Blood Sport Read online

  ‘Ah, well,’ I said. ‘Now that’s something I’d hate Eunice to have told Culham Offen.’

  She lay looking back at me steadily for several seconds. So much more assurance, I thought idly, than on that day on the river, when she had still been a child.

  ‘Is that why you’ve told us practically nothing? Don’t you trust her?’

  ‘She’s never wanted the horses back.’

  Lynnie blinked. ‘But she wouldn’t … she wouldn’t have ruined on purpose what you’re trying to do. After all, you’re doing it for her husband.’

  I smiled and she sat up abruptly and put her arms round her knees.

  ‘You make me feel so … naïve.’

  ‘You’, I said, ‘are adorable.’

  ‘And now you’re laughing at me.’

  I wanted impulsively to say that I loved her, but I wasn’t sure that it was true. Maybe all I wanted was an antedote to depression. She was certainly the best I’d found.

  ‘I’m going away again in the morning,’ I said.

  ‘To San Francisco?’

  ‘Somewhere like that.’

  ‘How long for?’

  ‘Two nights.’

  ‘This is your last week,’ she said, looking out to sea.

  The thought leapt involuntarily, if only it were… I shook my head abruptly, as if one could empty the brain by force, and climbed slowly up on to my feet.

  ‘There’s today, anyway,’ I said, smiling. ‘Let’s go and get wet.’

  Walt came back at seven with dragging feet and a raging thirst.

  ‘Those detectives from the DA’s office will scalp me if they find out we’re only using them,’ he said gloomily, up in my room. ‘Two of them have agreed to go out to Orpheus Farm tomorrow, and I’m meeting them on the LA road to show them the way. Day after tomorrow, some guy from the bloodstock registry office is going out. I got the DA’s office to call him and fix it.’

  ‘Couldn’t be better.’

  Walt recharged his batteries with Old Grandad and said, ‘So what’s new with you?’

  ‘Offen came here on a fact-finding mission.’

  ‘He did what?’

  ‘Came looking for answers. Got some real beauties from Eunice which won’t help him any, and went away believing we’d be back on his doorstep pretty soon.’

  ‘I guess’, Walt said, ‘that he wanted to know if we’d called it off and gone home, and whether it was safe to bring those horses back again. It’s days since he saw any sign of us. Must have been like sitting on an H-bomb with a tricky firing pin.’ He swallowed appreciatively and rolled his tongue over his gums. ‘He’ll get all the action he wants, tomorrow.’

  When he plodded tiredly off to shower before dinner, I telephoned Jeff Roots.

  ‘How was Miami?’ I said.

  ‘Hot and horrible, and I gained four pounds.’

  Commiserating, I thanked him for his help with the newspaper files and told him that owing to Miss Britt we had found the two stallions.

  ‘I wish I didn’t believe it. Are you certain?’

  ‘Yes.’

  His sigh was heartfelt. ‘We’d better start proceedings …’

  ‘I’ve … er … already started them. We may in a day or two have two horses on our hands which will need to be stabled somewhere eminently respectable while their identity is being investigated. Owing to the length of time they’ve been lost, it may take a couple of months to re-establish them. Where would you think it would be best to put them?’

  After a pause, he said, ‘I suppose you’re asking me to have them here?’

  ‘Not really,’ I explained. ‘Too much of a coincidence after Chrysalis, perhaps. I’d thought rather of a more official place … I don’t know what you have.’

  ‘I’ll think of something.’ He coughed slightly. There won’t be anything illegal about their recovery?’

  ‘No more than for Chrysalis.’

  ‘That’s no answer.’

  ‘There shouldn’t be any trouble with the police,’ I said.

  ‘I guess that’ll have to do,’ he sighed. ‘When do I expect them?’

  ‘If all goes well, they should reach Lexington on Sunday.’

  ‘And if all doesn’t go well?’

  ‘You’ll have no problem.’

  He laughed. ‘And you?‘

  ‘One more won’t matter.’

  Chapter Sixteen

  For most of thirty hours I sat in the mountainous Arizona desert and looked down at Matt Clive leading a boring life.

