HUGGER MUGGER

Robert Parker

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The Dunamai Memorial Collection

This ebook is part of a collection to honor the memory of Hugh ‘Dunamai’ Miller who passed away on the evening of January 19th, 2006.

Dunamai was an incredible asset to the ebook community, literally converting books to ebooks by hand like a modern day clerical monk when he had to. He was the Knight of the Obscure Book and a better champion could not be found. They don't make them much better than this man.

If you are lucky in your life you might meet a handful of really 'good' people. If you knew Dunamai, then you were lucky in meeting just such a person. He was a very special man who had time for everyone and asked nothing of anyone. He also had a smile and a kind word for you anytime you needed one. Dunamai was one of the nicest, helpful and easygoing people you could meet online.

“For what is it to die but to stand naked in the wind and melt into the sun. And what is it to cease breathing but to free the breath from its restless tides, that it may rise and expand and seek god unencumbered. Only when you drink from the river of silence shall you indeed sing. And when you have reached the mountain top, then you shall begin to climb. And when the earth shall claim your limbs, then you shall truly dance.”

I'm sure Dun is dancing today. He was a star on earth, and will be a star in heaven.

We grieve the loss of an important member of the ebook community. We will remember you forever, dear friend.

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 This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author's Imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

 The Penguin Putnam Inc. World Wide Web site address is http://www.penguinputnam.com

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T ITLES BYR OBERTB.P ARKER

Hugger Mugger

Family Honor (a Sunny Randall novel) Hush Money

Trouble in Paradise (a Jesse Stone novel) Sudden Mischief

Night Passage (a Jesse Stone novel) Small Vices

Chance Thin Air All Our Yesterdays Walking Shadow Paper Doll Double Deuce Pastime Perchance to Dream (a Philip Marlowe novel) Stardust Poodle Springs (with Raymond Chandler) Playmates Crimson Joy Pale Kings and Princes Taming a Sea-Horse

A Catskill Eagle

Valediction Love and Glory The Widening Gyre

Ceremony

A Savage Place Early Autumn Looking for Rachel Wallace Wilderness The Judas Goat Three Weeks in Spring (with Joan Parker) Promised Land Mortal Stakes God Save the Child The Godwulf Manuscript

Joan: the ocean's roar, a thousand drums

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ONE

IWAS ATmy desk, in my office, with my feet up on the windowsill, and a yellow pad in my lap, thinking about baseball. It's what I always think about when I'm not thinking about sex. Susan says that supreme happiness for me would probably involve having sex while watching a ball game. Since she knows this, I've never understood why, when we're at Fenway Park, she remains so prudish.
My focus this morning was on one of those "100 greatest" lists that the current millennium had spawned. In the absence of a 100 greatest sexual encounters list (where I was sure I would figure prominently), I was vetting the 100 greatest baseball players list and comparing it to my own. Mine was of more narrow compass, being limited to players I'd seen. But even so, the official list needed help. I was penciling in Roy Campanella ahead of Johnny Bench, when my door opened and a man and woman came in. The woman was great to look at, blond, tight figure, nice clothes. The man was wearing aviator sunglasses. He looked like he might have a view on Roy Campanella, but I was pretty sure she wouldn't. On the other hand, she might have a view on sexual encounters. I could go either way.
"Good morning," I said, to let them know there were no hard feelings about them interrupting me.
"Spenser?" the man said.
"That's me," I said.
"I'm Walter Clive," he said. "This is my daughter Penny."
"Sit down," I said. "I have coffee made."
"That would be nice."
I went to the Mr. Coffee on the filing cabinet and poured us some coffee, took milk and sugar instructions, and passed the coffee around.
When we were settled in with our coffee, Clive said, "Do you follow horse racing, sir?"
"No."
"Have you ever heard of a horse named Hugger Mugger?"
"No."
"He's still a baby," Clive said, "but there are people who will tell you that he's going to be the next Secretariat."
"I've heard of Secretariat," I said.
"Good."
"I was at Claiborne Farms once and actually met Secretariat," I said. "He gave a large lap."
He smiled a pained smile. Horse people, I have noticed, are not inclined to think of horses in terms of how, or even if, they kiss.
"That's fine," he said.
Penny sat straight in her chair, her hands folded in her lap, her knees together, her ankles together, her feet firmly on the floor. She was wearing white gloves and a set of pearls, and a dark blue dress that didn't cover her knees. I was glad that it didn't.
"I own Three Fillies Stables. Named after my three daughters. We're in Lamarr, Georgia."
"Racehorses," I said.
"Yes, sir. I don't breed them, I buy and syndicate."
Penny was wearing shoes that matched her dress. They were conservative heels, but not unfashionable. Her ankles were great.
"In the past month," Clive said, "there has been a series of attacks on our horses."
"Attacks?"
"Someone is shooting them."
"Dead?"
"Some die, some survive."
"Do we have a theory?" I said.
"No, sir. The attacks seem entirely random and without motivation."
"Insurance scam?"
"Nothing so crude as shooting the horse," Clive said.
He was tall and athletic and ridiculously handsome. He had a lot of white teeth and a dark tan. His silver hair was thick and smooth. He was wearing a navy blazer with a Three Fillies crest on it, an open white shirt, beige linen trousers, and burgundy loafers with no socks. I approved. I was a no-socks man myself.
"Eliminate the competition?"
Clive smiled indulgently.
"Some of the horses who've been shot are barn ponies, not even Thoroughbreds-to think you could do anything constructive for your own horse, by eliminating other horses . . . not possible."
"Only a dumb city guy would even think of such a thing," I said.
He smiled again. It was a smile that said, Of course I'm superior to you, and both of us know it, but I'm a good guy and am not going to hold it against you.
"You're a detective, you have to ask these questions," he said kindly.
He smiled again. Penny smiled. I smiled back. Weren't we all just dandy. Penny had big eyes, the color of morning glories. Her eyes were nearly as big as Susan's, with thick lashes. Her smile was not superior. It was friendly . . . and maybe a little more.
"Last week, someone made an attempt on Hugger Mugger," Clive went on.
"Unsuccessful?"
"Yes. His groom, Billy Rice, was in the stall with him, at night. Hugger had been sort of peckish that day and Billy was worried about him. While he was there someone opened the stall door. Billy shined his flashlight and saw a rifle barrel poking through the open door. When the light came on, the rifle barrel disappeared and there were running footsteps. By the time Billy peeked out around the door, there was nothing."
"Footprints?" I said.
"No."
"Could he describe the gun barrel?"
"The gun barrel? What's to describe?"
"Did it have a magazine under the barrel, like a Winchester? Long stock or not? Front sight? Gun barrels are not all the same."
"Oh God," Clive said, "I don't know."
I tried not to smile a smile that said, Of course I'm superior to you, and both of us know it, but I'm a good guy and am not going to hold it against you.
"Cops?" I said.
"Local police," Clive said. "And I have my own security consultant."
"Local police are the Columbia County Sheriff's Department," Penny said. "The deputy's name is Becker."
"I wish to hire you, sir, to put a stop to this," Clive said.
"To prevent the horse from being hurt?"
"That certainly."
"Usually I get only one end of the horse," I said.
Penny laughed.
Clive said, "Excuse me?"
"Daddy," Penny said, "he's saying sometimes he gets a client who's a horse's ass."
"Oh, of course. Guess I'm too worried to have a sense of humor."
"Sure," I said.
"Well, sir, are you interested or not?"
"Tell me a little more of how you see this working," I said. "Am I sleeping on a blanket in the horse's stall, with a knife in my teeth?"
He smiled to show that he really did have a sense of humor even though he was worried.
"No, no," he said. "I have some armed security in place. An agency in Atlanta. I would like you to look at the security and let me know what you think. But, primarily, I want you to find out who is doing this and, ah, arrest them, or shoot them, or whatever is the right thing."
"And what makes you think I'm the man for the job?" I said.
Penny smiled at me again. She thought my modesty was very becoming.
"The horse world is a small one, sir. You were involved in some sort of case over there in Alton a few years back, with Jumper Jack Nelson. I knew of it. I talked with the Alton Police, with someone in the South Carolina State Attorney's Office. My attorney looked into it. We talked with the FBI in Atlanta. We talked with a man named Hugh Dixon with whom I once did some business. We talked to a Massachusetts State Police captain named Healy, and a Boston police captain named Quirk."
"How the hell did you find Hugh Dixon?" I said.
"I have money, sir. My attorneys are resourceful."
"And I'm the man?"
"Yes, sir, you are."
"Fairly expensive," I said.
"What are your fees?" Clive said.
I told him.
"That will not be an issue," he said.
"And who is the outfit in Atlanta that's on the job now?" I said.
"Security South."
Meant nothing to me.
"The on-site supervisor is a man named Delroy. Jon Delroy."
That meant nothing to me either.
"Will Mr. Delroy be pleased to see me?"
"He'll cooperate," Clive said.
"No," Penny said. "I don't think he will be pleased to see you."
Clive looked at her.
"Well, it's the truth, Daddy. He will be absolutely goddamned livid."
Clive smiled. He couldn't help being condescending, but it was a genuine smile. He liked his daughter.
"Penny has been quiet during our interview, Mr. Spenser. But don't assume that it's habitual."
"Jon will have trouble with you bringing in someone over him," Penny said. "Mr. Spenser may as well know that now."
Clive nodded.
"He's not really 'over' Jon," Clive said. "But Jon may feel a bit compromised. That a problem to you, Mr. Spenser?"
"No."
"Really?" Penny said. "You think you can work with someone like that?"
"I'll win him over," I said.
"How?"
"Northern charm," I said.
"Isn't that an oxymoron?" she said.
"You're right," I said. "Maybe I'll just threaten him."

TWO

"LAMARR, GEORGIA?" SUSANsaid.
She was lying on top of me in her bed with her clothes off, her arms folded on my chest, and her face about six inches from my face. Pearl the Wonder Dog was lying somewhat grumpily on the rug at the foot of the bed, having been displaced, if only temporarily, by me.
"Just an old sweet song," I said.
"Don't sing. Do you know anything about racehorses?"
"Secretariat gave me a big lap once," I said.
"Anything less specialized?" Susan said.
"That's about it."
"And you are being brought in over someone who has heretofore been in charge?"
"Yes."
"So you are going to Georgia without Pearl, or me, and you'll be gone for who knows how long, and you don't know what you're doing, and the people you're working with will resent you."
"Exactly," I said.
"And you're doing this because you love horses?"
"Because I hate starving," I said. "I've been doing pro bono for you and Hawk so long that I can't afford to buy a new knuckle knife."
"Too bad virtue is not, in fact, its own reward," Susan said.
"Or if it really were, the reward would need to be monetary."
"Well, perhaps we can visit."
"You and Pearl could come down," I said.
"Pearl does not, obviously, fly in a crate in the hold of some disgusting airplane," Susan said.
"It's an easy drive," I said. "One overnight stop."
Susan stared at me. Her eyes were so close they were out of focus as I looked up at her. They seemed bigger than human eyes could be and bottomless, like eternity.
"I cannot bear to drive long distances."
"Of course you can't," I said. "Maybe Paul would come up from New York, for a weekend, and take care of Pearl."
"That might work," Susan said. "Or Lee Farrell, or Hawk."
"And then you can come to Lamarr on an airplane and ball my brains out."
"Didn't I just do that?" Susan said. "Except for the airplane part?"
"Yes," I said, "and brilliantly."
"I know."
"However," I said, "I don't think we've ever done it in Georgia."
"Well, if you insist on going down there," Susan said, "what's a girl to do?"
"What she does best," I said.
"In which case we'll never be able to eat lunch in Lamarr again," Susan said.

THREE

ISHOWED UPin Lamarr with some clean shirts and extra ammunition in my black Nike gym bag, checked into the Holiday Inn on the highway outside of Lamarr, and set out to visit my employer.
Lamarr was one of those towns you read about but no one you know ever lived in. It was probably like the town that Jack Armstrong lived in with his sister Betty, when he starred at Hudson High. The downtown was three-story buildings, mostly brick, along the main street, with some stores and restaurants, a pool hall, a movie theater, and a railroad station. There were two cross streets, where more business was done during daylight hours. In the center of the town was a square with a statue of a man on horseback, and some benches. As I drove through the downtown, the streets were lined with trees, and behind the trees were lawns on which sat some nice-looking southern-type houses, mostly white, with verandas. Often vines grew over the verandas and made them leafy.
At two in the afternoon I was ringing the bell at the Clives' front door. They lived in a white mansion with a wide pillared veranda across the front, which sat in the middle of something that looked like the world's largest putting green. A sprinkler system was producing a fine spray to protect the lawn from the East Georgia summer, and the sun shining through the spray made it iridescent.
Penny Clive, in white shorts and a blue top that didn't quite conceal her belly button, answered the door. All of her that I could see uncovered was a smooth tan. Not the deep-cured kind, but a gentle healthy-looking one that seemed casually acquired, though the evenness of it made me wonder just how casual the process was.
"Well, hello," she said.
She had a light voice with some kind of rich undertone, which made everything she said imply somewhat more than it seemed to. I had a moment when I thought maybe it wasn't so bad that Susan couldn't be here. I thought about whether I should feel guilty about that and decided I should not since I was simply being human, albeit male human.
"Hello."
"Please come in. Do you have everything you need at the hotel?"
We stood in a vast, high central hallway with dark floors that gleamed with polish.
"Bed, television, a/c, running water, what more could there be?" I said.
"What indeed?" she said, and the little smile lines at the corners of her wide mouth deepened. "I was just having some iced tea on the terrace-would you have some with me?"
"Of course," I said, and followed her the length of the corridor and out through some very large French doors onto a wide white-brick terrace under a green-and-white-striped canvas canopy.
"Daddy's not here," she said.
"You're more fun anyway," I said.
"It depends," she said.
She gestured at a couple of comfortable-looking patio chairs. We sat. There was a big glass pitcher on a serving table and some glasses and ice in a bucket and sugar and lemons and fresh mint.
"On what?" I said.
"On whether you're a business partner or a sex partner," she said.
She put ice in a tall glass, added a lemon wedge and a mint leaf, and poured me some iced tea. I added some sugar.
"It's probably not the business partners who are voting for fun," I said.
"No," Penny said. "Speaking of fun, we're having a little welcome party for you tonight. I hope you don't mind."
"Most employers hold one when I leave," I said.
"Daddy thought it would be a convenient way to introduce you to everybody. Very informal, starts around seven."
"Wouldn't miss it," I said.
The backyard, if one could call it that, was being sprinkled too. It stretched dead level toward some sort of outbuildings in the middle distance. Beyond them was a tennis court and, beyond the courts, a paddock and what I assumed were stables. As we sat, a Dalmatian came sniffing around the corner of the terrace, paused, looked up, put his ears back, and came over toward me, moving more slowly, with his head lowered a little and his tail wagging tentatively.
"That's Dutch," Penny said.
Dutch kept coming until he was in pat range. I put my closed fist out so he could sniff it. Which he did for maybe a full minute, quite carefully sniffing all aspects of it. Then he was satisfied. His ears came back up and his tail resumed full wag. He put his head on my leg and stood while I stroked his head.
"Tell me more about the horse shootings," I said.
She was turned half sideways in her chair, one leg tucked under her, giving me her full attention. She was clearly one of those especially likable women who made you feel that you might be the most interesting creature they had ever encountered. I knew that everyone she talked to felt that way, but it was no less pleasing for that. Right now it was my turn.
"I'm not sure where to start," she said. "I know all of us are in something of a tizzy."
"Well, were all the horses shot with the same weapon?"
"Oh God, I wouldn't know that sort of thing. Jon Delroy might know. Or you could talk with Deputy Becker."
"Any geographical pattern?"
"All here," she said.
"How many horses?"
"Three-a stable pony, and two colts."
She sipped some iced tea, dipping her face into it, holding the glass in both hands, looking at me over the rim.
"Where did they get shot?"
"I just told- Oh, you mean what part of them did the bullet hit?"
"Yes."
"One in the head, the stable pony. He died. Heroic Hope was shot once in the left shoulder. I don't think he'll run again. Saddle Shoes was shot in the neck. The vets tell us he should be fine."
"You said 'bullet'-was each of them shot just once?"
"I believe so."
Dutch took his head off my leg suddenly and walked away. I saw no reason for it. He appeared to be stepping to the beat of his own drummer. He found a spot on the lawn, in the sun, out of sprinkler range, turned around three times, and settled down and went to sleep.
"Only one died?" I said.
"Yes."
I nodded.
"You're looking so wise all of a sudden. Have I supplied you a clue?"
"Just a thought," I said.
"Oh, tell me, what is it?"
I shook my head.
"I assume that's not Three Fillies world headquarters down there," I said.
"The stables? Oh God no. It's where we keep our own horses. The racing operation is about a mile down the road. Are we changing the subject?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"So you won't have to tell me your thought?"
"I have so few," I said. "I like to nurture them."
She nodded thoughtfully and sipped a little more of her tea.
"You're very charming," she said. "But you don't actually say very much."
"I haven't much to say."
"I don't believe that," Penny said.
"And detectives get further listening than they do talking."
"Are you being a detective now?"
"I'm always being a detective," I said.
"Really? Is that how you define yourself?"
"No. I define myself as Susan Silverman's main squeeze. Detective is what I do."
"Are you married to her?"
"Not quite."
"Tell me about her."
"Smart, a little self-centered, intense, quick, very tough, very funny, dreadful cook, and beautiful."
"What does she do?"
"Shrink."
"Wow."
"Wow?"
"Well, I mean, it's so high-powered."
"Me too," I said.
Penny smiled.
"Have you two been together for a long time?" she said.
"Yes."
"But you've never married."
"No."
"Is there a reason?"
"It's never seemed a good idea at the times we've thought about it."
"Well, I'd love to meet her."
"Yes," I said. "You would."
When the sprinklers stopped, Penny and I took a stroll with Dutch around the grounds, the tennis courts, and the riding stables. The unexplained outbuildings turned out to be a small gymnasium with weight-lifting equipment and two locker rooms. Then I went back to my hotel to think long thoughts. As is usual when I'm thinking long thoughts, I lay on the bed with my eyes closed. Susan says I often snore when thinking long thoughts.

FOUR

JAPANESE LANTERNS INmany colors were strung over the dark lawn, defining a patch of light and movement behind the Clive mansion. A number of guests dressed in elegant informality clustered together inside the circling lanterns near a bar set up on a table with a white tablecloth, where a black man in a white coat made drinks upon request. I was there wearing a summer-weight blue blazer to hide my gun, and sipping some beer and eating an occasional mushroom turnover offered me by a black woman with cornrows, wearing a frilly white apron. If you went outside the lanterns into the surrounding darkness and waited until your eyes adjusted, you could look up and see stars in the velvety night.
Walter Clive was there in a straw-colored jacket and a navy-blue shirt. He still had on his aviator sunglasses, probably protection from the glare of the lanterns. A woman in a soft-green linen dress came out of the house and into the circle of light. She had silvery blond hair, and very worthwhile cleavage, and good hips and long legs. She was standing with a graceful-looking younger man with hair as blond as hers.
"Dolly," Clive said. "Over here."
She turned toward his voice and smiled and walked toward us. She had the kind of walk that helped me to think about the soft sound of the linen dress whispering across her thighs. When she got to where we were she kissed Clive, and put her hand out to me.
"Dolly, this is Spenser, the man we've hired."
"How lovely to meet you," she said.
Her grip was firm. She smelled gently of French perfume. At least in the light of the Japanese lanterns, her eyes were violet.
"How do you do?" I said.
"Have you met Hugger yet?"
"No, is he here?"
"Oh, aren't you funny," she said.
There was intimacy in the way Dolly stood and talked, which seemed to suggest that we really ought to be in bed together, and until then we were just marking time.
"Yes, I am," I said. "Do you have any theories on the horse assaults?"
"Oh Lord no," she said. "That's not my business."
"What is your business?" I said.
She nodded at Clive, who was talking with a group of guests.
"Keeping him happy," she said.
"Which you do well."
She didn't appear to do anything, but I could feel the energy between us again.
"Which I do very well," she said.
Penny came by and took my arm.
"Sorry, Dolly, the big boss has ordered me to introduce him around."
"It's best to follow orders," Dolly said, and drifted away toward Clive.
"Wife?" I said.
"Girlfriend."
"Where's your mother?"
"Left years ago. She lives in San Francisco with a guitarist."
"You get along?" I said.
"With Dolly? Oh sure. She keeps Daddy happy and when Daddy's happy, everybody's happy."
"Who's the younger blond guy she's with?"
"That's her son," Penny said. "Jason."
"She's older than she looks," I said.
Penny smiled brilliantly.
"We all are," she said.
With her arm through mine she steered me through the guests. We stopped in front of a woman whose idea of easy informality appeared to be gold sling-back shoes with glass heels and a gauzy white dress. She was good-looking. Every woman at the party was good-looking. They all looked as if they had just stepped from the shower and doused themselves with lilac water and taken plenty of time getting ready for the party.
"This is my big sister," she said. "Stonie. Stonie, this is Mr. Spenser, whom Daddy has hired to protect Hugger."
"Well," Stonie said, "you certainly have the build for it."
"You have a nice build too," I said.
"Why, aren't you just lovely to notice."
The man with her turned away from his conversation and put out a hand.
"Cord Wyatt," he said. "I'm the lucky husband of this lady."
He was taller than I am and slim, with the kind of loose build I associated with polo players. Since I had never seen a polo match, my association may not have been accurate. He had the tan and the perfect smile, and so did his wife. Everybody had it. If I were a skin cancer specialist, I'd move right down here.
"And this is my middle sister, SueSue."
It was getting monotonous. Blond hair, tan skin, white teeth. SueSue's dress was flowered.
"Wow," SueSue said.
"Wow?" I said.
"No one told me you were a hunk," SueSue said.
"Sadly," I said, "no one has told me that either."
"Well, you surely are," she said.
"He doesn't look like so much to me," a man said.
"My husband, Pud," SueSue said.
I put my hand out. Pud didn't take it. He appeared to be drunk. As I thought of it, maybe SueSue was drunk too. Which was too bad-it took a little something away from the "hunk" designation.
"Pud," I said, and took my hand back.
Pud looked like he might weigh 250, but it was weight that had collected on a frame designed to support maybe 210. He had the look of a college football player ten years out of shape. He was probably stud duck at the Rotary Club cookouts. I could have taken him while whistling the Michigan fight song and balancing a seal on my nose.
Pud said, "So, how you doing, Hunk?"
"Fine, thank you, Pud."
I maybe put a little more edge into "Pud" than I had to, but on the whole I was being the soul of civility.
"My wife thinks you're a hunk," he said.
His tongue was having a little trouble, and "you're" came out as a compromise with "you are."
"A common misperception," I said. "You must have the same problem, Pud."
He frowned at me. Even sober, I suspected, his strong suit would not be thinking.
"You got yourself a problem," he said, "with my name?"
"Oh, Pud," SueSue said. "Nobody gives a damn about your silly old name."
Penny was quiet; she seemed sort of interested.
"The hunk don't like my name," he said, and stared at me. The stare would have been scarier if he could focus.
"It's quite a lovely name," I said. "Is it short for something?"
"His father's name was Poole," SueSue said. "Poole Potter. He called his son Puddle."
"I see," I said.
"I don't think I like you talking to my wife, Hunk."
"Of course you don't," I said.
"So buzz off."
He put his hand on my chest and gave me a little shove. It was too little. I didn't move.
"Pud," I said. "Please don't make a mistake here."
"Mistake? What mistake? I'm telling you to buzz off."
"You're drunk," I said, "and I'm even-tempered. But don't put your hands on me again."
He had a low-ball glass in his right hand that appeared to contain bourbon. He took a bracing pull on it.
"I ought to knock you on your keister."
"Sure," I said, "but you can't and you're just going to look like a goddamned fool. Why don't I apologize and you accept and we'll go our separate ways?"
"You think I can't?"
Neither Penny nor SueSue made any move to intervene. There was something a little unpleasant flickering in SueSue's eyes as she watched.
"Pud, I've been doing this for a living since before you started pickling your liver. It's not a good match for you."
He stared at me. Some part of him got it. Some part of him knew he'd gotten in where he didn't belong. But he was too drunk to back down. He looked at SueSue. The unpleasant glint was still in her eyes. She smiled an unpleasant smile.
"Don't you let him push you around, Pud Potter," she said.
He frowned as if he were trying to concentrate, and put his drink on a table next to him. It came the way I knew it would, a long slow looping right punch that I could have slipped while writing my memoirs. I blocked it on my left forearm. He threw a left of the same directness and velocity. I slipped the left, put my hand behind his shoulder, and used the slow force of the punch to continue him around. When he was turned, I put my foot against his butt and shoved. He stumbled forward and fell on the lawn, and got up with deep grass stains on the knees of his white slacks.
Walter Clive detached himself from the group he was entertaining and walked over. Dolly came with him.
"What seems to be the problem?" he said.
"Pud is drunk," Penny said.
Clive nodded. "And being Pud," he said.
"Yes."
Pud was standing, looking a little disoriented, ready to charge.
"SueSue," Clive said. "Take Pud home."
He turned to me.
"I apologize for my son-in-law. He's a little too fond sometimes of that sippin' whiskey."
"No harm," I said.
Clive never looked to see if Pud was leaving. Which he was, led by SueSue away from the bright circle of Japanese lanterns. Dolly smiled at me warmly. The smile made me think of perfumed silk. I was pretty sure I knew what she did to make Clive happy.
"Penny," Clive said, "introduce Mr. Spenser to our trainer."
"Sure thing, boss," Penny said, and put her arm through mine again and led me toward another part of the terrace. Clive went back to his guests with Dolly beside him.
"You handled him like he was a little boy," Penny said. She hugged my arm against her.
"It's what I do," I said. "As in most things, there's a pretty big difference between amateurs and professionals."
"I'll say."
"Sorry that had to happen," I said.
"Oh, not me," Penny said. "I'm thrilled. I think Pud needs to be kicked in the ass every evening."
"In your experience, am I going to have to do it again?"
"I don't know. He may not even remember it in the morning."
"Perhaps SueSue will remind him."
"You don't miss much," she said. "Do you?"
"Just doing my job, ma'am," I said.
"Most of the people Pud picks on are afraid of him."
"Given his fistic skills," I said, "he would be wise to ascertain that in advance."
She smiled and gave my arm an extra squeeze and guided me through the cocktail crowd.

FIVE

IT WAS TENminutes to six in the morning. I was at the rail with Hale Martin, the Three Fillies trainer, at the east end of the Three Fillies training track with the sun on my back, drinking a cup of coffee from the pot in the trainer's room. A big chestnut horse was being ridden around the soft track by a small girl in jeans and a lavender T-shirt that read THREE FILLIES on it. A whip was stuck into the top of her right boot. Under her funny-looking rider's cap, her hair was a long single braid down her back. The girl was an exercise rider named Mickey. The horse was Hugger Mugger. He was beautiful. There were four other horses being galloped in the morning. They were beautiful. As I went along I discovered that they were all beautiful, including the ones that couldn't outrun me in a mile and a furlong. Maybe beauty is skin-deep.
"How much does he weigh?" I said.
"About twelve hundred pounds," Martin said.
I'd always imagined that trainers were old guys that looked like James Whitmore, and chewed plug tobacco. Martin was a young guy with even features and very bright blue eyes and the healthy color of a man who spent his life outdoors. He wore a white button-down shirt and pressed jeans, a silk tweed jacket, riding boots, and the kind of snug leather pullover chaps that horse people wore, I think, to indicate that they were horse people.
"And that hundred-pound kid controls him like he was a tricycle."
Martin smiled. "Girls and horses," he said.
"It's probably a sign of city-bred boorishness," I said. "But all the horses look pretty much alike."
"They ought to," Martin said. "They're all descended from one of three horses, most of them from a horse called the Darley Arabian."
"Close breeding," I said.
"Um-hmm."
We were alone at the rail except for the Security South guards in their gray uniforms, four of them, with handguns and walkie-talkies, watching Hugger Mugger as he pranced through his workout.
"Doesn't it make some of them kind of weird?"
"Oh yes," Martin said. "Weavers. Cribbers. Stay around until we breeze Jimbo. We can't breeze Jimbo with the other horses."
The stables and training track were surrounded by tall pine trees that didn't begin to branch until maybe thirty feet up the trunk. The horses' hooves made a soft chuff on the surface of the track. Otherwise it was very still. The exercise riders talked among themselves as they rode, but we weren't close enough to hear them. There was nothing else in sight but this ring in the trees where the horses circled timelessly, counterclockwise, with an evanescence of morning mist barely lingering about the infield.
"What's going on with that one?" I said.
"He tends to swallow his tongue," Martin said. "So we have to tie it down when he runs."
"How's he feel about that?" I said.
Martin grinned. "Horses don't say much."
"Nothing wrong with quiet," I said.
A trim man with short hair and high cheekbones came toward us from the stable area. He had on a tan golf jacket, and Dockers and deck shoes. A blue-and-gray-plaid shirt showed at the opening of the half-zipped jacket. He wore an earpiece like the Secret Service guys, and there was a small SS pin on the lapel of his jacket. When he got close enough I could see that he was wearing a gun under the golf jacket.
"Delroy," he said.
"Spenser," I said, trying to stand a little straighter.
"I heard you were coming aboard."
"Aye," I said.
Delroy looked at me suspiciously. Was I kidding him?
"I'd appreciate it if you'd check in with me when you're in the area."
"Sure. When did you come aboard?"
"Me?"
"Yeah, when did you start guarding the horses?"
"After Heroic Hope was shot."
"The second horse shot."
"That's right."
"So where were your guys when someone was pointing a gun at Hugger Mugger?"
"If somebody did," Delroy said.
"You figure the groom made it up?"
"Nobody could get to him through our security."
"How about the other horse, Saddle Shoes?"
"He was shot at long range," Delroy said. "We can't be everywhere."
"'Course not," I said. "Why would the groom lie?"
"Most of them lie," Delroy said.
"Grooms?"
Delroy snorted. "They wouldn't tell a white man the truth if it would make them rich."
"What's the SS for on your collar?"
"Security South."
"Oh, it's not Schutzstaffel ? "I said.
"Excuse me?"
"A little Nazi humor," I said.
"What do you mean?"
"The SS was Hitler's bodyguard," I said. "It's an abbreviation of Schutzstaffel."
"This pin stands for Security South," Delroy said.
"Yes."
Delroy looked at me for a moment. Martin was silent beside me, his eyes on the horses moving around the track.
"You're a big guy," Delroy said.
"I try," I said.
"Well, to be honest with you, size doesn't impress me."
"How disappointing," I said.
"We're professionals, every one of us, and quite frankly, we don't think we need some wizard brought in here from Boston to tell us how to do our job."
"Well, it's certainly a nice professional-looking earpiece," I said. "Can you listen to Dr. Laura on it?"
"I command a twelve-man detail here," Delroy said. "I need in-touch capability."
"Military Police?" I said.
"I joined SS five years ago. Before that I was with the Bureau and before that I was an officer in the Marine Corps."
"The Corps and the Bureau," I said. "Jeepers."
"What are your credentials?"
"I got fired from the cops," I said.
Delroy snorted. Martin kept watching the horses.
"How the hell did you weasel onto Walt Clive's payroll?" Delroy said.
"Maybe size impresses him," I said.
"Well, let's put it on the table where we can all look at it," Delroy said. "We'll complete our mission here with you or without you. You do whatever you want to, or whatever Walt Clive wants you to do. But if you get in our way we'll roll right over you. You understand?"
"Most of it," I said. "Martin here can help me with the hard parts."
"Anything has to do with that horse," Delroy said, "you go through me."
He about-faced smartly and marched away.
"First Pud, now him," I said to Martin.
"Southern hospitality," Martin said absently. His mind was still on the horses.
"Just so we're clear," I said. "I'm not after your wife. I won't tell you how to train horses."
"My wife will be sorry to hear that," Martin said.
"But the horses won't give a damn," I said.
"They never seem to," Martin said.

SIX

IWAS SITTINGin an office at the Columbia County Sheriff's Lamarr substation with a man named Dalton Becker. He was a big, solid, slow black man. He had short graying hair. His coat was off and hanging behind the half-open door. His red-and-blue-striped suspenders were bright over his white shirt. He wore his gun tucked inside his waistband.
"You care for a Coca-Cola?" he said.
"Sure."
"Vonnie." He raised his voice. "Couple Coca-Colas."
We waited while a young black woman with bright blond hair sashayed in, chewing gum, and plopped two Cokes on his desk.
"Thank you, Vonnie," Becker said.
She sashayed back out. He handed one to me, opened his, and took a drink.
"Here's what I know about this horse business," he said. "First of all, there's been three horses attacked. Not counting the alleged attack on Hugger Mugger. One of them died. All three attacks were here at Three Fillies. Far's I know, there have been no other attacks on other horses."
"Alleged?"
"Yep. We only got the groom's word."
"You believe the groom?" I said.
"I been at this awhile. I don't believe or not believe. I just look for evidence."
"Anything wrong with the groom?"
"Nope."
"Just native skepticism," I said.
"You got any of that?"
"Some," I said.
Becker smiled. I waited.
"First one was about a month ago, at the training track, here in Lamarr. Stable pony got plugged with a .22 caliber slug. Bullet went into the brain through the eye socket. He died. You know what a stable pony is?"
"I know he's not a racehorse."
"That's enough to know," Becker said. "I don't know squat about horse racing either."
"The other two were Thoroughbreds, one shot from a distance, probably a rifle with a scope, while he was walking around the training track. Hit him in the neck. I guess he'll recover. The other one was shot in the shoulder-he's all right, but I guess his racing days are finished. Both bullets were .22 long."
As we talked Becker sipped on his Coke; otherwise he didn't move at all. He wasn't inert, he was solid. It was as if he would move when he chose to and nothing would move him before.
"Same weapon in all the shootings?"
"Far as anybody can tell," Becker said.
"One bullet each?"
"Yep."
"Is there a case file?" I said.
"Sure. Why?"
"Just wondered if you bothered," I said.
"Always had a good memory," Becker said. "You can look at the file, if you want to."
"Suspects?" I said.
"Well, so far I'm pretty sure it ain't me," Becker said.
"Think it's the same person?"
"Could be. Or it could be one person shot the first one and a copycat shot the others. They're always out there. Could be somebody with a grudge against Clive."
"Any evidence that it's either?"
"Nope," Becker said. "No evidence for anything."
"Sort of up the Swanee without a paddle," I said.
"Till you showed up. Nothing makes us dumb southern boys happier than having a smart Yankee show up to help us."
"You going to break out in a rebel yell soon?" I said.
"Well," Becker said, "I do get playful sometimes."
"I thought you were supposed to be ticked off about slavery and stuff."
"Never been a slave. Don't know anybody who owned one."
"Any pattern to the wounds?" I said.
"Veterinary report's in the case file," Becker said. "To me they look random."
"So why would somebody go around randomly shooting horses?"
"Don't know."
"The shots were random," I said, "but the horses weren't. They all belonged to Three Fillies."
"Yep."
"Try not to run on so," I said. "You're making me dizzy."
Becker smiled.
"If you wanted a dead horse, wouldn't you shoot more than once? Especially if the horse didn't go down?"
"If I had time," Becker said. "If I wanted a dead horse. Might use a bigger weapon too."
"Did he have time?"
"Far as we know."
"And there are probably bigger weapons available."
"Yep."
"So maybe a dead horse wasn't the point," I said.
"Maybe."
"Maybe shooting the horse was the point."
"Maybe."
"If he wanted to prevent them from racing for some reason, why shoot the pony?"
"Good question," Becker said.
"So why'd he shoot them?"
"Maybe he's a fruitcake," Becker said.
"Maybe," I said. "You familiar with Security South?"
"Sure," Becker said. "Bunch of ex-FBI guys. Do a lot of horse-racing security."
"Know a guy named Delroy?"
"Jon Delroy," Becker said.
"Brisk, stern, upright, and ready," I said.
"You bet," Becker said. "Awful dumb, though."

