by Brad Smith
At that moment the donkey in the paddock began to bray. The animal probably wasn’t laughing at Luke—but it sounded as if it were. Billie watched the expression on Luke’s face and then broke out herself. Luke fell into a pout.
“To hell with the both of you.” He regarded the donkey and the other two animals in the pen, then glanced around. “Where’s the kid, anyway? I thought you two were joined at the hip.”
Billie told him what she had learned earlier.
“So where would they take the girl?” Luke asked.
“No idea,” Billie said. “Foster home maybe? She has an aunt but I don’t know her circumstances. I’m going to try to find out where she is but I’ve got a lot on my plate today. For starters, I need to sell that colt and send you on your way. But not in that order.”
“Shit,” Luke said, standing up. “I guess that means I ain’t getting another Budweiser. Well, I have to trailer a couple of horses over to Owensboro anyway.”
But instead of going to his truck, he walked over to the pasture where the gray colt stood. He ran his palm over the horse’s forehead. “That little girl ain’t going to like you selling this boy.”
Billie watched. She knew what the bastard was doing. “Well, she’s not up to her earlobes in debt.”
“You gotta give me a chance, Billie,” Luke said, keeping it up. “Christ, I was doing just fine on the quarter horse circuit and then you had to show up in Missouri and drag me back here, set me up to train this animal, and now you’re going to pull the rug out from under me.”
“You left out a few parts of that story, Luke,” Billie said. “You don’t deserve another chance.”
“I guess I don’t.” Luke stood quietly, as if in deep contemplation, for a long time before turning to her. “But the horse does.”
You sonofabitch, Billie thought.
Twenty-Six
BILLIE WAS AT THE COURTHOUSE IN Marshall at nine o’clock the next morning. The arraignments were up first. Those in custody were led into the courtroom through a side door and seated in a prisoners’ dock along the wall. Billie saw Jodie’s mother, Shelly, as she shuffled in, wearing camo pants and a black tank top with red bra straps showing. Troy Everson was in the row behind her, beside a black guy Billie didn’t know—a squat little man with a shaved head and stringy goatee.
The first indictment was against a man named Hickox, who’d been arrested for assaulting his wife. He stumbled out of the box to stand before the judge. He was a small man, and his face was marked up pretty good. Either the wife he’d assaulted had gotten the better of him or the cops had smacked him around when they arrested him. Billie was okay with either scenario. The judge advised the man that bail would be five thousand dollars and held him over for trial.
Troy Everson was up next. Billie thought the bailiff would get winded reading the charges. Possession and trafficking in meth, possession of stolen goods, grand theft auto, violation of parole, forgery, conspiracy to commit fraud, and fraud. When the bailiff finished, Troy Everson broached the subject of bail.
“Do you consider yourself to be extremely wealthy?” the judge asked.
“Nope.”
“Then forget it.”
Jodie’s mother was charged with possession of and trafficking in meth and possession of stolen goods. Billie assumed the goods were the car parts scattered about the yard. She also considered the possibility that the woman was guilty of nothing more than allowing Troy Everson and his fellow Mensa members to hang around her place. But Billie couldn’t know that. Maybe she was the brains behind the whole operation. It really didn’t seem to be a very high bar.
When the arraignments were done, Billie approached the dock and called over to Shelly. She was immediately blocked by one of the escort cops, a tall woman with shoulders like a linebacker. Shelly turned when she heard her name and was glaring at Billie.
“I need to talk to her,” Billie told the cop.
“You can’t.”
“I just need to ask her a question.”
“She’s going back to holding.”
“I can’t ask a question?”
“Fuck you,” Jodie’s mother said from the dock.
“Where’s Jodie?” Billie asked.
“Go fuck yourself.”
Now the cop took Billie by the forearm and started to steer her away. “You’re about to get yourself in trouble.”
“Hold on,” somebody said then.
