The Grave Maurice (10 page)

“Colin Biers would have all of the stallions in my stables lined up for a crack at his mare to make sure he got another Honorbound.” He leaned his head against the back of the chair and studied the ceiling. “I wonder what it would take to make another one.” Arthur thought of that wondrous horse who not only had won every high-stakes race he'd been entered in, but who also had one of the mildest temperaments imaginable. Everyone loved Honorbound. The horse stood at Cavalier Farm, whose trainer, Keegan, would complain loudly to Charlie Davison that Truitt (who owned Cavalier) was making money hand over fist from Honorbound's seasons. “Works the horse to bloody death, the bastard” is what Keegan had said to Arthur many times. He was getting two hundred thousand per season and selling seasons to more than eighty or ninety applicants. The man was raking in millions. “The greedy bastard,” said Keegan. “One of the greatest Thoroughbreds to run the course and that bastard has him mating with eighty mares a season. That horse,” said Keegan, “could tell me anything I wanted to know about handling him right. Maybe he was training me, instead of my training him. He was a regular horse whisperer. All I had to do was keep my ears open.” Keegan had kept asking Arthur Ryder to talk to Truitt, get him to see reason, to cut back on Honorbound's seasons.

“You did,” said Maurice. “How?”

“It wasn't hard; it was simple, really. I told him he'd be flooding the market with Honorbound foals. We'd already seen some of the best, like Lillywhite, and all winners of stakes races, two of them won the Derby. Honorbound's worth his weight in gold. I expect he's smart to have that stall fitted out with a smoke detector, a fire detector and that thing that measures a rise in heat. To say nothing of the sprinkler system. Most elaborate I've ever seen. The stud fee went up to a quarter million. Vernon has talked about it enough, the money in selling seasons and shares. Reason tells you that the fewer foals, the more valuable each is; the more, the less valuable. It's supply and demand, that's all. Money's the only language Truitt understands.” Arthur smiled. “Vern wanted to do it himself; he loves talking about money.”

“You don't think Vernon's like that, do you?”

Arthur laughed. “Oh, God, no.”

“Did Dad ever ride Honorbound?” He knew the answer; he just liked to talk about his father.

“Rode him at Ainslee. Truitt always tried to get Danny away from me, the twerp. Even though Danny was my own son. Truitt and Anderson, two of a kind.”

“What was Dad's favorite ride?”

Arthur thought for a moment. “I think it depended on the race. Beautiful Dreamer, when he rode him in the 2000. Then Aqueduct in the Grand National. I'll never forget that race. There's never been a horse more relentless than Aqueduct. Watching him over those hurdles was like watching lava pour over rocks.”

Maurice had propped his chin in his hands, listening. Ordinarily, his grandfather was a taciturn man, but that was because of Danny's death and Nell's disappearance.

Out of the blue, Arthur said, “Did you know Vernon hired a private investigator to look for Nell?”

“No.” Maurice frowned.

Arthur nodded. “Vern's kept him at it for a year and a half. As far as I know, he's still at it. The man talked to people at every horse farm in Cambridgeshire, I think. Didn't get a hell of a lot of cooperation, but he tried. At Anderson's he had to palm himself off as an insurance investigator so he could get a look at the stables.”

Maurice was thoughtful for a while, then said, “I'm going to London to see Vernon.” He stood up.

“You mean
now
?”

“Yes, I think I will.”

“It's been nearly two years, Maurice—don't forget.”

“How could I forget, Granddad?”

 

It took only an hour from Cambridge to Paddington and another three quarters of an hour on the Circle Line to the City. He could have driven one of the farm's cars. His granddad never gave him a hard time about that and, consequently, Maurice didn't feel he had to prove he was capable of driving in London. He wasn't. A lot of people felt incapable of driving in London.

Vernon Rice worked in the City. Vernon probably wouldn't call it work, not what he did. “I sit around making things up. Daydreaming, you could call it.”

“What sorts of things?”

“New companies. I look around and see what isn't and then bring it into being.”

