The Last Private Eye (6 page)

Rhineheart squinted over at the backstretch. The horses were starting to warm up. If you were a private eye long enough, Rhineheart thought, you got to hear all the news and the gossip and the confessions. All the soap opera shit of the world.

“I'm being frank with you, Mr. Rhineheart, because I don't want anything bad to happen. I wanted to talk to you before Duke did. I wanted to warn you to be on your guard. Duke will do his best to intimidate you.”

“I'll try to watch myself, Mrs. Kingston.”

“Don't let him bully you, Mr. Rhineheart.”

“I'll give it my best shot.”

“At the same time you must try to avoid a confrontation with him.”

“Don't worry, Mrs. Kingston.”

“I think you'll do just fine,” Jessica Kingston said. “You seem tough enough, and it's good that you have a sense of humor. You're going to need it when you meet my husband.” She looked at her watch and stood up. “I have an appointment. I'm afraid I have to leave.” She gave Rhineheart her hand. “Good luck on your investigation, Mr. Rhineheart. Perhaps we'll see each other again.” She turned and left the box. He watched her walk up the aisle and through the exit. She was the kind of woman you watched until she was out of sight.

Rhineheart sat there for a few minutes thinking about what she had said. Then he walked back to the betting windows and bet $200 on the six horse to win.

He watched the race on a TV monitor in the grandstand. It was a seven-furlong claiming race for three-year-olds and up. The six, a barrel-chested dark brown gelding, broke alertly, then dropped back and stayed just off the leaders until the quarter pole when he began to make his move. In the turn he passed three horses and was fighting for the lead at the top of the stretch. But that was all he had. Coming out of the turn he flattened out and his stride began to shorten and horses began to pass him. He was on the inside near the rail and stayed there, tired and lugging in, all the way down the stretch. He finished eighth, beaten some twenty lengths by the favorite, the two horse, who won the race easily, going away.

Rhineheart threw away his ticket and walked over to the clubhouse parking lot. He wheeled the Maverick out of the lot and drove it around to the backside entrance on Longfield Avenue. He parked on the street and walked through the gate. He showed Kate Sullivan's pass to the gate guard, who barely glanced at it, and made his way over to Barn 24.

A young black kid with a bushy Afro and a T-shirt that read
CRESTHILL FARMS
was mucking out one of the empty stalls.

Rhineheart asked the kid if John Hughes was around.

“Ain't nobody around,” the kid said. “Just me. And I ain't nobody much.”

“I know that feeling,” Rhineheart told him.

“You look in the clubhouse bar?” the kid said. “Hughes be anyplace, he be in the clubhouse bar.”

Rhineheart offered the kid a cigarette.

“No thanks.”

“You work for Cresthill long?” Rhineheart asked.

“Couple of years too long” was the reply.

“You know Carl Walsh?”

“Sure, I know Carl.” The kid frowned at Rhineheart. “Why? I mean, who's asking?”

Rhineheart showed him the license.

“Rhineheart, huh? You a private eye, huh?”

“Yeah.”

“Like Magnum, huh?”

“Not quite.”

“Get all the broads, drive around in them fast wheels, dress sharp.”

“I got a '76 Maverick,” Rhineheart said. “With a bad rear end. And my wardrobe's not that great either. This is my best suit.”

“Magnum ask people questions, he gives them cash money.”

Rhineheart took out a twenty.

“Shit, yeah,” the kid said, “I know Carl. Carl is my old buddy. What you want to know about Carl, Magnum?”

“When was the last time you saw him?”

“Tuesday morning. Over by the track kitchen. He was talking to old whatshisface, the guy who owns River City Stud.”

“Howard Taggert?”

“That's it.”

“You didn't happen to overhear what they were talking about, did you?”

The kid shook his head.

“You ever met Walsh's wife?”

“Naw. I met a couple of his girl friends, but I never met his old lady.”

“Tell me about his girl friends.”

“What's to tell, man. Waitress-type broads.”

“You know any of them?”

“That twenty you holdin' keeps looking smaller and smaller.”

“I got a twin to go with it if you keep on talking and tell me what I want to hear.”

“Tammy somethin'. Irish last name. The Hideaway Bar and Grill. Over on Seventh Street Road. Little bitty broad. Too young for me.”

