by John Dunning
“So how do you not do that?”
“Don’t say anything to him at all unless he speaks to you first. Answer his questions but don’t volunteer much more than that. If there’s a problem, refer him to Sandy.”
“You know anything about him?”
“Nope. I don’t ask and you shouldn’t either. Just do your work.”
The subject of Charlie came up one more time. During the afternoon feeding I overheard some talk in the shedrow. Sandy was consulting a man I had never seen, a vet, I gathered from their conversation. One of Barbara’s horses had a history of sore knees. The horse had been on butazolidin up at the farm, his ginney said, and the vet was offering his advice. Sandy said, “I want to talk to Barbara first and get a more detailed history. She’s taking her husband to the airport tonight, but she’ll be here in the morning. Can you come back?”
The vet could come back tomorrow. More to the point, Charlie was gone.
Where had he gone?
Anywhere, I thought, to get away from me.
But why would he do that when I’m such a cuddly, lovable bastard?
Now there was nothing much to do till Charlie came back and no telling when that might be. In fact Charlie might not come back at all, so that night I thought the hell with it and I had my way with the crew. I wasn’t worried now about offending people with my nosiness, I just went ahead and got as nosy as I needed to be. The exercise boy wasn’t staying on the racetrack: he had a young wife and a small apartment in Arcadia, so my questions at least hit fresh ears. The ginneys with one exception were like employees everywhere: Gossip was a way of life with them. I tried to back into things with topics of benign interest. I asked about Barbara’s farm and learned that it was a hundred-acre spread up north. They all worked up there and came down to the races whenever Barbara did. They all seemed to like her. She had gone through a number of trainers, that was true, but except for one crew she fired long ago, with her hands she was easy. I thought of Candice’s dad with his place in New York and I commented how nice it must be to have money, hoping that one thing would lead to another. The one older guy stood apart and regarded us with a disgusted look. “She’s got a right to demand things of her trainer,” he did say at one point. “She’s paying him plenty, so she’s damn well got a right. Look, let’s knock off the bullshit, okay?”
But bullshit unleashed can be hard to contain, and slowly it crept back into the talk. I was glad when the old guy left us and retired to his own tack room, gladder yet that it was way down at the end of the shedrow. Now I asked about Charlie. Just in the spirit of getting stuff right, I said; just because I didn’t want to get off on the wrong foot. Now a different Charlie seemed to emerge. One man thought he was a nonentity. He talked a lot; he schmoozed with the ginneys and occasionally when they won one he was the dispenser of tips. He loved to sit on the Cadillac and gab while he handed out those big bills: more than Sandy’s tips at Golden Gate, these were fifty-dollar bills, and the general feeling was, they didn’t give a damn about money, Barbara and Charlie: they lived for the moment and always had. It was hard to get off on the wrong foot with Charlie. But make no mistake, in her shedrow Barbara was the man. She had her own trainer’s license; did I know that? No, I did not. She wasn’t interested in actually training the horses herself, but on some tracks even owners were not allowed backside without their trainer along and she had no patience with that.
I kept it going. I was asking as a greenhorn, and they all wanted to dispense knowledge.
“Charlie’s a great guy, you know,” one of them said.
“How so?” I asked with keen interest.
“He just loves to throw money around. If you ever get a chance to help him, Jesus, do it. He tips like a wild-eyed son of a bitch.”
“Help him do what?”
“Move his books,” the guy said, and I felt my heart turn over one more time.
“What books?”
“Oh hell.” The guy rolled his eyes. “Just bring a strong back.”
“Charlie’s got more books than the freakin’ Glendale Public Library,” another said.
“He’s not kidding,” said the first guy. “When it comes to books, Charlie’s an animal.”
“He’s got three houses, all full of goddam books.”
“At least three. You’ve never seen anything like it in your life.”
“Books stacked up from floor to ceiling. He’s got ’em in fifty-gallon barrels, piled on top of each other to the rafters.”
“Books up the kazoo.”
“I asked him one time if he’d read them all and he just looked at me like I was the crazy one. But he gave me three hundred that day, just for doing the donkey work. So don’t say anything bad about Charlie, not to me.”
I laughed with them and talked some more, and at some point I worked things around to Charlie again: Charlie and his books.
“Did any of you notice what kind of books these were?”
“Hell no, who cares?”
But the other guy said, “I’ll tell you one thing, there ain’t nothing special about ’em.”
“They’re not pretty books,” I said.
“Not so you can tell it. Textbooks, crummy old storybooks, everything under the sun except comic books.”
“Anything you can put between hard covers,” the first guy said.
That night I knew I’d have a hard time sleeping. I walked out to the telephone and called Erin. They were all sitting around in Sharon’s living room: Bob, Louie, Rosemary, Lillian, Sharon, Martha, and Billy. Laughing and talking. Swapping old war stories. “What’s up?” Erin said in my ear. I told her things were looking up. “Today I think I found my bibliomaniac.”
