The Bookwoman's Last Fling

by John Dunning

  “Any others?”

  “Fagan. She called her husband that when she was annoyed with him.”

  “But not to his face?”

  She shook her head, definitely no.

  “Did she ever talk to you about her men friends again?”

  “Never.” Her hand trembled and she said, “I’m really only guessing about others, but I think I could sense when she was troubled like that. I know her conscience bothered her terribly, I think she had some very bad nights. But she never mentioned it to me again.”

  She took a deep breath. “That day I saw her. I think it was her first fling.”

  “Maybe so,” I said. “Now the trick is to find out about her last.”

  17

  That night I bunked in the tack room. Erin wanted to stay with Gail and drive her home in the morning and I wanted to touch base with Sandy. “Keep away from that farm,” I said, adding “please” as an afterthought. She crossed her heart, we picked up my car, and I watched them drive away together in Erin’s rental. Ten minutes later I was at Golden Gate, passed into the stable area by the night man.

  I stopped at the office. My note was gone again and I put another up and red-marked the word REWARD. Then I walked off into the darkness between the barns and a moment later I arrived in Sandy’s shedrow.

  Tonight it was deserted: the ginneys were probably still off somewhere at dinner, and I opened my room and put a chair in the doorway where I could look down the shedrow and see the whole length of it. There I sat, thinking about Candice and her short troubled life. I thought about Candice and Sandy and I wondered, not for the first time, how Sandy fit the mold of a killer. He was skittish, nervous, and, like Junior, had moments of real temper. Clearly he didn’t want me nosing around anymore. Who else did I have?…Junior?…the brothers? Baxter was suddenly chummy; maybe, given the eccentric things I had heard about him, too willing now to accommodate my questions. I sat there for a long time and no strokes of brilliance occurred. The shedrow was deadly quiet: not even the eternally curious Pompeii Ruler stuck his head over the webbing to see what I was doing.

  I sat still, contributing nothing to break the stillness of the night. I had been there fifteen minutes more or less when I saw a movement down at the far end of the shedrow. A man appeared. All I could tell about him from that distance was that he was not one of ours. He walked with a shuffle, as if life had beaten him down over the years: an older man, I thought, when he was still just a shadow half the barn away. He came under one of the lightbulbs and I saw that he was wearing a red flannel shirt and a ratty pair of Dickies-style pants. He had a hat such as it was, an old fedora that nobody wears today, which made me think of the man with Candice long ago. His hat was battered like the rest of him. He came reluctantly, slowly, and as he passed under another light I saw that the right leg of his pants had broken up the seam to his crotch and was held together with half a dozen safety pins. A ginney’s seam job, I thought. I had seen others wearing pants like that.

  He stopped thirty yards from my open door.

  “You the guy that’s been leaving the notes in the office?”

  His voice was raspy and he coughed when he spoke. I could see now that he had one of my notes in his hand. I said, “I left the notes,” but still he came no closer. I couldn’t quite make out his face yet: that wide brim of his hat kept him in shadow. He held the paper up and said, “This says there’s a reward.” I said, “Depends on what you can tell me,” and he took a step back out of the light. “I’m trying to find out who Mrs. Geiger knew back in those days,” I said. “Did you know them?” He seemed to totter unsteadily as if he’d been drinking and he backed off another step. But when he spoke again his voice was steady and clear. “I knew them. Knew her, I should say.”

  This seemed unlikely, but almost at once I realized that more than twenty years of bad luck could make a big difference in how a man looked, dressed, smelled, and approached the world. He said, “I need money. I need to know now if you’re serious or blowin’ smoke.”

  “I’m damned serious,” I said.

  “Then tell me how much money you’re talkin’ about.”

  “For the right information, substantial money.”

  “You’re still dancing around. There’s no way to know what that means or if you’ll pay me anything after I tell you what I know.”

  “I’ll give you a hundred dollars now, whatever you’ve got to say; more later if it works out.”

