Lord of Misrule (24 page)

Therefore he thought it best to try and remember what he had used to like about Joe Dale Bigg before he got too big and the leading trainer thing went to his head and brought out his Mediterranean guile and his sicko skirt-chasing tendencies. As he ran along the paddock fence, Joe Dale was huffing and puffing. His tits bounced under his tweed jacket and his face turned gray. Two-Tie didn’t wish to gloat, he himself had painful neuromas under his metatarsals and occasional angina, but Joe Dale was twenty years younger than he was.

Joe Dale was West Virginia coaltown Italian but the mother had been a schoolteacher from the Bronx. Joe Dale had used to
be smart, almost intellectual, compared to the average racetrack
trombenik
. He had had a little something extra up there under the stingy-brim, so that back then Two-Tie could have a almost decent conversation with him about the type of people they knew and the nature of business it was. But then Joe Dale won a few races and married that police chief’s daughter from Steubenville and had his idiot son, and soon he turned into some kind of strange business himself. He was fundamentally a shmeer artist. He bought things and people, and horses, just to squash the notion that they were worth having. He smeared them with himself, then he got rid of them. The wife lived in Wheeling. Nobody lasted with him, except Biggy. He had classy taste, it showed in his car and his clothes, but he overdid it. He overestimated himself. His jackets cost a fortune, but you always thought he’d gained twenty pounds since he last saw his tailor. His shiny slacks pulled taut over his big behind, and fans of wrinkles crowded the armpits of his eighty-dollar sea-cotton shirts. He was bulging and creamy white at the collar, like a cheese danish, and the sight of him made Two-tie a little sick. But at least Two-Tie had talked himself out of shooting Joe Dale, or even wanting to.

For his part, as soon as he spotted Two-Tie, Joe Dale cooled down. He wiped a smile back onto his face and composed himself. He ran both hands through his stiff black hair and smiled genially and said: What can I show you, Two-Tie? He pretended not even to notice Margaret crawling over the frozen mud.

What did you do to the girl? Two-Tie started down the stoop, meaning to help his niece into the taxicab, but as soon as she saw Joe Dale coming, she managed to flounder into the back seat all by herself. You slipped her a mickey, for god’s sake—what kinda pimp’s trick is that? I thought better of you, Joe Dale. I really did.

Joe Dale shrugged. I honestly don’t know what kinda pills she ate. Goofers. Mushrooms. These kids today. Who knows? I was just tryna give her back her horse when she went meshuggy on me. And Two-Tie. His smile got that wounded, do-me-a-favor squint. What are you waving a piece around for? This is a respectable business I run down here. It don’t look good.

She didn’t rat on you, for your information, Two-Tie said. She’s got too much class for that. I knew her mother once, a perfect lady—educated. The dames in that family never wanted no assholes beaten up in their honor, not like some bloodthirsty snapper skirts I used to know.

Maybe they didn’t have no honor to lose, Joe Dale said. Now do me a favor and as long as your taxi’s here, get the fuck off my farm with the gun. You make me nervous.

The storm door burst open and it was Biggy again, this time with a deer rifle in his hands.

Put it away, shit-for-brains, Joe Dale said. I got the matter under control. I said put it down. Biggy leaned the gun in the angle of the railing. Okay, Joe Dale said. Okay. You remember Two-Tie, don’t you, son?

Actually, I and Biggy were conversing only a couple minutes ago, Two-Tie said. It was about the horse. Exactly where is the horse now?

I changed my mind, said Joe Dale. I don’t want to do that burnout hippy chick no favors no more. What are you in it for anyway, pal?

Don’t talk about this nice young girl like that, right in front of her face. She’s not feeling well. You haven’t heard from D’Ambrisi?

D’Ambrisi? What the fuck are you talking about?

Two-Tie couldn’t quite bring himself to make the announcement.
He stood there thinking how to word it. There was no tactful way to say they were taking the horse.

D’Ambrisi’s going to tell
me
. Joe Dale laughed. You’re slipping, old man, you know that? I heard it on the grapevine and now I see it’s true. The thing I don’t get is what you’re doing in this particular deal.

