MICK CLARENCE WAS AT HIS COMPUTER when I entered to tell him how I had found Felicity Sailor. I gave him the full story after I made him promise he would not tell Bill Smith where his daughter was or who had delivered her there.
‘I doubt I’ll see Bill until well after the race, but I might work with him again,’ Mick said. ‘I like his style. None of this would have happened had any of us realised he hadn’t really kidnapped his daughter. We were so busy concentrating on steps B, C, and D we forgot to question Step A, the kidnapping. I must remember that for the future.’
‘So it doesn’t piss you off that we were played for mugs?’
‘No, not at all. People with far worse intentions than Bill Smith play me for a mug every week, Steele. I like Bill. You can’t complain about the outcome either, because you’re enjoying your revenge by kidnapping Flick a second time.’
I nodded, though the reason I had asked Flick to stay at the Sheraton was it seemed like a good idea for me to know her whereabouts when others, such as her father and her husband, did not. To tell the truth, I did not mind Bill running the show. He had a plan of sorts. He had achieved everything he wanted so far, with Gregory riding his horse, Mecklam showing signs of worry, and me supplying him with a drug connection. Now I needed more help from that connection.
‘You know that money you want me to put on Who Loves Yer Baby? Can I use some of it to pay Flick’s hotel bill?’ I asked.
‘I’d rather you didn’t, because twenty grand is such a nice round figure, but I’ll put another grand in for expenses. You may not be able to get the full twenty large on, anyway, without taking ridiculous odds and raising more suspicion. It’s your call. I’ll be happy if you get five or ten grand on at an average price of ten-to-one to win. With ten grand for you and ten for Felicity, that should still leave thirty or more for me.’
He saw my sceptical look.
‘Even if it loses, there’s no great harm done,’ Mick said.
That attitude was a relief for me.
‘At least we won’t be fronting the stewards, unless it jumps the fence. You’ll have to excuse me now, Steele. I’m working, and I just might win that $20,000 stake money this afternoon.
I looked at the indecipherable figures and squiggles on the computer screen. As I walked through the door, I gave Mick a warning: ‘You’ll definitely have to lock the door now. Anybody could walk in off the street and steal that betting system from under your nose.’
Mick laughed and waved me away.
___o0o___
WAKING AT 9 a.m. I mentally noted that this was the latest I could remember greeting a Friday morning. I was sweating and it was shaping up to be one of those sweltering November days that make you wonder how Australian meteorologists can say with a straight face that it is still spring. I am sure the European lunatic who invented the four seasons had the best of intentions in interpreting the natural world, but I pity our convict ancestors, toiling at road building under the lash and being reprimanded for not having sufficient refinement to enjoy our balmy spring weather.
Under the shower – hot, of course, to appease those European genes – I predicted the likely track conditions at Eagle Farm the next day. It would almost certainly be a fast track, as the weather could well provide a stinker like today.
This was promising weather for my anticipated date with the stewards. It would be a barbecue, with me being grilled. In my head, I could hear the stewards asking me if I had any explanation for Who Loves Yer Baby running in a zigzag pattern down the straight, and the jockey not being able to pull it up for 200 metres after the winning post.
‘The heat,’ I practised saying in the shower.
It sounded better when I said it a second time, as I rubbed the hot water through my hair. When I turned the shower off, I heard a pounding at my front door.
‘Keep your shirt on,’ I yelled to my visitor as I donned mine.
Bill Smith was at the door, and he was an unhappy camper.
‘Where have you been all week?’ he asked. ‘It took me ages to find out where you live. We need to discuss what’s happening tomorrow, and you haven’t been at track work. You haven’t rung, and you haven’t dropped by my place. Unless you were the one who messed up my fridge earlier in the week.’
I let Bill unleash a few less important objections before I set him straight. ‘It’s best if we aren’t seen together,’ I said calmly. ‘And I don’t know what you’re on about, messing up your fridge,’ I lied, not to protect wee George, but to deny any association with the man who had lustily ravaged the contents of Bill’s refrigerator.
‘I have everything under control for tomorrow,’ I went on. ‘I told my bookie I wanted a relaxing day out at the races. He wasn’t too keen, but he’s found a replacement. Mick Clarence said you and he had worked out how to give the horse the good gear, so there isn’t much more to it, unless I’m missing something.’
Bill calmed down a fraction. ‘Sheesh,’ he said. ‘It’s just that I want you to put a bet on for me. I can’t be seen betting. Also, I want to find out what you know about Felicity.’
‘Why, is Flick awlright?’ I asked, crossing my brows to appear anxious. ‘I said you could let her go without it changing the score one iota,’ I reminded him for good measure.
A touch of shame crossed the trainer’s face, but my money was on him reciprocating my lie. I was right.
‘I saw her earlier this morning and she’s fine,’ he said. ‘She just said she had run into you, that’s all.’
I had the advantage in the fibbing department, because I knew all he did about Flick and then some. Flick had not dobbed on me, or else Bill would be calling me all sorts of names for re-kidnapping her without telling him.