SEVEN

IWAS INthe Three Fillies stable yard looking at Hugger Mugger. Security South had a guy with a gleaming pistol belt posted in front of the stall and another one in the stable office making sure of the coffee. Hugger Mugger hung his head out of the stall and looked hopefully at Penny in case she might have a carrot. He had very large brown eyes and looked deeply intelligent.
"They're not terribly smart," Penny said. "They seem to have a lot of certain kinds of awareness people don't have. They are very skittish and can be spooked by dogs, or birds, or sudden noise."
Hugger Mugger nosed her upper arm, his ears back slightly and his profound brown eyes gazing at her. Along the stable row other horses looked out over the open doors of their stalls, turning their heads to peer down at us. The horses were restrained only by a belt across the open door. It was not unlike the velvet rope that closes off a dining room.
"Does he know you?" I said.
"He knows I sometimes carry carrots," Penny said. "Mostly they like other horses."
"They ever get to gallop around in the field with all the other horses?"
"God no," Penny said. "You pay two million dollars for a horse that might be the next Citation, you can't let him hang around with other horses, one of which might kick his ribs in."
I patted Hugger Mugger's forehead. He turned the carrot-questioning look on me.
"Nice horsie," I said.
"Aficionados of the sport of kings," Penny said, "don't usually say things like 'nice horsie.' "
I frowned and looked hard at Hugger Mugger. In a deep voice I said, "Good withers."
Penny laughed. "Do you even know what withers are?" she said.
"No," I said.
"You talk with Billy?" she said.
"I will."
"You'll like him."
"I never met a man I didn't like," I said.
Penny gave me an Oh please look. "He loves this horse," she said.
"Because he's going to win the Triple Crown?" I said.
"No. That's why all the rest of us love him. I think Billy just loves him."
"Even if he doesn't win the Triple Crown?"
"Even if he never wins a race."
"Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds," I said.
"Is that some kind of poem?" Penny said.
"I think so."
"You don't look like a poem kind of man," she said.
"It's a disguise," I said.
Jon Delroy came briskly toward us across the stable yard.
"I got a message you wanted to see me," he said to Penny.
"Yes, Jon," she said. "Let's the three of us go over to the office."
Delroy looked at me as if I were something he'd just stepped in. And turned to walk with Penny. I tagged along. We went into the track office and sat down. Penny sat behind the desk in a swivel chair. Delroy and I sat in straight chairs against the wall. There was a coffeemaker on a table near the desk, and a small refrigerator on the wall behind the desk. There were photographs of happy owners with happy jockeys and happy horses in various winner's circles.
"Jon, you've lodged a complaint with Three Fillies Stables," Penny said. "About Mr. Spenser."
She sat back in the swivel chair, her feet in riding boots crossed on the desk. Her voice was friendly, with the nice southern lilt.
"I've talked with your father, yes," Delroy said.
"And my father has asked me to talk with both of you," she said.
I waited. Delroy was looking hard at her, sitting bolt upright in his chair.
"As CEO of, and majority stockholder in, Three Fillies Stables, my father feels that employment decisions are his to make if he wishes to."
"Well, of course, Penny, but . . ."
"Don't interrupt," Penny said. No lilt. "We have hired Spenser to find out who is trying to harm Hugger Mugger. We have hired you to protect Hugger Mugger while he does so. There is no reason for either of you to get in the other's way."
I smiled cooperatively. Delroy looked as if he had just eaten a pinecone.
"Is that clear?" Penny said.
"Yes, ma'am," I said.
Delroy didn't speak.
"Is that clear, Jon?"
Delroy still didn't speak.
"Because if it is not clear, you may finish out the week and then be on your way."
"Penny, we signed a contract."
"Sue us. This is my way or the highway, Jon. And you decide right now."
"Be easier to put up with me," I said to Delroy.
Penny sat with her feet still up on the desk. Her big pretty eyes showed nothing. She wore a white shirt, with the collar open, a gold chain showing. Her pale blue jeans were tight and tucked into the top of her riding boots. Her neck was slender but strong-looking. Her thighs were firm.
"Yes or no," she said.
"Yes," Delroy said.
The words came out very thin, as if it'd had to slip between clenched teeth.
"You'll cooperate with Spenser?"
"Yes."
"You have any problems with Jon?" Penny said to me.
"Not me," I said. "Your way or the doorway."
Penny took her feet off the desktop and let the chair come forward and smiled.
"Excellent," she said. "Either of you want a Coca-Cola?"

EIGHT

MY ROOM WASon the second floor of one wing of the motel, and opened onto a wing-length balcony with stairs at either end. It was late afternoon when SueSue Potter knocked on my door.
"Welcome Wagon," she said when I opened it.
"Oh good," I said. "I was afraid your husband had sent you ahead to soften me up."
She was wearing a big hat and carrying a bottle of champagne in an ice bucket and a big straw handbag. There was some sort of look in her eyes, but it wasn't the unpleasant glint I'd seen when Pud threatened me.
"Oh, Pud is a poop," she said.
"Alliteration," I said. "Very nice."
She put the champagne down on top of the television set and circled the room. She was as perky as a grasshopper and much better-looking in a pink linen dress with a square neck and matching shoes.
"You mean you have to live here all by yourself all the time you're here?" she said.
"Depends on how lucky I get hanging out at the bowling alley late."
"You big silly, I bet you don't even bowl."
"Wow," I said, "you see right through a guy."
"You have any glasses for this champagne?"
"Couple of nice plastic ones," I said, "in the bathroom."
"Well, get them out here, it's nearly cocktail time and I don't like to enter it sober."
I went to the bathroom and got the two little cups and peeled off the plastic-wrap sealers and brought the cups out and set them festively on top of the television beside the champagne bucket.
"I'm afraid that champagne corks are just too strong for me. Could you very kindly do the honors?"
I opened the champagne and poured some into each of the plastic cups. I handed one to her and picked up the other one. She put her glass up toward mine.
"Chink, chink," she said.
I touched her glass with mine.
"I think plastic sounds more like 'Scrape, scrape,' " I said.
"Not if you listen with a romantic ear," she said.
"Which you do," I said.
"To everything, darlin'."
I smiled. She smiled. She drank her champagne. I took another small nibble at mine. She gazed dreamily around the room. I waited. She looked at my gun, lying in its holster on the bedside table.
"Oh," she said. "A gun."
"Why, so it is."
"Can I look at it?"
"Sure."
"Can I pick it up?"
"No."
She put her glass out. I refilled it.
"Did you have that with you the other night when Pud was being dreadful?"
"Yes."
"So you could have shot him if you wanted."
"Seems a little extreme," I said.
"You handled him like he was a bad little boy," SueSue said.
She drank some more champagne, looking at me while she drank, her eyes big and blue and full of energy. It was too soon for the champagne to kick in. It was some other kind of energy.
"Just doing my job, ma'am."
She smiled widely. And what I'd seen in her eyes, I saw in her smile.
"Pud played football over at Alabama. Even had a pro tryout."
"Linebacker?" I said.
"I don't know who the pro team was. I hate football."
"What position did he play?" I said.
"Defense."
I nodded.
"He still goes to the gym all the time. But you just turned him around like he was a little bitty boy."
"Breathtaking, isn't it?" I said.
"You're a dangerous man," she said, and put her glass out. I poured.
"Especially to fried clams," I said. "You put a plate of fried clams in front of me, they're gone in a heartbeat."
"I could see that you were dangerous," she said, "minute you came into the room."
The champagne was beginning to affect her speech a little. Her articles were slurring, or she was skipping right over them.
"I think even Pud could see it, but he was too drunk to be smart about it. What would you have done if he'd come back at you?"
"You kind of have to be in the moment," I said, "to know what you'd do."
"You'd have hurt him," SueSue said. "I saw it in your eyes."
"I take no pleasure in hurting someone."
"I know men, darlin'. Everybody else in my damn family knows horses. But I know men. You like to fight."
"Everybody needs a hobby," I said.
"You like to fuck too?"
"Wow," I said. "You do know men."
A little vertical frown line indented her perfect tan for a moment, between her perfect eyebrows, and went right away.
"Lotta men don't like it. They all pretend they like it, but they don't. Some of them don't want to, or they can't 'cause they a little teensy bit drunk, or they scared of a woman who wants to."
"And you're a woman who wants to."
"I like it. I like it with big men. I'd like to see how many muscles you got and where."
"Lots," I said. "Everywhere."
"I need to see for myself, darlin'."
"That'll be a problem."
"You aren't even drinking your champagne," she said. "If you don't like champagne, I got something more serious."
"No need," I said.
But SueSue wasn't all that interested in my needs.
"You married?" Sue said.
"Sort of."
"You don't wear a wedding band."
"I'm not exactly married."
"How can you be not exactly married?" she said. "You mean you got a girlfriend."
"More than that," I said.
"Good Lord, you're not gay, are you?"
"No."
"Well, whatever it is, you being loyal about it?"
"Yes."
"Oh hell," she said.
I nodded.
"Cheatin' makes it a lot more fun, darlin'," she said.
Her southern accent became more pronounced as the champagne bubbled into her system.
"Maybe it's not always about fun," I said.
"Well, what in the hell else would it be about?"
"Could be about love," I said.
"Love?" She laughed. The sound was unpleasant.
"Only some big dangerous gun-totin' Yankee would come around talking 'bout love. My God-love!"
"I heard it makes the world go round," I said.
"Money makes the world go round, darlin'. And sex makes the trip worthwhile. Sex and money, darlin'. Money and sex."
"Both are nice," I said.
She picked up the champagne bottle. It was empty. She put it back onto the table.
"Damn," she said, and half disappeared into her big straw handbag and came out with a bottle of Jack Daniel's. She handed it to me to open.
"Nice." She laughed the unpleasant laugh again. "There isn't anything nice down here, darlin'. Nothing nice about the Clives."
I put the open bottle of Jack Daniel's on the table beside the champagne bucket. SueSue took some ice out of the bucket and put it in the cup from which she had been drinking champagne. She picked up the Jack Daniel's bottle and poured some over the rocks. Holding the bottle, she looked at me. I shook my head. The champagne left in my plastic cup was warm. I put the cup down on the table.
"Nothing?" I said.
SueSue drank some Jack Daniel's. She neither sipped it nor slugged it. She drank it as she had drunk champagne, in an accomplished manner, doing something she was used to doing.
"Well," she said, "we're all good-looking, and mostly we have good manners, 'cept me. I tend maybe to be a little bit too direct for good manners."
"Direct," I said, and smiled at her hunkishly. "What's wrong with your family?"
"The hell with them," she said. "Are you going to come on to me or not?"
"Let's talk a little," I said.
She got cagey. "Only if you'll have little drink with me," she said.
I wanted to hear what she had to say. I picked up my cup and took it to the bathroom and emptied the remaining champagne into the sink. Then I came back, put some ice in my plastic cup and poured some whiskey over it.
"Now drink some," SueSue said.
I felt like a freshman girl on her first date with a senior. We drank together in silence for a minute or so. I was betting that SueSue couldn't tolerate silence. I was right.
"What was it you were asking me about, darlin'?"
"You," I said. "Tell me about you."
More than one way to ask a question.
"I'm a Clive," she said.
"Is that complicated?"
She shook her head sadly.
"I think one of our ancestors must have stolen something from a tomb," she said.
"Family curse?"
"We're all corrupt," she said. "Drunks, liars, fornicators."
"You too?" I said.
"Me especially," she said. "Hell, why do you think I'm married to Fred Flintstone?"
"Love?" I said.
She made a nasty sound, which might have been a contemptuous laugh.
"There you go again," she said. "Daddy wanted his girls married. He wanted them out of the clubs and off their backs and in a marriage. He wanted sons-in-law to inherit the business. Pud was what there was."
"Stonie too?"
"Don't get me started on Stonie and Cord."
"Why not?"
"Don't get me started," she said.
"Okay."
SueSue had a drink of whiskey.
"How about Penny?" I said. "She's not married."
"Little Penelope," SueSue said. She struggled to say "Penelope." "Sometimes I think she was switched at birth."
"She's different?"
"She stands up to Daddy."
"And?"
"And he thinks it's cute. He trusts her with everything. Hell, she knows the business better than he does."
"So she doesn't have to get married?"
"Not now, but she better, she wants to inherit anything."
"Really?"
"Man's gotta be in charge," SueSue said. "Can't have a woman ruining the business."
"Even though she halfway runs it now."
"Daddy still in charge."
Talking was getting harder for her as the Jack Daniel's went in. I needed to get what I could before talking became too hard.
"What's wrong with Stonie and Cord?" I said.
"Stonie so frustrated she rubbing up doorknobs," SueSue said.
Her syntax was deteriorating fast.
"How come?"
Her smile was dreamy without ceasing to be nasty.
"Little boys," she said.
"Cord likes little boys?" I said.
Her eyes closed and her head lolled back against the chair cushion.
She said, "Un-huh."
And then she fell asleep.

NINE

IWAS HAVINGbreakfast with Billy Rice off the back of a commissary truck parked under some high pines at the edge of the Three Fillies training track.
"Donuts put a nice foundation under your morning," Rice said.
"Go good with coffee too," I said.
Across from us the track was empty, except for Hugger Mugger. We could hear him breathing in the short heavy way that horses breathe. His chest was huge. His legs were positively dainty, the odd, beautiful result of endless selectivity. A half-ton heart-lung machine on legs smaller than mine. His only function was to run a mile or so, in two minutes or so. Rice watched him all the time while we ate our donuts.
"Great horse?" I said.
"Be a great horse," Rice said.
"Doesn't look that different."
"Ain't what makes a great horse," Billy said. "Same as any athlete. He got to have the right body, and the right training. Then he got to have the heart. One with the heart be the great one."
"And he's got it?"
"Yes, he do."
"How do you know?"
Rice was too gentle a man to be scornful. But he came close.
"I know him," Rice said.
He was smallish. Not smallish like a jockey, just smallish compared to me. He wore jeans and sneakers and a polo shirt and a baseball cap that read THREE FILLIES across the front, over the bill. Martin, the trainer, leaned on the fence watching Hugger Mugger. And four Security South sentinels stood around the track.
"Tell me about the prowler," I said.
Rice sipped his coffee. His dark eyes were thoughtful and opaque, a little like the eyes of the racehorses.
"Nothing much to tell. I sleeping with Hugger. I hear a noise, shine my flashlight, see a gun. When I shine my light, the gun goes away. I hear footsteps running. Then nothing."
"You didn't follow?"
"I don't have no gun. Am I going out in the dark, chase somebody got a gun?"
"No," I said. "You're not."
"How 'bout you?" Rice said.
"I'm not either," I said. "Can you describe the gun?"
"No. Don't know much 'bout guns."
"Handgun or long gun?"
"Long gun."
"Shotgun or rifle?"
"Don't know."
"One barrel or two?"
"One."
"What kind of front sight?"
"Don't know," Rice said. "Only saw it in the flashlight for a second."
"Color?"
"Color? What color is a gun barrel? It was iron-colored."
"Bluish?"
"Yes, I guess."
"How about the footsteps? Heavy? Light? Fast? Slow?"
"Just footsteps, sounded like running. It was on the dirt outside the stable. Didn't make a lot of noise."
"Any smells?"
"Smells?"
"Hair tonic, shaving lotion, cologne, perfume, mouthwash, tobacco, booze, liniment."
"Sleeping in the stable," Rice said, "mostly everything smells like horses."
I nodded.
"They going to bring Jimbo out," Rice said. "Time to get Hugger out the way."
The exercise rider brought Hugger Mugger to the rail. Billy snapped the lead shank onto his bridle. The exercise rider climbed down, and Billy led Hugger Mugger back toward the stable area. As they walked their heads were very close together, as if they were exchanging confidences. The security guards moved in closer around Hugger Mugger as he walked, and by the time he'd reached the stable area they were around him like the Secret Service.
I moved up beside Hale Martin. Coming from the stable area toward the track was an entourage of horses and horse keepers. There was a big chestnut horse with a rider up and a groom on either side holding a shank. With them were two other horsemen, one on each side. The chestnut was tossing his head and skittering sideways as he came.
"Jimbo?" I said to Martin.
"Jimbo," Martin said.
The outriders gave with him as Jimbo skittered, and closed back in on him when he stopped. Riding him was a red-haired girl who might have been seventeen. The grooms and the outriders were men. One of the outriders had a cast on his right leg. He rode to the right, so that the injured leg was away from Jimbo.
"What about the guy with the cast?" I said.
Martin grinned.
"Jimbo," he said.
When Jimbo was on the track, the outriders peeled off and sat their horses in the shade near the track entrance. The grooms unsnapped their lead shanks at the same time and stepped quickly away. Jimbo reared and made horse noises. The red-haired girl held his head straight, sitting high up on his shoulders as if she were part of the horse. She gave him a light tap on the backside with her whip, and Jimbo tossed his head and began to move down the track.
"Run him a lot," I said. "Get him tired."
"Just makes him cranky," Martin said, his eyes following Jimbo. The redhead let him out and he began to sprint.
"Has he killed anyone yet?"
"Nope."
"But he might," I said.
"He wants to," Martin said.
"You have to handle him like this all the time?"
"Yep."
"Is it worth the bother?"
"He can run," Martin said.
"How about gelding?"
"Somebody gelded John Henry," Martin said. "Do you know how much money that cost them?"
"Stud fees?"
"You bet."
"You mean you'd let Jimbo loose with a mare?"
"He's different around mares," Martin said.
"Him too," I said.

TEN

MICKEYBLAIR WENTout of the track office with a springy walk that made her long blond braid bounce against the full length of her spine. She left the door open behind her. Through the open door, I could look straight along the stable row where the horses hung their heads out of their stalls and looked around. It reminded me of one of those streets in Amsterdam where the whores sat in windows.
I had a yellow legal-size pad on the desk by my right hand, and a nice Bic pen lying on it at a rakish angle. The pad was blank. I had spent the day interviewing stable crew about the attempt on Hugger Mugger and had learned so little that I thought I might have crossed into deficit. I looked at my watch. Twenty to five. Penny Clive came in wearing black jeans and a white T-shirt and a black jacket. She went to the refrigerator, took out two Cokes, and handed me one. She sat down on the couch and put her feet up on the coffee table. I was able to observe that her jeans fit her very well. It was about the only thing I'd observed all day.
"You got him in your sights?" she said.
"I think I know somewhat less than I did this morning."
"Oh dear," Penny said.
We each drank some Coke.
"I gather my sister came to visit," Penny said.
"Where did you gather that?" I said.
She smiled and shrugged.
"Daddy likes to know what SueSue and Stonie are up to," she said.
"So you keep an eye on them?"
"It's a small community," Penny said. "I usually know what's going on in it."
"Someone at the motel tipped you."
She smiled.
"Because you'd alerted them," I said.
She continued to smile.
"Because you figured she'd come to call," I said.
"SueSue is predictable," Penny said.
"Who keeps an eye on you ?" I said.
"I'm self-regulating," Penny said, and her smile increased so that the laugh parentheses at the corners of her mouth deepened. "I hope SueSue wasn't offensive."
"Not at all," I said.
"She has a problem with alcohol," Penny said.
"I gathered that she might."
"And men," Penny said.
I was quiet. Penny was quiet.
Finally Penny said, "Did she come on to you?"
"I wondered how you were going to get to it. Straight on is good."
"Thank you. Did she?"
"I think that's between SueSue and me," I said.
Penny nodded.
"Of course," she said. "I'm sorry to be cross-examining you."
"Just doing your job," I said.
"It's not like it sounds," she said. "My sisters are both, what, wild? Daddy is just trying . . . He's being a daddy."
"How are the marriages?" I said.
"They don't work very well."
"Children?"
"No."
"How's Daddy feel about that?"
"He wants an heir."
"Is it up to you?" I said.
She almost blushed.
"Not yet, not now," she said. "I've got too much to do here. Three Fillies is a huge operation, Daddy can't run it by himself anymore."
"Gee, he looks fine," I said.
"Oh, he is. But he's got too much money now. He's . . . too important. He travels a great deal now. He and Dolly. He just can't concentrate anymore on the day-to-day grind of it."
"How about the sons-in-law?" I said.
She shrugged. "They're married to his daughters," Penny said.
"Isn't Cord the executive VP?"
"Yes."
"And Pud is . . . ?"
"VP for marketing."
"Are they real jobs?" I said.
"Well, you come straight at it too, don't you?"
"Susan does subtle," I said. "I'm not smart enough."
"Of course you're not," Penny said. "No, they aren't real jobs. I think Daddy hoped they would be. But Pud is . . . well, you saw Pud."
"I saw him at his worst," I said.
"True, and he's not always that bad. When he's sober he's kind of a good old boy."
"When is he sober?"
"Almost every day," Penny said, "until lunch."
"And Stonie's husband?"
"Cord."
I nodded. She looked out at the line of stalls. Hugger Mugger, third from the end, was looking out of his stall past the Security South guard as if he were pondering eternity.
"You think he's pondering eternity?" I said.
"Hugger? He's pondering lunch," Penny said.
"How about Cord?" I said. "Is he a good old boy, when he's sober?"
She looked almost startled.
"No, Cord isn't a drinker," she said. "A little white wine to be social, maybe."
"And as an executive VP?"
She shook her head. "Cord's very artistic."
"So was Wallace Stevens," I said.
"Isn't he some kind of poet?"
"Yes. He was also vice president of an insurance company."
"Isn't that odd," Penny said. "Cord isn't really interested in business, I'm afraid."
"What's he interested in?"
"Are you being a detective again?"
"I'm always being a detective," I said.
"Why do you want to know about Cord?"
"Because I don't know. Part of what I do is collect information. When I have collected enough I sometimes know something."
"Well, I think it's time to stop talking about my family."
"Sure," I said.
We were quiet for a while.
"I know I introduced the topic," Penny said.
I nodded. Penny smiled. Her teeth were very white against her honeyed tan.
"So I guess I can unintroduce it," she said.
"Sure," I said.
"I don't want you to think ill of us," Penny said. "All families have their problems. But all in all, we're a pretty nice group."
I didn't know what all this had to do with Hugger Mugger. But I was used to not knowing. I expected sooner or later that I would know. For now I simply registered that she hadn't wanted to talk about Cord and Stonie. I decided not to mention what SueSue had told me.
"Of course you are," I said.

ELEVEN

ISAT WITHWalter Clive at the Three Fillies syndication office in downtown Lamarr. He wore some sort of beige woven-silk pullover, tan linen slacks, no socks, and burgundy loafers. His tan remained golden. His silver hair was brushed straight back. A thick gold chain showed at his neck. His nails were buffed. He was clean-shaven and smelled gently of cologne.
"Penny tells me you're making progress," Clive said.
He was leaning back in his high-backed red-leather swivel chair, with his fingers interlocked over his flat stomach. There was a wide gold wedding band on his left hand. Past the bay window behind him I could see the white flowers of some blossoming shrub.
"Penny exaggerates," I said.
"Really?" he said.
"I have made no progress that I can tell."
"Well, at least you're honest," Clive said.
"At least that," I said.
"Perhaps Penny simply meant that you had talked to a number of people."
"That's probably it," I said. "I have managed to annoy Jon Delroy."
"Penny mentioned that too."
"Thanks for having her talk with him."
"Actually that was Penny's doing."
"Well, it was effective."
"Jon's been with me a long time," Clive said. "He's probably feeling a little displaced."
"How long?"
"Oh, what, maybe ten years."
"Really. What was he doing?"
Clive paused, as if the conversation had gone off in a direction he hadn't foreseen.
"I have a large enterprise here. There is need for security."
"Sure. Well, he and I seem to be clear on our roles now."
Clive nodded, and leaned forward and pushed the button on an intercom.
"Marge," he said. "Could you bring us coffee."
A voice said that it would, and Clive leaned back again and smiled at me. The window to my right was partially open and I could hear desultory birdsong in the flowering trees.
"So," Clive said, "have you reached a conclusion of any sort?"
"Other than I'm not making any progress?" I said.
"Yes," Clive said. "Are you for instance formulating any theories?"
"I've mostly observed that this thing doesn't make any sense," I said.
"Well, it is, sort of by definition," Clive said, "a series of senseless crimes."
"Seems so," I said.
"Meaning?"
"Meaning it seems so senseless that maybe it isn't."
Clive hadn't become a tycoon by nodding in agreement to everything said.
"That sounds like one of those clever statements people make when they're trying to sell you something you don't need," Clive said. "Does it mean anything?"
"I don't know," I said. "I can't say I know much about animal shootings. But for serial killers of people, you look for the logic that drives them. It's not necessarily other people's logic, but they are responding to some sort of interior pattern, and what you try to do is find it. The horse shootings are patternless."
"Or you haven't found it," Clive said.
"Or I haven't found it."
"They are all Three Fillies horses," Clive said. "Isn't that a pattern?"
"Maybe," I said. "But it is a pattern that leads us nowhere much. Why is someone shooting Three Fillies horses?"
"You're not supposed to be asking me," Clive said.
"I know," I said. "Is there anyone with a grudge against you?"
"Oh certainly. I can't name anyone in particular. But I've been in a tough business for more than thirty years. I'm bound to have made someone angry."
"Angry enough to shoot your horses?"
"Well, if they were, why would they shoot those horses? The stable pony's worth maybe five hundred dollars. Neither of the other two horses showed much promise. Heroic Hope can't run again, but insurance covers it. If you wish to damage me, you shoot Hugger Mugger-no amount of insurance could replace him."
"Me either," I said. "Maybe they were chosen because their loss would not be damaging."
"That doesn't make any sense."
"True," I said. "If someone didn't want to damage you they could just not shoot the horses."
A good-looking woman with close-cropped hair and high cheekbones and blue-black skin came in pushing a tea wagon. There was coffee in a silver decanter and white china cups and a cream and sugar set that matched the decanter. She served us each coffee and departed. I added cream and two lumps of sugar. Clive took his black.
"So what kind of security did Jon Delroy do for you?" I said.
"Why do you ask?" Clive said.
"Because I don't know."
"And you find that sufficient reason?" Clive said.
"Admittedly, I'm a nosy guy," I said. "It's probably one of the reasons I do what I do. But that aside, doing what I do is simply a matter of looking for the truth under a rock. It's under some rock, but I don't usually know which one. So whenever I come to a rock, I try to turn it over."
"Doesn't that sometimes mean you discover things you didn't need to know? Or want to know?"
"Yes."
"But you do it anyway?"
"I don't know how else to go about it," I said.
Clive looked at me heavily. He drank some coffee. Outside the window some birds fluttered about. They seemed to be sparrows, but they were moving too quickly to reveal themselves to me.
"I have three daughters," he said. "Two of whom have inherited their mother's depravity."
"Penny being the exception?" I said.
"Yes. They have not only indulged their depravity as girls, they have married badly, and marriage has appeared to exacerbate the depravity."
Clive wasn't looking at me. He wasn't, as far as I could tell, looking at anything. His eyes seemed blankly focused on the middle distance.
"Depravity loves company," I said.
I wasn't sure that Clive heard me. He continued to sit silently, looking at nothing.
"Among Delroy's duties was keeping tabs on the girls," I said.
He was silent still, and then slowly his eyes refocused on me.
"And dealing with the trouble they got into, and their husbands got into," he said.
"Such as?"
Clive shook his head. Outside, the birds had gone away and at the window there was only the flutter of the curtains in the warm Georgia air. I put my empty coffee cup on the tray and stood up.
"Thanks for the coffee," I said.
"You understand," he said.
"I do," I said.

TWELVE

SINCE IT WASevening, and I wasn't being feted at the Clive estate, I had the chance to lie on the bed in my motel and talk on the phone with Susan Silverman, whom I missed.
"So far," I said, "only one sister has made an active attempt to seduce me."
"How disappointing," Susan said. "Are there many sisters?"
"Three."
"Maybe the other two are just waiting until they know you better."
"Probably," I said.
"I have never found seducing you to be much of a challenge," Susan said.
"I try not to be aloof," I said.
We were silent for a moment. The air-conditioning hummed in the dim room. Outside, in the dark night, thick with insects, the full weight of the Georgia summer sat heavily.
"Are you making any progress professionally?" Susan said after a time.
"I'm getting to know my employer and his family."
"And?"
"And I may be in a Tennessee Williams play. . . . The old man seems sort of above the fray. He's separated, got a girlfriend, looks better than George Hamilton, and appears to leave the day-to-day management of the business to his youngest daughter."
"What's she like?"
"I like her. She's smart and centered. She finds me amusing."
"So even if she weren't smart and centered . . ." Susan said.
"Actually, that's how I know she's smart and centered," I said.
Susan's laugh across the thousand miles was immediate and intimate and as much of home as I was ever likely to have. It made my throat hurt.
"What about the other sisters?" Susan said.
I told her what I knew.
"You have any comment on a woman married to a man who prefers little boys?" I said.
"It would probably be preferable if she were married to a man who preferred her."
"Wow," I said. "You shrinks know stuff."
"In my practice, I know what my patients tell me. I know nothing about Stonie and whatsisname."
"Cord."
"Cord," she said. "And there is no one-fits-all template for a woman married to a man who prefers boys-if what SueSue told you is true."
"SueSue says that Stonie is so sexually frustrated that she is a threat to every doorknob," I said.
"Maybe she is," Susan said. "Or maybe that's just SueSue's projection of how she herself would be."
"And Cord? You figure he married her to get cover?" I said.
"Maybe," Susan said. "Or maybe he married her because he loves her."
"I could not love thee half so much, loved I not small boys more?"
"Sexuality is a little complicated."
"I've heard that," I said. "What bothers me in all of this is that I've got a series of so-far inexplicable crimes, committed in the midst of this family full of, I don't even know the right word for it-dippy?-people. I mean, there ought to be a connection but there isn't, or at least I can't find it."
"You'll find it if it's there," Susan said. "But most families are full of dippiness. Perhaps you don't always find yourself so fully in the bosom of a client's family, and thus don't have it shoved in your face from such close range."
"Maybe. Do you think there's a connection?"
"I have no way to know," Susan said.
"Do you think a man who prefers boys, or a woman who is married to a man who prefers boys, would have a reason to kill some horses?"
"As I've said, mine is a retrospective profession, as is yours. We're much better at explaining why people did things than we are at predicting what they might do."
"Our business is generally after the fact," I said.
"Yes."
"You're not going to solve this for me, then."
"No. I'm not."
"And what about my sexual needs?"
"I could talk dirty on the phone."
"I think I'm too old for that to work anymore," I said.
"Then unless you're coming home soon, I guess you'll have to mend your fences with SueSue."
"And if I do?"
"I'll shoot her, and swear I was aiming at a horse."
"I thought you shrinks had too much self-control for jealousy," I said.
"Only during office hours."

THIRTEEN

IWAS JUSTfinished shaving when I got a call from Becker, the Lamarr sheriff's deputy.
"Got a horse shot over in Alton, in South Carolina. Thought I'd drive over and have a look. You want to ride along?"
"Yes."
"Pick you up in 'bout fifteen minutes."
I was standing in front of the motel by the lobby door when Becker pulled up in a black Ford Crown Victoria. There was a blue light sitting on the dashboard, and a long buggy whip antenna, but no police markings. When I got in, the car smelled of food. Becker was drinking coffee. On the seat beside him was a large brown paper bag.
"Got us some sausage biscuits," Becker said, "and coffee. Help yourself."
He pulled the car away from the motel and out onto the county road.
"What about granola?" I said.
"Have to go over to Atlanta for that," Becker said. "People in Columbia County don't eat granola and don't tolerate those who do."
I poured a little container of cream into a paper cup full of coffee and stirred in several sugars. I drank some, and fished out a large biscuit with a sausage patty in the middle.
"Okay," I said. "I'll make do."
"Figured you'd eat most things," Becker said.
"What about the horse shooting?"
"Stable over in Alton, Canterbury Farms, somebody snuck around their stable last night, shot a filly named Carolina Moon."
"Dead?"
"Don't know," Becker said. "Just picked it up off the wire. Got no jurisdiction, you know, over in South Carolina."
"Me either," I said.
"Hell, you got no jurisdiction anywhere," Becker said.
"It's very freeing," I said.
I drank some more coffee as the Georgia landscape gave way with no discernible change to the South Carolina landscape. I checked my arteries. Blood still seemed to be getting through, so I had another sausage biscuit.
I was experiencing a little of the separateness I always felt when I was away from Susan. It wasn't unreality exactly, it was more a sense that there was a large empty space around me. Even now, sitting in a squad car, maybe eighteen inches from another guy, there was a sense of crystalline isolation. It was not loneliness, nor did the feeling make me unhappy. It was simply a feeling different from any other, a feeling available only when I was away from Susan. I was alone.
"What do you know about the Clive family?" I said.
"Somebody been shooting their horses," Becker said.
"Besides that," I said. "Any of them had any problems with the law?"
"Clives are the most important family in the whole Columbia County," Becker said. "They don't have trouble with the law."
"Have they come to the attention of the law?" I said.
We were driving along a two-lane highway now. There were fields with farm equipment standing idle, and occasionally a Safeway market or a Burger King. Traffic was light. Becker kept his eyes on the road.
"You got a reason for asking?" he said.
"I'm practicing to be a detective," I said. "Plus the family seems to be full of people who would get in trouble."
" 'Cept for Penny."
"Except for her," I said.
"Old man's calmed down some, since Dolly came aboard."
"But before that?"
"Well. For a while he was married to the girls' mother. Don't remember her name right this minute. But she was a hippie."
"Lot of hippies around thirty years ago," I said.
"Yep, and that's when they got married. But times changed and she didn't. 'Bout ten years ago she ran off with a guy played in a rock band."
"So Penny would have been about fifteen."
"Yep. The other girls were a little older."
"They're two years apart," I said. "So they'd have been seventeen and nineteen."
"See that," Becker said. "You been detecting more than you pretend."
"I'm a modest guy," I said. "How was the divorce?"
"Don't know nothing about the divorce."
"Was there a divorce?"
"Don't know. Not my department."
"So what was Clive doing between the hippie and Dolly?"
"Everything he could," Becker said.
There was a two-wheeled horse-drawn piece of farm machinery inching along in our lane. I didn't know anything about farm machinery, but this looked as if it had something to do with hay. A black man in overalls and a felt hat was sitting up on the rig, though he didn't seem to be paying much attention. The horse appeared to be the one on duty. Becker slowed as we approached it and swerved carefully out to pass.
"Booze, women, that sort of thing?"
"A lot of both," Becker said.
"Ah, sweet bird of youth," I said.
Becker grinned without looking at me.
"You hang around those Clive girls, you might get younger yourself," he said.
"While Clive's living the male fantasy life," I said, "who's looking after the girls?"
"Don't know," Becker said.
"Is there anything in this for me?" I said. "Clive screw somebody's wife, and somebody wants to get even? He sleep with some woman and ditch her and she wants to get even?"
"I don't pay attention to shit like that," Becker said. "Do I look like Ann Landers?"
"You look sort of like Archie Moore," I said. "And you sound like a guy who knows things he's not saying."
"It's a special talent," Becker said.
"The real talent is sounding like you don't know anything you're not telling," I said.
"I can do that," Becker said.
"If you want to," I said.
Becker watched the road.
"So why don't you want to?"
We passed a sign that read, "Welcome to Alton."
"Because you want me to wonder."
Becker slowed and turned into a narrow dirt road that went under high pines, limbless the first thirty feet or so up. I remembered it from my last visit, eight years ago.
"You want me to look into them, but you don't want it to have come from you, because it could come back and bite you in the ass."
"Clives the most powerful family in Columbia County," Becker said, and turned off the dirt road into a wide clearing and parked near a white rail fence near the Canterbury Farms training track.

