Chapter 6

Grace retired to a leather couch in the far comer of the Turf Club where the full realization of the enormity of her disaster finally manifested itself. She had lost six hundred dollars in less than 45 minutes. She had been so sure that her actions were in keeping with Jim Meloney's instructions. Admittedly it had been foolish in the first race to play a hunch; that wouldn't happen again! But she had followed Jim's axiom on the last race: Make sure your information comes from reliable sources.

Gradually her disappointment gave way to a smouldering resentment, then to anger... anger at herself and anger at the track. Some people made money at the track. She, too, would make money--or at least enough to get back her six hundred dollars. Then she would quit. After all, she had a head for figures and knew now how the game was played. The decision made, Grace counted the money in her purse. Twenty-two dollars! She put the two dollars aside for cab fare home, then quickly went back upstairs seeking information. A few minutes later she had purchased five two-dollar win tickets on a horse called Yellow Raft. She disliked standing in the two dollar ticket line; it seemed to be filled with riff-raff, seedy looking people. Yellow Raft won easily, but paid only $3.60 for each two dollar win ticket. On the next and last race of the evening, Grace pooled her original twenty dollars with the eight dollar winnings to bet a big, beautiful black horse by the name of Bar Bar Black which was going off at six to one. Grace made a swift calculation and decided her tickets would be worth about $210 when the horse won.

Screaming encouragement, jumping up and down, and her body afire, Grace saw Bar Bar Black come out of the gate and take what appeared to be a commanding lead. Then, on the far outside, a gray began closing ground. The two horses nosed up to the wire at almost the same instant. Grace was positive she had won, even though the Photo Finish lights were on. Then, after waiting for what seemed to be an eternity, with her knees actually quaking and throat painfully dry, she saw the Photo lights blink out and the winner posted. It was the gray; Bar Bar Black finished second.

Grace rode silently home in the taxi. She could not ever remember being so weary as she was at this moment; it was as though she had been ill and running a high temperature. She was completely debilitated, washed out, but not too tired to feel the dull anger at the track still smouldering inside her brain.

When she got home, she went directly upstairs and to bed.

This time she didn't even think about the mail before sleep overcame her.

On Saturday, Grace cashed a hundred dollar check at the nearby super-market where she was known, and went back to the track, determined that today would be the last time she ever visited it. Her money was gone by the sixth race. She took a bus home and cried when in the privacy of her own bedroom.

California tracks generally are closed on Mondays, and Bay Meadows was no exception. On Tuesday evening, Grace was back again after writing a check for $175, almost all that she had left in the checking account. She came home with $35.

On Wednesday evening, she asked one of the trainers about Jim Meloney.

"Oh, he's taken part of the string and gone to Raton."

"Raton?"

"Sure. New Mexico. Quarter horse meet going on there."

That was the night Grace had to wait forty minutes across the street from the track for a bus because she had lost the taxi money. Several leering lone males in cars offered her a lift, and once she shrank back in terror prepared to scream for help when six husky youths in a car stopped. One of them got out of the car and said, "Hey, Baby. Come on. We'll give you a ride home." A second boy was in the process of getting out of the car also when a police car cruised by and made a U-turn. The youths lost no time in leaving.

Grace went to the track every night for the next two weeks. At the end of that time, she had borrowed $500 from a loan company, asked for and received an advance on her salary, depleted her and Stan's pitifully small savings account, borrowed $30 from Judi... and pawned her engagement ring... and lost it all.

Grace was sure that Judi was puzzled by her sudden need of money and by absences away from the house every night, but the little blonde remained silent. Grace also was almost positive that Judi thought she was having an affair with Jim Meloney and was spending her evenings with him.

On a Friday, exactly three weeks after she had gone to the track for the first time in her life, Grace "borrowed" two hundred dollars from the bank deposit. She won that night and happily remained about even on Saturday. On Monday, she replaced the money.

The following night she heard some terribly exciting news about one of Jim Meloney's horses scheduled to start within the next two or three days.

The horse, Little Red Jewel, had never before started in a race, but it had broken a track record while in training earlier at Bay Meadows. Jim, it was reported, was going to try and pull one on the New Mexico and Texas owners by putting the no-record horse in a race with proven campaigners. The odds should be good.

It was at that point Grace decided it was really time to relent a bit toward Ricky Karl.

He always swam in the late afternoons, so Grace waited until she saw him in the pool, then put on her briefest bikini and went down to join him.

Ricky would have given odds that the untouchable Mrs. Hope was going to break the ice with him within the next day or so. Actually, he was surprised it had taken her this long. He had watched and made note of her downward movement from the hundred dollar win window to the two dollar show and place windows. She had the bug just about as bad as anyone he had ever seen. Knowing instinctively that she would come to him, he had bided his time, and now as he saw her wade into the pool he knew the time had come.

Grace waited for him to say something to her, but he seemingly was interested in other things. When he did happen to glance her way, she gave him a half-smile. Ricky simply nodded his head, then swam over to the end of the pool and began talking to a friend. Grace swam the length of the pool slowly, stopping at a place where she knew he could see her. She smiled again in a friendly manner and this time there wasn't even a nod. Now she began to get angry at him. After all, she was trying to make friends with him. That's what he had been trying to do for a long time, wasn't it? It was almost as if he were trying to make things difficult for her.