The Trojan Colt Read online

  “I’m open to suggestions,” I said, digging into my veal parmesan. “Damn, this is great stuff! Thanks for suggesting this place.”

  “Okay,” she said. “Suggestion Number One. You say they each were the groom for Errol—”

  “Tyrone,” I corrected her.

  She shrugged. “Same thing. Pretty boy with a sword. Only Basil Rathbone knew how to use the damned thing. Anyway, they both cared for this wildly expensive colt. Maybe a potential bidder paid them for inside information about him.”

  “What kind?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe he has sore knees. Maybe something about his mouth will make it impossible for a jockey to restrain him once his blood is up. I’m just talking possibilities. Maybe he paid them and told them he didn’t want them around until well after the auction.”

  I shook my head. “Why pay them both, if he could get the information from one of them. And if Tony’s hiding on bribe money, why hadn’t he called his parents or his girl. He has to know how worried they are.”

  “Why do kids do anything?” she replied. “Anyway, I’m just offering suggestions.”

  “Got any more?”

  “Maybe they really are frustrated beach boys at heart.”

  “Not the type,” I said.

  She made a face. “That’s what they all say.”

  “Really, I don’t buy that for a second.”

  “Okay,” she said. “Tyrone had a mean streak—an erratic one that doesn’t show up often—and put the first kid in the hospital. Tony found out about it and didn’t know whether to go public with it since the colt was being auctioned the next day, and if Fasig-Tipton forced him out of the sale, Bigelow might go bankrupt and Tony would feel it was all his fault.”

  “A lot of couldas and mightas,” I said.

  “If it was easy you’d have solved it already, Eli,” she said. “Lou checked you out. You’re damned good at your trade.”

  “Then why am I always broke?” I shot back.

  “One has nothing to do with the other,” she replied. “You’re a good detective. You’re a lousy businessman.”

  I couldn’t argue with that, so I grunted an acknowledgment and finished my main course while she did the same.

  “So,” I said as the waiter took our plates away, “you want dessert?”

  She shook her head. “You go ahead, Eli. I’m trying to lose a little weight.”

  “You look fine.”

  She smiled. “And your mother would have taught you to say that even if it was the biggest whopper you told all day.”

  “If my nose doesn’t grow, it must be the truth,” I replied.

  “I’ll skip it anyway,” she said.

  “So will I then.”

  I signaled for the check, the waiter brought it, and I grabbed it before she could see it.

  “How much do I owe you?” she asked.

  “A friendly good-night kiss will cover it,” I said.

  “Really,” she said. “I mean it.”

  “So do I,” I said, digging into my wallet and slipping the waiter a pair of twenties. “Keep the change,” I told him, which didn’t sit too well with him since the bill was for thirty-six dollars and ten cents.

  I ushered Bernice out to the car before she could leave a couple of dollars on the table, then had her direct me to her apartment.

  “Somehow I thought of you living in a house,” I said as I walked her to the front door.

  “I used to,” she said. “But it was just too much work, holding down a job and keeping the place up. I don’t know that I’m any happier here, but I’m a lot less exhausted.” She turned to me and put her arms around my neck. “Thanks for dinner.”

  We kissed, and then she opened the outer door. “See you tomorrow?”

  “Probably,” I said.

  “We could do this again if you’re still in town.”

  “It’s a date,” I said.

  Then she was inside, and I walked back to the Ford, started it up, and began driving back to the motel. I was about halfway there when I noticed that a Mercedes convertible with very bright headlights was tailgating me, so I slowed down and gave it room to pass.

  It roared up, and just as I thought it was going to jump ahead of me it lurched to the right and gave me a hell of a bump, running me off the road. The shoulder was no more than ten feet wide, and it was all I could do not to careen into a drainage ditch. I finally pulled to a stop, got out, walked around the car to assess the damage, and decided that it had been a long day, the car could get me to the motel, and I’d worry about fixing it in the morning.

  And since I had friends in the Lexington police force, I’d also report a Mercedes with a driver who was probably higher than a kite.

