Westfarrow Island

by Paul A. Barra

He made a fist and pretended to threaten his cousin. He was nearly as big as Anthony Tagliabue but softer, and could never mount a real threat, but he looked enough like his cousin to pass scrutiny at hotel desks and such. They drank brandy after lunch before Maurizio went home for his afternoon nap. He had a smile on his face as he thought about the ponies at Saratoga and the opportunity for some legal betting.

  Anthony Tagliabue decided to forgo a nap. His health was about back to normal and he had things to do. He had to work out. Having his body in top shape was paramount for any assignment and his needed toning after the beating and recovery. He also worked at getting Maven shipshape for her role in Giselle’s plan, changing filters, oil, and belts, collecting charts and fixing electronic settings. And cleaning. He trashed the mattresses in the cabin and purchased new ones.

  Tagliabue also prepped for his private, moral duty at Saratoga Race Course, meeting two more times with Maurizio in secret to go over their scheme. It wouldn’t have done for people to be reminded of the similarities between the cousins. When they met he wore Joshua’s old hat. It seemed appropriate, a reminder of the burden he bore to the memory of his friend.

  He enjoyed the best weather coastal Maine had to offer as spring melted into summer while he waited for the race meeting over at Saratoga.

  When Agnes Ann called in early July to say Jacob Collier was preparing to van Francine to New York state, he was fully ready for his assignment for Giselle.

  “Jesse is going to go with Mr. Collier. You want to ride down with me, Tony?”

  “That’s the best offer I’ve had all week. Is your little car up for the trip?”

  “Yeah, it actually runs well. I figure I’ll stay to see the boys off in the horse van and then drive over to Bath for you. I should get there for a late lunch on Friday. We can leave Saturday, if that works for you.”

  “Good. See you then.”

  By the time Tagliabue and Agnes Ann made it down the I-95 and across Massachusetts on I-90 and up the Northway to Saratoga Springs, the light was fading from the clear sky. She checked in at the Marriott Courtyard and they drove over to take Jesse to a late supper. They found the teen in front of Barn Eleven where Francine was stabled. He was talking and laughing with three other stable hands, all young. A pale girl with red hair so light it was almost pink was explaining something about hot wraps. Jesse appeared to be paying close attention to her.

  “We’re going out for a late supper,” Agnes Ann said. “Will you folks come with us?”

  All three stable hands demurred, citing early starts in the morning. It was already after eight thirty. Jesse fist-bumped the boys, shook hands with the redhead. He was smiling the whole time he walked with his mother and her friend down the shedrow to visit with the filly Francine. The horse stood looking at them over the half-open Dutch door of her stall. She moved her head up and down, nickering. Agnes Ann rubbed her muzzle and the space between her eyes.

  “Girl, you’re looking good,” she muttered to Francine.

  The animal did look good to Tagliabue, eyes clear and bright, coat glowing in the soft light of the darkening barn. Agnes Ann fed her a small carrot she had carried from Bath. It had turned limp at the tip but the horse crunched it down greedily. Jesse rolled his eyes at his mother. Jake never let anyone feed anything to his horses, not even a treat.

  Over burgers at the nearby Shake Shack, Jesse was voluble about his first days at Saratoga. Tagliabue smiled and sat back, taking in the conversation between mother and son.

  “Jake rents a house out of town a ways for the race meeting, but I slept in the stable for the first two days until Francine got settled in,” Jesse said.

  “Jake is it?” his mother asked. “I thought he was always Mr. Collier.”

  The boy swept aside her mild protestation. “Misters on the backstretch are owners, Mom. He asked me to call him Jake. Now I’m used to it. All the grooms and stable hands call him Jake. By the way, those other kids are just hot walkers. They got to work up to being stable hands or grooms.”

  “I see. Well, how is the filly? She looked good from what I could see in her stall.”

  “She’s better than good. Still gaining weight. You going to eat the rest of those onion rings? I work her out early at a training track they call the Oklahoma. It opens at five thirty but there are guys with stopwatches there even then most days. Jake has me run her fast in the middle of an exercise run, so it’s hard to get a time for any distance, know what I mean?”

  “I get you, Jess. Aren’t you a little big to be riding a racehorse?”

