_Plunge Made by a Hackman on the Suburban Handicap Won by Kinley Mack._
"We'll get Red Beak Jim to hike us down in his caloosh," said the main
guy of the four. The four were job holders in one of the New York city
departments, and they were talking about ways and means of reaching the
Sheepshead track for the Suburban.
"Good thing," said the three others. "Go on and ask Jimmy for a figure,
down and back, for the bunch. Hey, and don't let him dicker you out o'
your gilt teeth. Jimmy's a robber."
So the main guy of the four sprinted after Red Beak Jim. He found him
with the major portion of his countenance immersed in the collarette of
an open-faced malt magnum.
"Hey, Jim," said the main guy, "hitch 'em up and bring 'em around about
noon. Down to the Bay and back. There's four of us. What d'ye say to the
note for $10 for the job?"
Red Beak Jim removed the mammoth piece of glassware from his face long
enough to remark:
"Nothin' doin'."
"Ain't, hey?" said the main guy. "The old caloosh's fallen apart at
last, hey?"
Red Beak Jim sat the beer-glass down and wiped off his mouth with the
back of his coat-sleeve.
"It'll be jugglin' around when you're yelling for ice at any old price a
hunnered," said he. "Nope, I'm 'ngaged f'r th' Bay."
"Say, you've got your fingers crossed or your suspenders," said the main
guy. "Give you fifteen for the job."
"Goin' t' take three down," said Red Beak Jim. "Ten a head. Sorry I
didn't ask 'em fifteen. Trucks is chargin' ten a head."
"Ten a head," said the main guy, sarcastically. "What in, zinc money?
Hey, pull around, Jim, or you'll lose a wheel. Ten a head? Get away with
that hasheesh. Give us a figure."
"You've got it," replied Red Beak Jim. "Ten per, round trip. I'm a good
thing at that. But I'm 'ngaged."
"So's me little sister," said the main guy. "All right, work your edge.
What's ten a head to us, at that? Hey, we got the baby to-day, Jim, and
you want to put some braces under that old caloosh. We'll have two ton
o' money coming back. Bring 'er around, then, at noon. Say, you ought to
get a pair o' knucks and a sandbag. You're too good on the clutch to
push a caloosh around. Have 'er there prompt at noon, now, Jim."
"Sure," said Red Beak Jim, and he was there at noon, all right, with the
hack all varnished up and dusted off, and the pair looking fit to reel
off a mile in five minutes, on the bit. The four were inside, stirring
their pieces of ice around with the spoons, when Red Beak Jim pulled up.
He jumped off the seat and stuck his head in the door.
"At the pump, gents," said he.
They yanked him in to have one before the start, and they all got him
over into the dark corner. Then the main guy addressed him.
"Jim," said the main guy, "we're handing this to you because you're all
right--from the heels down. On the level, though, Jim, we pass this
along to you because it's right. It's prepared. It's a nightingale in
the woods, and it'll be singing when all the rest of 'em are still
trying to find out where the wire is. Horse of the century? Nix. Not for
these little Willies. The black, let 'er sleep wonder? Not. We stay out
there. The Whitney thing with the Frenchy name? Hoot, mon. Pass this
squad by. Nope. We got it right, Jimmy. And we're handing you the forty
bucks now so's you can plant it right. Here's the forty--and say, you
want to remember that you're paid, see? Well, you get over the fence
somehow--let a kid take care o' your two goats and the caloosh--and you
put the whole forty on Kinley Mack. See? Got that chalked? You put the
forty on Kinley Mack, and part o' the two ton o' gilt we'll have on the
come-back 'll belong to you. Kinley Mack's going to stand 'em all on
their heads and twist 'em round. Don't say we didn't put you next.
Uneeda win. Well, you win. Nothing to it. Kinley Mack. Ain't that right,
you ducks?"
"That's right, all right," said the other three, all together.
Red Beak Jim emptied the flagon thoughtfully.
"I got mine at that game," said he finally. "They made a bum o' me
before you people was through playin' jacks. They can run f'r Hogan.
These"--salting away the two twenties the main guy had handed him--"will
do f'r me. I don't want t' git rich fast, nohow. I'd booze meself
foolish. Much 'bliged, gents, but I can't see no Kinley Macks or Billy
Bryans, f'r that matter, wit' a spy-glass."
"All right," said the main guy, disgustedly. "But when the ring's around
Kinley Mack, and they're paying off the wise people on him, you want to
muffle the bleats you'll have coming, see? Don't say we never dished you
up a hot one. You're a sport, Jimmy, and so's a tadpole. You'll never
butt in among the first six. All right. Come on, you people."
They clinked the pieces of ice against the sides of their glasses once
more, and then they climbed into the hack and were away in a row, to a
good start.
At each of the seven places at which they stopped for ice, with
trimmings, on the way down to the Bay, they announced to friends that
they met that it was only going to be a one horse race.
"Run on a fast track, hey?" said the main guy to everybody he knew at
the stops. "Say, that's his graft. That's his main plant. A race-horse
can run on any old kind of a track. Say, you get tied up with this horse
of the century business and you smoke stogies for a few months.
Ethelbert, the horse of the century, hey? Say, d'je ever happen to hear
of Salvator and Tenny and Hanover and Lamplighter and Henry of Navarre
and Sir Walter and Raceland and Hamburg and a few old two-dollar mutts
like that? Did, hey? Well, say, do they butt in? Say, Hamburg could've
run backward as fast as this horse of the century that you people have
all got the bug about. Kinley Mack! Kinley Mack! Hey, fellers?"
