Free Denial by Keith Ablow Page A

necessarily produce self-control.  Sometimes you just see your destructiveness more clearly.  I pulled off Route 1A, lined my car up next to a thousand others and bought my two-buck program on the way to the betting windows.
    I didn't really know whether Kathy had slept with Trevor.  I didn't know whether she'd come back to me.  I didn't know if Emma Hancock would report me to the Board.  I didn't even know for sure whether I was officially off Westmoreland's case.  I had no idea where I would find the $4,815 mortgage payment Eastern Bank wanted for September.  What I knew was that Pompano Beached, whose name I liked immediately, was running in the fourth race of the afternoon, paying twenty-five to one, to win.
    Manny, the clerk at the window, beamed when he saw me.  "Help ya, Doc?" he urged.  He was a little, round-shouldered, obese man with gold crowns that shimmered when he spoke.
    "I need all kinds of help," I winked.
    "You and me both," he nodded.  "Missed you Saturday.  Trifecta came in.  Twenty-dollar bet paid out twenty-three grand."
    "Don't tell me:  A little old lady from Revere who lives in a triple-decker and bet her address."
    "Nope.  Guy was flashin’ a gold-and-diamonds Rolex. Nobody wins when they need to."
    "Don't say that, Manny.  I need to."
    "Then get back in your car."
    "Give me fifty bucks on Pompano Beached to win."
    "Hmm.  Pompano?"  He ran his fingers over his bald head like he still had hair.  "Fifty?"
    "Bad idea?"
    "There are no bad ideas," he chuckled.  "Not at Wonder land."  He looked past me, right and left.  "I might have a better one."
    I slid a five-dollar bill under the window.  It was Manny's standard fee.  He moved his hand to a panel of buttons but didn't press any.  "If I had fifty to spend," he said, tapping his diamond pinky ring on the countertop, "I'd lay it on Belle Dango."  His eyes lit up.  "I watched that bitch on a couple practice laps this morning.  I never seen a hound like that.  Every muscle carved like stone, Doc.  Fucking poetry in motion."  He shook his head.  "Pompano's built OK, but she's too pretty in the face.  Dog that pretty don't need to run, and she knows it."
    "Ain't that the truth.  What are the odds on Belle?"
    "Four to one."
    I wasn't about to turn down a tip from a gold-toothed gnome like Manny, but I didn't want to kick myself for getting off a winner, either.  "Twenty-five on Belle to win, twenty-five on Pompano to place."
    "I'd go thirty-five, fifteen," he nodded.
    "Done."
    He slid the five-dollar bill back to me.  "I'm in for ten percent."
    "Deal."
    Manny keyed in the bet just before the race began.  I heard the starting pistol fire and walked to the wall of television monitors adjacent to the betting windows.  The bunny flew down the track.  Pompano had faded well back by the first turn.  Belle Dango was stuck in the middle of the pack.  "Boxed in," I muttered.
    "She's setting the pace from the center," Manny said with confidence.  "Cagey little bitch.  I love that.  Fuckin’ beautiful."  I glanced at him and saw that he was talking to himself, not to me.  "Wait... wait... wait... wait... now!  Go!"
    Belle's spotted torso began flying past the other greyhounds.  I felt my heart begin to race.  My palms were moist.  She moved just behind the leader, started to fade a bit, then advanced.  The two dogs looked like one.  They turned the last corner into the homestretch.
    Out of the corner of my eye I saw Manny looking at the program, not the monitors.  "Homestretch," I called to him.
    "No way to beat Belle in the stretch.  Come get your money."
    I stayed put.  Belle opened up a lead and kept it.  Pompano Beached finished next to last.  I could hear my pulse in my ears.  I waited out the few people who were placing bets with Manny, then walked back to his window.  "My God, what a dog.  I thought she'd panic there in the pack.  It didn't look like she had anywhere to go."
    "You and me, we'd run