ONLY ONE
About a week after this, the Mrs. made the remark that the Decker
wasn’t big enough to hold both she and Perkins.
“She treats us like garbage,” says the Mrs., “and if I stay here much
longer I’ll forget myself and do her nose in a braid.”
But Perk left first and saved us the trouble. Her husband was down in
Texas looking after some oil gag and he wired her a telegram one day
to come and join him as it looked like he would have to stay there
all summer. If I’d of been him I’d of figured that Texas was a sweet
enough summer resort without adding your wife to it.
We was out on the porch when her ladyship and two dogs shoved off.
“Three of a kind,” said the Mrs.
And she stuck her tongue out at Perk and felt like that made it all
even. A woman won’t stop at nothing to revenge insults. I’ve saw them
stagger home in a new pair of 3 double A shoes because some fresh
clerk told them the 7 Ds they tried on was too small. So anyway we
decided to stay on at the Decker and the two gals prettied themselves
up every night for dinner in the hopes that somebody besides the
head-waiter would look at them twice, but we attracted about as much
attention as a dirty finger nail in the third grade.
That is, up till Herbert Daley come on the scene.
Him and Katie spotted each other at the same time. It was the night
he come to the Decker. We was pretty near through dinner when the
head-waiter showed him to a table a little ways from us. The majority
of the guests out there belongs to the silly sex and a new man
is always a riot, even with the married ones. But Daley would of
knocked them dead anywheres. He looked like he was born and raised
in Shubert’s chorus and the minute he danced in all the women folks
forgot the feed bag and feasted their eyes on him. As for Daley,
after he’d glanced at the bill of fare, he let his peepers roll over
towards our table and then they quit rolling. A cold stare from Kate
might have scared him off, but if they was ever a gal with “Welcome”
embroidered on her pan, she’s it.
It was all I could do to tear Ella and Sis from the dining room,
though they was usually in a hurry to romp out to the summer parlor
and enjoy a few snubs. I’d just as soon of set one place as another,
only for the waitress, who couldn’t quit till we did and she
generally always had a date with the big ski jumper the hotel hires
to destroy trunks.
Well, we went out and listened a wile to the orchestra, which had
brought a lot of new jazz from the Prince of Pilsen, and we waited
for the new dude to show up, but he didn’t, and finally I went in to
the desk to buy a couple of cigars and there he was, talking to Wurz,
the manager. Wurz introduced us and after we’d shook hands Daley
excused himself and said he was going upstairs to write a letter.
Then Wurz told me he was Daley the horseman.
“He’s just came up from the South,” says Wurz. “He’s going to be
with us till the meetings is over at Jamaica and Belmont. He’s got a
whale of a stable and he expects to clean up round New York with Only
One, which he claims can beat any horse in the world outside of Man
o’ War. They’s some other good ones in the bunch, too, and he says
he’ll tell me when he’s going to bet on them. I don’t only bet once
in a long wile and then never more than $25 at a crack, but I’ll
take this baby’s tips as often as he comes through with them. I guess
a man won’t make no mistake following a bird that bets five and ten
thousand at a clip, though of course it don’t mean much to him if he
win or lose. He’s dirty with it.”
I asked Wurz if Daley was married and he said no.
“And listen,” he says: “It looks like your little sister-in-law had
hit him for a couple of bases. He described where she was setting in
the dining room and asked who she was.”
“Yes,” I said, “I noticed he was admiring somebody at our table, but
I thought maybe it was me.”
“He didn’t mention you,” says Wurz, “only to make sure you wasn’t
Miss Kate’s husband.”
“If he was smart he’d know that without asking,” I said. “If she was
my wife I’d be wearing weeds.”
I went back to the gals and told them I’d met the guy. They was all
steamed up.
“Who is he?” says Kate.
“His name is Herbert Daley,” I told her. “He’s got a stable over to
Jamaica.”
“A stable!” says Ella, dropping her jaw. “A man couldn’t dress like
he and run a livery.”
So I had to explain that he didn’t run no livery, but owned a string
of race horses.
“How thrilling!” says Katie. “I love races! I went to the Grand
Circuit once, the time I was in Columbus.”
“These is different,” I says. “These is thurlbreds.”
“So was they thurlbreds!” she says. “You always think a thing can’t
be no good if you wasn’t there.”
I let her win that one.
“We must find out when the race is and go,” said the Mrs.
“They’s six of them every day,” I said, “but it costs about five
smackers apiece to get in, to say nothing about what you lose
betting.”
“Betting!” says Katie. “I just love to bet and I never lose. Don’t
you remember the bet I made with Sammy Pass on the baseball that
time? I took him for a five-pound box of candy. I just felt that
Cincinnati was going to win.”
“So did the White Sox,” I says. “But if you bet with the boys over to
Jamaica, the only candy they’ll take you for is an all-day sucker.”
“What did Mr. Daley have to say?” asked Ella.
“He had to say he was pleased to meet me,” I told her. “He proved it
by chasing upstairs to write a letter.”
“Probably to his wife,” said Kate.
“No,” I said. “Wurz tells me he ain’t got no wife. But he’s got
plenty of jack, so Wurz says.”
“Well, Sis,” says the Mrs., “that’s no objection to him, is it?”
“Don’t be silly!” said Katie. “He wouldn’t look at me.”
“I guess not!” I says. “He was so busy doing it in the dining room,
that half his soup never got past his chin. And listen: I don’t like
to get you excited, but Wurz told me he asked who you was.”
