The Bookwoman's Last Fling (33 page)

Funny: I had had that thought myself.

“What you really want is to be a cop again,” she said.

“Well, you don't have to worry about that. It'll never happen.”

“Oh my dear, it
has
happened. You're never going to be a bookman in that upper tier; you don't have it in you. You want to be a cop; you're still a cop at heart. Correct me if I'm wrong, break in at any time with challenges or interrogatories; beg to differ to your heart's content. But then be honest with yourself.”

The longest silence in the universe followed this defining statement. “Damn, Erin, this sounds like you're giving me the old heave-ho.”

“I'm not.” She sighed. “Really, I'm not. But I am asking you to take another look at it.”

“Okay, that didn't take long. Now what?”

“Don't be a wise guy.”

“Hey, wasn't it you who pushed me this way? Yes, I believe that was you. Something about me becoming the book cop.”

“I only want you to do what you want. If I know nothing else about you, I do know this—you will never be content just running a bookstore on East Colfax, and you don't want anything higher than that from the book world. It's really not you who's changing, it's me. I guess two crazy people in a row will have that effect.”

“Come on, Erin, they're not all going to be crazy.”

“If there's a madman anywhere you will leave no stone unturned in your effort to find him. And suddenly, for some strange and maybe unknowable reason, that world is losing its charm for me.”

“So what do you want me to do?”

“Nothing now. Just think about it, and don't get yourself killed out there.”

The second-longest silence now stretched between us.

“I might change my thinking if you'd let me come back and help you,” she said.

But no, that wasn't an option. No way.

Nightfall, and another duel of words with Sandy. He was there through the feeding hour: He supervised the cooking of the evening mash for the horses and stayed around to see how they ate up. I left him alone for most of this time but I was always there as well—always in sight, always an irritant, always waiting. At seven o'clock he said good night and walked away, but I followed him out to his car and caught him just as he opened the door.

“Hey, Sandy. Got a minute?”

“No, I don't. It's been a long day.”

“What can you tell me about Ms. Patterson's husband?”

“Charlie? Nothing, why?”

“I'm just finding him a little strange is all.”

“What the hell's that supposed to mean?”

“It doesn't mean anything, Sandy. Not yet.”

“What's
that
supposed to mean? Listen, I don't want you bothering him. Either of them, is that clear? I don't need to tell you, she is very important to me in the scheme of things.”

“Who is he, Sandy? How long have they been together?”

“You're not listening to me, Janeway. That's a bad habit you've got.”

“It tends to happen when I encounter resistance without reason.”

“I don't need any reasons. This is my stable and I am ordering you here and now, you leave Charlie alone.”

“Is Patterson his last name?”

“It's
her
name, for Christ's sake. She's like a lot of rich women, she goes by her own name.”

“What's his?”

“I don't know. What the hell are you looking for?”

“I told you that the first day I met you. It hasn't changed since then.”

“You are going to cost me plenty if you keep on this way. I can't believe you're actually thinking of talking to Charlie about all this foolishness.”

“It's not foolishness and I am going to talk to him.”

“The hell you are. You can get your stuff together and get out of here right now.”

“I can do that. But I'm still going to talk to him.”

“I wish to Christ I'd never met you,” he said. “You've been nothing but trouble.”

“I'm sorry, Sandy, I truly am. But these things go where they go.”

“You're not sorry about anything; you don't give a damn what happens to me. You don't care about anything and you're willing to embarrass everybody with this crazy business.”

“I'd rather not do that, but if I have to…”

I think that was the moment when he finally realized he had never had the upper hand with me. He couldn't order me to behave; he couldn't tell me to get lost or do anything. I saw his jaw tremble and I understood then how desperately he wanted Barbara's horses and what he'd suffer to keep them. He would never be the boss: She was. He was only her latest in a long line of trainers and he'd be gone too; the first time he said or did something she found offensive he'd be out of here. And Barbara blew with the wind, there was no telling what might offend her. I was her pet of the month: Fire me and explain that to Barbara. I didn't know this for a fact but tonight I'd put money on it.

“Don't do this,” he said, and my ante just went up.

He said, “What the hell have I ever done to you?” and it went up again.

I made a gentle hunkering-down gesture. If we were old pals that's what we'd do, hunker down in the shedrow, go out for a beer, talk it over. But Sandy had never been a palsy guy. I said, “I don't want to hurt you, Sandy, and I'll do my damnedest not to, but right now I need some answers and you're not helping me much.”

“I don't know what you want from me.”

“Tell me about Charlie.”

