High Stakes

by Dick Francis

  She grinned. ‘There isn’t much danger. All the alligators in Florida are a hundred miles away in the Everglades.’

  ‘Some alligators have two feet.’

  ‘Okay, then.’ She drove slowly southwards, the beginnings of a smile curling her mouth all the way. Outside her cousin’s house she put on the handbrake but left the engine running.

  ‘You’d better borrow this car to go back. Minty won’t mind.’

  ‘No, I’ll walk.’

  ‘You can’t. It’s all of four miles.’

  ‘I like seeing things close. Seeing how they’re made.’

  ‘You sure are nuts.’

  I switched off the engine, put my arm round her shoulders and kissed her the same way as at home, several times. She sighed deeply but not, it seemed, with boredom.

  I hired an Impala in the morning and drove down to Garden Island. A cleaner answered the door and showed me through to where Warren and Minty were in swim-suits, standing by the pool in January sunshine as warm as July back home.

  ‘Hi,’ said Minty in welcome. ‘Alexandra said to tell you she’ll be right back. She’s having her hair fixed.’

  The fixed hair, when it appeared, looked as smooth and shining as the girl underneath. A black-and-tan sleeveless cotton dress did marvellous things for her waist and stopped in plenty of time for the legs. I imagine appreciation was written large on my face because the wide smile broke out as soon as she saw me.

  We sat by the pool drinking cold fresh orange juice while Warren and Minty changed into street clothes. The day seemed an interlude, a holiday, to me, but not to the Barbos. Warren’s life, I came to realise, was along the lines of perpetual summer vacation interrupted by short spells in the office. Droves of sharp young men did the leg-work of selling dream retirement homes to elderly sun-seekers and Warren, the organiser, went to the races.

  Hialeah Turf Club was a sugar-icing racecourse, as pretty as lace. Miami might show areas of cracks and rust and sun-peeled poverty on its streets, but in the big green park in its suburb the lush life survived and seemingly flourished.

  Bright birds in cages beguiled visitors the length of the paddock, and a decorative pint-sized railway trundled around. Tons of ice cream added to weight problems and torn up Tote tickets fluttered to the ground like snow.

  The racing itself that day was moderate, which didn’t prevent me losing my bets. Allie said it served me right, gambling was a nasty habit on a par with jumping off cliffs.

  ‘And look where it’s got you,’ she pointed out.

  ‘Where?’

  ‘In Ganser Mays’ clutches.’

  ‘Not any more.’

  ‘Which came first,’ she said, ‘the gamble or the race?’

  ‘All life’s a gamble. The fastest sperm fertilizes the egg.’

  She laughed. ‘Tell that to the chickens.’

  It was the sort of day when nonsense made sense. Minty and Warren met relays of drinking pals and left us much alone, which suited me fine, and at the end of the racing programme we sat high up on the stands looking over the course while the sunlight died to yellow and pink and scarlet. Drifts of flamingoes on the small lakes in the centre of the track deepened from pale pink to intense rose and the sky on the water reflected silver and gold.

  ‘I bet it’s snowing in London,’ I said.

  After dark and after dinner Warren drove us round to the sales paddock on the far side of the racecourse, where spotlights lit a scene that was decidedly more rustic than the stands. Sugar icing stopped with the tourists: horse-trading had its feet on the grass.

  There were three main areas linked by short undefined paths and well-patronised open-fronted bars; there was the sale ring, the parade ring and long barns lined with stalls, where the merchandise ate hay and suffered prods and insults and people looking at its teeth.

  Warren opted for the barns first and we wandered down the length of the nearest while he busily consulted his catalogue. Minty told him they were definitely not buying any more horses until the chipped knees were all cleared up. ‘No dear,’ Warren said soothingly, but with a gleam in his eye which spelt death to the bank balance.

  I looked at the offerings with interest. A mixed bunch of horses which had been raced, from three years upwards. Warren said the best sales were those for two-year-olds at the end of the month and Minty said why didn’t he wait awhile and see what they were like.

  The lights down the far end of the barn were dim and the horse in the last stall of all was so dark that at first I thought the space was empty. Then an eye shimmered and a movement showed a faint gleam on a rounded rump.

