Maggie didn't believe it. You couldn't fall that hard around the racetrack, unless it was from a horse, and especially not into a foot of fresh snow. Somebody beat you up. Who was it?
Hope he done with you now, Medicine Ed sighed, like it went without saying who it was, but Deucey wouldn't talk. We still got the horse, was all she said. That night she threw her sleeping bag into the back corner of Little Spinoza's stall and tossed in extra straw and tunneled into it, and there she slept all week.
And nothing happened to Little Spinoza, but on Tuesday morning Deucey found Grizzly on his back in his stall, dead. It was plain to see what had killed him. Never in eight years had Grizzly left one damp oat in the bottom of his bucket. Deucey had bragged on it-she would be heartily sorry for her big mouth now. That was the secret of his long mediocre career, the reason he'd rather be a fifteen hundred dollar claiming horse than a ghost: He loved to eat. No matter how sore he was, every day had two saving points, breakfast and dinner. Last night for once in his life somebody had poured him all the sweet feed he could want, a whole five-gallon bucketful. Half of that was still in the pail when he started rolling on the ground.
At the sight of his gray legs sticking out straight, the terrible roundness of his bloat, the great gray tongue between his teeth and wide unsolaced eyes, Deucey leaned against the wall and buried her face in her hands. I paid for one damn horse with the other, it's the story of my life, she moaned, all these goddamn bandits running around the place raking it in, and I ain't allowed to go two horses deep. Grizzly's belly was still as big as a sofa; not even death had loosened the knot in his gut.
And also there was something wrong-Maggie didn't know what-about Tommy's going up north to see someone about a horse. He had driven off in the pitifully blatant Grand Prix in a peculiar agitation. Half mad, yes. He seemed fevered, shaken off his rootstalk, as when he had made a wild bet in the past and should know fear but wouldn't look down the hole his tapping out had left.
Tuesday he had been all business, clear-eyed at four in the morning, peering in the feed pails, shaking oats through the strainer, divvying up the rich alfalfa hay, green as Ireland, in careful flakes. He was scrupulous, had nerve, and didn't stint; when she recalled him, his elegant gait, terse and collected-nothing of the loose-boned buckaroo about Tommy-moving down the shedrow, deciding this and that; his deft, sensitive fingers taking off bandages, feeling along the cannon bone, fetlock, sesamoid for sponginess or heat-making the rounds with his little doctor bag-she admired him. He was all business, bringing Pelter up to his race. Tuesday he had even walked the horse himself, watching him carefully. When that horse goes bad, I go bad, he said to Maggie, and she said in alarm: Why, is something wrong with him? Not yet, he smiled.
Tuesday he was all order and expertise; he seemed to glow inside his own handsome case like a matched set of surgical instruments. By Wednesday, Medicine Ed and Maggie could look after Pelter, and never mind the rest of his two-for-a-nickel string. He was packing to go.
I've had it with getting by, Maggie, do you hear? How the hell did I get stuck in this hole-that's what I want to know. Anyway it's time to get out-I've got to have enough to put in a claim slip if something looks good to me-that's basic if we're going to the races. So I'm getting the money, you understand me, Maggie? he had said, as if that's all there had ever been to the money, just going to get it.
The way he said Maggie, do you hear? you understand me, Maggie? made her feel he was holding her by the shoulders and shaking her. She laughed a little, trying not to take him too seriously. If you need dough, why don't you ride a few bucks on Little Spinoza? she suggested, half in jest. Say a hundred? I'll even front it to you.
For god's sake, Maggie, he shouted, suddenly furious. He turned his back on her and rattled the cheap doorknob of the trailer, though it wasn't locked. Man, I can't wait to get out of this place.
Maggie, baffled, shook her head. What's wrong with you? He could win for three thousand-even Medicine Ed thinks so.
He turned back around, took hold of her braids, played with them, pulled on them gently but quite firmly, tipping her head back with them like a bell. He gazed down at her, and the little green jewels in his brown-green eyes seemed to swell with chemical light, now larger now smaller, like the cold lights of fireflies. For once she was not sure what he was seeing when he looked at her. Be very careful you're not taken in, my girl, especially while I'm away, he said. You think you have nothing to fear from anyone. That's your problem, Maggie. That's why I have to get us out of this penny ante bullshit now-so I can keep you safe. She felt an icy fingertip draw an X at the back of her neck.
Then he let her go. And I never said Little Spinoza couldn't win-his mocking smile was for both of them, and everything was clear and bright again. I have to draw the line somewhere-like getting cut in on my woman's action.
So why does my dough stink all of a sudden? It was always okay before, said Maggie crudely, but he rose above that provocation.
Your dough is fine, just fine, he said. All right-put ten bucks on Spinoza for me. That'll suffice. Tommy tossed folded shirts into a small suitcase of burnished sorrel leather. No matter how broke he was, no matter how laughable his car, he had good luggage and fine shoes-so he always seemed to be just now falling on hard times rather than hauling them around with him. A few minutes later, he drove off in the pitifully blatant Grand Prix. That had been four days ago. She hadn't heard from him since.
All the same he was in the beans blowing slow fat bubbles through thick lips. Then the phone rang, and it was Tommy, whispering. And also in the phone was some slimy crooner like Perry Como, with violins.
Maggie, I can't talk. Listen to me carefully now.
Little Spinoza win, she rushed to tell him, not forgetting to use the racetrack form of the verb.
I know-congratulations-now listen. I won't be back tomorrow till close to post time.
Don't you want to know what he paid? I've got money now-some money He paid 23.80, Tommy said patiently. Money is not a problem, Maggie. Now listen-I need your help. Are you there?
Sure.
Get a stall ready. Don't ask me why right now. Can you do it?
We don't have any more stalls.
Talk to Suitcase. He won't give you any trouble. He'll let me have whatever I want. And listen-you and Medicine Ed will have to bring Pelter to the race yourselves. Tell Medicine Ed I want the whole drugstore tomorrow-he's got the stuff and plenty of syringes and he knows how to do it. You just do whatever he tells you. And I mean Vitamin B, Maggie, you hear?
You mean bute? she whispered.
I mean bute.
Tomorrow?
Tomorrow.
Isn't that cutting it pretty close to post time?
Extremely close.
You're not worried?
I'm not worried.
Jesus Christ, Tommy, you didn't Don't ask me questions right now, Maggie, I don't have time.
– buy the spit box, she was thinking. They had heard from certain lowly racetrack types-it was the kind of thing a mouthy little parasite like D'Ambrisi would toss off-that it could be done. But even accepting that it might be true, probably was true, they had put it out of their minds. It went without saying that they would never have that kind of money, those kinds of ties. Unless you had those kinds of ties, it was better, healthier, not even to let a picture of them form in your mind. You had to believe instead in the side roads and sub-routes where a clever nobody could set up operations. The racetrack had plenty of those. True, they were crowded with seedy adventurers like themselves, people whose fortunes went up and down, who had it one day and lost it the next, and always would.