Horse Heaven (22 page)

Hip number ten would come up the first night, so Buddy made sure that the Kingstons’ chauffeur-driven Lexus 470 picked him up in plenty of time. When they stopped at the Ritz-Carlton in Pasadena to pick up the Kingstons, Andrea Melanie was quite bubbly about the car. She said, “Don’t you like it? We just got it today. We didn’t have any sport-utility vehicles, can you believe it? Sometimes you just overlook some things, and then you are so surprised when you realize it. I thought maybe there was a Suburban or something like that at one of the houses, but I called around, and no! I just laughed. Anyway, we saw that there were a lot of sport-utility vehicles at the racetrack, and I said to Jason, Well, if we’re going to do it, we have to look like we’re going to do it,
so we bought this right off the floor. We hardly ever buy any car right off the floor, but this one happened to be fully loaded, so why not? You can always take it back later and have stuff added if you want.”

Buddy looked around the interior of the Lexus. “Fully loaded” was a nice phrase, and Buddy himself had always been ineluctably drawn to any upscale vehicle that was fully loaded, but now he suspected that Jesus would soon require him to drive something like a Dodge Caravan. He said, “What would you add?,” just to hear them say it, whatever it was.

Jason said, heavily, “Every car in our fleet has a cellular computer-modem link and a laptop computer available to the passenger seat and both rear seats.”

“A minibar,” said Andrea Melanie, “with a refrigerator.”

“Ceiling-mounted mini-TV,” said Jason.

“Jason has his shows,” said Andrea Melanie fondly.

“A burl-and-brass box—”

Andrea Melanie leaned over and whispered in Buddy’s ear, “For sexual equipment, you know. Isn’t that silly?” She laughed and cast Jason a coquettish glance. Then she whispered to Buddy, “We like a lot of spontaneity.”

“You know,” he said, “I came out to look at this horse yesterday, and I think you’ll like the spontaneous quality that he has. Everyone notices it about him.”

“Oh!” exclaimed Andrea Melanie. “I hope we get him. I love him already!”

Buddy always thought it was interesting that when you took a new owner to an auction they seemed to think that dropping a vast sum of money on a horse was a privilege. He said, “Well, Mrs. Kingston, this is a good way to get into the game. The horse is trained and ready to run. You don’t have to wait the way you do with a yearling, and you don’t run the risks that you do with breeding.” This was entirely true, thank you, Jesus.

“You make up your mind and there you are,” said Jason. “I like that. You know what I say? I say, always act on impulse, because your impulse is always right. My business is full of guys who used to act on impulse and now they don’t. They used to be interesting and fun and now they aren’t. They used to run their own companies, and now some guy from Coca-Cola does it for them. That’s death, if you ask me.” He sighed. His wife looked at him sympathetically.

The auction went like clockwork in one sense. Buddy came in and showed the Kingstons his reserved seats. He introduced them to a few benign and trustworthy souls—no other trainers, for sure, but a vet he knew, a couple of breeders, a couple of consignors, a guy who wrote for
The Blood-Horse.
Then they went out to the paddock area and stood among the other patrons looking at the horses waiting to come in. The buyers and their agents stood about in
their usual groups. The Brits and the Irish had on their Barbour jackets and their wool caps. The few Aussies had on their big hats. Cowboy hats and boots abounded—this was southern California, after all, and anyway, on the first night of the sale, all the top trainers who’d started out in quarterhorses were much in evidence. Buddy had on a suit. According to Jesus, a nice charcoal-gray suit was the most appropriate attire in any circumstances, and one of the side benefits of finding Jesus had been the resolution of a lifetime of sartorial indecision. While they were standing there, Callaghan came up to them, and Andrea Melanie said, “Oh! Dermot! there you are! This is Buddy.”

“Ach, Buddy,” said Callaghan.

“Hey, baby,” said Buddy. “We’ve done some business over the years, haven’t we, old man?” All of it dirty, too.

“Business, indeed.” Dermot grinned cheerfully. There were people in the world who, walking down the street, might see a hundred-dollar bill lying on the curb. Rather than bend down and pick it up, these men would bet a saw-buck on whether the next guy along would pick it up, or the guy after that, or the guy after that. And if they won the twenty and lost the hundred, they would consider themselves well repaid. Dermot Callaghan was one of those. Buddy knew for sure he was coming at this deal in some cockeyed way that might well lose him his quarter interest, but that wasn’t Buddy’s problem.

