Puss 'N Cahoots (14 page)

H
orse people tend to be tough. They work hard physically, keep long hours during shows, sleep little. The compelling passion, obsession perhaps, for horses drives them ever onward, to the astonishment of those who like differing pastimes such as golf or tennis. It's not that those sports lack committed competitors. Yachting creates an equivalent passion, but these other escapes from daily drudgery don't have another living creature for a partner, except for dog shows. Dog shows are more sedentary, though. Horsemen are a breed apart from other sportsmen. It strikes horsemen as perfectly normal to build their barn before their house; to go without when money is tight so long as the horses are well fed, well shod; to run into a burning barn to save one's horses without considering the danger to one's self.

Different as Charly Trackwell, Booty Pollard, and Ward Findley were, they shared this iron bond. They also shared a deep appreciation of profit: being horsemen did not deter them from dipping into dishonesty.

They sat in a secluded booth in a white clapboard house west of Shelbyville that served the best breakfasts and lunches between the Kentucky and Ohio rivers. The place was packed at seven in the morning.

Booty wanted them to be seen by others but not heard. Let people wonder what they were doing.

Ward eagerly cut into his three sunny-side-up eggs. He'd burn off his huge breakfast by eleven. Charly and Booty kept fit, as well, although being slightly older than Ward they had learned to keep an eye on it.

Each time the waitress, Miss Lou, red lipstick freshly applied, swept by to pour fresh coffee or drop off condiments and side orders for unvanquished appetites, they spoke of horses, classes, competitors.

“Boys, the coffee cake defies description.”

Longing passed over Charly's face, but he waved off the suggestion.

“I'll try it.” Ward smiled. “Be finished with the eggs and sausage by the time you hit the counter.”

“Just so's the counter doesn't hit back.” Miss Lou winked. “Booty, you'll like it. 'Course, I have giant cinnamon buns, too, vanilla icing dripping all over. I know how you boys like your buns.” She sighed.

Booty caved. “Oh, what the hell. Buns!”

Smiling triumphantly, she spun in her special shoes, needed since Miss Lou worked on her feet all day, her starched apron flaring slightly with the quick turn.

“I swear Miss Lou is as happy selling us a piece of coffee cake and a cinnamon bun as we are selling a three-hundred-thousand-dollar fine harness horse.” Booty laughed.

“All relative, brother, all relative.” Charly reached for nonfattening creamer.

The delicious concoctions appeared. Miss Lou, pencil behind her ear, didn't write up a ticket, just in case they needed something else.

When she moved to the next booth, the men paused a moment. The noise level in the restaurant rose upward; a line snaked out the front door.

“Who killed Jorge?” Charly asked, voice low.

“Not me,” Booty said as a joke.

“Booty, get serious. It just might be one of the reasons INS swooped down like carrion crows.” Charly enjoyed a vivid turn of phrase. “The double cross on his palm points to someone or something. I can't figure it out.”

“Well, it doesn't make much sense to think Larry called them.” Ward spoke cautiously since he was very much the junior partner in this trinity. “Jorge was his employee. Why bring on more badges?” He used “badges” as a general term for anyone enforcing the law, a relatively hopeless job when he considered it.

“Why give him credit for thinking it through?” Charly, irritated for a second partly because he did want a piece of coffee cake, snapped. “He wants to wreck me for Saturday night's five-gaited. The man is a ruthless competitor.”

“That could be said of you, too, Charly.” Booty's tone was even. “Larry isn't the problem. The problem is if any of the, um—the desired term these days is ‘undocumented workers'—squawks.”

“They won't,” Charly firmly said.

“You're sure?” Booty tapped the side of his coffee cup with his forefinger.

“Sure, I'm sure.” Charly leaned back, tilting his chin upward. “They'll drop 'em off across the border. Big deal.” He threw up his hands. “The guys wait a couple of days and come back over. We need workers, and we really need people who can work around horses. So if we don't bring back the same batch, they'll go to other horsemen. Those guys aren't stupid. They want these jobs. They'll keep their mouths shut.”

