Lawrence Block - Enough Rope

“What’s the catch?”

“Keller,” she said, “what makes you think there’s a catch?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “But there is, isn’t there?”

She frowned. “The only catch,” she said, “if you want to call it that, is there might not be a job at all.”

“I’d call that a catch.”

“I suppose.”

“If there’s no job,” he said, “why did the client call the broker, and why did the broker call you, and what am I doing out here?”

Dot pursed her lips, sighed. “There’s this horse,” she said.

The fifth racewas reasonably exciting. Bunk Bed Betty, a big brown horse with a black mane, led all the way, only to be challenged in the stretch and overtaken at the wire by a thirty-to-one shot named Hypertension.

Hit the Boss was dead last, which made him the only horse that Happy Trigger beat.

Keller’s new friend got very excited toward the end of the race, and showed a ten-dollar Win ticket on Hypertension. “Oh, look at that,” he said, when they posted the payoff. “Gets me even for the day, plus yesterday and the day before. That was Alvie Jurado on Hypertension, and didn’t he ride a gorgeous race there?”

“It was exciting,” Keller allowed.

“A lot more exciting with ten bucks on that sweetie’s nose. Sorry about your Exacta. I guess it cost you four bucks.”

Keller gave a shrug that he hoped was ambiguous. In the end, he’d been uncomfortable betting four dollars, and unable to decide which way to bet his usual two dollars. So he hadn’t bet anything. There was nothing wrong with that, as a matter of fact he’d saved himself two dollars, or maybe four, but he’d feel like a piker admitting as much to a man who’d just won over three hundred dollars.

“The horse’s nameis Kissimmee Dudley,” Dot told him, “and he’s running in the seventh race at Belmont Saturday. It’s the feature race, and the word is that Dudley hasn’t got a prayer.”

“I don’t know much about horses.”

“They’ve got four legs,” she said, “and if the one you bet on comes in ahead of the others, you make money. That’s as much as I know about them, but I know something about Kissimmee Dudley. Our client thinks he’s going to win.”

“I thought you said he didn’t have a prayer.”

“That’s the word. Our client doesn’t see it that way.”

“Oh?”

“Evidently Dudley’s a better horse than anybody realizes,” she said, “and they’ve been holding him back, waiting for the right race. That way they’ll get long odds and be able to clean up. And, just so nothing goes wrong, the other jockeys are getting paid to make sure they don’t finish ahead of Dudley.”

“The race is fixed,” Keller said.

“That’s the plan.”

“But?”

“But a plan is what things don’t always go according to, Keller, which is probably a good thing, because otherwise the phone would never ring. You want some more iced tea?”

“No thanks.”

“They’ll have the race on Saturday, and Dudley’ll run. And if he wins you get two thousand dollars.”

“For what?”

“For standing by. For making yourself available.”

“I think I get it,” he said. “And if Kissimmee Dudley should happen to lose — where’d they come up with a name like that, do you happen to know?”

“Not a clue.”

“If he loses,” Keller said, “I suppose I have work to do.”

She nodded.

“The jockey who beats him?”

“Is toast,” she said, “and you’re the toaster.”

None of thehorses in the sixth race had a name that meant anything to Keller. Then again, picking them by name hadn’t done him much good so far. This time he looked at the odds. A longshot wouldn’t win, he decided, and a favorite wouldn’t pay enough to make it worthwhile, so maybe the answer was to pick something in the middle. The Five horse, Mogadishy, was pegged at six-to-one.

He got in line, thinking. Of course, sometimes a longshot came in. Take the preceding race, for instance, with its big payoff for Keller’s OTB buddy. There was a longshot in this race, and it would pay a lot more than the twelve bucks he’d win on his six-to-one shot.

On the other hand, no matter what horse he bet on, the return on his two-dollar bet wasn’t going to make any real difference to him. And it would be nice to cash a winning ticket for a change.

“Sir?”

He put down his two dollars and bet the odds-on favorite to show.

Dot lived inWhite Plains, in a big old Victorian house on Taunton Place. She gave him a ride to the train station, and a little over an hour later he was back in his apartment, looking once again at the Bulger & Calthorpe catalog.

If Kissimmee Dudley ran and lost, he’d have a job to do. And his fee for the job would be just enough to fill the two spaces in his album. And, since the horse was racing at Belmont, it stood to reason that all of the jockeys lived within easy commuting distance of the Long Island racetrack. Keller wouldn’t have to get on a plane to find his man.

If Kissimmee Dudley won, Keller got to keep the two thousand dollar standby fee. That was a decent amount of money for not doing a thing, and there were times when he’d have been happy to see it play out that way.

But this wasn’t one of those times. He really wanted those stamps. If the horse lost, well, he’d go out and earn them. But what if the damned horse won?

The sixth raceended with Pass the Gas six lengths ahead of the field. Keller cashed his ticket, and ran into his friend, who’d been talking with a fellow who bore a superficial resemblance to Jerry Orbach.

“Saw you in line to get paid,” the little man said. “What did you have, the Exacta or the Trifecta?”

“I don’t really understand those fancy bets,” Keller admitted. “I just put my money on Pass the Gas.”

“Paid even money, didn’t he? That’s not so bad.”

“I had him to show.”

“Well, if you had enough of a bet on him—”

“Just two dollars.”

“So you got back two-twenty,” the man said.

“I just felt like winning,” Keller said.

“Well,” the man said, “ you won.”

He’d put downthe catalog, picked up the phone. When Dot answered he said, “I was thinking. If that Dudley horse wins, the client wins his bet and I don’t have any work to do.”

“Right.”

“But if one of the other jockeys crosses him up—”

“It’s the last time he’ll ever do it.”

“Well,” he said, “why would he do it? The jockey, I mean. What would be the point?”

“Does it matter?”

“I’m just trying to understand it,” he said. “I mean, I could understand if it was boxing. Like in the movies. They want the guy to throw a fight. But he can’t do it, something in him recoils at the very idea, and he has to go on and win the fight, even if it means he’ll get his legs broken.”

“And never play the piano again,” Dot said. “I think I saw that movie, Keller.”

“All the boxing movies are like that, except the ones with Sylvester Stallone running up flights of steps. But how would that apply with horses?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “It’s been years since I saw National Velvet. ”

“If you were a jockey, and they paid you to throw a race, and you didn’t — I mean, where’s the percentage in it?”

“You could bet on yourself.”

“You’d make more money betting on Kissimmee Dudley. He’s the longshot, right?”

“That’s a point.”

“And that way nobody’d have a reason to take out a contract on you, either.”

“Another point,” Dot said, “and if the jockeys are all as reasonable as you and I, Keller, you’re not going to see a dime beyond the two grand. But they’re very small.”