Studs Lonigan (107 page)

More women in the place than he'd imagined. They were certainly taking to the ponies, he thought with persisting surprise. Were they battered-down old whores? Most of them seemed like housewives, maybe mothers. Perhaps a lot of them were getting on to the change in life, and the ponies saved them from going nuts. Ma, there, smoking another cigarette, with dope sheets sticking out of her coat pockets, looked tough and hard, and still she looked like she might not seem out of place in a kitchen cooking noodle soup and feeding matzoth to a family of little Abies. And there was one, neat, slender, wearing a blue suit, and she couldn't be over thirty. Plenty of lads would turn around on the street to get a load of her, because she was an eye-opener, and he knew that he would, too, if he passed her on the street.

Sister, I wouldn't kick you out of bed, he silently told himself, watching her sit cross-legged on a folding chair, studying a dope sheet.

And the ponies had sure put the bug into her. She was nervous and squirmed her shoulders around, leaned forward, sank back, put her dope sheet aside, sat waiting, biting her finger-nails.

Sister, I know what you need, and need plenty bad, he told himself.

He stepped forward a few paces to get a better sight of her legs, wishing he could see more than she showed. She stared vacantly at him. He glanced aside. Had she noticed him, or was she just getting hot and bothered over the dough she put up on the race? He walked down from her and noticed a tall, well-dressed man with graying hair about the temples, who leaned confidently on a cane.

A telephone rang. Conversations lapsed instantly, and those about him seemed to stiffen up. Ma, perched in back of the chairs, carelessly shoved her papers into her pocket, lit a fresh cigarette from the butt of the old one, and bent a trifle forward, her face sternly set. The woman in blue placed her hands on the chair in front of her occupied by a pimpled, ratty-looking guy, and Studs was jealous. The fellow with the cane, who looked like some kind of a big shot, looked suddenly older than he had, with his lips compressed, his face intent.

“At the quarter, Good Luck, two lengths, Charcoal one length, Sweetheart running third,” Phil called out from the phone in stentorian tones.

“Hold ‘em! Hold 'em! Hold 'em!” the man with the cane mumbled, snapping his fingers.

Studs fastened his eyes on the woman in blue, and, snapping her fingers rapidly, she seemed like a wound-up spring ready to snap.

Sister, I know what can relax you, he told himself with a self-confident smirk.

“Come on! Come on! Come on!” Ma bleated, cracking her fingers.

“At the half, Charcoal half a length, Good Luck two lengths, Sweetheart running third . . .”

Studs wished he had dough on Good Luck. The excitement that was choking them all up seemed to be getting him, and while many kept stamping and tapping the floor, and straining themselves, and snapping their fingers, and pounding their fists together, he looked keenly around, a little bit lost.

“Come on! Come on!”

“Hold‘em! Hold'em!”

“Sweetheart be sweet.”

“Come on, Hot Pepper, get hot, get hot!”

“All right, Sweetheart Girl, keep comin', girl, keep comin', keep comin', girl!”

“Hurray!” a man half-yelled, leaping from his chair to stride rapidly to and fro.

They were all tightened up, all right, like they'd bust, he thought.

The seconds of the race seemed eternally long, and there they stewed, racketed, made faces. Most of them looked like they were ready to cry, start a fight or even go nuts.

“The winners . . .”

He could see, too, how many of them took it hard, couldn't lose with a smile like Studs Lonigan could, bum gamblers. From the sour pans they put on, a person might have thought that they had just lost their best friends or dropped a thousand bucks or more on the stock market, the way he had. Some of them should just know that, and then realize how they were taking the loss of a measly half buck or a dollar so hard.

“. . . Charcoal, Good Luck, Sweetheart third.”

Several hysterical cheers rose, died abruptly. Murmuring conversation broke over the room, the many voices drumming out like men talking to calm themselves after meeting sudden dangers. Studs searched out the woman in blue, and saw her glancing wildly and distraught from face to face. The winners were verified, and the winning list chalked on the blackboard. She rushed to it eagerly, with an extravagant hope blooming on her face, read, turned aside, watched the winning bettors clutter up to the counter. She went to a chair, sat, crossed her legs, studied her papers, her lips firm and tight.

