Текст книги "Hugger Mugger"

Автор книги: Robert B. Parker

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NINE

I WAS HAVING breakfast with Billy Rice off the back of a commissary truck parked under some high pines at the edge of the Three Fillies training track.

"Donuts put a nice foundation under your morning," Rice said.

"Go good with coffee too," I said.

Across from us the track was empty, except for Hugger Mugger. We could hear him breathing in the short heavy way that horses breathe. His chest was huge. His legs were positively dainty, the odd, beautiful result of endless selectivity. A half-ton heart-lung machine on legs smaller than mine. His only function was to run a mile or so, in two minutes or so. Rice watched him all the time while we ate our donuts.

"Great horse?" I said.

"Be a great horse," Rice said.

"Doesn't look that different."

"Ain't what makes a great horse," Billy said. "Same as any athlete. He got to have the right body, and the right training. Then he got to have the heart. One with the heart be the great one."

"And he's got it?"

"Yes, he do."

"How do you know?"

Rice was too gentle a man to be scornful. But he came close.

"I know him," Rice said.

He was smallish. Not smallish like a jockey, just smallish compared to me. He wore jeans and sneakers and a polo shirt and a baseball cap that read THREE FILLIES across the front, over the bill. Martin, the trainer, leaned on the fence watching Hugger Mugger. And four Security South sentinels stood around the track.

"Tell me about the prowler," I said.

Rice sipped his coffee. His dark eyes were thoughtful and opaque, a little like the eyes of the racehorses.

"Nothing much to tell. I sleeping with Hugger. I hear a noise, shine my flashlight, see a gun. When I shine my light, the gun goes away. I hear footsteps running. Then nothing."

"You didn't follow?"

"I don't have no gun. Am I going out in the dark, chase somebody got a gun?"

"No," I said. "You're not."

"How 'bout you?" Rice said.

"I'm not either," I said. "Can you describe the gun?"

"No. Don't know much 'bout guns."

"Handgun or long gun?"

"Long gun."

"Shotgun or rifle?"

"Don't know."

"One barrel or two?"

"One."

"What kind of front sight?"

"Don't know," Rice said. "Only saw it in the flashlight for a second."

"Color?"

"Color? What color is a gun barrel? It was iron-colored."

"Bluish?"

"Yes, I guess."

"How about the footsteps? Heavy? Light? Fast? Slow?"

"Just footsteps, sounded like running. It was on the dirt outside the stable. Didn't make a lot of noise."

"Any smells?"

"Smells?"

"Hair tonic, shaving lotion, cologne, perfume, mouthwash, tobacco, booze, liniment."

"Sleeping in the stable," Rice said, "mostly everything smells like horses."

I nodded.

"They going to bring Jimbo out," Rice said. "Time to get Hugger out the way."

The exercise rider brought Hugger Mugger to the rail. Billy snapped the lead shank onto his bridle. The exercise rider climbed down, and Billy led Hugger Mugger back toward the stable area. As they walked their heads were very close together, as if they were exchanging confidences. The security guards moved in closer around Hugger Mugger as he walked, and by the time he'd reached the stable area they were around him like the Secret Service.

I moved up beside Hale Martin. Coming from the stable area toward the track was an entourage of horses and horse keepers. There was a big chestnut horse with a rider up and a groom on either side holding a shank. With them were two other horsemen, one on each side. The chestnut was tossing his head and skittering sideways as he came.

"Jimbo?" I said to Martin.

"Jimbo," Martin said.

The outriders gave with him as Jimbo skittered, and closed back in on him when he stopped. Riding him was a red-haired girl who might have been seventeen. The grooms and the outriders were men. One of the outriders had a cast on his right leg. He rode to the right, so that the injured leg was away from Jimbo.

"What about the guy with the cast?" I said.

Martin grinned.

"Jimbo," he said.

