All Hat (12 page)

“I'll need a receipt.”

Jim took the envelope and walked up to the house. Dean walked over to where Paulie stood.

“Well, we better get her loaded,” Paulie said.

“Let whatsisname Jimmy boy load her. It's his job.”

“I thought it was our job.”

“Our job is transport. And we're underpaid at that.”

Jim came out with the receipt, handed it over to Dean, then he and Paulie put the mare in the trailer.

“Well, I hope she throws you boys a nice foal,” Jim said, closing the door. “That stallion has a good record; he's got a colt making some noise down at Belmont. Two-year-old.”

“Well, maybe we'll see him,” Dean said. “We're thinking 'bout running Jumping Jack Flash in the Breeders' Classic. Just waiting to see how he came out of the Queen Anne's.”

Paulie smiled. “Yeah, we're just waiting to see that.”

Dean felt well enough to drive the return trip. Paulie was relegated to shotgun, where his dreams weren't as real, what with Dean's bragging and the radio blasting heavy metal. In truth Paulie liked Dean a lot better when he was sleeping.

When they hit the 401 Dean took the envelope from his pocket and opened it to have a look at the receipt. “Fifty grand,” he said. “I thought he was bullshitting me before.”

“That Jim's a pretty nice guy,” Paulie said.

“He's a fucking drunk. You see the eyes on him?”

“Yeah, they look like yours.”

“Fuck off.” Dean turned the radio up. A mile down the road, though, the news came on, and Dean turned the volume down.

“What're you getting a week, Paulie?”

“Five hundred.”

Five hundred dollars a week, Dean thought. Jesus wept. Dean was getting six and living in near poverty. Buying fake Armani suits, living in a cheap apartment. Driving his uncle's car, for Christ's sake.

“What're you getting?” Paulie asked.

“Same as you,” Dean said at once.

“What—you thinking about asking for a raise?”

“I'm thinking about something. You got any idea how much money we're dealing with here? Shit, I bet Sonny goes through five grand a week in pocket change. Way he gambles.”

“Yeah, well Sonny's got a lot of money.”

“Sonny doesn't have two nickels to rub together. He's never worked a day in his life. It's all the old man's money. Where we gonna be in five years, Paulie?”

“I don't know about you, but I'd like to have a little place of my own.”

“Be an awful small place on five hundred a week.”

*   *   *

When they arrived back at the home farm Dean and Paulie knew right away that something was up. A couple of strange cars were parked in front of the house, stopped at odd angles as if they'd been parked in a hurry. Jackson, walking quickly from the barn to the house as they pulled up, never favored them with as much as a glance. Dean and Paulie got out of the truck, unloaded the mare, and put her in the corral behind the barn. When they walked out of the barn Jackson was coming across the yard, headed for his truck.

“Sonny wants to see you guys,” he said.

“What's going on?” Dean asked.

“The old man's had a stroke,” Jackson said, and he started the truck and drove out of the yard.

Sonny was in the kitchen, eating a ham sandwich at the table and drinking beer from a pilsner glass. He had his hair tied back in a ponytail. There were two men in suits in the dining room, speaking in hushed tones, papers strewn across the table in front of them. Dean sat down across from Sonny, folded his hands on the tabletop. Paulie stood inside the door.

“How bad is it?” Dean asked.

Sonny shrugged, his mouth full. “They're doing some tests,” he said around the ham. “Right now he can't talk, and he's flat on his back.”

“Where is he?”

“Still in the Bahamas. They're not gonna move him, not for a while, anyway.”

“Is he gonna be all right?” Paulie asked.

“What the fuck I look like—a doctor?” Sonny asked. “Either he'll be all right or he won't. Maybe he'll be a veg, who knows? One way or the other, we're still in business. I'm taking over the horse operation. Which means Jackson is gonna answer to me, and you guys are gonna start pulling your weight. This isn't some halfway house for fucked-up relatives.”

“If they start firing fucked-up relatives, won't you be the first to go?” Dean asked.