  A black horse. Black like Energise.

  I looked at him first because he was black, and then more closely, with surprise. He was indeed very like Energise. Extremely like him.

  The likeness abruptly crystallised an idea I’d already been turning over in my mind. A laugh fluttered in my throat. The horse was a gift from the gods and who was I to look it in the mouth.

  ‘What have you found?’ Warren asked, advancing with good humour.

  ‘I’ve a hurdler like this at home.’

  Warren looked at the round label stuck onto one hind-quarter which bore the number sixty-two.

  ‘Hip number sixty-two,’ he said, flicking the pages of the catalogue. ‘Here it is. Black Fire, five-year-old gelding. Humph.’ He read quickly down the page through the achievements and breeding. ‘Not much good and never was much good, I guess.’

  ‘Pity.’

  ‘Yeah.’ He turned away. ‘Now there’s a damned nice looking chestnut colt along there…’

  ‘No, Warren,’ said Minty despairingly.

  We all walked back to look at the chestnut colt. Warren knew no more about buying horses than I did, and besides, the first thing I’d read on the first page of the catalogue was the clear warning that the auctioneers didn’t guarantee the goods were of merchantable quality. In other words, if you bought a lame duck it was your own silly fault.

  ‘Don’t pay no attention to that,’ said Warren expansively. ‘As long as you don’t take the horse out of the sales paddock, you can get a veterinarian to check a horse you’ve bought, and if he finds anything wrong you can call the deal off. But you have to do it within twenty-four hours.’

  ‘Sounds fair.’

  ‘Sure. You can have x-rays even. Chipped knees would show on an x-ray. Horses can walk and look okay with chipped knees but they sure can’t race.’

  Allie said with mock resignation, ‘So what exactly are chipped knees?’

  Warren said ‘Cracks and compressions at the ends of the bones at the knee joint.’

  ‘From falling down?’ Allie asked.

  Warren laughed kindly. ‘No. From too much hard galloping on dirt. The thumping does it.’

  I borrowed the sales catalogue from Warren again for a deeper look at the regulations and found the twenty-four hour inspection period applied only to brood mares, which wasn’t much help. I mentioned it diffidently to Warren. ‘It says here,’ I said neutrally, ‘that it’s wise to have a vet look at a horse for soundness before you bid. After is too late.’

  ‘Is that so?’ Warren retrieved his book and peered at the small print. ‘Well, I guess you’re right.’ He received the news good-naturedly. ‘Just shows how easy it is to go wrong at horse sales.’

  ‘And I hope you remember it,’ Minty said with meaning.

  Warren did in fact seem a little discouraged from his chestnut colt but I wandered back for a second look at Black Fire and found a youth in jeans and grubby sweat shirt bringing him a bucket of water.

  ‘Is this horse yours?’ I asked.

  ‘Nope. I’m just the help.’

  ‘Which does he do most, bite or kick?’

  The boy grinned. ‘Reckon he’s too lazy for either.’

  ‘Would you take him out of that dark stall so I could have a look at him in the light?’

  ‘Sure.’ He untied the halter from the tethering ring and brought Black Fi
re out into the central alley, where the string of electric lights burned without much enthusiasm down the length of the barn.

  ‘There you go, then,’ he said, persuading the horse to arrange its legs as if for a photograph. ‘Fine looking fella, isn’t he?’

  ‘What you can see of him,’ I agreed.

  I looked at him critically, searching for differences. But there was no doubt he was the same. Same height, same elegant shape, even the same slightly dished Arab-looking nose. And black as coal, all over. When I walked up and patted him he bore it with fortitude. Maybe his sweet nature, I thought. Or maybe tranquillisers.

  On the neck or head of many horses the hair grew in one or more whorls, making a pattern which was entered as an identifying mark on the passports. Energise had no whorls at all. Nor had Padellic. I looked carefully at the forehead, cheeks, neck and shoulders of Black Fire and ran my fingers over his coat. As far as I could feel or see in that dim light, there were no whorls on him either.

  ‘Thanks a lot,’ I said to the boy, stepping back.

