The Stars Shine Bright Page 23

  I glanced over the jockeys’ heads and saw DeMott coming down the hall. His face had the same disturbed expression I’d seen last night, after we left the asylum. A man stuck somewhere he never wanted to be. I pressed through the crowd toward him.

  “It would be easier if you waited here,” I said.

  “Raleigh, you owe that guard an apology.”

  “For his incompetence?”

  “If you acted like that in Richmond—”

  “Don’t lecture me, DeMott.”

  He glanced around the crowd, refusing to look at me. He was taking in the toothpick-sucking old guys. The starved jockeys with their sunken eye sockets. The betting office personnel who resembled used-car salesmen. All the backstretch regulars who were nursing their predatory instincts. I tried to hold my own judgment of him.

  “Go to the private dining room,” I said. “Tell them you’re with Eleanor. I’ll meet you there after I—”

  “Work.” He glared at me. “You have work to do.”

  I opened my mouth to say something, but reconsidered. This crowd had ears like satellite dishes. Turning to leave, I felt a pain in my heart. Like he’d kicked it. But suddenly he grabbed my hand. I turned around.

  “Sorry.” He squeezed it. “Really. Just be careful. Okay?”

  I nodded.

  And he let go.

  The thoroughbreds paraded down the backstretch to the first race, resplendent in their bright silks. But the prerace jitters were palpable in the air, along with something else. The jockeys’ dark faces had ratcheted down with the same clamped expression I saw after SunTzu fell on his rider. Scared jockeys. Who couldn’t afford to be scared. And the thoroughbreds must’ve picked up on the emotion, because more than the usual number of pony riders were accompanying them to the track. Appaloosas and quarter horses, they clopped beside the high-strung racers like stout chaperones escorting beauty contestants to the stage.

  I glanced down the line. There were no Hot Tin horses, and I got impatient. Dashing across to the lane, I tried to make a run for the barns. But my sudden movement startled a dark brown filly wearing orange silks. The horse reared and neighed, and triggered a chain reaction. The horses began jumping out of the procession line. The pony riders galloped around the confusion, a deafening thunder of clippety-clop clippety-clop. It was followed by barrages of Spanish, unleashed from the jockeys, directed at me.

  “Estupida!”

  “Idiota!”

  I pressed my back against a stone building that blocked my path to the barns. The jockeys passed in front of me and threw dirty looks. I kept my eyes down, listening to the announcer’s voice crackle over the loudspeaker. Gusts of wind brushed away half the words, and the other half were drowned out by a hissing sound. It took me a moment to realize where it was coming from. I glanced up and saw steam curling from the building’s raised roof. The showers.

  And then another sound. Louder. Clearer. Distinct.

  A woman, crying.

  I glanced at my watch. What a morning. Nine minutes had passed since Eleanor called, and I could only imagine how much evidence had already been destroyed. Frustrated, I looked down the line. Four more horses still needed to pass, and the next horse was shifting sideways, deflecting some invisible blow. The pony rider had quickened around its rear, and he came between the horse and me, so close I could smell the animal’s loamy breath. I pressed myself back again, feeling every vertebrae touch the stone wall.

  The pony rider looked down from his saddle. A teenager with red hair and freckles, he misread my distress.

  “She’s fine,” he said. “Barbie’s just bawling her eyes out again.”

  The procession continued to pass, but the sobbing never ceased.

  Barbie.

  I checked my watch. Two horses remained, and thirteen minutes had passed since Eleanor’s call. It would take me another four or five minutes to reach the barn, and by then the entire backstretch would’ve beat me there. I knew who the rider meant when he said Barbie. One more minute didn’t seem that crucial. I stepped into the shower building.

  Four faucet heads—two on each wall—were twisted to spray the fully dressed girl bent over the central drain, vomiting. Her long blond hair no longer looked platinum, or even pale yellow. Saturated with water, it looked almost orange.

  “Ashley, are you okay?”

  She clutched her stomach. “Go away.”

  Her heaves were dry and convulsive, the kind of retching that triggered my own gag reflex. The stench wasn’t helping. The steam smelled poisonously sweet, like apple juice being stirred with her stomach’s hydrochloric acid.