FOURTEEN

WE DIDN'T LEARNmuch in Alton. An Alton County Sheriff's detective named Felicia Boudreau was on the case. I knew her from eight years earlier, and Becker and I talked with her sitting in her car at the stable site.
Carolina Moon, she told us, had been a filly of modest promise. Her groom had found her dead in her stall when he went to feed her in the morning. She'd been shot once in the neck with a .22 long bullet, which had punctured her aorta, and the horse had bled to death.
"We have the bullet," Felicia said. "Vet took it out of the horse."
"We'd like to see if we can match it against ours," Becker said.
Felicia said, "Sure."
"Nothing else?" I said.
"Well, it's nice to see you again," she said.
"You too," I said. "Got any clues?"
"None."
"Lot of that going around," I said.
"What's it been, eight years?"
"Yep. Still getting your hair done in Batesburg?" I said.
"Yes, I am."
"Still looks great," I said.
"Yes, it does."
We talked with Frank Ferguson, who owned the horse. He didn't have any idea why someone would shoot his horse. I remembered him from the last time I was in Alton, but he didn't remember me. He had been smoking a meerschaum pipe when I talked with him eight years before. I thought of saying something about it, but decided it would be showing off, especially after my hair-done-in-Batesburg triumph.
We headed back toward Lamarr in the late afternoon with neither information nor lunch. I didn't mind about the lunch. The sausage biscuits from breakfast were still sticking to my ribs. In fact, I was considering the possibility that I might never have to eat again.
"That didn't help much," Becker said.
"No," I said, "just widened the focus a little."
We were heading west now and the afternoon sun was coming straight in at us. Becker put down his sun visor.
"Maybe it was supposed to," Becker said.
"So we wouldn't concentrate entirely on the Clives?" I said.
Becker shrugged.
"What is this, you give me an answer and I try to think up the question?"
Becker grinned, squinting into the sun.
"Like that game show," he said. "On TV."
"Swell," I said.
We kept driving straight into the sun. The landscape along the highway was red clay and pines and fields in which nothing much seemed to be growing.
"Okay, let me just expostulate for a while," I said. "You can nod or not as you wish."
"Expostulate?" Becker said.
"I'm sleeping with a Harvard grad," I said.
"The Emory of the North," Becker said.
"I have a series of crimes which, excepting only Carolina Moon," I said, "centers on a family made up of Pud, who's an alcoholic bully, and SueSue, who's an alcoholic sexpot, and Cord, who likes young boys, and Stonie, who, according to SueSue, is sexually frustrated. They are mothered by Hippie, who ran off with a guitar player while her daughters were in their teens, and Walter, who after Hippie ran off, consoled himself by bopping everything that would hold still long enough."
"And Penny," Becker said.
"Who seems to run the business."
"Pretty well too," Becker said.
"You know anything about any of these things?" I said.
"Heard Cord might be a chicken wrangler," Becker said.
"How about Stonie?"
Becker shrugged.
"SueSue?"
Shrug.
"How about good old Pud?" I said.
"Pud's pretty much drunk from noon on, every day," Becker said.
"Probably doesn't make for a good marriage."
"I ain't a social worker," Becker said. "I don't keep track of everybody's dick."
"Still, you knew about Cord."
"I am a police officer," he said.
"Okay, so Cord got in trouble."
Becker didn't comment. We pulled into the parking lot of my motel. Becker stopped by the front door. We sat for a moment in silence.
"These are important people, probably the most important people in Columbia County," Becker said. "Walter Clive is a personal friend of the sheriff of Columbia County, who I work for."
"You mentioned that," I said.
"So I don't want you going down to the Bath House Bar and Grill and nosing around there, asking questions about Cord Wyatt."
"I can see why you wouldn't," I said. "That the gay scene in Lamarr?"
"Such as it is," Becker said. "Tedy Sapp, bouncer down there, used to be a deputy of mine, spells it with one d in Tedy, and two p 's in Sapp. When you don't go down there like I told you not to, I don't want you talking to him or mentioning my name."
"Sure," I said. "Stay away from the Bath House Bar and Grill, and don't talk to Sapp the bouncer. Where is it located so I can be sure not to go near it?"
"Mechanic Street."
"I'll be careful," I said.
We sat for a while longer in silence.
"The family is peculiar," I said.
"And the horse shooting is peculiar," Becker said.
"What does this suggest?" I said.
"Can't imagine," Becker said.

FIFTEEN

THEBATHHOUSEBar and Grill had a Bud Light sign in its front window with a neon tube image of Spuds McKenzie looking raffish and thirsty. The room was air-conditioned. There was a bar the length of the room across the back. There were tables in front of the bar. Along the right wall there was a small dance floor, with a raised platform for live performances. At the moment the music, Bette Midler singing something I didn't recognize, was from a big old-fashioned Wurlitzer jukebox next to the door. Behind the bar was a chalkboard with the night's by-the-glass wine selections, and a list of bar food specials. In the late afternoon, the bar was about half occupied and there were people at several of the tables. It was like any other place where people went to avoid being alone, except that all the customers were men.
The bartender had a crew cut and a mustache and a tan. He was wearing a dark green polo shirt and chino pants. I ordered a draft beer.
"Tedy around?" I said.
"Tedy?"
"Tedy Sapp," I said.
"Table over there." The bartender nodded. "With the muscles."
Tedy was wearing the Bath House uniform-green polo shirt, chino pants, and a tan. His hair was colored the aggressively artificial blond color that musicians and ballplayers were affecting that year. It was cut very short. He was a flagrant bodybuilder. About my size, and probably about my weight. He was chiseled and cut and buffed like a piece of statuary. I picked up my beer.
"That'll be three and a quarter," the bartender said.
I put a five on the bar and carried my beer over to Tedy's table. He looked up, moving his eyes without moving his head. He had the easy manner of someone who was confident that he could knock you on your ass. He had a cup of coffee in front of him on the table, and a copy of the Atlanta Constitution was folded next to it.
"My name's Spenser," I said. "Dalton Becker mentioned you to me."
"Becker's a good guy," Sapp said.
His voice carried a whisper of hoarseness. He gestured at an empty chair, and I sat down.
"You used to work for Becker," I said.
"Used to work for Becker," he said. "Deputy sheriff. 'Fore that I was in the Army-airborne. Lifted weights. Karate. Married. Trying as hard as I could to be straight."
"And you weren't," I said.
"Nope. Wasn't, am not now. Doesn't look like I'm gonna be."
"And now you're not trying," I said.
"Nope. Got divorced, quit the cops."
"Becker fire you when you came out?"
"Nope. I coulda stayed on. I wanted to quit."
"Still pumping a little iron, though," I said.
"That works gay or straight," Sapp said.
"And now you're here?"
"Yep. Four to midnight six days a week."
"Hard work?" I said.
"No. Now and then a couple queens get into a hissy-fit fight, scratching and kicking, and I have to settle them down. But mostly I'm here so that a few good old boys won't get drunk and come in here to bash some fairies."
"That happen very often?" I said.
"Not as often as it used to," Sapp said.
"Because you're here."
"Yep."
"Most people don't anticipate a tough fairy," I said.
Sapp grinned. "You look like you might have swapped a couple punches in your life."
"You ever lose?" I said.
"What? A fight? In here? Naw."
"That why you quit the cops?" I said. "So you could work here?"
"Yep."
"So you could protect the people who come here?"
Sapp shrugged.
"Lot of gay guys never really learned how to fight," he said.
"Most straight guys too," I said.
Sapp nodded.
"Well, I know how," Sapp said. "And I figured I could maybe serve and protect . . ." He stopped and thought about how he wanted to say it. "With a little more focus, down here, than I could working out of the Columbia County Sheriff's substation."
I sipped some of my beer. He drank some coffee.
"What do you do?" Sapp said. "I know you're carrying a piece."
"Alert," I said. "Detective. Private. From Boston."
"I figured you wasn't from down heah in the old Confederacy," Sapp said.
"Lawzy me, no," I said.
My instinct told me I could level with Sapp. My instinct has been wrong before, but I decided to trust it this time.
"I'm down here working for Walter Clive," I said, "trying to find out who's been shooting his horses."
"Horses?"
"Yep, apparently at random, several of them. He's worried now about a two-year-old named Hugger Mugger, who's supposed to be on his way to the Triple Crown."
"And after that a lifetime of stud fees," Sapp said.
Without being asked, the bartender came over with coffee for Sapp and a beer for me. He put them down, picked up the empties, and went away.
"So why come talking to me?" Sapp said.
"You know the Clive family?"
"Un-huh. Everybody in Columbia County knows the Clives."
"I'm interested in the son-in-law, Cord Wyatt."
Sapp didn't say anything. He put sugar in his coffee, added some cream, and stirred slowly.
"I am told he is interested in young boys," I said.
Sapp stirred his coffee some more. I suspected he was consulting with his instincts.
"So what if he was?" Sapp said.
"I'm told he acts out that interest."
"And?"
"I think adults have no business scoring children, but that's not the point."
"What is the point?"
"The family is strange," I said. "The crime is strange. Does that mean the crime comes from the family? I don't know. I'm trying to find out."
Sapp drank some more coffee. He nodded.
"I see how you're thinking," he said. "I was a cop once."
"Me too," I said.
"Why'd you quit?"
"I got fired. Disobedience."
"I'll bet you're pretty good at disobedience," Sapp said.
"One of my best things," I said.
I drank some more beer. Sapp drank some more coffee. The jukebox played a song I'd never heard before, sung by a woman I didn't know. The lyrics had something to do with a barroom in Texas. Two guys got up and slow-danced to it on the dance floor.
"I know Wyatt," Sapp said.
"He come in here?"
"Not very much," Sapp said. "I do some counseling too, on, ah, gender identity issues."
"Wyatt came to you?"
"Yeah."
"What can you tell me?"
"Anything I want. I'm not licensed or anything. I know something about gender identity issues. I just talk to people."
"What do you want to tell me about Wyatt?" I said.
"He's fighting it," Sapp said. "Something I know a little about. He wants to be straight and rich and have nice teeth."
"Man's reach must exceed his grasp. . . ." I said.
"So he sits on the feelings and sits on them and finally he can't sit on them anymore and he goes off the wagon, so to speak."
"Kids?" I said.
Sapp nodded.
"Prostitutes mostly," Sapp said. "In Augusta."
"He ever get in trouble about it?"
"Yeah. Augusta Vice got him in a street sweep once, Clive got him off. He moved on a kid here in Lamarr once. Kid's mother called the cops."
"Clive get it buried?" I said.
"Yep."
"Money?"
"And fear. Delroy does it for him."
"I don't see Becker taking a bribe."
"Nope, but his boss will."
"Delroy the bagman?"
"Yep."
"What about the fear?"
"Delroy offers money to the kid's family. They don't take it, he tells them that something bad will happen to the kid."
"Wyatt tell you this?" I said.
"No."
"You talked with the kid," I said.
"Couple years afterwards," he said.
"He came to you?"
"Yeah," Sapp said. "He was afraid he was gay. I told him I thought he'd been exploited by Wyatt. I told him if anyone threatened him again he was to come right straight to me and we'd see about it."
"Anyone threaten him again?"
"No."
"Is he gay?" I said.
"I don't think so," Sapp said.
"You tell him that?"
"I'm not looking for converts," Sapp said. "I told him it's not important to be straight or gay. It's important to be what you are."
"Like you," I said.
Sapp grinned at me.
"I'm queer, and I'm here," he said.
"Know anything else about the Clive family that would interest me?" I said.
"Not much. I got a friend might be able to help you out, though. She's done some business with the other son-in-law. Whatsisname, Pud."
"How's she know Pud?" I said.
"She's a madame."
"In Lamarr?"
"In Lamarr."
"And how does she know you?"
"She's a member of the gay community," Sapp said.

SIXTEEN

THE HOUSE SATon a nice lawn behind a white fence, on a wide tree-lined street where other houses sat on nice lawns behind white fences. All the houses dated from before the Civil War and, had they been a little grander, would have thus qualified as antebellum mansions. I parked in the driveway and walked up to the front door and rang the bell. The yard smelled richly of flowers. In a minute the door was opened by a smallish woman in jeans and a white shirt. She wore no shoes. Her toenails were painted dark maroon. Her gray-blond hair was twisted into a single long braid that reached nearly to her waist.
I said, "Polly Brown?"
"Yes."
"My name is Spenser. Tedy Sapp sent me over."
"Tedy called me," she said.
She stepped out onto the porch and closed the door behind her.
"We can sit on the veranda," she said. "It's such a pleasant night."
We sat in a couple of rocking chairs and looked out across the dark lawn at the quiet street. There was a good breeze blowing past us and it must have discouraged the bugs, because there weren't any.
"This is not a whorehouse," Polly Brown said. "I run an escort service. My girls come to you."
"I'm not here for that," I said.
"I know why you're here, I was just clarifying my situation. The 'you' was generalized."
"Of course it was," I said. "You don't sound southern."
"I'm from Cincinnati," she said. "Went to college and everything."
"How'd you end up here?"
"I have no idea," she said.
We were quiet again, rocking in the near darkness.
"So what would you like to know about Pud Potter?" she said.
"I gather he availed himself of your services."
"Often," she said.
"But not here."
"I told you."
"Yes, you did, so where?"
"Where would I send the girl?"
"Yes. I assume it wasn't to his house."
"Oh, wouldn't that be smart," she said. " 'Hello, Mrs. Potter, I'm here to fuck your husband.' "
"So where?" I said.
"He keeps a room and bath in town. Just off the square."
"Glad to hear there's a bath," I said.
"So what's the problem?" Polly said.
"My question exactly," I said. "He ever cause trouble or anything?"
"Pud? Hell no, he's a sweetheart. Lotta the girls liked him because he'd be too drunk to actually do anything and they'd get paid anyways."
"How about the law?" I said. "He ever have any trouble there?"
"Nope. I run a clean operation, pay my dues, the law leaves me alone."
"Including Becker?"
"The black deputy-in-charge?"
"Un-huh."
"I have no problem with him."
"You pay him off?"
"No."
"Operation like this pays off somebody," I said.
She rocked a little and didn't say anything. She was small enough so that her feet only touched the floor when she rocked forward.
"But not Becker," she said.
"Know a guy named Delroy?"
"Maybe. What's he do?"
"Private security," I said. "On behalf of Pud's father-in-law."
"Yes. I know him."
A silver Volvo station wagon went slowly past us on the empty street, its headlights bright and silent.
"Tell me about him?"
"One of the girls tried to supplement her income," Polly said, "by putting the squeeze on Pud."
"Threaten to tell his wife?"
"Worse. She rigged a Polaroid and got some pictures during the gig."
"Which she threatened to show his wife."
"And everybody else, I believe."
"And?"
"And Delroy came down and explained the facts of life to her."
"Which were?"
"I never asked."
"Can I talk with her?"
Polly shrugged.
"If you can find her," she said. "Name's Jane Munroe."
"You know where I should look?"
"No."
"She doesn't work for you anymore?"
"No. I fired her before Delroy even talked to her."
"He talk to you first?"
"Yes. He suggested I fire her, but I would have anyway. Nothing kills a good client list like some whore threatening to blab."
"Is Jane still in town?"
"I'm not their mother," Polly said. "I manage their professional lives. I have no idea where Jane Munroe is, or if she's still using the name."
"Was Delroy polite?"
"Very businesslike," she said.
"He threaten you?"
"Didn't need to. As soon as I heard about the scam, I told him she'd be fired."
A big yellow cat appeared and rubbed up against my leg. I reached down and scratched his ear. He stayed for a moment, then left me and jumped up onto the porch railing and sat looking out over the dark lawn.
"There anything else?"
"Like what?"
"Like something about the Clive family that I'd like to know, but am too dumb to ask?"
"Tedy said I could trust you," she said.
"Tedy's right," I said.
"How do you know Tedy? You gay?"
"I'm straight. I met him this afternoon, the way I've met you tonight."
"I haven't had a lot of reason to trust straight men," she said.
"You used to turn tricks?" I said.
"Sure. You think I bought a franchise?"
"Just being polite," I said.
"A bunch of fat guys with hair on their back," she said. "Usually drunk, telling me they loved me. Telling me that they were going to give me the fuck of my life."
She laughed. It was a very unpleasant sound in the soft Georgia night. The yellow cat turned his head and looked at her without emotion.
I waited.
"What a hoot!" she said.
"You're a lesbian," I said.
"How'd you know?"
"I'm a professional detective," I said.
"Sapp told you."
"Yes, but I questioned him closely."
"Lot of the girls are lesbians," she said.
"What's love got to do with it," I said.
"Exactly," she said.
The yellow cat turned his head back toward the dark lawn, then silently disappeared off the railing. There was a scurrying in the bushes and a small squeak and then silence. I waited some more.
"Sapp's a good man," Polly said.
"Seems so to me," I said.
"You was smarter," Polly said, "maybe you'd ask me about Stonie Clive."
"Cord Wyatt's wife?"
"Yes."
"Tell me about her," I said.
"She worked for me for a while."
"When?"
"Two years ago."
"You know who she was?"
"Not at the time."
"How'd you recruit her?"
"She came to me. Said she'd heard about me. She said she had always wanted to do this kind of work and could I take her on? She was a nice-looking girl. Upperclass. I figured she'd do well."
"So she actually worked."
"Yes. But here's the cool part. I service a truck stop on the Interstate, up by Crawfordville. Normally I send the worst girls up there. Mostly it's head in the cab of some ten-wheeler at twenty bucks a throw. Stonie wanted that."
"BJ's at a truck stop?" I said.
"If you don't waste a lot of time talking," Polly said, "you can make a pretty good night's pay."
"Why would she need money?" I said.
A little light spilled out onto the veranda through the screen door. It was enough so that I could see her shrug.
"She's not still with you?" I said.
"No. Left about six, eight months ago."
"With no notice?"
Polly almost smiled.
"Nope, just stopped showing up. Lot of girls do that."
"How'd you find out who she was?"
"Saw her picture in the paper, some big racetrack thing."
"You're sure it was Stonie?"
"I know my girls," Polly said.
"She ever say why she wanted to do this?"
"Nope."
"You have any theories?" I said.
She rocked some more.
"Most of the girls it's simple. They got no education. They got no skills. They need money. So they do this. Some girls do it because they get something out of exploiting men."
"The men are often thought to be exploiting them," I said.
"Uh-huh."
I could tell that Polly had her own position on exploitation.
"Some girls just like it," she said.
"Truck stops at twenty bucks a . . . pop?"
"Not usually. But everybody's different."
"You think Stonie liked it?"
"No."
"It wasn't the money," I said.
"I don't think it was the money," Polly said.
"Exploit men?"
"Maybe a little of that," Polly said. "But . . ."
She rocked for a time, thinking about it.
"You know her husband's a chicken fucker?"
"I know," I said.
"I think she was getting even," Polly said.

SEVENTEEN

"SO WHAT DOyou think?" I said.
I was lying in my shorts on the bed in the Holiday Inn in Lamarr, Georgia, talking on the phone to Susan in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She said she was in bed. Which meant that she had her hair up, and some sort of expensive glop on her face. The TV would be on, though she would have muted it when the phone rang. Almost certainly, Pearl was asleep beside her on the bed.
"I think you're trapped inside the first draft of a Tennessee Williams play."
"Without you," I said.
"I know."
"You're in bed?" I said.
"Yes."
"Naked?"
"Not exactly."
"White socks, gray sweatpants, a white T-shirt with a picture of Einstein on it?"
"You remember," she said.
"Naked makes for better phone sex," I said.
"Pretense is a slippery slope," she said.
Her voice was quite light, and not very strong, but when she was amused there were hints of a contralto substructure that enriched everything she said.
"Don't you shrinks ever take a break?" I said.
"So many fruitcakes," Susan said, "so little time."
"How true," I said. "What do you think of Polly Brown's theory that Stonie goes to truck stops to avenge herself on her husband?"
"It would be better if I had a chance to talk with her," Susan said.
"I'll be your eyes and ears," I said.
"Have you talked with her?"
"Once, at a cocktail party, for maybe a minute."
"Oh, that'll be fine then," Susan said. "No therapist could ask for more."
"Gimme a guess," I said.
"Her husband is actively gay, with a special interest in young men," Susan said.
"Yes."
"Would you say that she would experience that as him having sex in the most inappropriate way possible?"
"Yes."
"And is that what she's doing?"
"Seems so. So it is revenge?"
"Could be. Tit for tat. People often are very crude in their pathologies."
"Like me," I said. "I keep pretending you're naked on the bed."
"On the other hand, it may be more subtle than that. She may be simply enacting her condition."
"Her condition is smoking the cannoli in a parking lot?"
"It's good to know that you haven't lost that keen edge of your sophistication. Perhaps her activities in the parking lot are, at least symbolically, how she experiences herself."
"Because of her husband?"
"Not only her husband," Susan said. "You said her father got her husband out of a couple of boy-love jams."
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Appearances," I said. "Save the family from scandal."
"So he knows her marriage is probably a sham. Other than covering up for the husband, does he do anything about it?"
"Not that I can see."
"So as far as we can tell, her father and husband don't value her beyond whatever ornamental use they put her to."
"I get it," I said.
"I knew you would," Susan said.
"There's another thing bothering me," I said. "The shooting of the horse over in Alton."
"Why does that bother you?"
"Becker and I speculate that it might be to distract me," I said. "And that's a reasonable speculation."
"But?"
"But if it's the work of some kind of serial psychopath, which is what it seems like, then distracting me would seem to be too rational an act."
"Possibly," Susan said.
"I mean, the compulsion isn't about me."
"You may have been added to what it is about," Susan said.
"Or maybe it's not a compulsion," I said.
"Are you just casting about, or have you any other reason to think it's something else?"
"Well, what kind of compulsion is this? A compulsion to shoot horses, with no concern for the result?"
"No way to know," Susan said. "Compulsions are consistent only to their own logic."
"Well, I remain skeptical."
"As well you should."
"Thank you, Doctor."
"Will that be Visa or MasterCard?" Susan said.
"I'll recompense you in full," I said, "when I get home."
"Soon?"
"I have no idea."
"It's annoying, isn't it," Susan said, "to have our life scheduled by the pathology of someone we can't even identify."
"You should know," I said.
"Yes," she said. "Sometimes I think we're doing the same work."
"Do you think that absence makes the heart grow fonder?"
"No. I'm already as fond as I'm capable of being," Susan said. "Makes me miss you, though."
"Yes," I said. "I feel the same way."
"Good," Susan said. "And stay away from the truck stops."

EIGHTEEN

THE HORSE SHOOTERupped the ante on a rainy Sunday night by shooting Walter Clive dead in the exercise area of Three Fillies Stables. I was there at daylight, with Becker and a bunch of Columbia County crime scene deputies.
"Exercise rider found him this morning when she came into work," Becker said. "Right there where you see him."
Where I saw him was facedown in the middle of the open paddock in front of the stables, under a tree, with the rain soaking the crime scene. Someone had rigged a polyethylene canopy over the body and the immediate crime scene, in hopes of preserving any evidence that was left.
"Where is she now?"
"In the stable office," Becker said. "I got one woman deputy, and she's in there with her."
"Will I be able to talk to her?"
"Sure."
I stepped to the body and squatted down beside it. Clive was in a white shirt and gray linen slacks. There were loafers on his feet, without socks. His silver hair was soaked and plastered to his skull. There was no sign of a wound.
"In the forehead, just above the right eyebrow," Becker said. "Photo guys are already done-you want to see?"
"Yes."
Becker had on thin plastic crime scene gloves. He reached down and turned Clive's head. There was a small black hole above his eyebrow, the flesh around it a little puffy and discolored from the entry of the slug.
"No exit wound," I said.
"That's right."
"Small caliber," I said.
"Looks like a .22 to me."
"Yes."
"Figure he caught the horse shooter in the act?" Becker said.
"Be the logical conclusion," I said.
"Yep. It would."
"Where was Security South during all this?" I said. "Busy polishing their belt buckles?"
"Security guy was in with the horse," Becker said.
"Hugger Mugger."
"Yeah. When I say the horse, that's who I mean. He heard the shot, and came out, ah, carefully, and looked around and didn't see anything, and went back inside with the horse."
"It was raining," I said.
"All night."
"How far out you figure he came?"
"His uni was dry when I talked to him," Becker said.
"No wrinkles?"
"Nope."
"Probably didn't want to be lured away from the horse."
"Hugger Mugger," Becker said.
I looked at him. He was expressionless.
"Of course Hugger Mugger," I said. "What other horse are we talking about?"
Becker grinned.
"So nobody sees anything. Nobody but the guard hears anything," Becker said. "We're looking for footprints, but it's been raining hard since yesterday afternoon."
"Crime scene isn't going to give you much," I said.
"You Yankees are so pessimistic."
"Puritan heritage," I said. "The family's been told?"
"Yep. Told them myself."
"How were they?"
"Usual shock and dismay," Becker said.
"Anything unusual?"
Becker shook his head.
"You been a cop," he said. "You've had to tell people that somebody's been murdered, what would be unusual?"
"You're right," I said. "I've seen every reaction there is. Delroy been around?"
"Not yet," Becker said.
We were quiet for a while, standing in the rain, partly sheltered by the tree, looking at how dead Walter Clive was.
"Why'd you call me?" I said.
"Two heads are better than one," Becker said.
"Depends on the heads," I said.
"In this case yours and mine," Becker said. "You been a big-city cop, you might know something."
I nodded.
"Between us," Becker said, "we might figure something out."
I nodded some more. The rain kept coming. Walter Clive kept lying there. Behind us a van with Columbia County Medical Examiner lettered on the side pulled up and two guys in raincoats got out and opened up the back.
"Here's what I think," I said. "I think that you are smelling a big rat here, and the rat is somewhere in the Clive family, and they are too important and too connected for a deputy sheriff to take on directly."
"They're awful important," Becker said.
"So you're using me as a surrogate. Let me take them on. You feed me just enough to keep me looking, but not enough to get you in trouble. If I come up with something, you can take credit for it after I've gone back to Boston. If I get my ass handed to me, you can shake your head sadly and remark what a shame it was that I'm nosy."
"Man do that would be a devious man," Becker said.
"Sho' 'nuff," I said.

NINETEEN

IT WAS STILLraining when they buried Walter Clive's cremated ashes. It had rained all week. After the funeral, people straggled into the Clives' house and stood under a canopy in the backyard looking glum and uncomfortable as they ordered drinks. I was there, having nowhere else to be, and I watched as people began to get drunk and talk about how Walter would have wanted everyone to have a good time at his funeral. People began to look less glum. Just the way old Walt would have wanted it. Penny was running things. She was sad and contained and doing fine. Jon Delroy was there in a dark suit. The family lawyer was there, a guy named Vallone, who looked like Colonel Sanders. Pud and SueSue, still sober, stood with Stonie and Cord. They were dressed just right for a funeral. Everyone was dressed just right for a funeral, except one woman who wore an ankle-length cotton dress with yellow flowers on it. Her hair was gray-blond and hung straight to her waist. She wore huge sunglasses and sandals. Penny brought her over.
"This is my mother," she said, "Sherry Lark."
"It was nice of you to come," I said, to be saying something.
"Oh, it's not Walter. It's my girls. In crisis girls need their mother."
I could see Penny wrinkle her nose. I nodded.
"Yes," I said.
"Walter was lost to me an eternity past, but the girls are part of my soul."
"Of course," I said. "Have you remarried?"
"No. I don't think marriage is a natural thing for people."
She was drinking what looked like bourbon on the rocks. Which was probably a natural thing for people.
"So is Lark your, ah, birth name?"
"No. It's my chosen name. When I left Walter I didn't want to keep his name. And I didn't want to return to my father's name, about which I had no choice when I was born."
"I had the same problem," I said. "They just stuck me with my father's name."
She paid no attention to me. She was obviously comfortable talking about herself.
"So I took a name that symbolizes the life I was seeking, the soaring airborne freedom of a lark."
She drank some bourbon. I nodded and smiled.
"I relate to that," I said. "I'm thinking of changing my name to Eighty-second Airborne."
She didn't respond. She was one of those people that, if you say something they don't understand, they pretend you haven't spoken.
"Come along, Mother," Penny said. "You really must say hello to Senator Thompson."
Penny gave me a look over her shoulder as she moved her mother away. I smiled neutrally. I had a beer because I was sure that's how old Walt would have wanted it. I took a small swallow. A black woman in a little maid's suit passed a tray of stuffed mushrooms. I declined. Smoked salmon with endive and a dab of crème fraîche came by. I declined it too. The governor of Georgia came in. He went straight to Dolly, the bereaved mistress, and took her hand in both of his. They spoke briefly. He kissed her cheek. She gestured toward her son, and Jason and the governor shook hands. Dolly's face was pale beneath her perfect makeup, and the attractive smile lines around her mouth were deeper than I remembered.
The rain drummed steadily on the canvas canopy roof, and dripped off the edges in a steady drizzle. Dutch, the family Dalmatian, made his way through the crowd, alert for stuffed mushrooms, and found me and remembered me and wagged his tail. I snagged a little crab cake from the passing tray and handed it to Dutch. He took it from me, gently, and swallowed it whole. I watched Stonie and Cord. They stood together, looking very good, and taking condolences gravely. But when they weren't talking to someone, they didn't talk to each other. It was as if they had been accidentally placed together in a receiving line, one not knowing the other. Pud and SueSue were also receiving condolences. But they were less grave. In fact they were now drunk. Pud's face was very red. He was sweating. He and SueSue appeared to be arguing between condolences, although SueSue's laughter erupted regularly while she was being condoled. There was a smell of honeysuckle under the canopy and a faint smell of food coming from the kitchen as the hors d'oeuvres were prepared. Dutch sat patiently in front of me and waited for another hors d'oeuvre. I gave him a rye crisp with beef tenderloin on it, and horseradish. He took that in as quickly as he had the crab cake, though he snorted a little at the horseradish.
"You'd eat a dead crow in the street," I said to him. "And you're snorting at horseradish."
He pricked his ears a little at me, and waited. Penny came back alone. She was carrying a glass of white wine, though as far as I could tell, she hadn't drunk any.
"I apologize for my mother."
"No need," I said.
Penny laughed.
"The last hippie," she said.
"How are she and Dolly together?" I said.
"We try to see that they're not together," Penny said.
"Was Dolly in your father's life when Sherry was around?"
"I think so," she said. "Why do you ask?"
"Occupational habit," I said.
"I think it's not appropriate right now," Penny said.
"Of course it isn't."
"Could you come see me tomorrow, stable office, around ten?"
"Sure," I said.
Penny smiled to let me know that she wasn't mad, and moved over to a foursome who stood in the doorway looking for the bar. The women were wearing big hats. She kissed all of them and walked with them to the bar. Lightning rippled across the sky over the Clive house and in a few moments thunder followed. A small wind began to stir, and it seemed colder. More lightning. The thunder followed more closely now. Some dogs are afraid of thunder. Dutch wasn't. He was far too single-minded. He nudged my hand. There were no hors d'oeuvres being passed. I took a few peanuts off the bar and fed him. I looked at the crowd, now drunk and happy. It would have been the perfect moment to call for silence and announce that I had solved the case. Except that I hadn't solved the case. So far since I'd been here I hadn't caught the horse shooter, and the guy who hired me had been murdered. I didn't have a clue who was shooting the horses, and I had absolutely no idea who had shot Walter Clive.
Spenser, ace detective.