Booty squished the crumbs from the buns between the tines of his fork. “Might be.”

“And remember,” Charly leaned forward, voice low, “the INS can't prove we employed any of these men. They ran out of those barns like rats off a sinking ship.”

“That doesn't bother me.” As Miss Lou passed, Booty smiled and raised his forefinger.

They waited quietly, and she returned and refilled everyone's coffee cup. “Hope you boys aren't far from a bathroom today.” She laughed, then added, “'Course, you do have the advantage there, don't you?”

They all laughed as she sashayed away.

“What troubles me is Jorge's murder. We don't want it to come back on us.” Booty finished his thought.

“Why would it come back on us?” Charly shrugged.

“Don't want anyone to find out we're importing the Mexicans.” Ward perceived Booty's direction.

“Jorge's dead. He won't tell.” Charly seemed unconcerned.

“Until we know who killed him and why, we'd better have long antennae.” Ward gulped his coffee. “Jorge ratted on someone.”

“It could have been a woman problem,” Charly said. “He knocked up a girl and her brothers knock him off. Who knows? Those folks still do things that way.”

“I don't know. He could have done any number of things, but I sleep lightly now.” Booty folded his arms across his chest.

“What can we do?” Ward asked.

“Nothing. Except listen. Keep a sharp eye,” Booty replied.

“And win. 'Course, I'll win in the classes we're in together.” Charly puffed out his chest.

They laughed, then Booty smiled. “Gotta beat me first.”

“I'll put up a fight,” Ward added.

“That's the trouble with you making money.” Charly shook his head. “You'll buy better horses, get better clients. Steer clear of Renata.”

“She's at Kalarama,” Ward replied, dabbing his mouth with the paper napkin.

“She'll come to you after a suitable interval.”

Booty raised his eyebrows but said nothing.

As there was no point in denying it, Ward kept his mouth shut. They had taught him a lesson—a couple. If Charly and Booty had figured out that he “removed” Queen Esther at Renata's bidding, presumably being well paid with promises of a future with a celebrity or other well-heeled clients, they were smart enough. But it also meant each of them was capable of doing it. He trusted his two senior partners as far as he could see them.

“I don't fault any man for getting ahead. Horse was unharmed. Renata got her publicity fix.” Booty looked at Ward. “You'll come out ahead.”

“I know you two don't think Larry is stirring the pot,” Charly said, “but tell me how it was that those friends of theirs, the Haristeens, wound up at Ward's? I don't like it.”

“Nothing we can do about it. And for all we know, Charly, it was a lucky shot on the part of the Virginia folks.”

“Virginians are so damned snotty.” Ward wrinkled his nose. “Those two seem all right, though.”

“Yeah, well, those two are sticking their noses in other people's business. The wife—not bad-looking, actually—asked me if I'd seen Joan's pin.” Booty was incredulous. “What the hell do I know about Joan's pin? She's nosy.”

“Nosy is one thing,” Charly lowered his voice again, “but even a blind pig can find an acorn sometimes. We don't want her snooping around.”

“Well, what do you propose, we bind and gag her?” Ward laughed; he couldn't help it.

“No.” Charly wasn't finding it funny. “I propose we keep an eye on that woman and we keep our mouths shut.”

Easier said than done.

“By the by, fifteen undocumented workers at my farm,” Ward whispered. “They were in the van when Benny and I drove out.”

“Inchworm there?” Charly asked, his voice even quieter than Ward's.

“Yep. Some are yours.”

“Keep 'em until after the show.” Charly sat up taller.

“Great. If the feds come by, I'm holding the bag.” Ward's eyes hardened for a moment.

Booty soothingly said, “Won't happen. What you'll be holding is a bag of money.” He leaned back, hands on his stomach. “Hey, I bought a coral snake yesterday. You guys should come see her. She's beautiful.”

