Knock Down

by Dick Francis

  Glory be, I thought. The aunt had had the sense to slap on a reserve. I made it twelve, the auctioneer said thirteen, and between us we limped up to his own bid of nineteen.

  ‘You’re losing him,’ said the auctioneer warningly.

  Three or four people came in from the outside and stood near me on the edge of the track where Lot 4 plodded patiently round and round. Everyone outside could hear on the loudspeakers how the sale was going, and some had come in to see.

  I wondered how high Antonia had made the reserve. Two thousand was all I would give for that colt. If she wanted more she could have him back.

  I nodded to the auctioneer. He fractionally relaxed, said smoothly, ‘Two thousand… Selling all the time now…’ His gaze went past me to the people who had just come in. ‘Shall I say two thousand one…?’

  No one said two thousand one. He made a few more efforts to no avail and Jonah Dereham got the colt.

  I turned round. Behind me stood Vic Vincent, looking like thunder.

  ‘Jonah,’ he said. ‘I want to talk to you.’

  ‘Sure, Vic, how about coffee?’

  He brushed the suggestion aside. He took me strongly by the arm in a mock-friendly gesture and practically propelled me out of the door.

  ‘Now look,’ he said.

  ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘I told you that colt was no good.’

  ‘I’m grateful for your interest.’

  He glared at me. ‘How much is Mrs Huntercombe giving you?’

  ‘It’s cold out here,’ I said.

  He looked near to fury.

  ‘She’s giving you nothing,’ he said.

  ‘I haven’t asked her to.’

  ‘That’s the point, you stupid sod. We must all stick together. We must all let the breeders know that we all stick together. Do you understand what I’m saying? We can’t have you working for less than the rest of us. It’s not fair on us. You’ll make more money yourself too if we all stick together. It makes sense. Do you follow me?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. All too well.

  ‘Mrs Huntercombe and people like her must be made to understand that unless they reward us properly we are not interested in buying their horses.’

  ‘I follow you,’ I said.

  ‘Good. So you’ll go along with us in future.’ A positive statement, not a question.

  ‘No,’ I said.

  There may be quicker ways of stirring up hornets, but I doubt it. The rage flowed out of him like a tangible force. He was so near to explosive physical assault that his arms jerked and his weight shifted to his toes. Only the gathering sales crowd stopped him lashing out. He flicked glances left and right, saw people watching, took an almighty and visible grip on his feelings and put the frustrated violence into words.

  ‘If you don’t join us we’ll ruin you.’

  There was no mistaking the viciousness in that voice, and the threat was no idle boast. People found it easy to believe Vic Vincent. The two clients I had already lost to him had believed I cheated them because Vic Vincent had told them so. He could stop the sale of a good filly just by saying she had a heart murmur. He could no doubt smash my growing business with a rumour just as simple and just as false. A bloodstock agent was only as secure as his clients’ faith.

  I could think of no adequate answer. I said, ‘You used not to be like this,’ which was true enough but got me nowhere.

  ‘I’m telling you,’ he said. ‘You play ball or we’ll get you out.’

  He turned on his heel and walked jerkily away, the anger spilling out of the hunched shoulders and rigid legs. Ronnie North and Jiminy Bell circled round him like anxious satellites and I could hear his voice telling them, low, vigorous and sharp.

  Within an hour most of the bloodstock agents knew of the row and during the day I found out who my friends were. The bunch I had said I wouldn’t join drew their skirts away and spoke about me among themselves while looking at me out of the corners of their eyes. The chaps in the big firms treated me exactly as usual, and even one or two with approval, as officially they frowned on exorbitant kickbacks.

  The uncommitted in the no-man’s-land between were the most informative.

  I had coffee and a sandwich with one of them, a man who had been in the game longer but was in much my position, more or less established and just beginning to prosper. He was distinctly worried and cheered up not at all when I confirmed what Vic had threatened.

  ‘They’ve approached me as well,’ he said. ‘They didn’t say what would happen if I didn’t join them. Not like with you. They just said I would be better off if I did.’

  ‘So you would.’

