Even Money

by Дик Фрэнсис

  I’d asked him how things had gone at Leicester on the Wednesday evening.

  “Fine,” he’d said. “Good crowd. Plenty of business.”

  “Profitable?” I asked.

  “Very,” he’d replied without explaining further.

  Why did I worry so much? Would it be better or worse if Luca was my official business partner? Indeed, should I sell him the whole enterprise and be done with it? But what else could I do? I had to earn a living somehow.

  I turned off the congested Friday-evening M25 and fought my way against the commuter traffic to Sunbury and Kempton Park racetrack.

  Race traffic was starting to build up and add to the Friday-evening woes, and I crawled the last two miles nose to tail with other cars before turning into the racetrack parking lot behind the stands. There was free parking in the center of the course, but at Kempton I usually parked at the far end of the members’ parking lot near the railway station. It was nearly impossible to pull our equipment trolley across the new all-weather track to the grandstand from the free parking lot, but only after I’d paid the parking fee did I remember that Luca had all the stuff with him.

  I pulled into a spot indicated by one of the parking marshals, who were, as always, efficiently placing as many cars as possible in the limited space available. Another car drew in beside me.

  I sat in the car and called the hospital again. I had tried them twice before leaving Kenilworth, but there had been no news to report. Again, they were sorry, they said, there was still no decision from the psychiatrists, and it was now being assumed by the hospital staff that Sophie would be staying there until Monday at the earliest. She wouldn’t be pleased.

  I watched as a train pulled into the racetrack station and disgorged a mass of humanity that literally swarmed to the racetrack entrances. It was a beautiful summer’s evening, with a gentle, cooling breeze, and the good weather had brought out the crowds in droves. A good night for business, I concluded, and stepped out of the car.

  “Are you Talbot?” said someone behind me. “Teddy Talbot?”

  I turned around. There were two men standing between the cars, both wearing short-sleeved white shirts, open at the neck, with black trousers: uniform of the heavy mob. The shirts did little to hide the substantial size of their biceps nor the tattoos clearly visible on their forearms. Neither of them was Shifty-eyes, but that hardly made me feel any better.

  “Yes,” I said gingerly. “Can I help you?”

  Instead of replying, the nearest man stepped forward quickly and punched me hard in the stomach.

  The blow drove the air from my lungs, and I went down to the ground badly winded, unable to catch my breath.

  “Oh, I say,” said the man from the neighboring car, looking horrified as he removed a jacket and some binoculars from the trunk.

  “Shut up,” said the puncher, pointing sharply at him, “or you’ll get the same.”

  The horrified man shut up immediately and moved rapidly away. I didn’t blame him. I would have moved rapidly away too, if only I could have drawn some air into my lungs. I rather hoped he had gone for reinforcements in the shape of a policeman or two, but I wouldn’t have bet on it.

  “I have a message from my boss,” the puncher said, returning his attention to me. “Don’t mess again with the starting prices.” He kicked me in the midriff. “Get it?” he said. “No more Stratford.” He kicked again. “Get it?” he repeated.

  He kicked me once again for good measure, and then the two of them turned and calmly walked away, leaving me lying on the tarmac with my knees drawn up to my chest and a severe ache in my abdomen.

  I had been holding my stomach with my hands and I now looked at them with concern. There was no blood. The punch had been just that. There had been no knife. I was intact, at least on the outside.

  Slowly my diaphragm recovered from its spasm and my breathing resumed with a rush, which greatly improved the situation. I drew my knees up under me and used the door handle of my Volvo to pull myself semi-upright.

  “Are you OK?” asked the horrified man, appearing tentatively from around the back of his car.

  “I’m fine,” I said, not feeling it.

  “What was all that about?” he asked.

  “Nothing,” I said.

  “It didn’t look like nothing,” he said accusingly.

  “Could you identify those men to the police?” I asked him.

  “Er”-he hesitated-“not really.”

  “No?” I said. “Then nothing happened. OK?”

