Death of a Hooker

by Kane, Henry

  “That’s a whole lot, finkie-boy.”

  “I’ve lost a whole lot, baby-boy. I’ve quit the sure thing bit. How about you, baby-boy?”

  Suddenly he was on his toes and his dark eyes were spewing sparks. “Don’t call me baby-boy.”

  I was dying to take him but I held on to my temper. “Sorry,” I said.

  “Now you’re talking like a good little fink,” he said.

  Beverly came, and just in time, because my fuse was running out. She was wearing a white suit with a loose jacket, her short-cut auburn hair was carefully dishevelled, and her round brown eyes had the last-pleading look of a doe who had just been shot by a brave hunter.

  “Oh boy, am I glad to see you, Pete. I hope, I hope….”

  I laid six gees on a table without flourish.

  She gasped and began to cry. She grabbed my hand and kissed it. I pulled away, poured a drink, and swallowed.

  “I thought you were on the wagon,” Danny said.

  “Why don’t you shut that pretty trap of yours?”

  He was on his toes again, his mouth mean. “Look, just because you brought this hook that dough….”

  But Beverly was at me again, clawing. “I don’t know how to thank you, Pete. I was hoping against hope. It’s guys like you that show up real—not those bums who are always giving me stock market deals and telling me how Polaroid figures to go up forty points in the next three days. Look, for you, I’m going to break down. You want that tip, a sure thing—”

  “No!”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t want it to cost me.”

  “It won’t cost you.”

  “Skip it. Please. Just in case it will cost me. I’ve been burnt so often, they call me Cindy.”

  “Very funny,” said Danny. “Maybe you ought to be a gag writer, finkie.”

  “Only if you’re my inspiration,” I said.

  “Meaning what?”

  “Meaning you make me gag.”

  And wouldn’t you know it?—the son of a bitch threw the glass again. Oh, I was itching for him, and I had to stand as though paralyzed. “Goodbye,” I said to Beverly.

  “Don’t you want to go to the track with us?”

  “Who’s the—us?”

  “Me and Danny.”

  “Not on your life.”

  “Then I’ll see you tonight. I’ll return your six gees and I’ll put in whatever you like for interest.”

  “And you’ll have the thirty for Mickey?”

  “I’m sure of that.”

  “You’d better be, or you’d better not be here. Because it won’t be acid in the face any more. It’ll be a bullet in the belly or a shiv across the throat. And I advise you to lock this strongarm friend of yours in a closet. Mickey figures to be in a wild and wallowing mood tonight and those two should react like tinder to spark.”

  “I’ll take him if he gets fresh,” said Danny.

  “Do you know him?” I said.

  “I don’t have to know him. I’ll take him.”

  “Correction,” I said to Beverly. “Don’t lock him in a closet. Lock him in a toilet where he belongs.”

  He started coming gut Beverly grabbed him.

  I blew that one-dame brothel.

  I called Marilyn to take her to the track but Marilyn was not in; Marilyn was working, as I recollected as my coin bounced back, until four o’clock. So I took a cab and went to Belmont which is like a reformed joy-sticker spending the night in an opium palace. I do not play horses. I do not play horses because if I play one horse I’m as hooked as an alcoholic who thinks he can beat the gaff by a swig of Yardley’s After Shaving Lotion. I quit the horses after I ran out of systems which kept me going to the track, New York and Florida, for two full years and cost me I am ashamed to admit how much. Since I no longer play horses, I no longer go to horse tracks, but I went this warm and sunny Friday in September because King Fleet was running; I and thousands upon thousands of others. Barbara Lund was dead and she had sold her stables effective in October, and the newspapers had played it up, and this would be the last time the King was running under the Lund colors, and it might be the last time he was running for all time because the new owner had hinted he might retire him to stud. So the suckers were out en masse, dear lovers of horseflesh.

