Dragons at the Party (33 page)

“Do up your zip,” she said, like a wife whose patience was running out. He looked down, then pulled up the zipper with such force that he broke it. “Get control of yourself, Russell. We don’t need to tell Malone anything.”

“You’ve told him enough already, for crissake!” He looked at Sun sitting against the wall opposite them. The Chinese looked tired, his skin a distinct yellow in the pitiless light of the strictly functional room. A picture of the Sacred Heart hung above his head like a falling bomb; Jesus appeared to be looking elsewhere but at the three of them. “Have you told him anything, Sun?”

“No more than I told him yesterday with Mr. Quirke and Mr. Tidey. I think Madame Timori is right—we should keep control of ourselves.”

Hickbed glowered but said nothing; he did not like upstart Chinks telling him how to act. He took off his glasses and cleaned them for the second time since entering the room; he seemed to be having difficulty in seeing things clearly. It was the first time in years he had not been in charge of a situation and he was worried.

A nurse in green overalls and cap, bouncy and cheerful, put her head in the door. “President Timori is going into surgery. It may be a long wait.”

“
What are his chances?” said Hickbed.

“We never give up,” she said cheerfully: she was the sort who at Galilee General would have told John the Baptist’s head not to worry.

Then she left and Delvina and Hickbed looked at each other. She said, “He’s going to die.”

“Maybe not. Don’t start expecting the worst . . .” But he looked as if he already knew the worst.

Delvina, even at the convent, had never had any faith in the efficacy of prayer; otherwise, she might have prayed for Abdul’s death. She certainly
wished
for it. Otherwise there had been no point in paying so much money for Miguel Seville to kill him.

She had not thought of murder till the last week of the rebellion in Palucca, when she had realized their days in Timoro Palace were numbered. Abdul had continued to live in the illusion of his popularity, had been blind to the signs of growing strength in the opposition. She, however, had read the graffiti on the walls, seen the demonstrating crowds growing larger day by day. She had recognized that the end of their power was near and she had decided she would end their marriage. End it her way.

Abdul had wanted to end it two years ago, by clapping his hands and telling her to get lost. But she would have none of his Muslim ways; for a month she had reverted to Catholicism, at least in her attitude towards divorce. The crisis had passed, they had climbed back into bed again, but from then on each had known it would be only a matter of time before they would be separated for ever. Neither had ever really loved the other. Abdul was capable of love, but not lasting love; he did not have the stamina for it. Delvina was capable only of affection and even that was only superficial. Sex had satisfied them for some years, but it is only a part-time bond. A full day’s sex is no pleasure for a man whose organs are wearing out, as Abdul’s were. He had started to think of looking for a mothering wife, a role Delvina could no more play than she could that of a vestal virgin.

When she had married him, Abdul’s wealth had been mainly concentrated in Palucca. It was she who had started putting together their overseas investments. Twice a year she had gone abroad, sometimes with him, sometimes with Sun Lee and the now-dead Mohammed Masutir. Occasionally she would meet Russell Hickbed in London or New York or Houston; occasionally she would go to bed with
him,
but only after the latest Timori investment had been sealed. When their holdings had passed the first billion-dollar mark, she had gone home to Bunda and made love to Abdul as if it were the first night of their honeymoon, a memory that at the time had convinced him he had at last married the right wife. For some, money is an aphrodisiac. The itch generated by a gramme of crushed rhinoceros horn is but a baby’s tickle compared to that whipped up by several kilos of dollar notes.

When she decided to kill Abdul it never crossed her mind that she should do the deed herself. She was shrewd enough not to think of employing a Paluccan; murderers were too close to home if they were part of the family, albeit the extended family of the voters. She turned for advice to Sun Lee, whom she never thought of as a Paluccan and who, she had learned from her own research, came of a family where murder was not unknown. Sun might not understand the meaning of loyalty, since no Paluccan, least of all Abdul, had ever taught him any. He did, however, know that he liked his bread to be buttered.

“We should get someone associated with a terrorist gang,” he advised.

