by John Dunning
I could only hear part of what Baxter was saying. His voice carried across the tow ring in snatches and he seemed to be asking everyone in the shedrow if they had heard from Cameron. No one had, and after a while he left. I didn’t move from my place in the sun for much of what morning was left; it felt too good just to laze around and take pleasure in being alive. At ten-thirty I walked up to the kitchen and found a copy of today’s Daily Racing Form where someone had left it on a table. I glanced through the races and learned that Sandy had Erica’s Eyes in the fifth. It was a five-furlong dash for maiden fillies, which I knew meant a cavalry charge for fillies that had never won a race. In fact, Sandy’s horse had never raced anywhere, but somebody must have known something because she was an even-money favorite in the morning line. This had come about as always by some mysterious ripple process. Since she had no form, the railbirds were going by her workouts and maybe the reputation of her trainer. I toyed with the crazy idea of putting my whole load on her nose, everything I had won on Pompeii Ruler last week. A sucker’s bet, but it was all found money, never mind the vow I had made to bet no more. For a moment I was tempted to ask Sandy how she looked but things between us were suddenly chilly and now the cop in me didn’t want to owe him anything.
I had some lunch and over the noon hour I felt a little better. I wasn’t all there yet but I could almost feel the strength oozing back into my muscles and bones. I checked in at the barn. Erica’s Eyes was Bob’s horse. He was sitting in the straw, wrapping her legs. I leaned over the webbing and watched him work. I asked him how she was feeling and he smiled and gave me a wink. He had been her ginney for more than six months, and right then, on nothing more than that, I decided to play her all the way.
We were now into the early afternoon. This was the quiet hour, when ginneys with nothing going could catch up on a little sleep. Again I thought of having that little talk with Rudy across the way. I had a hunch that was growing stronger by the minute. If Cameron had turned up nowhere by now, my cop’s instinct was to follow him through Rudy, the last man known to have seen him, so at one o’clock I hauled myself out of the chair and started across the tow ring. A few horses watched with keen interest as I walked into Rudy’s shedrow and gave him a bold look through his screened door.
He was sitting on his bed looking through a Playboy magazine. Slowly his eyes came up over the pages. “You looking for something?” He got to his feet and came toward the door, said, “What’s goin’ on, dude?” and now there was a hesitance in his face. He had come just two steps and stopped. “I’m looking for your pal Cameron,” I said.
“He’s no pal of mine.” In a bellicose voice, he added, “I’m not his goddam secretary, either. What makes you think I know where he went?”
Until that moment I had no idea what I was going to do but suddenly I did what I’d always wanted to do as a cop: I opened the screened door and took a full step inside. This would have been just enough to put a cop’s case in jeopardy if I had been a cop building one, but at the moment the game was between Rudy and me. It was enough to surprise him and he backed around the edge of his bunk. “Wait a minute, goddammit, I didn’t say you could come in here,” he said, but his voice quaked and gave him away.
“A guy across the way said you’re looking for somebody to play rummy with.”
“What are you, some kinda nut?”
“Go find Cameron, then we’ll have us a third. Maybe you know somebody else, then we’d have enough for a game of bridge.”
“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. I don’t even play cards.”
“Cameron’s brother Bax could be our fourth.”
The anger that skittered across his face was again tempered by doubt.
“Man, this is my room. What right have you got barging in here?”
He was still trying hard to be tough but I could see he was a frightened liar. His face said he was stonewalling and his voice said he was afraid.
I could almost smell the fear on him. I took another step and suddenly the rules changed from rummy to Grab-ass, the new Parker Brothers board game. I said, “Okay, maybe we won’t play cards. Instead I might just kick you around a bit and worry about my rights later.”
“What the hell are you talking about? Jesus, I don’t even know you.”
“Then I guess you’re gonna find out about me now.”
His mouth opened like a gaffed fish. I cocked my head and tried to look bored. “You don’t get it, do you, Rudy? I throw you my best lines and they’re lost on you. So listen to me. Sit down and shut your mouth and listen.” I pushed him and he slammed hard against the wall.
“Jesus Christ! Who do you think you are?”
“I’m the guy who got worked over looking for your pal Cameron. Somebody whacked the hell out of me with a poker and tried to roast me for dinner. But I guess you wouldn’t know anything about that.”
“I don’t know anything about anything.”
“Generally speaking, let’s say I think you’re a liar and a pretty bad one. I think you see yourself as a tough guy, but I’ve met guys like you dozens of times before. When the chips go down you’re just another scared rat.”
“Man, I don’t have to take that shit.”
I smiled, venomously I hoped, and he made one last attempt to gain the high ground. “You know if I report this you’ll get deep-sixed out of here fast.”
“Then I’ll have to convince you not to do that.”
Sudden alarm spread across his face. “What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”
He tried to crawl away but I grabbed his shirt and tightened it into a knot over his Adam’s apple. Slowly I drew him forward, struggling on the bed, until I could smell his smoker’s breath. “Rudy, you are really starting to piss me off. You know why that is? Because you’re turning me into a bully. I hate bullies worse than anything. I even hate myself when I’ve got to resort to tactics like this, you know what I’m saying?”
