Miami came over and Dino said loudly, “They want us to come back another day. I’m telling him she won today. Today was the Derby, and we want to be paid. Today. Now!”
Miami looked at the manager and asked him, “Who is in charge? I want to see him now.”
“Si, señor, un momento….”
He was gone for five minutes, then ten. Dino looked at Miami and said, “I don’t like this. The place is getting too quiet now. How can they not pay us?”
Finally, the older man returned with the handsome younger man who looked like a Mexican version of Elvis. Four security guards came into view, with rifles shouldered on their backs. The younger man spoke, “There is no problem, señors. But you must come back another day to collect. We are not prepared today for such a thing.”
“You were damn well prepared to take our money. You should be damn well prepared to pay the winners!” Dino shouted as he put his face within six inches of the lead guard’s face. The other security guards moved closer to the gamblers.
“Leave him alone! When should we come back?” Miami asked.
“Posiblemente mañana. Call us first,” said Mexican Elvis.
Miami looked at Dino and said, “Let’s go. We are bringing Big Bernie with us. We can’t leave him here.”
“How can we fit him in your car?”
“I don’t know, put him on your lap, I don’t care. We can’t leave him here with these liars! I am so fucking pissed! You can’t take our gambling money and not pay us. Man, that’s against the gamblers’ code. They know that. Fuck them.”
They walked over to Big Bernie and said, “They won’t pay us today. We have to leave…now…fast…let’s go. Let’s go. I don’t trust them. You have to come with us…don’t take a cab, Bernie. It’s not safe! Let’s go! Now!”
Big Bernie looked at Miami and held up both his palms to the sky. “What do we do now, Miami?”
Miami pointed in the direction they had to run.
They jogged off the betting floor, down the stairs of the grand old racetrack. Dino was dragging the empty suitcase, and Big Bernie was struggling to keep up. They heard the loud heavy footsteps of several security guards now rushing to catch up to them on the stairs. On the lower floor, more guards were watching them while talking on their radios. Miami looked back and saw that two of the four guards seen at the cashiers’ windows were now following them.
They slowed the pace and Miami took his chance to say to Dino in a low voice, “We have $250,000 worth of winning tickets on us, plus Bernie’s $250,000 ticket. We can’t let these guards anywhere near us…they’ll steal the tickets. Run!”
Big Bernie was now moving faster as they sprinted down the marble lined floors, out the main entrance doors, to the Z. Miami jumped in and fired up the turbo engine. Big Bernie stopped, saw two small seats, and looked at Dino.
Dino yelled, “This isn’t going to work. Miami! Put the top down.”
Miami got out to take the convertible hardtop roof off and store it in the back. He tossed the white suitcase out and left it in the parking lot.
Big Bernie squeezed his huge frame into the small car, tried to put on the seat belt, but it wouldn’t fit over him. Dino leaped into his lap; his head was sticking one foot over the roof line of the convertible. “Let’s roll!” Dino yelled.
Miami got in, put on his seat belt and his fingerless leather racing gloves, checked his rear-view mirror, saw the guards coming toward the car, and hit the throttle hard. The turbo boost kicked in at 20 mph, and Miami hit 60 before he exited the parking lot, while driving over the curb. He raced up the avenue toward the US border. Over the wind noise in the convertible, Miami yelled, “Is anyone following us? Keep looking. I need to know if you see anyone following us between here and the border. These fuckers are not catching me!”
Miami was driving like it was the last lap at a Formula 1 race, weaving through and around slow-moving cars and the noisy, lumbering trucks. When he got to a red light, he merely slowed, then hit the gas, and ran the light. He hit the main avenue, Paseo de los Héroes, at 93 mph as he looked over and saw Dino’s face getting pummeled by the air flow. Miami saw that Big Bernie’s eyes were bulging, but…he was smiling.
“Man…I love you guys!” Big Bernie yelled. “I’ll never forget this day…ever…!”
Big Bernie was dropped off at his car where it was parked just across the border. The drive back to Los Angeles for Miami and Dino was done mostly in silence. Bernie agreed to call later and meet Miami and Dino the next morning at nine a.m. for a Sunday breakfast at the café.
Amalia and Ava joined the three of them at the breakfast. They all looked ragged from the adventure and a lousy night’s sleep, but the women looked great, ready for a day together at the beach.
It was time to brainstorm. They needed a plan to collect the money. It was agreed that $1,000,000 in cash was too much cash to risk. Big Bernie wanted to stay with his plan and get a check cut to his Mexican attorney’s banking account. Big Bernie was still cash-flush from his Pick 6 score but did admit to Miami and Dino he had lost about $30,000 since then in the Santa Anita Pick 6 betting pools.
All three men were angry that the track’s owner had broken the code.
“You always pay your gambling debts first,” Miami told them. “I think this proves they are going out of business. If they didn’t pay us, then they didn’t pay maybe hundreds of other smaller bettors on Winning