  Again he wavered. I could tell he was tempted but he said, “I have a need for quite a bit more than that.”

  “Come on over here and let’s talk.”

  But he stood his ground and held the note loosely at his side. “I need a thousand,” he said finally.

  “I can arrange that. But the information’s got to be worth it.”

  Now I guessed he’d be refiguring it: I had jumped at his thousand dollars too soon, and sure enough, he said, “What if what I know is worth more than that?”

  “Then I’ll pay you what it’s worth.”

  “How do I know that?”

  “There’s no way to tell till I hear it.”

  I thought for a moment I’d lose him. He did a slight half-turn in the shedrow and took another step back. “I trust nobody,” he said. “You wouldn’t either if you were me.”

  “On the other hand, who else is buying?”

  Almost thirty seconds passed while he thought it over. “You want me to tell first,” he said. “Pretty good deal for you.”

  “I don’t lie.”

  “Neither did Brutus,” he said, surprising me.

  “Two hundred now,” I said. “Cash on the barrelhead.”

  “Two hundred just for talking to you. You must want something really bad.”

  I knew then he was going to take it. I said, “Give me some general hints. No specifics, just an overview of what you’ve got. Then we can talk terms.”

  “What if I dictate the terms?”

  “Go ahead and we’ll see where we are.”

  Again he seemed reluctant, like a man sitting on an oil well who’s being offered a price for cheap desert land. “How high will you go?”

  We were getting nowhere. “You mean on a blind like this? I can’t be a fool any more than you can.”

  “Three hundred now,” he said. “More later. Maybe a lot more.”

  “Or nothing later, depending on what you say. Or don’t say.”

  “But three hundred now. I get to keep that, no matter what.”

  “Two hundred cash, in advance,” I said. “Another hundred if I like what you’ve got to sell. Then we negotiate the specifics.”

  “Gimme the money.”

  Sometimes you’ve got to go with your gut. I reached in my wallet and fished out two bills. He came forward slowly, like an enemy expecting a trap in an alien land. He held his head down, keeping his face in shadows, but it didn’t matter: He was here, obviously a racetracker; this was a small world and I’d be able to find him again. I handed him the two bills and had a brief clear look at his hands. Rough hands they were, caked with dirt under the nails. He had my money now and he backed away again.

  “So,” I said, “what is it you’re selling?”

  “Not now, I got to do something else tonight. Meet me tomorrow night at the Santa Anita. That’s a bar down the road on San Pablo.”

  I had seen its lights several times on my way in and out. “Do I at least get to know your name for my money?”

  “Cash on the barrelhead, you don’t need my name.” But then he said, “Call me Rick.”

  “Where can I find you…in case, you know, you don’t show up.”

  “I’ll show up.”

  “Okay, Rick. What time tomorrow?”

  “After work. Say six-thirty.”

  “All right, I’ll be there. But you be prepared to say something.”

  “And you bring that other bill.”

  He turned and walked away. I felt like a fool, but whatever happened I had aske
d for it.

  “Hey,” I said when he was thirty yards away. He stopped but didn’t turn again, leaving me looking at his back. “How well did you really know her?”

  He didn’t move: just stood there looking out at the night. “I knew her for years.” He coughed. “I know everything about her worth knowing.”

  “That could cover a lot of living.”

  “Worried about your dough?”

  Suddenly he heard voices down the shedrow—our crew coming back from chow. He turned and walked across the black tow ring to the barn across the way. He disappeared and in almost the same instant Obie and Bob came around the corner.

  The shedrow came to life. We sat in the cool evening air talking and laughing, but my mind wouldn’t stay focused on the usual hijinks. I was thinking of Erin and Gail and I owed Sharon a report. Tomorrow, I thought. Maybe then I’d have something real to tell her.

  It was a long night of little sleep. I lay awake reading into the early morning. At last I turned off my light, but even then sleep was elusive, difficult, poor.