Charly flinched slightly. “I saw you milk a rattlesnake once. That was enough.”

“Chicken.” Booty laughed. “You know snake venom has a lot of medical uses. That's why I did that.”

“How do you do it?” Ward asked.

“Catch them with a thin pole, kind of like an old-fashioned buttonhook. Then you grab them by the neck; they can't twist. A rattlesnake's fangs are hinged. He's mad now, so he flips those fangs out and you put him over a little cup with plastic wrap over it, stick his fangs in it, and the venom just drips out. Easy.” The other two men listened with no comment. “What's interesting about a coral snake is the fangs don't retract. You should see her.”

“I see Miss Nasty. That's enough,” Charly said.

B
efore Ward reached the entrance to I-64 to head east, his cell rang.

Charly, on the other end, growled, “Ward, do you know where Renata was last night?”

“No.”

“She rode back with you in the van.”

Ward replied, “She left her truck at my place. When we got back, she drove off.”

“She tell you where she was going?”

“No. Why would she?”

“You tell me.” Charly, peeved, disconnected the call.

His call did convince Ward that Charly's relationship with Renata went deeper than being her trainer. Ward kicked himself for being blind, or maybe he just didn't want Renata to have had an affair with the likes of Charly.

Within ten minutes Charly turned down the long, winding, tree-lined drive to his immaculately manicured establishment.

His house, with the white Ionic pillars standing out from the weathered red brick, the boxwoods and magnolias dotted about, the freshly painted barns, fence lines trimmed neatly, looked like David Selznick's version of Tara.

As someone who sold at the high end of the market, Charly understood that rich folks might not know too much about horses, but they wanted the dream, “the look.”

Some folks with big bucks did know horses, but they, too, succumbed to being doted upon in Charly's vast front room in the main barn. Sofas, chairs, a fireplace, a kitchen, and a huge plasma TV flat on the wall shouted money, money, money. The indoor arena, larger than the one at Kalarama, had two viewing areas, one enclosed with glass in case the client didn't wish to inhale the dust. There were small refrigerators in the viewing areas should a body desire to drink but not wish to walk the few steps back to the sumptuous lounge.

Charly, vain about his dress, proved equally vain concerning his surroundings. No surprise then that the women in his life fit into the perfect picture. The affairs were ornamental. He did love his ex-wife, but she, too, had to meet a standard of beauty reflected in fashion magazines, television, and film. One day she'd had enough of being eye candy, walked out, matriculated at the University of Kentucky to study physical therapy, and she never looked back. She didn't tell tales out of school, which Charly appreciated, especially after witnessing Booty's sulfurous divorce.

Charly tired of affairs and one-night stands. They took too much energy. Chasing women distracted him from his main purpose: making and selling spectacular Saddlebreds. He wanted, needed, a wife who could be spectacular herself but who could ride, too. His first wife, whom he had married when he returned from the first Gulf War—a first lieutenant glad to be home—possessed all the necessary graces, but she wasn't a horsewoman. It seems superficial to non-horse people, since many couples enjoy differing sports, pastimes, but it just doesn't work that way too readily with horse people.

Charly made money. He made even more bringing in the undocumented workers. The profit for each worker was two thousand dollars in cash, no checks. Still, he was forever scrambling. A rich wife would help. If he had to pick between money and beauty, money would win. A man could find beauty on the side.

Standing in front of his main barn, hands on hips, pouted a woman who radiated both beauty and money. Renata DeCarlo, fresh at nine-thirty in the morning, wore white Bermuda shorts and a magenta belt; a pair of white espadrilles on her size-8 feet completed the ensemble.

Curious how sometimes friends, lovers, husbands, and wives will select the same colors to wear that day without consulting each other. Charly wore white jeans and an aqua shirt.

He parked by his house and walked the two hundred yards to the barn.

“Where have you been?” she asked, then smiled irresistibly.

“Breakfast with the boys. I could ask the same of you. Why weren't you at the show last night?”

