Field of Thirteen - Dick Francis [61]
The Sports Editor shook his head over the Hialeah clipping and laid it aside. Twice in the past six weeks Fred had been incapable of writing a story at all. Each time when he had not phoned through they had fudged up a column in the office and stuck the Collyer name on it, but two missed deadlines were one more than forgivable. Three, and it would be all over. The management were grumbling louder than ever over the inflated expense accounts, and if they found out that in return they had twice received only sodden silence, no amount of for-old-times-sake would save him.
I did warn him, thought the Sports Editor uneasily. I told him to be sure to turn in a good one this time. A sizzler, like he used to. I told him to make this Derby one of his greats.
Fred Collyer checked into the motel room the newspaper had reserved for him and sank three quick mid-morning stiffeners from the bottle he had brought along in his briefcase. He shoved the Sports Editor’s warning to the back of his mind because he was still sure that drunk or sober he could outwrite any other commentator in the business, given a story that was worth the trouble. There just weren’t any good stories around any more.
He took a taxi out to Churchill Downs. (Cab fare, $24.50, he wrote on the way; and paid the driver eighteen.)
With three days to go to the Derby the racecourse looked clean, fresh and expectant. Bright red tulips in tidy columns pointed their petals uniformly to the blue sky, and patches of green grass glowed like shampooed rugs. Without noticing them Fred Collyer took the elevator to the roof and trudged up the last windy steps to the huge glass-fronted press room which ran along the top of the stands. Inside, a few men sat at their laptop computers knocking out the next day’s news, and a few more stood outside on the racetrack-side balcony actually watching the first race, but most were engaged on the day’s serious business, which was chat.
Fred Collyer bought himself a can of beer at the simple bar and carried it over to his named place, exchanging Hi-yahs with the faces he saw on the circuit from Saratoga to Hollywood Park. Living on the move in hotels, and altogether rootless since Sylvie got fed up with his absence and his drinking and took the kids back to Mom in Nebraska, he looked upon racecourse press rooms as his only real home. He felt relaxed there, assured of respect. He was unaware that the admiration he had once inspired was slowly fading into tolerant pity.
He sat easily in his chair reading one of the day’s duplicated news releases.
‘Trainer Harbourne Cressie reports no heat in Pincer Movement’s near fore after breezing four furlongs on the track this morning.’
‘No truth in rumour that Salad Bowl was running a temperature last evening, insists veterinarian John Brewer on behalf of owner Mrs L. (Loretta) Hicks.’
Marvellous, he thought sarcastically. Negative news was no news, Derby runners included.
He stayed up in the press room all afternoon, drinking beer, discussing this, that and nothing with writers, photographers, publicists and radio newsmen, keeping an inattentive eye on the racing on the closed-circuit television, and occasionally going out onto the balcony to look down on the anthill crowd far beneath. There was no need to struggle around down there as he used to, he thought. No need to try to see people, to interview them privately. Everything and everyone of interest came up to the press room sometime, ladling out info in spoon-fed dollops.
At the end of the day he accepted a ride back to town in a colleague’s Hertz car (cab fare, $24.50), and in the evening, having laid substantial bourbon foundations in his own room before setting out, he attended the annual dinner of the Turfwriters’ Association. The throng in the big reception room was pleased enough to see him, and he moved among the assortment of press-men, trainers, jockeys, breeders, owners and wives and girlfriends like a fish in his own home pond. Automatically before dinner he put away four doubles on