Kathy Hogan Trocheck - Truman Kicklighter 01 - Lickety-Split (26 page)

“Dr. Mandelbaum promised me,” she said. “He promised he would never touch my switchboard.”

The lineman set his metal toolbox on the floor with a loud thud. “Listen, lady,” he said. “I got a work order right here. It says we put in a new BelTron 2000 system, call waiting, auto answer, auto dial, you name it. That thing you got is a dinosaur. It goes.”

Tammi and Wade picked their way gingerly through the debris in the lobby and into the coffee shop, where the campaign had yet to advance.

They took a table close to the door and ordered coffee and cherry pie from a thin, horse-faced girl with a ponytail and thick ankles.

“The old guy’s not here,” Tammi said after searching the room. “I saw him at the nursing home, when he went to visit his buddy. He’s skinny, maybe five-six, got funny-looking red hair.”

“Is that the girl?” Wade asked in a low voice, nodding toward the back of their departing waitress.

“No,” Tammi said, her eyes sweeping the coffee shop, looking for the young woman who’d accompanied Truman to the track. She spied Jackleen coming through the swinging doors of the kitchen, a pot of coffee in her hand.

“That’s her,” she said, lowering her head. “Don’t stare.”

Wade averted his eyes. For the next thirty minutes the two of them sipped coffee and nibbled pie and watched while Jackie buzzed about from table to table, most of them filled with elderly women.

“Let’s go,” Tammi said finally. “We can come back around six. They’ve missed the matinee. If they’re going at all, it will be tonight.”

“You’ve got the charts?’ Jackleen asked anxiously. “You’re sure?”

Truman patted the pocket of his tan windbreaker. “Right in here. How much money did you bring?”

Jackleen gulped. “One hundred and sixty dollars. All my tip money, plus a little bit I had stashed away for some new work shoes.”

He looked around to see who might be listening in. Only half a dozen people were scattered about in the lounge. They’d gotten to the track early, claimed a seat in the fourth-floor lounge, and ordered beers.

“Four hundred bucks,” he whispered. “My rent money.”

“No!” Jackie said, her face registering her alarm. “You can’t be gambling your rent money, Mr. K. What happens if we lose?”

He shrugged. “You’ve seen what they’re doing to the hotel. These church bums could throw us out in the street any minute if they want to.”

Truman opened the race program and laid it out on the table next to one of Rosie’s charts.

The program print was tiny, nearly illegible. He ran his fingers across the columns in it. “Look,” he said, jabbing his finger at a line of print “This is for finishes: how many times the dog has finished in the money. The computer chart has something labeled F, maybe that’s what it stands for.”

Jackie leaned over and stared at Rosie’s chart. “This all might as well be a foreign language. Martian, maybe. I just don’t see how you can decide what dog can win based on all these numbers.”

Truman was looking idly around the room, waiting for Jackie to calm down. A woman entered the lounge, sat down at the bar, and started chatting with the bartender. Her auburn hair shone in the dim light.

“Maybe she does bring luck,” Truman said.

“Who?”

“Rosie’s friend. Marian.”

She was sipping a glass of iced tea and smoking a cigarette. The blond bartender was the same one Truman remembered from the last time.

He sat down beside her. “Remember me?”

She narrowed her eyes. “Oh yeah. Dick Tracy. You still looking for clues?”

“We found one,” Truman said. “But we could use some help. Could I interest you in a business proposition?”

“It’s my night off,” she said, shrugging.

She brought the iced tea and the ashtray to the table. Jackie smiled brighdy at her and gave her the charts.

“Well, well. Rosie’s sysem.” Marian ran a practiced finger down the columns of the first chart. “Looks good.” She read in silence for a moment, turning the pages, studying the grids.

“Rosie knew breeding,” she said, taking a puff of her cigarette. “She weights the charts that way. She knew the trainers and kennel people too.”

“We don’t know how to fill in the blanks on the charts,” Jackie said meekly.

