McMurtry, Larry - Novel 05 (25 page)

 
          
 
"No, 'cause I didn't say it yet,"
Belinda said blithely.

 
          
 
Then she held the phone close to her mouth and
breathed into the receiver, as if to make it clear that her will had not
relaxed one whit.

 
          
 
"Is you the one with the soft car?” she
asked.

 
          
 
"I’m the one," I said.

 
          
 
Belinda giggled. "What's your name
again?" she asked.

 
          
 
"Jack."

 
          
 
"It's Jack," she said, to her
mother.

 
          
 
Then she breathed into the receiver some more.

 
          
 
"You’re coming today?" she asked.

 
          
 
"That's right," I said.

 
          
 
"Okay, but no forgets," she warned.

 
          
 
"No forgets," I said.

 
          
 
The first thing I saw when we drove into Cyrus
Folmsbee's second-best horse farm, near Middleburg, was a wooden-sided
Rolls-Royce hunting brake. It was sitting on a beautifully kept gravel
driveway, and a small man in striped pants and a neat little black cap was
waxing its wooden sides, rubbing them gently and expertly with a soft cloth.

 
          
 
"I can't believe it," I said to
Boss. "That's a Rolls-Royce hunting brake."

 
          
 
It sat in front of a beautiful red brick
house, beneath trees whose leaves had just turned, in the midst of rolling
green country filled with white fences and sleek horses.

 
          
 
Just seeing it there gave me a feeling akin to
nausea. It's a feeling I only get when I have to go onto the properties of the
very rich and see wonderful things that I can't possibly buy.

 
          
 
Boss noticed that I immediately fell in love
with the car.

 
          
 
"Don't try to buy it," she said,
smiling a little, in a motherly way, which was the way she had been smiling all
the way to Middleburg.

 
          
 
We were in her Lincoln rather than my
Cadillac, because Boss was afraid the sight of a Cadillac would send Cyrus
Folmsbee into a rage. Evidently he harbored a long-standing grudge against the
Cadillac division of General Motors because they had once sent him a car whose
color had been slightly wrong.

 
          
 
"Cyrus is picky," Boss said. She was
in a cool but cheerful mood. She let her eyes rove a bit over Cyrus Folmsbee's
second-best horse farm before getting out.

 
          
 
"He's probably just selling it because
the fences need painting," she said, pointing at the miles and miles of
white fence that stretched over hill and dale, to vanish in the foothills of
the
Blue Ridge
. In the crisp fall morning the
Blue Ridge
mountains
were living up to their name. They were as
blue as the flame of a welder's torch.

 
          
 
"The fence looks okay to me," I
said.

 
          
 
"Un-uh," Boss said. "It's
dingy. Not really up to standards."

 
          
 
We got out and strolled over to where the
little man in the striped pants was polishing the heart-stopping car. He made a
little bow when he saw Boss.

 
          
 
"How are you, Herbert?" she asked,
putting her hand on his shoulder in a friendly fashion.

 
          
 
Such kindness made Herbert look like he might
cry.

 
          
 
"Very well, thank you, Mrs. Miller,"
he said. "It's kind of you to ask,"

 
          
 
"What does he intend to do with you, if
he sells this place?" Boss asked.

 
          
 
Herbert shook his head, a little forlornly.
"I expect I will go with the cars," he said. "That probably
means
Connecticut
. I shouldn't think he'd require seven cars
in
Maine
, though of course that is a possibility. He
does like the way I do these cars."

 
          
 
I could see why. The hunting brake had
probably been made in the late twenties, from the look of it, but one would
have had to crawl underneath it to find any evidence that it had ever been
used.

           
 
"Why hasn't he painted the fence?"
Boss asked. "It's not like Cyrus to let things run down."

 
          
 
Herbert was not happy to have been asked such
a question. His horrified look reminded me of my old friend Goat Goslin, who
also hated to be asked questions, though in all other respects no one could
have been less like Goat than Herbert. The latter had all his fingers, and had
probably never seen a rodeo.

 
          
 
Herbert looked carefully around before
answering. After all, his boss had once run the CIA. His caution was
understandable.

 
          
 
"It's the neighbors," he said
finally. "I'm afraid Mr. Folmsbee has fallen out with them. He says they
deserve to have to look at a dirty fence."

 
          
 
He stopped polishing and stared with something
like shame at the long line offence, which looked perfectly white to me. It
wasn't as white as my Cadillac, but it was still pretty white. Nonetheless, its
condition was obviously a matter that weighed on Herbert.

 
          
 
"There's been a great deal of talk,"
he said mournfully. "No one is happy about the situation. Mr. Folmsbee has
received complaints. But, as you know, he is not a man who bends to public
opinion."

 
          
 
"Yeah, he's a stubborn son of a
bitch," Boss said, giving Herbert a comforting pat. "If he ever fires
you you come to work for me, okay?"

 
          
 
Herbert's face was a study in confusion. It
was plain he regarded the prospect of working for Boss rather than Cyrus
Folmsbee as sort of a dream of heaven, not a life that was likely to happen
here on earth.

