Читать книгу Pike's Pyramid - Michael Tatlow - Страница 17

Pike strolled with Tasman to the old wharf, Stanley’s original boat shelter, where he had learned to swim. Nodding in a swell there was his green and white motor sailer Pelorus. Four car-tyres fended her port beam from the wharf.

He continued to the main wharf. The few boats in the fishermen’s dock below the Nut’s sheer eastern face did not include Otto’s Callisto. The prickly old bugger was out fishing, just when his counsel was needed.

Nearing home, he sat on a big lump of flat basalt that had fallen generations ago from the top of the Nut. The receding tide at the beach below had carved the sand into fillets. The sun setting over the Green Hills was turning the fillets pink.

He gazed fondly at a pair of peregrine falcons hovering on a breeze high above. This had been the exclusive beat for years for the jet fighters of the bird world.

A robin, its blood-red vest glowing in the fading light under an ebony jacket, landed on a tiny wattle a few metres away. ‘Tengower.’ He softly called the bird’s Aboriginal name.

‘Moo-nut-re-ker,’ he whispered. It was his ancestors’ name for this monolith of magic. White pioneers had shortened its name to the Nut. The joy of being home surged in Pike’s arteries.

Back at his desk in the study, Pike tackled three months’ mail. It was mainly about money going to and from Argo. An invoice required payment of $2,820 to De Groote for ‘tools’—instructional leaflets, CDs, copies of the Argo Life magazine—for the Pikes to sell on to and give to their team.

He rang De Groote. ‘A big turn-up’s likely at Irishtown. No, we won’t forget the SWOT analysis, Richard. No, the police have no idea of who broke in here. Yes, a heap of Argo files is gone, plus the computer backup disks. Yep, the tickets for Burnie are selling like crazy.’

Dick Street, De Groote said, had not and would not tell anyone about the unfortunate Sussoms’ death. Pike did not pursue the prickly topic.

‘Proud of you guys,’ said Richard.

Dick Street answered on the first ring. His nasal Aussie burst from the phone in Burnie. ‘The whole of Irishtown’s in uproar!’ he blurted. ‘We’re bloody stuck in the middle of the whole amazing mess. You and me and Argo. Welcome to the shambles.’ Mechanical engineer Street loathed disorder.

Pike baulked. ‘It’s Prague that was a shambles.’

Street reported that after he showed her the pitch again a month back, Mary O’Halloran wanted some time to think about it before registering. ‘Then, two days ago, kerboom!’ he cried. ‘A revolt by bloody Mary.’

‘Sounds like a drink of vodka and tomato juice,’ Pike smiled.

Street did not react. ‘She rang me, unloaded a godawful blast. She’s got the notion that Argo is shonky. No way, she said, would she con her friends into joining it.’

‘She’s been listening to a dream buster,’ Pike asserted. ‘Is their marriage okay?’

‘I think so, but Argo lore says no network, no bedwork. She’s sabotaged Monday’s bloody pitch! She’s been ringing the wives of all the couples Sean’s invited and she’s un invited ’em! Then Sean’s been ringing the poor buggers back and re inviting ’em.

‘And Mary’s called the wives back again! Now she’s telling ’em to come in force, to turn your performance there into a donnybrook, Blarney. Irishtown’s phones must be steaming!’

‘I’ve heard of one case,’ he said. ‘From our Janet Pride. Oh, well, there might be a good mob there.’

‘The men are siding with our man Sean. The women are siding with bloody Mary. I’m damned glad it’ll be you and not me drawing the circles there.

‘Sean’s just phoned me. He says he’s got Irishtown behind him, to a man. But only the men. You’ll be smashing through barricades of shelias in green to get to the farm tomorrow, boyo.’ Dick Street laughed. ‘You’ll need a police escort.’

‘That’s arranged,’ Pike smiled into the phone. ‘Himself, Sergeant Sam Bond, will be there. He wants you and me to meet him and his squad on the way there, for a final tactical briefing. Stanley turn-off, 7.15 sharp. Any assaults by those women, and Plodder and a riot squad from Smithton will chuck the lot of them in the pokey. And to hell with the publicity.’

‘Bloody oath!’

‘We’ll talk later, Dick.’ Grinning, he disconnected the phone and turned off his mobile.