by Ted Dawe
Evan got shirty as he always did when they got caught up on some point like this.
‘Well what are you going to do? Arrest her? Cuff her old man and stick them both in the back of the car? Shove them into the interview room at Central for an hour or two? Let Willets work them over?’
‘No, I’m not, Evan. I’m going to file a report and forget it. He, Mr What’s-his-face, will make a claim to the insurance companies, who, after a month or three, will shell out and so it goes. Everything just gets a bit more expensive for you and me.’
‘I wouldn’t worry about it.’
‘It’s a double standard, man. One for the bike-stealing teenager …’
He was interrupted by burglary in progress over the Radio Transmitter. They loved these and without any discussion, Bryce signalled HQ that they were on their way.
It was only a few minutes from Mission Bay, but at the same time a world apart. Old state houses on treeless sections, dogs roaming the streets, dead cars on front lawns. This is probably where those missing bikes would end up.
As they closed in they were particularly attentive to all the cars coming their way. Knew that was often where the crims could be nabbed. It was an instinct thing.
The house in question was empty. Of people, that was. The owners were at a tangi in Hawke’s Bay. They were met at the gate by a fiery little woman who had called to feed the cat.
‘There was two of them I think. In there, having a feed. Didn’t notice me till I walked in on them. They looked a bit drunk. Anyway the bigger boy, about seventeen, pushed me over and they ran out through the back there. Jumped the fence.’
Bryce was pumped. This is what he’d joined up for, not stolen mountain bikes. ‘You OK Ma?’ he pointed to her bleeding elbow.
She looked down for a moment, as if noticing her injury for the first time – then looked up with a grin. ‘It’s nothing. They went into the school. Comes out on Rimini Road.’
‘Take the car round, Evan. I’ll chase them.’
They split up and Bryce was over the fence without even slowing down. In front of him was the broad expanse of a football field and he reflected, as he belted down its length, that the last time he did this he had a ball in his arms. They were playing Kelston. Evan was outside him. Or was it Flash? Yes that’s right, it was Flash.
When he cleared the main teaching block he saw two boys in the distance looking into the windows of the admin block. They saw him coming, made to run and then stopped, seeing how quick he was. They were about ten or eleven, too small to be the perps.
‘Right you two,’ Bryce yelled out when he got close, ‘where did they go?’ The assumption that bystanders always knew something saved time.
There was a moment of indecision while the kids looked at each other to see who would rat out the other first.
‘Don’t piss me about. Which way?’
‘Over there. Behind the gym, ow?’
‘Hang about. I might need a statement.’ Bryce was off again, not believing for a moment that they would do what he said.
Behind the gym was a space where old equipment seemed to have been heaped when it had passed its use-by date. Hockey goals. A wrecked trampoline. What must have once been a scrum machine. A little mountain of it. The taller of the two fugitives had made it over the top while the other had got his jacket snagged on the twisted metal and was thrashing about trying to get loose. The guy on the far side shot through as soon as Bryce showed up. The caught guy had a metal stake in his hand and turned to face Bryce as he walked towards him.
‘Don’t make it worse, man. You’re already gone.’ Bryce approached quietly, his hands out flat, open, trying to calm him. God knows what he was on, but he was on something, that was for real.
The guy struggled out of the jacket that had been hooked like a fish by a jagged piece of pipe. He knew there was no way he could get over the pile so he had to get through Bryce.
He gave the instinctive hitch on his homeboy low-riders and closed in. He faced Bryce, presenting the sharp end of the shaft like a taiaha. Even from five metres away Bryce could smell the stink of sweat and old clothes. There were blue paint stains over the bottom half of his face and neck. They said it all. Whacked out on spray paint.
‘Get out of m’ fucken way, cop.’ Somehow the authority had changed and Bryce backed slowly out of the narrow corridor between the fence and the gym. They both knew they were locked into this: no chance of back-down now. The sharp post tore the air as it spun in his hands. A sort of confidence had taken over. There was a practised routine in his movements working the air one side then the other, making feigned lunges and quick withdrawals.
