Bomber's Law (41 page)

“ ‘I guess in horse-racing, it's sposed to be different, at least with the thoroughbreds, there. The real thoroughbreds, at least, Kentucky Derby, the horse-races you see on TV. Probably not so much with the standard-breds there, only with thoroughbreds, this's where that'd apply: most people in that, they're not in it expectin', they're really gonna make money. Well, the trainers an' jockeys, the exercise kids, the stablehands, yeah, them, they do. Hafta. Because they've gotta eat there. But the owners, you know, nah, not for them; for them it's not that at all. They're in it for somethin' else. They're in it for the excitement and stuff, and you know, they also really like horses, and they're also rich, so there's that. Those people got money to burn there. So they can do what they like, when they want, and then not care what it costs. But most people with racing-dogs haven't
got that, so you see, it's different for them. They got to watch nickels and dimes.

“ ‘I know Livia said to me, said a couple of times there, Livia said it a lot: “I know these oldtimers, been at it a long time, experience up the gump-stump. So maybe they're right, and that does carry them; that really is how they do it. They've been flying so long, by the seat of their pants, and, goddamnit, no matter what anyone says, all of that shit, it still works for them. Well, what I say's ‘Goddamnit, it won't work for us.' And
I
don't care what anyone says: it's too late for us now to bother to learn all that outmoded, otta-date
shit.
We're gonna come in now, we gotta come in, if we're gonna compete, armed right up to our teeth, with everything we can bring with us. Because everyone else who's coming in now, 'S coming in with everything
they
got, and they're who we're not only up against now, in addition to all the oldtimers—they're who'll we'll be up against later, the rest of our lives, and we're the oldtimers, when all our old-timers're dead. Not the oldtimers, much as we love 'em; it's not them we're competing with now. It is
us
we're competing with now, and we got to use what we've got. And by that I mean that I think the biggest thing, by far, my father gave me for this, was not with the dogs, growin' up with the dogs, but when he sent me to college.' ”

“Now,” Dell'Appa said to Dennison, “by now I know what this kid's got, what he knows that I've only suspected. Suspected a long time, and strongly, too, yeah, absolutely I have, but still, no more'n that: only suspected. That's all you can do, far's you can travel, on what you know without proof. But he doesn't know, A, he knows what he knows, because he doesn't know what it means. What its significance is. And he doesn't know, B, 'til he actually says it, I can actually get him to say it, I'm no better off'n I was before, before I laid eyes on him. But the minute it dawns on him, what he's got that I'm after, he's gonna start tryin' to haggle again, and I'm gonna be back at Square One.”

“Lovely,” Dennison said. “Don't you love workin' without a net down there under you? One false step and you know, and this's the hardest part, too: as you fall to your death, you'll be giving the crowd what they came for, and the bastards won't even say ‘thanks.' Not so you'll hear it, at least.”

“Right,” Dell'Appa said, “so what I've got to do here is come at
the kid sideways, like one of those old B-Fifty-Two bombers can do, when they're landin' into a crosswind and there's the wheels going straight down the runway but the nose of the fuselage looks like it's aiming ten or twenty degrees to the left. Or the right, dead on to wherever the wind was. Damndest thing I ever saw, first time I saw that on TV; thing looks like a flying building anyway, it's so damned big, but there it is, all calm and serene, got more moves'n Bobby Orr had. So I said to him:
‘College'?
Is that what she told you, what she had goin' for her, runnin' this kennel, was what they taught her in college? Where'd she go, veterinary school, some A and M college or something?'

“ ‘No,' he says, ‘no—accounting. Olivia's an accountant. A real accountant, I mean. That's what she studied in school.'

“ ‘Gee,' I said, still trying my best to seem like I've got all the time in the world—after all,
I
don't have to pee, ‘that's not what I'd choose to as a way to prepare for a rewarding career in the racing-dog business.'

“ ‘No-no,' says Ernie, ‘that's not what it is, that she spends all of her time with the dogs. She does a lot of that accounting work. Besides running the kennel days, I mean. Prolly she spends more her time on accounting in fact, 'n she does doin' stuff with the dogs. The dogs're just one thing she does.

