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Hunch-think: that again.
I paid the May rent on the West Neely Street apartment even though I needed to start watching
my dollars and had no concrete reason to do so. All I had was an unformed but strong feeling that I
should keep a base of operations in Dallas.
Two days before the Kentucky Derby ran, I drove to Greenville Avenue, fully intending to put
down five hundred dollars on Chateaugay to place. That, I reasoned, would be less memorable than
betting on the nag to win. I parked four blocks down from Faith Financial and locked my car, a
necessary precaution in that part of town even at eleven in the morning. I walked briskly at first, but
then—once more for no concrete reason—my steps began to lag.
Half a block from the betting parlor masquerading as a streetfront loan operation, I came to a full
stop. Once again I could see the bookie—sans eyeshade this forenoon—leaning in the doorway of his
establishment and smoking a cigarette. Standing there in a strong flood of sunlight, bracketed by the
sharp shadows of the doorway, he looked like a figure in an Edward Hopper painting. There was no
chance he saw me that day, because he was staring at a car parked across the street. It was a creamcolored
Lincoln with a green license plate. Above the numbers were the words SUNSHINE STATE.
Which did not mean it was a harmonic. Which certainly didn’t mean it belonged to Eduardo Gutierrez
of Tampa, the bookie who used to smile and say Here comes my Yanqui from Yankeeland. The one who
had almost certainly had my beachfront house burned down.
All the same, I turned and walked back to my car with the five hundred I’d intended to bet still in
my pocket.
Hunch-think.