by Nick Spill
“So where can I get a good time? You know, girls and stuff.” He winked as he changed lanes narrowly missing a Post Office van.
“Oh, if you want girls, I know just the place.” Clovis rubbed his hands.
“Yeah? Really?”
“Oh. This is some place.”
“Come on. Where?” Lance Beefeater sounded too eager.
“I’ll take you right there. It’s the numero uno massage parlor in Sin City called the Flamingo Paradise. You get a sauna, a massage and anything else you want.”
“Hot diggity! This is fair dinkum?”
“You bet!”
“Holy shit! That’s what I need. A nice young Maori girl. A virgin. Oh boy! I don’t care about the massage bit. You know … it’s the extras that count!”
Lance Beefeater followed Clovis’s directions and dropped him off opposite the Flamingo Paradise. The house was ordinary but for the giant unlit neon flamingo and its name scrawled across the roof in a seven-foot-high illuminated sign.
“Matthew? It’s me Clovis,” he began sweetly from a payphone on Newmarket Road.
“Where are you?”
“Nearby. I just wanted to check in to see if I got any phone calls.”
“Phone calls! Fuck! And they’re outside waiting for you. Two of the meanest fuckers you ever laid eyes on.”
“You mean the police?”
“Who else? Fucking hell! Clovis, aren’t you forgetting something? Like my fucking car!”
“Oh. I was getting to that, Matthew. Now sit down and take a deep breath. I’ve some bad news, but it’s not that bad.”
“Oh shit. I knew it. You can’t drive. You can’t fucking drive! And you’ve gone and totaled it, haven’t you?! Shit! Tell me it’s not true, Clovis! Clovis?” Clovis was glad he had decided to phone the news in.
“Calm down, will you? It’s not as bad as it sounds. The car broke down on the Motorway just past the Pukekohe exit. It’s quite safe. Hold on. Don’t flip your lid. The keys are under the seat. Get someone to tow it to a garage. The fuel pumps beat. Nothing I could do about it. You’re lucky it happened to me, not you. Now don’t tell anyone I called. Okay?”
“Pukekohe? Pukekohe?” Matthew yelled in disbelief as Clovis hung up. He did have a terrible temper. Like the time Matthew screamed at the leading Commedia Del Arte player in Mission Bay Park. That was when Clovis first met Plum. No. That was the first time he talked to her. He had first seen her at a Children’s Insane Asylum, two days before Christmas.
Matthew had arranged for a group of musicians to play at the Oakley Mental Hospital for the Children’s All Star Christmas Show. Matthew was dating a nurse there, and Clovis had correctly assumed Matthew’s motives were more inspired by carnal desire than Christmas cheer. The acoustic group consisted of an overweight tuba player, Nick the Greek, Clovis on violin, with his long red hair and beard, and a guitar player, Billy Whitehorn, who was almost on home territory. He had checked into the adult wing to unscramble his acid-addled brain twice in the last three years. Now, he believed his Gibson Les Paul was a prophet and spoke to him in screaming blues notes. Matthew, as singer and tambourine player, headed the group. Cavorting in front of screaming, overexcited children, he thought he was Mick Jagger at Altamount singing “Sympathy for the Devil.”
Plum Blossom played the duchess in a troupe of Commedia Del Arte players from the University. Matthew had persuaded them to perform at the Mental Hospital.
“What a perfect place to meet someone as beautiful as you. In a madhouse for kids!” were Clovis’s opening words to Plum when he bumped into her off stage.
“Hah!” she had exclaimed, keeping up the mocking character of the duchess. “You have more hair than brains and more stomach than hair!”
• • •
When Clovis entered the main building of the asylum, he saw rows of little white canvas straitjackets bolted to the wall, two feet off the floor. They were empty. Clovis imagined them full of yelling kids, wrapped up in white canvas, some of them with their legs not reaching the ground and their eyes crossed, mad with rage and fear at being tied up like hogs about to be slaughtered.