  Like his sister, he was capable, quick, efficient. He watered the stock and mended a fence, swept out the house and fed the hens; and spent a great deal of time in the largest barn on the place.

  I had found myself a perch among the rocks on the east-facing side of the valley, half a mile off the dusty road to the farm. At nearly three thousand feet above sea level the heat was bearable, though the midday sun blazed down from nearly straight overhead, and eggs would have fried on the sidewalks if there had been any. Desert plants were designed to save themselves and no one else: at my back grew a large agave, its central stem rising six feet high with flat outspreading flowers turning from red to brilliant yellow. For leaves it had razor-sharp spikes springing outwards from the ground in one large clump. Stiff; angular; not a vestige of shade. The spindly buckhorn and the flat devil’s fingers would have been pretty useless to a midget. I folded myself under the overhang of a jagged boulder and inched round with the meagre shade patch until the sun cried quits behind the hill.

  Showman and Allyx had to be in the big barn: though I saw no sign of them, nor of any other horses, on the first afternoon.

  By air to Las Vegas and hired car to Kingman had taken me all morning, and at the last fork on the way to the farm I’d had to decide whether to risk meeting Matt head on on the road or to walk ten miles instead. I’d risked it. Ten miles there was also ten miles back. The car had bumped protestingly off the road two miles short of his farm, and was now out of sight in a gulley.

  Binoculars brought every detail of the meagre spread up clear and sharp. The small dilapidated house lay to the left, with the big barn on the right across a large dusty yard. Along most of a third side of the rough quadrangle stretched an uneven jumble of simple stone buildings, and behind those the rusting guts of two abandoned cars lay exposed to the sky.

  Maintenance was at a minimum: no endemic prosperity here. The owners scratched for a living in a tiny valley among the Arizona hills, existing there only by courtesy of the quirk of rock formation which had brought underground water to the surface in a spring. The small river bed was easy to follow from where I sat: grass and trees circled its origin, sparse paddocks stretched away to sagging fences on each side of its upper reaches, a corn patch grew beside it near the farm buildings, and lower down it ran off into the desert in a dry wide shallow sandy trough. Heavy rain would turn it every time into a raging torrent, as destructive as it was vital. High behind the house, dominating the whole place, a huge onion-shaped water storage tank sat squatly on top of a spindly looking tower.

  Mile after mile of plain dark poles stretched along the road to the farm, carrying an electric cable and a telephone wire, but civilization had fallen short of refuse collection. A sprawling dump at one side of the big barn seemed to consist of a brass bedstead, half a tractor, a bottomless tin bath, the bones of an old wagon, a tangled heap of unidentifiable rusting metal, and roughly fifty treadless tyres of varying sizes. Filling every crevice among this lot were bottles and empty food cans with labels peeling and jagged lids mutely open like mouths. Over the top the air shimmered with reflected heat.

  Matt had already spent at least a week in this ugly oasis. Walt shouldn’t find it too hard to persuade him to make an evening visit to Las Vegas.

  I watched until long after dark. Lights went on and off in the house, and Matt moved about, visible through the insect screens because he didn’t draw any curtains. If, indeed, there were any.

  Cautious
ly at some time after one o’clock, when all the lights on my side of the house had been out for more than two hours, I picked my way down to the farm. The night was still warm, but as the only light came from the stars it was black dark on the ground, and with agave clumps in mind I reckoned my torch held lesser risk.

  I reached the farmyard. Nothing stirred. Quietly, slowly, I made the crossing to the barn. Matt in the house slept on.

  No padlocks: not even bolts. There weren’t any. The wide door of the barn stood open; and with this invitation, I went in. Inside, the barn was divided into six stalls along one side, with feed bins and saddlery storage racks along the other. Here and everywhere else dilapidation and decay were winning hands down: everything my torch flicked over looked in need of help.

  Four of the stalls were empty, but in the two central ones, side by side, stood two horses. Gently, so as not to frighten them, I went over, talking soothingly in a murmur and shining the torch beam on the wall in front of their heads. Their eyes in the dim light rolled round inquiringly, but neither gave more than a single stamp of alarm.