  ‘Yes… but… I don’t know what to do.’ He put down his sandwich half finished. ‘They’re getting so much worse.’

  I said I’d noticed it.

  ‘There used to be just a few of them,’ he said. ‘When I started, only a few. But lately they’re getting so powerful.’

  ‘And so greedy,’ I said.

  ‘That’s it,’ he said in eager agreement. ‘I don’t mind a little extra on the side. Who does? It’s just that… they’ve started pushing so hard. I don’t know what to do… I don’t like their methods and I can’t afford…’ He stopped, looked depressed, and went on slowly, ‘I suppose I could just not bid when the word goes round. There wouldn’t be much harm in that.’

  The make-the-best-of-it syndrome. The buttress of every tyrant in history. He took his worries away and later I saw him smiling uneasily with Vic.

  During the day I bought one more yearling, bidding against one of the big firms and securing it for a fair price. However extensively Vic’s tentacles might stretch they had not reached every breeder in the country, or at any rate not yet. Neither he nor his friends showed any intrest in my second purchase.

  Towards the end of the day one of my regular clients arrived with a flashy girl in one hand and a cigar in the other. Eddy Ingram, member of the well-heeled unemployed.

  ‘Staying for the week,’ he said cheerfully, waving the cigar in a large gesture. ‘How about you joining me and Marji for dinner tomorrow night?’

  ‘I’d like to.’

  ‘Great, great.’ He beamed at me, beamed at Marji. An overgrown school-boy with a nature as generous as his inheritance. I thought him a fool and liked him a lot. ‘Have you found me a couple of good ‘uns, then?’ he asked.

  ‘There’s one tomorrow…’

  ‘You buy it. Tell me after.’ He beamed again. ‘This lad,’ he said to Marji, ‘He’s bought me four horses and they’ve all shown a profit. Can’t complain about that, can you?’

  Marji smiled sweetly and said ‘Yes Eddy’ which was a fair measure of her brain-power.

  ‘Don’t forget now. Dinner tomorrow.’ He told me where and when, and I said I would see him at the races or the sales before that, if not both.

  He beamed and led Marji away to the bar and I wished there were more like him.

  In the morning I bought him a well-bred filly for eleven thousand pounds, outbidding one of Vic Vincent’s cronies. As none of his bunch looked upset, I guessed that one or all of them jointly would be collecting a kick-back from the breeder. Even though they hadn’t bought the horse they would collect just for raising the price.

  By mid-morning the crowd had swelled tremendously and almost every seat in the amphitheatre was taken. Two highly bred colts, due to come up towards noon, were bringing in the punters on their way to the races and the town’s wives with their shopping baskets and the semi-drunks from the bars. None had the slightest intention of buying, but there was an irresistible fascination in seeing huge sums being spent. I watched the two star attractions stalk grandly round the collecting ring and then with the tide moved inside for the actual sale. No seats vacant near the door. I leaned against one of the dividing partitions and found myself next to Pauli Teksa. Short, tough, American. Wearing a wide-shouldered light blue overcoat.

  ‘Hi,’ he said. ‘How’re you doing?’

/>   ‘Fine. And you?’

  ‘Grand… I hear Nicol Brevett liked his horse. Kerry called me.’

  ‘Did she tell you we nearly lost that one too?’

  ‘She sure did. That’s some mystery you’ve got there.’

  His attention however was not on Kerry or me or the problem of our disappearing purchases, but on the sale in hand. Heavy scribblings and calculations surrounded the high-bred colts in his catalogue, and it looked as though one American agent at least was about to try for a slice of British bloodstock.

  The double doors from the collecting ring opened and the first of the colts was led in. The crowd stirred expectantly. The auctioneers put their best man forward. Pauli Teksa cleared his throat.

  I glanced at his face. Nothing relaxed about it. Strong features, hard muscles beneath the skin, a face of resolution and decision, not of kindness and compassion. He had crinkly black hair receding at the temples and smoky grey eyes which could move faster than thought.