“O Sis!” said the Mrs. “It looks like a Romance.”
“Wurz didn’t say nothing about a Romance,” said I. “He may be
interested like the rubes who stare with their mouth open at
Ringling’s ‘Strange People.’”
“Oh, you can’t tease Sis like that,” said Ella. “She’s as pretty as a
picture to-night and nobody could blame a man from admiring her.”
“Especially when we don’t know nothing about him,” I says. “He may be
a snow-eater or his upstairs rooms is unfurnished or something.”
“Well,” says Ella, “if he shows up again to-night, don’t you forget
to introduce us.”
“Better not be in no hurry,” I said.
“Why not?” said Ella. “If him and Sis likes each other’s looks, why,
the sooner they get acquainted, it won’t hurt nothing.”
“I don’t know,” I says. “I’ve noticed that most of the birds you
chose for a brother-in-law only stayed in the family as long as they
was strangers.”
“Nobody said nothing about Mr. Daley as a brother-in-law,” says Ella.
“Oh!” I said. “Then I suppose you want Katie to meet him so as she
can land a hostler’s job.”
Well, in about a half hour, the gals got their wish and Daley showed
up. I didn’t have to pull no strategy to land him. He headed right
to where we was setting like him and I was old pals. I made the
introductions and he drawed up a chair and parked. The rest of the
guests stared at us goggle-eyed.
“Some hotel!” says Daley.
“We like it,” says the Mrs. “They’s so many nice people lives here.”
“We know by hearsay,” I said, but she stepped on my foot.
“It’s handy for me,” said Daley. “I have a few horses over to the
Jamaica race track and it’s a whole lot easier to come here than go
in Town every night.”
“Do you attend the races every day?” says Katie.
“Sure,” he says. “It’s my business. And they’s very few afternoons
when one of my nags ain’t entered.”
“My! You must have a lot of them!” said Kate.
“Not many,” says Daley. “About a hundred. And I only shipped thirty.”
“Imagine!” said Kate.
“The army’s got that many,” I said.
“The army ain’t got none like mine,” says Daley. “I guess they
wished they had of had. I’d of been glad to of helped them out, too,
if they’d asked me.”
“That’s why I didn’t enlist,” I said. “Pershing never even suggested
it.”
“Oh, I done my bit all right,” says Daley. “Two hundred thousand in
Liberty Bonds is all.”
“Just like throwing it away!” I says.
“Two hundred thousand!” says Ella. “And you’ve still got money left?”
She said this in a joking way, but she kept the receiver to her ear.
“I ain’t broke yet,” says Daley, “and I don’t expect to be.”
“You don’t half know this hotel,” I says.
“The Decker does charge good prices,” said Daley, “but still and all,
a person is willing to pay big for the opportunity of meeting young
ladies like the present company.”
“O Mr. Daley!” said Kate. “I’m afraid you’re a flatter.”
“I bet he makes them pretty speeches to every woman he meets,” says
Ella.
“I haven’t met none before who I felt like making them,” says Daley.
Wile they was still talking along these lines, the orchestra begin to
drool a Perfect Day, so I ducked out on the porch for air. The gals
worked fast wile I was gone and when I come back it was arranged that
Daley was to take us to the track next afternoon in his small car.
His small car was a toy that only had enough room for the people that
finds fault with Wilson. I suppose he had to leave his big car in New
York on account of the Fifty-ninth Street bridge being so frail.
Before we started I asked our host if they was a chance to get
anything to drink over to the track and he says no, but pretty near
everybody brought something along on the hip, so I said for them to
wait a minute wile I went up to the room and filled a flask. When we
was all in the car, the Mrs. wanted to know if it wasn’t risky, me
taking the hooch along.
“It’s against the prohibition law,” she says.
“So am I,” I said.
“They’s no danger,” says Daley. “They ain’t began to force
prohibition yet. I only wished they had. It would save me a little
worry about my boy.”
“Your boy!” said Katie, dropping her jaw a foot.
“Well, I call him my boy,” says Daley. “I mean little Sid Mercer,
that rides for me. He’s the duke of them all when he lays off the
liquor. He’s gave me his word that he won’t touch nothing as long as
he’s under contract to me, and he’s kept straight so far, but I can’t
help from worr’ing about him. He ought to be good, though, when I pay
him $20,000 for first call, and leave him make all he can on the
side. But he ain’t got much stren’th of character, you might say, and
if something upsets him, he’s liable to bust things wide open.
“I remember once he was stuck on a gal down in Louisville and he was
supposed to ride Great Scott for Bradley in the Derby. He was the
only one that could handle Scott right, and with him up Scott would
of win as far as from here to Dallas. But him and the gal had a brawl
the day before the race and that night the kid got stiff. When it
come time for the race he couldn’t of kept a seat on a saw horse.
Bradley had to hustle round and dig up another boy and Carney was
the only one left that could ride at all and him and Great Scott was
strangers. So Bradley lose the race and canned Mercer.”
“Whisky’s a terrible thing,” says Ella. A woman’ll sometimes pretend
for a long wile like she’s stupid and all of a sudden pull a wise
crack that proves she’s a thinker.
“Well,” says Daley, “when Bradley give him the air, I took him, and
he’s been all right. I guess maybe I know how to handle men.”
“Men only?” says Katie, smiling.
“Men and horses,” said Daley. “I ain’t never tried to handle the fair
sex and I don’t know if I could or not. But I’ve just met one that I
think could handle me.” And he give her a look that you could pour on
a waffle.
