Dead Point Part 1

DEAD POINT.

by Peter Temple.

For Gerhard and Karin, dear friends, for all the good times: Kom dans, Klaradyn.

On a grey, whipped Wednesday in early winter, men in long coats came out and shot Renoir where he stood, n.o.ble, unbalanced, a foreleg hanging. In the terminating jolt of the bolt, many dreams died.

Later, in the car, Cameron Delray sat behind the wheel, looked straight ahead and made no move to get going. Harry Strang, head deep in his old racing overcoat, held his knuckles to his forehead. After a while, he said, 'Act of G.o.d, no b.l.o.o.d.y insurance for that.'

I was in shock, rubbing my hands together, trying to comfort myself. Most of them you can lose easily and there are fifty reasons why. This was the one we couldn't lose. If the ground was firm. If the horse didn't miss the start, and this horse was not going to miss the start, it was the best-schooled horse in the world, if it didn't miss the start, it could street the small field by at least six lengths, probably ten.

And n.o.body knew that except us.

The ground was firm. It didn't miss the start.

All Renoir had to do was run 1000 metres. On lazy days, not pushed, we had clocked him doing that in around 57 seconds. Only one horse running against him had come close to such a time. Afterwards, that creature swabbed positive for Melazanine and hadn't run under 65 since.

So that didn't count. Drug-a.s.sisted times don't count.

The day before, Harry Strang, walking next to Kathy Gale, big hand holding her elbow, said, 'Can't win with you up, he can't win. Just mind you get him out with em, keep him away from em, don't touch him, he'll do the rest.'

All Kathy had to do was get the horse to jump cleanly out of gate number six, just urge him on, one bend, it didn't matter about looking for the short path, being out wide meant nothing, he could beat them if he ran on the grandstand rail, the horse was ten lengths better than any of the compet.i.tion. Just go for the judge.

Renoir, black as the grave, stood in the stall with the patient air of a Clydesdale, no sign of nerves. The VE 4000 showed me a calm, intelligent eye and Kathy Gale's face, her mouth, the upper teeth resting on the plumped pillow of the lower lip, the tooth next to the canine that jutted slightly, that broke the rank of her seagull-white choppers.

I saw Kathy put out a hand and rub Renoir under his left ear. It twitched. He liked that; she had done it to him hundreds of times. They stood in the gate, a horse and a small rider, at their ease, friends, together greatly superior to the men and animals on either side of them. And when she urged him, he would respond with a great thrust of dark and gleaming thighs.

The race caller said, 'Three to come in, very serious plunge on Renoir for a horse with one place from nine starts, never run this distance. He's shrunk from 301 to outright favourite, 45 on, pressure of the money, started as a trickle. Not just the bookmakers either. TAB pool is astonishing for a pretty ordinary autumn race.'

A pool swollen by our money, ours and the money of all the price-watchers who got on with us in the last moments before betting closed.

'Last one goes in, that's Redzone,' said the caller, 'the line's good, light flashing...'

The moment.

The gates opened and they came out together, eight abreast, but only for a moment because Renoir needed no more than half-a-dozen strides to draw away, a length, two, three. Then Kathy settled him, didn't let him bolt, used what she knew about sitting on horses to manage him. Just before the bend, she looked over her shoulder, just a jerk of the head, saw the inadequate herd well behind her, and she took the horse over to the rail. In the straight, Renoir's dominance was complete. With three hundred to go, he was six lengths clear and Kathy was riding him hands and heels, copybook riding, and drawing further ahead with each stride.

'Well, isn't this easy,' said the caller. 'Renoir's thrashing this field, drilling the bookies who got caught early, he's in another league altogether and Kathy Gale isn't even...'

I had Kathy and Renoir in perfect focus, all grace and power, an unbidden smile on my face, and then I saw her head drop and her arms in their silken sleeves go forward to clutch the lovely black neck and I saw shining horse and rider falling, falling, falling, all gainliness gone, all grace and power departed in a split second of agony.

They fell and she lay still and he, the proud and lovely creature, struggled to stand and the field had plenty of s.p.a.ce in which to part and ride around them so that some undeserving twosome could be declared winners.

