Horse Heaven (71 page)

“That’s so weird.”

“So I need you.”

“I can’t, I—”

“For right now. There’s lots to do.”

“Hire him back.”

“No.”

“It doesn’t interest me. I have no faith in it. It’ll make me crazy. It’ll be like it was back at the university. I’m afraid.”

“But you know how to do it and I need someone to do it. The barn is full. Put one foot in front of the other. That’s all.”

“Do you have infinite patience?”

“Will you return all my calls for me?”

“Yes,” she said.

“Yes,” he said.

“Done deal?”

“Done deal,” said Joy. And she hung up. And she burst into tears.

I
N HIS OFFICE
, Farley put down the phone, closed his eyes, and blew out a noisy sigh. What it felt like was nothing so much as reaching out and grabbing her at the last minute, just as she went over the edge. It was not so clear whether he could hold her, convinced as he was, now more than ever, that she would slip away in the end. He had his methods and his resources, didn’t he? Patience. Stoicism. Keeping at it. The same old same old, virtues tried and true. Hiding out, the foundation mare would have readily, and even triumphantly, called it. Ah, yes, hiding out was always a temptation for a man of dignity and reserve such as himself. And so he had made a little contract with Joy.
Barney had told him about that. A guy he’d read about in a book made a contract with his wife, every year, that she wouldn’t commit suicide that year. One year she could handle. And they had lived together thirty years, one year at a time. He got up and went around the desk. Outside, it was high noon and quiet. The horses who had worked that morning were eating or dozing. Only Mr. T. popped his head over the door and looked at him. Farley hadn’t thought a lot about their earlier association. It had lasted less than a year. In the fifteen years since, hundreds of horses had passed through his barn. But of course it was odd that the animal should turn up again, and bring Joy along with him, a Fairy Godgelding, no matter what this mumbo-jumbo of Elizabeth’s was all about.

“Hey,” he said.

The horse pricked his ears.

“You tell me what to do next. You tell me and I’ll listen. Done deal?”

Mr. T looked at him intelligently.

O
VER
V
ALENTINE’S
D
AY
, William Vance let his girlfriend persuade him to take her to Florida on some of Justa Bob’s winnings, and then he talked her into going out to Gulfstream. And then he saw this horse by Skip Trial, the sire of Skip Away, out of a Secretariat mare, who’d been dropped into a seventy-five-thousand-dollar claiming race, and so he put up the cash, and the horse won, only his third start, but he came out of the race off behind, and then, when William got him X-rayed, it turned out he had a coffin-bone fracture—just a fragment floating there in the hazy picture—and with a special shoe, he might be ready to go again in the late summer. Right then, William had this feeling that he was due for a bad turnaround, but he didn’t pay attention to it, and when he went back to New Orleans to finish up and head back to Chicago, he was still in a pretty good mood. Two days later, though, his four-year-old colt tied up after a work, knotted up so hard you thought if you smacked him he would ring like a gong, right out there on the track. They didn’t dare move him, and had to trailer him fifty yards back to his stall. His urine was nearly black. The other four-year-old, a good solid allowance mare, just hadn’t liked the footing in Louisiana and hadn’t run a lick since the beginning—“too good,” said William to Romero when he called to
tell him all about it. “She can’t get a hold of it. She looks dazed out there.” Even then, William kept having that feeling that everything was going to be all right in spite of the coffin-bone fracture and all, until a few days after the tie-up. At first they thought that, even though the colt’s urine was coffee-colored—a very bad sign—there was some chance that he would—well, what?—come back to his old form? William gave up that hope pretty quickly. Come back to the track at all? Two days, three days, four days passed. The horse stood in his stall, unmoving, his eyes half closed, unable or unwilling to eat, the fitness and even the flesh passing off him like a dream. Then William thought, well, he was a colt, good-looking and not that badly bred, someone could stand him somewhere like Wisconsin or Minnesota, but then, about a week after the incident, a big lump appeared over his croup, maybe a foot long and four to six inches wide. The vet came out and poked it. He shook his head. You hardly had to twitch the horse, he was so listless, but they sedated him and incised the lump. Black-brown fluid with some strands of something oozed and dripped out. William had never seen such a thing, but he knew what it was before the vet told him. “William,” said the vet. “That’s necrotized muscle tissue.”