“I do,” Marian said.

Her pencil flew over the stack of papers, scratching out numbers, adding and subtracting for differing variables. A cloud of smoke hung over the table. “Too bad we don’t have a laptop,” she said, not looking up from her calculations. “My math’s lousy.”

At one point she chuckled softly to herself. “Old Rosie liked the big black dog, all right.”

“What’s that?” Jackie asked.

“Breeding theory. Mostly only old-timers believed in it, but Rosie could be old-fashioned like that. The idea was, a male black dog has an edge over other dogs. Especially a big one. Black dogs are dominant, so the theory goes, and more likely to be lead dog in the pack. In a race, the other dogs will get out of the way and let the lead dog run.”

Jackleen’s eyes widened. “For real?”

“That’s what some people think. Rosie thought so.”

Truman picked up his program and looked at the listings for the first race. “Here’s one, Smoochie Boy, black, male, weighs seventy-seven pounds. What’s the chart say?”

Marian studied her notes. “That’s the eight dog? Just using the basics of her system, I’d say the eight dog’s good at least to place.”

She did some quick calculations. “Quinella box seven-eight-three. You’re gonna play the daily double, right?”

“What’s that?” Jackie asked.

“That’s where you pick the winners in the first and second races and you bet both before the first race,” Truman said.

“There’s a dog in the second race, Cavalier Cad, number seven, charts out good, according to Rosie, and it’s a long shot too, eight to one odds. Let’s do a seven-one- three box,” Marian suggested.

Truman raised an eyebrow. “You sure?”

Earlier he had brushed aside Jackie’s worries about risking too much. Now, when it came time to put his money down, he felt a rush of misgiving.

“It’s Rosie’s call,” Marian said, shrugging.

The tourist wore baggy white jeans that hung from his hips and a loud flowered shirt. He walked casually by Truman’s table, then quickly back to a table in the corner.

“They got it,” he announced.

Tammi pushed her sunglasses down on her nose. “You sure?”

“They’re my charts,” he said. “The ones we did for the first night. They had to have the disk to print them out. They’ve got my fuckin’ charts,” he said with gritted teeth.

“Shut up,” Tammi said. “Look—the old guy’s going up to make his bets. Get in line behind him, see what he bets. Bet the same.”

“I thought we were gonna get the disk away from him,” Wade complained. “It’s mine. I want it back. The Festival of States race is this Saturday. It’s the biggest betting pool of the season. I gotta have it by then. Besides, they got the charts, but they don’t mean a thing unless you’re a handicapper. Rosie used her own codes. No way a couple of neophytes like those two know what they’re doing. Besides, I got my own picks.”

“You really are an idiot, you know that, Wade? See that woman there with them? She must be telling them how it works.”

“That Marian? So what?” Wade said indignantly. “She sells tickets. That’s all. They’re my charts.”

“Forget it,” Tammi said, getting up. “I’ll do it myself.”

She arrived at the betting window just in time to see Truman collect his tickets and walk off.

Tammi took the glasses off and smiled engagingly at the cashier.

“I’ll bet what that gentleman who just left bet.”

The cashier shook his head. “Can’t do it,” he said. “Against the rules.”

She pushed a ten-dollar bill across the counter toward him. “It’ll be our secret.”

The cashier took his thumb and forefinger and flicked the bill back at her. It fluttered in the air and landed on the floor at her feet.

“You have a bet to make?” he asked. “I’ve got customers waiting.”

Tammi gave him a venomous look. “I’ll remember you.”

“You do that,” he replied.

She stepped away from the window and looked around in time to see Wade walking away from another ticket seller. The bell announcing post time rang before she could call out to him.

Wade was pouring himself another beer from the pitcher when she got to the table. Betting slips poked out from the breast pocket of the shirt. She felt herself fill with sudden, white-hot rage.

“Next time I tell you to do something, you do it,” she said savagely. “Or you won’t have to worry about Butch and Curtis. Because I’ll personally take care of you.”

