I DROVE HOME, using my key to let myself into Nat’s flat. I had a great desire to tell her what had happened. I usually manage to keep the dangerous aspects of my career hidden from her, but I felt the need to offload this terrible news. Nat was still sound asleep, so I left a note saying I was off to the races and would be back at 6 p.m. or later.
I picked up Bill Smith’s five grand from my kitchen drawer, pushing it into the briefcase on top of Mick’s punting money. Then I got back into the ute, dropping the briefcase onto the passenger’s side of the one-piece seat. I was operating on instinct and drove past Eagle Farm racetrack without even knowing why.
I headed to the city, but swung a left into Kingsford Smith Drive towards the sea, before dropping a U-turn and parking in front of a small jetty beside the Brisbane River. I opened the briefcase and took out Bill Smith’s five grand and four bundles of Mick’s bills. I stuffed some of the money in my wallet and some in the two front pockets of my trousers, putting one grand of the nine in my back pocket for Flick. That left $8000 for betting. I took the bands from the remaining wads and roughly spread the money across the floor of the briefcase.
Locking the driver’s door of the ute, I went to the passenger side and wound down the window. I looked at the open briefcase, and the faces on the fifty-dollar bills stared back at me. I reached in and flipped the top of the case over to meet the bottom, without bothering to secure the latches. I grabbed the case between the thumb and fingers of my right hand.
A wind blew up around me as I walked to the end of the jetty, swinging the briefcase across my chest, opening my outstretched hand, allowing the case to open wide. Some of the bills flew into the air as the case hit the river, displaying its contents to the sky. It floated for a few moments, slowly taking on water until it slid away under the surface, leaving the fifties to float gently down the river to the sea.
The money looked peaceful and at home on the tidal river, and I waved it farewell on its journey to the Pacific.
‘Goodbye, Mick,’ I said.
I turned to see three teenagers, two boys and a girl, standing on the footpath and staring at me. They all wore jeans and flannelette shirts though it was the dead of summer, and the girl had a jumper tied around her waist. For some reason, I thought they were homeless, so I reached into my pocket and eased off three fifty-dollar bills. It was only November, but I wished them Merry Christmas anyway as I handed each a fifty. None of them said anything in reply. They just looked at me as if I was deranged and, at that moment in time, they were probably right. I quickly unlocked the door, climbed into the ute and headed to the racetrack.
40
IT WAS A LITTLE PAST NOON when I entered the track. The Brisbane Handicap was on after 3 p.m. so I bought a race book and sat reading in a far high corner of the public grandstand. My head was muddled as I read all the details on the horses’ breeding, trainers, owners and form. Usually, I would sift through and collate this information in my mind to pick a winner, but I couldn’t hang on to the bits and pieces as they rose to the front of my brain and receded. I heard two indistinct calls of southern races from a loudspeaker and I could not make out the winner of either race. I watched the first race in Brisbane, then went down to see if any bookies were betting early on the main event.
Fifty metres ahead of me, ex-jockey George and his big mate Phil were prowling around the bookies’ ring. George had a handful of notes – it looked a lot more than he would normally have at the races – while Phil had his hand over his shirt pocket as though protecting something valuable. George claimed a bookie for a bet, but I was too far away to see what he was backing and how much he put on. He was gone before I was close enough to see that the bookie was betting early on the Brisbane Handicap. He had Mecklam’s All The Favours at nine-to-two.
Walking up to put $100 each way on the horse, I noticed Mecklam stride in through the gate. He was with a wealthy Brisbane businessman who sometimes bet with the bookie I worked for. Mecklam grinned as he told the businessman an obviously funny story, well out of range of my hearing. The bookie I was standing in front of was annoyed at my silence and he barked at me. ‘What’ll it be?’
‘A thousand dollars each way Who Loves Yer Baby,’ I demanded.
‘You’re joking, right? You work for Brownie. But Brownie’s not laying off this early, is he? What do you really want?’
I ignored his insinuation about only having that sort of cash if I was fronting for Brownie, the bookie I worked for.