TWENTY

"ILIKE YOU," Penny said. "And I think you're a smart man."
"I haven't proved it so far," I said.
"You've done your best. How can you figure out the mind of a madman."
"You think all this is the work of a madman?"
"Of course, don't you?"
"Just that occupational knee jerk," I said. "Somebody says something, I ask a question."
"I understand," she said.
We were sitting in the stable office. It was still drizzling outside. The crime scene tape was gone. There was no sign that Walter Clive had died there. The horses were all in their stalls, looking out now and then, but discouraged by the sporadic rain.
"With Daddy's death," Penny said, "I have the responsibility of running things, and I don't know how it's going to go. Daddy ran so much of this business out of his hip pocket. Handshakes, personal phone calls, promises made over martinis. I don't know how long it will take me to get control of it all and see where I am."
"And you have your sisters to support," I said.
"Their husbands do that," Penny said.
"And who supports the husbands?"
She dipped her head in acknowledgment.
"I guess they didn't just get their jobs through the help-wanted ads, did they," she said.
"And I'll bet they couldn't get comparable pay somewhere else," I said.
"That's unkind," Penny said.
"But true," I said.
She smiled.
"But true."
I waited.
"Look at me sitting at Daddy's desk, in Daddy's office. I feel like a little girl that's snuck in where I shouldn't be."
"You're where you should be," I said.
"Thank you."
We sat.
"This is hard," Penny said.
I didn't know what "this" was. Penny paused and took in a long breath.
"I'm going to have to let you go," she said.
I nodded.
"I don't want any but the most necessary expenses. The investigation is in the hands of the police now, and with my father's death, they are fully engaged."
"I saw the governor at the wake," I said.
"When it was just some horses, and not terribly valuable ones at that," Penny said, "no one was working that hard on it. Now that Daddy's been killed . . ."
"It has their attention," I said. "I can stick around pro bono for a while."
"I couldn't ask you to do that."
"It's not just for you," I said. "I don't like having a client shot out from under me."
"I know, but no. I thank you for what you've done, and for being so decent a man. But I'd prefer that you left this to the police."
"Okay," I said.
"Please send me your final bill," she said.
"Against the private eye rules," I said. "Your client gets shot, you don't bill his estate."
"It's not your fault," she said. "I want a final bill."
"Sure," I said.
"You're not going to send one, are you."
"No."
I stood. She stood.
"You're a lovely man," she said. "Would you like to say goodbye to Hugger?"
I had no feelings one way or another about Hugger, but horse people are like that and she'd just called me a lovely man.
"Sure," I said.
"Give him a carrot," she said, and handed me one.
We walked in the now more insistent rain along the stable row until we came to Hugger's stall. He looked out, keeping his head stall side of the drip line, his big dark eyes looking, I suspected, far more profound than he was. I handed him a carrot on my open palm, and he lipped it in. I patted his nose and turned and Penny stood on her tiptoes and put her arms around my neck and gave me a kiss on the lips.
"Take care of yourself," she said.
"You too," I said.
The kiss was sisterly, with no heat in it, but she stayed leaning against me, with her arms still around my neck, and her head thrown back so she could look up at me.
"I'm sorry things didn't work out," she said.
"Me too," I said.
We stayed that way for a minute. Then she let go of me and stepped back and looked at me for another moment and turned and walked back to the stable office. I watched her go, and then turned the collar of my jacket up to keep the rain off my neck and headed for my car.

TWENTY-ONE

IARRIVED BACKin Boston around three-thirty. By quarter to five I was in Susan's living room, showered and shaved and aromatic with aftershave, waiting for her when she got through work. I was sitting on the couch with Pearl, having a drink, when Susan came upstairs from her last patient.
She saw me, and smiled, and said hello, and patted Pearl and gave her a kiss, and walked past us into her bedroom. I could hear the shower, and in about fifteen minutes, Susan reappeared wearing a bath towel. She flipped the towel open and shut, like a flasher.
"Y'all want to get on in heah, Georgia boy?"
"That's the worst southern accent I've ever heard," I said.
"I know," she said, "but everything else will be pretty good."
"How could you be so sure I'd be responsive?" I said. "Maybe I'm tired from the long drive."
"I'm a psychotherapist," Susan said. "I know these things."
"Amazing."
When we made love, Susan liked to do the same things every time, which was less boring than it sounds, because it included about everything either of us knew how to do. She was also quite intense about it. Sometimes she was so fully in the moment that she seemed to have gone to a place I'd never been. Sometimes it took her several minutes, when we were through, to resurface.
As usual, when she had come back sufficiently, she got up and opened the bedroom door. Pearl came in and jumped on the bed and snuffled around, as if she suspected what might have happened here, and disapproved.
There was the usual jockeying for position before we finally got Pearl out from between us. She settled, as she always did, with a noise that suggested resignation, near the foot of the bed, and curled up and lay still, only her eyes moving as she watched Susan and me reintegrate our snuggle.
"Postcoital languor is more difficult with Pearl," Susan said.
"But not impossible," I said.
"Nothing's impossible for us."
I looked at the familiar form of the crown molding along the edge of Susan's bedroom ceiling. On the dresser was a big color photograph of Susan and me, taken fifteen years ago on a balcony in Paris, not long after she had come back from wherever the hell she had been. We looked pretty happy.
"We were pretty happy in that picture," I said.
"We had reason to be."
"Yes."
"We still do."
"Yes."
"Would you be happier now if Mr. Clive hadn't been killed in Georgia?"
"Yes."
"Even though you were not responsible for him getting killed, nor could you have been expected to prevent it?"
"Yes."
"Send not therefore asking for whom the bell tolls," Susan said.
"Well, sometimes," I said, "it actually does toll for thee."
"I know."
"On the other hand," I said, "we do what we can, not what we ought to."
"I know."
"And you can't win 'em all," I said.
"True."
"And all that glitters is not gold," I said.
"And a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush," Susan said.
"I always thought that saying was sort of backwards," I said.
I couldn't see her face: it was too close to my neck. But I could feel her smile.
"Well-bred Jewesses from Swampscott, Massachusetts," she said, "do not lie naked in bed and talk about bushes."
"Where did you go wrong?" I said.
"I don't know, but isn't it good that I did?"
At the foot of the bed, Pearl lapped one of her forepaws noisily. Susan rubbed my chest lightly with her right hand.
"Is there anything you can do to clean that up in Georgia?" she said.
"No one wants me to," I said.
"When has that ever made a difference to you?" Susan said.
"I have no client," I said. "No standing in the case."
"You think it was the person shooting the horses?"
"Reasonable guess," I said. "I had no clue who was doing that, and no clue really about where to go next."
"And?"
"And," I said, "I've been away from you about as long as I can stand."
"Good."
"So I'm going to put this one in the loss column and start thinking about the next game."
"Wise," Susan said.
"After all," I said, "a bush in the hand . . ."
"Never mind," Susan said.

TWENTY-TWO

IT WASMONDAYmorning, bright, still early June and not very hot. I was in my office, drinking coffee and reading the paper while I waited for business. I'd drunk my allotment of coffee, and read the paper, and put it away before any showed up, but when it came it was interesting. A woman came into my office, briskly, as if offices were designed for her to walk into. I began to stand up. She indicated there was no need to, but by that time I was on my feet anyway.
"I'm Valerie Hatch," she said, and put out her hand. "You're Spenser."
"Right on both counts," I said, and shook her hand.
"Owen Brooks suggested I might speak to you about my situation. You know Owen?"
"Yes."
Owen Brooks was, improbably, the district attorney of Suffolk County. He was black, Harvard-educated, smart, humorous, pleasant, tolerant, and tougher than a Kevlar gumdrop. In a political office, he seemed primarily concerned with the successful prosecution of criminals.
"He said this was a circumstance that might best be dealt with informally, that is to say, by someone like yourself."
"Then it will have to be myself," I said. "There's no one else like me."
"Owen also told me that you found yourself amusing."
"How do you know Owen?" I said.
"I am a litigator at a major law firm in this city-which one is not germane to my reason for being here."
"Sure," I said. "What is your reason?"
"I am a single mother," she said. "And a woman with a career. To balance those two responsibilities I employ a nanny."
"That's what I'd do," I said.
She paid no attention to me. I didn't feel bad. I was pretty sure she didn't pay much attention to anyone, engrossed as she was with being a single mother and a woman with a career.
"Kate is a lovely girl," Valerie said, "but she has made some unwise choices in her past life, and one of them now threatens not only my nanny but my child."
"Kate is the nanny?" I said.
Valerie looked surprised. "Yes. Kate Malloy."
"And what is her problem?" I said.
"She is being stalked by a former lover."
"She been to the cops?" I said.
"She has, and I've spoken with Owen. We have a restraining order, but . . ." She shrugged.
I could tell that she didn't like shrugging. She wasn't used to it. She was used to nodding decisively.
"She call the cops when the lover shows up?" I said.
"Yes. Sometimes they come promptly. Sometimes they don't."
"What is the lover's name?"
" Ex-lover. His name is Kevin Shea."
"Has Kevin threatened her?"
"Yes. And he poses a threat to my child."
"Whose name is?"
"Miranda."
"And she's how old?"
"Sixteen months. Why are you asking all these questions?"
"So I can follow what you say. Has Kevin harmed Kate?"
"When they were together he beat her."
"And has he threatened Miranda?"
"His presence threatens Miranda. Kate can't take care of her if she's being harassed by this ape."
"And you wish to employ me?" I said.
"Yes. Owen said you were the man."
"What do you wish to employ me to do?"
"Make him go away."
"Do you have a course of action in mind?"
"No, of course not, how would I? That's what you're supposed to know. I wish he were dead."
"Dead is not generally a part of the service," I said.
She shook her head as if a fly were annoying her.
"It was just a remark. I am at my wit's end. I need you to help me straighten this out."
"Okay," I said.
"How much do you charge?"
I told her.
"Isn't that a lot of money?" she said.
"You came here asking me to save your child," I said.
"So you boosted the price?"
"No. That's the price. I was trying to help you decide if it's worth paying."
"By playing on a mother's guilt?"
I didn't remember anything about guilt, but I let it ride.
"Can you do it?"
"Sure," I said. "I can eat this guy's lunch."
"Do you require payment to start?"
"No. I'll bill you when it's done."
"What are you going to do?"
"I'll speak with Kate."
"She's very frightened. You'll have to be careful with her."
"I'll need an address."
Valerie took out a business card and wrote on the back.
"I'd prefer that you talk to her when I'm there."
"Sure."
"This evening?"
"Yes."
"Seven?"
"Fine."
She stood. I stood.
"Where is Kate now?"
"I sent her and Miranda to my mother's home in Brookline," Valerie said. "Until I could arrange for her safety. That's the address on the back of my card."
"I'll meet you there," I said.
She looked at me the way people look at racehorses before the auction.
"Well, you look as if you'd be formidable," she said.
"You should see me in my red cape," I said.
"I'm sure I should," she said.

TWENTY-THREE

ITALKED WITHKate in the living room of a big half-timbered Tudor-style house on a side road off of Route 9 not very far from Longwood Tennis Club. Miranda made a brief appearance in joint custody of Valerie's mother and a Shih Tzu named Buttons. Miranda seemed overdressed to me, and mildly uneasy. But I was inexpert with sixteen-month-old kids. The Shih Tzu sniffed my ankles thoughtfully, and then followed Miranda and her grandmother from the room.
"The dog is a Shih Tzu?" I said.
Valerie said it was.
"Knew a woman in Ames, Iowa, had one of those."
"How nice," Valerie said.
"Dog's name was Buttons too."
Valerie smiled stiffly.
Beside Valerie, on the yellow-flowered couch in a bay of the overdecorated living room, was a plain young woman with red hair and very white skin. I sat on a hassock in front of the couch.
"You're Kate," I said.
"Yes, sir."
"And you are being stalked by a man named Kevin Shea," I said.
"Yes, sir."
"What's your relationship to him?" I said.
"We're not related."
"Were you lovers?"
"Yes, sir."
"And now you're not."
"No, sir."
"What does he do when he stalks you?" I said.
"He follows me around."
"Does he speak to you?"
"Yes, sir."
"What does he say?"
"He swears at me and stuff."
"Does he threaten you?"
"He says if he can't have me no one else will."
"Has he ever hurt you?"
"You mean now, when he follows me?"
"At any time," I said.
"Yes, sir."
Slow going. I felt that I'd had better conversations with Hugger Mugger.
"What did he do?" I said.
"He hit me once, when we lived together."
"Was he drunk?"
"Oh yes, sir. He drinks a lot. Says it's the only way to deal with the pain."
"What was it that attracted you to him?" I said.
"He loved me."
"And now, why is he stalking you, do you think?"
"Because he loves me. He can't bear to give me up."
Valerie said, "Kate, that's ridiculous."
"And how do you feel about him?" I said.
"I'm afraid of him. He's so crazy in love with me. I don't know what he'll do."
"How would you like me to handle this?" I said.
"I don't want him to get in trouble," Kate said.
Valerie was appalled.
"For God's sake," she said. "Kate!"
"Well, I don't," Kate said. "He loves me."
"How can you say that?" Valerie said. "He has beaten you. He threatens to kill you. This isn't love, it's obsession."
"I don't know about that psychology stuff. But I know he's crazy about me."
"He's crazy, all right," Valerie said.
Kate's small, pale face pinched up a little tighter. She wasn't going to give up the great romance of her life.
"So," I said. "If you care this much about him, why did you leave him?"
"Kevin wasn't working. There was no money. I needed this job."
I looked at Valerie Hatch.
"I told Kate that her responsibility was Miranda, and that she couldn't exercise that responsibility properly if her low-life boyfriend was hanging around."
I nodded.
"You live in?" I said to Kate.
"Yes, sir, in Ms. Hatch's place on Commonwealth Avenue."
"We have a large condominium," Valerie said. "Near the corner of Dartmouth."
"So if you live there, and Ms. Hatch doesn't want him around, you don't get to see him much."
"No, sir, hardly at all."
"When do you see him?"
"When I'm walking Miranda, or at the playground."
"Are you afraid of Kevin?" I said.
"Yes, sir, he's so angry."
"Why don't you quit this job and go back and live with Kevin?"
Valerie said, "Spenser, dammit . . ."
I put a hand up for her to be quiet. Surprisingly, she was.
"I need the money," Kate said. "And Miranda. I don't want to leave Miranda."
"You care about the kid," I said.
"I love her."
I nodded.
"I don't see where you are going with these questions," Valerie said.
"I never do either, until I ask them."
"Kevin Shea is an uneducated, unemployed drunk," Valerie said. "I don't want him around my daughter, or my daughter's nanny. And quite frankly, I don't want my daughter's nanny living with such a person."
"I think I can follow that," I said.
"I should hope so," Valerie said.
"Can you put me in touch with Kevin?" I said to Kate.
"I don't know where he's living now. He's not at the place we were."
"Is he likely to show up someplace where you are going?"
"The little park," she said. "I take Miranda there every day. He comes there a lot. And when I wheel her carriage along the river."
"You never led me to believe it was this regular," Valerie said.
"Why don't you and I go down to the park tomorrow?" I said to Kate. "And maybe walk along the river."
"I will not allow you to expose my daughter to this man," Valerie said.
"Perhaps she could stay with you," I said.
"I have a day filled with meetings tomorrow," Valerie said.
"Your mother?"
"Tomorrow is my mother's golf day."
"And I suppose Buttons isn't up to the job," I said.
"This is not a frivolous matter," Valerie said.
"See if your mother can forgo golf tomorrow," I said.
Valerie looked annoyed, but appeared ready to humor me.
"I'll meet you in front of the Commonwealth Ave. place at what, nineA .M.?" I said to Kate. "Is there a stroller or something that you normally use?"
"Yes."
"Bring it."
"Without the baby?"
"Yes."
"What if he tries to hurt me?" Kate said.
"I won't let him," I said.
"He's awfully big and strong," Kate said.
"Me too," I said.
"I don't want him to be hurt," Kate said.
"For God's sake, Kate. Listen to yourself."
Kate didn't say anything. She just stared at the rug in front of her.
"Okay," I said. "Tomorrow, you come out wheeling the stroller, and go where you usually go. Don't look for me. I'll be there, but I don't want to scare Kevin away."
"What will you do if he comes?"
"I'll reason with him," I said.

TWENTY-FOUR

THE DAY WASsomewhat overcast, and not very hot. I strolled along on the other side of the street, watching Kate Malloy as she wheeled the stroller along Commonwealth, crossed at Dartmouth, and headed for the little park. She put the stroller beside her and sat for a while on a small bench, inside the black iron fence, and watched the children and their nannies, and occasionally, maybe, their mothers. No one stalked her. No one looked like they were going to stalk her. After a while Kate got up and took the stroller and walked down Commonwealth, the rest of the way, and turned left toward the river on Arlington Street. I went along too. We crossed the pedestrian overpass to the esplanade and began to stroll west along the river. If Kevin showed up I wasn't sure what to expect. I was ready. I had a gun on my belt, and a sap in my hip pocket, and if that didn't work, I could always bite him. Still, he seemed less monstrous when Kate talked of him than he did when Valerie talked of him. I was pretty sure I wasn't getting the whole story. I was used to it. I hadn't gotten the full story in Lamarr, Georgia. I never got the full story. There was probably something deeply philosophic going on. Maybe there was no full story. Ever.
We crossed a little footbridge over the lagoon and walked near the water. If anyone noticed that Kate was pushing an empty carriage they didn't show it. Bostonians are so reserved. There were a number of dogs being run by their owners, and a number of babies being strolled, and then there was a stalker. I didn't see him approach. He was just there all of a sudden, beside Kate, a big man wearing a tank top. His hair was in a crew cut shaved high on the sides. There were tattoos on each bicep. He took her arm. He was loud. And intense. As I closed on them I could hear him.
"I don't give a fuck about that. I need to see you. I love you."
I stopped beside them. He looked at me.
"Who the fuck are you?" he said.
He was fair-skinned and sunburned. He'd never tan darkly, but you could tell he was out-of-doors a lot.
"I'm with her," I said. "We need to talk."
"You need to take a fucking walk, pal."
He was sober, which was good news, since it was about eleven in the morning. There was no smell of booze, no slurring, none of the look around the eyes that drunks so magically achieve.
"Nope," I said. "The three of us. We'll sit down over there on that bench and we'll sort everything out."
Beside me Kate was like a rabbit, very still, quivering with-what? Expectation? Fear? Readiness? The guy was big and strong and had probably won most of the fights he'd had. But if experience made him confident, it also gave him perspective. I could see by the way he looked at me that he wasn't sure.
"You a cop?"
"Private," I said.
He snorted. I took it as an expression of contempt.
"Sort what out?" he said. "It's that bitch she works for that needs sorting out."
"How so?" I said.
"How so? Bullshit how so," he said.
Anger got the better of perspective, and he took a swing at me. It was a pretty good swing. He didn't lead with his right. He didn't loop the punch. But he got out in front of his feet, and it made him put too much arm into the punch, and not enough body. I picked it off with my right forearm. He followed with a right that I picked off with my left forearm. It didn't deter him, so I feinted at his belly with my right. He flinched, his hands came down, and I nailed him on the jaw with a left hook that turned him half around and put him on the ground.
Kate screamed "Stop it!" and jumped in front of me and wrapped her arms around my waist and tried to push me away from Kevin. Bells were ringing for Kevin. He got halfway up and sat back down.
"He'll be all right," I said. "He's just been jarred a little. But it would be better if we left it at this. Why don't you talk with him."
She turned toward Kevin, who was sitting upright on the ground, blinking his eyes. She dropped to her knees beside him, and put her arms around him.
"Stop it, Kevin. Please," she said. "For me. This man doesn't want to hurt you, or me. He'll help us, I know he will, if you'll talk with him. Talk with him, for me."
Kevin looked confused, but he let her help him to his feet and he walked pretty steadily with her toward the bench. When they weren't looking, I rubbed my knuckles. Every time I hit somebody my knuckles hurt. Tomorrow they'd be a little swollen, and a little sore. Occupational hazard. I couldn't go around all the time with my hands wrapped. The two of them sat on the bench. Kevin's eyes began to focus.
"Okay," I said. "We'll be friends, and I'll ask some questions, and you'll answer them and maybe we can work something out."
Neither one said anything. The hinges of Kevin's jaw were going to be very sore tomorrow.
"Don't feel bad," I said to Kevin. "You're a tough guy, but there's always somebody tougher."
"She didn't beg me," Kevin said, "we'd still be at it."
"Sure," I said. "Now, do you, Kate, love him, Kevin?"
"Yes."
"Do you, Kevin, love her, Kate?"
"For crissake, what's it look like? Of course I do."
"You ever hit her?" I said.
"Once."
"Hit her once, or on one occasion hit her a number of times?"
"Just once, total," Kevin said.
He didn't want to look at me. He didn't like me knocking him on his kazoo in front of his girlfriend.
"That right, Kate?"
"Yes. He hit me on the arm, up near the shoulder."
"I was drunk," Kevin said. "And she was driving me crazy."
"About what?" I said.
"About her freakin' job. That bitch she works for doesn't want me around her."
"I need that job," Kate said. "How'm I going to eat, I don't have that job?"
"I'll be working again, goddammit, I'm just between right now."
"What do you do when you work?" I said.
"Heavy equipment. Company I worked for went outta business. I'll hook on someplace pretty quick."
"That the way you understand it, Kate?" I said.
"Yes. I know he'll get another job. But we need to eat now."
"We?"
"Kevin and I," Kate said.
I looked at him. He didn't look back.
"You supporting him?" I said.
"Just for now," she said. "I give him a little money."
"That right?" I said to Kevin.
"Yeah."
"He'd do it for me," she said.
"And when he shows up while you're walking the baby, he's not stalking you?"
"It's the only chance we get," Kevin said.
"Except we always fight," Kate said.
"Because he wants you to leave your job, and you don't want to."
"Not until he's on his feet again."
I walked a few feet and stood at the riverbank and looked at the gray water. Behind me the two of them sat on the bench as if they were waiting outside the principal's office. After a while I spoke to them without turning around.
"Why don't you get another job, Kate? Where the boss is a little more flexible."
"That's what I keep fucking telling her," Kevin said.
"I don't have time to look," Kate said. "And . . ."
"And?"
"And it's the baby. I love her. I want to take care of her. Nobody else wants to take care of her. I . . . I don't want her to grow up to be like her mother."
There were some sailboats skittering about erratically on the basin, driven inconsistently by the wind off the land. I watched them for a while. Then I walked back to where Kevin and Kate sat on the bench.
"Okay," I said. "Kate, you'll have to save another kid from her mother, and let a new nanny save Miranda."
"How am I going to get another job?"
"I'm going to get you one, and Kevin too."
"I can get my own job," Kevin said.
"Yeah sure, you're tough as nails and proud as a peacock. Which, so far, has enabled you to screw yourself up with the woman you love."
"You think I'm not tough 'cause you got a lucky punch in?"
"We both know it wasn't lucky," I said. "I can help you, unless you insist on being an asshole."
"You really think you can get us both jobs?" Kate said.
"It's a booming economy," I said.
She nodded and looked at Kevin. He smiled at her.
"You want to do this?" he said.
"Yes."
"Then we'll do it," he said.

TWENTY-FIVE

IWAS INmy office on Wednesday morning, eating some sugared donuts and drinking coffee and reading the paper. Wednesdays were always promising, because Susan didn't see patients on Wednesdays. She taught in the morning and normally spent the rest of the day with me.
And morning was always a good part of the day. I had the paper to read. The streets were full of people, fresh-showered and dressed well and heading for work. My office was still. The coffee was recent. The donuts were everything donuts should be, and the bright beginning of the day contained the prospect of unlimited possibility. When I had finished the paper, I put my feet up and dragged the phone over, and called Vinnie Morris.
"Gino do business with any construction companies?" I said.
"Of course," Vinnie said.
"I got a heavy-equipment operator looking for work."
"He connected?" Vinnie said.
"He's connected to me," I said. "Can you get him hired?"
"Sure," Vinnie said.
"Quickly?" I said.
"Tomorrow?"
"That's quickly," I said.
"I'll get back to you," Vinnie said.
We hung up. I went to the window and looked down at Boylston Street where Berkeley intersected. A stream of good-looking professional women moved past. Their outfits were tailored and ironed and careful. I was too high to hear, but I knew that their high heels clicked on the warm pavement as they walked. And I knew most of them smelled of pretty good perfume. Had I been closer, they in turn would have noticed that I smelled fetchingly of Club Man. But there was no one to smell me . . . yet. I looked at my watch. Quarter to eleven. She'd be here in an hour and a half, or so she had promised. Punctuality was not Susan's strength. She always intended to be on time, but she seemed to have some kind of chronometric dyslexia, which thwarted her intent, nearly always. Had she been predictably late, say fifteen minutes every time, then you could simply adjust your expectations. But she was sometimes a minute late and sometimes an hour late, and on rare and astonishing occasions, she was five minutes early. Since I had no way to gauge her coming hither or her going hence, I accepted the fact that readiness is all, and remained calm.
I poured the rest of the coffee into my cup and rinsed the pot out and threw the filter away, added a little milk and a lot of sugar to my cup, and sat back at my desk with my feet up. I sipped the coffee and thought about the Clives and Tedy Sapp and Polly Brown and Dalton Becker and came no closer to understanding what had happened than I had before I got canned.
The phone rang. It was Vinnie.
"Crocker Construction," he said. "Tell your guy to ask for Marty Rincone. Use my name."
"Where are they?" I said.
"Building condos on the beach in Revere. He'll see the trucks."
"Thank you," I said.
"You're welcome," Vinnie said. "You know where Hawk is?"
"France," I said.
"Working?"
"I don't think so. He went with a good-looking French professor from BC. Can I help you with something?"
"You could, but you won't."
"Okay, if I hear from Hawk, I'll tell him you were asking."
"Today or tomorrow, or don't bother. After that I'll have done it myself."
We hung up. Vinnie wasn't a chatty guy.
The mail came. I went through it. Nobody had sent me a check. Although one client had written a grateful letter. There were a couple of bills, for which I wrote a couple of checks. I threw away several offers to make my phone bills lower than a child molester.
Susan arrived. However late she might be, she was always worth the wait. Today she had on cropped white pants, and a striped shirt, and sneakers. I sensed that our afternoon would be informal. She sat on the couch and wrinkled her nose.
"Are you wearing Club Man again, or have they just painted the radiators?"
"You fear Club Man, don't you?" I said. "Because you're afraid that after just a single whiff, your libido will jump out of your psyche and begin to break-dance right here on the rug."
"That's probably it," she said. "Would you like to hear our plans for the rest of the day?"
"Yes, but first I need to find work for a nanny," I said.
"A nanny," Susan said.
"Yes."
I told her about Kate and Kevin and Valerie and Miranda.
"Things are not always as they appear," Susan said.
"You've noticed that too," I said.
"I'm a trained psychologist," Susan said. "You've gotten Kevin a job already?"
"Yep. Through Vinnie Morris."
"I'm not sure I have Vinnie's clout."
"Thank God for that," I said.
"But I can ask around," Susan said. "Most of the women I know work."
"As do most of the men," I said.
"Your point, Mr. Politically Correct?"
"Could be a father needs a nanny," I said.
"I'll ask the men too," she said. "Now would you like to hear our plans for the day?"
"Do they involve heavy breathing?"
"Absolutely," Susan said. "Whenever I smell your cologne."

TWENTY-SIX

SUSAN FOUNDKATEa job as a teacher's aide in a private nursery school in Cambridge. Kevin was welcomed at Crocker Construction, where everyone treated him very respectfully. A couple of days after Kate had quit, Valerie Hatch stalked into my office without closing the door behind her.
"What the hell kind of operation are you running here?" she said.
"No need for thanks," I said. "Just doing my job."
"You sonovabitch," she said. "Because of you I've lost my nanny."
"Glad to do it," I said.
"Do you have any idea what it is like to be a career woman with a child?"
"No."
"Well, maybe you'd like to try the fast track someday while you've got a sixteen-month-old kid clinging to your damned skirt."
"I don't think a skirt would improve my fast-track chances."
"Don't avoid the issue," she said.
"Ms. Hatch, there is no issue," I said. "Kate didn't want to work for you, so she quit and got another job."
"Which you helped her with."
"Yes."
"You even got a job for that lout of a boyfriend."
"I did," I said.
"That is not what I employed you for."
"I know," I said. "I quit too."
"Don't think I'm going to take this kind of betrayal passively."
"Okay," I said. "I won't think that."
"I have every intention of pursuing this with the appropriate licensing agency."
I nodded.
"And don't think I'm going to pay your bill."
"There is no bill," I said.
"You mean they bought you off?"
"I mean this is pro bono, " I said. "Would you like to know what I think?"
"No."
"Few people do," I said.
We were quiet. She glared at me.
"Well, what is it?"
"What is what?"
"What you think," she said. "My God, you're a fool."
"I think you should hire a new nanny."
She stared at me.
"That's your idea?"
I smiled and nodded. She stared at me some more.
"Men!" she said, and turned and stomped out of my office.

TWENTY-SEVEN

IT WAS Amonth or so after I had failed Valerie Hatch so miserably. I was sitting in my office reading a book by Jonathan Lear about Freud and other things, when Dolly Hartman came into my office like an old sweet song and sat down in a client chair and crossed her spectacular legs.
"Do you remember me?" she said.
"Yes, I do. How are you, Ms. Hartman?"
"Please call me Dolly."
She was wearing a print summer dress and white high heels and no stockings. Her legs were the regulation horse-country tan. She was iridescent with cool sexuality that made me want to run around the desk and ask to die in her arms.
"You're looking well," I said. It was a weak substitute but it preserved my dignity.
"Thank you," she said. "Is that a good book?"
"I don't know," I said. "I don't understand it."
"Oh, I bet you do."
"Just the easy parts," I said.
We smiled at each other.
"What brings you to Boston?" I said, listening to my voice, hoping it wasn't hoarse.
"I wanted to see you," she said, and shifted a little in her chair and crossed her legs the other way. Which displayed a fair amount of thigh. I observed closely. You never knew when a clue might present itself.
She smiled. I cleared my throat.
"How are things in Lamarr?" I said.
Spenser, conversationalist par excellence.
"That's why I wanted to see you," she said. "Things are hideous in Lamarr."
I decompressed a little. She wasn't just there to flash her thighs at me. Not that I don't like thighs. Had that been her purpose, she'd have been welcome. But because she was there with a problem, I could start acting like it was a business call, which would dilute my impulse to bugle like a moose.
"Tell me about it," I said.
"There's something very wrong at Three Fillies," Dolly said.
"Like what?"
"Well, neither my son nor I have any access."
"Access?"
"We're not allowed in," she said. "Not the stables. Not the house. Nowhere."
"What happens if you go and ask to be let in?" I said.
"The security guards prevent us."
"At the house too?"
"Yes."
"Security South?" I said.
"Yes."
"Any explanation?"
"No. Simply that they have their orders."
"Have you called Penny?"
"She won't take my calls."
"Stonie? SueSue?"
"They don't answer or return my calls."
"There any progress on Walter's murder?" I said.
"None."
"Any more horses?"
"No."
"You talk to Becker about this?"
"The sheriff?"
"Un-huh."
"I can't discuss this sort of thing with some policeman."
"Oh."
"I wish to hire you," she said.
"To do what?"
"To find out what happened to Walter Clive."
"What can I do that the cops can't do?"
"You can report to me," she said. "And maybe you won't pussyfoot around the Clive family quite as much as the local police."
"That may be," I said. "But if they don't want to talk to me, they don't have to."
"They have shut themselves off, since Walter's death. They have shut me out. They have shut my son out."
"Are you in Walter Clive's will?" I said.
She was silent for a time. I waited. She crossed her legs the other way. Which gave me something to do while I waited.
"Why do you ask?" she said.
"I'm a nosy guy," I said.
She was silent again. I waited some more.
"I was supposed to be," she said.
"And?"
"The attorneys tell me I'm not," she said.
"How long were you with him?" I said.
"Eight years."
"Did he say he'd take care of you?"
"Of course."
"Do you feel there was chicanery?"
"God, don't you talk funny," she said.
"It's not my fault," I said. "I've been sleeping with a Harvard Ph.D."
She smiled. Her teeth were perfectly even and absolutely white. The effect was dazzling, even though I suspected orthodontic intervention.
"I've done that," she said.
"Hopefully not with the same one," I said.
"Hopefully," she said.
"Do you think somebody doctored the will to cut you out?" I said.
"I don't know what to think," she said. "I don't mean to come off sounding greedy, but . . . I . . ."
She shifted a little in her chair and crossed her legs again. She seemed to sit up a little straighter.
"I am what would have been called, in more genteel times, a courtesan. I have been not only the sex partner but the companion and support of several powerful men, of whom Walter Clive was the most recent."
"Did any of the others stiff you?"
"None of the others have died," she said. "But each made a financial settlement with me when our relationship ended. I know Walter would have done the same thing, if we had parted before his death. None of these arrangements were about love. But in each instance we liked each other, and we understood what we were doing."
"Are you okay financially?"
"Yes. I am quite comfortable, and I shall almost certainly establish a, ah, liaison with another powerful and affluent man."
"So hiring me is a thirst for justice," I said.
"I want my son's inheritance."
"You think Walter Clive should have left money to your son."
"Our son," Dolly said.
"Yours and Walter's?"
"Yes."
"Does your son know this?" I said.
"Not yet."
"Did Walter know this?"
"I told him. We agreed that Walter would undergo some DNA testing."
"Did he?"
"I don't know."
"He died without telling you."
"Yes."
"You and Walter have been together eight years," I said. "Your son, Jason?"
"Yes."
"Jason appears to be in his middle twenties," I said.
She smiled again.
"The eight years is public and official," she said. "Our liaison began a long time before that, while Walter was still married to the beatnik."
"Sherry Lark?"
"I became pregnant with Jason about the same time she did with Stonie. I said nothing. I knew better than to upset the apple cart at that time. I ended the relationship with Walter, and went away and had Jason, and raised him. Later when the beatnik was gone, I came back into his life. I never explained Jason, and Walter never asked."
"Did they ever divorce?"
"Walter and the beatnik?"
"Yes."

"No, they didn't."
"Why not?"
"I think each hated the other too much to give in," Dolly said.
"Why didn't you tell Clive about Jason when you came back?"
"The separation was horrible. The beatnik may be primarily interested in flowers and peace, but she tried to gouge him for every penny. Had she learned of Jason, she would have succeeded."
"And that would have been less for you," I said.
"And Jason," she said.
"What made you change your mind?" I said.
"Walter was revising his will. I wanted Jason to get what was his. No one would have to know anything until Walter's death, and then Miss Hippie Dippie couldn't do anything about it."
"And Walter wanted proof that Jason was actually his son," I said. "Hence the DNA tests."
"Yes."
"Where was he tested?"
"I don't know."
"Was Jason tested?"
"We donated some blood for the DNA match. I spoke to our doctor first. Larry Klein. He's a lovely man. Very cute. Jason just thought it was part of a routine physical."
"Do you think the rest of the family knows anything?" I said.
"To my knowledge, you and I are the only ones who know about this, and of course Dr. Klein."
"You know he went to Dr. Klein?"
"No. He said he had. And was waiting for the results."
"You're sure Clive is Jason's father?" I said.
"I said I was a courtesan. I am not a whore."
We sat for a while. I thought about the offer. The case had its own merits, and it was also a wedge back into the situation. It is very bad for business when someone kills your client. I might see Penny again, whom I liked. I would almost certainly get a further look at Dolly's knees, which I also liked.
"Georgia in August," I said. "Hot dog!"