Opening the door to the auditorium, Clovis was assaulted by the sound of one hundred and three children, between four and fifteen years of age, jumping up and down, screaming at the top of their lungs. They were witnessing the long-gowned 16th century Italian Dentist, with a ridiculously long nose and a huge pair of pliers, chase a small Chinese girl, dressed up as a 16th century Italian duchess, around the small stage. Clovis was immediately enamored with the duchess and her ability to project her realistic screams over those of her involved audience. Half the children looked as if they came from the same family, but they understood the story. Perhaps they had a similar dentist at the hospital.
Pulling teeth was a hard act to follow, but Matthew had arranged a medley of songs he knew the children would respond to.
Clovis, playing a simple melody, watched in awe as the children displayed an enthusiasm for madness that he never knew existed, as the group wound up “The Ying Tong Song!”
The “Ying Tong Song” went on and on. Clovis’s fingers were on automatic as he played his amplified violin and watched Matthew in his high-pitched goonish voice intone the insane lyrics over and over. It was like an anthem to all the children assembled before them. Even the Commedia Del Arte troupe came out onto the stage and danced around the musicians, infected by the energy in the air. Plum Blossom circled the sweating violinist three times, eyeing him intently with her haughty duchess look.
The audience, despite the anarchic ecstasy, did not misbehave or throw anything. The form seats were bolted to the floor. Many of the children were heavily sedated so they could not stand up without falling over. But they exuded a spontaneous happiness that moved Clovis. He could not enter their physically narrow world nor peek into their unknown mental life to touch their fantasies or dreams. It was beyond his comprehension. Their lives, enclosed in that institution, were neatly sealed off from the outside world by a brick wall. When they were adults, no one would come and sing them “The Ying Tong Song!”
Clovis knew he would meet Plum Blossom again. They were booked to play alongside the Commedia Del Arte troupe the day after Christmas at Mission Bay Park, with Rangitoto in the background. Rangitoto was like a giant pine covered breast that pointed straight to the heavens. It was an extinct volcano, an island that, because of its circular shores, appeared the same no matter where you were in Auckland. It always reminded Clovis of Plum’s well-rounded and pointed breasts. Plum Blossom, the volcano about to erupt.
At another phone booth, Clovis called Mel. She arranged to pick him up on the right side of Epsom Road, as he walked away from Newmarket.
“What did you find out?” Mel greeted Clovis as he slid into the seat next to her. Clovis informed her of his meeting with Shanghai Sam.
“An Inspector Grimble came and questioned me at work. I don’t think anyone came forward and informed them of our first visit. Your neighbors aren’t exactly the crimewatcher type.”
“What about the body?”
Mel’s face fell as she turned right off Mount Eden Road and pulled over to the curb. She left the motor running as she turned to Clovis. Her eyes misted up and she squeezed the steering wheel.
“I didn’t kill him. I didn’t. His pulse was regular when I left. There’s no way he could have died. Although he could’ve gone into cardiac arrest. But … God! They can’t even identify him. I’m sick. Sick! If I killed him, I mean, if that was the same man and, well, I’d give up. Resign. I would no longer have the right to call myself a doctor. Shit! Some healer. I feel like, like some vigilante idiot. I’m confused by it all, Clovis! Its all my fault.” She kept her grip on the steering wheel.
Clovis was both shocked at Mel’s state and secretly flattered that she had taken him into her confidence. With tears falling down her cheeks, she was even more beautiful to him.
“Listen. You don’t know if it was the same man.
Whoever torched my house must’ve entered it first, right? Therefore, they must’ve seen him. Perhaps they swapped bodies. Or he regained consciousness and came back with some others and put another body there. So you’d think you killed him. You see, there are lots of rational explanations. But the guy you hit is not one of them. I mean, he’s still alive. You said it yourself. He couldn’t’ve died. Right?”
Mel bit her lower lip as she stared straight ahead. She did not say another word but turned the car around and parked by the next payphone. After a quick call to Henry, she drove down one block over from her house and parked.
“Just in case, we can walk through that garden there.” She checked her eyes in the mirror and got out of the car as if nothing was the matter.
Henry greeted them at the back door with a pained expression.
