Keith Thomson - Once a spy

The floor of the massive “den” was covered by a pair of rich Oriental carpets-probably no single Oriental carpet on Earth would have been big enough. The walls, with refined checkerboard wainscoting, boasted more art than many galleries; the glass and pewter frames mirrored the flickering within the stone fireplace, making the brass banquet lamps unnecessary. Charlie ogled a Breugel snowscape.

Drummond remained behind in the doorway, seemingly lost.

Mort was so hunched that he barely needed to bend in order to draw a log from the brass rack on the floor. With a sibilant grunt, he tossed the dry wood onto the andirons. The fire flared, turning the room a soft ochre and revealing what Charlie deemed the home’s most attractive feature: the pair of scallop-rimmed dinner plates, set on the bar, each with a hearty turkey and cheddar sandwich and a pile of potato chips-the upscale, kettle-cooked kind.

“There’s your suppers,” Mort said. “Help yourselves to whatever you want to drink-the fridge behind the bar’s loaded with cold beer and pop. If you’re still hungry, y’all’re welcome to try your luck in the kitchen. Also there’s clothes and anything else a person could ever need in the mudroom. And if y’all’re okay with that, I’m gonna go on up to bed-the beasts here like to get up and eat their breakfast way too darn early. Mr. H. oughtta be here in a half hour or thereabouts.”

Charlie understood his misgivings now.

Suppers.

During his ten-second phone conversation with Hattemer, Drummond hadn’t indicated Charlie was with him. Yet Mort had been instructed to prepare two suppers.

“Hey, Mort, just one more thing?” Charlie asked.

“Sir?”

“Was it Mr. H. himself who called you?”

“That’s right.”

“Did he tell you how many people to expect?”

“Four, I think.”

“Four?”

“Y’all plus him and Mr. Fielding.”

“Who’s Fielding?”

Mort turned to Drummond. “Fella you and Mr. H. work with, ain’t that right, sir?”

“Could be,” Drummond said. “I don’t know a lot of the men in Refrigeration.”

In a mirror, Charlie caught Mort shooting a bewildered look at Drummond. Mort didn’t know anything, Charlie concluded.

Mort dug a sticky-pad message from a pocket and read, “Nicholas Fielding?”

Drummond shrugged.

“Also Mr. H. said Willie wasn’t gonna be able to make it,” Mort added.

“Can I see that, please?” Charlie asked.

“Yours to keep,” said Mort, handing over the piece of paper.

“Thanks,” Charlie said. “Thanks for everything, Mort.”

As Mort climbed the stairs, Charlie studied the handwritten message:

5:30: MR. H + NICHOLAS FIELDING + NO WILLIE.

No Willie was Hattemer’s safety code, meaning Nicholas Fielding, whoever he was, was no threat. As far as Hattemer knew. From the name Nicholas Fielding, however, three letters jumped up at Charlie:

H, E, and N.

Charlie fought to keep from gasping while Mort was in earshot. As soon as Mort was upstairs, Charlie showed Drummond the note, jabbed a finger at the pertinent characters, and said, “According to Belknapp, it was ‘HEN’ who ordered the hit at the battlefield.”

“Which one was Belknapp again?”

“The last one.”

“Yes, yes, I see.” Drummond appeared more interested in-and to have greater appreciation for the significance of-his sandwich.

Hoping to squeeze even a drop of information from him nevertheless, Charlie blocked his path to the plate. “What are the odds that this Hen isn’t that Hen?”

“Odds?”

“Higher than the sky, in my professional opinion. Plenty of names have H, E, and N in that order. Howard Beckman, the detective, for one. But how many Hens do you work with?”

Drummond put a hand on his chin to think.

Charlie decided not to bother waiting for the results. “In either case, we can’t just drive off now,” he said. He was surprised not to be panicking. Maybe his nerves were shot. “We’d just cross paths with them between here and Hickory Road.”

“All right then. Can we eat?”

“As soon as one of us works up an escape route.”

As they crossed the dusky meadow behind the house, Charlie went over his idea. “So we stay and hear what Hattemer and this Nicholas Fielding have to say. Worse comes to worse, we make it look like we tried to get away in the Durango. Really, if we manage to saddle a horse, we go on horseback. What do you think?”

“Okay,” was the extent of Drummond’s feedback, sadly.

The barn was built of pine planks and painted the classic, rustic red. Inside, the musky scent of horses commingled wonderfully with the sweet smell of hay. It was too dark for Charlie to make out much beyond the expanse and many large shapes. Flipping on the lights might alert Mort to their presence here, so Charlie waited until his eyes adapted, then slipped in. Drummond lingered by the entryway, hungrily contemplating the green apples piled into a thick-slatted barrel.

In the stalls, five horses slept, all standing. The first three were tall and slim, with chiseled faces on long necks: Thoroughbreds. Charlie passed them by. Thoroughbreds have two gears, Park and Locomotive. If he were to attempt to ride one, the odds said he’d be left on the ground with horseshoes permanently stamped on his face.

In stall four was a draft horse; Charlie recognized the characteristic giant hooves and weightlifter’s shoulders. CANDICANE was engraved on the beveled-edged copper plaque on the stall door. If the Thoroughbred is a racecar, the draft horse is the family station wagon, the horse used to give grandkids and greenhorns the steadiest ride. Candicane’s swayed back and droopy lips indicated she’d held that job for years.

In the last stall was Giovanni, a Thoroughbred who conjured a Ferrari. So Candicane was the man. Charlie hoped her name reflected her temperament. Despite all his time at the track, he’d never ridden a horse. He’d learned a few things though. Chiefly, those scenes in Westerns where a novice jumps onto a horse and rides off: complete malarkey. Just getting a saddle on would be an ordeal.

Candicane’s eyes opened at his approach. He dangled an apple across her stall door. She bared her teeth, which brought ax blades to his mind. He willed himself to keep steady. If she detected his fear, she would whinny her displeasure, which could domino into bedlam in the barn. She sucked the apple from his palm with what felt like a kiss. He was charmed.

“I hope we can still be friends when I saddle you,” he whispered.

Equipment bloomed from the walls and ceiling in the adjacent tack room. Charlie unhooked a saddle and groped for bridle, brushes, and the rest of what he anticipated he would need. Returning to Candicane, he opened the stall door and entered inches at a time so as not to spook the thousand-pound beast. She stepped sideways to accommodate him.

He’d seen grooms ready racehorses hundreds of times. Unfortunately, his attention was usually on the conversation-as sources, grooms ranked second only to attendants in the owners’ and trainers’ parking lot. One thing he had picked up was that a small bit of dirt caught between the hide and the saddle blanket or saddle pad could do to a horse what the pea did to the princess. So he brushed Candicane, delicately. She responded like a thousand-pound kitten, snorts in place of purring.

“Okay, Candi, now for your saddle blanket,” he said with rising confidence.

Having witnessed this relatively simple step so many times, he thought failure was impossible. As he opened the surprisingly large blanket, he reconsidered: It would be easier to get a tarp over a building. He set the top of the pile forward of her withers, then worked out the wrinkles as he spread the rest toward her tail, the grooms’ method. The reason they did so, he realized, was that it allowed her hair to run in its natural direction. Again, Candicane snorted her contentment. Still Charlie was wary of losing his teeth as a result of poking her in a wrong spot, and he had no idea which spots those were.