by Otto Penzler
“Know who that horse’s owner is? Burt the goddam Hatch! You know who that is? And you know what they mean by Hatch? Or do I have to spell it out for you?
Poor Sam. He said, “Claire Brent owns that horse.”
“You ever heard of a program owner, you little rube?
Burt the fuckin’ Hatch owns the goddam horse. The same
Burt the Hatch who’s got so many fuckin’ felonies he couldn’t run a horse on a cheap track in fuckin’ Kansas. Know what you just cost me, asshole? My right tibia, if he finds me. I’m outta here now.” He held up his keys and rattled them some more, for emphasis. “You got any sense, you get on the next plane leaves the airport.” He whirled, marched out on the two legs he intended to keep, and Sam never saw him again.
He never met Burt the Hatch either, but it wasn’t ten minutes before some Mexican with a tire iron came in and applied it to Sam—all over, but with special emphasis, as Clancy’d predicted, on his legs. Leg-breaking is still very big among the horsy set, and it’s not confined to humans—an owner wants to get rid of a rival horse, he sends someone to break the animal’s cannon bone.
How can he do this? Easy. Hardly any of the barns have night watchmen, and anyway, a lot of track people get blind and deaf around guys with tire irons.
Sam’s left leg healed all right, but the right one never did. He can walk, but barely. He’s too shaky to handle large animals anymore, which might not be so bad—he could always go back to the guinea pigs—but he got addicted to painkillers, whether because of the pain, or because he was so goddam depressed he couldn’t face anything anymore. He’s never come out of it.
He said he wasn’t fit to be a husband anymore and moved to a cabin in Maine. Technically we’re still married; I have his address for emergencies, and he has my cell number. We even e-mail now and then.
But he took my heart to Maine with him. When he left, I started drinking.
And planning.
Fortunately, I had the sense to sell the hospital before I started operating drunk and losing people’s golden retrievers. It didn’t yield much, but I had enough to live on for a while, and enough to carry out the plan. I hired a P.I. to find the Hatch, who’d disappeared soon after Sam was attacked.
For one reason or another (my P.I. never got the details) things had gotten too hot for him, and he’d moved to Louisiana, taking his horses with him—including Satan’s Moon. It’s a state with a reputation. Guess he figured he’d feel at home there.
Luz Serrano’s happy to be there, too. The weather’s great and the folks are real friendly.
• • •
Big Easy isn’t doing too well this season, and I think I know why. DeLesseps is having his rider hold him, waiting for the odds to go up. But one of the friends I make is Wally Michaels, Big Easy’s doc; I hang around Wally and watch what he gives him. Nothing on race days, not even Lasix. Big Easy’s an honest horse, I could swear it. And why not? He’s a good little horse, I know that from his past record. All he needs is a rider who wants him to win. I don’t think he has one.
Another of my new friends is Satan’s Moon’s trainer, Ray-ford Burke.
These are two people I need to know. It’s not hard for me—track folks are friendly, and so am I. And I look good in jeans.
When the odds are ten-to-one, I start hearing scuttlebutt, and I watch Wally pretty closely, but I still don’t see anything funny.
Moon runs a hell of a race, but he only comes in second.
Big Easy wins.
Rayford Burke’s way the hell down in the dumps. He tells me the owner, who he doesn’t name, is gonna be furious. “He loves that horse more than his own wife. Wants him for stud,” he says.
Right. Stud. All these coonass owners have extravagant dreams about stud. For one thing, there’s money in it; for another, they all want to think they’ve got another Seatde Slew.
I tell him Moon’s a great horse (which is something of a lie, because Sam has told me things about Moon) but I know they’re sending Big Easy (which is a bald-faced lie). And I offer to bet Rayf Big Easy’ll win again if he goes off against Moon. I even say I saw Wally shoot him up.
Rayf beetles up his brow and gives me a glare. “Why the hell are you telling me this?”
“If Big Easy wins, I’ll be the one walking him,” I say. “Jimmy always wants me to walk the big horse.”
Rayf nods, getting what I’m saying. The walker in the paddock is on public view and I make a point of being better groomed than most of the others. Realizing that seems to rouse Rayf’s suspicions. “Who are you?” he asks suddenly.
