He gave me twenty dollars, and when Ocean’s Folly won by three-quarters of a length over Majestic Image, I collected almost nine hundred dollars. He did better than me. He won enough that they had to pay him by check. The first thing I did was pay him back the twenty. He studied me a moment, nodded, pocketed the money and led me upstairs to the clubhouse, where we sat on plush seats while a waiter served us drinks.
He sat back in his chair like a king. He spread both arms out over the backs of the adjacent seats and puffed on a long Cuban cigar. He had the expensive look of a Cadillac fresh off the lot. When he drank, he held the glass with a thumb and two fingers, and I thought it was a very delicate move for such a large man.
I watched people watch him. He had a way of drawing their eyes. It wasn’t in any way I could determine. He just drew people. They couldn’t stop looking at him. The men eyed him with envy, and the women offered coy looks over the tops of their programs or the rim of their drink glasses. I felt proud to be sitting with him.
“Well, Mr. Cree Thunderboy,” he said. “That was very nice. Thrilling, even. You got any more aces up your sleeve?”
“Nothing that steps up and asks me to dance.”
He laughed and waved at the waiter for fresh drinks. I never drank scotch. In fact, I hardly drank at all. It was the one bluesman thing I could never get a fondness for. I liked being clear. But the stuff he was buying was smooth and warm and smoky-tasting, and I liked it.
“Come on. You got the touch, kid. I can tell. Who do you like in the fifth?”
I shook my head. “No one.”
“Come on.”
“No. All the way up to the tenth, there’s nothing. Sure things don’t come around all that often. Most people think there’s one in every box, as if life is like Cracker Jacks. It’s not. You got to ride a lot of rail before the train hits the station again.”
“You mix your metaphors. But I get you. You’re saying, take the money and run. Grin all the way to the bank.”
“I suppose. I never had a lot of loot in my time. So I tend to treat it carefully.”
“Wise,” he said. “I wonder, though, what you would do if you had a lot of loot, as you say?”
“That’s not a bridge I’m likely to cross anytime soon.”
“You tend to talk like a song lyric, do you know that?”
I laughed. “Comes with the territory, I guess.”
“Yeah, well, if you stick with me, you might not be singing the blues too long. I can use a bright kid like you.”
“I’m not a kid.”
He turned and fixed me with that blank unreadable look again. The scotch left me able to hold it.
“You’re right,” he said. “You’re not. I apologize. Figure of speech is all. I sometimes have too much of a Humphrey Bogart fixation.”
“It’s all right,” I said. “But what do you mean, if I stick with you?”
“Well, Cree, I’m in the business of making money. I hire people who can do that for me. People with a talent. People with a dream. They work for me and use their talent, and I make their dreams come true.”
“You’ve never even heard me play.”
“No, but you know how to pick a winner. That’s the talent I want. You do that for me, and I’ll get you into a recording studio and promote your music. Hell, I’ll even ante up for a video. The whole works. You just need to make your other talent available to me.”
“For how long?”
He reached out an arm and clenched me around the shoulders. I could feel the bulk of his muscles and the strength of him. “Time is relative where loot is concerned.”
“You can actually do all that? Recording, videos?”
“I have certain friends who can make certain things happen.”
“There’s no way I can find you a winner every day.”
“Maybe not. But you do it often enough, like you just did today, and I’d be a happy man, and my friends would be too. Everyone likes the easy money. Keeps things simple.”
It made me uncomfortable. Still, the idea of actually getting into a recording studio and making the album I’d always dreamed of was too hard to resist. His confidence was magnetic. “So what do I do?” I asked.
“You get the form, you make your pick, you come down here, check out the animal, and if it looks good, you go.”
“With what? I’m a ten-dollar bettor.”
He reached into his wallet and handed me a quarter inch of hundred-dollar bills. “Let’s just call this an advance on your commissions. Your grub stake. You work the sheet tonight. Call me. I get the money to you. You come here, make the bet and bring me the winnings. Easy.”
“How do I reach you?”
“The number’s on the card. And here’s a phone.” He reached into his jacket pocket and handed me a small cell phone. “The number’s speed-listed. Just press One.”
“You carry phones to give away to people?”
“They’re phones for my talent. I’m telling you, Cree, I take care of details. You take care of your end, I’ll have you out on cd in no time.”
“Sounds too easy.”
He laughed. “The best things always are. And what you said about sure things? Sometimes they just walk right up and introduce themselves.”