‘Plus bonus.’
‘If you insist. Where’s “up there”? Tell me it’s not New Guinea or Ambon.’
‘Nimbin.’
‘Cool,’ I said.
We did the contract stuff; I got the subpoena and a retainer and drew on it. I caught a plane to Lismore. I didn’t shave for a couple of days, and by the time I was ready to drive out of Lismore-having met with Elsie, the woman who’d given Bannister the tip about Pike, at the Gollan Hotel and hired a battered Land Rover from a Rent-a-Wreck-I was whiskery. My hair is greying, wiry and still thick. Unkempt is no problem for me.
I took the road north, passing through places with names like Goolmangra, and admiring the lush country even after the dry winter everyone had been telling me about. Elsie said that Pike lived on a couple of acres out of Nimbin but came in for supplies and a beer every other day. I didn’t expect to find him on the first day and I was right, but I spent my time sussing out the town which I hadn’t seen for many years. It seemed to have gone downhill, to have become more seedy, and the people likewise, from the way it had been. I was surprised, though, at the respectability of the pub and the supermarket and at the way the straights and the ferals seemed to get on together-a sort of uneasy truce.
I ate lunch in the pub, struck up a few conversations, visited the marijuana museum and refused quite a few deals in the street. I spent another night in the Lismore motel with a pizza, the TV and a bottle of Rawson’s Retreat, and was back in Nimbin by late morning in time to see Kerry Pike pull up outside the supermarket in his old Holden ute. Pike had lost weight and grown a bushy beard but he was easily recognisable by the way he walked-head up, a screw-you strut.
I watched him buy groceries, toss them into the ute where he had a Rottweiler tied in the tray, then tracked him into the pub. I sat opposite him out on the back deck and reached across to take a chip from his plate before he lifted his fork.
‘Gidday, Kezza,’ I said. ‘Remember me?’
Pike had a long jaw, a flat nose and pale grey eyes, giving him a fishy look that had led people to make jokes until they felt his knuckles. The beard was gingery so the fishy look was still there. The chilly eyes narrowed.
‘Jesus Christ, Cliff Hardy.’
‘The same. Eat up. Good chips.’
‘The fuck are you doin’ here?’
I passed the subpoena over so that it sat across his scarred, clenched fists. ‘I’m here to take you back to Sydney for the Hardiman trial. You’re hereby served, sport.’
‘How d’you reckon to do that?’
‘Whatever it takes. Shoot your dog. Cuff you now. Talk to the police.’
Pike surprised me then. He took a slurp from his schooner and dug his fork into a chunk offish. He impaled some chips, carried the food to his mouth and chewed vigorously. He swallowed, took another drink and built an even bigger forkful. Watching him made me hungry and impatient.
‘Kerry,’ I said. ‘It’s going to happen, one way or another.’
He pushed a mound of chips onto a napkin and eased it across towards me. I’d come in with a middy of light and he touched his glass to mine. ‘That’s okay, Hardy. I’ll come back, but there’s some business here I have to attend to first.’
I couldn’t help myself. I took a chip and a drink. ‘I dunno…’
‘Just listen.’
He told me that he’d left Sydney because of some massive gambling debts to some very heavy people.
‘These guys aren’t fussy, they’ll take an eyeball on account. Know what I mean?’
‘Sure.’
He dropped his voice, although there were only two or three other people on the deck. ‘In a few days I’m going to get enough money to clear it. I’m talking about a couple of hundred grand. Then I’ll come back with you, quiet as a lamb. Play along and everything’ll be sweet.’
I looked at him closely. He was lean and tanned and there was impacted dirt under his fingernails. ‘I think I can guess,’ I said. ‘The answer’s no.’
‘A bit of a crop. What’s the harm? My guess is you’re on a big earner. D’you want it or not?’
‘I’m going to get it.’
‘I don’t think so. Take a look, Hardy. I’m not the slob you belted behind the pub and I’ve got friends in town. Have a go here and I reckon I could take you. Even if I didn’t you wouldn’t get far with me once the word got out. Make it easy on yourself. Three or four days. A week, tops.’
I ate chips and drank beer while I thought about it. The confidence in his tone, his lack of interest in the beer, the absence of the cigarette that used to be ever-present, convinced me that he was telling the truth. He’d be hard to fight and harder still to abduct. I didn’t have an ethics problem; the drug laws are stupid and a bit more grass on the market wouldn’t make any difference.
‘All right, Kezza,’ I said. ‘But I’m not letting you out of my sight until you front up in Sydney.’
‘Glad to have you along, Hardy.’
I should’ve taken more notice of that remark.
I spent the rest of that day and the night at Pike’s acres. His crop was planted over a wide area in small patches with a fair amount of tree cover. I assumed this was to beat air surveillance but Kerry said that was going out of fashion. ‘Too expensive, what with insurance liability and all that.’
I slept in the Land Rover and watched the harvesting get underway the next day. Pike’s mates Frank and Vince clearly knew what they were doing and he took his lead from them. They stripped the plants of leaves before chopping them down. Then they hung the stalks with the buds attached in a shed to dry. Some of the leaf was kept but not much. It sounds easy, but it wasn’t; they worked under a hot sun and got covered in dust and resin and were bothered by flies and other insects. They were earning their money.
With the crop in I thought Vince and Frank might take off but they didn’t. They hung around, drinking beer, smoking joints and checking on the drying. All three were very nervous and so was I. After three days they judged the stuff was ready and they collected the buds. It was all very professional; the best buds went into two large garbage bags and the rough stuff was mixed in with some leaf.
‘This is called kif,’ Vince explained. ‘It’s shit stuff but there’s a market for it. We’ve got a bit of the good stuff for personal consumption. Wanna try it, Cliff?’
‘I’ve tried it,’ I said. ‘Give me a single malt any day.’
‘Peasant,’ Frank said, but he grinned. Kerry had told them who I was and what I was about and they tolerated me.
The night after the packing was over I found out what Kerry had meant about me being welcome. Four men invaded the place. They were armed with bike chains. Vince had been keeping watch and his shrill whistle sent Kerry and Frank into action. They broke out some hard hats and axe handles and switched on a floodlight. The invaders, probably expecting to work in the dark against three men, found themselves up against four under strong light. Pike could always fight like a threshing machine and Vince and Frank were very willing. A bike chain is scary but not very effective. We waded into them and whacked them around the knees and the head. Pike went berserk and I had to dig my axe handle into his balls to stop him killing one of the attackers. Two of them ended up stunned and bleeding and we let the other two drag them away. Frank had a nasty gash on his arm. I had a bruised shoulder where a chain had caught me.
‘Good stoush,’ Vince said. ‘You pulled your weight, Cliff.’
Kerry glowered at me, clutching his groin. ‘Why the fuck did you do that?’
I chucked the axe handle away. ‘I want you in court in Sydney testifying, not in the dock up here for murder.’
The buyer came late the next day and he and Kerry settled their business very quickly. The buyer sampled the buds and sniffed at the kif. Money changed hands but no hands were shaken. Kerry paid off Vince, who agreed to look after the dog, and Frank, and that left him and me and a bundle of notes the size of half a brick. I used my mobile to book a flight to Sydney from Lismore at 6.30 am.