Studs sauntered to a group around a scratch sheet on the wall.

“Well, Ma, how did you go?”

“I never complain, that's my policy. I have my system, and I play it, and it works all right for me,” Ma said, cigarette still drooping from her lips.

“I had a hunch to play Charcoal, but I've been balling myself all up with my system of handicapping, and like a chump I didn't have the nerve to play my hunch.”

“I never play hunches. That's not scientific. I play my system,” Ma said.

“Well, who you picking for the next at Bowie?”

“That's my business.”

“The next is a steeplechase. You can never pick 'em because anything is liable to happen in a jump race. The best horse in the country is liable to miss a hurdle and lose its rider. Now, last summer in a jump race at Saratoga, well, I had it doped for Equal Sugar to win. Every expert in the country, nearly, picked Equal Sugar. Well, I don't usually play the favorites, but I laid my ten bucks down on Equal Sugar because I was in the dough then. And you know, at the first jump Equal Sugar breaks a leg. It all goes to show, jump races are never certain.”

“Al's Pink Sheet picks Sir Canafe, and he's the consensus of the experts, too. And Al's Pink Sheet is pretty reliable. I've been following it now for a long time and it's given me some good pickings. Why, one day two months ago I bet on all Al's choices and I won twelve bucks. And the other night I didn't have nothing to do, so I checked back through a number of old copies of Al's Pink Sheet, and you know, he picked fifteen steeplechase winners over the period I checked through.”

“I tried all the dope sheets, and I finally found that Sunshine Sam's is the most reliable. He picks more winners than any of 'em, and he's good on the jump races, too. He picks Fielder's Choice.”

“I used to go by Sunshine Sam's dope, but it never did nothing but put my dough in a bookie's pocket.”

“Al's Pink Sheet never won me anything but grief.”

The door kept opening, admitting more and more newcomers. Studs moved around kind of wishing some lad he knew would happen in, keeping his eyes, all the time, peeled on the neat trick in blue, who, studying her dope sheet with her legs crossed, showed one leg a little above the knee.

“I wish I could have the luck I had four months ago. In one week I cleaned up a hundred bucks. Since then, I've had lots of luck, but it's all been bad. You know, I made a pickup I met at the Bourbon Palace, and the bitch dosed me. And then, goddamn it, before I knew that, I made the grade with my girl. So now I got a doctor's bill on my hands, and my girl won't speak to me, either. She'll only send me the bill. Lots of luck, and all lousy.”

“How about a job?”

“Well, I could work with my old man, only, hell, if I can have another lucky streak on the ponies, why I can clean up more here in a day than working a week for him. And I know a lad, Buddy Coen's brother, who gets tips on the races. I was supposed to see him today, but I missed him. Just my goddamn luck. But maybe I'll get the breaks again.”

“Say, how does this horse Sugar Candy stack up in the next?” Studs asked a fellow in a talkative group.

“Whenever he travels in fast company, his name is Also-Ran,” Ma, still smoking, dryly said.

“There's three-to-one on him, and the way I look at it, you might as well take the odds, because anyway, you never can be certain about a jump race.”

“Don't play Sir Canafe.”

“Why?”

“Don't, I'm telling you.”

All those handicapping fools were a card. They knew everything wrong before a race, and everything right afterward. Detaching himself from the group, he strolled over to a scratch sheet and was attracted by the name of the fifth horse on the list, Hollow Tooth. Might as well lay a buck on the nag. It might win. He was low on dough, too, these days, because of his dates with Catherine and so little coming in, and a few bucks to swell the exchequer wouldn't hit him in the wrong spot. Might as well take the chance.

He laid a dollar on Hollow Tooth at the counter cage, and received a numbered card with the odds, two and half to win; scrawled in a comer. He stepped back from the counter, hoping the race would start. Suppose he had beginner's luck, pyramided his winnings, cleaned up twenty-five bucks, fifty, hundred, maybe, say, two hundred. Wouldn't that be hard to take! And he might. He wanted the race to begin, with Hollow Tooth starting him off on a real streak of luck.

