It was late when I left Brandy’s, but she had given me the names of a few places most frequented by jockeys and horsemen and I wanted to try out a few that night.
I also didn’t want to spend the rest of the night with Brandy, because I liked her too much for someone I had just met that day. Bad form for a confirmed bachelor.
I picked out about five places I could hit while working my way down to my apartment on West Eighteenth Street and Eighth Avenue.
The fourth one I hit was a singles bar called THE PLACE, on Ninth Avenue.
It was a fairly large club, with three bartenders working the bar at all times. I had never been there, but had heard a lot about it.
I asked all the bartenders about Penny and they admitted, with that familiar faraway look in their eyes, that they remembered her. Two did not remember her name and none knew her well at all. She was just physically the kind of person you would remember seeing. None of them had seen her for days.
“You must score pretty often in a place like this,” I commented to the one who did know her by name. He had a name tag bearing the name STU. He was younger than the other two, and better-looking. He told me his full name was Stu Wainwright.
“I do okay,” he admitted, smiling. The look on his face said he did better than just “okay.”
“Did you ever score with Penny?” I asked him.
“Oh, man, don’t I wish. You know, I never saw that chick leave with a guy? They’d be all over her, and she’d be dangling them all on her fingertips, but I don’t know anyone who ever really scored,” he confided. “I know a few guys who’ve clamed that they scored, but if they scored with as many chicks as they claim to …” and he left the rest unsaid.
“I must’ve hit on her every time she came in here,” he went on, “but I never even got close. I mean, man, I got broads waiting in line for me, you know, just dying to come home with me at night, but that redhead?” he shrugged, like he just couldn’t understand it. “Man, she was not good for my ego, let me tell you.”
I finished my beer and he leaned forward and said, “See that one over there?” I looked to where he was indicating, at the far end of the bar. There was a young brunette, all of eighteen, dangling a drink between two fingers. She wore a revealing purple pantsuit, and she had a lot to reveal.
“She’s mine for tonight if nothing else comes along between now and quitting time,” he confided.
I dropped him a five and said, “Good luck, and thanks.”
“Listen, guy, can I fix you up with anything?” he asked, waving a hand as if to say I had my choice of any girl in the place.
“Not tonight,” I told him, having second thoughts about him after the offer. It had sounded like more than just an idle remark. Was he pimping on the side?
Had he tried to hit on Penny Hopkins, or recruit her?
I said goodnight and filed him away in the recesses of my mind marked TO BE REINSPECTED AT A LATER DATE.
I had a problem finding the last place, which was on Tenth Avenue, just off Eighteenth Street, two blocks from my apartment. I must have walked passed it a couple of times before I finally found it by trying doors until I found the one that wasn’t locked, and walked in.
There was no name on the outside, nothing to indicate that a bar existed on the block, but when I opened the door and walked in, there it was, like magic.
It was a small, quaint place, fashioned after an English pub, I guessed.
Behind the bar was the most gorgeous bartender I had ever seen. This seemed to be my day for meeting women with unusual professions. First a lady jockey, now a lady bartender.
She was blonde, her hair falling midway down her back. She had blue eyes and probably the most beautiful face I had ever seen or been within five feet of. She was wearing a white blouse and a green vest, and a red skirt that ended, modestly, just above her knees. Her breasts were full, her legs well muscled.
I approached the bar as she was returning from cleaning a table, which had given me the opportunity to look her over.
“What’ll you have?” she asked. I could imagine some of the answers she must get from that inquiry.
“Budweiser,” I told her.
“Tap?”
“Please.”
She brought me the beer and leaned on the bar, giving me an enticing view of her incredible face. She had eyes, a nose and a mouth, just like any other woman, but put them all together and the effect was overpowering.
“You’ve never been here before.”
“I live two blocks away and I never knew the place existed.”
“You’ve got to be in, to get in,” she informed me.
“Am I in?”
She smiled and assured me, “From now on, you’re in.”
There was one other person at the bar and he called to her for a refill. I turned and looked at him and recognized him.
It was Eddie Mapes.
He had some bruises on his face, which I knew were not from the fight with Danny Aiello, so they had to be from the fall he’d suffered in the sixth race.
He appeared to be drunk, but aside from the bruises didn’t look any the worse for wear, considering he’d been in a fight and thrown from a horse on the same day.
I picked up my beer and walked over to him.
“Tough luck in the sixth race today, Eddie,” I told him.
He looked at me and said, “You think so, huh? You think that was tough luck, do ya?”
Then he seemed to recognize me.
“Hey, ain’t you the guy — you’re one of Biel’s guys, ain’t you? You broke up my fight, didn’t you?”
“Yeah, I’m the one,” I admitted.
