Hazard Read online

  The contrast between the two brothers was more than superficial. So much so that it seemed incredible they were from the same parents. Carl had always been the intense one, introverted and generally sober. Even during his younger years he seldom indulged in any of the flamboyant vanities that would have been normal. It seemed no distraction was ever compelling enough to bring Carl out of his serious self. Whenever he attempted to be outgoing it was too obviously forced, and it was said and accepted that he lacked a sense of humor.

  Hazard went to the other extreme and was better liked for it by nearly everyone. He sought out any escapade that took him across the grain of society. Even before he was old enough he was greatly preoccupied with girls, developed a way with them that resulted in his usually getting his way with them.

  Of course, this was when grass was still something to be kept off of and pills were only for those who were physically ill and acid was a symptom of indigestion. It was when dancing was still a moving embrace and Elvis was up there twanging and twitching and Brando set the phlegmatic style and the local police didn’t realize how easy they had it protecting the peace that was disturbed by dual straight mufflers on cars that had to roar to a certain illegal standard, cars that were shaved clean and leaded smooth, stripped nearly beyond recognition of their superfluous Detroit ornamentation and souped up so they could drag competitively at two in the morning on some residential street. It was the infancy of revolution, merely the rather naïve stirrings of it, and Hazard was into it. He was a good-time rebel, seemingly immune to any discipline or punishment his father gave out. Hazard did what he wanted, stoically paid whatever price his father put on it, and went right back to doing what he wanted.

  Not like Carl.

  Carl was the sort of student who had to work hard for good grades. Hazard could look once briefly at a page and recite it verbatim. He was a mnemonist, one of those rare beings endowed with the ability to recall at will whatever his senses experienced. During his early years he was so frequently called on to perform this feat that he got to be self-conscious about it, considered himself some sort of cerebral anomaly. As a result, he didn’t use his special mental gift to best advantage. Studies were too easy for him, boring because they mostly involved memorizing. To please his father he followed Carl into Dartmouth and then, to please himself, he didn’t finish. No matter that his grades were high among the highest. That only verified his opinion that the entire system was false-bottomed. Hell, he thought then, he could get more of an education just browsing in a good bookstore or library.

  In need of challenge Hazard went searching for it. After two years of transcontinental bumming, going nowhere, everywhere, he found what appealed to him most was uncertainty, chance, contesting his destiny rather than merely accepting it.

  He became a professional gambler.

  With his unusual mental faculties he should have been very successful at it. However, too often he chose not to stick to the professional’s logic, allowed his emotions to influence his choice, ignored the creed: cowards love favorites but an underdog is a fool’s worst friend. Perhaps Hazard felt he deserved such a handicap or, more likely, he was not immune to the gambler’s unconscious need to lose sometimes as well as win. Winning was a letdown from the excitement of the idea of winning, like the chase being more enjoyable than the kill. Whenever Hazard won big he was only temporarily elated; a depression would soon set in and the only way to counter it was to spend fast and bet back in big chunks. Anyway, he managed to lose enough so he never got substantially ahead, and to win enough to nearly support his better than average life style.

  Hazard, the day-by-day plunger.

  Carl, the pacifist, the plugger.

  But perhaps the difference between the brothers who now stood together at the bar of the Sign of the Dove was best summarized by something they had in common. They were both named Hazard. It was their family name. Carl, however, had always been just Carl, while hardly anyone ever thought of Hazard as Norman.

  Now Hazard had finished his depth charge and was trying for the bartender’s attention to order another. He told Carl, “I know what you need.”

  “Sleep,” said Carl.

  “Forget about everything. Go some place and just forget.”

  Carl hadn’t had a real vacation in years. It was his own fault. He just kept going.

  “There’s a guy I know who owns a place in Barbados,” said Hazard. “Right on the beach. Never uses it. I can give him a call.”

  To avoid committing himself, Carl asked, “How’s your money situation?”