At first I panic, thinking he knows something, but then he says, “You’re no Mexican hotwalker. You talk like a debutante.”
So I give him some cock-and-bull story about being once being an M.D. and going on the skids, and losing my marriage, and taking riding lessons as a kid and loving horses. He buys it, and I’m glad he asked—it puts us on more of an equal footing. I go on with my story.
“Point is,” I say, “I’ve got access to Big Easy’s water.”
“You could drug his water if he wins, that what you’re saying? I don’t get it. If he’s already drugged, what’s the point?”
I shrug. “Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe they’re just holding him. Or maybe they’re giving him something that doesn’t test. I’m just saying I can make sure.”
“You want to fix the race for some reason of your own, why the hell tell me about it?” He’s trying to sound bored and a little outraged, but I know he’s hooked.
“Because I’m looking for a sure thing, Rayf. Why should I be different from anyone else? I need to make a big score in the New Orleans Handicap, and let’s face it, it’s a two-horse race. If they start holding Big Easy again, the odds get longer and longer. So Big Easy wins, I win big. But Moon wins, I don’t, even if I bet it both ways. Because the favorite’s not going to pay much.”
“I’m losing you.”
“I’m offering insurance here—for you, and for me. If Moon comes in second and Big Easy tests positive, Moon takes the purse, right? Big fat $500,000 purse.”
“Right.”
“Well, the owner’s share of that’s sixty percent. Three hundred grand’s a hell of a lot of money. Half of that ought to be enough for anybody. I make it happen, I want the other half. Then the owner and I both know in advance who’s going to win and we each know we’re going to walk away with a hundred and fifty grand. We’re both happy.”
“You want half the purse?” Rayf laughs in my face. “You think the owner’s just gonna fork over a hundred and fifty grand?”
“No,” I say. “But it’s a good place to start.”
“Suppose Moon wins. You think you should still get paid?”
“What does insurance mean to you?” I say, and the question isn’t exactly rhetorical. “By the way, I’m gonna need half up front.”
Rayf laughs his head off, but I don’t care. It’s not the money I’m after. I don’t honestly think Burt the Hatch is going to make a deal with me, I just want Rayf to bring it up with him, if only for laughs. Because when it’s all over, I want the Hatch to know he’s been scammed by a hotwalker.
Big Easy’s rider starts holding him again, and the odds shoot up, so I can see I’m right. DeLesseps is waiting for the Handicap.
Meanwhile, Moon’s winning all his races—Rayf wants him to be the favorite because Burt doesn’t care about gambling, he doesn’t care about anything but Moon’s reputation and his future as a daddy. He’s evidently not worried about Big Easy at all—who would be?
I put the whole thing out of my head. I have other things to think about. One of them is to open an account with the track, so I can make phone bets whenever I want.
But a couple of days before the race, Rayf hunts me down. “You know what we were talking about that time?” He’s being circumspect for fear of being overheard. “I think I might be able to do something for you.”
“Ah. Getting nervous, are you? Did you tal
k to the owner?”
Rayf bites his lip, looking like a little kid. Maybe he’s suddenly realized what I meant when I said, “What does insurance mean to you?” Because as long as Big Easy runs in the money, he’s going to get sent to the test barn, and I’ll be walking him. Moon’s water’ll be there too. My poisoning opportunities will be almost unlimited.
“Look, we need Moon to win this thing the worst kind of way. But I gotta tell ya, the owner’s not all that worried about Big Easy. How about ten? Just for insurance.”
Ten thousand dollars. I’m drunk with power. “Twenty,” I say coolly, thinking maybe I know what’s coming.
Sure enough, Rayf starts hemming and hawing. I make it easy for him. “You know as well as I do we’ve gotta have twenty—my half up front, you keep the back end.”
He gives me a smug little nod.
Just before the race, he brings me a thousand dollars. “The owner wouldn’t give me the whole ten,” he says, “but don’t worry, it’s coming.”
