Ray handed him the Form and pointed out the race so he'd not have to look for it. He said, "And Aqueduct'll be a fast track tomorrow. No rain there for two weeks and none in sight."
"Yeah," Connolly said after a minute. "I guess I'll put something down on her."
"I'll be seeing Amico soon as I leave here," Ray said casually. "Got a date with him. If you want me to save you calling him I'll put your bet down for you when I put mine."
"Might as well," Connolly said; he took his wallet out of his hip pocket and then hesitated. "Wonder whether to put ten on the nose or fifteen across the board."
An across-the-board bet, Ray thought, would get him five bucks more—and would cost him less if the horse did win. "I'm playing her across myself," he said. "Thirty bucks, ten each way. So if she even runs third I'll break even."
One thing he'd learned long ago: if you give a man a tip on a horse let him think you're betting at least as much as he is and preferably more. That way if the horse loses he blames you less, because you've lost too; you're a fellow sufferer.
This time it paid off even better than he'd expected. Connolly hesitated only a second and then took a twenty and a ten out of his wallet, handed them over. "Make mine the same way," he said. "If you can go thirty I guess I can."
"Good," Ray said. He put the bills into his wallet, holding it with the open edge toward himself so Connolly wouldn't be able to see how little had been in it before—a ten and two fives.
He looked at his wrist watch and pretended to be surprised by what he saw there. "Good God," he said. "A quarter after—and I told Amico I'd see him at eight. I'd better run. Maybe see you later in the evening, Chuck. So long."
Outside he took a deep breath of the cool evening air and decided that he felt swell, and that his luck had turned. Thirty bucks in one crack, even if he'd had to spend five to get it. And he now had fifty—enough, if a bare minimum, to get into the big game that would really change his luck.