Dead Heat

16

D orothy Schumann was a slight woman. Although she was not more than five foot eight, she looked taller due to her slender shape. She had long, thin hands that were ghostly white, seemingly almost transparent, and they shook slightly as she rested them in her lap. Caroline and I and Mrs. Schumann sat on green-and-white sofas in her drawing room, the view down to the lake as spectacular as I had imagined.

“So you met my Rolf in England,” said Mrs. Schumann.

“Yes,” I said. “At Newmarket racetrack.”

“On the day of the bomb?” she asked.

“Yes,” I said. “I was at the lunch.”

She looked at me closely. “You were very lucky, then.”

“Yes,” I agreed. I explained to her that I was staying in Chicago on business and had decided to come and see how Rolf was doing, now that he was home.

“How kind,” she said somewhat despondently. “But Rolf is not home here. He’s still in the hospital in Milwaukee having treatment.”

“Oh,” I said. “I’m so sorry. I thought I had heard that he was well enough to go home.”

“He was well enough to be flown back last week,” she said. “But I’m afraid he’s not very well at all.” She was having difficulty holding herself together. “He has some kind of brain damage.” She swallowed. “He just sits there, staring into space. He doesn’t even seem to recognize me. The doctors don’t seem to know if he will ever recover.” She shook with sobs. “What am I going to do?”

Caroline went across to the sofa where Mrs. Schumann was and sat next to her and put an arm around her shoulder.

“I’m sorry,” Dorothy said. She took a tissue from her sleeve and dabbed at her eyes, smearing her makeup and causing her to cry even more.

“Come on,” said Caroline. “Let’s go and sort you out.”

Caroline almost pulled Mrs. Schumann to her feet and guided her gently into the master bedroom suite, which, like in many modern American homes, was on the ground floor.

I looked around the drawing room. There were masses of family photographs in silver frames sitting on a table near the window. I looked at the pictures of Rolf Schumann in happier times, many with a much-healthier-looking Dorothy at his side. There were also images of him at dinners in black tie, and at a building site in a bright yellow hard hat and muddy steel-tipped boots. There were two of him dressed for polo, one of him mounted, smiling broadly, with his mallet in the air, and another dismounted, receiving a silver trophy from a man who even I recognized as a senior American politician with presidential aspirations.

But there was little else in the room that could give me much insight into the man that Rolf Schumann used to be.

I opened a door on the far side of the room from where the women had disappeared and found myself in Rolf’s study. In contrast to the brightness of the white-decorated drawing room, his study was dark, with heavy wood paneling, and a great oak desk in the center. On one wall was a “map” of Africa in which each of the countries was depicted by a different animal hide. Above and behind the desk, a huge stag’s head leaned out from the wall, its magnificent multipointed antlers almost reaching up to the impressively high ceiling. There were more photographs here too: Rolf Schumann, in a safari suit and wide-brimmed hat, in the African bush with rifle in hand and his left foot resting on a huge, downed elephant; Rolf Schumann, in waist-high waders, with fishing rod in one hand and a salmon held high in the other; Rolf Schumann, in hunting pink jacket and hard hat and on horseback, sipping a stirrup cup before the chase. Rolf Schumann was clearly a man of many sports, many blood sports. I felt slightly uneasy, and it wasn’t solely due to the lifeless stag’s glass eyes that I illogically sensed were somehow following me as I moved around the room.

I went back to the drawing room, and just in time. Mrs. Schumann and Caroline came back from makeup repairs, as I sat down again on a green-and-white sofa.

“I’m so sorry,” Dorothy said to me. “I don’t seem to be myself at the moment.”

“That’s quite all right,” I said. “We shouldn’t have disturbed you. I’m sorry to have caused you so much distress. We should go.” I stood up.

“No, no,” she said. “It’s nice to have some company. Please, stay a little longer. You’ve come such a long way. And I would really like to hear more about what happened at the racetrack.”

I sat down again. I explained to her as much as I thought was prudent about the bombing at Newmarket, leaving out the gory details, and the blood. She sat bolt upright on the sofa, listening intently to every word. Once or twice, the tears welled up in her eyes, but this time she was able to maintain her composure.

