Autumn Maze by Jon Cleary Page B

him.”
    â€œDid you ever meet him outside the office?”
    â€œYou mean, did I go out with him?” Her father had been a Bombay lawyer; but she was more direct. Circumlocution never got you anywhere with Australians, they didn’t understand the uses of it. “No, he never went out with any of the girls from the office. He was—discreet?—that way. He always treated us politely. No, you know, harassment.”
    â€œA gentleman?”
    â€œOh yes. They’re scarce today.” She sounded as if she might show them her bruises.
    â€œNot amongst us older types,” said Malone, thanked her and he and Clements left.
    The Futures Exchange was hidden behind the facade of a building that belonged to another age, when a future had no value to anyone but the person whose dream it was. The building had been gutted and turned into a temple owned and run by the money-changers: Jesus Christ would never have got past the security guards at the entrance.
    Malone and Clements, being police and not messiahs, were admitted. They found Jim Ondelli, Casement’s general manager, in the ten-year-bond pit. He was in his early forties, thin-faced and curly-haired, his trader’s vest of purple-and-pink stripes worn over what looked to Malone like a very expensive shirt. He handed his clipboard to a younger man, a mere boy, and came towards Malone and Clements.
    â€œYou’re from the police? They rang me from the office.”
    Malone introduced himself and Clements. “Is this a good time to talk?”
    â€œOh sure, no worries. The bond market, especially the ten-year-one, is pretty slack at the moment, everyone’s waiting to see what the Japanese are going to do. What can I do for you? I mean about Rob Sweden. Poor bugger.”
    It was like being in an aviary; or, as Clements, a chauvinist, would have described it, at a women’s luncheon party. Chatter chipped the air, shouts bounced like invisible rubber balls. Ondelli led the two detectives under a balcony where, somehow, the noise was less overwhelming.
    â€œAre you doing what young Sweden did?”
    â€œYeah. He was one of our traders, not the best but good enough. He might’ve developed, I dunno. I tried him on several of the pits, they all handle a different commodity. He wasn’t quite quick enough for the really volatile pit, say the share-index one over there.”
    â€œWas that why you transferred him to the bank?”
    â€œThat was his own idea, not mine.”
    â€œWhat would he have earned?” said Clements, a punter.
    â€œHere? It varied. He’d have earned less at the bank. The clerks here, the young ones hoping to be traders, they’re usually on around forty thousand a year. A trader like Rob would get sixty to a hundred thousand, depending on how good he is. The „gun’ trader—that kid over there, for instance—” Ondelli pointed to the share-index pit, where a group of traders, most of them young, stood in a semi-circle facing another young man in a green-and-white jacket. “That kid is as good as anyone on the floor. He’s with—” He named one of the major banks. “He has the money to play with. When he bids, the others jump in— that’s why they’re watching him as if he’s some sort of orchestra leader. He’d be on a hundred and fifty thousand, probably plus bonuses.”
    The two detectives looked at each other and Ondelli grinned. “It’s bloody obscene, is that what you’re thinking?”
    In these times, yes . But all Malone said was, “We’re in the wrong game.”
    Ondelli went on, “This is, in effect, no more than a gambling den, a legitimate one. It has its uses, though. It can guarantee a price for a farmer, for instance, for his produce, say six months down the track. It can protect him against a poor harvest or a glut harvest—up to a point, that is. We can do nothing about the