Hugger Mugger (19 page)

Mickey had finished washing down the chestnut filly, who was back in her stall, looking out at me. Half a carrot would get me anything. Mickey sat on an upended plastic milk crate, reading
Cosmopolitan.

“You got a carrot I can give her?” I said.

“In the bag,” Mickey said, nodding at a black canvas backpack lying near her left foot.

There was a plastic bag of loose carrots in the pack, in among what appeared to be gym clothes and makeup. I selected one.

“Put it on the flat of your hand and let her lip it off,” Mickey said. “That way she won't confuse your finger for a carrot.”

“Hey,” I said. “I was born in Laramie, Wyoming. You think I don't know horses?”

“Really? How old were you when you left?”

“Ten or twelve,” I said.

Mickey smiled.

“Hold your hand flat, let her lip the carrot,” she said.

Which I did. The chestnut filly took the carrot as predicted, leaving my fingers intact.

“You find anything?” Mickey said.

“Nothing special,” I said. “What do you think about Delroy?”

“He works for my boss,” Mickey said.

“I know that. But I figure anyone willing to exercise Jimbo has to have a certain amount of independence.”

Mickey smiled at me. She had a wide mouth. Her big eyes were steady.

“Delroy is a creep,” Mickey said. “He gives me the whim-whams every time I have to talk to him.”

“Really? That's the way I feel about Jimbo.”

“Jimbo's up-front,” Mickey said. “He wants to kill you and will if you'll let him. Delroy's a slimeball.”

“Don't beat around the bush,” I said.

Mickey smiled. “You asked me,” she said.

“What makes him so slimy?”

“He's so buttoned up and spit-shined and polite.

Kind of guy wears a blue suit to a beach party. But inside you know he likes to download kiddie porn from the Internet.”

“Literally?” I said.

“Hell, I don't know. I just know he's not the way he seems.”

“How?”

She smiled at me.

“Female intuition,” she said.

“But Penny likes him.”

“You bet,” Mickey said.

“ ‘Likes' is too weak?”

Mickey shrugged.

“I don't know. Sometimes I think they're doing the nasty. Sometimes I think she just uses him for her purposes.”

“Could be both.”

Mickey shivered.

“God, how revolting. Being in bed with him. Yuck!”

“He ever make a pass at you?”

“Not really,” she said. “He's too stiff and creepy. But he's a starer. You know? Sometimes when you first teach a horse to be ridden, you lay across the saddle on your stomach while he gets used to your weight. Which means your butt is sticking up in the air. If Delroy's around you he's staring.”

It had gotten dark as we talked. We stood in the small splash of light from the stable while around us the Georgia night, not yet black, turned cobalt. I took a card from my shirt pocket and gave it to Mickey.

“If you think of anything useful about Delroy, or
anything else, I'm at the Holiday Inn for the nonce,” I said.

“The what?”

“Nonce. But you can always leave a message on my answering machine in Boston.”

“I'd just as soon our conversation was private,” Mickey said.

“Me too,” I said. “Mum's the word.”

“Not nonce?”

“Mum,” I said.

“You talk really funny,” Mickey said.

“It's a gift,” I said.

W
HEN
I
GOT
back to the motel Herb's car was gone.

The next morning, when I came down for breakfast, Becker was sitting in the lobby, reading the paper, with his legs stretched out, so that people had to swing wide when they walked past him.

“Morning,” Becker said.

“Morning.”

I walked to the door of the lobby. Across the parking lot I could see Herb's car. My personal tail. On the job. I turned back to Becker.

“Breakfast?” I said.

“Had some, but I can have some more,” Becker said. “I like breakfast.”

We went into the dining room and sat in a booth.

“Fella outside sitting in his car with the motor running,” Becker said. “Know about him?”

“Yeah. He's been assigned by Security South to follow me.”

“And by luck you happened to spot him,” Becker said.

“They could have tailed me with a walrus,” I said, “and been better off.”

The waitress brought juice and coffee. We ordered breakfast.

“You know why he's tailing you?”

“He's supposed to make sure I don't go near Three Fillies—house or stables.”

“And if you do?”

“He calls for backup and they restrain me.”

Becker made a little grunt that was probably his version of a laugh.

“Be my guess that you don't restrain all that easy,” he said.

“Maybe it won't come to that,” I said. “So far, I've been outthinking them.”

Becker added some cream to his coffee, and four sugars, and stirred it carefully.

“Got some stuff back on Delroy,” Becker said. “He's got a record.”

“Good.”

