A Horse’s Head

by Ed McBain

  “May I please have my change?”

  “What do you mean, change?”

  “I gave you my check and a five-dollar bill, but you didn’t give me my change.”

  “What do you mean, you gave me your check?”

  “A few minutes ago. You stuck it on your thing there, but you didn’t give me my change.”

  “What do you mean, I stuck it on my thing there?”

  “Well, take a look,” Mullaney said. “I had a grilled cheese sandwich and a Coke, it’s right on your thing there.”

  “This thing here?”

  “Yes.”

  The cashier pursed his lips, shook his head, and pulled the bill spindle closer to the register. He studied the top check (which had been given to him by the hawk-nosed man) and he studied the check under that (which had been given to him by a man in a grey sweater) and then he studied the check under that (the one that had been paid by the fat lady in the flowered bonnet) all the while muttering, “No grilled cheese sandwich here, you must be crazy,” and finally came to Mullaney’s check, sure enough, skewered on the long metal spike. He pulled it off the spindle, shoved his glasses up onto his forehead, held the check close to his face, peered myopically at it, and said, “Grilled cheese sandwich and a Coke, is that what you had?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You gave me five dollars?”

  “Well, check your drawer there. I’ve been standing here for maybe ten minutes, waiting for my change.”

  “Why didn’t you speak up?”

  “Well, I saw you were busy.”

  “You should speak up,” the cashier said. “You won’t get no place in this world, you don’t speak up.”

  “Well,” Mullaney said shyly, and watched while the cashier rang up a No Sale, and then reached into the drawer for four singles and fifty-five cents in change, the grilled cheese sandwich having cost thirty cents, and the Coke fifteen cents, for a grand total of forty-five cents—“Four fifty-five,” the cashier said, “is that correct?”

  “That’s correct, thank you,” Mullaney said.

  “Sorry to have kept you waiting,” the cashier said.

  “That’s quite all right,” Mullaney said. He walked back to the end of the lunch counter, left a twenty-five-cent tip for the waitress, and then nodded to the cashier as he walked out of the luncheonette, vowing to return with the money as soon as his ship came in.

  He could not find the proper labyrinth.

  He kept trying doors as he had last night, but somehow the magic was missing, he could not find the one that opened on the jacket’s hiding place, the secret book-bound glade wherein he had claimed his maiden, promising her the world and then some. But then, at last, frantic and exhausted, he found a door that opened on what seemed to be a familiar passageway, and he followed it between rows and rows of books, the dust rising before his anxious feet, saw a red light burning somewhere in the distance, made a sharp turn, found himself in the remembered cul-de-sac, and immediately saw the jacket. Untouched, it lay on the dusty floor where he had dropped it, surrounded by the paper scraps that had been sewn into its lining.

  His hands trembling, he picked it up.

  There was nothing terribly remarkable about it, it seemed to be an ordinary-looking jacket, made of black wool, he supposed or perhaps worsted, which was probably wool, he was never very good on fabrics, FA–FO with four round black buttons on each sleeve near the cuff, and three large black buttons at the front of the jacket opposite three buttonholes in the overlapping flap, a very ordinary jacket with nothing to recommend it for fashionable wear, unless you were about to be buried. He opened the black silk lining again, and searched the inner seams of the jacket, thinking perhaps a few hundred-thousand-dollar bills were perhaps pinned up there somehow, but all he felt was the silk and the worsted, or whatever it was. He thrust his hand into the breast pocket and the two side pockets, and then he searched the inner pocket on one side of the jacket and then on the other, but all of the pockets were empty. He crumpled the lapels in his hands, thinking perhaps the real money was sewn into the lapels, but there was neither a strange sound nor a strange feel to them. To make certain, he tore a lapel stitch with his teeth, and ripped the entire lapel open, revealing the canvas but nothing else. He was extremely puzzled. He buttoned the jacket and looked at it buttoned, and then he unbuttoned the jacket and looked at it that way again, but the jacket stared back at him either way, black and mute and obstinate.

