'Next race?' I said.
'Yes.'
'May we join you inside?' I said.
'Of course. Are you a racing fan, Susan?'
'A recent convert,' Susan said.
In Susan's presence, Penny still looked great, but a little less great, and the force of her charm seemed somehow thinner. Even the fabulous smile was maybe a bit less fabulous. The crowd noise quieted inside the track and we could hear the loudspeaker indistinctly announcing winners. With a boost from Hale Martin, Dнaz was up on Hugger's back settled into the ridiculously small saddle, with his feet in the absurdly high stirrups. Hale nodded at Billy Rice, who, his head still next to Hugger's, began to lead the horse toward the track. The track police cleared a way. The horse seemed entirely calm, as if he were giving a ride to a kid at a picnic. Dнaz did this every day, and looked it, calm bordering on boredom. He'd already done it several times today.
Hugger went in under the stands, heading for the track, and we followed Penny to her box in the clubhouse. Below us, and close, as befitted the owner of Three Fillies Stables, the dun-colored track circled the green infield. The big black tote board with its bright numbers looked oddly out of place. It wasn't, of course. It was the heart of the enterprise. It kept score. To our left the horses for the eighth race trailed down the track toward the starting gate. The eighth race at Saratoga was called the Hopeful. It was a race for two-year-olds. Of which Hugger Mugger was one.
I looked over the stands. This was an old-money racing crowd, by and large. The kind of people who kept a mansion in Saratoga to use in August, for whom that month's social life was devoted to horses. The town itself had a college and race month, a bunch of hand melons, some springs someplace, and twenty-five thousand year-round residents. Up higher from the track, as befitted her status as former concubine, I saw Dolly Hartman in a white dress looking at the track through binoculars.
I have never been much of a racing fan. It is two minutes of excitement followed by twenty-five minutes of milling. A full day at the track will produce about sixteen minutes of actual racing. I understood why. People had to get their bets down. That's why the horses ran, so people could bet on them. But since I got no thrill out of betting, the twenty-five-minute mill was boring.
On the other hand, I was there with the girl of my dreams, who was wearing a hat with a wide brim, exactly right for watching a horse race. Most of the other women wore hats, but none did so with Susan's panache. At the starting gate, one of the horses balked at going into his slot, and it took several people pulling, shoving, and almost certainly swearing to get him in there. The ruckus made another one buck in the gate and the jockey had to hold him hard, calming him as he did so.
A couple of guys in blue blazers and tan pants slipped into the box and sat behind me and Susan. I glanced back at them. They were young and intrepid-looking, with short hair and close shaves, and the look of bone-deep dumbness. Security South.
'How you guys doing?' I said.
Both of them gave me a hard look. One of them said, 'Fine.'
I gave them both a warm smile and looked back toward the track. Hugger Mugger was walking calmly into his slot in the starting gate. Susan leaned close to me and said, 'Which one is Hugger Mugger?'
'Didn't you just see him outside?' I said.
'I was looking at the people,' Susan said.
'Hugger's number four. Jockey's wearing pink and green.'
'The one they just put into the thingy?'
'Starting gate, yes. One to the right of the one going in now.'
The last horse was in the gate. There was a moment while they waited for everyone to settle down. All the horses were still. Then the gates popped open, the track announcer said, 'They're off,' and the horses surged out of the gate, as if a dam had burst. Around the first turn they began to stretch out. Hugger is running easily in fifth place. Angel Dнaz is hand-riding him. I look at Penny to my left. She is bent forward slightly. Her knees clamped together. Her mouth open. A hard shine in her eyes. Her hands clasped in her lap. 'Why doesn't he hurry up?' Susan murmurs to me. Entering the stretch, Hugger is still fifth. The four horses in front of him are bunched. Accolade is on the rail. Bromfield Boy is swinging wide on the outside. Reno is on Accolade's right shoulder and Ricochet has drifted a little wider toward Bromfield Boy. All of a sudden a sliver of daylight opens between Ricochet and Reno, and Angel Dнaz puts Hugger's nose into it as it starts to close. From where I am, it looks as if his jockey turns Ricochet in toward the rail to close out Hugger Mugger. The horses bump. Hugger staggers and bumps Reno on his left. Above the banging of the horses, Angel Dнaz bobs comfortably, still with no whip showing. Hugger keeps his head wedged into the small opening. He bulls into it with his shoulders. His ears flat. His neck straight out. His head swinging back and forth. He churns into the hole, jostling Ricochet on his left and Reno on his right. He keeps his feet, keeps his twenty-foot stride, with Angel Dнaz crouched over his neck, both of them buffeted by more than a ton of full-gallop horse. Still no whip. And then he is through the hole, his feet under him, and in the lead. He is widening the lead as he crosses the finish, looking as if he'd be perfectly happy to run that way back to Lamarr if anyone asked him to. Everyone is cheering, except of course for the Security South hard guys sitting behind me. They only cheered at executions.
'My God,' Susan said.
'Pretty good horse,' I said.
Penny was on her feet, Delroy behind her.
'Where to?' I said.
She flashed me the not quite as fabulous smile.
'Winner's Circle,' she said.
'Congratulations,' I said. 'We need to talk.'
'I can't now. Tomorrow, breakfast at the Reading Room, eight o'clock.'
'See you there.'
