He grinned at me wickedly and pushed the clams across the table. The one I ate was cold, tart, delicious.
“Do you want to see her?” he asked.
“Of course! Can I see her?” It had never dawned on me that I would have access to Ask Me No Questions.
Triumphantly he pulled a small piece of paper out of his shirt pocket, unfolded it, and slid it across the table to me the same way he had slid the clams. It read: “James Norris Stables, Far Hills, New Jersey.”
“They retired Ask Me No Questions to become a brood mare. But there was something wrong with her. She couldn’t conceive, and when she finally did, she couldn’t deliver a live foal. So they sold her to that stable in Far Hills. They’re going to make a Grand Prix show jumper out of her—you know, going over seven-foot fences for ten thousand dollars first-prize money contributed by Volvo or BMW. For all I know, she’s a jumper by now.”
“You told me what I need to know,” I said thankfully.
“I wish you’d stop thanking me, Swede. After all, I’m not a happily married man and you’re going to damage what remains of my libido. Besides, you don’t think for a minute that I believe all that nonsense about you writing a book on Cup of Tea.”
I was barely listening to him now. An absurd little ditty was bouncing around my head:
Three little racehorses
Hanging on a wall
Two hung straight
But the third took a fall
I wasn’t finished with Anthony yet. “Did anyone mention to you an exercise rider named Ginger Mauch?”
“You mean someone who used to ride Ask Me No Questions?”
“Yes.”
“Never heard the name. But, then again, exercise riders are anonymous unless they’re name jockeys and doing a favor for the trainer. Is this Ginger a jockey?”
“No,” I answered, trying a cherrystone this time, remembering that Dr. Johnson used to feed oysters to his cat. I started wondering if Bushy and Pancho would like clams, speculating how best to remove them in their half shells from the Plaza.
Basillio started a monologue about how the racetrack was the closest thing around to Brecht’s conception of theater. The brandy was obviously getting to him.
“How do I get out to Far Hills?” I asked him.
“By car. Take the George Washington Bridge. Then some kind of highway you pick up there—84 or 80 or 287—I forget which.”
I began to look around for the first time since I had sat down. There were only out-of-town faces, like mine had been so many years ago.
“Do you know what, Swede?” Basillio asked, now desperately trying to get a waiter’s attention for coffee.
“What?”
“I think you’re going to ask me to do you another favor. So, before you ask, I’m going to offer it. Not because I’m a good guy or anything like that, but because it was so damn wonderful to see you again and I don’t want it to be another seventeen years before we see each other again. So, I’ll take you to Jersey. No big deal. I live in New Jersey—Fort Lee. I’ll take you to see Ask Me No Questions.”
“You going to interview the horse with a tape recorder?” Basillio asked, chuckling.
I nodded absentmindedly, staring out the window of the late-model Pontiac. Actually, I didn’t know why I was driving out to see the horse. But I was going. For that was the way the thing was developing. One tiny, stupid step at a time. Ask Me No Questions was a real live thing that I could see and touch, not a painting on a wall or a photograph in a book. I was going to see a horse.
Basillio started asking me theater questions—about old friends and colleagues: Where was L? What about R?
I answered the best I could. The traffic was thinning. The motion of the car soothed me. Basillio was a good driver, fast and safe. Snatches of a poem I had studied in school came to me: “That’s my last Duchess painted on the wall.” Was it Browning?
A little more than an hour after we crossed the George Washington Bridge, we pulled up to the Norris stables. The place was a large complex with indoor and outdoor rings and dozens of young girls standing around with riding helmets and whips. There were jump courses on which classes were being held, and a steady stream of lathered horses being led from ring to stable.
“Well, it isn’t Belmont Park,” Basillio said.
We parked the car and entered the main office.
A tall, elderly man wearing a sheepskin vest greeted us. I proceeded with my fiction, slanting it a bit: I was writing a book on lady racehorses who had beaten the boys. I wanted to take a look at Ask Me No Questions, who had done just that many times.
The man smiled and said, “She’s going to beat the boys in the jumping ring also.”
Basillio whispered in my ear, “You keep changing your story about what kind of book you’re writing. Why don’t you stick to one story?”
I ignored his comment. The elderly man leafed through some index cards and then said, “She’s being schooled now on course number three. Why don’t you take a walk over?”
He led us to a window and pointed out the path to the course.
As we headed that way, I began to search the faces that passed us. Would Ginger be here? Was that why I had come?
When we reached the course, a large gray horse was being led over very small jumps at a very slow pace. Most she took easily, hesitating just a bit when she was forced to jump after coming out of a tight turn. The girl on her back encouraged her, crooned to her, patted her neck constantly. Then the rider pulled up, slid off, and started to lead Ask Me No Questions out of the ring.
“What a beautiful lady,” Basillio whispered in awe.
I could not respond. I, too, was mesmerized by the rippling, delicate, gathered beauty of the mare. But I felt something else: I was finally about to make contact in some way with the ashes of Harry Starobin.
My hands were trembling as I told my story to the rider, a chunky girl of about twenty, who then invited us both back to the barn, a bit proud that someone was going to put Ask Me No Questions in a book.
