One On The House (7 page)

“Good as any,” Mrs. Rasmussen said.

Miss Tinkham began to read:

“Startle Me; Hullabaloo; Jungle Jangle; Free America; Erin Go Bragh…”

“That’s him!” Mrs. Feeley shouted. “How much does the mick pay?”

“Three dollars and fifteen cents…dollar odds.”

“Bettern’ nothin’,” Mrs. Rasmussen doled out the two dollars. Miss Tinkham hurried over to the two-dollar window. There was not much time left.

“I can’t bear to watch it,” Mrs. Feeley said. “Ain’t there no rest-room?” She finally spotted it. “C’mon! Ain’t no use to be sufferin’ two ways!” Mrs. Rasmussen went with her and Miss Tinkham remained behind to make sure no one took their seat.

“Our box-seat,” she smiled wanly.

The two ladies tarried in the rest-room for some time. When they returned they could tell the story by the droop of Miss Tinkham’s shoulders.

“He also ran,” she said.

Mrs. Feeley looked from one to the other of her friends.

“We had to pay ten cents to get into the jakes! Should we take our four dollars an’ start home, so we can begin figgerin’ just when to start hitch-hikin’ to San Diego?”

“No sense to givin’ up now,” Mrs. Rasmussen said.

“No indeed!” Miss Tinkham was cheered by her spirit. This is the chance to recoup our losses! Just think of all we got the other day! ‘Who leaves too soon, comes back too late.’”

Again she read aloud:

“Kentucky Babe; Lovely Trace; Easy Lass; Melancholy Dane…”

“That’s for me,” Mrs. Rasmussen handed over two singles.

“We need Sir Laurence Olivier,” Miss Tinkham said devoutly.

“What race is he in?” Mrs. Feeley asked.

“Oh, he’s an actor,” Miss Tinkham smiled. “I think he is so wonderful that he could even help us out of this impasse! Have you observed how the time between races seems to grow shorter as our funds grow smaller?”

“Today it’s just hand out one two-dollars after another,” Mrs. Feeley agreed.

The Melancholy Dane started out in the lead. Mrs. Rasmussen was cheered out of her usual phlegmatic calm and began yelling Danish encouragement to the horse. The horses were running full tilt into the closing stretch when the crowd surged to its feet. The Melancholy Dane had fallen down. He was lying on his back with all four feet in the air while the jockey scuttled to safety from the flying hoofs.

“He’d a won, but for that,” Mrs. Rasmussen said.

“Hell, let’s blow the last two bucks on beer,” Mrs. Feeley said. “It’s gonna be a long, dry walk!”

Mrs. Rasmussen and Miss Tinkham considered for a while; then Miss Tinkham said:

“We’d never forgive ourselves if one of us had a hunch about the next race and didn’t back it! We might get back all we have lost…Lady Luck is such a fickle jade.”

“We might’s well fire the last cartridge: you pick him, Miss Tinkham.”

“It is so difficult,” she murmured. “I have a choice of Crisis and Ominous, both applicable to our situation. An embarrassment of riches, really!” Suddenly she made up her mind: “I’ll take Darby D’Amour! L’amour, toujours l’amour!”

“That’s the stuff,” Mrs. Feeley said without much conviction.

The race was a prolonged nightmare to Miss Tinkham. She leaned against a post, her head turned away from the track. Mrs. Feeley and Mrs. Rasmussen held their hands over their eyes. The announcer yelled into the microphone:

“It’s a photofinish! Crisis and Darby D’Amour…photofinish. Just one moment, ladies and gentlemen…”

“What the hell’s a photofinish?” Mrs. Feeley said. “I’m wore to a hard-oil finish myself.”

“They can’t decide which of the horses won,” Miss Tinkham was trembling with excitement. “Oh, Darby!” she cried.” They take pictures to prove which horse was really the winner…”

“Here it is!” came the voice from the loud speaker, “Crisis the winner by a nose! Darby D’Amour second! Crisis is the winner!”

“Gawd! He come in second! We’re gonna get subway fare anyway!”

Mrs. Feeley pounded Miss Tinkham on the back.

“Go get the money, quick!” Mrs. Rasmussen said. “Before they change their minds.”

