I stopped at a phone booth to call my service. I wanted to see if there were any messages from Shukey. There weren’t, but there was a message from “Ray, the bartender,” saying he had some information for me. I didn’t know any bartenders named Ray, so it had to be the one at the track.
Back across the bridge again, another dollar (toll) and it wasn’t even another day yet. How could people do that day in and day out?
I drove back to the Downs and went right to the third floor of the clubhouse and the Turf Club Lounge. My friend “Ray” was on duty, but since it was a Sunday, and later in the day, so more people were ready to drink he was busier than when we last spoke. I went to the bar and ordered a beer.
“Hey, I got a break coming in half an hour, you know?” he told me. “Play the five horse in the fifth race and then come back, okay?”
“I thought you didn’t give tips?”
“I don’t. I heard somebody say it looks good. Don’t go crazy, just play it, okay?”
“See you in a while,” I told him.
I went out and grabbed a program. The number five horse in the fifth race was called Twentieth Anniversary and he lost by about twenty lengths, but that was okay. I didn’t bet him.
I don’t bet tips, guesses or what somebody says “looks good.”
“No good, huh?” Ray asked me when I came back.
“No problem” I assured him. “I didn’t play it. I don’t play horses anymore, especially hot tips.”
“C’mon, we can sit over here,” he said, indicating a table in a corner that was apparently left open for employees.
“I told you,” he insisted, “it wasn’t no tip. I don’t give tips.”
“Okay, Ray, forget that. What’s this information you have for me?”
He tried to look innocent by folding his hands and eyeing the ceiling. I took out a ten and extended it to him. When he made a grab for it I snatched it back.
“It had better be worth it,” I told him, and then handed it to him.
“You tell me,” he said, tucking the bill away. “I remembered something today?”
Make me ask, I thought. “What?”
“I remembered seeing Louie Melendez after Thursday.”
I sat up straighter.
“Where?”
“Right here. He came runnin’ in here like somebody was chasin’ him. Man, was he filthy.”
“What do you mean, he was filthy?”
“Filthy, you know, dirty. Covered with dirt from head to toe, you know? He came runnin’ up to the bar and ordered a drink — in Spanish, yet. I hadda remind him to talk English, you know? When he finished it he looked around, scared like. Then he seemed to realize where he was and he took off again, like somebody was chasin’ him.”
“How come you didn’t remember this yesterday?” I asked.
He shrugged. “It slipped my mind.”
“What day was this?”
“Friday.”
“What time?”
He shrugged again. “Third race, I think.”
Post time for the first race was one o’clock, with approximately half-hour intervals between races, that made it somewhere around two when he saw Melendez. Penny had left home at twelve.
What had happened during those two hours that had frightened Louie Melendez?
“Who does Melendez hang out with? Do you know?”
“Not really, but I could probably find out for you.”
“Oh, yeah?” I took out another ten. “Do that, Ray, and have whoever it is get in touch with me, anytime. Got it?”
“Got it, chief, “he assured me, tucking that bill away with the previous one. “What’s this all about?”
I took out another five and gave it to him.
“I figure that’s about forty bucks you’ve made off me up to now, Ray. If I hear from the guy Melendez hangs out with, that figure could easily double. Okay?”
“Okay,” he answered enthusiastically.
“Go back to work — and don’t give out any more tips.”
“That wasn’t no tip,” he insisted, but I waved him away and he went, slightly indignant, but definitely richer than he had been before meeting me — even spiritually.
Melendez was dirty?
I got up and went to the bar.
“Ray, did Melendez have any mounts that day?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know; but I can find out for ya.”
“No thanks, it’ll be cheaper if I do it myself. See you.”
A jockey friend of mine could check it out for me like Joey Importuno, Eddie Mapes —
— or Brandy Sommers.