“So the trip down was good?” he asked Mel. “Traffic okay leaving Pittsburgh?”
Mel nodded enthusiastically. “Got twelve-point-four miles to the gallon. Put in a quart of oil when we got to Kentucky. The turnpike was murder, though. You never saw so many potholes.”
Truman felt himself relax. If Mel was up to bitching about road conditions and bragging about the mileage on that Newport of his, he was feeling fine again.
“Whattabout it?” Truman said. “Think the Bucs can stay out of the cellar this year?”
“Don’t start with me,” Mel warned, his deep voice rumbling with pleasure. “We got the finest centerfielder in the NL. He’s gonna hit .326, make the All-Stars. We’re going all the way this year, my friend. It’s the Pirates’ year, all right, especially if—”
“Hey, Mr. K, Mr. Wisnewski,” a young female voice interrupted. “How y’all doin’?”
Jackleen Canaday edged her way through the crowd to their side. She was wearing a big white tunic top with gold and silver sequins pasted on in a swirling design, tight white slacks, and gold high-heeled shoes. She had on a gold cowboy hat too, with her hair tucked under it.
Mel smiled uncertainly. “Hello.”
Truman squeezed his elbow. “This is Jackleen. From the dining room. Remember?”
“Sure,” Mel said. “Good to see you again, Jackleen.”
“So, Jackleen,” Truman said, “did you get the night off?”
A smile lit up her face. “La Wanda wanted to work double shifts today. All the girls put our money together.” She held up a little white purse on a gold chain. “Thirty dollars. Enough to play every race. Talkin’ ‘bout big money.”
“Well now,” Mel said. He straightened his shoulders. “You don’t mind being seen in the company of two old coots like us?”
“You can help me carry my winnings home,” Jackleen said, grinning.
The bus pulled up to the curb then and made a loud snorting sound as the hydraulic doors were flung open. It was a standard green-and-white transit authority bus, but someone had pasted a big banner on one side. “Snowbird Special!” it proclaimed.
The pitch of voices raised, and the crowd began inching toward the curb. Truman caught hold of Mel’s sport coat. “Stay by me now,” he said, keeping his voice light. “I’m counting on you buying the first beer. It’s your turn, remember?”
“Don’t worry,” Mel said, and then the crowd pushed them down the aisle of the bus, toward the back. They stayed standing, because all the seats were taken.
The bus bumped and lurched, but the crowd was packed so tightly that there was no chance they’d fall down. The air was hot and stale, it smelled like hair spray and Brylcreem and canned tomato soup. Truman wished someone would open a window.
When they all got off into the balmy night air, they were directly in front of the main entrance to the track.
Mel got off first, and the crowd seemed to swallow up the tall, straw-hatted man. Panicked, Truman tried to push his way through the throng, but it was too thick, too unmoving.
He reached into the pocket of his lightweight poplin jacket and pulled out his old press card.
“Excuse me,” he said loudly, holding the white card aloft. “Working press. Coming through. Press here.”
People looked at him curiously, but let him through. He managed to jostle his way toward the glass-fronted ticket booth. Mel Wisnewski stood there, anxiously looking for his friend.
“Truman,” he said when he spied him. “What the hell took you so long?” It wasn’t until Truman reached the window and was reaching into his jacket pocket for his wallet that he felt the tugging at his coattail.
“Mr. K,” Jackleen said breathlessly. “You run pretty good, you know that? I had to hang on for dear life.”
“Never mind,” Truman said. He hated to admit it, but his heart was racing with fear and excitement. God knows what might happen if he lost Mel in this crowd.
As long as he had the press card out, Truman thought, it wouldn’t hurt to use it. After Mel and Jackie paid, he stepped up to the ticket booth.
“Working press,” he said, flashing the card for a moment.
“What?” the girl said. “Can I see that card again?”
Truman’s face flushed. His press card had expired last year. “I’m with the press,” he said. “AP.”
“What’s that?” the girl said.
“Associated Press,” Truman said, puffing his chest a little.
“Like a newspaper?” the girl asked. “‘Cause we got a separate press entrance. You gotta go around to the gate on the other side.” She was already looking over his shoulder at the next person in line.