“Thank you for telling me,” she said. “It has been very hard not knowing anything.”

“I’m so sorry,” I said. She smiled wanly at me and nodded.

“Will you have something to drink?” she said. “I have some ice tea in the kitchen.”

I looked at my watch. It was just after twelve. “We’d love some,” I said.

All three of us went through to her kitchen, and Dorothy poured three tall glasses of golden liquid over slices of lemon. I had always preferred my tea hot, but I had to admit that the iced version was tasty and very thirst quenching. Caroline and I sat on stools at what Dorothy called “the bar.” The kitchen was spectacular, with a great view down to the lake and the “city” beyond. The bar, in fact, was one side of a large island in the center of the huge room.

“Dorothy,” I said. “Can you think of any reason why Rolf would be a target for a bomber?”

She stopped in the middle of pouring more tea and looked at me. “The local police told me that Rolf wasn’t the target. They said he was bombed by mistake.”

“I know,” I said. “But how about if they were wrong?”

Dorothy Schumann sat down heavily on one of the stools. “Are you saying that someone may have tried to kill Rolf?”

“Yes,” I said. There was a long silence. “Can you think of anyone who might want him dead?”

She laughed, just a single titter. “Only about a thousand of the locals,” she said. “They all got fired last winter. And they all seem to blame Rolf.”

“But surely…” I said.

“No, no,” she said. “I’m not really serious.”

“But is there anyone else you could think of who might want to hurt him or damage his company?” I said.

She pursed her lips and gently shook her head.

“Do you know a man called Komarov?” I asked her.

“Of course,” she replied. “I know Peter very well. He imports polo ponies. But you’re not telling me that he has something to do with what happened to Rolf?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I just wondered if you had heard of him.”

“He and his wife come and stay with us,” she said in a tone that implied her houseguests were beyond reproach. “They are friends of ours.”

“Lots of people have been murdered by their friends,” I said.

Et tu, Brute?

“When exactly do they stay with you?” I asked her.

“For the polo,” she said.

“At the Lake Country Polo Club?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said. “Rolf is a vice president.”

“Does Rolf have any polo ponies himself?” I asked her.

“Hundreds,” she said. “I wish he would devote as much time to me as he does to his damn polo.” She stopped suddenly and looked blankly out of the window. Life was going to be very different for her from now on.

“Is Peter Komarov anything to do with the polo club?” I asked her.

She turned back to face me. “I don’t think so,” she said. “But I do know that all his horses go there for a few days when they first arrive in the country.”

“Where do the horses originally come from?” I asked.

“South America,” she said. “Argentina, Uruguay and Colombia, mostly, I think.”

“And where do they go after they leave the polo club?” I asked.

“All over the country,” she said. “I have occasionally been to some of the sales with Rolf. You know, at Keeneland, in Kentucky, and at Saratoga.”

I had heard of both of them. They were major bloodstock sales for Thoroughbreds. “So they’re not all polo ponies, then?”

“Oh no,” she said. “I think that most are, but there are definitely some racehorses as well.”

“Why do they all come here first, then,” I said, “to the polo club?”

“I don’t really know,” she said. “But I do know they arrive by plane at O’Hare, or at Milwaukee airport, and then they go to the club by horse van. I’ve seen them being unloaded. Perhaps they need to get over the journey, like jet lag or something. I think they stay for up to a week before being shipped. Except the ones that Rolf keeps himself, of course.” She sighed, and again the tears welled up in her eyes.

“Seems strange to me not to send the racehorses directly to where they’ll be sold,” I said.

“Rolf says they have to be inspected by the vet,” she said. “And he has to do something with the balls.”

“The balls?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said. “The metal balls. They’re something to do with the journey. I don’t really know what, but Rolf always has a big box full of them here a few days after the arrival of each planeload.”

“Do you have any of these balls here at the moment?” I asked.

“I think there are a few in Rolf’s desk,” she said.