• • •
When the big red and white car disappeared, Sam stood up from his parsley plants and walked to the house. Using the phone in the kitchen he dialed his grandson’s number.
“Bruce. Come over. I want to see you. Yes, now!” Sam replaced the receiver and went to find his wife. He needed another cup of jasmine tea; his throat was dry.
Bruce kept the phone to his ear until he heard the dial tone. Grandpa Sam had not sounded like that in years. That was when Bruce remembered his aunt and uncle had been blown up, an event that had changed his life. He had been fourteen. After school he would organize and stack the trucks that carried the vegetables to the market in downtown Auckland, from Sunday to Wednesday. With the loss of his uncle, he became the farm manager and was responsible for running the family business. He married his second cousin and now his three children would inherit this land, if he did not get caught.
In fifteen minutes Bruce could drive to his grandfather’s house if he took the Land Rover over some of the rougher roads. He would not take the white Volvo station wagon he had spent two hours waxing that morning. Bruce jogged around the three-car garage and up the small hill behind his house. Nestled in a valley were four glasshouses, hidden amongst protective rows of poplar and yew trees. The glasshouses had been built twenty-five years ago.
The sun and rain had peeled off the primer coat on the wood structure. Bruce could see Chuck’s 1000 cc all black and chrome Kawasaki motorcycle parked under a cypress tree next to the nearest glasshouse. On the front leg shield was the name of the bike, stenciled in neon crimson.
Chuck Look inspected the last of the plants that were hanging up to dry in the glasshouse. He had already completed all the bud harvesting over the last few weeks and they were now dried and cured, ready to be packed up into one-pound bags. The afternoon sun shone through the dusty panes making Chuck appear a maroon color. He inhaled the sweet aroma of the resin and was happy. He stood up and wiped the beads of sweat from his forehead.
The mature buds of the Looks’ sinsemilla crop would be sold for top prices. Auckland was in a late summer drought. The local supply from last year had dried up. Maori gangs blamed the police for the shortage and their efficient find and burn campaign, “Operation Weedout” from last year. People were crying out for quality marijuana. They would pay anything for it.
Instead of fetching $130 an ounce, or $250, the current price, this crop of highly potent sinsemilla would fetch over $300 an ounce, wholesale. Each plant had delivered at least twenty ounces of THC choked buds. With four hundred plants, this would equal $2,400,000, not including the leaves they had dried and would pack into hundreds of one-ounce plastic bags for distribution at a later date. Not bad for a cash crop that was tax free, even if the money had to be split so many ways.
There were other costs involved like the $20,000 to be paid to the staff sergeant at the Pukekohe Police Station. Another $50,000 was earmarked for each of the Wong brothers for supplying the seeds. At least Turners and Growers were not getting their high commission that they collected for all the produce that passed through their downtown auction house. How many lettuces would it take to get this amount of money? But the police did not seize lettuce and put you in jail. That sergeant in Pukekohe was now saying he needed another $20,000 to keep his mate cool in Otahuhu in the South Auckland Drug Squad. Could they believe him? Could they afford not to believe him? What was another $20,000?
Chuck took a step back into the gravel pathway in the center of the greenhouse and executed a high roundhouse kick. He let out a yelp as he clutched his left thigh. He cursed himself because he knew he should always warm up and stretch before practicing. Then he jumped as he caught sight of a figure behind him.
“You should’ve called out. You gave me a fright!” Chuck brushed dirt from his jeans.
He motioned to Bruce to come nearer the trays of buds that resembled furry cobs of green corn. “The amount of THC in this is ten to fifteen times greater than the usual Kiwi green. We could charge even more for these clusters.”
Bruce frowned. He was short and stocky with thick black hair. His shirt stuck to his barrel chest. The dry heat and the overpowering smell made Bruce forget what he wanted to see Chuck about.
“Last year we were beginners, but this season we’re going to clean up. We’re ahead of the main harvest, and we’re ready to unload in the middle of a huge drought. The local cop and the Drug Squad are in our pocket, we can’t lose!”
“Guess who just called me,” Bruce replied in a deadpan voice, unaffected by Chuck’s sales pitch.