  When I got into the room I turned on the television to see how the Reds were doing. Not too well. They were down five to three in the seventh inning.

  At least Lexington wasn’t so caught up in the horse industry that nothing else mattered. I remember that once I was on a case—a runaway boy, and that one had run away—that took me down to Midland, Texas. The president gave a speech to the nation that night. Preempted all the networks’ programming to do it. And when I picked up the newspaper the next morning, the first three pages were listings of new oil drillings, and the president’s speech was on page 4.

  The hotel had cable, so I ran through about fifty channels until I found an old Michael Shayne movie with Lloyd Nolan. They’d probably made it in under two weeks, and it was still more enjoyable than ninety percent of the junk they charged you ten dollars a ticket for these days. I concluded that either I was getting older or the public was getting dumber; probably a little of each.

  I decided I could use some coffee. The room didn’t have a coffee maker, and I probably wouldn’t have known how to use it anyway, so I took an inside corridor to the office, where they had a big pot on hand, poured myself a cup, added the requisite white stuff, and looked around for something to see after Michael Shayne finished making with the wisecracks and finally brought the bad guys to the bar of justice.

  There were some giveaways promoting local attractions, a few of which didn’t even involve horses. There were out-of-date copies of Time, which told you why the Iranians weren’t really a threat; Fortune, which told you how to get (almost) as rich as Steve Forbes; and Cosmopolitan, which told you how to enjoy eighty-three—count them: eighty-three—different sexual positions with the man of your choice. (I assume it was aimed at women—and wildly creative women at that, or at least acrobatic ones.)

  Somehow none of those magazines appealed to me, and I was about to go back to the room when I spotted a copy of Thoroughbred Weekly—I still had a couple dozen issues of it in my trunk waiting to be delivered to Tony’s parents—and I figured what the hell, at least I don’t have to be an Iranian, a millionaire, or a contortionist to read it, so I picked it up and went back to my room with the magazine and the coffee.

  Michael Shayne was just about through with the jokes, so I waited for the denouement (which wasn’t anywhere near as interesting as the rest of the film), watched him go into a clinch with the girl who would prove to be his one true love (until the next film), tried to find some music to read by, couldn’t find anything but rock (which bears about as much resemblance to music as I bear to Clark Gable), and finally shut the damned thing off.

  Then I settled down in the room’s one easy chair with my coffee and my magazine and started thumbing through it. It was a couple of weeks old, which probably made it the newest publication in the motel. Most of the issues I’d seen in Tony’s possession had photos of major races on the covers, but evidently the Keeneland summer sales trumped even that, because here, two weeks before the sale, was a photo of the sales pavilion with a handsome young yearling posing there with his groom. The caption announced that this was the previous year’s sale topper, but they were expecting at least three yearlings, including the first Trojan colt ever offered at auction, to beat that price.

  I start
ed reading the ads—every major yearling got a full page—and when I came to Tyrone’s ad I felt like a friend of the family. I knew that horse, had actually rubbed his muzzle, had his name and his scar explained to me. Tony wasn’t in the picture—none of the grooms were in any of the photo ads—but you could tell that he was just off camera to the right, that Tyrone was posing just the way Tony had worked with him. And I thought: if you’re as good as your pedigree, maybe someday I’ll be standing at the rail cheering you home in a major stakes race.

  I also saw an item that Mill Creek Farm would be dispersing most of their broodmares. Frank Standish had to know that, but he was a loyal employee and hadn’t mentioned it to me. I decided he’d be looking for another farm to manage within a year. Or maybe he’d even stay at Mill Creek, if Bigelow could find an angel to buy it from him.

