All Hat

by Brad Smith

  Ray called down a measurement, and she marked the length of board, squared and cut it with the circular saw. Ray watched; it wasn’t a perfect cut, but it wasn’t a bad cut. She handed the pine up, and he slid it into place and started a nail.

  “So where’s Annie Oakley these days?”

  “I don’t know Annie Oakley,” he told her, mumbling, with a half-dozen nails in his mouth. “If you’re talking about Chrissie, she’s down in Fort Erie, racing. She might be up at the first of the week. I’ll bring her by for tea if you want.”

  “Don’t bother.”

  Ray nailed the board to secure it, then took another measurement. “Where’s your salvage man?”

  “Busy salvaging.”

  “Maybe he’s with Chrissie.”

  Etta laughed as she picked up the saw. “Now I doubt that.”

  Shortly before noon Etta went into the house and came back fifteen minutes later with lunch. They ate in the barn, in the old milk house. They had homemade soup and thick slices of fresh bread; apparently, Etta had been baking earlier. There was a fresh pot of coffee and a couple of Macintosh apples.

  They sat and ate their lunch on the old bench that used to hold the milk cans, back in the days when Etta’s grandfather had one of the best dairy herds in the county. The herd that Homer sold off, cow by cow, over a period of maybe eighteen months. In the end there were no cows, no milk quota, and—Homer being Homer—no money.

  When the soup and the bread were gone she asked him for a cigarette, and they both lit up. Ray got up and walked to the cottage door, which led outside to the barnyard, and opened the top half. The air smelled of autumn—wood smoke and overripe apples and decaying leaves. There were clouds piling up to the west, and the wind was threatening.

  “We might be just in time,” he said. “There’s some weather coming.”

  When she made no comment he turned to see her looking at him. Sitting on the bench, her legs crossed, leaning forward with her elbow on her knee, eyes narrowed. Her expression never changed even as he watched her, and after a moment he looked away. He cast his eye over the field behind the barn.

  “So what’re you gonna do?” he asked.

  She didn’t reply for a long time, and that made him uncomfortable too.

  “I don’t know,” she said at last. “Maybe these things happen for a reason. Maybe it’s time I faced facts. I could move into town, go back to teaching. What do I need a farm for anyway? I’m no farmer.”

  As Ray looked out over the field he realized suddenly that there was a doe standing along the fence line, her head up, nose sniffing the wind. He reasoned she’d been standing there all along and in her camouflage had fooled his eye. As he watched she dropped her head to pick at whatever meager grazing was left in the field.

  “I hear the words coming out of your mouth,” Ray said. He turned and looked at her. “But I don’t see it in your eyes.”

  “It could be that I don’t mind leaving,” she said. “Maybe I’d just feel better about it if it was my idea. I guess in the end, it’s the same old question. Do I listen to my brain or to my heart?” She looked up at him and smiled. “This heart of mine has gotten me into trouble before.”

  Ray turned toward the door again, flicked his cigarette out into the mud.

  “There’s a doe standing along the fence line out here,” he said. “She must be awful used to people, coming this close.”

  “You’ve always been good at changing the subject,” Etta said sharply, and she got to her feet. “That doe coming so close means she doesn’t know a damn thing about people. If she did, she’d turn and hightail it out of here.”

  * * *

  They finished the repairs by late afternoon. The temperature had dropped again by then, and the storm clouds had moved in. The first raindrops hit as they were packing up the tools. Etta had been quiet for most of the afternoon, and when she’d asked Ray if he wanted to stay for supper, he’d hesitated and then said no, not wanting to rankle Homer again.

  When he got back to the farm Pete Culpepper was sitting by the space heater, wearing his hat and his slippers and drinking rum and Coke, the hound settled at his feet. Ray poured himself a shot and then sat down.

  “You get it closed in?” Pete asked.

  “Yup.”

  “Good thing. This could turn to snow tonight.”

  “It might at that.”

  There were papers scattered over the kitchen table. It appeared that Pete had been considering his finances. The hound got to his feet and made his way over to Ray, looking for attention. Ray obliged, reaching down to scratch the animal’s ears.