Daley had a table saved for him in the clubhouse and we eat our
lunch. The gals had clubhouse sandwiches, probably figuring they was
caught fresh there. They was just one of Daley’s horses entered that
day and he told us he wasn’t going to bet on it, as it hadn’t never
showed nothing and this was just a try-out. He said, though, that
they was other horses on the card that looked good and maybe he
would play them after he’d been round and talked to the boys.
“Yes,” says Kate, “but the men you’ll talk to knows all about the
different horses and they’ll tell you what horses to bet on and how
can I win?”
“Why,” says Daley, “if I decide to make a little bet on So-and-So
I’ll tell you about it and you can bet on the same horse.”
“But if I’m betting with you,” says Kate, “how can we bet on the same
horse?”
“You’re betting with me, but you ain’t betting against me,” said
Daley. “This ain’t a bet like you was betting with your sister on a
football game or something. We place our bets with the bookmakers,
that makes their living taking bets. Whatever horse we want to bet
on, they take the bet.”
“They must be crazy!” says Katie. “Your friends tell you what horse
is going to win and you bet on them and the bookbinders is stung.”
“My friends makes mistakes,” says Daley, “and besides, I ain’t the
only guy out here that bets. Pretty near everybody at the track bets
and the most of them don’t know a race horse from a corn plaster. A
bookmaker that don’t finish ahead on the season’s a cuckoo. Now,” he
says, “if you’ll excuse me for a few minutes, I’ll go down to the
paddock and see what’s new.”
So wile he was gone we had a chance to look round and they was plenty
to see. It was a Saturday and a big crowd out. Lots of them was gals
that you’d have to have a pick to break through to their regular
face. Since they had their last divorce, about the only excitement
they could enjoy was playing a long shot. Which reminds me that
they’s an old saying that nobody loves a fat man, but you go out to
a race track or down to Atlantic City or any place where the former
wifes hangs out and if you’ll notice the birds with them, the gents
that broke up their home, you’ll find out that the most of them is
guys with chins that runs into five and six figures and once round
their waist is a sleeper jump.
Besides the Janes and the fat rascals with them, you seen a flock
of ham actors that looked like they’d spent the night in a Chinese
snowstorm, and maybe a half a dozen losers’-end boxers that’d used
the bridge of their nose to block with and always got up in the
morning just after the clock had struck ten, thinking they’d been
counted out.
Pretty near everybody wore a pair of field glasses on a strap and
when the race was going on they’d look through them and tell the
world that the horse they’d bet on was three len’ths in front and
just as good as in, but I never heard of a bookie paying off on that
dope, and personally when some one would insist on lending me a pair
to look through I couldn’t tell if the things out there racing was
horses or gnats.
Daley was back with us in a few minutes and says to Kate: “I guess
you’ll have to bet on yourself in the first race.”
So she asked him what did he mean and he said: “I had a tip on a
filly named Sweet and Pretty.”
“O Mr. Daley!” says Kate.
“They don’t expect her to win,” says Daley, “but she’s six, two and
even, and I’m going to play her place and show.”
Then he explained what that was and he said he was going to bet a
thousand each way and finally the gals decided to go in for $10
apiece to show. It tickled them to death to find out that they didn’t
have to put up nothing. We found seats down in front wile Daley went
to place the bets. Pretty soon the horses come out and Kate and Ella
both screamed when they seen how cute the jockeys was dressed. Sweet
and Pretty was No. 10 and had a combination of colors that would
knock your eye out. Daley come back and explained that every owner
had their own colors and of course the gals wanted to know what his
was and he told them Navy blue and orange sleeves with black whoops
on them and a blue cap.
“How beautiful!” says Ella. “I can’t hardly wait to see them!”
“You must have wonderful taste in colors!” says Kate.
“Not only in colors,” he says.
“O Mr. Daley!” she says again.
Well, the race was ran and No. 10 was a Sweet and Pretty last.
“Now,” I says, “you O Mr. Daley.”
The gals had yelped themself hoarse and didn’t have nothing to say,
but I could tell from their face that it would take something more
than a few pretty speeches to make up for that twenty men.
“Never mind that!” said Daley. “She got a rotten ride. We’ll get that
back on the next one.”
His hunch in the next one was Sena Day and he was betting a thousand
on her to place at 4 to 1. He made the gals go in for $20 apiece,
though they didn’t do it with no pep. I went along with him to place
the bets and he introduced me to a bookie so as I could bet a few
smackers of my own when I felt like it. You know they’s a law against
betting unless it’s a little bet between friends and in order to be
a bookie’s friend he’s got to know your name. A quick friendship
sprung up between I and a guy named Joe Meyer, and he not only give
me his card but a whole deck of them. You see the law also says that
when you make one of these bets with your pals he can’t give you no
writing to show for it, but he’s generally always a man that makes a
lot of friends and it seems like they all want to make friendly bets
with him, and he can’t remember where all his buddies lives, so he
makes them write their name and address on the cards and how much the
friendly wager is for and who on, and so forth, and the next day he
mails them the bad news and they mail him back a check for same. Once
in a wile, of course, you get the bad news and forget to mail him the
check and he feels blue over it as they’s nothing as sad as breaking
up an old friendship.
I laid off Sena Day and she win. Daley smiled at the gals.
“There!” he says. “I’m sorry we didn’t play her on the nose, but I
was advised to play safe.”
“Fine advice!” said Kate. “It’s cost Sis and I $60 so far.”
“What do you mean?” says Daley.
