"There's plenty more where that came from."
We proceeded to the racetrack. He made incredible twenty-dollar bets to win, and before the seventh race he was broke.
With our last two food dollars he placed still another bet and lost.
We had to hitchhike back to San Francisco.
I was on the road again.
A gentleman gave us a ride in his snazzy car. I sat up front with him.
Remi was trying to put a story down that he'd lost his wallet in back of the grandstand at the track.
"The truth is," I said, "we lost all our money on the races, and to forestall any more hitching from racetracks, from now on we go to a bookie, hey, Remi?"
Remi blushed all over.
The man finally admitted he was an official of the Golden Gate track.
He let us off at the elegant Palace Hotel; we watched him disappear among the chandeliers, his pockets full of money, his head held high.
"Wagh! Whoo!" howled Remi in the evening streets of Frisco.
"Paradise rides with the man who runs the racetrack and swears he's switching to bookies.
Lee Ann, Lee Ann!"
He punched and mauled her.
"Positively the funniest man in the world!
There must be a lot of Italians in Sausalito.
Aaah-how!"
He wrapped himself around a pole to laugh.
That night it started raining as Lee Ann gave dirty looks to both of us.
Not a cent left in the house.
The rain drummed on the roof.
"It's going to last for a week," said Remi.
He had taken off his beautiful suit; he was back in his miserable shorts and Army cap and T-shirt.
His great brown sad eyes stared at the planks of the floor.
The gun lay on the table.
We could hear Mr. Snow laughing his head off across the rainy night somewhere.
"I get so sick and tired of that sonofabitch," snapped Lee Ann.
She was on the go to start trouble.
She began needling Remi. He was busy going through his little black book, in which were names of people, mostly seamen, who owed him money.
Beside their names he wrote curses in red ink.
I dreaded the day I'd ever find my way into that book.
Lately I'd been sending so much money to my aunt that I only bought four or five dollars' worth of groceries a week.
In keeping with what President Truman said, I added a few more dollars' worth.
But Remi felt it wasn't my proper share; so he'd taken to hanging the grocery slips, the long ribbon slips with itemized prices, on the wall of the bathroom for me to see and understand.
Lee Ann was convinced Remi was hiding money from her, and that I was too, for that matter.
She threatened to leave him.
Remi curled his lip.
"Where do you think you'll go?"
"Jimmy."
"Jimmy?
A cashier at the racetrack?
Do you hear that, Sal, Lee Ann is going to go and put the latch on a cashier at the racetrack.
Be sure and bring your broom, dear, the horses are going to eat a lot of oats this week with my hundred-dollar bill."
Things grew to worse proportions; the rain roared.
Lee Ann originally lived in the place first, so she told Remi to pack up and get out.
He started packing.
I pictured myself all alone in this rainy shack with that untamed shrew. I tried to intervene.
Remi pushed Lee Ann.
She made a jump for the gun.