I didn't buy anything, Tommy said, reading her silence. It's not like we thought. I've been talking to people. It's all going to be different now.
What's going on? Just tell me if it's bad different or good different.
He reflected. It's depressingly easy-how's that? he said. Listen, I'll see you tomorrow.
He must have got money somewhere-that was her first thought. That would explain the stall-a horse he had got or was getting-but why would he think that Suitcase would suddenly give him whatever he asked? And what was this about the spitbox? I'm not worried. He must have fallen in with the right people, which meant the wrong people. Her scalp tightened and sweat crawled under her arms that had nothing to do with hot beans.
Aren't you going to ask me how Pelter is? she asked.
Frankly But she never found out what he meant to be frank about. She heard a woman's voice, not a girl's, a woman's, cigarette cured, over thirty-five-pictured some Jersey City blonde with a leathery Boca tan and terrifying fake fingernails, a white pantsuit and ten pounds of heavy gold costume jewelry.
Why are you hiding in here, Tommy? O you're on the phone. I want you should There followed the dull flabby nothing that fills your ear when a tactless person claps his palm over the telephone mouthpiece. Then:
Just kindly do what I asked. What did I ask?
Tell Medicine Ed about the drugstore. And fix up a stall.
Good. And he hung up.
She stood there blankly stirring the beans, with the phone clamped between her shoulder and her ear, until the dial tone changed into an ugly siren, and even that she listened to thoughtfully for a time until the phone went dead. Would Tommy take up with some brassy mob matron or chainstore magnate's widow or real estate super saleswoman, just to get her to buy him a horse? Why bother to ask! A woman owner-but of course. The real question was why she hadn't seen this coming. No wonder Tommy had been so sure there was no more to finding the money this time than going to get it. No more than Maggie and Hazel would the Palisades realtor, or mob duchess, or fast food fortune divorcee, turn him down. The woman owner from Jersey City, with her long hard fingernails, would take one look at him and spring.
Why you rotten dirty double-timing plongeur, she said out loud. And just as I was deciding that I really did love you. I pushed my luck. She burst out laughing, a little raggedly.
Well of course he had caught her at a weak moment, with a ladle in her hand, when the wound went to the quick, but she wouldn't leave him for this opportunistic infidelity-that would be far too talmudic-or poison his beans-that would be humorless in the extreme. Or fight the bitch for him-that would be primitive and crude and, even if it worked, only case number one in a long and tedious vigilance. No, she would simply, without whining, loosen the bonds between them. For now that she came to think of it, how could his own ties be anything but elastic, even if he hadn't been so goddamn handsome, like a movie star, because they would always have to stretch where a woman with money was concerned. He would always make room for an owner, of this there could be no doubt. After all, the Palisades broker could afford the best hairdresser in Teaneck and white sofas and black French panty girdles holding together her slightly flabby middle. He would even have a soft spot for that kind of vulgar savoir faire if it lived in Jersey City, which, after all, was only twenty miles from New York City, Belmont Park, Aqueduct, the races. And anyway it only had to be for a day or two, until her check cleared. If she made a nuisance of herself after that, he was no pinch-penny-he would let her and her per diems go.
O YES, PELTER WIN. Ain't paid much of nothing even for 2000 but he win. At Two-Tie's back door, where he had come to pay off a small loan, Medicine Ed took off his shapeless felt hat, and went on with his speech: Horse lay back there for three fourths of a mile like the six horse shadow, and at the sixteenth pole he just slip on by like evening coming on. My, my, wasn't it pretty, he make it look so easy, then I see him in the winner's circle, he can't hardly catch his wind. He a old horse all right. Pelter. Just baldhead class, that's all he know.
He run like an angel, Jojo Wood said. I didn't have to call on him for nothing. You won't believe it but when it come time to make his move, he showed me what to do.
We believe it, Deucey said, and nobody sniggered.
It was a pleasure to watch, Kidstuff said. The horse run like old times. So maybe it's just for two grand, but he still come up through the money to get there, and it had something classic about it, the way he win, like a great old athlete showing you how it's done-you shoulda been there.
Umbeschrien, said Two-Tie, and watch that two-bit tout lead that nice young woman's horse away? I might of threw up on myself.
Worst of it is, Deucey said, it almost makes Breezy look smart, claiming a nine-year-old horse.
D'Ambrisi is not smart, Two-Tie said. He's dumb, very dumb. He'll find out soon how dumb he is.
I wonder how long it will take him to ruin that horse, Deucey said.
He won't get no run out of the horse like Hansel could, that's a lock, said Kidstuff.
So you think that Hansel is a horseman, do you? Two-Tie asked the blacksmith, pouring himself warm orange soda with a small, plump, slightly shaking hand. Certain people that know what's what tell me that young man has got a excellent chance of running himself amok. And tonight he claims back that four-year-old from Jim Hamm in the sixth-I hear it was like a… like a hallucination or something with him.
That four-year-old ain't no hallucination, Kidstuff said. That was a helluva horse for twelve fifty, and Hansel picked him first. Course he paid two thousand to get him back and that wasn't sensible-that tells you something.
Talk about who's a horseman, Deucey said. If D'Ambrisi's a horseman, then I'm Eleanor Roosevelt. I bet he never worked a horse in his life. Somebody explain to me how a nitwit like that gets a trainer's license.
Somebody buys it for him, that's how, Kidstuff said.
D'Ambrisi will never run that horse at any racetrack, don't you worry about that, Two-Tie said. He's going to give the horse back to that young lady with ribbons on. He's going to tell her he's sorry, and he ain't even going to ask for his two grand back. You hear?
Everyone at the table was silent, for from Two-Tie such an announcement was amazingly indiscreet. Maybe he was slipping. Either he was getting shmaltzy about a broke-down old stakes horse, or he had a soft spot for the girl, Hansel's woman. Why should he care? Why did it matter at all? They shifted uneasily in their chairs and beer bottles clinked.
How did she take it, Edward? Two-Tie asked.
She doing all right, Medicine Ed replied, dropping his eyes.
And still the old man wasn't finished; Two-Tie said in a wheeze that for him was almost a shout: He's gonna beg her, beg her, to keep the change. The little goniff!
The company exchanged furtive glances, then Deucey dared to say: It might not be his two grand to give up. Like Kidstuff says, D'Ambrisi never had two nickels to rub together unless somebody gave it to him.
The word be round to leave that horse alone, Medicine Ed said. D'Ambrisi too weak to go in your face lessen somebody be leaning on him. And you know he ain't gone train that horse hisself. Somebody got to tell him what to do.
So who? Two-Tie said. They blinked at each other. Nobody knew.
Two-Tie pushed off the table and scuffed up and down the room, scratching wildly at the thin strands on his forehead. Elizabeth sat up and followed him with her eyes, her head waving left and right each time he passed. Kidstuff, Deucey and Medicine Ed looked away, embarrassed. Two-Tie was a great gentleman. Others thought of him that way and so did he himself. As a gentleman he was supposed to be punctilious about the old ways and above all unexcitable. He was not supposed to beat the bushes for his enemies. He didn't have enemies. From the little wars of territory that happened all around him, he had always stayed aloof. He didn't pretend he was better than he was and he had no private attachments, other than to his dog. And so the big question was, what did he care about that old horse? But having come across something truly shadowy and strange in the old gentleman, nobody wanted to ask. Two-Tie dealt a few hands, but nobody took fire, nobody felt lucky, and before the game ever got going, this one and that one remembered some reason they had to be back wherever they came from, and by three in the morning, they were all gone.