  He looked at me with surprise. ‘You don’t aim to look at his teeth or feel his legs?’

  ‘Is there something wrong with them?’

  ‘I guess not.’

  ‘Then I won’t bother,’ I said and left unsaid the truth understood by us both, that even if I’d inspected those extremities I wouldn’t have been any the wiser.

  ‘Does he have a tattoo number inside his lip?’ I asked.

  ‘Yeah, of course.’ The surprise raised his eyebrows to peaks, like a clown. ‘Done when he first raced.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Well, gee, I don’t know.’ His tone said he couldn’t be expected to and no one in his senses would have bothered to ask.

  ‘Take a look.’

  ‘Well, okay.’ He shrugged and with the skill of practice opened the horse’s mouth and turned down the lower lip. He peered closely for a while during which time the horse stood suspiciously still, and then let him go.

  ‘Far as I can see there’s an F and a six and some others, but it’s not too light in here and anyway the numbers get to go fuzzy after a while, and this fella’s five now so the tattoo would be all of three years old.’

  ‘Thanks anyway.’

  ‘You’re welcome.’ He pocketed my offered five bucks and took the very unfiery Black Fire back to his stall.

  I turned to find Allie, Warren and Minty standing in a row, watching. Allie and Minty both wore indulgent feminine smiles and Warren was shaking his head.

  ‘That horse has won a total of nine thousand three hundred dollars in three years’ racing,’ he said. ‘He won’t have paid the feed bills.’ He held out the catalogue opened at Black Fire’s page, and I took it and read the vaguely pathetic race record for myself.

  ‘At two, unplaced. At three, three wins, four times third. At four, twice third. Total: three wins, six times third, earned $,9,326.’

  A modest success as a three-year-old, but all in fairly low-class races. I handed the catalogue back to Warren with a smile of thanks, and we moved unhurriedly out of that barn and along to the next. When even Warren had had a surfeit of peering into stalls we went outside and watched the first entries being led into the small wooden-railed collecting ring.

  A circle of lights round the rails lit the scene, aided by spotlights set among the surrounding trees. Inside, as on a stage, small bunches of people anxiously added the finishing touches of gloss which might wring a better price from the unperceptive. Some of the horses’ manes were decorated with a row of bright wool pompoms, arching along the top of the neck from ears to withers as if ready for the circus. Hip No. 1, resplendent in scarlet pompoms, raised his long bay head and whinnied theatrically.

  I told Allie and the Barbos I would be back in a minute and left them leaning on the rails. A couple of enquiries and one misdirection found me standing in the cramped office of the auctioneers in the sale ring building.

  ‘A report from the veterinarian? Sure thing. Pay in advance, please. If you don’t want to wait, return for the report in half an hour.’

  I paid and went back to the others. Warren was deciding it was time for a drink and we stood for a while in the fine warm night near one of the bars drinking Bacardi and Coke out of throwaway cartons.

  Brilliant light poured out of the circular sales building in a dozen places through open doors and slatted windows. Inside, the banks of canvas chairs were beginning to fill up, and down on the rostrum in the centre the auctioneers were shaping up to starting the evening’s business. We finished the drinks, duly threw away the cartons and followed the crowd into the show.

  Hip No 1 waltzed in along a ramp and circled the rostrum with all his pompoms nodding. The auctioneer began his sing-song selling, amplified and insistent, and to me, until my ears adjusted, totally unintelligible. Hip No 1 made five thousand dollars and Warren said the prices would all be low because of the economic situation.

  Horses came and went. When Hip No 15 in orange pompoms had fetched a figure which had the crowd murmuring in excitement I slipped away to the office and found that the veterinary surgeon himself was there, dishing out his findings to other enquirers.

  ‘Hip number sixty-two?’ he echoed. ‘Sure, let me find my notes.’ He turned over a page or two in a notebook. ‘Here we are. Dark bay or brown gelding, right?’

  ‘Black,’ I said.

  ‘Uh, uh. Never say black.’ He smiled briefly, a busy middle-aged man with an air of a clerk. ‘Five years. Clean bill of health.’ He shut the notebook and turned to the next customer.

  ‘Is that all?’ I said blankly.