“ ‘Livia works very hard. She's a very hard-workin' woman. Day and night, work-work-work, she just works all the time, everybody says that. If you don't see her, you don't know where she went, well, you just can count on it, there, that wherever she is, that's what it is that she's probably doing: Livia's workin' again. It seems like she
can't
just sit down, you know, have a beer, catch a little TV, just shoot the shit for a while. No, instead all the time what she has to be doin', always has to be somethin' that's work, something she's got to get done.

“ ‘And she actually likes it that way. She will even admit it to you: “I got to have somethin' to do, I go nuts, if I don't have somethin' to do.” Like she's actually proud that she's like this or somethin', she don't think anything's wrong. When most people would tell you, they see someone like this, someone who's actin' like she does, they can't ever sit down and relax, they would say to you, they would tell you: “Well, then, this person is nuts.”

“ ‘She keeps all the books for the kennel and so forth, this's her kennel there, Error, plus she also does all of her father's accounting work, his law office there, and Joey's taxes, too, Joey has her do those for him. I have her do mine too, even though mine're simple, but I feel better havin' her do it, the deductions and all that shit there. I don't know about any of that stuff. And she only charges me ten bucks to do it; she don't even wanna charge that. “Hey, no,” she says, “you helped me out there. Gave me a hand, I was hurt. I'm just repayin' a favor here, is all.”

“ ‘I hadda insist on it, payin' her somethin', that's the kind of person she is. I say: “Livia, no, this isn't right. You paid me, I did work for you. I won't feel right, now, you do work for me, and you don't let me pay you. Next year I won't feel like I should ask you, I'll just do the damned things myself. And then I will get myself into the shit, and then it'll be all your fault. Because you wouldn't take money from me.” So she says: “Okay, that's the way that you feel, gimme ten bucks,” and so that's what I do. But if I didn't have her to do it, and help me out there, I know what I'd do: all I'd do is fill out the card, even though I would know I was costing myself money doin' that. But I don't know about all them deductions and stuff, and I wouldn't feel comfortable, you know? I wouldn't feel comfortable doin' that. I feel better just havin' her do it, and then I save some money besides.' ”

“Right,” Dennison said. “I wonder how many of Reno's other drivers and flunkies have this lady do their taxes too, not to mention how many of Chico's. With her working for them Franco and Chico can always be sure that at least their own boys're not courting tax troubles, they all report income sufficient, and legal, and aren't gonna get net-worthed on them. That might be an interesting inquiry there, to prevent boredom this winter, time hanging heavy on our hands.' ”

“That,” Dell'Appa said, “and a few other things beside that. She keeps the books for a lot of the other dog-people, too, a lot of the other kennels. We're already sure Reno's cab company's Chico's money-laundry; people who own racing kennels would be pretty good cash-washers, too. Ernie said: ‘About twenty of them, at least, I think, the other kennels, they use her. Plus which, inna wintertime, matter of fact, she prolly does more the accounting stuff there'n she
actually spends on the other, doin' her work with the dogs. During the winter months, startin' right after Christmas, it's like nobody sees her at all. Every minute she's not with the dogs, or maybe doin' somethin' that she has to do. All the nights and the weekends and like that. Makin' out people's taxes for them.

“ ‘Some of them, like the kennel guys, for example, those guys've got their own businesses, so she has got those that she does. And then there's a lot who just work for a living, which is like most people do, but they also have her do their taxes. Some of her father's law clients, because naturally he would recommend her to someone who he was their lawyer and they needed their taxes done, but also a lot of guys that didn't use him. They never had Ev at all. They just heard good things about Olivia, and how her work was real good, and that's what they're after themselves; they want someone good, do their taxes. Because they're afraid if they made a mistake there, well, they're scared of the IRS, which most people are, everybody I know is. Scared of those bastards, I mean. So they all go to her and say to her: “Here, you do this for us,” and that's what she does then, she does that. Fills out their tax-returns for them.

