The Fine Cotton Fiasco by Peter Hoysted

Author:Peter Hoysted
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780143793717
Publisher: Penguin Random House Australia

Bold Personality was in a deeply distressed state as, to varying degrees, were the two blokes standing around him. Hayden Haitana was thoroughly drenched, as was the horse, but in Bold Personality’s case the irrigation was both internal and external. John Gillespie had managed to escape the water torture that had taken place in that stable of horrors, declining all requests for assistance on the basis that he had a crucial errand to run.

He looked at the dripping duo – one equine, one human – and actually began to laugh, a rare sound to hear cackling from the mouth of The Phantom, and consequently rather menacing to boot. But even this cold-hearted criminal could see the funny side of what he was looking at.

They were running against the clock, they were going to commit a major fraud the next day in front of thousands of witnesses, and they had the wrong horse for the job.

They were committed, but desperate. Their mission was pure folly, but they couldn’t turn back, and the consequences of failure simply didn’t bear thinking about.

But this was pure Laurel and Hardy, Gillespie thought as he gazed upon their works. ‘Haitana has to be Laurel and I’m Hardy,’ he realised in a flashback to his childhood watching the silent slapstick movies on TV. True, it wasn’t exactly a flattering metaphor, but it was a truly ridiculous tableau that fate had laid out before him.

Haitana, on the other hand, was searching his soul. ‘I can’t believe we’re doing this,’ he said, to himself as much as those within earshot.

He raised his voice and declared, ‘I’ve never been cruel to a horse. I’ve been firm, yeah, showed ’em who’s boss, you’ve gotta do that, but this is deadset fuckin’ ordinary what we’re doing to this animal.’

‘Listen to me,’ said Gillespie. ‘I know this isn’t a whole lot of fun, but the worst is over, OK? The horse is here, you’ve got him watered, even though he didn’t much care for how it was done, but it fuckin’ had to be done, and now it is. Done.’

‘He’s bleeding from the nose, mate!’ Haitana wailed. ‘This is no good, I tell ya.’

The Phantom raised his eyes to the heavens, then turned them on the remorseful trainer. ‘It’ll pass, Hayden. If I stuck three metres of garden hose down your hooter you’d probably shed some red yourself. Look, we’ve got a horse that can run, and he’s on the mend. Now we only have one problem to deal with.’

Haitana had taken his ruined shirt off and was wringing it out as best he could, sighing as he noticed flecks of Bold Personality’s blood on the collar. He turned to Gillespie. ‘The way I see it,’ he said, his words dripping with helpless exasperation and barely suppressed fury, ‘our “one problem” is that this nag looks fuckin’ nothing like Fine fuckin’ Cotton!’

‘Precisely. Well done,’ Gillespie replied, in the patient tone a teacher might use to congratulate a dim-witted child who has just added two and two to get four.

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