 
          
 
It was hard for me to imagine, too. A little
man who wore a black apron and striped pants when he polished cars wouldn't
stand much of a chance in the Miller household. He reminded me of diminutive
servants I sometimes caught glimpses of in
Beverly Hills
, all of whom seemed to spend their time
watering down acres of Mercedes. At least Herbert had a Rolls-Royce hunting
brake to polish.

 
          
 
"So is the Squire up?" Boss asked.

 
          
 
"Oh yes indeed," Herbert said.
"I think you will find him with the ferrets."

 
          
 
On our way to the ferrets, wherever they were,
we passed a large garage with six more cars in it, five of them covered with
neat canvas car covers. The car that was uncovered was an ancient Pierce Arrow,
the size of a bus.

 
          
 
"A family could live in that Pierce
Arrow," I said.

 
          
 
"That Herbert's really sweet," Boss
said. "I got a soft spot for men like him."

 
          
 
"Why don't you just hire him?" I
asked. "He doesn't look very happy."

 
          
 
Boss chuckled. "You don't go stealing
servants from the Folmsbees," she said. "Cyrus would have one of his
Koreans assassinate me."

 
          
 
Just as she said it, two Koreans popped out of
a small arbor we happened to be passing. Like Herbert they wore striped pants
and neat little caps. They stopped, deferentially, until we passed, and then
made off toward the house. I had to admit that they looked pretty efficient.

 
          
 
"Cyrus says they make the best assassins
in the world," Boss said. "They also make pretty good
bartenders."

 
          
 
Once we passed the little arbor the estate
opened up before us. It stretched without interruption across a gentle valley
to the
Blue Ridge
. There were a couple of red-roofed barns
and several small trellised houses, all ivy-
covered, that
looked as if they ought to contain little English ladies who read Dorothy
Sayers. There was a lake to the northwest, and the pastures beyond it were
crisscrossed with white fence that had evidently not been kept up to standards.
Several bay thoroughbreds grazed in one pasture, while another held a
scattering of
black
Angus cattle. The horses were
swishing their tails and gamboling a bit in the crisp morning, but the black
cattle were just standing there. I never saw one move. The landscape before us
was so perfectly composed, with green grass setting off
blue
mountains
, white fences setting off orange leaves, and bay horses
contrasting with black cattle, that it occurred to me that perhaps the Angus
weren't allowed to move. Perhaps they had been trained to spend all day in one
place, for the sake of perfect visual composition. If they had bunched up in
one corner of the pasture, as cattle frequently do, the whole balance of the
landscape would have been spoiled.

 
          
 
"Why does he have ferrets?" I asked.

 
          
 
"Cyrus likes little quick things, like
Koreans and ferrets," Boss said.

 
          
 
The ferret run turned out to be a fair
distance from the house. We passed a gazebo in a modest grove, a small pond
with willows around it, and a skeet range. Down the hill we could see a tall
man in tweedy garb standing by a fence watching a bunch of small animals dart
around. A lumpy woman was with him, Bessie Lump no doubt.

 
          
 
When we got closer I saw that the ferrets had
a very nice run to disport themselves in, with holes for them to pop in and out
of and a number of small humplike structures reminiscent of Dutch ovens, which
may have been ferret houses. The ferrets that weren't busy darting moved along
with a peculiar sidling motion, sniffing at the fence.

 
          
 
"Ah, Boss," Cyrus Folmsbee said,
when he turned and saw us. He had very red cheeks and wore a blue silk
neckerchief around his throat. He also had a monocle dangling from his tweed
jacket, but he mostly just let it dangle.

 
          
 
Bessie Lump was wearing the same nondescript
dress she had worn at the auction.

 
          
 
"Well, is this our buyer?" Cyrus
asked,
when he shook my hand. He had skinny hands—the bones
in them pressed mine like a vise. His pale blue eyes peered at
,me
out of his red face.

 
          
 
"Have you got four million, won't take a
cent less," he asked, acting at once on the assumption that I was a buyer.

 
          
 
"Slow down, Cyrus," Boss said.
"This is my nephew. Jack. He's up from
Texas
for a few days. I thought I'd show him
Middleburg while he was here."

 
          
 
"As well you might," Cyrus said,
looking at me thoughtfully. "As well you might. Good place to buy. People
are damned bores, but then most people are damn bores. You won't find a gazebo
as good as mine, I'll tell you that. Man who built the Brighton Pavilion built
that gazebo. Besides, there's this run. Best ferret man in
England
built me this run. They know ferrets, in
England
. Only place they do know ferrets—as a
matter of fact. I've had good luck with my gray ferrets—can't say that I care
much for my browns. You won't find a decent ferret handler in these parts, I'm
afraid, but that's your lookout, assuming you've got the four million, of
course."

 
          
 
Bessie Lump had turned and was looking at me
with eyes that would have been right at home on a dead fish.

 
          
 
Cyrus pressed on relentlessly, ignoring both
Bessie and Boss.

 
          
 
"I'm glad you've come straight to the
point," he said. "I like a man who doesn't beat around the bush.
Speaking of which admittedly my boxwood is not all it might be, but if you coax
it along I think it will do. I shan't take these ferrets. I have other ferrets.
Be careful with the grays or you'll get bit, I can assure you."