I give him a hurt look, but inwardly, I’m feeling smug myself. Burt probably figures a grand is about right for insurance money. To him, it’s pocket change, and he probably thinks it’s the most money a hotwalker’s ever seen at one time, more than enough to prevent a double-cross. I smile to myself, imagining the Hatch playing the big man in his box up in the clubhouse, secure in the knowledge the bitch is so stupid she really thinks she’s going to get the rest of her money.
When the odds are as good as they’re ever going to get, I make a phone bet, wagering Burt’s entire payment, plus four grand of my own. Satan’s Moon goes off at two-to-one and Big Easy, who’s all but forgotten by now, at thirty-five-to-one.
And Big Easy wins! Not Moon, although he runs his heart out, tail spinning like the devil’s chasing him.
Burt and Rayf are probably already high-fiving each other, congratulating themselves on their paltry insurance payment. No way I’m ever gonna see the nineteen large they owe me, but that’s nickel-and-dime stuff to me now. I just won $175,000.
Because I bet on Big Easy.
The Hatch doesn’t know it, but I stopped his horse that morning. If Satan’s Moon tests positive, Burt doesn’t even get the twenty percent of the purse the owner of the second-place winner’s entitled to. And he will test positive. I know because I’ve already drugged him.
Remember I mentioned most barns don’t have night watchmen? And they’re never locked, because of the risk of fire. I slipped into Moon’s at four-thirty that morning, before anyone else was at work, and dropped acepromazine into his water.
I’m about to follow up with some insurance of my own. I figure Rayf will have someone watching me in the test barn.
I pick up Big Easy in the paddock and lead him there, to walk in circles while he cools down. The way they work the water, they attach buckets to posts and designate one for each horse. Big Easy’s has a great big “W” on it, for Winner. As I pass, I open my hand over his bucket, as if I’m dropping something in—which I’m not—and I make sure Big Easy drinks.
It’s a near-perfect scam—I win, the Hatch loses, and I’ve had the pleasure of rubbing his nose in it.
But it’s not good enough.
We’re still not even, the Hatch and me. He broke my heart; I’m going to break his.
After I take Big Easy back to bis own barn, I make myself extremely scarce. I’ve already moved out of my apartment and into a hotel, to which I return to wait till after midnight, when I know Moon’s barn will be good and deserted.
When I think it’s late enough, I grab my doctor’s bag and go to the Fair Grounds to see my boy Moon. Satan’s Moon and I go back a long way. I wonder if he’ll be glad to see me. I hope so, because I have his best interests at heart. I’d never harm an animal, and what I’m about to do won’t hurt Moon for more than a minute or two.
I know something about Moon, or at least I suspect something. Sam pointed it out to me. “See how his tail makes circles when he runs?” It does, and then it stops, and then it starts up again, maybe two or three times during a race. But this doesn’t happen when he’s exercising. I know what people say about those circles, but nobody can prove it.
“You’re saying Moon’s a machine horse?” I asked.
Sam nodded. “Hey, the old-timers say Seabiscuit was. He was still a great horse.”
“But everybody says Moon’ll be a great stud.”
“Oh sure. And maybe all his colts’ll run on the machine too. It’s cruel, Annalise. These horses love to run, you notice that? They get the best of everything. The whip doesn’t even hurt ’em. But shocking them like that. That’s gotta scare the shit out of ’em. Best thing for that horse is brain surgery—be a lot happier animal.”
Sam is a great believer in brain surgery, by which he does not mean a frontal lobotomy. He means Moon needs to be gelded, to calm him down. But he thinks that’ll never happen because of Burt’s grandiose stud plan. That they’ll keep shocking him and making his life miserable, and then they’ll sell his worthless sperm to a new crop of unsuspecting owners. I’m about to prove him wrong.
Normally, no one would dare try what I’m about to do without a helper, but I know better than to try and recruit one: There are no secrets on the backside. I’m going to have to work alone, but I’m running on adrenaline—I’m furious and I’m determined, and Moon knows me, from Jersey. I really think I can do it.
It all depends whether Moon will stand for me. If he won’t, I could get killed.
First, Moon and I get reacquainted-—we didn’t really get a chance that morning. Yep—he’s glad to see me. I’ve got a shot at this.