“Thanks for taking us to that restaurant last night, Dermot. We just didn’t know where to go.” She turned to Buddy. “And he took us to the garden at this library around here?”

“The Huntington Library,” said Callaghan.

“What did you say he made his money in?” said Jason.

“Railroads,” said Callaghan.

“And his name was Huntington?”

“Just like the library,” said Callaghan.

Buddy strolled away, just for a moment.

The horse was brought out as the first couple of two-year-olds were going under the gavel. His handlers led him around the paddock area, but kept him slightly apart. Buddy let Callaghan point him out to the Kingstons. They were suitably impressed, because he was suitably impressive. You didn’t have to be a horseman to see that he was bigger, blacker, and more full of himself than any horse in the paddock. Buddy and Callaghan let the couple’s round eyes fill to the brim with the animal, and then they led them into the amphitheater. As they took their seats, Buddy saw Farouk taking his seat over in another section. Andrea Melanie said, “This is like a theater in the round, with that little stage down there. I was an acting major in college, you know.”

Soon enough, the sales board flashed the colt’s hip number and they led
him in. He came in easily enough, four or five steps, then he stopped dead, lifted his head and his tail, and stared at the assembled bidders. The lights in the room lit up his blackness in brilliant circles that slid over his shoulders and back and haunches. His nostrils flared and he whinnied a challenge. “My goodness,” said Andrea Melanie.

At the signal from the auctioneer, Farouk started the bidding at three hundred thousand. Andrea Melanie sat up in her chair and craned her neck. The other underbidder, whom Buddy didn’t recognize, came in at three fifty, and Callaghan raised his hand for four. Someone else came in, then someone else. They dropped out at a million. Farouk and the other underbidder and Callaghan pushed it up to two million. Buddy stole a glance at Jason, who was sitting next to Callaghan. He looked calm and interested, but neither daunted nor nervous. Every time another bidder spoke, Andrea Melanie, next to Buddy, said, “Oh my God!” At three million, Farouk glanced in their direction. This was the most sensitive moment. Farouk had pushed the bidding as high as he thought he could. Probably Sir Michael had estimated what he thought the Kingstons would pay, and this was about it. Now it was up to Buddy and Callaghan to bail Farouk out, bail all of them out. If you had a couple, Buddy knew, this was where you had to try and understand the marriage. It was no coincidence that one of them had the man and one of them had the woman. But Buddy wasn’t sure that they had divvied up their responsibilities properly. Callaghan was a hand with the women, and Buddy most assuredly was not. Buddy heard Callaghan say to Jason, “Well, what do you think?”

Jason didn’t say anything.

Buddy looked at him. He looked like he was having second thoughts. At this point, he always wondered if there wasn’t some way that they could work a scam that was more guaranteed, but of course there wasn’t. There had to be a gamble, didn’t there? Every racing man preferred good odds to a sure thing.

Andrea Melanie was looking at Jason now. She looked like she was wondering whether to push him.

When you thought about it, Jason did seem to be the sort of guy not all that susceptible to pressure.

Jason looked at his wife, then he looked at Buddy. Since Buddy did not at this point have a guilty conscience, he didn’t think that was showing in his face, but perhaps, he thought, a lifetime of dishonesty was showing in his face. Was Jason astute enough to see it there?

The auctioneer said, “I have three million. Dermot?”

Buddy didn’t dare look at Farouk.

He saw Dermot give the auctioneer a little cock of the eyebrow, asking for a moment more.

Jason Kingston withdrew his gaze from Buddy’s face, and made no sign. Buddy licked his lips and whispered to Andrea Melanie, “I think this horse can win the Kentucky Derby.” And that was true, too. As true as the sun in the sky. So why did it feel like a lie?

She turned instantly to Jason and said, “Please, honey?”

Jason poked Callaghan, and nodded.

Callaghan raised his finger.

The auctioneer said, “Three million one hundred thousand?”

Callaghan and Jason nodded simultaneously.

Now Buddy looked at Farouk. He shook his head, feigning disappointment.

The auctioneer said, “Sold to Dermot Callaghan for three million one hundred thousand.”

Andrea Melanie let out a scream, “Oh, God, I want more!”