  The first one tried to back away when I shone the torch into his mouth: but an exceedingly strong looking head collar and a remarkably new chain kept him from going more than a few feet. I ran my hand down his neck and talked to him, and in the end got my inspection done. The tattooed mark, as often, was none too clear: but discernibly it was 752:07. The registration of Moviemaker.

  The tattoo on the second horse was more recent and also clearer: the registration number of Centigrade.

  Satisfied, I gave them each a friendly slap, and with great care left the barn. Matt still slept. I hesitated, thinking that enough was enough, but in the end went down to the end of the farmyard to take a quick look through the other buildings. In one only, a deep narrow garage, was there anything of interest: a car.

  It was not Matt’s pale blue convertible, but a tinny black saloon three or four years old. My flashlight picked out a piece of paper lying on the passenger seat, and I opened the door and took a look at it. A copy of a work sheet from a garage in Kingman. Customer’s name: Clive. Work required: Remove yellow paint from Ford convertible. Further instructions: Complete as soon as possible.

  I put the paper back on the seat and shone the light over the dashboard. A small metal plate screwed on to it bore the name of the garage in Kingman: Matt had rented this car while his own was being cleaned.

  Outside, everything was still, and feeling like a shadow among shadows I went quietly out of the farmyard and along the dusty road towards Kingman. It seemed a lot farther than two miles to the flat stones I had left one on top of the other as a marker, and even after I had reached them it took me quite a while to find the hidden car and get it back on to the road.

  It was well after three when I called Walt. He sounded resigned, but he’d known it would be some time in the night.

  ‘Are they there?’ he said.

  ‘They are. They’re quite unguarded, and there’s only Matt on the place. How about things your end?’

  ‘Oh.’ Amusement crept in. ‘Offen was full of offended dignity. Didn’t know how anyone could suggest he was engaged in fraud; that sort of thing. It didn’t impress the DA’s squad at all, because they get that sort of bluster every time. Made them all the keener, if anything. They had quite a long session with him, all fairly polite but definitely needling. Artists, they are. From our point of view Offen said nothing significant except for one little gem. The DA’s guys asked to see the stud groom. That’s Kiddo, remember? The one who told us about the mares foaling at night?’

  ‘I remember,’ I said.

  ‘Well, it seems it’s a slow time around studs just now, and Kiddo went off on vacation the day after our first visit.’

  ‘He didn’t say anything about that when we were there.’

  ‘He sure didn’t. Offen says Kiddo will be back in three weeks. By then, I guess, he expects to have had Moviemaker and Centigrade identified as themselves, and then when the dust has settled he can bring Showman and Allyx quietly back, and it’ll be safe for Kiddo to return. I guess Offen didn’t know which way he’d jump, and booted him off out of trouble.’

  ‘I’m sure you’re right,’ I said. ‘Anything interesting on the tape?’

  ‘I’ve been listening to that damned machine until I’m bored to death with it,’ he said wearily. ‘Today’s run was mostly the DA’s men talking to Offen, so I heard all that twice over. He then called both Yola and Matt and told them about it, and he sounded pretty pleased with the way things were going. I’d say Matt was a mite annoyed at having to stay where he is: Offen was telling him not to be stupid, what was a week or two with so much at stake. Also Yola must be wanting Matt back, because Offen smoothed her down with the same spiel.’ Walt paused and cleared his throat. ‘What would you say is the relationship between Matt and Yola?’

  Smiling into the receiver I said, ‘Such thoughts, Walt, from you!’

  ‘It’s possible …’ he said uncomfortably.

  ‘It sure is. But there’s nothing to indicate it except for their not being married.’

  ‘Then you don’t think …?’

  ‘I’d say they’re certainly centred on each other, but how far it goes I couldn’t guess. The only time I’ve seen them together they’ve had their hands full of punts and guns.’

  ‘Yeah … well, maybe crime is how it takes them.’

  I agreed that it probably was, and asked him if he’d got Matt set up for the insurance meeting.

  ‘I sure have,’ he said with satisfaction. ‘I called him this afternoon. It must have been soon after he’d been talking to Offen, I guess, because he seemed to be glad enough to be given a reason for going to Las Vegas. I suggested six PM which sounded all right, but he himself asked if I could make it later.’