He sat mute and softly I added, “But that won’t stop me from kicking your ass.”
He looked away as a mouse scurried around the corner.
“Are you gonna talk to me, Rudy?”
“I don’t…”
“Wrong answer.” I raised my hands suddenly, like a Halloween spook yelling boo, and he cringed back into his bedding with a sharp cry. “Wait a minute!”
I waited, somewhat less than a minute. “Rudy?”
“Hey, Cameron’s no skin off my nose. What do you want to know?”
“Good man.” I smoothed his shirt, brushed him off. “Mainly I want to know where he is and why he went away and what he wants and when he’s coming back. If you tell me these things, we can be buddies again. But if you say you don’t know, that would be a mistake. Now, answer a few questions and I’ll get out of your face. Where’s Cameron gone?”
“Down to the old man’s farm. What’s that got to do with you?”
“That’s one of the things we’re trying to find out. Why’d he go down there?”
“Said he had to see somebody.”
“And who would that be?”
“He didn’t say, I didn’t ask. If you don’t believe me, ask him yourself.”
“Maybe I’ll do that if he ever shows up again. What’s he after?”
“I don’t know.”
“Rudy…”
“I don’t know, man! So we travel together, that don’t mean I know everything he does.”
“When’s he coming back?”
“I figured he’d be back three days ago. That’s what he said, but now he’s missing and even the cops don’t know where to look.”
“Cops are looking for him?”
“Well, yeah, as much as they look after anybody that drops off the earth.”
“But you don’t know who he went down to the farm to see?”
“He went to see some dude who’s gonna give him a bunch of dough.”
“How big a bunch?”
“Big enough to stake him till he gets
on his feet again.”
“But he didn’t tell you why this fellow is giving him all that money?”
“He tells me nothing about his business. This is God’s truth now, I swear it is.”
“You ever known him to traffic in books?”
“Books? What the hell kinda question is that?”
“You know what a book is, Rudy. I don’t expect you’ve ever read one on your own, but I think you’ve heard rumors of their existence.”
“Man, you’re outta your mind. Are we talking about the same guy?”
“Don’t lie to me, Rudy. I know you boys tried some grab-ass stuff with Sharon’s crew in Idaho, and I know you were looking for a book. This may be your last chance to level with me.”
“So he was looking for some old damn book. So he’s weird. Am I supposed to know what that’s about?”
“He didn’t tell you?”
“Hell, no. Just said it was worth some dough.”
At the doorway, I turned and said, “Naturally, if you’re lying…”
He turned his hands up, a picture of helpless innocence, and I left him there.
I walked over to the saddling paddock with Bob and stood outside the ring and watched while Sandy saddled his horse. To make the wait interesting I dropped my entire winnings on Erica’s Eyes. She went off at only four-to-five but won in a breeze by six lengths. Her jock never had to touch her with the whip. He just waved it at her, she blew away the field at the top of the stretch, and was still pulling away under a tight hand-ride to the wire. If they had gone around the track, I thought, she’d have lapped them.
This was more than two grand back to me on my $1,200 bet. Again Ms. Patterson came out to the shedrow with Sandy, this time without her husband. Hmmmm, I thought evilly. She had to be impressed: If she was looking for a new trainer, Sandy’s record the past few days was persuasive. They said nothing about this within my hearing, but Sandy was charming and apparently funny; they laughed it up and looked to be old backslapping pals by the time Erica’s Eyes was cooled out. Hmmmm, I thought. Again he passed out money from a roll of twenties. I shook my head but he pushed it on me. Suddenly he was chummy again: the man had more faces than Lon Chaney. I had been upgraded to Cliff, so the hell with it, I took his twenty dollars. He left early with Ms. Patterson in tow; I walked our winner and Bob checked her cooling-out periodically as we came around. By quarter after four I was able to break away and walk back through the stable area. I stopped at the mail room, where I had an Express Mail package from Sharon. Two keys and a short note—just what I needed to get in trouble all over again.
13
That night I met Erin in the café on San Pablo Avenue. She’d had an uneventful day tramping through bookstores on both sides of the bay. This had left her no time to go up to Blakely, but “that’s what tomorrow’s for.” She asked about my day and I told her all except the arrival of Sharon’s note and the keys. I was uneasy keeping this from her—I had never been able to lie to her effectively—but there was no way I was taking her down there and I knew she wouldn’t sit still for having me go alone. We watched a boring television show in our room, retired early, and in the morning we struck out again on our separate ways. I got to the track at five o’clock: by then they all knew I was not just a hot walker, I had too much leeway, I must be doing something for Sandy, but no one asked what. I tried to do my share of the work, walking six horses before I bailed out and headed south at eight-thirty. It was a far better trip without the rain. I made good time, turning into that graveled road just before eleven. The road was like a still painting in oil, at first unchanged and unchanging, and suddenly this had all the earmarks of a wasted journey. But as I got closer I could see that the gate was open. I stopped the car and sat with my motor idling: tried to remember how it had been left. I had been in the trunk and he had stopped to open the gate; then he had gone on through and stopped again to close and lock it. I was almost certain this was what had happened. He was a careful killer, and the gate had been left locked.
