Five-Ring Circus Read Free Page A

places at that table.”
    â€œ Yes.”
    â€œYou’ve told me who the dead men are—they’re all respectable businessmen. No Triads, nothing like that?”
    It was difficult to tell whether Chung smiled or not. “No, nothing like that.”
    â€œI’ve heard of two of them, seen their names in the paper occasionally. But the third feller—” He looked at his notes. “Mr. Shan? Is he a local?”
    Chung looked around the room, moving only his eyes, not his head. His hands were folded on the table in front of him and he looked as calm as if this were no more than a social visit on Malone’s part. Then he looked back at Malone, who had waited patiently. “No.”
    â€œFrom somewhere else? Cabramatta?” Where there was a major Asian community, mainly Vietnamese. “Or Melbourne or Brisbane?”
    Then Clements slid his big bulk into the seat beside Malone, dropped a passport on the table. “That’s from the guy with his back to the wall, the one in the middle. A Chinese passport in the name of Shan Yang.”
    Malone picked up the passport, flipped through its pages, then held it out for Chung to look at. “Shanghai, maybe? Or Beijing?”
    Chung’s shrug was almost imperceptible. “Okay, from Shanghai.”
    Malone looked across the room. The forensic pathologist, a young man who, coincidentally, was Chinese, had looked at the bodies and they were now being wheeled out to the ambulances. Most of the diners had been questioned and allowed to go. Out in the street they would be ambushed by the media reporters: any witness to a triple murder was quotable, even if he made it up. Even as Malone looked, the last diners went out the front door and now there were only police and Les Chung. Wally Smith, the head chef, had been questioned and allowed to go. John Kagal, Phil Truach and Gail Lee were comparing notes, but Malone could tell from their expressions that the notes would not add up to much.
    â€œWhat was Mr. Shan doing here, Les? You were with him, so you must’ve had him as your guest.”
    â€œ He was a visitor. They come here every time they are in Sydney.”
    â€œThey?”
    â€œVisitors from China. We Chinese have always been gourmets. Before the French even invented the word or knew anything about cooking.” His lips twitched, but one could not really call it a smile.
    â€œLes, let’s not play the Inscrutable Orient game. I know you Chinese claim a monopoly on patience, but you’d be surprised how patient we Irish can be. We have to be, to put up with Irish jokes.”
    Chung’s expression was almost a parody of inscrutability. Then all at once he sat back against the velvet of the booth, as if he had decided the game had gone far enough. “All right. Mr. Shan represented one of our business partners.”
    â€œWhat in? The restaurant?”
    Chung smiled widely this time, shook his head. “Olympic Tower.”
    Malone and Clements looked at each other; then Clements said, “You’re in that ?”
    Olympic Tower had been a huge hole in the ground for seven or eight years, a casualty of union trouble and the recession of a few years back. It had been a monument that was an embarrassment, a great sunken square in which concrete foundations and the odd steel pier had been a derisive reminder of what had been intended. Then six months ago work had recommenced under a new consortium. Malone had read about it, but he had not taken any notice of the names in the consortium. Over the last thirty years developers had come and gone like carpetbaggers. Some of them had built beautiful additions to the city; others had put up eyesores, taken the money and run. It all came under the heading of progress.
    â€œIt’s a consortium.”
    â€œHow many?” Clements was the business expert. He had begun as a punter on the horses and moved on to the stock market.
    â€œThree