The Horse With My Name (27 page)

‘Who’s Michael Corleone?’

‘The Godfather.’

‘
Whose
godfather?’

‘The film.’ She looked blankly at me. ‘You’ve never seen
The Godfather
? The film? Al Pacino. Marlon Brando.’

She shook her head. ‘Why, is it any good?’

‘It’s one of the greatest films ever made. Surpassed only by
Godfather II
. The winning sequence was rather dashed by
Godfather III
. I can’t believe you haven’t seen any of them.’

‘I’ve better things to do with my time.’

‘Like what?’ She patted Dan the Man. ‘Oh please,’ I said. ‘Sitting on a brown horse jumping over fences. Get a life.’

‘As opposed to sitting in a dark room watching pretend things.’

‘Shhh. Here they come. Nevetheless, I enjoyed our chat. We should go out on a date. To the pictures. Or a ride, whatever takes your fancy.’

‘Why are they walking in our direction?’

‘Your direction.’

‘I don’t like this.’

‘Neither do I. Though slightly better than if it was my direction.’

‘Mandy.’ Geordie stopped in front of his daughter, flanked by Jimmy the Chicken and the Chinese. I stepped to one side, just to give them space. ‘Mandy,’ Geordie said again.

‘Whatever it is, the answer is no.’

‘Mandy, don’t say that. Hear us out.’

‘Or we’ll kill you,’ said Jimmy the Chicken.

‘Stop that!’ Geordie barked. There was another moment where guns were raised all around, then it slowly passed. Mandy looked from her father to the other two, then returned her disappointed gaze to Geordie.

‘What?’ she said.

‘Mandy, we have a problem. Nobody wants to get hurt here.’ He clasped his hands together. ‘We’re from Belfast, so we know violence doesn’t get anyone anywhere, these days it’s all about compromise and taking the bomb and the bullet out of the equation.’

‘Stop the bullshit, Daddy, and tell me what youse want.’

‘My girl, indeed.’ He sighed. ‘Okay. Mandy. In order for us all to come out of this healthy, and indeed wealthy, we’ve decided to take a gamble. Rightly or wrongly, these gentlemen are owed money by your mother, and they
believe, by association, by me as well. I simply don’t have the money to pay them. As you must have suspected, businesswise things have not been going well. The stables, with the exception of Dan the Man, have been a disaster. Plenty of little winners, but not enough to keep my head above water. Everything I have is mortgaged to the hilt. I can barely meet the bloody payments as it is.’

‘Get on with it!’ the Chinese hissed.

‘Okay. Okay. Mandy, love, Dan the Man is the only thing that can save me, and us. There are two alternatives – this ends in a bloodbath or we draw up an agreement, here and now, splitting ownership of Dan the Man three ways. You and me––’

‘That’s two––’ Mandy began.

‘That’s one,’ said Jimmy the Chicken. ‘You and her’s one.’

‘I know. I know,’ said Geordie. ‘Just stay with me on this honey, trust me.’

‘Huh.’

‘Please. Listen. Jimmy, here, is two, and the Chinese delegation is three. We split Dan the Man three ways. I know it’s not what you want, but at least we all live to fight another day, and we make some money when we come to sell him.’

‘I don’t understand,’ Mandy said.

‘What’s not to understand?’ Jimmy the Chicken snapped.

‘You said it was a gamble. You said you’d decided to take a gamble. Where’s the gamble? You’re just selling me out. Big gamble.’

Geordie glanced at Jimmy and the Chinese, then cleared his throat. ‘Well that’s where you come in. Your dream’s going to come true. Just like I promised.’

Mandy looked suspiciously around the three of them. ‘Meaning . . .?’

‘Meaning you’re gonna ride the big fella in the National,’ said Jimmy the Chicken. ‘He’ll be worth ten times as much if he wins.’

‘And if he doesn’t win,’ said the Chinese, ‘we’re going to kill your father.’

It was a rogues’ gallery all right, and could never be anything other than a temporary alliance. But in the strange way that bizarre ideas sometimes capture the public imagination, so their ridiculous gamble came to be regarded as something else entirely, as a sound business investment that would pay great dividends. Once Mandy accepted that she had no choice but to ride in the Grand National, the air of hostitility that had surrounded the negotiations lifted; guns weren’t exactly put away, but they were certainly lowered. Almost immediately the players began to place bets amongst themselves as to the winning time, the second-placed horse, third, fourth, first to fall, first riderless horse to finish, first to be put down, first to injure a drunken spectator, all spending the money none of them yet possessed, nor indeed was likely to. It was fascinating, or would have been if I didn’t know that all three parties had at one time or another tried to kill me; it was probably the only thing they all had in common.

