Night-Bloom (34 page)

Tomorrow, they would celebrate the start of his new freedom with a drive up to Saratoga for the annual yearling auctions. There was a glint in her eye. “Yes,” she said with a charming air of fomenting mischief, that was another surprise she’d been planning. She wanted to get into breeding and racing her own horses.

He closed his eyes and lay his head back against the soft tufted leather of the backrest. He was no longer thinking about Dowd, Mulvaney or the Manhattan South. Nor, for that matter, did he think about the shadowy figure who made his way once each year to the rooftops above the teeming city, toting with him forty pounds of lethal cinder block.

Fritzi noted how well he looked. Fully fifty pounds lighter. More youthful, and yes, attractive. Even attractive.

She made him a light snack and, as a treat, offered him a second glass of champagne which he characterized as “putrid.” He drank it, then asked for a cold beer which she reluctantly gave him.

When they went to bed that evening, it occurred to him that for the first time, for as long as he could recall, for that matter, he was content. He slept like an infant.

They were on the road by 8:00
A.M.
the next day, breezing up the thru way at a brisk clip. By eight o’clock they had turned onto the Taconic Parkway at Hawthorne, and several hours later, they were nosing west on the Massachusetts Turnpike, heading for the Northway.

All the way up Fritzi kept talking about what a shrewd investment a horse was—a hedge against inflation, a hefty tax shelter, security for the future and a pure ego trip.

Some four hours after they’d set out, they hit the track at Saratoga and drove directly into a beer tent. Having each wolfed down a frankfurter and a diet soda, they proceeded at once to the auction hall. The auditorium was small, but what it lacked in size it more than made up for in tone. Several hundred conspicuously wealthy people all pursuing tax shelters sat about in red-plush fanned seats, encircling a raised platform covered in green astro-turf, roped off with a thick velvet cord. Atop the platform two auctioneers sat behind a semicircular desk, gaveling bids while some of the most extraordinary horseflesh Mooney had ever seen was paraded on and off the platform.

Mooney resisted the inclination to be impressed. Instead, he affected his old standby, scorn. With her typically shrewd amusement, Fritzi noted that most of the time he was at the edge of his seat. Even she was cowed a bit by the big numbers and the august surroundings.

Two hundred and thirty-three yearlings were to be auctioned off that day, averaging $111,159 per head, bringing in a total of $25.9 million dollars. Fritzi and Mooney watched twenty-one horses go by before they even dared to stir. The twenty-second horse to come out was a small, well-proportioned roan yearling, Capricorn out of Courtesan. Born in Kentucky at Saybrook Farms, his catalogue number 76 shot up on the big electric tote board at the rear of the auditorium.

Fritzi leaned over and whispered, “What do you think?”

“What are you gonna do with him?”

“Race him, what d’ya think?”

“You’re crazy.”

The auctioneer opened the bid at $15,000. The tote board flashed the figure immediately, only to bounce up to $20,000 at the next bid.

“Look at those swell legs and his head, Mooney. Come on—What do you think?”

Fritzi’s whisper grew slightly more shrill. The attendant led the animal smartly round the little roped-off ring.

“Twenty-five thousand,” the auctioneer remarked almost inaudibly and the board lights flashed at the rear.

“It’s your money,” Mooney mumbled.

“I know whose money it is, for Chrissake. What d’ya think of him?”

“You must be nuts,” Mooney whispered, but he was sweating heavily.

“Thirty thousand,” the auctioneer announced.

“Come on, Mooney,” Fritzi shot him an exasperated glance. “What do you make of this animal?”

Mooney’s mind was whirling. His eyes swarmed over the horse’s major points—feet, ears, legs, tail, head, chest. He was slightly smaller than average on height, Mooney noted, but exceedingly graceful and marked by a reserve that was unusual in yearlings. He liked the way the ears stood erect, and the attitude of the tail. He liked also the manageability of the animal, the way it turned within the confinement of that narrow space. It was not docility or lack of spirit either, but rather an instinctive comprehension of what was expected of him.

“What about the chest?” Fritzi whispered.

“Narrow.”

“I think so, too.”

Thirty-five thousand was the figure now flashing on the board.

“Come on, Mooney,” Fritzi fairly hissed. “This is costing me money. What d’ya say?”

“What d’ya need it for? It’s a lot of work.”

“Don’t worry about the work. Do you like the horse?”

“Forty thousand,” the auctioneer murmured softly.

“It’s a lot of money,” Mooney whispered.

“Forget about the money. What about the horse?”

He cast one last rueful gaze at the animal. “Okay,” he said finally and closed his eyes. “I’ll take half the action.”

“Forty-five thousand,” Fritzi bounded up instantly, then winced at the volume of her voice. There was an interminable pause while they looked about waiting for someone to top their bid.

Then came the dull clap of a gavel. “Sold to the lady. Third row, aisle three. Forty-five thousand.” Fritzi appeared a bit awed by the magnitude of what she’d just committed. It all seemed so rash now, and irrevocable.

“You didn’t mean what you said?” she asked, as they moved toward the rear to fill out papers and proffer checks.

“About what?”

“About half the action.”

“I certainly did. I want fifty percent of that animal.”

“Don’t be silly, Mooney. Where are you going to get twenty-two thousand, five hundred bucks?”

“I’m retired now, don’t forget. I can take a loan out on my pension.”

“That’s dumb. I won’t let you.”

“Who the hell are you to tell me?”

She glanced sharply into his eyes, gauging the depth of his determination. “In that case, you’re in for ten percent.”

“Fifteen.”