  He put the jacket aside for a moment and picked up one of the New York Times scraps, not knowing what he would find, or even what he was looking for, but hoping one of the scraps might give him a clue to what the jacket was supposed to possess. He began methodically studying each scrap, not actually reading all of them, but scrutinizing the newsprint to see if any word or sentence had been circled or marked, but none of them had. As he turned each scrap over in his hands, he remembered what McReady had said last night, “Let us say that where there’s cheese, there is also sometimes a rat.” Now what the hell was that supposed to mean? He sighed heavily; there were far too many bogus bills. He finally spread them out haphazardly on the library floor, using both hands, and then only scanned them, making a spot check now and again, picking up one bill or another to scrutinize, and deciding on the basis of his sampling that none of them had any of their corners clipped or trimmed or scalloped or dog-eared or folded or anything.

  Well, he thought, I don’t know.

  I just don’t know what the hell it is.

  He picked up the jacket and slung it over his arm, thinking he might just as well hang onto it in the event he had a brilliant inspiration later, which inspiration seemed like the remotest possibility at the moment, and then decided he had better get himself out to Aqueduct before the second rice went off without him. He didn’t know what good it would do to be there, since he now possessed only four dollars and ten cents. With subway fare costing twenty cents, and admission costing two dollars, he wouldn’t even have enough left to lay a two-dollar bet on Jawbone.

  Well, he thought, we shall see what we shall see.

  He left the library the way he had come in, though now he was carrying the black-buttoned, black worsted jacket over his arm. On his way to the IRT in Grand Central, he passed a department store, and saw two pickets out front. One of them smiled, walked over to him, and said, “Shopping bag, sir?”

  “Thank you,” he said.

  The shopping bag was white with large red letters proclaiming JUDY BOND BLOUSES ARE ON STRIKE! Not being a union man himself, but being of course in sympathy with working men all over the world, Mullaney accepted the shopping bag, dropped the jacket into it, and hurried to Grand Central Station.

  10. MONA GIRL

  It took him forty-five minutes to get to Aqueduct from Grand Central via the IRT Lexington Avenue line to the Fulton Street-Broadway station where he changed to an IND “A” train that took him to Euclid Avenue in Brooklyn where he changed for a Rockaway train that took him directly to Aqueduct’s own million-dollar station overlooking the racetrack.

  He had been to the Big A more times than he could count in the year since he had taken the gamble. He felt now the same surge of excitement he experienced each time he approached the modern structure with its manicured lawns and blooming flowers, sprinkler systems going, a mild breeze blowing in off Flushing Bay. A smile erupted on his face. Still carrying the free shopping bag with its Judy Bond message, he walked jauntily up the wide concrete path to the grandstand entrance. He paid the man in the booth his two-dollar admission fee, bought a twenty-five-cent program and a copy of the Morning Telegraph from a hawker on the main floor, and then took the escalator up to the first floor. The track’s ceilings were high and soaring, built to accommodate the huge, hanging Totalisator boards that blinked electronically with changing odds every few seconds, harmonious browns and beiges and corals blending to form a serene backdrop for the surging excitement on the betting floor.

  It was only 1:10, and the fi
rst race (expected to start at 1:36, according to the tote board) had not yet begun. This meant that Mullaney had little more than forty-five minutes in which to raise whatever money he could in time for the second race. Anxiously, he scanned the faces in the crowd, searching for someone he knew. This was Saturday, though, and the gamblers (who normally composed perhaps ten percent of the track’s daily attendance) were today spread even more thinly among salesmen and businessmen and out-of-town buyers, housewives who had saved their nickels and dimes, nine-to-five clock-punchers who were ready to blow their week’s salary on a hopeful nag or two. There were present, too, gentlemen bettors with binoculars on their necks and blondes on their arms, college girls home for the spring vacation, servicemen on leave, Park Avenue ladies in slacks and mink coats, touts and tarts, bookies and bimbos, old Crazy Annie who would spend all day searching the vinyl tile floor for Win tickets mistakenly discarded, and even a juvenile delinquent in a black leather jacket with a skull and crossbones painted on its back (he had obviously seen the movie). Impossible to find anyone you know, Mullaney thought, unless you look very very hard, so he started to look and heard the track announcer’s distinct, high, clear voice coming over the loudspeaker system, cutting through the din for only a moment: “The hors-es are on the track!”

