by Nick Spill
“Mel lets out a sigh and turns to me. She just stares.
“I said, ‘Have a good flight then?’
“And she cracks up, bent over laughing, while I’m still tied up!”
“Well, I did untie you, eventually.”
“Only after I promised to come back here with you.”
“That seemed like a reasonable request, considering the circumstances. And you know what they say, you should always negotiate from strength.” Mel laughed.
Wiremu was wide eyed. Bulgarians! Albanians! Huge knockdown dragged out fights in hotel rooms in New York! And they came back here to sleepy old New Zealand? No wonder they followed him out of that pub. They needed the action.
“You should turn that into a screenplay. Every other person I met in New York was writing a screenplay. Young people used to write poetry. Now they dream of selling a screenplay for a million dollars.” Clovis looked across to Mel. “It’s got action, adventure and romance. And scientific intrigue. What more could you want?” He wondered if there was more to the story. How could Henry have been apart from Mel for so long?
Wiremu shook his head and rose up from the table. He came back into the living room with another pot of coffee.
“What are your views of the universe, Clovis?” Wiremu asked.
“I don’t know. All I want to do is play my violin, make music and bread and be left in peace,” Clovis declared.
Wiremu eyed his new friends. Mel had her feet over Henry’s knees with a faraway look in her eyes. Plum was sitting in between the legs of Clovis, who was massaging the top of her head. Wiremu thought he could hear her purring.
Mel glanced at her watch. “I have to be up at 6:00 this morning. Let me drive you back. We’ll have to hear your violin another time, Clovis.”
Chapter Four
Monday night
They were silent for the short ride back to Summer Street. Clovis squeezed into the back seat and cuddled Plum, the violin case between his legs. Wiremu sat in front.
“Keep on! Don’t stop!” Wiremu commanded.
Mel cruised to the corner and turned down John Street.
“What was that?” Plum had bolted upright in her seat and tried to look out the rear window.
“The front door was open,” Wiremu replied.
“Why don’t you guys come and stay over at my place,” Mel said, without stopping the car. “It’s not going to be safe here.” She wanted to get home to bed. She did not want any more drama.
“Let’s make another pass and keep Plum out of sight. I’ll check the house.” Wiremu turned to Mel who doubled back.
“No. What if it’s the police? I’ll go,” Mel insisted. “Clovis, come up front when I stop. You know how to drive, right?” Clovis nodded. “Honk two times if you see anything suspicious on the street.”
Mel slowed down as they passed the house. She stopped four doors down. The front door was ajar. Mel turned off the motor and the lights. She adjusted her rearview mirror so she could see the dark house and waited. No one spoke.
“You sure you wanna go?” Wiremu spied up and down the street.
“Is your back door locked?” Mel turned to ask Clovis.
“Er, yes. Here’s the key.”
Mel shot a look at Wiremu, as if to say stay here or else. Then she got out of the car. She stood by the open door while Clovis climbed into her seat. Plum lay on the floor, her hands over her head. The seat felt hot to Clovis. For one guilty moment he relished the thought of Mel’s ass having been in the seat a few seconds before.
Mel ambled up to the front gate, stepped over it and walked down the narrow path between the two houses.
“Why don’t I go in as well?” Clovis suggested to Wiremu as he adjusted the mirror so he could see the house.
“No,” Wiremu hushed. He rolled down his window to listen to the sounds of the street. He stared at the house as if he could see through the walls. “Shhh!” he hissed, as Clovis was about to console Plum in the back. The small noises in Ponsonby after midnight were magnified by the tension inside the car. Two cats were singing at each other across the road, a car accelerated down John Street below them. Wiremu thought he heard a Rolling Stones song. Horns were playing as he tried hard to concentrate on the house. The waiting seemed to go on forever. Wiremu jerked his head to one side. He sensed something was wrong.
“Watch the road both ways.” He sprang out of the car and ran up to the front door.
“It’s okay, Plum. I’m here. The street’s clear,” Clovis whispered checking the rearview mirror.
