by Tom McNab
“Jesus H. Christ,” said Flanagan quietly, putting his hands on his hips as he took in the scene before him.
“No, Charles,” replied Alice. “For once the Lord had nothing to do with it.”
Flanagan looked across the room at his dressing table. There, on top of his Trans-America files and results-sheets, Alice had carefully folded her severe blue denim dress known everywhere throughout the Bible Belt. On top of his Gideon Bible she had placed her slip and knickers, again neatly folded. At the side of his bed lay her plain black shoes, her black stockings tucked inside.
“Champagne?” she queried, allowing the sheet to drop as she reached across the bed to the bedside table on her left on which a fat bottle nestled in an ice-bucket. Flanagan now saw that she was wearing a thin negligee, over which her soft blonde hair tumbled loosely. She picked up the bottle and poured Flanagan a foaming glass.
He approached the bed and took the proffered drink. He stole a glance at her feet, which peeped out beyond the bottom of the sheet. Each toe was delicately painted with pink lacquer, matching the nails of her fingers. Her feet had always had a particular attraction for him. His reverie was broken by her soft voice.
“Pay-off time, Charles,” she said, slurring her words as she poured herself a glass and lifted it to her lips, spilling it slightly. She laid the glass down on the table to her left and beckoned him to the side of the bed. She placed a warm, white hand on his and he felt the bed give as he sat at her side.
“You know,” she said, “I’ll never forget the first time you spread me – back in New York. Must have been seven years ago. You were trying to sell some idea with midgets riding Shetland ponies, something like that.”
“Not quite,” said Flanagan, laughing, “but something like that.”
“That was my very first time,” she said. “You know that? The very first time.”
Flanagan smiled, gulping the remains of the champagne. He could feel the life begin to flow back into him.
“I never lie,” she said, picking up her glass. “It was, and I was scared out of my skin. But you, Flanagan, you made it something to remember.”
She had obviously been drinking for some time. He noted an empty bottle beneath the bedside table.
“They say,” she said, “that it’s always pretty rough first time. That’s what they all say. But not with you.”
She placed her left hand on his. “So I always reckoned I owed you something, Flanagan.”
“You sure paid off good,” said Flanagan, refreshing both their glasses. “You got my boys to Burlington, so I’m still in the frame. I was finished without you, Alice.”
“Burlington?” she said, sipping her champagne. “With my connections, I could see you and your runners through the Bible Belt free. But forget about that, Flanagan. You won’t need much more of my help.”
She emptied her glass, took Flanagan’s from him and placed them both on the table. Then she pulled on the straps of her negligee, allowing the brown tops of her nipples to be exposed.
“You know,” she said. “I’ve spent most of my life telling people to fear the wrath of the Lord, to be good, to be virtuous. And, Flanagan, I believe it – I swear to God, I do believe it. Then, suddenly from the darkness of my soul, I remember that night in New York. Do you often think of it, Flanagan?”
“Yes,” he lied.
“And even now my knees tremble, and I feel it right here, like an ache.” She slipped her hand beneath the sheet.
“So here we are again,” said Flanagan, loosening his tie and prising off his left shoe with the toe of his right.
“Yes,” she said. “Here we are again.” Slowly she pulled her negligee over her head. “This cost me all of fifty bucks, Flanagan, and I seem to recall that you were a pretty powerful lover. Don’t see why I should risk fifty bucks. Not even on your account.”
Flanagan took the negligee from her, folded it neatly, and placed it on top of a folder on the dressing table. The file was headed “Forward Planning”.
The rhythmic tapping of Dixie’s typewriter faded into the background and Kate Sheridan lay back, eyes closed, on the divan in the caravan which she now shared with Dixie. It was dusk, and in the field outside the kerosene lamps in the Trans-America tents had gone out. Tomorrow, forty miles on dirt roads to Dorrance. Her mind went back, as it now did constantly, to the Denver Cow Palace at the conclusion of Flanagan’s press conference, to the whirring and exploding cameras and the babble of reporters in a dozen different languages.