  “Yeah, I’m way too heavy. For training, though, Jake thinks it’s good. It’s like a swimmer wearing gloves in training. He takes them off for a race and his arms feel light. Same with Francine. She’s going to think no one’s on her when one of those 110-pound jocks gets aboard.”

  “Any idea who’s going to ride her?”

  “Jake thinks he’s got Manny Ramirez.”

  “He any good?”

  “Yeah, one of the best. Great guy too.”

  They drove the boy out to the little house Jacob Collier and his wife had rented for the race meeting. Ethyl Collier, thin and lined and dressed in flannel shirt tucked into jeans, which were tucked into worn cowboy boots, put on a pot of coffee. They visited with her and the trainer. By ten thirty both Collier and Jesse were yawning so Tagliabue and Agnes Ann left and went to their hotel.

  Tagliabue squatted by the floor safe in the morning and took out some cash.

  “You ever hear of plastic, Tony?”

  “Traceable.”

  “So?”

  He looked up at her, the bed sheet draped over her waist as she played at her tousled hair with her free hand, one of her breasts furrowed faintly from resting on it. She looked soft-eyed, having just left the cave of Somnus, young and innocent without a trace of makeup.

  “I don’t want anyone to know I’m here yet.”

  She sat up, suddenly alert, and pulled the sheets up. Girding for battle, Tagliabue thought. He told her Maury was flying up to Albany using his ID and renting a car with his credit card. His cousin was booked into a downtown Saratoga Springs hotel as Anthony Tagliabue. He could see the light go on in her eyes.

  “You’re working.” It was not a question.

  “Small job, Aggie. You’ll never even know it. I’m really here to see Francine run. Please don’t worry about it.”

  He hated lying to Agnes Ann, although he did hope to see the filly’s first race. The instructions from Giselle did not mention the track scene at all; this was personal business. Aggie could know nothing of it.

  “I’m not worried,” she said. She pushed at her nose with her knuckles. “Actually, I am worried. Your Giselle work is dangerous.”

  “This one should be easy.”

  She looked unconvinced. “I think I liked it better when I thought you were just the captain of a cargo boat.”

  “Go on now. You like a little drama and excitement.”

  “I get enough of that with horse racing. Anyway, does this mean you’re not going to be staying with me here in Saratoga?”

  “That’s right. People know I’m here. Some will have seen us together. But from now on, anybody looking will think Maury is me. I’m supposed to be undercover. I’ll be around, watching you and your horse.”

  “Well, okay. I’ll be busy with Francine anyway.”

  “I’ll sneak you into my bed once in a while.”

  For six weeks every year, the last of summer, horse racing shifted from the New York metropolitan area to the Adirondack Mountains. Belmont and Aqueduct shuttered themselves as the New York Racing Association moved its operation north to Saratoga Springs for the upstate track’s only meeting. The town and the track were steeped in history; the area was tony, expensive, and popular. Tagliabue liked the ambience, liked the track more. Families could picnic under the maples adjacent to the paddock, while grizzled bettors and touts, bussed up from Queens, grumbled and finagled on the grandstand apron, more
interested in their cigars than in the fact that the Saratoga Race Course is the oldest sporting venue on the continent. The meeting drew twenty thousand on weekdays, twice that on Travers Day, more than enough for Tagliabue to avoid running into Maurizio, who had agreed to restrict himself to the clubhouse environs.

  Tagliabue had not been to the barbershop since June and had stopped shaving. Dressed in khakis and a golf shirt as he mingled with the serious bettors near the finish line, he now looked scruffy, almost unkempt. No one seemed to care. Maybe his look was trendy.

  He marked up his Daily Racing Form and bet modestly. When Agnes Ann came to his new apartment-hotel for a visit on his third night in town, she grimaced when she saw him.

  “What, you don’t like my hairy face, Aggie?”

  “Well, I don’t exactly dislike it. I’m just not used to it yet, I guess. You have to admit it is different.”

  “That’s the idea.”

  “You don’t want people to recognize you,” she said. “I knew that.”

  “Some people will recognize you though,” he replied.

  “I know. I’ll just have to restrain myself from visiting.”

