Miami and Dino turned back to Amalia and Ava who were chatting together. The two women were becoming good friends despite coming from different backgrounds. Ava used her hands, gesturing frequently in speaking, while Amalia sat rock still with perfect straight posture and her hands always at her sides or in her lap.
Miami suggested desserts of chocolate soufflé and the girls smiled in approval. After the bottle of champagne, another of chardonnay, and stuffed from two shared desserts, Miami and Dino paid the check.
Dino commented, “If Winning Colors wins the Derby we can almost afford to pay for this dinner.”
April 10, 1988, Santa Anita Racetrack, California
At the track on the next day, a Sunday, it didn’t take long for Miami to find Big Bernie in the lower clubhouse, alone, eating a carved corned beef sandwich covered in mayonnaise and drinking a Diet Coke, at a stand-up table under a track TV monitor. Forty-one-year-old Big Bernie was wearing a white silk shirt that was way too big for him. A tall man, at six-foot-four, Big Bernie also had a big personality. He wasn’t bad looking despite his girth; he was just huge, even while standing next to another big guy like Miami.
Big Bernie’s face lit up when he saw his friend. He gave Miami a man hug that nearly crushed the breath out of him. “Miami, my man! You need a loan? Need some help picking a winner? Where’s your girlfriend…Dino?” Big Bernie’s laugh at his own joke boomed through the clubhouse.
“No Bernie, I don’t need a loan. We are going to win our future book bets on Winning Colors.”
Big Bernie suddenly got quiet and looked Miami in the eye. “Who told you? Shit, it was Twenty Percent Tim. I knew it. That scumbag.”
“He didn’t tell me. I figured it out. Look, big guy, it wasn’t hard. Which regular track guy do we know who: A) recently had a big score at the betting windows and B) has the balls to bet 20 large on anything? Everyone knows you hit for $200,000 on that Hollywood Park Pick 6…and, Big Bernie…everything about you…is, well…big. I figured it out pretty easy.”
Miami opened up to Big Bernie. “We have 5K on her at Agua Caliente. We bet it before she lost to Goodbye Halo, and we got down on her at 50-1. That’s $250,000 to us if she hits. It’s not shit compared to what you got riding on her, big guy. But…there are some problems about cashing out in Mexico. Like will they pay us or not?”
Big Bernie lowered his voice and said, “I don’t want to talk about it here. Take me out to dinner and I’ll tell you my plan to get paid. And, bring a nice girl for me, Miami. You know all the ladies, man.”
“Meet me at the Warehouse Restaurant in Marina del Rey on Monday night at 8:00 p.m.,” was Miami’s reply.
Miami picked the Warehouse Restaurant in Marina del Rey because it had a great view of the boats, was 15 minutes from Hollywood Park racetrack, and even more because they served the strongest rum drinks on the planet. He didn’t know exactly how many drinks it would take to get a guy the size of Big Bernie loaded, but this place knew how to make a damn good mai tai for sure.
When Miami got there, the song by Kenny Loggins, “Footloose,” was being piped into the speakers over the fake bridge, over the fake moat that led to the restaurant that was designed to look like a tropical paradise. Big Bernie was already sitting at the bar with a mai tai in hand, wearing a yellow sports coat and green tennis shoes. Big Bernie gave Miami another crushing bear hug. He signaled the bartender and said, “Get me another mai tai and one for my friend here, too.”
“Miami, where do you buy your clothes, man? You look like a big version of Don Johnson! Man, we got to do this more often dude. This is fun! Where are the girls?”
“We’ll worry about the girls later.”
Bernie looked disappointed, but for two hours they talked while eating sizzling pu pu platters of pork ribs and steak and fish dishes, with their glasses of ice, rum, and fruit juices always full.
“The big score on the $200,000 Pick 6 I hit really did change my life, and not just the money. Man, it made me be ahead of the track and the gambling game for my lifetime. The day I cashed that ticket was the best day in my life. It’s just so hard to get a big score like that home. It’s not like building a house brick by brick until you’re done. It’s more like…like a game of Jenga. The thing is so fragile and just when you’re almost going to cash it some damn thing can happen and it all falls, like your horse losses by a photo finish, or breaks bad. But the next week after my score, I was sad because I seriously thought about cashing out and quitting the game I love. I love the track like you do, Miami. I’m the happiest when I’m at the track. But it’s such a brutally tough game to win at. The house take is like 20 percent and it just grinds you down. The house gets like three or four times what the sports books take out in commission on betting sports.”
Big Bernie took a huge draw of his mai tai.
“But Miami, on the other hand, the gamblers at the track are mostly idiots. Like how