‘When did you say you looked in on her, again?’ I asked.
‘She rang early today,’ he said, which I would wager was the truth.
‘I mean, I went to see her early this morning,’ he corrected, steering back to the lying course that he had resolutely followed for more than a week.
Bill now produced four wads of notes, each with a rubber band around it.
‘Where’d you get that?’ I asked, fearing he might tell me he had robbed a pub in the early hours.
‘I took out a bank loan,’ he said. ‘The bastards made me take out a second mortgage on my home for a lousy five grand. Put it on each way, Steele. There is 1250 dollars in each bundle. I’ll look after you when Who Loves Yer Baby wins.’
The whole world would be looking after me, following the win of a horse racing above its class and doped on a substance that might make it do anything with the probable exception of running faster.
‘This is mad, Bill,’ I said. ‘You could finish up doing your house, because I doubt you can afford to pay back five grand on top of your other commitments. Just put the money back. If the horse wins, you can pay back whatever interest and fees the banks saddled you with from your trainer’s percentage.’
I was wasting my breath. Smith put the four bundles down on my kitchen table and pushed the cash towards me. Sighing, I gathered them up in my hands. I drew open a kitchen drawer full of cutlery and tossed the money in.
‘I wish I had a lock on this cabinet,’ I said.
‘Have you ever been robbed?’ he asked, more out of curiosity than concern for his thousands of dollars.
I realised that I had never been robbed in my life, though I often kept the doors to my flat unlocked and usually kept windows open when I went out in summer.
‘Being involved in your silly scheme will probably take a few years off my life, one way or another, Bill, so I guess this will be the first time I’ve been turned over in my life,’ I said.
‘You should have more confidence in your mate, Mick Clarence,’ Bill said. ‘He knows it’ll work out well with those mushrooms. We have a really good plan for getting them into the horse. We’re gunna . . .’
‘I don’t need to know,’ I interrupted. ‘I am sure you two madmen have it all worked out, but you’re kidding yourselves if you think Who Loves Yer Baby is going to race like Phar Lap with that stuff in it. Even if it does, the stewards will hound you until Doomsday.’
‘I doubt it, Steele. I’ve been feeding the journos with all sorts of stuff about how much it has improved on the track.’
Yes, we all read the papers. The trouble is, a lot of us, including the naturally suspicious stewards, do not believe all we read. I asked the trainer how the horse had worked on the previous morning. Thursday morning track work was often a reliable predictor of Saturday afternoon performance. The trainer tried to exude confidence in his voice, though I noticed he quickly cast his eyes down before lifting them again for his report.
‘I asked Sailor to give him an easy time, and he ran four furlongs in fifty-five,’ Bill said.
Buddha, 800 metres in fifty-five seconds. On the strength of that, I wouldn’t be confident backing the horse to win a bush maiden. The bad news continued when I asked what Mecklam’s horse had run. Smith told me it also worked over the same distance, but it had covered the ground in forty-nine seconds. I was definitely putting $100 on All The Favours to win the Brisbane Handicap.
‘That’s good isn’t it?’ he asked.
‘That’s very good – forty-nine seconds, when it’s been set for 1600 metres,’ I agreed.
‘No, not its time; our slow time. It’ll make the smarties and Mecklam think his horse is a good thing. We’ll get our price tomorrow.’
I gave up trying to bring any reality to the conversation, and considered the logistics of trying to punt $25,000 on Who Loves Yer Baby. The exercise would be throwing money down the drain, but I owed it to myself as a professional to get as much on at the best prices I could.
‘I have a fair whack of Mick’s dough to put on,’ I told Bill.
‘You’ll work it out. You put mine on first, and then yours and then his,’ he said, still trying to call the shots.
‘I think not,’ I replied. Smith looked petulant as he waited for further explanation. ‘You see, Bill, you have kept me in the dark over a few details. If your horse wins, it will be down to Mick’s theory about the mushies – which, by the way, involved only him and me, keeping it nice and simple. You, on the other hand, have come up with the most complicated plan, involving a cast of thousands like Mecklam, Sailor, Felicity, the journalists you’ve been lying to and Buddha knows who else. I’m surprised it has come this far without falling apart, and, as I said, I probably still don’t know the half of it.’
‘I can’t keep you in the picture if you’re never around,’ the miffed trainer replied.
‘I’ve been around,’ I told him, ‘tidying up loose ends, and tomorrow I’ll be the one drawing all the attention, when I go splashing a lot of dough around the betting ring. I think that entitles me to play the game the way I see it. Half of Mick’s bugs bunny goes on first, at the best prices around. Your five grand is on next, and then as much as I can get on of the rest of Mick’s.’
Smith pondered my betting strategy, and decided to back down. ‘Fine,’ he said. ‘And I tell you plenty. Yesterday morning, we gave the horse a few of the mushrooms before his gallop, and he ran just normal. You wouldn’t know he’d had anything.’
Well, that was promising news. Bill Smith imagined the next day’s race meeting would gain him fame and fortune. All I wanted was to be able to go home from the track without the expectation of being locked up.