THURSDAY'S ORCHID (11 page)

“Go on
,” I replied quietly. “I’m listening.” Whatever he had to say, it had better be good.

“As you are aware,” he continued. “Most of these cargo ships have some sort of passenger accommodation even though it is rarely used. There must be a dozen reasons why a person such as yourself
might prefer to travel by cargo vessel rather than by air or on a regular passenger liner. You could be a person with plenty of time to spare. Or perhaps even an eccentric who wants to see how the other half lives.

There was the hint of a smile forming at the corners of his mouth. It was starting to amuse him, but I didn’t think it was
in the least bit funny. I was getting ready to tell him so, but he hadn’t finished.

“Better still,” he went on. “You could be a writer gathering material for the great novel you plan to write. There must be many good reasons.”

Unfortunately, he was right. We did need somebody on board to keep an eye on the cargo, and it could be done as innocently as he had said. If it all went wrong – if the marijuana were discovered – there would be nothing to connect it with me, an innocent bystander. I might come under scrutiny, but there was nothing the authorities could prove; and that was the main thing.

“You’re right,” I agreed reluctantly
after a prolonged silence. “Much as I hate to admit it.”

He clapped his hands
together. I think he had been worried that I might have told them all to go to hell. That would have created a real problem; for me, more than them. I would have been more than a simple embarrassment.

“Good, good.” He smiled. “So that is settled. Let us hope it is the Singapore registered ship which turns out to be the one most convenient for our cargo.
” I had a strange suspicion that such might be the case. “That way, we can be certain of getting you a berth. There are many strings which can be pulled if the need arises.” I looked at my watch. Time was moving on.

“Tek, you said there were a couple of points you wanted to discuss. What’s the other one?”

I hoped that we had gone through the lot, but I wasn’t certain what small surprises he might still have in store.

“No,” he replied. “That is all I wanted to raise with you. I think we have now covered everything. As long as you keep me regularly informed of your progress.” I assured him that I would. “Ah, here is Sang with your luggage.”

My clothes had still been strewn around the room when I had come down for breakfast.

We moved from the lounge, back into the enormous hall, and I couldn’t resist looking up towards my suite, thinking about the night, and her long black hair. She was still nowhere to be seen, and no mention had been made of her or her girlfriend. I had thought at first that perhaps they were sleeping, but not now, not this late. I still couldn’t recall her name and turned to Tek, to ask him, but thought better of it.

He moved across to an inlaid lacquered cabinet standing by the massive main entrance, then opened a door and took out a small parcel wrapped in red rice paper.

“My nieces had to leave early. They asked me to apologize for not being able to say goodbye to you. I drove them into the
city. Mee Ling asked me to give this to you. It is a gift.” He handed it to me. “There is one thing that I must say. They were guests in my house, of the new generation but from good families. I would not want you to think otherwise.”

I felt ashamed, and yet elated. She had come to me because she wanted me, and for no other reason.

I moved to the car, another Mercedes, larger than the one the previous day. I turned to him as I climbed in. “Goodbye, Tek. Please give my fondest regards to Mee Ling. I’ll see you both in about three months. Thank you for your hospitality.”

Those three months would take forever.

“Have a pleasant journey back to Australia.”

The car moved away along the gravel drive, through the wrought iron gates standing open in the stone wall, down the road and through the security fence. I held the parcel in my hand, savouring the mystery of its contents.

We reached the airport with time to spare and the driver stayed with me in the airport lounge, chatting about Singapore and its people. Before long I was on board the aircraft, en route for Sydney.

Once we had cleared the runway I opened the parcel, taking great care with the rice paper wrapping. Inside was a delicately carved teak box – as old as Singapore itself.
I opened the lid and there, resting on a fold of red silk, was a single perfect orchid. I lifted the silk to my lips, the delicate aroma of her perfume bringing the memory flooding back, bringing an agony of longing, of wanting Mee Ling.

I felt the warmness of the tear as it ran down my cheek.

“Don’t worry, sir,” the air-hostess whispered into my ear. “We have taken off safely. We’ll get you down into Sydney without any problems.”