Neither she nor Mike Morgan would ever be quite certain whether he took her hand or she his as they made their way from the seething conference room. There was, however, no doubting the strength and urgency of his grip as he drew her swiftly along the hallways of the Palace, on past cameramen and autograph hunters upstairs into the carpeted quietness of the second floor of the hotel. Kate walked beside Morgan as if in a reverie, her feet making no sound on the thick lush carpets of the hallways.
Morgan had stopped suddenly at the end of the hall, in front of a velvet-curtained window. He drew her behind the curtains and swiftly closed them. The softness of his kiss was a shock to her. She felt her hard muscular legs quiver and soften, hardly able to support her as her body seemed to dissolve into his. She felt close to collapse and Morgan had had to support her with both arms.
“You all right?” he had asked anxiously.
“Never felt better,” she quavered.
“Then just wait here,” he had said, jogging off down the hallway.
Five minutes later he returned, pushing back the heavy folds of the curtain. He held up a hotel room key.
“Room five hundred.”
“My lucky number,” she whispered.
“Sure?” he had said taking her hand as they walked along the hall.
“Certain,” she had replied, tightening her grip on his hand . . .
Back in her caravan, Kate smiled to herself. Dorrance would be no trouble at all.
Topeka, Kansas, 1 May: It had been a miserable day, and Flanagan’s attempted salvage operation in Topeka had been a total failure. There was no question that Mayor Matson had been well and truly sewn up by Toffler, and there would be no ten thousand dollars’ appropriation forthcoming from Topeka, Kansas when the Trans-America reached it the next day. Worse, they were not going to be allowed to run through the town in daylight, but would be forced to pass through unlit streets at the unearthly time of two o’clock in the morning.
Flanagan ordered another double whiskey and put it down in a single gulp. “Set ’em up again,” he growled, placing both elbows on the bar.
On the other side of the dark bar a small, plump man in a well-cut suit was speaking loudly to a rapt assembly. “Drinks all round, barman,” he bellowed. “And have one yourself, my friend.”
Flanagan smiled grimly. One man up, another down. That was always the way of it.
“One minute fifty-six seconds,” the fat man kept howling. “One minute fifty-six! Nothing on four legs can touch my beauty.”
Flanagan was slowly sinking into a drunken sourness. The little man was beginning to annoy him. No one should be allowed to be that happy, at least not when he, Flanagan, was in the cellar.
“One minute fifty-six,” bellowed the little man again. “Even Dan Patch himself couldn’t have touched her. Silver Star – fastest thing on four legs, no question. Silver Star!”
Flanagan put down his whiskey and blinked. He did not like the little man, or Silver Star, or even, for that matter, one minute fifty-six.
“Sir, if you will forgive me,” he shouted, lifting his glass in mock politeness across the semi-circular bar, “balls to Silver Star.”
The voice at the other side of the bar cut off abruptly. The little man drew himself to his full height – about five foot four inches – and said, “Did I hear you correctly, sir?”
“You surely did,” said Flanagan. “I said balls to Silver Star. Jesus, I’ve got some fellas a hundred miles back who could run
her into the ground.”
The man walked slowly round the bar, followed by his companions. He smiled and nodded to the barman, who set up another round of drinks.
“Be my guest,” he said to Flanagan, who nodded and downed yet another whiskey. “You have the advantage of me, sir. My name is Leonard Levy. Perhaps you may have heard of me. Levy of St Louis.” From his pocket he drew a crisp white visiting card edged in black, and handed it to Flanagan.
“No,” said Flanagan. “Can’t say I have.” He peered into his empty glass.
“That is not altogether surprising, sir. I am an undertaker.” His friends laughed. “But perhaps I misunderstood you. You said that you had men who could outrun my champion trotter? You know that she broke the state record today? Ran one minute fifty-six seconds?”
“Couldn’t help knowing, the noise you were making about it,” mumbled Flanagan, again looking into his glass.
“I am sorry, sir. I did not catch your name,” said Levy more tightly, but nodding again to the bartender.
