by Brad Smith
“I’ve heard that. Is that what made him so attractive?”
“Nice try, Oprah. No, that’s what made him unattractive. I’m a pretty conventional person; I pay my parking tickets promptly, declare all income to the government, and only rarely cheat at solitaire. Ray, on the other hand, has very little regard for the law. Or authority in general.”
“I’ve sort of gotten that impression. I mean, the man was in jail for attempted murder.”
“That’s what he was in for.”
“And you have no problem with that?”
“From a moral standpoint I have absolutely no problem with what Ray did to Sonny Stanton. Our legal system sure as hell wasn’t gonna take care of it.” She paused. “But it was a stupid move. He spent two years in jail. And if you asked him today if he’d do it again, I’m betting he’d give you a big old Gary Cooper yup.” She paused. “I just can’t deal with that kind of … I don’t know … recklessness.”
“You’re saying he’s still reckless? Wouldn’t you think that two years in jail might have changed him?”
“I think it’s a pretty inherent trait.”
“So he’s not done with Sonny Stanton?”
Etta sighed in resignation. “Probably not,” she said.
Regan was finishing his coffee. She hoped he didn’t have designs on a third cup. She was through with pouring and through with talking. The next sitter she hired would be an atheist.
“How’s Homer like him coming around?” Regan asked her.
“Homer hates Ray. Homer’s a Sonny Stanton fan, believe it or not. To him, Ray’s a criminal.”
“Seems like you have a lot of things in your life that you could do without.”
“You’re really looking to recruit us, aren’t you? One day Mabel brings you over for coffee cake—which she baked and passed off as mine, by the way—and the next you’re looking to herd us into the flock.”
“The Lord is your shepherd, not me.”
“Yeah, so I hear.”
“Maybe you should go back to the school,” Regan suggested. “I’m sure you were a good teacher. Maybe you should do what you’re good at.”
“Are you saying I’m not good at this?”
“At beating your head against the wall? Nobody is.”
Etta walked the priest to his car, said good-bye, and watched as he drove away. Homer was standing in the yard, and he hung back while Regan left.
It was a warm day, denying the month. Etta went into the garage and found a rake, walked out front, and began to gather up the leaves there. A moment later, Homer was at her side.
“I don’t want that damn Johnson hanging around you,” he said.
“That was Tim Regan, Dad,” she told him. “He’s the priest.”
She stepped close to him, ostensibly to zip his jacket, but in truth to smell his breath. As she’d suspected, he’d been into the rye; she realized he would have a bottle, or perhaps two or three, stashed in the barn. Up to his old tricks. His medication, the doctor had emphasized, would be virtually useless if he continued to drink.
The doctors had decided that he was suffering from Wernicke’s dementia. The good news was that it wasn’t Alzheimer’s; the bad news was that it might as well be. The doctor had put him on Aricept to combat the disease and Risperdal to calm him. It was a good bet that alcohol exacerbated his condition and quite possibly had a hand in initiating it. So now it was up to Etta to keep him out of the hooch. Along with everything else.
“He’s a goddamn liar if he says he’s a priest,” she heard him say. “The Johnsons were all Baptists.”
7
Jumping Jack Flash won the Queen Anne Stakes in a romp. The weather had warmed, and it was a sunny day at Woodbine; the track was fast and the crowd large and overly boisterous, as if its raucous holiday mood might somehow prolong the summerlike conditions. The two-year-olds were running now, and the veteran punters were even more optimistic than usual, hoping to stumble on a green colt whose speed the odds-makers had somehow overlooked.
Getting the big bay stallion to run wasn’t a problem; getting him in the starting gate was. The horse was a nasty piece of work at his best, but he grew even more contentious when forced to do something. This day, Jackson had instructed the starters to try something different; he told them to leave the gate open as the horse approached, tricking him into thinking he was walking straight through. The plan worked. As soon as the stallion was in, the starters slammed the gates, back and front, closed.
Jockey Danny Hartsell kept the Flash quiet in the backstretch, holding him in with an effort, then let him go at the top of the stretch. The four-year-old took maybe twenty strides to run down the leaders, then coasted across the line to win by six lengths. Danny was grinning when he loped the bay over to Jackson in the winner’s circle. He had a lot of horse left, and he told this to Jackson.