  I stared at the floor. “Do you need some help?”

  She didn’t answer.

  I looked up. Her fingers trembled, wiping her mouth.

  “Is this about Cuppa Joe?” I asked.

  She lifted her face. “Cuppa Joe?”

  I watched her expression. “Somebody took him. He was kidnapped—”

  She leaned against the wall, then slid down the ceramic tiles to the floor. Her eyes were glassy. Broken blood vessels made her cheeks look bruised.

  “Do you need a doctor?”

  She looked at me, desperation in her eyes. “I’m pregnant.”

  Before I could catch myself, I glanced at her shirt. The soaked cotton stuck to her like a second skin, outlining her stomach’s small pouch. I wasn’t sure what to say. Congratulations. Condolences? The silence stretched out.

  “Don’t worry about me,” she said bitterly. “I’m just peachy.”

  Condolences.

  But before I reached the door, she called out.

  “Wait.”

  She worked her fingers into the front pocket of her wet jeans, grunting because the fabric was so wet and tight. “I need some dry clothes. Can you get them?”

  She held out a key. Brass. Just like Juan’s.

  “It might be awhile,” I said.

  She nodded, but the look in her eyes said she knew nobody would ever hurry for her.

  “What took you so long?” Eleanor shouted.

  “There’s a circus in town.” I walked around the back bumper of her Lincoln, parked six inches from the barn. A golf cart was parked beside it, and I presumed Mr. Yuck had driven it because the security chief was presiding over the two men hollering at each other: Bill Cooper and Sal Gag.

  Eleanor grabbed my arm to balance herself over the sawdust floor.

  “One day!” Sal Gag stabbed the air with his unlit cigar. “I leave a pony here one day. And you lose him!”

  Cooper paced back and forth outside KichaKoo’s stable. The horse was craning her neck like a tennis judge, watching both men. In the stall next to her, Stella Luna drummed a hoof against the wall, a steady catatonic rhythm. Spooked.

  “You told me somebody was coming for that horse,” Cooper said.

  “Yeah,” Sal Gag said, “but you see me here when it happened?”

  “He was supposed to get picked up.”

  “By me!” The mobster stabbed the stogie at Mr. Yuck. “And I wouldn’t leave no note!”

  The security chief held a piece of paper in his hands but his face told me nothing. It had its usual sour countenance. I gave Eleanor a nudge.

  “Charles,” she said, “show Raleigh the note.”

  Mr. Yuck held out the note, and I felt Cooper’s icy eyes on me. But I didn’t touch it, certain there were already too many fingerprints. From what I could see, the words were cut from magazines and glued to the page. It was almost comically simple, except for its cruelty. It read: You have 48 hours. Then we start killing.

  “Death.” Eleanor raised her chin. “Death has set up its tent at our door.”

  There was a polite silence, but Eleanor never got the chance to tell us who said that because two police officers were approaching. Their hands rested on their gun belts. The older cop had a wrestler’s fire-hydrant neck and an expression in his eyes of practiced boredom. The look of a veteran cop. He immediately zeroed in on Sal Gag.
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  He said, “We got a call about a missing horse?”

  “Not missing, stolen,” Sal Gag said. “Because somebody screwed up.”

  “Now hold on.” Cooper waved his hands, as though wiping away the accusation. “We were doing this guy a favor by keeping the horse. And it was temporary. Like a day. So when two guys showed up with a trailer, saying they were here to pick up the horse, what were we supposed to say—no?”

  “Yeah!” said Sal Gag.

  “You told us the trailer was coming.”

  “When Ashley said he was ready.”

  The next silence felt as itchy as the sawdust.

  Finally, Mr. Yuck said, “Who?”

  “The groom, Ashley. Ashley Trevor.”

  “Trenner,” Sal Gag corrected him.

  “Whatever,” Cooper said.

  Mr. Yuck looked around, the odd smile playing on his lips. He looked like a toad preparing to snap his tongue at a fly. “And where is this groom, this Ashley person? Hmm?”

  Nobody answered.

  I said, “She’s in the shower.”