  I continued thumbing through the magazine, which, if it did nothing else, impressed upon me the scope of the business. There were fifteen or twenty pages reporting the most recent stakes races. Forty or more pages of ads for stallions and at least that many for the upcoming yearling sale. There were bloodstock agents advertising for clients, farms advertising for help, tracks bragging about their purse money in the attempt to attract horses and trainers, even a few farms for sale. The one thing it didn’t have was any ads for betting systems; clearly the industry knew that while betting supported it, it was a losing proposition. I even remembered Harry Sixth Street and Arlington Benny back in Chicago constantly explaining that, yeah, you could beat any particular race, but what no one could do was beat the races.

  I set the magazine down, tried the television again, same channel, and found myself halfway through a Boston Blackie movie. Chester Morris was no Lloyd Nolan, but I didn’t hold that against him. After all, I was no Sam Spade or Philip Marlowe. They dealt in murders; I looked for lost dogs and lost kids.

  Eventually Blackie got his man, I went to the office and got another cup of coffee, and I came back to the room. This time the Saint—not the Roger Moore Saint, but his grandfather, the George Sanders Saint—was out to rid the world of evildoers. I figured Charlie Chan and Mr. Moto were probably next, and I turned to one of the ESPN channels, where I got to watch a thrilling minor league baseball game from somewhere in Arizona.

  I left it on, with the sound way down, walked over to the desk, sat down on the hard wooden chair, and pulled a sheet of Motel 6 stationery out of the desk’s drawer. I’d been on the case for a few days, and I thought I’d see what I’d managed to learn.

  I began writing down names:

  Frank Standish

  Jeremy somebody

  Travis Bigelow

  Hal Chessman

  Nanette Gillette

  Billy Paulson

  And though I didn’t have a name, I added: Someone or someplace near the Leestown Road Kroger.

  Then I looked at what I had and began making notes.

  Standish: Was he in the barn while I was at dinner? I doubt it. Did he have anything to gain by Tony’s disappearance? No. Were they friends? Not to my knowledge, but more to the point, they weren’t enemies.

  Jeremy somebody: Just a groom in Standish’s employ. The only motive I can think of, and it’s a damned silly one, is that he was jealous of Tony and wanted to be in charge of Tyrone—but that’s crazy, since Tyrone was selling the next afternoon.

  Travis Bigelow: He’s got so many problems on his hands, and such a big operation, I’d almost be surprised if he knew Tony by sight. And what the hell could a kid like Tony know that could possibly harm or threaten Bigelow? They just didn’t operate in the same world.

  Hal Chessman: He was gone four months before Tony was hired. They probably never even met, since neither went to the track.

  Nanette Gillette: She cares for him, she misses him, she seems genuinely concerned that he’s missing. More to the point, what possible motive could she have? This isn’t a marriage. If she wants to break it off, she just says “Good-bye.”

  Billy Paulson: He’s missing too, and that Arcaro whip makes me think he either left in a huge hurry, like maybe in fear of his life, or that he didn’t leave at all. But either way, it’s got nothing to do with Tony. It’s doubtful that they ever even met.

  Someone or someplace near the Leestown Road Kroger: Leaving his car there with the top down is the best reason to assume he never left town—but no one seems to know anyone in the area or think he knew anyone. There are no horse farms, no nightclubs, no nothing. To borrow a line from Yul Brynner: Is a puzzlement.

  I stopped writing and picked up my coffee cup, only to discover that it was empty and probably had been for the past half hour. I picked up the sheet of paper, walked over to the easy chair, sat down, and stared at it.

  Was there anything I was missing? More to the point, was there anyone I was missing?

  I couldn’t come up with anyone. The kid lived a pretty restricted lifestyle. He spent most of his time at the farm, even slept there, and when he got a spare hour or two he drove over to visit his girlfriend. Maybe he saw his parents at church on Sundays. I hadn’t asked, but it sure as hell wouldn’t put them on my list. After all, they were paying me to find him.

  The only other person I could think of was the guard at the track, the one who ushered me over to Barn 9 and who seemed to know Tony, or at least who he was. But that was crazy. Not only couldn’t he have had a motive, but he also didn’t have time to kill the kid without driving the horses wild, stash the body, and cover up all signs of it when I’d be returning from dinner in half an hour, and more to the point, when any potential buyer might stop by unannounced at any second.

