The Viking Funeral

Chapter 49

THEY READ THE file in Chief Filosiani's sparsely furnished office. There was nothing in the Sheriffs Department folder that gave them any clue to Jose Mondragon's whereabouts. After going over it several times, they began to lose hope.

Shane used the phone in the chief's office to call Chooch at Filosiani's house.

"Thank God, you're safe, man," his son said, relief in his voice.

"Get your stuff ready; Alexa and I will be over to get you in an hour."

They checked the Santa Monica Polo Club and talked to the club manager, who confirmed that Jose Mondragon had not been a member for years. The club had no address on file for him, or anybody else for that matter; they didn't even have a membership list because all you needed to play was a horse and enough friends to make up a team. The team captains rounded up their players and scheduled the matches. The manager did remember Jo se's horse, though, because he said it was a world-class polo pony, a coal-black Arabian named Sir Anthony of Aquitaine. He confirmed what Bill Messenger had told them. The horse had been shipped to Argentina two years ago.

The polo club was a dead end.

So was the airport where Jose had kept the plane. The Cessna he flew didn't even belong to him. It was leased from an FBO and, true to Jose's practice, the Blackstone Corporation was the only name on the lease. Nobody at the airfield even remembered him.

"I'm out of ideas," Shane said as he limped out of the chiefs office with Tony and Alexa. They walked across the seafoam-green carpet, past the blond-wood paneling, and finally got into the large elevator. "Jody's so far ahead of us that if he knows where Jose is, he's already working on him like he did on Lisa," Shane continued. "Jose will be dead. Jody will have the money and be gone."

"But nobody knows where Jose is," Alexa countered. "Maybe Jody can't find him, either."

"Maybe," Shane said, but he didn't have much hope.

They climbed back into the chief's Crown Vic, Tony behind the wheel, Alexa in the front, Shane in the back. His leg was now throbbing horribly, but he clenched his jaw and tried to ignore the pain.

Twenty minutes later they pulled up in front of a very modest two-story Tudor with a small lawn and, judging from the depth of the lot, almost no backyard.

Chooch was waiting out front with his overnight bag at his feet. If the chief looked like a butcher, then Mary Filosiani was equally well cast as the butcher's wife. A pleasant, dark-haired woman in a print dress, she was standing beside Chooch. She kissed him good-bye, and Chooch walked up to the car.

Shane got out and gave his son a hug. "Boy, am I glad to see you," he said in Chooch's ear.

Chooch just hung on, his arms unabashedly around Shane. When he finally pulled back, he had tears in his eyes. "Man, I was so worried about you," Chooch said, looking at the damage to Shane's face.

"How was quarterback camp?"

"Get the fuck outta here," Chooch smiled. "I was only up there for ten hours before you got your big dumb ass kidnapped. So I came right back."

"Oh, yeah," Shane grinned. "I forgot. And watch your mouth."

The chief let them borrow the Crown Vic to drive back to Venice. "I been thinkin' I'd trade it in for a fresher model anyway," he smiled. "It's one thing tryin' to set a good example for the troops; it's another to ride around in a garbage can with wheels."

Shane threw Chooch's luggage into the back and got behind the wheel.

They were silent for most of the drive back to Venice. Several times Shane looked over and saw Chooch or Alexa smiling at him.

"What?" he said, and suddenly they all started laughing.

They pulled into the garage at the canal house and parked next to Shane's dusty Acura, then walked into the small kitchen, where Shane opened the freezer and pulled out a package of four frozen New York steaks. He set them on the counter to defrost.

"Let's get the barbecue going, Bud," he said to Chooch, who grinned and pulled a bag of charcoal briquettes from the cupboard. The boy took it outside and filled the orange Weber barbecue that was sitting on a small patch of poured concrete in the backyard.

It was just about dusk. Shane put his arm around Alexa as they looked out the sliding glass door at his son, starting the fire in the backyard. It was wonderful to be home, but bubbling under that relief was a strange, unsettled feeling.

"I know what you're thinking," Alexa said softly.

