The Mercedes was gone.

I decided to get back to the subject at hand.

"Why are you so interested in Disaway?" I asked.

"He was two horse in the third race Sunday."

"Is that good luck or something?"

"Remember the tape Sunday night?"

"How could anybody forget it?"

"You forgot something," Callahan said. "Tagliani told Stinetto it was a fix for the four horse in the third heat."

"I still don't get the point."

"The four horse was Midnight Star. He went off as place favorite, eight to one, won, paid a bundle. The favorite was Disaway. Wasn't set up for Midnight Star to win, was set up for Disaway to lose. No sense any other way. Sunday, everything was A-one for him, up against a weak field, track was soft, he went off a five-to-two favorite. Strolled in eighth."

"Eighth!"

"It can happen. We all have bad days."

"So the trick was to slow Disaway down?" I said.

Callahan nodded. "Midnight Star romped first, paid $46.80. You bet Midnight Star, you got $46.80 for every two bucks you put down. Figure it out, bet a thousand bucks, go home with $23,400 smackers-not a bad day's work. My way of thinking, Disaway wasn't just having a bad day Sunday."

"Supposing Midnight Star had a bad day?"

Callahan smiled. "That's horse racing," he said.

"How did they do it? Make him lose, I mean?"

"Lots of ways. Legal ways."

"You think the jockey was in on it?"

"Maybe, not likely. Scoot doesn't like Thibideau or the trainer. He's a straight-up kid; like to think it wasn't him."

"How about the trainer?"

"Smokey? Maybe again, but he was p.i.s.sed because he thought the boy booted the horse early. Didn't know Thibideau told him to."

"So that makes it the owner?"

"Looks that way. Thing is, Tagliani knew about it. Tagliani got wasted couple of hours later. Maybe there's no connection, but got to think about the possibilities."

"So what do we do about it, go to Raines?"

"Can't. Illegal wiretap. Dutch can't afford to have anybody know about it. No tape, all we got's guesswork."

"So we forget it?"

"I don't forget it," he said ominously. "Happens once, it'll happen again."

31.

INVITATION.

I was tired of the track and anxious to get back to town. There were a lot of loose ends that needed tying up and I suddenly felt out of touch with things. It was pushing noon, so I told Callahan I needed to make a phone call or two and then I'd grab a cab back to town.

"Stick's on his way out," Callahan said. "Back gate, fifteen minutes. "

"How do you know that?" I asked, wondering whether Callahan was psychic in addition to his other talents.

"Arranged it last night," he said, and added in his cryptic dialogue, "Due at the clubhouse. See ya."

"Thanks for the education," I said.

Callahan stood for a moment appraising me and then nodded. "Disaway runs again Thursday afternoon. Ought to be here."

"It's a date," I said.

He started to leave, then turned back around and offered me his hand. "You're okay," he said. "Like a guy who listens. Thought maybe you'd turn out to be a know-everything."

"What I don't know would fill the course."

"You know plenty," he said, turning and heading across the infield toward the clubhouse.

I went looking for a phone to check the hotel for messages. By daylight, I had started having second thoughts about the night before. I knew some of the phone calls had been from Dutch. I wondered whether any of them had been Doe calling.

I was walking past the stables when I heard her voice.

"Jake?"

The voice came from one of the stalls. I peered inside but saw nothing, so I went in cautiously. I could hear a horse grumbling and stomping his foot and the pungent odor of hay and manure tickled my nose, but my eyes were slow adjusting to the dark stable after leaving the bright sunlight.

"Are you going blind in your old age?" she said from behind me. I turned around and she was standing in the doorway, framed against the brash sunlight, like a ghost. My eyes gradually picked out details. She was all dolled up in jodhpurs, a Victorian blouse with a black bow tie, and a little black derby. Twenty years vanished, just like that. She looked eighteen again, standing there in that outfit, scratching her thigh with her riding crop. My knees started bending both ways. I felt as awkward as a schoolboy at his first dance.

"You could have called," she chided, as if she were scolding a kid for stealing cookies.

"I got tied up," I said.

She came over to me and ran the end of the riding crop very gently down the edge of my jaw and down my throat, stopping at that soft depression where the pulse hides.

"I can see your heart beating," she said.

"I don't doubt it for a moment."

"Can you forgive me?"

"For what?"

"Twenty years ago?"

"There's nothing to forgive," I lied. "Those things happen."

She shook her head slowly and moved closer. "No," she said, "there's a lot to forgive. A lot to forget, if you can forget that kind of thing."