34
But now where had he gone? I had a sinking feeling that I had seen the last of Charlie: He had a make on me, he knew I had one on him, and he had taken flight. There’s a reason why he’s acting this way and I’m a dummy for not seeing it, I thought. Never mind his guilt or innocence: there’s another reason, something he can’t hide forever. Maybe he thought I had seen him—that was a strong possibility. Somehow in the black shedrow I’d had a chance to see his face. I missed it but he doesn’t know that so he’s gone now. Where would he go and how could I find out? Back to Barbara’s farm would be my first guess, but no sure thing. Where else would be anybody’s guess.
Only Barbara knew for sure, so I would have to ask Barbara.
I took a deep breath. I was about to louse up Sandy’s world and I knew it, but if Charlie was my cracked prism the stakes were too high to pussyfoot around with him.
The workday began. This morning Barbara arrived first. I had seen her often enough to know she was not a morning person, so I didn’t attach any significance to her mood. She walked glassy-eyed along the shedrow, not speaking to any of us. She did beg a cup of java from the ginneys and she sat in her chair apart from everyone, sipping it from a Styrofoam cup. This was the time, I thought. I actually took a step in her direction, but then Sandy arrived and it wasn’t the time at all. I had to feel my way with both of them.
I went mindlessly through my chores, mucking my stalls, leading my horses out for Sandy to saddle. Now the ramifications rose up from nowhere. What would the most likely result be of breaking it on her suddenly, without warning? Would she be angry, amused, defensive, or wary, and what would she do about it? I didn’t know her well enough, I had no idea what her personal relationship was with Charlie so I couldn’t say, but I didn’t think she’d be amused. Whatever I did, I had to figure the result was going to be permanent. I might well lose my access to the racetrack, so I had to make this shot count. But win or lose, I had to make a move.
I made it that morning.
“Hey, Barbara.”
She blinked as if she’d never seen me before that moment. She squinted at me in the sunlight, and in that first few seconds I couldn’t tell what her reaction would be. I had followed her and caught her at her apartment, in a swanky-looking building not far from the
track, but far enough, unless Sandy also put in an appearance.
“Cliff,” she said, smiling pleasantly. “What on earth are you doing here?”
“I was wondering if we could talk for a few minutes.”
Now she was wary, understandably so. The smile faded and she said, “Look, if it’s a job-related thing, you really ought to go through Sandy.”
“It’s not. It’s personal.”
I saw in her eyes the jumble of questions. What the hell could we have to talk about? What kind of personal discussion could even a lucky stablehand have with her? How did I know where she lived? My status with her was suddenly shaky.
“I don’t think so,” she said and the air got frigid. “Talk to Sandy.”
“I can’t. He doesn’t know about this.”
“And I do?” She looked at me closer now—took a step my way and said, “I don’t like the sound of this.”
Wait till I spring it on you, I thought: see how you like it then. In that moment I looked for inspiration and there was none: I was flying by the seat of my pants. I said, “It’s about Charlie and his books,” and she almost smiled again. “All right, come inside,” she said, and we stepped into her world, her home away from home.
It was a very nice world, an elegant apartment with a big-screen TV and what looked to be an expensive sound system, a bow window that looked over a garden, and a well-stocked liquor cabinet. She gestured to a chair and I sat while she put on a kettle of water. “You want some tea?” she said, and I couldn’t think of anything I wanted less than that barf-inducing substitute for coffee but I said, “Love some,” and I prepared to gag it down. We waited while she put the stuff out to steep. “This is really a special tea, hard to get over here,” she said. “I hope you’ll like it.” I lied like sixty and said I was sure I would, and in fact the tea surprised me by being drinkable and almost good. We settled in our chairs and she said, “Okay, what’s it all about?”
Before I could tell her, she said, “I’m sure you know Sandy will be very unhappy if he hears about this.”
Not as unhappy as he’s going to be later, I thought. “I should’ve seen him first.”
“You probably should’ve. But I won’t tell him, if you’ve got a good reason for coming around behind his back.”
“I’m a book dealer in my other life,” I said.
“How interesting. And now a light begins to dawn. So where do you have your other life and what are you doing here?”
“I got burned out. Hey, that happens even in something as fascinating as the book world.”
“Oh, I can understand that.”
“When I was a kid I loved horses. Read the Black Stallion books, got hooked.”
“I did too,” she said. “I was never the same after that.”
“That’s how I got on the racetrack.”
“And then you heard about Charlie.”
I nodded. “All I wanted to do after that was talk to Charlie about his books.”
“I’m sure he’d love to show ’em to you. But I don’t think they’re for sale.”
“I just wanted to see them, and I didn’t know if Charlie was coming back.”
“And you couldn’t stand the thought of all those books just lying out there.”
“No,” I said.
“Well, I don’t think he’s coming back. Not for a while, anyway.”
“I heard he has several houses full of books.”
She said, “Hmm”; then, after a long pause, “I have the feeling I should fire the whole bunch of you. Don’t you know it’s not polite to talk about your employer?”
“Hey, don’t let me get the others in trouble. This is all my doing.”
“I’ll bet it is.”
We looked at each other and in that moment she was an enigma, impossible to read. “I guess I can’t help myself,” I said. “I’m a bibliophile, just like Charlie.”
