All Hat (10 page)

“I guess.”

They got into the Lincoln and went to the Slamdance. The place was crowded; they drank at the bar and watched the dancers. Dean was hoping to see Misty, but she wasn't there.

“I'm getting pretty sick of all this, Paulie.”

“I thought you liked strippers.”

“I'm not talking about strippers, fuck's sakes. I'm talking about Sonny and Jackson. Uncle Earl, too, you want to know the truth. You know how much money they're making? The purse today was $750,000. And that's just today. What do we get for falling in horseshit, getting whacked by Sonny? Fucking peanuts.”

“Sonny just likes to yell.”

Dean took a drink and watched two dancers on stage, French kissing, grinding against each other.

“Well, it's about time we got something for ourselves, Paulie,” he said. “Some kind of profit participation. He runs that horse in the Breeders' Classic, the purse is four million. And that's nothing compared to when he puts him out to stud. Don't you think we should be entitled to a cut?”

“We should get some participation,” Paulie agreed.

“Fucking right.” Dean signaled to the bartender. “I'm gonna talk to Earl; I'll phone him in the Bahamas if I have to.”

Tiny Montgomery was working the bar. He moved his bulk over, looked at them sullenly.

“Two more here,” Dean said.

“Where you guys been?” Tiny asked.

“Why?”

Tiny looked up and down the bar. Dean noticed for the first time that the stools on either side of them were empty, even though the joint was full.

“Somebody's kinda rank,” Tiny said then.

Paulie looked at Dean in alarm. Dean was staring at Tiny like he couldn't believe what he'd heard. Tiny was standing pat, eyebrows arched.

“I spend a lot of money in this place,” Dean said.

“Maybe you oughta spend a little on soap and water,” Tiny said, and he walked away.

Leaving the parking lot, Dean floored the Lincoln, fishtailing and spraying gravel all over the side wall of the Slamdance. He hit the street at full throttle, tires squealing, and headed uptown, Paulie holding on to the dash with both hands, watching the road ahead.

They went to Dean's apartment. Paulie sat on the leatherette couch and turned on the TV while Dean went into the bedroom to change. Paulie clicked through the channels, settled on a rerun of
The Simpsons.
The apartment was a mess, pizza boxes on the floor, empty bottles everywhere, stereo components strewn across the carpet. Paulie heard the shower running. He went into the kitchen, found a Coors Light in the fridge, walked back out to the couch. There was a
Playboy
on the coffee table; he picked it up and went straight to the centerfold, drank the weak beer, and alternated his attention between Miss October and Marge Simpson as he waited for Dean.

Dean came out of the bedroom, wearing jeans and a white dress shirt, carrying his suit. Paulie was still on the couch, sporting the beer, the magazine, and a hard-on. Dean picked up the phone and checked his messages.

“How much does a TV like this cost, Dean?” Paulie asked.

Dean looked over, receiver to his ear. “That's eight hundred bucks. Too rich for your blood, Paulie.”

He punched the phone buttons and then hung up. “Shit,” he said. “We gotta go out to the farm.”

“What for?”

“Jackson left a message. But we're going to the dry cleaner's, first off. And while we're at the farm, maybe I'll ask some questions.”

Paulie got to his feet, adjusting his pants to accommodate his condition. “What kind of questions?”

“Questions I shoulda asked a long time ago.”

It was Sunday night. It took them the better part of an hour to find a dry cleaner that was open.

“Why don't you just wait 'til morning?” Paulie asked at one point.

“It can't wait,” Dean said. “You know what kind of material this is?”

“What kind?”

“It's special Italian material,” Dean decided. “It's gotta be cleaned right away.”

They finally found a place open in a strip mall north of the city. Dean conducted a short interview with the owner, who was Korean, to ensure that the man possessed the expertise required to clean an Armani. Then they drove out to the farm.

Jackson was leaving the barn when they arrived. Dean parked in front of the house, and they got out. Sonny's BMW was parked on the lawn. Jackson walked over to the car.

“Sonny wants you to run his car over to the golf course,” he said.

“Oh, wonderful,” Dean said. “We were afraid you wanted us for something trivial. We want to talk to the old man, Jackson.”