I set out a sterile surgical pack, put on a pair of gloves, and give him a couple of quick injections. First, some tetanus toxoid. Then, in the jugular furrow, Dormosedan, a sedative, and a painkiller we call bute. Whether he’ll stand depends on how he reacts to the sedative, and I’ve given Moon a little more than the normal dose. I wait to see if his head drops.
Yes! Moon’s calm and drowsy, but he’s still not going to like what’s coming. I move around to his left, inch him up against the wall with my body. I’m tense and sweating, wondering if I can really pull this off. I’ve done it before, but not on a racehorse—and certainly never alone. I can hear Sam’s voice the first time I tried. “You’ve got to move like a cat, Annalise. If you’re fast enough, he won’t react.”
I reach under Moon’s belly and inject him with lidocaine, quick as a cat. Sam’s right. It goes smoothly. Then I step back to my surgical pack for a scalpel.
The procedure requires that, and an instrument rather baldly called an emasculator, which resembles large gardening clippers held together with a wing nut.
I make the necessary incision, and the horse cow-kicks, to the side. I duck and give him some love words, which seem to help. I pick up the emasculator, heart pounding like hooves on the turf. My hands are sweaty, and so’s my forehead. This is the dangerous part—dangerous for Moon, that is. Over and over to myself, I say the mantra they teach you in veterinary school: “Nut to nut. Nut to nut. Nut to nut.” I keep saying it to calm myself and also as a reminder. If I do it wrong—hold the emasculator nut-side up—Moon could bleed to death. It sounds like a hard mistake to make but given the tension of the procedure, it isn’t.
I place the instrument properly, nut to nut, and squeeze, crushing Moon’s left spermatic chord. After a moment, the horse’s testicle drops into my hand. Just like that.
I put it on a glove wrapper on the ground. Then I repeat the procedure on the right. Moon tries another cow-kick, but his heart’s not in it. I place the right nut on the wrapper, knowing I’ve lucked out with this horse—he’s very susceptible to the drug.
Normally, I’d throw the testicles up on the roof for luck. This is the backside custom, and it’s the vet’s job to get them up there. But I’ve got a plan for this particular pair.
Quickly, I transfer them into two little velvet-lined boxes I’ve brought along. I say good-bye to Moon and t
ell him I hope we meet again.
And on the way out of town, I mail one of his nuts to Burt the Hatch (care of Rayford Burke) and the other to Sam with a note that says, “Moon’s right moon enclosed herein. Guess who got the left one?” I sign it and add a postscript: “A story goes with it.”
I am on the road by the time Sam phones. “Burt didn’t hurt him, did he?”
“Hell, no,” I answer. “He told Rayf to put him in a claiming race—you want him? I came into some money.”
Sam sighs with relief, but he ignores my offer. “Forget the money,” he says. “Let me hear the story.”
Give you odds he’ll be home in a week.
PINWHEEL
Scott Wolven
Every night that June, from my cell window at Orofino, I watched the fireworks color-burn the midnight sky over the Indian reservation across the road. The colors lit up fields and sometimes the sparks would drift to earth and the old horses the Indians kept would scatter, faster than you would think they were capable of. Speed left from races they never ran, I told myself. I knew horses when I was a kid near Saratoga, in upstate New York. Whole worlds had happened since then. Those horses and fireworks were my only friends at the beginning of that summer.
I wasn’t in the race to win anymore. I’d fallen on some hard times in Eastern Washington and a gang that was a branch of the Posse made a deal with me. They’d pay me to finish off another man’s time in Idaho. I don’t know how they rigged it up, who they paid off. But one day they brought me into a hospital room in Spokane and the deputies that shackled me and took me to Orofino called me by a different name. I was inside under a new name and eight years stood between me and the door.
The Idaho State Correctional Facility at Orofino was an old brick campus, housing twice as many men as it was built for. It was a mixed classification facility, which is the worst, because the killers are in with the guys who forgot a child support payment. The guys doing a decade don’t look very kindly on the guy who gets to go home in three months. I was a maximum classification at that time, because the guy I was pretending to be had a record that began in the womb.