‘Well, can I have $400 each way on Who Loves Yer Baby?’
‘I suppose, but it is cash on the knocker and you are holding me up.’
I pulled out a wad, counted it and gave the bookie $800.
‘Ten thousand to 400 and twenty-five hundred to 400,’ the bookie said suspiciously, writing out the ticket. As he handed me the stub, he leaned down to ask me if there was something he should know. We were on the same side, he suggested. I shrugged, folded the betting slip in half and put it in my shirt pocket, while the bookie lowered the horse’s price to fourteen-to-one. I claimed another bookie for $200 each way at twenty-to-one, and another for $100 each way at sixteen-to-one. These were the only three bookies betting early on the race, so I went to the tote. I put $400 each way on Who Loves Yer Baby, knowing, if it came up short on the tote because of my bet, other punters would leave it alone instead of backing it, giving me the opportunity to get a good price later. I also took a trifecta with Who Loves Yer Baby to win and all other possible combinations to run second or third. That cost me another $240. All up, I had spent about $2600 counting the $150 I had given away. I still had more than $5500 left, including my own money. After seeing Mecklam giggling like a fun human being, his horse would not get one dollar of my funds. If Who Loves Yer Baby went down, it was taking Bill and me with it.
Father Reilly, the priest who had blessed Mecklam’s horse, was eating a plate of fish and salad at the cafeteria on my way back to the grandstand. I reached into my pocket and pulled out one of my betting slips, which I unfolded and saw it was my $200 each-way bet. I walked over to the priest and put the ticket on his plate next to a pile of mayonnaise.
‘I read your story in the paper, Father. Here is a bet on Who Loves Yer Baby. It’s an insurance policy in case Mr Mecklam’s horse loses. I know how bad he’ll feel about the African orphans, so you can console him if this one wins instead. By the way, my name’s Steele Hill, if Mr Mecklam asks.’
The priest was surprised, but managed to mumble a blessing with his mouth full of chips. He put the ticket in his wallet and carried on eating his lunch, while I made my way to the top of the grandstand.
The bookies were having a good day, with only one favourite winning in five races. Two of the winners were twenty-to-one shots, so they were in a good mood for race six, the Brisbane Handicap.
After I had watched all of the action from my lonely seat way up in the grandstand, I went down to the crowded betting ring. Mecklam’s horse was four-to-one with most bookies. The favourite, Purple Haze, was at five-to-two, with Who Loves Yer Baby mostly under the odds at eight-to-one, with ten-to-one the best price available.
Mecklam’s crew came for All The Favours with some commission agents I recognised. George, Phil and an attractive leggy blonde I heard someone call Crystal also worked the ring to back the horse. All The Favours came into a general price of two-to-one, with nine-to-four the best bet, despite some healthy bets on other runners.
I had $500 each way on Who Loves Yer Baby when one bookie blew it out to sixteen-to-one.
I put $2250 on each way, at prices ranging between fourteen-to-one and ten-to-one.
With my bets on the bookies and the tote, I stood to collect between seventy-five and eighty-five grand if Bill Smith’s horse won. I did the rough maths in my head, giving myself a healthy collect on the trifecta and subtracting the ticket, potentially worth more than four grand, I had given to the priest to rub it in to Mecklam if his horse lost. All my tickets were in my left shirt pocket, where I always kept my betting slips.
I decided to watch the race from the grassy incline near the winning post, and that was where I met Bill Smith for the first time that day.
‘How you going?’ he asked.
‘Good.’
‘That’s good.’
Smith was sweating profusely from his top lip and his temples, and his voice was shaky. I was wondering why I was oddly calm. I had left the unit of a dead teenager that morning and, in the afternoon, had put seven grand on a doped horse in a race that Mecklam’s neddy was supposed to win.
‘The horse is behaving well,’ said Bill. ‘I left him with his strapper to saddle up Sailor. Everything’s good.’
‘That’s good,’ I said.