Jumping Jack Flash paid two dollars and twenty cents to win.
Jackson and Sonny posed beside the horse for the camera with Danny still in the irons, Sonny keeping the cane hidden behind him, as he did whenever he could, looking very clean and casual in his white Dockers and patterned golf shirt, his hair tied back. The congratulatory flowers arrived from some track official, and the Flash was ungracious in accepting the wreath; moments after the pictures were taken, the horse threw a tantrum, leaving Danny Hartsell sprawled in the infield. A couple of handlers grabbed the Flash before he could bolt for the barn and were dragged around the infield for their efforts. Sonny stood smiling at the whole spectacle like an indulgent father.
Dean and Paulie watched the race from the grandstand, Dean wearing his Armani knockoff, his shades, his Italian loafers, Paulie wearing his porkpie and a smile as big as a hubcap.
“The fuck you grinnin’ about?” Dean asked.
Paulie held up his tote ticket. Dean took it.
“Twenty to win,” he said. “That’s great, Paulie. You get twenty-two bucks back.”
“I know,” Paulie said, still smiling.
Dean showed a handful of totes. “I had fifty to win on the filly. She comes in, I collect twenty-five hundred. I had her boxed with that gray, that woulda paid another grand. You won two fucking dollars.”
“What’d you win?”
“Fuck you.”
Paulie went to the wicket and cashed his ticket, bought french fries with his windfall. Dean left him sitting on a bench and went into the lounge for a drink. Big Billy Coon was sitting at the bar, racing form in front of him, cell phone at his elbow. Dean walked over and said hello.
“Scotch on the rocks,” Dean said to the bartender. He gestured to Billy’s glass. “Another here.”
“Another club soda?” the bartender asked.
“Yeah,” Billy said.
Dean slid onto a stool. “Whatcha, on the wagon, Billy?” he asked.
“I don’t drink. Never have.”
Billy wore a leather sports coat, black, and a bolo tie with a bear on the clasp. His hair was tied back in a ponytail, halfway down his back. And Big Billy Coon was big, six and a half feet tall, pushing maybe 280 pounds. His shoulders beneath the leather were massive and sloping.
“I thought you Indians loved your whiskey,” Dean was saying.
“I’m a Mohawk. Indians come from India.” He turned his eyes to Dean. “I don’t know what they drink over there.”
Dean raised his hands in mock surrender. “Hey, it was a little joke. Like, relax, man.”
“I’m relaxed.”
Billy was relaxed. His voice was soft and without seeming malice, although that surely was implied. Billy had about him a sense of calm that suggested an innate confidence approaching serenity. Underlying it all, though, was the feeling that it could all disappear in the flick of a switch and when that happened, surely mayhem would follow. However, this was all speculation on Dean’s part—in truth, he had never seen the man angry.
“You see the Flash?” Dean asked.
“I saw him. The horse can run. Earl taking him to the Breeders’?
”
“Yeah, we’ll be taking him. Probably run him in the Classic. I mean, we could go for the mile, but why fuck around? He never raised a sweat today.”
The cell phone rang, and Billy reached for it. Dean noticed that Billy had small wrists and hands, the fingers slender, the flesh soft. When Billy identified the caller, he gave Dean a look that indicated that the call would be private. Dean decided he would visit the gents’. Inside, he took a leak and then spent a good minute looking at himself in the mirror. The fake Armani was gray and hung on his skinny frame just right and looked like the real deal. He’d paid three hundred for it in Buffalo, at a discount place near the new arena. In the end it cost him five hundred because he’d bet a deuce on the Leafs over the Sabres that night. The Buds had been cruising, up two to zip late in the third, until Gilmour—that rat traitor—popped two goals in thirty-two seconds and the game ended in a tie. Dean lost the two hundred, but he did bring home the suit, and when you look at what a real Armani goes for, he figured he was still way ahead.
He spiked his hair now with his fingertips, turning his head, checking out the diamond stud in his left ear. He wondered how he’d look with a ponytail, like Billy Coon’s. Of course, Sonny had a ponytail and Sonny was a creep. Maybe it was an Indian thing. Mohawk, whatever.
