One On The House

by Mary Lasswell

  “My horse won,” she said, coming up to the table.

  “Her horse won!” Dusty laughed. “Mrs. Feeley and both of us won the daily double! The odds are something terrific! We can retire for good! You just sit down with some beer for sustenance while we go get the swag!”

  “Guess we don’t have to skimp on that little old television set now,” Mrs. Feeley crowed.

  “Plenty beer on the road home!” Mrs. Rasmussen said.

  Apparently the winners of the daily double had been few. The two chiefs returned promptly.

  “Twelve-forty for Mrs. Rasmussen; twelve-forty for Mrs. Feeley…plus the daily double: four hundred and thirty-five dollars and eighty centavos!”

  “Gawd! We’re rich!” Mrs. Feeley said, kissing the two young men.

  “Five hundred and twenty-three dollars and no cents,” Mrs. Rasmussen did lightning calculation, and bussed Spud expertly.

  “What a delightful vista opens before us,” Miss Tinkham said. “Just what the horoscope predicted; a change both pleasurable and profitable! What a future there is in it for us! As we grow older we can follow the sun—and the horses!”

  Dusty looked at her for a minute. “You want to be careful at this, Miss Tinkham. It’s easy to lose your shirt.” He began to stow away his money in his wallet.

  “You had ten dollars on the double too?” Mrs. Feeley was goggle-eyed. “I never seen that much money in my life.”

  “There ain’t that much,” Mrs. Rasmussen said.

  “No? Well this better not turn out to be cabbage,” Dusty laughed.

  “Four thousand three hundred and eighty dollars.”

  Spud spread out the crisp new bills. “I’m going to buy me a house in San Diego down towards National City where I can see those Mexican hills…just as fast as I can send this home to my folks.”

  “What about the income tax?” Miss Tinkham asked.

  “That tote-ticket didn’t have a name on it! The most revenue they’re going to get from me is liquor tax…what about some more beer?”

  “What you goin’ to buy, Dusty? You goin’ to invest your money in houses and lots? Whore-houses an’ lots o’ liquor?”

  “I’ll just settle for that Cadillac,” Dusty said when the noise died down.

  “We sure got more than we ever expected…an’ thanks!” Mrs. Feeley said. “Besides, this is only the beginnin’…only the beginnin’!”

  “Now, Mrs. Feeley…I want to make myself clear: long-shots like this don’t happen very often. Sometimes they don’t happen by chance, either.”

  “Sure! Sure!” she cried, “I ain’t askin’ for no trade secrets. We’ll just ride along with our own luck, same as we always do, won’t we?”

  Mrs. Rasmussen and Miss Tinkham smirked complacently.

  “I hope I may be forgiven,” Miss Tinkham clutched her thirty-one dollars and twenty cents, “but I seem suddenly to have lost interest in this sport!”

  Mrs. Feeley looked at the young men thoughtfully.

  “You know, that ain’t such a bad idea. Let’s get outa here before some o’ them reporters or the bum-bailiffs comes round askin’ impident questions…ain’t every day two sailors wins four thousand apiece, an’ us five hundred an’ some!”

  “There is no substitute for genius, Mrs. Feeley!” Dusty Rhodes finished his beer and started herding his party out to the street.

  “We’re going to pick up Katy and Danny and go out on the town this night! Taxi!” he yelled. “Taxi! The biggest and blackest one you have!”

  Chapter 4

  SUNDAY MORNING THE ONLY SOUND HEARD IN THE Malone apartment was the crashing of an alka-seltzer in a glass of cold water. The heat filtered through the windows and was blown into a reluctant current by the droning electric fan Danny placed on the floor. He and Katy lay on a pallet in front of the windows sipping what they hoped were restoratives. Mrs. Feeley padded into the kitchen on her bare little feet in search of beer.

  “We drank outa the big end o’ the egg-cup last night, didn’t we?”

  Miss Tinkham nodded limply and snapped off a beer-cap.

  Give me my scallop shell of joy,

  My bottle of salvation.

  “Gawd, don’t go mentionin’ scallops at a time like this!”

  “Not a happy thought, was it?”

  “You’ve had better.”

  Mrs. Rasmussen came walking in as though her hips were made of glass.

  “We tied on some good ones in our time, but this is the first time my comb ever up an’ snapped at me.”

