All Hat (6 page)

The old man was wearing coveralls and a straw hat—like a farmer in a movie, Sonny thought—and he watched Sonny nervously as he approached.

“Hey there,” Sonny said.

“Hello.”

“Still got tomatoes, I see.”

“Just about the end of them,” the old man said, and he straightened up.

“Well, everything comes to an end,” Sonny told him, and he smiled. He glanced at the house. “My man Rock tells me you're thinking of backing out of our deal.”

“Well,” the old man said slowly. “I've had second thoughts.”

“But we had a deal.”

“Well, there was nothing signed. I just been thinking—I don't know that I'm ready to retire. And the old girl doesn't think she wants to move after all.”

Sonny walked along the row of plants. He stopped and turned over a large ripe tomato with the toe of his Topsider. “Now that's a shame,” he said. “Because we had a deal.” He crushed the tomato beneath his heel.

“See here,” the old man protested.

“No, you see here.” Sonny took the gas bill from his pocket and showed the back of the envelope to the old man. “This is from my lawyer. You're in breach of promise, Methuselah. I pay my lawyer a lot of money to make sure guys like you keep your word. And he tells me that all I have to do is sue your ass, and there's a good chance that I'll get this farm for nothing. So this is working out real good for me. I'm not so sure about you and the missus.”

The old man stood silently, his eyes on the splattered tomato in the dirt, as if it was the source of his dismay. “There was nothing signed,” he said again.

“You telling me your word is no good?” Sonny asked. “I thought that was a big deal to you people.”

“You got a lot of nerve,” the old man said, and he took a step toward Sonny. Sonny raised his cane instinctively. The man looked plenty strong in spite of his years.

“It's your choice,” Sonny said, and he shrugged. “Maybe you should fight it in court. You got a good lawyer? My guy's a fucking maniac; I swear you could cut him with a chain saw and he wouldn't bleed. But you do what your conscience dictates.”

Sonny turned and walked back across the field, taking care to step on as many tomatoes as he could. The old man watched as Sonny backed the BMW onto the lawn and then drove out of the driveway. Then he walked slowly to the house.

5

The Augustine auction was to begin at ten in the morning. Ray rode over with Pete Culpepper in the pickup, arriving at half past nine. It was to be a huge auction, with three auctioneers: one to handle the furniture, antiques, and other sundry household items; another for the machinery and the real estate; and a third for the livestock, which consisted of not only a dozen thoroughbreds but also a herd of Charolais cattle.

The horses were turned out in the paddock along the barn, and each wore a hackamore with a number on it for identification purposes. They were mostly broodmares, although there were a couple of geldings still running at Woodbine.

And the colt that had so recently become the apple of Pete's eye.

He was a good-looking horse, dark bay, tall, and not yet as big across the chest and shoulders as his configuration promised. He was standing away from the other horses, watching the crowd with wide intelligent eyes, his ears forward. Pete Culpepper was doing his best to study him while pretending not to.

“See anybody else looking at him?” he asked Ray after a while.

“Pete, there's two hundred people here. How the hell am I supposed to know where everybody's looking?”

“I just wish the sonofabitch didn't look so healthy,” Pete said. “Too bad he wouldn't pick up a stone and limp a little.”

“Want me to go kick him in the shin?”

Pete looked at Ray, thinking. “No, somebody's bound to see you.”

The machinery and the cattle and the household items went on the block first. It would be after lunch before the horses and real estate went up. Pete and Ray found a place to stand in the sun along the barn wall and wait.

*   *   *

Sonny picked up Dan Rockwood, and the two of them drove out to the sale together. On the way they stopped at the village of Cook's Station, although it was hardly a village at all anymore, just an intersection of side roads, a cluster of buildings, a gas station, and the remains of the old train depot. Even the tracks were gone—pulled up a few years earlier and sold off for scrap. Rockwood—the Rock to his friends—motioned for Sonny to pull over when they arrived.

