Marius Tollman lumbered busily from window to window of the pari-mutuel and the stewards asked to see the jockeys involved in the Salad Bowl pile-up.
The crowds, hot, tired and frayed at the edges, began to leave in the yellowing sunshine. The bands marched away. The stalls which sold souvenirs packed up their wares. Pincer Movement had his picture taken for the thousandth time and the runners for the tenth, last, and least interesting race of the day walked over from the barns.
Piper Boles was waiting outside the stewards’ room for a summons inside, but Marius Tollman used the highest class messengers, and the package he entrusted was safely delivered. Piper Boles, nodded, slipped it into his pocket, and gave the stewards a performance worthy of Hollywood.
Fred Collyer put his head in his hands, trying to remember. A drink, he thought, might help. Diversion. Crinkle Cut. Amberezzio.
He sat up sharply. Amberezzio. And what the hell did that mean? It has to be Amberezzio.
‘Clay,’ he said, leaning back over his chair, ‘do you know of a horse called Amberezzio?’
Clay Petrovitch shook his bald head. ‘Never heard of it.’
Fred Collyer called to several others through the hubbub, ‘Know of a horse called Amberezzio?’ And finally he got an answer. ‘Amberezzio isn’t a horse, he’s an apprentice.’
‘It has to be Amberezzio. He’s straight.’
Fred Collyer knocked his chair over as he stood up. They had already called one minute to post time on the last race.
‘Lend me a hundred bucks, there’s a pal,’ he said to Clay.
Clay, knowing about the lost wallet, amiably agreed and slowly began to bring out his money.
‘Hurry, for Chrissake,’ Fred Collyer said urgently.
‘OK, OK.’ He handed over the hundred dollars and turned back to his own work.
Fred Collyer grabbed his racecard and pushed through the post-Derby chatter to the pari-mutuel window further along the press floor. He flipped the pages... tenth race, Homeward Bound, claiming race, eight runners. His eye skimmed down the list, and found what he sought.
Phillip Amberezzio, riding a horse Fred Collyer had never heard of.
‘A hundred on the nose, number six,’ he said quickly, and received his ticket seconds before the window shut. Trembling slightly, he pushed back through the crowd, and out onto the balcony. He was the only pressman watching the race.
Those jocks did it beautifully, he thought in admiration. Artistic. You wouldn’t have known if you hadn’t known. They bunched him in and shepherded him along, and then at the perfect moment gave him a suddenly clear opening. Amberezzio won by half a length, with all the others waving their whips as if beating the last inch out of their mounts.
Fred Collyer laughed. That poor little so-and-so probably thought he was a hell of a fellow, bringing home a complete outsider with all the big boys baying at his heels.
He went back inside the press room and found everyone s attention directed towards Harbourne Cressie, who had brought with him the owner and jockey of Pincer Movement. Fred Collyer dutifully took down enough quotes to cover the subject, but his mind was on the other story, the big one, the gift.
It would need careful handling, he thought. It would need the very best he could do, as he would have to be careful not to make direct accusations while leaving it perfectly clear that an investigation was necessary. His old instincts partially re-awoke. He was even excited. He would write his piece in the quiet and privacy of his own room in the motel. Couldn’t do it here on the racecourse, with every turfwriter in the world looking over his shoulder.
Down in the jockeys’ changing-room, Piper Boles quietly distributed the pari-mutuel tickets which Marius Tollman had delivered: three thousand dollars’ worth to each of the seven ‘unsuccessful’ riders in the tenth race, and ten thousand dollars’ worth to himself. Each jockey subsequently asked a wife or girlfriend to collect the winnings and several of these would have made easy prey to Blisters Schultz, had he not already started home.
Marius Tollman’s money had shortened the odds on Amberezzio, but he was still returned at twelve to one. Marius Tollman wheezed and puffed from pay-out window to pay-out window, collecting his winnings bit by bit. He hadn’t room for all the cash in the underarm pockets and finally stowed some casually in more accessible spots. Too bad about Blisters Schultz.
Fred Collyer collected a fistful of winnings and repaid the hundred to Clay Petrovitch.
‘If you had a hot tip, you might have passed it on,’ grumbled Petrovitch, thinking of all the expenses old Fred would undoubtedly claim for his free rides to the racecourse.
‘It wasn’t a tip, just a hunch.’ He couldn’t tell Clay what the hunch was, as he wrote for a rival paper. ‘I’ll buy you a drink on the way home.’
‘I should damn well think so.’
Fred Collyer immediately regretted his offer, which had been instinctive. He remembered that he had not intended to drink until after he had written. Still, perhaps one... And he did need a drink very badly. It seemed a century since his last, on Wednesday night.
They left together, walking out with the remains of the crowd. The racecourse looked battered and bedraggled at the end of the day: the scarlet petals of the tulips lay on the ground, leaving rows of naked pistils sticking forlornly up, and the bright rugs of grass were dusty grey and covered with litter. Fred Collyer thought only of the dough in his pocket and the story in his head, and both of them gave him a nice warm glow.
A drink to celebrate, he thought. Buy Clay a thank-you drink, and maybe perhaps just one more to celebrate. It wasn’t often, after all, that things fell his way so miraculously.
They stopped for the drink. The first double swept through Fred Collyer’s veins like fire through a parched forest. The second made him feel great.
‘Time to go,’ he said to Clay. ‘I’ve got my piece to write.’
‘Just one more,’ Clay said. ‘This one’s on me.’
‘Better not.’ He felt virtuous.
‘Oh, come on,’ Clay said, and ordered. With the faintest of misgivings Fred Collyer sank his third: but couldn’t he still out-write every racing man in the business? Of course he could.
They left after the third. Fred Collyer bought a litre of bourbon for later, when he had finished his story. Back in his own room he took just the merest swig from it before he sat down to write.
The words wouldn’t come. He deleted six attempts and poured some bourbon into a tooth glass.
Marius Tollman, Crinkle Cut, Piper Boles, Amberezzio... It wasn’t all that simple.
He took a drink. He didn’t seem to be able to help it.
The Sports Editor would give him a raise for a story like this, or at least there would be no more quibbling about expenses.
He took a drink.
Piper Boles had earned himself ten thousand bucks for crashing into Salad Bowl. Now how the hell did you write that without being sued for libel?
He took a drink.
The jockeys in the tenth race had conspired together to let the only straight one among them win. How in hell could you say that?
He took a drink.
The stewards and the press had had all their attention channelled towards the crash in the Derby and had virtually ignored the tenth race. The tenth race had been fixed. The stewards wouldn’t thank him for pointing it out.
He took another drink. And another. And more.
His deadline for telephoning his story to the office was ten o’clock the following morning. When that hour struck he was asleep and snoring, fully dressed, on his bed. The empty bourbon bottle lay on the floor beside him, and his winnings, which he had tried to count, lay scattered over his chest.