The Trojan Colt (15 page)

“And they all showed up shortly after Frank arrived at Mill Creek?”

He shook his head. “Two of them went elsewhere. Billy was supposed to come, but then he got the Trojan colt put in his care, and I guess that convinced him to stay on. When did he go missing? Just since the sale?”

“No, more than a month ago,” I answered.

He grimaced. “Nobody tells me anything. I'm managing the stallions here. The yearlings aren't my responsibility, so I didn't even go to the sale—though I heard the Trojan colt brought a hell of a price. Still, if he runs up to his pedigree, I suppose it might be worth it someday.”

“Someday?” I repeated.

“Selling for three million and change is one thing. Winning it on the track is another.”

“So I've been told,” I said. “Anyway, you hadn't heard from Billy Paulson since he told you he was staying at Mill Creek?”

Chessman chuckled again. “He didn't tell me,” he replied. “Maybe he thought I'd bite his head off. He had a friend deliver the news. I sent him a New Year's card to show there were no hard feelings, but I never heard from him again.” He sighed. “They come and go awfully fast in this end of the business.”

And not always of their own volition, I thought. Aloud I said, “Thanks for seeing me, Mr. Chessman . . .”

“Hal,” he interrupted me.

“Thanks for seeing me, Hal,” I amended. “I appreciate your taking the time.”

“Not a problem,” he answered. “If you see Billy, tell him I'm not mad at him.”

“Will do.”

“And drink your coffee, or Diablo will have a fit,” he concluded with a smile.

“I'd forgotten all about it,” I said. I took a taste, found it was getting cool, and drank it down like a glass of water. “Tell him he makes a good cup,” I added, getting to my feet and placing the cup on the tray.

“I'll walk you to your car,” he said.

“If you've got work to do . . .” I began.

“We have the sex Olympics morning and evening,” he responded. “In the afternoon we rest.”

“You breed them twice a day?” I said, surprised.

He nodded. “When there's a demand for it. Around here, just Pit Boss and Marauder. And then, of course, no girlfriends for half a year. Can't have a September or October baby turn a year old a couple of months later. Though even that's changing.”

“You're breeding mares toward the end of the year?” I asked.

“Not here,” he replied quickly. “But some of the popular studs do double-duty, standing the first half of the year here or in Europe and the second half in Australia. They made a hell of an offer for Trojan, but the syndicate voted against it. They decided he's too valuable to risk.”

“How come?” I asked, though I was pretty sure I knew.

“Man's made some bad investments. Even bounced a couple of paychecks. That Trojan colt was his salvation, and he didn't want even the notion of twice as many Trojans coming to market, even halfway across the world, to lower the winning bid by a penny.”

“What did he do to make his money in the first place?” I asked.

“He was born,” was the answer.

“That's all?”

“And he was 4-F.”

I frowned. “I don't quite follow that.”

“Rich parents, two kids, both boys. One was 4-F, the other got killed in Vietnam. Parents die. Presto: instant millionaire. Not as rare in this business as you'd think.” He smiled. “It's not a sport for the mildly wealthy.”

“When did his fortune start going downhill?” I asked.

He shrugged. “I'm sure his wife would say it was the day he bought Mill Creek. Truth to tell, I don't know. He still runs the damned place, so he must have some money left . . . and now he's got three million and some, minus Fasig-Tipton's commission.”

He made sure none of the help were around as we approached my car. “My own opinion is that he'd have gone belly-up last year if he hadn't sold his share of Trojan, though of course I can't prove it. I think he stayed in the syndicate just long enough to get that colt and vote against standing Trojan in Australia, and then he cashed out.”

“What's a share worth?”

“Whatever you can get for it,” he replied with a smile. “Shares in Seattle Slew originally went for three hundred thousand. When he turned out to be an even better sire than he was a racehorse, a couple changed hands for over four million apiece.”

I let out a low whistle. “That's remarkable!”

“Don't be too impressed. For every sire whose value multiples ten or fifteen times, there are fifty who'll never be worth as much as the day they were syndicated. Today there are probably twenty stallions within thirty miles of here who syndicated for ten million or more and now have a market value of two million or less.”

“It sounds like Monopoly money,” I said.

“They spend it like Monopoly money too,” replied Chessman. “The trick is not to go to jail instead of passing Go and collecting your two hundred dollars—or two hundred million, in this business.”

We reached my car, and I turned and shook his hand.

“Thanks for your help, Hal,” I said. “And your private guesswork remains just that: private.”

“Nice meeting you, Eli,” he said as I got into the car. “And remember to give Billy my best if you run into him, and tell him I'm not mad.”

“I will,” I answered, starting the motor, while a little voice in the back of my head say: Don't hold your breath.

I drove around for an hour or so, just letting the scenery relax me as I tried to clear my mind, which was too damned cluttered with useless details. Then I started getting hungry, and I remembered that I'd promised to take Bernice out to dinner. Well, to
meet
her for dinner anyway.

I drove back toward the station, passing another one along the way. It was nice to know they had so many cops on duty, but the place was so peaceful I couldn't help wondering why. Then the answer hit me—to keep the place so peaceful, of course—and I realized that I really was getting tired.

I stopped by the motel to take a quick shave and shower, put on a clean shirt—no noticeable dirt on the one I'd put on in the morning, but I had a feeling it and I both smelled of horses, or at least of stables.

Finally I drove to the station and walked up to Bernice's desk.

“You ready?” I said.

“In about five minutes,” she said. “My replacement just got here, and she's in the washroom changing.”

“Into what?” I asked in a feeble attempt at humor.

“We're not plainclothes detectives like some people I could mention,” she replied. “When we're on duty, we have to be in uniform.” She checked her watch. “She should be here in the next minute or so.”