“He used to be a cop. Then he wasn't. After he wasn't he was busted twice for scamming money from women. Once in Dayton. Once in Cincinnati. Did no time—in both cases the women changed their minds at the last minute and wouldn't testify against him.”

“ 'Cause they still loved him?”

“Don't know,” Becker said. “But here's a clue. He served three years for assault in Pennsylvania.”

“Think he might have threatened the witnesses?”

“Been done,” Becker said.

“It has,” I said. “Where was he a cop?”

“Dayton. I called the chief up there. Chief says Delroy was shaking down prostitutes. There was a police pay raise being debated by the city council. So they let him resign quietly. Which he did.”

“They get the pay raise?”

Becker drank some coffee and put the cup down and smiled.

“No.”

“Bet they're glad they let him walk,” I said.

“They are,” Becker said. “We don't like to go public on bad cops.”

“Sure,” I said. “Who'd he assault?”

“Don't know,” Becker said. “Probably some nosy Yankee private eye trying to get the goods on him.”

“Anyone would,” I said. “You know what I'd like to see?”

“I've always wondered,” Becker said.

The waitress brought our breakfast. Becker really did like breakfast—he had eggs and bacon and pancakes and a side of home fries. I had a couple of biscuits.

“I'd like to see Clive's last will and testament.”

“Thought you talked to Vallone.”

“I did. But I don't think Vallone says everything he knows all the time. In fact, call me crazy, but I don't think Vallone tells the truth all the time.”

“And him an officer of the court,” Becker said.

“What it looks like is that somebody in his family killed Clive to keep him from changing his will to include his illegitimate son.”

After some work, I got a little grape jelly out of one of those little foil-covered containers and put it on my biscuit. Becker signaled the waitress for more coffee.

“They'd kill him to keep somebody from getting a quarter of what they were going to split three ways? Unless there was a lot less than we think, that doesn't make a lot of sense.”

“It doesn't seem to. But what else makes any sense? He was killed two days after his DNA test confirmed Jason. Is that a coincidence?”

“Could be a coincidence,” Becker said.

“And it could be a coincidence that the horse shooting stopped when Clive died.”

“Or the shooter figured there was too much heat and went on vacation,” Becker said.

“Sure, and the whole thing about the horse shootings and Clive being shot is just another coincidence.”

“Or Clive caught the horse shooter in the act and got shot instead,” Becker said.

“Which happened two days after he found out about his son?”

“It had to happen on some day,” Becker said.

“Well, aren't you helpful,” I said.

“I like your theory,” Becker said. “But you know and I know that's all it is, a theory. You can't arrest anybody on it, and if you could, their defense lawyer would chew up our prosecutor and spit him into the street.”

“Well, yeah,” I said.

“So you need some goddamned evidence,” Becker said. “Something for the DA to hold up in court and
wave at a jury and say look at this. You know? Evidence.”

“That's why I want to see that will.”

“I'll get you a copy,” Becker said. “It'll give me something to do.”

“Here's something else you can do,” I said. “I want to go out to the Clive house and rattle the cages, and I'd rather they weren't expecting me.”

“I'm pretty sure I spotted several violations of the motor vehicle code on that car that's tailing you.”

“Kid's name is Herb. If I was a fox I'd want him to guard the chicken coop.”

“I can keep him busy for a while,” Becker said. “Be kind of fun, almost like being a cop. Maybe I'll bully him a little.”

The waitress put the check on the table. I paid it.

“You think this can be construed as a bribe?” Becker said.

“Sure.”

“You want a receipt?”

“It'll be our secret,” I said.

A
S
I
PULLED
out of the hotel parking lot I could see Becker swaggering over to Herb's car, looking very much like one of those small-town southern sheriffs we fellow-traveling northerners learned to loathe during the civil rights sixties—except that he was black. I smiled at the image and then it disappeared from my rearview mirror and I was out on the highway alone in the Georgia morning, heading for town.

I found Pud and Cord eating a late breakfast together in the coffee shop downstairs from their apartment.

“I'm going out and talk to your wives,” I said. “Either of you care to join me?”

“They won't let you in,” Cord said.

“Security South?”

“Yes.”

“I'm a little tired of Security South,” I said. “I think I'll go in anyway.”

Pud was wiping up his eggs with a piece of toast. He
stuffed the toast in his mouth and smiled while he chewed and swallowed. His complexion was more tanned than I remembered it. His eyes were clearer.

“You going in either way?” he said.

“Yep.”

“Want company?”

“You want to see your wife?”

