puff 526 Wed 22nd

Wednesday 22nd

Te Ao Paho

Kaupapa koorero moo te raa
He aha ngaa mea e puta i te Pouwhakaata Tuarua?

Rangahau
He aha ngaa mea tino pai i runga i te Pouwhakaata Tuarua i teenei marama? He pai rawa teenei marama ki teenaaa i mahue noa? He aha te haangai o ngaa mea e puta ki te ao Maori?

Subject of the day
What’s on Television Two?

Analysis
What are the good things on Television Two this month? Is this month better than last? How does what’s on apply to the Maori world?
tvnz.co.nz/tv2

Isis: the days of the voles- continued
6
Clubs and cutouts

In Bogota, in cities in America and villages in the Urals people were also planning. Things were not written down though.

The man by the fountain in Bogota walked down the path to the birdcage and stood listening and looking into the distance for a time.

He flicked nuts absently to the birds.

Esme and Bella figured that someone had to be looking for the Tramp. He had to be a Missing Person.

Only one thing for it. The internet.

The twins were eating room service take out. They hated the hotel meals and made the minder order in fast food.

The minder was incredulous. He took diet seriously and could not understand how trapeze athletes could pay no attention whatsoever to what they ate. In fact they took a kind of glee in eating the worst food possible, the sweeter the better and in America that was something.

The minder was a the centre of a strange net. He was not sure who was paying him. Therre were all sorts of beards and cutouts. His reasoning was to do with his bank account. So long as that kept growing he was happy. There was the Stocholm Syndrome stuff about getting too involved with your prisoners or charges and that, he supposed, was his main occupational hazard.

The longer he stayed in Vegas though, the more he found himself drawing more and more on his family back in the South Pacific.

The Don took Simon to his London Club. Simon wished he'd brought his mother. But he hadn't so he just imagined that she was sitting in his ear and made conversation accordingly. It seemed to work although one was never sure whether the Don was with one. He lived in a world of his own.

People from Whitehall were there. Sure enough one of the older ones remembered Simon's mother fondly having been an undergraduate with her. Simon refused to speculate, openly or to himself on what those memories might be.

The Don always seemed to know people. Was he MI5 Simon wondered. Or was he Six? Or was he just a pretentious twit who survived at Oxford through private means?

Whatever, the food was alright although the soup was a bit watery Simon thought. The club was very Lawrence of Arabia, photos of Old Etonians outside Bedouin tents, very spies-between-the-wars. Simon looked for an aspidistra.

The Don wanted to know what Simon was up to at work. Simon beat about the bush for a while and then told the Don about the Trapeze Twins. In the end he did not leave much out not least because there was not much to tell.

The Don found it all very interesting and wondered who would be most entertained by a trapeze act. He knew gypsies of course having worked with them in Rumania, of all places.

In Bogota there were talks by phone with political people in America. Key words were adopted.

There were talks with people who owned department stores in London.
There was a lot of speculation.

But the ground was being prepared, step by step for some action in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Esme and Bella made a trail of stencils along the river and waited, camera at the ready to catch the Tramp stealing them.

Bella reflected on the people around her. Esme was her very best mate. The Tramp was a kind of foe. Bella actually respected him because he knew lots about the riverbank. But he resented anyone else being around, he got in the way and he tinkered with their stencils and messages that they left for one another.

Simon fascinated her because she wanted to be a private detective. Bella thought Sam was a bit mad and thought the Don to be extremely strange. These were all people in her world though, people of the Isis and when she did school projects on the river she was quite proud of all of them.

In Los Angeles Paullie made inquiries about acrobats.

What agencies were they employed through?

Where was the money for old style acrobats? Freak shows? Geeks? Frankenstein movies?

Did acrobats work on television? Was their's an extinct art?

It had to be short term stuff. Trapeze acts being highly visible, people would soon know where the twins were. So it had to be a one shot, one off thing.

Another way into it was to move the focus from the acrobats to the trapeze. Where could trapezes be found and what was their purpose? Who needs a trapeze?

The gear involved and the outlets for it was another matter. How do you go about buying a trapeze in America?

Another frame of reference was the localities, especialy the television localities for trapeze work. What would look good on high and where? If television audience was a factor when might be the best time of day for spectacular trapeze work.

One thing did not make sense. Simon had told Paullie that the twins were outgoing types, party animals. But there was no sign of this anywhere, no talk of outrageous behaviour in clubs, and clubs were Paullie's specialty.

To Paullie this meant that the twins were under guard somewhere. Where? And who was minding them?

The Minder whose name was Jimmy been recruited from Bedford St, Porirua, Wellington, New Zealand. His employers had followed the Howard Hughes principle that The Minder could not have links with others who might harm the operation. But now he reckoned he'd had enough of the Zoids and this was the downside of employing an isolate who knew his own mind.

