Sir Laurence was beaming, although low beam was the height of his illumination. ‘Thank you, Mac. I’m delighted you’re enjoying it, but I assure you there’s a great deal more to come. I, of course, am merely the facilitator. I’ll introduce you to the woman who organised most of it later. I think you might have met her once before.’
Sir Laurence wandered away as Mac was claimed by more admirers and there, champagne flute in hand, eyes glassed over (but not, tonight, by the champagne, more by the wonder of what she’d created), was the very woman he’d been referring to.
‘Popsie, my dear woman, what a triumph. You’ll be famous once it leaks out, as these things inevitably do, that you had a hand in organising this.’
There was no chance of it leaking out that she had ‘had a hand’ in organising the party as Popsie Trudeaux knew very well, since she’d already informed everyone that she’d talked to, which was a great number of people, some of whom had turned out to be waiters, and one of whom was obviously the Prime Minister’s security man since he was wearing an earpiece and couldn’t hear her, although she was talking very loudly into his other ear, that she was the sole driving force behind every single facet of this mind-blowing, once-in-a-lifetime event.
‘I’m just so grateful to you, Laurence, for asking me to do it. I mean, I’ve only ever done my own parties, and not one of those for a while, so you were very brave to give me the job. I knew I could blow them all away, but how did you know?’
The thin mouth curled delicately. ‘You just trust people. Pick the right person and trust them.’
‘I don’t know how I can ever repay you. It’s been such an exciting experience.’
‘Dear lady, you don’t have to repay me. And besides, I think your experience is just starting. Everyone’s going to want you and only you to do their parties after this. You could build a real business. If you want to, of course. I realise money isn’t relevant, but I can see you might enjoy the challenge.’
Popsie thought she might. She was almost certain she would. Archie Speyne had already offered her a contract for all the museum’s functions, and one of the Prime Minister’s people, not the one with the earpiece, had asked for her card. Laurence was right, they’d all want her. Oh, to be wanted, and to be paid for it.
‘I’m terribly grateful, Laurence. I promise I won’t forget it.’
‘Please, my dear, we all help one another where we can. Now I’m sure you have more surprises in store for us all, so I shall just drift away.’
And drift away he did. Popsie followed his path, wondering. Why had he taken a risk on her? He’d always been distant with her before, polite but distant. And then this solid gold gift. Who cared? She’d made it her own and now she could fuck the whole town anytime she wanted.
Maroubra peered nervously through the shrubbery at the Botanic Gardens. He didn’t like gardens, their neatness, their artificiality, their suggestion of rules, of places to walk and places not. He liked the bush, where tracks appeared because animals had found a path to water or because the ground fell evenly for padded feet. The only cut grass should be on ovals where rugby or cricket were played, where rules were necessary so crafty people could break them with a cuff to the ear or an elbow on the stomach. But no eye gouging or biting. And definitely no fingers in orifices where they didn’t belong, like that disgusting rugby league oaf had done a few years ago. Many disgusting oafs played rugby league, whereas gentlemen, like Maroubra and his son Gordie and various other men of character, only played rugby union. Somehow he felt the eyes on the back of his neck and he turned with a start to find the Pope a metre away.
‘I fucking told you none of that Mafioso crap with your fucking lowlife mates. I told you everything had to be clean, kosher. Again and again. How many fucking times do I have to tell you?’
The Pope threw a newspaper down on the park bench, but Maroubra didn’t look at it. He’d never heard the Pope swear before. He always spoke directly, definitely, and never with a vocabulary that was anything but specific and spare.
‘It wasn’t us, I swear to God. I heard it on the radio just before I got your text. None of my people were in it. No way.’
The Pope remained in attack mode. ‘Coincidences aren’t my thing. Here we are searching around for stuff on Mac Biddulph, very specific stuff that’s not in the average file drawer, here you have a brief from me to get it, then someone breaks into the Biddulph home while he’s at the party of the year and it’s not you?’ Maroubra returned the angry stare in kind. ‘Okay. I’ll accept you didn’t order it, but obviously one of your people got overzealous. Who the hell are they all, anyway?’
‘You don’t want to know. And no one got excited. I checked the lot on the way here. We’re not involved. One hundred per cent.’
The Pope searched his face, nodded slowly and held out his hand. ‘I’m sorry. Shouldn’t have doubted you, but-Christ, what does it mean?’
Maroubra shook the hand. ‘No problem, mate. When I heard it this morning, I thought the same thing- someone’s jumped the fence.’
They sat together and read through the newspaper story. On the front page was a large photo of Mac and the Prime Minister accompanied by a gushing story on the party that had run in all the editions-only this late edition had a small box on the breakin. According to the scant details, nothing appeared to have been taken.
‘That’s why I thought it was you.’ The Pope folded the paper. ‘When it said there was no real burglary.’
‘There was; they took a computer and a printer, but left the more valuable stuff lying around everywhere.’
‘How do you know that?’
‘Friends. You don’t want to know. But it definitely wasn’t anything other than pros looking for the same sort of stuff we’d be after.’
They stared out at the harbour for a while.
‘But we’re supposed to be the only ones looking. We’re running the game. Mac’s our target. Who the hell else is out there?’
Maroubra shrugged. ‘How can I know? You tell me the parts you want to tell me. I don’t know where they fit in the jigsaw and I don’t want to.’
The Pope closed his eyes, tried to see the patterns in the red-black. He was a chess player, he could see patterns before they formed. He could see where the pieces would rest before they arrived at their destinations, the positions people would take before they realised themselves. It was the skill of his life-not just of his business success, but his whole life. When he was a young boy, nine or ten, the chessboard had become a defining world of challenge, of fascination, of intellectual stimulation and, not unimportantly, of conquest. He learned from his grandfather. They would work together in the terraced vegetable garden that sustained the old man in his declining years, not with vitamins and minerals, but with the nourishment of usefulness. His grandfather would weed and prune and mound the soil, and he would follow with a hessian bag full of dead leaves and cuttings and the flat cane basket for the picked crop. When the basket was full and they were sitting together with ginger beer gazing contentedly at the neatly balanced pile of carrots and leeks and crisp pea pods, the gnarled old hand would hug his shoulder and the voice he loved would say, ‘Keep the wolf from the door, hey?’
It was only three years before he could win the chess contest some times and then most times, and then, because he could see the patterns of life, not just those on the board, deliberately lose enough to sustain the other’s dignity. Someday, maybe, his grandson would humour him this way, or some other and he wouldn’t know, the brain cells or the synapses or whatever wouldn’t register the subtler tones of life anymore.
But not now, surely. And yet there was no emerging pattern in this dilemma. What unseen hand was at work in the puppet show of which he was the supposed master? A breakin at Mac Biddulph’s, a stolen computer? There was another predator in the hunt, a grey shadow running fence lines, skirting waterholes, hiding in hollows and rock piles, taking small prey, waiting for something more. He had to flush it out. Apply pressure, beat the bush. He opened his eyes and was surprised to see Maroubra still sitting quietly beside him.
‘It’s not all bad news. I’ve got something for you.’ Maroubra handed him a fat envelope. ‘I don’t know exactly what it means but there’s a lot in there on the Beira Company and a flow of transactions to a Swiss bank. No doubt you’ll work it all out.’
The Pope took the envelope. ‘Thanks. But I’m not sure I will. I think it’s time we got some fresh minds on this. I don’t like the feeling I’m about to lose a game before it’s started.’
