Hazard Read Online Free Page A

didn’t finish the yogurt, gave it to the Yorkshire on the premise that the dog required something more nourishing than a racing form.
    They arrived at Yonkers Raceway too late to bet on the third race. A horse named Skippa Skoo took it by a head.
    â€œI had him picked,” said Hazard, irritated.
    â€œHe only paid three forty,” said Keven. She detested favorites, ignored them, never bet on anything less than four to one.
    Hazard shrugged off what he considered an avoidable loss and looked to the next race, an Exacta. That is, it offered a try at picking the horses that would come in first and second. The payoff was, of course, proportionately greater, frequently as much as a hundred to one. Hazard’s system for playing the Exacta was to key on one horse, the one that he thought had the best chance of winning. He combined that choice with two or three other horses, a couple of second favorites and the most promising long shot, covering every possible order of finish. The whole thing depended on the key horse. If it ran out, all was lost.
    Which is what happened.
    The horse Hazard keyed on got boxed in on the final turn, had plenty left, but couldn’t make its move. Right off, Hazard was out three hundred. Keven, on the other hand, had disregarded the Exacta and placed a straight five-dollar bet on the fourteen-to-one winner. That put her seventy-some dollars ahead. She managed to be not too elated and knew better than to boast about it. She left Hazard bitching to himself while she went to collect.
    Hazard wandered around trying to lose the loser feeling. His seeing the various cliques of heavy players didn’t help. They were regulars, pros. There was nothing slick about them. No fifty-dollar hats and hundred-dollar shoes. They were mostly paunchy types in baggy, pleated trousers and wash-and-wear shirts, talking through their teeth that clamped half-smoked unlit cigars. An altogether separate caste, elite in this element. They let that be known by exposing their thick folds of hundreds, which they counted and recounted, over and over as though disbelieving how much they were up or down. No show of emotion, ever. Certainly not a smile among them. It was serious business. They seldom watched a race. Usually they stayed inside the grandstand area, indifferent to the excited, urging crowd. Above such behavior. They might as well have been waiting for a bus instead of a race result on which they had thousands riding. At times, when they had inside information that was particularly solid, they bought their tickets, went directly to the win windows and stood there without a doubt, ready to cash in.
    Hazard recognized several of these heavy players from other times, other tracks. He knew them well enough to exchange nods. It occurred to Hazard that maybe they had something good going tonight. Perhaps he could get in on it. But it would mean he’d have to talk his way in with them, and they’d consider it a handout. He vetoed the idea. It wasn’t his style. They weren’t his style.
    Instead, he bought a hot dog, squirted it with mustard and ate it quickly. It would have tasted better, he thought, if Keven hadn’t stuffed him with all that garbage.
    He went back to where he’d said he’d meet her. He found her intent on the tote board, oblivious to the two silk-suited Seventh Avenue types who were on the offensive, had her in a verbal crossfire.
    Hazard wasn’t worried, but he cut in, claimed Keven with an arm around and took her out of range. She didn’t act glad to see him but that wasn’t unusual. Whenever he came back to her she just picked up where they’d left off, as though they hadn’t been apart. Not that she was cold. Rather, she preferred getting to and staying with the heart of things. In many respects her eccentricities were equal to Hazard’s, and no doubt that was one of his reasons for liking her.
    She called his attention to the number-three