A Stone's Throw

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by James W. Ziskin


  “So you don’t know of any farm that uses that design?”

  “Actually, I do. Goddamn Harlequin Stables,” he said with a raw annoyance that betrayed a recent wound. “I lost out on a huge payoff yesterday thanks to one of their horses, Wham’s Dram. Closed like a ton of bricks and blew up my parlay. I would’ve won nineteen hundred bucks if not for that SOB.”

  I nearly drove off the highway. “Nineteen hundred dollars?”

  “Eighteen hundred sixty and change.”

  I was struck dumb.

  “What part don’t you understand?” he asked, at his most condescending.

  I barely resisted the urge to lecture him on his betting habits and asked instead what kind of name was Wham’s Dram.

  “Never mind the horse’s name. That’s not the point.”

  “But you pronounce it funny. Waahm’s Draahm.”

  “That’s how you say it. But forget about the damn horse’s name.”

  “Okay, then what do you mean Wham’s Dram ruined your parlay?”

  “I was on a hot streak yesterday. Won the sixth, seventh, and eighth. So I let everything ride on Fagin the Wolf in the ninth. I’ve had my eye on him since he ran second in May at Aqueduct. He was nine to one at post time yesterday.”

  “Seems rather reckless,” I observed. “You should have been more provident and saved some of your winnings.”

  “Fortune favors the bold. Anyway, Wham’s Dram was the heavy favorite,” he continued. “And, on a hunch, I dropped twenty bucks to place on Old Dan, another horse I figured was due for a good outing.”

  “Old Dan?” I asked, taking my eyes off the road long enough to gape at Fadge’s two heads. “Wasn’t there a nag named ‘Off to the Glue Factory’ you might have bet on instead?”

  “Fifteen to one, El,” said Fadge, enunciating each syllable as if to prove his point. “Look, it’s easy,” he continued, ignoring what must have been my stunned expression. “You do your homework, you’re patient, and you take calculated risks. I was a neck away from nineteen hundred bucks.”

  “But for Wham’s Dram.”

  “Exactly.”

  “And where did Old Dan finish?”

  Fadge’s cheeks flushed red. “Out of the money,” he said barely audible over the hum of the tires on the road. “Last.”

  I shook my head. “You said Wham’s Dram was the favorite. Why should you bet so much against him?”

  “Because I study form and jockeys and trainers. I got a couple of clockers who hang out at the Oklahoma. They give me tips on how the workouts are going.”

  “What’s a clocker, and what’s the Oklahoma?”

  Fadge explained that clockers were the men who hung around the Oklahoma training track adjacent to the racecourse, timing the horses and gauging form with a stopwatch and a clipboard.

  “Anyway,” he said, returning to the rationale for his wager. “Wham’s Dram wears blinders because he’s bothered by other horses running alongside him. That’s why his trainer usually runs him along the rail. At least that way he’s got nobody to his left, only to his right.”

  “I’m confused.”

  “Pay attention, El. I figured the jockey—goddamn Johnny Dornan—would run him along the rail and maybe get boxed in by the other horses. It was a big field. Plus Wham’s Dram ran last week with a different rider, and he was carrying some extra weight. I thought he was ripe for a disappointing outing. And I’d been watching my two horses for months. I thought they could outrun the rest of that field. But that damn Johnny Dornan took Wham’s Dram wide and caught Fagin at the wire.”

  Fadge certainly seemed to know his stuff. But then again, he’d lost a bundle. I asked if he knew of any other stables who might use the same racing colors.

  “The colors, yes. But the ensemble,” he said with a flourish, “no. The combination of colors, design pattern, sleeves, and cap has to be unique. Orange and black may not be the most common scheme, but I’m sure there are a few stables between here and Kentucky with those colors.”

  “But they wouldn’t have diamonds?”

  He shook his head, and we fell quiet for about a half mile as he dived back into his Racing Form.

  “So do the cops think it was an accident or something else?” he asked finally, folding the paper once again.

  “Sheriff Pryor has to figure out who those two people are first. Then the fire chief will advise if it looks like arson.”

