Night-Bloom

by Herbert Lieberman

  His wandering attention returned to his Racing Form, and he did some quick pencil work. Occasionally, out of the corner of his eye, he permitted himself a glimpse at the heavily notated Form of the lady seated beside him. Page after page was completely covered with a series of cryptic symbols and hieroglyphics—stars, pyramids, crosses, squares—all set down beside the names of horses, along with a great deal of fractional and algebraic computation.

  Smirking at the notion of another “method” player, Mooney noted the choices she had circled for the first four races—Wild Joker, Fife and Drum, Daring Baby, Not Too Well. The latter was a turkey that had been running in $3000 company for most of the year, had recently been dropped to $1500, and in his last outing was trounced at 21 to 1. Mooney had to smother his amusement.

  “What do you think?”

  “Beg pardon?”

  “I said, what do you think?”

  Mooney was a little puzzled. “What do I think about what?”

  “About my picks so far.”

  “How would I know your picks so far?”

  “You’ve been studying them for the past quarter of an hour.”

  Mooney felt a rush of color to his face. “What the hell would I be studying your picks for?”

  “Trying to cop a winner. I saw you clear as day, peeking under your hand there.” Behind the glasses her large gray eyes fixed him with an expression of shrewd amusement.

  “Listen … I can assure you …”

  “Come on,” she waved him off. “What do you think of Daring Baby in the third, and Not Too Well in the fourth? You can tell me. I don’t mind.”

  “I don’t mind either.” Mooney reddened. “I don’t care what horses you picked in the third and fourth.” He snapped wide the pages of his Form and resumed his study.

  “But you were spying on my Form.”

  “Have it your way.” Mooney spoke very softly, trying to control his mounting irritation. “Listen—I can pick my own horses very well, thank you, and I don’t need any dumb-ass methods … oh …” Even as the words sputtered from his lips, he knew he’d been caught.

  The lady beamed triumphantly.

  Mooney turned a beet-red. Just as he was about to fling a choice epithet her way, he felt the rattling car decelerate, and one of the conductors came through bawling “Aqueduct.”

  After he’d got inside and secured his favorite seat in the first row of the First Tier, there was still time to go down to the stables, have a stroll round the paddocks, view the livestock and chat with the grooms and jockeys—one of the few subcultures of mankind with which Mooney felt a strong affinity.

  Still smarting from his encounter with the redheaded lady on the Aqueduct Bullet, he sat down at a field stand and had several bourbon old-fashioneds just to take the edge off of things. Afterward, somewhat mellowed, he ambled onto the field for a look at the track. Knowing the Big A and the track bias like the lines of his own face, in warm dry weather such as they were enjoying that day, Mooney sought horses with early speed and inside post positions.

  For the first race, a seven-furlong sprint, Mooney liked a three-year-old filly called Endgame. Her past performances showed she’d been unable to win on the main track for $5000, was tried out in an $8000 turf race and won by a length and a half. At a quick glance down in the paddocks, she looked a bit cheaper to Mooney than the rivals she was meeting today. But the filly she’d defeated March 14, Sagittarius, came back ten days later and won the $13,000 claiming race on the grass against males. Her victory suggested that Endgame was a legitimate $13,000 animal who was undervalued when she ran for an $8000 price tag, but was running at her proper level today. She couldn’t have found an easier spot. All she had to do was beat one chronic loser as well as a generally weak field with animals of limited luster. Mooney wanted her.

  Up at the betting windows he waited in line to bet $20 to win and $20 to place on Endgame. While he was collecting his change and stubs his attention was diverted by a commanding voice betting $50 to win and $50 to place on Wild Joker. There was no need for him to turn in order to see who was placing the bet. His neck retracted deeply into his collar. He took his stubs and was about to skulk off when the lady called out to him, “You still looking over my shoulder for a winner?”

