Dark Summer (27 page)

“The war's going well,” said Clements, not helping things: Lisa had been thinking about another war on another continent, one fought before she was born.

“It's unreal,” said Romy. “I watch all those smart bombs homing in on their targets and it's not like watching a war at all, it's more like some kids' video game.”

“That's what our Tom said,” said Lisa. “I had to veto him watching the news.”

“I'm looking for the one they home in on Saddam,” said Malone, though he could not get excited about the war. Perhaps it was the Irish in him. Never having invaded anywhere themselves, they have never understood the value of imperial wars.

“When the war is over, he should be caught,” said Keller, skilfully boning his blue trout. “We should hang him. Or better still, chop off his head.” He removed the fish's head with a clean cut.

“I don't know that Australia would agree to that.” Lisa was prepared to disagree. “We don't believe in the death penalty.”

“You sure?” Malone smiled at her. He could sense her dislike of Peter Keller and he knew she would be regretting having suggested the dinner. “Call for volunteers to hang Saddam and you'd be trampled to death in the rush.”

“We don't have the death penalty in Germany.” Romy, Clements noted, spoke as if she were still German, still in Germany.

“A pity, too,” said her father. “An eye for an eye . . . The Old Testament had so many good
things
in it. Today, even judges have bleeding hearts. A woman is raped and the man who did it gets—what?—three or four years, with time off for good behaviour. What about his behaviour while raping the woman? They should castrate him.” He began to chew on the trout, nodding in appreciation. “Beautiful fish, Mrs. Malone.”

“Call me Lisa,” she said, suddenly determining to be less disagreeable. “A rape case would be different with a woman judge.”

“How many women judges hear rape cases?” said Romy. “How many women judges sit in criminal courts in this State?”

“One, maybe two,” said Clements.

“We need a dozen at least. Hard-hearted ones,” said Romy, but then she smiled.

Lisa had been hoping they would get through the evening without any shop-talk, but she should have known better. Politicians talked politics, cricketers talked cricket: why should a forensic medicine specialist, two policemen and an ex-policeman be different? She gave in: “Have you traced where this killer might be getting his curare substitute, what's-it-called?”

“Alloferin,” said Romy. “No, there's not much hope of that. Hospitals don't have to keep a tight record of it. It's not like some other drugs, morphine for instance, where the stock has to be signed for as each shift comes on. We don't stand much chance of catching him that way, not unless he's caught in the act of stealing it.”

“Luck,” said Keller. “Every policeman needs it, yes, Scobie?”

The discussion went on, till Lisa grew bored with it and changed the subject to that of music. To her surprise, Peter Keller seemed to welcome the change, plunging into an enthusiastic monologue on the bicentenary of Mozart's death, asking if she had seen the recent screening of
Don Giovanni
on television. “Every year Romy and her mother and I would go to Salzburg . . .”

“You like music, too?” Lisa asked Romy.

“Love it. I'm trying to educate Russ that there's music beyond Elton John and INXS.”

“Ach!” Keller threw back his head in mock disgust. “What music do you like, Scobie?”

“
Glenn Miller.” Malone grinned down the table at Lisa. “Russ and I often dance together when things are slow at Homicide.”

“He always wants to lead,” said Clements.

Keller stared at them both, then he laughed, though awkwardly. “I always take things so seriously. Music, everything.”

“We'll change that,” said Clements. “Another ten years here and you'll be like the rest of us. We never take anything seriously.”

“Except sport,” said Lisa, still only half an Aussie.

Then Malone, who had learned a few graces from Lisa, raised his glass and toasted the tenth anniversary of the Kellers' coming to Australia. Claire, who had finished her homework, came out to say goodnight; Maureen and Tom were already in bed. Keller beamed at Claire and raised his glass to her.

“To you, Fräulein, and your beauty.”

For a moment Claire was flustered, toasts to beauty were not common amongst the natives; but she recovered quickly, borrowed some of her mother's poise. “Thank you, Mr. Keller. I think my mother and Romy are beautiful, don't you?”