“ ‘Her clients all really like her, I guess. I know they all keep coming back, year after year, and I don't think they would do that if they didn't. Unless they moved away, or maybe they died, but if it was, you know, something like that, well, then that wouldn't be her fault that they did that, not like it was something she did that made them go find someone else.

“ ‘Which all of this would make sense, of course; she's a professional accountant there, and that's what those people do. Got a paper says she passed this exam—she's one of them, whadda they call alla those people there, got that, one of them CPAs there. Got it framed up there onna wall in her office, with her college diploma. I guess that's how you get to be that, by takin' some special test that they give you, and you pass it and they make you one. So it's not like the paper by itself means that much; all it does is just say that they did that.'

“ ‘How about this guy Doug that you mentioned a while back,' I said with elaborate nonchalance, ‘did she do Doug's tax return too?'

“ ‘Oh yeah, she does Doug's,' the kid says to me, ‘she did Doug
and Laura's returns for years, ever since she got her computer, bigger one'n she'd had in college. That's how she met Doug in the first place, I guess: he sold her computer to her, and then, he found out what she wanted it for, I guess he gave her the thing at his cost, if she'd keep his books for his business. Although it could've been, it could also've been, that they knew each other from school. Like they were in college together, knew each other before, and that was why she bought her machine from him. I know it's a really expensive machine there, I don't even know what it cost. She told me: “Oh, 'bout as much as a small car does, but it does things a car never could.” So that could've been it too, I guess. That could be the reason. I guess I really don't know that. I
have
got to go though, I know
that.
'

“ ‘Well, okay,' I said, ‘I can understand that. But just tell me this, if you will: this guy Doug that Olivia's so friendly with, that she's known ever since her school days? Do you know what his last name might be?'

“His forehead's all wrinkled already,” Dell'Appa said, “but it wasn't that my question bothered him. It was from the effort of concentrating all his inmost strength and resolve on keeping his ureter closed. If he'd had an odometer hitched to his ass, he would've logged seven miles in that chair.

“ ‘Yeah,' he said through clenched teeth, ‘yeah, I know his name. Lemme think just a second here: Brennan's his name, yeah, his name's Brennan. I met him once, nice-looking guy, maybe six or eight years older'n I am. Lives over in Quincy, that's where he is. The computer guy's name is Doug Brennan.' ”

“
Bing
-go,” Dennison said softly. He sighed almost inaudibly, sitting there in the gloom, visible only in silhouetted shadow to Dell'Appa, his dusky voice over a hundred years away. “So, you were right all along. All that's left to get now are the details. Oh, shit.”

Dell'Appa nodded. The lamp next to him meant that Dennison could see what his face did as he spoke. “Yeah,” he said, keeping expression out of everything except his voice and eyes. “Sorry, boss, and I really do mean that. I thought I was right, right from the beginning. It hadda be something like that. I began to be sure, when I was at Coldstream, and Joey said ‘ferret-legging.' There's only one
person I ever heard say that before it came out of his mouth, and that was our friend, Bob Brennan.”

“He got it from Bomber,” Dennison said. “Bomber in one of his moods. I know. I was there the same day. When Bob and I were both young troopers, back around the time that South Carolina decided to secede and see how that played up the coast, Bomber got the wind up him one day and told us about how the Highlanders, Scotland and Wales, put hungry live ferrets down the fronts of their pants and bet on who'll stand it the longest.”

Dennison chuckled. “It was a really great story,” he said. “He had all of us clutching our balls. And it was years later, I guess, 'fore I asked him one day, and I don't know how it came up, what it was that brought it up, but I said to him: ‘Bomber, goddamn it, tell me something for just once now, will you? Is that story about ferrets true?'

“And he looked me straight in the eye and he laughed. ‘Of course not,' he said, ‘I made it up.' And I said to him: ‘Why, you bastard, why did you do that to us, nice innocent young guys like us? Because you know that we all believed it. We believed anything that you said.'