Hugger Mugger (5 page)

M
ICKEY
B
LAIR 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.

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.