“You should mind your own fucking business, man,” he told me, grabbing his fresh drink. “That punk had it comin’. Mind your own fuckin’ business, that’s what you should do,” he repeated.
“Sure, Eddie, sure. Look, isn’t it getting kind of late? If I remember tomorrow’s card correctly, don’t you have a mount in a big stakes race?” I asked.
Actually, I didn’t know what the card was for tomorrow, but I did know that there was a stakes race being run, and that he had a mount on one of the favorites.
“So?”
“Don’t you think you’ve had enough to drink the night before a big race?”
“Look, pal, I can ride better drunk better ‘n some of those guys can ride sober, you know? Your minding my business again, ain’t you?”
I put both my hands up, palms out, and said, “Sorry, Eddie. Go ahead, get falling-down drunk, be my guest.”
I took my beer and walked back to where I had been.
I checked the rest of the place out. There were only two tables occupied, one by an elderly woman nursing a drink, and the other by two men who looked like jockeys. In fact, I recognized one of them from around the track. He was a man in his late forties who was getting a little heavy for a jockey. He was seated with a much younger companion. They were both eating peanuts and nursing beers. I picked up my beer and went over.
“Hi, guys,” I greeted. They both looked up, and the elder one appeared to recognize me.
“Hey, you’re that private eye who was down in the jockeys’ room today,” he said.
I nodded. “That’s right, and I’m still looking for Penny Hopkins. I was told she comes in here sometimes.”
He shrugged. “We all do, but I haven’t seen her in here lately.”
I nodded and picked some peanuts up from the table. I gave Mapes another glance over my shoulder and he was taking a few large gulps from whatever it was he was drinking.
“Hey, isn’t there a big stakes race tomorrow?” I asked the two seated jocks.
“You could say that,” the older man said. “It’s a Statebred stakes, but the purse is over a hundred grand.”
A Statebred is a race where all the horses entered had to have been foaled in New York State, or whatever state the race was being run in.
“Doesn’t Eddie Mapes have a mount on one of the favorites?”
Both of them looked over at Mapes and the younger one laughed as the older one drawled, “He sure does.”
They both laughed.
I sat down and said, “Wait a minute. There’s a man over there, a fellow rider of yours, who may be drinking himself off a mount in a big stakes race. Are you going to sit there and let him do it?”
The older jock stopped laughing and his lined face got ugly.
“What do I look like, Mac, his fucking keeper?” he asked me. “Do you realize that I could pick up that mount if he doesn’t make it? Or, if I pick up another mount I could win if he rides a lousy race? You think I’m gonna blow a chance like that? Listen, tell him if he runs out of dough to come over here. I’ll buy him all the booze he wants.”
They went off on another laughing jag and I got away from them fast, before I took a swipe at both of them.
I went back to the bar, at the farthest end from Mapes, and called the lady bartender over.
“What’s your name?”
“Debby.”
“What time do you close up, Debby?”
She leaned on the bar and checked the clock on the wall. “In about an hour,” she answered. “Why? What did you have in mind?”
Mapes could get a whole lot drunker in an hour, but I couldn’t ask her to close early and risk her job, I wasn’t that pushy.
“Is he a regular?” I asked.
“Semi.”
“Does he always drink like that?”
“As a matter of fact, no, he usually doesn’t touch the hard stuff. Just drinks soda, eats peanuts and plays darts.”
I made a face and watched Mapes down another drink.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
I leaned closer, close enough to smell the day’s perspiration on her, and it was not at all unpleasant. “He’s got a big race to ride in tomorrow,” I told her, “and if he keeps drinking like that, I’m going to lose the hundred bucks I intend to bet on his horse.”
She shook her head, making her hair swing back and forth, like a curtain of silk.
“No, what?”
“That’s not what you’re worried about. You’re just a nice guy who doesn’t want to see him get hurt.”
I snapped my fingers and said, “Aw, shucks, you caught me.”
She looked around at Mapes again, who was frowning at the bottom of his empty glass, and then back at me. Then she surprised me by reaching under the bar where she hit a switch that dimmed all the lights.
“Closing time,” she shouted.
I leaned over and kissed her on the cheek, “You’re a doll. Thanks.”
The two jocks gave me a dirty look, as if they thought I had something to do with the early closing time. I smiled and waved. Mapes shuffled out the door, followed by the elderly woman.
“Hey,” Debby called as I was about to follow the others out.
“Yep?”
She came over to me and put something in my hand.
“Put that on the nose for me, will you? If it wins, come back so I can collect.”
“If you still have a job,” I reminded her.
“Don’t worry. I have a very understanding boss.”
“What if it loses?”
She smiled and told me, “Come back anyway.”
I winked at her and left, shoving the bill she’d given me into my pocket. A sneak peek had told me it was a whole dollar.
I wanted to catch Mapes before he got too far.