Bryce looked around quickly. Where was Evan? They should have both come on foot. Another stuff-up.
By this time they were on clear ground in front of the gym, and the kid was in control. He kept advancing with mock thrusts that made Bryce lift his arms ineffectually. It was clear the younger guy was beginning to enjoy this. The chance to run was there, but the paint-head no longer wanted it. He was going to teach this cop something. Time to show him who not to mess with.
Bryce found himself backed into the entranceway of the main gym doors. If only he could get to his RT. He knew as soon as he reached for it the kid would be onto him. They both stood there for a moment. He couldn’t bolt even if he chose to now, because the kid blocked his way out of the recess. He closed in, feeding on the power. Pay back time. Pay back for all those times he’d been on the wrong end, all those times he’d been cornered.
‘How ya like it? How ya like it cop? Come on! Make a move! Try it!’ He jabbed at Bryce’s face with each question, command.
Bryce was pinned.
Then it all happened. Framed in the bright doorway like a movie. So fast Bryce had to replay it in his head a few times to make sense of it.
The kid steps back to get room for a thrust, eyes wide, big toothy mouth open. Then bang. Evan flashes past the entranceway, clotheslining him so hard he seems to rotate in the air. The post flies high in the air as he and Evan hit the earth with a crunch.
When Bryce emerged shakily from the alcove he’d been trapped in, just clear of the entrance, there was Evan sitting on the gasping kid’s chest, grinning. He looked like those hunting photos, of guys in the bush, posing with a recent kill. The kid’s face was purple and he was struggling to breathe.
‘Remember how many times I was sent off for doing that?’ said Evan, relishing the victory. ‘I reckon there’s a lot of skill in the head-high tackle.’
10 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO OZZIE
He had woken up to a bang, which for a moment, had reminded him of the days when bangs like that were part of his world. Now they happened to other people, in other places. At this time in the morning he usually functioned on automatic. It took a while these days for him to re-join the planet. The heavy blue curtain blocked any light from the French doors so the only glimmer came down the short passageway that led to the living room. He slipped on his bathrobe and moved towards it like a moth towards a light bulb. In the big room nothing was out of place, the ormolu furniture and the pale watercolours gave the room a baronial air. A feeling of substance. In a world such as his these things were important.
Ozzie headed for the pool. His step was eager and his head was full of a song he had heard the previous night. It was lodged somewhere in his brain where there was a permanent repeat-play function.
The pool wasn’t big by some standards, but its rippling blue surface offered him something he couldn’t refuse. He cast off his bathrobe and plunged forward, all in one movement. The water, always surprisingly cold, sliced though the fog of alcohol clogging his head. For the first three or four lengths he powered up and down ignoring his pounding heart and straining muscles. Once past the shock he settled back to a regular leisurely breaststroke. Soon, as was his custom, he began to replay the previous evening’s activity. This would bring order to the chaos of fitful sleep. It would set him up for the day.
It
had been another torrid night at the club. Although they were all frantic, Saturday nights were the extreme. Most of the night had been spent assembling and deploying the troops. Calming people down. Revving people up. And then there was collecting the money, the fun part. This brought out the book-keeper in him. It was the moment when it all became real. Of course money-in was great but avoiding money-out was how you got rich. How he came to be here in this pool, next to this house. His meticulous accountancy background helped too. Records had to be kept of everything. Nothing forgotten, nothing written off. Records were dangerous of course, so there had to be two sets. One for GST (grab, steal and take he called it) and one for Ozzie.
Then there was his other Saturday night challenge. Avoiding people. Especially people who were (as the Desiderata pinned on the toilet door warned him), ‘vexatious to the spirit’. People like Brett Delauney.