Back at the bar, Billy was off the phone and standing now, ready to leave. He drank the last of his soda and tucked the form under his arm. Dean reached for his Scotch, drank it off without sitting.
“I gotta get going,” he said, wanting to convey the idea that he was leaving Billy, not the other way around. “I have to head down to the barn, check our horse out.”
They walked out of the bar together, headed for the escalators.
“So, you have him?” Billy asked.
“At ten cents on the dollar? Not fucking likely.”
“You don’t bet him here,” Billy said. “What are you—a mark? I had him at two to one.”
Dean was doubtful. “How’d you do that?”
“The casino.”
“I didn’t see any tote board last time I was there.”
“It’s backroom,” Billy said. “And it’s futures. We had him posted a month ago at two to one. Come on, you gotta know that. Your boss is there three, four times a week.”
“Who you talking about?”
“Sonny, who do you think? Hey, the cousins love Sonny over there. If there’s a worse poker player in the world, Sonny should track him down. He might win a hand. Boy’s got deep pockets, though.”
“He ain’t my fucking boss,” Dean said. “I work for Earl.”
“You work for Earl, you work for Sonny,” Billy said simply. “You know it. But come on out sometime; I’ll show you the setup.”
Billy walked through the glass doors, heading for the parking lot. Dean watched him get into a new Navigator and drive off. Then he headed to the barn.
Jumping Jack Flash was still in the stall and the trailer backed up to the loading area. Jackson was making a show of running things, like always. Sonny was off to one side, talking to a good-looking woman in a blue blazer. Dean recognized her from one of the local television stations.
When Jackson spotted Dean he quit the others and walked over. “Where’ve you been, Dean?” he asked.
“Clubhouse,” Dean said.
“We need help getting this horse loaded. You know that. If you’re working, you can’t be sitting in the clubhouse drinking whiskey.”
“So what’re we doing?”
“We’re loading the horse,” Jackson said simply.
There was a cameraman with a heavy video unit on his shoulder on the scene now. The woman in the blazer had a microphone in her hand, and she was about to interview Sonny. Dean saw Sonny toss his cane under the truck as he prepared for his close-up.
In the barn the Flash was still in a foul mood, turning circles in the stall, ears laid back, nostrils wide. Jackson went in cautiously, pushed the horse into a corner, managed to get a nylon lead on the hackamore. As he lead him out, though, the horse tried to rear. Jackson did a quick half hitch around the gate rail with the lead, pulling the horse’s head down. The stallion began to back away, spooked by something—the opening in the stall, or the sunlight outside, or maybe just his own wrapped-too-tight self.
“Get in here,” Jackson called outside to Dean.
Dean, who’d been watching Sonny spout horse-racing clichés to the reporter, reluctantly stepped inside, saw the big horse standing stiff-legged and obstinate, eyes just a shade off crazy. The horse was still wired from the run, and his muscled shoulders twitched and shuddered under the glistening red coat, adding to Dean’s consternation.
“Where’s Paulie?” he asked at once.
“At the other barn with the filly,” Jackson said. “Come on.”
Dean went in unhappily. He moved behind the stallion, and the horse spooked again, kicked out at Dean, and lunged for the stall door. Jackson tried to use it to his advantage; he shortened the lead and stayed with the horse’s momentum, but the stallion slammed against him, nearly knocking him down, and jerked away again, back into the stall.
When Jackson recovered he saw that Dean was on the floor of the stall, his fake Armani smeared with real horseshit. Dean got up slowly, pissed off. The horse stood snorting in the corner, his eyes wide, ears laid back.
Then Paulie walked into the barn. He glanced at Jackson and then at Dean, and he went into the stall and spoke to the horse softly. The stallion released a guttural warning from deep in his throat, but Paulie kept coming, his voice low and easy, talking to the horse in the same voice he’d used to order fries a half hour earlier in the clubhouse. The horse’s ears moved forward, and his head dropped maybe an inch. Paulie moved slowly to him, and then he took the lead and walked the horse out of the barn and into the waiting trailer. Dean stood in the doorway and watched.
Sonny had wrapped up his interview with the woman in the blazer. She had removed her microphone, and they were standing by the trailer, watching the stallion load.
