THE JOCKEY came to the doorway of the dining room, then after a moment stepped to one side and stood motionless, with his back to the wall. The room was crowded, as this was the third day of the season and all the hotels iown were full. In the dining room bouquets of August roses scattered their petals on the white table linen and from the adjoining bar came a warm, drunken wash of voices. The jockey waited with his back to the wall and scrutihe room with pinched, crêpy eyes. He examihe room until at last his eyes reached a table in a er diagonally across from him, at which three men were sitting. As he watched, the jockey raised his and tilted his head back to one side, his dwarfed body grew rigid, and his hands stiffened so that the fingers curled inward like gray claws. Tense against the wall of the dining room, he watched and waited in this way.
He was wearing a suit of green ese silk that evening, tailored precisely and the size of a e outfit for a child. The shirt was yellow, the tie striped with pastel colors. He had no hat with him and wore his hair brushed down in a stiff, wet bang on his forehead. His face was drawn, ageless, and gray. There were shadowed hollows at his temples and his mouth was set in a wiry smile. After a time he was aware that he had been seen by one of the three men he had been watg. But the jockey did not nod; he only raised his still higher and hooked the thumb of his tense hand in the pocket of his coat.
The three men at the er table were a trainer, a bookie, and a rich man. The trainer was Sylvester -- a large, loosely built fellow with a flushed nose and slow blue eyes. The bookie was Simmons. The rich man was the owner of a horse named Seltzer, which the jockey had ridden that afternoon. The three of them drank whiskey with soda, and a white-coated waiter had just brought on the main course of the dinner.
It was Sylvester who first saw the jockey. He looked away quickly, put down his whiskey glass, and nervously mashed the tip of his red h his thumb. "Its Bitsy Barlow," he said. "Standing over there across the room. Just watg us."
"Oh, the jockey," said the rich man. He was fag the wall and he half turned his head to look behind him. "Ask him over."
"God no," Sylvester said.
"Hes crazy," Simmons said. The bookies voice was flat and without iion. He had the face of a bambler, carefully adjusted, the expression a perma deadlock between fear and greed.
"Well, I wouldnt call him that exactly," said Sylvester. "Ive known him a long time. He was O.K. until about six months ago. But if he goes on like this, I t see him lasting another year. I just t."
"It was what happened in Miami," said Simmons.
"What?" asked the rich man.
Sylvester glanced across the room at the jockey ahe er of his mouth with his red, fleshy tongue. "A act. A kid got hurt orack. Broke a leg and a hip. He articular pal of Bitsys. A Irish kid. Not a bad rider, either."
"Thats a pity," said the rich man.
"Yeah. They were particular friends," Sylvester said. "You would always find him up in Bitsys hotel room. They would be playing rummy or else lying on the floor reading the sports page together."
"Well, those things happen," said the rich man.
Simmons cut into his beefsteak. He held his fork prongs downward on the plate and carefully piled on mushrooms with the blade of his knife. "Hes crazy," he repeated. "He gives me the creeps."
All the table