  “Way ahead,” lied Hazard. At that moment all he had was in his pocket. Nine hundred and some odd dollars. But his bookie was paid up and what he owed Diner’s and American Express wouldn’t come due for a couple of weeks. Not exactly financial security but it was normal for him and no reason to panic.

  “I can let you have some,” said Carl.

  Hazard disregarded the offer. “I’ve got a friend who’d go down there with you and help you relax.”

  Carl seemed to be considering it.

  “A blonde,” said Hazard, and grinned. “At least she was last time I saw her.” He tried quickly to think of someone he could persuade to go along with Carl for nothing but the trip. A few possibilities came to mind, but no one for sure. It would mean he’d have to ask a special favor and he didn’t like having that kind of debt.

  “Sounds inviting,” said Carl, not really enthused.

  “It’s what you need. Two, three weeks of that.”

  “Maybe. I’ll let you know.”

  It was Carl’s way of saying no, which Hazard knew from times before, when he’d tried to get Carl away from his dry government routine. He ordered another beer.

  And vodka? The bartender wanted to know.

  Hazard hesitated, half closed his eyes as though concentrating, and then decided no on the vodka. The bartender placed the benign glass of draft in front of Hazard.

  Within a few seconds a dark-haired girl appeared in the archway entrance to the bar. She had on a full-length Paris policeman’s cape and held a miniature Yorkshire terrier in the fold of her arm. Her eyes found Hazard and she went to him. She gave him a kiss that said possession with its brevity. Hazard introduced her to Carl. First name only. “This is Keven,” he said.

  “Souping it up again?” she said to Hazard with a smile that didn’t camouflage her disapproval.

  “Just beer, plain beer,” said Hazard.

  Keven eyed his glass then, giving way to suspicion, took a close look and even sniffed above its head. “You’re a good boy,” she said, while her fingers soothed the Yorkshire between its ears.

  Hazard told himself she meant him, not the dog, which didn’t even belong to her. She borrowed it sometimes from a neighbor. He put his arm around her, inside the cape.

  She asked Carl, “Are you going with us to the track tonight?”

  “I’m afraid not,” said Carl. “But thanks anyway.”

  “There’ll be other times,” promised Keven, not just being polite.

  Hazard liked her for that. He quickly downed half the beer and called for the check. He wouldn’t let Carl get it. He charged it on his Diner’s.

  When they were outside Carl wanted to take a taxi. His apartment was on 49th, downtown, about twenty blocks out of the way, but Hazard insisted on driving him. They walked to Hazard’s car, which was parked in a yellow zone on 61st. Stuck under one of the windshield wipers was a parking ticket.

  “Another invitation,” remarked Keven.

  Hazard dropped the ticket into a nearby mailbox and got into the car. Keven refused to let Carl ride alone in the back seat. There was plenty of room for three in the front. The car was a 1938 Packard sedan in nearly mint condition. Original black paint without a scratch, interior upholstery authentically redone. Hazard had won the car playing gin the same January afternoon two years ago when he’d lost heavily on Miami in the Super Bowl. It was claimed that the Packard had once belonged to a gangster
and was bulletproof. It was solid and heavy enough but Hazard doubted that any gangster would be suicidal enough to settle for such a getaway. The best the Packard could do was zero to sixty in forty-five seconds, which didn’t even beat an old Volkswagen.

  When Hazard explained this to Keven, she said, “That’s probably why they made it bulletproof.” She preferred to believe the car had seen plenty of gangland action. Another thing she especially liked about it was being able to ride high above all the lower-slung newer cars, a superior vantage from which she could discreetly observe the various indiscretions of people in cars alongside. She thought she now knew why, really, there were so many accidents.

  They dropped Carl off in front of his apartment building. Hazard promised to phone Carl the next day and Keven advised Carl to relax in a warm bath with a cupful of soda bicarb mixed in to make the water feel soft. Soft as love, she said. They watched Carl go in, his walk stiff-weary, as though the entire weight of his body had gone to his legs.

