A Tip on a Turtle
Robert Silverberg
Here’s an elegant and darkly ironic look at the proposition that some things in life are better not to know…
A Tip on a Turtle
by Robert Silverberg
The sun was going down in the usual spectacular Caribbean way, disappearing in a welter of purple and red and yellow streaks that lay across the wide sky beyond the hotel’s manicured golf course like a magnificent bruise. It was time to head for the turtle pool for the pre-dinner races. They held the races three times a day now, once after lunch, once before dinner, once after dinner. Originally the races had been nothing more than a casual diversion, but by now they had become a major item of entertainment for the guests and a significant profit center for the hotel.
As Denise took her place along the blazing bougainvillea hedge that flanked the racing pool, a quiet, deep voice just back of her left ear said, “You might try Number Four in the first race.”
It was the man she had noticed at the beach that afternoon, the tall tanned one with the powerful shoulders and the tiny bald spot. She had been watching him snorkeling along the reef, nothing visible above the surface of the water but his bald spot and the blue strap of his goggles and the black stalk of the snorkel. When he came to shore he walked right past her, seemingly lost in some deep reverie; but for a moment, just a moment, their eyes had met in a startling way. Then he had gone on, without a word or even a smile. Denise was left with the feeling that there was something tragic about him, something desperate, something haunted. That had caught her attention. Was he down here by himself? So it appeared. She too was vacationing alone. Her marriage had broken up during Christmas, as marriages so often did, and everyone had said she ought to get away for some midwinter sunshine. And, they hadn’t needed to add, for some postmarital diversion. She had been here three days so far and there had been plenty of sunshine but none of the other thing, not for lack of interest but simply because after five years of marriage she was out of practice at being seduced, or shy, or simply uneasy. She had been noticed, though. And had done some noticing.
She looked over her shoulder at him and said, “Are you telling me that the race is fixed?”
“Oh, no. Not at all.”
“I thought you might have gotten some special word from one of the hotel’s boys.”
“No,” he said. He was very tall, perhaps too tall for her, with thick, glossy black hair and dark, hooded eyes. Despite the little bald spot, he was probably forty at most. He was certainly attractive enough, almost movie-star handsome, and yet she found herself thinking unexpectedly that there was something oddly asexual about him. “I just have a good feeling about Number Four, that’s all. When I have a feeling of that sort it often works out very well.” A musical voice. Was that a faint accent? Or just an affectation?
He was looking at her in a curiously expectant way.
She knew the scenario. He had made the approach; now she should hand him ten Jamaican dollars and ask him to go over to the tote counter and bet them on Number Four for her; when he returned with her ticket they would introduce themselves; after the race, win or lose, they’d have a daiquiri or two together on the patio overlooking the pool, maybe come back to try their luck on the final race, then dinner on the romantic outdoor terrace and a starlight stroll under the palisade of towering palms that lined the beachfront promenade, and eventually they’d get around to settling the big question: his cottage or hers? But even as she ran through it all in her mind she knew she didn’t want any of it to happen. That lost, haunted look of his, which had seemed so wonderfully appealing for that one instant on the beach, now struck her as simply silly, melodramatic, overdone. Most likely it was nothing more than his modus operandi: women had been falling for that look of masterfully contained agony at least since Lord Byron’s time, probably longer. But not me, Denise told herself.
She gave him a this-leads-nowhere smile and said, “I dropped a fortune on these damned turtles last night, I’m afraid. I decided I was going to be just a spectator this evening.”
“Yes,” he said. “Of course.”
It wasn’t true. She had won twenty Jamaican dollars the night before and had been looking forward to more good luck now. Gambling of any sort had never interested her until this trip, but there had been a peculiar sort of pleasure last night in watching the big turtles gliding toward the finish line, especially when her choices finished first in three of the seven races. Well, she had committed herself to the sidelines for this evening by her little lie, and so be it. Tomorrow was another day.
