Billie & Marco. Part 9

Billie had told me that Marco was gone for months, life had gone on, he was also looking to sell up for a while, but then he got a call out of the blue one day. It was immigration, they wanted to know if I knew Marco Colletti, what I knew about him, had he worked for me, had we talked about him investing in my business, stuff like this. They sent an official down to meet me, a real bastard, Billie called him, he ate and drank, he wanted to know all this stuff about me, bought the cops around to discuss it all again, all the time looking at me as though I was a crook, a bad bugger, a bad maori bugger. Soon he left and paid for nothing, just left. Then one day this other fella turns up in a suit. The one in the diner when you first came, he was polite and friendly, saying that he represented Marco and that if I was prepared to sign a document saying Marco could invest in my business then maybe he could stay in New Zealand. It was all a bit much and all a bit fast, said Billie, I didn’t know about this stuff, I needed to talk to Marco, I told this guy. Finally Marco called up from Chicago. I’m coming down, he said, see you in a cuppla days. Sure enough a couple of days later we were sitting, drinking beer and talking about Marco’s plans to get residency and come into the business with me. OK, I told him, how do we do this. What’s the set-up worth?, Marco asked me. Maybe one hundred and fifty thousand if I was lucky, I told him, and right there he offered me two hundred for a half share. I argued with him for hours about this but he wouldn’t budge, said he had to find something else to put the rest into to get his residency, and that’s how come we’ve got that wine, Marco bought the vineyard. He’s got millions Phil, Billie said shaking his head, made me a bit scared thinking about it at first, but, you know Marco, Billie shrugged, you gotta trust him. So it came through, I never saw that piece of shit from Wellington again, Marco settled in, bought a small place around the coast from here, back off the road with no view, don’t know why, he’s got heaps, Billie continued, he got things moving at the vineyard he bought and added on to this place. Marco didn’t do much though, that guy with suit did the running around organizing it all, and Marco got a friend from Sicily in to change things at the vineyard, Billie said, Marco only knew about cooking.

I’d heard all this from Billie one morning over breakfast before Marco came in for his coffee. When he did come in I told him, Billie’s been telling me all about how you came to be here, interesting story. Marco glanced at Billie who grinned, then Marco slapped me on the back smiling and saying, and now I am here Phil, want to go fishing today, the sea is good, why not? OK, I told him. After the day out on the water it was obvious Marco had been on the sea a lot, you could see it was second nature, he stood with his legs apart humming to himself getting gear ready while all the time keeping one eye on the western horizon and telling me to hurry up and catch something. It was only my fourth day here, already we were easy together, I told him about why I’d come down to Bluff, what it was like up north, where I’d grown up and gradually we both came to trust each other. Sometimes by telling people certain things and hearing from them similar private stuff you get closer in a special way. I liked Marco. We caught fish and headed back before the weather changed.