As soon as we touched down in Sydney and I had cleared Customs – praying like hell that they wouldn’t search my briefcase and find the smuggled orchid – I called Nick.

We arranged to meet at his house for dinner as soon as I arrived back in Adelaide. He suggested that I might like to stay the night, but I didn’t think it was wise. The less we were seen together, the better; and, more importantly, I didn’t trust Sophie not to come sneaking into my bed in the middle of the night. If Nick woke up to find something like that going on it would blow the whole deal sky high. I couldn’t risk it, and besides, I suddenly realised I didn’t fancy Sophie as much as I had previously.

Mee Ling was still in my thoughts as we landed in Adelaide. Finding a tiny vase for the orchid was the one thing foremost on my mind.

I booked into a hotel in the city, changed into a suit – Nick liked to dress for dinner – and made my way out to his house by taxi.

I
t was late, so we went straight in to dinner. Nick was impatient to hear those details that I couldn’t give him over the phone; but Angeline insisted that if we didn’t eat right there and then, dinner would be ruined. Nick’s youngest daughter was home for school for a few days and the conversation was of teachers, schoolmates and midnight feasts in the dormitory. Even Sophie had trouble getting a word in edgewise.

After dinner we settled down in the study, just Nick and myself. I was pleased to get away from Sophie, and the stockinged toe that had kept drifting up my leg, rubbing against the inside of my thigh. She was going to keep some poor bastard running from place to place in a few years’ time, but it wasn’t going to be me. Mee Ling seemed more perfect as time went by.

I went over the discussions I’d had with Tek, word for word – well nearly. I told him that Tek was genuine; that I was confident that he would come through with his part of the deal; that there would be no hitches in Singapore.

“I hope so,” he said.
“If he double-crosses us, we’ll both be in the shit up to our eyeballs. It’s taking a lot of cash to put this thing together. Christ, we couldn’t even sue for the price of the wool! A dummy corporation, without assets, and the wool passed on down the line? I don’t mind telling you, it’s got me worried.”

“Don’t panic,” I replied quickly. “If things start to go wrong, then you can worry. But at least wait until something happens. You’ll finish up with ulcers if you keep going on like this.”

If he continued worrying for the next couple of months, the whole deal could collapse like a house of cards!

“Nick,” I continued. “I’ve already said
that I don’t think he’ll pull a stunt like that. He’s got a good reputation; you told me that yourself. He’s not going to blow it for the sake of this deal. And he made it quite clear that this is probably only the start of things. If we’re successful with this shipment then he expects more in the future.” He scratched his head, which I took to be a good sign. At least he had stopped wringing his hands. “You’re the only one in Australia with the connections to put a deal like this together, and he knows it. You’re the one who has New Guinea tied up. Without you and your organization it would take years to get something like this off the ground. If he did the dirty on us, nobody here would touch him. So, for Christ’s sake, stop all this despair! There’s nothing you can do about it anyway.” The only thing to do was to change the subject. “How’s the collecting going?”

It brightened him up. He put his glass
back on the table. “So far we’ve taken delivery of a bit over five tonnes. That’s not too bad, considering the short amount of time we’ve been working on it. I expect another six or seven tonnes over the next two weeks from New Guinea.” He looked up at me. “You know, I didn’t really appreciate the enormity of the task I’d set myself. Fifty tonnes of marijuana is an awful lot of grass!”

So that’
s what his problem was. He wasn’t really worried about Tek. He was scared stiff that if anybody failed to perform, it would be him!

“You’ll do it,” I said. “I’m sure you will. Why, you’ve got eleven tonnes lined up and you haven’t even started yet. What else have you got in the pipeline?”

“I’ve got contracts lined up for another seventeen tonnes to be delivered in four or five weeks’ time; most of it from New Guinea. And the local stuff is starting to arrive in one and two tonne lots. We should have the whole of the fifty tonnes by the time we’re ready to ship – that’s if I can believe what my people are telling me, but it might be a close thing.”

He could do it. I was sure he could. He would bloody well have to!

“How far afield have they gone in Australia?” I asked.