“Oh God, not another one. What is it with these ratty goddam books that turns respectable men into…what would you say? How would you describe yourselves?”
“I don’t know how to. I probably shouldn’t have bothered you.”
Then the smile was back. “Actually, I think Charlie would rather enjoy talking to you. He comes racing with me but his heart’s never been in it. He’s never really happy unless he’s mucking around in a new stash of old books.”
I nodded.
“This makes perfect sense to you, does it?”
“Yeah,” I said simply, in a very small voice.
“You’re not a book dealer at all, are you? You’re like Charlie: You buy them but never sell them.”
I shrugged pathetically and played that role. Now she’d either kick me out or open up.
She smiled and said, “Want some more tea?” and I took heart from that.
“Yeah, it’s great.”
She poured; I sipped. She said, “I’ve been trying to understand that man for years, and now look, you’re another one. You come to me like this, knowing your job may be on the line, and all for a peek at my husband’s books.”
“What can I say?”
“You can start by admitting that you people are freaking nutso.”
I gave her my best self-deprecating look.
“I wish I could understand why you do it: What there is about a bunch of silly books that makes your nuts bark?”
I laughed: It was a funny, unexpected line. “I don’t know,” I said, “but I’d sure love to talk to Charlie.”
“I’ll bet you would but he’s out of touch now. Maybe when he comes back he’ll see you. Do you think that’ll do any good?”
“I don’t know. What are you trying to do?”
“Put some sanity into the man, for God’s sake. But what good will you do, you’re as crazy over these books as he is.” She breathed deeply, a sigh of vast frustration. “Well, you’re here now, you’re the first one of these book freaks I’ve ever known other than Charlie. Are there many like you around?”
I shook my head.
“Damn, I hope not. Where does this come from? What causes it?”
“I don’t know.”
“I was hoping you could make me understand it, because in more than fifteen years with him I still don’t get it. He’s driving me crazy, you know. If we ever do split up, it’ll be over these damned books. So you tell me, Cliff, what makes you guys tick? Just make me understand that and I promise I will make it well worth your time.”
I finished off the tea.
“You can’t, can you?” she said. “You’re as crazy as he is.”
She stirred on the couch. “I think you’re gonna have to find work elsewhere.”
I nodded, sadly I hoped.
“I liked you, Cliff, I really did. But now it would be a major-league distraction to have you around my shedrow.”
“Maybe I could just work for Charlie,” I said. “Just part time, here and there, you know, when he needs the help.”
“Jesus, listen to yourself. I can’t believe I thought you were so normal, and here you are spouting the same crazy stuff I’ve heard for years.” She shook her head. “Nutso.”
“I could help him.”
“Or screw him up even more than he is now.”
“I wouldn’t charge him anything.”
“You wouldn’t charge him—Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, listen to you!” She rubbed her temples, tired of it all. “How could you help, by moving his books around? By telling him how great he is? How do you think that would help him? You’d just feed into everything that’s wrong with him.”
“When will he be back?”
She made a sad laughing sound, as if the world had suddenly become too much for her.
“Barbara? When can I see him?”
“Who the hell knows? He’s gone away on one of his so-called book-buying trips. He said he was going to Seattle, but he doesn’t even tell the truth about that now. I found out anyway, I saw his airline tickets. I dug through his underwear for the damn things, I rooted
around through his dresser to find out, and that’s what he’s got me doing now, that’s what he’s turning me into.”
She said “Seattle” again, with deep anger.
“Seattle, my ass,” she said. “He’s not going to any damned Seattle, he’s going to Idaho.”
35
My flight from Salt Lake was two hours late and I got into Idaho Falls in the very early hours of the morning. I had a rental waiting at the airport: I shifted my bag into the trunk and checked to make sure everything was where it was supposed to be: my heart, my gut, my gun. Then I headed out on the road to the farm. I had declared the gun and sent it through with my luggage. Still there was red tape; still there were questions. Then there had been the long night in the air and now I was tired: not exactly the ideal circumstances to face a killer, but you do with what you’re dealt in this business and I imagined I’d be wide awake when the moment came. I wasn’t sure yet what moment was coming or when: All I really knew was that Charlie was on his way and so was I.
I pictured them all sitting up in the dark: Louie cradling the shotgun, Billy with his .22, Bob somewhere nearby, and the ladies—Lillian, Sharon, Rosemary, Erin, and Martha—sitting together in the black corner of the room. On the face of it they had him seriously outnumbered, but he’d be running on high octane, he’d be frantic, he had killed and they had not, and they’d be nervous. I had to be careful not to get myself shot by friendly fire on my approach in the dark.
I had called the cops in Idaho. They had sent a pair of uniforms out to the farm and had warned Sharon that Charlie might be on his way. They were there for two hours but they couldn’t do much more until he actually showed up. There were no outstanding warrants against this man; so far it was all fear of the unknown. Even if he did come to the farm he’d have to break some law before they could detain him. Their advice was to get out until they could all figure which way the wind was blowing.
“They don’t understand why I can’t go,” Sharon said. “I’ve got horses to take care of. I can’t just walk off and leave ’em here.”