  She pursed her mouth at that, trying to figure out the implications of what he said. If people recognize her and know she and Tony are a couple, who are we talking about, she wondered. Tagliabue held up a hand before Agnes Ann could formulate a question.

  “The less you know, the better, Aggie. We just shouldn’t be seen together for a while.”

  She nodded. The Retinue Apartment Hotel was small and plain. He wanted it that way and ate most of his meals in his room. Agnes Ann went to the stables every day, spending the time with her son and her trainer, so she and Tagliabue would not have a lot of time to spend together even if they wanted to. The filly was rounding into shape. She had high hopes for Francine’s debut in a maiden race for two-year-olds on Wednesday of the track’s second full week of operation, only a few days away. She would be busy. There could be complications she couldn’t even anticipate.

  On Monday of that second week of the race meeting, Jack Brunson strolled up to Barn Eleven as his son was hosing down the horse following her morning workout. Jesse didn’t recognize him.

  “You know who I am, young fella?”

  The visitor’s voice was loud and he gestured with an unlit cigar when he spoke, making the young horse’s ears twitch.

  “No, sir, I don’t,” the teen replied as he sponged the filly’s face. Francine bobbed her head and moved her feet in little clattering dance steps on the concrete bathing pad. “I think I’m supposed to. Sorry to say I can’t remember exactly.”

  The man said “shit” under his breath. Jesse pretended not to hear it. He scraped water from the animal’s back and flanks, turned off the hose, and unhooked her from the two tie-downs. He clipped his own lead to Francine’s halter.

  “I got to cool walk her.”

  “I’m your goddamn father.”

  The boy stopped, holding the horse close and looking over his shoulder at the man. The horse blew and shook herself. Jesse patted her neck and said, “I think I’d know my father.” He led Francine away down the shedrow path.

  “I have a restraining order,” Agnes Ann told Tagliabue that evening as he tossed shrimp and asparagus in a sauté pan. “That bastard is not supposed to come near me or my son.”

  Tagliabue raised his eyebrows at her, hoping she would not ask him to intervene.

  “You tell Jake Collier about him?” he asked.

  “Yes. He told me to check with security at the gate, which I did. They shouldn’t have given Jack a backstretch pass. They said a new guy gave him a one-day pass without checking the no-fly list. It won’t happen again. Jack probably paid him off.”

  “That should cover it, I hope.”

  “It should,” Agnes Ann said. “It just makes me nervous that he’s even around.”

  The next day, Tagliabue went to the track looking for Jack Brunson. He hadn’t come to Saratoga to worry about Brunson, but he was concerned that he had shown up at Francine’s barn and he wanted to be sure that Jack wouldn’t be in the way when he had something to do. He didn’t see Brunson, though, and he began his search for his main target, the man who had murdered his friend by shooting him in the back and setting a bomb on Maven.

  He bought a grandstand seat near the front and watched the crowd below through binoculars. Saratoga drew tens of thousands no matter the weather, so it took Tagliabue an hour of looking and watching races to spot someone he knew. The man was wearing a black shirt over black pants and he had a paperboy hat shielding his eyes from the summer sun. It was Marv “Magpie” Harris and he was easy to follow once spotted.

  Magpie walked across the track apron as if the space belonged to him. He didn’t seem a particularly impressive figure but his confidence allowed him a certain aura. Tagliabue noticed people gave way to him when he walked; he made no attempt to accommodate others on the move. He went straight forward and others stepped out of the way, sensing some sort of menace in the man. Or, perhaps, they just didn’t want a needless confrontation to spoil their day of fun. Not surprisingly, Marv had a space on the rail at the finish line when the third race went off. He watched the race impassively, in stark contrast to the wildly cheering mobs around him. When the horses crossed the finish, he dropped his betting tickets on the concrete floor of the apron.