Jackson was walking away, finished with them. “Well, he should be back about April. If it won't wait 'til then, then I guess Sonny's your man.”

He got into the pickup and drove off.

They drove Sonny's car out to Hidden Valley Golf and Country Club, Dean behind the wheel of the BMW and Paulie following in the Lincoln. They parked by the pro shop and got out. The clubhouse was huge and ostentatious, fashioned after an antebellum style, which seemed to appeal to the country club set.

“What's Sonny do out here all the time?” Paulie asked, looking at the pillars that supported the porch roof. “He doesn't play golf anymore.”

“He hangs out with a bunch of guys just like him,” Dean said. “They sit around smoking cigars and talking about sports and cars and all the women they've fucked. The kind of guys who'd rather talk about fucking than do it.”

“It's a big place. How we gonna find Sonny?”

“Won't be hard.”

Sonny was playing poker in the private dining room with a cluster of men, all smoking cigars and talking about sports and cars and all the women they'd fucked.

They were playing wild cards when Dean and Paulie walked in, and Sonny was down a couple hundred and about to drop another hundred by way of bumping on a baby straight in a game where four of a kind was on the weak side. A big man with a shaved head and gold hoops in each ear won the hand with a straight flush. Dean knew the man to be a real estate developer named Rockwood. He called himself the Rock because he was an amateur bodybuilder who considered himself as hard as a rock. Dean had been in his presence several times and was of the opinion that he was also as smart as a rock.

When he lost the hand Sonny grabbed the cards and threw them into the air in a gesture of easy come, easy go. The cards fluttered about the room, and then Sonny noticed the two.

“You bring the car?”

“No, we're here to practice our putting,” Dean told him.

“You better not have fucked with the stereo, like last time,” Sonny said. Then: “Paulie, pick those cards up, will ya?”

Paulie did as he was told, gathered the cards, put them back on the table. The players watched him in amusement. Dean stared at Sonny, and he returned the look, smiling around the Cohiba in his mouth.

There was a large Rottweiler sitting to the side of the Rock. The dog had a bandanna around its neck, and it was drooling on the Persian carpet. Paulie sat down at the next table and watched the dog. After a moment, the dog began to watch Paulie.

“You guys want to play a couple hands?” Sonny asked.

“We're leaving,” Dean said. He'd decided to wait to talk to Earl about the profit sharing.

“I'll play.” That was Paulie, grinning as he stood.

Sonny gave the others a look, nodding behind his cigar.

“You don't want to play, Paulie,” Dean said sharply.

But Paulie was draping his jacket over a chair, taking his wallet from his pocket. “I like cards,” he said.

Sonny and the boys were getting a big kick out of the whole scene, eyeballing one another, smiling into their drinks. Dean looked on angrily.

Sonny was shuffling the deck. “Kings and little ones, Paulie,” he said. “You know the game?”

“I think so.” Someone had given Paulie a glass of rye on the rocks.

“Paulie, you don't drink whiskey,” Dean said.

“Would you relax?” Sonny said, and he dealt the cards.

Paulie won the first hand on five aces, the second with five queens, and the third with a royal flush. He took in roughly nine hundred dollars and then, drinking off his rye, announced to the table that he was out of the game. He unzipped his wallet, tucked his winnings carefully inside, and then pushed away from the table.

“What the fuck you mean you're out?” asked the Rock.

“I got enough to buy a new thirty-two-inch TV,” Paulie said. “That's all I wanted.”

“Sonny,” the Rock said sharply. “What the fuck is this, man—a hit-and-run?”

Dean was laughing now. “Let's get outa here, Paulie.”

“I have to go to the washroom first,” Paulie said.

The Rock sat at the table and glowered as Paulie left the room. After a moment he got up and approached Dean. It appeared that the Rock bought his golf shirts a size too small; his biceps, already huge from lifting, looked even bigger under the thin double knit.

“That little fucker's not leaving,” he told Dean.

“He can do what he wants,” Dean said.

“He's got our money,” the Rock said. “He stays in the game. End of conversation.”

Dean looked past the Rock's massive shoulders and saw Paulie come back into the room and gather his jacket from the chair. Dean showed the Rock a grin and said: “Come on, you should be happy that all he wanted was a TV. What if he had his eye on a new Cadillac?”