TWENTY-EIGHT

HUGGER MUGGER

Robert Parker

---

The Dunamai Memorial Collection

This ebook is part of a collection to honor the memory of Hugh ‘Dunamai’ Miller who passed away on the evening of January 19th, 2006.

Dunamai was an incredible asset to the ebook community, literally converting books to ebooks by hand like a modern day clerical monk when he had to. He was the Knight of the Obscure Book and a better champion could not be found. They don't make them much better than this man.

If you are lucky in your life you might meet a handful of really 'good' people. If you knew Dunamai, then you were lucky in meeting just such a person. He was a very special man who had time for everyone and asked nothing of anyone. He also had a smile and a kind word for you anytime you needed one. Dunamai was one of the nicest, helpful and easygoing people you could meet online.

“For what is it to die but to stand naked in the wind and melt into the sun. And what is it to cease breathing but to free the breath from its restless tides, that it may rise and expand and seek god unencumbered. Only when you drink from the river of silence shall you indeed sing. And when you have reached the mountain top, then you shall begin to climb. And when the earth shall claim your limbs, then you shall truly dance.”

I'm sure Dun is dancing today. He was a star on earth, and will be a star in heaven.

We grieve the loss of an important member of the ebook community. We will remember you forever, dear friend.

---

 This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author's Imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

 The Penguin Putnam Inc. World Wide Web site address is http://www.penguinputnam.com

---

T ITLES BYR OBERTB.P ARKER

Hugger Mugger

Family Honor (a Sunny Randall novel) Hush Money

Trouble in Paradise (a Jesse Stone novel) Sudden Mischief

Night Passage (a Jesse Stone novel) Small Vices

Chance Thin Air All Our Yesterdays Walking Shadow Paper Doll Double Deuce Pastime Perchance to Dream (a Philip Marlowe novel) Stardust Poodle Springs (with Raymond Chandler) Playmates Crimson Joy Pale Kings and Princes Taming a Sea-Horse

A Catskill Eagle

Valediction Love and Glory The Widening Gyre

Ceremony

A Savage Place Early Autumn Looking for Rachel Wallace Wilderness The Judas Goat Three Weeks in Spring (with Joan Parker) Promised Land Mortal Stakes God Save the Child The Godwulf Manuscript

Joan: the ocean's roar, a thousand drums

---

ONE

IWAS ATmy desk, in my office, with my feet up on the windowsill, and a yellow pad in my lap, thinking about baseball. It's what I always think about when I'm not thinking about sex. Susan says that supreme happiness for me would probably involve having sex while watching a ball game. Since she knows this, I've never understood why, when we're at Fenway Park, she remains so prudish.
My focus this morning was on one of those "100 greatest" lists that the current millennium had spawned. In the absence of a 100 greatest sexual encounters list (where I was sure I would figure prominently), I was vetting the 100 greatest baseball players list and comparing it to my own. Mine was of more narrow compass, being limited to players I'd seen. But even so, the official list needed help. I was penciling in Roy Campanella ahead of Johnny Bench, when my door opened and a man and woman came in. The woman was great to look at, blond, tight figure, nice clothes. The man was wearing aviator sunglasses. He looked like he might have a view on Roy Campanella, but I was pretty sure she wouldn't. On the other hand, she might have a view on sexual encounters. I could go either way.
"Good morning," I said, to let them know there were no hard feelings about them interrupting me.
"Spenser?" the man said.
"That's me," I said.
"I'm Walter Clive," he said. "This is my daughter Penny."
"Sit down," I said. "I have coffee made."
"That would be nice."
I went to the Mr. Coffee on the filing cabinet and poured us some coffee, took milk and sugar instructions, and passed the coffee around.
When we were settled in with our coffee, Clive said, "Do you follow horse racing, sir?"
"No."
"Have you ever heard of a horse named Hugger Mugger?"
"No."
"He's still a baby," Clive said, "but there are people who will tell you that he's going to be the next Secretariat."
"I've heard of Secretariat," I said.
"Good."
"I was at Claiborne Farms once and actually met Secretariat," I said. "He gave a large lap."
He smiled a pained smile. Horse people, I have noticed, are not inclined to think of horses in terms of how, or even if, they kiss.
"That's fine," he said.
Penny sat straight in her chair, her hands folded in her lap, her knees together, her ankles together, her feet firmly on the floor. She was wearing white gloves and a set of pearls, and a dark blue dress that didn't cover her knees. I was glad that it didn't.
"I own Three Fillies Stables. Named after my three daughters. We're in Lamarr, Georgia."
"Racehorses," I said.
"Yes, sir. I don't breed them, I buy and syndicate."
Penny was wearing shoes that matched her dress. They were conservative heels, but not unfashionable. Her ankles were great.
"In the past month," Clive said, "there has been a series of attacks on our horses."
"Attacks?"
"Someone is shooting them."
"Dead?"
"Some die, some survive."
"Do we have a theory?" I said.
"No, sir. The attacks seem entirely random and without motivation."
"Insurance scam?"
"Nothing so crude as shooting the horse," Clive said.
He was tall and athletic and ridiculously handsome. He had a lot of white teeth and a dark tan. His silver hair was thick and smooth. He was wearing a navy blazer with a Three Fillies crest on it, an open white shirt, beige linen trousers, and burgundy loafers with no socks. I approved. I was a no-socks man myself.
"Eliminate the competition?"
Clive smiled indulgently.
"Some of the horses who've been shot are barn ponies, not even Thoroughbreds-to think you could do anything constructive for your own horse, by eliminating other horses . . . not possible."
"Only a dumb city guy would even think of such a thing," I said.
He smiled again. It was a smile that said, Of course I'm superior to you, and both of us know it, but I'm a good guy and am not going to hold it against you.
"You're a detective, you have to ask these questions," he said kindly.
He smiled again. Penny smiled. I smiled back. Weren't we all just dandy. Penny had big eyes, the color of morning glories. Her eyes were nearly as big as Susan's, with thick lashes. Her smile was not superior. It was friendly . . . and maybe a little more.
"Last week, someone made an attempt on Hugger Mugger," Clive went on.
"Unsuccessful?"
"Yes. His groom, Billy Rice, was in the stall with him, at night. Hugger had been sort of peckish that day and Billy was worried about him. While he was there someone opened the stall door. Billy shined his flashlight and saw a rifle barrel poking through the open door. When the light came on, the rifle barrel disappeared and there were running footsteps. By the time Billy peeked out around the door, there was nothing."
"Footprints?" I said.
"No."
"Could he describe the gun barrel?"
"The gun barrel? What's to describe?"
"Did it have a magazine under the barrel, like a Winchester? Long stock or not? Front sight? Gun barrels are not all the same."
"Oh God," Clive said, "I don't know."
I tried not to smile a smile that said, Of course I'm superior to you, and both of us know it, but I'm a good guy and am not going to hold it against you.
"Cops?" I said.
"Local police," Clive said. "And I have my own security consultant."
"Local police are the Columbia County Sheriff's Department," Penny said. "The deputy's name is Becker."
"I wish to hire you, sir, to put a stop to this," Clive said.
"To prevent the horse from being hurt?"
"That certainly."
"Usually I get only one end of the horse," I said.
Penny laughed.
Clive said, "Excuse me?"
"Daddy," Penny said, "he's saying sometimes he gets a client who's a horse's ass."
"Oh, of course. Guess I'm too worried to have a sense of humor."
"Sure," I said.
"Well, sir, are you interested or not?"
"Tell me a little more of how you see this working," I said. "Am I sleeping on a blanket in the horse's stall, with a knife in my teeth?"
He smiled to show that he really did have a sense of humor even though he was worried.
"No, no," he said. "I have some armed security in place. An agency in Atlanta. I would like you to look at the security and let me know what you think. But, primarily, I want you to find out who is doing this and, ah, arrest them, or shoot them, or whatever is the right thing."
"And what makes you think I'm the man for the job?" I said.
Penny smiled at me again. She thought my modesty was very becoming.
"The horse world is a small one, sir. You were involved in some sort of case over there in Alton a few years back, with Jumper Jack Nelson. I knew of it. I talked with the Alton Police, with someone in the South Carolina State Attorney's Office. My attorney looked into it. We talked with the FBI in Atlanta. We talked with a man named Hugh Dixon with whom I once did some business. We talked to a Massachusetts State Police captain named Healy, and a Boston police captain named Quirk."
"How the hell did you find Hugh Dixon?" I said.
"I have money, sir. My attorneys are resourceful."
"And I'm the man?"
"Yes, sir, you are."
"Fairly expensive," I said.
"What are your fees?" Clive said.
I told him.
"That will not be an issue," he said.
"And who is the outfit in Atlanta that's on the job now?" I said.
"Security South."
Meant nothing to me.
"The on-site supervisor is a man named Delroy. Jon Delroy."
That meant nothing to me either.
"Will Mr. Delroy be pleased to see me?"
"He'll cooperate," Clive said.
"No," Penny said. "I don't think he will be pleased to see you."
Clive looked at her.
"Well, it's the truth, Daddy. He will be absolutely goddamned livid."
Clive smiled. He couldn't help being condescending, but it was a genuine smile. He liked his daughter.
"Penny has been quiet during our interview, Mr. Spenser. But don't assume that it's habitual."
"Jon will have trouble with you bringing in someone over him," Penny said. "Mr. Spenser may as well know that now."
Clive nodded.
"He's not really 'over' Jon," Clive said. "But Jon may feel a bit compromised. That a problem to you, Mr. Spenser?"
"No."
"Really?" Penny said. "You think you can work with someone like that?"
"I'll win him over," I said.
"How?"
"Northern charm," I said.
"Isn't that an oxymoron?" she said.
"You're right," I said. "Maybe I'll just threaten him."

TWO

"LAMARR, GEORGIA?" SUSANsaid.
She was lying on top of me in her bed with her clothes off, her arms folded on my chest, and her face about six inches from my face. Pearl the Wonder Dog was lying somewhat grumpily on the rug at the foot of the bed, having been displaced, if only temporarily, by me.
"Just an old sweet song," I said.
"Don't sing. Do you know anything about racehorses?"
"Secretariat gave me a big lap once," I said.
"Anything less specialized?" Susan said.
"That's about it."
"And you are being brought in over someone who has heretofore been in charge?"
"Yes."
"So you are going to Georgia without Pearl, or me, and you'll be gone for who knows how long, and you don't know what you're doing, and the people you're working with will resent you."
"Exactly," I said.
"And you're doing this because you love horses?"
"Because I hate starving," I said. "I've been doing pro bono for you and Hawk so long that I can't afford to buy a new knuckle knife."
"Too bad virtue is not, in fact, its own reward," Susan said.
"Or if it really were, the reward would need to be monetary."
"Well, perhaps we can visit."
"You and Pearl could come down," I said.
"Pearl does not, obviously, fly in a crate in the hold of some disgusting airplane," Susan said.
"It's an easy drive," I said. "One overnight stop."
Susan stared at me. Her eyes were so close they were out of focus as I looked up at her. They seemed bigger than human eyes could be and bottomless, like eternity.
"I cannot bear to drive long distances."
"Of course you can't," I said. "Maybe Paul would come up from New York, for a weekend, and take care of Pearl."
"That might work," Susan said. "Or Lee Farrell, or Hawk."
"And then you can come to Lamarr on an airplane and ball my brains out."
"Didn't I just do that?" Susan said. "Except for the airplane part?"
"Yes," I said, "and brilliantly."
"I know."
"However," I said, "I don't think we've ever done it in Georgia."
"Well, if you insist on going down there," Susan said, "what's a girl to do?"
"What she does best," I said.
"In which case we'll never be able to eat lunch in Lamarr again," Susan said.

THREE

ISHOWED UPin Lamarr with some clean shirts and extra ammunition in my black Nike gym bag, checked into the Holiday Inn on the highway outside of Lamarr, and set out to visit my employer.
Lamarr was one of those towns you read about but no one you know ever lived in. It was probably like the town that Jack Armstrong lived in with his sister Betty, when he starred at Hudson High. The downtown was three-story buildings, mostly brick, along the main street, with some stores and restaurants, a pool hall, a movie theater, and a railroad station. There were two cross streets, where more business was done during daylight hours. In the center of the town was a square with a statue of a man on horseback, and some benches. As I drove through the downtown, the streets were lined with trees, and behind the trees were lawns on which sat some nice-looking southern-type houses, mostly white, with verandas. Often vines grew over the verandas and made them leafy.
At two in the afternoon I was ringing the bell at the Clives' front door. They lived in a white mansion with a wide pillared veranda across the front, which sat in the middle of something that looked like the world's largest putting green. A sprinkler system was producing a fine spray to protect the lawn from the East Georgia summer, and the sun shining through the spray made it iridescent.
Penny Clive, in white shorts and a blue top that didn't quite conceal her belly button, answered the door. All of her that I could see uncovered was a smooth tan. Not the deep-cured kind, but a gentle healthy-looking one that seemed casually acquired, though the evenness of it made me wonder just how casual the process was.
"Well, hello," she said.
She had a light voice with some kind of rich undertone, which made everything she said imply somewhat more than it seemed to. I had a moment when I thought maybe it wasn't so bad that Susan couldn't be here. I thought about whether I should feel guilty about that and decided I should not since I was simply being human, albeit male human.
"Hello."
"Please come in. Do you have everything you need at the hotel?"
We stood in a vast, high central hallway with dark floors that gleamed with polish.
"Bed, television, a/c, running water, what more could there be?" I said.
"What indeed?" she said, and the little smile lines at the corners of her wide mouth deepened. "I was just having some iced tea on the terrace-would you have some with me?"
"Of course," I said, and followed her the length of the corridor and out through some very large French doors onto a wide white-brick terrace under a green-and-white-striped canvas canopy.
"Daddy's not here," she said.
"You're more fun anyway," I said.
"It depends," she said.
She gestured at a couple of comfortable-looking patio chairs. We sat. There was a big glass pitcher on a serving table and some glasses and ice in a bucket and sugar and lemons and fresh mint.
"On what?" I said.
"On whether you're a business partner or a sex partner," she said.
She put ice in a tall glass, added a lemon wedge and a mint leaf, and poured me some iced tea. I added some sugar.
"It's probably not the business partners who are voting for fun," I said.
"No," Penny said. "Speaking of fun, we're having a little welcome party for you tonight. I hope you don't mind."
"Most employers hold one when I leave," I said.
"Daddy thought it would be a convenient way to introduce you to everybody. Very informal, starts around seven."
"Wouldn't miss it," I said.
The backyard, if one could call it that, was being sprinkled too. It stretched dead level toward some sort of outbuildings in the middle distance. Beyond them was a tennis court and, beyond the courts, a paddock and what I assumed were stables. As we sat, a Dalmatian came sniffing around the corner of the terrace, paused, looked up, put his ears back, and came over toward me, moving more slowly, with his head lowered a little and his tail wagging tentatively.
"That's Dutch," Penny said.
Dutch kept coming until he was in pat range. I put my closed fist out so he could sniff it. Which he did for maybe a full minute, quite carefully sniffing all aspects of it. Then he was satisfied. His ears came back up and his tail resumed full wag. He put his head on my leg and stood while I stroked his head.
"Tell me more about the horse shootings," I said.
She was turned half sideways in her chair, one leg tucked under her, giving me her full attention. She was clearly one of those especially likable women who made you feel that you might be the most interesting creature they had ever encountered. I knew that everyone she talked to felt that way, but it was no less pleasing for that. Right now it was my turn.
"I'm not sure where to start," she said. "I know all of us are in something of a tizzy."
"Well, were all the horses shot with the same weapon?"
"Oh God, I wouldn't know that sort of thing. Jon Delroy might know. Or you could talk with Deputy Becker."
"Any geographical pattern?"
"All here," she said.
"How many horses?"
"Three-a stable pony, and two colts."
She sipped some iced tea, dipping her face into it, holding the glass in both hands, looking at me over the rim.
"Where did they get shot?"
"I just told- Oh, you mean what part of them did the bullet hit?"
"Yes."
"One in the head, the stable pony. He died. Heroic Hope was shot once in the left shoulder. I don't think he'll run again. Saddle Shoes was shot in the neck. The vets tell us he should be fine."
"You said 'bullet'-was each of them shot just once?"
"I believe so."
Dutch took his head off my leg suddenly and walked away. I saw no reason for it. He appeared to be stepping to the beat of his own drummer. He found a spot on the lawn, in the sun, out of sprinkler range, turned around three times, and settled down and went to sleep.
"Only one died?" I said.
"Yes."
I nodded.
"You're looking so wise all of a sudden. Have I supplied you a clue?"
"Just a thought," I said.
"Oh, tell me, what is it?"
I shook my head.
"I assume that's not Three Fillies world headquarters down there," I said.
"The stables? Oh God no. It's where we keep our own horses. The racing operation is about a mile down the road. Are we changing the subject?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"So you won't have to tell me your thought?"
"I have so few," I said. "I like to nurture them."
She nodded thoughtfully and sipped a little more of her tea.
"You're very charming," she said. "But you don't actually say very much."
"I haven't much to say."
"I don't believe that," Penny said.
"And detectives get further listening than they do talking."
"Are you being a detective now?"
"I'm always being a detective," I said.
"Really? Is that how you define yourself?"
"No. I define myself as Susan Silverman's main squeeze. Detective is what I do."
"Are you married to her?"
"Not quite."
"Tell me about her."
"Smart, a little self-centered, intense, quick, very tough, very funny, dreadful cook, and beautiful."
"What does she do?"
"Shrink."
"Wow."
"Wow?"
"Well, I mean, it's so high-powered."
"Me too," I said.
Penny smiled.
"Have you two been together for a long time?" she said.
"Yes."
"But you've never married."
"No."
"Is there a reason?"
"It's never seemed a good idea at the times we've thought about it."
"Well, I'd love to meet her."
"Yes," I said. "You would."
When the sprinklers stopped, Penny and I took a stroll with Dutch around the grounds, the tennis courts, and the riding stables. The unexplained outbuildings turned out to be a small gymnasium with weight-lifting equipment and two locker rooms. Then I went back to my hotel to think long thoughts. As is usual when I'm thinking long thoughts, I lay on the bed with my eyes closed. Susan says I often snore when thinking long thoughts.

FOUR

JAPANESE LANTERNS INmany colors were strung over the dark lawn, defining a patch of light and movement behind the Clive mansion. A number of guests dressed in elegant informality clustered together inside the circling lanterns near a bar set up on a table with a white tablecloth, where a black man in a white coat made drinks upon request. I was there wearing a summer-weight blue blazer to hide my gun, and sipping some beer and eating an occasional mushroom turnover offered me by a black woman with cornrows, wearing a frilly white apron. If you went outside the lanterns into the surrounding darkness and waited until your eyes adjusted, you could look up and see stars in the velvety night.
Walter Clive was there in a straw-colored jacket and a navy-blue shirt. He still had on his aviator sunglasses, probably protection from the glare of the lanterns. A woman in a soft-green linen dress came out of the house and into the circle of light. She had silvery blond hair, and very worthwhile cleavage, and good hips and long legs. She was standing with a graceful-looking younger man with hair as blond as hers.
"Dolly," Clive said. "Over here."
She turned toward his voice and smiled and walked toward us. She had the kind of walk that helped me to think about the soft sound of the linen dress whispering across her thighs. When she got to where we were she kissed Clive, and put her hand out to me.
"Dolly, this is Spenser, the man we've hired."
"How lovely to meet you," she said.
Her grip was firm. She smelled gently of French perfume. At least in the light of the Japanese lanterns, her eyes were violet.
"How do you do?" I said.
"Have you met Hugger yet?"
"No, is he here?"
"Oh, aren't you funny," she said.
There was intimacy in the way Dolly stood and talked, which seemed to suggest that we really ought to be in bed together, and until then we were just marking time.
"Yes, I am," I said. "Do you have any theories on the horse assaults?"
"Oh Lord no," she said. "That's not my business."
"What is your business?" I said.
She nodded at Clive, who was talking with a group of guests.
"Keeping him happy," she said.
"Which you do well."
She didn't appear to do anything, but I could feel the energy between us again.
"Which I do very well," she said.
Penny came by and took my arm.
"Sorry, Dolly, the big boss has ordered me to introduce him around."
"It's best to follow orders," Dolly said, and drifted away toward Clive.
"Wife?" I said.
"Girlfriend."
"Where's your mother?"
"Left years ago. She lives in San Francisco with a guitarist."
"You get along?" I said.
"With Dolly? Oh sure. She keeps Daddy happy and when Daddy's happy, everybody's happy."
"Who's the younger blond guy she's with?"
"That's her son," Penny said. "Jason."
"She's older than she looks," I said.
Penny smiled brilliantly.
"We all are," she said.
With her arm through mine she steered me through the guests. We stopped in front of a woman whose idea of easy informality appeared to be gold sling-back shoes with glass heels and a gauzy white dress. She was good-looking. Every woman at the party was good-looking. They all looked as if they had just stepped from the shower and doused themselves with lilac water and taken plenty of time getting ready for the party.
"This is my big sister," she said. "Stonie. Stonie, this is Mr. Spenser, whom Daddy has hired to protect Hugger."
"Well," Stonie said, "you certainly have the build for it."
"You have a nice build too," I said.
"Why, aren't you just lovely to notice."
The man with her turned away from his conversation and put out a hand.
"Cord Wyatt," he said. "I'm the lucky husband of this lady."
He was taller than I am and slim, with the kind of loose build I associated with polo players. Since I had never seen a polo match, my association may not have been accurate. He had the tan and the perfect smile, and so did his wife. Everybody had it. If I were a skin cancer specialist, I'd move right down here.
"And this is my middle sister, SueSue."
It was getting monotonous. Blond hair, tan skin, white teeth. SueSue's dress was flowered.
"Wow," SueSue said.
"Wow?" I said.
"No one told me you were a hunk," SueSue said.
"Sadly," I said, "no one has told me that either."
"Well, you surely are," she said.
"He doesn't look like so much to me," a man said.
"My husband, Pud," SueSue said.
I put my hand out. Pud didn't take it. He appeared to be drunk. As I thought of it, maybe SueSue was drunk too. Which was too bad-it took a little something away from the "hunk" designation.
"Pud," I said, and took my hand back.
Pud looked like he might weigh 250, but it was weight that had collected on a frame designed to support maybe 210. He had the look of a college football player ten years out of shape. He was probably stud duck at the Rotary Club cookouts. I could have taken him while whistling the Michigan fight song and balancing a seal on my nose.
Pud said, "So, how you doing, Hunk?"
"Fine, thank you, Pud."
I maybe put a little more edge into "Pud" than I had to, but on the whole I was being the soul of civility.
"My wife thinks you're a hunk," he said.
His tongue was having a little trouble, and "you're" came out as a compromise with "you are."
"A common misperception," I said. "You must have the same problem, Pud."
He frowned at me. Even sober, I suspected, his strong suit would not be thinking.
"You got yourself a problem," he said, "with my name?"
"Oh, Pud," SueSue said. "Nobody gives a damn about your silly old name."
Penny was quiet; she seemed sort of interested.
"The hunk don't like my name," he said, and stared at me. The stare would have been scarier if he could focus.
"It's quite a lovely name," I said. "Is it short for something?"
"His father's name was Poole," SueSue said. "Poole Potter. He called his son Puddle."
"I see," I said.
"I don't think I like you talking to my wife, Hunk."
"Of course you don't," I said.
"So buzz off."
He put his hand on my chest and gave me a little shove. It was too little. I didn't move.
"Pud," I said. "Please don't make a mistake here."
"Mistake? What mistake? I'm telling you to buzz off."
"You're drunk," I said, "and I'm even-tempered. But don't put your hands on me again."
He had a low-ball glass in his right hand that appeared to contain bourbon. He took a bracing pull on it.
"I ought to knock you on your keister."
"Sure," I said, "but you can't and you're just going to look like a goddamned fool. Why don't I apologize and you accept and we'll go our separate ways?"
"You think I can't?"
Neither Penny nor SueSue made any move to intervene. There was something a little unpleasant flickering in SueSue's eyes as she watched.
"Pud, I've been doing this for a living since before you started pickling your liver. It's not a good match for you."
He stared at me. Some part of him got it. Some part of him knew he'd gotten in where he didn't belong. But he was too drunk to back down. He looked at SueSue. The unpleasant glint was still in her eyes. She smiled an unpleasant smile.
"Don't you let him push you around, Pud Potter," she said.
He frowned as if he were trying to concentrate, and put his drink on a table next to him. It came the way I knew it would, a long slow looping right punch that I could have slipped while writing my memoirs. I blocked it on my left forearm. He threw a left of the same directness and velocity. I slipped the left, put my hand behind his shoulder, and used the slow force of the punch to continue him around. When he was turned, I put my foot against his butt and shoved. He stumbled forward and fell on the lawn, and got up with deep grass stains on the knees of his white slacks.
Walter Clive detached himself from the group he was entertaining and walked over. Dolly came with him.
"What seems to be the problem?" he said.
"Pud is drunk," Penny said.
Clive nodded. "And being Pud," he said.
"Yes."
Pud was standing, looking a little disoriented, ready to charge.
"SueSue," Clive said. "Take Pud home."
He turned to me.
"I apologize for my son-in-law. He's a little too fond sometimes of that sippin' whiskey."
"No harm," I said.
Clive never looked to see if Pud was leaving. Which he was, led by SueSue away from the bright circle of Japanese lanterns. Dolly smiled at me warmly. The smile made me think of perfumed silk. I was pretty sure I knew what she did to make Clive happy.
"Penny," Clive said, "introduce Mr. Spenser to our trainer."
"Sure thing, boss," Penny said, and put her arm through mine again and led me toward another part of the terrace. Clive went back to his guests with Dolly beside him.
"You handled him like he was a little boy," Penny said. She hugged my arm against her.
"It's what I do," I said. "As in most things, there's a pretty big difference between amateurs and professionals."
"I'll say."
"Sorry that had to happen," I said.
"Oh, not me," Penny said. "I'm thrilled. I think Pud needs to be kicked in the ass every evening."
"In your experience, am I going to have to do it again?"
"I don't know. He may not even remember it in the morning."
"Perhaps SueSue will remind him."
"You don't miss much," she said. "Do you?"
"Just doing my job, ma'am," I said.
"Most of the people Pud picks on are afraid of him."
"Given his fistic skills," I said, "he would be wise to ascertain that in advance."
She smiled and gave my arm an extra squeeze and guided me through the cocktail crowd.

FIVE

IT WAS TENminutes to six in the morning. I was at the rail with Hale Martin, the Three Fillies trainer, at the east end of the Three Fillies training track with the sun on my back, drinking a cup of coffee from the pot in the trainer's room. A big chestnut horse was being ridden around the soft track by a small girl in jeans and a lavender T-shirt that read THREE FILLIES on it. A whip was stuck into the top of her right boot. Under her funny-looking rider's cap, her hair was a long single braid down her back. The girl was an exercise rider named Mickey. The horse was Hugger Mugger. He was beautiful. There were four other horses being galloped in the morning. They were beautiful. As I went along I discovered that they were all beautiful, including the ones that couldn't outrun me in a mile and a furlong. Maybe beauty is skin-deep.
"How much does he weigh?" I said.
"About twelve hundred pounds," Martin said.
I'd always imagined that trainers were old guys that looked like James Whitmore, and chewed plug tobacco. Martin was a young guy with even features and very bright blue eyes and the healthy color of a man who spent his life outdoors. He wore a white button-down shirt and pressed jeans, a silk tweed jacket, riding boots, and the kind of snug leather pullover chaps that horse people wore, I think, to indicate that they were horse people.
"And that hundred-pound kid controls him like he was a tricycle."
Martin smiled. "Girls and horses," he said.
"It's probably a sign of city-bred boorishness," I said. "But all the horses look pretty much alike."
"They ought to," Martin said. "They're all descended from one of three horses, most of them from a horse called the Darley Arabian."
"Close breeding," I said.
"Um-hmm."
We were alone at the rail except for the Security South guards in their gray uniforms, four of them, with handguns and walkie-talkies, watching Hugger Mugger as he pranced through his workout.
"Doesn't it make some of them kind of weird?"
"Oh yes," Martin said. "Weavers. Cribbers. Stay around until we breeze Jimbo. We can't breeze Jimbo with the other horses."
The stables and training track were surrounded by tall pine trees that didn't begin to branch until maybe thirty feet up the trunk. The horses' hooves made a soft chuff on the surface of the track. Otherwise it was very still. The exercise riders talked among themselves as they rode, but we weren't close enough to hear them. There was nothing else in sight but this ring in the trees where the horses circled timelessly, counterclockwise, with an evanescence of morning mist barely lingering about the infield.
"What's going on with that one?" I said.
"He tends to swallow his tongue," Martin said. "So we have to tie it down when he runs."
"How's he feel about that?" I said.
Martin grinned. "Horses don't say much."
"Nothing wrong with quiet," I said.
A trim man with short hair and high cheekbones came toward us from the stable area. He had on a tan golf jacket, and Dockers and deck shoes. A blue-and-gray-plaid shirt showed at the opening of the half-zipped jacket. He wore an earpiece like the Secret Service guys, and there was a small SS pin on the lapel of his jacket. When he got close enough I could see that he was wearing a gun under the golf jacket.
"Delroy," he said.
"Spenser," I said, trying to stand a little straighter.
"I heard you were coming aboard."
"Aye," I said.
Delroy looked at me suspiciously. Was I kidding him?
"I'd appreciate it if you'd check in with me when you're in the area."
"Sure. When did you come aboard?"
"Me?"
"Yeah, when did you start guarding the horses?"
"After Heroic Hope was shot."
"The second horse shot."
"That's right."
"So where were your guys when someone was pointing a gun at Hugger Mugger?"
"If somebody did," Delroy said.
"You figure the groom made it up?"
"Nobody could get to him through our security."
"How about the other horse, Saddle Shoes?"
"He was shot at long range," Delroy said. "We can't be everywhere."
"'Course not," I said. "Why would the groom lie?"
"Most of them lie," Delroy said.
"Grooms?"
Delroy snorted. "They wouldn't tell a white man the truth if it would make them rich."
"What's the SS for on your collar?"
"Security South."
"Oh, it's not Schutzstaffel ? "I said.
"Excuse me?"
"A little Nazi humor," I said.
"What do you mean?"
"The SS was Hitler's bodyguard," I said. "It's an abbreviation of Schutzstaffel."
"This pin stands for Security South," Delroy said.
"Yes."
Delroy looked at me for a moment. Martin was silent beside me, his eyes on the horses moving around the track.
"You're a big guy," Delroy said.
"I try," I said.
"Well, to be honest with you, size doesn't impress me."
"How disappointing," I said.
"We're professionals, every one of us, and quite frankly, we don't think we need some wizard brought in here from Boston to tell us how to do our job."
"Well, it's certainly a nice professional-looking earpiece," I said. "Can you listen to Dr. Laura on it?"
"I command a twelve-man detail here," Delroy said. "I need in-touch capability."
"Military Police?" I said.
"I joined SS five years ago. Before that I was with the Bureau and before that I was an officer in the Marine Corps."
"The Corps and the Bureau," I said. "Jeepers."
"What are your credentials?"
"I got fired from the cops," I said.
Delroy snorted. Martin kept watching the horses.
"How the hell did you weasel onto Walt Clive's payroll?" Delroy said.
"Maybe size impresses him," I said.
"Well, let's put it on the table where we can all look at it," Delroy said. "We'll complete our mission here with you or without you. You do whatever you want to, or whatever Walt Clive wants you to do. But if you get in our way we'll roll right over you. You understand?"
"Most of it," I said. "Martin here can help me with the hard parts."
"Anything has to do with that horse," Delroy said, "you go through me."
He about-faced smartly and marched away.
"First Pud, now him," I said to Martin.
"Southern hospitality," Martin said absently. His mind was still on the horses.
"Just so we're clear," I said. "I'm not after your wife. I won't tell you how to train horses."
"My wife will be sorry to hear that," Martin said.
"But the horses won't give a damn," I said.
"They never seem to," Martin said.

SIX

IWAS SITTINGin an office at the Columbia County Sheriff's Lamarr substation with a man named Dalton Becker. He was a big, solid, slow black man. He had short graying hair. His coat was off and hanging behind the half-open door. His red-and-blue-striped suspenders were bright over his white shirt. He wore his gun tucked inside his waistband.
"You care for a Coca-Cola?" he said.
"Sure."
"Vonnie." He raised his voice. "Couple Coca-Colas."
We waited while a young black woman with bright blond hair sashayed in, chewing gum, and plopped two Cokes on his desk.
"Thank you, Vonnie," Becker said.
She sashayed back out. He handed one to me, opened his, and took a drink.
"Here's what I know about this horse business," he said. "First of all, there's been three horses attacked. Not counting the alleged attack on Hugger Mugger. One of them died. All three attacks were here at Three Fillies. Far's I know, there have been no other attacks on other horses."
"Alleged?"
"Yep. We only got the groom's word."
"You believe the groom?" I said.
"I been at this awhile. I don't believe or not believe. I just look for evidence."
"Anything wrong with the groom?"
"Nope."
"Just native skepticism," I said.
"You got any of that?"
"Some," I said.
Becker smiled. I waited.
"First one was about a month ago, at the training track, here in Lamarr. Stable pony got plugged with a .22 caliber slug. Bullet went into the brain through the eye socket. He died. You know what a stable pony is?"
"I know he's not a racehorse."
"That's enough to know," Becker said. "I don't know squat about horse racing either."
"The other two were Thoroughbreds, one shot from a distance, probably a rifle with a scope, while he was walking around the training track. Hit him in the neck. I guess he'll recover. The other one was shot in the shoulder-he's all right, but I guess his racing days are finished. Both bullets were .22 long."
As we talked Becker sipped on his Coke; otherwise he didn't move at all. He wasn't inert, he was solid. It was as if he would move when he chose to and nothing would move him before.
"Same weapon in all the shootings?"
"Far as anybody can tell," Becker said.
"One bullet each?"
"Yep."
"Is there a case file?" I said.
"Sure. Why?"
"Just wondered if you bothered," I said.
"Always had a good memory," Becker said. "You can look at the file, if you want to."
"Suspects?" I said.
"Well, so far I'm pretty sure it ain't me," Becker said.
"Think it's the same person?"
"Could be. Or it could be one person shot the first one and a copycat shot the others. They're always out there. Could be somebody with a grudge against Clive."
"Any evidence that it's either?"
"Nope," Becker said. "No evidence for anything."
"Sort of up the Swanee without a paddle," I said.
"Till you showed up. Nothing makes us dumb southern boys happier than having a smart Yankee show up to help us."
"You going to break out in a rebel yell soon?" I said.
"Well," Becker said, "I do get playful sometimes."
"I thought you were supposed to be ticked off about slavery and stuff."
"Never been a slave. Don't know anybody who owned one."
"Any pattern to the wounds?" I said.
"Veterinary report's in the case file," Becker said. "To me they look random."
"So why would somebody go around randomly shooting horses?"
"Don't know."
"The shots were random," I said, "but the horses weren't. They all belonged to Three Fillies."
"Yep."
"Try not to run on so," I said. "You're making me dizzy."
Becker smiled.
"If you wanted a dead horse, wouldn't you shoot more than once? Especially if the horse didn't go down?"
"If I had time," Becker said. "If I wanted a dead horse. Might use a bigger weapon too."
"Did he have time?"
"Far as we know."
"And there are probably bigger weapons available."
"Yep."
"So maybe a dead horse wasn't the point," I said.
"Maybe."
"Maybe shooting the horse was the point."
"Maybe."
"If he wanted to prevent them from racing for some reason, why shoot the pony?"
"Good question," Becker said.
"So why'd he shoot them?"
"Maybe he's a fruitcake," Becker said.
"Maybe," I said. "You familiar with Security South?"
"Sure," Becker said. "Bunch of ex-FBI guys. Do a lot of horse-racing security."
"Know a guy named Delroy?"
"Jon Delroy," Becker said.
"Brisk, stern, upright, and ready," I said.
"You bet," Becker said. "Awful dumb, though."