  Cooper narrowed his eyes. “Why’s she takin’ a shower?”

  “She’s throwing up.”

  “Oh great,” Cooper said.

  Sal Gag leaned toward him. “She shoulda been watching my horse. You’re workin’ her too hard.”

  “You got that right. She was supposed to watch that horse. Not Juan.”

  As though answering to his name, the groom stepped out of KichaKoo’s stall. And I now understood why the horse had been leaning forward earlier. Her back legs were taped, matching the green silks that draped over her muscular shoulders.

  “Yo.” Sal Gag pointed at Juan. “Get over here.”

  “Oh, courage.” Eleanor lifted her face toward the rafters. “Could you not dwell in the frightened heart of me?”

  The police officers stared at her.

  “Night of the Iguana,” she told them. “Nonno’s last poem.”

  The younger of the two cops turned his head sideways, as if Eleanor might be carrying a weapon. Juan still had not moved and his face looked as remote as mesa rock. When Cooper said something to him in Spanish, the groom came closer and handed the trainer the horse’s reins. KichaKoo didn’t like it. She bit Cooper’s shoulder.

  “Hey!” Cooper pushed the horse’s face away.

  I gave a small gasp.

  “It’s nothing,” he said. “She does that.”

  But it wasn’t the bite that startled me. It was Cooper’s shirt. Unless I was mistaken, it looked like the same one Claire Manchester bought from Tony Not Tony. My mind began reeling with questions. Was Cooper conspiring with Claire Manchester? Why? I watched him walk the horse down the gallery, remembering what Lucia said. Cooper was Manchester’s trainer, until Eleanor hired him away. At the end of the gallery, Tony Not Tony waited with a jockey dressed in green silks and white jodhpurs.

  “You were here,” Mr. Yuck began his inquisition of Juan. “When the horse was taken, you were here?”

  “Si,” Juan said. “Trailer come. Take horse.”

  “Trailer.” Sal Gag waved the cigar. “The trailer drove itself?”

  Juan shook his head. “Dos men. Desaseado.”

  “Speak American,” Sal Gag said. “Capiche?”

  But the young cop was lifting his hand, signaling a truce between Latin cultures. “He’s saying two men. And they were dirty.” He turned to Juan, asking a question in Spanish.

  “Si, si.” Juan ran his rough hands through his hair. “Muy desaseado.”

  The cop asked another question. Juan replied in Spanish, and the cop turned to his older partner. “He says they both had dreadlocks.”

  “Hippies?” Sal Gag’s eyes seemed to bulge. “You’re telling me hippies stole my horse?”

  Mr. Yuck made a phlegmatic sound, clearing his throat. “Did he notice anything about the trailer, such as a license number?”

  The young cop asked several more questions, but the only answer I understood was “blanco.”

  “White trailer,” the officer said. “Two windows. One window on each side.”

  Sal Gag jammed the cigar between his teeth, biting down and muttering. “When I had the chance, I shoulda shoved that pony in the trailer.”

  “License plate?” Mr. Yuck asked.

  The younger cop asked. Juan replied by tracing the air with his finger, spelling while he spoke.

  “Doe-bell-u,” he said, spelling W. “And aye.”

  The cop clarified. “W-A?”

  Juan nodded.

  “Jibone.” Sal Gag tore the cigar from his mouth. “Every plate’s got W-A. We’re in Washington!”

  But Juan shook his head, saying something more to the cop.

  “He says it’s not the state letters,” the cop said. “There’s also an E and a K. But the rest of the plate was covered with dirt.”

  “Si.” Juan nodded.

  “I see,” Sal Gag said. “I see something smells fishy.”

  The older cop stared at the mobster, dragging his tongue across the inside of his cheek. “What’s the horse look like?”

  “Black as coffee,” Sal Gag said. “His name’s Cuppa Joe. Get it?”

  “Any reward?”

  Eleanor stepped forward. “Fifty thousand dollars!”

  “El’nor.” Sal Gag placed a hand on his chest. “That’s very generous.”

  “It’s not for you,” she said. “It’s for that poor animal.”