“Then what do we need five minutes for?”

She gave me the kind of look I'm sure an owner gives a lame horse that he just bought an hour earlier. “I have to get back into my civilian clothes.”

“Sorry,” I said. “I've been concentrating too much on trillion-dollar horses and not on beautiful policewomen.”

She smiled. “For a compliment like that, all is forgiven.”

A graying blonde in freshly pressed police blues approached us. “I'll take over now,” she said.

“Fine,” said Bernice, getting to her feet. “Eli, this is Brenda. I'll just be a couple of minutes.”

“Hello,” I said.

“Hi, Eli,” replied Brenda. “I feel like I know you already. You're almost a resident here at the station from what I hear.”

“Too bad I'm not,” I said. “It's cleaner than most of the places I've been this week.”

She laughed. “That's the first rule of the game in horse country: Watch your step.”

“I'd rather be James Bond, wearing a tuxedo and sitting across elegant gaming tables from master criminals,” I replied. “But I can't tie a bow tie, and I've never found a pair of patent leather loafers.”

She smiled at me. “Bernice was right,” she said. “I like you already.”

“Bernice said you'd like me?”

“She said you were likeable.”

“I hope she still thinks so after dinner,” I said.

“I hope for your sake she still thinks so,” said Brenda. “We policewomen are tough.”

“I'll treat her with all the respect due a member of the law.”

“You'd better,” answered Brenda. “She doesn't brag about it, but she's the best shot in this station.”

Bernice joined us then, looking not beautiful, she hadn't been beautiful even twenty years ago, but very pretty and immaculately groomed and dressed.

“Did I give you enough time to tell Eli a bunch of lies about me?” she asked pleasantly.

“She told me how you won the war—she never mentioned which one—and I told her how I brought jazz up the river from New Orleans,” I said.

“I see both of your noses have had time to shrink back down to normal,” replied Bernice. She turned to Brenda. “Hold the fort until Phil gets here. See you tomorrow.”

“Phil? I asked as we walked out the door to my car.

“He's got night duty on the desk this month,” she answered.

“So you work the desk by day?”

“This month,” she replied. “It rotates.”

“And the rest of the time?”

“Oh, a little of everything,” she said noncommittally. Then she smiled. “I'd advise you to resist the urge to rob a bank when I'm not busy being the desk sergeant.”

“Damn!” I said. “I guess I'll be late on my rent next month.”

She laughed as we reached the car. “Where are we going?” I asked as I opened the door for her.

“Not too far,” she said. “I want to make sure this car can get us there and back.”

“It may not look like much,” I said, “but it's dependable.” Except when it isn't.

“Kind of like you,” she said. “Well, what kind of food do you like?”

“Got any Greek restaurants in town?” I asked. “I love pastitsio and dolmades and saganaki.”

She just stared at me.

“This is Lexington, Eli.”

“Italian?”

She nodded. “That can be arranged.” She directed me, and in about three miles we pulled up to a little restaurant at the edge of a small strip mall that had a sign proclaiming that it was Antonelli's.

We entered, and a young man who looked more Hispanic than Italian led us to a table along a side wall. She ordered wine, I ordered a Bud, and we spent the next few minutes looking over the menu. I finally hit on veal parmesan, and she chose some kind of fish dish I'd never heard of and couldn't pronounce.

“You'll like the food here, Eli,” she said when the waiter, who also didn't look Italian, disappeared into the kitchen to deliver our orders.

“Do you come here often?” I asked. “Or just when you're on a Dutch treat date?”

She laughed. “Once or twice a month. I eat most of my meals out.”

“Makes sense. Why slave over a hot stove after a hard day of paperwork or arresting baddies?”

“We have our share of drunks and druggies and the like,” she said. “But what really interests me—and it's all taken care of at higher levels, usually by the feds since it invariably crosses state lines—are the machinations of all the self-proclaimed royalty of the horse industry.”

“Is there all that much going on?” I asked.

“Not that you can prove, though now and then we get a headline case. But you know, when there are maybe fifty farms valued at twenty million or more, and a couple of hundred horses with market values in eight and occasionally nine digits, it's difficult for everyone to observe the niceties of the law.”

“Yeah, I can imagine,” I said.

“Anyway, it makes the paperwork interesting,” she continued. “For example, you're looking for a young man who worked for Travis Bigelow, and that's probably as far as it goes—but wouldn't it be fascinating to know how a man who inherited something like fifty million dollars and could buy Mill Creek outright, without a mortgage, managed to blow just about every penny he owned?”

“It's not exactly a secret that he's been having financial troubles,” I said.

“I know. But how do you blow that kind of money?”

“Beats the hell out of me,” I replied. “I worry more about how I can blow fifty bucks on a weekend. Besides, the flip half of the business is just as curious.”

“I don't follow you,” she said.

“Take two horses that look pretty much alike. Stand them side by side. Call the one on the left Old Plodder. Call the one on the right Trojan. Both are retired from racing. Neither has ever had any offspring make it to the track yet. But one of them is worth two thousand dollars, probably to some dog food company, and the other's worth maybe fifty million today, and that could triple or quadruple in six or seven years if his foals start winning some major races.” I paused, while she tried to see what I was getting at. “Bernice,” I continued, “there are entire countries—or at least well-populated sections of them—that don't have an annual gross domestic product worth as much as Trojan. Five or ten million kids will starve to death this winter. Now I'm sure Trojan is a nice, well-behaved animal who loves his groom, doesn't dirty his stall, and breeds mares on command—but when all is said and done, he's just a horse. What makes a dumb animal worth that kind of money?”