"Now you and Jody both can do it, huh? Walk right inside my head, without knocking."

"You feel like it's not over, but it is. Sometimes things just don't wrap up perfectly."

"Yeah, I know… It's just…"

"We're alive and we're together, babe,"

she said. "You and me and Chooch. What more can we ask for?"

"You're right, as usual." He snapped his fingers. "Just a minute. I forgot something." He turned and limped down the hall into the bedroom, where he opened the top dresser drawer and pulled out the engagement ring in Murray Steinberg's slightly crushed black-leather box.

Shane walked back outside, where he found Alexa and Chooch poking at the briquettes with long-handled tongs, spreading them out.

Shane turned and faced Alexa, took her hand, then slipped the two-carat engagement ring onto her finger. "There," he said, "now it's official."

"It's about time, is what it is," Chooch said, smiling. "But aren't you supposed to ask her first?"

"She said yes two days ago," Shane told him, taking her in his arms as Chooch smiled his approval.

As the setting sun lit the edges of the rippling canal, Shane cooked the steaks, Alexa made a salad, and Chooch set the table.

They sat in the backyard and ate quietly, counting their blessings, grinning like children.

Later that night, Shane and Alexa made love in his bed while Chooch watched TV in the living room.

Shane felt as if he had completed an impossible journey. He had been looking for something that didn't exist, but in its place he had found something even more valuable.

If only he hadn't lost Jody. If only Jody hadn't confessed that he'd never cared… That he hadn't loved Shane the way Shane had once loved him. That realization caused a sadness that he suspected was produced by betrayal as much as by loss. It touched on old issues of abandonment that he had lugged around his entire life. Shane's parents had dumped him at a hospital's back door like human trash. He had been infant number 732. City Services finally named him Shane. He had picked the name Scully, after his favorite baseball announcer, Vince Scully. But that first betrayal by his parents had caused an ache inside of him that had never left.

Why did my mother leave me like that? Didn't she care?

He had asked himself these same two questions over and over again, day after day, year after year, until they had almost lost their meaning.

The Deans had filled in some of the emptiness, until Jody had snatched it away again, coming back into his life two weeks ago.

Alexa had fallen asleep beside him, but he lay awake, thinking and listening to the TV in the other room.

He fell asleep some time during Leno.

Jody had his back to a field where beautiful horses ran, galloping around the edges of the wooden perimeter fence. The horses came to an abrupt halt each time they reached the rail, sticking their magnificent heads over, snorting angry air from flared nostrils, looking across the fence line at the distant city, before turning and galloping back across the field to the other side. But Jody didn't turn to watch them. His eyes were only on Shane.

"You don't get to play unless you sign up, "Jody said. "You have to register first. "

"I know," Shane answered. "But it sure would be fun to play. "

"They have rules about that, "Jody said seriously.

"I know, " Shane said. "Rules. "

"It's not like Little League, where everybody can play, "Jody continued. "Here, you have to register. They have to know who you are. "

"I know, " Shane said. "Rules-you have to register. "

Riders were now magically up on the horses, galloping across the open field in their team shirts, swinging their polo mallets at the little white ball that flew energetically with each whack. As it came close to where they were standing, Shane was surprised to see that it was a baseball they were hitting.

"I have to go, "Jody said. "You can stay and watch, but don't get too close. They have rules about that, too."

"I know… " Shane said.

Then Jody turned and walked out of the dream.

The horses were now galloping near the fence. The baseball flew by the spot where Shane was standing, and the horses raced to catch it. He could feel the slipstreaming air against his face as they thundered past.

"Rules," Shane said softly in the darkened bedro om, the word still on his lips as he opened his eyes.

When he spoke, he woke Alexa, and she turned over and looked at him. "What?" she asked.

Shane wasn't sure. He just knew that he was terribly troubled by the innocuous dream, as if something was lying there on the bottom of his subconscious, something important that he'd forgotten to pursue, but he didn't know what it was. "Rules in polo," he said. "Everybody has to register, or they can't play."

"What?" Alexa looked at the digital clock. "God, it's twelve-thirty," she said, turning on the bedside lamp.

