Hugger Mugger (20 page)

“Okay, sit there,” I said to Brill, “and wait for reinforcements. If a head appears in that door, I will shoot it.”

Then I turned and went back inside. The house was entirely still, as humming with quiet as the dead summer day outside. I looked around, remembering the layout from my last time. It was still dark with all the
shades drawn. Then I heard Pud at the top of the stairs.

“Spenser,” he said, and his voice was oddly quiet. “Get up here.”

I went up the stairs fast. We didn't have much time before the arrival of more Security South guards than I could punch. The upper floor was as dark and still and cool as the first floor. The only sound was Pud's breathing and the subliminal rush of the air-conditioning. Pud was standing stiffly at the head of the stairs. Down the dark corridor, in the far end, were two dim figures huddled together, ghostly in white clothes. I found a light switch on the wall and flipped it. Squinting in the sudden brightness, the two white figures at the end of the hall seemed to shrink in upon each other in the light.

“My God,” Pud said. “SueSue.”

It was SueSue, and with her was Stonie. They were both wearing white pajamas, and they had backed tight into the corner at the far end of the hallway. Their hair was cut short. They wore no makeup. The distinguishing golden tan of the Clive girls had faded and they looked nearly as pale as their pajamas.

Again Pud said, “SueSue.”

And in a voice without inflection and barely above a whisper SueSue said, “Help us.”

The confiscated guns were heavy in my pockets. I took them out.

“Ever shoot one of these?” I said to Pud.

“No.”

“Okay, this isn't the time to learn,” I said.

I put the guns on the floor. And drew my own.

“Take one hand of each woman,” I said. “You in the middle. We're going out of here at a run. Anyone tries to stop us, I'll deal with it. You keep them moving toward the car.”

“What's wrong with them?” Pud said.

“I don't know,” I said. “Get hold of them, now.”

Pud hesitated another couple of seconds, then took a big inhale and went forward to the two women. He got each of them by the hand. They were childlike, putting their hands out for him to hold. I went down the stairs ahead of them, Pud behind me with the sisters.

Shoney was back on his feet when we went out the front door. He and Brill were looking a little aimless and uncertain as we passed them. They had no guns, and I had mine, so they made no move to stop us. We ran straight across the lawn, through the sprinkler mist, to my car, the women stumbling a little in bare feet.

“Put them in the backseat and down out of sight.”

I went around to the driver's side and was in with the motor running when Pud joined me in the front. The Clive girls were lying in the backseat, SueSue above Stonie. I went into gear and we squealed away from the curb and out onto the street. As we turned the first corner, two Security South cars went bucketing past us, their flashers on, riding to the rescue.

“Jesus H. Mahogany Christ,” Pud said.

He was still winded from running the sisters to the car. Breathing hard, he looked back at the two girls, still clinging to each other as if to keep each other from slipping away.

“Can they sit up?” Pud said between breaths.

“Sure,” I said.

“SueSue, you and Stonie sit up now,” Pud said.

Silently they did as he told them.

“You do this kind of thing often?” Pud said.

His respiration was normalizing.

“Usually before breakfast,” I said.

“Man!” Pud said.

We turned onto Main Street. There wasn't much traffic. We passed a young woman in blue sweatpants and a white halter top, walking a baby in a stroller. A golden retriever moseyed along beside them on a slack leash. Pud eyed her as we passed. The ghostly sisters sat bolt upright in the backseat, their shoulders touching, looking at nothing. Pud looked back. No sign of pursuit.

“We can't just ride around all day,” Pud said.

“True.”

“Where we going?” Pud said.

“To a gay bar.”

“W
HAT THE FUCK
am I running here,” Tedy Sapp said when I sat down, “a family crisis center?”

“You're my closest friend in Georgia,” I said.

We were at Sapp's table near the door. Pud was in the back room with Cord, and SueSue and Stonie.

“First, Cord Wyatt comes in here like an orphan in the storm and says you sent him. Then you show up with the rest of the fucking family. What do we do when Delroy finds out they're here?”

“Maybe he won't find out,” I said.