"Thash ri'," said the other three, and then they climbed into the hack
again.
When they got down to the track entrance and alighted the main guy of
the four, still mindful of his duty toward struggling fellow men, made a
final appeal to Red Beak Jim.
"Jim," said he, "how about taking our steer, hey? This is the good thing
o' the year. It's going to be a long summer. Going to put that forty on
Kinley Mack?"
"I'm goin' t' take a nap after I have a smoke," replied Red Beak Jim,
filling his pipe.
The four walked away with an air of disgust, while Red Beak Jim grinned
after them.
Each of the four had a one-hundred-dollar note wherewith to back Kinley
Mack off the boards. The temptations of the first three races, however,
collared them, and when the slate went up for the Suburban they each had
a fifty-dollar note wherewith to play Kinley Mack, the good thing. When
the horses were at the post for the third race, the main guy, who
happened to be standing close to the fence that separates the
grand-stand crowd from the people in the cheap field, saw Red Beak Jim,
with his hands in his pockets and his pipe in his mouth, leaning against
the rail. He called the hackman, and Red Beak Jim approached the fence
with a grin.
"Thought you'd get on, anyhow, hey?" said the main guy.
"Naw, I jes' crep in t' see 'em run an' hear th' hard losers tell how it
was they lost," said Red Beak Jim. "Nothin' doin' wit' me."
"Ain't going to put those forty on Kinley Mack, hey?" asked the main
guy.
"Not if I'm awake," said Red Beak Jim, and the main guy walked away from
the fence with an expression of commiseration on his face.
The horses were still at the post for the third race when the main guy
was approached by a horseman he knew. The horseman was chewing a straw.
He looked very wise.
"Cashed yet on Imp?" the horseman asked the main guy.
"Hey?" asked the latter, bending his ear.
"Only a canter for that one," said the horseman, in a low tone,
temporarily removing the straw from his face. "Just a little exercise
gallop for the black filly."
"Say, is that right?" inquired the main guy. "Is she so good as all that
to-day?"
"Surest thing you know," said the horseman. "She'll give 'em all a
fifty-pound beating or I don't know a hoof from a currycomb. I'm only
spinning this along to the people I've got some use for. That's the
reason I dip it up for you."
"But say," whispered the main guy of the four, "I got it straight as a
ramrod on Kinley Mack."
The horseman smiled benignly.
"On this track?" said he. "That one wouldn't beat a fat man on this
track. He wants slop and slush. I'm only telling you, that's all. You
splurge on Imp, and it'll be all yours."
"I always was stuck on that darned old mare, anyhow," mused the main guy
of the four, as he walked off in search of the other three. "She sure
can rip the air when she's ripe. Got a thunder of a notion to switch to
her at that. That fellow ought to know. He's been handling 'em long
enough. Kinley Mack only a mudder, hey? Had kind of a hunch that way
myself, but I didn't want to own up. Last week, before I got this Kinley
Mack thing, I was sure going to play Imp, and I'd feel like a nickel's
worth of lard if she'd go out and spread-eagle 'em now that I've got
this Kinley Mack thing."
He stood still for a moment with his hands in his pockets, oblivious of
the jostling crowd, and then he slapped his thigh.
"I've got the hunch--it's Imp!" he muttered. "Lemme find the fellers and
put 'em next."
He found the other three. They were putty when the main guy told them
what the horseman had said. They'd always liked Imp, anyhow.
Their four fifty-dollar notes went on Imp straight, when the slates went
up. They all stood together and rooted for the black mare when the
horses got off. When Kinley Mack romped in, an easy winner, they didn't
say anything at all. They didn't even look at one another. They avoided
one another's gaze, thrust their hands deep into their pockets and
studied the jockeys as they dismounted. When the first numbness had
passed the main guy of the four led them to the bar and they drank the
longest one of the day in silence. They looked up into their glasses as
they twiddled their spoons, but they didn't look at one another.
There was $17 still left among the four--not enough for any sort of
celebration or doings when they got back to town. So the main guy
gathered up the $17 in silence and put it all on a horse at 10 to 1 in
the fifth race, with the idea of running the shoestring into a tannery.
The 10 to 1 shot was never in the hunt at any stage of it, and they were
all out. Silently they wended their way out of the gate.
Red Beak Jim was sitting on the seat of the hack, with his legs crossed,
smoking a pipe. He looked interested when the four came along.
"Youse people must have all kinds," said he.
They climbed into the hack without a word.
"D'je play that one?" inquired Red Beak Jim, picking up the lines.
"Ask me aunt," growled the main guy.
Red Beak Jim clucked at the horses, and they moved off in good style.
The hackman pulled the horses up alongside the step in front of the
first roadhouse.
"Hey, don't get too glad all of a sudden," growled the main guy to Red
Beak Jim. "Who told you to do that?"
Red Beak Jim disposed of the lines and stepped down without making any
reply, while the four watched him gloomily. Then he grinned, hoisted up
the right-hand front flap of his livery coat, dug into his right-hand
trousers pocket and pulled out a wad about the size of a healthy
cantaloupe.
"I'll ask youse gents to split a couple o' quarts on me," said Red Beak
Jim. "I got 8 to 1 f'r me forty."
They gazed at him and his wad with their jaws dropping.
"Did you play Kinley Mack?" they gurgled in unison.
"That's the one youse people said, ain't it?" inquired Red Beak Jim. "I
t'ought I'd take a little flyer on him, jes' f'r luck."