Hal Ackerman: Stein,stoned

A big, cheery voice with a Brooklyn accent boomed out as Stein approached the turnstile. “Mister Stein. Tell me that’s not you.” Stein didn’t have to look to know that voice. Woody Avariccio was the purveyor of the tout sheet called “Woody’s Winners.” Woody had the face of an artichoke, and when he smiled it was like an artichoke smiling.

“Long fuckin’ time no fuckin’ see, Mister Stein. You find some alternate source of income?”

“I wanted to leave some for the other guys. How are you, Elwood?”

“Every day in every way younger and wiser. You come out to celebrate your birthday?”

“How the hell do you remember my birthday?”

“Am I just another pretty face or do I know numbers?”

Three Japanese businessmen in identical business suits approached Woody’s stand. One of them handed Woody a hundred-dollar bill for a sheet. Woody made change from a huge roll in his pocket. Then the second tourist did the same, and the third. Woody changed all three hundreds without flinching.

“People actually buy these things?”

Woody moved Stein half a step over where they could speak privately. “If you’ve come here to enhance your investment portfolio, I have some information I know you’ll find profitable.”

“Just for me and your five thousand closest friends?”

“Don’t hurt my feelings.” He jabbed his index finger at the program. “This one’s private. You wanna go home a happy man, you bet your hotdog money on the seven horse.”

Stein glanced down at the program. “Dario’s Dancer? Are you kidding? This guy hasn’t won since radio.”

“That’s why he’s 38-1.”

“And will no doubt run like it.”

“So the uninformed might think.”

“I’m actually more looking for a biped, today. A two-legger name of Morty Greene. Any help there?”

Woody’s expression turned serious. “Morty Greene is not your type of work, Mister Stein.”

“Really. And you say this because-?”

“If that’s your level of questioning, it should indicate that you have not handicapped this event sufficiently. And you remember what we call people who chase sucker bets.”

“Is he here today, Wood?”

“Let me give you a two-part exacta. One: bet the seven horse. Two: stay away from Morty Greene.”

Stein strode through the grandstand lobby toward the finish line where Edna Greene had suggested Morty would be sitting. He happened to glance up at the TV screen at the coincident moment that the horse being led to the gate was the seven horse, Dario’s Dancer. His odds had jumped up to 43-1, the longest shot on the board. Stein didn’t believe in omens, exactly, although one thing was sure and that was that the universe worked in mysterious ways. Stein thought, not really seriously, about Goodpasture’s check in his shirt pocket. He tried to multiply twenty thousand by forty-three-to-one odds but got lost in the zeros.

A year ago, in one of the very few interesting assignments he had gotten through Lassiter and Frank, they had been engaged by the Racing Association to crack a cyberspace betting scheme where a ring of Cal Tech math majors had hacked into the pari-mutuel system and were printing out bogus winning tickets after the races had been run. Stein’s instinct was that they were not racing fans and were getting the results online. He concocted a plan of posting fake results on the web page they were using as reference. When they came in to cash what they thought were winning tickets the stewards were waiting for them. A grateful management established a line of credit for Stein.

An invisible umbilical cord seemed to be drawing him toward the Large Transaction window. The teller was a blonde in her forties whose nametag said “Brenda.” Stein smiled at her affably. “Just for curiosity’s sake, I once had a house account here. I wonder if it’s still open.”

“Of course, Mister Stein.”

“You know me?”

“I’m Wanda.” She said it like she expected him to remember.

“Why does your badge say Brenda?”

“Don’t ask.” A pleasant chime sounded. Brenda or Wanda touched his sleeve with a long false nail. “They’re at the post, Mister Stein. Did you wish to place a wager?”

Two films ran side-by-side on the inner eyelids of Stein’s mental Cineplex. In WHAT IF IT WINS? bales of thousand dollar bills fall on him from above. He buys a real house, Angie grows up problem-free, the sixties return, and Stein, at long last, finds true love. In WHAT IF IT LOSES? Stein watches in shame and horror as a team of burly moving men load Angie’s furniture out of his apartment and she turns to him with a look that will define him for the rest of his life that says, “ I always hoped Mom was wrong about you.”

He snapped back into sanity. “No bet. I just came by to say hello.”

“I still have the same phone number.”

An instant later, the buzzer sounded locking down the betting windows and releasing the starting gate. Twelve superbly conditioned thoroughbred athletes exploded from the gate in a perfect line. Actually, eleven exploded forward. The twelfth stumbled badly and was only saved from a terrible spill by a heads-up move by its jockey. But he was left eight lengths behind the rest of the field before he had run a step. It was the seven horse. Dario’s Dancer. Stein thanked the universe for bestowing the wisdom upon him to resist temptation. He resumed his search for Morty Greene.

As the horses strung out along the back stretch, people all around him were standing on benches, exhorting their horses in English, Spanish, Korean, Chinese. Unburdened by a stake in the outcome, Stein passed through these magnetic fields as unaffected as a neutron sailing through the Van Allen Radiation belt. His radar was locked in on the large, rectangular object the size of a drive-in movie screen that he intuitively knew was Morty Greene’s back.

The pitch and timbre of the track announcer’s voice rose chromatically at each furlong. As the leaders came out of the far turn into the stretch, he was hitting C-sharp. “Missed The Boat is holding on gamely. Then comes Couldawouldashoulda. Smart Move is third. But from the back of the pack here comes Dario’s Dancer. Charging like an express train. They’re stride for stride in the last eighty yards. Missed The Boat. Dario’s Dancer. Missed The Boat, Dario’s Dancer. At the wire… it’s too close to call.”

Oblivious to the excitement of the photo finish, Stein tapped the back shoulder of the drive-in movie screen in front of him and asked pleasantly if he might be Morty Greene. The gentleman whose shoulder had been tapped rose slowly but continuously from his seat. He was sharply dressed in a tan sports jacket and slacks, hand-painted silk tie, and shoes that wouldn’t have left much unused alligator. As he turned around, Stein could see Edna Greene’s strength clearly displayed in his eyes. Her other qualities of wisdom and understanding, if present in her son, were far better concealed. Stein greeted him with his charming non-combative smile. He felt a cell memory of the old rhythm returning. It was good to be back in the game.

“How’re you doing? My name is Harry Stein.”

“I know who you are,” Morty Greene said.

“You do?” Then he noted the cell phone on the seat alongside. “Ah. She told you I was coming.” His voice sounded rueful.

“Of course she told me. She’s my mother. You Jewish boys expect everyone’s mother to love you the best.”

“Anyway, then you know why I’m here.” Stein unfolded the yellow copy of the shipping invoice that Mattingly had provided. Another voice interposed before Stein could ask his first question.

“What are you pushing paper at my man? Are you out of your fucking mind?” The source of the second voice stood up. But not very far; He came to the middle of Morty Greene’s chest. Standing next to each other they looked like a bar graph depicting the US/Japanese trade deficit. The shorter man had on a blue sports jacket over a tight-fitting silk shirt. His skin was black and smooth, and he had a large bubbling yellow scar on his left cheek that looked like a tomato grub crawling toward his eye.