“This is what I was telling you about,” he said. “Homer Parr's farm runs right up to the edge of the village. Now this is all zoned hamlet, which means residential building permits are a snap. Rubber stamp. This is the interesting part: the zoning runs the length of the concession—the whole of Parr's farm. Shit, he could sever as many lots as he wanted, make a fortune, if he knew about it.”

“Why doesn't he know?” Sonny asked.

“Nobody knows. These villages were laid out 150 years ago, when the railroad went through. Back then, nobody knew whether a place like this would end up with a hundred people or a hundred thousand. So they'd designate anywhere from fifty acres to five thousand as being hamlet. Somebody would write it down in a dusty book somewhere, and that'd be it. I came across one like this north of Toronto—paid for my place in St. Barts.”

Sonny had a cigar in his hand, and he used it to point at the bush lot, which separated the “town” from the country. “You're telling me I won't need rezoning.”

“Not for Parr's farm,” the Rock said. “And you already own the co-op on the other side of the concession. It's zoned commercial, which is perfect for you. After that, it's just a matter of persuading the board to let the whole concession go.”

“And you know these people?”

“I deal with them all the time.”

“And they can be had?”

“I didn't say that.”

Sonny smiled. “No, you wouldn't—because if that were true, I wouldn't need you. Right?”

“I didn't say that either.”

It was afternoon when they got to the Augustine farm. The sale was half over. Not that it mattered—Sonny wasn't interested in rocking chairs or antique crockery or hay balers or suckling calves. The only reason Sonny was there was the acreage.

He parked the BMW along the side road, and the two of them walked in. Sonny, as was his custom when dealing with the local farmers, was dressed the part, wearing jeans and a duck canvas jacket, a ball cap with a seed company logo on his head, work boots.

He and the Rock walked up the lane, stopped to give the house a look. It was a handsome two-story brick with leaded glass windows and a porch across the front and along one side; once Sonny owned it, he would have it torn down. They wandered over to the barns. There was a trailer there, owned by the auctioneer, where Sonny acquired a cardboard placard with a number to be used in the bidding. The woman who gave him the number told him that the farm would be on the block within the hour.

Sonny was leaning against a sugar maple in the yard when he was approached by a man with a bushy gray beard, wearing a plaid mackinaw and rubber boots caked with shit.

“You're Stanton?” the man asked.

Sonny smiled at the gruff manner. “I guess I am.”

The man in the mackinaw obviously didn't know Sonny, but he'd already decided that Sonny was a stand-up guy. And it had nothing to do with Sonny's appearance, or his manner, or his reputation. It had everything to do with his money. It was a wonderful thing, Sonny thought; he'd recommend it to anyone who could swing it. Money can make an ugly woman presentable, a fat man thin, a moron a wit. And rumor had it that it made the world go round.

“They tell me you're gonna take on the wheat board,” the man was saying.

“Isn't it about time somebody did?” Sonny asked.

“Anybody can say it.”

“You're a farmer?” Sonny asked.

“My whole life.”

“So you plant your corn, fertilize it, irrigate for it, harvest it, dry it, and store it. And yet they control it. That make sense to you?”

“Never has.”

“Well then, you just watch. I'm gonna do something about it. This country can't get along without the farmer. The farmer's always known it; it's about time somebody informed the country.”

The man nodded sagely into his beard as he moved away. Then the Rock walked over, a strange smile on his face. When Sonny looked at him he jerked his thumb over his shoulder in the direction of the paddock.

“What?” Sonny asked, looking.

“Along the wall,” the Rock said.

Sonny looked, and after a moment he saw a grizzled old man in a cowboy hat, and standing beside the old man—sonofabitch—was Ray Dokes. Sonny's hand tightened on his cane when he saw Ray.

“Well, well,” he said.

“Thought that might interest you,” the Rock said.

“When'd he get out?”

“Don't know. But he's out.”

“Then he's on parole,” Sonny said. “They gave him five, fucking psychopath.”

“What's he doin' here?”

Sonny looked across the yard as he considered the question. “I don't know. Maybe him and the old coot are here for the stock. Probably looking to steal one of those broodmares.”