They all heard creaking and scraping and looked up the hill. Bouncing down the dirt driveway where little Margaret’s horse had disappeared came the worst-looking horse van Two-Tie had ever seen, rusted out and patched in different colors like a gypsy wagon, some of its holes plugged with gray gobs of unsanded fiberglass and smeared with pink primer, the trailer sagging down dangerously over one wheel. And it was pulled by a little lime-pie green six-cylinder Valiant that ought not to be pulling nutting, even when it was new. Two-Tie shook his head. Why was he mixed up in this? He had never put a van that pityfull on the road, not even in the days when River Van and Horse Transport was nothing but an excuse to have a phone and an office, before him and Posner seen there was good money in it. Then it was sheer luck they were in place for the golden age of West Virginia bullrings, when Charles Town started siphoning off the low end claimers from Pimlico, Laurel, Bowie and Atlantic City—all of a sudden, boom, two thousand horses a year turning over at the twin half-milers on the Shenandoah. For a while they bought every used crate with wheels they dared set on the highway and the money rolled in. And now horse racing was already dying again. But he had never seen a van as pathetic as this in all his days.

The driver’s scared face showed in the window, one cheek stuffed with bubblegum.

Now who the fuck wants to get in my hair. D’Ambrisi, Joe Dale
said in disgust. He paced up and down, but he was beginning to be a believer. As soon as the driveway widened out, D’Ambrisi tried to back the trailer around—he wanted to park the thing in position for a fast getaway, which you really couldn’t blame the shlub—and ended up with one wheel dangling over the ditch. He got out, his short neck sunk down as low as possible in his leather jacket, and started to fuss with the gate without saying nothing to nobody.

What is this fucking circus? Joe Dale shouted.

D’Ambrisi went on shakily folding out the ramp.

He got a phone call from Baltimore, said Two-Tie. He don’t want that horse no more.

Let him tell me himself. What are you doing here, Breeze? You come to take your horse?

D’Ambrisi busied himself with a rusty piece of chain that had come loose from the metal plate. He waved it around helplessly, waiting for someone to tell him where it attached. No one spoke.

What the fuck can I do? he finally burst out. Posner called me up. Posner in person.

What did he say?

He said I was way out of line.

So? So? Joe Dale was not taking this well. His upper lip was icing up, for he was panting like a bull.

But I could fix it by giving the girl back her horse.

Joe Dale walked slowly over to the horse van, looked at it, and gave it a savage kick in the fender. The wheel well crumpled in like cardboard. He turned and shouted in Two-Tie’s face:

You got ties? I got ties too. I’ll tell you this, old man. I don’t have to go crying to goddamn Baltimore to get something done. I can take care of it right here. What do you want to get in my business
for? What do you care about this dropout floozy anyhow?

Maggie had managed to roll down the backseat window. Her chin was on the sill.

Look at that girl. She can’t hardly hold her head up, Two-Tie observed mournfully.

Goddamn it, I ain’t getting off the horse, Joe Dale shouted, until I get something back for it. This ain’t the United Way.

He’s my uncle, Maggie said to Joe Dale. I think.

Two-Tie almost smiled. She thought she had to explain. It was a family trait.

You think, Joe Dale said. Do me a favor—don’t think.

I’m trying not to, Maggie replied, if you’d all just be quiet.

You will be compensated, Two-Tie told Joe Dale, remembering it was his part to be generous. Better than a hundred percent. I’ll take care of it myself. Now where’s the horse.

How do I know? Joe Dale shrugged. It’s the Breeze’s horse. The Breeze can do what he wants with his horse, if he can find it.

Roy of Roy’s Taxicab leaned out the window. The horse dumped the girl and run up the hill into the woods, he reported. Twenty minutes ago. I seen the whole thing.

I got thirty-two head of horses on this farm, Joe Dale said. How you gonna tell which one is which?

My garsh, I’d know that Pelter anywhere, Roy said, he’s a real dark bay like co’cola in the bottle, got the long back and that old Roman nose like Man o’ War. I win a hundred and twenty bucks on him in the Glass Classic in 1966.