  “How’s Etta?” Pete asked. “Did you thank her for the cider?”

  Ray gestured to the kitchen table. “Etta’s got the same problems you do. She’s about ready to sell out, too.”

  Pete got up stiffly and went to the counter for another drink. Ray watched him quietly. He absently left off petting the hound for a moment, and the dog nuzzled him for more. Pete poured more rum than Coke, came back, and sat.

  “You really heading for Texas?” Ray asked.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Where in Texas?”

  “Southwest. Not far from Pecos, right on the Pecos River.”

  “Nice country?”

  “Maybe not so green as here, but good country. You don’t see snow, most years. If you do, just light a fire and sit tight, and it’s gone in a day or two.”

  Ray fell silent again.

  “You thinkin’ about coming along?” Pete asked.

  “I’m thinkin’ about it.”

  Pete pulled his chair closer to the heater. He took off his hat and placed it on the floor and then ran his hand through his wiry hair. “Might do you some good to get away from here for a spell.”

  “That’s what I’ve been thinking.”

  “What about your parole?”

  “I don’t know. If I had a job down there, it might be okay. Or I could just go.”

  “Tell ’em you’re working for Pete Culpepper,” Pete said, smiling.

  Ray nodded and drank off his rum. He got up and went for another, disappointing the hound to the point that he walked over and flopped down behind the heater and was immediately asleep.

  “What about the farm, Pete?”

  “I could just put it on the market and tell ’em where to reach me when it sells. Lot of it’s gonna go for back taxes anyway.”

  Ray poured his drink and leaned with his back against the counter. “When did you figure?”

  “Well, if I see any snow this year, I’d like it to be in my rearview mirror.”

  16

  Saturday morning, Jackson was working the gray, Rather Rambunctious, at Woodbine, prepping the horse for the upcoming Stanton Stakes. Against his better judgment. It was just an hour past sunup, and there was a light mist suspended over the turf. Jackson had Tommy Fallon on the gray, and he worked five furlongs in just over fifty-seven seconds. Jackson watched from the infield rail, stopwatch in hand.

  When Tommy brought the horse back to where Jackson stood, he was grinning, standing in the stirrups, one hand on the horse’s mane. He stopped, and the horse settled right down, blowing a little but calm. In spite of his name he had an even temper.

  “In the bridle today, Jack,” Tommy said. “What’d he do?”

  “Fifty-seven two,” Jackson said.

  “I figured about that. He’s ready to rumble.”

  “Well, I don’t want him too ready. He’s still got a week to go.”

  “Hell, you could feed this horse beer and pizza all week, and he’d still win the Stanton by ten lengths. There’s nothing in that field that can touch him.”

  “I guess we’ll see next Sunday. I’ll walk him off, Tommy.”

  Tommy jumped down, and Jackson held the reins as the exercise rider slipped the saddle from the gray.

  “I’ll tell you one thing, Jack,” Tommy said. “This here horse is a pleasure to ride. Compared to that Jack Flash. Shit, I’d ra
ther go grizzly bear hunting with a pocketknife than gallop that mean old bugger. Any news on him?”

  “None,” Jackson said, and Tommy knew that Jackson wasn’t going to talk about the stolen horse. He pulled the bridle off and replaced it with a halter. “Thanks, Tommy.”

  Jackson tied a blanket on the horse and then walked him off on the main track for fifteen minutes, before leading him back to the barn. He brushed the horse down, and then he fed him a cup of grain and a sheaf of alfalfa and made sure he had sufficient water.

  It was nearly noon when he left the main barn and started the walk to the parking lot. Tommy Fallon was standing along the paddock, talking to a man in a fedora. Tommy called Jackson over to introduce him to the man in the hat, a writer for a newspaper Jackson didn’t know. Jackson talked politely about nothing for a few minutes and continued on his way to the lot.

  Which is where he saw Sonny, cruising between the rows of parked cars in the BMW, his shades on, slumped behind the wheel like a surly teenager. Jackson cursed Tommy Fallon. If Tommy hadn’t called him over, he’d have been gone before Sonny showed.