He had a key. It had been on his key ring.
I pulled off into the trees and got out of the car. I got my .38 and walked back up the road to the gate. I could see the road continuing beyond the open gate, the place where it turned back toward the house. Even the trees were eerily still: not a breath of air to stir them. From the gate I could almost see the house, and when I walked along outside the fence I could see that somebody was home. Whoever was there had lit the fireplace. Smoke curled conspicuously from the chimney. Standing under a densely leafed tree, half hidden by the shade and half by the tree trunk, I could make out the shape of a man out at the edge of the front porch. He had lit the fire and then come out to stand in the cold.
I shifted the gun around till it was hidden on my rump under my coat. I moved away from the tree and soon I could see around the porch—that part of the backyard where Cameron had parked his Buick, where now there was a pickup truck. I stood there for at least ten minutes. There was no more movement from the porch: The man, whoever he was, was gone. I came as close as I dared; then I stepped back into the underbrush and stood there watching, but it was like trying to peer through a fluttering green curtain. Occasionally I could see someone walking inside, past a window, but no more than that, just a flashing change of color. I looked at the sky, which was white through the trees.
I moved slowly now, and the house took on a darkly familiar shape beyond the flutter of the trees. I heard a door slam and I got behind a tree as someone came to the door and opened it. Minutes passed in near silence. Only the rustle of the leaves as I squirmed back against the tree trunk. Then the door opened wide and Baxter Geiger came out onto the porch.
He didn’t seem to be doing much of anything: just in and out of the house with an antsy restlessness. I stood still until he went inside again; then, impulsively, without making any conscious decision to approach him, I hustled along the road toward the house. Up the porch steps on the balls of my feet, across the porch as quietly as I could go, but that didn’t matter now, he must hear me coming. I knocked on the door and I heard his heavy footsteps. He stopped suddenly and spoke through the door. “Who’s there?”
A tense voice: nervous, loud.
“My name’s Janeway. I’m looking for Cameron Geiger.”
The door opened a crack. I saw one eye and a beard, part of his heavy plaid shirt; a big fist gripped the door, and across the room, a rifle leaned against a wall. “Join the club,” he said. “What do you want with him?”
He didn’t seem to know me by sight: If he had seen me across the tow ring, my face hadn’t made any lasting impression. “I’d like to talk to him,” I said; “see where it goes from there. But nobody seems to have any idea where he might be.”
“So you came down here on a blind, is that it?”
Now he did begin to put my face together with something. I could hear his slight intake of breath, but enlightenment came slowly. His eye roamed up and down the crack in the door and at last he opened it wider until I could see the pistol in his right hand.
“Janeway. I’ve heard that name somewhere.”
I let him play with it and then he remembered. “You’re the guy who almost got turned to toast in Cameron’s car.” He looked in my eyes. “I saw you in Sandy Standish’s barn yesterday.” I nodded slightly, just the barest movement, and he said, “What the hell were you doing here? What are you doing here now?”
I looked down at his hand. “Put the gun away and I’ll come in and tell you.”
I saw a flicker of a smile on his face. “Afraid I’m gonna shoot you?”
“You never know, the way things have been going.”
He gave a little laugh. “Guess I’d worry too if I was in your shoes.”
He opened the door but he didn’t give up the gun. I stepped in anyway. He backed away from the door and I moved with him, nothing quick or threatening but I was close enough that I had a chance against him if he went suddenly crazy. He looked damned unstable.
His eyes darted from me to the corner of the room and back again. I said, “I’ve got a letter from your sister, giving me permission to look through the house.”
“My sister?”
“Sharon.”
“I know her name. I just never heard it said…quite that way.”
“Would you like to see the letter?”
He nodded and, without taking my eyes off him, I fished out my wallet and got him the paper: handed it to him and stood still, hardly breathing until he had read it.
“Sharon’s always been a good kid,” he said.
And that was how we came together on that extraordinary day.
Now came a quick surprise: He apologized for having no manners or food in the house. At that point he did put away the gun and I breathed a little easier. I moved back, slightly out of immediate striking range, and we sat at the kitchen table over coffee that must have been five hours old. I told him what had happened to me earlier, how I had gotten out of the trunk, and some version of why I had come here in the first place. He poured more coffee and said, “You must think we’re all a bunch of lunatics. Have you met Damon yet?”
“He was out at the ranch in Idaho.”
“What are you, some kind of cop?”
I told him what kind of cop I had been. But for now I told him as little as possible.
“I guess you’re wondering what I’m doing here,” he said uneasily.
“If you feel like telling me. But you’re family, I assume you’ve got a right.”
He drained his cup and stared off into space. “Don’t assume anything with us,” he said after a long pause. “I’ve got a set of keys but that doesn’t mean squat. We all know this place is going to Sharon if they can ever get the will figured out, so I guess you’ve got as much right here as I have.”