Truman shrugged and gave her a dollar. “Never mind.”
Inside the gates the three walked quickly down a runway to the grandstand. Truman, in the lead, strode past the rows of green benches to the fence around the track. He stood and sniffed appreciatively. It smelled like old times. Cigar smoke mingled with perfume and the tangy salt of the bay. “Nice night,” he said to his friends.
The three of them clung to the fence surrounding the track and drank it in, a postcard view of Florida. The white sand track had been raked smooth and it sparkled next to the lush green lawn of the infield. There was a rock fountain there in the middle, and it was outlined with some kind of frilly pink, white, and purple flowers. The tote board was lit up atop the bandstand, numbers winking on and off as the odds changed. On the bandstand itself a dozen red-jacketed men tootled away at “Sentimental Journey.” Tall sabal palms swayed in the evening breeze.
Truman felt himself relax. As always, he wished fleetingly that Nellie were here.
“Twenty minutes to post time,” the public address system announced. “Twenty minutes to place your bets.”
“I gotta go find Rosie,” Mel said abruptly.
“That your girlfriend?” Jackleen asked. “I’m gonna go call Miss Pearl and tell her on you, Mr. Wisnewski.”
“Girlfriend?” Mel was puzzled for a moment. He blushed. “No, no, no. Rosie’s a … uh, she tells people which dogs to bet.”
“A tout,” Truman said. “She’s not too bad,” he added grudgingly.
“I’ve got to go find her,” Mel said.
“Later,” Truman suggested. “Look, I got the Times and the program. They both got picks in them. See?”
He took the folded-up sports pages out of his jacket pocket, along with the rolled-up race program. “Let’s box quinellas like we did last year. Double our money, right?”
“No,” Mel said stubbornly. “Rosie’s got a system. Something new. At the end of last year she told me a friend of hers was working on a new system, something with computers—”
“Yeah,” Truman said, shaking his head in disapproval. “Everybody’s got a system. Me, I like to watch the dogs when they lead ‘em out. I watch to see which ones are frisking around, raring to go, which ones are rolling around in the grass. But the dog I bet, that’s the dog that takes a dump. I figure he’s gonna run that much faster. Right?”
“Hey,” Jackie said. “You know Anne Marie, the blond girl who only works dinners? She’s got a system too.”
“Anne Marie,” Mel said, interested. “Do I know her?”
“You know,” Jackie said. “Kind of a hippy-lookin’ chick. She wears those big black lace-up army boots and beads, got these little old round granny glasses.”
“Big butt and good legs,” Truman said.
“Oh yeah. Anne Marie,” Mel said. “What’s her system?”
Jackie took a sheet of paper from her purse. It was one of the coffee shop’s paper placemats, the ones with the map of Florida attractions on it. The back had been written on with a green ink pen.
“She does the dog’s signs,” Jackie started to explain.
“Signs?” Truman said. “What kind of signs?”
“Their astrology signs. She’s got all these books and charts and stuff.”
“Wait now,” Truman said. “How the h
ell does this girl know which dog is a Leo and which is a Taurus?”
He didn’t advertise it, but Truman never missed his own horoscope in the Times. A Virgo, that’s what he was. “Loyalty to a friend leads to new horizons,” it said for today.
“No, Mr. K, see, they got it all right here in the program,” Jackie said. She tapped the first race listing.
“See, this dog here, Andy’s Candy? Look over here in the chart. He was born in February. That makes him a Pisces. So Anne Marie, she looks at how good a Pisces is gonna do today against, say, an Aries, or a Sagittarius, and she figures out who’s gonna do best.”
“You believe that crap?” Truman asked.
Jackie nodded quickly. “Anne Marie worked me up too. ‘Financial windfall,’ she said. That means money, right? I’m gonna win big tonight, for sure.”
“Be right back,” Mel said then, and before Truman could stop him, he was moving away rapidly, disappearing into the crowd.
Jackie saw the look of panic in Truman’s face and started after the old man. “I’ll go with him,” she called over her shoulder.
