Hugger Mugger (4 page)

M
Y ROOM WAS
on the second floor of one wing of the motel, and opened onto a wing-length balcony with stairs at either end. It was late afternoon when SueSue Potter knocked on my door.

“Welcome Wagon,” she said when I opened it.

“Oh good,” I said. “I was afraid your husband had sent you ahead to soften me up.”

She was wearing a big hat and carrying a bottle of champagne in an ice bucket and a big straw handbag. There was some sort of look in her eyes, but it wasn't the unpleasant glint I'd seen when Pud threatened me.

“Oh, Pud is a poop,” she said.

“Alliteration,” I said. “Very nice.”

She put the champagne down on top of the television set and circled the room. She was as perky as a grasshopper and much better-looking in a pink linen dress with a square neck and matching shoes.

“You mean you have to live here all by yourself all the time you're here?” she said.

“Depends on how lucky I get hanging out at the bowling alley late.”

“You big silly, I bet you don't even bowl.”

“Wow,” I said, “you see right through a guy.”

“You have any glasses for this champagne?”

“Couple of nice plastic ones,” I said, “in the bathroom.”

“Well, get them out here, it's nearly cocktail time and I don't like to enter it sober.”

I went to the bathroom and got the two little cups and peeled off the plastic-wrap sealers and brought the cups out and set them festively on top of the television beside the champagne bucket.

“I'm afraid that champagne corks are just too strong for me. Could you very kindly do the honors?”

I opened the champagne and poured some into each of the plastic cups. I handed one to her and picked up the other one. She put her glass up toward mine.

“Chink, chink,” she said.

I touched her glass with mine.

“I think plastic sounds more like ‘Scrape, scrape,' ” I said.

“Not if you listen with a romantic ear,” she said.

“Which you do,” I said.

“To everything, darlin'.”

I smiled. She smiled. She drank her champagne. I took another small nibble at mine. She gazed dreamily around the room. I waited. She looked at my gun, lying in its holster on the bedside table.

“Oh,” she said. “A gun.”

“Why, so it is.”

“Can I look at it?”

“Sure.”

“Can I pick it up?”

“No.”

She put her glass out. I refilled it.

“Did you have that with you the other night when Pud was being dreadful?”

“Yes.”

“So you could have shot him if you wanted.”

“Seems a little extreme,” I said.

“You handled him like he was a bad little boy,” SueSue said.

She drank some more champagne, looking at me while she drank, her eyes big and blue and full of energy. It was too soon for the champagne to kick in. It was some other kind of energy.

“Just doing my job, ma'am.”

She smiled widely. And what I'd seen in her eyes, I saw in her smile.

“Pud played football over at Alabama. Even had a pro tryout.”

“Linebacker?” I said.

“I don't know who the pro team was. I hate football.”

“What position did he play?” I said.

“Defense.”

I nodded.

“He still goes to the gym all the time. But you just turned him around like he was a little bitty boy.”

“Breathtaking, isn't it?” I said.

“You're a dangerous man,” she said, and put her glass out. I poured.

“Especially to fried clams,” I said. “You put a plate of fried clams in front of me, they're gone in a heartbeat.”

“I could see that you were dangerous,” she said, “minute you came into the room.”

The champagne was beginning to affect her speech a little. Her articles were slurring, or she was skipping right over them.

“I think even Pud could see it, but he was too drunk to be smart about it. What would you have done if he'd come back at you?”

“You kind of have to be in the moment,” I said, “to know what you'd do.”

“You'd have hurt him,” SueSue said. “I saw it in your eyes.”

“I take no pleasure in hurting someone.”

“I know men, darlin'. Everybody else in my damn family knows horses. But I know men. You like to fight.”

“Everybody needs a hobby,” I said.

“You like to fuck too?”

“Wow,” I said. “You do know men.”

A little vertical frown line indented her perfect tan for a moment, between her perfect eyebrows, and went right away.

“Lotta men don't like it. They all pretend they like it, but they don't. Some of them don't want to, or they can't 'cause they a little teensy bit drunk, or they scared of a woman who wants to.”

“And you're a woman who wants to.”

“I like it. I like it with big men. I'd like to see how many muscles you got and where.”

“Lots,” I said. “Everywhere.”

“I need to see for myself, darlin'.”

“That'll be a problem.”

“You aren't even drinking your champagne,” she said. “If you don't like champagne, I got something more serious.”

“No need,” I said.

But SueSue wasn't all that interested in my needs.

“You married?” Sue said.

“Sort of.”

“You don't wear a wedding band.”

