“God, I like that silly chuckle of yours.”
“So I giggle for my goodies, do I?”
I meant to be facetious, but he straightened, a cold austere light in his eyes. He turned his chin slightly, his eyes never leaving mine, as if he were a boxer, guarding a glass jaw.
“You’ve been warned about Rafael Clery?”
His sudden change startled me almost as much as his pronunciation of his first name. Then I coped with the fact that he knew there was something I shouldn’t hear, or something he didn’t want me to hear.
“Forewarned is forearmed,” I said as gaily as I could, giving him my best grin. No matter what I’d overheard about “two-legged rides,” I wanted to erase that awful wariness about Rafe Clery. I stepped into the car, and he closed the door.
He got in on his side and had his hand on the key when he paused. From the depths of the glove compartment he flicked out a gauzy yellow scarf. It harmonized with the background of my shift.
“Keep your hair in place. This is a breezy riding car.”
He laid it across my hand, when I realized that there had been a nest of scarves in that compartment, all colors, as well as the round ends of lipstick cases and the edge of a compact. The leather seat whispered as he suddenly turned, while I sat stiffly, the filmy scarf dangling from my hand.
“Look, Nialla Dunn,” he said in a very hard voice, his eyes narrowed. “I’m not out for a fast lay. I can get willing cooperation anytime I need it without having to spend time and effort broaching the Iron Maiden. Believe it or not, occasionally I can look at a woman without wondering how she strips. My invitation to dinner comes from what there is left of camaraderie in my evil heart, and was prompted solely by admiration for a horsewoman. Now, accept me on those terms, such as they are, as I have accepted you, or just get out and we’ll part friendly.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be…”
“Hostile?”
I started to protest, although how I’d explain myself, I didn’t know.
“Yes, hostile.” His voice was neutral.
“I didn’t know who you were when you came into G-Barn.”
“There’re half a dozen people who would enjoy giving you all the vital statistics on Rafael Clery.”
“But…”
He was wound up and wouldn’t stop. “I have been in jail. I have gambled heavily. I have a violent temper, and I’m a dirty infighter. Small guys have to be. No reach. And I confess to having done any number of wild, unpredictable, irresponsible stunts. However, most of those incidents, colorful though they were, took place in my misspent youth.” And he gave me a terribly bitter smile. “I’m thirty-eight. I’ve been married and divorced two times. Did they remember that? But I’m a horseman. I’m sure I was allowed one virtue. I’m a good capable trainer and a decent rider. And this invitation to dinner is just that, and no more, between two horsemen.”
“A two-legged ride”-that phrase was determined to haunt me. I always thought it was tunes you couldn’t forget.
“Now,” he was saying, “shall we enjoy a good dinner and some professional rapping, or will you return to a solitary peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich in the sanctum of your trailer?”
Had he looked in my trailer, too?
“I’ve run out of peanut butter,” I said as contritely as I could, and spoiled the apology by giggling.
Only it was the smartest thing I could have done, because all the tension disappeared from his face, and his eyes began to thaw. He flicked the scarf from my hand, twitched it over my head, and tied it deftly under my chin. I caught his hand, a little astonished at myself even as I did it. His fingers closed lightly on mine. “And,” I
went on truthfully, “the only person who said anything to me about you was Pete. He said I wasn’t to believe the half I heard about Mr. Clery.”
The smile reached the blue eyes first. The expressive lips curved up.
“Of course,” I added flippantly, “he didn’t say which half.”
He chuckled and eased the car into first to pass the pedestrians also using the exhibitors’ gate. A rather seedy man leaned against the fencepost on my side, the golf cap shading eyes that flicked over everyone. It was the golf cap that did it, and I suddenly felt everything falling in on me, as if the bottom of the Austin had dropped out onto the cattle grating.
Caps Galvano! There couldn’t be two men in the world with the same S-shaped posture, chicken-breasted, adenoidal, raven-nosed, with wisps of stringy black hair, like a bird’s crest, darting out all ways under the cap edge. It couldn’t be Caps Galvano! That man wore nothing but houndstooth checks-pants, jacket, socks, tie, and always the same filthy spotted snagged-thread cap.
This man had on a gray cap. It couldn’t be Galvano. How could he know where I was? How could he have followed me? And why? During my cross-country flight, I’d figured out what an absolute fool I’d been to listen to his whining assurances that he could help me clear my father’s name. Yet it had seemed logical at the time: Caps Galvano knew everyone at the racetracks. He also knew just how straight Dad was, because Dad had shown him the door when he’d come around the house with a deal. Hindsight had shown me how very foolish I’d been, but at the time, Caps Galvano had been the only person to show an active interest in helping me prove to the police that Dad couldn’t’ve been involved in anything shady. And if Caps had had to have money to gather that evidence, well, after what the police had been suggesting, I’d’ve hired the Devil himself to vindicate my father’s reputation. So another sucker was born, and I had given Caps every cent I had in my checking account. Dad’s assets were frozen (as they say), pending probate and the investigation. So when Caps had come to me for more money, hinting that he was on to something very hot,
it hadn’t seemed the least bit wrong for me to approach Louis Marchmount. He had plenty of money. He was Dad’s employer. He should be just as interested in clearing his employee’s name as I was.
Louis Marchmount-racehorse owner, bon vivant, yacht captain, dressed by Cardin, received by society, fleeced by a series of voluptuous blondes who seemed to spring from the same mold. Louis Marchmount, whose lavish promises to my father had never materialized; Louis Marchmount, who had been perfectly willing to lend me any amount of money my heart desired, if… if I “submitted” to Louis Marchmount, rapist.
With an effort, I controlled myself. I couldn’t have seen Caps Galvano. And the man had looked directly at me as we passed and hadn’t registered any sign of recognition. Ergo, he couldn’t be Caps Galvano. Besides which, Galvano was undoubtedly still on the West Coast, running despicable errands for Louis Marchmount. And Louis Marchmount had all he’d wanted of me, and from me. He’d done the worst. That hideous old man, his artificially tanned skin mocking the healthy young bodies that had wanted mine, so staunchly virgin. But it was Marchmount’s bony frame that had covered mine, once he had punished himself enough to raise the man in him. I’d never forget his awful imprecations and the curses he’d used, blaming me for his impotency, screaming directions as he forced me to assist at my own rape.
“Too cool?” another voice inquired in the here and now.
I must have shuddered.
“No. Just one of those convulsive shakes you get.”
He had to keep his eyes on the road, but he was so unusually sensitive… had he somehow been aware of my painful reflections? Oh, I hoped not. Surely I’d be allowed to enjoy his company for one evening. Because he was good company. Four-legged friends have limited conversational topics.
He took me to a quiet steak house, not, as I’d first feared, to the posh place across from the big motel complex on the highway. The restaurant was back from the county road, set among pines, where detached tourist cabins were unobtrusively, if unimaginatively, settled. The food turned out to be good, even if the decor was modern mother-in-law, down to the heavy crockery and the checkered plastic tablecloths.