I'm Dying Here. Damien Broderick
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your head.”
“Mutton’s going to be at the track?”
“Wozza too. We do these sorts of things as a team.”
“Look,” I said. “Just what sort of ham-hocked nag do you have on the card?”
Share Lesser gave me a bland look. “Who’s talking about horses?”
“I thought we were going to some country race meeting.”
“After a fashion, but it’s private. And the sheikh’s not interested in horses.”
“What sheikh?”
“Abdul bin Sahal al Din.”
I was getting fed up. “I think you’d better explain things, Share. This is starting to look like false pretenses. This is starting to look like kidnapping, and in my own car at that.”
“All will be revealed, Tom. And I wouldn’t fuss about the car after what your oaf did to mine last night.”
I looked sideways at Share. She was driving with considerable aplomb—that’s the only word to describe it. If there was an opening in the traffic, she’d switched lanes and taken advantage almost before the guy in the other lane blinked. Quite often the guy in the other lane registered his displeasure with his horn. Share ignored them all. I did too. I decided against pursuing the matter of the race meeting. Just go with the flow. Even if the flow took us straight into the dubious company of Wozza O’Toole and Muttonhead Lamb.
Share was right. I’d met Wozza and Mutton years ago in Pentridge. We’d all been on remand. Me on a charge of grievous bodily harm against my father-in-law, and the other two on a bog-standard bank hold-up: stockings, sawn-offs, plastic shopping bag for the contents of the till, hotwired getaway car and a wheelman who drove straight through a set of red lights and was sideswiped by a mob of hoons in a lowered Customline. The hoons piled out of the wreck brimming with righteous road rage, and were settling to the task of beating the shit out of Wozza, Mutton and the hapless wheelman when they discovered the plastic bag. By the time the cops arrived the hoons had done a runner with the proceeds, leaving the other three to begin their life behind bars with nothing in the kitty. I’d hired a Queen’s Counsel by the name of Muldoon who charged like a tax collector and drank with the vice squad. Despite my prior record in the USA, the case against me proved very arguable, the terrible strain of the circumstances, your honor, and the police evidence curiously muted. I left court a free man without a stain on my character and never saw my in-laws again. Wozza and co. were on legal aid. They got eight years each with remissions.
§
Share was pointing the Cobra straight at the Dandenongs. I knew of no race course in this direction, but I said nothing. The traffic thinned. As the Cobra picked up speed, the wind began to howl in the rungs of the ladder. Civilized discourse was now impossible anyway. The Cobra comes into its own on a hill climb and Share exercised it to its full potential on the roads that dipped and twisted through the greenery of the Dandenongs. By the time she suddenly left the road, shot down an unmarked track between towering rows of mountain ash and swung round onto a gravel drive in front of a mansion, I had no idea where we were. Share didn’t stop but continued past the mansion and over a cattle grid. Finally she ground to a halt outside a row of fake half-timber stables, painted black and white like a Christmas card.
“Where are we?”
“Shangri-La,” she said.
“I can believe it.”
We left the car and entered the stables. They were gloomy and empty of horseflesh. The only inhabitants were two guys in overalls sitting on a feed bin drinking tea from a thermos. Well, it might have been tea.
“Purdue, you old bastard. Long time no see, fella!”
“G’day, Wozza,” I said.
“Looking fit, Purdue, me old mate, looking bloody fit.”
“Not that fit,” I said.
“You could go a few rounds these days, don’t tell me you couldn’t.”
Wozza bounded from the feed bin and playfully danced up to me, sparring with his fists. His fingers still carried prison tats. Written across the knuckles of both hands was a crude invitation to sex—one letter per knuckle. I hadn’t run across the guy for years, but he hadn’t changed much, you still wouldn’t trust him as far as you could kick him. I sidestepped Wozza and made my way to the feed bin. Mutton, on the other hand, had changed. Someone had cut or bitten his nose off.
“G’day, Mutton,” I said, extending my hand and trying to look at his face without surprise. He was a shrimp of a man, hardly bigger than a twelve year old, too small to be a jockey which had been the disappointment of his life.
Mutton shook my hand without leaving the feed bin. His greeting was indistinct. The nose job hadn’t done much for his diction. I turned back to Wozza.
“Share tells me you’re into Information Technology these days.”
“It’s the future,” Wozza said. “Information is power. Simple as that.”
“I wouldn’t mind a bit of information about what we’re doing here,” I said. “Pleasant though these surroundings are, and however delightful the company.”
“We’re expediting things,” Share said. “Speeding them up.” “What things?”
“Come and take a squizz, Purdue, me old china,” Wozza said. “Come and take a decko.”
Wozza and Share turned and walked out of the stables, I followed and behind me I could hear Muttonhead lumbering his way off the feed bin. We followed a well-worn track through the forest for a few hundred meters. The track ended at a gate and beyond the gate was a small paddock. It was well hidden, entirely surrounded by trees. With a slight shock I realized that the field was completely free of marijuana plants. Something moved against the trees at the other end of the field. I leaned against the gate and studied the shape, the slightly rocking motion of the dappled pale brown against the grays and green of the forest.
“Bloody hell,” I said.
“Ship of the desert,” Wozza said.
§
I stared in disbelief at the animal. It’s not the sort of thing you expect to stumble over in a Victorian paddock, not outside a circus. I wouldn’t have been more surprised if it had been an elephant. “We’re not going to try and dope that thing,” I said.
“Nile Fever,” Share said. “She’s fast, but could be faster.” “Why the buggeration do you want a fast camel?”
“They race them in Saudi and the United Arab Emirates,” Share said. “It’s big time. Very big money indeed.”
“Forgive the observation,” I said, “but we are not in Saudi. Saudi is a very long way from here. So too was Dubai last time I consulted my atlas.”
“Jeez, I hope your passport’s up to date,” Wozza said. “Hasn’t been impounded by the police or nothing.”
“Get knotted,” I said.
“Just kidding,” Wozza said.
I looked at Mutton’s face. “Don’t tell me the camel bit your schnozz off?”
The Mutt expressed disappointment in me. “Nile’s as gentle as a baby!”
“The sheikh is dropping in for a road test at eleven o’clock,”
Share said. “By then we want Nile Fever at her tip top best.”
“In the pink of condition,” Wozza said. “The mistress of the track. Nile Fever, Queen of the Desert. Export quality DNA.”
“You want the animal full of sugar,” I said.
“Right in one,” Share said. “Correct weight.”