Part 31 (2/2)

. . .Native Princess, Tammy Shanter, s...o...b..rd, First Lady, Bold Dancer, and Ryan's Daughter. Now we're . . .

The private joke enjoyed by the grinning man in the white suit grew funnier and more enjoyable.

. . . coming into the halfway mark, and it's Lucy Girl in the lead by two lengths, followed by Tammy Shanter, Native Princess, Bold Dancer, First Lady, s...o...b..rd, and Ryan's Daughter.

Tommy Vale laughed, too, now, a laugh from deep in his throat. The coins c.h.i.n.ked brighter and louder in his wet palms.

. . . and coming into the turn it's Native Princess in front now by a neck. It's Native Princess and Tammy Shanter. It's Native Princess and Tammy Shanter, followed by First Lady, s...o...b..rd, Lucy Girl, Bold Dancer, and Ryan's Daughter in the rear. . .

Horace played taps on the credit-card sized calculator. Though the man in the white suit still did not sweat, his studied insouciance faltered.

But only a few moments later it was Horace's notes that began to falter.

. . . Ryan's Daughter making a bold move on the outside. And coming into the homestretch it's Native Princess and Tammy Shanter. s...o...b..rd anda”Ryan's Daughter! Ryan's Daughter coming on strong! It's Native Princess and Tammy Shanter and Ryan's Daughter! Riding like the devil, it's Native Princess and Ryan's Daughter. It's Native Princess and Ryan's Daughter. Coming down to the wire, it's Native Princess and Ryan's Daughter, neck and neck. It's Ryan's Daughter still pulling!

It's Ryan's Daughter! It's Ryan's Daughter by a nose! At the finish it's Ryan's Daughter, followed by Native Princess, Tammy Shanter, s...o...b..rd . . .

The bloodless smile was back on the pallid face of the man in the gleaming white suit.

”I'll have the twenty grand tomorrow,” said Vale, sweating only from the heat.

”What's the line on Detroit tonight?” asked the man in the white suit.

”Not much payoff there. One-to-three.”

”I like big payoffs. And little birdies. So put my money on the Orioles. Twenty thousand.”

”That's suicide, mister,” said Horace.

The man in the white linen suit tipped his Panama Hat to Horace.

”Boss,” said Horace in a quick whisper as he turned the calculator over and over in his palm. ”That's sixty thou. You ain't got time to lay that off.”

Vale stared hard at the man in the white suit.

”I've never refused a bet,” Vale said.

The man in the white suit said nothing, but his smile was as broad as it was bloodless when he walked toward the door of Phil's Bar and Grill.

Vale relit his cigar and c.h.i.n.ked the silver coins bright and hard in his damp palm.

That evening the light was murkier in Phil's Bar and Grill. The same drunk nursed his second gla.s.s of beer in six hours, and Phil leaned in a corner, polis.h.i.+ng a gla.s.s and listening close to his all-talk station on the Bakelite radio.

At the back the telephone rang, for the thirty-second time in the last six hours, and Horace answered it immediately.

Before Tommy Vale were arranged a hundred sc.r.a.ps of notepaper that made no sense no matter how often they were arranged and rearranged.

Vale reached for Horace's calculator and punched out some numbers with his sausage-like forefinger.

The machine gave no answers, played no tune.

”Hey! How the heck do you use this thing?”

Horace, still on the phone, waved Vale off. Vale shook his head and dispiritedly made an entry in his ledger.

”Put T.J. down for fifty on the Orioles,” said Horace, sitting down again. As Vale made out one more slip Horace said diffidently, ”You know, boss, someone's pa.s.sing hunches.”

”Tell me something I don't know.”

Beep Beep Beep Chime.

”Eight o'clock,” said Horace. ”Wanna watch the game?”

Vale looked up at the round, luminous Ballantine clock on the wall, then down at the flat, rectangular calculator at his elbow.

”No,” Vale said. Then he inched the calculator toward Horace with his elbow. ”Show me how to use that thing, will you?”

The next morning was different in Phil's Bar and Grill insofar as the light was a little less murky than it had been the night before. Phil brought a bottle of whiskey over to the booth in the back. One slip of paper remained on the table in front of Tommy Vale.

”Hurt pretty bad, huh, Tommy?”

Vale shrugged and waved away the bottle. ”Let's just say business has been better, Phil.”

”My business has never been better,” said the man in the white suit, who stood silhouetted in the swirling light at the front of Phil's Bar and Grill.

Phil returned to the bar. Horace backed off, leaving the place across from Vale empty. As the man sat down Vale took a shoe box from the seat beside him and pushed it across the scarred Formica tabletop.

The man lifted the lid and smiled at the untidy stacks of twenty-dollar bills inside.

Vale crumpled the last sc.r.a.p of paper and tossed it onto the floor. ”You always share your hunches with the general public?”

”I like to spread the good word. I like to see people happy. I see happy people, I'm happy.”

The man laughed a strange, hoa.r.s.e laugh: like a cat with asthma, or like a strangled man choking for breath.

Vale stared at the man, then blinked. ”Horace! Come over here!”

Horace came over from the bar, leaned on the scarred Formica table, and looked hard at the man, who had at last stopped his choking laugh.

”Well,” Horace said, ”if it ain't a walking public-service message.”

”Mr. Suns.h.i.+ne here,” said Vale, gesturing toward the man in the white linen suit. ”He remind you of someone?”

Horace looked at the man in the white suit even harder than before. ”I been thinkin' all along, he looks real familiar, but I can't place the face.”

”Horace,” said Vale, ”try way back. Maybe you remember Bill Lacey?”

<script>