  Several people on line turned. Mooney made a sour face at her and started down to the First Tier. The bugle fanfare had already sounded at the post when Mooney settled into his seat. Through his binoculars he studied Endgame, taking satisfaction in her superbly favored inside post position of number 2. The filly was quiet and conveyed to him a sense of nicely controlled energy. She was clearly not champing or tossing about, squandering her energy before the race. Her ears were not pinned back as she strode up to the post. Instead, she carried them pricked and upright as if she were trying to hear something. To Mooney that suggested an alert creature without any indication of post-time flopsweat. Also her lively tail swish said she was feeling good, and she carried her head straight, not to the side and down, the way a horse in pain does. She wore no bandages on her front legs to suggest there was anything amiss with the tendons. When she put her hooves down, they grabbed the ground firmly, just the way a healthy pair of horse feet should. Mooney was pleased.

  Several spots down he was delighted to see that Wild Joker was way off to the outside at position 8, bumping about inside her gate, thrashing and tossing her head and jolting her jockey about in his traces.

  In the next moment there was a loud crack, the gates opened and a huge roar went up. At the same time that Mooney watched Endgame lunge out smartly into second position, he was aware of a slight disturbance just off to the side. He glanced up and saw the redheaded lady edging her way through the aisle with a lot of irritated people rising to let her through. Mooney’s heart sank as he realized she was moving toward him, undoubtedly to the single empty seat to his right.

  She’d seen him before he’d seen her, and as she approached there was the hint of some immensely satisfying private joke dancing about in her eye. In the next moment she was there, towering above him. “Is that your coat?”

  Mooney glowered and once again went through the tiresome business of removing his coat from the empty seat to make room for her.

  “I hope this doesn’t inconvenience you,” she said in that vaguely mocking manner as she settled in and watched the faded topcoat return to his lap.

  “Not at all,” Mooney growled, not looking at her. “My knees were cold anyway.”

  The field had just turned the half and Endgame was holding her own nicely. She was running no more than a neck behind the frontrunner.

  “Which is yours?” she asked.

  “Endgame,” he muttered, his eyes glued to the binoculars.

  “She’ll fade in the stretch. Probably finish fifth,” the lady remarked unemotionally. “Where’s Wild Joker?”

  “Seventh. About twelve lengths out.”

  “She’ll be fourth at the turn and cross second at the finish.”

  Mooney never once looked at her or took his eye from the binoculars. He knew Wild Joker for the next best thing to a sucker horse. She hadn’t finished in the money her last four times out. Her running lines were those of a quitter after anything beyond four furlongs, and her bloodlines were unexceptional. Her best time had been a run on grass.

  “Here she comes now,” the lady remarked with infuriating self-assurance. It was about then that Endgame dropped back to third, and from there lapsed into her humiliating fade.

  Wild Joker crossed the wire second just as the lady had predicted. She’d come on like a firecracker, gaining four lengths in the stretch. She paid $18.60 to place.

  Amid a racket of cheers from the approving stands, the redhead rose, looking very pleased with herself. Mooney smoldered like old burning rags. He knew she had just won over $900 while he was out of pocket some $40 and that was unpardonable.

  The second race was a repetition of the first. This time it was $600 she won on a horse that Mooney would no
t have touched with a bargepole—Fife and Drum—while he himself dropped $100 on a three-year-old called Seraphim that he’d been watching his last five times out and had looked upon as a solid blue chip.

  Whenever the lady won she had the disconcerting habit of jabbing her elbow into Mooney’s rib. When she hit the third race exacta she took down over $5000. By that time Mooney was out roughly $500 and the rib closest to the redhead was badly bruised. Despite that, over the past several races, he had begun cautiously, albeit begrudgingly, to look upon her with a new and somewhat heightened sense of regard.

  A loss of $500 in the face of such clear-cut blatant success had shaken his self-confidence, so when she offered to buy him a drink at the break before the fourth race, he was somewhat astonished to find himself accepting.

  They edged their way through the crowd down to the field bar and commandeered a small table. Her name was Mrs. Baumholz she told him right off. “Frances Baumholz. But my friends call me Fritzi.”

  “Fritzi?” Mooney made a face of delighted scorn. “Kind of a nickname. My husband gave it to me years ago, and I guess it stuck. What might your name be?”

  “Mooney.”

  She waited as though expecting more. “Mooney?”

  “Francis. Like you. But my friends call me Frank.” She leaned back in her seat and gave him a long, unflinching stare. “You look like a cop.”