  I stared at that paper, and stared at it, and finally I crumpled it up and threw it in the wastebasket. Hell, maybe the kid had flown the coop and was frolicking with half-naked beach bunnies on the sands of South Beach. Maybe I’d been a detective too long, been lied to too many times by too many people that I just couldn’t accept the obvious anymore. Maybe I’d give it one more day of driving around talking to people who’d already told me everything they knew, and then tell Tony’s parents that they were wasting their money.

  I turned on the television again, saw Charlie Chan saving Number One Son yet again—I’m a trained detective, right? I knew he’d be on next—and turned it back off.

  Then I got up, stretched, and realized that I was wide awake. Probably I’d had too much coffee, or maybe it was too few results, but whatever it was, I wasn’t ready for bed. I remembered a sign at Tilly’s that they were open around the clock, even if Tilly had to sleep now and then, and I decided to drive over there for a little snack.

  I opened the door and saw movement in a blue Mercedes convertible that was parked across the lot. Then there was a flash of light—I never heard the bang!—and a bullet thudded into my door about two inches to the left of my ear.

  I dove to the floor and kicked the door shut, reached up and turned off the light, and crawled to a window. I moved the curtain just enough to peek out and saw the Mercedes racing out of the parking lot.

  Clearly it hadn’t been an accident or a drunk driver before. Somebody was out to kill me, and since I was a stranger in town, it had to be because of the Tony Sanders case.

  But what had suddenly made me a threat—and to whom? What the hell did I know now that I didn’t know yesterday?

  I waited about five minutes until my heartbeat and blood pressure returned to normal, peeked out through the curtains once more to make sure the Mercedes was gone, and then called Drew MacDonald.

  “What’s the matter, Eli?” he said. “You sound kind of tense.”

  “I’m calling from my motel,” I told him. “Somebody took a shot at me.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Damn it, Drew—this isn’t the first time I’ve been shot at!”

  “All right, all right. Who was it?”

  “I don’t know. Some guy in a blue Mercedes convertible. The top was up, if that helps. The son of a bitch tried to run me off the road earlier ton
ight.”

  “Well, he obviously knows where you’re staying. I’ll send a couple of boys in blue out in a squad car to bring you in.”

  “Good,” I said.

  “This has something to do with the missing kid, right?”

  “I can’t think of anything else it could be,” I said.

  “You going home tomorrow?”

  “To Cincinnati?” I said. “Hell, no! I want to know who’s shooting at me, and why, and I want you guys to lock him away.”

  “I figured as much,” he said. “Can I make a suggestion?”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Pack your bag, pull anything out of your car you might want, and bring it all with you—but let the cops drive you. Leave the car right where it is. We’ll put you in protective custody at the jail overnight, and after we identify his car, or fail to, we’ll rent you a car and set you up in a different motel. And in the meantime, I’ll post a plainclothesman at your motel in case this guy comes back.”

  “Sounds good to me,” I said. “I won’t leave the room or go out to my car until your men get here.”

  “Shouldn’t take five minutes,” he said. “You sure you’re okay?”

  “Yeah, I’m fine. But my gun’s in my glove compartment, and just between you and me, I probably couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn from the inside.”

  “Any idea why he started shooting at you now?” continued MacDonald. “What did you dig up today?”

  “That’s what’s driving me crazy,” I said. “I didn’t learn a damned thing.”

  “Clearly somebody thinks you did.”

  “Clearly somebody’s wrong.”

  “Go over everything you did, everyone you spoke to, everything you saw. Maybe you’ll figure out what he thinks you know. I’m going to hang up now, Eli. I’ve got to send some cops to your motel. I’ll see you in a few minutes, when they bring you in.”

  “See you then,” I agreed and hung up the phone.

  I tossed all my clothes, clean and dirty alike—I hadn’t brought that many—into my beat-up leather bag, added my toothbrush and shaving kit from the bathroom, and sat down to wait for the cops.