Winder by three-quarters of a length…’
I looked across at Harry. He was having a little swig of Glenmorangie from the flat silver flask he took to the races on cold days.
I filmed the fourth race, a Class 1 handicap over 1600 metres. This was the second reason we were in Ballarat. My attention was on Red Line Value, a new object of Harry’s attention. It went well early, weakened and finished in the middle of the field, making a little ground in the closing stages.
Cam and Harry were in the BMW when I got there. Harry gave me a small smile. ‘I think we might have a look at the Dom when we get home,’ he said.
We parked a block away from the Peter Lalor Hotel in the middle of Ballarat. Cam went off. He had a date with the commission agent who had organised the team of punters.
‘Collectin’ can be the hardest part,’ Harry said. ‘Still, the boy’s got a look about him keeps the buggers honest. They know a bare-knuckle man when they see one. What’d ya make of that Red Line?’
Cam was back inside fifteen minutes. On Harry’s orders, we stopped at McDonald’s on the way out. Harry ordered two Big Macs.
‘Take over the helm,’ he said to Cam. ‘Got to get outside these snacks. Man gets weak up here in the glaciers.’
The second hamburger didn’t make it to the city limits. ‘Now that’s what I call food,’ Harry said. ‘Not a word to the wife. She reckons you eat the stuff, you end up needin one of them coronary overpasses or whatever.’
He found a Willie Nelson tape and pushed it into the system. ‘Give us the sums, Cam,’ he said, tilting his seat back. ‘Moonlight in Vermont’ flooded the car.
‘Well,’ Cam said, ‘we unloaded it, but it’s no great average. Round 10-1. Some of these books see a go coming if you put down fifty bucks. It’s getting hard to find someone in the bush’ll take a decent-size whack.’
‘Tens are fine,’ Harry said. ‘Thing didn’t require millions. You don’t want to nuke the bastards. We want ’em there next time.’
I had no idea how much money they were talking about. I’d been part of five betting plunges with Harry and Cam and I had no idea of the sums involved. I was happy that way too.
Harry’s head peeped around the side of his seat. ‘Get that fifty on at something decent, Jack?’ He set the figure for personal bets.
‘At the top,’ I said.
‘Goodonya.’
In Parkville, joined by Lyn Strang in a black dress, not small but rippable, we drank two bottles of Dom Perignon. Harry excused himself for a while early on and when he came back said, ‘Fair bit of satisfaction in the combinations.’ This meant he had done well in the coupling of Topspin Winder with other horses in other races.
Cam and I left at 7.45 p.m. At the door, Harry shook hands with both of us and slid an envelope into my jacket pocket. I opened it at home: $6000 in fifties. I went downstairs in search of company. Dom Perignon excites the blood.
8
The next day wasn’t productive. I did a lease for a landlord who had come in off the street and put a couple of extra penalty clauses in Laurie Baranek’s agreement. At home, I slumped on the old leather sofa in the everything room with the Danny McKillop file and a bottle of Huon Falls Lager. I lived in half of the top of a small converted boot factory near Edinburgh Gardens. I’d owned the whole building in the good times and had managed to hold on to a quarter. No, to be accurate, a suburban lawyer, the fittingly named Prudence Webb, of Moloney, Hassan & Webb, had held on to a quarter for me when I was bent on liquidating all my assets, including myself, after Isabel’s death.
The answering machine played two clicks from callers who didn’t want to speak, a message from a lawyer about a witness, and my sister, Rosa, twice. She is the only woman named for a communist heroine ever to live in the old-money belt of Toorak. Impregnating my mother with her was one of the last things my father did on earth. What
I looked across at Harry. He was having a little swig of Glenmorangie from the flat silver flask he took to the races on cold days.
I filmed the fourth race, a Class 1 handicap over 1600 metres. This was the second reason we were in Ballarat. My attention was on Red Line Value, a new object of Harry’s attention. It went well early, weakened and finished in the middle of the field, making a little ground in the closing stages.
Cam and Harry were in the BMW when I got there. Harry gave me a small smile. ‘I think we might have a look at the Dom when we get home,’ he said.
We parked a block away from the Peter Lalor Hotel in the middle of Ballarat. Cam went off. He had a date with the commission agent who had organised the team of punters.
‘Collectin’ can be the hardest part,’ Harry said. ‘Still, the boy’s got a look about him keeps the buggers honest. They know a bare-knuckle man when they see one. What’d ya make of that Red Line?’
Cam was back inside fifteen minutes. On Harry’s orders, we stopped at McDonald’s on the way out. Harry ordered two Big Macs.
‘Take over the helm,’ he said to Cam. ‘Got to get outside these snacks. Man gets weak up here in the glaciers.’
The second hamburger didn’t make it to the city limits. ‘Now that’s what I call food,’ Harry said. ‘Not a word to the wife. She reckons you eat the stuff, you end up needin one of them coronary overpasses or whatever.’
He found a Willie Nelson tape and pushed it into the system. ‘Give us the sums, Cam,’ he said, tilting his seat back. ‘Moonlight in Vermont’ flooded the car.
‘Well,’ Cam said, ‘we unloaded it, but it’s no great average. Round 10-1. Some of these books see a go coming if you put down fifty bucks. It’s getting hard to find someone in the bush’ll take a decent-size whack.’
‘Tens are fine,’ Harry said. ‘Thing didn’t require millions. You don’t want to nuke the bastards. We want ’em there next time.’
I had no idea how much money they were talking about. I’d been part of five betting plunges with Harry and Cam and I had no idea of the sums involved. I was happy that way too.
Harry’s head peeped around the side of his seat. ‘Get that fifty on at something decent, Jack?’ He set the figure for personal bets.
‘At the top,’ I said.
‘Goodonya.’
In Parkville, joined by Lyn Strang in a black dress, not small but rippable, we drank two bottles of Dom Perignon. Harry excused himself for a while early on and when he came back said, ‘Fair bit of satisfaction in the combinations.’ This meant he had done well in the coupling of Topspin Winder with other horses in other races.
Cam and I left at 7.45 p.m. At the door, Harry shook hands with both of us and slid an envelope into my jacket pocket. I opened it at home: $6000 in fifties. I went downstairs in search of company. Dom Perignon excites the blood.
8
The next day wasn’t productive. I did a lease for a landlord who had come in off the street and put a couple of extra penalty clauses in Laurie Baranek’s agreement. At home, I slumped on the old leather sofa in the everything room with the Danny McKillop file and a bottle of Huon Falls Lager. I lived in half of the top of a small converted boot factory near Edinburgh Gardens. I’d owned the whole building in the good times and had managed to hold on to a quarter. No, to be accurate, a suburban lawyer, the fittingly named Prudence Webb, of Moloney, Hassan & Webb, had held on to a quarter for me when I was bent on liquidating all my assets, including myself, after Isabel’s death.
The answering machine played two clicks from callers who didn’t want to speak, a message from a lawyer about a witness, and my sister, Rosa, twice. She is the only woman named for a communist heroine ever to live in the old-money belt of Toorak. Impregnating my mother with her was one of the last things my father did on earth. What
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