The Big Score by Peter Corris

Author:Peter Corris
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: FIC022000, FIC050000
ISBN: 9781741762488
Publisher: Allen & Unwin Pty Ltd
Published: 2007-12-01T05:00:00+00:00

Last will & testament

‘I’m dying, Cliff,’ Kevin Roseberry said.

‘Says who?’

‘The doctors and me.’ He tapped his pyjama-clad chest. ‘I can tell.’

‘Doctors have been known to be wrong,’ I said. ‘Even you’ve been wrong once or twice, Kev.’

Kevin Roseberry was seventy-five but looked older. He’d been a lot of things in his time—wharfie, boxer, rodeo rider, boxing manager. When he won two million dollars in a lottery he hired me, who’d known him just as someone to drink with in Glebe, to get a blackmailer off his back. It wasn’t hard, the guy was an amateur, easily persuaded of the error of his ways. Kevin and I became friendly after that. He bought a big terrace at the end of my street, held some great parties. Now he was in a private room in a private hospital and I was visiting.

‘I’ve been wrong heaps of times, but not now. The big C’s got me and they reckon I’ve got a month at the most. No kicks coming. After the life I’ve led I was thankful to make it to the new century, let alone two years in. I’ve got that doctor you recommended onside.’

‘Ian Sangster?’

‘He’s a good bloke. He’s put me onto another quack who knows the score. I’m going home next week and he’s arranged for a nurse who’ll know what to do.’

I nodded. That’s exactly what I’d want for myself—not that it’ll ever happen.

Kevin used to be big but he’d wasted badly. Even his craggy bald head looked smaller. His voice was still the hoarse bark it had always been and his eyes were bright under the boxer’s scar tissue. He pointed to his bedside cabinet. ‘Let’s have a drink.’

I opened the cabinet, took out a bottle of Teachers and two glasses. I poured two generous measures and handed him his. We raised the glasses in a silent toast to nothing in particular.

‘I’ve got a problem,’ he said. ‘Who to leave my bloody money to.’

‘I could take some of it off your hands. Just say the word.’

‘Funny. You can tell jokes at the wake. No, this is serious. You didn’t know I had a kid, a daughter, did you?’

‘Never saw you with a pram.’

‘Yeah, well it was all a fair while ago. I didn’t treat the woman well and I never had much to do with the kid, nothing in fact. Back then, it was work, fights, the rodeo circuit, grog and more grog. You know.’

‘You’ve got the scars to prove it.’

‘You bet I have. The thing is, I’d like to help the kid and her mother. It bloody worries me, Cliff. I’m on the way out and I’ve been a selfish bastard all my life. I don’t believe in any of that religious crap, but I’d like to go with a sort of clean slate if I can. Does that sound nutty?’

‘No, Kev. It sounds like a decent man trying to do a decent thing. Nothing wrong with that.’

‘Good. Thanks. You helped me once and I want your help again.

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