  “What was your first clue?”

  Mrs. Baumholz pointed to his shoes. “The shoes. Those shiny oxfords. They’re a dead giveaway.”

  “Remarkable,” Mooney muttered sourly.

  “How old are you?”

  “Fifty-eight.” He couldn’t understand for the life of him why he lied.

  “You’re pretty worn round the ears for fifty-eight, aren’t you, Mooney?” she went on.

  “I’ve lived hard.”

  “And you’re far too heavy for a man that age.”

  “And you’ve got lipstick smeared all over your incisors,” he snapped right back.

  Just then the waiter came and served them their bourbon old-fashioneds. She was a widow, she told him. Her husband had died several years ago and left her with a small but prosperous little pub called Fritzi’s Balloon up on Lexington Avenue at Ninety-first. She lived around Yorkville. Her only real pleasure in life now was the horses. She and her husband used to go to the track all the time and they developed this system, you see.

  Mooney stared disconsolately down at the limp fruit rinds at the bottom of his drink, listening with martyred patience as she proceeded to explain.

  “I call it the N Gambit,” she said. “Starting strong, fading back, then coming on in the finish. Gaining three, maybe four lengths in the stretch. Have you ever seen horses like that? It’s beautiful. You can see it in the running lines if you look for that pattern. And if the horse finished out of the money his last one or two times out, that’s a good sign. That means he’s ready to go cash on you.” Mooney’s stubby fingers drummed the tabletop, full of sticky rings left by innumerable other glasses. He was staring abstractedly out into the middle distance where a hoard of grounds keepers were sweeping the badly churned track. “You done pretty good so far by it today,” he said. “So why the hell you tellin’ me all this?”

  The question appeared to surprise her. “I see no reason why I shouldn’t share good fortune with friends. The track cashier has more than enough for the two of us.” Her large merry eyes challenged his.

  Mooney continued to study the orange rinds at the bottom of his glass as though he were reading auguries. “Want another?”

  “Sure. There’s time.”

  Mooney signaled the waiter for refills, then with chin cradled in his palm, he fretted vaguely. “So what does this system of yours pick for the fourth?” he asked with cool disinterest.

  “Not Too Well.”

  Mooney shook his head despairingly. “What virtue can you possibly see in an animal that’s lost each of his last eight races by a dozen lengths or more?”

  “That’s just it,” Mrs. Baumholz accepted her second old-fashioned from the waiter and waxed enthusiastic. “Don’t you see that the jockey and the trainer have just been holding him back till the price is right? Remember the N Gambit. Take it from me, Mooney, the odds are going to be at least twenty to one if not better. That horse is ready. Who are you betting?”

  Mooney hesitated. It was unheard of for him to share information. “I kind of liked Doctor Dallas.” Her arms rose heavenward in a gesture of futility. “Pathetic.”

  “What’s pathetic?”

  “It’s so obvious. So he’s finished third seven times in his first nine starts. But he’s never won. Either he can’t or he’s unwilling. He’s got no guts.”

  “No guts? Come on. He earned $26,000 last year. You call that pathetic? That’s plenty guts enough for me, sister. What the hell do you know anyway?”

  Mrs. Baumholz opened her purse a crack, revealing wads of large-denomination bills crammed in up to the gunnels.

  “So you got lucky,” Mooney fumed. “That won’t last.”

  She shrugged her shoulders and tossed off her drink. “Suit yourself, my friend.”

  Just then the warning buzzer flashed. Mooney reached for their tab, but Mrs. Baumholz insisted upon paying, and Mooney didn’t protest too long. They rushed up to the windows to place their bets. Mrs. Baumholz bet a hundred on Not Too Well to win and another hundred to place.

  Mooney standing behind her with his last $200 was going through a crisis of confidence. Stepping up to the window he peered hard into the face of the cashier behind the cage—a small, troll-like creature with a high voice and disapproving eyes.

  “Yes?”

  Mooney stood there, speechless, gaping at the man.

  “Your horse, sir. Horse, please. There are people waiting.”

