Paydirt

12

Father and son passed the Homestretch Cafe and climbed the steps to the grandstand. It was a glorious sun-baked Florida day of blue skies and steady breezes. Still, Bobby was out of sorts, and he popped antacids to calm his knotted stomach.

Where's the Cantor? Why the hell hasn't he returned my calls?

Bobby was desperate to know that he wasn't on the hook-a grappling hook-for six hundred thousand. Then he could enjoy the afternoon with his son. He wanted Scott to smell the sweet saltiness of the horses in the paddock, then treat the boy to some stone crabs in the Turf Club, maybe sneak him into the casino to play the one-armed bandits.

But the real reason they were here was to find the Cantor.

Where the hell is he?

Why is he ducking me?

Bobby had started to worry on Tuesday morning when the Vegas oddsmakers moved the line half a point. Then Dallas was favored by seven-and-one-half. The half point, he knew, was to prevent the game from being a "push," in which the bet is canceled if the final score falls right on the point spread. At seven points, there'd be a "push" at 14-7, 21–14, 24–17, and a bunch of other common scores.

Bobby hoped that the movement didn't also signify a ton of money being bet on Dallas, so that the oddsmakers would have to keep adjusting their lines to balance the books. Wednesday brought more bad news, as the line jumped a full point to eight-and-a-half. Then, yesterday, it crawled up another half point. Now, Dallas was favored by a startling nine points.

If the Cantor hadn't moved quickly, he never would have been able to lay off the mobster's bet-Dallas as a seven point favorite. Bettors wanting to take the favored Mustangs today had to give the bookies nine points, not seven. To a savvy bettor or bookie the two-point swing was monumental. No one would take Green Bay today with only a seven-point cushion when he could get nine. Bobby prayed the Cantor had laid off the bet early in the week.

Once in the clubhouse, Bobby asked all the regulars if the Cantor had been around, but nobody had seen him all week.

With Scott at his side, Bobby walked toward the parimutuel windows. They checked the barber shop and the rest rooms, the shoe shine stand and the hot dog vendor, even the shop selling authentic horseshoes, ingrained with dirt. They ignored the mile-and-an-eighth allowance race going on below them, the bettors whooping from the grandstand.

As the horses were jitterbugging into the gate for the next race, bookmaker and son headed for the concourse, Bobby's thoughts wandering toward Dallas. Sometimes he wondered what life would have been like if he'd stayed. Lunches at the Mansion on Turtle Creek, drinks at the Stadium Club. He'd still have Chrissy. The family would be together. Why hadn't he just sucked it up and played Kingsley's game?

Because I just couldn't.

But what had he accomplished? He'd lost his wife and impoverished himself. Nightlife Jackson was still playing, Kingsley having hired a slick attorney to do what Bobby wouldn't. Faced with embarrassing questions about her past sex life, harassed by the news media and wanting to leave Dallas, Janet Petty dropped the case for a small cash settlement.

If I had to do it all over again, I would. If only I could have gotten my freedom without losing Chrissy.

Bobby and Scott walked along the concourse where bettors lined up at the windows clutching Racing Forms, like Bibles, in sweaty hands. Still no sign of the Cantor. Bobby was fighting against an edginess that buzzed inside him like a bee against a window.

They paused at a refreshment stand so Scott could order a Cuban sandwich-roast pork and ham with cheese and pickles on white, crusty bread-while Bobby scanned the area, looking for the Cantor. They walked past the fifty-dollar window, the bell ringing, bets closing, aged bettors scurrying back to their seats, cigars clamped in teeth, stubby pencils tucked behind ears.

They watched a stakes race, Bobby at first ignoring Scott's pleas to let him bet on the one-eight perfecta, then avoiding the boy's told-you-so smirk when the combination paid fifty-six dollars. Then they headed down to the paddock.