“I’m right behind you,” Truman said.
Chapter SIX
Wade Hardeson’s right eye was swollen nearly shut, his cheekbone and eye socket a swirl of purple and green. But he could see well enough to observe the woman with the flower-covered hat getting off the bus that was unloading in front of the main entrance to the track.
“That’s her,” he said, his words slurred through thickened, bloody lips. “In the hat with the roses. That’s Rosie. Follow her and we’ll get the program. You’ll see.”
Butch rolled the toothpick from one side of his mouth to the other and glanced over at Curtis, who was sitting on the other side of Wade, all three of them in the front seat of the Cutlass.
“She’s cute,” said Tammi, who was sitting in the backseat but leaning forward to get a better look. “How come she went with a loser like you?”
Wade scowled but said nothing.
“You been making promises about that program all day,” Butch drawled. “And what have we got? Nothin’. That’s what. We ain’t got jack.”
“You guys spooked her,” Wade said bitterly. “She’s smart. She probably saw you two banging me around out in that parking lot and figured out what was going on. If you’d just met me here, the way I told you, we’d have the program, tonight’s picks, everything. But no—”
“Don’t start,” Butch warned. He nodded at Curtis. “You go inside with our buddy here, see if you can find the girl.”
“You say she’s got a favorite betting window?” he asked Wade.
Wade nodded. “Marion. Fat redheaded woman who works the number four window at the grandstand level. Rosie thinks Marion brings her luck. She won’t buy tickets from anybody else. She’s Cuban. You know how they are.”
“Go with him,” Butch told his son. “Get the chick. Show her your gun if you have to.
“He’ll never get near her,” Wade said quickly. His mind was racing. He had to get away from these two. Get hold of Rosie, sweet-talk her, get the picks, meet Mikey up in the restaurant. Twenty-five thousand. That’s what he’d told Mikey he wanted for a copy of the program.
If only he could get these apes to back off.
“Wade’s right,” Tammi said, clutching Butch’s arm.
Butch frowned. He’d been against bringing Tammi along. But Curtis had insisted.
“Let me go after her,” Tammi said. “She’s already seen you two clowns. And she sure as hell knows Wade. I’m the only one she hasn’t seen. I’ll go up, start talking to her, maybe bump up against her or something.”
“Yeah, right,” Butch said derisively. “What? You go pretty please and she’ll just hand it over?”
Tammi’s eyes narrowed. She opened the car door, got out, and patted the straw bag she wore on her shoulder. “You think you’re the only guy in the world with a gun? I’ll go on up to the ticket counter and try to make friends with Rosie. But maybe she’ll be looking for us. Hey, genius, where else could she go?”
Wade shrugged. “Anywhere.” Then he got an idea. “She’s buddies with a cocktail waitress in the clubhouse restaurant. She might go in there, get her friend to lay down the bets for her.”
He looked meaningfully at Butch and Curtis, who wore oil-stained blue jeans, flannel shirts, and thick-soled work boots. By contrast, Wade wore rumpled but clean khakis, his threadbare navy blazer, a dress shirt, and tie.
“You gotta be dressed up to get in that restaurant, huh?” Tammi asked.
“Yeah,” Wade said. “They’re pricks up there.”
Butch sensed his control slipping away. “Okay,” he said. “Here’s the plan. Tammi, you hit the ticket window. Try ‘em all, but concentrate on that redheaded woman. Wade, you can go up to the clubhouse. But Curtis is going to be right outside the door. You try any cute shit, Curtis goes to Plan B.”
“Plan B?” Curtis said.
“The one where you drag Wade outta there and into the men’s room, where you proceed to break his arms and legs,” Butch said patiently. “Me, I’ll roam around, see if I can spot her.”
He glanced down at his watch. “Forty-five minutes to post time. Meet up at the bar at the grandstand level five minutes before the first race. We gotta get our bets down.”
He grabbed Wade’s arm and squeezed hard, watching with amusement as the blood drained out of the kid’s face and his lips twisted with pain. “Don’t screw up,” he said. “I got big plans for tonight. Big plans.”
