dazzling. “Sometimes I just bet to learn.”
“Expensive lessons.”
“Maybe. But you can’t put a dollar value on knowledge.”
“What is it you hope to learn?” I’m not normally this open with strangers, but this guy just sort of oozes charm, and I can’t help myself.
“People.”
“Excuse me?”
He laughs. It’s a low rumbling kind of laugh, manly and strong, and I like it.
“I like to learn people. I study them. I watch how they play, how they scrutinize, how they react to information. Like your leg. You were composed for a long time, and then the more you read, the more your leg got a life of its own. It’s your tell.”
“My tell?”
“Yeah. Like in poker. Everyone’s got a tell, a subtle little sign when they sense a winner or get nervous.”
“What’s yours?”
He laughs again, sits straighter in his seat and looks out at the tote board. When he looks at me again, his face is blank as a stone. “I don’t have one.”
“I thought you said everyone did.”
“Everyone but me, I meant. I never get nervous.”
It was my turn to laugh, and when I did, he laughed too.
“Everyone gets nervous when it comes to money,” I said. “Nervous to win and nervous to lose. It’s your last bottom dollar that’ll give you the blues.”
“What is that, a poem?”
“Nah. It’s a lyric. From one of my songs.”
“Really? A songwriter? The blues, I’m guessing.”
“You’d guess right then.”
“Well, isn’t that amazing.”
“How so?”
He hands me a business card from an alligator-skin wallet. There’s at least half an inch of money tucked in there. The card features a metal-flake comet in the top corner and says Win Hardy Talent Management . The card stock feels hefty, assured, confident.
“You’re a talent agent?”
“Well, let’s just say I have an interest in people that can make me money.”
“At the track?”
“I’ve found that talent isn’t limited to a specific area.”
“What does that mean exactly?”
“It means if you tell me who you like in this race and convince me to like them too, I’ll add to the ten bucks you’ve got to bet with.”
“How do you know that ten bucks is all I have to bet with?”
He smiled again. “Well, for one thing, you just told me. For another, you’re a blues player in a town with no blues scene, so you’re not gigging much. Lastly, you have the look of someone looking for one good hit, not someone out at the track for an enjoyable afternoon in the sunshine.”
“But you’d throw in with me if I tell you about this horse?”
He laughed and clapped me soundly on the back. It felt good. It felt all buddy-buddy and masculine. “See, I knew you had a line on something. So if it’s not Majestic Image, who is it?”
I wound up telling him everything, and for some reason it didn’t really surprise me.
CHAPTER THREE
H e gave me twenty dollars, and when Ocean’s Folly won by three-quarters of a length over Majestic Image, I collected almost nine hundred dollars. He did better than me. He won enough that they had to pay him by check. The first thing I did was pay him back the twenty. He studied me a moment, nodded, pocketed the money and led me upstairs to the clubhouse, where we sat on plush seats while a waiter served us drinks.
He sat back in his chair like a king. He spread both arms out over the backs of the adjacent seats and puffed on a long Cuban cigar. He had the expensive look of a Cadillac fresh off the lot. When he drank, he held the glass with a thumb and two fingers, and I thought it was a very delicate move for such a large man.
I watched people watch him. He had a way of drawing their eyes. It wasn’t in any way I could determine. He just drew people. They couldn’t stop looking at him. The men eyed him with envy, and the women offered coy looks over the tops of their programs or the rim of their drink glasses. I felt proud to be sitting with him.
“Well, Mr. Cree Thunderboy,” he said. “That
“Expensive lessons.”
“Maybe. But you can’t put a dollar value on knowledge.”
“What is it you hope to learn?” I’m not normally this open with strangers, but this guy just sort of oozes charm, and I can’t help myself.
“People.”
“Excuse me?”
He laughs. It’s a low rumbling kind of laugh, manly and strong, and I like it.
“I like to learn people. I study them. I watch how they play, how they scrutinize, how they react to information. Like your leg. You were composed for a long time, and then the more you read, the more your leg got a life of its own. It’s your tell.”
“My tell?”
“Yeah. Like in poker. Everyone’s got a tell, a subtle little sign when they sense a winner or get nervous.”
“What’s yours?”
He laughs again, sits straighter in his seat and looks out at the tote board. When he looks at me again, his face is blank as a stone. “I don’t have one.”
“I thought you said everyone did.”
“Everyone but me, I meant. I never get nervous.”
It was my turn to laugh, and when I did, he laughed too.
“Everyone gets nervous when it comes to money,” I said. “Nervous to win and nervous to lose. It’s your last bottom dollar that’ll give you the blues.”
“What is that, a poem?”
“Nah. It’s a lyric. From one of my songs.”
“Really? A songwriter? The blues, I’m guessing.”
“You’d guess right then.”
“Well, isn’t that amazing.”
“How so?”
He hands me a business card from an alligator-skin wallet. There’s at least half an inch of money tucked in there. The card features a metal-flake comet in the top corner and says Win Hardy Talent Management . The card stock feels hefty, assured, confident.
“You’re a talent agent?”
“Well, let’s just say I have an interest in people that can make me money.”
“At the track?”
“I’ve found that talent isn’t limited to a specific area.”
“What does that mean exactly?”
“It means if you tell me who you like in this race and convince me to like them too, I’ll add to the ten bucks you’ve got to bet with.”
“How do you know that ten bucks is all I have to bet with?”
He smiled again. “Well, for one thing, you just told me. For another, you’re a blues player in a town with no blues scene, so you’re not gigging much. Lastly, you have the look of someone looking for one good hit, not someone out at the track for an enjoyable afternoon in the sunshine.”
“But you’d throw in with me if I tell you about this horse?”
He laughed and clapped me soundly on the back. It felt good. It felt all buddy-buddy and masculine. “See, I knew you had a line on something. So if it’s not Majestic Image, who is it?”
I wound up telling him everything, and for some reason it didn’t really surprise me.
CHAPTER THREE
H e gave me twenty dollars, and when Ocean’s Folly won by three-quarters of a length over Majestic Image, I collected almost nine hundred dollars. He did better than me. He won enough that they had to pay him by check. The first thing I did was pay him back the twenty. He studied me a moment, nodded, pocketed the money and led me upstairs to the clubhouse, where we sat on plush seats while a waiter served us drinks.
He sat back in his chair like a king. He spread both arms out over the backs of the adjacent seats and puffed on a long Cuban cigar. He had the expensive look of a Cadillac fresh off the lot. When he drank, he held the glass with a thumb and two fingers, and I thought it was a very delicate move for such a large man.
I watched people watch him. He had a way of drawing their eyes. It wasn’t in any way I could determine. He just drew people. They couldn’t stop looking at him. The men eyed him with envy, and the women offered coy looks over the tops of their programs or the rim of their drink glasses. I felt proud to be sitting with him.
“Well, Mr. Cree Thunderboy,” he said. “That
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