Harry nodded encouragingly at him, pleased by his pupil’s progress.
McCurdie swilled tea, looked unhappy.
‘Tell us, McCurdie,’ Harry said. ‘You look like the one didn’t get picked.’
‘Well,’ McCurdie said, ‘I reckon I feel out of it. Like it’s nothin to do with me now.’
Harry leaned across the table. ‘Believe me, son, the investment here, that’s the feelin you want to have. But if there’s doubts, now’s the moment.’
Cam took a mobile phone the size of two matchboxes out of an inside pocket, flipped open the top, looked at McCurdie.
‘Jesus,’ said McCurdie, ‘didn’t mean it like that. I’m solid, I’m happy, I’m…’
‘That’ll do,’ said Harry. ‘Karen fill you in about today?’
McCurdie nodded.
‘He pulls up all right today,’ said Harry, ‘you’ll hear from me through her. Till it’s over, don’t call me. Want to talk, tell Karen, she’ll tell me. Understood?’
McCurdie nodded again. Harry put out a hand and they shook. ‘Full accountin when it’s over,’ said Harry. ‘Things don’t work the way we’d like em to, well, that’s racin. Work, we’ll find a place for a quiet drink. Off ya go.’
Cam and I shook hands with McCurdie and he left.
99
On our way out, the man in charge of the coffee machine said, ‘Come again.’
‘Make a point of it,’ said Harry. ‘Didn’t know there was a decent black coffee out here in the tundra.’
On the way to Dowling Forest, Harry driving, I said, ‘McCurdie feels left out of it. I, on the other hand, merely feel ignorant.’
‘Sorry, Jack,’ said Harry, ‘shoulda kept ya informed. First thing to do is get some daylight between McCurdie and the horse. Bloke’s got form. Turns up with another retread, no-one’s goin to take a big note on him. Don’t want him to be the owner, don’t want him to be the trainer. So now Mr and Mrs Grogan own this ancient neddy and Karen Devine’s the trainer. Done all the paperwork.’
‘Could all be said to have happened a bit late in the piece,’ I said.
We were approaching a roundabout, a Kenworth semi bound for Adelaide on our right, entering the circle, looming like a two-storey building. Harry slipped down a gear and accelerated. The truck’s airbrakes moaned, the horns on the roof brayed.
‘Frighten easy, these truckies,’ said Harry. ‘There’s that. Can’t get round it. Suggested to McCurdie he might make the sale a bit previous, that’ll help. Any luck, the bastards won’t be interested till it’s too late.’
At the track, we parked under an oak, well away from the gate.
‘Tell Jack what’s happenin here, Cam,’ said Harry.
‘Best thing is Seminary Boy,’ said Cam. ‘Kell Morgan’s horse. He’s run twelve, third, third, four-year-old. Our mate’s got a little eight-year start on him. After that, you’d say Bold Chino, run nineteen for four. Then maybe another old bugger, Killer Serial, he’s eight, four from twenty-six, not seen in action very often.’
‘The dead-uns,’ said Harry.
‘There’s two to watch. Sharpish four-year-olds. Both fourth-up, done nothing. Hughie Hooray and Kukri Dawn. Both won twice at this distance. As I read it, both headin for town, got the times to break through. Kukri’s won four under eighteen hundred, doesn’t run places if he can help it. He can win this, so can Hughie. If that’s what they want.’
‘Well,’ said Harry, ‘the money will tell us what they want.’
I said, ‘How come Tommy Wicks is on Vision? He’s no loser.’
Both heads turned to look at me. I hadn’t grasped something.
100
There was a pause.
‘No,’ said Harry. ‘You wouldn’t want to put a loser on the horse. You want the horse to win.’ He held out an envelope. ‘Do me a favour, Jack. Don’t want it outside the family till the day. Spread it around, mix it, to begin. Ten, fifty. Take note smartly, you’ll find, the bold fellas bring their bags out here. Keep goin till it’s gone.’
We got out. I went first. No contact at the races.
Dowling Forest after a dry autumn, only the track green in the dun landscape. Sun shining today, faded lavender sky. I’d been here on autumn days so cold the jockeys came back with blue faces. Not a bad crowd, all the usual people, the hopeful and the hopeless punters, the stable workers, float drivers, friends and relations of the connections, got-nothing-better-to-do people, petty criminals. I found a spot on the mounting yard fence next to two women in their thirties, short legs in leggings, tired jumpers, smoking cigarettes between fingers the colour of mangoes.
‘He’s a bastard, Les’s brother,’ said the taller one. ‘Wife and four kids, little Breanna’s eight months, he’s shovin this supermarket bitch, must be about sixteen.’
‘Fucking men,’ said the other. ‘Don’t even ask Glen where he’s bin. Don’t want to listen to the fucking lies.’
