Outfoxed

CHAPTER 2

“Crashed it all to hell. Slid off his horse, then stood there sputtering, shaking his fist at me. What an inspiring sight.” Crawford Howard sucked on his briarwood Dunhill pipe as he gleefully recounted his run-in, literally, with Fontaine Buruss.

“So that’s why he was so behind.” Bobby Franklin, who looked like a defrocked friar, picked up an ice-cold shrimp, dipping it in sauce. Bobby was president of Jefferson Hunt, which put him in charge of organizing events, of politicking. Jane Arnold, as master, was in charge of everything connected to hunting. The master also made up any financial shortfalls.

“He’s been campaigning nonstop behind my back and I damned well won’t have it.” Crawford calmly ate a shrimp himself.

“Craw, this is political. Of course he’s campaigning behind your back and you might wish to start pressing the flesh yourself, and I don’t mean just handing out money. You need to talk to people. Make them feel important and most especially important to you.”

Crawford stopped chewing. He’d put on twenty pounds since youth, but he was in good shape. Medium height, blue eyes, and a pleasant voice, he was not an unattractive man. He wisely treated his receding hairline as a fact of nature and cut his hair very short, which always makes a man look better in such circumstances. He sported a carefully trimmed short beard and mustache. And he was rich, disgustingly rich.

“I’ve shoveled money into the Jefferson Hunt Club for years. I should think that would signify the importance I attach to the club.” He reached for his iced tea. His gold ring bearing the family crest reflected the dim light.

“You’ve been a contributor any master would pray for.” Bobby paused, thinking about the sacrifices Sister Jane had made to keep the club going when her husband died unexpectedly ten years ago. “But people . . . you need to make people feel important. Fontaine is awfully good at that.”

“Useless blowhard. They can’t keep him in mattresses or mistresses.”

“And he’s Virginia born and bred.”

“Not that again.” Crawford put his glass down.

Bobby, also from the soil of the great, grand, and even haughty state of Virginia, declined to explain further. Crawford was in no mood to consider that the place of his birth was a drawback to his cherished goal, to become joint-master of the local hunt, a goal that in England often led to the House of Commons, if a man was clever. In America the initials M.F.H. behind a man’s name or a woman’s defined a form of power almost feudal in its scope even to those who didn’t ride to hounds. Not to know that M.F.H. meant “Master of Foxhounds” signified that a person was beyond the pale, especially in Virginia and Maryland, still intense rivals over anything to do with horses, hounds, or foxes.

Crawford, after taking a deep breath, continued: “Bobby, only old people care about bloodlines. What matters is a vision for the future and the future is development. I understand that better than Fontaine. I’m a businessman. He couldn’t find a dollar bill if it was taped to the bottom of his boot. And his trust fund is heading south.” Crawford said this with satisfaction. “He can’t carry the burden of a mastership.”

“If people financially back him, he can.”

Crawford froze. This idea had not once entered his mind. “Never!”

“Why do you think he’s working as hard as he is, Crawford? For God’s sake, you’d better wake up. You don’t have this mastership in the bag.”

“It’s up to Sister Jane.” Crawford felt Sister Jane comprehended money. And he was correct.

“Sister Jane will decide what’s best for this club but she can’t ignore the wishes of the members, and if there’s a huge groundswell for Fontaine, you’re in trouble.” Bobby deplored the fact that Sister Jane had to find a joint-master, but she wanted to ensure the club’s future and she heard the clock ticking. Healthy and vibrant as she was, she couldn’t live forever.

Crawford, sobered by this unwelcome news, appetite fading, pushed his iced shrimp away from him.

The waitress at the country club quietly came to his side. “Were they not up to your standard, Mr. Howard?”

“No. They were fine.”

“Might I bring you something else?”

“A cup of black coffee and a shot of Springbank, ’58.”

The country club, old and elegant, kept casks of fine single malts in the cellar. They also maintained special bourbons from Kentucky, small batches brewed by master brewers, for the discriminating palate. “Bobby, allow me to treat you to the best scotch in the world.”

“No thanks, Craw, I’ve got to work late tonight. Princess and I have ten thousand copies of a four-color brochure to finish.”

Princess was Princess Beanbag, Bobby’s nickname for his wife, Betty, also a partner in business. Their print shop didn’t make them rich but it paid the bills and had put one wayward daughter, Cody Jean, through the University of Virginia. Jennifer, the other daughter, was in public high school.

