Future Book — Robert Leslie Bellem

I POKED my horn where it didn't belong and Tracy Zane took a swipe at it. A little more heft behind the punch and I might have wound up with a set of fractured adenoids.

As it was, I rolled with his knuckles; hardly felt the impact. Then I grabbed him, turned him upside down, and shook him until his gallstones rattled. I didn't want to paste any lumps on him; even with his hair damp he weighed less than ninety pounds, whereas I top six feet and tilt the beam at two hundred.

All this happened one afternoon at the Hollywood Park race track. The rumpus started when I piped a gorgeous little auburn-haired doll in the grandstand crowd, weeping fit to bust a brassiere. She had a deck of twenty dollar pari-mutuel tickets in her dainty duke and the crimson imprint of somebody's fingers on her wan left cheek.