He popped three more antacids into his mouth, but still, he felt as if hamsters were running a treadmill in his stomach. Not only did Bobby fear for himself, he felt he had let down his son. If he couldn't pay the bills, he'd lose joint custody and the boy's grandfather would have even greater access to Scott. The bastard would try to mold Scott into younger version of himself.

Bobby looked toward Scott, his heart aching with love. The boy's dirty blond hair radiated in the afternoon sun as he stood on the paddock railing, leaning toward a jittery bay which could have been descended from wild mustangs.

"Hey Dad, isn't that Mr. Kaplan?" Scott pointed to a far corner of the paddock where a shriveled little man in a seersucker suit and a Panama hat watched the horses prance through the moist soil.

"Saul!" Bobby called out. The Cantor looked up, made eye contact, then gingerly slipped between the rails of a fence and disappeared into the open door of a stable.

What the hell!

Bobby took off, vaulting the fence, shouting back at Scott. "Wait here!"

He caught sight of the Cantor, waddling more than running, ducking out of one red-paneled stable and into another. "Saul! Stop!" Bobby called after him.

Bobby ran through the open door of the stable, horses filling stalls on either side of an earthen walkway. Flies buzzed, and the air was tangy with horse sweat and horse droppings. A chestnut mare kicked at her stall, and an Indian red stallion across the way responded with a plaintive whinny. But the Cantor was neither seen nor heard.

Bobby hurried between the rows of stalls, peering into each one, scratching the noses of several horses. He was near the end when a pile of straw seemed to move inside a stall occupied by a large seal brown horse with a jet black mane and tail. The door to the stall was slightly ajar.

Bobby grabbed a pitchfork from against the wall and entered the stall, sidestepping a mound of droppings. Gently, he pushed the pitchfork blades into the straw pile. "Saul, I'm going to feed you to the horses and any leftovers go to Vinnie LaBarca's sharks."

"Ow!" Suddenly, the Cantor, Panama hat still weirdly in place, burst from the straw pile, spitting dust and expletives, his Adam's apple bobbing like a cork in the ocean. "You momzer! It's not bad enough there's rats in here, you gotta stab me, you nogoodnik!"

"Why are you hiding from me?" Bobby demanded.

The old man blinked from behind his thick eyeglasses, looking like an owl aggravated at being awakened by the sun. "Because I'm not a brave man."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

The Cantor calmed down and looked dolefully at Bobby. His face was speckled with age spots, and he was barely above five feet, even in his elevated alligator loafers. His sparse white hair was matted with straw, and his wattled neck quivered. "You know why they call me the Cantor?"

"I don't know. I figured maybe you went to seminary, or whatever you call it."

"Yeshiva? Not me. I'm the Cantor because every time I'm arrested or subpoenaed, I sing like it's Yom Kippur. Like it's Kol Nidre, I sing."

"What are you saying?"

"Once the line moved, I couldn't lay off your six hundred dimes, and I've been afraid to tell you. I like you Bobby, so I couldn't look you in the eyes and tell you that I let you down. And now, I'm scared to death Vinnie LaBarca's gonna make you into chopped liver."

Bobby tossed the pitchfork into the pile of straw, and the brown horse whinnied. " You're scared? What about me?"

"What I can't figure out, why'd LaBarca place a bet like that with a little pisher like you? For that kind of money, why didn't he go straight to the sports books in Vegas?"

It's a question Bobby had asked himself, but he thought he'd figured it out. "You bet that kind of money out there, they withhold taxes, report it to the IRS. He wanted to go incognito, that's all."

"Yeah, maybe." The Cantor removed his eyeglasses and dusted the lenses with his shirttail. "But all week long, the line keeps moving and I keep asking myself, 'Why did Vinnie LaBarca come to Bobby Gallagher, whose ex-father-in-law just happens to own the Dallas Mustangs?'"

"Okay, Saul, tell me."

"I don't know Bobby, but if you ask me, something ain't kosher in Dallas."