Irwin Shaw - Short Stories - Five Decades

“Not bad,” Barber said carefully.

“Which do you like in this one?” The man pointed with his umbrella at the track, where the horses were gingerly going up to the distant starting line on the muddied grass.

“Number Three,” Barber said.

“Number Three.” The man shrugged, as though he pitied Barber but was restrained by his good breeding from saying so. “How is the movie business these days?” the man asked.

“The movie business went home a month ago,” Barber said, slightly surprised that the man knew anything about it. An American company had been making a picture about the war, and Barber had had four lucky, well-paid months as a technical expert, buckling leading men into parachutes and explaining the difference between a P-47 and a B-25 to the director.

“And the blond star?” the man asked, taking his glasses away from his eyes. “With the exquisite behind?”

“Also home.”

The man moved his eyebrows and shook his head gently, indicating his regret that his new acquaintance and the city of Paris were now deprived of the exquisite behind. “Well,” he said, “at least it leaves you free in the afternoon to come to the races.” He peered out across the track through the glasses. “There they go.”

No. 3 led all the way until the stretch. In the stretch, he was passed rapidly by four other horses.

“Every race in this country,” Barber said as the horses crossed the finish line, “is a hundred metres too long.” He took out his tickets and tore them once and dropped them on the wet concrete.

He watched with surprise as the man with the umbrella took out some tickets and tore them up, too. They were on No. 3, and Barber could see that they were big ones. The man with the umbrella dropped the tickets with a resigned, half-amused expression on his face, as though all his life he had been used to tearing up things that had suddenly become of no value.

“Are you staying for the last race?” the man with the umbrella asked as they started to descend through the empty stands.

“I don’t think so,” Barber said. “This day has been glorious enough already.”

“Why don’t you stay?” the man said. “I may have something.”

Barber thought for a moment, listening to their footsteps on the concrete.

“I have a car,” the man said. “I could give you a lift into town, Mr. Barber.”

“Oh,” Barber said, surprised, “you know my name.”

“Of course,” the man said, smiling. “Why don’t you wait for me at the bar? I have to go and cash some tickets.”

“I thought you lost,” Barber said suspiciously.

“On Number Three,” the man said. From another pocket he took out some more tickets and waved them gently. “But there is always the insurance. One must always think of the insurance,” he said. “Will I see you at the bar?”

“O.K.,” Barber said, not because he hoped for anything in the way of information on the next race from the man with the umbrella but because of the ride home. “I’ll be there. Oh—by the way, what’s your name?”

“Smith,” the man said. “Bert Smith.”

Barber went to the bar and ordered a coffee, then changed it to a brandy, because coffee wasn’t enough after a race like that. He stood there, hunched over the bar, reflecting sourly that he was one of the category of people who never think of the insurance. Smith, he thought, Bert Smith. More insurance. On how many other names, Barber wondered, had the man lost before he picked that one?

Smith came to the bar softly, on his dapper feet, smiling, and laid a hand lightly on Barber’s arm. “Mr. Barber,” he said, “there is a rumor for the seventh race. Number Six.”

“I never win on Number Six,” Barber said.

“It is a lovely little rumor,” Smith said. “At present, a twenty-two-to-one rumor.”

Barber looked at the man doubtfully. He wondered briefly what there was in it for Smith. “What the hell,” he said, moving toward the seller’s window. “What have I got to lose?”

He put five thousand francs on No. 6 and superstitiously remained at the bar during the race, drinking brandy. No. 6 won, all out, by half a length, and, although the odds had dropped somewhat, paid eighteen to one.

Barber walked through the damp twilight, across the discarded newspapers and the scarred grass, with its farmlike smell, patting his inside pocket with the ninety thousand francs in a comforting bulge there, pleased with the little man trotting beside him.

Bert Smith had a Citroën, and he drove swiftly and well and objectionably, cutting in on other cars and swinging wide into the outside lane to gain advantage at lights.

“Do you bet often on the races, Mr. Barber?” he was saying as they passed a traffic policeman, forlorn in his white cape on the gleaming street.

“Too often,” Barber said, enjoying the warmth of the car and the effects of the last brandy and the bulge in his pocket.

“You like to gamble?”

“Who doesn’t?”

“There are many who do not like to gamble,” Smith said, nearly scraping a truck. “I pity them.”

“Pity them?” Barber looked over at Smith, a little surprised at the word. “Why?”

“Because,” Smith said softly, smiling, “in this age there comes a time when everyone finds that he is forced to gamble—and not only for money, and not only at the seller’s window. And when that time comes, and you are not in the habit, and it does not amuse you, you are most likely to lose.”

They rode in silence for a while. From time to time, Barber peered across at the soft, self-assured face above the wheel, lit by the dashboard glow. I would like to get a look at his passport, Barber thought—at all the passports he’s carried for the last twenty years.

“For example,” Smith said, “during the war …”

“Yes?”

“When you were in your plane,” Smith said, “on a mission. Weren’t there times when you had to decide suddenly to try something, to depend on your luck for one split second, and if you hesitated, if you balked at the act of gambling—sssszt!” Smith took one hand from the wheel and made a gliding, falling motion, with his thumb down. He smiled across at Barber. “I suppose you are one of the young men who were nearly killed a dozen times,” he said.

“I suppose so,” Barber said.

“I prefer that in Americans,” Smith said. “It makes them more like Europeans.”

“How did you know I was in the war?” Barber said. For the first time, he began to wonder if it was only a coincidence that Smith had been near him in the stand before the sixth race.

Smith chuckled. “You have been in Paris how long?” he said. “A year and a half?”

“Sixteen months,” Barber said, wondering how the man knew that .

“Nothing very mysterious about it,” Smith said. “People talk at bars, at dinner parties. One girl tells another girl. Paris is a small city. Where shall I drop you?”

Barber looked out the window to see where they were. “Not far from here,” he said. “My hotel is just off the Avenue Victor Hugo. You can’t get in there with a car.”

“Oh, yes,” Smith said, as though he knew about all hotels. “If it doesn’t seem too inquisitive,” he said, “do you intend to stay long in Europe?”

“It depends.”

“On what?”

“On luck.” Barber grinned.

“Did you have a good job in America?” Smith asked, keeping his eyes on the traffic ahead of him.

“In thirty years, working ten hours a day, I would have been the third biggest man in the company,” Barber said.

Smith smiled. “Calamitous,” he said. “Have you found more interesting things to do here?”

“Occasionally,” Barber said, beginning to be conscious that he was being quizzed.