  Harris walked up the stairs behind where he’d stood at the rail, passing within a dozen feet of Tagliabue in his grandstand seat, looking neither left nor right, and into an open bar facing the clubhouse. A tall dark barkeep served him a short dark drink. He sat by himself reading and making notations in his Daily Racing Form. Tagliabue could see him only by turning sideways in his seat. It was too obvious that he was looking at something other than the horses if he used his binoculars, so he let them hang from his neck. He didn’t dare get closer to his quarry. Ten minutes later, Harris went back down to the track apron and again stood at the rail. Tagliabue didn’t see him place a bet. The betting lines radiated out from a wall of betting windows into a large open space behind Tagliabue’s seat. Only when the time to post shrunk to less than five minutes did the space fill up enough for Tagliabue to feel safe in hiding among the crowds. He was growing out his beard and wore a baseball cap, but he was afraid he would stand out to Harris because of his size.

  The fourth went off only a minute after Harris took up his rail position. Tagliabue figured him for a late bettor. Before the fifth he went up to the betting gallery at two minutes to post and spotted Marv Harris at the fifty-dollar window. He walked away through the dense concourse staring at his ticket. He didn’t see Tagliabue, but Tagliabue had seen enough. He went down to the paddock and watched the horses and their trainers, riders, owners, and groomsmen for another hour. He reclaimed his car and drove back to his hotel.

  “Mr. Fabris,” a clerk called from the front desk. Tagliabue remembered his cover name in time to walk over to the small alcove that served as the booking area. Most people at the Retinue stayed for at least a week at a time, so there was not a lot of activity at the front of the house. That was good.

  The matronly clerk handed him a pink call-back form: “Call Tagliabue.”

  He went outside and called Maurizio on his new cell.

  “I seen the bum Brunson in the clubhouse today.”

  “He recognize you, Maury?”

  “Sorta. He looked at me like he knew who I was, small smile, y’know, then a frown. He don’t know me from Adam but he musta thought I was you for a minute. So, no problem with that, but I wondered if you want me to watch him for you.”

  “You sure it was Jack Brunson?” Tagliabue asked.

  “Yeah, sure enough. I seen him a coupla times when he was giving Miss Agnes a hard time during the divorce. Once, when I was going over to see the new filly she just got, he got there first and they had words, y’know? I didn’t want to get mixed up in their private fuss, so I held back. But I seen him good. I know what he
looks like all right.”

  “Good, Maury, good. I don’t want him to see you too much. Try to find a seat away from him, if you can. If that doesn’t work, take a table at The Porch or one of those other restaurants in the clubhouse and hang out there. Okay?”

  “Yeah, no problem. It’s gonna be expensive though. You know what I mean?”

  “I do, but you’re going to bet on Francine in the third Wednesday and make enough to pay for it all.”

  “Francine? That Miss Agnes’s horse? No shit. I didn’t know she was ready. She any good, Anthony?”

  “All I know is that she is a good-looking animal and Agnes Ann and her trainer think she runs like the wind. They have Manny Ramirez in the saddle, so he must think she’s got a chance. Give it a shot. Spend some of your money.”

  “Your money, you mean.”

  Tagliabue laughed at that. The Clemson Project already had paid him enough to buy the filly and the other six horses in Jacob Collier’s stable, had they been for sale. He was not a millionaire, but he considered himself rich. Maurizio rattled paper over the phone.

  “The third is a maiden special weight, purse $83,000. She gonna be in good company, Anthony.”

  “Maybe we’ll get some odds.”

  “Maybe. Two-year-olds are tough to pick. Francine will be worth a wager, for sure.”

  Tagliabue clicked off on Maurizio and went to his room for a nap. That evening and the next full day on Tuesday, Tagliabue spent trying to locate Jack Brunson’s hideaway. He owed that much to Agnes Ann, for her peace of mind. Brunson had to be staying somewhere in the Saratoga Springs area. He tried all the major hotels first, then the motels and bed-and-breakfast houses that were popular in the resort town. No one offered to take a message for John “Jack” Brunson. On Wednesday, when the track reopened from its one dark day of each week, Tagliabue had other things on his mind than the whereabouts of Jack Brunson: it was the day of Francine’s inaugural race.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Jesse Brunson was walking the filly, Francine, in tight circles in the saddling enclosure, a three-sided tall space with dusty clerestory windows admitting shafts of muted sunlight. The horse was visibly excited. There were other horses in the paddock, some of whom knew what was coming, having raced before, and people. People everywhere, all seemingly talking at once. The muscles beneath the young horse’s red coat rippled, her head was up and moving at all the sounds of race day. She blew a few times.