As if on cue the auctioneer announced that the bidding on the horses was about to begin. Sonny smiled.

“Come on,” he said. “Keep an eye on that fucking Dokes. Don't let him near me.”

“He won't pull anything, not if he's on parole,” the Rock said. “But I'd be happy to break his goddamn neck.”

They walked over to the railing of the paddock to watch the auction. The geldings went first. Sonny kept his eye on the pair across the corral—neither Dokes nor the old man made a move during the bidding. Then the colt came up, and the old man came forward immediately, his eyes bright, his step quick.

“Lookit this,” Sonny said softly.

He looked at the bay colt and saw nothing special. Not that Sonny—around thoroughbreds most of his life—could claim to have an eye for horses or know much about them. The auctioneer began his spiel.

“—two-year-old out of Canfield Dancer and Lady Jane. In the interest of fair play we have to tell you that this colt did not run as a two-year-old as a result of a bowed tendon. This horse is being sold under the caveat buyer beware—”

*   *   *

Across the paddock Ray heard the auctioneer's warning, and he felt Pete's razor-sharp elbow dig into his ribs. The old man was thrilled with the auctioneer's caution. Ray held his sore ribs and looked at Pete—he was as giddy as a kid getting his first bicycle.

The price started at five grand, with three bidders joining in. The going was decidedly unenthusiastic; Ray saw right away that Pete was going to get his horse. The first bidder dropped out at seven thousand, and the second—a stout man in a beaver hat—quit when Pete went to eighty-five hundred. The auctioneer said the once, and he said the twice, and he had the gavel in the air.

“Eighty-five hundred and one,” a voice called from the crowd.

Until that point the bid increments had been one hundred dollars. There was silence as the auctioneer sought out the new bidder. Ray followed his eyes, and then he saw Sonny Stanton, standing across the corral, cardboard number held high. Ray's stomach knotted.

“I'll be goddamned,” he heard Pete say. And then: “Nine thousand!”

“Nine thousand and one!” Sonny said before the auctioneer could speak.

There was a large bald man with Sonny, and now he began to make his way toward Pete and Ray. He had gold hoops in each ear, and he wore a long leather coat that reached to his knees. Ray watched him cautiously.

“We've got nine thousand and one,” the auctioneer was saying. Ray could tell by his tone that he was pissed at Sonny's bush-league bidding.

“Ninety-five hundred!” Pete called.

“Ninety-five and one!”

“You might as well forget it,” Ray said then. He could see the veins in Pete's neck.

“Ten thousand,” Pete said, but his voice was losing its timbre.

“Ten thousand and one!” Sonny was standing out from the crowd now, his number high above his head. People around him were watching in wonder. Some were smiling at the show.

The bald man had moved to within ten feet, and he had his back to the bidding, staring Ray down. Ray gave him a look, then turned away.

“How much money you got?” Pete asked him.

“Doesn't matter,” Ray said. “It's over.”

“I got a few hundred,” Pete said desperately. “Can we make up a grand?”

“Probably, but it won't matter,” Ray said. “You see what he's doing. It's over.”

“Eleven thousand,” Pete called out.

“Eleven thousand and one!”

And that was it. Ray could see that Pete's large gnarled hands were clenched into fists, and he knew he had to get him out of there. He pulled him gently, and when that didn't work he pushed him, not so gently, until finally Pete started to walk, his whole body shaking with rage. The bald man smiled when they passed.

“That's it, boys,” he said. “Tails between the legs.”

Ray kept his hand on Pete's shoulder and pushed on, refusing to look at the smiling man. He got Pete to the pickup, and then he got behind the wheel and drove them out of there.

When the Rock walked back around the paddock Sonny was in the process of selling the colt to the man in the beaver hat.

“Eight thousand?” the man was asking, confused.

“That's right,” Sonny assured him.

“I'll get you a check,” the man said, and he moved away.

“You just dropped three thousand dollars in about five minutes,” the Rock said.

“Maybe so,” Sonny said, and he turned to see Ray and the old man drive away. “But that was about as much fun as a man can have for three grand.”