When Jimbo was on the track, the outriders peeled off and sat their horses in the shade near the track entrance. The grooms unsnapped their lead shanks at the same time and stepped quickly away. Jimbo reared and made horse noises. The red-haired girl held his head straight, sitting high up on his shoulders as if she were part of the horse. She gave him a light tap on the backside with her whip, and Jimbo tossed his head and began to move down the track.

"Run him a lot," I said. "Get him tired."

"Just makes him cranky," Martin said, his eyes following Jimbo. The redhead let him out and he began to sprint.

"Has he killed anyone yet?"

"Nope."

"But he might," I said.

"He wants to," Martin said.

"You have to handle him like this all the time?"

"Yep."

"Is it worth the bother?"

"He can run," Martin said.

"How about gelding?"

"Somebody gelded John Henry," Martin said. "Do you know how much money that cost them?"

"Stud fees?"

"You bet."

"You mean you'd let Jimbo loose with a mare?"

"He's different around mares," Martin said.

"Him too," I said.

TEN

MICKEY BLAIR WENT out of the track office with a springy walk that made her long blond braid bounce against the full length of her spine. She left the door open behind her. Through the open door, I could look straight along the stable row where the horses hung their heads out of their stalls and looked around. It reminded me of one of those streets in Amsterdam where the whores sat in windows.

I had a yellow legal-size pad on the desk by my right hand, and a nice Bic pen lying on it at a rakish angle. The pad was blank. I had spent the day interviewing stable crew about the attempt on Hugger Mugger and had learned so little that I thought I might have crossed into deficit. I looked at my watch. Twenty to five. Penny Clive came in wearing black jeans and a white T-shirt and a black jacket. She went to the refrigerator, took out two Cokes, and handed me one. She sat down on the couch and put her feet up on the coffee table. I was able to observe that her jeans fit her very well. It was about the only thing I'd observed all day.

"You got him in your sights?" she said.

"I think I know somewhat less than I did this morning."

"Oh dear," Penny said.

We each drank some Coke.

"I gather my sister came to visit," Penny said.

"Where did you gather that?" I said.

She smiled and shrugged.

"Daddy likes to know what SueSue and Stonie are up to," she said.

"So you keep an eye on them?"

"It's a small community," Penny said. "I usually know what's going on in it."

"Someone at the motel tipped you."

She smiled.

"Because you'd alerted them," I said.

She continued to smile.

"Because you figured she'd come to call," I said.

"SueSue is predictable," Penny said.

"Who keeps an eye on you?" I said.

"I'm self-regulating," Penny said, and her smile increased so that the laugh parentheses at the corners of her mouth deepened. "I hope SueSue wasn't offensive."

"Not at all," I said.

"She has a problem with alcohol," Penny said.

"I gathered that she might."

"And men," Penny said.

I was quiet. Penny was quiet.

Finally Penny said, "Did she come on to you?"

"I wondered how you were going to get to it. Straight on is good."

"Thank you. Did she?"

"I think that's between SueSue and me," I said.

Penny nodded.

"Of course," she said. "I'm sorry to be cross-examining you."

"Just doing your job," I said.

"It's not like it sounds," she said. "My sisters are both, what, wild? Daddy is just trying… He's being a daddy."

"How are the marriages?" I said.

"They don't work very well."

"Children?"

"No."

"How's Daddy feel about that?"

"He wants an heir."

"Is it up to you?" I said.

She almost blushed.

"Not yet, not now," she said. "I've got too much to do here. Three Fillies is a huge operation, Daddy can't run it by himself anymore."

"Gee, he looks fine," I said.

"Oh, he is. But he's got too much money now. He's… too important. He travels a great deal now. He and Dolly. He just can't concentrate anymore on the day-to-day grind of it."

"How about the sons-in-law?" I said.

She shrugged. "They're married to his daughters," Penny said.

"Isn't Cord the executive VP?"

"Yes."

"And Pud is…?"

"VP for marketing."

"Are they real jobs?" I said.

"Well, you come straight at it too, don't you?"

"Susan does subtle," I said. "I'm not smart enough."