I had to get away from this conversation, so I told Bill I had another bet to put on. I walked around to the up escalator, which would take me to a part of the grandstand far away from Smith. I hopped on the escalator and looking up, saw Mecklam, still with the businessman, four steps ahead above me. I figured the owner of All The Favours had urged the other bloke to back the horse, trying to build a bank of favours. Relying on the result of a horse race was a high-risk strategy for making friends.
The pair stepped off the escalator and took up a position to watch the race. I deliberately walked to stand a metre in front of them, and imagined Mecklam’s glare trying to burn a hole in the back of my head.
The horses came onto the track. All The Favours and Who Loves Yer Baby were both fractious, turning their heads to the side and fighting the reins, as their jockeys persuaded them to canter down the straight before heading to the starting stalls. Early favourite Purple Haze sweetly did all its jockey asked, including easing into the barrier stalls without a fuss.
The barrier attendants finally got the two skittish horses into their stalls and the starter let them go.
Who Loves Yer Baby, which had not led in a race since its two-year-old days, zoomed from the starting stalls and led the field by three lengths by the time they had gone 100 metres. I silently begged the horse not to go further in front, as this would ensure that the stewards came knocking on my door with a folderful of questions.
All The Favours was running second, also a more forward position than it usually took. Purple Haze was fourth, one horse off the fence, which would have made its backers happy if the front runner wasn’t going quite so quickly. That might test the early favourite’s ability to get the distance.
Who Loves Yer Baby appeared to be running a very fast time, and the horses in fifth and sixth spots were being niggled at by their jockeys to keep up. The stayers at the back of the field were twenty lengths from the leader, which showed its first signs of distress near the home turn.
I could have sworn I saw Gregory Sailor pull on the left rein. He would never normally do this on a right-handed track like Eagle Farm, as it would cause a horse to veer out.
Who Loves Yer Baby, more than three lengths clear, resented the unexpected tug and shook its head from side to side, losing the fluency in its galloping action at the same time. The margin to All The Favours was reduced to little more than a length, and the jockey of the second horse waited to see whether the leader was going to run out on the home turn.
Who Loves Yer Baby did run out, about seven horses wide, and All The Favours and Purple Haze, both near the inside fence, ran to a joint lead.
You crooked bastard, Sailor, I thought. You can’t even be trusted in a race fix.
Knowing his unsettled mount had run its race, Sailor relaxed the reins. With its new freedom, Who Loves Yer Baby took off. It still refused to run a straight line but, at high speed, it wobbled past All The Favours and the tiring Purple Haze on its inside. With fifty metres to go, the only way Gregory Sailor could lose the race was to jump off his mount, and he did not have the courage for that. Who Loves Yer Baby won by two lengths from All The Favours, with the fifty-to-one stayer White Knuckles third. The time on the semaphore board declared a new race record.
I turned to go down the escalator. Mecklam was standing, hands clenched into fists, white with rage. His business mate had turned red with anger, and tore up his tickets even before weight was declared.
‘I’ll see you later, Jim,’ the businessman said testily, storming off to the escalator.
‘It’s not correct weight,’ Mecklam called down, but he knew no protest could eventuate, as the first and second horses never got near one another in running. The best he could hope for was for the winner to return a positive swab, days later, giving him first prizemoney. But he would not get back the money he had lost on the punt. Nor would he get back the time off his life he lost with that look of sheer hatred he gave me, as I tapped my shirt pocket, produced my winning tickets, looked at each one and smiled breezily at Mecklam. I walked very close to him so he could talk to me in a whispering snarl.
‘You’re dead, Hill, and so’s Smith.’
Smiling warmly, I wished him a most happy day, and asked if he wanted the contact number of a reliable Sydney hitman. I had good referrals on a Nordic bloke they called the Nutcracker Swede.
At the bottom of the escalator, I heard the course announcer advise punters to hold all tickets, which meant that the stewards had discovered a discrepancy. I grabbed the rail of the escalator and felt my hand drag me downwards. The announcer said the inquiry was into the second last race in Melbourne.