Now, in the car, Harry took his hands from his face and fastened his seatbelt. 'Home,' he said, 'have a bit of Bolly, thank the stars the Lord didn't taketh away the girl.'

On the way, on the hideous tollway, in post-adrenalin shock, I was thinking about life, the brevity, the silliness, my life in particular, the fragility of life, how unfair it was that the huge burden should be carried on such slender and brittle supports, when Cam said, driving with two fingers in a suicidal rush of trucks and boofheads, petrolheads, 'The giveth is we got average fifteen with the books, just on ten on the tote.'

I sat up, heart pumping as if from a dream of flight, enraged and irrational. 'You put money on that?' I said. 'A f.u.c.king thing not fit to lick Renoir's boots, shoes, whatever, hooves, b.l.o.o.d.y hooves...'

Harry had his head back, against the headrest. 'Jack,' he said, sadly, 'they don't have races with only one horse.'

I slumped in my seat, a child gently chastised. How often do you have to be told some things?

Lyn, the fourth Mrs Harry Strang, opened a French door at the side of the mellow red-brick house as we came up the gravel path from the carriage-house. She had the s.e.xy look of someone who'd been running, followed by a hot shower and a rough towelling. Her right hand came up, fell. She knew. She was once a trainer's wife, she knew.

'Had better days,' said Harry without being asked anything. 'Might have the bubbly in the study, love.'

In the awesome room, we stood with our backs to the five-metre-high wall of books that held everything ever published on horses and horse racing and looked out across the terrace and the lawn and the yew hedges to the naked maples moving like things possessed.

There was a knock. Cam opened the door in the library wall and Mrs Aldridge came in with a tray. I saw the delicacies, salivated. I'd had them before and they featured in my dreams. Ethereal capsules, a sh.e.l.l of champagne batter just puffed in hot oil. Inside, the teeth would meet a fresh oyster wrapped in tissuethin smoked salmon.

Lyn Strang followed, three flutes on a silver tray, a bottle of Bollinger, uncorked, stoppered with a sterling silver device.

Harry looked at his two women. 'What would I do?' he said, head to one side. I had never seen him like that.

'Stuff yourself with all the wrong things,' said Mrs Aldridge, sharply. She left the room.

Harry looked at Lyn. 'Gla.s.s short,' he said.

'No,' said Lyn. 'Can't bear racing post-mortems.'

She touched his cheek, smiled, a brisk nurse smile, and left.

Harry poured. Cam and I waited for the toast, Harry always proposed a toast to the next time. It didn't come. He sipped, and we sipped. My eyes met Cam's.

'Well,' Harry said, putting his gla.s.s down on the tray, looking out at his garden, 'I'm thinkin of givin it away.'

I didn't want to hear this. It had been in my mind from the moment he said, 'What would I do?'

'An act of G.o.d,' said Cam. He was holding his flute to the light, studying the minute bubbles. 'Whoever that is. There'll be better days.'

'Not today's stuff,' said Harry, still not looking at us. 'That's the business. The punt's the punt, can't cop it, drop it. The commissioner, that's what makes me think it's time to shut the shop.'

'We'll fix the Cynthia thing,' said Cam. 'We're workin on that.'

I wanted to second Cam's statements but I didn't believe them and I couldn't find a quick rea.s.suring lie.

Harry picked up his gla.s.s, had a generous sip, shook his head, pretended to cheer up. 'Got to be good for ya, don't ya reckon?' he said.

'We'll fix the Cynthia thing,' repeated Cam.

Cynthia had been the commission agent for four big plunges, marshalling teams of old-age pensioners, young-age pensioners, the bored, a retired bank manager, two strippers gone to flab, an ageing hooker relishing undemanding vertical work.

The most recent plunge had been a simple matter involving a nightclub owner who believed, correctly, that a non-performing horse he secretly owned through his sister-in-law's cousin would show unexpected ability in a feature race at Flemington.

