Martin Greenberg: Crime Spells

“He eats three more cookies and a biscuit, and you won’t need Milton to hex the bad guys,” says Benny, as Gently Gently leaves the room. “Just have him breathe on ’em, or maybe step on their toes.”

Gently Gently is back out in less than a minute.

“That was fast,” I say.

“It was all negative,” he replies. “No one’s dropped a piano anywhere.” He pauses. “Some Acme Movers dropped a pipe organ carrying it into a church out there, if that helps.”

“Not a whole lot,” says Benny.

“Anyway, our contact’s sorry, but no pianos. The only weird thing they’ve had out there is the tidal wave.”

“A tidal wave?” I repeat. “In Las Vegas ?”

“Yeah,” he says. “Funny, isn’t it?”

“Tell me about it,” I say.

“No one was hurt,” says Gently Gently. “It comes from out of nowhere and practically drowns Nasty Nick Norris just when he’s about to pull a 300-to-1 upset in their tennis tournament, and then as quick as it comes, it goes away. I think they would have been convinced it was a mass hallucination, except that they found half a dozen codfish and a sea urchin stuck in the net.”

I pull out my abacus and dope out the odds that the tidal wave and the piano aren’t related. Since the abacus can’t compute any higher than a google-to-one, it melts.

“What have a Vegas tennis match and a New York football game got in common?” I muse.

Gently Gently raises his hand. “They’re both sports?”

I ignore him and say, “We need to find the connection. Someone’s paying a hell of an expensive wizard to rig these events, which means someone’s making a bundle on them-someone who doesn’t want his name to be known.”

“That does not make a lot of sense,” opines Benny. “So someone is paying a wizard. That doesn’t mean he has to hide his own name. Anyone can lay a bet. Are you sure Milton wasn’t holding something back?”

“Pretty sure,” I say. “But even if he is, he knows that I am also holding something back from him”-I pat my wallet-“and we can trade whenever he wants.”

“You mind if I turn on the TV?” asks Gently Gently.

“Trying to find out who’s robbing us doesn’t interest you enough?” asks Benny.

“It ain’t that,” explains Gently Gently. “But I got a sawbuck down on Loathesome Lortonoi in the seventh at Del Mar, and it’s almost post time.”

“You bet with some other totally illegal bookie?” demands Benny.

“It ain’t ethical to bet with the illegal bookie I work for,” responds Gently Gently. He searches for the right words. “It’s a conscript of interns.”

“Let him watch,” I say. “It’s easier than arguing with him.”

The picture comes on, and the horses are already parading to the post.

“There’s Loathesome Lortonoi!” says Gently Gently, pointing to a huge black horse who looks like he and his rider should be chasing Ichabod Crane around Sleepy Hollow. “They shipped him out there just for this race. It’s a perfect spot for him.”

There are six horses approaching the starting gate. Four of them look like close relatives of Loathesome Lortonoi. The sixth horse looks like he should be pulling a death cart in medieval Graustark, or maybe be spread throughout a few hundred cans of dog food. Even the flies avoid him. His jockey looks like he wishes he could wear a brown paper bag over his head. The tote board says he’s 750-to-1.

“Is that Pondscum?” asks Benny.

“No, it’s just a little smudge on the screen,” says Gently Gently.

“I mean the horse.”

Gently Gently pulls a Racing Form out of his pocket and looks at it. “Yes, it is. Have you seen him before?”

“He was losing races back when I was in grammar school,” says Benny. “He was the slowest, ugliest horse in the world even then.”

The horses enter the gate, and a few seconds later the doors spring open and Loathesome Lortonoi comes out of there like a bat out of hell, and before they hit the far turn he’s fifteen lengths in front. The next four horses are spread out over another thirty lengths. Pondscum isn’t even in the picture.

They hit the homestretch, and now Loathesome Lortonoi is twenty lengths in front-and suddenly the crowd starts screaming, and the announcer gets so excited he starts whistling and cheering and forgets to say what’s happening, but he doesn’t have to because in another two seconds Pondscum enters the picture. He is going maybe ninety miles an hour, and it seems like his feet are hardly touching the ground-and then I realize that his feet are hardly touching the ground, because somehow while rounding the far turn he has sprouted wings and is literally flying down the home stretch. He catches Loathesome Lortonoi with a sixteenth of a mile to go and wins by thirty lengths.

Gently Gently turns to me. “Is that fair?” he asks in hurt, puzzled tones.

“We’ll know in a minute,” I say. And sure enough, a minute later the result is official and Pondscum returns $1,578.20 for a two-dollar bet.

I turn to Benny. “Who do we know out there?”

Benny consults his little book. “The biggest bookie working Del Mar is No-Neck McGee.”

“Give me his number,” I say, and a moment later I dial it, and No-Neck McGee picks it up on the third ring.

“Hi, No-Neck,” I say. “This is Harry the Book.”

“Harry,” he says. “Long time no see.”

“No, I can see again,” I tell him. “Wanda the Witch’s spell only lasted a couple of weeks.”

“So what can I do for you on this most terrible of days? Did you see what just happened in the seventh?”

“That’s what I want to ask you about.”

“I’m making a formal complaint to the Jockey Club.”

“It’ll never hold up,” I say. “There’s nothing in the rules that says a horse can’t have wings.”

“Just as there’s nothing in the rules that says he can’t have blinkers, or shoes for that matter. I’m basing my case not on the fact that he had wings but that he didn’t declare them prior to the race, the way you have to declare all other equipment. Is that what you’re calling about? Did someone pull the same trick up at Belmont?”

“No,” I say. “I just want to know if you had any big plungers on Pondscum?”

“I took just one bet on him,” answers No-Neck. “Problem is, it was for six hundred dollars. That’s why I’ve filed the complaint. Paying it off will break me.”

“Who placed the bet?” I ask.

“An ex-jockey who hangs around the track all the time,” says No-Neck. “Remember Charlie Roman-off?”

“Chinless Charlie?” I say. “Didn’t he get ruled off the track for life?”

“Life or three hundred years, whichever comes first,” answers No-Neck. “Anyway, he lays the bet, but he’s never seen six hundred dollars at one time in his life, so I know he is someone else’s stalking horse. Or is it stalking bettor?”

“Thanks, No-Neck,” I say. “That’s what I needed to know.”

“Glad you called today,” says No-Neck. “I have a feeling my phone will be disconnected by next week.”

We hang up, and I turn back to Benny and Gently Gently. “I think I’m starting to see the light,” I say.

“I don’t know how you can,” says Gently Gently. “It’s almost nine o’clock at night.”

“Give your Form to Benny and go into the next room for another cookie,” I say, and he does so faster than Pondscum or even Godzilla Monsoon ever moved.

“I can tell by your face you got an idea,” says Benny. “Or maybe it’s just a sty in your eye. But it’s something .”

“It’s an idea,” I say. “It comes back to your question: Why would someone hide the fact that he was laying bets? After all, betting is legal at the track and in Vegas, and it’s almost legal with bookies.”