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.“¡Ándale Sassy Prince!” Rounding the last turn, Sassy Prince had the rail and was leading the five horse, La Corona Blanca, with the rest of the field well behind.La Corona Blanca closed in the stretch but didn’t have enough and finished second.“Bravo, Sassy Prince!” exclaimed Yvonne and sat down.“So I won the daily double.” Her son and guardians offered sycophantic applause.“And you?” she asked, turning to The Professor for the first time.She spoke in accentless English and addressed him as if they were old friends.“How did you do?”“Five and eight were my quinella picks.”She looked at the tote board.“Then let us go collect.”They went downstairs to the windows and cashed their tickets.Sassy Prince paid off $980 on Yvonne’s wager.She bet the entire amount on a horse called Cholla Tango to win the last race of the day.“I own her.We’ll have a look at her.”Passing a beer tent where a Norteño band was playing, they went to a roped-off holding pen, in which trainers were walking their horses before a crowd of onlookers—dark-skinned men in straw cowboy hats, light-skinned men in snappy Stetsons, several young women in sprayed-on Levi’s, sexy in a trailer-trash sort of way.Yvonne herself was not without her erotic appeal—the allure of danger, he supposed.An excellent ass for a woman her age, shown off to best effect by the tight pants.“That’s her,” said Yvonne, indicating a jet black thoroughbred filly.“I bought her a month ago.A three-year-old.She won her first race in Tucson, five and a half furlongs.This is her first run at six.”The Professor checked his program.“Its says here the owner is an Alex Daoud.”“The owner of record.Do you play the horses much, Carrington?”“No.”“I have a system.I bet the colors of the jockey’s silks.They give me a hunch, you know? I bet Sassy Prince to win because the colors said that was what would happen.My son calls that ‘magical thinking,’ but a lot of times, the magic works.”“Colors you can hear,” he said.“Makes sense to me.I can smell colors.”“How interesting.Let us take a walk.”She slipped her arm into his, an intimacy that surprised him who was seldom surprised by anything.They strolled through the fairgrounds like a couple, Yvonne asking him cunning questions about his time in prison with Cruz.He’d anticipated that she would test him and had quizzed Cruz at length and was fairly sure that he knew more about her lover’s incarceration than she did.He decided to chum the waters, saying that he was eager to make up for lost time in prison.A year ago Cruz’s uncle Vicente had put him in touch with Carrasco, and he’d been buying from him, but—“Carrasco?” she interrupted.“He’s old and fat.A fat little old man and finished.”“That’s why I’m here.I’m looking to line up a heavy hitter in Phoenix.He wants quantities Carrasco can’t deliver.”She stopped walking in front of the mechanical bull concession, which presently had no riders, its operator lounging on a chair with a magazine.Yvonne didn’t know what to make of Carrington.She approved of his appearance.So many of her customers looked like what they were, sleazy criminals, but the clean-shaven Carrington with his handsome if forgettable face could have passed for an insurance agent except for his blue eyes, which were very piercing, almost impossible to look into for more than a second.Her hunch, what Julián might have called “magical thinking,” was that he could be a steady, reliable client.Yet there was something a little odd about him, a little off.She couldn’t say what it was.“You know, you don’t sound like a gringo.The way you talk.Your accent.”A sharp ear, thought The Professor.He had learned that when manufacturing a tapestry of lies, it was often wise to weave in as many threads of truth as possible, so long as you remembered which was which.“My father was English, my mother Mexican, and I went to school in the States.”“So you speak Spanish?”He made an open circle with thumb and forefinger.“Un poco.Enough to get by.”Just then a bugle call sounded, from inside her purse.She noticed his puzzled look and smiled.“My mobile’s ring-tone.”“‘El Degüello,’” he said.“Santa Anna played it before he stormed the Alamo.”“Now, how did you know that?”“I read a lot of history.Maybe you’ll want to get that.”“The call can wait.” She took his arm once more, moving away from the mechanical bull and its idle operator.“You’re more important.What do you have in mind?”“Bridal dresses,” he answered, using a common metaphor.“Vestidas de novias.Sample material to start.A key.”Her mobile rang again.Aggravated, she answered.It was Clemente, her real estate cousin.Más tarde, she said.She was having a meeting.“It is about the San Ignacio,” Clemente replied.Cupping the phone, she asked Carrington to excuse her a moment, and walked off a few steps, pressing a hand to her ear against the noise from the grandstands.The taxes had been paid; the property was no longer for sale, Clemente went on.The listing broker had told him herself.He then called the ranch to confirm and spoke to a woman, the daughter-in-law of the old woman.Yes, it was true.Off the market.He’d informed her that he had a buyer willing to make an offer on the whole place, but she said they weren’t interested.Yvonne was stunned.How, she asked, how could those people, those cowboys, come up with so much money in such a short time? Clemente had wondered that himself and had made discreet inquiries, discovering that someone, a friend or relative of the Erskines, some rich guy, had paid their tax liability.He could try to find out more if Yvonne wished … You do that! she commanded.He should find out all he could.She would speak to him later.She snapped the mobile shut [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]