“Sounds like God.”

They both laughed. This made Maurice feel exceptionally good—that he could make Vernon laugh so hard—because he thought Vernon was really cool, and he liked the idea he could provoke such laughter.

He liked the office. It had a clean, uncluttered look, a lot of chrome, a lot of glass, Eames chairs and tables, an unburdened place.

Maurice liked the receptionist, too. Or secretary, he wasn't sure which. She was good-looking and sleek like the office. He had little experience of designer clothes, but he bet the dark-gray suit didn't come from Debenhams. She had smooth dark hair, an ivory complexion and didn't bother with costume jewelry; the only piece she wore was her watch, a thin curve that seemed to float on her wrist. He did not mind sitting here and looking at her and at this anteroom until Vernon was off the telephone. He sighed. It looked like a glamorous life he led. Maurice would have envied him like hell if there had been horses in it. But as there weren't, Maurice didn't think Vernon all that fortunate. Glamorous, maybe, but, in this one way, unfortunate. Maurice couldn't imagine life without Samarkand and Criminal Type and Beautiful Dreamer. He supposed that was what some people meant by something's being in your blood.

“He's off the phone,” said Samantha, smiling.

But before she could get up to show Maurice in, Vernon had opened the door to his office. “Maurice! For God's sake, what are you doing in this horseless city? Come on in.”

Maurice blushed a little. He usually did in the first few moments of meeting Vernon. It was probably because he felt somewhat clumsy and awkward.

“When was the last time you were ever in London? You don't like the place—go on, sit down.” Vernon indicated one of the chrome and leather chairs. “Can you stay for dinner? My favorite restaurant's in South Ken. Ever been to Aubergine?”

Maurice smiled and shook his head. It was like Vernon to treat him as a crony, not as some kid of sixteen. As if he, Maurice, were a fellow traveler in the seeking out of three-star restaurants. “The only one I've been to is the Angus Steakhouse. Don't go.”

“Glad you dropped me the tip. Speaking of tips, I can put you into a great fund that's paying eighteen and a half percent and is going public anytime now.” Vernon checked his watch in case that time might be passing before his eyes and out the door. “Better still, and more up your alley, you can buy five or ten percent of a syndicate for a great horse—”

Maurice held up his hands, palms out as if backing away. “You're kidding, aren't you, Vern? You know I don't have any money.”

Vernon gave him a disbelieving look. “Money? Who said money? You buy short and wait—”

He was interrupted by Bobby, who came in, said hello to Maurice, dropped a paper onto Vernon's desk, said good-bye and walked out.

Vernon said, “Bobby's only twenty-two, he's been here since he was eighteen and he's already made himself a small fortune. If you ever need a break from the horses . . .”

“Can you imagine me doing this?” Then he was worried he might be insulting Vernon and his offer. “What I mean is—”

“Can you imagine him”—Vernon nodded toward the door through which Bobby had lately gone—“who ran into me when he was on a skateboard? He started talking about hedge funds and mergers. He talked about stock in a new company I hadn't even got reports on. I hired him.”

Maurice was surprised at his own reaction to this talk about Bobby. He was jealous. He must see Vernon as an older brother, which he was—a stepbrother. But that didn't count as much as Vernon hadn't come on the scene until he was thirty-two or -three. Maybe Vernon had always thought of Maurice as a younger brother. Still, it was odd that Vernon, a relative stranger, coming in from the outside, and in so few years, could lay claim to family feeling. Maurice realized now how rich his life had been before his father's death, before Nell's disappearance.

“Why is it I get the impression you're not thinking about syndicating your horses?”

“Oh, sorry. I was just thinking about Dad. And—” Maurice looked at his shoes; they seemed to be falling apart.

“Nell,” said Vernon.

Maurice looked up quickly. “How'd you know?”

“What else is there to think about?”

If Maurice hadn't known about Leon Stone, he would have been surprised by this statement and by Vernon's intensity. “You're really serious about finding her. Granddad told me about the private detective you had looking for her.”

