“Don’t chain me up here! I won’t run. I want to help you.”
I shrugged, uncaring. Keep her scared. Later she’d be pliant, willing to explain John Scranton’s link to Jihad for Jesus. Their connection to the bombing at the Bnos Aliza School. Scranton’s reason for trying to shoot me at the Ritz.
“Go strapped?” I asked Gus.
He shook his head. “No way we’ll get guns through security. And firing in that crowd would be too risky.”
I pulled the SIG Sauer and spare magazines from my pack and handed them over. Hated it but knew Gus was right.
“Lock everything in the safe.”
Gus nodded, then got an envelope from the bedside table, slid free three wristbands, handed one to me, tossed the other to Kerr.
“Delivered early this morning. These will get us full access to all areas. Discretion was requested since this category is rarely issued.”
“To what lucky recipients?”
“Primarily law enforcement.”
“Did Beau ask why we’re at Churchill Downs?” As we all slipped on the bands.
“No. But I’m sure he’s aware it has to do with Stella Bright.”
“Think he’ll go all paternal, tip the local cops?”
“Discretion was requested.”
“He was good with that?”
“For now.”
Snagging the Walmart bag, I removed and tucked the red riding helmet under one arm. Then I winged the feathery white cap onto the bed. “Wear this.”
“Why?” Kerr was eyeing the hat as one might a dead slug on the porch.
“To blend in.”
She lifted but didn’t don the headgear.
“It’ll be a mosh pit out there.” Gus was moving from the safe toward the door. “I suggest we take a shuttle from the U of Louisville.”
“Lead on,” I said.
The pickup point was outside Papa John’s Cardinal Stadium. The connection eluded me. Pizza, birds, football? I didn’t ask. Was too jazzed to care.
We queued for an eon, found standing room only when we finally boarded. My stomach knotted as I forced a space among the perfumed and aftershaved bodies. The doors whooshed shut. I did a lot of deep breathing. Scowled at those I caught staring at me.
As we crept along, I tried scanning faces outside. Couldn’t bend or maneuver my body to accommodate my good eye. The flashing glimpses I snagged showed streets clogged with pedestrians moving toward Churchill Downs.
The bus unloaded under the watchful gaze of a bronze version of poor dead Barbaro. No one looked my way.
On Oaks Day it’s full-out war on breast and ovarian cancer. I’d expected a lot of pink, but the effect was dizzying. I took a moment to get my bearings. To let my heartbeat drop to normal.
To the left was the museum, ahead the grandstand with its legendary double spires. The plaza and paddock areas lay to the right.
Gus cocked his chin toward the largest part of the main structure. “The Jockey Club Suites are in there.”
“Accessed how?”
He indicated a bank of elevators.
I reviewed the entrances in my mind. We were standing by gate one. Sixteen, seventeen, and ten were to the northwest, past the clubhouse. Three was to the southeast, just off Central Avenue, now closed to traffic.
“We’ll enter through gate one, then split up.” I indicated the area to the left of the spires. “You take the Jockey Club Suites, the grandstand, grandstand pavilion and terrace. Start low, move up by levels, then reverse and go back down.” I pointed right. “I’ll work the clubhouse, the elevators and escalators, the Skye Terrace, the paddock area. I’ll start at the top and move down. After my first sweep I’ll take the tunnel to the infield, check the Turf Suites, hospitality tents, the Fan Zone, whatever else is in there.”
An amplified voice overrode the din around us. A subdued cheer followed the announcement. I waited out the noise before continuing.
“We maintain contact, share our positions every few minutes. If we spot either Bronco or Crozier, we stay on him, see where he goes, what he does.”
“Who’s Crozier?”
Gus and I both looked at Kerr.
“Landmine,” I said.
“Easy peasy. Landmine’s immense.” Kerr raised and spread both arms, a little too enthused.
“Watch for Stella,” I said. “Anyone with a JJ tattoo. And be careful not to get spotted. Bronco and Landmine both know what we look like.”
“I be the dark little partner.” Gus grinned.
We queued and crept forward, body length by body length, eventually reached the gate, showed our wristbands, and were wanded. Then we were inside.