He'd had enough of Vegas as well. Enough of people on the edge.

This job was testing him. Bringing the Twins to Vegas was one thing. Keeping them occupied but out of sight was another.

Jimmy looked a very fit twenty eight. He was astonishingly fit which was the first reason for his employment. He had the composure required for the job. Keeping the twins out of view for an extended period would have tried the patience of a lesser man.

Jimmy came from a big, extended family. He was close to his Mum and Dad but extremely close to his brothers and protective of his sisters as well. He was a loner though and the mere fact that he had taken on such work which meant that he was away from hearth and home for long periods showed this.

Rugby league was Jimmy's sport. And boxing. He was in a good place to see lots of the latter in Las Vegas but the twins took all of his time.Occasionally he found a channel with some rugby on it and that was a relief.

Regarding art, insofar as he paid any attention to it at all, Jimmy liked Polynesian carving. Jimmy had a few tattoos in this style. He also had a few wall hangings which he never got around to putting up and a greenstone amulet that he never wore.

Holdens were his car of choice but there were not many in America.Jimmy had taken to watching a lot of motor sports, anything involving hotrods. This was easy to do as there was lots on television and watching television was what he did when he was not watching the twins.

When he was allowed jimmy liked to dress Hip Hop style but mostly it was tight white T shirts and blue slacks. He was a minder after all and had to go places and not get noticed more than the person he was minding. Mostly that was the case anyway.

Red was his favorite colour. He hated the Canterbury rugby team with its red and black shirts though. They just kept beating Wellington in the gold and black and sometimes Jimmy thought about changing colours.

Jimmy liked bulldogs. Other dogs were alright but here was nothing like the snarl of a bulldog to put someone in their place. He quite liked cats as well but dogs were Jimmy's main pet.

Pro wrestling was his favorite television programme. This was partly because he got together with his brothers and made jokes about Hulk Hogan and the others.

Jimmy was a laconic guy and did not scare easily.He was slow to make close friends though he had a lot of mates. He liked girls but did not have much yo do with them.

At school he was good at sport and also at English. He could communicate and organise. He was something of a loner in class. He obviously heard what the teachers were saying but he was always aloof, distant from yje other students as well as the teachers.

He was respected and feared a little at school. But he played Touch and always got along with people on the field. Boxing was the sport that he liked most and he did well at it, winning belts and cups at the Golden Gloves.


Back in North Oxford Simon set some objectives and asked some questions.

Where were the twins in America?

Why were they there?

What skills did they have and who would need them?

He came back to the question as to how far back all this went.

In Bogota the man with the private zoo went to spend time at the Panda cage. He did this whenever he neeed to take his mind off things, to go out of focus so that he might come back sharper.

Simon had listened to Paullie's thoughts and agreed that it had to be a one off situation.

Sam had added that it, whatever it might be that would happen, might involve an element of surprise and this seemed to fit as Simon saw things.

Some kind of spectacle, a big diversion...

A man in Bogota living in a penthouse on his own got a call from someone else in the same city.

Something about heavy fire and helicopters.

He went shopping.

And then he packed his bags.

Esme and Bella, always curious, and wanting to be private detectives like Simon, thought they might shadow the Don. No question, there was something very odd about him although that might be said of a lot of people in North Oxford.

This widened their portfolio; the Tramp, the Don, Simon and Samantha were now in their sights. As well as sundry odd characters like the Americans with their sunglasses and black tee shirts.

But what did they know? What had really been learnt so far?

Isis Investigations had, of course, several detectives. That is if you count, Paullie, the Don, the Aussie, Sam and sundry others. Simon was not alone although he was officially the only staff member.

It wasn't really a firm it was more a collection of characters. This helped in several ways. There was a wide network when all their friends and acquaintances were considered. A lot of new business came from these contacts.

The problem was that the oddest people took on tasks that they were not equipped for. Sam as the person delegated to hold the fort while Simon was away was disorganised and when it came to keeping secrets was, in a word, porous.

Sam was, so to speak, an open book.

Even this complete lack of confidentiality which ought to have been anathema in a private detective agency had an upside. It meant that all involved felt free to comment on management.

The hunters and chasers worked on their machinery. Their guns, their phones, anything they could check they did.

The shopping had been done and the bags packed. Now was the time for waitingand checking.

Even in the private zoo there was an air of anticipation which spilt over into tension from time to time.With the owner pacing about and going over and over details on his cellphone even the animals were on edge.

On the internet Esme and Bella found that he Tramp was related to all sorts of people and had gone to the finest schools.

How had he become homeless?