The voice was familiar. Billie turned to see David Clay approaching, dressed in a three-piece suit and carrying a briefcase. She glanced around; it was as if the large lawyer had dropped from the sky.
“Who are you—Batman?”
“I am a lawyer and this is a courtroom,” Clay said. “We needn’t call Ripley’s Believe It or Not.” He turned to the cop. “I will take charge of Miss Masterson.”
The cop shrugged her indifference; of course she would know David Mountain Clay. Billie watched in silence as she and her partner led the prisoners out through the side entrance. Leaving, Shelly Rickman continued to stare at Billie. Would she even know who Billie was? They had never met—the day that Billie had dropped Jodie off, the mother had barely glanced her way. Maybe she was feeling belligerent in general. Billie might be the same way, under the circumstances.
“What are you up to now?” lawyer Clay asked, taking her by the arm and guiding her off to the side.
Billie told him her story. While she talked, Clay stood watching as a couple dozen people filed in through the double doors at the rear of the courtroom, his eyes widening and narrowing as he surveyed the group.
“Are you listening to me?” Billie asked.
“I am indeed.”
“You don’t seem to be,” Billie said. “What’s the big attraction with the bus tour over there?”
“Bus tour,” Clay said smiling. “It’s a jury pool, my dear. We are selecting twelve good and honest citizens this morning for a case I’m handling.” He waited as the group was seated. They were a diverse bunch, as befitting a jury pool, Billie supposed, but they had one thing in common. None of them looked happy to be there.
“Now back to you,” Clay said. “I have to say that I find you to be a constant source of entertainment, Billie. Having you around is going to add years to my life.”
“Never mind the horseshit.”
“That foul tongue again, and this time in a court of law.” Clay shook his head in mock despair. “Blasphemy aside, this is what we’ll do. You go on home and tend to your business. I hear you have a two-year-old colt you’re trying to unload. I’ll attempt to select a dozen semi-intelligent jurors out of this unenthusiastic bunch and then I’ll do some digging and try to find our missing child. Does that suit your needs or do you feel the urge to swear at me some more?”
Billie stood on her tiptoes and kissed him on the cheek. “You are a fucking sweetheart, Mr. Clay.”
“Good Lord,” he said as she left.
Heading back to the farm, Billie had a thought and continued on past, driving down the side road as she’d done the day before. The place was still deserted and the mongrel still in its run, food and water dishes both empty. Before unlatching the gate, Billie petted the animal through the fence until she decided her life wouldn’t be in danger by releasing the enormous mutt. After all, she had to assume that the dog was hungry.
It followed her to the truck and sat upright in the passenger seat on the drive to the farm, looking out the windshield expectantly. There was no dog food at the house so she gave the animal half a box of Cheerios with milk. Watching it scarf down the cereal, Billie glanced toward the barn, where the rest of the orphan brigade was in formation in the paddock.
“Noah’s got nothing on me,” she told the dog.
Chuck Caldwell was in his office at Chestnut Field, feeling beat down, beat up, left out. They were having trouble with the track-side cameras used for photo finishes and inquiries and he’d been on the grounds since dawn. There was a card later that day and without
the video they would have to cancel. At ten o’clock he went back to his office and left yet another message for Reese Ryker. He’d been calling a couple of times a day, pressing Ryker on the communications job. Caldwell had decided that there would never be a better time to make a move. His time was up at Chestnut. The place was never going to be anything more than a B track and Caldwell nothing more than a B track manager. He was making sixty-two thousand and hadn’t had a raise in five years. He assumed the job with Ryker would pay twice that. If he got it. And he’d better get it, after the services he’d rendered. But Ryker was no longer returning his calls.
Hanging up the phone, he leaned back in his chair and put his feet up. After a moment he closed his eyes, thinking he would rest a few minutes. He hadn’t been sleeping well of late. He had no intention of going to sleep and so of course he did.
He woke up when he heard his name. Luke Walker was sitting across from him, wearing his stained Resistol, his dirty boots propped on the desk. It wasn’t the boots that bothered Caldwell as much as the expression on Luke’s face. He looked like a man who’d just drawn to an inside straight.