“I wasn't riding in a class and I had a script to read.”

“Renata, how fortuitous.” He was in front of her now.

“Heard. I'm very glad I missed it.”

“When I find out who called, I'll break their neck.” He checked himself, because no one except his two partners knew of his lucrative sideline supplying workers to horse farms. “Disrupted the show. I wasn't riding that well anyway, but this,” he shrugged, “a bolt out of the blue.”

“I can't believe you're admitting you had an off night.”

“Once a decade.” He smiled down at her, intoxicated by her beauty, her closeness, her scent—Creed's Green Irish Tweed, also once favored by Cary Grant and Marlene Dietrich.

“Come on up to the house?” he politely asked.

“Carry me to the back pastures where the yearlings are.”

“Sure.”

They walked up to the house, climbed into his truck, and bounced along the interior farm roads to the back where the yearlings grazed. Most horse breeders put the yearlings farther away from the main barns and drive to them, because they go through a gawky, ugly stage, just like human teenagers. By the time they're two, Saddlebreds usually begin to look like real horses.

Charly pulled alongside a white fence, painted every two years at a hideous expense. He cut the motor and Renata hopped out.

Charly, soon beside her, glanced down at her white espadrilles. “Ruin your shoes.”

“Bought four pair. Have another in the truck. They're so cool in the summer but they still give some support. Too bad men don't wear them.”

“Maybe the ones who carry purses do.”

She shrugged. “To each his own.” She looked at his feet. “Top-Siders.”

“Summer.” He nodded. “I love summer.”

“I do, too. But I miss fall, winter, and real spring when I'm in California. When I'm out of California I don't miss it at all, except for the smell of eucalyptus trees in Montecito.”

“I like that, too.” Charly had showed often in California, plus he'd visited Renata there. “Let me whistle them over. There's still a lot of dew on the grass; you might have three other pair of espadrilles, but these will be green and your feet will be wet.” He put his fingers in his lips and let out a piercing whistle.

The yearlings—geldings in one pasture on one side of the road, fillies on the other—lifted their heads. They stared, then slowly trotted toward the figures at the fence. Halfway there, they decided to make a race of it, youthful high spirits abundant.

At the gate they skidded to a halt. Charly turned back to his truck and pulled out a big bag of carrots, which he always kept with him. He then handed some to Renata and she fed the boys. He walked across the dirt road to feed the girls, a fair amount of ear-flattening and nasty looks between them, since each girl wanted more than one carrot. The lower fillies on the totem pole skittered away, and Charly threw them carrots while hand-feeding the more dominant fillies. He made note each time he visited the yearlings as to pecking order. He wanted his workers to handle the animals daily. It made working with them so much easier when training really started.

An animal could not be dominant in the herd yet be amazing in the ring. You never knew until you worked with them. He made note of that, too.

Renata fed the boys one by one, shooing off the pushy ones after they'd received their carrot. “Who's the almost-black fellow with the star on his forehead and a thin white stripe coming out of it, kinda like a fairy wand?”

“Captain Hook.” He called the fellow by his barn name.

“I think it looks like a star wand.”

“Well, it does, but I couldn't call him Tinker Bell.”

“This is the foal I liked. Took me a minute. He's grown. He'll be sixteen hands.” She studied him. “He's flashy. What do you want for him?”

“Hadn't thought about it.”

“Liar.”

“No, I really hadn't.”

“Start thinking.” She turned to the fillies. “The bright chestnut has quality.”

“It's a good crop, but she is the standout, isn't she?”

Renata said nothing but climbed back in the truck. They returned to the house. Charly, although full of coffee, made another pot. They sat on the back porch with their cups.

“How much?”

“No less than one hundred thousand.”

“For a yearling? We're not talking about Thoroughbreds here.”

“I meant one hundred thousand for the colt and the filly.” He grinned, always the horse dealer.

“Hmm.” She drank her coffee.