“Mainly South Australia and New South Wales, and into Victoria and Queensland for a small amount. I’ve had approaches made to a lot of people
I’ve never dealt with before. It all takes time. These growers are sensitive to new people, well, new to them at least. They’re suspicious of strangers; especially when we want fairly quick delivery. But I suppose I’ll get there; my reputation’s pretty good.”

He sounded more confident now that he was talking about
something he knew well.

“Have there been any leaks of a large-scale buy-up?” I asked.

“No. So far, not even a hint. I’ve managed to spread a rumour about a mysterious disease which was introduced into some of the growing areas by the Commonwealth Government – something like the cotton boll weevil. It seems to have explained the apparent local shortage, but I don’t know how long the story will last. Of course, it’s pushed the price up quite a bit. But I expected that to happen. Nothing we can’t handle.”

“See, Nick? There’s nothing to worry about. In four or five
weeks’ time the whole deal will be moving along like silk: nice and smooth. You’ll wonder what the hell you were ever worrying about.”

I hoped to hell I was right.

“God, it’s good to have you back, Jeff. It’s been a bastard not having anyone to talk to for the last few days.”

We sat silently for
several moments. He emptied his glass, refilled it, and smiled. “You’re right, you know. Let’s worry about it when it happens. How was Singapore? Did you have time for any fun?”

I didn’t answer, but sat back with a self-satisfied smug look on my face. He laughed and leant forward and slapped me on the knee.

“Well, my boy. I thought you looked pretty pleased with yourself. Pleasure and business eh? Well, time for you to be doing a bit more work. My side’s moving along without any problems. I reckon it’s about time for you to go and find us a wool-press.”

Seven

Who was it t
hat said you could buy anything if you only had the money? There should have been nothing easier than getting hold of a second-hand wool-press. We poured over the newspapers and the farming journals – nothing. We made discreet enquiries of the stock and station agents, but all we got were invitations to come in and discuss the purchase of new equipment. One agent even offered to send a salesman out to see us!

There was nothing for it but to go out into the country, into the wool-growing areas. So I packed some of my older clothes, borrowed one of Nick’s utilities
, and headed for the hills; so to speak.

It wasn’t long before I realised that a wool-press was something a grazier only purchased once in a lifetime. It wasn’t a piece of equipment that wore out, and th
ere hadn’t been a new model put on the market for ten years or more. It was going to be more difficult than I had imagined, and I was beginning to worry that the whole scheme might come unstuck if I didn’t come up with something soon.

I had been at it for about ten days, which made it nearly two weeks since I had arrived back in Adelaide and we had begun looking through the newspapers. It was starting to appear as though we might have to purchase a new unit after all. I had just about convinced myself that the risk would be minimal when I had a stroke of luck.

I was in the tiny bar of the only pub in a small town near the Victorian border. The fact that there was only one hotel should be more than enough to show how small the town was. There was hardly enough room for me and a group of farmers; all dressed up in their Sunday best, even though it was Tuesday. They had been to a funeral that afternoon – one of the long-standing identities in the district had passed away. Any normal day and the bar would have been empty, with maybe one or two old-timers and their dogs occupying the smoke-filled room.

Being a fellow drinker, I was soon drawn into their conversation. It was such a shame, they were saying. The deceased’s only son had set himself up on an adjoining property when his mother had died, no more than a year ago, and had gone his own way, completely independent of his father – but at the cost of a large mortgage to one of the local banks. Now that the old boy had passed on, his son would take the entire estate, be stuck with two properties, and two mortgages.

They reckoned he was an impetuous young bugger. All the machinery he had bought to run his new property was now a complete waste. There was no way he could keep up both properties. He was certain to move back on to the family homestead with its large sheds, yards and other improvements developed over a hundred years or so. The poor lad would have no option but to sell most of his new equipment to keep the bank off his back; and then take over where his father had left off.

It was at this point that my ears pricked up. I turned to my new-found drinking mates.

“He wouldn’t have any shearing equipment for sale, would he?” I asked. “Such as a wool-press, for instance? I could be in the market for a good second-hand one.”