The tall man smiled and shrugged and bowed and went away. A few moments later Denise saw him talking to the leggy, freckled woman from Connecticut whose husband had died in some kind of boating accident the summer before. Then they were on their way over to the tote counter and he was buying tickets for them. Denise felt sudden sharp annoyance, a stabbing sense of opportunity lost.
“Place your bets, ladies gemmun, place your bets!” the master of ceremonies called.
Mr. Eubanks, the night manager—shining black face, gleaming white teeth, straw hat, red-and-white striped shirt—sat behind the counter, busily ringing up the changing odds on a little laptop computer. A boy with a chalkboard posted them. Number Three was the favorite, three to two; Number Four was a definite long shot at nine to one. But then there was a little flurry of activity at the counter, and the odds on Four dropped abruptly to five to one. Denise heard people murmuring about that. And the the tote was closed and the turtles were brought forth.
Between races the turtles slept in a shallow, circular concrete-walled holding tank that was supplied with sea water by a conduit running up from the beach. They were big green ones, each with a conspicuous number painted on its upper shell in glowing crimson, and they were so hefty that the brawny hotel boys found it hard going to carry them the distance of twenty feet or so that separated the holding tank from the long, narrow pool where the races were held.
Now the boys stood in a row at the starting line, as though they themselves were going to race, while the glossy-eyed turtles they were clutching to their chests made sleepy graceless swimming motions in the air with their rough leathery flippers and rolled their spotted green heads slowly from side to side in a sluggish show of annoyance.
The master of ceremonies fired a starter’s pistol and the boys tossed the turtles into the pool. Graceless no longer, the big turtles were swimming the moment they hit the water, making their way into the blue depths of the pool with serene, powerful strokes.
There were six lanes, separated by bright yellow ribbons, but of course the turtles had no special reason for remaining in them. They roamed about randomly, perhaps imagining that they had been returned to the open sea, while the guests of the hotel roared encouragement “Come on, Five! Go for it, One! Move your green ass, Six!”
The first turtle to touch any part of the pool’s far wall was the winner. Ordinarily it took four or five minutes for that to happen; as the turtles wandered, they sometimes approached the finish line but didn’t necessarily choose to make contact with it, and wild screams would rise from the backers of this one or that as their turtle neared the wall, sniffed it, perhaps, and turned maddeningly away without making contact.
But this time one of the turtles was swimming steadily, almost purposefully, in a straight line from start to finish. Denise saw it moving along the floor of the pool like an Olympic competitor going for the gold. The brilliant crimson number on its back, though blurred and mottled by the water, was unmistakable.
“Four! Four! Four! Look at that bastard go!”
It was all over in moments. Four completed its traversal of the pool, lightly bumped its hooked snout against
the far wall with almost contemptuous satisfaction, and swung around again on a return journey to the starting point, as if it had been ordered to swim laps. The other turtles were still moving about amiably in vague circles at mid-pool.
“Numbah Four,” called the master of ceremonies. “Pays off at five to one for de lucky winnahs, yessah yessah!”
The hotel boys had their nets out, scooping up the heavy turtles for the next race. Denise looked across the way. The leggy young widow from Connecticut was jubilantly waving a handful of gaudy Jamaican ten-dollar bills in the face of the tall man with the tiny bald spot. She was flushed and radiant; but he looked down at her solemnly from his great height without much sign of excitement, as though the dramatic victory of Number Four had afforded him neither profit nor joy nor any surprise at all.
The short, stocky, balding Chevrolet dealer from Long Island, whose features and coloration looked to be pure Naples but whose name was like something out of Brideshead Revisited—Lionel Gregson? Anthony Jenkins?—something like that—materialized at Denise’s side and said, “It doesn’t matter which turtle you bet, really. The trick is to bet the boys who throw them.”
His voice, too, had a hoarse Mediterranean fullness. Denise loved the idea that he had given himself such a fancy name.
“Do you really think so?”