The horses for the fifth started coming round. Vision Splendid was in the hands of a tall young woman, jagged red hair, pale eyebrows, windburnt face. The horse was calm but alert, moving his head in an interested way. They’d gone easy on the grooming and he was a little off the condition I’d last seen him in.
In the mounting yard Karen Devine, looking sharp in a corduroy jacket, camel poloneck and pants over boots, exchanged a few words with tiny Tommy Wicks, gave him a hand up, held Vision’s head and stroked his neck.
I looked around. Cam was further around the fence, smoking a cheroot, reading the racebook. In his impeccable country clothes, he looked like an Aboriginal-Scottish-Italian riverboat gambler who’d turned grazier.
I went into the concrete-floored betting barn, a deeply inhospitable place, people chewing hotdogs with the apprehensive look of submariners waiting for the depthcharge to buckle the plates, pop the rivets. The turf accountants were running a tight little book today. Vision was at land’s end but a mere 20-1. Hughie Hooray and Kukri Dawn were both at 4-1, Seminary Boy was at 6-1, Bold Chino and Killer Serial were sevens. Then we went to a bunch on 12-1, a 14-1 and two sixteens. I opened the envelope: ten, twenty and fifty notes.
101
Caution set in quickly. I hadn’t unloaded more than $400 when the price began to shrink. After $800, I was getting 15-1 and then the carrion crows came in for their peck. I finished on 10-1. Cam was right about the dead-uns. There wasn’t any real money for Hughie Hooray and Kukri Dawn and they stayed at 4-1. Seminary Boy tightened to 4-1, then 3-1, then 5-2. The rest blew out a bit. That was it.
Out on the stand, you knew it was winter. The light wind carried rumours of cold, cold lands to the south-west. I took my usual seat, thinking not about horses but about Linda, the way she shed her clothes.
A man in a purple tracksuit, uncertain age, forty, sixty, Hawthorn yellow and brown beanie pulled low, came up the steps. He was wearing binoculars of the size normally mounted on concrete-seated steel pipe at observation points. A thousand places to sit, he chose to sit one bum away from me.
I considered moving, felt weak, extracted the new camera, the Lockheed Weapon Systems VE 3000, military special, not on general release, fresh from Abu Dhabi or wherever Cam bought Harry’s gadgets. As instructed, cursorily, I applied my right eye, pointed, found the gates, nothing to shout about, probably ten times magnification.
Then I obeyed the digital number pulsing at the left by twice pressing the button my right index finger was resting on. Vision-enhancing wasn’t sales talk: in a blink, I could see the smear of lip balm on Tommy Wicks’ snot furrow, the inside of Vision Splendid’s left nostril, note the large ruby ring, turned outward, on the pinky of Kukri Dawn’s jockey. The breadth of field claims weren’t wrong either.
‘Jeez,’ said Beanieman. ‘What’s that show ya? Wanna swop? Gissa look.’
I reconsidered my original impulse and moved sideways about fifty metres. At the races, you can do these things without giving offence. Indeed, seeking privacy engenders respect.
They came out in a reasonable line, two or three stragglers. I held Tommy Wicks and Vision easily as they left gate five. Wicks made no attempt to go to the rail, kept the horse outside. A 16-1 no-hoper called Priory Park was in front. That was the way it stayed, no great pace on, the stragglers gaining some ground.
‘Slow affair,’ said the race caller. ‘At the twelve hundred, on the rails it’s Priory Park, length to Bold Chino, half-length to Pax Americana, on the rails Killer Serial, outside of him is Hughie Hooray, half-length back and further out is Seminary Boy and outside of him is the veteran Vision Splendid, backed in to tens from 20-1. Behind Seminary Boy, Kukri Dawn is on the rail. On the turn, Pax Americana putting on some pace, Bold Chino goes up to Priory Park, Priory Park making an effort, can’t hold Bold Chino, who takes the lead.’
102
At the eight hundred, I saw Wicks give Vision Splendid some leather. The horse responded, easing by Seminary Boy, going up on the outside of Hughie Hooray. Priory Park chose this moment to shift out from the rail, allowing Pax Americana to take its place in front of Killer Serial. I looked for Kukri Dawn. The jockey had taken it off the rails into position behind Vision.
‘Traffic problems at the six hundred,’ said the caller. ‘Bold Chino in front, length back to Pax Americana on the rail, Priory Park on the outside hanging on. Half-length back to Vision Splendid on the outside and Hughie Hooray. Killer Serial’s on the rail. Kukri Dawn gone out wide looking for a run. Half length to the rest of the field. Here comes Stretto on the outside, big run. Four hundred to go. Stretto goes past Vision Splendid, neck and neck with Priory Park, Wicks is looking for a way out. Now Kukri Dawn’s making its run, gets up to Vision.’