  Hazard headed the Packard up Third Avenue and it wasn’t until they were stopped for a traffic light at 64th that Keven discovered Carl had forgotten his attaché case. Hazard’s first thought was to keep the case until tomorrow. Surely Carl wouldn’t be needing it until then. But Keven reminded him that they were expected up in Connecticut in the morning, so Hazard cut over to Second Avenue and drove back downtown.

  When they turned onto 49th, that one-way street was backed up with cars, barely moving because a delivery van was double-parked, causing a tight squeeze for the cars wanting to get by. Carl’s building was halfway down the block. When they were almost to it they saw Carl come out. He was flanked by two men in black suits. Dark-haired with swarthy complexions.

  Carl and the two men entered a waiting limousine. Another man of similar appearance was in the front seat next to the driver, who had on a visored chauffeur’s cap.

  Hazard thought it best to wait until he was alongside the limousine; then it would be simply a matter of getting Carl’s attention. But the limousine at once started away from the curb, aggressively using its left fender to pull out into the line of traffic. It was three cars ahead of the Packard, and Hazard could only watch it proceed around the double-parked van and increase its speed to the corner, where it turned right against the light and was gone.

  Hazard remembered how tired Carl had been. What was more important than the rest Carl needed so badly? Hazard didn’t want to believe Carl was allowing himself to be used to the breaking point by the damned government. Some extreme emergency must have come up, something important that truly demanded Carl’s attention.

  Hazard considered leaving the attaché case with the doorman of Carl’s building but decided that would be too casual. He’d call Carl the next morning. If Carl needed the case, Hazard would make a special trip down from Connecticut the following night.

  He replaced thoughts of Carl with the expectation of picking some winners at the track that night. Also, he anticipated having a couple, or maybe three, hot dogs. He was hungry and no hot dogs ever tasted as good as the ones sold at the track. His stomach concurred with a grumble.

  At that moment Keven told him, “I’m hungry too.”

  Hazard wished for some sure way to keep his thoughts to himself. She was incredible.

  She insisted that he stop at a health-food store on upper Madison. While she went in to shop, Hazard read the racing form. He didn’t have to study it. No straining to assimilate the crowded lists of rather hieroglyphic abbreviations and numerals. He merely scanned each page once, using his eyes like a camera to record all the information. In less than two minutes he had it all in mind. He folded the paper and dropped it to the floor of the car. The Yorkshire immediately began tearing at it as though it were a helpless enemy.

  Hazard slouched down and started handicapping, mentally reviewing and comparing the past performances, workouts, best times, distances, and all other possibly meaningful statistics of the horses that would be running that night. By the time Keven came from the store he’d made his selections in four races.

  He drove while she fed.

  Into his mouth she stuffed prunes and dried apricots, raw almonds, cashews, pumpkin and sunflower seeds. Deaf to his complaint that he wasn’t a goddamn bird, she kept on feeding him: little mealy apples and sections of anemic stunted oranges not half as tasty as the ordinary but twice as expensive because they were guaranteed to have been organically grown. She topped a carton of natural cultured yogurt with a generous sprinkle of raw wheat germ and shoved spoonfuls at him. He opened his mouth and took it rather than have it slop all over him. She encouraged him with remarks of how much better all these things were for his well-being, and although he was grateful for her caring for him, he had to say the flavor and consistency of the yogurt resembled coagulated milk of magnesia. For a final test Keven unwrapped a pressed-fig-and-sesame bar that didn’t taste bad but not good enough really to qualify as dessert in Hazard’s opinion. All the while Keven blithely munched away, making appreciating sounds as though everything tasted marvelous. But Hazard noticed she didn’t finish the yogurt, gave it to the Yorkshire on the premise that the dog required something more nourishing than a racing form.

  They arrived at Yonkers Raceway too late to bet on the third race. A horse named Skippa Skoo took it by a head.