  I paid my way into the Clubhouse wondering whom I would meet first (because it is a law of life that you always meet someone at a race track, generally the individual whom you had told that morning that you were going to spend the day at the museum pursuing your study of archeology, and he had told you that he was taking the day off for a couple of rounds of golf with the boys)—and sure enough a tap on my shoulder turned me to Roy Paxton, tall, dark, and becomingly groomed in spectator shoes, grey flannel trousers, and grey hounds'-tooth odd-jacket, the leather strap of his binocular case fetchingly draped over one shoulder.

  “Cripes, have you seen the papers?” he said.

  “No.”

  “Astrid Lund. Murdered.”

  “I know.”

  “But you just said you didn’t see—”

  “I didn’t have to see the papers. I saw the body. As a matter of fact, I was arrested as a suspect.”

  “And what did they do—let you out for a day at the races?”

  “Precisely,” I said. “I’ve got pull. Two harness bulls by name Bill and Lennie went to bat for me.”

  “Always with the jokes, aren’t you?”

  “Yeah. What did the papers have on it?”

  “Not much, actually. She was found in an apartment she kept on Seventy-second Street, two bullets in her head, no suspects, and a special detail of police working round the clock on it.”

  “Always working round the clock, aren’t they?”

  “Christ, it’s hard to believe—first the old lady, and now Astrid.”

  “Like a vendetta aimed at you. They keep it up and you’ll be running out of clients.”

  A man bearing The Morning Telegraph came up and touched his arm and said, “Roy, that gelding in the third is moving way down in company, an expensive horse running with platers. Sure, he finished out in his last four races, but they were all a mile or over, and he was out in front in each of them, and died in the last couple of furlongs. Now he’s moving down, and it’s a six furlong race, which figures a sprint for him, yet not one of the experts give him a chance….”

  “Let me see those charts,” said Roy.

  And as they put their heads together in the intoxicating figurations which make dunderheads out of otherwise intelligent men, I slipped off into the crowd, and out into the paddock where they were beginning to saddle the horses for the first race. Earl Dunbar was riding a pig in a claiming race as a tune up, and Beverly Crystal, a large white handbag straphanging from her elbow, was there talking to him. I worried for a moment about six thousand clams contained in a bag hanging as vulnerable as that one, but then Earl saw me and waved, and Beverly turned and waved, and I approached.

  “I hear you been good to this gal,” Earl said softly.

  “He’s been a living doll,” said Beverly.

  “Did you let him in on the score?” said Earl.

  “No, he didn’t want,” said Beverly.

  Earl touched a hand to his peaked cap, pushed it back on his head, and squinted at me. “You didn’t want?” he said quietly, conversationally. “Man, have you got marbles or something? This is information—you can’t get better!”

  From the jockey’s mouth is almost as good as from the horse’s mouth but I declined. “Good luck in the big race,” I said loudly.

  “Thanks,” he said, also loudly.

  “How’s the King?” I said.

  “Great,” he said.

  “I’ll see you after the race,” I said and strolled off.

  I went to a bench in the infield, crossed my ankles in the sun, and contemplated my woes. Since Tuesday, when, initially, I had been retained by Astrid Lund, I had earned $6,500, and now, on Friday, I would say, financially, I
was jiggling behind the eight ball to the tune of at least $1,100—approximately $900 of which I was yet to be billed for. Dolorous in the sun, I broke it down into figures; the calculations were relatively simple. I had blown $6,500 in the samaritan department—the rest had been expenditures in my quest of Marilyn Windsor. A couple of hundred had been spent in the supper clubs where, of course, I had carried Sally as additional freight, but Sally was entitled—after all, he had introduced me to Marilyn. If by chance you consider that figure high, pick up your girl some evening and take her to the good clubs and live it up without pinching the wallet; when you tote up the tab for the evening, you’ll swoon; you’ll consider my expenditures modest. And then in my delirium of delight with Marilyn and in my intent to impress her, I had ordered six cases of assorted booze. There are twenty-four bottles in each case and I was not getting it wholesale, pal—I do not believe in wholesale because I do not believe in being beholden in matters of trade—and so each case was costing me approximately $150 and six times so is approximately $900. I was traveling backwards in a hurry which, for a supposedly smart private richard, is pretty dopey. There was a credit side to my debit woes—I had discovered the key to Marilyn, but there again the question leered: was she worth such impetuous scrambling of hard-earned dough? Also, Beverly Crystal might—might—return the $6000, and that, too, presented a dilemma. Could I, in conscience, retain that fee paid by Vinnie Veneto when I had done nothing to earn it and did not intend to?