Sonny was drinking. He put the glass down slowly. “Don't fuck with me, Dean,” he said. “As of today, I've got full authority. And you're gonna walk the straight and narrow, you and Bozo over by the door there. You think you're indispensable? You can drive a truck and shovel horseshit. I could train a couple of apes to do that.”

Paulie was looking at the floor. Dean got to his feet.

“That what you wanted to tell us?” he asked.

“I wanted to tell you that things have changed,” Sonny said. He pushed his plate away, leaned back in his chair.

The two lawyers appeared in the doorway then, side by side. For a moment Dean thought they might get stuck there, like two-thirds of the Stooges.

“Well?” Sonny said when they didn't speak.

“We'll need the medical records,” the first lawyer said.

“Then get them,” Sonny said, and he looked at Dean and Paulie. “You boys got something to do? I imagine Jackson's got stalls need shoveling.”

*   *   *

It was dark when Dean and Paulie finished cleaning the stalls. They would have been done earlier if Dean had spent more time shoveling and less time leaning on his shovel, complaining about shoveling.

It helped that Paulie worked hard enough for the pair of them. When they were finished he was drenched in sweat. He ran the wheelbarrow outside, hosed it clean, did the same with the shovels. Back inside, Dean was smoking a cigarette, watching Jumping Jack Flash in his stall.

“Better not let Jackson catch you smoking in the barn,” Paulie said.

“Fuck Jackson.”

Paulie walked over, leaned his elbows on the top rail, and looked at the bay. The horse was standing smack in the middle of the stall, not looking at Paulie or Dean either, just staring off haughtily at nothing at all, as if nothing there was worthy of his gaze. His ears were straight up, and his jaw was set, the full jowls impressive. Every now and then the huge muscles in his forelegs would twitch under the copper skin.

“He's a beauty, isn't he?” Paulie said.

“A beauty?” Dean said. “You know what that motherfucker's gonna be worth if he wins the Classic?”

“I don't know. Thousands, I guess.”

Dean snorted. “Try millions. As in twenty, thirty million. Shit, he'll be standing stud for a quarter mil a pop.”

“You'd never know it to look at him,” Paulie said. “He seems like just any other horse. Funny, isn't it?”

“What's funny is that Sonny's gonna own him if the old man dies,” Dean said. “I'll tell you something else. Sonny is gonna find a way to get rid of us, Paulie.”

“You really think so, Dean?”

Dean walked to the window to look at the house. “I got a feeling we're already gone.”

9

Homer was lying on his bed, fully dressed, wide awake and scared. He couldn't get his thoughts straight today. Worse yet, he had no recollection of yesterday. The clock beside his bed said ten o'clock, but he couldn't remember if he'd had breakfast, or even been downstairs yet. He'd had a feeling for some time now that he was suffering a fever, and that as soon as the fever passed, his mind would clear.

He rolled over and looked at the wallpaper. He decided to play the Clear Springs course in his head: he thought if he could play the whole eighteen, his fever would pass. The first hole was a straight par four, 390 yards. Gotta watch that pine on the left off the tee; the green was bunkered front left, so the best approach was from the right anyway. Driver off the tee and then a five wood in. Chip and a putt for par. Second hole was a little dogleg left, hit a long iron out into the middle, and then it was just a flip in. Short was better than long, the green running up the hill. On the third hole he hit his drive into the right rough, and then he started thinking about the spring plowing and he couldn't get his mind back to the course. After a while he went back to the first tee and started over.

*   *   *

Etta was vacuuming when Homer came down the stairs, his eyes wet. He sat unsteadily in the big chair by the bay window and looked out over the fallow field to the north. When Etta shut the vacuum down she heard the hammering from the barn. Homer heard it too, and he turned toward her.

“That'll be the Monroe brothers,” he said. “Come to put up the chicken house.”

Etta went into the kitchen to look out the window. From there she could see an extension ladder against the front wall of the barn. At the bottom of the ladder was Ray Dokes's Cadillac, and at the top of the ladder was Ray Dokes. When she turned around, her father was watching her expectantly from the other room.

“It's the Monroe brothers,” she said. “Come to put up the chicken house.”

