The Glory Game (28 page)

Rob felt a surge of excitement, and stiffened to resist it. The pull of that remembered feeling was hard to fight.

“Haven't you ever tried it?” she chided his apparent innocence. “I promise you it will make you feel good.”

“Yeah, I've … snorted it before.” He hadn't had any since his folks split.

It sounded stupid and superstitious, but everything had been fine at home until he started messing around with cocaine. Things had gone to hell so quickly, he'd sworn off using it. It had only been an occasional thing with him anyway—not like some of the guys he knew who were tooting every chance they got.

Besides, it was expensive, and Rob wasn't sure how much of his own money Luz was going to expect him to spend to finance this year of polo. Christ, additional horses for his string, “made” ponies, were going to cost five to ten thousand dollars each, and a pro usually had thirty or more ponies in his string. Add to that the grooms, stabling and feed, veterinary bills, horse trailers, traveling expenses to tournaments around the country, a coach, and sponsorship of a team, and the investment started to get near the million-dollar mark.

Money wasn't the problem. He'd spend his own inheritance if necessary. Polo was what he wanted. The exhilaration of playing and winning, like this afternoon. It was a sensation like no other. Except, maybe, the glory of cocaine.

“Then you know what it's like,” she said, smiling. “I have enough for two. I think it's always better when you can do it with someone. It's like the difference between masturbation
and making love. It's never as much fun getting off by yourself.” She took his participation for granted, and Rob couldn't make himself say anything to correct her as her hand delved inside the purse again. “I have everything—mirror, razor blade … damn.” She began frantically digging through the scant contents. “Where's the straw?”

“No problem.” Rob took a fifty-pound note from his money pocket and rolled it into a small cylinder. It was a trick he'd learned from his buddies at school; if they were searched, they wouldn't get caught with drug paraphernalia in their possession.

She tucked the purse under her arm and handed him the square makeup mirror. “Hold this.” Rob held it level while she carefully tapped the white powder into a small mound on its shiny surface. Then she used the single-edged razor blade to divide it into thin lines easily sniffed through a straw.

“Ladies first,” she said and took the rolled bill from him. Bending over the mirror, she pressed one nostril closed and inserted an end of the makeshift straw into the other side of her nose, then lowered the bottom of the rolled paper to the white line and inhaled. Rob saw the look of pleasure that spread over her face when she straightened.

“My turn,” he said and waited impatiently for her to hold the mirror.

He breathed in through the money straw, catching first the bitter taste of the cocaine, then that slow-spreading numbing sensation and the warm glow of energy. It was wonderful, great. The whole world was his for the taking.

“Are you coming to the polo match tomorrow afternoon? It's going to be a helluva game,” he declared exuberantly. “Those ponies I'm riding are the best I've ever played on. Sometimes it's like they know what I want them to do next before I ask them. That bay horse with the four white stockings? I was riding him in the third chukkar today, and I swear, I barely pulled on the reins to stop him, and in the next second, he had reversed his field and we were racing hell for leather the other direction.”

“When I met you at the party last week, you were so quiet. But when I saw you play today, I said to myself, ‘I'm going to get to know him better.' I planned this whole evening, and it worked perfectly.”

Rob laughed. They talked eagerly, about everything and
nothing. But the exhilaration was too fleeting. In less than ten minutes, he could already feel himself coming down. It never lasted long enough.

After a little while, she removed the other vial from her purse. “Have you ever free-based?”

“No.” A guy he knew at school did it all the time and swore by it.

“You have to try it sometime,” she said. “It's really more potent that way. And the high it gives you is better than anything.”

“Maybe I will someday.” At the moment, he was only interested in recapturing the previous feeling as he watched her painstaking division of the powder with growing impatience.

“Once you have, this will seem like kiddy stuff,” she warned. “And you won't want to settle for it. A friend of mine can show you how to do it if you're interested.”

“We'll see.”

“No more,” Trisha protested when Don Townsend—she had finally remembered his name, although she still couldn't recall his father's title—tried to drag her back onto the dance floor. “My feet need a rest.” She'd been dancing solidly for the last hour.

