Chapter 8

[Tuesday, June 24th, 1986]

I met Sam back at the table with his lunch. I offered him a choice, “Sweet tea, or Coke?” He opted for the Coke. We shared a side of the picnic table with a comfortable space between us as neither of us wanted to lose the best views.

I opened a bag of potato chips and started my questions with, “Well, I guess there is no sense tiptoeing around. Feel free not to answer any questions you feel are too personal and I won’t hold it against you. The personal ones are just intended to help me get to know you a bit, so I can kind of put your answers in context. I think the first question I have, is why do you apparently live on a park bench?”

Sam said, “So you want to know if I’m crazy.”

I smiled and replied, “No, I don’t care if you’re crazy, I just need to know if I can work with you or not.” Sam laughed and said, “Fair enough, it’s a reasonable question.”

Sam told me, “Without getting into the why’s of it, I have an issue with being indoors for too long. It varies a lot depending on the conditions. Like maybe if there is lots of light, or there is a nearby window open, or sometimes if the space is really big, I can handle it for hours at a time. Sometimes, in some places, 10 minutes is way too long.”

“I find work where and when I can. I do a lot of traveling. You don’t want to spend winter up here if you’ve got my kinds of problems. You can usually find me migrating with the snowbirds down in Florida in the cold seasons. Like you said, this is a nice place, but I probably won’t be here long. Locals get nervous when they keep seeing someone like me too many days in a row.”

I asked, “You’re a veteran?” He said yes and I left it at that. “What is your age? Round to the nearest half-decade if you like.”

He said, “I’ll be 35 in August.”

I asked, “If you could make some really good money, with very little effort, and very little time indoors, would you be interested in sticking around for a while?”

He replied, “It would depend on specifics, but yes most likely I would.”

I said, “Okay, here is your $20 and I only have one more paid question for you.” as I pulled a twenty out of my pocket and handed it to him.

Sam said, “Thank you, what’s the last question?”

I asked, “It’s a two-part question. First, are you okay with underage gambling? and Second, if so then can I interest you in placing bets for us at the dog track?”

Sam thought for a minute, then said, “What makes you think you can win money gambling at the track?”

I answered, “Well, I simply am very good at it, but you don’t need to believe me. The proof will be in winning or losing when we get there right? I’m going to provide the whole bankroll this first time out.”

“I can’t do this by myself, because I am not 21, so I need you to place the bets. Because you are taking the very limited ‘risk’ of potentially being party to underage gambling, I am happy to split the profits 50/50 with you.”

“I’ll be straight with you Sam, I’m looking for a partner here. I think we can help each other out. There are a lot of possibilities coming up that you would not believe if I told you about them. This could lead to much bigger things.”

I started making some hand gestures. “For you: on one hand, you are going to have to decide if you trust me to make the right calls, and I know I can prove it to you very quickly. On the other hand, if we lose, all you have lost is a little time.”

“In my case, I’m going to have to trust you to split the profits back with me when we are done. While we are at the track, we will need to pretend it’s just you making bets with your own money. I’m hoping a combination of the inherent good nature that I hope is in you, plus a little greed for future profits will make you think twice about double-crossing me.”

I finished with, “What are your thoughts?”

Sam said, “It seems like a very good deal from where I sit. I think it’s more likely we will lose your money before the first trip is done, but I’m up for trying. I’ve got nothing to lose but time, and I seem to have a lot of that lately. When do you want to do this?”

I told him, “Well, for all my expressed skills at picking winners ... I have no idea what the local track does. I know roughly where it is, but that’s about it. Most active tracks have an early afternoon and sometimes a twilight session depending on the day of the week. But what days and exact times? I have no clue. More research will be required.”

“Next, we need to talk about what you want to get out of this. How much money would make you feel like this was a worthwhile partnership and something you would want to continue doing for a while?”

Sam said, “I don’t know. I guess if I cleared a hundred bucks I’d be pretty happy with that and likely to want to do it again.”

I responded, “Good, not to try and scare you off, but we also should probably talk about a few things. I’m not saying I know of anything underhanded going on, but gambling facilities often have organized crime tie-ins. We don’t want to come to the attention of either them or the IRS.”