“Charles C. Flanagan, director of the Trans-America road race,” said Flanagan.
Levy’s eyes gave a glint of recognition. “Ah!” he said. “The Trans-America. Yes, of course, it’s in all the papers. But let me ask you to make yourself perfectly clear, Mr Flanagan. You really think that your runners can beat Silver Star?”
“Yep,” said Flanagan, putting down another whiskey in a single gulp. “No question of it.”
“Over what distances?”
“Any distance you goddam choose,” said Flanagan.
Levy pursed his lips. “A sprint?” he said.
“Yep,” said Flanagan. “A hundred yards.”
“A long distance?”
“Five miles, ten miles, any distance you want,” said Flanagan.
“You are prepared to put money up?” said Levy, his eyes narrowing.
“Any amount you say,” grunted Flanagan.
“At what odds?”
Despite his alcoholic gloom Flanagan still retained his ability to think on his feet.
“Jesus,” he said. “Four legs against two! You got to give me twenty to one on that sort of race.”
“Ten,” said Levy.
The barman, his interest aroused, intervened. “What speed does your horse Silver Star run at, Mr Levy?”
Levy pouted, his puffy cheeks bulging.
“About thirty miles an hour.”
The barman put both meaty hands on the bar.
“And what about your fellas, Mr Flanagan?”
“About ten, at best.”
“I take your point, Mr Flanagan,” said Levy grudgingly.
“Now let me put it to you this way. If I let your two best men run in a relay – say, a mile each – for ten miles, would you take ten to one?”
There was silence. Flanagan desperately tried to clear his mind, but failed.
“Make it twelve to one,” he said dourly.
“Done,” said Levy, slapping his hands together and looking about him at his friends. “And now to your sprinter. One hundred yards, you said. Will you take the same odds?”
“Why not?” said Flanagan.
Levy took a notebook and pencil from his pocket.
“What figures are we discussing, Mr Flanagan?”
“Four grand on each race,” said Flanagan without pause.
Levy pouted his lips and shook his head from side to side. “A trivial sum, but acceptable. After all, it’s only sport,” he winked at his smiling companions. “And the date?”
“We arrive St Louis on 9 May,” said Flanagan. “Make it 10 May. That’s our rest day.”
Levy scribbled the date in his diary and replaced his pencil in his inside hip pocket.
“You already have my card, Mr Flanagan. Telephone me tomorrow and we’ll arrange the contract. I rather think that I0 May is going to be a day to remember in St Louis.”
2 May, 1931: Nine hundred and seventy-eight men and one woman sat in the open in the early morning sun on a field outside Paxico, Kansas, fifty miles from Topeka. Flanagan took the microphone to his lips.
“You’ve got a free day,” he said. “We start at six p.m. for Topeka. Camp is three miles on the other side of the town.”
“But why do we run at midnight, Mr Flanagan?” asked Bouin, standing up, hands on hips.
“Some sort of local ordinance,” lied Flanagan. “It won’t allow us to go through the town during the day. They say it would cause public congestion.”
There was a general rumble of discontent as the meeting broke up.
Flanagan went back with Willard to the Trans-America caravan.
“Get Doc Cole, could you? Pronto,” he asked Willard as soon as they were inside.
A few minutes later Doc was comfortably seated opposite Flanagan.
“What can I do for you?” he asked, shaking his head as Flanagan produced himself a drink from yet another bottle of whiskey.
Flanagan watched the brown liquid gurgle into his glass. He gulped it down and grimaced.
“Doc,” he said. “We’re in real trouble. Back in Topeka a few days ago, when I was trying to patch things up” – he reached for his glass – “I did something foolish.”
“Yes?” said Doc wanly.
Flanagan closed his eyes. “I got you boys into a money race in St Louis.”
“So?”
“With a horse.”
“A horse!” Doc laughed. “I think I’ll have that whiskey now.”
Flanagan blinked. “You mean you aren’t mad at me?”
“You haven’t told me yet what the terms are.”