  * * *

  Sonny was looking for Jackson. By way of doing that, he was cruising the parking lot at Woodbine, nursing a Bloody Mary and waiting for Jackson to emerge from the track. When he saw Jackson finally come out, he powered the window down and beckoned him with a look rather than a word. Even from thirty feet he could tell Jackson was pissed off.

  “What’s up?” he said, approaching the car.

  “I’m just headed to the casino to watch the Breeders’ on the simulcast,” Sonny said. “Get in a minute, will ya?”

  Jackson hesitated, then walked around and got in the passenger side.

  “How’d he look today?” Sonny asked.

  “The gray? He’s ready.”

  “We need that race, Jackson. For more reasons than just the purse. We gotta show the world that Stanton Stables is still in the game, whatever happens to the Flash. This race is important.”

  “So you don’t care about the purse?”

  “Oh, I’ll cash the check, don’t get me wrong. I got irons in the fire you don’t even know about. Heard anything from Kentucky?”

  “Yeah, I think they got Barney Fife on the case. I doubt they’re even in Kentucky. Dean isn’t the smartest guy in the world, but he’s not the dumbest, either. Why would he dump me in Kentucky if that’s where he figured to take the horse? He was just fooling the hounds, if you ask me.”

  “So where are they?”

  “Who knows? Maybe they headed for Florida. Or California. If we knew what they were up to, we might make a better guess where they went. They haven’t asked for ransom—why the hell not?”

  “Maybe they’re not after ransom.”

  “What else is there?” Jackson asked. “It’s not like you could sell the animal. Be like selling the Mona Lisa.”

  Sonny took a drink from the glass on the console. “What’s the insurance company saying?”

  “Nothing,” Jackson said. “And that’s all they’re gonna say for now. They’re not about to pay off a claim on a horse that’s just missing. If the animal turns up dead, then they’ll pay. Otherwise, they could make us wait a long time.”

  Sonny set the drink down carelessly, spilled the juice over the seat. He removed his sunglasses and looked at Jackson. “We paid the fucking premiums,” he said angrily. “They owe us twelve million dollars, and they’ll fucking well pay or I’ll drag them into court and sue their asses for twice that.”

  “The insurance company isn’t afraid of you, Sonny. And don’t be so quick after the twelve million. We want the horse back. He turns out to be a good stud, he’ll be worth ten times that before he’s done. That’s always been your problem, Sonny. Everything with you is short term.”

  “Don’t tell me what my problem is, Jackson. It was your job to get the horse to New York City, where he was gonna win the Classic this afternoon. How’d you make out? Hey, maybe that’s where the nag is. Maybe Dean and Paulie hauled him down to the Belmont; Paulie’s gonna ride him in the Classic. Watch for him on the TV; Paulie’ll be wearing that stupid hat.”

  Jackson opened the car door and then looked back at Sonny. “You get enough booze and painkillers in you, and you get awful stupid, Sonny. You have fun with Big Billy Coon and the boys. I’m sure there’s nothing they like better than to see a stupid rich boy walk through the door.”

  He walked to his pickup and drove away without looking back. Sonny sat nursing his Bloody Mary as he watched Jackson pull out onto the highway and head south.

  “Just keep pushing,” he said out loud.

  * * *

  Big Billy Coon was having a private party for the simulcast. There were maybe fifty people in the back room; there were three poker games in session, a blackjack table with a hundred-dollar minimum, and, of course, the totes. Billy had set the odds early in the week and was keeping with them. The wagers wouldn’t alter the payoffs as they would at the track or the OTBs. But it worked both ways; a horse bet at even money stayed there even if the odds at the track went up. And there was no money returned on a scratch.

  Sonny said hello to Billy and then proceeded immediately to one of the poker games and found himself a seat. They were playing Texas Hold ’Em. Sonny bought five hundred dollars’ worth of chips and looked at the other players.

  “Gents, you ain’t gonna like this,” he said.