Miss Tinkham started eagerly towards the box-office, then she turned back to her friends and sat down on the box with her legs stretched out. She held the ticket in front of her and moaned:

“I forgot. I put it on his nose!”

“On his nose? What’s wrong with his nose?”

“I played him to win; we would have had more money that way, but he only came in second. All day I’ve played them win, place, or show…and now this.”

The silence was so thick it could have been run through a meat grinder. Mrs. Rasmussen started massaging her calves and Mrs. Feeley looked ruefully at her small feet. Miss Tinkham’s high heels looked more run-over by the second.

“We better start the hike to Brooklyn,” Mrs. Feeley said. “I’ll carry my shoes.”

“Forty cents for the three of us,” Mrs. Rasmussen said bleakly.

“Take more’n that for the bus to the subway…”

Willful waste makes woeful want,

That I should live to say,

Oh how I wish I had the buck

That once I threw away!

Miss Tinkham essayed a smile, but the situation could not be brightened by bathos. It called for beer.

“Never say die, say damn!” Mrs. Feeley said. “Let’s get away from this rat-race! Down the way apiece there’s bound to be some kind o’ little pub with dime-beers.”

The drooping trio walked slowly out of the grandstand and through the turnstile. There was no crowd to impede their departure. Out on the road they looked about them helplessly.

“Which way to Brooklyn?” Mrs. Feeley asked a lone street sweeper.

“You mean to the bus,” he said.

“Don’t tell me what I mean: tell me which way to Brooklyn.”

“You mean the trains. Then the subway?”

“I’m too tired even to cuss, man. Which direction do you start walkin’ to Brooklyn?”

The man grinned. “Lost your shirt?”

“Shirt, hell! We’ll be lucky if we ain’t arrested for indecent exposure! Which way, bud?”

The man pointed over his left shoulder. “There’s a sign down there you can’t miss.”

Two blocks down the road they spied a sign saying Paddy’s Saloon.

“Whenever it says saloon an’ not cocktail lounge, you know you’re goin’ to get your money’s worth,” Mrs. Feeley said. “We’ll have one for the road.”

Mrs. Rasmussen began to limp and Miss Tinkham teetered along dejectedly.

“C’mon!” Mrs. Feeley encouraged them. “One foot before the other! That’s how the little dog got to Dover!”

The trio stopped in front of the door of the saloon. It had opaque green glass in the upper half.

“Push!” Mrs. Rasmussen said.

Miss Tinkham pushed. Nothing happened.

“Hey! There’s a sign!” Mrs. Feeley stooped down and deciphered the painful printing.

“I’ll be goddamed!” she said.

“What’s it say?”

“Gone to the races.”

Down the highway the three plodded until they came to a big sign at the junction of the highways.

“This is it, ain’t it? New York…Manhattan via the Bridge?”

Miss Tinkham nodded. Mrs. Feeley saw a large delivery van coming into sight. Behind it came a baker’s truck. She waved hopefully. The drivers appeared not to see her. A station wagon was coming down the road. Mrs. Feeley stepped forward, cocked her head in the direction of the bridge and waved a thumb in invitation. A redheaded youth leaned out and presented her with a luscious Bronx cheer for her pains.

“He deserves the key I like best!” Miss Tinkham bristled.

“What’s that?”

“Four flats!”

“Try the sedan,” Mrs. Rasmussen said.

Mrs. Feeley stepped forward again and smiled hopefully, only to be answered by a garlic-laden voice:

“Tomorra we give-a the ride-a, grandma!”

“Damn Guinea! I wish you a bad cold!”

The cars were coming fast. Most of them were full of people eager to beat the heaviest traffic home from the races.

“A truck’s the thing,” Mrs. Feeley said at last. A large van with a New York address came into view.

“Bend over me!” Mrs. Feeley whispered quickly. “I ain’t aimin’ to walk another step!” She threw herself flat on the highway. “It’ll take somethin’ like this to stop ’em!”

T
HE
THREE LADIES
CREPT SILENTLY INTO THE
elevator of the Malone apartment house.

“Nice—that young Eye-talian haulin’ us all the way,” Mrs. Rasmussen said.

“Yeup. I’m sorry I called them wops guineas.”