Ozzie knew that Vercoe was surprised when Club Mandela had rocketed into the stratosphere of Auckland society. When he first set foot on K. Road, Vercoe thought, with his Queen Street nous, the K. would be a pushover. Buying cheap properties was the easy part – making them pay was a whole new ball game. But Ozzie had been in the game long enough to know that clubs turned around sometimes. After Burnt Ice and Crossroads, he was sure that he would steer clear of clubs. ‘Too much drugs,’ or rather too much drug behaviour.
Sweat-soaked bare-chested guys head-banging for hours on the dance floor. The endless pulsing music noise that went with it. Toilets just parking bays for schoolgirls snorting lines of P. The familiar breakdowns and flake-outs. Losers, dooking it out on the dance floor. Ambulance calls and police raids. It was like there was a ten foot flashing sign outside all his clubs saying ‘No rules!’ Or maybe ‘If it’s dumb, do it here!’
Parlours were quieter, more predictable. Bankable. Steady income. No hysterics. Taxing the most basic human instinct. Old as the Bible, that.
Then Brett had come along. Staked him in Mandela. Brett, who had all that money and no way of spending it. Hungry to buy his way into straight life. Running scared, Ozzie thought, from all those high profile head cases he had made dealing drugs. Trying to claw his way back into the straight and narrow.
Mind you, to be fair, he knew that feeling well enough. He had been like Brett once, eons ago. It was like free falling from an aeroplane. You had to pull the cord sooner or later or it was splat. That was inevitable. But Ozzie had come a long way since then. He was a name now, often quoted in the sharp end of the Hard Truth. Merv Collins had taken to ringing him up when he needed a one-liner to close off some story on K. Road. He was the man. The one who spoke for the Road. Almost a guru.
It wasn’t that he liked Brett, or even that Oz wanted another club, it just that his terms were so good that Ozzie couldn’t turn him down. He knew well enough that if he didn’t do it someone else would, and he didn’t want that. That was the way you lost control.
And Club Mandela was different from those other night spots he’d had a hand in. It had been sorted once he had the right people on the door: guys who were affiliated but not actually the patched article. Ronnie and Jake fitted the bill exactly. Big, scary-looking if you didn’t know them, but smart too. Smart enough to know when they were onto a good thing, anyway. He didn’t mind them dealing a bit too because they were discreet. They called it hook ups, because they didn’t do it themselves, just hooked the punters up with someone who would. No backlash. No tracing. Always remembered their first responsibility too. Getting the right people in the door. Just as important as keeping the wrong people out. And most of all, being ex-footy players, they knew the importance of team.
It was always the lone operators that caused the trouble.
Selfish bastards.
People like Brett.
Then there was Blade. Could he make it two in a row? Blade was a little Orphan Annie of a place. Too many crims, thugs and freelance hookers. It scared people off … well, the people with real money were scared off, anyway. Too far from K. Road, too. Queen Street was a whole different scene. Ozzie had no sway here. There everything had to be done by Vercoe’s rules. It was his patch now. And now he had his beady eye on the K. Ozzie knew that for a fact.
Everything changed. But Ozzie was too old to change. Didn’t want to. That’s where Brett fitted in. The trouble with Brett was he never saw the big picture. It was always about what Brett wanted. Not only that, but also when he wanted it. Out of the blue he wants a major payout, like midnight on Saturday night. What’s that about? All steamed up over six grand. Small cheese maybe, but not something you carry around in your pocket. That’s just asking for a whack on the head from the streeties.
Maybe Brett had called it a loan, but Ozzie knew it was laundering. Anyway, what was the big deal? Come around today and there would be no problem. To expect him to be packing a wad that size at midnight showed Brett didn’t know the game. Ozzie wasn’t a bank. The money had its own tidal surges and you had to ride them in and out.
The Hungry Heart, his escort club, was like that. And the Slipper Inn. If he milked them too hard he’d be gone. Like Hec Wilson’s operation, over the Chinese takeaways. No class. That didn’t last long. He was a cut above those slime suckers. It was all about knowing how much to skim off the top. The golden eight per cent which kept everyone happy. Specially the boys in blue.