  The races from Belmont started at one in the afternoon. Sonny played poker until then, but his confident mood fell as quickly as his bankroll. There was a bad vibe in the place, although he couldn’t really pinpoint its origin. It had been his experience with natives that they were silent to the point of surliness when interacting with whites they didn’t know. Sonny, with his mouth and his money and his pharmaceuticals, didn’t help matters any. He was soon holding forth on his expertise in all matters regarding horse racing, while denigrating any opinion offered by the others. The quiet Indians grew quieter.

  Sonny’s superior understanding of the racing game was hardly in evidence once the card started. There were eight races, the Classic being the last, and Sonny had his picks for each race scribbled across the form he’d brought with him. He bet ten thousand a race for the first seven and lost them all. Then he bet twenty-five thousand in the Classic, on a horse from Ireland, a lanky standardbred-looking roan who had made considerable noise in Europe over the summer and who was off at seven to one. Sonny was betting on a marker, and he needed the last race to get even.

  “This is the race Stanton Stables was gonna win,” Sonny announced to the room as the Classic was about to begin. “Motherfuckers hadn’t stole my horse.”

  The Irish horse finished tenth in a field of twelve. Sonny’d turned his attention back to the poker game before the race was even over. He was drinking Scotch now and growing resigned to the fact that it was not his lucky day. Losing ninety-five thousand dollars in four hours could have that effect on a man. Finally, he tossed his cards and got to his feet, looking at Billy Coon and smiling through his pain.

  “Well, I got a hot date,” he said. “I’ll be in next week.”

  “You’ll be in next week for what?” Billy asked.

  “To settle up.”

  Billy smiled. “I’d prefer you settle up right now.”

  “Come on. It’s close to a hundred large. I don’t have it on me.”

  “Wouldn’t that be something to consider before you bet it?”

  “You know who I am,” Sonny said sharply.

  “What does that mean?” Billy asked. “That you want special consideration?”

  The quiet Indians at the poker game saw Sonny swallow, saw his Adam’s apple working as he dropped his tone, leaned into Billy, and asked, “Can we go outside and talk about this?”

  “You gonna tell me a different story outside than you’re telling me in here?” Billy wanted to know. “I’ll tell you what, Sonny. Why don’t you tell me the outside story in here?”

  Now
everybody was watching: the poker players and the blackjack players, the drinkers and the punters and the hangers-on. They were all watching Sonny, and Sonny was this close to crawling, and even though he’d crawled before—most notably at the golf course three years ago—he’d never crawled with this kind of hostile audience before.

  He looked into Big Billy Coon’s black eyes. “Billy,” he said.

  “What?”

  “Come on, Billy. Please.”

  “What’s that?” Billy asked, his voice rising.

  It took Sonny a moment longer to get it. “Please, Billy.”

  Billy Coon laughed and clapped Sonny on the shoulder, and then he took the remote from the bar and began scrolling through the channels on the big screen. Sonny hesitated, and then he turned and walked out.

  Once outside, he moved across the parking lot as fast as he could without actually breaking into a run. He was still shaking when he got behind the wheel. He watched in the mirror as he started the BMW. Billy Coon might send the cousins after him even yet.

  He finally began to relax when he reached the 401. When the concern for his personal safety passed, though, he remembered that he’d just lost a hundred grand—a hundred grand that he couldn’t lay his hands on just now. It could be a problem; he doubted that Billy Coon was as forgiving as the bank. It seemed that everything was turning against him of late.

  It was early evening, and the Slamdance was slow. Sonny ordered a Bloody Mary from the woman behind the bar, and she brought it. He put his Gold American Express card down in front of him. When he finished his second drink he ordered a third, and then Misty came out of the back room, wearing a tight navy-blue dress that barely covered her ass. She looked at Sonny, recognized him, and pointedly sat down at the far end of the bar.

  “Ice water,” she said to the bartender.

  Sonny tapped his credit card on the bar. “I’ll buy you a drink.”

  “Johnny Walker Blue,” she told the bartender.

  She sat there and drank his Scotch, but she didn’t talk to him and didn’t even look at him. Sonny smiled to himself, and he worked on his vodka, and after a while he bought her another Scotch.