He had not expressed any shock that his President, his own master, should be murdered. He was a long-sighted man when it came to the future and he could see no joy in being the messenger boy, which is all he would be, for an ex-President in exile. Once, a long time ago, he had seen a magazine which had featured a picture story on the exiled kings and royal pretenders who then lived in Estoril in Portugal. He had never seen such a lost, unhappy lot, their aimlessness clear even in the smudged faces of the newsprint photographs.

“That way it can be blamed on the more radical elements of our opposition. It will bring the Americans back on our side.”

Our
side,
our
opposition: he was already to be trusted. “Do you know someone to contact?”

He nodded. “In Beirut there is an agent.” She didn’t ask him how he knew such a thing; in their business dealings she had often been surprised at what he knew. “If we could get Miguel Seville—”

“Who’s he?”

Sun explained who Seville was: “He might be expensive—”

“It doesn’t matter, if he does the job properly.”

But
she was shocked when Sun came back to her two days later and said the agent was demanding a million US dollars. “But one could start a war for that!”

“I told the agent exactly that and all he did was laugh. They have no idea of the value of money in the Middle East.”
Not like we Chinese
. He didn’t say it, but she nodded. “Perhaps it is worth it, Madame? The stakes are high . . .”

Finally, after scouring her own sense of values with steel-wool, she agreed to the million-dollar fee. She was not averse to spending money, but, woman-like, she had never thought that murder came so expensively. She had always thought it was a bargain basement item.

She had been no happier when Sun Lee had added his own fee. “I should want to be protected, Madame.”

“How much?”

“Five million US dollars. You will be one of the richest women in the world, Madame—you will be able to afford it. And you will have my undying loyalty.”

Neither of them smiled; the joke was too serious. “All right, then. But only if the murder is successful.”

She had been angry when the first attempt to assassinate Abdul had only resulted in the unfortunate death of Mohammed Masutir. She had not regretted Masutir’s death. He was a fussy little man who was always getting in the way; it was typical of him that he should end his life by getting in the way of a bullet intended for someone else. She had had Sun phone his contact in Beirut to complain, but there had been no satisfaction from the agent. She had, accordingly, stopped payment on the cheque for the down payment of $500,000 by the bank in Zurich on which it was drawn. Sun had called the agent again to tell him the full million dollars would be paid when the assassination was completed, but then and only then. The agent (whose name Sun had never told her and for which she had never asked) had not answered the call. Neither she nor Sun Lee knew, or ever would know, that Rah Zaid had been blown sky-high by a hundred-kilo car bomb placed outside his apartment by a Christian militia group acting with the best of Christian intentions. When the agent, after several more calls, could not be contacted, it
occurred
to her that Miguel Seville might, unwittingly, murder Abdul for free. She had been buoyed by the thought.

Now, here in this small ante-room, she looked up as Malone came back. She did not like the detective, but she had come to respect him; or at least his authority. He was no fool.

“I’ve just spoken to one of the doctors. It’s touch-and-go whether they can save the President. The bullet chipped the skull when it creased him, but it was when he hit the jewel-box that the damage was done. It caused something they call a—” He looked at his notebook. “A sub-dural haemorrhage. There’s intra-cerebral bleeding into the brain. He’s going to be on the table for hours, they think. Perhaps we should go back to your house, Mr. Hickbed? Some more police have arrived here—the Federals and a Special Branch man. They’ll keep us informed.” He looked at Delvina. “Unless you’d like to stay?”

She shook her head, stood up. “I’ll wait at home.”

“It would be better if you waited here,” said Hickbed.

She fixed him with a look. “I am going home. The reporters will be here any minute—”

“They’re already here,” said Malone.

“Then I am
not
waiting.”

In the Rolls-Royce going back to Point Piper there was no conversation. This time Delvina sat up front beside the chauffeur and she set the silence. Malone sat in the back, with Sun squeezed between him and Hickbed. He had spent happier times in the worn-out old Commodore, while Lisa drove and the kids fought and scrambled all over him.