"Of course you're not," Penny said. "No, they aren't real jobs. I think Daddy hoped they would be. But Pud is… well, you saw Pud."

"I saw him at his worst," I said.

"True, and he's not always that bad. When he's sober he's kind of a good old boy."

"When is he sober?"

"Almost every day," Penny said, "until lunch."

"And Stonie's husband?"

"Cord."

I nodded. She looked out at the line of stalls. Hugger Mugger, third from the end, was looking out of his stall past the Security South guard as if he were pondering eternity.

"You think he's pondering eternity?" I said.

"Hugger? He's pondering lunch," Penny said.

"How about Cord?" I said. "Is he a good old boy, when he's sober?"

She looked almost startled.

"No, Cord isn't a drinker," she said. "A little white wine to be social, maybe."

"And as an executive VP?"

She shook her head. "Cord's very artistic."

"So was Wallace Stevens," I said.

"Isn't he some kind of poet?"

"Yes. He was also vice president of an insurance company."

"Isn't that odd," Penny said. "Cord isn't really interested in business, I'm afraid."

"What's he interested in?"

"Are you being a detective again?"

"I'm always being a detective," I said.

"Why do you want to know about Cord?"

"Because I don't know. Part of what I do is collect information. When I have collected enough I sometimes know something."

"Well, I think it's time to stop talking about my family."

"Sure," I said.

We were quiet for a while.

"I know I introduced the topic," Penny said.

I nodded. Penny smiled. Her teeth were very white against her honeyed tan.

"So I guess I can unintroduce it," she said.

"Sure," I said.

"I don't want you to think ill of us," Penny said. "All families have their problems. But all in all, we're a pretty nice group."

I didn't know what all this had to do with Hugger Mugger. But I was used to not knowing. I expected sooner or later that I would know. For now I simply registered that she hadn't wanted to talk about Cord and Stonie. I decided not to mention what SueSue had told me.

"Of course you are," I said.

ELEVEN

I SAT WITH Walter Clive at the Three Fillies syndication office in downtown Lamarr. He wore some sort of beige woven-silk pullover, tan linen slacks, no socks, and burgundy loafers. His tan remained golden. His silver hair was brushed straight back. A thick gold chain showed at his neck. His nails were buffed. He was clean-shaven and smelled gently of cologne.

"Penny tells me you're making progress," Clive said.

He was leaning back in his high-backed red-leather swivel chair, with his fingers interlocked over his flat stomach. There was a wide gold wedding band on his left hand. Past the bay window behind him I could see the white flowers of some blossoming shrub.

"Penny exaggerates," I said.

"Really?" he said.

"I have made no progress that I can tell."

"Well, at least you're honest," Clive said.

"At least that," I said.

"Perhaps Penny simply meant that you had talked to a number of people."

"That's probably it," I said. "I have managed to annoy Jon Delroy."

"Penny mentioned that too."

"Thanks for having her talk with him."

"Actually that was Penny's doing."

"Well, it was effective."

"Jon's been with me a long time," Clive said. "He's probably feeling a little displaced."

"How long?"

"Oh, what, maybe ten years."

"Really. What was he doing?"

Clive paused, as if the conversation had gone off in a direction he hadn't foreseen.

"I have a large enterprise here. There is need for security."

"Sure. Well, he and I seem to be clear on our roles now."

Clive nodded, and leaned forward and pushed the button on an intercom.

"Marge," he said. "Could you bring us coffee."

A voice said that it would, and Clive leaned back again and smiled at me. The window to my right was partially open and I could hear desultory birdsong in the flowering trees.

"So," Clive said, "have you reached a conclusion of any sort?"

"Other than I'm not making any progress?" I said.

"Yes," Clive said. "Are you for instance formulating any theories?"

"I've mostly observed that this thing doesn't make any sense," I said.

"Well, it is, sort of by definition," Clive said, "a series of senseless crimes."

"Seems so," I said.

"Meaning?"

"Meaning it seems so senseless that maybe it isn't."