“I think it is only prudent that we not try to win too many really big prizes here. We probably want to keep our winnings on the low key side. Nothing to get anyone too excited about. If we do get a really large payout, we might want to fix that by losing a bunch of it.”

I finished with “A few good trips a week should make both of us very happy. We can always re-evaluate later.”

Sam said, “That sounds like a good idea. I’ll be skeptical of the numbers until they become a bit more real. Like I said, if I clear $100 on the first outing, I’m happy to be aboard.”

I asked, “Want to drive out there with me and see what we can find out? If there is a matinee session it probably started at 1 pm, which was only 20 minutes ago. We might miss it, but they would still be open.”

Sam agreed and grabbed his bag. We got in the car. I looked over at Sam and asked, “Is the car going to be a problem?”

He replied, “No, sitting in cars is usually fine. Front seats are better than the back. There’s plenty of light, if it gets bad opening a window usually works to make it at least a little better. I can’t take the bus anymore. Which really sucks, they are a cheap travel option I can no longer use. Planes are a non-starter. Hmmm, maybe I could do a small Cessna plane, it’s kind of like a car.”

The place was looking pretty busy when we got there. I handed Sam another $20, just in case we got the chance to make a small bet. This was supposed to be a scouting mission, but you never know. We locked Sam’s bag in the trunk and headed for the entrance. There was a restaurant we could choose to sit in or some stadium seating that was enclosed. I’m sure there were private boxes up high somewhere, but we didn’t see any signs for them.

There were also doors out to the stands on the sides where you could go to watch from outside. The ticket booths were lining the back wall of the stadium area and weren’t all that busy at the moment. Things were pretty calm, but Sam was looking distinctly uncomfortable.

I said, “Let’s head outside and down by the rail.” We made our way over to the side doors and out into the stands. We soon gravitated to a spot close to the track without any people around. It was a bit away from the central areas and the tellers, but that was ok for now.

I said, “I saw that was a little uncomfortable for you. What are your thoughts? Are you going to be able to get in a crowded line and make the bets? I’m pretty sure it gets worse than that when we need to place them.”

“I’ve seen the crowds get bad as the post time gets close. I mean have you ever seen footage of the floor of the stock market before closing? It is not quite that bad, but I think you’ll see the resemblance.”

Sam said, “Way to sell the idea there John” while loosening the collar of his shirt a bit. “Honestly, I don’t know. I’m willing to try, but we’ll have to see how it goes.”

I said, “Okay, seriously there is no pressure here. We have time to see how it goes. We probably have time to see a few more races, I think. If you can’t get the bet placed, there will always be another race, if not that day then the next. And if this is something that you just can’t do, it’s okay. We’ll see if we can find another way to make some money.”

Sam looked a bit relieved. “Okay”

I took a chance and put my hand on his shoulder and said, “I like you, Sam, so don’t worry. If this doesn’t work out, something else will. I’m already kinda thinking of you as my partner. I’ve got your back, we’ll be good.”

Sam nodded. A few minutes later they started leading the dogs onto the track, walking them in front of the stadium area. One of the dogs stopped to make a little deposit on the field.

I laughed and told Sam, “I knew someone once that always bet on any dog that did that, thinking they would be lighter for the race.”

Sam laughed and loosened up a bit after that and about 5 minutes later the race started. Damn those dogs are fast. They put everything they have into it too, very impressive. At the end of the race, the winning dogs were 3-5-6.

I jumped into the tunnel. I moved back a bit until I saw a scene showing me put my hand on Sam’s shoulder, then I moved forward a bit until I could see his head start to nod. I jumped back into my body.

After Sam finished nodding I said, “Tell you what, let’s start on building confidence here. Just for your information, no bets yet, but this is the potential we have here. The top 3 winners of this race are going to be 3-5-6. If you were to go inside to a teller and put $10 on a Trifecta for 3-5-6, we could walk out of here with something like $1500 bucks in about 10 minutes. No pressure intended, just something I want you to think about, maybe it will help motivate you.”

Sam looked at me funny and said, “Whatever you say, John. How about we see how this race goes first. Oh, and I do want to see how bad the teller cage area gets, so we should move closer to the doors.”

I smiled and said “Sure.” Then I whispered to him, “Oh and I bet dog #5 is going to take a dump when they walk in front of the stadium.”