The Killing

by Lionel White

  He was aware of Big Mike moving behind the bar. There was no sign of Maurice and no sign of Tex.

  He went out into the stands, out into the hot yel ow sunlight. He had to shoulder his way through the crowd at the door. He found a seat wel up in the stands and slouching into it, he dropped the brief case between his feet on the concrete floor. He opened the program and looked over the horses in the second race. Then he looked up and checked the morning line.

  When the horses reached the post for the second race, Johnny stood up. He took off his hat and left it and his program on the seat. Then he made his way back into the clubhouse. He went to the ten dol ar window and put down a win bet on the number three horse. The tote board had it at eight to five.

  Johnny didn't want to start the day depending on long shots to come in.

  The number three horse won by three and a half lengths.

  Returning to his seat after he col ected his winnings, he glanced at the clock as he passed Big Mike's bar. His wrist watch was less than a minute slow.

  He was back again at the buyer's windows long before the fifth race started. This time he did what Unger had done several days before. There were a half dozen ten dol ar windows and he went to each of them in turn. By the time he ended up he had a ticket on every horse in the race.

  When he got back to his seat, just before the horses left the post, he found a large, red-faced woman sitting in it. She was holding his hat and program.

  He stood in front of her for a moment, undecided. She looked up at him and grinned.

  “Just had to sit down for a second,” she said breathing heavily. “I'm exhausted.”

  She started to stand up and he smiled at her.

  “Stay where you are,” he said. “I'l stand for this one.”

  She began to protest, but he insisted. She had handed him his hat and program, looking grateful.

  He walked down through the stands to the rail as the horses were running. When the sixth horse came in, he didn't have to search through the tickets to find the right one. He had put them in order.

  He was about tenth in line at the window—George Peatty's window.

  Johnny held his thumb on the ticket as he pushed it through the gril . He was watching George's face.

  Peatty's face was yel ow and his mouth was trembling even before he looked up. And then, a moment later, as he reached for the ticket, he lifted his eyes and stared directly at Johnny. He nodded, almost imperceptibly. He counted out the money and pushed it through the gril work.

  At four-twenty, Johnny was leaning against the wal some five feet from the door leading into the locker rooms. He had the scratch sheet in his hand and was resting it on the brief case. He held a pencil in his other hand and was making casual marks on the sheet. But his eyes were not seeing what his hands were doing.

  His hat brim was pul ed wel forward and the dark glasses concealed his eyes.

  Johnny was watching the end of the bar where Tex stood.

  He didn't move when the fight started.

  Once he had to step aside as a large man pushed past him. But he stil didn't make his move. Didn't make it until he saw the door of the private office open.

  It was while they were rushing Tex toward the exit stairway that Johnny sidled over to the entrance to the locker room. Every eye in the lobby was on Tex and the detectives surrounding him when Johnny felt the door move behind him. A second later and he turned and quickly slipped into the employees'

  locker room.

  George, pale and his hands shaking, quickly closed the door behind him. He looked for a moment at Johnny, saying not a word. Then he turned and a moment later had disappeared in the direction of the exit leading out behind the cashiers' cages.

  A quick glance around the room showed Johnny that there was no one in it, unless they were in one of the line of toilet stal s. Johnny didn't have to look at the diagram he had in his pocket. He knew exactly where Big Mike's locker was. The duplicate key was in his hand.

  It took him less than half a minute to open the locker and take out the flower box. A moment later and he had slipped into one of the toilets and had closed and latched the door.

  He was assembling the gun and inserting a clip of shel s as the horses left the post for the start of the Canarsie Stakes.

  Johnny had opened the brief case and was taking out the duffel bag when he heard the door slam.

  Two men entered the room and they were standing not ten feet away. From their conversation, Johnny knew at once that they were cashiers, taking a breather while the race was being run.

  “What the hel was that fracas out there?” one voice said.

  “Just some drunken bum giving one of the bartenders a hard time. Christ, did you see Frank leap into it with that blackjack!”

  “It's time one of those god damned Pinkertons earned his dough,” the first man said.

  Johnny smiled grimly.

  They'd be earning their dough in another three minutes, he said to himself. And if these guys didn't get out before then, they'd be earning theirs, too.

  Even as the thought crossed his mind, the two men began to move away. Johnny's hand reached for the latch.

  * * *

  Maxie Flam couldn't have weighed a hundred and ten pounds dripping wet. But in order to keep his weight down, now, at thirty-six, he not only had to starve himself, he had to take the pil s and he had to real y work out.

  He was thinking, as the horses came up to the starting line, that thank God, he only had another season to go. Then he'd retire. He'd be through with the tortuous routine once and for al . And he was doing something that damn few jockeys had ever been able to do. He was retiring on the money he had saved since the day he had ridden his first mount back when he was in knee pants.

  Maxie had played it smart. He'd never bet on a horse in his life. Even today, with Black Lightning's broad back between his spindly legs, he hadn't bet. He knew Black Lightning was going to win. Knew it just as sure as he knew his name.