“Yeah?” the Rock asked. “And what if I have my Rotty tear his fucking throat out?”

Dean looked past the Rock again, to where Paulie had the animal in question on the floor, the dog on its back, all four paws in the air, tongue lolling to one side as Paulie vigorously rubbed its belly.

“Sure, Rock,” Dean said. “That oughta work.”

8

When Ray walked outside Saturday morning Pete Culpepper was sitting on the porch, working on a plug of Redman and watching the sky like a man watching the dealer in a crooked card game. The morning was cool and clear, but there were clouds stacking up in the west and the wind was on the rise. Pete was watching the accumulation and occasionally spurting a stream of tobacco onto the tangled rose bushes along the porch, bushes planted years back by one of Pete's girlfriends, although Ray couldn't remember which one. It was probably no better than even money that Pete could.

“You 'bout ready?” Pete asked when Ray came out of the house.

“I'd like a little breakfast. Did you eat?”

“I had a cowboy's breakfast,” Pete said.

A cowboy's breakfast, Ray knew, was a piss and a look around, and that alone told Ray that the old man was nervous. He wasn't one to miss a meal.

“Well, I gotta eat,” Ray said. “Whoever it was said breakfast is the most important meal of the day probably wasn't talking about chewing tobacco.”

They were on the road by nine, Pete behind the wheel of the pickup. They hit the QEW just east of Hamilton, skirting the city traffic. The rain began around St. Catharines, and when it did it came in a torrent. By the time they reached Fort Erie the ditches were running, and Pete was describing in detail what he would like to do with the weatherman's genitals.

The gelding Fast Market was in barn eleven. Pete had trailered him down on Monday and had been making the trip every day since, working him on the main track.

“What shoes you got on him?” Ray asked as they parked the truck.

“Put bars on him, just yesterday. I got calks if I need 'em,” Pete said.

“Does he like the slop?”

“I don't know that it's got anything to do with liking it. All a horse knows is to run. How he runs in the muck depends on a lot of things, but mostly the trip.”

They found the gelding calm and content in the barn. Pete gave him a handful of oats and then went to track down his rider. Ray got a brush from a shelf and began to curry the gelding's coat. The horse was as quiet as Pete's old hound as he worked; at one point Ray was certain the animal was asleep.

As Ray was finishing up, Pete came back, walking through the mud with a lanky brunette with dark eyes, wearing jeans and cowboy boots, a faded Nirvana T-shirt.

“This is Chrissie Nugent,” Pete said. “Ray Dokes.”

Chrissie Nugent wore dark eyeshadow and lipstick, and she looked to Ray like a wasted fashion model from the 1960s. Her eyes were rimmed with red, and she had a fuzzy look about her with which Ray was familiar. She was maybe twenty-five. She shook Ray's hand, then turned and hacked and spit in the mud.

“Chrissie was up when he won in July,” Pete was saying. “Girl's been having a hell of a year, got near fifty wins. But she's fixin' to lose her bug.”

Chrissie was in the stall with the horse now, her hands on his withers, talking softly to him, words Ray couldn't make out. Ray had never seen a jockey—male or female—wearing makeup before. But then he'd been away awhile.

When Chrissie came out she lit a cigarette and looked at Pete. “Anything I need to know? What about the hoof?”

“Ride the horse like he's sound,” Pete told her. “I'd like to keep him middle of the pack 'til the stretch, but if this rain keeps up you might have to move him sooner. I wouldn't go wide with him. He gets a little lonely out there.”

Chrissie nodded, looked at Ray a moment, then back to Pete. “That it?”

“That's it,” Pete said. “The silks are in the pickup.”

“Well, I don't have a mount 'til the fourth,” Chrissie said. “I'm gonna go catch some sleep in my truck. I got a hangover that would kill a fucking Clydesdale.”

They watched as she retrieved the silks from the truck and then walked away in the rain.

“Where'd you find her?” Ray asked.

“Turned around one day, and there she was,” Pete said. “Gal's a comer; she's tougher than a boot sandwich, and she's a natural jock. Horses just plain relax around her. Ain't nothing you can teach. She's gonna be a great one if she doesn't kill herself. I think she's about half crazy.”