“I know so. I been watching them three days, now. You see the boy in the middle? Hegbert, he’s called. Smart as a whip, and damn strong. He reacts faster when the gun goes off. And he don’t just throw his turtle quicker, he throws it harder. Look, can I get you a daiquiri? I don’t like being the only one drinking.“ He grinned. Two gold teeth showed. ”Jeffrey Thompkins, Oyster Bay. I had the privilege of talking with you a couple minutes two days ago on the beach.”
“Of course. I remember. Denise Carpenter. I’m from Clifton, New Jersey, and yes, I’d love a daiquiri.”
He snagged one from a passing tray. Denise thought his Hegbert theory was nonsense—the turtles usually swam in aimless circles for a while after they were thrown in, so why would the thrower’s reaction time or strength of toss make any difference?—but Jeffrey Thompkins himself was so agreeably real, so cheerfully blatant, that she found herself liking him tremendously after her brush with the Byronic desperation of the tall man with the little bald spot. The phonied-up name was a nice capping touch, the one grotesque bit of fraudulence that made everything else about him seem more valid. Maybe he needed a name like that where he lived, or where he worked.
Now that she had accepted a drink from him, he moved a half step closer to her, taking on an almost proprietary air. He was about two inches shorter than she was.
“I see that Hegbert’s got Number Three in the second race. You want I should buy you a ticket?”
The tall man was covertly watching her, frowning a little. Maybe he was bothered that she had let herself be captured by the burly little car dealer. She hoped so.
But she couldn’t let Thompkins get a ticket for her after she had told the tall man she wasn’t betting tonight. Not if the other one was watching. She’d have to stick with her original fib.
“Somehow I don’t feel like playing the turtles tonight,” she said. “But you go ahead, if you want.”
“Place your bets, ladies gemmun, place your bets!”
Hegbert did indeed throw Number Three quickly and well, but it was Five that won the race, after some minutes of the customary random noodling around in the pool. Five paid off at three to one. A quick sidewise glance told Denise that the tall man and the leggy Connecticut widow had been winners again.
“Watch what that tall guy does in the next race,” she heard someone say nearby. “That’s what I’m going to do. He’s a pro. He’s got a sixth sense about these turtles. He just wins and wins and wins.”
But watching what the tall man did in the next race was an option that turned out not to be available. He had disappeared from the pool area somewhere between the second and third races. And so, Denise noted with unexpectedly sharp displeasure, had the woman from Connecticut.
Thompkins, still following his Hegbert system, bet fifty on Number Six in the third race, cashed in at two to one, then dropped his new winnings and fifty besides backing Number Four in the fourth. Then he invited Denise to have dinner with him on the terrace. What the hell, she thought. Last night she had had dinner alone; very snooty, she must have seemed. It hadn’t been fun.
In the uneasy first moments at the table they talked about the tall man. Thompkins had noticed his success with the turtles also. “Strange guy,” he said. “Gives me the creeps—something about the look in his eye. But you see how he makes out at the races?”
“He does very well.”
“Well? He cleans up! Can’t lose for winning.”
“Some people have unusual luck, I suppose.”
“This ain’t luck. My guess is maybe he’s got a fix in with the boys—like they tell him what turtle’s got the mojo in the upcoming race. Some kind of high sign they give him when they’re lining up for the throw-in.”
“How can that be? Turtles are turtles. They just swim around in circles until one of them happens to hit the far wall with his nose.”
“No,” said Thompkins. “I think he knows something. Or maybe not. But the guy’s hot for sure. Tomorrow I’m going to bet the way he does, right down the line, race by race. There are other people here doing it already. That’s why the odds go down on the turtle he bets, once they see which one he’s backing. If the guy’s hot, why not get in on his streak?”
He ordered a white Italian wine with the first course, which was grilled flying fish with brittle orange caviar globules on the side. “I got to confess,” he said, grinning again, “Jeffrey Thompkins is not really my name. It’s Taormina, Joey Taormina. But that’s hard to pronounce out where I live, so I changed it.”
“I did wonder. You look… it is Neapolitan?”
“Worse. Sicilian. Anybody you meet named Taormina, his family’s originally from Sicily. Taormina’s a city on the east coast of Sicily. Gorgeous place. I’d love to show you around it some day.”