“I'm a bouncer, not a fucking commando. Delroy's got twelve, fifteen people he can put in here with automatic weapons. What's wrong with the Clive girls?”

“I don't know for sure. They've apparently been prisoners in the house since their father died. I don't know why. They're either traumatized or drugged or both, and it's like talking to a couple of shy children.”

“Nice haircuts,” Sapp said.

“You homosexuals are so fashion-conscious,” I said.

“Yeah. I wonder why they cut their hair that way?”

“Maybe it wasn't their idea,” I said. “Or the white pajamas.”

“So what do you want from me?”

“I want you to look out for them, Cord and Pud too, while I figure out what's going on.”

“And how long do you expect that to take?” Sapp said.

“Given my track record,” I said, “about twenty more years.”

“Becker will work with you,” Sapp said. “If you get him something he can take to court.”

“That's my plan,” I said.

“Glad to hear you got one. What are you going to do about Delroy?”

“I'm hoping to bust his chops,” I said.

“You figure he's the one?” Sapp said.

“He's at least one of the ones,” I said.

“Delroy's a jerk,” Sapp said. “But he's a mean dangerous jerk.”

“The perfect combination,” I said.

Sapp reached under the table and came out with a Colt .45 semiautomatic pistol, and put it on the table.

“On the other hand,” Sapp said, “you and me ain't a couple of éclairs either.”

“A valid point,” I said. “Can you sit on things here while I go up to Saratoga?”

“Saratoga?”

“Yep. I want to see Penny.”

“So, I'll bunk all the Clive castoffs here,” Sapp said.

“And feed and clothe them, and watch out for them, supply bath towels, and clean sheets, and shoot it out with Security South as needed. And you'll go up to Saratoga.”

“Yeah.”

“That's your plan?”

“You got a better one?”

“I don't need a better one,” Sapp said. “I can just walk away from it.”

“You going to?”

“No.”

“Then what are we talking about?” I said.

“It was a grand day for me,” Sapp said, “when you wandered in here.”

“Shows I'm not homophobic.”

“Too bad,” Sapp said. “Can any of these people shoot?”

“You got a shotgun?” I said.

“Sure.”

“Almost anyone can use a shotgun,” I said.

“If they will.”

“Ay, there's the rub.”

T
HE BAD NEWS
about Saratoga was that it's about a thousand miles from Atlanta and I was driving. The good news about Saratoga was that it isn't so far from Massachusetts, and with a fifty-mile detour I could stop in Boston and pick up Susan. Practicing psychotherapy in Cambridge is a license to steal, and Susan, after a good year, had bought herself a little silver Mercedes sport coupe with red and black leather interior and a hard top that went up and down at the push of a button.

“We'll take it to Saratoga,” she said.

“That car fits me like the gloves fit O. J.,” I said.

“I'll drive,” she said.

“I'm not sure I want to get there that fast.”

“It'll be fun. I can buy a big hat.”

“That's mostly why we're going,” I said. “What about Pearl?”

“I already called Lee Farrell,” she said. “He'll come and stay with her.”

Which is how we got to be zipping along the Mass Pike, well above the speed limit, toward New York State, with the top down and Susan's big hat stashed safely in the small trunk space that was left after the top folded into it. Periodically we changed lanes for no reason that I could see.

“Tell me everything about the case,” she said. “Since San Francisco and the dreadful Sherry Lark.”

Her dark thick hair moved in the wind, and occasionally she would brush it away as she drove. She wore iridescent Oakley wraparound sunglasses, and her profile was clear and beautiful.

“I feel like Nick and Nora Charles,” I said.

“Of course, darling. Would you like to stop at the next Roy Rogers and have a martini?”

“Not without Asta,” I said.

“She loves Lee Farrell,” Susan said. “She'll be perfectly happy.”

I told her about the case. She was a professional listener and was perfectly quiet as I talked.

“So what do you hope to do in Saratoga?” she said when I was through.

“What I always do. Blunder around, ask questions, get in people's way, be annoying.”

“Make love with the girl of your dreams.”

“That too,” I said. “All the principals are here: Dolly, Jason, Penny, and Delroy.”