“I don't know anything about Charlie. He's her husband, that's all. I don't ask personal stuff like that, and I have no idea what you're getting at.”

“How long have they been together?”

“How the hell do I know that?” The old anger flashed but he covered it quickly. “Forever,” he said.

I waited for some kind of elaboration but it was a long time coming.

“What are you thinking, Charlie's a gigolo? Charlie's somebody who just popped up and latched onto the rich woman, is that what you think? And what difference would that make anyway? It's none of my business and it sure isn't any of yours.”

“What does forever mean?”

“It means a helluva long time. I first met Barbara fifteen years ago. He was with her then, so it must've been true love.”

“Was it fifteen years ago or longer?”

“I don't know, I didn't keep a stopwatch on him. What are you asking me?”

“If Charlie might have known Candice when he married Barbara.”

“Stop doing this, Janeway. You are messing me up royally here.”

“Was Charlie always weird?”

“What's weird? Hell, I never thought of him as weird.”

“Come on, Sandy, the guy's a spook. If that man's not weird, we don't know the meaning of the word.”

“He never was like that, take my word for it.”

“Until when?”

“Until you came along.”

I felt my heartbeat in the middle of the night and finally I had to admit it. Erin was right. This was what I had missed like crazy and would never get in kind from the book trade. The life-and-death rush. The slow, steady building of a case. The questioning, the tightening noose, the hot nights in the box downtown. Dueling with the professional badass, the frightened stonewaller, the killer with the sweet face. You get a hunch and you ask your questions until the hunch gets stronger, hardens, becomes a fact, and the perp cracks. I thought of Billy back at Sharon's farm—eager Billy, full of wide-eyed energy, pumped-up and wanting to be a cop. But I had not told him the whole truth, had I? I missed it so much more than I'd told him, far more than he would ever know.

So Barbara Patterson's man Charlie was now officially weird in my mental casebook. Another fact: I had shaken him up without as much as a hello or a watch-where-you're-going-stupid passing between us. I didn't yet have Charlie's book connection but I knew in my heart it was there. As sure as God made apples, Charlie whatever-his-name-was was a bookman, not a horseman. I could see him in my mind, perusing a shelf of books, browsing in a bookstore, maybe my bookstore, reaching for the rarity, devouring Candice's books with his eyes, with his hands. I hadn't yet spoken to the man but I tasted blood. I couldn't hear him but I could see him, always in the book world.

The day dawned windy and gray. I was out with the crew, mucking my stalls, doing my chores, waiting for Sandy to come and do whatever he had to do. Waiting for Barbara and Charlie. This morning they were all later than usual. The sky was getting white over the mountains when we started walking the walkers, using Sandy's work chart for guidance, and Sandy arrived ten minutes later. He shuffled into the shedrow and passed just a few feet away, apparently without seeing me. He called for a red gelding named Fireball, one of mine as it turned out, and I led the horse into the shedrow and held him while Sandy put on the saddle and bridle. Still nothing. He looked right past me as he gave his boy a leg up; then they headed up toward the track. Nothing was said when they came back, either. The hot walker held the horse while I washed and scraped him and draped him with a cooler, and the business of the morning went on.

Barbara appeared suddenly, so late I had almost given her up for the day. No sign of Charlie yet, and in fact he didn't come at all. The morning faded away, Barbara sat in her director's chair while Sandy finished up on the track. I went about my work, watching them as closely as I could while trying to seem disinterested. They talked occasionally; Sandy said something and Barbara laughed politely and that was all. They went up to the kitchen at eleven and left together in the early afternoon.

Finally I began meeting the crew. I shook hands with the ginneys and the hot walker and then with the exercise boy, who was also hanging around watching. “Nice people,” I said just for something to say, but it opened him up and led me into something else.

“How long you been working for Barbara?”

“Three years come summer.”

“I sure like her,” I said easily. “She seems easy to work for.”

“As long as you do your work and take care of her horses, Barbara'll love you to death.”

“Can't ask for more than that. What about Charlie?”

“What about him?”

“I guess what I'm really asking is, how much authority does he have around here?”

“He make you nervous, does he?”

“A little. He never seems to have anything to say, so I just wondered.”

“Well, here's a word to the wise between us girls. He's got plenty to say, and he's not shy about saying it. She's the boss but he's got her ear full time, so don't get on his bad side.”

“So how do you not do that?”

“Don't say anything to him at all unless he speaks to you first. Answer his questions but don't volunteer much more than that. If there's a problem, refer him to Sandy.”

“You know anything about him?”

“Nope. I don't ask and you shouldn't either. Just do your work.”

