by Nick Spill
“Well. We beat them two weeks ago, and two of their players were sent off the field for foul play.”
“That I can understand,” the officer sneered.
“But we lost three men to injuries,” Henry added.
“The score?”
“Twenty-one to three. They never got a try, and the penalty was a fluke, the referee saw one of our chaps return a punch.”
“Hmmm, typical.” The officer addressed the two holding Henry. “Let them both go and let’s deal with the others.”
Henry and Wiremu walked away from the police into the dark street.
Chapter Two
Saturday and Sunday
Plum trimmed Clovis’s beard and hair the next morning. The front was too short so his hair stuck up. He was pleased with the effect and felt less hot. His violin sounded brighter when he had his final practice before the audition at one o’clock. Wiremu slept through everything, curled up on the floor in the living room. They could hear his snores coming through the thin wall. On his way to his audition, he returned the car to Rodney who was under his boat with the sander.
• • •
Clovis came back at 4:00, sweat pouring from his face. He had walked home from Parnell. It had been a grueling audition with the conductor of the Auckland Symphony Orchestra, Max Steinberg. The small cottage where Clovis auditioned was crammed with brass figurines and marble busts of the great composers. Not easily intimidated, Clovis had bowed his way through some tough sight-reading before the conductor had sat him down and begun the oral interview. Clovis used this to his advantage and, playing on the conductor’s sense of elitism, casually remarked that he had just returned from New York where he had studied under a famous Russian émigré called Vassily Kremer. Of course, the conductor was impressed, although he would never admit he had not heard of such a fellow. How could he have? Mr. Kremer was the caretaker to Clovis’s sublet on St. Marks Place. Mr. Kremer could not tell a rondo from a rugelach.
“You did that?” Plum asked.
“Well, when I mentioned rugelachs, it sent the maestro off about his mother and Germany. They left in 1933 when things started to get bad. He was beaten up at school, something happened to his sister, so his father sat down with his family and an atlas and he found a country called Neue Zeeland that was the farthest they could get from the Nazis.”
“How did they leave?”
“He said it took them three years to get here, and all their savings. They settled in Dunedin. Then one Sunday afternoon they were coming down from the hills and the entire town and the local constable were waiting for them. He said he was wearing his lederhosen and the locals were carrying torches.”
“Like something out of Frankenstein.”
“Yes! That was what I was thinking, but I didn’t want to say that. Anyway, they were all arrested for signaling Japanese submarines. Can you believe that? And they spent the entire war interned on Somes Island.”
“You mean a family of Jews was locked up for being German spies? That’s like what happened to my relatives here. Makes no sense now, does it?”
“And that’s how he practiced his piano and learned music; there was nothing else to do. His father died a broken man. But the maestro, well, he became the maestro. Then I told him about my great-grandfather, a horse thief in Bavaria. He fled in 1887 and using the same geographic logic as the late Mr. Steinberg, worked his way around the world until he came to New Zealand.”
“You never told me this story. Were you making it up?”
“No. I swear it’s true. It was just buried, you know? He became a shepherd in Taranaki and changed his name from Tiborsky to Tibet after he fell in love with a young Chinese woman he met in Wellington. He worked in Taranaki on sheep farms and finished up marrying the farmer’s daughter.”
“Where in Wellington? What woman?”
“I was never really sure. My father only told me this story once, and it is like a dream now. He mentioned something about the Sincere Laundry.”
“Oh shit,” Plum whispered to herself.
“After World War II, my father inherited a sheep farm, and I got sent away to a boarding school in Wellington and took to playing the violin as a means of escaping rugby practice. This sent the maestro off on another rant about rugby.
“‘Ze vould commit any sin for their vorshipped sport but look how hard it vas to fund a symphony orchestra?’ So that was when I knew I had the position.”
• • •
Plum cooked an elaborate meal, with the meager cooking utensils she could find. Giant kumaras were baked in the oven, and she had marinated huge slabs of filet steak in a mixture of thick soya sauce, lemon juice, a pinch of cayenne pepper and beer. Wiremu, she explained later to Clovis, had pulled out a thick wad of twenty- and fifty-dollar notes from his sock and told her to buy as much food as she could carry.