As we all walked back together, Ask Me No Questions playfully swung her head and hit Basillio on the chest.
“She’s paying me back for the time I bet against her,” he said.
As we reached the entrance of the large barn where she was stabled, Ask Me No Questions suddenly stopped, planted her feet, and would go no farther. The girl smacked her on the rear end. But Ask Me No Questions would not budge.
“Hell,” said the girl, “I forgot that she won’t go in until Marjorie comes out.”
“Who is Marjorie?” Basillio asked.
The girl laughed. “You’ll see. Oh, here she comes.”
As we waited there, sweat started beading on my face. It will be Ginger, I thought, here she comes!
“There’s Marjorie,” the girl said happily, and the horse moved forward.
Lumbering out in front of the barn, yawning, was a large, beautiful calico cat.
16
I showed the wine bottle to Bushy, as if I was a waiter and the cat was a patron. Bushy ignored it. I opened it quickly and poured myself a glass of good Bordeaux—a St. Emilion.
The wine was for my confusion. I sat down on the sofa, my legs drawn tightly together. The search had ended in a calico cat named Marjorie strolling out of the barn. Ginger had not been there. Of course she hadn’t. Why had I ever thought she would? Only a calico cat. And a different calico cat from the one in the Cup of Tea photo, which in turn had been a different calico cat from Veronica the barn cat, according to Jo. Just a calico cat. A horse’s mascot.
I went into the kitchen, opened the refrigerator, took out some St. André cheese, and spread it on a rice cake. Pancho was high on a cabinet, staring down at me. He loved cheese.
I walked back to the living room and ate the snack, staring out the window onto the street.
“Poor Ginger,” I muttered. I put the wineglass down on the sill, stiffening a bit. Why had that popped out? Lately I had found myself mutter
ing out loud from time to time. But usually it was “poor Harry” or “poor Jo.” Why in God’s name would I suddenly be feeling sympathy for Ginger Mauch. Ginger was the enemy. Wasn’t she?
It was suddenly apparent to me that Ginger was probably just a frightened girl. She had been running from the murderers before they caught up with her.
The next morning, as I made coffee, I conjured up an image of a short, chunky red-haired young woman, physically strong, with a nervous way of speaking, dressed in work clothes. Where would Ginger run to?
Not to the racetrack. It was too well-regulated. Everyone knew everyone. People walked around with identification badges.
Not on Long Island. Too many people knew her.
She might be a thousand miles away, in some Midwest or Southern hamlet, but in that case I’d never find her. I had to proceed on the assumption that she had melted into the one place where her face was one of millions—the perfect camouflage. She was right here in Manhattan. In New York City she would be just another young woman seeking a job.
And where would an exercise rider with a lifelong passion for horses get work?
My hand holding the coffee cup began to shake ever so slightly. I knew where Ginger would be working. Of course. At the last remaining riding stable in Manhattan—at Claremont on West Eighty-ninth Street.
I had been there many times when I first came to New York. I used to take long walks on the bridle path in Central Park and follow the horses and riders home to the stable, marveling at how the experienced horses could gingerly pick their way through the traffic-choked, double-parked streets once they left the park.
I dressed quickly, without thinking, and only after I was fully dressed did I realize that I was wearing the clothes I usually wore only to acting classes—jeans and an old sweatshirt on which was printed property of athletic department/university of virginia. I never knew where or how I had obtained that sweater—it had just appeared.
My instinctive clothes selection was a good omen, I thought. One always attempted to diminish one’s natural beauty in acting classes, since it was looked upon as fakery. The ability to go deep inside a character was what was treasured. And wasn’t I doing that? Wasn’t I going inside of Ginger’s head?
I was catching a character, a role—I was intuiting another’s movement. I was a bloodhound . . . a choreographer . . . a nonsensical forty-one-year-old actress on the move. Chuckle. You know what they say: Bedouins sharpen their vision by painting the whites of their eyes blue.
I folded the only photograph of Ginger I had—the one with Cup of Tea and an unidentified calico cat—and placed it carefully in my bag. Then I left the apartment, cautioning the cats against any bizarre behavior, took the Third Avenue bus to Seventy-ninth Street, and walked west through the park.
The riding stable had not changed. On either side were the same crumbling brownstones. There was the same small, low-ceilinged ring with posts scattered throughout. The same treacherous ramp led from the ring to the stall area on the second floor. The office area was still as crowded as a subway car, even though it was late-morning on a weekday, with children, parents, instructors.
I finally cornered a man who seemed to have managerial responsibilities and gave him the current fiction: I was writing a book about the great racehorse Cup of Tea, and I had learned that one of his exercise riders was now working in his stable.
The man, who wore a whistle around his neck and riding boots in which white carpenter jeans were stuffed, folded his arms impatiently, as if I was a saleswoman about to launch into a long pitch. “That’s news to me,” he said in a heavy foreign accent which I could not identify.
“Her name is Ginger Mauch.”
“No Ginger Mauch works here.”
“Well, maybe she’s a groom.”
“No groom named Ginger Mauch works here. No instructor either.”