“You said this wouldn’t happen. You said it was safe to come back. I was better off in New York.”
• • •
Mel stopped at the back door. She could see through the side window an overturned chair in the kitchen. She listened for any sounds in the house as she waited for her eyes to adjust to the dark. Although it could have been her imagination, she thought she heard a faint shuffle of a boot inside. Rising to her feet, she put the key in the lock, turned it and twisted the brass doorknob. She slowly opened the door as quietly as she could. Mel slipped in, keeping very low and cross stepping to the corridor along the wall. No one was in the kitchen.
She advanced so that she was opposite the first door on the right and squatted, ready to pounce. If anyone were inside, he would be in one of the front rooms, with access to the windows and a view of the street. He would be waiting for her behind a door, listening. Or, she reasoned, he could have ducked back to this room and waited for her there, having seen her enter the front gate. Damn. She should have gone over the back fence from the adjacent property.
Mel edged step by step down the corridor, being careful not to touch the cracked wallpaper. Crouching, she peeked through the half open doorway into Clovis and Plum’s bedroom. The streetlight shone onto the outlines of an unmade bed. Clothes were strewn across the floor. Moving her head back and forth, Mel could not see anyone in the room. She turned again and stepped back to face the living room door that was open a couple of inches. A dog barked outside, once. A car squealed around a corner in the distance, making the silence in the house even more intense. Mel took a slow deep breath and changed the position of her feet. She sprang into the room, taking an extra step away from the door and spinning around so she could launch an attack.
It was still a shock. A large figure raised a softball bat and plunged it down on Mel’s skull. With the extra step she was out of range. The bat whizzed past her face and she spun around with a flying back kick to strike the figure in his unprotected solar plexus. Winded, he dropped the bat and stumbled forward, trying to grab Mel. She kicked him again, a high front snap that did not reach his face, only grazed his chin. Mel stepped forward and threw three punches at him; one in the face, landing on his left cheek, one in his solar plexus and one in his groin. That was the one that made him bend over in pain. The kicks and punches had been delivered in such quick succession that he had had no time to react, let alone consider that his attacker was a woman more than a hundred pounds lighter than him.
With one hand clutching his genitals, he desperately tried to hit his assailant, anywhere. But she already had control of his free wrist. Twisting his wrist inward, Mel rapidly forced him to the ground, snapping another kick to the kidneys as his face hit the floor with a loud thud. She threw his trapped wrist up behind his neck and knelt into his lower spine. She mounted him and slid her other forearm under his chin, exerting a sharp pain across his trachea as she used her knifelike forearm to cut off the flow of blood through his carotid artery. He could not move, he could not cry out. He tried to grasp for air and struggle with what little strength he had left, but her knee pressed deeper into his back like a dagger. He had lost all control, and this made him angry. She clamped her right palm behind his skull with her fingertips against the back of his left ear and she applied pressure from both forearms until he gave up struggling. His arteries were temporarily sealed. She counted to seven, then slowly released the pressure, feelin
g his faint pulse in his right twisted wrist. He was unconscious.
Mel stood up and threw her hair back. Despite her kicks and blows, he was not badly injured. She had broken no bones, and the sleeper hold would wear off in a few minutes. He could not have seen her clearly. He probably would not even want to admit that this had happened to him. These thoughts flashed through her mind as she stepped back to look at the man. He was a giant.
Hearing footsteps, Mel drew back into a defensive position again, to see Wiremu coming bounding into the room.
“Mel?” he yelled.
“Be quiet,” she snapped.
“Did you kill him?” Wiremu knelt down beside the assailant. “That’s John Eustace. Big John. A real dangerous bugger.” Wiremu noticed the softball bat then searched through Eustace’s pockets. He took out a wallet, a piece of paper with a phone number on it and a set of car keys. Wiremu pocketed these.
“Are you sure that’s right?” Mel asked.
“You’re asking me? You just about killed him.”
“Let’s get out of here.”