  “I’m only trying to help,” he said, somewhat pained.

  “Sorry,” I said. “And thank you for your concern.” If I’d really been seriously hurt, life-threateningly hurt, he might just have saved my skin by coming back. “I promise you I am very grateful. My name’s Ned Talbot.” I held out my hand to him.

  He hesitated again, not taking it. “I don’t want to get involved,” he said. “I didn’t like the look of those men.”

  “So you did see what they looked like?” I said.

  He was slightly flustered.

  “It’s OK,” I said. “I understand completely. I won’t be describing them to the police either.” One kicking was more than enough, I thought.

  I leaned wearily against his car and felt sick, the skin of my face cold and clammy.

  “Right,” he said, and he turned on his heel and walked briskly away.

  He may not have wanted to get involved, but I still noted down the registration of his car on my notepad. Just in case.

  Luca and Betsy were both waiting for me at our pitch in front of the grandstand. By the time I had recovered sufficiently and made my way through to the betting ring, they had set up everything and were sitting on our metal platform in the shade of our large yellow TRUST TEDDY TALBOT umbrella.

  “Hello,” I said. “Have any trouble?”

  “No,” said Luca. “Traffic was fairly light, really, from Richmond, for a Friday.”

  “No problems in the parking lot?” I asked.

  “No,” he said. “But I forgot how bloody hard it is to get that trolley across from the center of the course.”

  “I’ve just been given a message,” I said to him.

  “Where?” he asked.

  “In the parking lot behind the stands,” I said.

  “Who by?” he said.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Someone who’s not very happy about what happened at Stratford races on Wednesday.”

  “What sort of message?” asked Luca with concern.

  “Fists and steel toe caps,” I said.

  “What!” He seemed genuinely distressed. “Here? In the parking lot?”

  I nodded.

  “You’re having me on?” he said, but he wasn’t smiling.

  “Sadly, I’m not,” I said. “And I could show you my bruised solar plexus to prove it.”

  “God,” he said, clearly upset. “I’m so sorry.”

  “Why are you sorry?” said Betsy. “You didn’t do it.”

  “Shut up, Betsy,” said Luca sharply, clearly annoyed.

  “Don’t talk to me like that,” she whined at him.

  “Then don’t say such stupid things,” he said to her. He turned back to me. “Ned, I’m really sorry. Are you OK?”

  “I’ll live,” I said without much warmth. It would do no harm, I thought, for Luca to realize that his little games had consequences, some of which were decidedly unpleasant, and not just for him.

  Betsy went off towards the grandstand in a huff, and both Luca and I watched her go.

  “Go after her, if you like,” I said to him.

  He said nothing but shrugged his shoulders and stayed just where he was. It would appear, I reflected, that we would soon need another junior assistant. And I wouldn’t be sorry. I decided I didn’t really like Betsy much. Maybe it was because she wasn’t very bright. She was certainly streets behind Luca, and perhaps he could see it too.

  “How about Larry?” I said. “Is he
here this evening?”

  “He should be,” said Luca.

  “Really?” I said. Why, I wondered, did Luca know that Larry should be here?

  He looked at me sideways. “Yeah, well,” he said, “I just know.” I looked at him in mock surprise. “He told me last night. At Leicester, all right?” Luca was visibly flustered, and that was a rarity.

  “Do you have his phone number?” I asked.

  “Sure,” he said.

  “Then call him,” I said. “Warn him to watch his back. And his stomach.”

  Luca pulled his mobile from his pocket and pushed the buttons.

  “Larry,” he said. “It’s Luca.”

  He listened for a moment.

  “So where are you now?” he said.

  He listened again for a moment.

  “Right,” he said. “I’ll call you later.” He hung up and looked at me. “Too late. He’s in Ascot Hospital having X-rays for suspected broken ribs.”

  “So who were they?” I said.

  “Who?” he asked.

  “Who do you think?” I said. “Mike Tyson and his chum?”

