Night Mares in the Hamptons (18 page)

She let us look over the three-sided stable. Connor stroked a pony and pulled a burr out of its ear.

In gratitude, Leather Lips gave us a couple of places to look, ones not on my list.

 

I knew the next few houses were summer rentals. I put the flyers in the mailboxes.

The last one we approached looked empty, no porch furniture, no curtains on the closed windows, no car out front. We looked around the side, saw no sheds or garage or lounge chairs, then headed back to the street.

We both heard the voice call out from the empty house. “Sorry I cannot answer your call, but if you leave your name and number, I'll get back to you as soon as possible. And no, Miss Tate, I have not seen your missing equine.”

I ran for the car. Connor wasn't far behind me.

“Man, I love this town,” he said as he jumped in and slammed his door. “It makes the res look normal.”

T
HE NEXT BLOCK WAS TERN STREET. The corner house had a sign outside: Jeweler, Clock and Watch Repairs, Custom Wedding Rings. Emil the jeweler had cut down my mother's wedding band to make the pendant I constantly wore, the one with the antique, archaic runes engraved on them that almost no one could read.
I and thou
is how Grant translated it,
one forever
.

We went in and waited while Emil served another customer. Connor looked at pocket watches while I, without intending to, looked at diamond rings.

Emil hurried over as soon as the customer left, setting the little bell on the door to ringing again. “Oh, no, Willow, not that one.”

I hadn't picked out any ring in particular. “I'm just looking.”

“No, not the ring, the young man.” He tilted his head toward Connor and lowered his voice. “The diamonds always tell me if a match is going to succeed. This one won't. Of course young couples rarely take my warnings.”

“I'll remember to check with you before making a selection. A man, before the ring. But Connor and I are simply searching for any information you might have about the horse we're all looking for. Have you seen the posters?”

“Yes, and I'm afraid I can't be much help. Now if you were looking for an emerald or a ruby, they sometimes talk to me. They don't have as much to say as the diamonds, of course.”

Of course.

 

The rest of Tern Street was a newer neighborhood, with bigger lots, more space between the larger houses. Most of them had swimming pools—with the ocean fifteen minutes away, the bay beach less than ten—but no barns or stables.

Ty's horses were in a garage, and I worried my colt—I cared the most, didn't I?—could be somewhere we couldn't look into. In my dream, though, his walls were rough wood planks. Not a garage.

A few of these houses had For Rent signs out, an indication of the hurting economy. Usually every available house or cottage or upstairs apartment was rented out before June. I stuck my flyers behind the screen doors anyway, in case someone came to look at the rentals.

One house had five cars parked in the driveway and along the road. The cars all had overhead surfboard carriers. The porch railing had wetsuits and beach towels draped out to dry. We knocked on the door.

I could hear loud music. I could feel the bass vibrate through my sneakers, but no one answered. I knocked again, louder.

A blond guy with no shirt but a lot of tattoos finally opened the door partway. “What do you want?”

I handed him the notice. “That's cool,” he said and stood aside so we could enter, showing an inked octopus crawling across his back shoulder. Yeck.

Eight or nine guys lounged in various states of undress and inebriation amid beer cans, pizza boxes, and a cloud of marijuana smoke.

Connor's look might have lingered on a water pipe; I drooled at the pizza.

The first surfer shouted to his buddies: “Hey, dudes, the broad and the Indian are looking for some horse.”

“Shit, man, we don't do heroin.”

“Maybe they're cops.”

I shouted above the music: “No, we're just looking for a lost colt. Has anybody seen one? He's white.”

“I saw a yellow squid on the way over here,” one guy said. “Then it turned into a really big school bus, headed straight at me. Red eyes and all.”

“You were driving? In this condition? And almost hit a school bus?”

“How else are we supposed to get to Ditch for the tournament?”

Ditch Plains was in Montauk and had some of the best surfing on the eastern seaboard, or so I understood. It had some of the nicest, classiest professional surfers. These stoned slobs weren't them. They were stupid rich boys having a good time and not caring whose house they trashed or whose kid they killed. I cared.

“I'm going to write down your license numbers when I leave. If I see any of you behind the wheel, I'll report you to the cops for DUI, to the code enforcer for having an illegal group rental, and to Miss Needlemeier for being shitheads.”

“Who the hell is Miss Needlemeier?”

“She's the girls' phys ed instructor at the school, and she'll put warts on your winkies if you misbehave. We don't take kindly to reckless driving here in the Harbor.”

Two guys clutched their privates. Another one puked. The octopus swore they'd call a cab next time. Or wait to party until they were home.

“Can she do that, your Miss Needlemeier?” Connor asked when we were outside in the fresh air.

“I don't know, but no boys ever tried peeking at the girls' locker room.”

“My grandmother can shrink a guy's gonads to grapes with one touch.”

“My grandmother can make a cheater's fall off with one cup of tea.”

So we traded grandmother curses, or accursed grandmothers, for the rest of the block and had a great time exaggerating. At least I hoped we were exaggerating.