  I opened my eyes to the usual morning shedrow racket. Horses nickering, feed tubs rattling, ginneys talking. I started walking a blood bay filly I had never seen. “Be careful with that one,” Obie said. “That’s Ms. Patterson’s little lady.”

  “I’m careful with all of ’em,” I said. But of course he would know that, and I knew there was a message hidden in the warning. “What’s her name?”

  “North Hills, and she is one classy gal. Undefeated, won six in a row from real stakes competition.”

  “Sandy training for Ms. P. now?”

  “Looks like it. She’s gonna ship this one south pretty soon with some others.”

  “Then what happens?”

  “All’s I can do is guess.”

  I could guess as well. Then Sandy would leave his own horses with another trainer and go have his fling at the big time. I said, “You got a trainer’s license, Obie?”

  He smiled and I wished him luck.

  I took North Hills out into the tow ring. The dried mud had been crushed down by now and the walking was easy, a welcome relief from the gloom under the shedrow. Sandy arrived with Ms. Patterson about twenty minutes later. Again her husband was missing in action. Sandy spent most of the morning with his head in the work. It was impossible to read him at that point: If he looked at me at all I didn’t see it. The bug boy came and Sandy took Erica’s Eyes to the track. Ms. Patterson walked up with him and they watched together from the rail. The sun was just breaking through the pink clouds in the east and the shedrow across the way was coming to life. I heard a voice I knew: Rudy, touting his best bet of the day.

  Pompeii Ruler worked a fast half-mile. Eight others were breezed a mile. The last five were walked. When I finished, Sandy and Ms. P. were gone.

  I called Erin at the end of the morning. They were sitting on Gail’s veranda drinking coffee. I talked to Gail briefly, asked if she had ever heard Candice mention the name Rick, but no, she hadn’t.

  I killed the afternoon watching the races without making as much as a two-dollar bet. I tried Sharon and left a short message saying I’d call her again tomorrow.

  That night I found my way to the Santa Anita bar. Rick wasn’t there, the son of a bitch. I waited till the cows came home, at least ninety minutes, but he never did show.

  18

  By eight-thirty I had Rick’s barn number, 15, and his full name. The name he went by, working for Cappy Wilson, was Richard Lawrence. He was easy to trace: The fedora was a dead giveaway, he was the only guy on the racetrack who wore one like that, and the night man on the stable gate told me where to look. I walked into Cappy’s shedrow and found three ginneys sitting in a tack room watching TV. They looked up when I appeared suddenly in the door and one of them said, “You lookin’ for work, we all filled up.”

  “I’m lookin’ for Richard Lawrence.”

  “Lots a luck. He left here with money in his pocket. Be lucky if he makes it back tomorrow morning.”

  “Tell ya one thing,” said an older man across the room. “He doesn’t make it back, he can keep walking.”

  “I take it Richard’s got himself a drinking problem.”

  “That’s like saying the Titanic sprung a slight leak.”

  The buddy to his left said, “He’s burned his bridges. Cappy gave him a job when nobody else would, but there’s a limit to how much bullshit even a good guy will put up with.”

  I talked to them through the screen. “Anybody know what time he left?”

  “It was after feeding. Maybe six o’clock.”

  “Any idea where he went?”

  “Try the bars out on the drag. I don’t think he’d go far without stopping somewhere, and once he stops he’s there for the night.”

  “Thanks.”

  I was halfway down the shedrow when I heard the door open and the voice of the helpful one behind me. “Try the Hideaway,” he said: “It’s just like it says, hidden away off San Pablo about six blocks south. You better go now if he’s a friend of yours. Water’s full of sharks.”

  I got my car; rode out to San Pablo; turned south.

  It was a rough-looking gin mill on the side street with a flickering red neon sign. I pushed open the heavy wooden door and went into a smoky room full of shrill babble. When the bartender came over I fingered a fifty and said, “I’m looking for Richard Lawrence.”