“You’re a hardworking man. How do you stay so fat?” Crawford laughed at Bobby, who was as round as he was tall.

“Good genes.” Bobby motioned for the waitress to return. “I think I’ll have a cup of coffee, too, but with cream, please.”

“Certainly.” She left and soon returned with the coffees and the Springbank.

Bobby leaned forward. “Crawford, you know I back your candidacy because I think you can preserve and even extend the territory. You can talk to the developers and get bridle paths, you can talk to landowners and explain easements and conservation issues. I admire that in you. But you have a touch of the Yankee and you can’t just go up to people and spout off.”

“Bullshit. Virginians are the most direct people I’ve ever met. You people say the most incredible things to one another, scathing, blistering talk.”

“When we know one another well—very well. Until then there is the dance of politeness, Craw, and we speak in code. You think you don’t need to learn the code.”

“Wastes time. If I go to the gas station, I’m expected to talk for fifteen minutes to the idiot behind the pump. I haven’t got that kind of time. I have businesses to run and a big farm to manage.”

“No one has time anymore but we make time. Those casual conversations—”

“Casual. Boring. The weather. Who shot John.” Crawford used a southern expression, which made Bobby laugh because he didn’t get it quite right.

“That’s how we knit our community together. It’s not about facts, issues, or how smart you are, Crawford. It’s about respect for people. Respect.”

Crawford shifted in his seat. “Well—”

“A little case in point. When you divorced Marty two years ago you cut her off without a penny. She had to fight through the courts to get any kind of settlement.”

“Any man in a divorce does that.”

“Some do and some don’t. But if you want to present yourself as a community leader, m-m-m”—he wiggled his hand—“better to err on the side of generosity. Look, it’s an old divorce lawyer’s routine, ‘starve the wife’ and she’ll get so worn down and scared she’ll accept far less, but, Craw, you are rich. You could have given her a decent package, walked away, and looked like a prince, especially to women, and brother let me give you the hard facts, women run this show.”

“Hunting?”

“Life.”

He smirked. “The hell they do.”

“I can’t believe you’ve lived here for seven years and you haven’t figured that out about the South and especially Virginia.”

“You have a”—he considered his words—“dynamic wife. You can’t extrapolate from your experience. Generalization.”

“Okay. Let’s say I’m wrong. Women are at the back of the bus. By publicly proclaiming Marty wasn’t going to get a penny more than you thought she deserved you made plenty of enemies. Trotting around that twenty-year-old model after you dumped Marty hardly helped matters and how long did that last . . . ten minutes? You could have seen her in New York. You didn’t have to bring her here. But worst of all, you opened the door for Fontaine to look like a hero.”

“Oh that.” Crawford’s voice sounded deflated.

“That.”

When Marty was in distress and couldn’t pay the rent on her small apartment because Crawford had thrown her out of the house and she unwisely and meekly left, Fontaine had hired her to be his assistant in his landscape business. Fontaine was a landscape architect and a very good one when he chose to work.

“That.” Bobby’s tone dropped.

“I should have kept my mouth shut.”

“We all have that feeling at one time or another.”

“I accused him of sleeping with her.” Crawford flared up. “He finds his way up more skirts!”

“But not Marty’s. He was too smart for that, even though she is a fine-looking woman. Fine-looking.”

Crawford’s eyes narrowed; then he dropped his gaze into his shot of Springbank. “Live and learn.”

“It’s not too late.”

“I made restitution. I bought Marty a house.”

“Small but pretty. However, you need to mend fences, build bridges, and above all, listen to Sister Jane. She knows more about people and hunting than all of us put together.”

The amber color of the scotch caught the light, golden shafts sinking through the Springbank.

“One other little thing.” Bobby held his coffee cup up for a refill. “You need to apologize first to Sister Jane for heading Fontaine into that coop. You need to offer to rebuild it.”

“That’s Fontaine’s job.”

“Yes, it is, but do you want this goddamned mastership or not?”

“All right. All right.” He quieted while the waitress refilled Bobby’s cup. “What else?” He watched her hips swing as she walked back to the kitchen.

“You need to apologize to Fontaine. A public apology would be best.”

“I will not.”

“Then I suggest you watch your back because Fontaine will get even.”