  Fadge seemed distracted. His concentration broken, he forgot about his Racing Form and stared out the window at the gray clouds instead. I took advantage of his availability to ask about the history of Tempesta. He knew Lucky Chuck Lenoir. Well, in fact. He said he’d been working as watchman as recently as two winters before.

  “How tall is he?” I asked.

  “Little guy. Five-five or -six. A sneaky little jerk, too.” (Fadge used a different word.) “My dad threw him out of the store for stealing cigarettes about thirty years ago. Then I had pity on him and let him back in. Caught him stuffing two packs of Pall Malls down his pants and threw him out again.” He paused to reflect. “Under the circumstances, I let him keep the cigarettes.”

  For five dollars, we parked on some man’s lawn on Union Avenue, close to the racecourse’s front gate. I pointed out to Fadge that if we’d been willing to walk a little farther, he’d have had more money to bet on the horses.

  “My time is better spent at the track studying form than strolling through Saratoga,” he said as I set the parking brake. I rolled my eyes. “Besides, it’s starting to rain again.”

  “Oh, no. Does this mean they’ll cancel the races?”

  The derisive look Fadge gave me said enough. We climbed out of the car and made our way to the gate, sheltering under the same umbrella.

  Fadge insisted I show my press card at the entrance, and the bored lady waved me past without charge. For twenty-five cents, I picked up a program to keep as a souvenir. I asked him which horse he was betting on as his turn came at the window.

  “Watch and learn,” he mumbled out of the side of his mouth. “And no lectures or you’re walking home.”

  “Hey, Ronnie,” said the cashier from behind the bars of one of the two-dollar betting windows. “Ready for a big day?”

  Fadge blushed, for my benefit, I believe. I wondered what the odds were that a random cashier, fifty-seven—as the number over his window identified him—would know him by name. Fadge managed to shrug off his embarrassment and placed his wagers, calling out number combinations and bet types.

  “Forty bucks,” said number fifty-seven.

  “Thanks, Bob.”

  Fadge had bet forty dollars in a few seconds. I gulped. Shuffling through his betting slips, he asked me if I wanted to place a wager. I was positively green and begged off.

  “What did you bet on anyway?” I asked.

  He explained his strategy. Five two-dollar wagers on a horse named Sunstruck to win the first race, and six each to place and show on another named Will Dance, a long shot he thought might surprise. Then he “wheeled” (whatever that meant) Sunstruck along with three horses in the second race for another eighteen bucks of daily double bets.

  “Come on,” he said. “Give it a try. I won’t make fun.”

  I agreed but only on the condition that he back away and not listen as I wagered my meager all. Remembering Fadge’s horse from the first race, I screwed up my nerve, stepped up to window number fifty-seven, and asked Bob for two dollars to show on number two. Sunstruck. He nearly swallowed his cigarette.

  “Two dollars to show on Sunstruck?” he repeated. I nodded. “You’re a regular bridge jumper,” he said and handed me the ticket.

  What a bridge jumper was I had no idea. Rather than appear uninitiated, I pretended to be in the know and nodded coolly. I resolved to ask Fadge later what it meant.

  Beaming with pride at having made my first-ever pari-mutuel bet, I found Fadge under the eaves of the betting shed, leaning against a post. He asked what I’d decided on, but I
told him he’d have to wait for the result of the race.

  “It’s not like a wish,” he said. “You can tell people what you bet.”

  We headed toward the grandstand, passing the paddock on the way. There, horses were being paraded around an enclosure for the bettors to examine before each race. Owners, trainers, and jockeys mingled with the public while the mounts were saddled and inspected. As it was raining, the crowd was thin, with most spectators opting for the shelter of the grandstand and clubhouse.

  We found a spot under an awning to watch the race. Even with the intermittent rain, I felt the excitement of the moment. The horses were magnificent, and the pageantry elegantly festive. The clubhouse brimmed with nineteenth-century charm, in spite of the cigar-chomping men in sweaty shirts and rumpled hats nearby on the grandstand side. I found the experience electric, made even more so by the secret knowledge that I had two big ones riding on some wonder horse named Sunstruck wearing the number two on his saddle cloth. And, shortly after 2:00 p.m.—a good omen, I thought—a bell rang, and the starting gate bolted open. My horse took a short while to get his head into the race, but by the quarter pole, he’d taken the lead. And to my utter disbelief, he held on the rest of the way to win by almost a length.