  “He left here about fifteen minutes ago.”

  “Was he alone?”

  His eyes shifted and I folded the fifty and put it in my shirt pocket. “I’d really like to give you this, pal, but it’s important for me to find him ASAP.”

  “I know what you mean. Rick talks too much when he gets a few drinks.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “He had three guys who came in with him and they were with him when he left.”

  “Did Rick say where they were going?”

  “He made some noise about the Nineteenth Hole and buying drinks for his pals.”

  “So where can I find this Nineteenth Hole?”

  “Three blocks thataway and hidden like this one, half a block down.”

  I gave him the fifty and walked along the street. At the third corner I stopped, looked into a dark narrow street, and saw a crummy little dive across the street in the middle of the block. The whole block was deserted as I started across: not a soul stirring, not a voice or a footstep anywhere. I blended into the shadows and felt my way along. I had gone maybe thirty yards when I heard the sounds of a man hurting. I heard him retch and he tumbled out of a doorway. Rick had never made it as far as the bar.

  He was trying to walk—two steps, three, and down he went, crashing into a row of garbage cans and rolling over on his back. When he looked up I was standing over him.

  “Got no mo’ money.” He coughed and spat up something red. “Goway, I got none left.”

  I crouched beside him, rocking back on my heels. His face was still in darkness but I could see he had lost his hat.

  “You know who they were?”

  “Hell difference that make now?”

  “Tell me and maybe I’ll go get the money back.”

  “Sure you will. That goddam Everett will eat you for breakfast.”

  I got up and kicked around in the darkness till I found his hat. “Here,” I said, tossing it in his direction. “See you around, loser.”

  “Where’s my other bill? You promised me another bill.”

  “You really do have brass balls, Rick. Let’s just call us even and I’ll try to forget you said that. Maybe by morning I can forget you altogether.”

  “I knew you’d welsh me out. You’re a liar just like them.”

  “Like who, Rick?”

  “Them three as…” He belched. “…sholes.”

  “Tell me who they are.”

  “So you can do what?”

  “Look, I’m not gonna stand out here all night arguing with you. Let ’em keep the money, and you can go bac
k to wallowing in your own puke.”

  “Wait a minute!” he yelled.

  I walked away.

  “Goddammit, wait a minute!”

  I wanted to keep going but I could almost feel his desperation across that black gulf. He said my name, just “Janeway,” and his voice ached like the rest of him. But I had known drunks in my life and this was no time for sympathy. “You got anything to say to me, say it now.”

  “I’m trying to tell you if you’d just wait a minute. They live in Barn 18.”

  Racetrackers.

  I stood there for a moment: heard him struggling to get a leg up in the dark.

  “Parker and Sidney always go together. Everett’s a big mother; a professional badass.”

  “You know where they are now?”

  He tried to laugh, but his voice cracked and turned into a sob and he broke down. I let him cry for a minute or more. Then I touched his shoulder. “Where’d they go, Rick?”

  “…sonsabitches took my money…went back to the racetrack.”

  “How much they take from you?”

  “Whatever I had left from them two bills.”

  “Okay, let’s go get it back. And, Rick…please try not to throw up in my car.”

  By the time we got to the racetrack he was on his last legs. I left him on his bunk and walked over to 18 alone. I could see the narrow line of light under the door as I came into their shedrow. I could hear them yukking it up through the closed door. Stupid, stupid guys. A complaint would have them all in Dutch tomorrow, maybe deep-sixed out of here. They probably knew Rick wouldn’t complain, but right now I didn’t know or care.

  The night was still as I approached the tack room door. Far away I heard laughter and someone yelling in Spanish. I heard the nicker of horses as I walked past their stalls. I was almost happily calm as I pushed open the door and went in without knocking. They were sitting around a folding table with the money there between them, and I could see the shock on their faces. I said, “Hi, boys,” and my eyes took in the money and let it register in my brain. I could see the big bill and some chicken feed, about $135 total.