“Well, first the good news,” said Flanagan, pouring out the whiskey and handing it to Doc. “We’ve got twelve to one. I’ve put four grand on each race.”
“Those are great odds,” said Doc. “But it all depends what we’ve got to do to win the money.”
“First, a sprint.”
“I hope to hell it’s damn short,” said Doc, frowning.
“A hundred yards,” said Flanagan.
“Short enough,” said Doc.
“The next race is tougher,” said Flanagan. “Ten miles.”
“Jesus wept!” Doc put down his drink and stood up.
Flanagan placed his hands on Doc’s shoulders and gently pressed him back into his chair.
“Take it easy, Doc. We’re allowed a sort of two-man relay.”
The old runner shook his head. “That’s better,” he said. “But still not good.”
He finished his drink and sat back, his fingers to his lips as if in prayer.
“Let’s get down to some details,” he said. “What kind of horse is it?”
“A trotter,” said Flanagan. “Called Silver Star. Ran one minute fifty-six for a mile last week.”
“One minute fifty-six. That’s good,” said Doc, his brows furrowed. “Not many trotters can break two minutes. That’s a fancy piece of horseflesh we’re running against, Flanagan.”
“So you’re saying that we’re beat?” groaned Willard.
“No, not exactly. But first let me put a question to both of you. If we put a racing pigeon against a greyhound over a hundred yards, which would win?”
“The greyhound,” said Willard and Flanagan simultaneously.
“No,” said Doc. “Never. I’ve seen it done many times, sometimes for big money. First problem is that the greyhound doesn’t react quickly enough – there’s no rabbit to run after. Second is that the pigeon’s owner holds its mate in his hands at the finish of the race. Sex is a strong impulse – you should know that, Flanagan. That bird is winging its way towards its lady friend before the greyhound has even twitched. So I’d put my wallet on the bird every time.”
“But what has this to do with this St Louis deal?” asked Flanagan. “We aren’t running against any pigeon.”
“No,” said Doc. “I only put it up as an example, where commonsense would put the money on the greyhound. But it doesn’t always work that way. I’ll have a coffee n
ow, Flanagan, if you don’t mind. I need a clear head for this. So will you.” He stood up. “What detailed terms have you got drawn up?”
“None, as yet,” said Flanagan.
“Thank God for that,” said Doc. “And what sort of man are we up against?”
“A loud-mouth called Levy,” said Flanagan. “But no man’s fool.”
Doc leaned back in his chair and allowed his eyes to close for a moment.
“Okay,” he said. “So let him shoot off his mouth to the press for a couple of days. By then he’ll be in so deep he’ll have to take what we say. The important thing is to race on our terms.”
“What should the terms be?” asked Flanagan.
“First, the sprint. The only man who could win this for us is Hugh McPhail. By St Louis he won’t be as nimble as he was back at the Highland Games, but he must be our fastest man by quite a few yards. Sprinting’s not really my territory, so I suggest that you bring him in right away.”
Flanagan nodded to Willard, who left the caravan.
“While we’re waiting, what about this two-man relay?” said Flanagan.
“Thank God you made it a two-man race,” said Doc, accepting a cup of black coffee from Flanagan. “Our boys can keep up better than twelve miles an hour that way.”
“But the horse can go at thirty.”
“Not for long,” said Doc. “But then, you should have thought of that when you laid your money.”
“But that makes us about half a lap behind on each lap,” groaned Flanagan.
“Not so,” said Doc. “But first, we don’t want any professional jockeys. What weight is this guy Levy?”
“About one hundred and ninety pounds,” said Flanagan. “He’s a real greaseball.”
“Then he’s got to be the jockey. If you’ve sized this guy Levy up right he’ll jump at the chance to ride. That doubles the weight his horse has to pull. What track are we running on?”
“Still to be arranged.”
“Levy will be sure to want it to be on some sort of trotting track, ’cause that’s what trotters compete on,” mused Doc. “More of a crowd, too, to see his big day.”
Doc passed back and forward across the caravan, then stopped and turned to Flanagan. “We must get Silver Star out into rough country.”