  And then, large as life, in the Friday sun, Vinnie Veneto loomed before me; Vinnie surrounded by a covey of cohorts. He detached himself—tall, dark, handsome, beautifully-dressed—and sat down beside me, and, as though reading my thoughts, instantly launched upon pecuniary pleasantries. “Baby,” he said, capped teeth gleaming in a friendly smile. “You’re entitled to a bonus.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “For what?”

  “For being a bright operator, but goddamned bright. I always says you are the best, and you are. I don’t know how you do it, but you do it, all right.”

  “I do?’ I said,

  “You come see me later on today.”

  “Where?”

  “Home. Where do you think? Not here. Here is no place for business.”

  “Come see you for what?”

  “That’s what I mean about you; you’re a character; you’re smart as the smartest I ever known, but you play it dumb. For what? For the bonus, that’s for what. And baby, I got a couple of things going for me here today, that bonus is like small change, if you know what I mean. See you later,” he said and he joined his covey of obsequious birds and flew away.

  TWENTY

  The big one, the stake race, was the fourth on the card, and when the tote board flashed the morning line, the stands chattered as though infested with magpies instead of with suckers. The official handicapper agreed with the motley breed-improvers: the race figured for a walkover. Post Position 1 was King Fleet; morning line odds: 6 to 5. Post Position 2 was Escort; morning line odds: 20 to 1. Post Position 3 was Christmas Rebel; morning line odds: 50 to 1. Post Position 4 was Betty’s Pooch; morning line odds: 50 to 1. The race was eight furlongs, one mile; the crowd was large; and the betting was brisk, right from the beginning. By the time the horses paraded in front of the stands, an enormous amount had been wagered. There was betting permitted only for win and place, no show; and as the horses were locked into the starting gate, King Fleet stood at 1 to 4. And so he remained at the gong, 1 to 4, Escort was 22 to 1; Christmas Rebel was 30 to 1; Betty’s Pooch was 99 to 1—and then “They’re off!” and the crowd was on its feet, howling.

  They took out from the gate in expected order. The flyers were Escort and Christmas Rebel and they came out fast and whirled into the lead with Escort about a length in front of Christmas Rebel. Betty’s Pooch was a late runner and he jogged easily a length behind Christmas Rebel. Last, as expected, and about three lengths behind Betty’s Pooch, came King Fleet, notorious laggard in the backstretch, famous for closing seemingly impossible gaps in his final rush to the wire.

  The first howl of the crowd subsided; everybody in the stands was on his feet; the announcer’s voice crackled through the public-address system; and the horses spread out, almost in single file, in the backstretch, Escort pulling further and further ahead. The jock on Escort, Eddie Anderson, a wise and withered old fellow, was already putting the whip to his mount. It was conceded, on the possible off-chance that the King might falter, that only Escort stood a chance, if he ran his race true. Escort was the opposite of King Fleet; he was a flyer, a frontrunner, who became discouraged if he saw horses in front of him. He had speed but not stamina and not heart; too often he crumbled when challenged. His one chance was to get out so far in front that he couldn’t be caught, and the wise old jockey was running him true and giving him his only chance. He had the whip to him right from the start and the horse was responding.

  Christmas Rebel, also a frontrunner, had to stay with Escort and dispose of him, or be out of the race. The jockey, also able and experienced, Ted Crown, had not expected so wild a rush at the very start from Escort. Now three lengths behind right there in the backstretch, he had to make his move and go to the front or be out of the race. A couple of lengths behind Christmas Rebel, and drifting out slightly, came Betty’s Pooch; and three lengths behind Betty’s Pooch, reserved and well in hand, ran King Fleet. Ted Crown put the bat to Christmas Rebel and the horse answered with spirit. The crowd was roaring now as Christmas Rebel made his game effort, rolled up to half a length of Escort, and then was done.