“I wish it were Sherry Lark that did it,” Susan said.

“Because you don't like her?”

“You bet,” Susan said. “She's self-absorbed, stupid, dishonest with herself.”

“Isn't that a little subjective?” I said.

“I'm not a shrink now, I'm your paramour and free to be as subjective as I like. Who do you wish it were?”

We had crept up very close to the rear end of a Cadillac which was creeping along at the speed limit. Susan seemed not to notice this, but love is trust and all I did was tense up a little.

“Sherry'd be nice,” I said. “But I can't see what her motive would be.”

“Too bad,” Susan said.

She swung suddenly left and passed the Cadillac and swung back in. The Cadillac honked its horn.

“Oh fuck you,” Susan said pleasantly.

“Beautifully put,” I said.

“So who do you think?”

“Well, it pretty much narrows down to Penny or Delroy or both. I'm hoping for Delroy. He's got a record. Even better, he's got a record for scamming women. But I don't see how all this could go down without Penny's involvement.”

“Maybe he has some sort of hold on her,” Susan said.

“Or she on him,” I said.

“I thought you were fond of her.”

“I am. She's beautiful, charming, twenty-five, and smells of good soap and sunshine,” I said. “But you may
recall the words of a wise and randy shrink—things are not always as they appear to be.”

We passed West Stockbridge, and crossed the state line at breakneck speed. Susan smiled at me.

“I'm not so wise,” she said.

I
T WAS A
near-perfect summer day, seventy-six and clear, when Susan and I found Penny and Jon Delroy in the paddock at the track in Saratoga a few minutes before the seventh race. The paddock was grassy, and ringed with people, a number of whom, I assumed, owned shares in Hugger Mugger. Billy Rice was there with Hugger, their heads close together, Rice talking softly to the horse. Hale Martin was on the other side of Hugger Mugger, and the jockey was there. His name was Angel Díaz. Like all jockeys he was about the size of a ham sandwich, except for his hands, which appeared to be those of a stonemason.

“Hello,” I said.

Penny turned and smiled at me brilliantly. If the smile was forced, she was good at forcing.

“My God, look who's here,” she said.

“This is Susan Silverman,” I said. “Penny Clive, Jon Delroy.”

Susan put out a hand. Penny shook it warmly. Jon Delroy, on the other side of Penny, nodded briefly.

“What are you doing here?” Penny said.

“I wanted to see Hugger Mugger run in the Hopeful.”

“I didn't think you knew what the Hopeful was.”

“Sometimes I know more than I seem to,” I said.

“Well,” Penny said, again with the fabulous smile, “that sounds ominous.”

Behind us the crowd noise from the stands suggested that the seventh race was achieving climax.

“Hugger's going onto the track,” Penny said, “in a minute.”

“Next race?” I said.

“Yes.”

“May we join you inside?” I said.

“Of course. Are you a racing fan, Susan?”

“A recent convert,” Susan said.

In Susan's presence, Penny still looked great, but a little less great, and the force of her charm seemed somehow thinner. Even the fabulous smile was maybe a bit less fabulous. The crowd noise quieted inside the track and we could hear the loudspeaker indistinctly announcing winners. With a boost from Hale Martin, Díaz was up on Hugger's back settled into the ridiculously small saddle, with his feet in the absurdly high stirrups. Hale nodded at Billy Rice, who, his head still next to Hugger's, began to lead the horse toward the track. The track police cleared a way. The horse seemed entirely calm, as if he were giving a ride to a kid at a picnic. Díaz did this every day, and looked it, calm bordering on boredom. He'd already done it several times today.

Hugger went in under the stands, heading for the track, and we followed Penny to her box in the clubhouse. Below us, and close, as befitted the owner of Three Fillies Stables, the dun-colored track circled the green infield. The big black tote board with its bright numbers looked oddly out of place. It wasn't, of course. It was the heart of the enterprise. It kept score. To our left the horses for the eighth race trailed down the track toward the starting gate. The eighth race at Saratoga was called the Hopeful. It was a race for two-year-olds. Of which Hugger Mugger was one.