Clive hadn't become a tycoon by nodding in agreement to everything said.

"That sounds like one of those clever statements people make when they're trying to sell you something you don't need," Clive said. "Does it mean anything?"

"I don't know," I said. "I can't say I know much about animal shootings. But for serial killers of people, you look for the logic that drives them. It's not necessarily other people's logic, but they are responding to some sort of interior pattern, and what you try to do is find it. The horse shootings are patternless."

"Or you haven't found it," Clive said.

"Or I haven't found it."

"They are all Three Fillies horses," Clive said. "Isn't that a pattern?"

"Maybe," I said. "But it is a pattern that leads us nowhere much. Why is someone shooting Three Fillies horses?"

"You're not supposed to be asking me," Clive said.

"I know," I said. "Is there anyone with a grudge against you?"

"Oh certainly. I can't name anyone in particular. But I've been in a tough business for more than thirty years. I'm bound to have made someone angry."

"Angry enough to shoot your horses?"

"Well, if they were, why would they shoot those horses? The stable pony's worth maybe five hundred dollars. Neither of the other two horses showed much promise. Heroic Hope can't run again, but insurance covers it. If you wish to damage me, you shoot Hugger Mugger-no amount of insurance could replace him."

"Me either," I said. "Maybe they were chosen because their loss would not be damaging."

"That doesn't make any sense."

"True," I said. "If someone didn't want to damage you they could just not shoot the horses."

A good-looking woman with close-cropped hair and high cheekbones and blue-black skin came in pushing a tea wagon. There was coffee in a silver decanter and white china cups and a cream and sugar set that matched the decanter. She served us each coffee and departed. I added cream and two lumps of sugar. Clive took his black.

"So what kind of security did Jon Delroy do for you?" I said.

"Why do you ask?" Clive said.

"Because I don't know."

"And you find that sufficient reason?" Clive said.

"Admittedly, I'm a nosy guy," I said. "It's probably one of the reasons I do what I do. But that aside, doing what I do is simply a matter of looking for the truth under a rock. It's under some rock, but I don't usually know which one. So whenever I come to a rock, I try to turn it over."

"Doesn't that sometimes mean you discover things you didn't need to know? Or want to know?"

"Yes."

"But you do it anyway?"

"I don't know how else to go about it," I said.

Clive looked at me heavily. He drank some coffee. Outside the window some birds fluttered about. They seemed to be sparrows, but they were moving too quickly to reveal themselves to me.

"I have three daughters," he said. "Two of whom have inherited their mother's depravity."

"Penny being the exception?" I said.

"Yes. They have not only indulged their depravity as girls, they have married badly, and marriage has appeared to exacerbate the depravity."

Clive wasn't looking at me. He wasn't, as far as I could tell, looking at anything. His eyes seemed blankly focused on the middle distance.

"Depravity loves company," I said.

I wasn't sure that Clive heard me. He continued to sit silently, looking at nothing.

"Among Delroy's duties was keeping tabs on the girls," I said.

He was silent still, and then slowly his eyes refocused on me.

"And dealing with the trouble they got into, and their husbands got into," he said.

"Such as?"

Clive shook his head. Outside, the birds had gone away and at the window there was only the flutter of the curtains in the warm Georgia air. I put my empty coffee cup on the tray and stood up.

"Thanks for the coffee," I said.

"You understand," he said.

"I do," I said.

TWELVE

SINCE IT WAS evening, and I wasn't being feted at the Clive estate, I had the chance to lie on the bed in my motel and talk on the phone with Susan Silverman, whom I missed.

"So far," I said, "only one sister has made an active attempt to seduce me."

"How disappointing," Susan said. "Are there many sisters?"

"Three."

"Maybe the other two are just waiting until they know you better."

"Probably," I said.

"I have never found seducing you to be much of a challenge," Susan said.

"I try not to be aloof," I said.

We were silent for a moment. The air-conditioning hummed in the dim room. Outside, in the dark night, thick with insects, the full weight of the Georgia summer sat heavily.