“I haven't stepped on them that many times. Come on,” he urged.

“I don't think you stepped on them at all, but they're worn out,” she insisted. “And I'm thirsty.”

“All right. What would you like to drink? I'll get it.”

“Something tall and cold—and nonalcoholic,” she told him.

“Done.”

As he walked away, Trisha fanned her flushed skin with her hand and moved toward the terrace door where the air was fresher and cooler. All that dancing had made her tired, but it was a good feeling—the blood flowing through her body, her muscles loose and relaxed. She admitted, although only to herself, that a lot of her tension had left when Raul did.

“There you are, Trish. I was just looking for you.”

“Rob.” Her brother's sudden appearance took her by surprise. Her glance swept over his slightly rumpled hair. “You've been gone so long I don't think I'd better ask where you've
been—or what you've been doing. Where's the siren? Did you lose her?”

“Cyn?”

“Cyn's her name and sin's her game.” Trisha mockingly repeated the catch-phrase Don Townsend had used to describe her.

“She's in the powder room.” Rob ignored the snide remark as he stretched his neck to scan the room. “Where's Raul? I saw you with him earlier.”

“Much earlier. He's already left to rest up for tomorrow's game.”

“I wanted to introduce him to Luz.” His shoulders sagged in a disappointed slump. “Did he meet her?”

“Yes, unfortunately.”

“What happened? Did he talk to her about the polo school?”

“I don't think he had a chance. I doubt if it would have sunk in if he had.”

“Where is she? Do you know?” He looked around the room again. “I think I'll talk to her and see what he said.”

“She's upstairs in her room—probably passed out,” she informed him grimly. “She was quite drunk, Rob.”

“No.” His expression turned somber, that troubled moodiness settling over him again. “I'd better go check and see how she is.”

“She's fine,” Trisha insisted, but Rob didn't accept her word for it and walked quickly away to see for himself. “At least,” she continued, speaking only to herself, “she was fine an hour ago when I looked in on her.” She lost sight of Rob in the crowd of guests, then saw him going out the large doors into the main foyer.

“Something tall and cold—and nonalcoholic.” Don Town-send gave a mock bow as he stopped beside her and presented a tall glass of soda to her, a wedge of lime floating on top.

“I'll love you forever for this.”

“Promises, promises.”

T
he ball took a wild bounce on the cut-up turf and bounded into an open area as the momentum of the players carried them past it. Raul's inside position blocked his opposite number from any attempt at the ball and gave him the closest angle to the ball. Checking his pony's speed, he urged it into a tight, fast turn and aimed for the ball, his mallet aloft.

“Leave it!”

The shouted instruction came from a teammate who had a better angle for a shot at the ball than he did. Now his team duty became to block the closest opposition between his teammate and the goal. Only one rider was in that position, already racing his pony to intercept the anticipated flight of the ball and defend against a score.

Instinctively, Raul waited a split second until his chocolate-colored horse had the necessary pivot foot on the ground to change angles before he signaled with legs and reins to alter direction. That fractional hesitation gave a fluidity to the movement, an effortless grace with hardly any break in speed. If he hadn't waited that pulsebeat, the horse would have attempted to obey the signal, but off-balance, on the wrong lead, it would have appeared lumbering and awkward.

Control was the key. Control of a mind and body other than his own and knowing the exact second to exercise it. And it all had to be reflex. There was no time to consciously check which hoof was down or which lead the pony was on, he had to know. The animal had to be an extension of himself, two highly skilled athletes playing as one.

He heard the
clunk
of a mallet striking the ball behind him.
Out of the corner of his eye, Raul saw the ball flying by him and made a mental note of its path as he bore down on the horse and rider angling toward the ball. He identified Rob Thomas as the rider, but it made little difference beyond knowing the level of skill of his opponent.

Raul closed on the young rider at an acute angle, approaching on Rob's mallet side. At this speed, anything wider would be not only dangerous, but a foul as well. The distance shortened. And the impact of two tons of horses and riders colliding at a combined speed between fifty and sixty miles an hour was coming. His horse knew it as well as Raul, but the animal didn't shy from it.

