The Studs Lonigan Trilogy - James T. Farrell [337]
They were so tense in the room that an explosion seemed imminent, as if all the excitement and strain on their faces and in their heads would burst like bombs, shattering the walls and the building with a loud, crashing thunder. And he was the same way. He gripped a chair, his foot tapped, he held himself in as if afraid to breathe, and Hollow Tooth in the lead still ...
“The winners... Hollow Tooth... ”
He smiled with gratitude. His shoulders sagged. He stamped anxiously forward to the counter, smiles cracking on his face, and waited for the verification and pay-offs, hearing a happy babel of talk all around him.
“Any luck?” Ma asked him, again talking without removing the cigarette from her mouth.
“I got the winner.”
“My system didn’t work out that time. It just goes to show that no system is water-proof perfect. But there’s more races, and my system is calculated for the long run, and while there’s wins and losses, the wins are more than the losses.”
“You had the winner?” the woman in blue asked, her voice surprisingly deep and husky, a tough broad’s voice, all right, he decided.
“Yes. How about yourself?” he asked, thinking here was his opportunity to dent the ice.
“I never have any goddamn luck,” she said disconsolately.
“Maybe the next one will bring home the bacon for you,” he said, thinking, hoping, that she’d be easy.
“It better be.”
“Who you picking for the next one?” he asked to keep the talk rolling.
“I got to sit down and figure that out now,” she said, turning from him.
He collected and pocketed his pay-off, turned away from the crowded counter, saw her laboring over her papers, chewing a pencil as she worked. He decided that she was just what he needed to change his luck.
III
“How’s it going, Studs?” Phil asked, nonchalantly lighting a cork-tipped cigarette, standing with Studs in a corner by the blackboard, while many moved and swirled about them in the let-down between races.
“Oh, it’s all right.”
“It’s turning out to be a pretty good day for us. Some, you know, are better than others, and Saturday’s the big day, but I can’t complain about today. But after I get this all overhauled, I’m going to raise the intake plenty.”
“Say, Phil, do many of these people come every day?”
“Plenty. Like one woman they call Ma. Did you notice her? She’s a real character.”
“Funny duck, isn’t she?”
“Yes,” Phil said, smiling and lowering his voice, “you see all different types in a place like this. It’s a great place to study human nature. Some of them who come do it just for the fun of betting a dollar or two. And then others are just gambling fools. Many of the women, it seems, started coming here to pick up a little extra dough because of hard times, less dough coming in from the husband’s pay envelope and things like that. But they take it up like a fever, and they be-come fiends at it. But then, it all goes to help business along.”
“See that good-looking dame in the blue suit, on the chair, handicapping with all those papers and dope sheets? How about her?”
“She’s here every day. It’s like dope with her, all right, I hear she’s married, and I guess it must be that her husband can’t fix her up right. There must be something the matter with him. Because she certainly plays the ponies with a bang. And you know, Studs, when women get that way and start hanging out at places like this, I always suspect that what’s wrong with them is they need some guy to give them the right kind of jazzing.”
“She’s neat enough, so that there’s plenty of guys who’d be ready to give her what it takes.”
“She’s not exactly a chicken, but still, she has her points and her curves. I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of the lads around here have tried to make the grade with her. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if some of them succeeded.”
“Hello, Mr. Rolfe.”
“Hi, there, O’Donnell.”
“Good day?”
“So-so.”
Studs noted that they treated Phil with respect, all right. Phil was getting to be somebody. Smart boy, Phil. And yes, at present, to many he was just Phil Rolfe’s brother-in-law.
“Say, Studs, I got to get back to business.