“Carl likes the young ones, huh?”

“Shit, Carl likes 'em young and old and in between. And every other fucking way, too. Carl is a wild dude, man.”

“Carl gamble?”

The kid cracked up. “Does a bear shit in the woods?”

“Who's he gamble with?”

“Anybody that'll take his money. Mostly with a dude named Marvin.”

“I know Marvin,” Rhineheart said.

“
Everybody
knows Marvin.”

“You got any idea where Carl might be?”

“Be?” The kid looked puzzled. “Is he gone somewhere?”

“He hasn't been to work since Thursday, has he?”

“I don't know. I don't keep track of the dude's hours, man. Now that you mention it, I guess he ain't been around in a couple of days.”

“You know any reason why he'd blow his job and disappear?”

“Maybe he just went out and got drunk and is sleeping it off somewhere.”

“Three days is a pretty long sleeping it off.”

The kid shrugged. “Carl a pretty wild dude, man. He be capable of a whole lot of shit.”

“What about around here? Anything happen to him that might make him want to leave?”

“John Hughes jumped all
over
his shit last week, but that ain't nothin' new. He jumps in everybody's shit regular.”

“What'd he get on Walsh for?”

“I don't know, but it was a bad scene. Lots of shoutin' and shit out behind the barn. They almost came to blows.” The kid looked around. “Hughes come back and find me bullshittin' with you, and he's gonna jump in
my
shit. This ain't the best job in the world, but it's the only one I got. You know what I mean?”

Rhineheart gave him the first twenty, plus another one. “Thanks, kid, you been a big help.”

“Anytime, Magnum.”

Rhineheart started to walk away.

“Hey, Magnum.”

Rhineheart stopped and turned around.

“Shea. That's her name. Tammy Shea.”

CHAPTER NINE

Rhineheart pointed the Maverick east out of Louisville on I-64. A sign on the side of the road read
LEXINGTON 73.
Open countryside rolled away from the highway on both sides. Fields. Farmlands. Woods. Clumps of tall, dark green cedar trees dotted the side of the road. The only buildings he saw for long stretches were farm structures—sheds, tobacco barns, silos, farmhouses. The sun, straight overhead, beat down on the Maverick as it rolled past signs announcing approaches to different small towns—
SHELBYVILLE, WADDY-PEYTONA, LAWRENCEBURG.

He passed through Shelby and Franklin counties and turned off I-64 onto KY 60. He was in Woodford County now, the beginnings of thoroughbred country. He cruised through Midway, a drowsy little place in the road, and turned left on the Versailles Road. Just inside the Fayette County line he turned left again onto one of the side roads that led off the main highway. A few miles down the road he pulled over and came to a stop in front of the main entrance to Cresthill Farms.

The entrance was flanked by stone pillars six feet tall, bearing the Kingston name. Through the wrought-iron gate, across a stretch of ground the size of a city park, Rhineheart could see a redbrick Georgian-style mansion with tall, slim, white columns that formed a portico. It sat atop a small hill above a grove of ash trees. There might have been better words to describe it, but
stately
was the word that came to him.

Rhineheart got out of the car and rang the bell that was set into the side of one of the pillars. After a moment the gates swung open. He got back in the Maverick and drove in, onto a blacktop road that was lined with pink and white dogwood and magnolia trees. Off to the right, on the other side of a running creek, stood a cluster of horse barns and farm buildings. The barns and buildings were frame or clapboard and were painted royal blue and green, the Kingston racing colors. On each side of the blacktop, white oak-plank fences stretched off into the distance. On a sweep of lawn near the mansion a group of workers was putting up what looked like huge tent poles.

The road twisted through a corridor of ash trees and burr oaks and ended in a cemented parking area at the rear of the mansion. Rhineheart eased the Maverick into a spot between a black Mercedes and a steel gray Rolls Royce Silver Spirit.

He got out of the car and stood there for a moment, looking up at the house. It was a hell of a place. The old plantation. It made him feel like a sleazy private eye. A guy who made a couple of hundred a day when he worked and drove a twelve-year-old Maverick with a bad clutch. Someone who lived in a furnished apartment. Someone who drank too much and slept with a lot of waitresses.