  I threw my arms around Fadge, nearly strangling him. He strained to read the tote board to calculate odds or his winnings or who knows what, before flicking me to one side like a piece of lint. For a few heady moments, I understood how gambling might become an addiction. Winning was a thrill. Finally, once the result was posted as “official,” Fadge emerged from his trance, turned to me, and asked which horse I’d bet on.

  “Sunstruck,” I announced, barely able to contain my joy.

  “Great,” he said. “How much did you bet?”

  I told him just two dollars, but he congratulated me all the same. “Nothing wrong with a two-dollar bet. I took it easy, too.”

  Recalling his admonition against giving him lectures, I said nothing. Forty dollars hardly qualified as taking it easy in my book.

  “Not bad for your first time,” he continued. “Beginner’s luck. And Sunstruck to win pays”—he glanced back at the tote board in the infield—“six dollars and ten cents. That includes your original two bucks. But still, you won four dollars and ten cents.”

  “But I didn’t play him to win. I bet on him to show. How much do I win?”

  Fadge shook his head as if he’d been slapped silly. “To show? But he was the heavy favorite.”

  “I won, didn’t I? Now how much?”

  He looked to the tote board again. “Congratulations,” he said at length. “You won your two dollars back. Plus thirty cents.”

  “Oh.”

  “A regular bridge jumper.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  In the end, the thrill of watching Sunstruck thunder across the finish line failed to hook me on gambling. The emotion expended and anxiety experienced, stacked up against the return on investment—thirty cents—didn’t appeal to me. After only one race, I knew that I lacked the heart of a plunger.

  Fadge, on the other hand, was too engrossed in his own wagers to notice me. This was work for him, after all. He won the daily double, a two-seven combination, worth $38.90. But that, he informed me as he collected his winnings, was the payoff for a two-dollar bet. He’d wagered ten. That came to nearly two hundred dollars. Plus, he’d placed ten dollars on Sunstruck to win, which paid him another $30.50, so after two races, the smug son of a so-and-so was stuffing two hundred twenty some dollars into his pocket.

  “You’re good luck to me,” he said. “Dinner’s on me tonight.”

  This was too rich for my blood. I lacked the nerve to risk so much on an animal I couldn’t reason with. While Fadge finalized his strategy for the third race, I studied my thin little program. Disappointed by my paltry winnings, I was now more interested in the names of the horses. I amused myself with King Toots, Organ Grinder, Lincoln Center, and Dauntless Dick, though the mirth was short-lived. But then the name of one of the jockeys, J. Dornan, caught my eye. That was the rider who’d ruined Fadge’s big play the day before. I searched the program and found his name listed in four of the day’s starts, including the first and second races. I elbowed Fadge and asked him if he’d noticed Johnny Dornan aboard any of the horses. After the second request, he acknowledged me and said no.

  I asked a couple of the less-harmless-looking men lurking nearby if they knew, but they were more interested in asking for my phone number than sharing any information. Then another man tapped me on the shoulder and pointed to the air. The PA system was echoing through the park, announcing that jockey J. Dornan had been scratched from the day’s races. All of them. When Fadge scurried off to place his bets, I grabbed his Racing Form and searched for any news of the jockey. Maybe he was ill or had been arrested. Who knew? I was hoping for something, anything that might explain his absence. Anything but a fire on a derelict stud farm off a backroad highway in Saratoga County. There was nothing.

  It was raining steadily, and my escort was otherwise occupied, so I sat on a bench inside the grandstand. I picked up a discarded copy of the Albany paper, and, curious, I glanced at the previous day’s race results. The last race had indeed been won by Wham’s Dram, with Johnny Dornan aboard. There was no information in the paper about the jockey’s colors, but a photograph showed the smiling rider in diamond silks atop Wham’s Dram in the winner’s circle. Could have been orange and black. I had no reason to doubt Fadge’s expertise when it came to the attire of jockeys. And I had to admit that pattern looked quite similar to the piece of fabric I’d found in the ashes at Tempesta Farm. Impossible to say for sure in black and white, but the likelihood of Johnny Dornan climbing up into the saddle ever again was growing dimmer by the minute.

