And the horses came cantering back for the weighing-in, and the crowd yelled for blood as Tingaling Bell, grinning all over his face, threw his whip to the valet and slipped off the sweating chestnut and carried his saddle to the scales.
And then there was a great burst of cheering. Opposite the name of Shy Smile the word OBJECTION, white on black, had been slipped in, and the loudspeaker was saying: “Attention please. In this race there has been an objection lodged by Jockey T. Lucky on No3, Pray Action, against the riding of Jockey T. Bell on No10, Shy Smile. Do not destroy your tickets. I repeat, Do not destroy your tickets.”
Bond took out his handkerchief and wiped his hands. He could imagine the scene in the projection room behind the judges’ box. Now they would be examining the film. Bell would be standing there looking hurt, and, beside him, No1’s jockey looking still more hurt. Would the owners be there? Would the sweat be running down Pissaro’s fat jowls into his collar? Would some of the other owners be there, pale and angry?
And then came the loudspeaker again and the voice saying:
“Attention please. In this race, No10, Shy Smile, has been disqualified and No3, Pray Action, has been declared the winner. The result is now official.”
Amidst the thunder of the crowd, Bond got stiffly up from his seat and walked off in the direction of the bar. And now for the payoff. Perhaps a Bourbon and branch-water would give him some ideas about getting the money to Tingaling Bell. He was uneasy about it. And yet the Acme Baths sounded an easy enough place. Nobody knew him in Saratoga. But after that he would have to stop working for Pinkertons. Call up Shady Tree and complain about not getting his five thousand. Worry him about his own payoff. It had been fun helping Leiter push these people around. Next would come Bond’s turn,
He pushed his way into the crowded bar.
13
ACME MUD AND SULPHUR
IN the small red bus there was only a Negress with a withered arm and, beside the driver, a girl who kept her sick hands out of sight and whose head was completely shrouded in a thick black veil which fell to her shoulders, like a bee-keeper’s hat, without touching the skin of her face.
The bus, which said ‘Acme Mud and Sulphur Baths’ on its sides and ‘Every Hour on the Hour’ above the windscreen, went through the town without picking up any more customers and turned off the main road down a badly maintained gravel track through a plantation of young firs. After half a mile, it rounded a corner and went down a short hill towards a cluster of dingy grey clapboard buildings. A tall yellow-brick chimney stuck up out of the centre of the buildings and from it a thin wisp of black smoke rose straight up into the still air.
There was no sign of life in front of the Baths, but as the bus pulled up on the weedy gravel patch near what seemed to be the entrance, two old men and a limping coloured woman emerged through the wire-screened doors at the top of the steps and waited for the passengers to alight.
Outside the bus the smell of sulphur hit Bond with sickening force. It was a horrible smell, from somewhere down in the stomach of the world. Bond moved away from the entrance and sat down on a rough bench under a group of dead-looking firs. He sat there for a few minutes to steel himself for what was going to happen to him through the screen doors and to shake off his sense of oppression and disgust. It was partly, he decided, the reaction of a healthy body to the contact with disease, and it was partly the tall grim Belsen chimney with its plume of innocent smoke. But most of all it was the prospect of going in through those doors, buying the ticket, and then stripping his clean body and giving it over to the nameless things they did in this grisly ramshackle establishment.
The bus rattled off and he was alone. It was absolutely quiet. Bond noticed that the two side windows and the entrance door made two eyes and a mouth. The place seemed to be looking at him, watching him, waiting for him. Would he come in? Would they have him?