“How are you going to win tomorrow?” I said. “The price’ll be a joke.”
“The price on who?” says Mercer.
“Only One,” I said.
He give a silly laugh and didn’t say nothing for a minute. Then he asked if Daley done the betting for I and the two gals. I told him he had did it at first, but now I was doing it.
“Well,” he says, “you do it tomorrow, see? That little lady called me a jailbird, but I don’t want her to lose her money.”
So I asked him what he meant and he asked me for the tenth or eleventh time if I could keep a secret. He made me hold up my hand and swear I wouldn’t crack what he was going to tell me.
“Now,” he says, “what’s the name of the horse I’m riding tomorrow?”
“Only One,” I said.
“That ain’t all of it,” said Mercer. “His name tomorrow is Only One Left. See? Only One Left.”
“Do you mean he’s going to get left at the post?” I says.
“You’re a Ouija board!” says Mercer. “Your name is Ouija and the horse’s name is Only One Left. And listen,” he says. “Everything but three horses is going to be scratched out of this race and we’ll open at about 1 to 3 and back up to 1 to 5. And Daley’s going to bet his right eye. But they’s a horse in the race named Sap and that’s the horse my two thousand smackers is going down on. And you’re a sap, too, if you don’t string along with me.”
“Suppose you can’t hold Only One?”
“Get the name right,” said Mercer. “Only One Left. And don’t worry about me not handling him. He thinks I’m Billy Sunday and everything I say he believes. Do you remember the other day when I beat Streak of Lightning? Well, the way I done that was whispering in One’s ear, coming down the stretch. I says to him, ‘One,’ I says, ‘this Lightning hoss has been spilling it round that your father’s grandmother was a zebra. Make a bum out of him!’ That’s what I whispered to him and he got sore and went past Lightning like he was standing still. And tomorrow, just before we’re supposed to go, I’ll say to him, ‘One, we’re back at Jamaica. You’re facing the wrong way.’ And when Sap and the other dog starts, we’ll be headed towards Rhode Island and in no hurry to get there.”
“Mercer,” I said, “I don’t suppose they’s any use talking to you, but after all, you’re under contract to give Daley the best you’ve got and it don’t look to me just like you was treating him square.”
“Listen!” he says. “Him and square don’t rhyme. And besides, I won’t be under contract to nobody by this time tomorrow. So you save your sermon for your own parish.”
I don’t know if you’ll think I done right or not. Or I don’t care. But what was the sense of me tipping off a guy that had said them sweet things about I and Ella? And even if I don’t want a sister-in-law of mine running round with a guy that’s got a jail record, still Daley squealing on him was rotten dope. And besides, I don’t never like to break a promise, especially to a guy that shoots a man’s toes off just for having St. Vitus’ dance.
Well, anyway, the third race was over and the Merrick Handicap was next, and just like Mercer had said, they all quit but our horse and Sap and a ten-ton truck named Honor Bright. He was 20 to 1 and Sap was 6. Only One was 1 to 3 and Daley hopped on him with fifteen thousand men. Before post time the price was 1 to 5 and 1 to 6.
Daley was off his nut all afternoon and didn’t object when I said I’d place the gals’ money and save him the trouble. Kate and Ella had figured out what they had win up to date. It was about $1,200 and Daley told them to bet it all.
“You’ll only make $400 between you,” he says, “but it’s a cinch.”
“And four hundred’s pretty good interest on $1,200,” says Kate. “About ten percent, ain’t it?”
I left them and went downstairs. I wrote out a card for a hundred smackers on Sap. Then my feet caught cold and I didn’t turn it in. I walked down towards the paddock and got there just as the boys was getting ready to parade. I seen Mercer and you wouldn’t of never knew he’d fell off the wagon.
Daley was down there, too, and I heard him say: “Well, Sid, how about you?”
“Never better,” says Mercer. “If I don’t win this one I’ll quit riding.”
Then he seen me and smiled.
I chased back to the clubhouse, making up my mind on the way. I decided to not bet a nickel for the gals on anything. If Mercer was crossing me, I’d give Ella and Kate their $400 like they had win it, and say nothing. Personally, I was going to turn in the card I’d wrote on Sap. That was my idear when I got to Joe Meyer. But all of a sudden I had the hunch that Mercer was going through; they wasn’t a chance in the world for him to weaken. I left Meyer’s stand and