  ‘He’ll probably want to feed the horses about then, when the day gets cooler,’ I said. ‘And those horses would come first.’

  ‘Yeah. At three million for two, they sure would. It beats me why he doesn’t guard them every minute.’

  ‘Against what?’ I said.

  ‘You got a point,’ he conceded. ‘Only us. And we’re obviously concentrating on the two at Orpheus. Right?’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Anyway, Matt said could I make it later than six, and we agreed in the end on nine. That should mean he’ll take that gander at the roulette tables on his way home, and maybe give us most of the night to get the horses clear.’

  ‘Good,’ I said. ‘That’s fine. But Walt …’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Take care.’

  ‘Go teach your grandmother,’ he said, and I smiled wryly and asked him if he’d heard from Sam Hengelman.

  ‘Sure, he called this evening, like you asked. He’d reached Santa Rosa in New Mexico and he was going on to Albuquerque before stopping for the night. He said he’d be in Kingman by four or five tomorrow afternoon … today, I suppose, technically … and he’ll meet you at the Mojave Motel. I told him the return trip wouldn’t be starting before eight, so he’s going to take a room there and catch a couple of hours’ sleep.’

  ‘Thanks, Walt, that’s great,’ I said.

  ‘We’re all set, then?’ There was a hint of unease in his voice, and it raised prickles again in my early warning mechanism.

  ‘You don’t have to go to Las Vegas,’ I said reasonably. ‘We’ve time enough without it.’

  ‘I’m going,’ he said. ‘And that’s that.’

  ‘Well … all right. I think we could do with a checkpoint, though, in case anything goes wrong. Let’s say you wait in the lobby of the Angel Inn from eight to eight-thirty tomorrow evening. That’s where I stayed. It’s right on the edge of Las Vegas, but it’s an easy trip to Pittsville Boulevard. I’ll call you there sometime during that half hour; and if I don‘t, you stay put, and don’t go out to Matt’s house.’

  ‘OK,’ he said, and although he tried, there was distinct relief in his voice.

  We d
isconnected, and I ate a sandwich and drank coffee at an all night lunch counter at the bus station before returning to my hired car and pointing its nose again towards the farm and the hills. The two flat stones came up again in the headlights, and re-stowing the car in its former hiding place, I finished the journey on foot.

  Back in the shelter of the same jagged rock I tried for a time to sleep. There was still an hour or more before dawn, and the sun wouldn’t be too hot for a while after that, but in spite of knowing that I’d get no rest at all during the following night, my brain stayed obstinately awake. I supposed an inability to sleep on open ground surrounded by cacti and within yelling distance of a man who’d kill me if he had a chance could hardly be classed as insomnia in the ordinary way: but I had no illusions. That was precisely what it was. The restless, racing thoughts, the electrical awareness, the feeling that everything in one’s body was working full steam ahead and wouldn’t slow down; I knew all the symptoms much too well. One could lie with eyes shut and relax every muscle until one couldn’t tell where one’s arms and legs were, and still sleep wouldn’t come. Breathe deeply, count all the sheep of Canterbury, repeat once-learnt verses; nothing worked.

  The sun came up and shone in my eyes. Inching out of its revealing spotlight I retreated round the side of the rock and looked down to the farm through the binoculars. No movement. At five-thirty Matt was still in bed.

  I put down the glasses and thought about a cigarette. There were only four left in the packet. Sighing, I reflected that I could easily have bought some in Kingman, if I’d given it a thought. It was going to be a long day. All I’d brought with me beside the binoculars was a bottle of water, a pair of sunglasses, and the Luger in my belt.

  At seven-thirty Matt came out through the rickety screen door of the house, and stood in the yard stretching and looking around at the cloudless cobalt blue sky. Then he went across to the barn and poked his head briefly inside.

  Satisfied that the gold was still in the bank, he fetched buckets of water and joined it for long enough to muck out the stalls and see to the feed. After a time he came out with a barrowful of droppings and wheeled it away to empty on the far side of the barn, out of my sight.