“Maybe,” says Bill. “But he doesn’t want to talk, and I don’t know any way to make him.”
Some disgusted sounds come out of the loudspeaker. Sounds like Swahili this time. Bill listens. “O.K. He says he doesn’t figure to more than show. His feet hurt.”
The group breaks up like magic. They all beat it for the two-dollar show window. Bill tells the horse he’s sorry to have bothered him. Considerate guy, Bill. Out of the corner of my eye, I see one big guy looking at us, curiously. He’s wearing a sharp suit and a tie with the Aurora Borealis embroidered in purple and green on a gold background. I make it all about five hundred dollars on the hoof. Looks familiar too, but I can’t place him.
We walk over to the track and I spend the next hour cheering my horses into last place. My luck is run