At the Hickbed house he left the others and went looking for Nagler and Kenthurst. Delvina led the way into the house and went straight upstairs without saying good night. Then she came back on to the landing and looked down at Hickbed and Sun still standing in the entrance hall.

“I can’t sleep in that room—there’s blood on the carpet.”

“I’m surprised you noticed,” muttered Hickbed.

“What?”

“Nothing. I’ll get the maid—she’ll turn down the bed in another room.” On another night he
would
have been tempted to offer her his own bed, with him in it; but not tonight. He had become suddenly afraid of her, though he was not sure why.

Ten minutes later, face creamed, hands too, she was lying in bed in the smallest room she had slept in for years, one not much bigger than the one in which she had slept as a young girl in the semi-detached house in suburban Hurstville. She was determined, however, that she was not going to go backwards, not an inch nor a day. She would continue to use Russell Hickbed till she no longer needed him. He knew nothing of her plan to kill Abdul; he still thought it was engineered by one or all of the generals in Palucca. For the moment he was offering her a comfortable roof over her head and she would accept his hospitality till she was ready to leave this country she hated. But first she had to find a country that did not hate her.

She fell asleep lying on her back, the position in which she had begun her ascent in the world.

She was wakened half an hour later by Sun Lee knocking on her door. “Madame? May I come in?”

She came awake at once, though for a moment or two she was not sure where she was. She switched on the light and looked at her watch: 1.15. She sat up, pulled her robe round her shoulders. “Come in.”

Sun came in hesitantly, like a priest into a whore’s room. Delvina smiled at his hesitancy, though she did not think of herself as a whore. “I’m sorry to disturb you, Madame—”

“Is it the President?”

“No, there’s no news of him yet.” He stood at the foot of the bed, keeping his eyes fixed firmly on her face, above the level where the hollow between her breasts showed through the half-open robe. “Inspector Malone is arresting me—”

“
What?
”

“Yes.” She hadn’t seen Malone standing outside the half-opened door. “I’m holding him on suspicion of the attempted murder of President Timori.”

She had her wits about her now: “But you know it’s that man Seville!”

Malone
nodded. “He’s the one pulling the trigger. But I’m charging Sun Lee with conspiracy, with being the one who’s paying Seville.”

III

Seville had had Timori exactly in the centre of the cross-hatch of the telescopic sight. He hadn’t hurried the shot; Timori had been as still as if posing as the target. His back had been to the window, one arm outstretched in front of him. Only as Seville pulled the trigger did he realize that Timori had been holding a gun.

He saw Timori go down and he knew the shot had been successful. He had quickly but without panic dismantled the rifle, stuffed it into the canvas bag, put on his jacket and left the attic. He steadied himself, telling himself he must not panic as he had at Kirribilli. The job was done and now all he had to do was quietly slip away.

He was halfway along the hallway to the kitchen when a phone on a small table right beside him rang. He jumped sideways with shock, hit the wall so hard he felt pain in his shoulder. He heard a voice say, “I’ll get it,” and an old woman appeared in the doorway to the room where the television set was still blaring. It seemed to him that she looked straight at him and he was ready at once for murder.

Then there was a banging on the front door and she turned away, repeating, “I’ll get it,” and tottered on frail legs towards the front door. Seville turned quickly and almost ran the rest of the way down the narrow hallway. He plunged into the dark kitchen, hit his hip on a corner of the big table in its centre and almost fell against the window. He didn’t hesitate to see if there was any policeman at the back of the house; he pulled up the window and scrambled over the sill on to the back veranda. There was no sign of the young policeman: that must be he and his colleague pounding on the front door. Seville ran across the back lawn, hobbling a little with the pain in his hip. As he swung up and over the back wall he heard one of the policemen running up the gravel drive beside the house.

He dropped down from the wall, steadied himself and went down the side passage of the house at the rear. There were lights in two of the rooms. A window was open and he heard what sounded like a
television
commercial: “AMP guarantees you security for life . . .” He went on down and let himself out of the
Tradesmen’s Entrance
, his job done in a tradesman’s-like way.