In turn, Clovis did the same with beer, balancing a wooden crate of DB on his shoulders as he staggered down John Street.
“You realize, of course, Mr. Nepal,” Clovis waved both hands in the air, intoxicated, doing his twelfth parody of the conductor. “That ve are zee very best orchestra in dis country. I might add zee entire Australasian continent, if not zee Southern Hemisphere. As such ve stringently adopt a rigid and professional bearing at all times. Do I make myself clear?” He paused for dramatic effect and looked down his nose at Wiremu (in his chair) and Plum (rolling on the floor). “I take it you hav tails?”
“Tails? What are you, a bunch of eels?” Wiremu roared.
“No. No. No. No. A penguin outfit.” Clovis corrected.
“A penguin dressed as a tuna?”
• • •
Wiremu had scoured the morning and afternoon newspapers on Saturday and found some bargain furniture that he sent Clovis and Plum to pick up on Sunday. They came back in a truck with a long Victorian couch and two brown chesterfield chairs and a red kidney-shaped fifties coffee table. Wiremu could now slump in one of the chairs during the day while holding court. On retiring, he would sleep on the couch that Plum stayed clear of, claiming it smelt of tomcats.
• • •
“Loosen up more, Clovis. You have to feel it. Sway from the hips. The hips. Yes. Show that feeling by moving. Once you sway you set up your own internal rhythm. Real loose but tight. Yeah! That’s it! You’ve got it!” Wiremu would act as coach, conductor and teacher, an appreciative audience of one. Clovis practiced all Sunday and Monday afternoon on his new orchestral parts. In turn, for added levity, during particularly ear scrapping passages when Clovis was trying to work out some new fingering, Wiremu would try to mimic Clovis mimicking the conductor. Only Wiremu’s accent sounded like a very bad Oxford don who had lost his “w’s.”
“I must inform you zat zis is a truly, truly, truly first rate orchestra. Ve are at zee very peek of our perfection. As such ve look to zee highest possible standards, Mr. Himalayas.”
Chapter Three
Monday
At noon, Inspector Bernard Grimble stood on the porch of a house at the bottom of Grafton Road. The floorboards creaked under his brogues. He was in his usual outfit when working unofficially, a grey windcheater with large outside pockets, dark pants and a white shirt with a clip-on tie. He could have passed for a building inspector. He gave the two-story house a quick scan.
Grimble took a brass ring of master keys from the side pocket of his jacket and, selecting a Yale key, inserted it into the solid oak door. He quickly took another key off the ring and unlocked the lower. Sergeant Cadd stood behind him, looking up and down the street, shifting his huge footballer’s frame from one foot to the other. He wore a blue blazer and grey slacks with a blue shirt undone at the collar because his neck was so thick.
The inspector opened the door and strode up to a small metal box in the hallway by the stairs. When he had accessed the Wongs’ file earlier on the Wanganui Computer, he saw that the Inland Revenue Department had itemized deductions for the Excalibur Burglar Alarm System with automatic pol
ice notification and the famous Excalibur 100 decibel audio alarm. Grimble was familiar with the model. He had one installed in his house, although he could not claim the tax deduction, he had noted.
“Come on, shut the door and don’t look so worried. What can happen? Will the police arrest us? Are you counting?”
Cadd looked at his watch and nodded yes. Grimble took out a small screwdriver and some wires from his other jacket pocket and unscrewed the door of the box. Although he only had thirty seconds to complete his task, he was careful not to leave any scratches on the screws. The sergeant watched as Grimble placed two clips simultaneously on one set of red wires then two clips on the black pair. There was nothing hurried about his actions. The inspector had done this many times.
The burglar alarm that would automatically send a recorded message to the local police station was now short-circuited.
“Time?” Grimble asked.
“Er, nine thirty. Oh, no, about eighteen seconds.”
