A Day at the Races Read Free Page B

Moxie, it sounded urgent?”
    “It is, I have not slept all night thinking about what I can do to solve my problem, but I think I could have the solution.”
    “OK lets hear it, but I hope it’s not robbing a bank.”
    “No it’s much more sophisticated than that, but I want you to hear me out before you flip your lid.”
    Mike didn’t like the sound of this, and knew from past experience, he wasn’t going to like what was coming next.
    “You have some of the most modern printing and copying equipment over there don’t you? Well I have been thinking, maybe we could print some large bank notes, sting the bookies in a massive operation and live like kings afterwards.”
    Mike looked at him with his jaw wide open; he knew by the look on his face he was serious.
    “Sophisticated are you crazy, any time there is any kind of counterfeiting the bloody CID are round at our place, I don’t want to spend the next twenty bloody years in clink, I have a wife and two daughters to think of?”
    “Hold on Mike just hear me out, I am not talking about printing five pound notes and paying them in at the local supermarket. I am talking about printing fifty-pound notes and laying them off at the races in one day, bang, end of story. Just a one-day fling no more, get rid of the evidence and leave it at that. Do it on a day when there are a lot of race meetings like Boxing Day. There are dozens of meetings on that day, we could swamp the bookies with fifty-pound notes for five, ten, and twenty-pound bets. That way we get thirty to forty five quid back of kosher money, plus we back every horse in the race, so we are bound to win.
    Those thieving bastards have taken enough off me over the years, I would have no compunction in robbing them, especially as Miller owns the bookies group Happy Larry’s, I would love to sink that swine.”
    Mike looked at him in horror.
    “Moxie in all the years I have know you, this has to be the most outrageous pile of crap I have ever heard you come out with. It beats the one about selling Guinness labels for car tax stickers. Do you have any idea of the kind trouble you could get into, even thinking about this, never mind doing it?”
    “So I guess from your reaction it’s a no?”
    “Too bloody right it’s a no. I realise you have financial problems, but if you go ahead with anything as hair brain as this, you wont need to worry about money where you will be, because you wont need any.”
    Moxie looked at Mike, with disappointment written all over his face.
    “I think it could work and I hope you will sleep on it, if only out of pity for me, because I am at my wits end about what I am going to do, as I have never been without a job before?”
    “I have to get back to work Moxie, we are very busy and I don’t want to have to go in on Saturday.
    Look, I know things are probably tough at the moment, but something will turn up, it usually does. There’s no point in getting involved with anything like this, you will only make your situation far more serious. Anyway I have to go, I will talk to you tomorrow, assuming you are not locked up.”
    Mike hurried back to work, and as he entered his office, his phone rang.
    “Hello Mike, Brenda rang while you were out, she is at St Swithins General Hospital and she wants you to ring her there as soon as possible, she is in with Mr Mohammed, she says its urgent, will I call the hospital for you?”
    “Yes please love, that would be great.”
    Mike’s youngest daughter Rachel, who was ten years old, had been attending the liver unit at the hospital every two weeks for the past year and a half, and had been very sick at various intervals. They had tried her on numerous drugs, none of which had done very much to improve her condition.
    “Hello Brenda I got your message, is it Rachel?”
    “She is very sick Mike, and Mr Mohammed doesn’t think she’s responding to any of the medication – just hold on he wants to talk to you.”
    “Hello Mr Ireland, I