“How on earth shall we conceal our plight from the penetrating eyes of Katy and Danny?” Miss Tinkham wrung her hands.

“We’ll have to win a Oscar for our actin’ in this drayma.” Mrs. Feeley grinned, a little cheered by the prospect of beer within the next thirty seconds. Old-Timer opened the door.

“Where’s Katy?” Mrs. Feeley called from the icebox door. He shrugged and spread out his hands. “Gawd! Ain’t that a break! Give us a chance to kinda pull ourselves…”

“To collect our shattered aplomb…” Miss Tinkham burped mildly as the beer hit the dry crevices of her parched interior.

“That ain’t what I’m gonna collect!” Mrs. Rasmussen took Old-Timer by the sleeve. “You come with me. Me an’ you’s gonna have a talk.” She led him into the kitchen. Mrs. Feeley sprawled on the sofa. She nodded her head approvingly.

“That’s right, Mrs. Rasmussen! Make him hand it over to Riley!”

“Our predicament is so acute that I can scarcely make myself realize it!” Miss Tinkham shuddered. “Obviously we can’t stay here.”

“That’s for sure!” Mrs. Feeley said. “We’d spill the beans in nothin’ flat. Hope to Gawd we don’t get mulled tonight an’ let the cat outa the bag!”

Mrs. Rasmussen returned with the remains of Old-Timer’s pocket-money.

“Smell anythin’ burnin’?” she asked. “If you do, it’s my tail-feathers draggin’.” She opened her hand and showed three dollars and eighty-seven cents. “That’s includin’ our forty,” she said.

“Did you tell Old-Timer not to tell?”

“Yeah.”

“What on earth shall we do? We are destitute!” Miss Tinkham said.

“I don’t ’zackly know,” Mrs. Feeley said slowly. “But whatever it is, it’s gotta be did quick. They could read us like a book. They’d make us take money for our tickets or force us to stay till our checks come.”

“It’s out of the question,” Miss Tinkham said. “Even if we waited for our checks, it would dim the luster of the television set in their eyes…spoil their pleasure thinking we really could not afford to buy it for them.”

“They ain’t but one thing to do.” Mrs. Rasmussen opened fresh beer all around. “We gotta go outa here respectable. On a train. Like folks. Right in front o’ their eyes. Where they can see us off.”

“The neatest trick of the week, as
The New Yorker
would put it!” Miss Tinkham said.

“We gotta get four tickets for the shortest ride from New York. First damn whistle-stop they’ll let us off at,” Mrs. Feeley said.

“From there, we’re on our own.”

“We’ll have to beat our way home,” Mrs. Rasmussen said.

“Or find employment to maintain us until the checks can be forwarded,” Miss Tinkham said, sadly remembering the tuna factory.

“We ain’t got but one problem,” Mrs. Feeley said.

“One?” Miss Tinkham raised her eyebrows.

“To keep Danny an’ Katy from findin’ out we ain’t got a bean.”

“You are so right! Transportation and food and shelter are as nothing compared to the importance of maintaining their peace of mind…and their joy in their lovely gift.”

“Well, now that’s all settled! Let’s have some more beer…might be on short rations for a while. Wish we was camels!” Mrs. Feeley sighed.

“We gotta drink some beer tonight to keep from showin’ our feelin’s,” Mrs. Rasmussen said.

“We must organize!” Miss Tinkham said. “All our clothes must be washed. We must provide ourselves with soap…and anything else that might be useful on the trip. There is no way of predicting what lies ahead!”

“Ain’t nothin’ but jersey an’ seersucker…dry tonight,” Mrs. Rasmussen said. “We gotta find out how far we can ride.”

“After supper we’ll go down in the subway,” Mrs. Feeley said.

“We could phone for free.” Mrs. Rasmussen pointed to the telephone on the table. Miss Tinkham got Information at the Pennsylvania Station.

“Yes, please. The first stop.” She spoke softly.

“And the time? Every half-hour? Thank you.” She hung up the receiver and started to open her mouth at exactly the moment Katy, Danny, and the baby walked in the front door.

“How we have missed you!” she cried. “We cannot waste any of our precious remaining moments apart from you! So little time!”

“What’s the matter?” Danny said. “You all look terrible! Are you sick?”