She went out of the kitchen and soon returned with a shiny metal ball about the size of a golf ball. She placed it on the counter in front of me and I picked it up. I was expecting it to be heavy, like a large ball bearing, but it was surprisingly light, and hollow.

“What are they for?” I asked her.

“I have no idea,” she said. “But I think they might be also something to do with breeding the ponies.”

“Can I have this one?” I said.

“I don’t think Rolf would be very pleased with me if I let it go,” she replied. “He’s always extremely careful to check he has the right number. He counts them over and over.”

“But it might help me find out why he was injured,” I said.

“Do you really think so?” said Dorothy, again looking so frail and forlorn.

“I don’t know, but it may.”

“Well, I suppose just one will be all right,” she said. “But you must promise to give it back after you have finished with it.”

I promised, and Caroline smiled at her.

WE LEFT the Schumann residence at five to two, having been cajoled by Dorothy into staying for a ham-and-cheese-sandwich lunch. We were late. I swung the Buick back onto I-94 and put its engine to the test. It was a hundred miles to Chicago and Caroline’s rehearsal with the orchestra at four o’clock. And she had to get to the hotel first, to collect her dress for the evening and her beloved viola. It was going to be tight.

“So what do you think this is?” Caroline asked. She sat in the car’s passenger’s seat and tossed the shiny metal ball from hand to hand.

“I have no idea what it’s for,” I said. “But if it has anything to do with Komarov, then I’m interested in finding out.” I accelerated past a huge eighteen-wheeler truck that was thundering along in the center lane.

“Don’t get a speeding ticket,” Caroline instructed.

“But you said…” I tailed off. She had said that her ass would get roasted if she was late.

“I know what I said.” She laughed. “But don’t get stopped or we really will be late.” I eased off the accelerator slightly and the speedometer came back within the limit. Well, it almost did.

“Something to do with polo ponies,” I said. “That’s what Mrs. Schumann said.”

“Perhaps it’s for table polo.” She laughed out loud at her joke. It did look a bit like a metal table-tennis ball, but perhaps it was a fraction bigger than that. “Does it open, I wonder?” she said.

The ball had a slight seam around its equator, and Caroline took the ball in both hands and tried to separate the two halves. She tried to prize it open by pushing her thumbnail in the seam, but without success. She tried to twist one half off the other. In fact, it wasn’t difficult at all, when you knew how. The two halves screwed together with a counterclockwise movement.

I briefly looked at the two hemispheres sitting in Caroline’s hands.

“I’m none the wiser,” I said. “But I do know that it’s not a toy. It’s not easy to make those screw threads on a spherical object as thin as that. Especially one that fits so tightly together. Quite a piece of precision engineering is involved. If Mrs. Schumann is right about Rolf having a big box full of them, then they must have cost a packet to produce.”

“But what are they for?” said Caroline.

“Perhaps they are for putting something in that mustn’t leak out,” I said. “But I don’t know what.”

WE MADE it back to the hotel with five minutes to spare. Caroline grabbed her dress and viola and rushed away with a kiss. “See you later,” she said. “I’ll leave a ticket at the box office.” She skipped out of the hotel and into the waiting bus taking the orchestra to the hall. The door closed behind her and off they went.

I stood in the lobby and felt lonely. Would I ever get used to saying good-bye to her even for just a few hours? While she had rushed off with such excitement at the prospect of rehearsal and then performance, I was left feeling abandoned and jealous. How could I be so green-eyed about a musical instrument? But I shivered at the thought of her wonderful long fingers caressing Viola’s neck and plucking her strings when I wanted Caroline to do it to me. It was irrational, I knew, but it was real nevertheless.

“Pull yourself together,” I said to myself, and went in search of the concierge.

“Lake Country Polo Club?” he repeated, as a question.

“Yes,” I said. “I think it’s near Delafield, in Wisconsin.”

He tapped away on his computer for a while. “Ah,” he said finally, “here it is.”

His printer whirred, and he handed me a sheet of paper with the directions. The club was about five miles nearer to Chicago than Delafield. In fact, we had driven right past it twice today, since according to the directions it sat just off the interstate highway on Silvernail Road. I thanked him, and arranged to keep the rental car for another day.