  The rain let up enough that I could enjoy the parade at the paddock with my camera at the ready. I stood on the other side of the rail fence, mere feet away from the horses. Led by grooms around the enclosed circle, the animals passed, steaming in the cool, wet air, and I snapped photos of each. Leisurely, with graceful—almost indolent—strides, the Thoroughbreds sauntered through the mud as a few devotees studied them alongside me. I overheard some conversations and comments, men in drenched sport coats or leisurewear discussing quality and quantity of sweat—who could distinguish sweat from rain?—and temperament as they related to readiness to run. The serious horsemen, however, the ones who projected competence and knowledge, said little or nothing. They simply watched with a steady gaze. Some were well-dressed cosmopolitan types, while others looked like professional gamblers, humble but on top of their game. The rest, the hobbyists, pretenders, and admirers, made glib observations about form, breeding, and personality, as if they had the dope directly from the horses’ mouths.

  A couple of ladies in fancy hats to my right admired the beauty of a roan’s coat until the poor horse—being a horse after all—answered nature’s call not ten feet in front of them. They waved their gloved hands in front of their pinched noses and beat a hasty retreat to the clubhouse. Two heavyset men chewing soaking wet cigars pronounced the excretion a sure indication that the horse would fly to victory as a result of his lessened weight. They used a word I don’t favor. Armed with this valuable new intelligence, they sprinted off to the betting window to wager their all on the regular roan. None of the pros seemed excited by what they must have seen thousands of times.

  A magnificent, shimmering black beast rounded the turn and edged close to the fence rails where I was leaning with my camera. He threw back his head and snorted. The bit clattered against his teeth, and then he nickered in my general direction. Fixing me with his right eye, the horse made it clear that he was aware of my attentions. More than a hint of self-consciousness. Animals sometimes exhibit shyness, after all. I clicked two frames of his glorious face, and he perked up, as if he knew what a camera was for. Or that he was a handsome boy.

  “He says hi, miss,” said the young groom escorting him.

 
I smiled. “Hello to him. What’s his name?”

  “This here’s Purgatorio.”

  The horse passed and continued on his leisurely round. Then I noticed his racing colors. Black-and-orange diamonds.

  “Excuse me,” I asked, chasing after the groom. “Is he from Harlequin Stables?”

  The groom whispered that he wasn’t supposed to talk to anyone while walking the horses. “I shouldn’t have said nothing at all before.”

  “Can’t you nod yes or no?”

  “Look at your program,” he said out of the side of his mouth.

  I shrugged and checked the race card. Purgatorio was indeed an issue of Harlequin Stables.

  “You couldn’t have just said yes?” I called to the groom.

  He made a great show of acknowledging three men about twenty yards ahead to my right. One was a jockey in black-and-orange-diamond livery. The other two were dressed in street clothes. The man in charge—the one on the receiving end of the others’ deference—was a drooping, gray man in an ill-fitting suit. And though he was heavyset, it appeared he’d recently lost some weight; at least that was the impression given by his luffing trousers, belted high on his belly, and the billowing jacket draped over his narrow shoulders. He looked to be about sixty-five or seventy. The third man in the parley, about twenty years younger than the boss, was dressed modestly in off-the-rack slacks, a light jacket, and a well-worn cap. He stood a step or two back from the jockey and the man in charge without saying a word.

  The boss barely acknowledged the groom, and then only with a vague nod. He turned his attention instead to the horse. With intense focus, he examined Purgatorio as a physician might a patient. Or perhaps an artist sizing up a would-be model. The horse and groom passed, and, for a long moment, I watched the three men. The jockey noticed me and alerted the man in charge by motioning in my direction. They turned, regarded me briefly, then took a few steps away from the paddock and my scrutiny.

 

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