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Authors: Herbert Lieberman

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Clattering down the fire escape just below the ledge, they threaded their way across a rickety catwalk and entered one of those many disconcerting steel doors, opening onto a dark, rank, trash-littered stairway. A cat squealed and scurried out as they proceeded to descend several flights through the thick, murky, dark reeking of urine.

At the bottom they entered another door and found themselves beneath the proscenium of a theater swathed in silence. An eerie half-light filtered downward from some point above. Looking about they saw steel ladders, walls lined with complex electrical cable and circuit boxes, heavy guy lines ascending upward through to the wings and serving, no doubt, to raise and lower the curtain. There was a dumbwaiter that went up through an open shaft to a trap door, Mooney judged, just below the orchestra pit and stage. They were at the very bottom of the theater.

Musty old period costumes had been stored there in toppling piles; parts of dismantled stage sets stood about like ghostly wreckage—a pair of wooden carousel swans drowsed in the shadows, an Edwardian gasolier, and a mural of pinkish mermaids from above a nautical bar. A dozen or so faceless mannequins made of muslin stood about on steel pipe-stands with a curious air of expectation—as if awaiting assignations in the thick, gray silence.

When they came up again they had a call to go over to a building on Fiftieth Street. Something had been found on a rooftop there.

The building backed up directly to the one on Forty-ninth Street, where the cinder block had been dropped. It was a seedy, five-story office building with an air about it of something faintly louche. Its residents were largely small-time theatrical managers and booking agents, plus a handful of film and record companies of the most dubious accreditation.

The elevator, a narrow, cagelike box, swayed creakingly upward to the fifth floor and lurched to a halt. From there they got out and walked up the remaining three flights to the roof. It was nearly noon now and the sun was high. Mooney, sweating and panting behind three others, climbed up through a partially open steel door and out onto the littered tar rooftop.

Two patrolmen and a plainclothes detective were waiting there for them. They were standing about beneath one of those large, pyramidal, peaked water towers that were a benchmark of all New York commercial architecture during the twenties and thirties.

Mooney’s breath whistled as he came up to them. “Whatcha got?”

One of the patrolmen stood aside and spoke. “We found this.”

At first sight it looked like some kind of undifferentiated mess—a kid’s joke. Oil cloths, canvas and an old shower curtain tacked to the tower pylons to keep out wind and rain. Inside, cardboard cartons and old magazines had been rigged up to serve as a mattress. There were cups and water bottles, knives and forks. An empty can of corn had been discarded there along with other rubbish.

“Any idea who it was?” Mooney asked.

“Nope,” said the plainclothesman, whose name was Aiello. “Thought you should see it, anyway.”

“Did you talk to the building superintendent?”

“He knows nothing about it,” Aiello replied.

“You can get in and out of this rattrap through half a dozen different exits,” the other patrolman offered. “Place is wide-open twenty-four hours a day.”

“Looks like whoever it was ain’t been around for a while.” Aiello knelt down to inspect the curious debris. “The litter is old. Cutlery is rusty.”

“Probably a squatter.” Mooney gazed round distastefully. “Probably lit out when the weather got warm. Take some pictures and send the cup and silverware down for analysis.”

While some others took notes and gathered articles for analysis, Mooney, unimpressed, strolled across the roof to the ledge and stared out west over Forty-ninth Street. It had the look of a playground jungle gym—all chaos and entanglement. Steel-girded superstructures surmounted by marquees and gray, unlit neon lights—giant letters that hung like gauzy tracery painted against the gunmetal city sky.

Down below thousands swarmed into office buildings, scurrying along from every direction. Mooney stared down at the scene impassively. He had a sudden image of himself hoisting forty pounds of cement above his head, holding it out above the ledge—then letting go. Just letting go. Looking down on all that avid, lurching bug life, he could understand that. He well knew the feeling of contempt. He could see why.

5

“… and at the post in starting position number five, Honor Bound. In six, Dynaflow. At seven, Alternative, ridden by Velasquez, out of Darbyshire. Eight, Dogdays …”

Standing amid the excited press at the rail, Frank Mooney ran the stump of his pencil up and down the columns of the
Racing Form.
Periodically he’d glance up at the tote board to check odds against the PP’s of horses he’d been following. As usual, he’d had no compunction whatever about using his shield to get himself down directly on the field with the press and the big spenders.

As racing days went this one was perfect—bright, clear skies, and though it was cool, in the mid-fifties, Mooney was already sweating profusely. The Sunday capacity crowds at Aqueduct had turned the stands behind him into a crazy quilt of undulating color. Gaudy pennants on the roof of the stands snapped briskly in the gusty breeze and the jockeys and horses in the post parade caparisoned in their flashing silks made the heart leap with excitement.

Mooney had been there since early morning. He’d come out around 10:00 a.m. to walk through the paddocks, talk to the grooms and watch the workouts. More than anything, he loved the morning prowls before the race—the big bays and chestnuts browsing in the spanking white paddocks, the grooms and trainers moving through the stables, the profoundly satisfying smell of sawdust, leather and manure.

Well into the fourth race now, Mooney had made no score. Moreover, he had dropped several hundred dollars and had also missed by a hair the quinella, paying $52.40. The winning horse he’d picked, Piston, performed precisely as he’d expected. His second choice, a filly, Ball Point, a 3-to-l odds-on favorite to finish in the money, had been brilliant for ninety-five percent of the run, then limped across in fifth position, as if she simply could not bear being that good.

