I knew Joe Stack was being devious. I knew he had guessed that my friend, Dave Truelow, had been playing out of the box and had been lucky at it. So he told me to watch Garner. I don’t know what he was trying to prove, or what he thought I would do. Dave had gotten the inside track with Joanne. His grades were in pretty bad shape. He was beginning to act jumpy. I knew all I had to do was tell Joe Stack that Dave was playing out of the box regularly. Joe would fire him. He wouldn’t be able to wine and dine Joanne, and she would have to be content with my more meager date money. But I couldn’t do that.
After the races were over, I saw that Dave checked out with no difficulty. From the way he glanced at me I guessed he had had a pretty good evening. Joe, as usual, gave me a ride back to the campus after the armored car had been dispatched. As we drove out by the empty parking lot Dave passed us in the small used convertible he had bought. The top was down, and I saw Joanne beside him, some sort of white net affair over her pale hair. It hurt to see her going out with him. But there wasn’t much I could do about it.
“I wonder if Dave gets any sleep at all,” Joe said.
“He gets some.”
“How is he doing at the school?”
“I don’t really know.”
“You aren’t as friendly with him as you used to be. Break up over the girl?”
“I guess so.”
“Nice-looking girl, Johnny. Nice expensive little item.”
I was glad he didn’t continue it. I was glad he dropped it right there. After I was back in my room, it took time to get my mind riveted to the math book. Joanne kept getting in the way. I could see her walk, and see the way her mouth curved when she smiled.
We had a huge crowd on Friday night. It was the kind of evening the Chamber of Commerce claims Florida has all the time. Colored spots played on the infield fountains. The dogs ran hard in the white glare of the floodlights. The windows were busy. It was a bustling, good-humored crowd, with heavier money than usual.
When we had a breathing spell after the fourth race, and I had over four thousand worth of receipts in my box, Stan Garner winked over at me and said, “Davey is ailing.”
I glanced at Dave. He was looking straight ahead. His color was bad, and his face looked sweaty. I looked back at Stan Garner and raised one eyebrow in question.
“He went heavy on Dancing Ann. Maybe four hundred worth.”
Dancing Ann had been hit and rolled on the first turn. I whistled softly. I hadn’t been keeping track of anything outside my own window. Garner is the type who can work hard and keep his attention on ten different things at once.
I looked at Dave again and I knew that this was the night when he was going to come to the end of the string. He had a bad case of the fever, and up until now it had paid off. But it had changed, and I sensed that he was going to ride it all the way down. It wouldn’t be a pretty thing to watch. I couldn’t be happy watching it, even though it meant that Joanne would be my girl when it was all over.
We were running ten races. He made no bet on the fifth, at least no bet that I could see. I saw him bet the sixth. By then the word had gotten around. A lot of us saw him bet the sixth, holding the keys down for a frightening length of time, the bell bonging as each ticket was printed. He checked the sheaf of tickets and put them in his pocket and made a pencil notation on a piece of paper under the counter. His hand shook as he made the notation.
“About two hundred,” Garner whispered. “On Skipjack I think.”
The word was passed along. All the men behind the windows sweated out the sixth race. It was vicarious disaster. It was like watching a man cut his own throat slowly. Skipjack came in fourth. We watched Dave Truelow. He looked five pounds lighter than when he had reported.
He made another sizeable bet on the eighth. Garner was the one who spoke to Dave, called across to him. “Getting in a little heavy, Davey?”
Dave turned slowly. His voice and eyes were expressionless. “A little.”
“How much, kid?”
“Eleven hundred.”
That word was passed along, too, and I found that I, like all the others, was pulling for Dave to come out of it. But I knew he wouldn’t. And I think he knew he wouldn’t. Luck goes sour and it won’t come back.
I don’t know how Joe Stack heard about it. He had his own sources. I didn’t see him coming, but suddenly he was behind Dave. He stood there. He didn’t say anything. I saw Dave look back at him and then hunch more closely over his work. Joe stood there throughout the betting on the ninth race, and then went back to the money room.
When the results were posted on the ninth, Dave turned toward Stan Garner and me. He had a crazy look on his face. “That’s what I needed to get even. Boxer Boy. That’s what I was going to play. Eight to one it paid and I didn’t get dime one down.”
“He’ll have himself a good time figuring this last one,” Garner whispered to me. “Two favorites and six tanglefeet. He can’t get enough down on either favorite to make it all back.”
“What will they do with him?”
“This isn’t any twenty- or thirty-buck shortage, Johnny. They’ll hold him for the cops.”
Dave waited until moments before the board closed. Once again he held down the keys. Garner stood on tiptoes and looked across. He checked the numbers against the starting position and said, in a tone of awe, “Kathy’s Prince! Good God!” Then he shrugged. “He’s down eleven hundred. Another hundred won’t make it hurt any worse.”
I tried not to look at Dave as the race was being run. We could not see the finish line from the windows. We could all hear the sound of it, the rising roar as the dogs came around the final turn and into the stretch. Dave stood utterly motionless. The crowd sound died away abruptly as it always does, and people began to move toward the exits and the big parking lot.
The P.A. system announced a photo finish between dogs one and seven. Seven was Kathy’s Prince. I looked at Dave. He wavered a little and held onto the edge of the counter for support. I began automatically to prepare my checkout. The bank had finished its final number of the evening.
I was looking at Dave when it was announced that seven had won. I saw the life come back into him, saw his shoulders straighten and his color come back. He gave us all a big wide grin. One hundred down at twenty to one would clear up the shortage and give him eight hundred gravy.
A half hour later I stood in the shadows of the stand on the parking lot side and waited for Joe Stack. I had seen Dave drive out with Joanne. I had heard her laughter, like clear silver in the night. I felt abused and tired and shabby. I leaned against a pillar and smoked and waited for Joe. The lights were out, the fountains still.
Joe came walking heavily out. “Oh, there you are. Wait long?”
“Not too long.”
We walked to his car. We got in and he put the key in the ignition but he didn’t turn it on. He turned toward me. I couldn’t see his face in the darkness. “Don’t let it get you, kid.”
“What do you mean?”
“It didn’t happen this time. It didn’t happen tonight. It might not happen next time, but it’s going to happen. You can bank on that. It’s as sure as sunrise. Don’t play dumb with me, either. I mean Dave. Like with Henny Penny, the sky is going to fall on his head. Tonight he has the money and the girl and everything.”
“I guess he does.”
“You don’t have to see it happen, do you? I mean you don’t have to have it driven into your skull.”