He was setting at a table all alone with a highball. It didn’t take no Craig Kennedy to figure out that it wasn’t his first one.
“Set down before I bat you down!” he says.
“Listen,” I says: “I wished you was champion of the world. You’d hold onto the title just long enough for me to reach over and sock you where most guys has a chin.”
“Set down!” he says. “It’s your wife I’m going to beat up, not you.”
“You ain’t going to beat up nobody’s wife or nobody’s husband,” I says, “and if you don’t cut out that line of gab you’ll soon be asking the nurse how you got there.”
“Set down and come clean with me,” he says. “Was your wife the one that told Daley about your sister-in-law and I?”
“If she did, what of it?” I says.
“I’m asking you, did she?” he says.
“No, she didn’t,” I said. “If somebody told him his driver told him. He seen you the other night.”
“Ernest!” he says. “Frank and Ernest! I’ll Ernest him right in the jaw!”
“You’re a fine matchmaker!” I says. “He could knock you for a row of flat tires. Why don’t you try and get mad at Dempsey?”
“Set down and have a drink,” says Mercer.
“I didn’t mean that about your wife. You and her has treated me all right. And your sister-in-law, too, even if she did give me the air. And called me a jailbird. But that’s all right. It’s Daley I’m after and it’s Daley I’m going to get.”
“Sweet chance!” I says. “What could you do to him?”
“Wait and see!” said Mercer, and smiled kind of silly.
“Listen,” I says. “Have you forgot that you’re supposed to ride Only One tomorrow?”
“Supposed to ride is right,” he says, and smiled again.
“Ain’t you going to ride him?” I said.
“You bet I am!” he says.
“Well, then,” I said, “you better call it a day and go home.”
“I’m over twenty-one,” he says, “and I’m going to set here and enjoy myself. But remember, I ain’t keeping you up.”
Well, they wasn’t nothing I could do only set there and wait for him to get stiff and then see him to his hotel. We had a drink and we had another and a couple more. Finally he opened up. I wished you could of heard him. It took him two hours to tell his story, and everything he said, he said it over and over and repeated it four and five times. And part of the time he talked so thick that I couldn’t hardly get him.
“Listen,” he says. “Can you keep a secret? Listen,” he says. “I’m going to take a chance with you on account of your sister-in-law. I loved that little gal. She’s give me the air, but that don’t make no difference; I loved that little gal and I don’t want her to lose no money. So I’m going to tell you a secret and if you don’t keep your clam shut I’ll roll you for a natural. In the first place,” he says, “how do you and Daley stack up?”
“That ain’t no secret,” I said. “I think he’s all right. He’s been a good friend of mine.”
“Oh,” says Mercer, “so he’s been a good friend of yours, has he? All right, then. I’m going to tell you a secret. Do you remember the day I met you and the gals in the car? Well, a couple of days later, Daley was feeling pretty good about something and he asked me how I liked his gal? So I told him she looked good. So he says, ‘I’m going to marry that gal,’ he says. He says, ‘She likes me and her sister and brother-in-law is encouraging it along,’ he says. ‘They know I’ve got a little money and they’re making a play for me. They’re a couple of rats and I’m the cheese. They’re going to make a meal off of me. They think they are,’ he says. ‘But the brother-in-law’s a smart Aleck that thinks he’s a wise cracker. He’d be a clown in a circus, only that’s work. And his wife’s fishing for a sucker with her sister for bait. Well, the gal’s a pip and I’m going to marry her,’ he says, ‘but as soon as we’re married, it’s goodbye, family-in-law! Me and them is going to be perfect strangers. They think they’ll have free board and lodging at my house,’ he says, ‘but they won’t get no meal unless they come to the back door for it, and when they feel sleepy they can make up a lower for themself on my cement porch.’ That’s the kind of a friend of yours this baby is,” says Mercer.
I didn’t say nothing and he went on.
“He’s your friend as long as he can use you,” he says. “He’s been my friend since I signed to ride for him, that is, up till he found out I was stealing his gal. Then he shot my chances for a bull’s-eye by telling her about a little trouble I had, five or six years ago. I and a girl went to a party down in Louisville and I seen another guy wink at her and I asked him what he meant by it and he said he had St. Vitus’ dance. So I pulled the iron and knocked off a couple of his toes, to cure him. I was in eleven months and that’s what Daley told Kate about. And of course he made her promise to not tell, but she wrote me a goodbye note and spilled it. That’s the kind of a pal he is.
“After I got out I worked for Bradley, and when Bradley turned me loose, he give me a $10,000 contract.”
“He told us twenty,” I said.
“Sure he did,” says Mercer. “He always talks double. When he gets up after a tough night, both his heads aches. And if