“What the fuck do you want?” Caldwell demanded.
“You always wake up this cranky?”
“I asked you a question,” Caldwell said.
Luke had an open Chestnut Field racing schedule in his lap and now he leaned forward to place it on the desk. He tapped the page with his forefinger. “I’m here to enter a horse in the fifth race next Tuesday.”
Caldwell didn’t glance at the schedule. “You’re not entering sweet fuck-all at this track. I want nothing to do with you.”
“Well, I don’t want nothing to do with you neither,” Luke said. “But I need to enter Billie Masterson’s two-year-old in that race next Tuesday. Looks like eight entries so far. You’re about to make it nine.”
“Get the fuck out of here. Are you stupid?”
“Sometimes I am,” Luke admitted. “The difference between you and me is that I know it when I’m stupid. I figure you’re one of those guys who thinks he’s smarter than everybody else, right up until somebody shows you that you’re not.”
Caldwell reached for his cell and punched in a number. “I need you in my office,” he barked into the phone.
“You’re calling security?” Luke asked.
“Gee, you’re not so stupid after all,” Caldwell said.
Luke got to his feet. “Okay then, I won’t make a fuss. I’m in the mood for a beer anyway. I might drive over to this place I know in Lexington—place called Honey Bunnies.” He paused. “You know something—I think you and me might have a mutual acquaintance over there. Calls herself Jasmine. She’s not the most honest woman I ever met but she’s a bobcat in the sack.”
Before Caldwell could reply the door opened and a large man dressed in navy blue entered the room. He must have been nearby. He looked Luke up and down briefly. “What’s up?”
Caldwell kept his eyes on Luke for a moment, then shifted to the security officer. “Just wondering how things are going with the cameras.”
“I can check,” the man said, his tone suggesting it was not something he would ordinarily do.
“Do that.”
When the man was gone, Luke sat down again. This time he removed his hat and leaned forward to place it on Caldwell’s desk.
“What do you want?” Caldwell said.
“You got manure in your ears?” Luke asked. “I want to enter a horse in that race.”
“What else?”
“What else?” Luke repeated. “Oh—I get it. You’re wondering if I intend to do anything about the fact that you paid a stripper five thousand dollars to pretend she was a schoolteacher and jump my bones and then pretend she was a teenager so that I would get scared I was going to prison and throw the race last Saturday. Is that what you were wondering?”
Caldwell looked back at Luke, his bottom lip bouncing.
Luke smiled. “You see—this here is one of those times when you’re about to realize that you’re not near as smart as you think. If you were, you would have told Reese Ryker to deal with that little girl Jasmine himself. You know, instead of giving you the five grand in fifties to give to her. Then you wouldn’t be having this uncomfortable conversation right now, where you look like you’re about to spout a few tears.”
Caldwell glanced at his phone again.
“Oh, you want to phone old Reese right now, don’t you?” Luke said. “Go ahead. Ask him how he’s gonna feel when you implicate him in your little blackmail scam. I’m pretty sure it would make all the papers if his name was involved. Actually, I’m the only one who might come out of this smelling all right. All I did was fuck a pretty girl I met in a bar. By the way, she’s twenty-five, pal. Least that’s what she told me while she was changing a flat tire and calling me names that by God made even me blush.”
Caldwell pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes, as if hoping the act would make Luke disappear.
“Do you think the cops are going to believe a stripper?” he asked when he lowered his hands to find Luke still there.
“Do you think your wife is going to believe you?” Luke reached forward and picked up the schedule. “Next Tuesday, fifth race. This horse is named Cactus Jack, owned by Masterson Thoroughbreds. You got the particulars in your files from last time. I expect to see the change made in the schedule by tomorrow morning—else I might have to come visit you again.”
“I’ll enter the horse,” Caldwell said. “Then that’s it between you and me.”