“About? Too slow. Here, follow me and don’t touch anything.”
Was Cadd fooling him? Grimble wondered. It would have been easy for the inspector to obtain a search warrant from an understanding magistrate. He could have made up a story about stolen property or narcotics. But this would have taken too much time and paperwork, not to mention questions from his colleagues. The clandestine visit was more appropriate and, in keeping with the spirit of the commissioner’s orders, no paperwork, nothing official. And this was a chance to try out Cadd, to see if he had potential. Not talent, potential. There was a difference.
The inspector did not suspect the Wongs of fencing stolen goods or smuggling class A or B narcotics into the country. Their martial arts mail order business, judging from their taxes of the last two years, was extremely successful. Even more so was their take-out shop opposite the Three Lamps pub. The Hungry Wok was an all-night burger and chips joint that also sold spring rolls and fried fish. There was no wok inside the place as far as Grimble knew.
Sergeant Cadd followed the inspector into the front room that was pitch-black from the closed blue velvet drapes. Grimble switched on the overhead light. On the wall opposite was a poster of Bruce Lee. The room was stacked with cardboard boxes. On one side there was a metal filing cabinet and a desk. In the center were opened boxes with nunchaku individually wrapped in plastic bags. Grimble picked up an unwrapped pair of these twelve-inch wooden rods and slowly spun the rod in a figure eight. The nunchaku hummed as the ball bearing swivel allowed the metal chain connecting the rods to spin with the minimum of friction.
“Lethal weapon, sir.” Cadd stated the obvious.
“Yes. Imagine a small police baton against one of these wielded by an expert?”
The inspector carefully replaced the nunchaku and walked over to a filing cabinet and opened a drawer. He selected a large ledger book and laid it on the desk. He opened it and carefully looked through the book. On the table were a pile of wires, a remote-controlled toy car and a soldering iron.
“You’re not missing anything, Cadd. Just keep an eye out for the Wongs, don’t move the curtains and remind me about the clips when we leave. I don’t want them to know we’ve been here. Understood?”
“Yes sir.” Cadd edged his way to the curtains and kneeling down pushed a small corner aside.
“It’s all clear, sir.”
“Thank you, Sergeant. You only have to tell me if you see them.”
The inspector leafed through another ledger book. The Wongs kept meticulous records. All he saw were numbers and codes.
Grimble had a problem. After golf with the commissioner, he had been assigned to work with a task force to help locate the suspected Maori who had fired a shotgun in the Jolly Rodger last Friday. The task force had tracked down the usual leads. But there were no firm suspects. Several Maoris had been held for the night but released the next morning because there was no evidence linking them with the shotgun. Grimble knew from his own sources that the Wilson brothers and their closest friends always drank at the Jolly Rodger when they were in town. Grimble thought the prime suspect would be Wiremu Wilson, who had disappeared. Rather than becoming angry that his target had vanished, he endeavored to uncover the elusive Wilson on his own. If Wilson was in hiding, the more likely he was guilty.
The Wongs had a lot of Maori mail order clients. So where was the list kept? Grimble found his answer in the second drawer of the file cabinet. He found the names of Wilson in a separate file. He wrote the two addresses down, one in Parnell, another in Hokianga.
“Wouldn’t customs have had their dogs all over these boxes, sir? I mean, they must go through these with a fine-tooth comb. Being from the Orient.”
“We’re not here for that, we’re here for this!” Grimble closed his notebook.
“Why can’t we ban all this stuff? It all finishes up in violent crimes against us. Right, sir?”
“We live in a democracy, not a totalitarian state. People are allowed to use these for martial arts.”
“I mean, we ban handguns and all barrels under twenty inches. So why not this too?”
“Cadd.”
“Yes, sir?”
“Be on the lookout. You’re not the Ombudsman for Kung Fu artists.”
“I mean, remember last week outside that Chinese takeout on Ponsonby Road. Those bikies weren’t cut up with knives or baseball bats, were they? They were…”
“Cadd!” He rushed to the door and ordered his vigilant student of break-ins to remain on watch.