Wiremu followed Mel back to the car. Mel was untouched, but Big John was lying dead to the world. How had she done that?
Clovis slipped into the back of the BMW to be with Plum. She was still on the floor, trying not to shake with fear. Mel freewheeled to the bottom of the road, adjusting her mirror before starting the motor and turning into John Street. Wiremu kept his eyes glued on the street behind them.
“No one following, Bruce,” Wiremu broke the silence. These Pakehas were not enjoying this. Where was their sense of adventure? Did they not relish a little dash of violence?
Plum surfaced from the floor and came up to Clovis’s knees. “Bruce? Bruce?” she asked.
“I was trying to make a joke,” Wiremu sighed.
“Let’s talk when we get back to my place. I need a strong cup of tea,” Mel uttered.
Wiremu asked Mel to stop at a corner on Mount Eden Road. A phone booth was on the other side of the street. Checking to see that there was no traffic, he ambled over to the phone and started to put coins in the phone box. Mel watched him. He seemed to make several calls. The last one was the longest. She saw him hang up, then checking the street, place something on top of the booth before trotting back to the BMW.
“Isn’t that a little risky? He’ll regain consciousness any minute,” Mel asked him as she turned into her road.
“My boys are pros.” Wiremu sat back and kept a straight face.
Mel gave Plum a couple of strong sleeping pills so she would sleep better on the living room couch.
Clovis lay on the carpet staring at the ceiling. He always slept better after making love to Plum. This was not a good time to approach her. Instead he thought about New York and why he had bought her back. Had it been such a good idea? Could they have survived there together? His eyes refused to close.
Wiremu stretched out on the sofa in the living room. He had promised Mel that he would guard the sound system from any thieves in the night.
“The only thieves I know out at this time are your friends stealing a car on Summer Street,” Mel had replied.
Once he heard the house grow quiet, Wiremu stepped out onto Mel’s back porch. He sat on the steps and wondered about the first call he had made. He had dialed the number on the piece of paper he had found on the body. A young Maori woman had answered. Her voice was familiar and hesitant, as if she knew who he was. She had not given him her name. And she had hung up abruptly. What was that thug John Eustace doing with the phone number of a sweet young Maori girl in his pocket?
Mel climbed into bed to find Henry awake. He rose up on his elbows and managed to slide on top of her without any resistance.
“What took you so long?”
“If you had got up when we came back you’d’ve found out.”
“We?” Henry adjusted his weight on his elbows so he would not crush her.
“I bought them all back. There was someone in their house.”
“I suppose you Kung Fu’d whoever was in there. Right?”
“Yes.”
Mel pushed him over so she was on top. She kissed him forcefully. She knew one way to get rid of the tension in her body.
• • •
Hei Hei huffed and groaned behind Moana who could not get to the sofa in time. Her angelic face, buried in the cushions, did little to mute her protests. Jesus, Hei Hei thought, those soft round buttocks and little drooping breasts drive me crazy, and the more she whimpers the more turned on I get. Her body, even hidden in those shapeless floral smocks she had brought from Hokianga, also drove him crazy. Hei Hei had a hard-on whenever he was near her.
“No! Don’t put it in there! It hurts!” Moana moaned.
“Bitch. Shut up and love it! AHHHH!” Hei Hei was trying to get his penis inside her, anywhere, as he struggled to get his feet out of his jeans. They were caught around his ankles. Then the phone rang. The sound threw him off balance and he fell sideways. Moana crawled out from under him and ran to answer the phone. When she picked it up she was shocked to hear a voice she not heard for a long time. All she had said was, “Hello.” That had been enough.
“Wrong number,” she said without turning to Hei Hei, who would, if she had looked him in the eye, know she was telling a lie. Wrong number! Bah! More like wrong man, she thought as she saw Hei Hei playing with himself. His penis did not extend beyond the outline of his stomach. They never kissed. There was no foreplay. There was no romance. She wanted long soft kisses. Not onion breath from behind and a damp beer belly pressing into her back.