  “Some spenders, them guys!” Mrs. Feeley said. “Good thing Ol’-Timer took the baby to the Zoo. Reckon we’ll survive? Look at Katy an’ Danny…I knew that soda in them Scotches would give ’em a awful hangover.”

  “Hungover or standin’ up, I’m gonna eat!” Mrs. Rasmussen downed a beer at a gulp and began to investigate the icebox. The celebration of the day before had interfered with Katy’s usual Saturday cooking. Mrs. Rasmussen eyed the luscious cut of prime ribs…that would take too much time the way she roasted it in a slow oven closed up in a paper bag.

  “Plenty of eggs an’ cheese,” she mumbled. “Ol’-Timer musta baked them potatoes for him an’ the baby.” She saw lamb-chop bones left in the sink and felt better that Little Danny had not been neglected.

  “Now if I can just find some o’ them cans o’ hot green Mexican peppers we brought Katy, I’ll be able to save us all yet.” She found the small can of peppers in brine, then peeled and chopped the baked potatoes. She melted some butter in a copper pan and put the potatoes on the back of the stove to make a good crust on her hash-browns.

  Mrs. Feeley raised her head from the kitchen table and smiled.

  “I didn’t think nothin’ would ever smell good to me again.”

  Mrs. Rasmussen poured herself another beer.

  She broke a dozen eggs into a large bowl, added salt and ground in some black pepper. Then she added six tablespoons of water. She opened the hot peppers and cut six large triangles of sharp Cheddar cheese. Under the sink she found Katy’s largest copper frying pan and heated it. Into it, with reckless abandon, she dropped a quarter of a pound of butter. With great care she placed the triangles of cheese in the pan with the points meeting in the center. She lowered the heat carefully, then placed half of a thin green pepper between the triangles, one in each space. From the pan the aroma of toasting cheese and green pepper must have reached the living room, for Katy and Danny appeared in the door.

  “No mass suicide today?” Danny asked.

  Mrs. Rasmussen grinned and shook her head. She was dipping French rolls in cold water. She put them in a paper bag tightly twisted shut and put them in the oven.

  “These eggs’ll be good for our rigor mortis,” she said to Katy. “You know better than to be fiddlin’ with that alka-seltzer! Swallow a beer down quick like a good girl…it’ll just give me time to whip these eggs into the pan.” Mrs. Feeley crawled to her feet and started moving chairs up to the kitchen table. Miss Tinkham set out plates and forks.

  “We don’t need knives,” she moaned. “Only more dishes to wash!”

  “The cleaning lady comes tomorrow,” Katy said.

  “Glory be to God!” Mrs. Feeley rolled her eyes piously.

  Mrs. Rasmussen beat the eggs to a froth and poured them over the cheese and peppers. She tilted the pan and loosened the mixture with the spatula until the omelet was set. Then she turned it out upside down on a large hot plate. Around the sides she arranged the hash-brown potatoes.

  “Ten minutes ago,” Mrs. Feeley said pouring out the beer, “I thought if I never ate again, it would be too soon. Be sure to give me plenty!”

  Chapter 5

  WHEN THE DISHES WERE WASHED AND PUT AWAY Miss Tinkham rescued the Sunday paper from oblivion and brought it into the bedroom. Mrs. Feeley and Mrs. Rasmussen were sitting on the floor counting the money.

  “Close the door,” Mrs. Feeley whispered. “We don’t want them to get wind o’ this.”

&nb
sp; “We got seven hundred an’ two dollars…an’ plenty more where that come from,” Mrs. Rasmussen said. “That’s countin’ what we had before we went to the races, o’ course.”

  “What’d we do with the rest?” Mrs. Feeley said.

  “Don’t you remember? We give Ol’-Timer twenty-five dollars to keep in his pocket Saturday night.”

  “My head’s like a ten-cent sieve!” Mrs. Feeley said.

  “Gimbels!” Miss Tinkham exclaimed. “Gimbels have magnificent television sets…just look! And such values!”

  “First thing in the mornin’ we’ll hot-foot it down there an’ get the finest one in the country. We don’t have to get one o’ them measly little two hundred and fifty sets now that we know where we can go right out an’ pick money off the bushes!”

  “The best is good enough for them!” Mrs. Rasmussen said. “Like the feller said when he give you them two free loads o’ manure for your flowers: You deserve it.”