My diplomat, thought Malone with pride.

“Oh, indeed, indeed.” Keller raised his glass again; he was all at once the life of the party. “To all the beautiful women here tonight.”

Malone and Clements raised their glasses. Lisa smiled at Romy. “Ain't it wonderful? Civilized at last. Should we call in all the other women in the street? It'll never happen again.”

By the time the evening was finished Keller had had a little too much to drink, but he was jovial rather than awkward or argumentative. He became almost the archetypal Bavarian; Lisa waited for him to forget Mozart and start singing beer-hall songs. At the front door he kissed her hand, not with a mock flourish but as if that were his everyday farewell to women. Lisa responded graciously, then gave her cheek to Clements' kiss. “Next time, kiss my hand, Russ. Teach him how, Peter.”

They were all at the front door when the phone rang. Malone cursed, knowing only bad news
came
at this time of night, and went back down the hall to take the call. Romy and her father stepped out on to the front porch, but Clements remained in the doorway.

“Damn,” said Lisa, instinct telling her that she was going to be left alone to clear up the dinner things.

Malone came back up the hall. “That was Phil Truach. Denny Pelong has just been shot, down in Dixon Street.”

III

Aldwych sat back, pushed away the plate of lychees and ginger ice-cream. “No, I'd better not. I'm getting too old to eat so much just before I go to bed.”

“I'll have them, said Jack Junior, who had already had one serving of dessert.

“Watch it,” said Janis. “You're going to finish up looking like one of those Japanese wrestlers. How do men like that make love?”

“Squashily,” said Jack Junior.

Aldwych had been watching the interplay between the two of them, the glances, the smiles that were as intimate as notes passed between them. Happily married for forty-five years, he had not had much experience of young women, not today's young women. Jack Junior had brought home a few, but they had been uncomfortable with Aldwych, his reputation frightening them into acting like novice nuns. But this one, this Janis who seemed to have Jack Junior on a string, was altogether different. She amused him, but he wouldn't trust her out of his sight. He had always had a suspicious nature and, now he was retired, he had more time to indulge it.

Leslie Chung was in the next booth with his wife, a small, very attractive Chinese woman loaded with enough gold and diamonds to have saved a couple of shaky corporations from bankruptcy. Aldwych had never understood a woman's, and less so a man's, need to wear jewellery, and he had never bought Shirl anything other than an engagement and a wedding ring; he had been shocked, after her death, to find she had bought herself a boxful of rings, bracelets and necklaces. He wondered now if Les
Chung
had a couple of minders out in Dixon Street to make sure that Mrs. Chung was not mugged.

He turned round as Chung, leaning over the barrier between the two booths, touched him on the shoulder. “Jack, you see who's just come in?”

Aldwych looked towards the door of the restaurant where the manager, face like an Oriental sun, was greeting Denny Pelong and his wife. He led them to a booth, ignoring or oblivious to the disapproval of his two bosses at the rear of the restaurant. He was the sort of restaurateur who believed that in bad times any customer was welcome who could pay the bill. Especially one who was known to throw tips around with an abandon that was heretical to the other diners and usually spoiled their last course.

“Who's that?” said Janis.

“Denny Pelong.” He turned back to her, smiled. “He likes to think he's my successor.”

“Is he?”

“I wouldn't know. I told you, I'm retired. I got no more interest in who runs things any more. Does the chairman of BHP keep shoving his nose in after he's retired?”

Janis looked at Jack Junior. “What do you know about him?”

He swallowed a lychee, gave her a look that his father, who might have caught birds on the wing if he'd been so disposed, didn't miss. “Pelong? Nothing. I told you, Dad and I never discuss that side of his life.”

“Of course,” she said, accepting the warning. She had never seen Pelong before and she felt a curious excitement at at last observing the enemy, the man whose death penalty she had okayed. She shifted slightly in her seat to get a better view of him. “Who's the woman with him?”

“That's his wife, Luisa.” Aldwych was watching Janis rather than the Pelongs. “She's the brains in the family.”

“She looks like a bimbo, that dress and hair-do.”

