Royce, Royce, the People's Choice by Peter Hawes

Author:Peter Hawes [Hawes, Peter]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781775532163
Publisher: Penguin Random House New Zealand
Published: 2012-09-14T17:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

BIG, WIDE, RAW river bisected by a training wall. Buller River. Black bridge in the distance – and beyond, ugly puce mountains that reared like slabs of ox liver. To port, a mile-long frieze of ancient timber wharfage. Cranes, pyramids of coal and a white, high-rise cement silo glowing in the evening sun. Starboard, 200 yards of brown river-width then psychedelically green farmland and blue swamp. A bucket dredge called the Mawhera was gouging up gravel and mud beside a big black three-storey crane. The dredge’s deck was awash with water and eels. There was only one vessel moored at a wharf that could have held twenty ships – the Buller Lion, a high, red cement boat of a few thou’ tons.

Betty turned port at the green light on the jetty and into a lagoon. A Sargasso Sea of decaying fishing boats. Rainbows of oil sparkled on the sunset water. Seagulls shared the water with ducks – a strange combination. Ahead of them a shed with a blue roof. ‘WELCOME TO MERLORDS’ said the roof, in white. A good-looking brunette with long legs in jeans strolled out of the shed and stood over them on the wharf above, legs apart like the Colossus of Rhodes. The three guys stared up into the seam of her jeans.

Bob took over the wheel and jemmied them into a berth. Moored behind them was a quaint little sixteen-footer with an old guy aboard that someone hailed as ‘Captain Calmwater’. Droll.

The tall, flat-arsed deckhand called Sticky had been below and only came up as they moored. He had a bulgier shore bag than you’d expect if he was coming back. Obviously he was signing off. As the motor closed down he looked at Bob, and Bob looked back and you could just about see the sparks where their hates collided.

‘I’ll pick up me pay tomorrow,’ said Sticky as he turned away to climb the ladder to the wharf-top. ‘Have it ready.’

‘Fifteen percent,’ said Bob, ‘including on the tuna.’

‘Fucking waste of time. You got shit-fer-brains, Bob.’ And Sticky stumped up the wide, steep ladder with an energy made of anger.

The kid was unbattening the hold.

Bob walked past her, putting the engine keys in his pocket. ‘There’s usually a cop up there,’ he muttered, ‘you got any reason not to see him?’

‘Nothing illegal, but I’ll take some explaining, I suppose. You want that?’

‘Nah. He’s only here to bludge anyway. Stay outa sight.’

From inside the cabin she heard a voice booming down from the wharf above, of a timbre that would have carried through a storm: ‘Cocaine run’s not till Tuesday, Alf, you dozy bugger,’ it said. Then a goggled freak appeared at the yellow crane on the wharf-top in a nebula of cigarette smoke. She lurched back from the cabin window in case it was the cop. If it was, he could only have been recruited to frighten crims to death. He was one pug-ugly human being.

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