SEVEN

IWAS INthe Three Fillies stable yard looking at Hugger Mugger. Security South had a guy with a gleaming pistol belt posted in front of the stall and another one in the stable office making sure of the coffee. Hugger Mugger hung his head out of the stall and looked hopefully at Penny in case she might have a carrot. He had very large brown eyes and looked deeply intelligent.
"They're not terribly smart," Penny said. "They seem to have a lot of certain kinds of awareness people don't have. They are very skittish and can be spooked by dogs, or birds, or sudden noise."
Hugger Mugger nosed her upper arm, his ears back slightly and his profound brown eyes gazing at her. Along the stable row other horses looked out over the open doors of their stalls, turning their heads to peer down at us. The horses were restrained only by a belt across the open door. It was not unlike the velvet rope that closes off a dining room.
"Does he know you?" I said.
"He knows I sometimes carry carrots," Penny said. "Mostly they like other horses."
"They ever get to gallop around in the field with all the other horses?"
"God no," Penny said. "You pay two million dollars for a horse that might be the next Citation, you can't let him hang around with other horses, one of which might kick his ribs in."
I patted Hugger Mugger's forehead. He turned the carrot-questioning look on me.
"Nice horsie," I said.
"Aficionados of the sport of kings," Penny said, "don't usually say things like 'nice horsie.' "
I frowned and looked hard at Hugger Mugger. In a deep voice I said, "Good withers."
Penny laughed. "Do you even know what withers are?" she said.
"No," I said.
"You talk with Billy?" she said.
"I will."
"You'll like him."
"I never met a man I didn't like," I said.
Penny gave me an Oh please look. "He loves this horse," she said.
"Because he's going to win the Triple Crown?" I said.
"No. That's why all the rest of us love him. I think Billy just loves him."
"Even if he doesn't win the Triple Crown?"
"Even if he never wins a race."
"Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds," I said.
"Is that some kind of poem?" Penny said.
"I think so."
"You don't look like a poem kind of man," she said.
"It's a disguise," I said.
Jon Delroy came briskly toward us across the stable yard.
"I got a message you wanted to see me," he said to Penny.
"Yes, Jon," she said. "Let's the three of us go over to the office."
Delroy looked at me as if I were something he'd just stepped in. And turned to walk with Penny. I tagged along. We went into the track office and sat down. Penny sat behind the desk in a swivel chair. Delroy and I sat in straight chairs against the wall. There was a coffeemaker on a table near the desk, and a small refrigerator on the wall behind the desk. There were photographs of happy owners with happy jockeys and happy horses in various winner's circles.
"Jon, you've lodged a complaint with Three Fillies Stables," Penny said. "About Mr. Spenser."
She sat back in the swivel chair, her feet in riding boots crossed on the desk. Her voice was friendly, with the nice southern lilt.
"I've talked with your father, yes," Delroy said.
"And my father has asked me to talk with both of you," she said.
I waited. Delroy was looking hard at her, sitting bolt upright in his chair.
"As CEO of, and majority stockholder in, Three Fillies Stables, my father feels that employment decisions are his to make if he wishes to."
"Well, of course, Penny, but . . ."
"Don't interrupt," Penny said. No lilt. "We have hired Spenser to find out who is trying to harm Hugger Mugger. We have hired you to protect Hugger Mugger while he does so. There is no reason for either of you to get in the other's way."
I smiled cooperatively. Delroy looked as if he had just eaten a pinecone.
"Is that clear?" Penny said.
"Yes, ma'am," I said.
Delroy didn't speak.
"Is that clear, Jon?"
Delroy still didn't speak.
"Because if it is not clear, you may finish out the week and then be on your way."
"Penny, we signed a contract."
"Sue us. This is my way or the highway, Jon. And you decide right now."
"Be easier to put up with me," I said to Delroy.
Penny sat with her feet still up on the desk. Her big pretty eyes showed nothing. She wore a white shirt, with the collar open, a gold chain showing. Her pale blue jeans were tight and tucked into the top of her riding boots. Her neck was slender but strong-looking. Her thighs were firm.
"Yes or no," she said.
"Yes," Delroy said.
The words came out very thin, as if it'd had to slip between clenched teeth.
"You'll cooperate with Spenser?"
"Yes."
"You have any problems with Jon?" Penny said to me.
"Not me," I said. "Your way or the doorway."
Penny took her feet off the desktop and let the chair come forward and smiled.
"Excellent," she said. "Either of you want a Coca-Cola?"

EIGHT

MY ROOM WASon the second floor of one wing of the motel, and opened onto a wing-length balcony with stairs at either end. It was late afternoon when SueSue Potter knocked on my door.
"Welcome Wagon," she said when I opened it.
"Oh good," I said. "I was afraid your husband had sent you ahead to soften me up."
She was wearing a big hat and carrying a bottle of champagne in an ice bucket and a big straw handbag. There was some sort of look in her eyes, but it wasn't the unpleasant glint I'd seen when Pud threatened me.
"Oh, Pud is a poop," she said.
"Alliteration," I said. "Very nice."
She put the champagne down on top of the television set and circled the room. She was as perky as a grasshopper and much better-looking in a pink linen dress with a square neck and matching shoes.
"You mean you have to live here all by yourself all the time you're here?" she said.
"Depends on how lucky I get hanging out at the bowling alley late."
"You big silly, I bet you don't even bowl."
"Wow," I said, "you see right through a guy."
"You have any glasses for this champagne?"
"Couple of nice plastic ones," I said, "in the bathroom."
"Well, get them out here, it's nearly cocktail time and I don't like to enter it sober."
I went to the bathroom and got the two little cups and peeled off the plastic-wrap sealers and brought the cups out and set them festively on top of the television beside the champagne bucket.
"I'm afraid that champagne corks are just too strong for me. Could you very kindly do the honors?"
I opened the champagne and poured some into each of the plastic cups. I handed one to her and picked up the other one. She put her glass up toward mine.
"Chink, chink," she said.
I touched her glass with mine.
"I think plastic sounds more like 'Scrape, scrape,' " I said.
"Not if you listen with a romantic ear," she said.
"Which you do," I said.
"To everything, darlin'."
I smiled. She smiled. She drank her champagne. I took another small nibble at mine. She gazed dreamily around the room. I waited. She looked at my gun, lying in its holster on the bedside table.
"Oh," she said. "A gun."
"Why, so it is."
"Can I look at it?"
"Sure."
"Can I pick it up?"
"No."
She put her glass out. I refilled it.
"Did you have that with you the other night when Pud was being dreadful?"
"Yes."
"So you could have shot him if you wanted."
"Seems a little extreme," I said.
"You handled him like he was a bad little boy," SueSue said.
She drank some more champagne, looking at me while she drank, her eyes big and blue and full of energy. It was too soon for the champagne to kick in. It was some other kind of energy.
"Just doing my job, ma'am."
She smiled widely. And what I'd seen in her eyes, I saw in her smile.
"Pud played football over at Alabama. Even had a pro tryout."
"Linebacker?" I said.
"I don't know who the pro team was. I hate football."
"What position did he play?" I said.
"Defense."
I nodded.
"He still goes to the gym all the time. But you just turned him around like he was a little bitty boy."
"Breathtaking, isn't it?" I said.
"You're a dangerous man," she said, and put her glass out. I poured.
"Especially to fried clams," I said. "You put a plate of fried clams in front of me, they're gone in a heartbeat."
"I could see that you were dangerous," she said, "minute you came into the room."
The champagne was beginning to affect her speech a little. Her articles were slurring, or she was skipping right over them.
"I think even Pud could see it, but he was too drunk to be smart about it. What would you have done if he'd come back at you?"
"You kind of have to be in the moment," I said, "to know what you'd do."
"You'd have hurt him," SueSue said. "I saw it in your eyes."
"I take no pleasure in hurting someone."
"I know men, darlin'. Everybody else in my damn family knows horses. But I know men. You like to fight."
"Everybody needs a hobby," I said.
"You like to fuck too?"
"Wow," I said. "You do know men."
A little vertical frown line indented her perfect tan for a moment, between her perfect eyebrows, and went right away.
"Lotta men don't like it. They all pretend they like it, but they don't. Some of them don't want to, or they can't 'cause they a little teensy bit drunk, or they scared of a woman who wants to."
"And you're a woman who wants to."
"I like it. I like it with big men. I'd like to see how many muscles you got and where."
"Lots," I said. "Everywhere."
"I need to see for myself, darlin'."
"That'll be a problem."
"You aren't even drinking your champagne," she said. "If you don't like champagne, I got something more serious."
"No need," I said.
But SueSue wasn't all that interested in my needs.
"You married?" Sue said.
"Sort of."
"You don't wear a wedding band."
"I'm not exactly married."
"How can you be not exactly married?" she said. "You mean you got a girlfriend."
"More than that," I said.
"Good Lord, you're not gay, are you?"
"No."
"Well, whatever it is, you being loyal about it?"
"Yes."
"Oh hell," she said.
I nodded.
"Cheatin' makes it a lot more fun, darlin'," she said.
Her southern accent became more pronounced as the champagne bubbled into her system.
"Maybe it's not always about fun," I said.
"Well, what in the hell else would it be about?"
"Could be about love," I said.
"Love?" She laughed. The sound was unpleasant.
"Only some big dangerous gun-totin' Yankee would come around talking 'bout love. My God-love!"
"I heard it makes the world go round," I said.
"Money makes the world go round, darlin'. And sex makes the trip worthwhile. Sex and money, darlin'. Money and sex."
"Both are nice," I said.
She picked up the champagne bottle. It was empty. She put it back onto the table.
"Damn," she said, and half disappeared into her big straw handbag and came out with a bottle of Jack Daniel's. She handed it to me to open.
"Nice." She laughed the unpleasant laugh again. "There isn't anything nice down here, darlin'. Nothing nice about the Clives."
I put the open bottle of Jack Daniel's on the table beside the champagne bucket. SueSue took some ice out of the bucket and put it in the cup from which she had been drinking champagne. She picked up the Jack Daniel's bottle and poured some over the rocks. Holding the bottle, she looked at me. I shook my head. The champagne left in my plastic cup was warm. I put the cup down on the table.
"Nothing?" I said.
SueSue drank some Jack Daniel's. She neither sipped it nor slugged it. She drank it as she had drunk champagne, in an accomplished manner, doing something she was used to doing.
"Well," she said, "we're all good-looking, and mostly we have good manners, 'cept me. I tend maybe to be a little bit too direct for good manners."
"Direct," I said, and smiled at her hunkishly. "What's wrong with your family?"
"The hell with them," she said. "Are you going to come on to me or not?"
"Let's talk a little," I said.
She got cagey. "Only if you'll have little drink with me," she said.
I wanted to hear what she had to say. I picked up my cup and took it to the bathroom and emptied the remaining champagne into the sink. Then I came back, put some ice in my plastic cup and poured some whiskey over it.
"Now drink some," SueSue said.
I felt like a freshman girl on her first date with a senior. We drank together in silence for a minute or so. I was betting that SueSue couldn't tolerate silence. I was right.
"What was it you were asking me about, darlin'?"
"You," I said. "Tell me about you."
More than one way to ask a question.
"I'm a Clive," she said.
"Is that complicated?"
She shook her head sadly.
"I think one of our ancestors must have stolen something from a tomb," she said.
"Family curse?"
"We're all corrupt," she said. "Drunks, liars, fornicators."
"You too?" I said.
"Me especially," she said. "Hell, why do you think I'm married to Fred Flintstone?"
"Love?" I said.
She made a nasty sound, which might have been a contemptuous laugh.
"There you go again," she said. "Daddy wanted his girls married. He wanted them out of the clubs and off their backs and in a marriage. He wanted sons-in-law to inherit the business. Pud was what there was."
"Stonie too?"
"Don't get me started on Stonie and Cord."
"Why not?"
"Don't get me started," she said.
"Okay."
SueSue had a drink of whiskey.
"How about Penny?" I said. "She's not married."
"Little Penelope," SueSue said. She struggled to say "Penelope." "Sometimes I think she was switched at birth."
"She's different?"
"She stands up to Daddy."
"And?"
"And he thinks it's cute. He trusts her with everything. Hell, she knows the business better than he does."
"So she doesn't have to get married?"
"Not now, but she better, she wants to inherit anything."
"Really?"
"Man's gotta be in charge," SueSue said. "Can't have a woman ruining the business."
"Even though she halfway runs it now."
"Daddy still in charge."
Talking was getting harder for her as the Jack Daniel's went in. I needed to get what I could before talking became too hard.
"What's wrong with Stonie and Cord?" I said.
"Stonie so frustrated she rubbing up doorknobs," SueSue said.
Her syntax was deteriorating fast.
"How come?"
Her smile was dreamy without ceasing to be nasty.
"Little boys," she said.
"Cord likes little boys?" I said.
Her eyes closed and her head lolled back against the chair cushion.
She said, "Un-huh."
And then she fell asleep.

NINE

IWAS HAVINGbreakfast with Billy Rice off the back of a commissary truck parked under some high pines at the edge of the Three Fillies training track.
"Donuts put a nice foundation under your morning," Rice said.
"Go good with coffee too," I said.
Across from us the track was empty, except for Hugger Mugger. We could hear him breathing in the short heavy way that horses breathe. His chest was huge. His legs were positively dainty, the odd, beautiful result of endless selectivity. A half-ton heart-lung machine on legs smaller than mine. His only function was to run a mile or so, in two minutes or so. Rice watched him all the time while we ate our donuts.
"Great horse?" I said.
"Be a great horse," Rice said.
"Doesn't look that different."
"Ain't what makes a great horse," Billy said. "Same as any athlete. He got to have the right body, and the right training. Then he got to have the heart. One with the heart be the great one."
"And he's got it?"
"Yes, he do."
"How do you know?"
Rice was too gentle a man to be scornful. But he came close.
"I know him," Rice said.
He was smallish. Not smallish like a jockey, just smallish compared to me. He wore jeans and sneakers and a polo shirt and a baseball cap that read THREE FILLIES across the front, over the bill. Martin, the trainer, leaned on the fence watching Hugger Mugger. And four Security South sentinels stood around the track.
"Tell me about the prowler," I said.
Rice sipped his coffee. His dark eyes were thoughtful and opaque, a little like the eyes of the racehorses.
"Nothing much to tell. I sleeping with Hugger. I hear a noise, shine my flashlight, see a gun. When I shine my light, the gun goes away. I hear footsteps running. Then nothing."
"You didn't follow?"
"I don't have no gun. Am I going out in the dark, chase somebody got a gun?"
"No," I said. "You're not."
"How 'bout you?" Rice said.
"I'm not either," I said. "Can you describe the gun?"
"No. Don't know much 'bout guns."
"Handgun or long gun?"
"Long gun."
"Shotgun or rifle?"
"Don't know."
"One barrel or two?"
"One."
"What kind of front sight?"
"Don't know," Rice said. "Only saw it in the flashlight for a second."
"Color?"
"Color? What color is a gun barrel? It was iron-colored."
"Bluish?"
"Yes, I guess."
"How about the footsteps? Heavy? Light? Fast? Slow?"
"Just footsteps, sounded like running. It was on the dirt outside the stable. Didn't make a lot of noise."
"Any smells?"
"Smells?"
"Hair tonic, shaving lotion, cologne, perfume, mouthwash, tobacco, booze, liniment."
"Sleeping in the stable," Rice said, "mostly everything smells like horses."
I nodded.
"They going to bring Jimbo out," Rice said. "Time to get Hugger out the way."
The exercise rider brought Hugger Mugger to the rail. Billy snapped the lead shank onto his bridle. The exercise rider climbed down, and Billy led Hugger Mugger back toward the stable area. As they walked their heads were very close together, as if they were exchanging confidences. The security guards moved in closer around Hugger Mugger as he walked, and by the time he'd reached the stable area they were around him like the Secret Service.
I moved up beside Hale Martin. Coming from the stable area toward the track was an entourage of horses and horse keepers. There was a big chestnut horse with a rider up and a groom on either side holding a shank. With them were two other horsemen, one on each side. The chestnut was tossing his head and skittering sideways as he came.
"Jimbo?" I said to Martin.
"Jimbo," Martin said.
The outriders gave with him as Jimbo skittered, and closed back in on him when he stopped. Riding him was a red-haired girl who might have been seventeen. The grooms and the outriders were men. One of the outriders had a cast on his right leg. He rode to the right, so that the injured leg was away from Jimbo.
"What about the guy with the cast?" I said.
Martin grinned.
"Jimbo," he said.
When Jimbo was on the track, the outriders peeled off and sat their horses in the shade near the track entrance. The grooms unsnapped their lead shanks at the same time and stepped quickly away. Jimbo reared and made horse noises. The red-haired girl held his head straight, sitting high up on his shoulders as if she were part of the horse. She gave him a light tap on the backside with her whip, and Jimbo tossed his head and began to move down the track.
"Run him a lot," I said. "Get him tired."
"Just makes him cranky," Martin said, his eyes following Jimbo. The redhead let him out and he began to sprint.
"Has he killed anyone yet?"
"Nope."
"But he might," I said.
"He wants to," Martin said.
"You have to handle him like this all the time?"
"Yep."
"Is it worth the bother?"
"He can run," Martin said.
"How about gelding?"
"Somebody gelded John Henry," Martin said. "Do you know how much money that cost them?"
"Stud fees?"
"You bet."
"You mean you'd let Jimbo loose with a mare?"
"He's different around mares," Martin said.
"Him too," I said.

TEN

MICKEYBLAIR WENTout of the track office with a springy walk that made her long blond braid bounce against the full length of her spine. She left the door open behind her. Through the open door, I could look straight along the stable row where the horses hung their heads out of their stalls and looked around. It reminded me of one of those streets in Amsterdam where the whores sat in windows.
I had a yellow legal-size pad on the desk by my right hand, and a nice Bic pen lying on it at a rakish angle. The pad was blank. I had spent the day interviewing stable crew about the attempt on Hugger Mugger and had learned so little that I thought I might have crossed into deficit. I looked at my watch. Twenty to five. Penny Clive came in wearing black jeans and a white T-shirt and a black jacket. She went to the refrigerator, took out two Cokes, and handed me one. She sat down on the couch and put her feet up on the coffee table. I was able to observe that her jeans fit her very well. It was about the only thing I'd observed all day.
"You got him in your sights?" she said.
"I think I know somewhat less than I did this morning."
"Oh dear," Penny said.
We each drank some Coke.
"I gather my sister came to visit," Penny said.
"Where did you gather that?" I said.
She smiled and shrugged.
"Daddy likes to know what SueSue and Stonie are up to," she said.
"So you keep an eye on them?"
"It's a small community," Penny said. "I usually know what's going on in it."
"Someone at the motel tipped you."
She smiled.
"Because you'd alerted them," I said.
She continued to smile.
"Because you figured she'd come to call," I said.
"SueSue is predictable," Penny said.
"Who keeps an eye on you ?" I said.
"I'm self-regulating," Penny said, and her smile increased so that the laugh parentheses at the corners of her mouth deepened. "I hope SueSue wasn't offensive."
"Not at all," I said.
"She has a problem with alcohol," Penny said.
"I gathered that she might."
"And men," Penny said.
I was quiet. Penny was quiet.
Finally Penny said, "Did she come on to you?"
"I wondered how you were going to get to it. Straight on is good."
"Thank you. Did she?"
"I think that's between SueSue and me," I said.
Penny nodded.
"Of course," she said. "I'm sorry to be cross-examining you."
"Just doing your job," I said.
"It's not like it sounds," she said. "My sisters are both, what, wild? Daddy is just trying . . . He's being a daddy."
"How are the marriages?" I said.
"They don't work very well."
"Children?"
"No."
"How's Daddy feel about that?"
"He wants an heir."
"Is it up to you?" I said.
She almost blushed.
"Not yet, not now," she said. "I've got too much to do here. Three Fillies is a huge operation, Daddy can't run it by himself anymore."
"Gee, he looks fine," I said.
"Oh, he is. But he's got too much money now. He's . . . too important. He travels a great deal now. He and Dolly. He just can't concentrate anymore on the day-to-day grind of it."
"How about the sons-in-law?" I said.
She shrugged. "They're married to his daughters," Penny said.
"Isn't Cord the executive VP?"
"Yes."
"And Pud is . . . ?"
"VP for marketing."
"Are they real jobs?" I said.
"Well, you come straight at it too, don't you?"
"Susan does subtle," I said. "I'm not smart enough."
"Of course you're not," Penny said. "No, they aren't real jobs. I think Daddy hoped they would be. But Pud is . . . well, you saw Pud."
"I saw him at his worst," I said.
"True, and he's not always that bad. When he's sober he's kind of a good old boy."
"When is he sober?"
"Almost every day," Penny said, "until lunch."
"And Stonie's husband?"
"Cord."
I nodded. She looked out at the line of stalls. Hugger Mugger, third from the end, was looking out of his stall past the Security South guard as if he were pondering eternity.
"You think he's pondering eternity?" I said.
"Hugger? He's pondering lunch," Penny said.
"How about Cord?" I said. "Is he a good old boy, when he's sober?"
She looked almost startled.
"No, Cord isn't a drinker," she said. "A little white wine to be social, maybe."
"And as an executive VP?"
She shook her head. "Cord's very artistic."
"So was Wallace Stevens," I said.
"Isn't he some kind of poet?"
"Yes. He was also vice president of an insurance company."
"Isn't that odd," Penny said. "Cord isn't really interested in business, I'm afraid."
"What's he interested in?"
"Are you being a detective again?"
"I'm always being a detective," I said.
"Why do you want to know about Cord?"
"Because I don't know. Part of what I do is collect information. When I have collected enough I sometimes know something."
"Well, I think it's time to stop talking about my family."
"Sure," I said.
We were quiet for a while.
"I know I introduced the topic," Penny said.
I nodded. Penny smiled. Her teeth were very white against her honeyed tan.
"So I guess I can unintroduce it," she said.
"Sure," I said.
"I don't want you to think ill of us," Penny said. "All families have their problems. But all in all, we're a pretty nice group."
I didn't know what all this had to do with Hugger Mugger. But I was used to not knowing. I expected sooner or later that I would know. For now I simply registered that she hadn't wanted to talk about Cord and Stonie. I decided not to mention what SueSue had told me.
"Of course you are," I said.

ELEVEN

ISAT WITHWalter Clive at the Three Fillies syndication office in downtown Lamarr. He wore some sort of beige woven-silk pullover, tan linen slacks, no socks, and burgundy loafers. His tan remained golden. His silver hair was brushed straight back. A thick gold chain showed at his neck. His nails were buffed. He was clean-shaven and smelled gently of cologne.
"Penny tells me you're making progress," Clive said.
He was leaning back in his high-backed red-leather swivel chair, with his fingers interlocked over his flat stomach. There was a wide gold wedding band on his left hand. Past the bay window behind him I could see the white flowers of some blossoming shrub.
"Penny exaggerates," I said.
"Really?" he said.
"I have made no progress that I can tell."
"Well, at least you're honest," Clive said.
"At least that," I said.
"Perhaps Penny simply meant that you had talked to a number of people."
"That's probably it," I said. "I have managed to annoy Jon Delroy."
"Penny mentioned that too."
"Thanks for having her talk with him."
"Actually that was Penny's doing."
"Well, it was effective."
"Jon's been with me a long time," Clive said. "He's probably feeling a little displaced."
"How long?"
"Oh, what, maybe ten years."
"Really. What was he doing?"
Clive paused, as if the conversation had gone off in a direction he hadn't foreseen.
"I have a large enterprise here. There is need for security."
"Sure. Well, he and I seem to be clear on our roles now."
Clive nodded, and leaned forward and pushed the button on an intercom.
"Marge," he said. "Could you bring us coffee."
A voice said that it would, and Clive leaned back again and smiled at me. The window to my right was partially open and I could hear desultory birdsong in the flowering trees.
"So," Clive said, "have you reached a conclusion of any sort?"
"Other than I'm not making any progress?" I said.
"Yes," Clive said. "Are you for instance formulating any theories?"
"I've mostly observed that this thing doesn't make any sense," I said.
"Well, it is, sort of by definition," Clive said, "a series of senseless crimes."
"Seems so," I said.
"Meaning?"
"Meaning it seems so senseless that maybe it isn't."
Clive hadn't become a tycoon by nodding in agreement to everything said.
"That sounds like one of those clever statements people make when they're trying to sell you something you don't need," Clive said. "Does it mean anything?"
"I don't know," I said. "I can't say I know much about animal shootings. But for serial killers of people, you look for the logic that drives them. It's not necessarily other people's logic, but they are responding to some sort of interior pattern, and what you try to do is find it. The horse shootings are patternless."
"Or you haven't found it," Clive said.
"Or I haven't found it."
"They are all Three Fillies horses," Clive said. "Isn't that a pattern?"
"Maybe," I said. "But it is a pattern that leads us nowhere much. Why is someone shooting Three Fillies horses?"
"You're not supposed to be asking me," Clive said.
"I know," I said. "Is there anyone with a grudge against you?"
"Oh certainly. I can't name anyone in particular. But I've been in a tough business for more than thirty years. I'm bound to have made someone angry."
"Angry enough to shoot your horses?"
"Well, if they were, why would they shoot those horses? The stable pony's worth maybe five hundred dollars. Neither of the other two horses showed much promise. Heroic Hope can't run again, but insurance covers it. If you wish to damage me, you shoot Hugger Mugger-no amount of insurance could replace him."
"Me either," I said. "Maybe they were chosen because their loss would not be damaging."
"That doesn't make any sense."
"True," I said. "If someone didn't want to damage you they could just not shoot the horses."
A good-looking woman with close-cropped hair and high cheekbones and blue-black skin came in pushing a tea wagon. There was coffee in a silver decanter and white china cups and a cream and sugar set that matched the decanter. She served us each coffee and departed. I added cream and two lumps of sugar. Clive took his black.
"So what kind of security did Jon Delroy do for you?" I said.
"Why do you ask?" Clive said.
"Because I don't know."
"And you find that sufficient reason?" Clive said.
"Admittedly, I'm a nosy guy," I said. "It's probably one of the reasons I do what I do. But that aside, doing what I do is simply a matter of looking for the truth under a rock. It's under some rock, but I don't usually know which one. So whenever I come to a rock, I try to turn it over."
"Doesn't that sometimes mean you discover things you didn't need to know? Or want to know?"
"Yes."
"But you do it anyway?"
"I don't know how else to go about it," I said.
Clive looked at me heavily. He drank some coffee. Outside the window some birds fluttered about. They seemed to be sparrows, but they were moving too quickly to reveal themselves to me.
"I have three daughters," he said. "Two of whom have inherited their mother's depravity."
"Penny being the exception?" I said.
"Yes. They have not only indulged their depravity as girls, they have married badly, and marriage has appeared to exacerbate the depravity."
Clive wasn't looking at me. He wasn't, as far as I could tell, looking at anything. His eyes seemed blankly focused on the middle distance.
"Depravity loves company," I said.
I wasn't sure that Clive heard me. He continued to sit silently, looking at nothing.
"Among Delroy's duties was keeping tabs on the girls," I said.
He was silent still, and then slowly his eyes refocused on me.
"And dealing with the trouble they got into, and their husbands got into," he said.
"Such as?"
Clive shook his head. Outside, the birds had gone away and at the window there was only the flutter of the curtains in the warm Georgia air. I put my empty coffee cup on the tray and stood up.
"Thanks for the coffee," I said.
"You understand," he said.
"I do," I said.

TWELVE

SINCE IT WASevening, and I wasn't being feted at the Clive estate, I had the chance to lie on the bed in my motel and talk on the phone with Susan Silverman, whom I missed.
"So far," I said, "only one sister has made an active attempt to seduce me."
"How disappointing," Susan said. "Are there many sisters?"
"Three."
"Maybe the other two are just waiting until they know you better."
"Probably," I said.
"I have never found seducing you to be much of a challenge," Susan said.
"I try not to be aloof," I said.
We were silent for a moment. The air-conditioning hummed in the dim room. Outside, in the dark night, thick with insects, the full weight of the Georgia summer sat heavily.
"Are you making any progress professionally?" Susan said after a time.
"I'm getting to know my employer and his family."
"And?"
"And I may be in a Tennessee Williams play. . . . The old man seems sort of above the fray. He's separated, got a girlfriend, looks better than George Hamilton, and appears to leave the day-to-day management of the business to his youngest daughter."
"What's she like?"
"I like her. She's smart and centered. She finds me amusing."
"So even if she weren't smart and centered . . ." Susan said.
"Actually, that's how I know she's smart and centered," I said.
Susan's laugh across the thousand miles was immediate and intimate and as much of home as I was ever likely to have. It made my throat hurt.
"What about the other sisters?" Susan said.
I told her what I knew.
"You have any comment on a woman married to a man who prefers little boys?" I said.
"It would probably be preferable if she were married to a man who preferred her."
"Wow," I said. "You shrinks know stuff."
"In my practice, I know what my patients tell me. I know nothing about Stonie and whatsisname."
"Cord."
"Cord," she said. "And there is no one-fits-all template for a woman married to a man who prefers boys-if what SueSue told you is true."
"SueSue says that Stonie is so sexually frustrated that she is a threat to every doorknob," I said.
"Maybe she is," Susan said. "Or maybe that's just SueSue's projection of how she herself would be."
"And Cord? You figure he married her to get cover?" I said.
"Maybe," Susan said. "Or maybe he married her because he loves her."
"I could not love thee half so much, loved I not small boys more?"
"Sexuality is a little complicated."
"I've heard that," I said. "What bothers me in all of this is that I've got a series of so-far inexplicable crimes, committed in the midst of this family full of, I don't even know the right word for it-dippy?-people. I mean, there ought to be a connection but there isn't, or at least I can't find it."
"You'll find it if it's there," Susan said. "But most families are full of dippiness. Perhaps you don't always find yourself so fully in the bosom of a client's family, and thus don't have it shoved in your face from such close range."
"Maybe. Do you think there's a connection?"
"I have no way to know," Susan said.
"Do you think a man who prefers boys, or a woman who is married to a man who prefers boys, would have a reason to kill some horses?"
"As I've said, mine is a retrospective profession, as is yours. We're much better at explaining why people did things than we are at predicting what they might do."
"Our business is generally after the fact," I said.
"Yes."
"You're not going to solve this for me, then."
"No. I'm not."
"And what about my sexual needs?"
"I could talk dirty on the phone."
"I think I'm too old for that to work anymore," I said.
"Then unless you're coming home soon, I guess you'll have to mend your fences with SueSue."
"And if I do?"
"I'll shoot her, and swear I was aiming at a horse."
"I thought you shrinks had too much self-control for jealousy," I said.
"Only during office hours."

THIRTEEN

IWAS JUSTfinished shaving when I got a call from Becker, the Lamarr sheriff's deputy.
"Got a horse shot over in Alton, in South Carolina. Thought I'd drive over and have a look. You want to ride along?"
"Yes."
"Pick you up in 'bout fifteen minutes."
I was standing in front of the motel by the lobby door when Becker pulled up in a black Ford Crown Victoria. There was a blue light sitting on the dashboard, and a long buggy whip antenna, but no police markings. When I got in, the car smelled of food. Becker was drinking coffee. On the seat beside him was a large brown paper bag.
"Got us some sausage biscuits," Becker said, "and coffee. Help yourself."
He pulled the car away from the motel and out onto the county road.
"What about granola?" I said.
"Have to go over to Atlanta for that," Becker said. "People in Columbia County don't eat granola and don't tolerate those who do."
I poured a little container of cream into a paper cup full of coffee and stirred in several sugars. I drank some, and fished out a large biscuit with a sausage patty in the middle.
"Okay," I said. "I'll make do."
"Figured you'd eat most things," Becker said.
"What about the horse shooting?"
"Stable over in Alton, Canterbury Farms, somebody snuck around their stable last night, shot a filly named Carolina Moon."
"Dead?"
"Don't know," Becker said. "Just picked it up off the wire. Got no jurisdiction, you know, over in South Carolina."
"Me either," I said.
"Hell, you got no jurisdiction anywhere," Becker said.
"It's very freeing," I said.
I drank some more coffee as the Georgia landscape gave way with no discernible change to the South Carolina landscape. I checked my arteries. Blood still seemed to be getting through, so I had another sausage biscuit.
I was experiencing a little of the separateness I always felt when I was away from Susan. It wasn't unreality exactly, it was more a sense that there was a large empty space around me. Even now, sitting in a squad car, maybe eighteen inches from another guy, there was a sense of crystalline isolation. It was not loneliness, nor did the feeling make me unhappy. It was simply a feeling different from any other, a feeling available only when I was away from Susan. I was alone.
"What do you know about the Clive family?" I said.
"Somebody been shooting their horses," Becker said.
"Besides that," I said. "Any of them had any problems with the law?"
"Clives are the most important family in the whole Columbia County," Becker said. "They don't have trouble with the law."
"Have they come to the attention of the law?" I said.
We were driving along a two-lane highway now. There were fields with farm equipment standing idle, and occasionally a Safeway market or a Burger King. Traffic was light. Becker kept his eyes on the road.
"You got a reason for asking?" he said.
"I'm practicing to be a detective," I said. "Plus the family seems to be full of people who would get in trouble."
" 'Cept for Penny."
"Except for her," I said.
"Old man's calmed down some, since Dolly came aboard."
"But before that?"
"Well. For a while he was married to the girls' mother. Don't remember her name right this minute. But she was a hippie."
"Lot of hippies around thirty years ago," I said.
"Yep, and that's when they got married. But times changed and she didn't. 'Bout ten years ago she ran off with a guy played in a rock band."
"So Penny would have been about fifteen."
"Yep. The other girls were a little older."
"They're two years apart," I said. "So they'd have been seventeen and nineteen."
"See that," Becker said. "You been detecting more than you pretend."
"I'm a modest guy," I said. "How was the divorce?"
"Don't know nothing about the divorce."
"Was there a divorce?"
"Don't know. Not my department."
"So what was Clive doing between the hippie and Dolly?"
"Everything he could," Becker said.
There was a two-wheeled horse-drawn piece of farm machinery inching along in our lane. I didn't know anything about farm machinery, but this looked as if it had something to do with hay. A black man in overalls and a felt hat was sitting up on the rig, though he didn't seem to be paying much attention. The horse appeared to be the one on duty. Becker slowed as we approached it and swerved carefully out to pass.
"Booze, women, that sort of thing?"
"A lot of both," Becker said.
"Ah, sweet bird of youth," I said.
Becker grinned without looking at me.
"You hang around those Clive girls, you might get younger yourself," he said.
"While Clive's living the male fantasy life," I said, "who's looking after the girls?"
"Don't know," Becker said.
"Is there anything in this for me?" I said. "Clive screw somebody's wife, and somebody wants to get even? He sleep with some woman and ditch her and she wants to get even?"
"I don't pay attention to shit like that," Becker said. "Do I look like Ann Landers?"
"You look sort of like Archie Moore," I said. "And you sound like a guy who knows things he's not saying."
"It's a special talent," Becker said.
"The real talent is sounding like you don't know anything you're not telling," I said.
"I can do that," Becker said.
"If you want to," I said.
Becker watched the road.
"So why don't you want to?"
We passed a sign that read, "Welcome to Alton."
"Because you want me to wonder."
Becker slowed and turned into a narrow dirt road that went under high pines, limbless the first thirty feet or so up. I remembered it from my last visit, eight years ago.
"You want me to look into them, but you don't want it to have come from you, because it could come back and bite you in the ass."
"Clives the most powerful family in Columbia County," Becker said, and turned off the dirt road into a wide clearing and parked near a white rail fence near the Canterbury Farms training track.