  ‘The first of two colts by Transporter.’ The auctioneer trotted through his spiel.‘… offered for sale by the Baylight Stud… Someone start me at ten thousand.’

  Someone started him at five. When the price rose to ten, Pauli Teksa started bidding. I owed him something, I thought, for giving me Kerry Sanders’ commission, however oddly it had turned out.

  ‘I wouldn’t buy that colt if I were you,’ I said.

  ‘Why not?’ He raised the price another two thousand with his eyebrows.

  ‘Because of its colour.’

  ‘Nothing wrong with its colour. Perfectly good chestnut.’ Another two thousand.

  I said, ‘Transporter has sired about three hundred horses and that’s the only chestnut. All the rest are dark bay or light brown.’

  ‘So?’ Another two thousand.

  ‘So I wouldn’t bet on the paternity.’

  Pauli stopped bidding abruptly and turned towards me with an intent, concentrated expression.

  ‘You sure do your homework.’

  I watched the chestnut colt going round the sand track while the price rose to forty thousand.

  ‘I’ve seen a lot of Transporter’s progeny,’ I said. ‘And they don’t look like that.’

  The auctioneer looked over to Pauli enquiringly. ‘Against you, sir.’

  Pauli shook his head, and the bidding went on without him.

  ‘This guy from New Zealand,’ he said. ‘When he was over Statesside, he asked me to buy him a Transporter colt at Newmarket if one came up, and ship it out to him so he could mix the blood line with his stock.’

  I smiled and shook my head.

  ‘How much do you want,’ Pauli said.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘For the information.’

  ‘Well… nothing.’

  Pauli looked at me straightly. ‘You’re a goddam fool,’ he said.

  ‘There’s things besides money,’ I said mildly.

  ‘No wonder these other guys are against you!’

  ‘What have you heard?’ I asked curiously.

  ‘Why don’t you go along with them?’

  ‘I don’t like what they’re doing.’

  He gave me an old-man-of-the-world look and told me I’d get hurt if I didn’t go along with the crowd. I said I would chance it. I was a triple goddam fool, he said.

  The chestnut colt made fifty-six thousand pounds. The second potential star seller came into the ring looking as a Transporter should, dark bay with a slightly narrow neck and sharp pelvic bones high on the rump.

  ‘What about this one?’ Pauli demanded.

  The real McCoy.’

  ‘You slay me.’

  He bid for it but dropped out at his authorised limit of fifty thousand. I reflected upon how terribly easy it was to influence a sale. Pauli had believed me on two counts, first against the chestnut and then for the bay, and had acted unhesitatingly on what I’d said. Just so had others with Vic Vincent. Who could blame anyone at all for heeding off-putting advice when so much money was at risk.

  At fifty-two thousand all the big firms had dropped out and the bidding had resolved itself into a straight contest between Vic Vincent and the carrot-headed Yorkshireman, Fynedale, who bought for Wilton Young. Constantine Bre-vett, I suddenly saw, had brought his smooth silver hair and dark-framed spectacles into the arena and was standing at Vic’s shoulder talking urgently into his ear.

  Wilton Young’s man was nodding away as if he had the whole mint to call on. Constantine was looking both piqued and determined. Yearlings who cost more than sixty thousand were not a great financial proposition, even with the stud potential from Transporter, and I guessed that against anyone but Wilton Young he would have dropped out long ago.

  At seventy thousand he began to scowl. At seventy-five he shook his head angrily and stalked out of the sale ring. The carrot-headed Fynedale winked at Vic Vincent.

  Pauli Teksa said, ‘Say, that was some figure.’

  ‘Too much,’ I agreed.

  ‘I guess pride comes expensive.’

  It did, I thought. All sorts of pride came expensive, in one way or another.

  He suggested a drink and with the sale’s main excitement over we joined the general exodus barwards.

  ‘Seriously, Jonah,’ Pauli said, glass in hand and strong features full of friendly conviction. ‘There’s no place any more for the individualist in the game. You either have to join a big firm or else come to an agreement with the small men like yourself and act together as a body. You can’t buck the system… not if you’re out for profits.’

  ‘Pauli, stop trying,’ I said.