“Ward hopes you'll leave Kalarama and board with him,” Charly fished.

“I never said that.”

“What did you say?”

“Exactly what you and I discussed. I'd bring him a few big clients, and I will. He's decent enough.”

“He's a good trainer and will get better.” The cut grass glistened with dew; the white crepe myrtles at the end of the lawn by the fence line bloomed. Soon enough the zinnias would reach full height, too. “Think he has any idea?”

“He knows I did it for the publicity. He doesn't know we're together.”

“What about Joan and Larry?”

“They say nothing but they aren't dumb. They may not know we've cooked this up, but I don't think either one will be shocked when I return to you, citing we've mended our fences, et cetera, et cetera.” She smiled languidly. “It worked. God, I got fabulous publicity out of this. Scripts poured in within twenty-four hours. My agent FedExed a few, and he says the others are waiting for me.”

“How'd he pick?”

“By reputation. Doesn't mean they're good. Every now and then a rookie hits a home run. Hard, though. Hard to be a screenwriter. It's never yours—the work, I mean.”

“No, but the check is.”

“That's true.” She laughed. “And the writer gets paid first. I have to wait but not too long. And I do receive goodies no writer can dream of—you know, jewelry, signing bonuses, trailers with everything in them for my comfort between scenes. It's a good life that way. The rest of it stinks.” Her voice dropped.

“Make hay while the sun shines.”

“Charly, I bet I hear that every other day.” She sipped more coffee. “I know it, but I also know there will be a day, sunny or not, when I can't take it anymore. It's not my passion, acting. I can do it. I'm good. I'm not great. I'm not Meryl Streep. But I'm good. Still, I don't want to spend too much more time not doing what I love. I don't want to be eighty and think that all I ever did in my life was look into a camera.”

“Horses.”

“They're all I've really cared about since I came into the world.”

“Me, too.” He frowned for an instant. “But at this level, it takes millions.”

“You make that.”

“The best year I ever had I made three million. I pretty much average about a million and a half, which you know. I've been honest with you.” And he had, except for his sideline. “This place eats that up, buying and breeding new stock. And don't forget farm maintenance, either. It takes money to make money.”

“It does. That's why I live in a small but adorable house in the Valley.” She meant she lived on the other side of the low mountains dividing Los Angeles from the Valley, on the east side of Mulholland Drive. “I keep expenses low. I'm up off Ventura in the hills, which you know, but I watch every penny and I sock it in the bank or in stocks. When I walk I want my money to make money.”

“Smart, but I've always said you were smart.” He hadn't always said that, but he was learning now that he had to pay more attention to her mind, dazzling though her physical attributes were. “Of course, I never realized how creative you are until you came up with the idea for us to have a big scene.”

“You've got a little talent there, Charly.” She laughed at him.

“Studying you,” he flattered her.

“One thing eats away at me.”

“Which is?”

“I wonder if Ward killed Jorge.”

“What?” Charly sat up in his chair.

“Well, Ward used Jorge to dye Queen Esther's legs and neck. He told me when I asked how he got Queen Esther out from under everyone's nose. He paid Jorge five hundred dollars cash, which was a lot for Jorge, and then I think he gave him a little more for odds and ends, whatever they were. Jorge—apart from you and me and, well, Benny, who says nothing—was the only one who knew.”

“You didn't tell me about Jorge.”

“Charly, I haven't seen you. There's been no time.”

“Could have called on the cell.”

“Never. Do you have any idea how easy it is to pull a conversation out of the sky? I mean it. I never say anything on the cell I'm not willing for the whole damned world to hear, and you shouldn't, either.”

“Now, Renata, don't do the conspiracy-theory thing.”

“Charly, I know my business, and technology in the film business is very sophisticated and changes quickly. Didn't used to, but there's so much downtime on the set that I learned about cameras, editing equipment, iPods, downloading, and cell phones. I've soaked up everything I can about electronics and computers. Nothing that is electronic or in your computer is secure. Nothing.”