A Stone's Throw, James Ziskin [best books to read for students .TXT] 📗

I believe. I wondered what the odds were that a random cashier, fifty-seven—as the number over his window identified him—would know him by name. Fadge managed to shrug off his embarrassment and placed his wagers, calling out number combinations and bet types.

“Forty bucks,” said number fifty-seven.

“Thanks, Bob.”

Fadge had bet forty dollars in a few seconds. I gulped. Shuffling through his betting slips, he asked me if I wanted to place a wager. I was positively green and begged off.

“What did you bet on anyway?” I asked.

He explained his strategy. Five two-dollar wagers on a horse named Sunstruck to win the first race, and six each to place and show on another named Will Dance, a long shot he thought might surprise. Then he “wheeled” (whatever that meant) Sunstruck along with three horses in the second race for another eighteen bucks of daily double bets.

“Come on,” he said. “Give it a try. I won’t make fun.”

I agreed but only on the condition that he back away and not listen as I wagered my meager all. Remembering Fadge’s horse from the first race, I screwed up my nerve, stepped up to window number fifty-seven, and asked Bob for two dollars to show on number two. Sunstruck. He nearly swallowed his cigarette.

“Two dollars to show on Sunstruck?” he repeated. I nodded. “You’re a regular bridge jumper,” he said and handed me the ticket.

What a bridge jumper was I had no idea. Rather than appear uninitiated, I pretended to be in the know and nodded coolly. I resolved to ask Fadge later what it meant.

Beaming with pride at having made my first-ever pari-mutuel bet, I found Fadge under the eaves of the betting shed, leaning against a post. He asked what I’d decided on, but I told him he’d have to wait for the result of the race.

“It’s not like a wish,” he said. “You can tell people what you bet.”

We headed toward the grandstand, passing the paddock on the way. There, horses were being paraded around an enclosure for the bettors to examine before each race. Owners, trainers, and jockeys mingled with the public while the mounts were saddled and inspected. As it was raining, the crowd was thin, with most spectators opting for the shelter of the grandstand and clubhouse.

We found a spot under an awning to watch the race. Even with the intermittent rain, I felt the excitement of the moment. The horses were magnificent, and the pageantry elegantly festive. The clubhouse brimmed with nineteenth-century charm, in spite of the cigar-chomping men in sweaty shirts and rumpled hats nearby on the grandstand side. I found the experience electric, made even more so by the secret knowledge that I had two big ones riding on some wonder horse named Sunstruck wearing the number two on his saddle cloth. And, shortly after 2:00 p.m.—a good omen, I thought—a bell rang, and the starting gate bolted open. My horse took a short while to get his head into the race, but by the quarter pole, he’d taken the lead. And to my utter disbelief, he held on the rest of the way to win by almost a length.

I threw my arms around Fadge, nearly strangling him. He strained to read the tote board to calculate odds or his winnings or who knows what, before flicking me to one side like a piece of lint. For a few heady moments, I understood how gambling might become an addiction. Winning was a thrill. Finally, once the result was posted as “official,” Fadge emerged from his trance, turned to me, and asked which horse I’d bet on.

“Sunstruck,” I announced, barely able to contain my joy.

“Great,” he said. “How much did you bet?”

I told him just two dollars, but he congratulated me all the same. “Nothing wrong with a two-dollar bet. I took it easy, too.”

Recalling his admonition against giving him lectures, I said nothing. Forty dollars hardly qualified as taking it easy in my book.

“Not bad for your first time,” he continued. “Beginner’s luck. And Sunstruck to win pays”—he glanced back at the tote board in the infield—“six dollars and ten cents. That includes your original two bucks. But still, you won four dollars and ten cents.”

“But I didn’t play him to win. I bet on him to show. How much do I win?”

Fadge shook his head as if he’d been slapped silly. “To show? But he was the heavy favorite.”

“I won, didn’t I? Now how much?”

He looked to the tote board again. “Congratulations,” he said at length. “You won your two dollars back. Plus thirty cents.”

“Oh.”

“A regular bridge jumper.”

CHAPTER THREE

In the end, the thrill of watching Sunstruck thunder across the finish line failed to hook me on gambling. The emotion expended and anxiety experienced, stacked up against the return on investment—thirty cents—didn’t appeal to me. After only one race, I knew that I lacked the heart of a plunger.

Fadge, on the other hand, was too engrossed in his own wagers to notice me. This was work for him, after all. He won the daily double, a two-seven combination, worth $38.90. But that, he informed me as he collected his winnings, was the payoff for a two-dollar bet. He’d wagered ten. That came to nearly two hundred dollars. Plus, he’d placed ten dollars on Sunstruck to win, which paid him another $30.50, so after two races, the smug son of a so-and-so was stuffing two hundred twenty some dollars into his pocket.

“You’re good luck to me,” he said. “Dinner’s on me tonight.”

This was too rich for my blood. I lacked the nerve to risk so much on an animal I couldn’t reason with. While Fadge finalized his strategy for the third race, I studied my thin little program. Disappointed by my paltry winnings, I was now more interested in the names of the horses. I amused myself with King Toots, Organ Grinder, Lincoln Center, and Dauntless Dick, though the mirth was short-lived. But then the name of one of