“That slut Plum.” Chuck threw up his hands, they were green, the color of money.
“No. Why do you call her that?”
“She just is. She went to work for that man and, you know, did stuff.” He moved his hand like a hollow fist next to his mouth and puckered his lips.
“She didn’t know who owned the place. He was a sleeping partner.”
“Yeah. She probably did that as well.”
“Plum is still part of the family. Even if she ran away to the States. Maybe we could’ve helped more. I still feel bad about what happened.”
“She was so naive she could’ve finished upside down in the Albert Park fountain with a dagger in her pants.”
“Do you think her parents were murdered?”
“There was only one witness.”
“Yeah. Grandpa. He called. He wants to see me right away.”
“Shit. Do you think he knows about this?”
“He couldn’t. And if he did, he wouldn’t say anything. Not now. He’s too removed. Has been since the accident.” Bruce breathed out deeply.
Chuck pulled his eyes back with his fingers and leaned forward with a grin. “Inscrutable Chinaman. Read Confucius and do Tai Chi every morning before bleakfast. Don’t tell him anyfling!” Chuck said. He did not see Bruce lean over and vomit into a plastic bucket outside the glasshouse.
He pushed the Land Rover as hard as he could over the dusty back roads to Sam’s house, the original family home. Sam straightened his back and brushed his hands in front of him. He stared hard at Bruce as his grandson walked up to him.
“Plum came back last week and now she’s disappeared. Her boyfriend was here. Very upset. And the police were here first thing this morning. Asking about her. What have you got to do with this?”
“I, I don’t know what you mean.” Bruce gestured with his open hands.
“Plum is missing. There is a reason. It must be because of our family. What we’re doing or not doing. You are the head of the family now. You must know.”
• • •
Something was wrong, Bruce sensed, as he approached his driveway. The front door was closed and the garage doors were open, as he had left them. He felt someone had been there. He parked the Land Rover away from the Volvo so dust would not settle on the clean surface. He turned off the engine of the Land Rover and listened. There was an odd stillness and a faint sizzling sound. Then he noticed the paintwork of the Volvo. It was no longer an immaculate white. The car’s surface was bubbling. It was alive. He could see paint lifting off, turning black and yellow as the colorless acid ate into the metal.
An acrid smell assaulted his nostrils. He saw the windows had been smashed and acid was eating into his taupe leather upholstery. As he approached the car, he could see the tires had been slashed. On top of the car were the barely discernible letters M–U–L–P Etched in acid! They had spelt her name backwards!
Bruce screamed.
Chuck was shutting the door to the glasshouse when he heard the scream. He ran over the hill as fast as he could to the house. He first saw the car, smoldering. Then he saw Bruce on his knees with his fists clenched and his eyes screwed up. Smoke began to pour out of the exposed engine as the heat from the acid set off a chain reaction and ignited the oil and grease around the manifold.
Chuck felt strangely detached as he dragged Bruce into the house. He left his brother on the white shag pile carpet and stood in the doorway to watch the car. Flames were lapping up the upholstery. A black pillar of smoke rose up from the engine. Chuck was reminded of the car explosion they had been talking about that morning. Bruce dry retched on the carpet.
• • •
Clovis wiped the dirt off his boots as he entered Mel’s kitchen. Henry was at the door to greet them. He threw a quick smile to Clovis and a scowl at Mel who followed Henry into the bedroom. Clovis, as instructed, set about brewing tea for everyone. He tried not to hear their raised voices in the next room.
“This is totally insane! We’ve been dragged into some bizarre plot over which we have no control, let alone knowledge. I mean, do we know what’s going on?” Henry paced across Mel’s carpet. She sat on the bed, watching him.
They both heard Clovis call out that he had made a pot of tea. Mel went into the kitchen, followed by Henry.
“Excuse me, Clovis, but I came back here to work and think in peace. Instead of which …” He threw up his hands. “Any news?”
Clovis told them about his trip to Pukekohe to see Shanghai Sam. He also informed them about Plum’s previous employment at the Flamingo Paradise and why he and Plum had broken up.