Hugger Mugger

ELEVEN

I SAT WITH Walter Clive at the Three Fillies syndication office in downtown Lamarr. He wore some sort of beige woven-silk pullover, tan linen slacks, no socks, and burgundy loafers. His tan remained golden. His silver hair was brushed straight back. A thick gold chain showed at his neck. His nails were buffed. He was clean-shaven and smelled gently of cologne.

"Penny tells me you're making progress," Clive said.

He was leaning back in his high-backed red-leather swivel chair, with his fingers interlocked over his flat stomach. There was a wide gold wedding band on his left hand. Past the bay window behind him I could see the white flowers of some blossoming shrub.

"Penny exaggerates," I said.

"Really?" he said.

"I have made no progress that I can tell."

"Well, at least you're honest," Clive said.

"At least that," I said.

"Perhaps Penny simply meant that you had talked to a number of people."

"That's probably it," I said. "I have managed to annoy Jon Delroy."

"Penny mentioned that too."

"Thanks for having her talk with him."

"Actually that was Penny's doing."

"Well, it was effective."

"Jon's been with me a long time," Clive said. "He's probably feeling a little displaced."

"How long?"

"Oh, what, maybe ten years."

"Really. What was he doing?"

Clive paused, as if the conversation had gone off in a direction he hadn't foreseen.

"I have a large enterprise here. There is need for security."

"Sure. Well, he and I seem to be clear on our roles now."

Clive nodded, and leaned forward and pushed the button on an intercom.

"Marge," he said. "Could you bring us coffee."

A voice said that it would, and Clive leaned back again and smiled at me. The window to my right was partially open and I could hear desultory birdsong in the flowering trees.

"So," Clive said, "have you reached a conclusion of any sort?"

"Other than I'm not making any progress?" I said.

"Yes," Clive said. "Are you for instance formulating any theories?"

"I've mostly observed that this thing doesn't make any sense," I said.

"Well, it is, sort of by definition," Clive said, "a series of senseless crimes."

"Seems so," I said.

"Meaning?"

"Meaning it seems so senseless that maybe it isn't."

Clive hadn't become a tycoon by nodding in agreement to everything said.

"That sounds like one of those clever statements people make when they're trying to sell you something you don't need," Clive said. "Does it mean anything?"

"I don't know," I said. "I can't say I know much about animal shootings. But for serial killers of people, you look for the logic that drives them. It's not necessarily other people's logic, but they are responding to some sort of interior pattern, and what you try to do is find it. The horse shootings are patternless."

"Or you haven't found it," Clive said.

"Or I haven't found it."

"They are all Three Fillies horses," Clive said. "Isn't that a pattern?"

"Maybe," I said. "But it is a pattern that leads us nowhere much. Why is someone shooting Three Fillies horses?"

"You're not supposed to be asking me," Clive said.

"I know," I said. "Is there anyone with a grudge against you?"

"Oh certainly. I can't name anyone in particular. But I've been in a tough business for more than thirty years. I'm bound to have made someone angry."

"Angry enough to shoot your horses?"

"Well, if they were, why would they shoot those horses? The stable pony's worth maybe five hundred dollars. Neither of the other two horses showed much promise. Heroic Hope can't run again, but insurance covers it. If you wish to damage me, you shoot Hugger Mugger-no amount of insurance could replace him."

"Me either," I said. "Maybe they were chosen because their loss would not be damaging."

"That doesn't make any sense."

"True," I said. "If someone didn't want to damage you they could just not shoot the horses."

A good-looking woman with close-cropped hair and high cheekbones and blue-black skin came in pushing a tea wagon. There was coffee in a silver decanter and white china cups and a cream and sugar set that matched the decanter. She served us each coffee and departed. I added cream and two lumps of sugar. Clive took his black.

"So what kind of security did Jon Delroy do for you?" I said.

"Why do you ask?" Clive said.

"Because I don't know."

"And you find that sufficient reason?" Clive said.

"Admittedly, I'm a nosy guy," I said. "It's probably one of the reasons I do what I do. But that aside, doing what I do is simply a matter of looking for the truth under a rock. It's under some rock, but I don't usually know which one. So whenever I come to a rock, I try to turn it over."

"Doesn't that sometimes mean you discover things you didn't need to know? Or want to know?"

"Yes."

"But you do it anyway?"

"I don't know how else to go about it," I said.

Clive looked at me heavily. He drank some coffee. Outside the window some birds fluttered about. They seemed to be sparrows, but they were moving too quickly to reveal themselves to me.

"I have three daughters," he said. "Two of whom have inherited their mother's depravity."

"Penny being the exception?" I said.

"Yes. They have not only indulged their depravity as girls, they have married badly, and marriage has appeared to exacerbate the depravity."

Clive wasn't looking at me. He wasn't, as far as I could tell, looking at anything. His eyes seemed blankly focused on the middle distance.

"Depravity loves company," I said.

I wasn't sure that Clive heard me. He continued to sit silently, looking at nothing.

"Among Delroy's duties was keeping tabs on the girls," I said.

He was silent still, and then slowly his eyes refocused on me.

"And dealing with the trouble they got into, and their husbands got into," he said.

"Such as?"

Clive shook his head. Outside, the birds had gone away and at the window there was only the flutter of the curtains in the warm Georgia air. I put my empty coffee cup on the tray and stood up.

"Thanks for the coffee," I said.

"You understand," he said.

"I do," I said.