Mandy hurried Dan the Man into a horse box. Geordie, Jimmy and the Chinese agreed that Bosco would go with her to provide support. They weren’t worried about her trying any funny stuff. After all, they had her dad. And for all the big deal she made about hating him, I knew she wouldn’t let him be killed.

I said, ‘Maybe I should go too.’

‘Maybe you should shut the fuck up and sit there,’ Geordie replied.

‘Do you want me to go with her, boss?’ Derek said.

Geordie shook his head. ‘No. Stay here. We’d be outgunned for sure if things turn nasty.’ He turned to look at Jimmy the Chicken, chatting with the Chinese over to the left. He gave a slight shake of his head. ‘The things you do,’ he said to himself as much as anyone.

Bosco opened the Land Rover door and climbed in. Mandy finished securing the horse box and then hurried round to the passenger door. She stopped, looked at me, then said, ‘See you later alligator.’

‘In a while crocodile.’

As she went to close the door, Geordie took hold of it.

‘Mandy,’ he said. ‘Wait.’

‘I haven’t time. I’ve still to get to the fucking races. I have to give him a run-out. He’ll be in no shape to run if he doesn’t.’

‘Just . . . I’m sorry. Your mum and I . . . we’ve been playing games all our lives. We loved each other, we just couldn’t . . . well, you know.’

‘No, I don’t.’

‘Well then believe me. I know I promised Dan the Man to you. But some things are more important. Win the race, we’ll work it out. And if you don’t want to win it for me, then win it for her.’

‘I always was.’

‘Okay. Good luck.’

She turned away. She stared straight ahead as Bosco drove her out of the stable yard towards the biggest race of her life.

And mine.

28

Geordie McClean entered the house like he owned it. Just pushed open the snibbed front door and walked into the hall. We followed in behind. The Chinese crew went into the lounge on the left and switched on a television while Jimmy the Chicken, Oil Paintings and Dry Cleaner retired to the kitchen to look for drink, pausing only to rip the telephone from the wall.

Typically, each of them carried a mobile phone, but it was agreed that these would be off limits for the duration of the race, just in case anyone tried to pull a fast one. However, they all had businesses of one shade or another to oversee, so I was nominated, seconded and elected as Mobile Phone Carrier with the strict instruction to answer all incoming calls, taking only a message, and the warning that I’d be put to death if I attempted to make an outgoing call. I was to remain in plain sight. I had eleven mobile phones switched on and secreted in various cavities about my body. Even if I survived this particular adventure, I would probably die from a brain tumour.

The house was ramshackle and smelled of horses. The owner of the stables had several runners in the support races
at Aintree and had taken most of her staff with her. Those who remained were tied up in the cellar. Four stable lads and a stable girl. Nicely counterbalanced by the unstable gangsters already getting excited about the racing on the TV upstairs. I sat at a table in the dining room opposite Geordie McClean. A sliding glass door gave us a view of the lounge beyond with its widescreen television. I leaned across and lifted a banana from a bowl in the centre of the table. I peeled it and took a bite, though only after some hesitation. I had to be careful. After scoffing the rest of the Starbursts on the train, I didn’t want to overdose on goodness. Geordie took an apple. He rubbed it on his coat, then took a bite.

‘Talking of fruit,’ I said quietly, ‘the only two with nothing to gain from all of this are Derek and Eric.’

Geordie, unprepared to speak with his mouth full, crunched at his own pace, then said, ‘I know.’

We watched through the sliding doors as first Derek, then Eric, entered the lounge carrying little wicker baskets filled with crisps and other nibbles, although they still took care to hang on to their shotguns. Jimmy the Chicken, Oil Paintings and Dry Cleaner were already gleefully working their way through the crate of Charger and bottles of VAT 19 they’d discovered in the kitchen.

‘So, uhm, why would they put their lives on the line for you?’

‘Loyalty. I gather it’s not a concept you’re overly familiar with.’

‘That’s rich coming from someone who’s selling his daughter out.’