  At the turn, Escort’s early foot was holding. He was six lengths to the good, in front of Betty’s Pooch who was saving ground cutting in toward the rail. And at the turn King Fleet went very wide, and a whoosh of disappointment wafted from the crowd.

  And so they thundered into the stretch—Escort about five lengths in front of Betty’s Pooch and Betty’s Pooch about five lengths in front of King Fleet, not an unusual position for the King in many races that he had won.

  “Come on, come on!” the crowd shouted at the King. “Come on, King! Come on, boy!” But Earl Dunbar seemed to be having trouble getting the King to move.

  Under brisk urging Betty’s Pooch suddenly shot out, seethed up to a length behind Escort. But Escort held determinedly, and so they hung, with the King far behind. And then with but three-eighths to go he suddenly flared to life, leaping in tremendous springs, eating up ground with every jump—as the crowd screamed deliriously!—and then the King was at Betty’s Pooch, running neck and neck with him, while in front, Eddie Anderson, sensing victory, was batting the hell out of the froth-mouthed wilting Escort. The King disposed of Betty’s Pooch but it was too late—Escort was under the wire, sweating, snorting, legs flailing, but a full length ahead; in another furlong King Fleet would have easily put him away; the King finished strong and resolute and full of jump. And as the roar in the stands died away, the grumble of the chalk-betters commenced.

  “That crook threw the race.”

  “He should have made his move at the top of the stretch.”

  “He pulled him wide at the turn, losing ground.”

  “He hardly even put the bat to him.”

  “That smart crook let him loose just too late.”

  And others in judicious rebuttal said:

  “A horse is only horseflesh, kid.”

  “He pulled wide at the turn, that ain’t the jockey’s fault.”

  “You can’t win them all.”

  “King Fleet hates the whip, he veers. You can’t blame the jock.”

  “He always goes to work in the last three furlongs. This time he just didn’t have it.”

  And others said:

  “You never can tell who’s pulling what.”

  “You can’t prove a fix. He run a natural race.”

  “There’s always a sore loser who blames the jock.”

  “You figure something funny happened there?”

  “Who the hell knows?
”

  Who the hell knows?—was probably the best comment. Who the hell does know? Those who faulted Earl Dunbar had their piece of right—King Fleet had never gone wide at the turn; with Escort running with such splendid early foot, a smart jockey makes his move earlier; true, the King veered at the bat, but in desperation you must use the whip. And those who defended Earl Dunbar had their piece of right—a horse pulls wide at the turn and loses ground, it’s a good jockey who can pull him back and keep him in the race; the jock made his move when he thought it best, you can’t fault a guy on his judgment and Dunbar’s judgment has been plenty good with the King all this time; you spring the King too early and he runs his race before the finish; the jock sprung him right, the horse just didn’t have it; he had it when it was too late; he was still right there in the race and if the jock used the whip and the horse veered out, then you would holler that he threw it; there’s always been orders from the trainer—no whip for the King, and in all these years the jock never batted him, so why should he now?

  Who the hell knows?

  Unless there is a flagrant irregularity, who the hell does know? A horse is a horse and not a machine and there is no sure-thing in horse racing. This was a race that King Fleet should have won without trouble, but could the jockey be blamed? Nobody in his right mind, nobody in authority, could blame the jockey. On the other hand, a smart jockey, with larcenous purpose, and knowing his horse, can keep his horse from winning a race by subtle maneuver. Had Earl Dunbar done so? It was a question that could never be answered and would never be answered; certainly there was no basis for complaint against him, and the authorities, in all propriety, would never entertain such complaint.

  But the question, in strange and lethal manner, was answered, irrevocably, for me.

  The prices flashed on the tote board inspiring the usual gasp-roar from the breed-improvers. Escort paid a neat $45.00 for Win. Forty-five bucks for a deuce. How sweet for the holders of yellow tickets imprinted with number 2! The scurrying to the Cashiers windows began and I was meandering toward the bar for a drink when I saw the thick knot of people standing in a circle and I wafted toward the periphery only because it was on my way to the bar and I was naturally curious. “What gives?” I said to nobody.