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them down, get them back to trotting or pacing before they can get back into it.
    “That happens, ninety-nine times out of a hundred, their race is done right there. That’s why you never want to hit a trotter with a speedball. He’s likely to get all excited, start running. That’s when you can tear up your tickets.”
    “But there’s other ways, right?”
    “With all the drugs they let them take now, who knows?” the old man said. He tapped a fresh cigarette out of his pack, looked at it for a second. Then he said, “Listen, you don’t have to come around here with this fairy story, okay? I got asked to do a favor, and I’ll do it. You want to pick up enough so you sound like you know what you’re doing, let people think you’re a handicapper, I can teach you enough. But you want to really look the part, you got to put in more than a few days, understand?”
    “Sure.”
    “I can’t be here every night. It’s a long drive from where I live. But I can come maybe two, three times a week, until you’re ready, fair enough?”
    “You’re the one doing the favor.”
    “That’s right. Now, I got some books at home. About harness racing. When I come down Monday night, I’ll bring some for you to look at. You willing to do that?”
    “Yeah,” I said, surprised. People don’t ask me to read books. “Thanks.”
    “In the meantime, just hang out, watch the races.
Only
watch, for now. You start betting before you’re ready, you could get lucky, think you actually know what you’re doing. Worse, you could get hooked on the action. Then you’ll never learn nothing.”
    “Okay,” I told him.
    It was early the next morning by the time I got back to my room. Motels are better than hotels—you can park right outside your room, and the desk clerk doesn’t need to see you come and go.
    I used one of the prepaid cells I always carry to make the kindof calls you make in my line of work. They never ask you for a credit card number, just an address.
    The hooker they sent over was like they all are.
    2
    “Never fall in love,” the old man told me a week later. “That’s certain death for a handicapper. It’s okay to have a couple, few horses that are like your guys, sure. You follow them, root for them, all that. But when it comes to betting on them, you got to make sure they’re placed right, first.”
    “How do you do that?”
    “Class is one way; you can see if the horse is going up against tougher company than usual. Or if he’s in soft. But, mostly, you got to watch the conditions. See this race here,” he said, pointing to the form. “It’s a ten K condition layout, only for non-winners of eight thousand, last six outs, okay?”
    “And even the winner, he only gets half the purse.”
    “You listen good,” he said, like he hadn’t expected it. “That’s right. And remember, the horse comes in second, he takes half of what’s left. All the way down to fifth.”
    “So, six races not to win eight thousand dollars, they couldn’t be winning too often.”
    “Or,” the old man said, smiling a little, “they were kicking ass, but the purses were real, real small. Sometimes, an owner don’t expect much from his horse, so he keeps him at the small tracks.”
    “Small tracks, small purses?”
    “Yeah,” he said, handing me the program. “You got it down. So show me, which one of these is in cheap?”
    “I think … this one,” I said, putting my finger on a horse who won five out of the eight races they showed on the form, but the purses were all under two thousand.
    “Maybe. Maybe so. Next thing is to look up the track,” he said, taking the program from me and turning some pages. “That’s Bangor, way the hell up in Maine. Speed rating for that track is two oh four, according to this little program you bought. What’s it for here?”
    I looked where he was pointing. “It says, ‘Yonkers, one fifty-nine.’ ”
    “Good! Now this here one we’re looking at, he’s been going in