Peter Temple - Black Tide

Cam and I shook hands with McCurdie and he left.

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.

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.

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.’

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.