FOURTEEN

WE DIDN'T LEARNmuch in Alton. An Alton County Sheriff's detective named Felicia Boudreau was on the case. I knew her from eight years earlier, and Becker and I talked with her sitting in her car at the stable site.
Carolina Moon, she told us, had been a filly of modest promise. Her groom had found her dead in her stall when he went to feed her in the morning. She'd been shot once in the neck with a .22 long bullet, which had punctured her aorta, and the horse had bled to death.
"We have the bullet," Felicia said. "Vet took it out of the horse."
"We'd like to see if we can match it against ours," Becker said.
Felicia said, "Sure."
"Nothing else?" I said.
"Well, it's nice to see you again," she said.
"You too," I said. "Got any clues?"
"None."
"Lot of that going around," I said.
"What's it been, eight years?"
"Yep. Still getting your hair done in Batesburg?" I said.
"Yes, I am."
"Still looks great," I said.
"Yes, it does."
We talked with Frank Ferguson, who owned the horse. He didn't have any idea why someone would shoot his horse. I remembered him from the last time I was in Alton, but he didn't remember me. He had been smoking a meerschaum pipe when I talked with him eight years before. I thought of saying something about it, but decided it would be showing off, especially after my hair-done-in-Batesburg triumph.
We headed back toward Lamarr in the late afternoon with neither information nor lunch. I didn't mind about the lunch. The sausage biscuits from breakfast were still sticking to my ribs. In fact, I was considering the possibility that I might never have to eat again.
"That didn't help much," Becker said.
"No," I said, "just widened the focus a little."
We were heading west now and the afternoon sun was coming straight in at us. Becker put down his sun visor.
"Maybe it was supposed to," Becker said.
"So we wouldn't concentrate entirely on the Clives?" I said.
Becker shrugged.
"What is this, you give me an answer and I try to think up the question?"
Becker grinned, squinting into the sun.
"Like that game show," he said. "On TV."
"Swell," I said.
We kept driving straight into the sun. The landscape along the highway was red clay and pines and fields in which nothing much seemed to be growing.
"Okay, let me just expostulate for a while," I said. "You can nod or not as you wish."
"Expostulate?" Becker said.
"I'm sleeping with a Harvard grad," I said.
"The Emory of the North," Becker said.
"I have a series of crimes which, excepting only Carolina Moon," I said, "centers on a family made up of Pud, who's an alcoholic bully, and SueSue, who's an alcoholic sexpot, and Cord, who likes young boys, and Stonie, who, according to SueSue, is sexually frustrated. They are mothered by Hippie, who ran off with a guitar player while her daughters were in their teens, and Walter, who after Hippie ran off, consoled himself by bopping everything that would hold still long enough."
"And Penny," Becker said.
"Who seems to run the business."
"Pretty well too," Becker said.
"You know anything about any of these things?" I said.
"Heard Cord might be a chicken wrangler," Becker said.
"How about Stonie?"
Becker shrugged.
"SueSue?"
Shrug.
"How about good old Pud?" I said.
"Pud's pretty much drunk from noon on, every day," Becker said.
"Probably doesn't make for a good marriage."
"I ain't a social worker," Becker said. "I don't keep track of everybody's dick."
"Still, you knew about Cord."
"I am a police officer," he said.
"Okay, so Cord got in trouble."
Becker didn't comment. We pulled into the parking lot of my motel. Becker stopped by the front door. We sat for a moment in silence.
"These are important people, probably the most important people in Columbia County," Becker said. "Walter Clive is a personal friend of the sheriff of Columbia County, who I work for."
"You mentioned that," I said.
"So I don't want you going down to the Bath House Bar and Grill and nosing around there, asking questions about Cord Wyatt."
"I can see why you wouldn't," I said. "That the gay scene in Lamarr?"
"Such as it is," Becker said. "Tedy Sapp, bouncer down there, used to be a deputy of mine, spells it with one d in Tedy, and two p 's in Sapp. When you don't go down there like I told you not to, I don't want you talking to him or mentioning my name."
"Sure," I said. "Stay away from the Bath House Bar and Grill, and don't talk to Sapp the bouncer. Where is it located so I can be sure not to go near it?"
"Mechanic Street."
"I'll be careful," I said.
We sat for a while longer in silence.
"The family is peculiar," I said.
"And the horse shooting is peculiar," Becker said.
"What does this suggest?" I said.
"Can't imagine," Becker said.

FIFTEEN

THEBATHHOUSEBar and Grill had a Bud Light sign in its front window with a neon tube image of Spuds McKenzie looking raffish and thirsty. The room was air-conditioned. There was a bar the length of the room across the back. There were tables in front of the bar. Along the right wall there was a small dance floor, with a raised platform for live performances. At the moment the music, Bette Midler singing something I didn't recognize, was from a big old-fashioned Wurlitzer jukebox next to the door. Behind the bar was a chalkboard with the night's by-the-glass wine selections, and a list of bar food specials. In the late afternoon, the bar was about half occupied and there were people at several of the tables. It was like any other place where people went to avoid being alone, except that all the customers were men.
The bartender had a crew cut and a mustache and a tan. He was wearing a dark green polo shirt and chino pants. I ordered a draft beer.
"Tedy around?" I said.
"Tedy?"
"Tedy Sapp," I said.
"Table over there." The bartender nodded. "With the muscles."
Tedy was wearing the Bath House uniform-green polo shirt, chino pants, and a tan. His hair was colored the aggressively artificial blond color that musicians and ballplayers were affecting that year. It was cut very short. He was a flagrant bodybuilder. About my size, and probably about my weight. He was chiseled and cut and buffed like a piece of statuary. I picked up my beer.
"That'll be three and a quarter," the bartender said.
I put a five on the bar and carried my beer over to Tedy's table. He looked up, moving his eyes without moving his head. He had the easy manner of someone who was confident that he could knock you on your ass. He had a cup of coffee in front of him on the table, and a copy of the Atlanta Constitution was folded next to it.
"My name's Spenser," I said. "Dalton Becker mentioned you to me."
"Becker's a good guy," Sapp said.
His voice carried a whisper of hoarseness. He gestured at an empty chair, and I sat down.
"You used to work for Becker," I said.
"Used to work for Becker," he said. "Deputy sheriff. 'Fore that I was in the Army-airborne. Lifted weights. Karate. Married. Trying as hard as I could to be straight."
"And you weren't," I said.
"Nope. Wasn't, am not now. Doesn't look like I'm gonna be."
"And now you're not trying," I said.
"Nope. Got divorced, quit the cops."
"Becker fire you when you came out?"
"Nope. I coulda stayed on. I wanted to quit."
"Still pumping a little iron, though," I said.
"That works gay or straight," Sapp said.
"And now you're here?"
"Yep. Four to midnight six days a week."
"Hard work?" I said.
"No. Now and then a couple queens get into a hissy-fit fight, scratching and kicking, and I have to settle them down. But mostly I'm here so that a few good old boys won't get drunk and come in here to bash some fairies."
"That happen very often?" I said.
"Not as often as it used to," Sapp said.
"Because you're here."
"Yep."
"Most people don't anticipate a tough fairy," I said.
Sapp grinned. "You look like you might have swapped a couple punches in your life."
"You ever lose?" I said.
"What? A fight? In here? Naw."
"That why you quit the cops?" I said. "So you could work here?"
"Yep."
"So you could protect the people who come here?"
Sapp shrugged.
"Lot of gay guys never really learned how to fight," he said.
"Most straight guys too," I said.
Sapp nodded.
"Well, I know how," Sapp said. "And I figured I could maybe serve and protect . . ." He stopped and thought about how he wanted to say it. "With a little more focus, down here, than I could working out of the Columbia County Sheriff's substation."
I sipped some of my beer. He drank some coffee.
"What do you do?" Sapp said. "I know you're carrying a piece."
"Alert," I said. "Detective. Private. From Boston."
"I figured you wasn't from down heah in the old Confederacy," Sapp said.
"Lawzy me, no," I said.
My instinct told me I could level with Sapp. My instinct has been wrong before, but I decided to trust it this time.
"I'm down here working for Walter Clive," I said, "trying to find out who's been shooting his horses."
"Horses?"
"Yep, apparently at random, several of them. He's worried now about a two-year-old named Hugger Mugger, who's supposed to be on his way to the Triple Crown."
"And after that a lifetime of stud fees," Sapp said.
Without being asked, the bartender came over with coffee for Sapp and a beer for me. He put them down, picked up the empties, and went away.
"So why come talking to me?" Sapp said.
"You know the Clive family?"
"Un-huh. Everybody in Columbia County knows the Clives."
"I'm interested in the son-in-law, Cord Wyatt."
Sapp didn't say anything. He put sugar in his coffee, added some cream, and stirred slowly.
"I am told he is interested in young boys," I said.
Sapp stirred his coffee some more. I suspected he was consulting with his instincts.
"So what if he was?" Sapp said.
"I'm told he acts out that interest."
"And?"
"I think adults have no business scoring children, but that's not the point."
"What is the point?"
"The family is strange," I said. "The crime is strange. Does that mean the crime comes from the family? I don't know. I'm trying to find out."
Sapp drank some more coffee. He nodded.
"I see how you're thinking," he said. "I was a cop once."
"Me too," I said.
"Why'd you quit?"
"I got fired. Disobedience."
"I'll bet you're pretty good at disobedience," Sapp said.
"One of my best things," I said.
I drank some more beer. Sapp drank some more coffee. The jukebox played a song I'd never heard before, sung by a woman I didn't know. The lyrics had something to do with a barroom in Texas. Two guys got up and slow-danced to it on the dance floor.
"I know Wyatt," Sapp said.
"He come in here?"
"Not very much," Sapp said. "I do some counseling too, on, ah, gender identity issues."
"Wyatt came to you?"
"Yeah."
"What can you tell me?"
"Anything I want. I'm not licensed or anything. I know something about gender identity issues. I just talk to people."
"What do you want to tell me about Wyatt?" I said.
"He's fighting it," Sapp said. "Something I know a little about. He wants to be straight and rich and have nice teeth."
"Man's reach must exceed his grasp. . . ." I said.
"So he sits on the feelings and sits on them and finally he can't sit on them anymore and he goes off the wagon, so to speak."
"Kids?" I said.
Sapp nodded.
"Prostitutes mostly," Sapp said. "In Augusta."
"He ever get in trouble about it?"
"Yeah. Augusta Vice got him in a street sweep once, Clive got him off. He moved on a kid here in Lamarr once. Kid's mother called the cops."
"Clive get it buried?" I said.
"Yep."
"Money?"
"And fear. Delroy does it for him."
"I don't see Becker taking a bribe."
"Nope, but his boss will."
"Delroy the bagman?"
"Yep."
"What about the fear?"
"Delroy offers money to the kid's family. They don't take it, he tells them that something bad will happen to the kid."
"Wyatt tell you this?" I said.
"No."
"You talked with the kid," I said.
"Couple years afterwards," he said.
"He came to you?"
"Yeah," Sapp said. "He was afraid he was gay. I told him I thought he'd been exploited by Wyatt. I told him if anyone threatened him again he was to come right straight to me and we'd see about it."
"Anyone threaten him again?"
"No."
"Is he gay?" I said.
"I don't think so," Sapp said.
"You tell him that?"
"I'm not looking for converts," Sapp said. "I told him it's not important to be straight or gay. It's important to be what you are."
"Like you," I said.
Sapp grinned at me.
"I'm queer, and I'm here," he said.
"Know anything else about the Clive family that would interest me?" I said.
"Not much. I got a friend might be able to help you out, though. She's done some business with the other son-in-law. Whatsisname, Pud."
"How's she know Pud?" I said.
"She's a madame."
"In Lamarr?"
"In Lamarr."
"And how does she know you?"
"She's a member of the gay community," Sapp said.

SIXTEEN

THE HOUSE SATon a nice lawn behind a white fence, on a wide tree-lined street where other houses sat on nice lawns behind white fences. All the houses dated from before the Civil War and, had they been a little grander, would have thus qualified as antebellum mansions. I parked in the driveway and walked up to the front door and rang the bell. The yard smelled richly of flowers. In a minute the door was opened by a smallish woman in jeans and a white shirt. She wore no shoes. Her toenails were painted dark maroon. Her gray-blond hair was twisted into a single long braid that reached nearly to her waist.
I said, "Polly Brown?"
"Yes."
"My name is Spenser. Tedy Sapp sent me over."
"Tedy called me," she said.
She stepped out onto the porch and closed the door behind her.
"We can sit on the veranda," she said. "It's such a pleasant night."
We sat in a couple of rocking chairs and looked out across the dark lawn at the quiet street. There was a good breeze blowing past us and it must have discouraged the bugs, because there weren't any.
"This is not a whorehouse," Polly Brown said. "I run an escort service. My girls come to you."
"I'm not here for that," I said.
"I know why you're here, I was just clarifying my situation. The 'you' was generalized."
"Of course it was," I said. "You don't sound southern."
"I'm from Cincinnati," she said. "Went to college and everything."
"How'd you end up here?"
"I have no idea," she said.
We were quiet again, rocking in the near darkness.
"So what would you like to know about Pud Potter?" she said.
"I gather he availed himself of your services."
"Often," she said.
"But not here."
"I told you."
"Yes, you did, so where?"
"Where would I send the girl?"
"Yes. I assume it wasn't to his house."
"Oh, wouldn't that be smart," she said. " 'Hello, Mrs. Potter, I'm here to fuck your husband.' "
"So where?" I said.
"He keeps a room and bath in town. Just off the square."
"Glad to hear there's a bath," I said.
"So what's the problem?" Polly said.
"My question exactly," I said. "He ever cause trouble or anything?"
"Pud? Hell no, he's a sweetheart. Lotta the girls liked him because he'd be too drunk to actually do anything and they'd get paid anyways."
"How about the law?" I said. "He ever have any trouble there?"
"Nope. I run a clean operation, pay my dues, the law leaves me alone."
"Including Becker?"
"The black deputy-in-charge?"
"Un-huh."
"I have no problem with him."
"You pay him off?"
"No."
"Operation like this pays off somebody," I said.
She rocked a little and didn't say anything. She was small enough so that her feet only touched the floor when she rocked forward.
"But not Becker," she said.
"Know a guy named Delroy?"
"Maybe. What's he do?"
"Private security," I said. "On behalf of Pud's father-in-law."
"Yes. I know him."
A silver Volvo station wagon went slowly past us on the empty street, its headlights bright and silent.
"Tell me about him?"
"One of the girls tried to supplement her income," Polly said, "by putting the squeeze on Pud."
"Threaten to tell his wife?"
"Worse. She rigged a Polaroid and got some pictures during the gig."
"Which she threatened to show his wife."
"And everybody else, I believe."
"And?"
"And Delroy came down and explained the facts of life to her."
"Which were?"
"I never asked."
"Can I talk with her?"
Polly shrugged.
"If you can find her," she said. "Name's Jane Munroe."
"You know where I should look?"
"No."
"She doesn't work for you anymore?"
"No. I fired her before Delroy even talked to her."
"He talk to you first?"
"Yes. He suggested I fire her, but I would have anyway. Nothing kills a good client list like some whore threatening to blab."
"Is Jane still in town?"
"I'm not their mother," Polly said. "I manage their professional lives. I have no idea where Jane Munroe is, or if she's still using the name."
"Was Delroy polite?"
"Very businesslike," she said.
"He threaten you?"
"Didn't need to. As soon as I heard about the scam, I told him she'd be fired."
A big yellow cat appeared and rubbed up against my leg. I reached down and scratched his ear. He stayed for a moment, then left me and jumped up onto the porch railing and sat looking out over the dark lawn.
"There anything else?"
"Like what?"
"Like something about the Clive family that I'd like to know, but am too dumb to ask?"
"Tedy said I could trust you," she said.
"Tedy's right," I said.
"How do you know Tedy? You gay?"
"I'm straight. I met him this afternoon, the way I've met you tonight."
"I haven't had a lot of reason to trust straight men," she said.
"You used to turn tricks?" I said.
"Sure. You think I bought a franchise?"
"Just being polite," I said.
"A bunch of fat guys with hair on their back," she said. "Usually drunk, telling me they loved me. Telling me that they were going to give me the fuck of my life."
She laughed. It was a very unpleasant sound in the soft Georgia night. The yellow cat turned his head and looked at her without emotion.
I waited.
"What a hoot!" she said.
"You're a lesbian," I said.
"How'd you know?"
"I'm a professional detective," I said.
"Sapp told you."
"Yes, but I questioned him closely."
"Lot of the girls are lesbians," she said.
"What's love got to do with it," I said.
"Exactly," she said.
The yellow cat turned his head back toward the dark lawn, then silently disappeared off the railing. There was a scurrying in the bushes and a small squeak and then silence. I waited some more.
"Sapp's a good man," Polly said.
"Seems so to me," I said.
"You was smarter," Polly said, "maybe you'd ask me about Stonie Clive."
"Cord Wyatt's wife?"
"Yes."
"Tell me about her," I said.
"She worked for me for a while."
"When?"
"Two years ago."
"You know who she was?"
"Not at the time."
"How'd you recruit her?"
"She came to me. Said she'd heard about me. She said she had always wanted to do this kind of work and could I take her on? She was a nice-looking girl. Upperclass. I figured she'd do well."
"So she actually worked."
"Yes. But here's the cool part. I service a truck stop on the Interstate, up by Crawfordville. Normally I send the worst girls up there. Mostly it's head in the cab of some ten-wheeler at twenty bucks a throw. Stonie wanted that."
"BJ's at a truck stop?" I said.
"If you don't waste a lot of time talking," Polly said, "you can make a pretty good night's pay."
"Why would she need money?" I said.
A little light spilled out onto the veranda through the screen door. It was enough so that I could see her shrug.
"She's not still with you?" I said.
"No. Left about six, eight months ago."
"With no notice?"
Polly almost smiled.
"Nope, just stopped showing up. Lot of girls do that."
"How'd you find out who she was?"
"Saw her picture in the paper, some big racetrack thing."
"You're sure it was Stonie?"
"I know my girls," Polly said.
"She ever say why she wanted to do this?"
"Nope."
"You have any theories?" I said.
She rocked some more.
"Most of the girls it's simple. They got no education. They got no skills. They need money. So they do this. Some girls do it because they get something out of exploiting men."
"The men are often thought to be exploiting them," I said.
"Uh-huh."
I could tell that Polly had her own position on exploitation.
"Some girls just like it," she said.
"Truck stops at twenty bucks a . . . pop?"
"Not usually. But everybody's different."
"You think Stonie liked it?"
"No."
"It wasn't the money," I said.
"I don't think it was the money," Polly said.
"Exploit men?"
"Maybe a little of that," Polly said. "But . . ."
She rocked for a time, thinking about it.
"You know her husband's a chicken fucker?"
"I know," I said.
"I think she was getting even," Polly said.

SEVENTEEN

"SO WHAT DOyou think?" I said.
I was lying in my shorts on the bed in the Holiday Inn in Lamarr, Georgia, talking on the phone to Susan in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She said she was in bed. Which meant that she had her hair up, and some sort of expensive glop on her face. The TV would be on, though she would have muted it when the phone rang. Almost certainly, Pearl was asleep beside her on the bed.
"I think you're trapped inside the first draft of a Tennessee Williams play."
"Without you," I said.
"I know."
"You're in bed?" I said.
"Yes."
"Naked?"
"Not exactly."
"White socks, gray sweatpants, a white T-shirt with a picture of Einstein on it?"
"You remember," she said.
"Naked makes for better phone sex," I said.
"Pretense is a slippery slope," she said.
Her voice was quite light, and not very strong, but when she was amused there were hints of a contralto substructure that enriched everything she said.
"Don't you shrinks ever take a break?" I said.
"So many fruitcakes," Susan said, "so little time."
"How true," I said. "What do you think of Polly Brown's theory that Stonie goes to truck stops to avenge herself on her husband?"
"It would be better if I had a chance to talk with her," Susan said.
"I'll be your eyes and ears," I said.
"Have you talked with her?"
"Once, at a cocktail party, for maybe a minute."
"Oh, that'll be fine then," Susan said. "No therapist could ask for more."
"Gimme a guess," I said.
"Her husband is actively gay, with a special interest in young men," Susan said.
"Yes."
"Would you say that she would experience that as him having sex in the most inappropriate way possible?"
"Yes."
"And is that what she's doing?"
"Seems so. So it is revenge?"
"Could be. Tit for tat. People often are very crude in their pathologies."
"Like me," I said. "I keep pretending you're naked on the bed."
"On the other hand, it may be more subtle than that. She may be simply enacting her condition."
"Her condition is smoking the cannoli in a parking lot?"
"It's good to know that you haven't lost that keen edge of your sophistication. Perhaps her activities in the parking lot are, at least symbolically, how she experiences herself."
"Because of her husband?"
"Not only her husband," Susan said. "You said her father got her husband out of a couple of boy-love jams."
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Appearances," I said. "Save the family from scandal."
"So he knows her marriage is probably a sham. Other than covering up for the husband, does he do anything about it?"
"Not that I can see."
"So as far as we can tell, her father and husband don't value her beyond whatever ornamental use they put her to."
"I get it," I said.
"I knew you would," Susan said.
"There's another thing bothering me," I said. "The shooting of the horse over in Alton."
"Why does that bother you?"
"Becker and I speculate that it might be to distract me," I said. "And that's a reasonable speculation."
"But?"
"But if it's the work of some kind of serial psychopath, which is what it seems like, then distracting me would seem to be too rational an act."
"Possibly," Susan said.
"I mean, the compulsion isn't about me."
"You may have been added to what it is about," Susan said.
"Or maybe it's not a compulsion," I said.
"Are you just casting about, or have you any other reason to think it's something else?"
"Well, what kind of compulsion is this? A compulsion to shoot horses, with no concern for the result?"
"No way to know," Susan said. "Compulsions are consistent only to their own logic."
"Well, I remain skeptical."
"As well you should."
"Thank you, Doctor."
"Will that be Visa or MasterCard?" Susan said.
"I'll recompense you in full," I said, "when I get home."
"Soon?"
"I have no idea."
"It's annoying, isn't it," Susan said, "to have our life scheduled by the pathology of someone we can't even identify."
"You should know," I said.
"Yes," she said. "Sometimes I think we're doing the same work."
"Do you think that absence makes the heart grow fonder?"
"No. I'm already as fond as I'm capable of being," Susan said. "Makes me miss you, though."
"Yes," I said. "I feel the same way."
"Good," Susan said. "And stay away from the truck stops."

EIGHTEEN

THE HORSE SHOOTERupped the ante on a rainy Sunday night by shooting Walter Clive dead in the exercise area of Three Fillies Stables. I was there at daylight, with Becker and a bunch of Columbia County crime scene deputies.
"Exercise rider found him this morning when she came into work," Becker said. "Right there where you see him."
Where I saw him was facedown in the middle of the open paddock in front of the stables, under a tree, with the rain soaking the crime scene. Someone had rigged a polyethylene canopy over the body and the immediate crime scene, in hopes of preserving any evidence that was left.
"Where is she now?"
"In the stable office," Becker said. "I got one woman deputy, and she's in there with her."
"Will I be able to talk to her?"
"Sure."
I stepped to the body and squatted down beside it. Clive was in a white shirt and gray linen slacks. There were loafers on his feet, without socks. His silver hair was soaked and plastered to his skull. There was no sign of a wound.
"In the forehead, just above the right eyebrow," Becker said. "Photo guys are already done-you want to see?"
"Yes."
Becker had on thin plastic crime scene gloves. He reached down and turned Clive's head. There was a small black hole above his eyebrow, the flesh around it a little puffy and discolored from the entry of the slug.
"No exit wound," I said.
"That's right."
"Small caliber," I said.
"Looks like a .22 to me."
"Yes."
"Figure he caught the horse shooter in the act?" Becker said.
"Be the logical conclusion," I said.
"Yep. It would."
"Where was Security South during all this?" I said. "Busy polishing their belt buckles?"
"Security guy was in with the horse," Becker said.
"Hugger Mugger."
"Yeah. When I say the horse, that's who I mean. He heard the shot, and came out, ah, carefully, and looked around and didn't see anything, and went back inside with the horse."
"It was raining," I said.
"All night."
"How far out you figure he came?"
"His uni was dry when I talked to him," Becker said.
"No wrinkles?"
"Nope."
"Probably didn't want to be lured away from the horse."
"Hugger Mugger," Becker said.
I looked at him. He was expressionless.
"Of course Hugger Mugger," I said. "What other horse are we talking about?"
Becker grinned.
"So nobody sees anything. Nobody but the guard hears anything," Becker said. "We're looking for footprints, but it's been raining hard since yesterday afternoon."
"Crime scene isn't going to give you much," I said.
"You Yankees are so pessimistic."
"Puritan heritage," I said. "The family's been told?"
"Yep. Told them myself."
"How were they?"
"Usual shock and dismay," Becker said.
"Anything unusual?"
Becker shook his head.
"You been a cop," he said. "You've had to tell people that somebody's been murdered, what would be unusual?"
"You're right," I said. "I've seen every reaction there is. Delroy been around?"
"Not yet," Becker said.
We were quiet for a while, standing in the rain, partly sheltered by the tree, looking at how dead Walter Clive was.
"Why'd you call me?" I said.
"Two heads are better than one," Becker said.
"Depends on the heads," I said.
"In this case yours and mine," Becker said. "You been a big-city cop, you might know something."
I nodded.
"Between us," Becker said, "we might figure something out."
I nodded some more. The rain kept coming. Walter Clive kept lying there. Behind us a van with Columbia County Medical Examiner lettered on the side pulled up and two guys in raincoats got out and opened up the back.
"Here's what I think," I said. "I think that you are smelling a big rat here, and the rat is somewhere in the Clive family, and they are too important and too connected for a deputy sheriff to take on directly."
"They're awful important," Becker said.
"So you're using me as a surrogate. Let me take them on. You feed me just enough to keep me looking, but not enough to get you in trouble. If I come up with something, you can take credit for it after I've gone back to Boston. If I get my ass handed to me, you can shake your head sadly and remark what a shame it was that I'm nosy."
"Man do that would be a devious man," Becker said.
"Sho' 'nuff," I said.

NINETEEN

IT WAS STILLraining when they buried Walter Clive's cremated ashes. It had rained all week. After the funeral, people straggled into the Clives' house and stood under a canopy in the backyard looking glum and uncomfortable as they ordered drinks. I was there, having nowhere else to be, and I watched as people began to get drunk and talk about how Walter would have wanted everyone to have a good time at his funeral. People began to look less glum. Just the way old Walt would have wanted it. Penny was running things. She was sad and contained and doing fine. Jon Delroy was there in a dark suit. The family lawyer was there, a guy named Vallone, who looked like Colonel Sanders. Pud and SueSue, still sober, stood with Stonie and Cord. They were dressed just right for a funeral. Everyone was dressed just right for a funeral, except one woman who wore an ankle-length cotton dress with yellow flowers on it. Her hair was gray-blond and hung straight to her waist. She wore huge sunglasses and sandals. Penny brought her over.
"This is my mother," she said, "Sherry Lark."
"It was nice of you to come," I said, to be saying something.
"Oh, it's not Walter. It's my girls. In crisis girls need their mother."
I could see Penny wrinkle her nose. I nodded.
"Yes," I said.
"Walter was lost to me an eternity past, but the girls are part of my soul."
"Of course," I said. "Have you remarried?"
"No. I don't think marriage is a natural thing for people."
She was drinking what looked like bourbon on the rocks. Which was probably a natural thing for people.
"So is Lark your, ah, birth name?"
"No. It's my chosen name. When I left Walter I didn't want to keep his name. And I didn't want to return to my father's name, about which I had no choice when I was born."
"I had the same problem," I said. "They just stuck me with my father's name."
She paid no attention to me. She was obviously comfortable talking about herself.
"So I took a name that symbolizes the life I was seeking, the soaring airborne freedom of a lark."
She drank some bourbon. I nodded and smiled.
"I relate to that," I said. "I'm thinking of changing my name to Eighty-second Airborne."
She didn't respond. She was one of those people that, if you say something they don't understand, they pretend you haven't spoken.
"Come along, Mother," Penny said. "You really must say hello to Senator Thompson."
Penny gave me a look over her shoulder as she moved her mother away. I smiled neutrally. I had a beer because I was sure that's how old Walt would have wanted it. I took a small swallow. A black woman in a little maid's suit passed a tray of stuffed mushrooms. I declined. Smoked salmon with endive and a dab of crème fraîche came by. I declined it too. The governor of Georgia came in. He went straight to Dolly, the bereaved mistress, and took her hand in both of his. They spoke briefly. He kissed her cheek. She gestured toward her son, and Jason and the governor shook hands. Dolly's face was pale beneath her perfect makeup, and the attractive smile lines around her mouth were deeper than I remembered.
The rain drummed steadily on the canvas canopy roof, and dripped off the edges in a steady drizzle. Dutch, the family Dalmatian, made his way through the crowd, alert for stuffed mushrooms, and found me and remembered me and wagged his tail. I snagged a little crab cake from the passing tray and handed it to Dutch. He took it from me, gently, and swallowed it whole. I watched Stonie and Cord. They stood together, looking very good, and taking condolences gravely. But when they weren't talking to someone, they didn't talk to each other. It was as if they had been accidentally placed together in a receiving line, one not knowing the other. Pud and SueSue were also receiving condolences. But they were less grave. In fact they were now drunk. Pud's face was very red. He was sweating. He and SueSue appeared to be arguing between condolences, although SueSue's laughter erupted regularly while she was being condoled. There was a smell of honeysuckle under the canopy and a faint smell of food coming from the kitchen as the hors d'oeuvres were prepared. Dutch sat patiently in front of me and waited for another hors d'oeuvre. I gave him a rye crisp with beef tenderloin on it, and horseradish. He took that in as quickly as he had the crab cake, though he snorted a little at the horseradish.
"You'd eat a dead crow in the street," I said to him. "And you're snorting at horseradish."
He pricked his ears a little at me, and waited. Penny came back alone. She was carrying a glass of white wine, though as far as I could tell, she hadn't drunk any.
"I apologize for my mother."
"No need," I said.
Penny laughed.
"The last hippie," she said.
"How are she and Dolly together?" I said.
"We try to see that they're not together," Penny said.
"Was Dolly in your father's life when Sherry was around?"
"I think so," she said. "Why do you ask?"
"Occupational habit," I said.
"I think it's not appropriate right now," Penny said.
"Of course it isn't."
"Could you come see me tomorrow, stable office, around ten?"
"Sure," I said.
Penny smiled to let me know that she wasn't mad, and moved over to a foursome who stood in the doorway looking for the bar. The women were wearing big hats. She kissed all of them and walked with them to the bar. Lightning rippled across the sky over the Clive house and in a few moments thunder followed. A small wind began to stir, and it seemed colder. More lightning. The thunder followed more closely now. Some dogs are afraid of thunder. Dutch wasn't. He was far too single-minded. He nudged my hand. There were no hors d'oeuvres being passed. I took a few peanuts off the bar and fed him. I looked at the crowd, now drunk and happy. It would have been the perfect moment to call for silence and announce that I had solved the case. Except that I hadn't solved the case. So far since I'd been here I hadn't caught the horse shooter, and the guy who hired me had been murdered. I didn't have a clue who was shooting the horses, and I had absolutely no idea who had shot Walter Clive.
Spenser, ace detective.

