It was only 1:10, and the first race (expected to start at 1:36, according to the tote board) had not yet begun. This meant that Mullaney had little more than forty-five minutes in which to raise whatever money he could in time for the second race. Anxiously, he scanned the faces in the crowd, searching for someone he knew. This was Saturday, though, and the gamblers (who normally composed perhaps ten percent of the track’s daily attendance) were today spread even more thinly among salesmen and businessmen and out-of-town buyers, housewives who had saved their nickels and dimes, nine-to-five clock-punchers who were ready to blow their week’s salary on a hopeful nag or two. There were present, too, gentlemen bettors with binoculars on their necks and blondes on their arms, college girls home for the spring vacation, servicemen on leave, Park Avenue ladies in slacks and mink coats, touts and tarts, bookies and bimbos, old Crazy Annie who would spend all day searching the vinyl tile floor for Win tickets mistakenly discarded, and even a juvenile delinquent in a black leather jacket with a skull and crossbones painted on its back (he had obviously seen the movie). Impossible to find anyone you know, Mullaney thought, unless you look very very hard, so he started to look and heard the track announcer’s distinct, high, clear voice coming over the loudspeaker system, cutting through the din for only a moment: “The hors-es are on the track!”
That is marvelous, Mullaney thought. They’re already on the track for the first race, and I haven’t got the price of a two-dollar bet. He put down his shopping bag for a moment, leaned against one of the supporting girders, and opened his program. The second race was a six-furlong race with a $4,295 purse. It was limited to fillies and mares, four years old and upward, who had not won at least a $2,925 race since December 11th. The program noted that maiden, claiming, optional and starter races were not to be considered disqualifying, and then listed Jawbone as the number-3 horse, with morning-line odds of twenty to one, sure enough. She was owned by Targe Stables (whose colors were red polka dots on a white field, red sleeves, white cap) and she was to be ridden by Johnny Lingo, whom Mullaney knew to be an excellent jock. He nodded briefly, opened his Telegraph and scanned Jawbone’s track record. Apparently, she worked well on a wet track, which today’s track most certainly was, but she hadn’t won on any of her last three outings, leading the field each time only to run out of steam in the stretch, failing even to place. She was up against some damn good horses, the favorite being the 4-horse, Good Sal, at two-to-one odds, and the next closest longshot being the 8-horse, Felicity, at ten-to-one, which was still a far cry from the steep odds on Jawbone.
She might do it, Mullaney thought. She especially might do it with a little help. And if she isn’t about to get a little help, then why had his dice-player friend given him the tip as early as yesterday, and why had Jawbone then been scratched, and why had the tip carried over into today’s second?
It looked very much to Mullaney as if that sweet filly had been set to receive a little help yesterday, but maybe some wires had gotten crossed, so she’d been scratched before 8: 30 a. m., which was the official weekday time limit for scratching any horse. That meant that her owners had until 10:15 a. m. Friday to enter her in one of Saturday’s races, and since fourteen horses could be started in a six-furlong race, chances were she would draw a post position unless the race was overfilled. It had apparently worked just that way, and it looked to Mullaney as if she might just possibly very definitely receive the help she needed today. A tip doesn’t carry from one day’s race to the next, nor is it bandied about by a hood with a stickball bat (no matter what the hell he claimed it was — a broom handle, ha!) unless the fix is in there tight, Charlie, unless that little help is going to be zinged in right when it’s needed, yessir, she looked very good indeed. He decided to play her, very definitely.
All he needed was some money.
He picked up his shopping bag, and began circling the echoing betting floor, searching the lines at the cashiers’ windows, seeing a few people he knew (but not well enough to ask for a loan), and then hearing the track announcer’s voice saying, “It is now post time,” and then, “They’re off!”
He walked out to the grandstand to watch the race without interest, the announcer’s voice drowned out in the yelling of the crowd, “Come on, four! come on, Bidabee! come on, two!” everybody wanting some horse or other to come on, when of course none of the horses knew what anyone was yelling, and even if they did would probably pay no attention since horses are notoriously dumb animals who will bite you on your ass for no good reason, he disliked horses intensely. The crowd jumped to its feet as the 5-horse came streaking from fourth place to catch and pass the frontrunners and take first. Mullaney watched all the sore losers tearing up their tickets, and then looked at the tote board and saw that the race had taken one minute and thirty-eight seconds and that the present time was...
The electronically controlled figures changed as he watched.
1:39.
He had less than a half-hour to raise a stake.
He was delighted to see Lester Bohm in the crowd of gamblers walking up from the reserved grandstand seats, and more delighted when he realized Lester wasn’t tearing up any tickets but was instead holding in his hand two ten-dollar Win tickets on the 5-horse. The tote board had already posted the official results, and the price quoted on the 5-horse was $17.20, which meant that a bettor would get that amount of money for every two dollars he had invested. Lester’s ten-dollar Win tickets were each worth $86.00, so the possibility existed that perhaps he might be amenable to a small touch. Mullaney approached him confidently.
“Hello there, Lester,” he said.
“Oh, it’s you,” Lester replied.
He was a short red-faced man wearing a colorful plaid sports jacket and a Professor Higgins hat. He always carried a cane, and it was rumored here and there that the cane served as the sheath for a rapier, and that Lester had once used it on a Chicago bookie who had welshed out on him. Mullaney could not believe this, however, because Lester seemed to him to be a very pleasant and personable fellow who would never dream of cutting up anybody, especially when he was holding two ten-dollar Win tickets in his fist. Lester had been married and divorced five times and was now working on his sixth wife — “My own personal Russian roulette,” he was fond of saying with a grin. He was an excellent horseplayer in that he frequently won, but he also lost sometimes, though not often. He was a good man to meet at a track when you were in need of cash, or at least Mullaney hoped so; he had never asked Lester for a loan in his life.
“You’re off to a flying start, I see,” Mullaney said.
“Yes, I am,” Lester said. “What is it, Mullaney?”
“What is what?”
“What do you want from my life?”
Lester’s attitude puzzled him at first, until he remembered with something of a shock that Lester’s opening words had been “Oh, it’s you,” with the stress on the word “you,” as if something unspeakably vile had crawled out onto a white picnic cloth. Mullaney had never thought of himself as something unspeakably vile, and could not think of himself that way now. He was simply a gambler down on his luck, a situation that could be completely reversed this afternoon with a bet on Jawbone. But Lester’s attitude brought him up short, physically, so that he had to run to catch up to him, and then felt somewhat foolish chasing this dumpy roly-poly little man toward the Cash windows. He almost gave up the chase then and there, almost said The hell with it, there’s nothing for me here, he’s not in a moneylending mood. But something else within him forced him to continue his pursuit, the knowledge that he was not a vile and horrid insect that had crawled out into the sunshine, and the desperate need to convince Lester that he was not (although he could not imagine why Lester thought he was). I’m a very nice person, Mullaney said to himself. I’m just a little down on my luck, for Christ’s sake, I just need a few bucks to bet on a horse that’s a cinch to win. Don’t, for Christ’s sake, treat me like a loser.