“I wouldn’t say that’s it,” Luke told him. “Up until now, you’ve been a real prick to Billie Masterson and we both know why. In the future, you’re gonna treat her like she’s the Queen of the Furrow. Everything I know about this situation, she knows. You got yourself in a pickle here, Caldwell. If I was you, I’d be on my best behavior from here on in. That how you got it figured?”
Caldwell looked at him, his eyes flat, and said nothing. Luke reached for his hat and got to his feet. At the door, he looked back at the unhappy man behind the desk.
“Ain’t life funny? You figured you had this thing you could hold over me and now here I am holding it over you.” Luke put his hat on. “I believe they call that irony.”
Twenty-Seven
IT WAS AN EVENING CARD AT Chestnut Field that Tuesday. They had trailered Cactus Jack back to the shed row a few days earlier, and since then Luke and Tyrone had been working him every morning. After what had happened the last time, Tyrone had been understandably suspicious of Luke’s involvement and Billie had told Luke that he needed to both apologize to the jockey and explain the circumstances. Luke had agreed to do it.
“But he’s the last damn person I’m saying sorry to,” he told her.
“What about Jodie?”
“Shit,” Luke said. “Okay, second last.”
“It’s good for your soul,” Billie told him.
“You never figured I had one.”
“Just in case,” Billie said.
Billie had collected Jodie from her aunt’s place in Marshall over the weekend. True to his word, David Clay had found the woman, living in a third-floor apartment in the old part of town. The aunt’s name was Micky Saunders. David Clay had called Billie with the information the day after the scene at the courthouse. She didn’t ask where he got it. After all, he was Batman.
She hadn’t known what to expect the first time she went to the apartment. Shelly Rickman’s reaction to Billie in the courtroom hadn’t been particularly warm, but then the woman had been arrested on multiple charges and spent the night in the lockup so it was possible that she wasn’t feeling all that congenial. Still, Billie was nervous that the aunt might be of a similar disposition.
Aunt Micky looked nothing like her half-sister. She had a kindness in her manner that her sister did not. She answered the door wearing green sweat pants and a pink hoodie. Her hair was wet, as if she’d just stepped out of the shower.
“Yeah, I know who
you are,” she said. “I’ve been hearing all about you and that farm. I sent her to the store for bread, she’ll be back soon. You want coffee?”
They sat in the kitchen of the apartment. The house was red brick and had wide oak trim and baseboards. It had probably been built by one of Marshall’s leading citizens a hundred years ago. David Clay would know who, or at least he’d come up with some history on the place if Billie were to ask. Now the three floors had been partitioned off and converted into one-bedroom apartments. This one was clean and tidy, tidier than any apartment Billie had ever had.
“I don’t know what I’m going to do,” Aunt Micky told her. “I waitress in Lexington three nights a week. Those nights I’ve been paying Alice downstairs to watch Jodie. But Alice is a little off, carries a pistol in her purse, and spends all her money on lottery tickets. My other job is cleaning houses and I take Jodie with me then. She’s a good little worker.”
“I know she is,” Billie said.
“Be different in the fall when school starts. At least then she’ll have a place to go during the day. But I’ll still be working nights.”
“What about your sister—is she going to make bail?”
“I hope not,” Aunt Micky said. “Best place for her right now is in jail. She needs to get straight. Hopefully they’ll send that Everson off to Eddyville for twenty years and she can be rid of him.”
Billie drank the instant coffee. She was inclined to agree with Aunt Micky about jail being the best place for the mother, for the time being anyway. But where did that leave the kid? Billie couldn’t imagine she was all that happy, living in the small apartment. And the pistol-packing babysitter sounded half a bubble off plumb.
“I could use some help at the farm,” Billie found herself saying. “Would it be okay if she came out there, at least until school starts?”
Aunt Micky sipped her coffee. “I think that would be all right,” she said after a long moment’s consideration. “She surely thinks the world of you.”
“She does?” Billie wondered how she came to deserve that.