  “I had him picked,” said Hazard, irritated.

  “He only paid three forty,” said Keven. She detested favorites, ignored them, never bet on anything less than four to one.

  Hazard shrugged off what he considered an avoidable loss and looked to the next race, an Exacta. That is, it offered a try at picking the horses that would come in first and second. The payoff was, of course, proportionately greater, frequently as much as a hundred to one. Hazard’s system for playing the Exacta was to key on one horse, the one that he thought had the best chance of winning. He combined that choice with two or three other horses, a couple of second favorites and the most promising long shot, covering every possible order of finish. The whole thing depended on the key horse. If it ran out, all was lost.

  Which is what happened.

  The horse Hazard keyed on got boxed in on the final turn, had plenty left, but couldn’t make its move. Right off, Hazard was out three hundred. Keven, on the other hand, had disregarded the Exacta and placed a straight five-dollar bet on the fourteen-to-one winner. That put her seventy-some dollars ahead. She managed to be not too elated and knew better than to boast about it. She left Hazard bitching to himself while she went to collect.

  Hazard wandered around trying to lose the loser feeling. His seeing the various cliques of heavy players didn’t help. They were regulars, pros. There was nothing slick about them. No fifty-dollar hats and hundred-dollar shoes. They were mostly paunchy types in baggy, pleated trousers and wash-and-wear shirts, talking through their teeth that clamped half-smoked unlit cigars. An altogether separate caste, elite in this element. They let that be known by exposing their thick folds of hundreds, which they counted and recounted, over and over as though disbelieving how much they were up or down. No show of emotion, ever. Certainly not a smile among them. It was serious business. They seldom watched a race. Usually they stayed inside the grandstand area, indifferent to the excited, urging crowd. Above such behavior. They might as well have been waiting for a bus instead of a race result on which they had thousands riding. At times, when they had inside information that was particularly solid, they bought their tickets, went directly to the win windows and stood there without a doubt, ready to cash in.

  Hazard recognized several of these heavy players from other times, other tracks. He knew them well enough to exchange nods. It occurred to Hazard that maybe they had something good going tonight. Perhaps he could get in on it. But it would mean he’d have to talk his way in with them, and they’d consider it a handout. He vetoed the idea. It wasn’t his style. They weren’t his style.

  Instead, he bought a hot dog, squirted it with mustard and ate it quickly. It would hav
e tasted better, he thought, if Keven hadn’t stuffed him with all that garbage.

  He went back to where he’d said he’d meet her. He found her intent on the tote board, oblivious to the two silk-suited Seventh Avenue types who were on the offensive, had her in a verbal crossfire.

  Hazard wasn’t worried, but he cut in, claimed Keven with an arm around and took her out of range. She didn’t act glad to see him but that wasn’t unusual. Whenever he came back to her she just picked up where they’d left off, as though they hadn’t been apart. Not that she was cold. Rather, she preferred getting to and staying with the heart of things. In many respects her eccentricities were equal to Hazard’s, and no doubt that was one of his reasons for liking her.

  She called his attention to the number-three entry on the tote board. “Could be an overlay,” she said.

  “Could be,” he said.

  The number-three horse had been a two-to-one favorite on the morning line but was now ten to one. The odds were being affected by an unexpected amount bet on a couple of other horses in the race. Keven was very excited about it. To her it was like finding a fantastic bargain at Bloomingdales. A favorite going at a good price.

  Hazard concentrated for a few moments and again mentally handicapped the race. His conclusion was that the number-three horse had a definite edge. That meant someone was purposely manipulating the odds and would, at the last possible moment, chunk down on number three. An overlay.

  “If only the price stays up,” hoped Keven.

  Hazard grunted.

  Then she looked at him and changed. He could feel her pull away before she did.

  “You’re a cheat,” she said.

  “What the hell did I do?”

  “I’m not going to care anymore. You just go ahead and do whatever you want. Ruin yourself, I don’t care.”