Jaimy Gordon - Lord of Misrule

So talk, Two-Tie said coldly. He waited.

I got some bad news. In the third last night? Hickok's old horse Pelter win for two thousand for Hansel. The horse win going away but he got claimed. That little fucker D'Ambrisi took him.

That sit?

That's it.

How about you tell me something I don't know, Vernon?

Like what? Suitcase whined with faint defiance, you said you want to know everything that goes down with Hansel, your niece and that horse. So I'm telling you.

The claim is twelve hours old already, Vernon. I got to wait twelve hours for news like this, what do I need you for? I can read it in the Telegraph.

Hey, last night I know you're going to hear about it. I know Jojo's going over there to play cards. Tell you the truth, I figure it's taken care of.

Jojo? What does Jojo have to do with it? What does Jojo know? Nutting. And Jojo don't owe me no explanations.

What's to explain? Suitcase asked peevishly. I put the word around like you said. I done what I could, Two-Tie. There ain't no law against claiming Pelter. D'Ambrisi run a horse already in the meeting, so how can I stop him if he really wants that horse?

Don't tell me why you couldn't stop that nobody. Tell me what I don't know. Who bought that horse?

D'Ambrisi bought him.

Who paid?

D'Ambrisi paid cash, twenty nice new hundred-dollar bills.

Yeah, well, where did he get it? Who put him up to it? Who paid him?

Suitcase said nothing.

All right, Vernon. It's gotta be Joe Dale. You wouldn't cover up for nobody else but Joe Dale. Just tell me why? What does he get out of it? What the hell does Bigg want with a used-up old stakes horse? A sentimental claim like that, I don't see it. Why he's insulting me like this?

Suitcase said: Aaaay, let it go, Two-Tie-I mean who believed you could really give a fuck about that horse when you don't even own a piece of him?

Maybe you think I'm slipping and I don't mean what I say no more.

Come on, don't get excited. It's not that big.

You'll find out if I mean what I say, Two-Tie promised, panting slightly. I'll talk to Baltimore. That sweet young woman will have her horse back tomorrow night latest. You think D'Ambrisi could cooperate before, you watch him turn somersaults for Posner. He's got a spine made out of silly putty, that two-dollar tout.

You're calling Posner? Suitcase said mournfully, after a pause. Over this? You honestly think it's worth it?

What I think ain't nothing. My niece is no racetracker. She needs to be protected from sharks and loonies. And vicious assholes. And thieves. That was your job, Vernon.

My job.

Ain't the happiness of your family worth more than money to you? Don't you do what you can?

Sure, Suitcase said dispiritedly.

If you can't do your job, if I got to do your job for you from this side of the river, I need help.

The niece better be very very grateful for the trouble she's causing, Suitcase muttered.

Umbeschrien, Two-Tie said. God forbid she should be grateful. She don't know nothing about it.

The telephone went dead, except for the two men's heavy sighs. Finally Suitcase changed the subject.

On that other matter. Lord of Misrule. Summer meeting, August 1. Maybe I can do sumpm for you after all.

Oh. Is that so?

Standish come up with some Drillers and Dredgers Association dough-the bargeman, like you mentioned.

You don't say.

How about we write an allowance race with a fancy name and make it the feature and jack up the purse five grand?

Good, good, Two-Tie said. I was beginning to wonder if we couldn't do business no more. All of a sudden we seemed to had a wrong number. Or a bad connection or sumpm.

The Low River Ramble-how does that sound?

Call it whatever you damn please, Two-Tie said.

SUNDAY AFTERNOON Medicine Ed seen the frizzly hair girl laying there in the straw in Pelter's old stall, with her arms folded under her head and her face long as the busride home. She was dreaming on the cobwebs up by the roof, looking at the long beards that hung out of last year's nests, and that's when a hurtful remembrance come over him, no rest, no peace. He thought of that tough little filly Broomstick he worked on at Santa Anita, a ink-black two-year-old they were schooling for the Venus, a grass runner with ankles like champagne glasses. He used to whistle for her whenever he come on the shedrow, she would poke her head out the stall and nod her head up and down at him, where you been? At night he liked to drink and and lay down in the stall with her in the good smelling straw. She was the onliest horse he ever felt tied to in that way. Then he got in a deep hole-shooting crap was his downfall in them days, when he still drank-and he went to the goofer powder for the third time. He was in the van with Broomstick when she snapped her leg, coming home from her last race before the Venus, a tightening mile she win going away at Hollywood Park.

He could tell the frizzly hair girl that a groom might have that feeling in his life for one horse and one horse only. Then you put it away. For it tore out a piece of you to care for a horse like that. Only, last night he disremembered that he was ever that tangled up in a horse. After she lose Pelter, she was sitting on the edge of the shedrow, with her feet dragging in the dirt road. Just staring at the white steam curling off the dung pile by the back gate and the cheap horses going round and round in the dark on Joe Dale Bigg's hot-walking machine. Even with them blindman dark glasses hiding her eyes, Medicine Ed could read her mind: she was asking herself what she be doing here on the racetrack at all. It was a better question than what she worry him with every day: has he ever rode a horse and what barns has he worked for and where is his people. Last night she got on his last nerve with her sad and draggyfied face. Ain't they got the win purse and the claim check for more than what they paid for the horse? What was the use of crying?

And meanwhile the young fool was fixing to claim back the red horse, The Mahdi, in the sixth, and so high on hisself he ain't hardly notice about Pelter. He run up and down sparking, and for once he want to do all the work in the barn with his own soft white hand. The frizzly hair girl had him a stall ready round the back side of the barn, turned out it was no need behind Pelter getting claimed, but the young fool taken the far stall for the red horse anyhow. Maybe it was to stay with everything fresh, for luck, or maybe he just want to dwell on the other side of the barn where he don't have to look at the girl.

Medicine Ed could understand. One look at her and a man could not feel satisfied. One look at her, the way she scrooched down on the curb of the shedrow and eyeballed that smoking dung pile in the ice cold dark, surely would cast the young fool down just when he was feeling lucky. A man like to believe his raggedy-patch days is finally behind him. Just to think it is like a cunjure on nature to do his bidding. Well, one look at such as her and a man could get down and lose his strong belief and begin to linger and feel helpless as a newborn babe. So the young fool wouldn't look at her. And which Medicine Ed could understand it: the young fool have to praise his luck while he can.

How do you like that, Ed, we got The Mahdi back, The Mahdi, Hansel was laughing, and he laid twenty dollars on Medicine Ed right then and they smacked the plank. Then the young fool give the red horse a bath and blanket and walk him. He fed him that hot mash and whistled off key to bring down his piss, and for an hour it was a lot of busy white steam rising offen the north side of the barn up to the stars. And meanwhile the frizzly hair girl setting there on the south side in the cold with not one word to nobody.

That was last night. Today she come on the shedrow at five in the morning and work like any other day, only she don't say much. Then in the afternoon Medicine Ed see her laying down in Pelter's stall, and suddenly he can't feel satisfied. She doing all right, he told Two-Tie last night. But last night Two-Tie was saying he could get that horse back for her. It was some hope by today the old gentleman has come home to his senses. Medicine Ed don't want to study on such craziness. But still she is Two-Tie blood kin. He ought not to leave her there without a kind word.