He took a long gulp of beer. “Okay. No big deal.”

Another bell rang. The lead-outs put the greyhounds in their starting boxes and scrambled off the track. The mechanical rabbit went whizzing by and seconds later the dogs burst from the start in a flash of color and noise.

Tammi wasn’t watching the dogs. She was watching the three figures at the table across the room.

“Look at Smoochie Boy,” Marian said. “Did you see the way he exploded from that turn?”

Truman’s eyes were glued to the track, and to the big black lead dog. He’d bet the 7-8-3 as she’d suggested. He and Jackleen had decided to pool their funds, with Truman matching her hundred and sixty dollars.

“Put the rest of that rent money away,” Jackleen begged. “If they bounce you out of the Fountain of Youth, you ain’t coming to stay with me.”

At the betting window he’d put twenty-four dollars of their money on each of the first two races, and then, he’d pulled a crisp twenty-dollar bill from his hip pocket and bet an 8-7 perfecta.

Now the dogs were coming down the straightaway. Truman’s concentration wavered for a moment. The eight dog had led the whole way, with the three dog, Who’s Voodoo, in a white blanket, only inches behind, on the inside rail. Truman was looking for the seven dog. Where was the green and white blanket?

“Bayou Gal,” Jackie screamed, pumping the air with her fist and hopping up and down.

“Is that the seven?” Truman asked.

“Right there,” Marian said, pointing. “She came out slow, but she’s gaining, see her coming up on the outside?”

Truman looked where she pointed. Bayou Gal, a sleek brindle female, was inching her way up the pack. But there were still two more dogs between her and Who’s Voodoo.

“Watch her,” Marian said. “Look what she’s doing.” With only yards to go before the finish, Bayou Gal poured on the speed, moved inside and, at the last possible moment, thrust her neck forward in a desperate rush to the finish.

“My God,” Truman said, stunned. “We won.”

He looked up at the tote board to be sure. The lighted numbers blanked out for a moment, then flickered on again. Win: eight. Place: seven. Show: three.

Marian smiled serenely. “Not bad.”

Truman looked around for Jackleen. She had her head down on the table with her hands covering her ears. He reached over and pried the hands away. “It’s all over,” he said gravely.

“It is?” Her face fell.

“We won,” Truman shouted. “By God, we won.”

Jackleen looked from Truman, to Marian, to the tote board.

^u
We won!” she screeched.

Truman looked at the tote board. “We won two hundred and eight dollars,” he said, grabbing Jackleen’s arm. “See that?”

“Good old Rosie,” Marian said.

The lead-outs brought eight more dogs onto the track to parade past the crowd.

“What are our numbers?” Jackie asked. “I want to see what our dogs look like.”

Marian put on a pair of bifocals and started working the charts again. “Can somebody get me another iced tea?”

They developed a routine. Each race Truman made the bets while Jackie went for more iced tea and beer. During the race, Jackie kept her eyes shut. They put their winnings in an empty potato chip basket in the middle of the table.

“Don’t tell me how much we’ve won,” Jackie begged. “I can’t stand it.”

Truman pointed to the overflowing basket. “Would have been more if that damned K’s Infidel had come out of the box like he was supposed to in the sixth.”

Marian looked guilty. “We only missed the seventh by a hair. If it hadn’t been for the photo finish, we would have cleaned up. And I don’t know what happened to Palooka Joe in the ninth.”

She stole a quick look at her watch. “Sorry, folks,” she sighed. “I’ve got to go. My mother takes her medicine at ten and she forgets if I’m not there.”

“We better go too,” Truman said. “Quit while we’re ahead.”

Jackie looked disappointed. “All right,” she said.

Truman counted the money, putting it in three stacks. He pushed one stack toward Marian.

“Poor old Rosie,” Marian said, smiling sadly. “She was never this lucky when she was alive.” Her eyes met Truman’s. “What will you do with the computer disk?”