  She had let go of my arm, stepping forward to offer her reward. And now I took a small step back, inching toward the open section where trailers pulled up. The weight of the vehicles had tamped down the sawdust, which was further compacted by horses and people walking over it. But the scrim of new treads ran like rickrack over the surface. It was the kind of evidence most local police weren’t trained to handle, and I was in too much of a hurry to try to segue them into it. While the older cop asked more questions about the reward, I reached into my pocket and let Ashley’s key fall from my fingers. Then I kicked it into the sawdust.

  “Oh rats,” I muttered.

  The men turned and Eleanor glared. I had interrupted her speech.

  “Sorry.” I tried to look sheepish. “Ashley wanted me to get her clothes. I dropped her key.”

  They were already focused on Eleanor again when I lifted a steel rake from the stable wall.

  “Anybody got a picture of the horse?” asked the older cop.

  Sal Gag foisted the cigar at Mr. Yuck. “Do something useful. For once.”

  Mr. Yuck asked the officers to follow him. He didn’t invite Sal Gag, but the bookie went anyway. I drew the rake’s teeth through the sawdust. Cooper was coming down the gallery. The brass key rose, swimming to the surface like a fishing lure. Eleanor watched me push the key back down into the sawdust.

  The actress was a pro.

  “Bill,” she said, turning to Cooper. “May I speak to you, in private?”

  “Now?” Cooper watched the three men leave. “It’s not a good time.”

  She took his elbow. “Five minutes. Your office, shall we?”

  Juan followed them as far as Stella’s stable. The horse was still kicking the wall and the groom opened her Dutch door, stepped inside. I heard his voice singing, in Spanish. The song drifted out as I pinched some of the clay scattered over the open area. I saw some small pebbles. Porphyrous, like pumice. I carried them across the hall to the storage shelves, where the Saran Wrap waited. No longer needed in the stalls, since the mud had been confiscated. I tore two sheets. I placed the geology in one, then reached into my purse and took out Gordon’s bloody Kleenex. I wrapped it and shoved it back into my purse.

  Eleanor’s stage voice projected around the corner. “I’m very pleased with how you’ve handled yourself, Bill. And I do believe we will find Cuppa Joe.”

  Cooper looked at me. The cold arctic eyes matched the color of his shirt.

  “Raleigh,” Eleanor said, “did you find the key?”

  I
reached down, plucking it from the sawdust. Cooper squinted at me.

  “How sick is she?” he asked.

  “Very,” I said. “And she needs some clothes.”

  Eleanor let go of Cooper’s elbow. “Let me help you.”

  She took my arm and I could feel the trainer’s eyes on my back. I didn’t speak until we reached the end of the gallery.

  “Everything okay?”

  “Such an encompassing generality,” she said.

  Ashley’s room was easy to find. The door was pink. Barbie pink. And inside, the walls were the same color. A musty and sodden odor permeated the small room. The cot was neatly made, but the white pillowcase looked stained with sweat. A paper plate on the floor held a stalagmite of saltine crackers, right next to a plastic bucket for retching.

  “They say it’s good to see how the other half lives,” Eleanor said, “but I disagree.”

  Her clothing was neatly folded into milk crates. I collected jeans, another pink T-shirt, and was going through a third bin to find socks, underwear, and a bra when Eleanor sighed.

  “It’s pathetic,” she said. “Like the equine version of Teen Beat.”

  I turned, holding the clothes in my arms. Eleanor was looking at some pictures on the wall. Horses. With their names above the photos. War Admiral. Secretariat. Seattle Slough. And a dozen bumper stickers with militant slogans about animal rights.

  “Most people’s lives are trails of debris,” Eleanor said.

  But I barely heard her words about Suddenly Last Summer. I was reading the wall calendar above Ashley’s bed. Some promotional thing from a feed store, it had red Xs over the days. I tugged loose the page tacked to the wall to see July, and saw every day was Xed out too. But for June it was only the last week.

  “She’s about eight weeks along,” I said.

  “Pregnant?” Eleanor sounded shocked.

  I nodded.

  “But Ashley doesn’t even like human beings.” She reached up, fiddling with her necklace. “I hate to sound perverted, but is it scientifically possible a horse is involved?”