  That is marvelous, Mullaney thought. They’re already on the track for the first race, and I haven’t got the price of a two-dollar bet. He put down his shopping bag for a moment, leaned against one of the supporting girders, and opened his program. The second race was a six-furlong race with a $4,295 purse. It was limited to fillies and mares, four years old and upward, who had not won at least a $2,925 race since December 11th. The program noted that maiden, claiming, optional and starter races were not to be considered disqualifying, and then listed Jawbone as the number-3 horse, with morning-line odds of twenty to one, sure enough. She was owned by Targe Stables (whose colors were red polka dots on a white field, red sleeves, white cap) and she was to be ridden by Johnny Lingo, whom Mullaney knew to be an excellent jock. He nodded briefly, opened his Telegraph and scanned Jawbone’s track record. Apparently, she worked well on a wet track, which today’s track most certainly was, but she hadn’t won on any of her last three outings, leading the field each time only to run out of steam in the stretch, failing even to place. She was up against some damn good horses, the favorite being the 4-horse, Good Sal, at two-to-one odds, and the next closest longshot being the 8-horse, Felicity, at ten-to-one, which was still a far cry from the steep odds on Jawbone.

  She might do it, Mullaney thought. She especially might do it with a little help. And if she isn’t about to get a little help, then why had his dice-player friend given him the tip as early as yesterday, and why had Jawbone then been scratched, and why had the tip carried over into today’s second?

  It looked very much to Mullaney as if that sweet filly had been set to receive a little help yesterday, but maybe some wires had gotten crossed, so she’d been scratched before 8:30 A.M., which was the official weekday time limit for scratching any horse. That meant that her owners had until 10:15 A.M. Friday to enter her in one of Saturday’s races, and since fourteen horses could be started in a six-furlong race, chances were she would draw a post position unless the race was overfilled. It had apparently worked just that way, and it looked to Mullaney as if she might just possibly very definitely receive the help she needed today. A tip doesn’t carry from one day’s race to the next, nor is it bandied about by a hood with a stickball bat (no matter what the hell he claimed it was—a broom handle, ha!) unless the fix is in there tight, Charlie, unless that little help is going to be zinged in right when it’s needed, yessir, she looked very good indeed. He decided to play her, very definitely.

  All he needed was some money.

  He picked up his shopping bag, and began circling the echoing betting floor, searching the lines at the cashiers’ windows, seeing a few people he knew (but not well enough to ask for a loan), and then hearing the track announcer’s voice saying, “It is now post time,” and then, “They’re off!”

  He walked out to the grandstand to watch the race without interest, the announcer’s voice drowned out in the yelling of the crowd, “Come on, four! come on, Bidabee! come on, two!” everybody wanting some horse or other to come on, when of course none of the horses knew what anyone was yelling, and even if they did would probably pay no attention since horses are notoriously dumb animals who will bite you on your ass for no good reason, he disliked horses intensely. The crowd jumped to its feet as the 5-horse came streaking from fourth place to catch and pass the frontrunners and take first. Mullaney watched all the sore losers tearing up their tickets, and then looked at the tote board and saw that the race had taken one minute and thirty-eight seconds and that the present time was …

  The electronically controlled figures changed as he watched.

  1:39.

  He had less than a half-hour to raise a stake.

  He was delighted to see Lester Bohm in the crowd of gamblers walking up from the reserved grandstand seats, and more delighted when he realized Lester wasn’t tearing up any tickets but was instead holding in his hand two ten-dollar Win tickets on the 5-horse. The tote board had already posted the official results, and the price quoted on the 5-horse was $17.20, which meant that a bettor would get that amount of money for every two dollars he had invested. Lester’s ten-dollar Win tickets were each worth $86.00, so the possibility existed that perhaps he might be amenable to a small touch. Mullaney approached him confidently.

