Taking Chances Part 6

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 gla.s.sware 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-gla.s.s 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 pa.s.s 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 w.i.l.l.i.e.s. The black, let 'er sleep wonder? Not. We stay out there.

The Whitney thing with the Frenchy name? Hoot, mon. Pa.s.s 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 b.u.m 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-gla.s.s."

"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 m.u.f.fle 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 b.u.t.t in among the first six. All right. Come on, you people."

They clinked the pieces of ice against the sides of their gla.s.ses 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 tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs, 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 b.u.t.t 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.