We spoke to everyone else on the street or left the flyers, then took a break for lunch down by the docks. On the way I asked Connor if he surfed.

“Sure, we have lots of big waves out on the res. Right between the mountains and the desert and the prairie.”

“I bet you'd be good. A horseman like you must have incredible balance and”—grace sounded too effeminate for what I'd seen on the video of him and Lady Sparrow—“agility.”

“Yeah, and if I broke an arm or dislocated my shoulder, I'd be unable to perform. No act, no money sent back home. People depend on me.”

I thought of those college boys back on Tern Street, then my own life of relative comfort. I was bothered that people expected me to get rid of their nightmares? I couldn't imagine how Connor must feel.

The snack bar at Rick's didn't have salads, darn it. I had to make do with a cheeseburger. I offered Connor my fries. It was the least I could do.

Rick told us to check out a couple of backyards that were already on my list and the one Leather Lips had given us. He reminded me about the old Scowcroft ranch—which I was putting off for last, since the place was farthest from town. And since its caretaker terrified me.

Rick added a new stable near Amagansett that boarded polo ponies, and some summer people who used to have a pony for their kid. They kept a boat at his marina, that's how he knew, but only the father used the cabin cruiser now. When the kid got thrown, they shot the pony, but they must still have the facilities for a horse.

The Froelers sounded obnoxious; the Scowcroft ranch was scary. I drove toward the new polo field and stable.

The place looked like a miniature Epsom Downs, except the field was rectangular, not oval. It even had grandstands for spectators and a refreshments stand. Plenty of flowers in big concrete pots, plenty of room for exercising the gleaming horses, plenty of money on show.

While Connor entered the sleek-looking stables, a groom directed me to the man who owned most of the horses and captained the team when he wasn't in Palm Beach or South America. The captain was leaning on a rail, watching one of his teammates put a horse through its paces, or whatever polo ponies did. They weren't half as handsome as Paloma Blanca, nor as fast looking as Lady Sparrow.

The captain wasn't half as attractive as Grant or Ty, either, but he thought he was. He wore tight white knit pants tucked into shiny high boots, even a silk stock at the neck of his open-collared white shirt. The polo polish did not impress me, nor his slow appraisal of my body, as if he was looking for designer labels or availability. There was none of either. I'd been almost-engaged to a real aristocrat. This playboy did not make the grade.

I asked about a young white horse away from its mother.

The captain was paying more attention to another groom leading Connor into the crisp white stable complex. The man didn't like it, I could tell.

“He's a professional rider.”

The polo guy curled his lip at the idea of a darkskinned, long-haired person of unknown pedigree joining his team. “This is a private club, you know.”

Which meant, I suppose, you had to put up a fortune and your Ivy League degree to join.

“It couldn't be anything less,” I told him. He may have taken my words for a compliment, which it was not, because he gave me the benefit of his practiced smile. “We're just looking for a missing horse. We thought someone might have brought a stray to you, not knowing what else to do with him. It's like leaving a baby at a church or a hospital, somewhere you know it's going to be taken care of.”

The smile disappeared. “Sorry, we don't take in strays. Our horses are all registered and documented. That one training”—he pointed a manicured finger at the enclosed field—“just came from Saudi Arabia. We would have directed anyone with a lost horse to the police.” He looked at my flyer. “Now I'll send them on to you.”

“Thanks. Please call me if you hear of any news.”

“I've heard better come-on lines, honey.”

“Have you ever heard of Eastern equine encephalitis?” I hadn't noticed Connor leaving the stables, but he was right behind us.

The captain spun on his expensive heels. “Of course I have.”

“You better check it out.”

Connor wasn't saying the horses were sick. He didn't have to. Just his words could send any horseman, especially one looking for a trophy for his mantel, into a panic. Mr. Cool took off at a run.

“Did you look in stall number nine?” I asked Connor while we walked back to the car. “Or for a horse who wears that number when they play?”

“There's a chestnut in stall nine. And the riders wear the numbers, not the horses.”

“Are the horses really sick?”

“Healthiest horses money can buy. But the vet bill to come check might make a dent in that, or if rumors get started and the team is quarantined and disqualified from the coming match.”

Gee, that would be too bad. I got us back on the road.

“We going to that Scowcroft ranch next?”

“Um, no. I thought we'd look at that house with the stable.” I checked my map. “It's got a permit for a horse. Eight acres to keep it on. Pool, tennis courts, indoor pool. The works. Summers only. And its house number is nine.”

“But they shot a pony 'cause their kid fell off?”

I had no answer. Connor hated the Froelers before we got to the big white house. I could tell when he didn't say a word the whole way there.

The gates had an intercom system, so I gave my name and said we were looking for a missing horse. Maybe someone knew about it?

The gates swung open. When we got there, the double doors to the big colonial were flung wide. We parked in the porte cochere and walked up the seven wide steps. I expected a maid, maybe, or the owners, not a young girl in a wheelchair. I almost tripped on the top step.