The
oldest of the group, the spokesman, the one who had been doing most of the talking, looked into his beer glass and then up to me. “Well, mate, I’d reckon that’d be a sure thing. If there’s one thing young Kenny doesn’t need, it’s a matched pair of the bloody things.” It got a laugh from the crowd. “If he’s got any sense, he’ll get rid of the old one; the one Bill was ravin’ and cursin’ about for years. But knowin’ that young bugger, he’s just as obstinate enough to reckon if his dad could make do with the old one, then so can he.”

He took a long pull on his glass, wiped the froth from his moustache, and turned back to me.

“Anyway, mate,” he continued. “Why don’t you ask him? Today’s not really on, but she should be okay in a day or two.”

I shouted a couple of rounds to keep the boys sweet. They might bump into
young Kenny
and help ease things along.

So I stayed for those few days, cooling my heels, and trying to keep myself occupied, but not having much luck. It wasn’t a bad town, as country towns go, but with nothing to do except drink, or swap yarns with the few shopkeepers. There was the one main street, the single pub, and three banks. It was easy to see who was making the money out of the district. On the eastern approach to the town,
but neither in nor out of it, was the motel I was calling home. I don’t know how he made a living. There were only six units, and all fairly run-down. I was the only one there for the whole of the four days.

On the fourth day I went looking for young Kenny. He turned out to be about thirty-five. I had been expecting a youngster of twenty-one or so.

I had bundles of money in three of my pockets, each bundle bound up with the bank’s rubber band. There were four in my hip pocket, two more in my shirt pocket and the remainder in my left trouser pocket. I’m wary of peeling off a number of notes from a single large wad.

Kenny was working in one of the machinery sheds, changing the wheel on one of the tractors, when I arrived. I followed his wife’s pointing finger as she indicated the suntanned figure dressed in heavy boots, black smudged shorts and torn T-shirt, and wandered over to find him covered from fingertips to elbows in grease. He pushed the long hair away from his face, darkening his nose even further,
apologised for the mess, and didn’t bother to shake hands. I didn’t waste any time and told him that some of the guys in the pub had mentioned that he might be getting rid of some of his father’s old junk; and that I was in the market for a good second-hand press.

“Junk!” he yelled. I thought he was going to toss me off the place there and then. “Who the hell called it junk?” I shrugged my shoulders. “No way, mate,” he went
on. “There’s no way I’m gettin’ rid of the old man’s gear. He got along okay without spendin’ up big on new machinery, and so can I.”

It was just as the old fellows had predicted. He was as obstinate and proud as his father had been.
I stood there for a minute or two, shrugged my shoulders again, and turned to walk away, knowing that any minute the penny would drop.

“Hey, wait a minu
te!” he called out as I sauntered out of the shed. “Tell you what, though. I’ve got a press over at the new place you might be interested in. I might consider sellin’ it for the right price.”

So we went across and inspected the press, and haggled over the price for an hour or two. I wasn’t really worr
ied how much I paid for it. I was enjoying the fun of bargaining.

We finally settled on a figure and I pulled the cash out of my hip pocket. He was surprised at first, on seeing the cash; but when I told him how I had been the subject of a tax audit some years ago, and wasn’t going to get caught that way again, he took my point.

I accepted his invitation to stay for lunch and enjoyed the home cooking. They were a pleasant young couple and I remember thinking that they would do well in the years to come. He had some good ideas for the property. In some ways I envied him and his peaceful life.

We loaded the press on to the utility soon after lunch and tied it down securely. I smiled quietly to myself as he gave the press one last slap of his hand for luck. He had given me a receipt, copying the name from what was written on the side of the vehicle. It was as false as the number plate
s.

I was back in Adelaide two hours after sunse
t and handed over the utility, and the load, to one of Nick’s people at the rear of one of his fruit shops.

It was good to be back in the city, back to the restaurants, the lights, the bars. My hotel suite had never smelt so clean. Four days in that dingy country motel had made me appreciate what Adelaide had to offer.

I had cut things a bit fine. There were only four days left before the next session of the wool sales.

Nick had made arrangements through the dummy agency corporation
for the appointment of a broker to buy the wool, and had raised the balance of the finance required; most of it from offshore funds made available to the broker in the form of letters of credit drawn against a bank in Basle, Switzerland.