  Mooney stood there swelling visibly beneath his clothing, his mouth and jaws working uselessly. “Not Too Well,” he blurted out at last. “A hundred to win, a hundred to show.”

  When he turned again, Mrs. Baumholz was waiting there, grinning triumphantly. “Now that didn’t hurt, did it?” She took his arm as they hurried back to their seats.

  As the horses moved up to the post, Mooney had his first intimation of disaster. Not Too Well was in the extreme outside position. His ears were down. His coat was wet. His tail drooped and he was bucking slightly, giving his jockey a difficult time nosing him into the gate.

  “Relax, Mooney.” Mrs. Baumholz quickly caught in him the signs of premature regret. “That’s high spirits. Nothing more.”

  He whimpered slightly to himself.

  “Look at those odds.” She jabbed him in the rib cage with her elbow, directing his gaze to the tote board. “Twenty-six to one. I told you. Didn’t I tell you, Mooney? Remember the N.”

  “Right, right. Remember the N,” Mooney muttered morosely. He tried to capture some of her self-assurance.

  There was a loud crack. The gates went up. The field surged out in a cloud of dust and thundered up the track. All except Not Too Well who lumbered out, appeared to have regretted his decision and started back. He had the look of a person who discovers he’s boarded the wrong train just as the doors are closing.

  The jockey atop him, a tiny doll-like figure in red silks, flailed his arms wildly and kicked his heels into the animal. A high, falsetto burst of Puerto Rican obscenities wafted up at them from the track below as Not Too Well cantered into a side rail and caromed off. Next he proceeded to rotate.

  Mooney glared incredibly down at the spectacle on the track. Roars of laughter rippled all about them in the stands. Mrs. Baumholz’s characteristic animation had deserted her. Instead, she had grown very pensive. Staring dead ahead at the horse still spinning circles near the gate, the jockey lurching about on his back, Mooney watched his last $200 fly off into the sunset. When at last he spoke, his voice was civil and very quiet. “It looks like Not Too Well ain’t too well, don’t it?”

  Mrs. Baumholz attempted to muster
up some of her unfailing good cheer. “Well, can you beat that?”

  “No, ma’m.” Mooney shook his head in baffled wonderment. “I can’t beat that. If I lived for the next thousand years, I don’t believe I could beat that. It’s very rare one is ever privileged to witness anything quite like that.”

  For the first time that day Fritzi Baumholz was speechless. The rest of the field was now going into the final stretch. From where they sat they couldn’t see who was leading the pack, but Tribal Code was the name that kept crackling over the loudspeaker. “Tribal Code … Tribal Code … And it’s Tribal Code … followed by …”

  A loud roar went up as they tried to hear the second name. The tote board, however, was flashing a red light like an arterial pulse—number 9, Doctor Dallas, paying $9.40.

  Mooney lumbered heavily to his feet and stood glowering down at Mrs. Baumholz. He swelled visibly, a balloon dangerously inflating. His brow was dark and fearsome.

  There was nothing much Mrs. Baumholz could do but stare back and giggle a bit queasily. “Well, those things do happen.”

  Vile words racketed about in Mooney’s head. They struggled to make their way past his lips, only to emerge in a series of breathy gasps.

  When it became apparent that he was on the verge of suffocation, he snatched up his coat, cast a final withering glance at Mrs. Baumholz, then crashed heavily out the aisle, trampling anything unfortunate enough to be in his path.

  “Mr. Mooney, Mr. Mooney,” he heard her cry after him several times above the roar of the crowd. He would not deign to turn. He just kept moving ahead with the most disdainful bearing he could muster as he made his clumsy outraged way toward the exits.

  23

  It was nearly dusk when he reached the house. The street outside was gray and bleak. The branches of trees dark and full-leafed looked like thumb smears on the gray chalk sky.

  He had come on the subway from the Port Authority Building. Walking from Queens Boulevard, then rounding the corner from Continental Avenue to Sutter Street, he experienced a sharp visceral spasm, like the cramps he used to feel as a child before school examinations. His tread slowed and his eyes squinted against the swiftly descending light. He was certain that the police patrol car that had been staked out there, awaiting him ten months earlier, would undoubtedly still be there now.