“He’s done for,” said William.

“I’m thinking he is,” said the vet.

They euthanized the horse ten minutes later. William went out to his truck and cried.

B
UT, OF COURSE
, he still had Justa Bob. Justa Bob had finally lost, and done it twice, last place and second-to-last place in a twenty-five-thousand-dollar allowance and a twenty-two-thousand-dollar allowance. He was tired. William’s plan was to take him back to Chicago and let him slack off for several months. He called Romero. “The thing is,” he said, “I shouldn’t have claimed that Skip Trial colt. He’s standing here in the barn.”

“They come back from coffin-bone—”

“I don’t have the money to pay some of my bills or get back home. The vet bills—”

“Run him.” William knew he was talking about Justa Bob.

“He’s too tired for the company. There’s a bunch of fresh horses coming in.”

“Run him. Someone will claim him for sure.”

“I know they will, that’s what I’m afraid of.”

“Are you attached to that horse?”

“Well, of course I am. I—”

“You’re the one who always says you get attached and you’re dead.”

“I know, but Justa Bob is different.”

“None of them are different if you can’t get home.”

W
ILLIAM GOT
Justa Bob ready for the race himself. He went into the stall, and cleaned him up and put a couple of braids in there, just for fun. He curried him and brushed him and rubbed him all over until the animal’s brown coat looked like walnut veneer. He separated the hairs of his tail and smoothed them out one by one, sprayed on a little silicone spray. He wrapped and taped his back legs, put yellow polos on the front. His silks, just a yellow shirt with white sleeves, looked good on this horse, too.

Justa Bob stood there, calm and alert. By now he had started fifty-four times, and he knew everything about it. When the time came for the fourth race, William walked him to the receiving barn and out to the saddling enclosure himself. He was wearing clean khaki trousers and a white shirt. He looked good. They both looked good. Of course horses were everywhere, and trainers, and jocks and grooms and owners. Some in every category were very high-class, especially among the three-year-olds who were taking this route to the Derby rather than the New York route, the Florida route, or the West Coast route, but William thought Justa Bob stood out, anyway. No, he wasn’t all that fast, and he wasn’t all that pretty, but he had hung on and for a long time and never failed to cooperate, and never failed to give it, whatever it was, everything he had. William wished that guy from the
Times-Picayune
were around right now, because he wouldn’t be tongue-tied. He’d know exactly what to say. William looked at his watch. Time to go out there.

Yes, this whole thing had a sort of funereal quality to it, and to be honest, you never knew until after the race whether the horse had been claimed, but if not, then. If not this time, then another time. As usual in racing, money and sentiment had gone off in different directions, and here he was.

So he put the jock up, a young kid who needed the experience, and he said, “Just hold on and let him run his race. He knows more about it than any horse out there. At the end, don’t go for the whip. If he’s got gas, he’ll give it to you himself. And don’t be afraid if he gets you into a bunch at the finish line. That’s the way he likes it.”

The jock nodded.

William didn’t go up to his seat, but stood down on the rail with the bettors. Justa Bob had drawn the number-one position, which was okay in a nine-furlong race like this one.

Okay until the number-two horse came out of the gate and bumped Justa
Bob toward the rail, and dislodged the young jockey, who slipped to the outside. Then Justa Bob staggered a step, maybe from the uneven weight. And then the other horses were past him, and he was alone in the rear. Then he veered to the outside, and the rider righted himself and took hold. And then Justa Bob took off. Normally, William knew, he was a stalker. He liked to be just off the pace, saving himself for his only move. And he was old. If his only move didn’t work, he didn’t have another one—that was the key to his losses. But now he ran like a different horse, full-bore, head down, body flat. He ran down the horses in front of him one by one, two by two. William was sure the jockey had nothing to do with it, was just sitting there. It was mesmerizing. One, two, three, four, five. He shot them down one by one and kept going. William wasn’t sure the jockey was even looking where they were going—from this distance it looked like he had his face buried in the horse’s neck. They were coming around the second turn and there was one horse left, a chestnut four-year-old by A. P. Indy, a well-bred and once expensive animal who’d had some good wins lately. In the homestretch, Justa Bob blew past him as if jet-propelled, and crossed the finish line a good three lengths in front. “God damn,” said William Vance to himself. “And here I thought I knew that horse.”

