I NUDGED MY CUCUMBER awake at 7 a.m. only to cop an earful of curses for my trouble. I had presumed, for no particularly good reason and incorrectly, that Nat would be working that morning. Unlike myself, Natalie has the ability to sleep in until noon when the occasion allows it, and I had destroyed her opportunity for slumber.
Good did come of my mistake though. The lingering effects of a great gig, boutique beers and rums made us in the mood for early morning sex, after which I did the manly thing. I fell asleep, waking to slink back to my flat for breakfast.
I grilled a few snags and fried onions, zucchinis and cabbage for a hearty breakfast, complemented by bread too fresh to toast and white filter coffee not defiled by sugar. I opened the daily paper to the sports page and was greeted by a photo of Mecklam standing beside All The Favours as the horse was being blessed by a Catholic priest.
The story underneath told of the lawyer’s plan to donate part of any prize money won to the Church’s missionary work in Africa. Mecklam was quoted at length. He hoped some of his corporate clients would top up his contribution. We in Australia, he said, did have All The Favours, with democracy, and wealth for toil, and other yummy gifts. This made it our duty to assist the less fortunate in other parts of the world.
Well, that was news. Mecklam was a saint, and not the selfish, conniving bastard I had thought he was. Who would have conceived that his winning thousands, and my winning hundreds, on his horse would benefit the third world?
Given normal circumstances, the bookies might have chipped in for the African kiddies, but they would not be cheering Mecklam’s divine plan this time. Helping orphans is one thing, but getting fleeced by Mecklam was another. Charity begins at home, and bookies had private schools to support for their own children, as well as assisting the kids of luxury car dealers where the successful ones shopped every three years.
Religion had never come up in discussions with the mad Russian Bill Smith, but I imagined his heritage allowed him few spiritual ties with the Catholic Church. If his Mick son-in-law Gregory Sailor was an example, Smith probably associated the Church more with hypocrisy than honourable works.
The Russian would really have been ticked off with the way Mecklam was upstaging him in the press war. Smith had come up with a ripping yarn. Noted track-work duffer Who Loves Yer Baby, with the prodigal son-in-law and father-to-be on top, scorched up the grass in preparation for today’s race. His rival had trumped him all ends up with a prediction of divine intervention, which Smith would try to thwart with only a handful of magic beans or, hopefully unknown to most of the general public, several handfuls of magic mushrooms.
I tried to work out a few trebles and doubles to put on at the tote before I went to the races, but I had trouble concentrating. I scribbled out the unlikely combinations of eight and eight in the double, and eight, eight and eight in the treble for the Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne races. I lay there on the couch listening to the radio racing previews and surprised myself by falling asleep for more than an hour.
I woke and did my ablutions, a wonderful expression, unfortunately slipping from our language. My future Melbourne Cup winner will be called Doing My Ablutions, even if the stewards refuse my request for a cake of soap rather than a boring shamrock at the centre of my racing colours. I am sure they will let me play the song Doing My Ablutions, a parody of Losing My Religion, at the winner’s ceremony.
It was 11 a.m. four hours before the big race when I parked the EH ute down the road from Mick Clarence’s flat. I had become used to parking a short distance from my destinations over the past week, and decided that it was a practice that I would follow in life from now on.
Mick’s door was slightly ajar and the stereo was up loud. I knocked and received no acknowledgment, so I walked on in, almost tripping over a vinyl briefcase lying horizontal next to Mick’s beloved armchair. I called out and received no reply. The door to the toilet and bathroom was wide open, but no Mick inside.
That probably placed him in his bedroom, the door to which was slightly ajar. I would go back to the lounge, to listen to the music and wait for the young punter. I gave the bedroom door a slight nudge and, as I turned to go to the other room, I saw a leg on the floor.
Mick Clarence lay on his back on the floor of his bedroom, with a piece of rubber tied around his upper arm and a hypodermic needle in front of his outstretched fingers. My first strange notion was that he was playing a practical joke, but that idea was washed away by a wave of nausea that rose from my stomach, up through my chest and caught in my throat. I felt for a pulse, mostly so I could look away to pretend to concentrate on feeling the vibration that was not there. Mick Clarence, maths whiz, professional punter, eighteen-years-old, someone I never ever suspected of being a junkie, was dead.
Impressions rushed in on me as I staggered back to the lounge. I had a crazy notion of hopping in my car, driving around Spring Hill, coming back and finding Mick alive. I conjured a scenario in which I would track his murderer down. It would turn out to be Mecklam.
I told myself out loud to switch off the music and calm down. If the coppers or anyone else found me here, they might declare me as a cert for bringing about Mick’s death.
I would sit down, think the situation over, leave quietly and contact an ambulance. That’s what I would do. Sitting in the humble guest chair, I again noticed the briefcase next to Mick’s armchair. I could see it was not locked, so it could not contain much of value.
It contained wads of $50 bills, rolled over one another and bound with thick rubber bands. Twenty bills I counted in one wad, and there were twenty-two wads. Mick the mathematician would have put the same number of notes in each wad. I was staring down at $22,000, enough motive in the mind of any ambitious copper for me to have slipped my friend an overdose.
I snapped shut the latches on the briefcase, grabbed it by the handle and stood up, to find that my hand holding the case was shaking beyond my control. I slipped the case under my arm, and nudged through the front door with my hip.
I’d had minor run-ins with the coppers, but they were yet to take my prints. I felt safe about leaving my dabs behind. Knowing some of the company he kept, Mick’s place would be full of prints, some of them among the cops’ records, some of them from coppers. I hoped one set belonged to his heroin dealer, and the coppers would look closely at those prints.