  “Now here’s how we gotta work it,” Mrs. Feeley spoke softly. “We’ll get the set delivered an’ tell ’em we hate to go, but we just gotta go home.”

  “The television set will soften the blow of our departure,” Miss Tinkham agreed.

  “They’re bound to have things they want to do at the last minute, but havin’ us here they’re too polite to say so. Katy can’t get her stuff packed with us usin’ the extra beds an’ linen. Soon’s the set comes, we’ll take what we saved out to bet with and run right out to the races. Soon as we clean ’em out, we’ll hop the train. Anythin’ I hate, it’s a long-drawn-out partin’!”

  “Yeah. We’ll be all packed an’ get right on the train,” Mrs. Rasmussen said. “Now that we know how to get all the money we need, we don’t never have to ride them buses! I hate ’em.”

  “Heaven! It’s been sheer heaven!” Miss Tinkham said. “But what joy to get back to dear San Diego…in less than a week we’ll be home! Just think of it!”

  “Oughta be a law everybody has to take a trip every two years just to make ’em realize how good home is.”

  “What did you like best?” Mrs. Rasmussen asked Mrs. Feeley.

  “I don’t guess I could choose,” she said. “It was all fine. One thing better than another. But that daily double will sure stand out in my mind for a while.”

  “The Empire State Buildin’ was just like I thought. I had the whirlies for half an hour after I got outa that elevator,” Mrs. Rasmussen said.

  “Except for your company, and beer,” Miss Tinkham mused, “I have very little to ask of life now that I have seen Sir Laurence Olivier in Henry the Fifth. I was so carried out of my usual composure that I rose at the Battle of Agincourt and cheered, my dears! Cheered aloud! I wonder how I would look with a Henry V cropped hair-cut? With bangs, like Sir Laurence?”

  “Be cool, anyway,” Mrs. Rasmussen said.

  “On account o’ the big day tomorrow,” Mrs. Feeley said, “what do you say we get in some rack-time? Let’s start the sack-derby now: I’m sleepy.”

  “To sleep, perchance to dream….” Miss Tinkham rolled into bed lost in visions of English Harry and his Kate. “The sound of his voice when he said, ‘Take me, Kate! Take me!’ Ah……”

  “Them hot Mexican peppers!” Mrs. Feeley winked at Mrs. Rasmussen and turned out the light.

  Chapter 6

  “GAWD! THEM SNOT SALESMEN STEP LIVELY WHEN six hundred an’ fifty dollars get flashed under their nose, don’t they?” Mrs. Feeley crowed to her friends as they leaned back in a taxi on the way to the races Tuesday afternoon.

  “Didn’t they deliver it fast?” Mrs. Rasmussen said. “Monday afternoon at five sharp, just like you told ’em.”

  “That’s because of C.O.D.,” Miss Tinkham explained. “Once you pay them you can wait until doomsday for your purchase, but when the money remains to be collected…well, you saw what happened!”

  “The set was almost home before we was,” Mrs. Feeley said. “Did you ever see anything like Katy an’ Danny’s faces?”

  “Katy was cryin’ like she always does when she’s real pleased.”

  “Danny was so thrilled he couldn’t hardly talk or nothin’,” Mrs. Feeley smiled. “All he done was hit his head with his fist an’ say: ‘Alaska! My God! Alaska! The jumpin’-off place!’ He knows nobody in Alaska will have nothin’ like that…them things is splinter-fired bran’ new!”

  “Katy was apprehensive about us spending so much money,” Miss Tinkham said. “She took me aside and expressed concern about our railway fares. I prevaricated a little: I told her we had already purchased our tickets.”

  “That’s just a white lie!” Mrs. Feeley rapped on the glass of the taxi: “Is that all the fast you can go, driver? We’re gonna miss the daily double!” She turned back to Miss Tinkham. “You could even say you was just a little bit previous…we’re gonna buy the tickets tonight, ain’t we?”

  “Finest an’ longest tickets they got,” Mrs. Rasmussen said. The cab stopped at the gate of the race track and she paid the driver. The three ladies started to push their way through the turnstile.

  “Just a minute, ma’am!” the ticket seller said. “How many?”

  “How many tickets?”

  “Three.” Mrs. Rasmussen laid down a five-dollar bill. She looked significantly at her companions. “Didn’t even know you had to pay to get in. We never had our hand in our pocket once Saturday.”