“So—I’ll see you at the Breeders’?” Sonny suggested.
“I don’t think the station has the budget,” the woman said. She had shoulder-length brunette hair and eyes so green they had to be enhanced, Dean guessed, by colored contacts. She was stunning, but then all TV women were these days.
“Maybe you could make the trip on your own,” Sonny said.
“How’s that?”
“You could be my guest. We could head to New York a few days early, do the town.” He stepped closer and lowered his voice, mindful that the cameraman was hovering. “I know New York City. What do you think?”
“What do I think?” she replied, and Sonny saw that the green eyes, real or not, were mocking him. “I think you’ve been standing too close to your horse. All that testosterone has clouded your thinking. Thanks for the interview.”
Paulie walked back into the barn to find Dean standing in the corridor, looking down at the sorry state of his suit.
“Where the hell were you?” Dean demanded.
“At the other barn.”
And then Sonny came in. Without warning, he struck Paulie across the shoulder with his cane.
“You two fucking jokers better start doing your jobs,” he said.
Paulie hurried outside, holding his arm. Dean looked at Sonny and said, “You hit me with that cane, and I’m gonna shove it up your ass. I don’t give a shit what you tell your old man.”
Sonny wheeled and limped out. Dean walked the length of the barn, found a hose there and a sponge, and cleaned his suit as best he could. He was still seething when he went outside. Paulie was standing there, holding his shoulder. Everyone else had gone.
“I was doing my job,” Paulie said.
“It wasn’t about that,” Dean said. “It was about Sonny getting shot down by the babe from Sportsnet. You all right?”
“I guess.”
They got into the Lincoln and went to the Slamdance. The place was crowded
; they drank at the bar and watched the dancers. Dean was hoping to see Misty, but she wasn’t there.
“I’m getting pretty sick of all this, Paulie.”
“I thought you liked strippers.”
“I’m not talking about strippers, fuck’s sakes. I’m talking about Sonny and Jackson. Uncle Earl, too, you want to know the truth. You know how much money they’re making? The purse today was $750,000. And that’s just today. What do we get for falling in horseshit, getting whacked by Sonny? Fucking peanuts.”
“Sonny just likes to yell.”
Dean took a drink and watched two dancers on stage, French kissing, grinding against each other.
“Well, it’s about time we got something for ourselves, Paulie,” he said. “Some kind of profit participation. He runs that horse in the Breeders’ Classic, the purse is four million. And that’s nothing compared to when he puts him out to stud. Don’t you think we should be entitled to a cut?”
“We should get some participation,” Paulie agreed.
“Fucking right.” Dean signaled to the bartender. “I’m gonna talk to Earl; I’ll phone him in the Bahamas if I have to.”
Tiny Montgomery was working the bar. He moved his bulk over, looked at them sullenly.
“Two more here,” Dean said.
“Where you guys been?” Tiny asked.
“Why?”
Tiny looked up and down the bar. Dean noticed for the first time that the stools on either side of them were empty, even though the joint was full.
“Somebody’s kinda rank,” Tiny said then.
Paulie looked at Dean in alarm. Dean was staring at Tiny like he couldn’t believe what he’d heard. Tiny was standing pat, eyebrows arched.
“I spend a lot of money in this place,” Dean said.
“Maybe you oughta spend a little on soap and water,” Tiny said, and he walked away.
Leaving the parking lot, Dean floored the Lincoln, fishtailing and spraying gravel all over the side wall of the Slamdance. He hit the street at full throttle, tires squealing, and headed uptown, Paulie holding on to the dash with both hands, watching the road ahead.
They went to Dean’s apartment. Paulie sat on the leatherette couch and turned on the TV while Dean went into the bedroom to change. Paulie clicked through the channels, settled on a rerun of The Simpsons. The apartment was a mess, pizza boxes on the floor, empty bottles everywhere, stereo components strewn across the carpet. Paulie heard the shower running. He went into the kitchen, found a Coors Light in the fridge, walked back out to the couch. There was a Playboy on the coffee table; he picked it up and went straight to the centerfold, drank the weak beer, and alternated his attention between Miss October and Marge Simpson as he waited for Dean.