  Almost unconsciously his eyes went up to where Mrs. Galway Dicks sat in the box with her two daughters and the men who had accompanied them to the track.

  Mrs. Dicks had been upset as she always was. It annoyed her when Maxie wouldn't put a bet on the horse he was riding. She had wanted to get someone else, but the trainer had insisted on Maxie. The trainer was smarter than Mrs. Dicks would ever be.

  “But I can't understand, Maxie,” she had said. “You say we've got to win. So why don't you put something down on the horse yourself?”

  Maxie hadn't bothered to explain.

  “I never bet,” he'd said, and let it go at that.

  There may have been better jockeys—although in complete and unassuming fairness, Maxie told himself that there hadn't been a great many of them. But even the greats, Sande and the rest of them, had ended up broke. They may have booted in more winners, but they'd stil ended up broke. Not Maxie. He didn't have to be the greatest, but by God, he was one of the smartest.

  At the end of this season he'd have a quarter of a mil ion in annuities. And then he was going to quit. He'd go down to his breeding farm in Maryland and he'd never see another race track as long as he'd live. And the only thing he'd ever ride again would be the front seat of a Cadil ac convertible.

  Maxie was smart.

  Black Lightning

  reared up as a horse moved in next to him and Maxie instinctively pul ed slightly on the rein and his mount danced sideways. Maxie spoke softly and soothingly under his breath.

  And then they were off.

  Maxie didn't rush it. He knew he had this race in the bag, but there was no reason to rush. He knew what Black Lightning could do. Not only that, but he also knew approximately what every other horse in the race could do.

  Passing the grandstands on his first time around the track, Maxie kept his eyes straight ahead.

  He was conscious of the crowds; he even heard, dimly in the background of his mind, the roar from the packed stands. He was aware of the c
olor and the tension and the high excitement. But it al left him cold. He'd been in the saddle too many years to any longer feel the vicarious thril . He was a cold, aloof, precision machine. A part of the horse itself. He was at the track for one reason and one reason only. To win the race. Nothing, nothing else at al interfered with that thought.

  Going into the backstretch on the second time around, Maxie knew exactly where he stood in relationship to the other horses in the race. He spoke, in a low soft voice, almost directly into the horse's ear from where he leaned far over Black Lightning's neck. His crop just barely brushed the sweat soaked flanks of the animal.

  He began to move out ahead.

  It was like it always was when he had the right horse under him. He was in. He knew it.

  He went into the far corner and he lengthened the gap between himself and the others by a half a length. And then he was starting around the three quarter mark and getting set for the stretch. He had decided he would spread the gap by about a length and a half. He was sure, dead sure. But he'd take no chances. It was always possible one of those others would open up.

  His eyes were straight in front, on the dusty track about twenty yards ahead of Black Lightning's nose.

  He never knew what happened. One second and he was sitting there, almost as though he were posting a horse in a Garden Show. Knowing, never doubting for a second that in another few seconds he would hear the old familiar roar which would let him know he was coming in in front.

  And then it happened.

  Later on, when Mrs. Dicks saw him in the hospital and Leo, her trainer, stood beside her and they asked him about it, he was stil unable to say exactly what it was.

  He only remembered that everything had been fine there, for that moment.

  And then, before he knew it, Black Lightning had gone to his knees and Maxie himself was flying through the air. Hitting the track spread-eagled, he was instantly knocked unconscious.

  He never heard the hysterical, agonized screams of the other horses as they piled into Black Lightning. He didn't hear the crack of breaking bones, didn't see the blood which quickly splashed and then soaked into the soft dirt of the track.

  He didn't hear the wailing sirens of the ambulances as they raced across the infield.

  He was completely unconscious of the sudden, horrified hush of that vast crowd in the stands. A hush which in the very intensity of its suddenness was more dramatic and perhaps even more terrible than would have been the wildest and most fanatic screaming and shouting.

  The leaden slug from the 30-06 didn't kil Black Lightning. It took him just below the right eye and tore into the cheek until it struck bone and then plowed upward and came out through the back of the skul leaving a huge, four inch wide gap-The hoof of the number three horse, crashing into that bloody gash, tore Black Lightning's brains out through the side of his head.

  Alice McAndrews looked up from the typewriter. Her soft, sensuous mouth opened wide and her large blue eyes, upon which she had more than once been complimented, began to pop. She started to scream.

  * * *

  Holding the stock of the sub-machine gun under his right arm pit, Johnny Clay tightened his left hand on the neck of the crunched up duffel bag. He whipped it out and caught the girl across the face with it before the sound reached her lips.

  And then he stepped back a pace and faced the four people in the room. His voice was just barely audible.

  “One sound,” he said, “one sound from any of you and I start shooting!”

  The two men counting the money on the top of the wide table froze. Their hands were stil in front of them, half buried in green bil s. The other one, the one with the forty-five strapped to the holster at his hip, stood at the water cooler, and didn't move.

  Alice McAndrews began to cry and then quickly swal owed. A second later and she slumped to the floor in a dead faint.

  One of the men at the table began to move toward her.