Etta took her jacket from a chair and went outside. It was a cool morning, and she buttoned the coat as she walked across the lawn. She stopped a few feet from the barn and watched him a moment.

Ray had pried a metal patch from the roof and was fixing the hole beneath properly with cedar shingles.

“What do you think you're doing?”

He replied without looking down, like he knew she was there. “What do I
think
I'm doing? I
know
what I'm doing.”

“Must be a strange feeling, for you.”

He turned to look at her. “Well, I'm gonna try not to analyze it too much.”

“Who asked you to fix my barn roof?”

He slipped a shingle into place, drove home two nails as he pondered the question. “Maybe I'm a Samaritan. Didn't you ever read the good book?”

She went back inside, and Ray went back to work. There was maybe a dozen tin patches nailed here and there over the roof. He removed them one by one, tossed the tin down to the yard below, and reshingled the bad spots in the roof. It took him all morning. The day warmed as the sun climbed high, and soon he was down to his shirtsleeves.

By noon he was on the back side of the barn, out of sight of the house, finishing up. He'd heard a vehicle pull in the driveway thirty minutes earlier, heard a door slam when someone got out. He patched the last hole. It was pure luck and not good management that he ran out of shingles at just about the same time he ran out of places to fix.

He climbed down and put his tools in the trunk of the Caddy. Then he took down the ladder and stowed it in the barn where he'd found it. When he walked up to the house Etta was sitting in the backyard with a man, the pair of them lounging in the sun, drinking coffee. Etta wearing a cotton dress, sleeveless, the sun splaying across the freckles on her brown arms. The man was maybe forty, dark haired, and he wore a windbreaker and khaki pants. He was a handsome bastard, Ray couldn't help but notice.

“Are you finished your good deeds for the day, Mr. Dokes?” Etta asked.

“I could drink a cup of that coffee while I'm being made fun of,” Ray said, talking to her, but looking at the guy in the windbreaker.

There was an extra cup on the picnic table beside the carafe of coffee.

“This is Tim Regan,” Etta said as she poured. “This is Ray Dokes, Tim. Mr. Dokes is auditioning for the role of hired hand.”

Regan got to his feet and shook Ray's hand. When Ray sat down with his coffee Regan remained standing.

“I was just leaving,” he explained.

“You don't have to leave on my account,” Ray said.

“Tim knows that,” Etta said. “He has to get back to work.”

“What do you do?” Ray asked.

“Tim's in the salvage business,” Etta said.

Regan laughed. “You might say that. I'll see you later, Etta.”

Ray watched as he got into his car and drove down the driveway. When he turned back to Etta, she was looking at him with amusement.

“I say something funny?” he asked.

“You're funnier when you don't speak,” she said. “What do I owe you for the barn?”

“Nothing.”

“Come on. At least let me pay you for your materials.”

“They were left over from a job I did. Boss let me have 'em.”

“Well, thank the boss for me. Are you hungry?”

“I could eat something.”

They went into the house. Homer was upstairs in his room; when she looked in on him he was lying on his side in bed, looking at the wallpaper. She thought she heard him mumbling to himself. If he knew she was there, he never let on.

In the kitchen Etta set out bread and cold meats, lettuce, and mustard. There was a new Bible on the table, and Ray picked it up. It was the same edition he'd been given in prison.

“I was joking when I asked if you'd ever read the good book,” he said as he set it aside. “You should close in the north end of that barn. You're missing some boards there.”

“I know,” she said. “There's a lot I should do around here.”

She sat sideways in the chair and nibbled at her sandwich without interest. Ray ate his lunch and tried not to look at her legs.

There was pumpkin pie for dessert. Etta cut a piece for Ray only.

“You on a diet for your new boyfriend?” Ray asked.

She smiled. “Yeah, that's it.”

“You shouldn't be. You're too thin. How do you know this guy anyway?”

“Tim? I met him a while ago, through a friend. He gave me that Bible, matter of fact.”

“So he's a Bible thumper?”

“Something like that.”

“And he's in salvage?”

“Yup.”

“He must be in the business end,” Ray said pointedly. “He's got pretty soft hands for somebody in salvage.”