New from Mark Cramer TROPICAL DOWNS
a novel of peril and misadventure in search for the elusive automatic bet.

EXCERPT:
TWO

KLINGING

Absence makes the heart grow fonder. As we landed in Miami, I was already missing Sonia. But at this moment in my life, Saratoga was my other woman. She had been good to me in the past, but she was known for spurning even those who loved her the most.

Another uncertainty hung over my arrival. Vince, my Southern California action supplier, had suggested that I get together with a guy named Panama Slim, an L.A. real estate magnate. Vince explained that Slim could have been the Donald Trump of L.A. But while Trump cultivated celebrityhood, Slim, a la Howard Hughes, avoided all contact with the media.

“Wherever you turn, you bump into a Panama Slim building, especially in West L.A.”

Panama Slim was Vince’s landlord. Slim was a rarity in the business, a hands-on landlord. He would personally inspect the premises of his multitude of renters. Vince called him a control freak. A few weeks back, Slim, who had weighed in at 11 pounds at birth and sucked the nipples of his mother like a trained torturer, had inspected Vince’s store.

“I was worried he might object to the porno section, but he didn’t blink. In passing, just small talk, he mentioned he’d be away for a week on business in Bolivia, and that was the second time in my 45 years of life that I’d heard anyone mention Bolivia. You were the first. So naturally I told him I had a friend who was now living in Bolivia. First he asked if you were dependable. I thought the question was strange, but of course I said yes. You know me. I can’t hide the truth. Then he said he’d like to meet you. I told him I’d talk to you. ”

Vince’s honest authenticity inspired people to share information with him. Evidently Panama Slim was negotiating with entrepreneurs in the Bolivian lowlands to build a race track. I imagined there could be some sort of gig in it for me, and with racing involved, how could I not be curious?

They had once raced in the eternal-Spring valley city of Cochabamba, but the 9,000 foot altitude was simply too much for the horses. The highest U.S. track is near Santa Fe, at 7,000 feet, and even Arapahoe, at 5,200 feet, is a difficult race course for incoming shippers. One of my favorite angles involves horses vanning down to a sea level track from Arapahoe, provided they showed their previous work at Arapahoe within two days of the race.

Racing failed to thrive in Cochabamba, and marketing problems shared the blame with the uncomfortable altitude. At near sea level, Santa Cruz was horse friendly. People gambled on local card games, cock fights, and even motorcycle drag races. The Santa Cruz region had replaced La Paz as Bolivia’s business center and money passed freely from hand to hand, disposable income that could easily find its way into pari-mutuel pools. Agribusiness and banking were big. Once you got out of the city, the Santa Cruz hinterlands were Bolivia’s version of manifest destiny, with pioneers and adventurers drawn there in hopes of getting rich. I would learn the details from Panama Slim.

Miami should have been a simple transition. But something was coming over me. Carrying only a backpack, I found myself yearning to haul some bulky luggage, envying people with the heaviest loads. It was uncharacteristic. I'd spent the decade avoiding heavy objects ever since I'd worked on a janitorial staff and had had to bump and roll refrigerators up staircases. It was a small frame lifting big frame, and I did it, but not without discomfort.

My ex-wife had a penchant for home improvement and she would start things that I had to finish. The finish might include disposing of heavy boxes of refuse, or changing the position of oversized furniture.

That was not the reason for my petitioning divorce, but it certainly didn't help the marriage. In a moment of epiphany, I had resolved to avoid all unpleasant physical labor connected to human maintenance. I even made that clear before I married Sonia. As it was, 80 percent of life is spent on maintenance, and I was committed to improving the quality of the maintenance time. I'd paid my dues.

Now, here in Miami, I was experiencing my Arapahoe-shipper angle in the flesh, and was bursting with pent energy. I found myself volunteering to lift an old lady's bulky suitcase from the carousel to the trolley. 

My bloodstream was brimming with the extra red corpuscles that the body manufactures to compensate for the low air pressure and resulting lack of oxygen at obscenely high altitudes.

Considering my newly obtained superpowers, I discarded the rent-a-car idea, and resolved to buy a used bicycle for my energizing commute between the Glens Falls summer cottage of my aunt Ada and Saratoga. My 88-year-old aunt, ruggedly individualistic, would not consider the possibility of a nursing home, and continued to maintain this cottage as well as her regular home, a wobbly Victorian structure near downtown Albany.

Getting a bicycle was both an aesthetic and a strategic decision. I had found that bicycle commuting to Laurel Race Course had sharpened my mind for the intense decision-making tasks of in-the-trenches horse betting.

The first two afternoons of Saratoga racing proved that the anomaly of August fog in the Andes had carried over into the races. I hadn't the mistiest notion of how to pick a winner. The usual methods, based on small-track shippers and Saratoga trainer specialists, were not working. The turf course, which once favored closers, was now an ally of front runners, but turf horses that had never raced in front were suddenly changing their styles and leading the pack.     Continued