He was moving a little too fast, she thought. A lot too fast.
“I have a confession too,” she said. “I’m not from Clifton any more. I moved back into the city a month ago after my marriage broke up.”
“That’s a damn shame.” He might almost have meant it. “I’m divorced too. It practically killed my mother when I broke the news. Well, you get married too young, you get surprised later on.” A quick grin; he wasn’t all that saddened by what he had learned about her. “How about some red wine with the main course? They got a good Brunello here.”
A little later he invited her, with surprising subtlety, to spend the night with him. As gently as she could, she declined. “Well, tomorrow’s another day,” he said cheerfully. Denise found herself wishing he had looked a little wounded, just a little.
The daytime routine was simple. Sleep late, breakfast on the cottage porch looking out at the sea, then a long ambling walk down the beach, poking in tide pools and watching ghostly gray crabs scutter over the pink sand. Midmorning, swim out to the reef with snorkel and fins, drift around for half an hour or so staring at the strangely contorted coral heads and the incredibly beautiful reef creatures. It was like another planet, out there on the reef. Gnarled coral rose from the sparkling white sandy ocean floor to form fantastic facades and spires through which a billion brilliant fishes, scarlet and green and turquoise and gold in every imaginable color combination, chased each other around. Every surface was plastered with pastel-hued sponges and algae. Platoons of tiny squids swam in solemn formation. Toothy, malevolent-looking eels peered out of dark caverns. An occasional chasm led through the coral wall to the deep sea beyond, where the water was turbulent instead of calm, a dark blue instead of translucent green, and the ocean floor fell away to invisible depths. But Denise never went to the far side. There was something ominous and threatening about the somber outer face of the r
eef, whereas here, within, everything was safe, quiet, lovely.
After the snorkeling came a shower, a little time spent reading on the porch, then the outdoor buffet lunch. Afterwards a nap, a stroll in the hotel’s flamboyant garden, and by mid-afternoon down to the beach again, not for a swim this time, but just to bake in the blessed tropical sun. She’d worry about the possibility of skin damage some other time; right now what she needed was that warm caress, that torrid all-enfolding embrace. Two hours dozing in the sun, then back to the room, shower again, read, dress for dinner. And off to the turtle races. Denise never bothered with the ones after lunch—they were strictly for the real addicts—but she had gone every evening to the pre-dinner ones.
A calm, mindless schedule. Exactly the ticket, after the grim, exhausting domestic storms of October and November and the sudden final cataclysm of December. Even though in the end she had been the one who had forced the breakup, it had still come as a shock and a jolt: she too was getting divorced, just another pathetic casualty of the marital wars, despite all the high hopes of the beginning, the grand plans she and Michael liked to make, the glowing dream. Everything dissolving now into property squabbles, bitter recriminations, horrifying legal fees. How sad: how boring, really. And how destructive to her peace of mind, her self-esteem, her sense of order, her this, her that, her everything. For which there was no cure, she knew, other than to lie here on this placid Caribbean beach under this perfect winter sky and let the healing slowly happen.
Jeffrey Thompkins had the tact—or the good strategic sense—to leave her alone during the day. She saw him in the water, not snorkeling around peering at the reef but simply chugging back and forth like a blocky little machine, head down, arms windmilling, swimming parallel to the hotel’s enormous ocean frontage until he had reached the cape just to the north, then coming back the other way. He was a formidable swimmer with enough energy for six men. Quite probably he was like that in bed, too, but Denise had decided somewhere between the white wine and the red at dinner last night that she didn’t intend to find out. She liked him, yes. And she intended to have an adventure of some sort with someone while she was down here. But a Chevrolet dealer from Long Island? Shorter than she was, with thick hairy shoulders? Somehow she couldn’t. She just couldn’t, not her first fling after the separation. He seemed to sense it too, and didn’t bother her at the beach, even had his lunch at the indoor dining room instead of the buffet terrace. But she suspected she’d encounter him again at evening turtle-race time.
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