The Bear Pit Read Free

reformed—”
    â€œRetired, Hans. Not reformed. There’s a difference. Will you change when you retire?”
    â€œI’m never gunna retire, Jack. That’s what upsets everyone, including a lot in our own party. They’re gunning for me, some of ‘em. They reckon I’ve reached my use-by date.” He laughed, a cackle at the back of his throat. “There’s an old saying, The emperor has no clothes on. It don’t matter, if he’s still on the throne.”
    Aldwych looked him up and down, made the frank comment of one old man to another: “You’d be a horrible sight, naked.”
    â€œI hold that picture over their heads.” Again the cackle. He was enjoying the evening.
    â€œAre you an emperor, Hans?”
    â€œSome of ‘em think so.” He sat back, looked out at his empire. “You ever read anything about Julius Caesar?”
    â€œNo, Hans. When I retired, I started reading, the first time in my life. Not fiction—I never read anything anybody wrote like the life I led. No, I read history. I never went back as far as ancient history—from what young Jack tells me, you’d think there were never any crims in those days, just shonky statesmen. The best crooks started in the Ren-aiss-ance”—he almost spelled it out—“times. I could of sat down with the Borgias. I wouldn’t of trusted ‘em, but we’d of understood each other.”
    â€œYou were an emperor once. You had your own little empire.” The Dutchman had done his own reading: police files on his desk in his double role as Police Minister.
    â€œNever an emperor, Hans. King, maybe. There’s a difference. Emperors dunno what’s happening out there in the backblocks.”
    â€œThis one does,” said Hans Vanderberg the First.
    Then Jack Aldwych Junior leaned in from the other side of him.
    â€œMr. Premier—” He had gone to an exclusive private school where informality towards one’s elders had not been encouraged.
    The school’s board had known who his father was, but it had not discouraged his enrollment. It had accepted his fees and a scholarship endowment from his mother and taken its chances that his father’s name would not appear on any more criminal charges. Jack Senior, cynically amused, had done his best to oblige, though on occasions police officers had had to be bribed, all, of course, in the interests of Jack Junior’s education.
    â€œMr. Premier, I’ve got this whole project up and running while you were still in office—”
    â€œDon’t talk as if I’m dead, son.”
    Jack Junior smiled. He was a big man, handsome and affable; women admired him but he was not a ladies’ man. Like his father he was a conservative, though he was not criminal like his father. He had strayed once and learned his lesson; his father had lashed him with his tongue more than any headmaster ever had. He voted conservative because multi-millionaire socialists were a contradiction in terms; they were also, if there were any, wrong in the head. But this Labor premier, on the Olympic Tower project and all its problems, had been as encouraging and sympathetic as any free enterprise, economic rationalist politician could have been. Jack Junior, a better businessman than his father, though not as ruthless, had learned not to bite the hand that fed you. Welfare was not just for the poor, otherwise it would be unfair.
    â€œI’m not. But there are rumours—”
    â€œTake no notice of ‘em, son. I have to call an election in the next two months, but I’ll choose my own time. My four years are up—”
    â€œEight years,” said Jack Senior from the other side.
    Vanderberg nodded, pleased that someone was counting. “Eight years. I’m gunna have another four. Then I’ll hand over to someone else. Someone I’ll pick.”
    â€œGood,” said Jack Junior.