TWENTY

"ILIKE YOU," Penny said. "And I think you're a smart man."
"I haven't proved it so far," I said.
"You've done your best. How can you figure out the mind of a madman."
"You think all this is the work of a madman?"
"Of course, don't you?"
"Just that occupational knee jerk," I said. "Somebody says something, I ask a question."
"I understand," she said.
We were sitting in the stable office. It was still drizzling outside. The crime scene tape was gone. There was no sign that Walter Clive had died there. The horses were all in their stalls, looking out now and then, but discouraged by the sporadic rain.
"With Daddy's death," Penny said, "I have the responsibility of running things, and I don't know how it's going to go. Daddy ran so much of this business out of his hip pocket. Handshakes, personal phone calls, promises made over martinis. I don't know how long it will take me to get control of it all and see where I am."
"And you have your sisters to support," I said.
"Their husbands do that," Penny said.
"And who supports the husbands?"
She dipped her head in acknowledgment.
"I guess they didn't just get their jobs through the help-wanted ads, did they," she said.
"And I'll bet they couldn't get comparable pay somewhere else," I said.
"That's unkind," Penny said.
"But true," I said.
She smiled.
"But true."
I waited.
"Look at me sitting at Daddy's desk, in Daddy's office. I feel like a little girl that's snuck in where I shouldn't be."
"You're where you should be," I said.
"Thank you."
We sat.
"This is hard," Penny said.
I didn't know what "this" was. Penny paused and took in a long breath.
"I'm going to have to let you go," she said.
I nodded.
"I don't want any but the most necessary expenses. The investigation is in the hands of the police now, and with my father's death, they are fully engaged."
"I saw the governor at the wake," I said.
"When it was just some horses, and not terribly valuable ones at that," Penny said, "no one was working that hard on it. Now that Daddy's been killed . . ."
"It has their attention," I said. "I can stick around pro bono for a while."
"I couldn't ask you to do that."
"It's not just for you," I said. "I don't like having a client shot out from under me."
"I know, but no. I thank you for what you've done, and for being so decent a man. But I'd prefer that you left this to the police."
"Okay," I said.
"Please send me your final bill," she said.
"Against the private eye rules," I said. "Your client gets shot, you don't bill his estate."
"It's not your fault," she said. "I want a final bill."
"Sure," I said.
"You're not going to send one, are you."
"No."
I stood. She stood.
"You're a lovely man," she said. "Would you like to say goodbye to Hugger?"
I had no feelings one way or another about Hugger, but horse people are like that and she'd just called me a lovely man.
"Sure," I said.
"Give him a carrot," she said, and handed me one.
We walked in the now more insistent rain along the stable row until we came to Hugger's stall. He looked out, keeping his head stall side of the drip line, his big dark eyes looking, I suspected, far more profound than he was. I handed him a carrot on my open palm, and he lipped it in. I patted his nose and turned and Penny stood on her tiptoes and put her arms around my neck and gave me a kiss on the lips.
"Take care of yourself," she said.
"You too," I said.
The kiss was sisterly, with no heat in it, but she stayed leaning against me, with her arms still around my neck, and her head thrown back so she could look up at me.
"I'm sorry things didn't work out," she said.
"Me too," I said.
We stayed that way for a minute. Then she let go of me and stepped back and looked at me for another moment and turned and walked back to the stable office. I watched her go, and then turned the collar of my jacket up to keep the rain off my neck and headed for my car.

TWENTY-ONE

IARRIVED BACKin Boston around three-thirty. By quarter to five I was in Susan's living room, showered and shaved and aromatic with aftershave, waiting for her when she got through work. I was sitting on the couch with Pearl, having a drink, when Susan came upstairs from her last patient.
She saw me, and smiled, and said hello, and patted Pearl and gave her a kiss, and walked past us into her bedroom. I could hear the shower, and in about fifteen minutes, Susan reappeared wearing a bath towel. She flipped the towel open and shut, like a flasher.
"Y'all want to get on in heah, Georgia boy?"
"That's the worst southern accent I've ever heard," I said.
"I know," she said, "but everything else will be pretty good."
"How could you be so sure I'd be responsive?" I said. "Maybe I'm tired from the long drive."
"I'm a psychotherapist," Susan said. "I know these things."
"Amazing."
When we made love, Susan liked to do the same things every time, which was less boring than it sounds, because it included about everything either of us knew how to do. She was also quite intense about it. Sometimes she was so fully in the moment that she seemed to have gone to a place I'd never been. Sometimes it took her several minutes, when we were through, to resurface.
As usual, when she had come back sufficiently, she got up and opened the bedroom door. Pearl came in and jumped on the bed and snuffled around, as if she suspected what might have happened here, and disapproved.
There was the usual jockeying for position before we finally got Pearl out from between us. She settled, as she always did, with a noise that suggested resignation, near the foot of the bed, and curled up and lay still, only her eyes moving as she watched Susan and me reintegrate our snuggle.
"Postcoital languor is more difficult with Pearl," Susan said.
"But not impossible," I said.
"Nothing's impossible for us."
I looked at the familiar form of the crown molding along the edge of Susan's bedroom ceiling. On the dresser was a big color photograph of Susan and me, taken fifteen years ago on a balcony in Paris, not long after she had come back from wherever the hell she had been. We looked pretty happy.
"We were pretty happy in that picture," I said.
"We had reason to be."
"Yes."
"We still do."
"Yes."
"Would you be happier now if Mr. Clive hadn't been killed in Georgia?"
"Yes."
"Even though you were not responsible for him getting killed, nor could you have been expected to prevent it?"
"Yes."
"Send not therefore asking for whom the bell tolls," Susan said.
"Well, sometimes," I said, "it actually does toll for thee."
"I know."
"On the other hand," I said, "we do what we can, not what we ought to."
"I know."
"And you can't win 'em all," I said.
"True."
"And all that glitters is not gold," I said.
"And a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush," Susan said.
"I always thought that saying was sort of backwards," I said.
I couldn't see her face: it was too close to my neck. But I could feel her smile.
"Well-bred Jewesses from Swampscott, Massachusetts," she said, "do not lie naked in bed and talk about bushes."
"Where did you go wrong?" I said.
"I don't know, but isn't it good that I did?"
At the foot of the bed, Pearl lapped one of her forepaws noisily. Susan rubbed my chest lightly with her right hand.
"Is there anything you can do to clean that up in Georgia?" she said.
"No one wants me to," I said.
"When has that ever made a difference to you?" Susan said.
"I have no client," I said. "No standing in the case."
"You think it was the person shooting the horses?"
"Reasonable guess," I said. "I had no clue who was doing that, and no clue really about where to go next."
"And?"
"And," I said, "I've been away from you about as long as I can stand."
"Good."
"So I'm going to put this one in the loss column and start thinking about the next game."
"Wise," Susan said.
"After all," I said, "a bush in the hand . . ."
"Never mind," Susan said.

TWENTY-TWO

IT WASMONDAYmorning, bright, still early June and not very hot. I was in my office, drinking coffee and reading the paper while I waited for business. I'd drunk my allotment of coffee, and read the paper, and put it away before any showed up, but when it came it was interesting. A woman came into my office, briskly, as if offices were designed for her to walk into. I began to stand up. She indicated there was no need to, but by that time I was on my feet anyway.
"I'm Valerie Hatch," she said, and put out her hand. "You're Spenser."
"Right on both counts," I said, and shook her hand.
"Owen Brooks suggested I might speak to you about my situation. You know Owen?"
"Yes."
Owen Brooks was, improbably, the district attorney of Suffolk County. He was black, Harvard-educated, smart, humorous, pleasant, tolerant, and tougher than a Kevlar gumdrop. In a political office, he seemed primarily concerned with the successful prosecution of criminals.
"He said this was a circumstance that might best be dealt with informally, that is to say, by someone like yourself."
"Then it will have to be myself," I said. "There's no one else like me."
"Owen also told me that you found yourself amusing."
"How do you know Owen?" I said.
"I am a litigator at a major law firm in this city-which one is not germane to my reason for being here."
"Sure," I said. "What is your reason?"
"I am a single mother," she said. "And a woman with a career. To balance those two responsibilities I employ a nanny."
"That's what I'd do," I said.
She paid no attention to me. I didn't feel bad. I was pretty sure she didn't pay much attention to anyone, engrossed as she was with being a single mother and a woman with a career.
"Kate is a lovely girl," Valerie said, "but she has made some unwise choices in her past life, and one of them now threatens not only my nanny but my child."
"Kate is the nanny?" I said.
Valerie looked surprised. "Yes. Kate Malloy."
"And what is her problem?" I said.
"She is being stalked by a former lover."
"She been to the cops?" I said.
"She has, and I've spoken with Owen. We have a restraining order, but . . ." She shrugged.
I could tell that she didn't like shrugging. She wasn't used to it. She was used to nodding decisively.
"She call the cops when the lover shows up?" I said.
"Yes. Sometimes they come promptly. Sometimes they don't."
"What is the lover's name?"
" Ex-lover. His name is Kevin Shea."
"Has Kevin threatened her?"
"Yes. And he poses a threat to my child."
"Whose name is?"
"Miranda."
"And she's how old?"
"Sixteen months. Why are you asking all these questions?"
"So I can follow what you say. Has Kevin harmed Kate?"
"When they were together he beat her."
"And has he threatened Miranda?"
"His presence threatens Miranda. Kate can't take care of her if she's being harassed by this ape."
"And you wish to employ me?" I said.
"Yes. Owen said you were the man."
"What do you wish to employ me to do?"
"Make him go away."
"Do you have a course of action in mind?"
"No, of course not, how would I? That's what you're supposed to know. I wish he were dead."
"Dead is not generally a part of the service," I said.
She shook her head as if a fly were annoying her.
"It was just a remark. I am at my wit's end. I need you to help me straighten this out."
"Okay," I said.
"How much do you charge?"
I told her.
"Isn't that a lot of money?" she said.
"You came here asking me to save your child," I said.
"So you boosted the price?"
"No. That's the price. I was trying to help you decide if it's worth paying."
"By playing on a mother's guilt?"
I didn't remember anything about guilt, but I let it ride.
"Can you do it?"
"Sure," I said. "I can eat this guy's lunch."
"Do you require payment to start?"
"No. I'll bill you when it's done."
"What are you going to do?"
"I'll speak with Kate."
"She's very frightened. You'll have to be careful with her."
"I'll need an address."
Valerie took out a business card and wrote on the back.
"I'd prefer that you talk to her when I'm there."
"Sure."
"This evening?"
"Yes."
"Seven?"
"Fine."
She stood. I stood.
"Where is Kate now?"
"I sent her and Miranda to my mother's home in Brookline," Valerie said. "Until I could arrange for her safety. That's the address on the back of my card."
"I'll meet you there," I said.
She looked at me the way people look at racehorses before the auction.
"Well, you look as if you'd be formidable," she said.
"You should see me in my red cape," I said.
"I'm sure I should," she said.

TWENTY-THREE

ITALKED WITHKate in the living room of a big half-timbered Tudor-style house on a side road off of Route 9 not very far from Longwood Tennis Club. Miranda made a brief appearance in joint custody of Valerie's mother and a Shih Tzu named Buttons. Miranda seemed overdressed to me, and mildly uneasy. But I was inexpert with sixteen-month-old kids. The Shih Tzu sniffed my ankles thoughtfully, and then followed Miranda and her grandmother from the room.
"The dog is a Shih Tzu?" I said.
Valerie said it was.
"Knew a woman in Ames, Iowa, had one of those."
"How nice," Valerie said.
"Dog's name was Buttons too."
Valerie smiled stiffly.
Beside Valerie, on the yellow-flowered couch in a bay of the overdecorated living room, was a plain young woman with red hair and very white skin. I sat on a hassock in front of the couch.
"You're Kate," I said.
"Yes, sir."
"And you are being stalked by a man named Kevin Shea," I said.
"Yes, sir."
"What's your relationship to him?" I said.
"We're not related."
"Were you lovers?"
"Yes, sir."
"And now you're not."
"No, sir."
"What does he do when he stalks you?" I said.
"He follows me around."
"Does he speak to you?"
"Yes, sir."
"What does he say?"
"He swears at me and stuff."
"Does he threaten you?"
"He says if he can't have me no one else will."
"Has he ever hurt you?"
"You mean now, when he follows me?"
"At any time," I said.
"Yes, sir."
Slow going. I felt that I'd had better conversations with Hugger Mugger.
"What did he do?" I said.
"He hit me once, when we lived together."
"Was he drunk?"
"Oh yes, sir. He drinks a lot. Says it's the only way to deal with the pain."
"What was it that attracted you to him?" I said.
"He loved me."
"And now, why is he stalking you, do you think?"
"Because he loves me. He can't bear to give me up."
Valerie said, "Kate, that's ridiculous."
"And how do you feel about him?" I said.
"I'm afraid of him. He's so crazy in love with me. I don't know what he'll do."
"How would you like me to handle this?" I said.
"I don't want him to get in trouble," Kate said.
Valerie was appalled.
"For God's sake," she said. "Kate!"
"Well, I don't," Kate said. "He loves me."
"How can you say that?" Valerie said. "He has beaten you. He threatens to kill you. This isn't love, it's obsession."
"I don't know about that psychology stuff. But I know he's crazy about me."
"He's crazy, all right," Valerie said.
Kate's small, pale face pinched up a little tighter. She wasn't going to give up the great romance of her life.
"So," I said. "If you care this much about him, why did you leave him?"
"Kevin wasn't working. There was no money. I needed this job."
I looked at Valerie Hatch.
"I told Kate that her responsibility was Miranda, and that she couldn't exercise that responsibility properly if her low-life boyfriend was hanging around."
I nodded.
"You live in?" I said to Kate.
"Yes, sir, in Ms. Hatch's place on Commonwealth Avenue."
"We have a large condominium," Valerie said. "Near the corner of Dartmouth."
"So if you live there, and Ms. Hatch doesn't want him around, you don't get to see him much."
"No, sir, hardly at all."
"When do you see him?"
"When I'm walking Miranda, or at the playground."
"Are you afraid of Kevin?" I said.
"Yes, sir, he's so angry."
"Why don't you quit this job and go back and live with Kevin?"
Valerie said, "Spenser, dammit . . ."
I put a hand up for her to be quiet. Surprisingly, she was.
"I need the money," Kate said. "And Miranda. I don't want to leave Miranda."
"You care about the kid," I said.
"I love her."
I nodded.
"I don't see where you are going with these questions," Valerie said.
"I never do either, until I ask them."
"Kevin Shea is an uneducated, unemployed drunk," Valerie said. "I don't want him around my daughter, or my daughter's nanny. And quite frankly, I don't want my daughter's nanny living with such a person."
"I think I can follow that," I said.
"I should hope so," Valerie said.
"Can you put me in touch with Kevin?" I said to Kate.
"I don't know where he's living now. He's not at the place we were."
"Is he likely to show up someplace where you are going?"
"The little park," she said. "I take Miranda there every day. He comes there a lot. And when I wheel her carriage along the river."
"You never led me to believe it was this regular," Valerie said.
"Why don't you and I go down to the park tomorrow?" I said to Kate. "And maybe walk along the river."
"I will not allow you to expose my daughter to this man," Valerie said.
"Perhaps she could stay with you," I said.
"I have a day filled with meetings tomorrow," Valerie said.
"Your mother?"
"Tomorrow is my mother's golf day."
"And I suppose Buttons isn't up to the job," I said.
"This is not a frivolous matter," Valerie said.
"See if your mother can forgo golf tomorrow," I said.
Valerie looked annoyed, but appeared ready to humor me.
"I'll meet you in front of the Commonwealth Ave. place at what, nineA .M.?" I said to Kate. "Is there a stroller or something that you normally use?"
"Yes."
"Bring it."
"Without the baby?"
"Yes."
"What if he tries to hurt me?" Kate said.
"I won't let him," I said.
"He's awfully big and strong," Kate said.
"Me too," I said.
"I don't want him to be hurt," Kate said.
"For God's sake, Kate. Listen to yourself."
Kate didn't say anything. She just stared at the rug in front of her.
"Okay," I said. "Tomorrow, you come out wheeling the stroller, and go where you usually go. Don't look for me. I'll be there, but I don't want to scare Kevin away."
"What will you do if he comes?"
"I'll reason with him," I said.

TWENTY-FOUR

THE DAY WASsomewhat overcast, and not very hot. I strolled along on the other side of the street, watching Kate Malloy as she wheeled the stroller along Commonwealth, crossed at Dartmouth, and headed for the little park. She put the stroller beside her and sat for a while on a small bench, inside the black iron fence, and watched the children and their nannies, and occasionally, maybe, their mothers. No one stalked her. No one looked like they were going to stalk her. After a while Kate got up and took the stroller and walked down Commonwealth, the rest of the way, and turned left toward the river on Arlington Street. I went along too. We crossed the pedestrian overpass to the esplanade and began to stroll west along the river. If Kevin showed up I wasn't sure what to expect. I was ready. I had a gun on my belt, and a sap in my hip pocket, and if that didn't work, I could always bite him. Still, he seemed less monstrous when Kate talked of him than he did when Valerie talked of him. I was pretty sure I wasn't getting the whole story. I was used to it. I hadn't gotten the full story in Lamarr, Georgia. I never got the full story. There was probably something deeply philosophic going on. Maybe there was no full story. Ever.
We crossed a little footbridge over the lagoon and walked near the water. If anyone noticed that Kate was pushing an empty carriage they didn't show it. Bostonians are so reserved. There were a number of dogs being run by their owners, and a number of babies being strolled, and then there was a stalker. I didn't see him approach. He was just there all of a sudden, beside Kate, a big man wearing a tank top. His hair was in a crew cut shaved high on the sides. There were tattoos on each bicep. He took her arm. He was loud. And intense. As I closed on them I could hear him.
"I don't give a fuck about that. I need to see you. I love you."
I stopped beside them. He looked at me.
"Who the fuck are you?" he said.
He was fair-skinned and sunburned. He'd never tan darkly, but you could tell he was out-of-doors a lot.
"I'm with her," I said. "We need to talk."
"You need to take a fucking walk, pal."
He was sober, which was good news, since it was about eleven in the morning. There was no smell of booze, no slurring, none of the look around the eyes that drunks so magically achieve.
"Nope," I said. "The three of us. We'll sit down over there on that bench and we'll sort everything out."
Beside me Kate was like a rabbit, very still, quivering with-what? Expectation? Fear? Readiness? The guy was big and strong and had probably won most of the fights he'd had. But if experience made him confident, it also gave him perspective. I could see by the way he looked at me that he wasn't sure.
"You a cop?"
"Private," I said.
He snorted. I took it as an expression of contempt.
"Sort what out?" he said. "It's that bitch she works for that needs sorting out."
"How so?" I said.
"How so? Bullshit how so," he said.
Anger got the better of perspective, and he took a swing at me. It was a pretty good swing. He didn't lead with his right. He didn't loop the punch. But he got out in front of his feet, and it made him put too much arm into the punch, and not enough body. I picked it off with my right forearm. He followed with a right that I picked off with my left forearm. It didn't deter him, so I feinted at his belly with my right. He flinched, his hands came down, and I nailed him on the jaw with a left hook that turned him half around and put him on the ground.
Kate screamed "Stop it!" and jumped in front of me and wrapped her arms around my waist and tried to push me away from Kevin. Bells were ringing for Kevin. He got halfway up and sat back down.
"He'll be all right," I said. "He's just been jarred a little. But it would be better if we left it at this. Why don't you talk with him."
She turned toward Kevin, who was sitting upright on the ground, blinking his eyes. She dropped to her knees beside him, and put her arms around him.
"Stop it, Kevin. Please," she said. "For me. This man doesn't want to hurt you, or me. He'll help us, I know he will, if you'll talk with him. Talk with him, for me."
Kevin looked confused, but he let her help him to his feet and he walked pretty steadily with her toward the bench. When they weren't looking, I rubbed my knuckles. Every time I hit somebody my knuckles hurt. Tomorrow they'd be a little swollen, and a little sore. Occupational hazard. I couldn't go around all the time with my hands wrapped. The two of them sat on the bench. Kevin's eyes began to focus.
"Okay," I said. "We'll be friends, and I'll ask some questions, and you'll answer them and maybe we can work something out."
Neither one said anything. The hinges of Kevin's jaw were going to be very sore tomorrow.
"Don't feel bad," I said to Kevin. "You're a tough guy, but there's always somebody tougher."
"She didn't beg me," Kevin said, "we'd still be at it."
"Sure," I said. "Now, do you, Kate, love him, Kevin?"
"Yes."
"Do you, Kevin, love her, Kate?"
"For crissake, what's it look like? Of course I do."
"You ever hit her?" I said.
"Once."
"Hit her once, or on one occasion hit her a number of times?"
"Just once, total," Kevin said.
He didn't want to look at me. He didn't like me knocking him on his kazoo in front of his girlfriend.
"That right, Kate?"
"Yes. He hit me on the arm, up near the shoulder."
"I was drunk," Kevin said. "And she was driving me crazy."
"About what?" I said.
"About her freakin' job. That bitch she works for doesn't want me around her."
"I need that job," Kate said. "How'm I going to eat, I don't have that job?"
"I'll be working again, goddammit, I'm just between right now."
"What do you do when you work?" I said.
"Heavy equipment. Company I worked for went outta business. I'll hook on someplace pretty quick."
"That the way you understand it, Kate?" I said.
"Yes. I know he'll get another job. But we need to eat now."
"We?"
"Kevin and I," Kate said.
I looked at him. He didn't look back.
"You supporting him?" I said.
"Just for now," she said. "I give him a little money."
"That right?" I said to Kevin.
"Yeah."
"He'd do it for me," she said.
"And when he shows up while you're walking the baby, he's not stalking you?"
"It's the only chance we get," Kevin said.
"Except we always fight," Kate said.
"Because he wants you to leave your job, and you don't want to."
"Not until he's on his feet again."
I walked a few feet and stood at the riverbank and looked at the gray water. Behind me the two of them sat on the bench as if they were waiting outside the principal's office. After a while I spoke to them without turning around.
"Why don't you get another job, Kate? Where the boss is a little more flexible."
"That's what I keep fucking telling her," Kevin said.
"I don't have time to look," Kate said. "And . . ."
"And?"
"And it's the baby. I love her. I want to take care of her. Nobody else wants to take care of her. I . . . I don't want her to grow up to be like her mother."
There were some sailboats skittering about erratically on the basin, driven inconsistently by the wind off the land. I watched them for a while. Then I walked back to where Kevin and Kate sat on the bench.
"Okay," I said. "Kate, you'll have to save another kid from her mother, and let a new nanny save Miranda."
"How am I going to get another job?"
"I'm going to get you one, and Kevin too."
"I can get my own job," Kevin said.
"Yeah sure, you're tough as nails and proud as a peacock. Which, so far, has enabled you to screw yourself up with the woman you love."
"You think I'm not tough 'cause you got a lucky punch in?"
"We both know it wasn't lucky," I said. "I can help you, unless you insist on being an asshole."
"You really think you can get us both jobs?" Kate said.
"It's a booming economy," I said.
She nodded and looked at Kevin. He smiled at her.
"You want to do this?" he said.
"Yes."
"Then we'll do it," he said.

TWENTY-FIVE

IWAS INmy office on Wednesday morning, eating some sugared donuts and drinking coffee and reading the paper. Wednesdays were always promising, because Susan didn't see patients on Wednesdays. She taught in the morning and normally spent the rest of the day with me.
And morning was always a good part of the day. I had the paper to read. The streets were full of people, fresh-showered and dressed well and heading for work. My office was still. The coffee was recent. The donuts were everything donuts should be, and the bright beginning of the day contained the prospect of unlimited possibility. When I had finished the paper, I put my feet up and dragged the phone over, and called Vinnie Morris.
"Gino do business with any construction companies?" I said.
"Of course," Vinnie said.
"I got a heavy-equipment operator looking for work."
"He connected?" Vinnie said.
"He's connected to me," I said. "Can you get him hired?"
"Sure," Vinnie said.
"Quickly?" I said.
"Tomorrow?"
"That's quickly," I said.
"I'll get back to you," Vinnie said.
We hung up. I went to the window and looked down at Boylston Street where Berkeley intersected. A stream of good-looking professional women moved past. Their outfits were tailored and ironed and careful. I was too high to hear, but I knew that their high heels clicked on the warm pavement as they walked. And I knew most of them smelled of pretty good perfume. Had I been closer, they in turn would have noticed that I smelled fetchingly of Club Man. But there was no one to smell me . . . yet. I looked at my watch. Quarter to eleven. She'd be here in an hour and a half, or so she had promised. Punctuality was not Susan's strength. She always intended to be on time, but she seemed to have some kind of chronometric dyslexia, which thwarted her intent, nearly always. Had she been predictably late, say fifteen minutes every time, then you could simply adjust your expectations. But she was sometimes a minute late and sometimes an hour late, and on rare and astonishing occasions, she was five minutes early. Since I had no way to gauge her coming hither or her going hence, I accepted the fact that readiness is all, and remained calm.
I poured the rest of the coffee into my cup and rinsed the pot out and threw the filter away, added a little milk and a lot of sugar to my cup, and sat back at my desk with my feet up. I sipped the coffee and thought about the Clives and Tedy Sapp and Polly Brown and Dalton Becker and came no closer to understanding what had happened than I had before I got canned.
The phone rang. It was Vinnie.
"Crocker Construction," he said. "Tell your guy to ask for Marty Rincone. Use my name."
"Where are they?" I said.
"Building condos on the beach in Revere. He'll see the trucks."
"Thank you," I said.
"You're welcome," Vinnie said. "You know where Hawk is?"
"France," I said.
"Working?"
"I don't think so. He went with a good-looking French professor from BC. Can I help you with something?"
"You could, but you won't."
"Okay, if I hear from Hawk, I'll tell him you were asking."
"Today or tomorrow, or don't bother. After that I'll have done it myself."
We hung up. Vinnie wasn't a chatty guy.
The mail came. I went through it. Nobody had sent me a check. Although one client had written a grateful letter. There were a couple of bills, for which I wrote a couple of checks. I threw away several offers to make my phone bills lower than a child molester.
Susan arrived. However late she might be, she was always worth the wait. Today she had on cropped white pants, and a striped shirt, and sneakers. I sensed that our afternoon would be informal. She sat on the couch and wrinkled her nose.
"Are you wearing Club Man again, or have they just painted the radiators?"
"You fear Club Man, don't you?" I said. "Because you're afraid that after just a single whiff, your libido will jump out of your psyche and begin to break-dance right here on the rug."
"That's probably it," she said. "Would you like to hear our plans for the rest of the day?"
"Yes, but first I need to find work for a nanny," I said.
"A nanny," Susan said.
"Yes."
I told her about Kate and Kevin and Valerie and Miranda.
"Things are not always as they appear," Susan said.
"You've noticed that too," I said.
"I'm a trained psychologist," Susan said. "You've gotten Kevin a job already?"
"Yep. Through Vinnie Morris."
"I'm not sure I have Vinnie's clout."
"Thank God for that," I said.
"But I can ask around," Susan said. "Most of the women I know work."
"As do most of the men," I said.
"Your point, Mr. Politically Correct?"
"Could be a father needs a nanny," I said.
"I'll ask the men too," she said. "Now would you like to hear our plans for the day?"
"Do they involve heavy breathing?"
"Absolutely," Susan said. "Whenever I smell your cologne."

TWENTY-SIX

SUSAN FOUNDKATEa job as a teacher's aide in a private nursery school in Cambridge. Kevin was welcomed at Crocker Construction, where everyone treated him very respectfully. A couple of days after Kate had quit, Valerie Hatch stalked into my office without closing the door behind her.
"What the hell kind of operation are you running here?" she said.
"No need for thanks," I said. "Just doing my job."
"You sonovabitch," she said. "Because of you I've lost my nanny."
"Glad to do it," I said.
"Do you have any idea what it is like to be a career woman with a child?"
"No."
"Well, maybe you'd like to try the fast track someday while you've got a sixteen-month-old kid clinging to your damned skirt."
"I don't think a skirt would improve my fast-track chances."
"Don't avoid the issue," she said.
"Ms. Hatch, there is no issue," I said. "Kate didn't want to work for you, so she quit and got another job."
"Which you helped her with."
"Yes."
"You even got a job for that lout of a boyfriend."
"I did," I said.
"That is not what I employed you for."
"I know," I said. "I quit too."
"Don't think I'm going to take this kind of betrayal passively."
"Okay," I said. "I won't think that."
"I have every intention of pursuing this with the appropriate licensing agency."
I nodded.
"And don't think I'm going to pay your bill."
"There is no bill," I said.
"You mean they bought you off?"
"I mean this is pro bono, " I said. "Would you like to know what I think?"
"No."
"Few people do," I said.
We were quiet. She glared at me.
"Well, what is it?"
"What is what?"
"What you think," she said. "My God, you're a fool."
"I think you should hire a new nanny."
She stared at me.
"That's your idea?"
I smiled and nodded. She stared at me some more.
"Men!" she said, and turned and stomped out of my office.

TWENTY-SEVEN

IT WAS Amonth or so after I had failed Valerie Hatch so miserably. I was sitting in my office reading a book by Jonathan Lear about Freud and other things, when Dolly Hartman came into my office like an old sweet song and sat down in a client chair and crossed her spectacular legs.
"Do you remember me?" she said.
"Yes, I do. How are you, Ms. Hartman?"
"Please call me Dolly."
She was wearing a print summer dress and white high heels and no stockings. Her legs were the regulation horse-country tan. She was iridescent with cool sexuality that made me want to run around the desk and ask to die in her arms.
"You're looking well," I said. It was a weak substitute but it preserved my dignity.
"Thank you," she said. "Is that a good book?"
"I don't know," I said. "I don't understand it."
"Oh, I bet you do."
"Just the easy parts," I said.
We smiled at each other.
"What brings you to Boston?" I said, listening to my voice, hoping it wasn't hoarse.
"I wanted to see you," she said, and shifted a little in her chair and crossed her legs the other way. Which displayed a fair amount of thigh. I observed closely. You never knew when a clue might present itself.
She smiled. I cleared my throat.
"How are things in Lamarr?" I said.
Spenser, conversationalist par excellence.
"That's why I wanted to see you," she said. "Things are hideous in Lamarr."
I decompressed a little. She wasn't just there to flash her thighs at me. Not that I don't like thighs. Had that been her purpose, she'd have been welcome. But because she was there with a problem, I could start acting like it was a business call, which would dilute my impulse to bugle like a moose.
"Tell me about it," I said.
"There's something very wrong at Three Fillies," Dolly said.
"Like what?"
"Well, neither my son nor I have any access."
"Access?"
"We're not allowed in," she said. "Not the stables. Not the house. Nowhere."
"What happens if you go and ask to be let in?" I said.
"The security guards prevent us."
"At the house too?"
"Yes."
"Security South?" I said.
"Yes."
"Any explanation?"
"No. Simply that they have their orders."
"Have you called Penny?"
"She won't take my calls."
"Stonie? SueSue?"
"They don't answer or return my calls."
"There any progress on Walter's murder?" I said.
"None."
"Any more horses?"
"No."
"You talk to Becker about this?"
"The sheriff?"
"Un-huh."
"I can't discuss this sort of thing with some policeman."
"Oh."
"I wish to hire you," she said.
"To do what?"
"To find out what happened to Walter Clive."
"What can I do that the cops can't do?"
"You can report to me," she said. "And maybe you won't pussyfoot around the Clive family quite as much as the local police."
"That may be," I said. "But if they don't want to talk to me, they don't have to."
"They have shut themselves off, since Walter's death. They have shut me out. They have shut my son out."
"Are you in Walter Clive's will?" I said.
She was silent for a time. I waited. She crossed her legs the other way. Which gave me something to do while I waited.
"Why do you ask?" she said.
"I'm a nosy guy," I said.
She was silent again. I waited some more.
"I was supposed to be," she said.
"And?"
"The attorneys tell me I'm not," she said.
"How long were you with him?" I said.
"Eight years."
"Did he say he'd take care of you?"
"Of course."
"Do you feel there was chicanery?"
"God, don't you talk funny," she said.
"It's not my fault," I said. "I've been sleeping with a Harvard Ph.D."
She smiled. Her teeth were perfectly even and absolutely white. The effect was dazzling, even though I suspected orthodontic intervention.
"I've done that," she said.
"Hopefully not with the same one," I said.
"Hopefully," she said.
"Do you think somebody doctored the will to cut you out?" I said.
"I don't know what to think," she said. "I don't mean to come off sounding greedy, but . . . I . . ."
She shifted a little in her chair and crossed her legs again. She seemed to sit up a little straighter.
"I am what would have been called, in more genteel times, a courtesan. I have been not only the sex partner but the companion and support of several powerful men, of whom Walter Clive was the most recent."
"Did any of the others stiff you?"
"None of the others have died," she said. "But each made a financial settlement with me when our relationship ended. I know Walter would have done the same thing, if we had parted before his death. None of these arrangements were about love. But in each instance we liked each other, and we understood what we were doing."
"Are you okay financially?"
"Yes. I am quite comfortable, and I shall almost certainly establish a, ah, liaison with another powerful and affluent man."
"So hiring me is a thirst for justice," I said.
"I want my son's inheritance."
"You think Walter Clive should have left money to your son."
"Our son," Dolly said.
"Yours and Walter's?"
"Yes."
"Does your son know this?" I said.
"Not yet."
"Did Walter know this?"
"I told him. We agreed that Walter would undergo some DNA testing."
"Did he?"
"I don't know."
"He died without telling you."
"Yes."
"You and Walter have been together eight years," I said. "Your son, Jason?"
"Yes."
"Jason appears to be in his middle twenties," I said.
She smiled again.
"The eight years is public and official," she said. "Our liaison began a long time before that, while Walter was still married to the beatnik."
"Sherry Lark?"
"I became pregnant with Jason about the same time she did with Stonie. I said nothing. I knew better than to upset the apple cart at that time. I ended the relationship with Walter, and went away and had Jason, and raised him. Later when the beatnik was gone, I came back into his life. I never explained Jason, and Walter never asked."
"Did they ever divorce?"
"Walter and the beatnik?"
"Yes."
"No, they didn't."
"Why not?"
"I think each hated the other too much to give in," Dolly said.
"Why didn't you tell Clive about Jason when you came back?"
"The separation was horrible. The beatnik may be primarily interested in flowers and peace, but she tried to gouge him for every penny. Had she learned of Jason, she would have succeeded."
"And that would have been less for you," I said.
"And Jason," she said.
"What made you change your mind?" I said.
"Walter was revising his will. I wanted Jason to get what was his. No one would have to know anything until Walter's death, and then Miss Hippie Dippie couldn't do anything about it."
"And Walter wanted proof that Jason was actually his son," I said. "Hence the DNA tests."
"Yes."
"Where was he tested?"
"I don't know."
"Was Jason tested?"
"We donated some blood for the DNA match. I spoke to our doctor first. Larry Klein. He's a lovely man. Very cute. Jason just thought it was part of a routine physical."
"Do you think the rest of the family knows anything?" I said.
"To my knowledge, you and I are the only ones who know about this, and of course Dr. Klein."
"You know he went to Dr. Klein?"
"No. He said he had. And was waiting for the results."
"You're sure Clive is Jason's father?" I said.
"I said I was a courtesan. I am not a whore."
We sat for a while. I thought about the offer. The case had its own merits, and it was also a wedge back into the situation. It is very bad for business when someone kills your client. I might see Penny again, whom I liked. I would almost certainly get a further look at Dolly's knees, which I also liked.
"Georgia in August," I said. "Hot dog!"

TWENTY-EIGHT