I thought the Thursday concert was even better than the previous evening. For a start, I could see Caroline, and she knew it. The hall had been sold out completely, with not so much as a spare stool for me to be found in the auditorium. When I arrived at the box office at seven o’clock, there wasn’t a ticket for me, but there was a note.

“Come to the stage door and ask for Reggie,” it had said in Caroline’s handwriting. So I had done just that.

“Right,” Reggie had said. “So you’re the English guy she’s been yappin’ about all week.” He was a big, burly black man, and he spoke with a rhythmic lilt that made me want to boogie.

“You got it, man,” I replied, mimicking him.

He guffawed expansively, giving me a glimpse of a mouth full of gold-capped teeth. “You’re a dude,” he said. I wasn’t sure whether it was a compliment or not, but he smiled broadly. “I’ve got just the place for you. Come along with me.”

His place turned out to be a couple of metal chairs set out of sight of the audience behind black curtains in the wing of the stage. One of the chairs had a particularly fine view of the first desk of the viola section, a view of my Caroline. As I sat there, I could see her through the gap between the second violins and the French horns. In truth, I could only see the back of her shoulders and part of her right side, but it was enough.

On this occasion, I quietly hummed my way through “Nimrod” with hardly a tear. It still reminded me vividly of my father’s funeral, but I was now at peace with the mental image of that day, not that it didn’t remain a poignant and emotional memory.

Caroline came over and sat with me during the intermission while the rest of the orchestra disappeared down some concrete steps at the back of the stage.

“What do they all do during the intermission?” I asked as we watched them go.

“Same as the audience, I expect,” she said. “Some have a cup of tea. There’s usually some waiting for us in the dressing room. Others have something a little stronger, although they’re not supposed to. One or two go outside for a smoke. Believe it or not, some sit and go to sleep for fifteen minutes.”

“What do you normally do?” I asked her, taking her hand.

“All of the above.” She laughed.

“Do you want to go and have your tea, then?” I asked her.

“No. I want to stay here. I share a dressing room with twelve other women and I’d much rather be here with you.”

Good. I would much rather it too.

“I’m going back to Delafield tomorrow,” I said. “I’m going to have a snoop around the Lake Country Polo Club. Rolf Schumann was a vice president of the club, and one of those killed by the bomb at Newmarket was the president.”

“But I can’t come with you,” she said miserably. “There are some changes to the program for tomorrow night, and I have rehearsals at eleven and at three.”

“How about on Saturday?” I asked.

“We have a matinee on Saturday at two-thirty, as well as the evening performance,” she said. “You go tomorrow without me, but be careful. Remember, someone tried to kill Rolf Schumann, and that same person may have tried to kill you twice already.”

“You don’t need to remind me,” I said.

THE LAKE COUNTRY POLO CLUB was a very grand affair, with rows and rows of white-painted stables with brown roofs alongside four or five polo fields and a mass of club facilities. There were also dozens of horses in white-railed paddocks, their heads down as they chewed the spring grass. This was clearly a busy place, but also one where everything oozed money, and lots of it.

I pulled the Buick nose first into the visitors parking lot next to the club offices and walked in where it said RECEPTION on the door. There was a woman in a white crewneck sweatshirt and jeans sitting at a desk, typing on a computer. She looked up.

“Can I help you?” she said.

“I wondered if Mr. Komarov is anywhere about,” I said.

“No,” she said. “I’m afraid he won’t be back here now until next month at the earliest. For the Delafield Cup, I expect. He’s usually here for that.”

So they knew Mr. Komarov. In fact, they seemed to know him quite well.

“So he doesn’t own this club, then?” I asked her, feigning surprise.

“Oh no,” she said. “But he does own most of the ponies. His pony man is here, if you’d like to see him?” I wasn’t sure whether I did, but, before I could stop her, she lifted a phone and pushed some buttons. “What did you say your name was?” she asked me.

I hadn’t, in fact, said anything about my name. “Mr. Buck,” I said, looking out at my car. I very nearly said Buick.