“We lose $20 on the first race,” she says, “and you tell us we’ll get
it back on the next one and we bet the horse’ll come second and it
don’t.”
So we had to explain that if a horse win, why it placed, too, and her
and Ella had grabbed $160 on that race and was $140 ahead. He was
$2,000 winners himself.
“We’ll have a drink on Sena,” he says. “I don’t believe they was six
people out here that bet a nickel on her.”
So Katie told him he was wonderful and him and the gals had a
sarsaparilla or something and I poured my own. He’d been touting
Cleopatra in the third race, but her and everybody else was scratched
out of it except Captain Alcock and On Watch. On Watch was 9 to 10
and Alcock even money and Daley wouldn’t let us bet.
“On Watch is best,” he says, “but he’s giving away twenty pounds and
you can’t tell. Anyway, it ain’t worth it at that price.”
“Only two horses in the race?” asked Ella.
“That’s all,” he says.
“Well, then, listen,” she says, all excited: “Why not bet on one of
them for place?”
Daley laughed and said it was a grand idear only he didn’t think the
bookbinders would stand for it.
“But maybe they don’t know,” she says.
“I guess they do,” said Daley. “It’s almost impossible to keep a
secret like that round a race track.”
“Besides,” I said, “the bookworms owes you and Kate $70 apiece and
if you put something like that over on them and they find it out,
they’ll probably get even by making you a check on the West Bank of
the Hudson River.”
So we decided to play fair and lay off the race entirely. On Watch
come through and the gals felt pretty bad about it till we showed
them that they’d of only grabbed off nine smackers apiece if they’d
of plunged on him for $20 straight.
Along toward time for the next race, Daley steered us down by the
paddock and we seen some of the nags close up. Daley and the gals
raved over this one and that one, and wasn’t this one a beauty, and
so forth. Personally they was all just a horse to me and I never seen
one yet that wasn’t homelier than the City Hall. If they left it up
to me to name the world’s champion eyesore, I’d award the elegant
barb’ wire wash rag to a horse rode by a woman in a derby hat. People
goes to the Horse Show to see the Count de Fault; they don’t know a
case of withers from an off hind hock. And if the Sport of Kings was
patronized by just birds that admires equine charms, you could park
the Derby Day crowd in a phone booth.
A filly named Tamarisk was the favorite in the fourth race and Daley
played her for eight hundred smackers at 4 to 5. The gals trailed
along with $8 apiece and she win from here to Worcester. The fifth
was the one that Daley had an entry in--a dog named Fly-by-Night. It
was different in the daytime. Mercer had the mount and done the best
he could, which was finish before supper. Nobody bet, so nobody was
hurt.
“He’s just a green colt,” Daley told us. “I wanted to see how he’d
behave.”
“Well,” I said, “I thought he behaved like a born caboose.”
Daley liked the Waterbury entry in the last and him and the gals
played it and win. All told, Daley was $4,000 ahead on the day and
Ella and Kate had picked up $160 between them. They wanted to kiss
everybody on the way out. Daley sent us to the car to wait for him.
He wanted to see Mercer a minute. After a wile he come out and
brought Mercer along and introduced him. He’s a good-looking kid
only for a couple of blotches on his pan and got an under lip and
chin that kind of lags behind. He was about Kate’s height, and take
away his Adams apple and you could mail him to Duluth for six cents.
Him and Kate got personal right away and she told him how different
he looked now than in his riding make-up. He said he had a new outfit
that he’d of wore if he’d knew she was looking on. So I said I hoped
he didn’t expect to ride Fly-by-Night round the track and keep a suit
new, and he laughed, and Daley didn’t seem to enjoy the conversation
and said we’d have to be going, but when we started off, Kate and
Mercer give each other a smile with a future in it. She’s one of
these gals that can’t help from looking open house, even if the guy
takes after a pelican.
Daley moved to our table that night and after that we eat breakfast
and supper with him pretty near every day. After breakfast the gals
would go down to New York to spend what they had win the day before,
and I’ll admit that Daley give us many a winner. I begin betting a
little of my own jack, but I stuck the proceeds in the old sock.
I ain’t superstitious about living off a woman’s money as long as
you’re legally married, but at the clip the two gals was going, it
looked like their old man’s war profits was on the way to join their
maker, and the more jack I laid by, the less sooner I would have to
go to work.
We’d meet every afternoon at the track and after the races Daley’d
bring us back to the hotel. After supper we’d set round and chin or
play rummy or once in a wile we’d go in Town to a show or visit one
of the road houses near the Decker. The mail service on Long Island’s
kind of rotten and they’s a bunch of road houses that hasn’t heard of
prohibition.
During the time we’d lived in Town Katie had got acquainted with
three or four birds that liked her well enough to take her places
where they wasn’t no cover charge, but since we’d moved to the Decker
we hadn’t heard from none of them. That is, till a few days after
we’d met Daley, when she told us that one of the New York boys, a guy
named Goldberg, had called up and wanted her to come in and see a
show with him. He’s a golf champion or something. Well, Daley offered
to drive her in, but she said no, she’d rather go on the train and
Goldberg was going to meet her. So she went, and Daley tried to play
cards with Ella and I, but he was too restless and finally snuck up
to his room.
They wasn’t no question about his feelings toward Kate. He was always
trying to fix it to be alone with her, but I guess it was the first
time in her life when she didn’t have to do most of the leading and
she kept him at arm’s len’th. Her and Ella had many a battle. Ella
told her that the first thing she knowed he’d get discouraged and
walk out on her; that she’d ought to quit monking and give him to
understand that she was ready to yes him when he spoke up. But Katie
said she guessed she could run her own love affairs as she’d had a
few more of them than Ella.