I looked over the stands. This was an old-money racing crowd, by and large. The kind of people who kept a mansion in Saratoga to use in August, for whom that month's social life was devoted to horses. The town itself had a college and race month, a bunch of hand melons, some springs someplace, and twenty-five thousand year-round residents. Up higher from the track, as befitted her status as former concubine, I saw Dolly Hartman in a white dress looking at the track through binoculars.

I have never been much of a racing fan. It is two minutes of excitement followed by twenty-five minutes of milling. A full day at the track will produce about sixteen minutes of actual racing. I understood why. People had to get their bets down. That's why the horses ran, so people could bet on them. But since I got no thrill out of betting, the twenty-five-minute mill was boring.

On the other hand, I was there with the girl of my dreams, who was wearing a hat with a wide brim, exactly right for watching a horse race. Most of the other women wore hats, but none did so with Susan's
panache. At the starting gate, one of the horses balked at going into his slot, and it took several people pulling, shoving, and almost certainly swearing to get him in there. The ruckus made another one buck in the gate and the jockey had to hold him hard, calming him as he did so.

A couple of guys in blue blazers and tan pants slipped into the box and sat behind me and Susan. I glanced back at them. They were young and intrepid-looking, with short hair and close shaves, and the look of bone-deep dumbness. Security South.

“How you guys doing?” I said.

Both of them gave me a hard look. One of them said, “Fine.”

I gave them both a warm smile and looked back toward the track. Hugger Mugger was walking calmly into his slot in the starting gate. Susan leaned close to me and said, “Which one is Hugger Mugger?”

“Didn't you just see him outside?” I said.

“I was looking at the people,” Susan said.

“Hugger's number four. Jockey's wearing pink and green.”

“The one they just put into the thingy?”

“Starting gate, yes. One to the right of the one going in now.”

The last horse was in the gate. There was a moment while they waited for everyone to settle down. All the horses were still. Then the gates popped open, the track announcer said, “They're off,” and the horses surged out of the gate, as if a dam had burst. Around the first turn they began to stretch out. Hugger is running easily in
fifth place. Angel Díaz is hand-riding him. I look at Penny to my left. She is bent forward slightly. Her knees clamped together. Her mouth open. A hard shine in her eyes. Her hands clasped in her lap. “Why doesn't he hurry up?” Susan murmurs to me. Entering the stretch, Hugger is still fifth. The four horses in front of him are bunched. Accolade is on the rail. Bromfield Boy is swinging wide on the outside. Reno is on Accolade's right shoulder and Ricochet has drifted a little wider toward Bromfield Boy. All of a sudden a sliver of daylight opens between Ricochet and Reno, and Angel Díaz puts Hugger's nose into it as it starts to close. From where I am, it looks as if his jockey turns Ricochet in toward the rail to close out Hugger Mugger. The horses bump. Hugger staggers and bumps Reno on his left. Above the banging of the horses, Angel Díaz bobs comfortably, still with no whip showing. Hugger keeps his head wedged into the small opening. He bulls into it with his shoulders. His ears flat. His neck straight out. His head swinging back and forth. He churns into the hole, jostling Ricochet on his left and Reno on his right. He keeps his feet, keeps his twenty-foot stride, with Angel Díaz crouched over his neck, both of them buffeted by more than a ton of full-gallop horse. Still no whip. And then he is through the hole, his feet under him, and in the lead. He is widening the lead as he crosses the finish, looking as if he'd be perfectly happy to run that way back to Lamarr if anyone asked him to. Everyone is cheering, except of course for the Security South hard guys sitting behind me. They only cheered at executions.

“My God,” Susan said.

“Pretty good horse,” I said.

Penny was on her feet, Delroy behind her.

“Where to?” I said.

She flashed me the not quite as fabulous smile.

“Winner's Circle,” she said.

“Congratulations,” I said. “We need to talk.”

“I can't now. Tomorrow, breakfast at the Reading Room, eight o'clock.”

“See you there.”

“Your girlfriend's beautiful,” she said.

“Yes, she is,” I said.

And with Delroy right behind her, she headed off through the throng of people, some still cheering, many heading to the windows to cash in.