Afterwards, Cynthia had collected the large sum her platoon of punters had taken off the bookies. She was in her old Mazda, driving to meet Cam, cruising down a narrow Yarraville street, when a four-wheel drive forced her to the kerb. Two men got out, asked for the money. She said she didn't think that was on, and, in full view of an old man on sticks and a woman on a bicycle, one of the men punched her in the face six or seven times, held her by the hair, turned her head and broke her jaw and her nose and impacted her cheekbones. When they were gone, she got Cam on her mobile, speaking thickly through the blood and the crushed cartilage, then lost consciousness.

Cam more or less drove across country to reach her, ignoring traffic lights and stop signs and other vehicles, took her to Footscray General. The number the woman on the bicycle had written down belonged to a vehicle stolen less than an hour earlier. It was found in the city, in Latrobe Street, just after 6 p.m.

Cynthia now had less than forty per cent sight in one eye. We weren't going to be able to fix Cynthia. And the Cynthia thing wasn't any easier.

'Can't get over that,' said Harry. 'Not a thing used to happen. Bash a woman like that, b.a.s.t.a.r.ds'd do anythin.'

I knew what he was thinking. He was thinking about his women: his wife, thirty years his junior, the final fling, and his housekeeper of thirty-five years, a person who left England for him, left home and kin to look after a broken-bodied jockey. He was thinking about Lyn and Mrs Aldridge because he loved them and he was fearful for them. Not for himself, not for Harry Strang, the champion jockey of whom an English racing writer once wrote, 'In his presence, agitated English horses become calm and calm English jockeys lose their composure.'

Cam knew too. He finished his gla.s.s, poured for us, for himself. 'Just run-through boys,' he said, his face expressionless. 'Too clever for banks, too lazy for drugs. Somebody told em about Cyn, one of her troops would be right. We'll get there, sort it out.'

We wouldn't. Cam and I had already been over Cynthia's troops. All we found was that one had gone to Queensland suddenly. So did we. We joined the woman at her ailing aunt's bedside. She was so shocked and showed so little evidence of new-found riches that Cam slipped her two $100 notes when we left.

'Won't make any quick decision,' said Harry. 'Nothin comin up, sleep on it for a bit.'

We finished the bottle and didn't move on to the customary second one. Harry came to the front gate with us, out in the bl.u.s.tery night, trees thrashing, held me back, fingers like a bulldog clip on my left bicep.

'Two knocks in a row, Jack,' he said, 'you'll be hurtin. Not a write-off, though. Get twenty-five, thirty cents in the dollar back, thereabouts.'

'Can't drop it, cop it,' I said. 'Isn't that right?'

He squeezed my arm, more pain. 'Remember the Bank of Strang, cash advances for the creditworthy. Also, a little legal matter, need some consultin. Next week suit?'

'Day and night,' I said.

'Cam'll make a time.'

He let go. We looked at each other. 'Harry,' I said, no mental activity preceding what followed, pure emotion. 'Cynthia. We'll take care of that.'

The front door of the house opened. Over Harry's head, I saw Lyn Strang, short, strong, warm peach-coloured light on her hair and shoulders, a carpet of peach laid around her shadow on the broad verandah. 'I wanted to say goodbye. I was upstairs,' she said, something in her tone, not relief but something like that.

In the street, beyond the high red-brick wall, Cam started the transport we'd come in, a much-modified vehicle apparently known to some as an eight-bore streets.l.u.t. It made a feline noise, the sort of sound a prehistoric giant sabre-toothed tiger might have made.

I raised my hand at Lyn. She waved back.

'We'll fix it,' I said to Harry, repeating the stupid, unfulfillable promise.

'Wouldn't surprise me,' Harry said, no confidence in his voice. 'Pair of bright fellas like yerselves.'

Cam drove me to my place of residence, the old boot factory in North Fitzroy, early Sat.u.r.day night traffic. Lots of taxis, sober people going out for a good time. He double-parked outside, turned down Bryan Ferry on the eight-bore's many speakers.

'The big man's a worry,' he said. He lit a Gitane with his Zippo, rolled down his window. 'Seen it comin for a while.'