Nunzio Gianni scanned the menu. He frowned, his heavy silver eyebrows sinking low over the deep-set black eyes. He took off his glasses, folded them, and placed them in his inside breast pocket.
“No pasta,” he said. “What kinda restaurant you take me to, Mikey, a man can’t get a plate of pasta?”
Michael smiled nervously. “I know, Nunz. What are you gonna do? They got only one game in town up here. Hey, you like steak? Try the New York strip. Honest to God, Nunz, it’s great. Or the shrimp. Fried, steamed, any way you like. Right off the boat, honest to God.”
“Shellfish?” Nunz recoiled. “Red meat? You trying to kill me? I got a condition, you know.”
He thumped his chest for emphasis, then looked up at the waitress, who’d been standing, hands on hips, waiting.
“All right,” Nunz said. He put the glasses back on, peered at the waitress’s name badge, which was pinned over her left breast. “Shirley, that’s your name, right?”
The waitress nodded.
“Shirley, you know how to make a nice tossed salad? Some nice romaine lettuce, some green peppers, maybe a cucumber or some peperoncini peppers, dressed with a little lemon juice, some olive oil. You think you could do that for me?”
“House salad,” Shirley said, scribbling on her order pad. “You want the croutons or no?”
“Croutons?” Nunz said, horrified. “Just take the steak knife and put it in my heart, okay, it’ll be quicker. No croutons. Bread. No butter. I got a condition.”
She took Michael’s steak order, promised to bring the red wine right away.
When she was gone, Michael scanned the room, trying not to look anxious in front of Nunz, who was babbling on about his left ventricle or something. Finally he saw what he was looking for.
“Nunz,” he said. “I gotta go to the can. Be right back.”
“I know how that is,” Nunz said sadly. “Probably your prostate. My prostate, it’s the size of an eggplant.”
Michael walked quickly from the table. The kid was standing at the maitre d’s stand, gesturing frantically. Stupid jerk.
When he got closer, he knew something was wrong. The lad’s face was beat to hell. And he kept glancing backward, toward the door.
“What’s wrong?” he said when he got right up next to Wade.
The doorway was jammed with people trying to get seated before the first race.
“We got complications,” Wade confessed. “Rosie shot her mouth off about the
program and then she skipped out on me with it.”
Michael grabbed Wade’s arm and squeezed. The kid gasped in pain and jerked away.
“You don’t have it?” Michael said. “Are you dicking around with me here, Wade?”
“No sir,” Wade said. “No. I mean, Rosie’s got it. She’s here. I just have to find her and get it from her.”
“So do it,” Michael said. “What’s the problem?”
Wade glanced back at the door. “There’s a guy out there. Rosie owes him money. Big money. He showed up at my door a little while ago. He’s the one who did this to my face. He wants the program. Says he’ll kill me if he doesn’t get it.”
Michael’s fingers latched around Wade’s forearm. He put his face very close to Wade’s. “I’ll kill you if you don’t get it.”
He spun Wade around and pointed toward his table. “You see that old guy sittin’ there, talking to himself? That’s the number-two man in the family there. He’s got an envelope full of hundred-dollar bills in his pocket. We’re ready to do business. And you’re telling me you don’t have the goods?”
“I can get it,” Wade said. “But you gotta help. I can’t get anywhere near Rosie with that goon on my back. You gotta help me get out of here, get him away from me so I can get to Rosie.”
“Okay,” Michael said. “Where is this guy? Is he carrying?”
“He’s got a .38 in his jacket pocket,” Wade said. “He’s right outside, by the elevator. Big dude. Blue jeans, flannel shirt. His name’s Curtis. He’s big, but dumb as shit.”
“Wait here,” Michael said. “When you hear a commotion outside, duck out that door. Find the chick. My associate and I want that program. You understand?”
“Sure,” Wade said. “No problem.”
“What’s she look like, this chick?” Michael asked.
“She’s little. Maybe five two, good body, long brown hair. Cuban. She’s wearing a big straw hat with flowers all over it. Roses.”
Kathy Hogan Trocheck - Truman Kicklighter 01 - Lickety-Split Page 5