That had been the secret of his happy partnership with Krystal. Getting her the lease and the connections, then leaving her to do what she knew best. Men’s work and women’s work, the way it was meant to be. Men didn’t want to see other men in a skin house. It was a blow to their egos. It meant facing the fact that they were sad losers who couldn’t get it the way they wanted it. Not without paying for it.
Krystal had the knack for making them feel they were high rollers, men of power and influence. It was this fantasy, as much as the sex, that kept them coming (in both senses). Kept them raiding their kids’ money boxes, or queering the books at work. It kept them with their noses stuck to their dead-end, grindstone jobs, made the weight of existence bearable for a few more days. Kept large numbers of the Joe Average variety from running the hose pipe in through the back window of the Holden and gassing themselves in the family carport. Yes, the Hungry Heart and the Slipper Inn kept this city ticking over. He deserved a knighthood not council harassment.
Ozzie let these thoughts have full rein as he chugged endlessly up and down his little pool. Something happened during these sessions, something that gave him peace. When he finally stopped and hauled himself over the edge he felt once more that he was in tune with the universe.
He stretched out on the warm concrete and looked back towards the grandiose wrought iron gateway. It was one of those piss-arse legalities that pool owners had to put up with, just for the right to have a bit of water in their back garden. This gate though, unlike the ugly wire jobs you saw everywhere else, had a hint of French chateau about it. As did the huge ornate house behind it.
Of course the house was far too big for one person. It was far too big for a family. So what? He loved it. Once he had listened to other people. That was back when he had allowed himself the indulgence of a relationship. When he’d had a woman living with him. When he’d done the obvious thing. Obvious, and wrong.
Other people. Other people always knew what was best for you. They knew your needs better than you did. The truth was that he worked so hard and with such focus that the idea of sharing his life with someone – let alone sharing his house – was a dumb one. There was no room for anyone else.
He rolled over and lay face down. In the distance he could hear the insistent bleat of his mobile. He rarely ever answered a ringing phone. It was much better to leave messages. Cut out all that ‘How’s it hangin?’ bullshit. Messages kept you one level clear of everyone else’s dramas. Kept you in control.
A door banged in the gully. He looked up. In the distance he could vaguely make out the bitch in the cardboard house. The one who stared. She and another guy were looking up
towards him. He thought about giving them the finger. Couldn’t be bothered. Not worth lifting his arm.
11 THE WARRIOR WHO CONQUERED E MEI MOUNTAIN
In his drawer Jiang had this little memento. It was a small bronze warrior mounted on a wooden plinth: a reproduction of a soldier from the buried army. On the base was a plate with the inscription ‘For the warrior who conquered E Mei Mountain’. Whenever he met some point of frustration in his life, it had become his habit to take it out and look at it. It reminded him of the things that were important to him.
Jiang was in his fifth year at primary school when his father announced they were to climb E Mei Mountain. The family ran a motorbike shop in Shanghai. His father had built it up from nothing after the Cultural Revolution and now it had five staff, if you counted his mother who did the books. It was a modest enterprise. He would stop off on his way back from school to do his homework in the small office out the back. Then the three of them would eat together.
Because the shop stayed open until late in the evening, Jiang would go home by himself on the bus. His grandfather waited for him at the last stop. It was their custom. The two of them would walk back to the apartment and in the evening they would sit out on the terrace together listening to Papa’s stories about the war. Sometimes Papa would bring out his violin and play songs to prompt the memory. Other times they would just sit silently staring into the night.
Jiang’s favourite story was the one where his grandfather played for the dead and dying in Hunan. The doctors had no means of blunting the pain as they amputated limbs and sewed up a ceaseless stream of casualties from the front. His grandfather had started to play to soothe the dying men. All talking dropped to a whisper in the huge hall while everyone thought only about the music. Hour after hour he played, not daring to stop. The opiates were coming but no-one knew when. His fingers bled and the notes slurred. He had to keep going … he was all they had.