So Ella says: “Maybe you have, but which one of us has got the
husband?”
“You, thank the Lord!” says Katie.
“Thank him twice,” I said.
Kate didn’t come home from her New York party till two o’clock and
she overslept herself till it was too late to go down again and shop.
So we all drove over to the track with Daley and most of the way over
he acted like a child. Katie kept talking about what a good show she
seen and had a grand time, and so forth, and he pretended he wasn’t
listening. Finally she cut it out and give him the old oil and by
the time we got to the clubhouse he’d tossed in the sponge.
That was the last day at Jamaica and a couple of his horses was in.
We was all down on them and they both copped, though Mercer had to
give one of them a dude ride to pull us through. Daley got maudlin
about what a grand rider the kid was and a grand little fella
besides, and he had half a notion to bring him along with us back to
the hotel and show him a good time. But Kate said what was the use of
an extra man, as it would kind of spoil things and she was satisfied
with just Daley. So of course that tickled him and everybody was
feeling good and after supper him and Kate snuck out alone for the
first time. Ella made me set up till they come back, so as she could
get the news. Well, Daley had asked her all right, but she told him
she wanted a little wile to think.
“Think!” says Ella. “What does she want to think for?”
“The novelty, I suppose,” said I.
Only One was in the big stake race the next day, when we shifted over
to Belmont. They was five or six others in with him, all of them
pretty good, and the price on him was 3 to 1. He hadn’t started yet
since Daley’d brought him here, but they’d been nursing him along and
Mercer and the trainer said he was right.
I suppose of course you’ve been out to Belmont. At that time they run
the wrong way of the track, like you deal cards. Daley’s table was in
a corner of the clubhouse porch and when you looked up the track, the
horses was coming right at you. Even the boys with the trick glasses
didn’t dast pretend they could tell who’s ahead.
The Belmont national hymn is Whispering. The joint’s so big and
scattered round that a German could sing without disturbing the party
at the next table. But they seems to be a rule that when they’s
anything to be said, you got to murmur it with the lips stuck to
the opponent’s earlobe. They shush you if you ask out loud for a
toothpick. Everywhere you’ll see two or three guys with their heads
together in a whispering scene. One of them has generally always
just been down to the horses’ dining room and had lunch with Man o’
War or somebody and they told him to play Sea Mint in the next race
as Cleopatra had walked the stall all night with her foal. A little
ways off they’ll be another pair of shushers and one of them’s had a
phone call from Cleopatra’s old dam to put a bet on Cleo as Captain
Alcock had got a hold of some wild oats and they couldn’t make him do
nothing but shimmy.
If they’s ten horses in a race you can walk from one end of the
clubhouse to the other and get a whisper on all ten of them. I
remember the second time Man o’ War run there. They was only one
horse that wanted to watch him from the track and the War horse was
1 to 100. So just before the race, if you want to call it that, I
seen a wise cracker that I’d got acquainted with, that had always
been out last night with Madden or Waterbury, so just kidding I
walked up to him and asked him who he liked. So he motioned me to
come over against the wall where they wasn’t nobody near us and
whispered, “Man o’ War’s unbeatable.” You see if that remark had
of been overheard and the news allowed to spread round, it might
of forced the price to, say, 1 to a lump of coal, and spoiled the
killing.
Well, wile the Jamaica meeting was on, the gals had spent some of
their spare time figuring out how much they’d of been ahead if Daley
had of let them bet more than ten to twenty smackers a race. So this
day at Belmont, they said that if he liked Only One so much, he
should ought to leave them raise the ante just once and play fifty
apiece.
But he says: “No, not this time. I’m pretty sure he’ll win, but he’s
in against a sweet field and he ain’t raced for a month. I’ll bet
forty on the nose for the two of you, and if he looks good you can
gamble some real money the next time he runs.”
So Ella and Kate had to be satisfied with $20 apiece. Daley himself
bet $2,000 and I piked along with $200 that I didn’t tell the gals
nothing about. We all got 3 to 1. A horse named Streak of Lightning
was favorite at 6 to 5. It was a battle. Only One caught the Streak
in the last step and win by a flea’s jaw. Everybody was in hysterics
and the gals got all messed up clawing each other.
“Nobody but Mercer could of did it!” says Daley, as soon as he could
talk.
“He’s some jockey!” yelled Kate. “O you Sid!”
Pretty soon the time was give out and Only One had broke the track
record for the distance, whatever it was.
“He’s a race horse!” said Daley. “But it’s too bad he had to extend
himself. We won’t get no price the next time out.”
Well, altogether the race meant $14,000 to Daley, and he said we’d
all go to Town that night and celebrate. But when we got back to the
Decker, they was a telegram for him and he had to pack up and beat it
for Kentucky.
Daley being away didn’t stop us from going to the track. He’d left
orders with Ernest, his driver, to take us wherever we wanted to go
and the gals had it so bad now that they couldn’t hardly wait till
afternoon. They kept on trimming the books, too. Kate got a phone
call every morning that she said was from this Goldberg and he was
giving her tips. Her and Ella played them and I wished I had. I would
of if I’d knew who they was from. They was from Mercer, Daley’s boy.
That’s who they was from.