The danger of the collision had to be ignored. Controlled recklessness was an integral part of polo. It was definitely a contact sport, and those who feared it had no business on the field.

Timing and leverage were the dominant factors, and Raul planned both so the impact was made by his horse's shoulder driving into that of his opponent's mount. Wham! He felt the bone-jarring hit and saw the sorrel head of Rob's pony dip down, stumbling, nearly knocked off its feet, but the horse recovered stride and balance.

Still, the collision had given Raul the advantage. His knee was in front of Rob's—the angle was his—and he kept the weight of his horse leaning into the other galloping animal, successfully riding Rob off the line of the ball and leaving it clear for his own teammate to send it through the now undefended goalposts.

Raul looked back as Hepplewhite made the scoring swing, but he didn't ease the pressure on the horse and rider running stride for stride with him. Even when the ball went sailing through the air toward the posts, he rode off the opposing player, keeping him away from the ball.

There was always the chance of a wild bounce, a freak ricochet that could stop it short of the goalposts. Raul didn't let up until both had gone over the endline. Only then did he pull up to go back, prepared to give further assistance, but it wasn't needed. The ground judge waved the flag over his head, indicating a point scored, and Raul reined his horse in.

Rob's sorrel acted up, wildly tossing its head and fighting the restraining pressure on the bit. Such misbehavior wasn't
normal in a horse of the sorrel's caliber of training and game experience. Instinctively, Raul's horseman's eye attempted to locate the reason as Rob forced the sorrel alongside to return to the center of the playing field. His glance fell immediately on the blood-flecked foam at the corners of the horse's mouth. He looked back at Rob, ignoring his mixed expression of grudging respect and resentment over being ridden off the play.

“His mouth is cut,” he said bluntly, leaving the choice to Rob whether he should play out the final minute of the chukkar on a pony suffering pain. If Rob took the precious time to change horses, he would leave his teammates one man short when play resumed with the throw-in. In Raul's opinion, fair play did not include giving advice to the opposing side.

A second later, Rob swung his horse away and spurred it toward the picket line. Raul doubted if the young rider would have made that choice six months ago. His absence on the field for a few seconds of playing time would not be as harmful to his team as a full minute of play on a disobedient pony.

His horse pushed at the bit, and Raul gave it more rein. Its chocolate head bobbed low as the horse blew out a rolling snort, clearing its distended nostrils. Absently, he listened to the familiar noises of the horse as he posted back to midfield at the regulation trot.

It was four against three in the ensuing throw-in. Raul's side got control of the ball and drove quickly for the goal. On a fresh horse, Rob raced onto the field, but he was too late to even out the numbers and prevent the scoring of a goal.

As the two teams regrouped in the center of the field, Raul heard Sherbourne berating Rob for his decision. “What the hell did you think you were doing? There was less than a minute! Why didn't you wait until the damned chukkar was over to change horses?”

Raul smiled humorlessly at Rob's initiation in playing for someone else. Regardless of how wrong he was, the team owner or captain was always right. The desire to win was fierce. And having two quick goals scored on them in succession was hard for a man like Sherbourne to accept. Rob, indirectly involved in both plays, suffered the brunt of his sour temper. It was an unpleasant by-product of the game, like fatigue and injuries.

Before the umpire had a chance to bowl the ball between
the staggered line of riders, the bell rang to end the chukkar, with Raul's side ahead by three points and only one period left to play. He rode to the picket line and dismounted. The groom, a chunky young girl, took the reins from him and led the sweating horse away.

Pulling off his helmet, Raul breathed in tiredly and temporarily laid his mallet, crop, and helmet across the armrests of a lawn chair. There wasn't time between chukkars to grab more than a few seconds of rest before he had to check the saddle and equipment on a fresh mount. There was a soreness in the thigh muscle of his right leg, the result of being accidentally hit by a stick early in the match. It showed signs of stiffening if he didn't keep moving.