“You're a snob.” But he smiled when he said it.

“Of course. Is she a criminal, too?” Then she looked at him and managed a blush, false but
polite.
“I'm sorry, that was rude of me.”

“Why? We established the other day, when we first met, that I'm a crim. Or an ex-crim. We both know what we are, Janis.” He gave her his old crim's grin, evil and challenging; she felt a sudden chill, recognizing another enemy. Then he looked at Jack Junior. “What's the matter, Jack? You choking on a lychee?”

In the next booth Fay Chung, glittering gold seemingly at every joint, said, “What's the fuss?”

“I wish you wouldn't wear so much jewellery,” said her husband.

“You're a jewellery importer, what do you expect me to wear? Rubber bands?”

Les Chung sighed; he loved his wife dearly, even though she was expensive. He came from Shanghai, she from Canton: they both knew the value of a dollar. He had brought her here tonight at her insistence; normally they dined at more expensive restaurants in the eastern suburbs, where they lived. But tonight, she had said, she felt
Chinese
and she had named the place where she wanted to dine. It had turned out to be her husband's part-owned restaurant.

“A man named Denny Pelong has just come in with his wife.”

She swivelled round; she was always curious, never inscrutable. Then she looked back at him. “The gangster? And there's one in the next booth?” She lowered her voice; she had been introduced to Jack Aldwych for the first time this evening. “How do you
know
people like that?”

For almost twenty years he had kept her ignorant of the dark side of his business; but now he looked at her and he knew that she
knew.
“Mr. Pelong used to buy jewellery for his wife.”

“And him?” She nodded at the next booth, her voice still low.

He sighed again. “Jack is my partner in this restaurant.”
And the gambling club upstairs, the real money-maker.

“Oh, my God!” She was a Christian Chinese. “And all this time we've been going to expensive restaurants and we could have been coming here for
nothing
?”

He wondered why her thrift didn't extend to other things besides eating out. But he loved her and so forgave her. It was easier: his father and his grandfather and, twelve hundred years before them, a
T'
ang philosopher, had told him a woman's patience could always outlast a man's.

Up at the front of the restaurant the Pelongs, neither of them burdened with philosophical thoughts, sat in the morose silence of warring couples. Luisa was even more loaded down with jewellery than Fay Chung; her hands glittered like tiny chandeliers and the gold necklace she wore could have hobbled a buffalo. The jewellery was the reason for their quarrel; he had insisted that she wear it, all of it. “What the fuck you think I bought it for you for?” he had shouted. “I'm fucking depressed.”

“You wanna wear it then?” she had shouted in reply; the neighbours, she knew, would have had their windows and ears wide open to this latest battle in the Pelong house. “You buy me jewellery because
you're
depressed?”

“No, because I wanna see you wearing it. It bucks me up, makes me feel good—I see all the rocks on you and it tells me what I can afford—I can afford as much fucking jewellery for my wife as any rajah—”

“Rajah? Where we gunna eat then? Some bloody curry palace?”

It was she who had nominated where they would eat; she told him she felt like Chinese tonight, though she meant food, not character or personality. So here they were in this Chinese restaurant in Chinatown, with the rest of the diners, it seemed, made up of Japanese tourists, come all the way from Yokohama or Kobe or wherever to eat Chinese food in an Australian restaurant. In the quirky way that memory works, it reminded her of an old faded cartoon her father had once shown her, of a Turk taking an Australian bath, sitting in an antiquated tub naked but for his fez. She smiled at the thought and Pelong looked at her suspiciously.

“You're up to something.”

“No, I'm not, honest, sweetheart.” She laid a hand on his arm; the glare from her rings and bracelet made her squint a little. She was not stupidly vulgar; she knew she shouldn't be wearing this much jewellery to a place like this. Rocks like hers should be worn to State dinners at Parliament House, but she couldn't see her and Sweetheart being invited there; this new government didn't invite criminals to dinner, not even white-collar ones. But if wearing the rocks pleased Denny, okay. He'd had a bad week and things might get worse. “What's the matter?”