  ‘Sure,’ he said briskly. ‘No heart murmur, legs cool, teeth consistent with given age, eyes normal, range of movement normal, trots sound. No bowed tendons, no damaged knees.’

  ‘Thanks,’ I said.

  ‘You’re welcome.’

  ‘Is he tranquillised?’

  He looked at me sharply, then smiled. ‘I guess so. Acepromazine probably.’

  ‘Is that usual, or would he be a rogue?’

  ‘I wouldn’t think he’d had much. He should be okay.’

  ‘Thanks again.’

  I went back to the sale ring in time to see Warren fidgeting badly over the sale of the chestnut colt. When the price rose to fifteen thousand Minty literally clung on to his hands and told him not to be a darned fool.

  ‘He must be sound,’ Warren protested, ‘to make that money.’

  The colt made twenty-five thousand in thirty seconds’ brisk bidding and Warren’s regrets rumbled on all evening. Minty relaxed as if the ship of state had safely negotiated a killing reef and said she would like a breath of air. We went outside and leaned again on the collecting ring rails.

  There were several people from England at the sales. Faces I knew, faces which knew me. No close friends, scarcely acquaintances, but people who would certainly notice and remark if I did anything unexpected.

  I turned casually to Warren.

  ‘I’ve money in New York,’ I said. ‘I can get it tomorrow. Would you lend me some tonight?’

  ‘Sure,’ he said good-naturedly, fishing for his wallet. ‘How much do you need?’

  ‘Enough to buy that black gelding.’

  ‘What?’ His hand froze and his eyes widened.

  ‘Would you buy it for me?’

  ‘You’re kidding.’

  ‘No.’

  He looked at Allie for help. ‘Does he mean it?’

  ‘He’s sure crazy enough for anything,’ she said.

  ‘That’s just what it is,’ Warren said. ‘Crazy. Crazy to buy some goddamned useless creature, just because he looks like a hurdler you’ve got back home.’

  To Allie this statement suddenly made sense. She smiled vividly and said, ‘What are you going to do with him?’

  I kissed her forehead. ‘I tend to think in circles,’ I said.

  10

  Warren, enjoying himself hugely, bought Black Fire for four thousand six hundre
d dollars. Bid for it, signed for it, and paid for it.

  With undiminished good nature he also contracted for its immediate removal from Hialeah and subsequent shipment by air to England.

  ‘Having himself a ball,’ Minty said.

  His good spirits lasted all the way back to Garden Island and through several celebratory nightcaps.

  ‘You sure bought a stinker,’ he said cheerfully, ‘But boy, I haven’t had so much fun in years. Did you see that guy’s face, the one I bid against? He thought he was getting it for a thousand.’ He chuckled. ‘At four thousand five he sure looked mad and he could see I was going on for ever.’

  Minty began telling him to make the most of it, it was the last horse he’d be buying for a long time, and Allie came to the door to see me off. We stood outside for a while in the dark, close together.

  ‘One day down. Three to go,’ she said.

  ‘No more horses,’ I promised.

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘And fewer people.’

  A pause. Then again, ‘Okay.’

  I smiled and kissed her good night and pushed her indoors before my best intentions should erupt into good old-fashioned lust. The quickest way to lose her would be to snatch.

  She said how about Florida Keys and how about a swim and how about a picnic. We went in the Impala with a cold box of goodies in the boot and the Tropic of Cancer flaming away over the horizon ahead.

  The highway to Key West stretched for mile after mile across a linked chain of causeways and small islands. Palm trees, sand dunes, sparkling water and scrubby grass. Few buildings. Sun-bleached wooden huts, wooden landing stages, fishing boats. Huge skies, hot sun, vast seas. Also Greyhound buses on excursions and noisy families in station wagons with Mom in pink plastic curlers.

  Allie had brought directions from Warren about one of the tiny islands where he fished, and when we reached it we turned off the highway on to a dusty side road that was little more than a track. It ended abruptly under two leaning palms, narrowing to an Indian file path through sand dunes and tufty grass towards the sea. We took the picnic box and walked, and found ourselves surprisingly in a small sandy hollow from which neither the car nor the road could be seen.