Our bookings are solid till after the Olympics. By then the whole complex will have established itself.’

      General Wang-Te was wishing he knew more of history beyond the Middle Kingdom. The history of this country where he sat now had begun only yesterday. ‘Do Australians do much political assassination?’

      ‘All the time,’ said Les Chung, who knew nothing of the Middle Kingdom, but knew even the footnotes in the history of his adopted country. He was not a man to put his foot into unknown territory. ‘But only with words, not with bullets or knives. To that extent they are civilized.’

      ‘What a wonderful country,’ said Wang-Te and sounded almost wistful.

      4

      Out in the lobby Malone said, ‘Let’s go across the road and look at that place – the Sewing Bee?’

      They crossed the road with the traffic lights. Traffic was six deep across the roadway stretching back several hundred metres; a drive-by, random shooting in this congestion was not even a theory. They walked up to the row of shops opposite the huge block of Olympic Tower. The footpath still had its late-night crowd, mostly young; groups moving slowly with arrogance and loud voices, challenging with their shoulders, high on group courage. One of them shouldered Clements, an oldie, and the big man grabbed him and swung him round.

      He shoved his badge in the youth’s face. ‘You wanna try that again, son? Just you and me, not your army?’

      The youth was as tall as Clements, but half his weight. He wore a baseball cap, peak backwards: it seemed to accentuate the blankness of his face. He had stubbled cheeks and chin and a mouth hanging open with shock. His big eyes flicked right and left, but he was getting no support from his six companions. They had no respect for the police badge, but Clements, despite his age (Jesus, he must be middle-aged!), looked big and dangerous.

      At last the youth said, ‘Sorry, mate. I slipped.’

      ‘We all do that occasionally,’ said Malone. ‘Let him go, Assistant Commissioner. He’s only young and not very bright.’

      Clements let go the youth and walked on beside Malone. ‘Assistant Commissioner?’

      ‘You think kids are impressed by a senior sergeant? He’ll live for a week on how he tried to push an assistant commissioner out of the way.’

      ‘I hope none of the seven Assistant Commissioners get to hear of it.’

      The entrance to the rooms above the shops was between a pinball parlour and a shabby coffee lounge. They climbed the narrow stairs and came to a long lighted corridor that ran along the back of the half a dozen offices. They passed the Quick Printery; R. Heiden, Watch & Jewelry Repairs; and Internet Sexual Therapy. They came to the open door of the Sewing Bee.

      The alterations centre had two rooms side by side, both with windows opening on to George Street. Sam Penfold and Norma Nickles were in the main room with СКАЧАТЬ