Pike sat, agape.
De Groote said. ‘Give the Prague story a burst at Irishtown. If your Stanley people ask when I’m going to Prague, simply say it’s soon.’
Pike suppressed a grin. ‘Oh, hell! I rang Dick Street in Burnie just before we left Prague. To get him to line up Irishtown. He now knows all about the mess we’ve fled from.’
‘What? The Sussoms killing?’
‘’Fraid so.’
‘You should not have revealed that,’ said De Groote.
‘Christ, Dick’s our sponsor! Our immediate upline.’
‘Did you or Alex tell anyone else?’
‘No. You could ring him now.’ Dick, Blarney knew, would not be easy to muzzle.
De Groote pressed a button on his mobile phone. His fingers drummed on the table cloth. He pressed the Off button and returned the phone to the table. ‘He’s not home. I’ll try again later.’
Pike smelled the malodour of deception. Somehow the casual button pressing did not seem genuine. His leader did not wish to speak to Dick Street in front of him.
‘My lovely networker will be home by now,’ Pike said, uneasy about how he would explain to Alex his gutless surrender. ‘I have to let her know I’ll drive to Stanley in the morning. I don’t like the thought of six hours at the wheel in this rainy dark… That’s an hour longer than my usual time to get there from Hobart. Oh damn, the battery on my mobile is still flat.’
The Argo chief smiled into his phone. ‘Alex, you clever girl. Welcome back! I’m at the casino restaurant with our hero. Yes, he’s fine. You two were awesome in Prague. Jerry Bell’s told me all about it.’
A reassuring wink at Pike. ‘Yes, he’s told me. Yes… Of course it’s worrying.’ He paused, listening. ‘It’s in hand, Alex. We can’t bounce the Czechs, eh?’
His grin dissolved. ‘Ah, sorry. No, their plight is not funny. Alex, it’s vitally important that we keep the troops positive. As your leader, I’m directing you to keep those worries, that awful murder, strictly to yourselves. I’ll be seeing you soon. We’ve got great plans for you guys. Luv ya.
‘Yes, he’s had a tiring day and he’s going to stay tonight at my home. Here he is.’
‘Hi, my love,’ she said.
Pike was thrilled to hear his darling after their whole three hours apart. ‘Yes, I’m okay. A bit of jet lag.’
‘Love, Prague should be okay.’
‘Terrific!’ Alex cried. ‘But his assurances just then were too glib to be true, after what he said to you earlier. When’s he going there?’
‘Yes, love, I’m pissed off, too,’ he responded evasively, glancing defiantly at De Groote. ‘I think it will be okay, though.’
‘So when is he going to Prague?’
‘We’ll review it in a week.’ He nodded, pleased to see De Groote grimace.
‘Damn. He’s broken his promise. The devious rat. Wants us to lie about it, does he? Give him heaps, Blarn.’
Wait until she hears about his razzamatazz of lies planned for Burnie. ‘I’ll be home about midday. We’ve got some things to attend to the moment I’m there.’
‘Sex at the doorstep?’
‘Or at the front gate.’
‘Leave early then. And, honey, drive carefully.’
‘Sure. Will you ring Sean and Mary at Irishtown in the morning? Make sure they’re set for next Friday night?’
‘Ah, I’ve just had a call from Dick Street,’ Alex said. ‘The do at the O’Hallorans will be on Monday. That okay?’
‘Terrific!’ Pike looked at De Groote. Ah, so Dick’s probably at home. ‘Irishtown on this coming Monday evening.’
Strong black coffee revived Pike a little. He was grateful that De Groote did not order his customary cognac.
De Groote reminisced about their success at the Stanley Town Hall. ‘You know, our timing there was quite inspired,’ he declared. ‘Being, of course, only a few months after the battle against Sumato’s grand plans for a casino and golf course on the flat top of Stanley’s amazing big Nut.’
Pike said, ‘Yes, the greedy fools. I’m an environmentalist. A protector of native forests and our wondrous wildlife. Some locals, but especially our politicians and certain public servants, were dazzled by the prospect of Japanese millions. It would have been the windiest course in the world. A decent drive in a good westerly would make the green at the second hole at the Country Club in Auckland.’
De Groote the golfer laughed. ‘I remember your news reports that should have sent a couple of politicians and department heads to jail for bribery and conspiracy over that fiasco. That publicity, and your work as president of the Stanley Progress Association, made you a local hero.’
And it attracted Argo to potential agent Pike. ‘Being the local stringer for newspapers and TV helped.’
Pike recalled his persuasive news story that the Nut was a freak volcanic plug, spewed from the bowels of the earth as magma thirteen million years ago. The hard rock, one hundred and fifty metres high, was the sentinel reminder of the pre-history level of the land. It was not the sort of place to be turned into a theme park. His proof that the Nut was a vital staging point for the rare orange-bellied parrot and housed a rookery of shearwater, better known as mutton birds, had also helped. The Nut had been a magnet for tourists for decades.
Pike confessed to his puppeteer that it was he who had armed the State Opposition with the details of bribery that finally caused Sumato to flee the state and certain Government officers to retire.
‘Sumato and their supporters in the Government didn’t know I founded and quietly called the shots for the Save Our Nut Society,’ Pike beamed. ‘The SONS of Stanley.’
De Groote was surprised. ‘Do many people know that?’
‘Only all of Stanley. And what they don’t know is that Sumato tried to bribe me, make me their spin doctor. My threat to Sumato’s chief there that I would tell Sam Bond, my local policeman mate, about the bribe offer, that I had a tape recording of it, hastened their departure. Actually, there was no such tape.’
The professor’s eyes widened. ‘You’re not a man to cross, Mr Pike.’
‘Correct,’ he said, locking on to his tutor’s eyes.
‘It was classic timing for our business,’ De Groote repeated. ‘At this hour Dick Street’s not likely to be gossiping about Prague. I’ll get him in the morning.’
Pike checked his watch. 8.45. He suspected he knew why his companion did not want to talk with Dick in front of him.
‘I must go to Irishtown some time,’ De Groote said. ‘No doubt you identify well with the Irish?’
Pike remembered Dublin’s pubs, the music and the grime and the green, the pervasive laughter and the ballads of his pilgrimage to Ireland two years ago. ‘They’re magical people in a magical land,’ he said. ‘And there’s a lot of that in Irishtown.’
‘Ireland’s where your magic name comes from, no doubt. You’ve kissed the Blarney Stone?’
‘To be sure, to