"What kind of thing?"

"You know what I'm talking about," she said evasively.

"Look, Doe, I..."

She put the tip of the crop against my lips, cutting off the sentence.

"Please don't say anything. I'm afraid you're going to say something I don't want to hear."

I didn't know how to answer that, so I just stood there like a fool, grinning awkwardly, wondering if we could be seen from outside the stall. If we could, it didn't seem to concern her. She stepped even closer, put the riding crop behind my neck, and, holding it with both hands, drew me closer. Her mouth opened a hair, her eyes narrowed.

"Oh, G.o.d, I'm so sorry," she whispered. "I never wanted to hurt you. I didn't know Chief had written that letter until Teddy told me. You just stopped writing and calling, like you'd died."

"The phone works both ways," I heard myself say, and I thought, Shut up, you fool, play it out. Let her talk. You've been dreaming about this moment for twenty years; don't blow it now.

"Pride," she said. "We all have our faults. That's one of my worst. I wanted to write, then Teddy told me to leave you alone. He said you'd had enough. Please forgive me for being so foolish."

I wondered if she really thought we could puff off twenty years so easily. Say we're sorry and forget it. Was she that sure of my vulnerability? The armor started slipping around me but she moved closer, six inches away, and shaking her head gently, she breathed, "There will never be anyone like you for me. Never again. I've known it ever since I lost you, just as I knew you wouldn't come last night."

"How did you know that?" I said, my voice sounding hoa.r.s.e and uncertain.

"Because I don't deserve it," she said, and her lips began to tremble. "Because I wanted you to come so much and-"

"Hey, easy," I said, putting a finger against that full, inviting mouth.

What's happening here? I thought. How about all the decisions I had silently made to myself the night before? Is this all it takes to break old Kilmer down?

Yeah, that's all it takes.

Then she closed her eyes, and her lips spread apart again, and she moved in and it was like the old days. I got lost in her mouth, felt her tentative tongue taking a chance, and responded with mine. And then she was in my arms and it was all I could do to keep from crushing her. I felt her knee rubbing the outside of mine, heard the riding crop fall into the sawdust, felt her hands sliding down the small of my back, pressing me closer to her.

I forgot all the things I was going to say to her. The accusations, the questions that would clear up the dark corners of my mind. Whatever anger lurked inside me vanished at that moment. I slid my hands down and felt the rise of her b.u.t.tocks and pressed her to me.

"Oh, Jake," she said huskily, "I wish it was that summer again. I wish the last twenty years never happened."

Don't we all, I thought; wouldn't that be nice. But I didn't say it.

"Forget all that," I mumbled without taking my lips away. "Nothing to forgive."

"Oh, Jake, I want it to be like it used to be," she said, with her lips still brushing mine. "Come tonight. Please come tonight. Don't stay away again."

And without thinking any more about it, I said, "Yes." And I knew I meant yes. I knew I would go and the h.e.l.l with Dutch and the Taglianis and the h.e.l.l with safety and distance and vulnerability. I would go because I wanted to and because it was my payoff for twenty years. I said it again. And again.

"Yes . . . yes . . . yes."

32.

UP JUMPS THE DEVIL.

When I left the stable, the first person I saw was Stick. He was leaning against the dreaded black Pontiac and was looking right at me when I came out. She was a couple of feet behind me, standing inside the stall but visible nevertheless. His expression never changed; he simply looked the other way as he took out a cigarette and lit up.

"Later," I said quietly, without turning, and walked straight to the car. Stick had traded in his slept-in seersucker for a pair of ratty chinos, dirty tennis shoes, and a black boatneck T-shirt, but the brown fedora was still perched on the back of his head.

"Sorry if I'm late," I said, staring out the windshield.

"First things first," he said, swinging around and heading back out the gate.

We drove a couple of minutes in silence and I finally said, "That wasn't what it looked like."

"I didn't see a thing."

"Look, I knew her a long time ago. It's no big thing."

"No big thing. Gotcha."

"It's no big thing!"

"Jake, it's nothing to me," he said. "See no evil, hear no evil, that's me."

"What do you mean, evil!"

"It's a saying. Hey, there's no need to be touchy, man." He drove a moment or two more and added, "I admire the h.e.l.l out of the way you gather information." And he started to laugh. I started to get burned, then he looked over at me and winked. He reminded me of Teddy. I was waiting for him to add the "Junior" on the end of the sentence. I started laughing too.

"s.h.i.t," I said.

"Is it that important?"