Hei Hei got his jeans off and beckoned Moana to come to him on the sofa when the phone rang again. He held his erect penis in one hand and picked up the receiver with his other. He stared at a nervous Moana as he breathed into the phone.
She had no idea that she could leave. She could not imagine returning to her family in Hokianga. They did not care about her anyway, she reasoned.
Hei Hei stood with the receiver pressed to his ear. He remained silent, waiting for the other party to speak. He had seen this on an American TV soap opera. The powerful tycoon picked up the phone and waited for the caller to speak first. Although on TV the American did not wave his penis around. He listened to the heavy breathing on the other side of the line. This standoff went on for several seconds before Hei Hei got bored and hung up. Moana sat on the sofa with her hands between her legs, her smock covering her knees. Her face, to Hei Hei, seemed to say yes and no at the same time.
“That’s odd.” Hei Hei stood by the phone and scratched his head. He did not realize how ridiculous he looked, naked but for his unbuttoned shirt and socks. One month ago, the last time he was in the Hokianga checking up on the State-grown marijuana plots, he had found and enticed her back to Auckland. Free room and board in return for taking care of him and as much reefer as she could smoke. She had been too naive to realize she had to share his bed as well, but that was all part of the process of educating her in big city life.
The apartment Hei Hei so graciously shared with Moana was at the back of a crumbling two-storey wooden house at the bottom of Bassett Road in Parnell. It consisted of one tiny bedroom, a living room that led into an open kitchen and a bathroom with a door that would not close properly. It always smelt of damp rotten wood. Down the road, Wiremu and his brother Hone Wilson camped out, when they were not up in Hokianga.
Hei Hei was a self-confessed close friend of the Wilsons, having grown up in the same marae. Wiremu and Hei Hei had spent too many years together in D block.
“Perhaps it was your new Pakeha friend?” Moana said, sweetly sarcastic. “Checking up on you.”
“Nah. That was no Pakeha breathing. Shit! They could be onto me.”
“How?”
“Dunno.” Hei Hei finally realized that Moana had worked out what he was up to. He had not told her anything. Another smart Wilson. He would have to be more careful around her. Though she was part of the plan. Damn those Wilsons. All their spirit
s will be flying off from Cape Reinga soon enough. All those fucking degrees and they’re still not clever enough. Shit! Anyone can use long words and sentences longer than prisons. They’re academic cons. Not like little Hei Hei who they think is a dummy. Hei Hei waddled over to the refrigerator and pulled out a flagon of beer. He took a long swig. “They’re in for a surprise.”
He eyed Moana with that look she knew too well. She was saved again by the phone. He picked up the receiver and said, “Yes?” He had no time for power techniques now, and he had lost his erection.
“This is Tina calling from the Flamingo. Is Moana there?”
Moana came over to Hei Hei and spoke a few words into the receiver, looking at him nervously.
“I start tomorrow night. Eight o’clock. At the Flamingo Paradise.”
“Great!” Hei Hei rubbed his hands. He wanted to dance around the sofa but controlled himself because of Moana’s mournful expression. He needed to send her out to earn money. What better plan than to send her to the place owned by his new ally?
“Cheer up, sweetheart. You won’t have to do anything you don’t want to. I checked it out with John. You’ll be quite safe there.” He started to play with his penis again.
• • •
Hone held a glass of brandy in a snifter in one hand and balanced a large volume of Edward Gibbon’s The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire in the other. Johannes Brahms’ “String Sextet No. 2 in G Major” played on the stereo. His absolute favorite; the Amadeus Quartet with friends, on Deutsche Grammophon. He was rereading the passage on the belief in the immortality of the soul. Evenings did not get much better than this. Hone was in love with Gibbon’s voice; the clean, well-rounded string of sentences that effortlessly spun into long seductive paragraphs. Every word was essential but bore an authority that reminded him of great Maori oratory. He sighed as he read another passage again, slowly. Great music, good booze, a great book. What more could he wish for? Not much, maybe brandy that was not so rough and a record that did not crackle.