“Okay, fifteen. Not a penny more. Don’t argue. Come on.” She took his arm. “The officials are waiting for us.” Suddenly she was overcome with excitement. “We’ll have to arrange transportation. He’ll need a groom and stable. A trainer. Oh, Mooney, did you see that little guy prancing around up there? He’s ours. Isn’t he nifty?”

“Nifty,” Mooney muttered, already overcome with misgivings. Her face was flushed, he noted, and her eyes fairly beaming.

They breezed back into the city at about 9:00
P.M.
, their minds whirling from the numerous contracts and checks they had signed that day. Fritzi insisted on stopping by the pub to pick up some papers before going back to the apartment.

When they walked through the big swinging doors that opened onto the dark teak shilling bar, something struck Mooney as odd. Possibly it was the silence and, unaccountably, the sense of all motion suddenly frozen. Then a bright light flashed. There was a burst of applause and the old 49er saloon piano in the corner burst forth into a tinny version of “He’s a Jolly Good Fellow.”

At first he thought it was for some other person; they had inadvertently stumbled in on someone else’s party. He glanced over his shoulder to see if someone had come in behind them. Then he turned back and saw them all behind the bar in funny hats and the big banner dangling above them with bright green letters:
FREE AT LAST, FREE AT LAST, THANK GOD ALMIGHTY, FREE AT LAST.

There was a rush of heat to his face and the taut beginnings of a frown. When he turned to Fritzi, about to growl his displeasure, she was absolutely radiant. Amid the loud rattles and cracks of party noisemakers, she tugged at his sleeve.

There must have been at least a hundred people pumping his hand and slapping his back. Most of them were Fritzi’s friends, staunch habitués of the Balloon. But, amazingly, she’d managed to round up two or three of his old buddies from the force. Carpenter, Hewitt, Delgado—good, longtime friends of Mooney’s who’d stood by him during the dark days of the past. Big, red-faced, good old boys, retired pensioners, they encircled him, grinning awkwardly in shiny blue suits. How she’d learned about them, or where she’d dug them up on such short notice, he never knew. But what he’d come to understand that day was that as a woman, Fritzi Baumholz was formidable. When she set out to get something, she seldom if ever failed.

They ate and drank late into the night. Fritzi sat beside him, and at the end of dinner, she helped him to slice a large chocolate cake log, baked expressly for the occasion in the shape of a policeman’s night stick. Across the top of it, in a thin wobbly line of vanilla frosting, was a horse surmounted by a jockey just crossing the finish line. Just beneath that in large, wavering birthday-cake script were the words,
GUMSHOE—THE WINNER
. Somehow the name for the new yearling stuck. They never would have called him Capricorn anyway, and while the name Gumshoe was hardly flattering, it was affectionate.

Fritzi sliced the cake, serving everyone graciously. When it came time for Mooney to get his piece, the chef sent out a thin, sugarless wafer with a solitary, badly mashed strawberry cresting it.

Roars and applause went up. Mooney laughed, but at a certain point in the lull of festivities, he turned to Fritzi as if seeing her for the very first time. He had scarcely been aware of the deep bond forged between them, so gradual and subtle a process it was. He hadn’t known her quite a year yet, but that day, in some inexplicable fashion, the joint acquisition of a slightly undersized roan yearling called Gumshoe, had suddenly given their ambiguous relationship an astonishing solidity.

Somewhere along about midnight, while they were having coffee and brandies, and while good Havana cigars were passed round, Mitch, the bartender, came over to the table and whispered uneasily that there were a couple of “fellows” out front looking for him.

Mooney looked up inquiringly, then excused himself, and followed the bartender back out. Defasio and another detective, Wilkinson, were waiting there, looking sheepish and uneasy in the festive gaiety and litter of that place.

“Sorry to bother you, Frank.” Defasio’s fingers threaded nervously along the pockets of his jacket. “Mulvaney would like you to come right down.”

“I’m out of it now,” he snapped. “Haven’t you heard?”

“The Bombardier was out tonight. He creamed someone real good over on Forty-seventh Street.”

“When did they bring him in?”

” ‘Bout twelve-thirty.”

“They say when it happened?”

“An hour before.”

“Eleven-thirty.”

“Somewhere’s around there.”

Mooney hovered over the morgue attendant. They stood at the foot of a large refrigerator drawer. The object of their discussion was a corpse, now stripped of its clothing, and lying partially covered beneath a canvas tarpaulin.

Two hours ago the body beneath the tarpaulin had been that of a hale and hearty man of thirty years. The attendant had pulled the tarpaulin down around the ankles of the man in order to display the remains more effectively for Mooney.

There was nothing remarkable about the body save for the unusual sense of power conveyed by its perfect proportion and muscularity. The head, or rather what remained of it, had the look of something crumpled. Shattered crockery, perhaps. The eyes beneath that awful devastation remained open and wore a strangely calm expression, as if the final image imprinted on the retinas had not been at all unpleasant.

“Splat,” the attendant muttered. He was a small, chatty fellow with frightened eyes and large yellow incisors that drooped above his lower lip. At the conclusion of each sentence he would produce a disconcerting little giggle while his face remained a perfect blank.

“Splat,” Mooney nodded slowly. A fan droned overhead, pushing waves of Formalin and the sweetish rotten smell of mortification all about them. Deep within his pockets his fists clenched tight and he forced himself to look.

It was now slightly past 1:30
A.M.
Not more than an hour ago, Mooney recalled ruefully, he was the guest of honor at his own retirement party. People toasted him and sang songs in praise of his good fortune. Twenty minutes after Defasio’s arrival at the Balloon, however, he was right back in the stale, unventilated air of the precinct house on Forty-third Street, being briefed by Mulvaney. There was the same old knot in his stomach and it was as though nothing at all had changed.