  “Hello there, Lester,” he said.

  “Oh, it’s you,” Lester replied.

  He was a short red-faced man wearing a colorful plaid sports jacket and a Professor Higgins hat. He always carried a cane, and it was rumored here and there that the cane served as the sheath for a rapier, and that Lester had once used it on a Chicago bookie who had welshed out on him. Mullaney could not believe this, however, because Lester seemed to him to be a very pleasant and personable fellow who would never dream of cutting up anybody, especially when he was holding two ten-dollar Win tickets in his fist. Lester had been married and divorced five times and was now working on his sixth wife—“My own personal Russian roulette,” he was fond of saying with a grin. He was an excellent horseplayer in that he frequently won, but he also lost sometimes, though not often. He was a good man to meet at a track when you were in need of cash, or at least Mullaney hoped so; he had never asked Lester for a loan in his life.

  “You’re off to a flying start, I see,” Mullaney said.

  “Yes, I am,” Lester said. “What is it, Mullaney?”

  “What is what?”

  “What do you want from my life?”

  Lester’s attitude puzzled him at first, until he remembered with something of a shock that Lester’s opening words had been “Oh, it’s you,” with the stress on the word “you,” as if something unspeakably vile had crawled out onto a white picnic cloth. Mullaney had never thought of himself as something unspeakably vile, and could not think of himself that way now. He was simply a gambler down on his luck, a situation that could be completely reversed this afternoon with a bet on Jawbone. But Lester’s attitude brought him up short, physically, so that he had to run to catch up to him, and then felt somewhat foolish chasing this dumpy roly-poly little man toward the Cash windows. He almost gave up the chase then and there, almost said The hell with it, there’s nothing for me here, he’s not in a moneylending mood. But something else within him forced him to continue his pursuit, the knowledge that he was not a vile and horrid insect that had crawled out into the sunshine, and the desperate need to convince Lester that he was not (although he could not imagine why Lester thought he was). I’m a very nice person, Mullaney said to himself. I’m just a little down on my luck, for Christ’s sake, I just need a few bucks to bet on a horse that’s a cinch to win. Don’t, for Christ’s sake, treat me like a loser.

  I’m not a loser.

  “Listen,” he said, and Lester
turned to him, lifted his face to Mullaney’s and pierced him with a cold, blue-eyed, frigid stare. “Listen, I’m not a loser,” Mullaney said, thinking he should not be telling this to a little shit of a man who had stabbed a Chicago bookie and made a mess of his life with his goddamn personal Russian roulette, why am I telling this to him?

  “So you’re not a loser,” Lester said. He stood leaning on the cane, his round face turned up and blandly impassive. “So?” he said. “So what?”

  “I have a winner in the second race,” Mullaney said.

  “Everybody has a winner in the second race.”

  “This is a sure thing.”

  “Everything is a sure thing,” Lester said.

  “Lester, I’ve never asked you for a nickel in my life,” Mullaney said, “have I?”

  “That’s true, you never have.”

  “I need five hundred. This is a sure thing, Lester.”

  “Oh, all you need is five hundred, huh?”

  “Lester, listen to me. I know I’ve been down on my luck lately, but believe me this horse is a winner, I know it is, and I think you know I’m good for the money.”

  “Oh yes, sure,” Lester said.

  “I’ve been down on my luck, that’s all. You’re a gambler, Lester, take the gamble.”

  “Five hundred, huh?”

  “Yes, five hundred. I’ll be paying you back in less than a half-hour, I’ll pay you the five hundred and another five hundred besides. You can’t ask for better than that, Lester.”

  “No, I certainly can’t ask for better than that.”

  “Will you?”

  “Will I what?”

  “Lend me five hundred. I hate to ask, but …”

  “Yes, I know, you’ve just been down on your luck, that’s all.”

  “That’s right, Lester. Lester, it hurts me to have to ask you for a loan, I mean it. Believe me.”

  “Yes, it must certainly hurt you to have to ask loans from all the people you’ve asked loans from in this past year, mustn’t it?”