In the back of the house were the kitchen, an open dining room and a toilet. The rooms were tidy with the minimum of clutter or dirt, apart from the breakfast dishes in the sink and a dripping tap. Two woks sat on top of the stove. They make their own muesli with dried fruit, he surmised; flakes of baked oatmeal and pieces of almond floated in two bowls in the sink. There were two packs of playing cards in a kitchen cupboard full of jars containing herbs, spices, nuts and exotic teas.
Upstairs the two brothers occupied a bedroom each, with matching antique queen-size beds. Their top covers were drawn back and T-shirts and jeans had been dropped on the floor. Looking through their drawers and closets, the inspector saw they were very basic dressers. He was about to open a restored tall kauri dresser with sterling silver handles when he heard Cadd yell out that they were coming.
Grimble tumbled as quietly as he could manage down the stairs.
“The lights,” Grimble hissed to Cadd who was standing in the doorway not sure what to do next. He switched off the light in the front room.
Grimble raced to pull out the clips and screw back the cover to the metal box. They both heard the first key go into the lock and turn. Grimble finished securing the last screw and motioned to Cadd to go to the back. The second key was inserted and the door slowly opened as the inspector tiptoed behind Cadd into the kitchen. The back door had two locks. He twisted them open and let Cadd go down the wooden steps, then he shut the door as quietly as he could. He could hear one of the Wongs stomp into the kitchen as he knelt by the windowless side of the house.
“We forgot to get tap washers!” Ricky Wong yelled to his brother who was turning off the alarm system.
“We have to get a better system or hide this box. It’s not good enough.”
The policemen smiled at each other as they heard this comment. They walked to the street and the inspector’s Honda Accord. Only when they reached the bottom of the valley did Grimble turn on the ignition and let out an audible sigh.
“That was a close one, eh, sir?”
“Yes, Cadd.”
• • •
Monday morning found Plum and Clovis dead broke. Despite Wiremu’s largesse, they had sunk most of their money into the first, second and last months’ rent plus a security deposit equal to two months’ rent. Then there was the large fee they had to pay to the renting agent, the key money. Although they were suspicious of the legality of all the monies they had to come up with immediately, they had been desperate to find their own
accommodation. The house was at least rat free and not as disgusting as the other flats and houses they had inspected.
Clovis did not want Plum to go to work right away. Since he would not receive his first orchestra check for a month, he decided he would try what he had done so well in New York City; busk with his violin. In order for Clovis to play in a public place, he had to have an Auckland City Council permit. He walked across Ponsonby carrying his violin case to the City Administration Building behind the Town Hall.
A clerk behind the city permit counter informed Clovis that it would take several weeks to process the permit as they were backed up. Having learned something from his stay in New York City, Clovis, with his eyes bulging and his face changing to his hair color, demanded the permit immediately, otherwise he would begin to play his violin right there and then. The small clerk disappeared behind a screen showing a poster “Don’t take a chance! Use a condom!” The clerk appeared five minutes later with the permit typed out.
Clovis had other reasons to play on the streets. One was to escape from Wiremu’s all hearing, all seeing ears. It was getting overbearing, yet Clovis could not bring himself to tell Wiremu to shut up. How could he? He was an extremely likeable guest, and a paying one. The other reason was more devious.
At five minutes past six, Clovis positioned himself outside the Ponsonby Women’s Clinic on Ponsonby Road. He had spent the last three hours trying various locations along Queen Street, plying the passersby with his Irish gigues and Baroque partitas. He had collected $3.21. The public was not used to giving, Clovis reasoned. And he was asked four times by different policemen to show his permit. After a long and suspicious perusal of the permit and taking careful note of his name, which they all made the same comments about, they had asked Clovis to move on. Every time! Great! And he had an official permit! What more did he need? A letter from the Queen? Now he was in four different police reports labeled a public nuisance. As if having his colon inspected on returning to God’s Zone was not enough! Welcome back to little old New Zealand, Clovis!