The subject of Charlie came up one more time. During the afternoon feeding I overheard some talk in the shedrow. Sandy was consulting a man I had never seen, a vet, I gathered from their conversation. One of Barbara's horses had a history of sore knees. The horse had been on butazolidin up at the farm, his ginney said, and the vet was offering his advice. Sandy said, “I want to talk to Barbara first and get a more detailed history. She's taking her husband to the airport tonight, but she'll be here in the morning. Can you come back?”

The vet could come back tomorrow. More to the point, Charlie was gone.

Where had he gone?

Anywhere, I thought, to get away from me.

But why would he do that when I'm such a cuddly, lovable bastard?

 

Now there was nothing much to do till Charlie came back and no telling when that might be. In fact Charlie might not come back at all, so that night I thought the hell with it and I had my way with the crew. I wasn't worried now about offending people with my nosiness, I just went ahead and got as nosy as I needed to be. The exercise boy wasn't staying on the racetrack: he had a young wife and a small apartment in Arcadia, so my questions at least hit fresh ears. The ginneys with one exception were like employees everywhere: Gossip was a way of life with them. I tried to back into things with topics of benign interest. I asked about Barbara's farm and learned that it was a hundred-acre spread up north. They all worked up there and came down to the races whenever Barbara did. They all seemed to like her. She had gone through a number of trainers, that was true, but except for one crew she fired long ago, with her hands she was easy. I thought of Candice's dad with his place in New York and I commented how nice it must be to have money, hoping that one thing would lead to another. The one older guy stood apart and regarded us with a disgusted look. “She's got a right to demand things of her trainer,” he did say at one point. “She's paying him plenty, so she's damn well got a right. Look, let's knock off the bullshit, okay?”

But bullshit unleashed can be hard to contain, and slowly it crept back into the talk. I was glad when the old guy left us and retired to his own tack room, gladder yet that it was way down at the end of the shedrow. Now I asked about Charlie. Just in the spirit of getting stuff right, I said; just because I didn't want to get off on the wrong foot. Now a different Charlie seemed to emerge. One man thought he was a nonentity. He talked a lot; he schmoozed with the ginneys and occasionally when they won one he was the dispenser of tips. He loved to sit on the Cadillac and gab while he handed out those big bills: more than Sandy's tips at Golden Gate, these were fifty-dollar bills, and the general feeling was, they didn't give a damn about money, Barbara and Charlie: they lived for the moment and always had. It was hard to get off on the wrong foot with Charlie. But make no mistake, in her shedrow Barbara was the man. She had her own trainer's license; did I know that? No, I did not. She wasn't interested in actually training the horses herself, but on some tracks even owners were not allowed backside without their trainer along and she had no patience with that.

I kept it going. I was asking as a greenhorn, and they all wanted to dispense knowledge.

“Charlie's a great guy, you know,” one of them said.

“How so?” I asked with keen interest.

“He just loves to throw money around. If you ever get a chance to help him, Jesus, do it. He tips like a wild-eyed son of a bitch.”

“Help him do what?”

“Move his books,” the guy said, and I felt my heart turn over one more time.

“What books?”

“Oh hell.” The guy rolled his eyes. “Just bring a strong back.”

“Charlie's got more books than the freakin' Glendale Public Library,” another said.

“He's not kidding,” said the first guy. “When it comes to books, Charlie's an animal.”

“He's got three houses, all full of goddam books.”

“At least three. You've never seen anything like it in your life.”

“Books stacked up from floor to ceiling. He's got 'em in fifty-gallon barrels, piled on top of each other to the rafters.”

“Books up the kazoo.”

“I asked him one time if he'd read them all and he just looked at me like I was the crazy one. But he gave me three hundred that day, just for doing the donkey work. So don't say anything bad about Charlie, not to me.”

I laughed with them and talked some more, and at some point I worked things around to Charlie again: Charlie and his books.

“Did any of you notice what kind of books these were?”

“Hell no, who cares?”

But the other guy said, “I'll tell you one thing, there ain't nothing special about 'em.”

“They're not pretty books,” I said.

“Not so you can tell it. Textbooks, crummy old storybooks, everything under the sun except comic books.”

“Anything you can put between hard covers,” the first guy said.

That night I knew I'd have a hard time sleeping. I walked out to the telephone and called Erin. They were all sitting around in Sharon's living room: Bob, Louie, Rosemary, Lillian, Sharon, Martha, and Billy. Laughing and talking. Swapping old war stories. “What's up?” Erin said in my ear. I told her things were looking up. “Today I think I found my bibliomaniac.”