My three hundred thousand dollars
had gone towards payment for the marijuana – part of the payment that is. I didn’t know where Nick had raised the rest of the money, and I wasn’t going to ask.

He was a changed man after I
had returned from Singapore. Even Angeline remarked on his improvement. Gone was the anxiety, and gone were the doubts.

We would need about five hundred tonnes of wool. A percentage of ten to one seemed to be a fair ratio for the re-pressed bales of wool and grass. By now Nick had sixteen tonnes of marijuana in storage around the coast and it looked like he would have no problem with the rest of the quota. He had firm contracts for the remaining thirty-four tonnes, most of which had been harvested and was now being dried. As long as the weather held good, both in Australia and New Guinea, and the drug squad kept away from th
e growing areas; and none of the shipments were discovered as they were landed in the dead of night in the far north of Western Australia.

I used the few remaining days in setting up the press in the warehouse and organizing more bags. We didn’t want to re-use
the ones in which the wool had been packed; in case somebody spotted that they had been opened and refastened again.

The purchase of the new bags was the easiest part of the whole project. I dressed myself in checked sports coat, moleskin trousers, wide-bri
mmed hat and a pair of elastic-sided boots; drove up in Nick’s utility, still covered in country dirt and mud, and paid in cash: nice clean notes. Not one of the several suppliers as much as batted an eyelid.

We needed bags from different manufacturers. The consignment of wool would be comprised of a number of auction lots from perhaps a dozen or more different sheep stations situated in distr
icts spread throughout South Australia. If it was all re-pressed into bags made by the same company it might appear more than a simple coincidence. I also picked up a set of stencils so that we could reproduce grower identification marks on the new bales identical to those on the ones that came from the sales.

Nick
had chosen the warehouse well; only a short distance from the port of Adelaide itself and tucked down a quiet narrow side street well away from prying eyes. The whole area was nothing but warehouses, several of them decrepit and no longer in use, but all of them boarded-up and free of squatters.

The buildings on either side each shared a common brick wall with our own; which meant th
at these side walls had no windows through which prying eyes might catch a glimpse of the hive of activity as a gang of men unpacked and re-pressed thousands of bales of wool.

The front of the warehouse was different from the others along the dingy street, being set well back from the footpath behind the corrugated-iron fence. It would allow us to drive a truck inside to unload men and equipment. The gates were tall and solid, and the only way to peer in to the small front paved area was to get right up close, and nobody could do that without us seeing them first. The windows at the rear
of the building were set at the top of the high brick wall.

Most of the day-time light for the premises came from skylights, impossible to reach without crawling over the roof; a roof so rotten that anyone trying to do so
would have fallen through and probably broken their neck. Not that we thought anybody would come snooping, but it was better to be safe than kicking ourselves afterwards. We always had the worry of thieves, of course, and this would be the excuse for the two watchmen patrolling the building as soon as the wool had been received.

The purchase of the wool was an anti-climax. Nick and I attended the sale, although not to the knowledge of the broker. Not that he would have known either of us from Adam. Nick had handled that through an intermediary as well.

We had expected a magnificent affair; something like the Yearling Sales, or the auction of the contents of a fine country house; but it was nothing like that. The numbers of the respective lots of bales were called out and sold in an instant. The auctioneer was mumbling at such a rate of knots, a total blur, that I couldn’t even catch the prices. I turned to Nick, but he shrugged his shoulders and moved away.

Nick pointed out our broker, but it was impossible to tell if he was buying anything for us; difficult to see if he was buying anything at all. We left before the sale was half over.

Nick was in one of his moods again that night. There was no way we could check to see whether the broker had purchased the quantity we needed, nor even the prices he had paid; not until morning. I left him just after midnight.

I arrived back at the house at nine in the morning. The intermediary called a little after ten. The broker had purchased just over five hundred tonnes – four thousand and twenty two bales. Nick was like a small kid with a brand new toy. The whole idea was actually going to work!

The broker converted the letters of credit – well, some of them anyway – the price had been lower than we anticipated, which made Nick even happier.

The intermediary engaged a cartage firm to collect the wool from the stores and deliver it to our warehouse. I made certain that the press and the spare bags were well out of sight.