“Yep.”

“You quit drinking?” I said.

“Pretty much,” Pud said. “Got a job too. Limo driver.”

“Okay with me,” I said. “You care to join us, Cord?”

Cord shook his head. “I don't want trouble,” he said.

“Okay.”

“When will you be back, Pud?”

“In a while,” Pud said. “You'll be all right.”

“What if there's trouble and something happens? What if they come looking for me?”

“If you'd feel better,” I said, “go down to the Bath House Bar and Grill and tell Tedy Sapp I sent you.”

“I know Tedy.”

“I know you do. When we're through we'll meet you there,” I said.

“Is that place open this early?” Pud said.

“Yes,” Cord said. “I'll see you there.”

He left us while Pud finished his coffee, and walked out of the coffee shop, neat and trim and walking erectly, struggling in parlous times to keep his dignity.

“He's not a bad little guy,” Pud said. “They were pretty rough with him when they threw us out. He's scared, and he's lonely, and he doesn't know what to do.
He's trying to be brave. I feel like his father.”

“It could get a little quick out at the old homestead,” I said. “If they don't want us to come in.”

“Ah hell,” Pud said. “I'm with you, tough guy.”

As I had when I'd first come there and met Penny, I parked on the street, and we walked up the long curving drive with sprinkler mist on either side of us. It was hotter this time and the air was perfectly still, the stillness made deeper by the faint sound of the sprinkler system and the occasional odd sound that might have been grasshoppers calling for their mates. The sky was high and entirely blue, and at the far corner of the house I saw Dutch loafing along toward the backyard.

I felt like I had just wandered into a Johnny Mercer lyric. Beside me Pud was quiet. He looked tight around the eyes and mouth.

On the veranda, with his uniform shirt unbuttoned and his gun belt adjusted for comfort, a Security South guard was sitting in a rocking chair, tipped back, with one foot pushing against a pillar, rocking in brief intervals. While the boss was up in Saratoga, the subordinates apparently let down a little. He looked up when I came onto the veranda. He frowned. Maybe he had been thinking of things that he liked to think about, and I had interrupted him.

“How you doin'?” he said.

He was lean and hard-looking, his hair trimmed short. He looked like he might have been an FBI agent once. I doubted it. I suspected he'd been hired because he looked like he might have been an FBI agent once.

“The ladies of the house at home?” I said.

He let the rocker come forward and let the momentum bring him to his feet.

“Sorry, sir.” He was a little slow with the “sir.” “They aren't receiving visitors.”

I walked toward the front door. Pud was about a half-step behind me.

“The ladies don't live,” I said, “that wouldn't receive a couple of studs like us.”

The guard had a microphone clipped to his epaulet, with a cord that ran to the radio on his belt. He pressed the talk button on the radio and spoke into the mike.

“Front porch, we got some trouble.”

The guard had his hand on his gun as he stood in front of me.

“Nobody goes in,” he said.

“First you get sloppy with the ‘sir,' then you don't say it at all,” I said, and hit him hard up under the sternum with my left hand. He gasped a little and fumbled the gun from his holster. I got hold of his wrist with my left hand and came around with a right hook and he went down, except for his right arm, which I had hold of. I half turned and twisted the gun out of his hand and let it fall with the rest of him. I stuck his gun in my jacket pocket, stepped over him, and tried the front door. It was locked. I backed away from it and kicked it hard at the level of the handle. The door rattled but held.

“Lemme,” Pud said, and ran at the door, hitting it with his right shoulder. The door gave and Pud stumbled into the hall with me behind him. It took us both a minute to adjust to the interior dimness. All the curtains seemed to have been drawn. Outside I could hear
footsteps running, and then someone said, “Jesus.” Then I heard him on the radio.

“This is Brill,” he said. “Shoney's down, and there's someone in the house.”

Pud was moving through the house. “SueSue,” he yelled.

I took out my gun and stepped out of the front door and onto the veranda. The second guard, whose name must have been Brill, was there with his gun out, bending over Shoney, who was lying on his side only moving a little. Brill looked up and saw my gun and our eyes met. His gun was hanging at his side. Mine was level with his forehead. I didn't say anything. Brill didn't say anything; then slowly, quite carefully, he put his gun on the ground and stood up and stepped away from it. I walked over and picked it up and put it in my other coat pocket.

“Hands on the pillar,” I said, “then back away and spread your legs.”

He did as I told him and I patted him down. I had his only gun. I went over and patted Shoney, who was in some sort of twilight state. He had no other weapon either.