At the two hundred, a gap appeared between Hughie Hooray and Pax America and Seminary Boy took it.
‘Now it’s Seminary Boy pulling in Bold Chino, goes for the line, too good for Chino, behind him a line, Stretto on the outside, half-length to Pax Americana, Priory Park, then Hughie Hooray, outside him is Vision Splendid, neck and neck with Kukri Dawn…’
Seminary Boy won by a length and a half from Pax Americana, with Bold Chino holding on for third.
Cam drove us home, whispering down the Western Highway. Harry didn’t say anything about the race until he’d put away his second Big Mac and taken off the big linen napkin, one of a supply kept in the glove compartment.
‘How’s the camera, Jack?’
‘Marvel of technology.’
Harry nodded. ‘Should be. Coulda bought a decent yearling for the price in the old days.’
Cam said, ‘Cheap stopwatch tell you all you need to know about that affair.’
‘Tell you somethin,’ said Harry. ‘But there’s more to know. Lots more.’
19
Senior Sergeant Barry Tregear’s first dart went into the treble twenty, the second missed it by a hair, the third didn’t.
‘One sixty-one,’ he said, took a big drink of his beer.
103
‘On this fucken stakeout for two days. Milkbar. Jack, there’s blokes in trees, in the roof, on the fucken roof, there’s even a prick lying under the counter, Christ knows what he’s going to do. We’re waiting for Australia’s Most Wanted. Red-hot tip-off.’
I threw a one, a treble twenty, a twenty.
‘Two twenty,’ Barry said. He sighted along his dart. ‘The milkbar owner, he’s made the ID, absolutely positive. A bloke called Krushka. Nice fella. Did time in Nam. Nerves shot to shit.’
I’d been in the army with Barry Tregear. I was nineteen years old, boy officer, last year of the war. Barry was a sergeant, the large, calm farm boy from Hay. Not so much a town, Hay, as some houses clustered together to escape the aching loneliness of the plains. One evening, Barry and I were lying next to each other, several dead people near us, day expiring in a sullen, smeared, tropical way, both hurting, bleeding steadily into the mud, praying: praying for an artillery barrage, praying it wouldn’t land on us, praying the dark would hold off. Barry turned his head, mud all down the side of his face, and he said, not in a scared way, more like someone who’d had two picks, backed the wrong one, he said, ‘Shit, wish I’d stayed in Hay.’
A very nice dart. Treble twenty.
‘One-oh-one. Treble, one, double twenty. About ten minutes to closing, nine-fifty, it’s raining, I’m having a leak against the back wheel, big relief, cunt sticks a shotgun in my back, right between the shoulder blades.’
Missed the treble. Twenty. Sip of beer.
‘Bugger. Treble, one, double ten. He says, he says, “One move I blow you away. Hands on roof.’’ They learn this shit from television.’
Treble.
‘One, double ten. “You and your mate,’’ he says, “Whatta fuck you want here?’’ I’m standing there, it’s fucken freezing, rain’s coming down my neck, can’t stop the peeing, it’s running down my leg, any second Australia’s Most Wanted is showing up for the milk, and some cunt’s got a shotgun in my back. I think, whatta fuck do I want here?’
I said, ‘Shit, wish I’d stayed in Hay.’ Threw. Got a treble.
Barry looked at me, laughed, body-shaking laugh. ‘Wish I’d stayed in fucken Hay,’ he said. ‘You’ve never forgotten that, you bastard. One-sixty. Treble, treble, double.’
Zero. Twenty.
104
‘Treble, treble, double ten. And then this Land Cruiser, comes down the street, I thought, it’s him, oh fuck, did my quickest hip turn, that’s not too flash I tell you, knock the barrel away with my arm. The prick pulls the trigger, big bang, into the ground, the Land Cruiser, he floors it.’
Barry drank some beer, sighted, threw, just a little explosion of fingers.
One.
‘Double ten,’ he said, didn’t hesitate, plugged it.
‘You might give a bloke a chance,’ I said. ‘So you lost Australia’s Most Wanted?’
‘Nah. While I’m jumping on this dork, my prick’s still hanging out, such as it is, frostbitten, the blokes at the end of the street get him. Turns out to be Australia’s most harmless turd, happens to resemble the real thing. Also drives one of the same fucken tractors, same colour.’
‘Upsetting.’
He nodded. ‘Yeah. They offered me counselling but I already fucked her twice. Just went home.’
The barman put his head through the hatch, big head, broken nose, embattled remnants of hair, middle front tooth missing. ‘Had B11 in here Friday,’ he said. ‘Called somethin else now, what is it?’