"Are you making any progress professionally?" Susan said after a time.

"I'm getting to know my employer and his family."

"And?"

"And I may be in a Tennessee Williams play… The old man seems sort of above the fray. He's separated, got a girlfriend, looks better than George Hamilton, and appears to leave the day-to-day management of the business to his youngest daughter."

"What's she like?"

"I like her. She's smart and centered. She finds me amusing."

"So even if she weren't smart and centered…" Susan said.

"Actually, that's how I know she's smart and centered," I said.

Susan's laugh across the thousand miles was immediate and intimate and as much of home as I was ever likely to have. It made my throat hurt.

"What about the other sisters?" Susan said.

I told her what I knew.

"You have any comment on a woman married to a man who prefers little boys?" I said.

"It would probably be preferable if she were married to a man who preferred her."

"Wow," I said. "You shrinks know stuff."

"In my practice, I know what my patients tell me. I know nothing about Stonie and whatsisname."

"Cord."

"Cord," she said. "And there is no one-fits-all template for a woman married to a man who prefers boys-if what SueSue told you is true."

"SueSue says that Stonie is so sexually frustrated that she is a threat to every doorknob," I said.

"Maybe she is," Susan said. "Or maybe that's just SueSue's projection of how she herself would be."

"And Cord? You figure he married her to get cover?" I said.

"Maybe," Susan said. "Or maybe he married her because he loves her."

"I could not love thee half so much, loved I not small boys more?"

"Sexuality is a little complicated."

"I've heard that," I said. "What bothers me in all of this is that I've got a series of so-far inexplicable crimes, committed in the midst of this family full of, I don't even know the right word for it-dippy?-people. I mean, there ought to be a connection but there isn't, or at least I can't find it."

"You'll find it if it's there," Susan said. "But most families are full of dippiness. Perhaps you don't always find yourself so fully in the bosom of a client's family, and thus don't have it shoved in your face from such close range."

"Maybe. Do you think there's a connection?"

"I have no way to know," Susan said.

"Do you think a man who prefers boys, or a woman who is married to a man who prefers boys, would have a reason to kill some horses?"

"As I've said, mine is a retrospective profession, as is yours. We're much better at explaining why people did things than we are at predicting what they might do."

"Our business is generally after the fact," I said.

"Yes."

"You're not going to solve this for me, then."

"No. I'm not."

"And what about my sexual needs?"

"I could talk dirty on the phone."

"I think I'm too old for that to work anymore," I said.

"Then unless you're coming home soon, I guess you'll have to mend your fences with SueSue."

"And if I do?"

"I'll shoot her, and swear I was aiming at a horse."

"I thought you shrinks had too much self-control for jealousy," I said.

"Only during office hours."

THIRTEEN

I WAS JUST finished shaving when I got a call from Becker, the Lamarr sheriff's deputy.

"Got a horse shot over in Alton, in South Carolina. Thought I'd drive over and have a look. You want to ride along?"

"Yes."

"Pick you up in 'bout fifteen minutes."

I was standing in front of the motel by the lobby door when Becker pulled up in a black Ford Crown Victoria. There was a blue light sitting on the dashboard, and a long buggy whip antenna, but no police markings. When I got in, the car smelled of food. Becker was drinking coffee. On the seat beside him was a large brown paper bag.

"Got us some sausage biscuits," Becker said, "and coffee. Help yourself."

He pulled the car away from the motel and out onto the county road.

"What about granola?" I said.

"Have to go over to Atlanta for that," Becker said. "People in Columbia County don't eat granola and don't tolerate those who do."

I poured a little container of cream into a paper cup full of coffee and stirred in several sugars. I drank some, and fished out a large biscuit with a sausage patty in the middle.

"Okay," I said. "I'll make do."

"Figured you'd eat most things," Becker said.

"What about the horse shooting?"

"Stable over in Alton, Canterbury Farms, somebody snuck around their stable last night, shot a filly named Carolina Moon."