  ‘I don’t want to see you in big trouble, fellah.’

  ‘Nothing will happen,’ I said, but he shook his head, and said he was afraid for me, he surely was. I was too honest for my own good.

  8

  Constantine, Kerry and Nicol were all at the track that afternoon, to see Constantine’s colt start favourite for the big race. Constantine was in such a bad mood that they would have had more fun in a dentist’s waiting-room, and soon after they arrived Nicol detached himself from the general gloom and joined me with a grimace.

  ‘That bloody Wilton Young…’

  We strolled over to see the runners for the apprentice race walk round the parade ring.

  ‘Tell your father to console himself with the thought that Wilton Young has probably poured his money down the drain.’

  ‘Do you think so?’

  ‘How many horses earn anything like seventy-five thousand?’

  ‘He’s convinced it’ll win the Arc de Triomphe.’

  ‘More likely a consolation race at Redcar.’

  Nicol laughed. ‘That’ll cheer him up.’

  I asked him how River God was doing and he said he was eating well and already looking better. He asked if I had found out why Frizzy Hair had wanted his horses and I said I hadn’t. We spent two or three chunks of the afternoon together, cementing an unexpected friendship.

  Vic Vincent took a note of it and disliked what he seemed to see as a threat to his Brevett monopoly. Even Nicol noticed the blast of ill will coming my way.

  ‘What have you done to upset Vic?’ he asked.

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘You must have done something.’

  I shook my head. ‘It’s what I won’t do,’ I said, ‘And don’t ask what it is, because I can’t tell you.’

  He sniffed. ‘Professional secret?’

  ‘Sort of.’

  He gave me the flashing sideways grin. ‘Like when you knew I was lying my head off to keep a race on an objection, and you didn’t split?’

  ‘Well…’

  ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘I remember, even if you don’t. You finished fourth. You listened to me giving my owner a right lot of codswollop and you never said a word.’

  ‘You’d won the race.’

  ‘Yeah… and they’d have taken it off me if you’d given me away.’

  ‘It was a long time ago.’

 
; ‘All of three years.’ He grinned. ‘The leopard still has the same claws.’

  ‘Spots.’

  ‘Claws.’ The grin came and went. ‘You were a ferocious bastard to ride against.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Oh sure. Milk and honey on the ground and a bloody nuisance as an opponent.’ He paused. ‘I’ll tell you… I learned something from you. I learned not to go around squealing when things weren’t fair.… I learned to shrug off small injustices and get on with the next thing and put my energies in the future instead of rabbiting about the past. I learned not to mind too much when things went against me. And I reckon I owe you a lot for that.’

  ‘You just paid it,’ I said.

  I leaned later alone against the rails of the balcony on the Members’ roof and looked down to where Vic Vincent was moving desultorily from group to group. Talking, smiling, taking notes, nodding, patting people on the back. He looked pleasant, knowledgeable and useful. He looked boyish, harmless and trustworthy. He wore a heavy tweed suit and a slightly dandified dark red shirt with a white collar and tie, and no hat on the reddish-brown hair.

  I wondered why he had recently grown so aggressively rapacious. He had been successful for a long time and as one of the top one-man bands he must have been handling about two million pounds’ worth of business every year. At a flat five per cent that meant a hundred thousand stayed with him, and even after heavy expenses and taxes he must have been well off.

  He worked hard. He was always there, standing in the bitter winds round the winter sale rings, totting up, evaluating, advising, buying, laying out his judgement for hire. He was working even harder now that he was going around intimidating breeders in far-flung little studs. Something had recently stoked up his appetite for money to within a millimetre of open crime.

  I wondered what.

  Pauli Teksa rapturised about Newmarket and compared it favourably with every American track from Saratoga to Gulf Stream Park. When pinned down by my scepticism he said he guessed he liked Newmarket because it was so small. And quaint. And so goddam British. The stands at Newmarket were fairly new and comfortable; but I reflected wryly that small, quaint and British usually meant hopelessly inadequate seating, five deep in the bars and not enough shelter from the rain.