Peter Temple - Bad Debts

We sat in silence for a while. I wasn’t sure that I had a sensible opinion about when to mount a betting coup.

‘First,’ Cam said. He stretched his legs. You could see he was thinking about a cigarette.

‘What’s the reasonin?’ Harry said.

Cam smiled his thin smile. ‘There’s two points,’ he said. ‘One, like Jack says, there might not be a second up. Two, the first time this horse turned out twice in a reasonable time, he bled. The second time he came off lame. I say put on the money and pray.’

Harry was doodling with his Mont Blanc on the blotter. ‘What do you reckon, Jack?’ he asked without looking up.

‘How much is involved here?’ For once I wanted to know.

Harry shook his head. ‘Not yet. Money clouds the judgment. We want the horse to win for us. Question is, do we want to try for first up?’

I said, ‘If we don’t, the whole world gets a look at him. If he finishes in one piece and he backs up again inside a reasonable time, someone’s going to be looking for the party. We’d be, wouldn’t we?’

Harry pushed his coffee cup and saucer away, opened the brassbound cedar cigar box on the desk and took out the first of his three Havanas of the day.

Cam was out of the gate as Harry’s fingers touched the porcelain cup. He was blowing Gitane smoke out of his nose before Harry had the cigar band off.

‘Not an easy one,’ Harry said. Eyeing the cigar suspiciously, he rolled it between the thumb and fingers of his left hand. Then he picked up a silver spike and violated the rounded end. After several exploratory sucks, he lit the cigar with a kitchen match, leaned back and waved the small baton at me. ‘Sure you won’t, Jack? Makes it all worthwhile.’

I shook my head sadly. You can get over love affairs but you never get over Havanas.

‘Horse’s goin racin with us or without us,’ Harry said. ‘Thing is, if it’s not with us, Ericson and Rex Tie’ll go looking for the stake money. They might as well go on the wireless with the news.’

We sat in silence again. The smoke from Harry’s Havana drifted up towards the lofty ceiling, meeting and mingling with that from Cam’s Gitane. Outside, a gust of wind plucked at the last few leaves on the elm.

Harry made a clicking noise. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘First up it is.’ He opened a drawer and took out a yellow legal pad. ‘This is a big one, Jack. We have to spread the risk around, that’s the way we do it. Done a few quick sums here. I’m assumin we’ll start in the fifties, see the price shrink like a prick in a cold shower when we get movin. If you’re in, it’s twenty-five grand apiece from you fellas.’

He looked at Cam, at me. ‘What’s your thinkin?’

Cam blew a perfect smoke ring. ‘I’m in,’ he said.

‘Jack?’

Twenty-five thousand dollars. I was broke as usual. Most of the Ballarat payout had been distributed among my creditors. What would Charlie Taub say? I knew what he’d say. He’d say: Horse business. Never met a man it didn’t ruin. In any event, the creature would probably break down soon after leaving the barrier and be shot behind a screen.

‘How long have I got to raise it?’ I asked.

Harry took a draw, studied the cigar, reluctantly tipped off an inch of ash. ‘Your credit’s good. Day before’ll do.’ He looked at me. ‘I’d offer you a loan, Jack,’ he said, little smile. ‘Only my late dad always said never lend a gambler money. You’re sidin with the devil if you do.’

‘A wise father,’ I said, ‘is worth more than a clever child.’ We went into the cinema and watched films of all Dakota Dreaming’s races. Only the first one gave me any hope.

Kevin Pixley, former MP for Peterslee and Minister for Urban Development, lived in one of a row of mansions with the bay at the end of their gardens. Peterslee this wasn’t. Peterslee was little brick veneers with concrete yards cringing in the flightpath from Tullamarine.

Linda had set up the appointment with Pixley. Then she’d been summoned to see the boss at the headquarters in Sydney. ‘It’s just bullshit,’ she said. ‘Randy little Pom with a wife in Singapore. The creep’s been trying to get into my pants since he arrived.’

I said, ‘Inexplicable. Why would he want to do that?’

‘I’ll deal with you when I get back tonight. I told Pixley you’re helping with legal aspects of a story I’m doing on city planning. Try to keep it as general as you can to start with, okay? No cross-examination. Ask him what he thinks of the Planning Appeals Board, how attractive is Melbourne to developers, that sort of thing. Work him around to 1984. See if the bile surfaces.’

‘Can I wear a hat with a little Press card in the band?’

‘Only if that’s all you wear. They say his second wife liked a bit of rough trade. New one’s probably the same.’

I had to announce myself into a microphone behind a grille next to a door set in a two-metre wall. The door clicked open immediately. Beyond was a short brick path flanked by cumquat trees clipped into perfect balls. It led to a two-storey mock-Georgian structure painted to look like a down-at-heel Roman palazzo.

The front door opened when I was a couple of metres away. It was a woman in her late thirties, dark, pretty in a nervous way. She was dressed for dry sailing: boat shoes, white duck trousers, striped top, little kerchief at the throat.

‘Good morning,’ she said. She had a professional smile, like an air hostess or a car hire receptionist. ‘I’m Jackie Pixley. Come in. Kevin’s just having a drink before lunch. He’s not supposed to. He’s had a bypass, you know.’

It was 11.30 a.m.

We went through a hallway into a huge sitting room with french doors leading out to a paved terrace. An immaculate formal garden led the eye to the view of the bay. It was its usual grey, sullen winter self.

There were two sets of leather chairs grouped around massive polished granite pedestals with glass tops. We went around the setting on the left and though a door into another large room. This one was panelled floor to ceiling in dark wood. A snooker table with legs like tree trunks dominated the room. Against the far wall was a bar that could seat about twenty. Behind it, mirrored shelves held at least a hundred bottles and dozens of gleaming glasses. The top shelf appeared to have every malt whisky made.

Seated behind the bar was Kevin Pixley. I remembered his press photographs of a decade before: built like an old-time stevedore, strong square face, dark hair brushed straight back, oddly delicate nose and mouth. The man behind the bar was a shrunken and blurred version of the one in those pictures. He was tanned like his wife but the colouring looked unhealthy on him. In spite of the warmth of the room, he was wearing a bulky cream sweater. He leant over the counter and put out a hand.

‘Jack Irish,’ he said. ‘Spit of your old man. He was one of the hardest bastards ever to pull on a Fitzroy guernsey.’

We shook hands. I used to get a lot of this kind of thing when I was younger. It always embarrassed me.

‘Sit,’ he said. ‘What’ll it be?’ There was a tic at the corner of his left eye.

I said beer and he slid along to a proper pub beer tap. His stool was on wheels. I caught sight of the back of a wheelchair sticking out from the corner of the bar.

‘Something for you, madam?’ Pixley asked. I realised his wife was still standing in the doorway.

‘Not just yet, thanks,’ she said. ‘We’ll be lunching at twelve-thirty, Kevin. I’m going shopping. Goodbye, Mr Irish.’

‘Pretty economically done, eh,’ said Pixley, putting down a beer with a head like spun candy. ‘I’ve got my instructions, you’ve got your marching orders.’ He took a swallow of the colourless liquid in his own glass. There was just a hint of a tremble in his hand as he raised it. ‘Now,’ he said, ‘why are you snooping around for Ms Linda Hillier? Didn’t I used to see your name in the papers defending criminal slime?’