"Dead?"

"Don't know," Becker said. "Just picked it up off the wire. Got no jurisdiction, you know, over in South Carolina."

"Me either," I said.

"Hell, you got no jurisdiction anywhere," Becker said.

"It's very freeing," I said.

I drank some more coffee as the Georgia landscape gave way with no discernible change to the South Carolina landscape. I checked my arteries. Blood still seemed to be getting through, so I had another sausage biscuit.

I was experiencing a little of the separateness I always felt when I was away from Susan. It wasn't unreality exactly, it was more a sense that there was a large empty space around me. Even now, sitting in a squad car, maybe eighteen inches from another guy, there was a sense of crystalline isolation. It was not loneliness, nor did the feeling make me unhappy. It was simply a feeling different from any other, a feeling available only when I was away from Susan. I was alone.

"What do you know about the Clive family?" I said.

"Somebody been shooting their horses," Becker said.

"Besides that," I said. "Any of them had any problems with the law?"

"Clives are the most important family in the whole Columbia County," Becker said. "They don't have trouble with the law."

"Have they come to the attention of the law?" I said.

We were driving along a two-lane highway now. There were fields with farm equipment standing idle, and occasionally a Safeway market or a Burger King. Traffic was light. Becker kept his eyes on the road.

"You got a reason for asking?" he said.

"I'm practicing to be a detective," I said. "Plus the family seems to be full of people who would get in trouble."

" 'Cept for Penny."

"Except for her," I said.

"Old man's calmed down some, since Dolly came aboard."

"But before that?"

"Well. For a while he was married to the girls' mother. Don't remember her name right this minute. But she was a hippie."

"Lot of hippies around thirty years ago," I said.

"Yep, and that's when they got married. But times changed and she didn't. 'Bout ten years ago she ran off with a guy played in a rock band."

"So Penny would have been about fifteen."

"Yep. The other girls were a little older."

"They're two years apart," I said. "So they'd have been seventeen and nineteen."

"See that," Becker said. "You been detecting more than you pretend."

"I'm a modest guy," I said. "How was the divorce?"

"Don't know nothing about the divorce."

"Was there a divorce?"

"Don't know. Not my department."

"So what was Clive doing between the hippie and Dolly?"

"Everything he could," Becker said.

There was a two-wheeled horse-drawn piece of farm machinery inching along in our lane. I didn't know anything about farm machinery, but this looked as if it had something to do with hay. A black man in overalls and a felt hat was sitting up on the rig, though he didn't seem to be paying much attention. The horse appeared to be the one on duty. Becker slowed as we approached it and swerved carefully out to pass.

"Booze, women, that sort of thing?"

"A lot of both," Becker said.

"Ah, sweet bird of youth," I said.

Becker grinned without looking at me.

"You hang around those Clive girls, you might get younger yourself," he said.

"While Clive's living the male fantasy life," I said, "who's looking after the girls?"

"Don't know," Becker said.

"Is there anything in this for me?" I said. "Clive screw somebody's wife, and somebody wants to get even? He sleep with some woman and ditch her and she wants to get even?"

"I don't pay attention to shit like that," Becker said. "Do I look like Ann Landers?"

"You look sort of like Archie Moore," I said. "And you sound like a guy who knows things he's not saying."

"It's a special talent," Becker said.

"The real talent is sounding like you don't know anything you're not telling," I said.

"I can do that," Becker said.

"If you want to," I said.

Becker watched the road.

"So why don't you want to?"

We passed a sign that read, "Welcome to Alton."

"Because you want me to wonder."

Becker slowed and turned into a narrow dirt road that went under high pines, limbless the first thirty feet or so up. I remembered it from my last visit, eight years ago.

"You want me to look into them, but you don't want it to have come from you, because it could come back and bite you in the ass."

"Clives the most powerful family in Columbia County," Becker said, and turned off the dirt road into a wide clearing and parked near a white rail fence near the Canterbury Farms training track.