I and Ella didn’t wise up till about the third night after Daley’d
went. That night, Kate took the train to Town right after supper,
saying she had a date with Goldberg. It was a swell night and along
about eight, I and Ella decided we might as well have a ride. So we
got a hold of Ernest and it wound up by us going to New York too. We
seen a picture and batted round till midnight and then Ella says why
not go down to the Pennsylvania Station and pick Kate up when she
come to take the train, and bring her home. So we done it. But when
Katie showed up for the train, it was Mercer that was with her, not
Goldberg.
Well, Mercer was pretty near out to the car with us when he happened
to think that Daley’s driver mustn’t see him. So he said good night
and left us. But he didn’t do it quick enough. Daley’s driver had saw
him and I seen that he’d saw him and I knowed that he wasn’t liable
to be stuck on another of Daley’s employs that was getting ten times
as much money as him and all the cheers, and never had to dirty
himself up changing a tire. And I bet it was all Ernest could do was
wait till Daley come back so as he could explode the boom.
Kate and Ella didn’t know Ernest was hep and I didn’t tell them for
fear of spoiling the show, so the women done their brawling on the
way home in a regular race track whisper. The Mrs. told Kate she
was a hick to be monking round with a jockey when Daley was ready
and willing to give her a modern home with a platinum stopper in
the washbowl. Kate told Ella that she wasn’t going to marry nobody
for their money, and besides, Mercer was making more than enough to
support a wife, and how that boy can dance!
“But listen,” she says: “I ain’t married to neither one of them yet
and don’t know if I want to be.”
“Well,” says Ella, “you won’t have no chance to marry Daley if he
finds out about you and Mercer.”
“He won’t find out unless you tell him,” said Kate.
“Well, I’ll tell him,” says Ella, “unless you cut this monkey
business out.”
“I’ll cut it out when I get good and ready,” says Kate. “You can tell
Daley anything you please.”
She knew they wasn’t no chance of Ella making good.
“Daley’ll be back in a couple of days,” says the Mrs. “When he comes
he’ll want his answer and what are you going to say?”
“Yes or no, according to which way I make up my mind,” said Kate. “I
don’t know yet which one I like best.”
“That’s ridic’lous!” Ella says. “When a girl says she can’t make up
her mind, it shows they’s nothing to make up. Did you ever see me
when I couldn’t make up my mind?”
“No,” said Katie, “but you never had even one whole man to choose
between.”
The last half of the ride neither of them were talking. That’s a
world’s record in itself. They kind of made up the next morning after
I’d told Ella that the surest way to knock Daley’s chances for a gool
was to paste Mercer.
“Just lay off of it,” I told her. “The best man’ll win in fair
competition, which it won’t be if you keep plugging for Daley.”
We had two more pretty fair days at the track on Kate’s tips that
Mercer give her. We also went on a party with him down Town, but we
used the train, not Daley’s car.
Daley showed up on a Wednesday morning and had Ernest take him
right over to the track. I suppose it was on this trip that Ernest
squealed. Daley didn’t act no different when we joined him on the
clubhouse porch, but that night him and Kate took a ride alone and
come back engaged.
They’d been pointing Only One for the Merrick Handicap, the fourth
race on Saturday. It was worth about $7,000 to the winner. The
distance was seven furlongs and Only One had top weight, 126 pounds.
But Thursday he done a trial over the distance in 1.22, carrying 130
pounds, so it looked like a set-up.
Thursday morning I and Ella happened to be in Katie’s room when
the telephone rung. It was Mercer on the other end. He asked her
something and she says: “I told you why in my note.”
So he said something else and she says: “Not with no jail-bird.”
And she hung up.
Well, Ella wanted to know what all the pleasantries was about, but
Kate told her to mind her own business.
“You got your wish and I’m engaged to Daley,” she says, “and that’s
all you need to know.”
For a gal that was going to marry a dude that was supposed to have
all the money in the world, she didn’t act just right, but she
wouldn’t been Kate if she had of, so I didn’t think much about it.
Friday morning I got a wire from one of the South Bend boys, Goat
Anderson, sent from Buffalo, saying he’d be in New York that night
and would I meet him at the Belmont at seven o’clock. So I went in
Town from the track and waited round till pretty near nine, but he
didn’t show up. I started to walk across to the Pennsylvania Station
and on the way I dropped in at a place where they was still taking a
chance. I had one up at the bar and was throwing it into me when a
guy in the back part yelled “Hey! Come here!” It was Mercer yelling
and it was me he wanted.
He was setting at a table all alone with a highball. It didn’t take
no Craig Kennedy to figure out that it wasn’t his first one.
“Set down before I bat you down!” he says.
“Listen,” I says: “I wished you was champion of the world. You’d hold
onto the title just long enough for me to reach over and sock you
where most guys has a chin.”
“Set down!” he says. “It’s your wife I’m going to beat up, not you.”
“You ain’t going to beat up nobody’s wife or nobody’s husband,” I
says, “and if you don’t cut out that line of gab you’ll soon be
asking the nurse how you got there.”
“Set down and come clean with me,” he says. “Was your wife the one
that told Daley about your sister-in-law and I?”
“If she did, what of it?” I says.
“I’m asking you, did she?” he says.
“No, she didn’t,” I said. “If somebody told him his driver told him.
He seen you the other night.”
“Ernest!” he says. “Frank and Ernest! I’ll Ernest him right in the
jaw!”
“You’re a fine matchmaker!” I says. “He could knock you for a row of
flat tires. Why don’t you try and get mad at Dempsey?”
“Set down and have a drink,” says Mercer.