He ran out on the track to meet them when they came back a few minutes later. The jockey’s face was blanched. He said, “Hey, Mr. Vance. That was kinda scary.”

“How so, Eddie?”

“Well, I nearly fell off there at first, but he kinda hoisted me back on, somehow, or that’s what it felt like, then he took the bit in his teeth and ran like hell.”

“Were you watching where you were going?”

The jockey licked his lips, then said, “Well, no, sir, not for part of the way.”

“Well, it’s over now. And you won.”

“Yes, sir, we did. I’m sure I’ll be happy about that later, sir.”

William led the horse to the winner’s circle and had the picture taken with just the three of them; then, of course, it happened. The steward came out with the red tag and hung it on Justa Bob’s bit, and there he was.

So he cleared twenty thousand dollars on the race, with the purse money and the claiming price. That was plenty to get him out of here and back to Chicago, Justa Bob’s parting shot, parting blessing. Later, when he was reporting the race to Romero, kind of down in the mouth, Romero said, “You know, the first time you ever saw him, man, the horse was almost dead.”

Six months ago, thought William. Only six months ago. Hard to believe.
And then he let himself say the thing he had been trying not even to think. He said, “When they led him away, I thought he was a little off.”

“Well, then, lucky thing you got rid of him, eh, man?”

“Sure,” said William. “Never too soon to sell one, you know.” He guffawed—yes, he did, the way you do, lucky for sure. But if he was so lucky, why didn’t he feel all that good about it?

N
OW THAT
R
OSALIND
was an art dealer, she discovered that she had fulfilled one of her accountant’s dreams, 100-percent deductibility. Everything she bought, every plane ticket, every hotel stay, every meal out of town or with an artist, every use of her automobile for art-buying purposes, every car rental, you name it, if she spent it, she could deduct it. There was even a reasonable expectation that she could deduct expenses for maintaining her personal appearance, since she had a certain image to uphold. The accountant’s goal of reducing her tax bill to zero was not quite the same as Rosalind’s goal, no doubt a relic of her Midwestern youth, of living a responsible life. There were, after all, plenty of goods and services that the various jurisdictions she sojourned in provided—roads, street lighting, police, flood control, air-traffic control … Rosalind found herself running dry in the face of her accountant’s look of amusement. In defense, Rosalind closed her eyes and granted him a wish. A moment later, he opened his desk drawer and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. “Go ahead,” said Rosalind. “I don’t mind.”

Full deductibility, though, was something you could only really appreciate once a year, and for this year, the last in the millennium, Rosalind had already appreciated it. Even so, it gave an extra bit of comfort to the first-class flight to Los Angeles that she took just after her meeting with the accountant. She had some money to spend and some space to fill in her gallery, and she was on her way to meet several artists who were eager to fill it. She also had the name of three trainers at Hollywood Park and Santa Anita whom she planned to interview for Limitless. She had no idea what to ask them. She who had once been an owner-in-law, an addendum to the breeder, the wife who came along, was now the responsible party. But, as always now, she figured something would come to her. Or to Eileen, who was nestled quietly inside her carrying case underneath the seat in front of Rosalind. The flight attendant went by, looking a bit harried. Rosalind glanced at her, then granted her a wish. A moment later, the head of the guy in seat
IC
, a guy whom Rosalind had recognized as Pete
Rose, dropped forward into a heavy sleep. The flight attendant noticed this, too, and visibly relaxed. Rosalind wondered if this power of hers had a time limit or a use limit attached to it, and where it came from, and then the sunshine blasted her through the window, and by the time she had closed the shade, she was back to her normal condition of not wondering about anything.