“I'm not exactly married.”

“How can you be not exactly married?” she said. “You mean you got a girlfriend.”

“More than that,” I said.

“Good Lord, you're not gay, are you?”

“No.”

“Well, whatever it is, you being loyal about it?”

“Yes.”

“Oh hell,” she said.

I nodded.

“Cheatin' makes it a lot more fun, darlin',” she said.

Her southern accent became more pronounced as the champagne bubbled into her system.

“Maybe it's not always about fun,” I said.

“Well, what in the hell else would it be about?”

“Could be about love,” I said.

“Love?” She laughed. The sound was unpleasant.

“Only some big dangerous gun-totin' Yankee would come around talking 'bout love. My God—love!”

“I heard it makes the world go round,” I said.

“Money makes the world go round, darlin'. And sex makes the trip worthwhile. Sex and money, darlin'. Money and sex.”

“Both are nice,” I said.

She picked up the champagne bottle. It was empty. She put it back onto the table.

“Damn,” she said, and half disappeared into her big straw handbag and came out with a bottle of Jack Daniel's. She handed it to me to open.

“Nice.” She laughed the unpleasant laugh again. “There isn't anything nice down here, darlin'. Nothing nice about the Clives.”

I put the open bottle of Jack Daniel's on the table beside the champagne bucket. SueSue took some ice out of the bucket and put it in the cup from which she had been drinking champagne. She picked up the Jack Daniel's bottle and poured some over the rocks. Holding the bottle, she looked at me. I shook my head. The champagne left in my plastic cup was warm. I put the cup down on the table.

“Nothing?” I said.

SueSue drank some Jack Daniel's. She neither sipped it nor slugged it. She drank it as she had drunk champagne, in an accomplished manner, doing something she was used to doing.

“Well,” she said, “we're all good-looking, and mostly we have good manners, 'cept me. I tend maybe to be a little bit too direct for good manners.”

“Direct,” I said, and smiled at her hunkishly. “What's wrong with your family?”

“The hell with them,” she said. “Are you going to come on to me or not?”

“Let's talk a little,” I said.

She got cagey. “Only if you'll have little drink with me,” she said.

I wanted to hear what she had to say. I picked up my cup and took it to the bathroom and emptied the remaining champagne into the sink. Then I came back, put some ice in my plastic cup and poured some whiskey over it.

“Now drink some,” SueSue said.

I felt like a freshman girl on her first date with a senior. We drank together in silence for a minute or so. I was betting that SueSue couldn't tolerate silence. I was right.

“What was it you were asking me about, darlin'?”

“You,” I said. “Tell me about you.”

More than one way to ask a question.

“I'm a Clive,” she said.

“Is that complicated?”

She shook her head sadly.

“I think one of our ancestors must have stolen something from a tomb,” she said.

“Family curse?”

“We're all corrupt,” she said. “Drunks, liars, fornicators.”

“You too?” I said.

“Me especially,” she said. “Hell, why do you think I'm married to Fred Flintstone?”

“Love?” I said.

She made a nasty sound, which might have been a contemptuous laugh.

“There you go again,” she said. “Daddy wanted his girls married. He wanted them out of the clubs and off their backs and in a marriage. He wanted sons-in-law to inherit the business. Pud was what there was.”

“Stonie too?”

“Don't get me started on Stonie and Cord.”

“Why not?”

“Don't get me started,” she said.

“Okay.”

SueSue had a drink of whiskey.

“How about Penny?” I said. “She's not married.”

“Little Penelope,” SueSue said. She struggled to say “Penelope.” “Sometimes I think she was switched at birth.”

“She's different?”

“She stands up to Daddy.”

“And?”

“And he thinks it's cute. He trusts her with everything. Hell, she knows the business better than he does.”

“So she doesn't have to get married?”

“Not now, but she better, she wants to inherit anything.”

“Really?”

“Man's gotta be in charge,” SueSue said. “Can't have a woman ruining the business.”

“Even though she halfway runs it now.”

“Daddy still in charge.”

Talking was getting harder for her as the Jack
Daniel's went in. I needed to get what I could before talking became too hard.

“What's wrong with Stonie and Cord?” I said.

“Stonie so frustrated she rubbing up doorknobs,” SueSue said.

Her syntax was deteriorating fast.

“How come?”

Her smile was dreamy without ceasing to be nasty.

“Little boys,” she said.

“Cord likes little boys?” I said.

Her eyes closed and her head lolled back against the chair cushion.

She said, “Un-huh.”

And then she fell asleep.

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.