  “Leave her,” Johnny said.

  “You!”

  He pointed his gun at the man nearest him, one of those at the table. “Take that duffel bag and start fil ing it. And you,” he looked at the other man, “go over and take that gun out of the holster. Be awful y careful how you do it. Take it out and lay it down on the floor. Then I want the two of you to turn around and face the wal .”

  Johnny tossed the canvas sack onto the table.

  It took less than two minutes to stuff the money in the bag. By that time the girl had begun to moan and move slightly. Johnny ignored her. He edged around until his back was to the door which led out into the stands. He had already snapped the lock on the door through which he had entered the room

  —the one from the employees' locker room.

  “Brother, you'l ...”

  Johnny looked up quickly. It was the man who had had the gun strapped to his waist.

  “Shut up,” Johnny said. “Shut up! I'd like to kil a cop. Particularly a private cop.”

  He had to speak very clearly. The handkerchief over the lower part of his face made the words seem muffled even then.

  He waited until the man at the table was through.

  “Now,” he said, indicating the safe in the corner whose door hung half open, “get the rest of it.”

  Through the closed door he heard the almost hysterical screaming and yel ing of the crowds in the stands. He knew. He knew just what was happening out there.

  It took another three minutes to get the money from the safe into the duffel bag. The bag itself was overflowing and there was stil more money in the safe.

  “That's al ,” Johnny said. “Pul the drawstring on the bag.”

  The man, his hands shaking so badly he had difficulty managing it, did as he was directed. Then he dropped the bag to the floor.

  “Pick her up,” Johnny said, motioning toward the girl. No one moved for a moment.

  “You,” said Johnny, looking at the private guard.

  The man reached down then and lifted the girl to her feet.

  The next minute would be the one which would decide.

  Johnny's eyes moved quickly to the door leading from the office into the room next to it. The room which he knew held the large track staff and in which the real work was done. In that room would be some three dozen persons.

  “I'm going to count three,” he said, “and then I want you to open that door. You are to go through it. When you get through,”—he stopped and looked for a second at the cop who was holding the girl—“and drag her with you,” he interrupted himself. “When you get through, just keep moving. I'm going to start firing through that door exactly fifteen seconds after you close it behind you. Now, before I begin counting, hand me that bag.”

  The man who had stuffed the bag with the money lifted it and carried it across the room to where Johnny stood. He had moved over toward the single window of the room so that he commanded al three doors. The window was wide open and he felt the slight breeze at his back.

  The man dropped the duffel bag at his feet and turned and walked toward the others.

  Johnny started counting.

  For a split second, as the door opened and the three men and the girl pushed through it, Johnny saw a couple of startled faces in the other room, looking out at him.

  He waited only until the door was closed and then he reached down with his left hand and grabbed the bag. It was too heavy and he had to drop the gun.

  A moment later, never looking, he heaved the duffel bag through the window.

  He didn't bother to pick up the machine gun again.

  Even before he had reached the door leading out into the lobby, he had stripped the gloves from his hands. He was tearing the handkerchief from his face as he opened the door.

  The whole thing had taken less than five minutes.

  Johnny's right arm was out of the sleeve of the sports coat and it was half off as he slammed the door marked “PRIVATE” behind himself. He was aware of Maurice standing next to him as he dropped the s
ports jacket to the floor and pul ed the soft felt hat from his head. He heard the shouts then. He saw the man rushing toward them.

  He was only dimly conscious of the sound of flesh against flesh as Maurice's fist smashed into the man's face at his side.

  And then he was pushing through the crush of bodies.

  A woman's high piercing scream kept coming through the din of the crowd as Johnny shoved his way through the jammed lower lobby of the clubhouse. There were no attendants in sight as he left by the main entrance.

  The sound of the sirens from the ambulances on the infield was suddenly interrupted by the shrieking of other sirens coming from outside of the track itself.

  Johnny realized that the riot cal had been sent in.

  He found the cab driver starting to leave his seat in the taxi.

  “My God,” the man said, looking at him with startled eyes, “what in the hel 's going on. Sounds like...”

  “The hel with it,” Johnny said. “Fight started at the end of the seventh. I don't know what it is, but this place is going to be a madhouse in about another three minutes. I got to get into town. Let's go.”

  The driver hesitated a second, then settled back behind the wheel.

  “Guess you're right,” he said. “We get trapped in here and we'l never get away.”

  Turning into the boulevard a couple of minutes later, the cabbie pul ed wel over to the curb and slowed up as a speeding riot car passed them.

  The police officer who had been directing traffic at the intersection was no longer guarding his post.

  Johnny dismissed the cab at the subway station in Long Island City.

  “In a hurry,” he said. “I'l make better time on the subway.” He handed the man the second ten dol ars.

  As he started up the stairs, he was aware of the driver leaving the parked cab and heading for an adjacent tavern. The man probably wanted to hear what might be coming over the radio about the riot out at the track.

  Getting off at Grand Central Station, Johnny went upstairs and ducked into the newsreel theater. He had a couple of hours to kil .