Gus and Kerr went straight, I cut right across the plaza. Speed-reading faces, jostled by the throng, I felt naked, vulnerable. What if Bronco and his zealots really were here? What if it came to a showdown? I was unarmed.
Bronco and Landmine would be unarmed, too, I told myself. Myself scoffed. The assholes can get an IED inside and not a handgun? Myself had a point. The fact did nothing to assuage my anxiety.
Nor did concern for Stella. What if these butchers used her as a shield? What if she’d been brainwashed and resisted rescue? What if she was elsewhere, her whereabouts known only to her captors?
Fear twisted like a cold hard blade in my gut.
I rode an elevator that, surprisingly, allowed each passenger a few millimeters of breathing room. That because the rim-to-rim bonnets forced spacing between their wearers. My red riding helmet remained under my arm.
After exiting, I quick-scanned the corridor, then veered into a dining room. A buffet stretched across one end, tables filled the center. No Bronco or Landmine. No Stella. A glass wall at the back overlooked a terrace. I wove my way to it and stepped outside.
And got my first live glimpse of Churchill Downs.
The spires were to my left, glinting tall and silver in the morning sun. Their twin shadows fell across a grandstand painted in rainbow pastels, hatted heads like dots in a Seurat landscape.
The track was a russet oval looping a grass infield crammed with humanity. On the oval’s near side, Turf Suites occupied prime real estate at the starting gate, the tunnel, the eighth and sixteenth poles, the finish line. The Winner’s Circle sat dead center. Hospitality tents near the first turn and finish line bore corporate names. Humana. UPS. Lockheed Martin. Pepsi. On the oval’s far side, the world’s largest ultra-HD 4K Jumbotron loomed over all.
The place had a distinct aroma. I inhaled, testing. Flowers. Horses. Earth. Sweat. I tried but couldn’t dissect all the components.
The Kentucky Derby. How often I’d watched on Beau’s old RCA with the foil-wrapped antenna. We’d place fifty-cent wagers, argue the all-time greatest Thoroughbred. Gus steadfastly championed Citation, Beau stuck with War Admiral. Early May, the smell of grease and charcoal coming off the grill, June bugs already banging the screen.
My phone buzzed. I snapped back, blood humming in my skull like wind in a conch shell. Exhilaration at actually being present? Fear of taking a bullet? Terror at the thought I might get Stella killed?
I gave Gus my location. Put my shades on my face and my hat on my head. Pulled the brim low and resumed searching. Section by section, row by row, dining room by dining room.
Each suite was named for a horse that had worn the rose blanket. Affirmed. Secretariat. Seattle Slew. Moving quickly, I skimmed faces, body types. I couldn’t disagree with Kerr. Landmine would be easy to spot. Bronco was tall, but not tall enough to stand out in a crowd. Maybe if he wore the Stetson.
At one point, the bugle called “Riders up,” horses entered the gate, hooves pounded, the crowd cheered. At another, a procession of pink-clad cancer survivors paraded the track. I ignored the action and kept my attention focused on the spectators.
It was an upmarket crowd, more golf and tennis than NASCAR or WWE. Lots of crested blazers, pearls, designer dresses their wearers probably called frocks. Lots of pricey technology—iPhones, binocular
s, camcorders, GoPros mounted on selfie sticks. Lots of kids, many in sneakers that cost as much as my Glock.
Up and down, back and forth, through the tunnel, around the infield, I worked my assigned areas, regularly checking in with Gus. Our paths crossed occasionally. Each time I saw Kerr, she looked less enthused than the time before. By late morning she was wearing the feathered cap, probably fed up with carrying it.
Hours passed. The temperature climbed into the eighties. Now and then, perspiring, I paused to glance at the track. A black horse won one race, a brown one another. Both jockeys were liveried in royal blue.
It was past five when I decided to break for lunch. I’d just finished a sweep of the infield, not pleasant given the tightly packed bodies and the collective level of inebriation.
I maneuvered to a vendor and bought a barbecue, sans drink. No way I’d risk needing one of the trillion port-a-johns, each with a waiting line longer than the U.S.–Canada border.
