LITMIR.BIZ

Скачать книгу

Trick said. “You want to suck his cock?”

      The man looked back at Trick. “Stay away from me.”

      Young took two steps and lunged. The man spun and slashed at him with the crowbar. Young felt a glancing blow to the side of his head and a flash of pain. His face smacked the white tiles of the floor. He rolled, and there was a dwoing and a spray of white shards beside his head. The crowbar leapt from the man’s hand and cartwheeled through the open door of a cubicle. Trick rammed his wheelchair into the backs of the man’s legs. The man yelled and fell to his knees. Still on his stomach, Young reached for him, grabbed the collar of his shirt, and pulled him flat. Prone, the man swung around on one hip and brought his knee up between Young’s legs. Young gasped and let go his grip, and the man jumped to his feet and ran out of the men’s room.

      The seventh race of the Sunday afternoon card of thor-oughbred horse racing at Caledonia Downs was won by Mrs. Helen McDonagh’s Bing Crosby, an eight-year-old bay gelding by Distinctive Pro out of the Fire Dancer mare Torch Singer. When Debi Young and Mrs. McDonagh reached the winner’s circle for the photograph, Debi scanned the stands for her father and Trick. She was hoping they would come down and be part of the photo. After all, this was her first win as a trainer. Maybe they were shy because they didn’t know Mrs. McDonagh very well—at all, for that matter—but Mrs. McDonagh had said, “Of course, the more the merrier,” when Debi had asked if her father and his friend could join them in the winner’s circle. At least they would wave, she thought, still searching the stands.

      But they weren’t there. They were on their way to Emergency at Etobicoke General Hospital. Young wasn’t badly hurt, but Trick’s assessment—completed as he wound several yards of linen hand towel he’d Swiss Army–knifed from the dispenser in the men’s room around Young’s head—was bruised balls and three or four stitches.

      Trick used his manual wheelchair whenever he went to the racetrack because he had Young to propel him through the crowds, and Young, despite his injuries, was able to lift Trick into the front seat of his minivan and stow the wheelchair, unfolded, where the missing middle seat belonged. As Young drove, only slightly woozy, only slightly inconvenienced by the slipping of his turban, Trick couldn’t stop talking. “It was beautiful, man. We routed the bastard!”

      “Who was he?” Young asked. “That’s what I want to know. And what did he want?”

      “What did he want? He wanted your wallet. Blew his hard-earned welfare check on the last race. Needed some get-even money. Some start-up money.”

      “Muggers pick their spots. They don’t go after somebody my size.”

      “Hey, you were alone in the men’s room. It was his main chance.”

      “I never got to hear his advice.”

      “Probably, ‘If you know what’s good for you, you’ll hand over your wallet,’ that kind of thing.”

      “I don’t know. He had a crowbar. He just happen to bring it in from the parking lot?”

      “Whatever, but that’s the good news because we got his prints all over it. We’ll make this guy, Camp.”

      “At first I thought it was the bare-assed guy.”

      “What bare-assed guy?”

      “There was this bare-assed guy taking a leak when I walked into the john. Pants down around his ankles. Said the last race was fixed. I get sick of that. People can’t accept that they just picked the wrong horse, it was their own fucking fault they blew the grocery money. I told him as much. I thought maybe it was him behind me.”

      “It wasn’t him, unless he was a bare-assed black guy.”

      “No, it wasn’t him.” They were silent for a moment as Young concentrated on his driving, and then he said, “You were good in there. You were very fucking good in there.”

      “Just like old times, brother. The adrenalin. Fuck!”

      “Very fucking good you were.”

      At the same time that Young was being attacked in the men’s room of the clubhouse at Caledonia Downs, Doug Buckley was only a short distance away, sitting at the bar in the owners’ lounge in his salmon leisure suit, and that’s where Mahmoud Khan found him.

      “When I first met you,” Khan said, seating himself on the stool to Doug’s left, “at the meeting at Morley Rogers’ house, I sensed what kind of man you were. I knew you wanted to become a player.”

      Doug, halfway through a rye and ginger, nodded. “When you spoke to me as we were leaving Mr. Rogers’ house, you said we might see more of each other.”

      Khan smiled. “That’s right, my friend. You have a good memory. You know, I must say that you strike me as an enterprising fellow, a fellow with a future in the more elevated business and cultural circles. And, if you’re interested, I would be pleased to sponsor your application to the King County Golf and Country Club.”

      Doug was taken aback. “Thank you, Mr. Khan. I don’t know what to say.”

      “It would be an important addition to your profile. It would mean that you are well-connected, that you associate with the inner circle.”

      “Yes, I understand, thank you.”

      “But there is one small favour I was hoping you might do for me,” Khan said, smiling.

      “Name it,” said Doug.

      It was a busy night in the Emergency Ward, and Young had to wait almost two hours before a doctor could look at him. When the doctor asked Young what had happened, Young looked at Trick, and Trick said, “He’s so tall, Doc, he’s always bumping into things. We were at the hardware store to get some briquettes for the barbecue, and he bumped into one of those big round shoplifter mirrors.”

      It was almost seven and raining heavily when Young and Trick returned to the minivan. Young had six stitches and several Steri-Strips across his left cheekbone. After stopping at Trick’s building, unloading him, and getting him as far as the lobby, Young was driving home when he decided on a nightcap at McCully’s. His head didn’t hurt that badly.

      Standing inside the doorway, shaking the rain off the shoulders of his windbreaker, the first thing Young registered was the dirty white linen of Priam Harvey’s plantation suit.

      As Young approached the bar, Dexter saw him. It was clear from the expression on his face that Dexter hadn’t forgotten Saturday night’s incident. Young held up his hands in a gesture of peace. “Two Blue, please, Dexter.”

      Harvey turned and stared at him unsteadily. His head bobbed this way and that as if it rested on a spring. He made an effort to focus. “What happened to your face?”

      “Bumped into a mirror. What have you got on Percy Ball?”

      “That’s a nasty gash. You should get it looked at.”

      “It’s been looked at. It’s got stitches in it, for fuck-sake. Tell me about Percy Ball.”

      Harvey gave him a crafty look. “Tell you what. Instead of you asking the questions, I’ll ask the questions. What do you think of that?”

      “Are we supposed to be working a case together, or aren’t we?”

      Harvey raised a forefinger and held it unsteadily in front of Young’s nose. “One question.”

      “Fine. Go ahead.”

      Harvey cleared his throat, his fist at his mouth, then smiled. “Why did you knock me down the other night?”

      Young looked at him. “In the first place, I didn’t knock you down. I picked you up and dropped you. Anyway, you know why. You were making fun of Jessy, you insulted her, then you asked me if I was fucking her.”

      Harvey’s jaw fell. “I did?”

      “Yes, you did.” Young chugged his

Скачать книгу