And so they got more. By the end of the auction, the Kingstons had spent ten million dollars on two-year-olds, and Buddy had to find stalls for six more horses. He had to find room in his bank account for the $625,000, give or take a commission or two, that Sir Michael had sent his way. He had to make room in his future for a return favor (Jesus probably knew what that would be already, some sort of test, which maybe was the long-term point of all of this to begin with), and he had to make room in his already busy day for the endless stroking of Andrea Melanie Kingston, which he saw, now that he had the return on his investment, could turn into a significant penance. That Jesus was a trickster, never more so than when he was keeping quiet and waiting for you to make up your own mind.

By the time Epic Steam had been in Buddy’s barn for only three days, whinnying and stampeding around his stall, staring at all the fillies, and in every way creating a ruckus, Buddy was ready to geld the animal. But you didn’t go to an owner and tell them that a three-million-dollar two-year-old who hadn’t run his first race yet and had the breeding of a king needed his golden treasures, truly a set of family jewels, removed just for the sake of some grooms and exercise boys who made three hundred dollars a week. And you didn’t go to Jesus and tell him that, just because you maybe hadn’t passed the last test, you weren’t going to pass the next one, either. At least, not right away.

T
HE THING
Tiffany enjoyed most about her relationship with Ho Ho Ice Chill was visiting Ho Ho’s family in Connecticut. Ho Ho’s father was a handsome sixty-two-year-old former defensive back on the New York Giants named Lawrence Morton, who lunched with Kiwanis Clubs, played golf with the other real-estate agents in his town, gave little talks on positive motivation, and always had a smile on his face. But the smile on Lawrence’s face wasn’t nearly as big as the smile on the face of his second wife, Marie, who was a Frenchwoman from the actual nation of France. They had a ten-year-old daughter named Alienor who had already developed and put into place her personal style. Alienor idolized Paloma Picasso, and always wore the same outfit every day—black jeans and a dazzling white T-shirt, with little black French sneakers and a necklace of tiny jet beads. She told Tiffany that she didn’t see why she should ever have to vary this outfit for the rest of her life. Marie told Tiffany with a shrug that this was a very French attitude. Knowing what a French attitude was gave Tiffany a terrific thrill. The reason Marie always had a smile on her face was that she adored Lawrence, and why shouldn’t she? Everyone adored Lawrence. Lawrence’s sense of peace was like a depth of clear water. “Well,” said Marie over some tea and cookies in the Mortons’ sunny kitchen, “it took me a year to get Lawrence to fall in love with me, and I was very beautiful then. But I knew that if Lawrence ever really looked at me, and fixed it in his mind to take care of me, then that would be forever. Ah! Ah!” She smiled and closed her eyes, just at the thought of Lawrence.

Ho Ho Ice Chill was Lawrence’s only rap-singer offspring. Ho Ho’s sister Ivy was a tax lawyer, his sister Helen was in real estate with Lawrence, and his brother, Norman, was a marketing executive at Microsoft, out in Seattle. Sometimes, when Ho Ho needed a little advice, he got on the Internet and got Norman’s marketing group to brainstorm a promotional campaign or something like that. As a result, Ho Ho’s record company was being eyed as a possible
takeover target by Microsoft. But, Ho Ho explained, so was everything else. The children’s mother was a community activist in Oakland, California.

Sometimes, when Tiffany remembered how she had bolted out of Wal-Mart with Bone Bones, she imagined she had known that this was where she was going, but, of course, that was impossible. What was really true was that she had been bored enough to try anything, and she had set aside her usual distaste for trading on her looks and lucked out.

Tiffany liked every word that she heard at the Mortons’ house—France, tapenade, Paloma Picasso, Microsoft, please, thank you, honey, sweetheart, chéri, Earl Grey, orchid, garlic, closing, investment, nude (as in a painting), terrace, riding lawn-mower, maman, s’il vous plaît, ce soir, assiette, coq au vin, daube, glace. Ho Ho, for his part, had a focused interest in all the words Tiffany knew but hated to use, which referred to drugs, sex, violence, being tough, and making a name for oneself in spite of worlds of hardship. Ho Ho, it had to be said, liked Tiffany, but he idolized Roland, Tiffany’s brother, whom he had never met. Yes, Roland had been in prison. Yes, Roland had a friend who was murdered. No, Roland had never killed anyone. Yes, Roland was a great and hypnotic talker. Yes, Roland was a bad man or a lost soul, or both. Yes, Tiffany hoped that, brother or not, she would never see Roland again.