whenever you please. I about live here. But there’s one thing I won’t have.”
I gave myself one last lingering look in a full length mirror—Mitchum? I didn’t have a cleft in my chin, did I? I did, on the other hand, look half asleep, but that wasn’t surprising since I’d just got the stuffing kicked out of me.
Absorbed in myself, I turned back to hear what Clay wouldn’t have.
Both his eyes were staring directly into mine. “Don’t let me see you lyin’ on my wife’s second best friend’s brother’s slab.”
That made my goodbye smile fall off.
Chapter 21
I should of known who’d be holding forth at the main bar of the Grand Union Hotel.
As soon as I’d eased myself onto a stool—Clay may have groomed me as well they once groomed Black Gold, but my kidney ached like hell—I looked over and there she was, Mrs. Too-willing-ford. We both glanced away at the same time. I don’t know what or who she was looking at then, but I was staring at a nose the size of Mount Rushmore. I knew who owned it immediately. A famous nose like that, beloved at race tracks everywhere, belonged to the jockeys’ agent who’d handled both Manny Walker and Babe Duffy. Hollie Hayes was drinking straight bourbon out of a coffee cup (those old Prohibition habits die hard) looking worse than I did, even in his usual unusual selection of clothes. From shoes to hat, the man dressed like Bugs Bunny when Bugs Bunny was dressing like Red Skelton. As for crying in his beer, who could blame him? More than half his income had just died “accidently.”
Taking a quick look over my shoulder, I got an eyeful of who Mrs. Willingford was looking at. I had to hand it to him. Paul Jarrett was always a fast one. He’d changed his shirt. It was still Hawaiian, but this one was lime green with parrots on it.
Mrs. Willingford looked like she’d changed her mind about using his jockeys. And if not, they were negotiating something. Paul was doing his elbows on table, leaning in close, thing. Made me chuckle. After him warning me off. One of the things I always found myself thinking about went like this: I’d never stop being embarrassed by people.
I caught Paul’s eyes and winked. Paul had skin as thick as a rhino’s. He winked back.
I took Thomas Clay Jefferson’s advice. I got myself out of the grand Grand Union downing one drink and one drink only. I wasn’t going to see Alonzo the elevator operator about McBartle until at least one in the a.m. I had a lot of day left ahead of me. What to do now?
What I wanted to do was catch a movie. There were two new Bogie movies playing in town: something called Key Largo with Bacall. I liked Bacall well enough (she was no Carole Lombard, but she had a nice set of—teeth), but Bogie wasn’t playing a PI. And something without Bacall called The Treasure of the Sierra Madre . He wasn’t a PI in that either.
No time for a movie. I needed to check up on Carroll Goose, see if what he was hired for hooked up with what I was hired for. If he was, I’d go to the movies, bet the races, file a report of death by accident, and go home.
I walked through the gates of the Saratoga race track right about the time the third was going off. Oddest feeling in the world to be at a track and not have the foggiest who was running in what and who was riding who. I’d been in this situation before, but even then I’d get a bet down. Early days. Innocent days. Big loss days.
Goose wasn’t hard to find. He was where all the other security guards were: in an employee’s lounge. I called it a lounge because that’s what everyone was doing. Compared to Thomas Clay Jefferson’s gentlemen’s lounge at the Grand Union, it was a French open toilet. With most of the track “security” stuffed in it, I thought about how many Abba Zabba bars were being filched from the vending machines. As for all the other no-nos
I gave myself one last lingering look in a full length mirror—Mitchum? I didn’t have a cleft in my chin, did I? I did, on the other hand, look half asleep, but that wasn’t surprising since I’d just got the stuffing kicked out of me.
Absorbed in myself, I turned back to hear what Clay wouldn’t have.
Both his eyes were staring directly into mine. “Don’t let me see you lyin’ on my wife’s second best friend’s brother’s slab.”
That made my goodbye smile fall off.
Chapter 21
I should of known who’d be holding forth at the main bar of the Grand Union Hotel.
As soon as I’d eased myself onto a stool—Clay may have groomed me as well they once groomed Black Gold, but my kidney ached like hell—I looked over and there she was, Mrs. Too-willing-ford. We both glanced away at the same time. I don’t know what or who she was looking at then, but I was staring at a nose the size of Mount Rushmore. I knew who owned it immediately. A famous nose like that, beloved at race tracks everywhere, belonged to the jockeys’ agent who’d handled both Manny Walker and Babe Duffy. Hollie Hayes was drinking straight bourbon out of a coffee cup (those old Prohibition habits die hard) looking worse than I did, even in his usual unusual selection of clothes. From shoes to hat, the man dressed like Bugs Bunny when Bugs Bunny was dressing like Red Skelton. As for crying in his beer, who could blame him? More than half his income had just died “accidently.”
Taking a quick look over my shoulder, I got an eyeful of who Mrs. Willingford was looking at. I had to hand it to him. Paul Jarrett was always a fast one. He’d changed his shirt. It was still Hawaiian, but this one was lime green with parrots on it.
Mrs. Willingford looked like she’d changed her mind about using his jockeys. And if not, they were negotiating something. Paul was doing his elbows on table, leaning in close, thing. Made me chuckle. After him warning me off. One of the things I always found myself thinking about went like this: I’d never stop being embarrassed by people.
I caught Paul’s eyes and winked. Paul had skin as thick as a rhino’s. He winked back.
I took Thomas Clay Jefferson’s advice. I got myself out of the grand Grand Union downing one drink and one drink only. I wasn’t going to see Alonzo the elevator operator about McBartle until at least one in the a.m. I had a lot of day left ahead of me. What to do now?
What I wanted to do was catch a movie. There were two new Bogie movies playing in town: something called Key Largo with Bacall. I liked Bacall well enough (she was no Carole Lombard, but she had a nice set of—teeth), but Bogie wasn’t playing a PI. And something without Bacall called The Treasure of the Sierra Madre . He wasn’t a PI in that either.
No time for a movie. I needed to check up on Carroll Goose, see if what he was hired for hooked up with what I was hired for. If he was, I’d go to the movies, bet the races, file a report of death by accident, and go home.
I walked through the gates of the Saratoga race track right about the time the third was going off. Oddest feeling in the world to be at a track and not have the foggiest who was running in what and who was riding who. I’d been in this situation before, but even then I’d get a bet down. Early days. Innocent days. Big loss days.
Goose wasn’t hard to find. He was where all the other security guards were: in an employee’s lounge. I called it a lounge because that’s what everyone was doing. Compared to Thomas Clay Jefferson’s gentlemen’s lounge at the Grand Union, it was a French open toilet. With most of the track “security” stuffed in it, I thought about how many Abba Zabba bars were being filched from the vending machines. As for all the other no-nos
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