Someone answered at the other end. “Kurt,” said the woman. “I have a Mr. Buck here asking after Mr. Komarov. He wants to know when he will be coming back to the club. Can you help?” She listened for a moment and then said, “Hold on, I’ll ask him.” She looked up at me. “Kurt says to ask you how you know Mr. Komarov.”

“I don’t,” I said. “But I want to ask him about something that happened in England.”

She relayed the message and then listened briefly. “Where in England?” she asked me.

“Newmarket,” I said loudly.

She didn’t say anything but listened a while longer. “Fine, I’ll tell him.” She hung up. “Kurt is coming over to see you,” she said to me. “Kurt’s in charge of all Mr. Komarov’s ponies.”

“Thank you,” I said. “I’ll wait for him outside.”

Why were the hairs on the back of my neck standing on end and signaling danger, danger? Perhaps it would be safer to get back in the car and leave immediately. Instead, I went for a stroll and walked through a horse passageway beneath the empty grandstand and out onto the polo pitch beyond.

It put the Guards Polo Club in the shade. While it was true that there wasn’t a Royal Box, the rest of the facilities for watching were outstanding, with covered stands and hundreds of padded armchairlike seats for maximum comfort. The playing area had been set up for what the man at the Guards Club had called arena polo, but it could obviously be converted into a larger field for the real thing by removal of the boundary boards. There was plenty enough of the well-tended grass for even the biggest polo pitch.

I was standing, looking at the grandstand, when a man called out to me.

“Mr. Buck?” he shouted as he came through the passageway. Kurt, I presumed, and he wasn’t alone. A second man was with him, and he made me feel decidedly uncomfortable. Whereas Kurt was small and jockeylike in stature, his sidekick was tall and wide. And he carried a five-foot-long polo mallet across his chest like a soldier might carry a gun. I was left in no doubt that it was there to intimidate. It worked. I was very intimidated. Why hadn’t I got in the car and gone away when I had had the opportunity?

I stood in the middle of the grass polo arena and my exit route was on the other side of the grandstand. I had no choice but to brazen it out.

“What do you want?” Kurt asked brusquely. No word of welcome. But there wouldn’t be. His body language said it all. I wasn’t welcome one little bit.

I smiled, tying to relax. “I understand,” I said cheerfully, “that you know Mr. Komarov. Is that right?”

“It might be,” he said. “Depends on who wants to know.”

“I was hoping Mr. Komarov might be able to help me identify something,” I said.

“What?” he said.

“It’s in my car,” I said. I set off quickly past him towards the passageway.

“What is it?” he asked again.

“I’ll show you,” I said over my shoulder without breaking step. He wasn’t to know that the item was, in fact, in my trouser pocket, but I had no intention of getting it out here. I thought I would be safer at the car, but that might only be illusory.

Kurt didn’t seem happy and snorted through his nose, but he followed, and, sadly, so did his shadow. I walked ahead of them, and while I didn’t actually run they would have had to in order to overtake me. The larger man was unfit, and by the time I reached my car he was some way back and blowing hard.

But I hadn’t driven all this way for nothing. I still wanted to find out what I had come here for in the first place. I opened the car door and reached inside as if I was finding something, but I was actually getting it out of my pocket. I turned around and held the shiny steel ball out to Kurt in my open palm, like giving a piece of sugar to a horse.

He was dumbstruck. He stared at the ball and then at my face, as if searching for words.

“Where the fuck did you get that?” he said. He made a grab for it, but I closed my hand and easily beat his grasp.

“Tell me what is it and I’ll tell you where I found it,” I said.

“You give me that back right now,” he said, winding himself into a rage.

“You can have it back if you tell me what it is,” I said, sounding like a teacher who has confiscated some type of electronic gadget from a miscreant schoolboy but doesn’t know what it is.

Without warning, the big guy swung the polo mallet and struck me on the forearm. He was partially behind me, and I didn’t see the mallet coming until the very last millisecond. I had no time to avoid it, but, thankfully, I had time to relax as he hit me. Otherwise, I think he would have broken my arm completely in two. As it was, it wasn’t great. The mallet caught me just above my right wrist. There was a sharp crack, and my arm went instantly numb. I dropped the shiny metal ball. It rolled away towards Kurt. As he stooped to pick it up, I dived into the car, slammed the door and pushed the central locking button.