Cold air and the pungent Gallic smoke sent a tremor of craving through me. 'There's nowhere else to go on Cynthia,' I said.

'Cyril,' said Cam. 'Come at it from Cyril's end.'

We dealt with Cynthia through Cyril Wootton, professional middleman, dead-end and cut-out, collector of non-enforceable debts, finder of witnesses, skips, shoot-throughs and no-shows, and my occasional employer.

'Cyril's deeply shonky,' I said, 'but this, no.'

Cam sighed smoke. 'Can't leave him out,' he said. 'Can't leave anythin out.' He turned his head and looked at me, black eyes saying something, wanting me to agree to the unsaid.

I opened the door. 'I'll talk to him tomorrow.'

'Me too?'

'No.'

I was getting out when Cam said, 'Jack, this trot, it'll end, don't be shy.'

He too was offering to lend me money.

'Thanks,' I said. 'Could come to that.'

I watched him drive away, slowly in the quiet street, the deep, feral sound of eight cylinders entering the bloodstream, agitating it.

There wasn't anything else to do but light the fire in a clean grate, prepared on a nervous race-day morning with scrunched paper, kindling, a few sticks of bonedry wood, cut and split and chopped and delivered by Harry Strang's man in Avoca. He was the owner of a calm grey mare called Breckinridge, a horse now burdened only by the weight of children. It had been four lengths clear when it won the Ballarat Cup at 301, and from then on some people got their wood free and I got mine at a discount.

There was a time when I thought I'd never go back to the boot factory. Having your home blown up by people who want to kill you can have that effect. But when the time came to decide, I couldn't let an explosion rob me of the place I'd shared with someone I loved beyond the telling of it. I packed my bags and left the converted stable I'd been living in, grown used to, and went back to where I'd kissed Isabel goodbye on the day a mad client of mine murdered her in a carpark. I walked up the stairs, unlocked the front door, went down the pa.s.sage to the big, empty living room, looked around, opened a window, and I was home.

Ignite the fire, watch that Avoca kindling go up like a cypress hedge. Now, to the kitchen. What follows Bollinger and oysters in champagne batter? Perhaps a slice of sirloin, a thick slice, moist and ruddy in the centre, served with a cream, mustard and finely chopped caper sauce, some small vegetables on the side. Yes, but the kitchen wasn't going to run to that. Next. Open the fridge. There was a piece of corned beef. A corned-beef, cheddar and pickle sandwich and a gla.s.s, gla.s.ses, of Heathcote shiraz, that was what it was going to run to.

How old can corned beef get before it kills you? I sniffed and pondered, studied the iridescent surface of the chunk of meat and, sadly, decided that risk outweighed reward. Now it was cheddar and pickle, mature cheddar, not mature when bought but now most certainly. And then it flashed through my mind that it was bread that made the Earl of Sandwich's innovation possible, you needed bread. Next.

I thought briefly about getting out the Studebaker Lark, agonised, then rang Lester at the Vietnamese takeaway in St Georges Road. Lester answered, a non-committal sound with which I was familiar. He was a client. I'd sorted out a small matter that troubled him. For an immoderate fee, in cash, a woman lawyer in Richmond had done the paperwork needed to bring his aged mother into the country. Then a man came around and told Lester that it would cost $150 a week, also in cash, to keep his mother from being sent back. The money would be pa.s.sed on to a corrupt official in Canberra.

Lester had been paying for three years when he consulted me, referred by someone he wouldn't name. I made some inquiries, then spoke to the Richmond solicitor on the telephone. She had no idea what I was talking about, she said, highly offended and haughty. I didn't say anything for a while, then I said I'd appreciate a bank cheque for $23,400 payable to Lester, delivered to me by hand inside the hour.

She laughed, a series of starter-motor sounds. 'Or what?' she said.

'Or you can practise law in Sierra Leone,' I said. 'How's that for an or?'

A silence. 'Your name again?'

'Irish, Jack Irish.'

Another silence. 'Are you the one who killed that ex-cop and the other guy?'

My turn to be silent, then I said, 'I wasn't charged with anything.'