Free End of the Tiger by John D. MacDonald Page A

bad, and his face looked sweaty. I looked back at Stan Garner and raised one eyebrow in question.
    “He went heavy on Dancing Ann. Maybe four hundred worth.”
    Dancing Ann had been hit and rolled on the first turn. I whistled softly. I hadn’t been keeping track of anything outside my own window. Garner is the type who can work hard and keep his attention on ten different things at once.
    I looked at Dave again and I knew that this was the night when he was going to come to the end of the string. He had a bad case of the fever, and up until now it had paid off. But it had changed, and I sensed that he was going to ride it all the way down. It wouldn’t be a pretty thing to watch. I couldn’t be happy watching it, even though it meant that Joanne would be my girl when it was all over.
    We were running ten races. He made no bet on the fifth, at least no bet that I could see. I saw him bet the sixth. By then the word had gotten around. A lot of us saw him bet the sixth, holding the keys down for a frightening length of time, the bell bonging as each ticket was printed. He checked the sheaf of tickets and put them in his pocket and made a pencil notation on a piece of paper under the counter. His hand shook as he made the notation.
    “About two hundred,” Garner whispered. “On Skipjack I think.”
    The word was passed along. All the men behind the windows sweated out the sixth race. It was vicarious disaster. It was like watching a man cut his own throat slowly. Skipjack came in fourth. We watched Dave Truelow. He looked five pounds lighter than when he had reported.
    He made another sizeable bet on the eighth. Garner was the one who spoke to Dave, called across to him. “Getting in a little heavy, Davey?”
    Dave turned slowly. His voice and eyes were expressionless. “A little.”
    “How much, kid?”
    “Eleven hundred.”
    That word was passed along, too, and I found that I, like all the others, was pulling for Dave to come out of it. But I knew he wouldn’t. And I think he knew he wouldn’t. Luck goes sour and it won’t come back.
    I don’t know how Joe Stack heard about it. He had his own sources. I didn’t see him coming, but suddenly he was behind Dave. He stood there. He didn’t say anything. I saw Dave look back at him and then hunch more closely over his work. Joe stood there throughout the betting on the ninth race, and then went back to the money room.
    When the results were posted on the ninth, Dave turned toward Stan Garner and me. He had a crazy look on his face. “That’s what I needed to get even. Boxer Boy. That’s what I was going to play. Eight to one it paid and I didn’t get dime one down.”
    “He’ll have himself a good time figuring this last one,” Garner whispered to me. “Two favorites and six tanglefeet. He can’t get enough down on either favorite to make it all back.”
    “What will they do with him?”
    “This isn’t any twenty- or thirty-buck shortage, Johnny. They’ll hold him for the cops.”
    Dave waited until moments before the board closed. Once again he held down the keys. Garner stood on tiptoes and looked across. He checked the numbers against the starting position and said, in a tone of awe, “Kathy’s Prince! Good God!” Then he shrugged. “He’s down eleven hundred. Another hundred won’t make it hurt any worse.”
    I tried not to look at Dave as the race was being run. We could not see the finish line from the windows. We could all hear the sound of it, the rising roar as the dogs came around the final turn and into the stretch. Dave stood utterly motionless. The crowd sound died away abruptly as it always does, and people began to move toward the exits and the big parking lot.
    The P.A. system announced a photo finish between dogs one and seven. Seven was Kathy’s Prince. I looked at Dave. He wavered a little and held onto the edge ofthe counter for support. I began automatically to prepare my checkout. The bank had finished its final number of