My right arm wouldn’t work. I couldn’t get the key in the ignition, which was on the right side of the steering column. I spent valuable seconds trying and failing before leaning completely over to my right and getting the key into the slot using my left hand. I turned the key, started the car and threw the automatic gearshift into reverse with my left hand. The rear window of the Buick disintegrated behind me. I ignored it. I looked through the space where the glass had been and gunned the engine. The car leaped backwards towards the mallet-wielding maniac behind me. Surprisingly, he deftly sidestepped the car and swung the mallet again in my direction. The passenger’s door window shattered, showering me with tiny squares of glass. Kurt was at the driver’s door, banging on the window and hauling on the door handle, but he had no mallet and his fist was no match for the toughened glass.

I braked hard to a stop and shoved the gearshift back into drive with my elbow. But the mallet maniac hadn’t finished. As the car accelerated forward towards the gate and the highway, he took one last swing. The business end of the mallet came right through the laminated windshield in front of the passenger’s seat, and stuck there. I didn’t stop. I caught a glimpse of the look of panic on the man’s face as I shot off with the mallet head stuck firmly through the glass. He had his hand equally firmly stuck in the twisted leather loop on the handle end.

In the rearview mirror, I saw the loop pluck him off his feet. I heard him strike the side of the vehicle somewhere low down on the nearside rear door, but I wasn’t going to stop, not even if I had to drag him all the way back to Chicago. As it was, he somehow disentangled his hand and dropped away before I turned out onto Silvernail Road and sped away towards the relative safety of the thundering eighteen-wheelers on I-94, the polo mallet still sticking out sideways from the windshield.

After a mile or so, I pulled over to the shoulder and managed to extricate the mallet. The leather loop on the handle had broken. I hoped that the wrist that had so recently been in it would be broken as well. I threw it on the backseat and set off again, glad that I wouldn’t now have to explain to any highway patrol why I had a polo mallet stuck out of my windshield. The Buick was missing two windows completely, and had a two-inch-diameter hole plus multiple cracks in the windshield, but I could live with that. The fact that I was alive at all was what really mattered to me.

“Damn,” I shouted out loud. Not only had I got my arm injured, and I was pretty sure that a bone had been broken by that blow, but I had also lost the shiny metal ball.

I’ll have to go and get another, I thought, and turned the car around at the next junction. I just hoped that Dorothy Schumann hadn’t had second thoughts about lending me one of the balls since Caroline and I had been at her house the previous day.

My trip to the Lake Country Polo Club had taught me two useful pieces of information. First, the balls were significant. How exactly they were significant, I hadn’t yet worked out. And second, if some of his staff were anything to go by, Mr. Komarov was definitely not on the side of the angels.

BY THE TIME I got back to the Hyatt Hotel, my arm was hurting like hell. I pulled up at the valet parking booth and received some very strange looks from the staff. I ignored them, picked up the polo mallet from the backseat and went into the lobby. I tossed the car keys to the concierge and explained to him that some of the glass had got damaged and would he deal with it with the rental company.

“Certainly, sir,” he said. He looked briefly at the polo mallet. “Right away, sir.” Absolutely nothing fazes a good concierge.

I went up in the elevator and lay on Caroline’s bed. The bedside clock showed me that it was three o’clock. The orchestra were just starting their second rehearsal. I realized that I wasn’t very comfortable, so I removed everything from my pockets and put it all on the bedside table: wallet, money, room key, handkerchief and a shiny metal ball about the size of a golf ball and made in two halves that was somehow crucial to the bombing of Newmarket racetrack some four thousand miles away.

Mrs. Schumann hadn’t been at all pleased to hear that I had already lost the ball that she had been so insistent that I should keep safe. However, I eventually managed to coax her into handing over another ball, but only after I had convinced her that it would be decisive in finding out why her Rolf had been so injured.

Maybe I had been convincing myself too.