Class Fives: Origins Read Free Page B

headaches.
    One time he had capitalized on five unexpected long shots in an eight race card, and by the time he collected the last of his winnings he felt like he would throw up the whole way home.
    That was when he made his first mistake.
    Up until that point he had been careful, always betting moderately, pocketing the majority of his win from each race and only making a limited bet on the next, so that at the end of the day the ten or twenty thousand he’d won had been spread out over numerous races and would go undetected on anyone’s cheating radar. And as long as he rotated tracks on a regular basis, used different betting counters for each race, he was never memorable enough to even be noticed.
    But after that heavy day of jumping he became more cautious about extending himself. So the next time he hit the track he’d lucked into a massive long shot with the first race and decided to bet everything he’d brought with him. The result was almost a hundred thousand. And suddenly he was having to fill out tax forms and getting his name and identity recorded, and he realized he could never return to this particular track.
    That was when he had begun his travels, driving around the country, working his way through the dog tracks in Florida, the various trotter races in the Midwest, and now he had arrived here, in California.
    He had intended to hit Hollywood Park and Santa Anita before moving on to Del Mar. He had been putting it off for some time now and his remaining cash had dwindled considerably. He had just enough put by to make one big killing on a single race and then disappear for a couple of years, maybe head out of the country and see what Europe had to offer in the way of pickings. And racing season was about to end.
    So what to do? How to work his way out of whatever complication he’d brought on himself this time?
    He sighed, leaning back in the seat and raising an arm to draw his hand over his face once more.
    Maybe it would be best to just go talk to the cops. He hadn’t done anything really wrong, after all. Maybe he could talk his way out of it. And if he couldn’t, then what? Take off again? Move out of state?
    “Idiot,” he muttered at himself and reached to flick on the radio, instantly flooding the vehicle with loud, jangling rock music. “Mr. Hero,” he said. “Dumb ass.”
    He drove on, into the afternoon.
     
    Dan rolled the mouse and watched the cursor zip across the screen to the icon for the virtual form in which to record his experiences of the day’s patrol. Another half hour, he told himself, and he could get out of here, maybe get home in time to catch the last quarter of the game on TV.
    The Lieutenant stepped out of his small office, flipping through the manila folder, pausing to scan the pages for snippets and phrases that would provide him with the gist of the many paragraphs of rather unimpressive prose that made up the report.
    “Sinski,” he called over.
    “Yes?”
    “On this liquor store assault, what’s this about the surveillance camera?”
    Dan sighed.
    “It was glitched.”
    “It was what?”
    “The image stopped about two minutes before the assault. Tape was blank after that.”
    “How’d that happen?”
    “I haven’t a clue. Crappy equipment, maybe.”
    The Lieutenant grunted, cast a glance back into the folder.
    “You didn’t talk to the last plate?”
    “No sir. Wasn’t home. Apartment manager’s supposed to call us next time he sees him.”
    “Well, you need to go check it out again in the morning.”
    “Sure thing.”
    “I want to put this one to bed quick.”
    “Right,” Dan responded. “Oh, by the way,” he added, looking up from the screen, “Is the DA gonna violate the victim?”
    “That’s up to him. But it’s a weapons charge so I’d bet yes.”
    “Total dumb ass. He just gets out and the first thing he manages to do is violate himself. How can people be that stupid?”
    “Who knows. But if they weren’t we’d be out of a