  “How the hell would I know?” he said. “I didn’t see them.”

  “Who did we upset so much?”

  “All of them,” he said. “The talk was of nothing else last night at Leicester. Some of the other bookies were openly delighted, and one or two even congratulated us.” He was smiling.

  What bloody fools, I thought. And it was me that gets the “message,” not Luca, because it’s my name on the board.

  “I told you not to mess with the big outfits,” I said. “At least, you shouldn’t mess with them so openly and obviously. We need to be more subtle. And far more devious.” I smiled back at him.

  He was confused. “What do you mean?”

  “I don’t know yet,” I said. “But if you think I am going to let them get away with beating me up in racetrack parking lots, you can have another think coming.”

  Luca smiled broadly. “Right,” he said. “Great.”

  “But first we need to know which of the big outfits resorts to use of the heavy mob.”

  The rest of the evening was quiet in comparison, with not a single bullyboy to be seen. Business was brisk, with the largely young crowd eager to be tempted into the evils of gambling.

  Many of them were actually there for the pop concert that was taking place in front of the grandstand after racing rather than for any particular love of the sport. But that didn’t deter them from having a bet on the horses, a flutter on the gee-gees, first.

  The evening was conducted in huge good humor, helped by a continuous flow of alcoholic beverages and a string of tight finishes. I was almost able to ignore the dull ache in my guts that refused to go away completely, in spite of me swallowing a couple of painkillers.

  A young woman stood in front of me, wearing tight blue jeans and a skimpy top that displayed a pleasing amount of sun-bronzed midriff.

  “Remember me?” she said.

  I looked up from her midriff to her face “At Ascot last week,” I said. “Black-and-white hat. I didn’t recognize you without your finery on.”

  She laughed, and I laughed back. Then she blushed. I remembered that too.

  “Come on, Anna,” said a young man who was pulling at her arm. The damn boyfriend, I assumed.

  He pulled her away with him, and I watched them go. Fleetingly, she turned once and waved at me before disappearing into the throng. At least someone thought of her bookie as a human being.

  “I don’t think Betsy will be coming back,” said Luca over my shoulder. Perhaps he had also watched the young woman being pulled away by her boyfriend, and it had reminded him of his own perilous romantic position.

  “Do you want to go and find her?” I asked him. “I’ll manage on my own for a while.”

  “In your dreams,” he said, slapping me on the shoulder.

  That was a good sign, I thought.

  “Do you want to go anyway?” I said.

  “Nah,” he said. “She’ll come back if she wants to. I’m not going to go running after her. To tell you the truth, I don’t really care if she comes back or not.”

  I cared. Luca was much more fun without her.

  “Are you staying on after?” he said.

  “If you mean am I waiting to listen to the concert, then, no, I’m not.”

  “Are you going straight home?” he asked.

  “Why?” I had intended going to see Sophie if it wasn’t too late.

  “I was hoping for a lift. We came in Betsy’s car, and she’s probably gone home now without me. We were going to stay for the concert, but I don’t want to anymore.” He paused. “At least I’ve missed the little horrors at the electronics club.”

  Was it really only a week since I had given the microcoder to Luca to take to the club? It seemed like a month.

  “Sure,” I said. “I’ll give you a lift, but you might need to get the train the last bit. I was hoping to go and see Sophie if we’re not too late.”

  “Ned, it’s fine,” he said. “I’ll get the train home from here. It’s no problem.”

  I tried to think of the stations on the line to High Wycombe.

  “I could drop you at Beaconsfield,” I said. “That’s on my way.”

  “No, it’s not,” he said. “And it would take you ages to get to the station. I’ll go on the train from here. Honestly, it’s no problem.”

  “OK,” I said, somewhat relieved. I would be pushed to get to the hospital for the end of the news anyway.

