“Come on, boys!”
The voices were warm. Clapping hands.
“Run hard, Clay! Dig ’em in, son!”
The yellow light persisted behind the grandstand.
“Don’t kill ’im, Rory!”
“Hit him hard, Starkers, y’ ugly bastard!”
Laughter. Starkey stopped.
“Oi.” He pointed a finger and quoted the movies. “Maybe I’ll practice on you first.” Ugly bastard he didn’t mind one bit, but he couldn’t abide Starkers. He looked behind and saw his girl venture to the firewood seats in the grandstand. She had no business with the rest of this riffraff; surely one was bad enough. He shuffled his big frame to catch up.
Briefly they were all on the straight, but soon the dressing room boys drifted away. The first three would be Seldom, Maguire, and Tinker: two with agility and strength, and one brick outhouse to smother him.
The pair at the 200 would be Schwartz and Starkey, of which one was a perfect gentleman, and one a certified beast. The thing with Schwartz, though, was that while he was completely, emphatically fair, he’d be devastating in the contest. Afterwards, he’d be all white-tooth smiles and pats on the back. But at the discus net, he’d hit him like a train.
* * *
—
The gamblers were now on the move as well.
They spilled upwards, to the highest row of the grandstand, to see out past the infield.
The boys on track were prepared:
They punched the meat of their quadriceps.
They stretched and slapped their arms.
At the 100 mark, they stood a lane apart. They had great aura, their legs were alight. The falling sun behind.
At the 200, Schwartz was moving his head, side to side. Blond hair, blond eyebrows, focused eyes. Next to him, Starkey spat on the track. The whiskers on his face were dirty and alert, perpendicular to his cheeks. His hair was like a doormat. Again, he stared and spat.
“Hey,” Schwartz said, but he didn’t take his eyes from the 100. “We might land in that in a sec.”
“So?”
Then, lastly, down on the straight, maybe fifty meters from the end, Rory stood, quite easily, as if moments like these were reasonable; it was how they were meant to be.
Finally, the noise of an engine:
The car door sound like a stapler.
He tried to fend it away, but the Murderer’s pulse churned that little bit extra, most notably at the neck. He was almost desperate enough to ask Achilles to wish him luck, but at long last the mule looked a little vulnerable himself; he sniffed, and shifted a hoof.
Footsteps on the porch now.
The keyhole entered and turned.
I instantly smelt the smoke.
In the doorway, a long list of blasphemy fell silently from my mouth. A magician’s hanky of shock and horror, it was followed by miles of indecision, and a pair of bloodless hands. What do I do? What the hell do I do?
How long did I stand there?