3
The Big A opened in 1894. Many horseplayers called it the Big H, for heaven, especially on sunny days when the breeze lofted an aromatic blend of hay, freshly mowed grass, and horses into the sweeping, twin-tiered grandstand.
Charlie had spent a good part of the past ten years in the grandstand but developed no such sentiments. He thought of the ancient colossus as the weight of one more stubbly guy in a stained shirt away from collapse-when he thought about it at all. His focus was almost always on the races or the goings-on before and after: happy snorts, dragging hooves, extra steps. While stubbly guys all around him were crumpling tickets from the race that had just ended and muttering about their luck, he drank up clues.
A few months ago, he had noticed a colt take an extra step on the way to the stalls, avoiding a puddle. He read it as aversion to water and filed it away until six weeks afterward, when it was raining in Louisville, the Downs were mud, and the same colt was favored-the exact scenario Charlie had gotten out of bed hoping for every day in the preceding six weeks. Betting the consensus second pick netted him a sporty new Volvo, which was almost as exhilarating as the twentieth of a second during which the horse crossed the wire.
In a race last weekend at Gulfstream, with five horses already finished, Great Aunt Edith was lumbering behind by too many lengths to count. As usual. Charlie had already lost a hundred on the bay who finished fourth. Everyone else at the Big A viewing the simulcast, holding suddenly worthless tickets too, went into crumple-and- mutter mode. Charlie watched the entire race, as always.
With an eighth to go, he was rewarded by the sight of Great Aunt Edith’s abrupt and unprecedented transformation into a locomotive. He smelled a rare ruse known as “hiding form,” in which a horse racks up a record as a plodder but secretly is a bullet in workouts watched only by his owner and trainer. They intentionally hold him back in races with the objective of a betting bonanza the day they finally let him loose.
There was no better time to come out of hiding than the day after Christmas, when the betting pool was fattened by a grandstand packed with first timers and other fish who always pick the favorite. If Edith’s people had such designs, her jockey would air it out in today’s workout, and he could do so without the usual security precautions because Aqueduct was closed on Christmas.
Practically swollen with anticipation, Charlie hit the buzzer outside Aqueduct’s administrative offices. His friend Mickey Ramirez appeared at the door. Mickey worked security here because, like most everyone else who worked at the track, he liked the horses too much. Otherwise he would have still been a successful private investigator in Manhattan. He was forty-two, of average height, and, because the refreshment stand eased the pain of bad bets, nearing three hundred pounds. His single attractive feature-thick and satiny black hair, worn long- emphasized the defects of the rest. His default setting-gloomy-worsened at the sight of Charlie now.
“You can’t come in,” he said through the glass.
“Happy Christmas back at you,” Charlie said, unruffled.
“So you know it’s Christmas?”
“No, I say that every day, just in case.”
“You do know it’s the one day of the year tracks are closed, right?”
“I didn’t want you to have to spend it alone, old friend. Also, by the by, I want to see the workouts.”
“It’d be my ass if I let you in, man. You know that.”
“I know, I know, but here’s the thing: I’ve had a run of rotten luck lately-”
“Don’t get me started on hard-luck stories.”
“-and I’m into Grudzev for twenty-three G’s.”
Mickey softened. “Shit.”
Charlie breathed some warmth back into his hands. “Assuming Phil at the pawnshop has the holiday spirit, I’m short by north of fifteen. If I don’t have it by tomorrow night, Grudzev’s going to fill a cup with sand.”
“And make you drink it?”
“Why would I care if he’s just filling a cup with sand?”
“That could kill you, couldn’t it?”
“Either way, it’s a decent threat, don’t you think?”
“Fuck, borrowing from a dude like that-what were you thinking?”
Charlie felt foolish. “That the horse was going to win,” he said. He could have cited several times that Mickey had been in a similar predicament. Once he not only bailed Mickey out, he paid his rent. Which, come to think of it, he’d never gotten back.
“I hear you, man,” Mickey said. He opened the door a crack but didn’t move to let Charlie in. “You’ll cut me in, yeah?”
This meant Mickey would allow Charlie inside if, in return, he related anything he saw that might affect the outcome of a race. Charlie bristled at the notion. For him, the thrill of winning was being right when everyone else was wrong. Where in the world but the track can a person get that? The thrill was diluted when other handicappers copied his homework; for the same reason, he was loath to bet based on another horseplayer’s tip, even if it were to come by way of the horse’s mouth.
“Cutting in” had a cost too. Odds at the track aren’t set by the house, like at casinos, but rather by the money bet per horse-the more bet, the lower the odds. By cutting someone in, Charlie was lowering the odds on his pick, which was tantamount to giving away his own money, which was tantamount to nuts.
He thought of it simply as the price of admission today. Mickey could blab to everyone in his wide ring of tip traders, and still Great Aunt Edith would pay ten to one, more than enough for Charlie to pay off Grudzev and-what the hell-give him a Christmas bonus.
There were train compartments bigger than Mickey’s office. Charlie huddled with him by a monitor that showed a skewed, gray-green security camera feed of Great Aunt Edith’s supposedly private workout. The filly was running even slower than usual, like she resented having to work on the holiday. Charlie came to the nauseating conclusion that Gulfstream had been a fluke.
Mickey turned to him and asked, “What do you care about Edith for anyhow? I wouldn’t bet her if she was the only horse in the race.”
A jolt of excitement deprived Charlie of the ability to reply. The filly had accelerated to the point that a bullet would have had difficulty keeping pace.
4
“My name is John Lewis,” the man said with certainty. He’d been just as certain a minute ago that he was Bill Peterson.
“Do you know where you live?” Helen asked.
The man shrugged.
“Do you know where you are now?”
“Geneva?”
“The town in upstate New York?”
“Don’t know it.”
Despite two sweaters, social worker Helen Mayfield sat huddled against her tiny desk at Brooklyn’s Prospect Park Senior Outreach Center; at least the piles of folders full of lost causes provided a buffer against the draft. And the draft was no bother compared to the square dance class. The wall between her office and the rec room was so thin, it felt like the dance caller was hollering directly into her ear.
Not unrelated was the migraine, like a railroad spike through the base of her skull and into her left eye. Then there was the pharmacy three blocks away, where she might obtain a remedy. Closed December 25, sure. But also today, December 26.
For St. Stephen’s Day!
She could help the man sitting at her desk, though. So everything else was relegated to minor