The woman in blue marched to the counter with an air of desperation. He saw she was short, but all put together in just about as neat a bundle as a guy could expect to pick up. He wondered how it would be like making her? She had all the makings of a nice steady piece on the side. And, hell, if she hung out at a joint like this, she oughtn't to be so innocent or dumb. Looked to him like the kind who said all right, daddy, if you just touched her and cracked out with a how about it, baby.

Still coming in. Easy a hundred and fifty people in the joint. All good news for Phil. He wished he was in on a good racket like this and had the money rolling down the alley to him every day as Phil had, a racket that gave him a kind of prestige, too. Lots of people were getting to know who Phil Rolfe was, envying him.

“All I say is you can never be certain on a jump race. . . .”

“Last call. . .”

He watched the final rush to bet. Then the phone rang. The same stiffening up. Hoped he would win. Tapping their feet, snapping their fingers, calling out, looking intensely with nothing else on their minds but the race and would they win. And Phil's voice, Hollow Tooth in the lead, come on, Hollow Tooth. He wanted to shout out, too, come on, Hollow Tooth, and he kind of knew now how they felt, come on, Hollow Tooth, come on, boy. Hollow Tooth still, the second lap, now step along, boy, step along. He was tapping his foot, too, it was like a contagion, Hollow Tooth, come on.

They were so tense in the room that an explosion seemed imminent, as if all the excitement and strain on their faces and in their heads would burst like bombs, shattering the walls and the building with a loud, crashing thunder. And he was the same way. He gripped a chair, his foot tapped, he held himself in as if afraid to breathe, and Hollow Tooth in the lead still . . .

“The winners . . . Hollow Tooth . . .”

He smiled with gratitude. His shoulders sagged. He stamped anxiously forward to the counter, smiles cracking on his face, and waited for the verification and pay-offs, hearing a happy babel of talk all around him.

“Any luck?” Ma asked him, again talking without removing the cigarette from her mouth.

“I got the winner.”

“My system didn't work out that time. It just goes to show that no system is water-proof perfect. But there's more races, and my system is calculated for the long run, and while there's wins and losses, the wins are more than the losses.”

“You had the winner?” the woman in blue asked, her voice surprisingly deep and husky, a tough broad's voice, all right, he decided.

“Yes. How about yourself?” he asked, thinking here was his opportunity to dent the ice.

“I never have any goddamn luck,” she said disconsolately.

“Maybe the next one will bring home the bacon for you,” he said, thinking, hoping, that she'd be easy.

“It better be.”

“Who you picking for the next one?” he asked to keep the talk rolling.

“I got to sit down and figure that out now,” she said, turning from him.

He collected and pocketed his pay-off, turned away from the crowded counter, saw her laboring over her papers, chewing a pencil as she worked. He decided that she was just what he needed to change his luck.

“How's it going, Studs?” Phil asked, nonchalantly lighting a corktipped cigarette, standing with Studs in a comer by the blackboard, while many moved and swirled about them in the let-down between races.

“Oh, it's all right.”

“It's turning out to be a pretty good day for us. Some, you know, are better than others, and Saturday's the big day, but I can't complain about today. But after I get this all overhauled, I'm going to raise the intake plenty.”

“Say, Phil, do many of these people come every day?”

“Plenty. Like one woman they call Ma. Did you notice her? She's a real character.”

“Funny duck, isn't she?”

“Yes,” Phil said, smiling and lowering his voice, “you see all different types in a place like this. It's a great place to study human nature. Some of them who come do it just for the fun of betting a dollar or two. And then others are just gambling fools. Many of the women, it seems, started coming here to pick up a little extra dough because of hard times, less dough coming in from the husband's pay envelope and things like that. But they take it up like a fever, and they become fiends at it. But then, it all goes to help business along.”

“See that good-looking dame in the blue suit, on the chair, handicapping with all those papers and dope sheets? How about her?”