Tables not an option, I ate my sandwich standing at the edge of the food tent. A few feet from me, a beluga in an Ole Miss tee struggled to maintain his balance while dancing on a rickety lawn chair. He’d just chug-drained a julep, clearly not his first, when Bronco passed within yards of my right shoulder. No Stetson.
I turned, dipped my chin, and hit speed dial.
“Bronco’s in the infield, heading toward the tunnel.”
“The one leading to the grandstand?”
“Yes.” Plowing not at all gently through the mass of bodies. “I’m on him.”
I was cutting around the beluga when gravity won out. He tumbled, elbows flying, and knocked the burner from my hand. When he landed, a dead hit, I heard the screen shatter.
“Move!” I booted the beluga’s substantial derrière. Groaning, he rolled to his belly and threw up.
“Gus?” Snatching up my phone, eyes everywhere, looking for Bronco.
No answer.
I clicked off, tried to reconnect. The thing was dead. Bronco was disappearing into the tunnel.
Shit.
I drove forward like an icebreaker, obscenities following in my wake. I didn’t care. I’d spent hours searching for Bronco, he walked right past me, and a boozed-up frat boy took out my sole means of communication.
Shit.
Bronco crossed the tunnel to the grandstand and climbed to the second level. I followed, continued past him, and stopped one section beyond.
Bronco stood gazing down at the track. I watched him from under my helmet and behind my Maui Jims. Tried but couldn’t interpret his line of vision.
A long minute, then Bronco pivoted to peer up and to his rear. Maybe toward the clubhouse, where I’d started the day. Maybe the Jockey Club Suites. Reverse pivot for another long perusal of the infield, then he took out a mobile and spoke briefly.
I looked around, didn’t see Landmine. Was good with it.
Bronco glanced left, right, then descended, moving with the same catlike fluidity I remembered from Rose Avenue. I held back a few beats, then fell in behind.
The Longines Kentucky Oaks, the eleventh race of the day, was scheduled for 5:49 P.M. Soon the jockeys would mount their fillies. More than a hundred thousand juleped spectators would be pumped and ready. Had Bronco phoned to signal showtime?
Bronco wormed through the flow of people moving toward their seats. Or toward the rail for a better view of the track. On the ground level, he walked back toward the tunnel, seemingly in no hurry. Once through, he began working his way east across the infield.
Elbows winging, I cut through the jam of bodies, staying close enough to see Bronco but far enough back not to be seen. That worked until the bugler sounded the call. The crowd cheered and surged. In the commotion, Bronco disappeared.
I sped up as much as possible. Kept angling on the same course, curses again following my not-so-courteous progress. Bitch. Asshole. Worse.
Five minutes later I found myself at gate three. Bronco was nowhere to be seen. Nor was he in the street outside. I’d lost him.
I stood a moment, mind racing, blood pounding in my ears. Return to the track? The race had ended. No bomb had exploded.
I had no way to contact Gus. Knowing he’d be frantic, and confident the Oaks wasn’t the target, I decided it would be wise to regroup.
I walked to the hotel. No point going nuts crammed into a shuttle.
Once in the room, I lay down on the box spring to think.
One thing was certain.
It was time to loop in the Louisville cops.
The Crossing
A glitch. No one sleeps that night. They must delay and hope fatigue works in their favor.
It does. The next day everyone drags. That evening the Leader orders early bed. All is dark and quiet by ten.
They meet in the cellar, make the transfer, slip out the back door. Hunkered behind a bush at the house foundation, they hear only the wind and their own pounding hearts.
She asks, fearing his answer. Yes, he has spoken to her. She won’t divulge their plan but refuses to leave.
Memories fire in a single unending synapse. She knows there is nothing they can do to fix Mama. To save her. Still, she feels hollow.
The sprint down the dirt track is vicious, a twenty-minute ankle-twisting nightmare. Behind them, no window casts sudden light through the trees. No engine revs up.
They reach the road, a black strip of asphalt shooting in both directions. They pick one. Begin their slow trek north or south. Or east or west. They have no way to know.
