I did warn him, thought the Sports Editor uneasily. I told him to be sure to turn in a good one this time. A sizzler, like he used to. I told him to make this Derby one of his greats.
Fred Collyer checked into the motel room the newspaper had reserved for him and sank three quick mid-morning stiffeners from the bottle he had brought along in his briefcase. He shoved the Sports Editor’s warning to the back of his mind because he was still sure that drunk or sober he could outwrite any other commentator in the business, given a story that was worth the trouble. There just weren’t any good stories around any more.
He took a taxi out to Churchill Downs. (Cab fare, $24.50, he wrote on the way; and paid the driver eighteen.)
With three days to go to the Derby the racecourse looked clean, fresh and expectant. Bright red tulips in tidy columns pointed their petals uniformly to the blue sky, and patches of green grass glowed like shampooed rugs. Without noticing them Fred Collyer took the elevator to the roof and trudged up the last windy steps to the huge glass-fronted press room which ran along the top of the stands. Inside, a few men sat at their laptop computers knocking out the next day’s news, and a few more stood outside on the racetrack-side balcony actually watching the first race, but most were engaged on the day’s serious business, which was chat.
Fred Collyer bought himself a can of beer at the simple bar and carried it over to his named place, exchanging Hi-yahs with the faces he saw on the circuit from Saratoga to Hollywood Park. Living on the move in hotels, and altogether rootless since Sylvie got fed up with his absence and his drinking and took the kids back to Mom in Nebraska, he looked upon racecourse press rooms as his only real home. He felt relaxed there, assured of respect. He was unaware that the admiration he had once inspired was slowly fading into tolerant pity.
He sat easily in his chair reading one of the day’s duplicated news releases.
‘Trainer Harbourne Cressie reports no heat in Pincer Movement’s near fore after breezing four furlongs on the track this morning.’
‘No truth in rumour that Salad Bowl was running a temperature last evening, insists veterinarian John Brewer on behalf of owner Mrs L. (Loretta) Hicks.’
Marvellous, he thought sarcastically. Negative news was no news, Derby runners included.
He stayed up in the press room all afternoon, drinking beer, discussing this, that and nothing with writers, photographers, publicists and radio newsmen, keeping an inattentive eye on the racing on the closed-circuit television, and occasionally going out onto the balcony to look down on the anthill crowd far beneath. There was no need to struggle around down there as he used to, he thought. No need to try to see people, to interview them privately. Everything and everyone of interest came up to the press room sometime, ladling out info in spoon-fed dollops.
At the end of the day he accepted a ride back to town in a colleague’s Hertz car (cab fare, $24.50), and in the evening, having laid substantial bourbon foundations in his own room before setting out, he attended the annual dinner of the Turfwriters’ Association. The throng in the big reception room was pleased enough to see him, and he moved among the assortment of press-men, trainers, jockeys, breeders, owners and wives and girlfriends like a fish in his own home pond. Automatically before dinner he put away four doubles on the rocks, and through the food and the lengthy speeches afterwards kept up a steady intake. At half after eleven, when he tried to leave the table, he couldn’t control his legs.
It surprised him. Sitting down, he had not been aware of being drunk. His tongue still worked as well as most around him, and to himself his thoughts seemed perfectly well organised. But his legs buckled as he put his weight on them, and he returned to his seat with a thump. It was considerably later, when the huge room had almost emptied as the guests went home, that he managed to summon enough strength to stand up.
‘Guess I took a skinful,’ he murmured, smiling to himself in self-excuse.
Holding on to the backs of chairs and at intervals leaning against the wall, he weaved his way to the door. From there he blundered out into the passage and forward to the lobby, and from there, looking as if he were climbing imaginary steps, out into the night through the swinging glass doors.
The cool May evening air made things much worse. The earth seemed literally to be turning beneath his feet. He listed sideways into a half circle and instead of moving forwards towards the parked cars and waiting taxis, staggered head-on into the dark brick front of the wall flanking the entrance. The impact hurt him and confused him further. He put both his hands flat on the rough surface in front of him and laid his face on it, and couldn’t work out where he was.
Marius Tollman and Piper Boles had not seen Fred Collyer leave ahead of them. They strolled together along the same route, making the ordinary social phrases and gestures of people who had just come together by chance at the end of an evening, and gave no impression at all that they had been eyeing each other meaningfully across the room for hours, and thinking almost exclusively about the conversation which lay ahead.
In a country with legalised bookmaking, Marius Tollman might have grown up a respectable law-abiding citizen. As it was, his natural aptitude and only talent had led him into a lifetime of quick footwork which would have done credit to Muhammad Ali. Through the simple expedient of standing bets for future racing authorities while they were still young enough to be foolish, he remained unpersecuted by them once they reached status and power; and the one sort of winner old crafty Marius could spot better even than horses was the colt heading for the boardroom.
The two men went through the glass doors and stopped just outside with the light from the lobby shining full upon them. Marius never drew people into corners, believing it looked too suspicious.
‘Did you get the boys to go along, then?’ he asked, standing on his heels with his hands in his pockets and his paunch oozing over his belt.
Piper Boles slowly lit a cigarette, glanced around casually at the star-dotted sky, and sucked comforting smoke into his lungs.
‘Yeah,’ he said.
‘So who’s elected?’
‘Amberezzio.’
‘No,’ Marius protested. ‘He’s not good enough.’
Piper Boles drew deep on his cigarette. He was hungry. One-eleven pounds to make tomorrow, and only a five-ounce steak in his belly. He resented fat people, particularly rich fat people. He was putting away his own small store of fat in real estate and growth bonds, but at thirty-eight the physical struggle was near to defeating him. He couldn’t face many more years of starvation, finding it worse as his body aged. A sense of urgency had lately led him to consider ways of making a quick fifty thousand that once he would have sneered at.
He said, ‘He’s straight. It’ll have to be him.’
Marius thought it over, not liking it, but finally nodded.
‘All right, then. Amberezzio.’
Piper Boles nodded, and prepared to move away. It didn’t do for a jockey to be seen too long with Marius Tollman, not if he wanted to go on riding second string for the prestigious Somerset Farms, which he most assuredly did.
Marius saw the impulse and said smoothly, ‘Did you give any thought to a diversion on Crinkle Cut?’
Piper Boles hesitated.
‘It’ll cost you,’ he said.