"Maybe we should make sure Chooch got to bed and isn't sleeping on the couch out there." She got up, put on her robe, and left the bedroom.

"Rules," Shane repeated, trying to figure out what his subconscious was trying to tell him. "Everybody has rules." He sat up in bed, his heart pounding because he knew this was important but didn't, for the life of him, know why.

He had spoken for ten minutes on the phone to the polo club guy. They didn't have rules; that was the point. The man had stated that all you needed was a horse and a team to play on. "Rules," he said again, as Alexa returned to the room.

"What?"

"Everybody has rules. You can't play without registering first."

She turned off the light. "Chooch is in his bedroom, conked."

"Good."

"What on earth are you talking about?"

"A dream," he said. "I was with Jody, watching a bunch of men playing polo, only they were hitting a baseball, and in my dream he said, 'You don't get to play unless you register,' that you can't play because there are rules…"

She looked at him. "Okay, there are rules. How does that apply?"

"I don't know…" He looked at her and shook his head ruefully. "Polo… Rules in polo. Of course, there're rules in polo. Shit."

She smiled and kissed him then got back into bed. Shane hugged her, feeling her breath on his neck, the slow beating of her heart, and then, wrapped in her safe cocoon, he was quickly asleep.

He was back on the polo field. Only now he was petting a huge Arabian horse that poked his nose over the fence where Shane was standing. He knew, without asking, that the horse was Sir Anthony of Aquitaine. He was coal-black and eating a cube of sugar out of Shane's hand.

"I've never seen a horse as beautiful as you, " he said in the dream.

The stallion snorted. His black coat was shining. "I'd sure love to have a horse like you," Shane said in wonder. "If you ever have a colt… "

Shane suddenly woke up again, this time with a start. His heart was pounding, slamming in his chest. Shit, he thought as he lay in bed. What is this?

He got out of bed and quietly limped out of the room. Wearing only his Jockey shorts, he went down the hall, then out into the backyard, where he sat in one of the metal chairs and watched the quarter-moon ripple on the still water. His thigh had been bandaged with white medical wrap, but some of the stitches must have broken loose, because a dried bloodstain the size of a grapefruit had leaked through the gauze. He was going to have to get his wounded thigh redressed.

"Rules," he said again softly, returning to his dream. "Horses… Polo…" You can't ride

Why can't you ride? You can't own an Arabian horse without… Without what? Shit. He sat there turning it over in his mind. You have to register to ride… to play? Why do I want a damn horse, a colt? Why? I'd have to register. I'd…

He lunged out of the chair, headed into the house, turned on the lights in the bedroom, and put a hand on Alexa's shoulder.

She rolled over and glared at him. "What are you doing?" she asked. "Are you ever going to sleep?"

"Listen, if you ofrned an Arabian horse, wouldn't you have to list him with some kind of Thoroughbred registry?"

"I guess…"

"You do, you have to. There're rules about it. I think I read somewhere with all Thoroughbreds, you have to register them to protect the bloodlines and stud fees. Thoroughbred horses are registered at birth… When they're colts. There's some kinda Arabian horse registry."

"So?"

"It'll have the address of the owner."

"Unless his horse is registered to Blackstone Corporation in Switzerland, like everything else this guy owns."

"Sir Anthony of Aquitaine?" Shane smiled. "No fucking way. That horse is his status symbol. He might register his car or a house to the company, but this animal's a champion… It's in Papa Joe's name. Count on it. Jose is in the fucking horse registry, I'll bet you anything. It'll be somewhere on the Internet."

She rolled out of bed and put on her robe. "Let's get Chooch out of the sack. He's our best computer jock."

It was so easy, it was almost ridiculous. The registry was called exactly what Shane had guessed: the Arabian Horse Registry. Sir Anthony of Aquitaine was in the stallion listings. Below that was a lot of stuff about his bloodline: out of this sire and that mare, going back six generations, but at the bottom was the owner's name and address, right there on the screen:

Jose Luis Mondragon

2457 Malibu Canyon Road

Malibu, California