What the hell, Rhineheart thought, that's what I am.

He walked around to the front door and rang the bell. A thin, sour-faced black woman answered the door.

“Yes?”

“You one of the slaves?” Rhineheart said.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Honky humor,” Rhineheart said. “Pay no attention. The name's Rhineheart. I've got an appointment with Mr. Kingston.”

“Come in, please.”

In the entrance hall, Rhineheart tried to be cool and not gawk at the crystal chandelier, the winding staircase, and the gilt-edged mirror that took up most of one wall.

“This way, please.”

He followed the maid down a short hallway, through a couple of tastefully furnished rooms, into a longer hallway where she stopped in front of a massive mahogany door.

“Mr. Kingston's library,” she said, knocked, and departed back down the hallway.

“Come in,” a voice said.

Rhineheart opened the door and more or less sauntered into the room. John Wayne, he thought, strolling into the Last Chance Saloon. It was a spacious, high-ceilinged room lined with books on three sides. A long conference table that looked like it belonged in some corporation boardroom stood in front of the fireplace. The fourth wall was a wide pair of French doors that looked out on an elaborate garden with trellised arbors and stone sculpture.

There were two people in the room. One was an enormous goon in a business suit who stood near the windows, as if he were guarding them. He had meat hooks for hands and a mean half-witted look on his otherwise blank face. The other one, the rich-looking bastard sitting behind the polished mahogany desk, Rhineheart was sure, was Duke Kingston.

Kingston had a crop of thick, silver hair, dark eyebrows, clear cold gray eyes, and a lean handsome face. He was trim and tanned and looked about as sophisticated and wealthy and aristocratic as it was possible to look. He stood up and came around the desk with his hand out.

“Duke Kingston.” The accent, Rhineheart noted, was Deep South, a plantation owner's drawl.

“Michael Rhineheart.”

“Supah. Supah,” Kingston said, as they shook hands. “Pleasure to meet you, Mr. Rhineheart.” Kingston jerked a thumb at the goon. “This here's Mr. Borchek.”

Borchek nodded like someone who had been trained to nod.

“Mr. Borchek's one of my security consultants,” Kingston said.

Bodyguard, Rhineheart thought. Arm breaker.

“What kind of name is Rhineheart?” Kingston seemed genuinely interested. “German?”

“Yeah.”

“I'm a great admirer of the Germans,” Kingston said. “Very industrious group of people, don't you think?”

Rhineheart made no reply. He wasn't about to get sucked into any yessir-nosir dialogue.

“There's people,” Duke Kingston said, “not unintelligent people, who say we should've got together with them during World War II and went after the Communists.” Kingston pronounced it
Common-ists.

“You ask me here to talk about history?” Rhineheart said.

Kingston looked surprised, but managed a laugh.

“Mistah, you got a sense of humor.”

“That's what your wife said. She seemed to think I'd need one.”

“She did, huh? Well, that sounds like Jessica, all right.” Kingston indicated a leather wing chair. “Have a seat, Mr. Rhineheart.”

Rhineheart sat down and looked around the room. “Your wife not going to join us?”

Kingston shook his head. “You look disappointed, Mr. Rhineheart.”

“I am.”

“Too bad. Jessica is off somewhere, as usual, attending to something or other, some social function or civic meeting. It's in the nature of women to occupy themselves with such things. Frankly, I'm glad she's not here. We have some weighty matters to discuss, and I always find that when you're talking about something truly important, women just tend to get in the way. How you feel about that, Mr. Rhineheart?”

“I don't agree,” Rhineheart said.

“No?” Duke Kingston raised an eyebrow. “Well, I got to admit that comes as something of a surprise to me. You don't look like the kind of man who takes much shit from women.”

“I don't take shit from anybody,” Rhineheart said.

“Not even a little bit, huh? Well, that's good to hear, Rhineheart. That's the kind of man I would like to have working for me. Someone who doesn't take any shit. I'm tired”—
tired
came out
tard
—“of all these ass kissers and brown nosers I'm surrounded by. I think you and me going to get along just supah.” He walked back behind the desk, sat down, reached over and flipped open an elaborately carved cigar box. “Have a cigar, Mr. Rhineheart.”