Fanetti scowled. "I tell you what," he said. "The racetrack."
"The racetrack?"
"Yeah. A lot of Willy's friends hang out in the Clubhouse. You can't miss 'em. Especially on a weekday like this, they almost got the Clubhouse all to themselves. The suckers with the little bets hang out near the rail, but it's the Clubhouse for Willy's friends. You see...."
But Fanetti found himself talking to the doctor and to Laara. Heck had teleported.
... Out of blackness.
He heard a bugle call. He was high up over a grandstand in a terraced room almost the size of an auditorium. It was set up like an open-air restaurant with only one side open. That side faced the racetrack.
"They're coming from the paddock for the fifth race," a loudspeaker voice announced. "This is the forty-fourth running of the Belvedere Handicap for four-year-olds. Purse, fifty thousand dollars."
There was a bar and all but two or three of the patrons of the Clubhouse were clustered around it with drinks. Then, one by one, they drifted over to the barrier which overlooked the grandstand, the rail-enclosed viewing area, and the turf.
"Excuse me," Heck began. "I'm looking—"