Dragons at the Party Read Online Free PDF

politicians conducted their small wars; but there was no terrorism. There might be vitriolic and vulgar abuse that made other parliaments look like church meetings, but there were no assassin’s bullets. Now Timori, the unwanted guest, had, even if involuntarily, brought that danger to Sydney.
    “Did The Dutchman have anything to say this morning?” So far Malone hadn’t looked at this morning’s newspapers. He was not a radio listener and he usually got home too late to look at the evening TV news. When he got the news it was usually cold and in print, but he had found that the world still didn’t get too far ahead of him. There was something comforting in being a little way behind it, as if the news had somehow been softened by the time it got to him.
    “His usual garble. I dunno whether he’s for or against Timori.”
    “If Phil Norval’s for him, The Dutchman will be against him.” The Dutchman was Hans Vanderberg, the State Premier, an immigrant who had come to Australia right after World War Two, had become a trade union official, joined the Labour Party, got on well with the Irish Catholics who ran it, taken on some of their characteristics and ten years ago had become Leader of the Party and Premier. He was famous for his garbled speeches and his double-Dutch (or was it Irish?) logic; but he was the best politician in the country and he and everyone else knew it. He was also a magnificent hater and he hated no one more than Prime Minister Philip Norval.
    Malone looked at his watch. “We’d better get over to Kirribilli. What time do Presidents have breakfast?”
    “ I know what time I had mine. Six o’bloody clock.”
    Malone grinned; he always liked working with Russ Clements. “You’d better get used to it, sport. This looks like it’s going to be a round-the-clock job.”
    “How does Lisa feel about you working on the holiday weekend?”
    “She wouldn’t speak to me this morning. Neither would the kids. I’d promised to bring them all in to The Rocks to see the celebrations.”
    “I was going to the races. I’ve got two hot tips for today.”
    “Put them on SP. Where do you get your tips?”
    “From a coupla SP bookies I used to raid when I was on the Gambling Squad.”
    “How much are you ahead this year so far?”
    “A thousand bucks and it’s only January twenty-third. They’ll be holding a Royal Commission into me if it keeps up.”
    “What do you do with all your dough?” Clements always looked as if he didn’t have his bus fare.
    “Some day I’m gunna have an apartment in that block down at the Quay, right there above the ferries. People will point the finger at me and say I made it outa graft, but I won’t give a stuff. I’ll pee on ‘em from a great height and if some of it lands on some crims I’ve known, so much the better.”
    Malone grinned, wished him well, stood up and led the way out of Homicide. The division was located on the sixth floor of a commercial building that the police department shared with other government departments, most of them minor. Security in this commercial building, because of the shared space with other departments going about their mundane business, was minimal. Malone sometimes wondered what would happen if some madman, bent on homicide towards Homicide, got loose in the building.
    They drove through the bedecked streets of the city. The citizens held high hopes for the coming year; it was no use living in the past, even though they were celebrating it. They had just come through the worst recession in years; they had been told to tighten their belts, torture for the beer-bellied males of the population, but for this week they were letting out the notches. There is nothing like a carnival for helping one forget one’s debts: banks are always closed on Carnival Day.
    They drove over the Bridge, above the harbour already suffering a traffic-jam of yachts and cruisers and wind-surfers, and turned off into the tree-lined streets of