If Mooney was sweating in fifty-degree weather, he had good reason to. He’d already dropped three hundred dollars. The fifth race was a $3500 maiden claiming race, full of horses so bad and so cheap their trainers were not afraid to lose them. Scouring the past performance charts in the Form, Mooney’s eye had fastened on a three-year-old gelding called Indicator. Superficially, his record was dismal. Always a bad sign, he’d been running route races on a regular basis, and his last six times out he’d not run any better than fifth while competing with the dogs of horsedom. His trainer, however, was E. Y. Caldecott, who’d had an estimable record with maiden horses, and Indicator’s last two times out he had done something completely out of character. He had broken slowly and rallied strongly, passing six horses and making up nine lengths in the last quarter mile. This was over six furlongs and that appeared to be Indicator’s optimum distance. He would expire going an inch farther.

Indicator’s recent running lines indicated that Caldecott was transforming the gelding into a strong stretch runner, particularly at six furlongs. The fifth race happened to be posted at six furlongs and the fact that the horse was blinkered and wearing mud caulks spoke tellingly of the trainer’s game plan.

Mooney knew this track to be plaster hard, particularly during April when the ground was not yet entirely thawed, therefore, heavily biased toward stretch runners and outside post positions.

The bandages on Indicator’s forelegs, however, gave Mooney pause. Bandaged forelegs on a hard track had negative implications, such as injury. Also the fact that Indicator, looking like a solid $6500 animal, was now slumming in a $3500 claiming race served to heighten Mooney’s uneasiness. With a dropdown of $3000 something had to be wrong with the horse, for neither trainer, nor any other businessman, gives away $6500 merchandise for $3500.

Still, the trainer and the running lines had just about swayed Mooney. And besides, the competition appeared weak. Carrerito was a turf horse. Dark Encounter was a sprinter with no guts much beyond the halfway. Zero Hour’s figure in his last 5’/
2
-length victory was atrocious. And now the tote board beside Indicator’s name was blinking 23-1.

Mooney rummaged deep within his jacket pocket and shredded the losing voucher tickets residing there. Four defeats had finally deprived him of his early-morning exhilaration.

It was several minutes before post time. He glanced once again at the tote board, still flashing 23-1, a mystic beacon that seemed pointed directly at him. In the next moment he turned, walked directly to the $50 window and bet his last $200 to win.

The gates opened with a roar. Indicator broke quickly and was running second when the field reached the first turn. Then he started dropping back. And back. And back. By the time the pack thundered past where Mooney stood stonyfaced, chewing the corner of his lip, the horse was in ignominy, running ninth. As they pounded past, Mooney felt the blast of heat from their exertions. As Indicator crossed before him he tried to peer directly into the gelding’s eye, and from there into its great throbbing heart, willing the creature to win.

After three-quarters of a mile, Indicator was fourteen lengths out. Mooney watched the great clots of powder flung from the gelding’s hooves, splatter dismally onto the track. With resignation, he lowered his binoculars.

But even as Mooney conceded defeat, Indicator had begun to gain ground on the final turn, running so wide that his jockey had to lean left in the saddle to keep him from going to the outside fence, Coming into the stretch he was still an impossible nine lengths behind the leader, Saddle Sore. The gelding continued to gather momentum through the stretch and suddenly he was in fifth position, coming up hard on fourth. If Mooney heard the wild roar of mankind gone mad in the stands behind him, he showed no outward sign. Encapsulated in a cold, cryptlike silence, he watched deadpan the blur of gray motion on the far track. He would permit nothing to break the line of communication between his own fierce will and that of the horse.

With only a sixteenth of a mile to run and in third position, Indicator still did not appear to have much of a chance. In those final yards, however, Saddle Sore began to tire perceptibly, and suddenly the gelding had pounded up abreast of him. The finish was too close to call.

During the agonizing moments while the photo was being developed, Mooney chewed his lower lip and consoled himself that even if the horse lost, he had not been disgraced. His own judgment was vindicated, even if it had cost him his last two hundred dollars.

On the board above the track the number 6 flashed—Saddle Sore, the winner by a nose. But a second later a red sign that said
OBJECTION
went up. It was a steward’s inquiry against the winner. Moments later, the track announcer reported that Indicator’s jockey, Angel Guzman, had also claimed foul against the winner.

Mooney sat numb beside the tote board where the numbers six and three, Indicator’s number, were flashing, while the stewards pondered their decision. A man beside him was holding a $2 ticket on Saddle Sore. He looked grim. “Forget it,” he said forlornly. “They’ll bust him.” And he was right. They did. Saddle Sore was disqualified for crowding Indicator on the first turn, forcing Guzman to check his horse sharply so he wouldn’t collide with Saddle Sore. The result was now official and the tote board flashed 3. Indicator was the winner and paid $43.20 to win. Mooney had won slightly more than four thousand dollars.

6

He had found her in a bar on Forty-ninth Street, the Spanish girl who disrobed for him, then took off his clothing, washed him, sat on his lap and dangled her breasts in his face. Laughing, she darted her tongue in and out of his ear, and squeezed him. Mooney lay back, accepting these attentions with an odd, almost gloomy reserve.

She was no more than eighteen or nineteen. Sweet and quite affectionate. Sympathetic to his size, and quickly grasping his problem, she knew how to make it all easy for him. Setting atop his pelvis, graceful and pert like a sparrow primping in a birdbath, she aroused him with her hands and mouth.

BOOK: Night-Bloom
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