  The last race of the evening was a five-furlong sprint for two-year-old maidens.“Maiden” didn’t imply the sex of the animal, there were male maidens too. A maiden was a horse that had yet to win a race. Many of these maidens had never even been on a racetrack before, let alone won a race on one. Only one horse in the field had good previous form, finishing second twice, on one occasion just a neck behind the blossoming two-year-old star of the year. Naturally, the horse, East Imperial, was a short-priced favorite when the betting opened.

  “Don’t even think of disrupting the Internet tonight,” I said seriously to Luca.

  He didn’t deny it but stood there looking at me with his jaw hanging open.

  “You’ll catch flies like that,” I said.

  He snapped his mouth shut.

  “How did you know?” he said.

  “It didn’t take rocket science,” I said. But, in truth, I hadn’t known for sure. It had been a guess. And, it seemed, the guess had been bang on target. “You are a wizard at electronics. And you and Larry have been up to all sorts of stuff. It seemed an obvious connection. Who else was in on it?”

  “Only one or two others,” he said. “Norman Joyner was. He was the only other bookie. It’s only a bit of fun.”

  My stomach didn’t think it was funny, and I bet Larry’s ribs didn’t either, not anymore.

  “So were you going to do it again here tonight?” I asked him.

  “That was the plan,” he said. “But Larry has the kit with him, and he didn’t make it.”

  We both knew why he hadn’t.

  “Was it this race?” I asked.

  “Yeah, of course,” he said. “Red-hot favorite and all that.”

  “But why?” I said. “Where’s the gain? Are you betting on it elsewhere?”

  “No,” he replied. “That’s the beauty of it. There’s no trail for them to chase. No one does well out of it that has anything to do with us. It just produces a chance windfall for everyone who happens to back the favorite in a betting shop at the starting price. And there will be masses of those. It’s a ruse to make the big outfits lose a bit and also to give them a fit that someone else is playing them at their own game.”

  “But it cost you money for the bets in the ring at Ascot to change the odds,” I said. “I saw the cash in my hand.” And I remembered clearly the man at Ascot who had bet a thousand pounds, two monkeys on a loser. The man in the open-neck white shirt and the fawn chinos.


  “Not really,” he said. “A friend of Larry’s started the betting with a grand of readies. Then the same money went round and round, with Larry and me backing with Norman and him doing the same with us. The odds changed all over the ring, but not much cash actually changed hands with anyone else, and that which did was covered by a little wager on the favorite at home by Larry’s wife.”

  Very organized, I thought.

  “Was that also what you were up to at Stratford?” I said.

  “Yeah, sort of,” he said. “But, I grant you, that was a bit silly. It was too obvious. We hadn’t really planned to do anything there, so we didn’t have the kit with us, but there were so few bookies and the weather was so bloody awful we decided there and then to have some fun just by changing the odds on the boards.”

  “Well, don’t ever do it again,” I said. “If you are seriously interested in a partnership in the business, there’s no place for messing about with the prices. Not only would you quickly destroy our reputation, you could put our livelihoods in jeopardy. Do you understand?”

  He looked like a scolded schoolboy. The truth was that he had not been malicious, just bored. He had thought of it all as a game, but I had the bruises to prove it wasn’t.

  “I mean it,” I said. “Never again.”

  “Oh all right,” he said, clearly fed up but accepting the inevitable.

  East Imperial, the favorite, won the race easily and was returned at a starting price of eleven-to-ten on, which was about right.

  Overall, Betsy apart, it had been a good night for us, and Luca and I packed up our stuff in good spirits. Normally the betting on the last race can be a little sparse, and the crowd usually disappears rapidly when it is over. However, on this occasion, the crowd built during the evening, and more so after the last as everyone jostled for a good spot to watch and listen to the band. Consequently, we had an audience as we packed up the trolley, and we had to force our way through the masses around the grandstand and out to the parking lot behind.

  “Tell me about the equipment you use,” I said to Luca as we pulled the trolley down towards my car.

  “What equipment?” he said innocently.

  “You know what I mean. The kit you use to take down the Internet and the telephones.”