She counts sixties to the rhythm of her footfalls. No reason.
He walks ahead, hunched under the weight of the overloaded packs. His dark skin glistens like moonlight on water.
Sixty sixties. They pass the mouth of a trail marked by a hand-lettered sign. DOCK. She wonders. A family name? A pier?
Now and then, they see the double white shimmer of an oncoming vehicle. Scramble for cover. Watch the headlights expand, whip by, twin red eyes recede to pinpoints and vanish.
The straps hurt her shoulders. Her tongue sticks to the roof of her mouth. Still, she trudges on, pulse doing its own forced march in her ears.
She is wearing her white sneakers. She watches them, pale in the gloom. Counts.
Another six-pack of sixties, then a riff of warning from her amygdalae. She raises her eyes.
The horizon is pulsing like an electric flag.
He notices, too. His gaze darts like that of a wild, frightened bird.
They belly-flop over the shoulder. Crab-claw swivel to face the road.
Seconds later, three cars race by flashing red and blue.
Her skin is fizzing.
He’s blinking like a tic.
We’re okay, she says.
We’re okay, he says.
They sit, an adrenaline-wired pair, all wide eyes and sweat.
He tells her to stop scratching.
She rolls to her bum, every sense hypersonic.
She smells moss and stagnant water. From the shoulder, petroleum and dirt. The air is thick with pollen and spores.
She hears murmurs all around, insects among the leaves. Or snakes. Or predators with sharp yellow teeth.
She sees a clump of pink flowers swallowed in shadow. Pines, tall and black.
She scan-sweeps the road.
Her heart catapults into her throat.
Lying on the blacktop is a tentacled creature. Not tentacles. Straps.
She gropes, frantic. Not hers. She has two.
She grabs his arm. Points.
His hand flies to his back. His mouth reshapes into a silent O.
She’s off before he can object. Is crossing the two-lane when the light show reappears, diminished but moving like a bullet, retracing its path.
She grabs the backpack. Dashes. Lands beside him.
The unthinkable.
The cruiser brakes. Arrows to the shoulder directly opposite.
They lie paralyzed, not breathing.
The driver’s door opens.
Static floats out. Music. Rock and roll.
A man unfolds, a dark silhouette against the strafing red and blue. He pauses, body blocked by the door. His head rotates slowly.
The man isn’t tall, but tall enough. And powerful. The arm she can see is thick as a sapling.
His head stops. He straightens. Braces. His voice booms.
Come out of the trees.
They go graveyard still.
His voice booms again. Sharp as a knifepoint.
Frantic, she whispers in his ear. Bury the money. She will distract with a story.
He refuses.
She insists.
No.
Again, she acts before he can stop her.
Shrugging off her load, she shoots from the trees and across the pavement.
The cop tracks her from behind his car door barricade. Wary.
She stops at the yellow line.
The cop speaks into a radio mic, gets a buzzy response, approaches, tense, careful. She raises her hands above her head. Slowly.
The cop frisks her. Steps back.
She stands, blank-faced, prepared to give away nothing.
You know anything about these dead folks yonder?
Her body goes numb. She fears she’ll collapse.
Name? he demands.
Sunday. Mumbled. Mind flying apart.
Sunday what?
Just Sunday.
Come on, kid. You got a last name.
Pavement at her feet pulsing red and blue. Heart banging. Mosquitoes whining high and hungry in her ears.
You listening to me, girl?
Lyrics drifting from a radio far off.
“Hot August night, and the leaves hanging down…”
Give it up here, or give it up in jail.
Night. Sunday Night.
Gus and Kerr arrived at 7:40, having circulated until the end of the last race. Though outwardly serene, I noted a subtle loosening in his shoulders upon seeing me. Not so the brows, which stayed unnaturally tight. Body language only I can read.
“It was definitely Bronco.” Wanting to sidetrack Gus’s lecture about failing to maintain contact.
“Landmine?”
“Didn’t see him.”
“Where?”
“He took the tunnel from the infield, then went to the second level of the grandstand. Scoped out something behind and above him. And the track. Then he went back down, crossed the infield, and left through gate three. That’s when I lost him.”