Take a shank, Maggie yelled out the window, but D’Ambrisi only hid behind the goo-patched horse trailer. Damn it, I’m going to crawl up there myself, she muttered. She sprang the door handle and fell out on the frozen mud.

Elizabeth hung out the open door above her, barking passionately.
Roy got out and carefully closed the door. They heard a whinny up the hill. There was the horse, shiny with sweat, stepping drunkenly down the steep part of the rutted driveway, like after a big race, with Hansel leading him. Hansel wore a pearl gray fedora, black trousers and a wine red vest. He resembled a Galitzianer horse trader out of one of Alvin’s stories.

I shoulda known you didn’t have the balls to come for that horse by yourself, Joe Dale said to D’Ambrisi. You had to bring the track looney.

What makes you say Hansel is looney? Two-Tie asked worriedly. He was still collecting evidence against his niece’s young man, but no one answered the question. Up close, despite his flamboyant dress, Hansel looked like a man of consequence. He had a firm, straight-legged walk which gave him authority—he might be a looney, but he was no drooling gimp. He sent Pelter up the ramp with a sharp slap on the behind.

I need you in the van, Maggie, he said. What the hell are you doing down there anyway? The girl was still sitting on the frozen ground under the door of the taxicab. He’s hot—you need to rub him and keep on rubbing him till we get to the track—now let’s get the hell out of here.

Can’t, she said. Can’t move.

She’s had a bit too much, Two-Tie explained vaguely. Now that the episode was drawing to a satisfactory close, he saw no point in making personal accusations.

Somebody gave me a rhino trank, Maggie said, with a disbelieving little laugh.

Hmmm. What’s that like—any fun?

Uhhh—not recommended. Kind of a graveyard preview. You get your usual boring mind, trapped in a dead body—that’s it.

Hansel nodded. Hey, thanks for looking after my woman, he
said pleasantly to Joe Dale, who started to smile and never saw the fist flying towards his face. Joe Dale stiffened and fell sideways into his boys like a bowling pin.

Biggy bellowed and jumped for the deergun, but Two-Tie pushed the rifle off the stoop with his rubber-soled dress shoe. The Browning still dangled from his own small hand. Elizabeth threw herself at the open taxicab window in an explosion of barks and snarls.

Want I should let her out? Roy yelled to Two-Tie, rolling the window up halfway.

Jesus no—
umbeshrien
—she might hurt herself.

Biggy launched himself off the stoop at Hansel and threw a roundhouse punch at his face. Hansel stepped away so that the blow only swished across his ear. Biggy stumbled back to swing again, and Hansel ducked towards the ranchhouse, picked up the deergun and swung it like a club, by the barrel, at the back of Biggy’s head. The crack silenced them all. Biggy gave out a groan of weird contentment, swayed, and went down on his face like a felled tree.

The Irish boyfriends fast and strong, he ain’t a coward, and he can take care of himself, Two-Tie thought. He was impressed. On the other hand he knew, with hot dizzy certainty, that there would be no end of trouble now.

Joe Dale stood propped between his boys, holding a bloody tattersall handkerchief under his nose. It’s a goddamn good thing for you clowns that I’m a respectable businessman, he said quietly, through the handkerchief, or you’d have to be shitting your pants, all three of youse, knowing you’re going to get hurt.

Do what you have to do. Just don’t touch the niece, Two-Tie said.

The niece, Joe Dale laughed. I forgot about her. I ain’t going
to hurt the niece. I got other plans for the niece. Say, maybe I could swap you Biggy for her. As is. He pointed down at Biggy, who was making little crawling motions, still face down on the frozen, rootbeer-colored mud. Not much to look at, is he, he said. But neither is she.

I have met a great many slugs and sleazeballs in my racetrack days, Two-Tie announced, but you get the crown. I see you don’t care if that pityfull retard lives or dies.

Okay, okay Joe Dale shrugged. I’ll keep him. I’ll get her some other way. Won’t I, baby? She owes me and she knows she owes me.

You’ll get what she owes you presently, Tommy Hansel said.