‘I’m not selling her out. I’m selling her
horse
.’

‘Well, you know what they say about horses.’

‘No. Please tell me.’

I blinked at him. ‘Horses for courses.’

It was completely and utterly meaningless in this context. I knew it, he knew it, Derek in the doorway knew it, but ignored it. He said, ‘Cheese puff, boss?’

Geordie nodded and Derek slid the wicker basket across the table to him.

‘Starkey here,’ said Geordie, ‘was just doubting your loyalty.’

‘On the contrary,’ I said, ‘I was just admiring it, given the circumstances.’

‘What circumstances?’ asked Derek.

‘That you’ve nothing to gain from saving your boss from this den of vipers.’

Derek’s brow furrowed. ‘Don’t you mean den of
iniquity
?’

‘Yes.’

‘And isn’t it
nest
of vipers?’

‘Yes. We’re getting away from the point.’

‘The point, my friend, is that when Eric and I got thrown out of the force, Mr McClean gave us a roof over our heads, no questions asked. He pays us extremely well, we enjoy our work, we travel, we meet important people, we have fun, we have a clothing allowance, we like the man and understand the business he’s in. It’s not a question of what we have to gain, it’s a question of what we have to lose if something happens to him? Understand?’

‘Understand.’

‘Now, cheese puff?’

I took a cheese puff. Eric rapped on the glass divider. ‘Race starting in five minutes.’

I stood and slid the door open. I looked back at Geordie. ‘Coming?’

He shook his head. I stood in the doorway. The Chinese were squashed on to a beige leather sofa on the left, three on the cushions and one on each arm rest. Their guns were down, but handy. Jimmy and Oil Paintings, to
the right of the television, had an armchair each while Dry Cleaner leaned against the windowsill. Derek stood in the doorway, shotgun clasped under his arm. Eric busied himself arranging the nibbles on a glass coffee table.

‘There’s our boy,’ said Dry Cleaner, pointing at the screen.

There was a flurry of excited jabber from both sides of the room as we caught our first glimpse of Dan the Man, nostrils flared, head erect. A caption underneath gave his number, his weight, the handicap, the odds, the colours, the owner (G. McClean) and finally the name of the jockey, although that seemed almost an afterthought. The camera only dwelt on her for a moment, and that from the back. She was wearing green and white silks. Her cap was pulled down low. The camera swiftly moved on to the next horse. There were over forty horses in the parade ring and they all had to be covered.

Jimmy snapped out, ‘Turn the friggin’ sound up, someone,’ over the chatter and there followed several minutes of confusion while they tried to decide which of several instruments sitting on top of the television controlled the volume: there was one for the DVD player, one for a video, one for a cable transcriber, one for a Playstation and one for a music centre. ‘It’s like fucking mission control in here,’ Oil Paintings whinged. By the time they’d settled on the right control and the volume was finally up to required levels, the horses had left the parade ring and commenced their initial gallop along the course. I tried to pick Mandy’s colours out of the crowd, and failed.

There were two joint favourites, Emperor of the South and Talisman, and the rivalry between them seemed to have been built up to the point where they were continually being picked out by the cameras at the expense of the other horses. Still, I’m sure the horses weren’t worried. They were all about to face the race of their lives and the very real
prospect of death over what the commentator described as the toughest course in the world. The Chair, Beecher’s Brook. Fences which have entered the English language as synonyms for big fences horses die jumping over. Dan the Man was described as an outsider. ‘
But then aren’t they all really, in this race
.’ The live pictures were replaced for several minutes by computer-generated shots of the course from the point of view of a horse going over the jumps, and they were realistic enough to make me feel a little queasy; that or Derek had slipped something into the cheese puffs.

The cameras went live again, and this time I caught the briefest glimpse of Dan the Man galloping towards the start, with Mandy sitting forward in the saddle, her bottom lifted several inches off it, a bottom that seemed larger than I remembered, and I suffered another little twinge, this time of guilt at the memory of the whiskey and bacon and Starbursts I’d forced upon her over the past few days. The camera never lies, but it does distort and exaggerate. But in her profession, a couple of ounces could make all the difference between victory and defeat – and on this day, life and death.

I knelt by the coffee table and snapped up some Twiglets. Eric smiled at me and said, ‘I always eat when I’m nervous.’