  A program vendor approached with programs and pencils.

  “How much?” Mrs. Feeley said.

  “Seventy-five cents apiece.”

  “What’s them things?” Mrs. Feeley pointed to the shoulder-boards on his uniform.

  “My epaulettes.”

  “Oh. I thought they was your buttocks, everythin’s so high around here!” She sailed majestically through the crowd.

  “I have my silver pencil,” Miss Tinkham whispered.

  “An’ we can pick a program up off the ground,” Mrs. Rasmussen said.

  Mrs. Feeley led the way towards the table they had occupied Saturday. The weasel-faced waiter was watching her with an interest that amounted to usury.

  “They’re all taken,” he headed her off nastily.

  “They ain’t a soul sittin’ at one of ’em,” Mrs. Feeley barked. “I’ll take that one.”

  “Oh no you wont!” He gave the headwaiter the high-sign.

  “So sorry! These are all reserved!” the oily menial purred. He looked at the ladies insolently. “You might just try standing up at the bar.”

  “That’s the last run o’ shad!” Mrs. Feeley said.

  The headwaiter smirked and seated a man who came up waving a greenback.

  “Instigators, accomplices, and accessories,” Miss Tinkham hissed.

  “Thievin’, lyin’, graspin’, low-down, no-good bastards! Take your table an’ chairs an’ put ’em where you have the most room! An’ the umbrella, too!” Mrs. Feeley hustled across the green to the ticket windows. There were no seats of any kind in sight. The day was hot and her feet were beginning to hurt already.

  “Gawd! I need a beer!”

  Mrs. Rasmussen looked in her purse, considered for a moment, then nodded.

  “We gotta be careful! That taxi took a lot, an’ then the crust of him: makin’ us pay to get in!”

  They went towards the bar, pushing through the crowd that surrounded it even at that early hour. When they finally reached it the bartender told them that they did not serve ladies.

  “Who said we was ladies?” Mrs. Feeley snapped. She looked around disgruntled, but not discouraged. She went over to a sailor she spotted.

  “How’s to bring us three beers, Mac?”

  Mrs. Rasmussen handed him two dollars. When they got the beer and the change, they went back to the ticket windows and studied the board, swigging away at the beer bottles.

  “Now we gotta get in on this daily double,” Mrs. Feeley said.

  “Wish I knew who was gonna win it!”

  “Best Trick is the favorite in the firs
t,” Miss Tinkham studied the board.

  “How much does he pay?” Mrs. Rasmussen said.

  “Four-twenty to win…just one-ten odds. That’s because everyone thinks he will win.”

  “Hell! He ain’t nothin’ for us!” Mrs. Feeley said. “We gotta pick out one that nobody thinks is gonna win. That’s how Dusty an’ Spud won us all that money Saturday. Pick out one that ain’t never been heard of, in both races. We’re sure to win.”

  “In that case, we must take the one with the greatest odds against him.” Miss Tinkham read the names through her lorgnette. “Here’s our horse!” she scribbled excitedly on a soiled program. “Can’t Lose is his name and he has all kinds of odds! Seventy-six fifty-five for every dollar we invest. Even his name is a good omen!”

  “For a two-dollar ticket we’d get over one hundred and fifty dollars, ain’t it?” Mrs. Rasmussen said.

  Miss Tinkham nodded. “That’s how it would appear.”

  “Put ten dollars on the beetle,” Mrs. Feeley said, “an’ let’s get seven hundred and sixty dollars and be done with it! No use foolin’ with them two-dollar bets. Then we’ll pick his runnin’-mate for the other half o’ the daily double.”

  “Here’s a lovely horse!” Miss Tinkham said. “Sixty-two sixty-five he pays for every dollar.”

  “What’s his name?” Mrs. Feeley said.

  “Dancing Home!”

  “That’s us!” Mrs. Feeley rolled her empty beer bottle to the ground and almost floored a very fat man who stepped on it.

  “We can’t miss with a name like that.” Mrs. Rasmussen handed Miss Tinkham three ten-dollar bills. “You buy the tickets.”

  Miss Tinkham held the money carefully. She copied the numbers and said: “Ten dollars on Can’t Lose…shall I play him right across the board?”

  “What’s that?”

  “Win, place, or show. My bartender friend at the Foreign Club in Tijuana initiated me into the jargon of the racetrack.”