‘I charge two hundred a day, Tommy, and expenses. You’re looking at a couple of grand minimum, and no guaranteed result.’
He grinned. ‘You’re talking to a jockey, remember. Guaranteed results stink. As for the money,’ he opened his mouth and bared his even, white teeth. ‘My dentist charges two hundred bucks a fucking hour!’
‘Okay,’ I said. ‘You’ve hired me.’
The case against Tommy was this: four jockeys, Lockie Mallet, Rex Goot, Tony Zelinka and Owen Johns, claimed that Tommy had approached them with the proposition that they run dead in a two-year-old handicap at Randwick. He claimed to have a big bet on the long-priced ‘bushie’ he was riding and that their non-taxable, non-traceable share would dwarf their normal riding fees and bonuses. According to the jockeys, Tommy had named the bookmaker concerned as Bruce Bartlett. Goot had approached Bartlett and got confirmation of the bet which, he said, Tommy had made on the nod.
Goot, acting as a spokesman, reported the matter to the stewards immediately before the race. He claimed that he had been unable to contact Bartlett until this point and so wasn’t sure that Tommy was serious. The chief steward cautioned the jockeys to let their horses run on their merits and allowed the race to proceed. Tommy’s horse won easily. Bartlett was interviewed and confirmed Goot’s story. Tommy was summoned to appear before the committee. The evidence was heard, including a taped conversation between Tommy and Bartlett which appeared to substantiate the accusations. Tommy was given his suspension; Bartlett was fined ten thousand dollars for betting irregularities; the other jockeys were privately commended by the committee.
Sometimes you work on the assumption that your client is lying, sometimes that he or she is telling part of the truth, rarely can you assume you’re getting the straight goods. It affects your attitude and approach but it doesn’t matter as much as might be thought. Usually, it sorts itself out. I gave Tommy the benefit of most of the doubt, rating him at about 75 per cent as a truth-teller. Above average. Still, I ran a quick check on him in the usual way, forking out money to people who know how to crack the computer codes, and came up with nothing: he hadn’t bought anything expensive, paid off any loans or debts or done anything to suggest he’d come into money. I hadn’t expected anything different.
I did the same on the four jockeys and waited for the results. I spent time by day and night following each of them and tapping all the sources I have that intersect with the racing world-a few cops, an ex-bookie, a former clerk of the course at Warwick Farm, a callgirl controller, a gym manager. I made notes as my observations and the information accumulated, avoiding premature conclusions. I put a lot of kilometres on the Falcon, quite a few drinks down my throat and the throats of others and exercised the vocal cords in smoky pubs, steamy gyms and quiet parks.
Mallet lived alone in a Kensington flat, drove a Mazda and seemed to have no interests other than horses. He’d missed the last two corporation payments on his flat. Zelinka had a wife and four kids in Matraville and had recently dropped a girlfriend in Paddington and acquired another in Darlinghurst. He shared her with several other men; she wasn’t very good-looking and consequently not very expensive. Johns was a very low-key, low-profile homosexual who lived with a young strapper. He drove a Holden Statesman but was slightly behind on the payments. His friend had recently switched from a motorbike to a scooter. They seemed to spend most of their time watching videos.
Rex Goot was a little more interesting. Older than the others at about thirty-four, he’d had a topsy-turvy career as a rider with some big wins, long, bare stretches and more than his share of suspensions for minor infringements. He was considered a good reinsman but ‘cranky’ and inclined to let owners and trainers know his opinion of their horses and methods. He was separated, rented a modest semi in Randwick and his last maintenance payment cheque for his two children had bounced. His wife had re-presented it only to have it bounce again. Then it was third time lucky with a very angry Mrs Goot having to cough up the default fees.
‘He’s paying the mortgage on the former family home in Concord,’ my informant, an enterprising bank data base man told me, ‘but he was late with the last one and the next’s due tomorrow.’
‘Did he have enough on hand to cover the last payment?’ I asked.
‘That’ll cost you more.’
I thought about how characters like this were making money from characters like me by tapping keys. What a world.
‘Day after tomorrow,’ I said. ‘Tell me about how he stood last time and what he does this time. Then charge me.’
‘I got it.’
He meant what he said. He had my Bankcard number and had a way of charging fees against the card. I didn’t know how he did it and didn’t want to know. The charge appeared on my statement as ‘Security Enquiries’ and I could bill my client without difficulty. What a world.
I turned my attention to Bruce Bartlett. A press photo showed him as a big, beefy character with a dimple in his chin. There’s no way to run the standard check on bookies-they handle a lot of cash and everyone knows that their accounts are elaborate fictions. The taxation people leave them alone as long as they get a reasonable whack. Trying to calculate the real income wouldn’t be worth the grief. Still, I poked around and found out what I could. My chief informant was Perce Kelly who runs an SP book in the Bedford Arms hotel in Glebe. Bookies are Perce’s speciality.
We met in the back bar of the Bedford, not far from Wentworth Park where Perce did a lot of his business. I put a schooner of Old down in front of Perce and sipped at my middy of light.
‘What d’y drink that piss for?’ Perce said.
‘I use unleaded petrol, too.’
Perce shook his head and drank a third of the schooner in one pull. ‘Christ help this country if there’s another war.’
‘Brucie Bartlett,’ I said. ‘What d’you know?’
Perce told me that Bartlett had started off with a country licence and worked his way up to the city tracks. He was a man good with numbers but with no flair. Not Perce’s style.
‘Can you see him taking bets on the nod from Tommy Herbert?’
Perce rolled some White Crow and lit up. ‘Maybe. Just.’ He downed another third of the schooner. ‘Not really.’
‘Jesus, Perce. That’s not a lot of help.’
Another suck on the rollie, another pull on the beer. ‘What I mean is, Cliff, I can’t see Tommy fuckin’ betting with him!’
‘Would the ten grand fine hurt Bartlett much?’
‘Nup. He wins.’
Perce’s glass was empty, something that usually he dealt with straight off. Now he smoked and turned the glass in his hands.
‘What?’ I said.
‘Brucie used to be in partnership with a bloke named Kelvin Johnson. They fell out and split up. Bad blood. Kelvin had lots of style but no fuckin’ sense, if you know what I mean. They weren’t suited. It happens. Happened to me when I had a licence. Funny thing, though, about that day at Randwick
I knew Perce’s style. The next move was up to me.. If I didn’t make it, he’d come up with a yarn about the old days. I took a fifty out of my wallet and put it on the table. I finished my drink and picked up the glasses. ‘I like funny stories,’ I said.
According to Perce, Johnson and Bartlett had become rivals as bookmakers and had run something of a vendetta against each other which had been costly to both. There were a lot of technical details about laying off of bets which I didn’t fully understand, but the upshot was that the two men were locked in a somewhat irrational conflict that spread to include their two sons who had also been friends at one time.
‘But Kelvin’s finished,’ Perce said. ‘He must’ve been stretched pretty thin and the race before the one Tommy got rubbed out for fucked him. He took some big money on the long-odds thing that won. Took it late and couldn’t lay it off anywhere. And you wouldn’t believe it, but Kelvin bets himself. Big. He was probably on the favourite. He got screwed and Brucie was crowing.’