“I didn’t mean that about your wife. You and her has treated me all
right. And your sister-in-law, too, even if she did give me the air.
And called me a jail-bird. But that’s all right. It’s Daley I’m after
and it’s Daley I’m going to get.”
“Sweet chance!” I says. “What could you do to him?”
“Wait and see!” said Mercer, and smiled kind of silly.
“Listen,” I says. “Have you forgot that you’re supposed to ride Only
One to-morrow?”
“Supposed to ride is right,” he says, and smiled again.
“Ain’t you going to ride him?” I said.
“You bet I am!” he says.
“Well, then,” I said, “you better call it a day and go home.”
“I’m over twenty-one,” he says, “and I’m going to set here and enjoy
myself. But remember, I ain’t keeping you up.”
Well, they wasn’t nothing I could do only set there and wait for him
to get stiff and then see him to his hotel. We had a drink and we had
another and a couple more. Finally he opened up. I wished you could
of heard him. It took him two hours to tell his story, and everything
he said, he said it over and over and repeated it four and five
times. And part of the time he talked so thick that I couldn’t hardly
get him.
“Listen,” he says. “Can you keep a secret? Listen,” he says. “I’m
going to take a chance with you on account of your sister-in-law. I
loved that little gal. She’s give me the air, but that don’t make no
difference; I loved that little gal and I don’t want her to lose no
money. So I’m going to tell you a secret and if you don’t keep your
clam shut I’ll roll you for a natural. In the first place,” he says,
“how do you and Daley stack up?”
“That ain’t no secret,” I said. “I think he’s all right. He’s been a
good friend of mine.”
“Oh,” says Mercer, “so he’s been a good friend of yours, has he? All
right, then. I’m going to tell you a secret. Do you remember the day
I met you and the gals in the car? Well, a couple of days later,
Daley was feeling pretty good about something and he asked me how I
liked his gal? So I told him she looked good. So he says, ‘I’m going
to marry that gal,’ he says. He says, ‘She likes me and her sister
and brother-in-law is encouraging it along,’ he says. ‘They know I’ve
got a little money and they’re making a play for me. They’re a couple
of rats and I’m the cheese. They’re going to make a meal off of me.
They think they are,’ he says. ‘But the brother-in-law’s a smart
Aleck that thinks he’s a wise cracker. He’d be a clown in a circus,
only that’s work. And his wife’s fishing for a sucker with her sister
for bait. Well, the gal’s a pip and I’m going to marry her,’ he says,
‘but as soon as we’re married, it’s good-by, family-in-law! Me and
them is going to be perfect strangers. They think they’ll have free
board and lodging at my house,’ he says, ‘but they won’t get no meal
unless they come to the back door for it, and when they feel sleepy
they can make up a lower for themself on my cement porch.’ That’s the
kind of a friend of yours this baby is,” says Mercer.
I didn’t say nothing and he went on.
“He’s your friend as long as he can use you,” he says. “He’s been my
friend since I signed to ride for him, that is, up till he found out
I was stealing his gal. Then he shot my chances for a bull’s-eye by
telling her about a little trouble I had, five or six years ago. I
and a girl went to a party down in Louisville and I seen another guy
wink at her and I asked him what he meant by it and he said he had
St. Vitus’ dance. So I pulled the iron and knocked off a couple of
his toes, to cure him. I was in eleven months and that’s what Daley
told Kate about. And of course he made her promise to not tell, but
she wrote me a good-by note and spilled it. That’s the kind of a pal
he is.
“After I got out I worked for Bradley, and when Bradley turned me
loose, he give me a $10,000 contract.”
“He told us twenty,” I said.
“Sure he did,” says Mercer. “He always talks double. When he gets up
after a tough night, both his heads aches. And if he ever has a baby
he’ll invite you over to see the twins. But anyway, what he pays me
ain’t enough and after to-morrow I’m through riding. What’s ten or
fifteen thousand a year when you can’t drink nothing and you starve
to death for the fear you’ll pick up an ounce! Listen,” he says.
“I got a brother down in Oklahoma that’s in the oil lease game. He
cleaned up $25,000 last year and he wants me to go in with him. And
with what I’ve saved up and what I’m going to win to-morrow, I should
worry if we don’t make nothing in the next two years.”
“How are you going to win to-morrow?” I said. “The price’ll be a
joke.”
“The price on who?” says Mercer.
“Only One,” I said.
He give a silly laugh and didn’t say nothing for a minute. Then he
asked if Daley done the betting for I and the two gals. I told him
he had did it at first, but now I was doing it.
“Well,” he says, “you do it to-morrow, see? That little lady called
me a jail-bird, but I don’t want her to lose her money.”
So I asked him what he meant and he asked me for the tenth or
eleventh time if I could keep a secret. He made me hold up my hand
and swear I wouldn’t crack what he was going to tell me.
“Now,” he says, “what’s the name of the horse I’m riding to-morrow?”
“Only One,” I said.
“That ain’t all of it,” said Mercer. “His name to-morrow is Only One
Left. See? Only One Left.”
“Do you mean he’s going to get left at the post?” I says.
“You’re a Ouija board!” says Mercer. “Your name is Ouija and the
horse’s name is Only One Left. And listen,” he says. “Everything but
three horses is going to be scratched out of this race and we’ll
open at about 1 to 3 and back up to 1 to 5. And Daley’s going to bet
his right eye. But they’s a horse in the race named Sap and that’s
the horse my two thousand smackers is going down on. And you’re a
sap, too, if you don’t string along with me.”