I pulled the picture out and shoved it under his face, signifying but not saying that she might be working under a different name. It was too gloomy in the ring to see the photo clearly. Angrily he took the photo and strode to the stable entrance, flooded by the morning sun. I followed.
He stared at the picture, then handed it back. “No,” he said, “I’ve never seen that woman here, and I’ve worked here for the last nine years.”
I walked out of the riding stable so bitterly disappointed that my lower lip started to quiver like a child’s. It never had really occurred to me that Ginger wouldn’t be there. I knew she would be there. The doors of perception had shut on my arrogance like a steel trap.
I walked to Broadway, found a coffee shop, and collapsed in a booth. I ordered a cup of tea and a piece of coconut custard pie.
Everything connected with the murder of Harry Starobin seemed to recede . . . to have taken place fifty years ago. I wanted to push it even further back . . . to get away . . . to go to the shore . . . to the mountains . . . anywhere. I wanted out of those tiny compulsions which were leading me from one cipher to another.
“Poor Alice,” I mocked myself, “too old to really enter a part.”
I ate the pie slowly and doggedly, determined to get some energy. I sipped the tea. When the coffee shop began to fill up with a lunchtime crowd, I left, contemplating for a moment a cab . . . then deciding it would be best to walk.
I went back into Central Park and walked downtown. It was a glorious spring day. Everyone was out walking, jogging, bicycling. Even the homeless derelicts, huddled among the trees, seemed less desperate, less aggressive than usual.
When I reached the Tavern on the Green, I stopped and stared, discomfited, tense. Years ago I had eaten brunch there with my husband on a Sunday morning. The marriage was already in the last stages of dissolution and the brunch had become ugly. The dialogue between us was late-Gothic-bitter—and centered around that most absurd of things, cream for the coffee:
He: I want half-and-half for my coffee. They gave us plain milk.
Me: Ask the waiter.
He: You ask the waiter. He keeps smiling at you.
Me: Are you jealous?
He: He can have you. All I want is the half-and-half.
I wondered why I had always remembered that stupid exchange—word for word, nuance by nuance.
I exited Central Park at Columbus Circle and turned east onto Central Park South. There were the carriage horses lined up in their accustomed spot, waiting for tourists. Their drivers, bizarrely outfitted, sat high up on their boxes, calling out to people passing.
I kept well clear of them; I was sick of horses.
The Plaza came into view. It was where I had had the clams with Anthony Basillio. He had been a good friend.
Suddenly there was violent barking. A woman held a dalmatian on a leash and the dog was pulling at it violently and barking at a big white carriage horse parked by the curb, whose nose was hidden in a feed bag.
The woman holding the dog was yelling apologies to the driver. The driver just smiled and nodded her head. The horse seemed totally unconcerned.
I started to cross Central Park South to continue in a downtown direction. The light was with me.
I stopped suddenly and let the light change.
My heart was beginning to jump, to beat with a funny little flutter—quickly, lightly, but pronounced.
My hand grasped my shoulder bag tightly and then released it.
The city became silent. I was frozen in time and space.
The carriage driver behind the big white horse was Ginger Mauch.
17
The watch on the waiter’s thin wrist read two twenty. It seemed to be a very old watch. Maybe it had been his grandfather’s. Maybe he was an out-of-work actor and he had come to New York from Minnesota, from a dairy farm, and the watch was the only rural memento he had left. How could a watch be a rural memento? Stupid thoughts.
I had been sitting in the outdoor café on the corner of Sixth Avenue and Central Park South for more than an hour. I had kept my eyes glued on the carriage with the big whit
e horse.
The carriage was moving slowly but inexorably westward, toward me. Each time a carriage was hired, the others moved up—like a taxi line in front of a hotel.
An untouched Bloody Mary was in front of me. The waiter was bothersome, continually asking me if I wanted anything else. Business was slow. It was just a bit too early in the spring for café sitting.
There could be no doubt that the carriage driver was Ginger Mauch. Her hair was short now and dyed brown. But it was her. I had seen her in the flesh three times before this: once when I arrived by taxi at the Starobins’ place on that terrible day; once when we were being questioned by the police; and once that same night, when I had stumbled on Ginger weeping behind the cottage.
No, this was not a mistake. This was real. This was Ginger.
In retrospect it was all so logical. Ginger had taken care of the old Starobin carriage horses. Of course she would seek work in Manhattan with carriage horses.
The longer I sat there, the more frightened I became. It wasn’t physical fear of Ginger; it was something else. Something to do with the fear that even finding Ginger would yield only another dead end . . . a wall . . . a blinking image of a calico cat.
Ginger’s carriage moved another space. I realized I would have to make my move soon. I placed a ten-dollar bill on the table in a manner which mutely showed that the waiter could keep the change from the drink—a very substantial gratuity. The sight of the ten-dollar bill calmed the waiter; he stopped hovering about me.
What happens if I wait too long and someone else hires the carriage? The thought panicked me.
I left the café swiftly, walked to the corner, and waited for the light to change.
Then I crossed the street to the carriage side and waited, turned away from the line of view. It suddenly occurred to me that since I was wearing my acting-class garb, Ginger would never even recognize me.
A Cat Tells Two Tales Page 11