Vernon nodded. He seemed to have lost his earlier buoyancy; he looked older by several years.

“You really care about Nell.”

Again, Vernon nodded. “I do.” He smiled. “Come on, let's have dinner. You can stay the night at my place. I'll tell the girls to go.”

“Not all of them, I hope.” Maurice was back to feeling comfortable now. And he wondered why Vernon had never married.

Did he always tell the girls to go?

 

“She's not dead,” said Vernon, after a considering silence, in answer to Maurice's question.

“Why are you so sure?”

Over a plate of his favorite duck in Aubergine, Vernon studied him, or seemed to; he could as well be studying the banquette behind Maurice or the air around him. “Because it doesn't feel like it. Does it to you?”

Maurice did not know how to answer this. He seemed at the moment to be out of touch with his feelings, as if they had retreated at Vernon's question. “Well . . . I can't believe it. I can't believe she's gone forever, if that's what you mean.”

“Not exactly.” Vernon speared a bite of roast potato.

“Hard to explain.”

Maurice smiled. “It just sounds kind of mystical, I mean, coming from you.”

“Me, the chaser of the almighty pound, dollar, yen and deutsche mark?”

Maurice colored slightly. “No, no. Well . . . only in a way. You seem so grounded, so, ah, practical.”

“Money's a by-product, Maury. Not that I'm indifferent to it, God, no. Without money I couldn't eat here every week. But it's not what keeps me going back to the table. What attracts me to the market is its craziness, its unpredictability. The whole thing's a game where you can win big or lose your shirt. All of these market analysts—if they were sure of their own predictions, why in hell would they be telling people? They'd be out there, buying and selling themselves. No, if I wasn't in this business, I'd be a compulsive gambler.”

“As in poker? Remember those games we played? Nell always won.”

“She's got a winning mind.”

The waiter came to pour more wine. The service here was so perfect that the diner was only partly aware of the waiters' presence, as if they drifted in and out like dream images.

“This Leon Stone, Vernon, what does he think happened? I mean, didn't he come up with some kind of answer to how whoever did it knew Nell would be in the stable?”

“Not really.” Vernon shrugged. “He did wonder if there'd be reason for someone in the family to stage this abduction. But what could possibly be the motive? Even assuming someone could be that cold-blooded, the motive wasn't money, obviously. No. Stone thinks that whoever came didn't know Nell would be there. Stone thinks he—for he's pretty certain there was only one person—came to take one or more of the horses: Samarkand, Beautiful Dreamer or Aqueduct. Nell woke up and heard him, then saw him. She was a danger to him, so he took her with him.”

“He thinks the person came for the
horse
?”

Vernon nodded. He shoved back his empty plate and crossed his arms on the table. “Listen, Maury: in what I do, you have to be able to imagine very strange things. Take what I mentioned earlier: you think the stock of some given company is going down, down, down. You sell short, meaning you borrow shares from another account, believing you'll make money when the stock plummets and you'll be able to replace the borrowed shares with the ones you bought at a lower price. That's strange, isn't it? Hard to imagine? You're not even using your own money. It's all on paper.”

“So what you're saying is you have to think of weird possibilities.”

“I can suggest one: she wants to stay at this place.”

Maurice's mouth dropped open. “Wants to stay? Wants to? How could she possibly—”

“Think something was more important than you?” Maurice colored deeply. “I don't mean—”

“Why not? You're her best friend, after all. Anything that would keep Nellie away from the stud farm would have to be powerful.”

Maurice poked his steak around, still smarting from Vernon's idea. “Next you're going to say she fell in love with her captors.”

Vernon spread his arms. “The Stockholm syndrome. You're catching on.”

Irritated, Maurice stabbed at his steak. “You mean kidnap victims have actually done that?”

Vernon nodded. “It's happened.”

“Come on, Vernon. Why not go with the most logical, reasonable answer? She's dead.” He looked across the table. Of course he didn't want Vernon to accept that answer. He wanted Vernon to convince him there was another answer. Any other answer. Any other.