“Suppose you can’t hold Only One?”
“Get the name right,” said Mercer. “Only One Left. And don’t worry
about me not handling him. He thinks I’m Billy Sunday and everything
I say he believes. Do you remember the other day when I beat
Streak of Lightning? Well, the way I done that was whispering in
One’s ear, coming down the stretch. I says to him, ‘One,’ I says,
‘this Lightning hoss has been spilling it round that your father’s
grandmother was a zebra. Make a bum out of him!’ That’s what I
whispered to him and he got sore and went past Lightning like he was
standing still. And to-morrow, just before we’re supposed to go,
I’ll say to him, ‘One, we’re back at Jamaica. You’re facing the wrong
way.’ And when Sap and the other dog starts, we’ll be headed towards
Rhode Island and in no hurry to get there.”
“Mercer,” I said, “I don’t suppose they’s any use talking to you, but
after all, you’re under contract to give Daley the best you’ve got
and it don’t look to me just like you was treating him square.”
“Listen!” he says. “Him and square don’t rhyme. And besides, I won’t
be under contract to nobody by this time to-morrow. So you save your
sermon for your own parish.”
I don’t know if you’ll think I done right or not. Or I don’t care.
But what was the sense of me tipping off a guy that had said
them sweet things about I and Ella? And even if I don’t want a
sister-in-law of mine running round with a guy that’s got a jail
record, still Daley squealing on him was rotten dope. And besides, I
don’t never like to break a promise, especially to a guy that shoots
a man’s toes off just for having St. Vitus’ dance.
Well, anyway, the third race was over and the Merrick Handicap was
next, and just like Mercer had said, they all quit but our horse
and Sap and a ten-ton truck named Honor Bright. He was 20 to 1 and
Sap was 6. Only One was 1 to 3 and Daley hopped on him with fifteen
thousand men. Before post time the price was 1 to 5 and 1 to 6.
Daley was off his nut all afternoon and didn’t object when I said I’d
place the gals’ money and save him the trouble. Kate and Ella had
figured out what they had win up to date. It was about $1,200 and
Daley told them to bet it all.
“You’ll only make $400 between you,” he says, “but it’s a cinch.”
“And four hundred’s pretty good interest on $1,200,” says Kate.
“About ten per cent., ain’t it?”
I left them and went downstairs. I wrote out a card for a hundred
smackers on Sap. Then my feet caught cold and I didn’t turn it in. I
walked down towards the paddock and got there just as the boys was
getting ready to parade. I seen Mercer and you wouldn’t of never knew
he’d fell off the wagon.
Daley was down there, too, and I heard him say: “Well, Sid, how about
you?”
“Never better,” says Mercer. “If I don’t win this one I’ll quit
riding.”
Then he seen me and smiled.
I chased back to the clubhouse, making up my mind on the way. I
decided to not bet a nickel for the gals on anything. If Mercer was
crossing me, I’d give Ella and Kate their $400 like they had win it,
and say nothing. Personally, I was going to turn in the card I’d
wrote on Sap. That was my idear when I got to Joe Meyer. But all of a
sudden I had the hunch that Mercer was going through; they wasn’t a
chance in the world for him to weaken. I left Meyer’s stand and went
to a bookie named Haynes, who I’d bet with before.
Sap had went up to 8 to 1, and instead of a hundred smackers I bet a
thousand.
He finished ahead by three len’ths, probably the most surprised horse
in history. Honor Bright got the place, but only by a hair. Only One,
after being detained for some reason another, come faster at the end
than any horse ever run before. And Mercer give him an unmerciful
walloping, pretending to himself, probably, that the hoss was its
master.
We come back to our table. The gals sunk down in their chairs. Ella
was blubbering and Kate was as white as a ghost. Daley finally joined
us, looking like he’d had a stroke. He asked for a drink and I give
him my flask.
“I can’t understand it!” he says. “I don’t know what happened!”
“You don’t!” hollered Kate. “I’ll tell you what happened. You stole
our money! Twelve hundred dollars! You cheat!”
“Oh, shut your fool mouth!” says Daley.
And another Romance was knocked for a row of sour apple trees.
Kate brought the mail in the dining room Monday morning. They was a
letter for her and one for me. She read hers and they was a couple of
tears in her eyes.
“Mercer’s quit riding,” she says. “This is a farewell note. He’s
going to Oklahoma.”
Ella picked up my envelope.
“Who’s this from?” she says.
“Give it here,” I said, and took it away from her. “It’s just the
statement from Haynes, the bookie.”
“Well, open it up,” she said.
“What for?” said I. “You know how much you lose, don’t you?”
“He might of made a mistake, mightn’t he?” she says.
So I opened up the envelope and there was the check for $8,000.
“Gosh!” I said. “It looks like it was me that made the mistake!” And
I laid the check down where her and Kate could see it. They screamed
and I caught Ella just as she was falling off the chair.
“What does this mean?” says Kate.
“Well,” I said, “I guess I was kind of rattled Saturday, and when I
come to make my bet I got balled up and wrote down Sap. And I must of
went crazy and played him for a thousand men.”
“But where’s our statement, mine and Sis’?” says Ella.
“That’s my mistake again,” I said. “I wrote out your ticket, but I
must of forgot to turn it in.”
They jumped up and come at me, and before I could duck I was kissed
from both sides at once.
“O Sis!” yelps the Mrs. “Just think! We didn’t lose our twelve
hundred! We didn’t lose nothing at all. We win eight thousand
dollars!”
“Try and get it!” I says.