The Disappearance of Penny Page 3

  Joey was known as a scrapper, but he never used anything but his fists. He was about my age, twenty-eight, about five-two, with dark hair, a large nose and a good seat. That’s what they said about a jockey who sat a horse the way a horse should be sat, that he had a “good seat.” Joey was a good rider; he just hadn’t gotten the big break. He hadn’t had the “big horse” yet, the champion that brings instant recognition to his jockey.

  “What’s his problem?” I asked. “Does he like to fight?”

  Joey hesitated before answering.

  “You following the Donero thing?” he finally asked.

  “Not too closely,” I admitted.

  “Well, Donero spilled Eddie’s name.”

  “As one of the jockey’s he bought?” I asked.

  Joey nodded. “Eddie’s a little short-tempered anyway, but since then he’s been unreal — and Aiello may have been digging into Eddie a little. He’s a cocky kid.”

  “So were you and I at that age,” I told him. Here we were, a couple of old relics, a whole eight years older than Aiello.

  “You said it, Pops. What’re you doing out here so early in the morning, anyway? You don’t give a shit about morning workouts.”

  “I had to see Benjamin Hopkins.”

  He made a face and said, “That prick?”

  “Tell me about him, or rather, tell me about his daughter.”

  “Penny? She’s a rag, like the rest of the broads out here.”

  I knew Joey didn’t have a high opinion of women in racing. They used their asses to get their mounts was his theory.

  “She’s not a jock,” I argued.

  “Doesn’t make a difference. Most of the jocks around here drool over her.”

  “Roger Lucien told me she was a fox. What’s she look like?”

  Damn, I hadn’t asked Hopkins for a photo — then again, I had a feeling he wouldn’t have had one on him anyway. A picture of Penny’s Penny, maybe, but not of his daughter.

  “Oh, she’s a knockout, no doubt about that. Red hair, green eyes, big tits.”

  “Do you know for a fact that she puts out?” I asked.

  He hesitated a moment, then said, “If you believe some of the claims, you’d say yes. No, I don’t know for a fact, but she’s like all the others. Listen, I gotta go; I got a doctor’s appointment.”

  Sometime back Joey had hurt his hand and wrist, and it had kept him out of action for a while. When he came back it was hard for him to get good mounts. Anytime a jock gets hurt, he’s suspect upon his return. He was just now starting to catch a few live mounts, and was making the most of them.

  “How is the hand?” I asked him.

  He looked at it, flexed it. “It’s okay, I just have to have it checked from time to time.”

  “Have you seen Penny Hopkins in the past day or so?” I asked him quickly before he could leave.

  He shook his head and added, “But then I try my best not to. What’s the story?”

  I looked at my watch and told him, “You better not miss your appointment.”

  He stood up, hitched up his pants and said, “Whatever you say, Shamus.” He laughed and added, “I gotto go.” Then he leaned over and said, “Watch for me on that three year old, but don’t bet him over a mile. That’s farther than he wants to do.”

  I stage-whispered a thanks.

  He had picked up a mount on a three-year-old colt a few months back, won a minor stakes with him and placed in a couple more. Apparently he felt that the animal was a sprinter and would tire in any race over a mile. That meant things didn’t look promising for the colt’s chances in the Triple Crown races. There was still money to be made in shorter stakes races, however, so neither the trainer, nor Joey Importuno, would starve.

  When he left I finished my breakfast, which I hadn’t enjoyed as much as I had anticipated, and went back out to the parking lot.

  I decided to leave my car where it was and walk around on foot, hitting some of the barns, talking to the track people about Penny Hopkins. I was about to leave the lot when I spotted Danny Aiello talking to a taller man at the far end of it. I suddenly realized that it was Danny and this same man that I had seen when I first arrived. They had been arguing then and they were apparently arguing now. Danny was pointing very emphatically at his face, as if complaining about the marks Eddie Mapes had put there. The other man, tall, dark, very slim, probably in his mid-thirties, seemed to be attempting to calm Aiello down.

  I wondered now if this were really just an agent-jockey situation, as I had originally thought.

  I was trying to figure out how to get closer so I could get an earful when, once again, they walked off with the taller man’s arm around the kid’s shoulders.

  I leaned against my car and wondered what the hell their exchange had been all about and how — if at all — it connected with the fight. Also, what had they been arguing about before the fight?

  Although I was curious about what they had fought about — not curious enough, however, to have asked them at the time — that was not what I was collecting my salary to find out.

  As I left the parking lot, though, I couldn’t help wondering who the tall, slim man was.

  CHAPTER SIX

  I checked out a good number of the stables, talked to some people I knew, talked to some people I didn’t know. Most of them knew Penny but none could remember exactly when they had seen her last. The general consensus seemed to be, “She was always around.”

  The last stable I checked out was Paul Lassiter’s. Since he and Hopkins were such staunch rivals, I had deliberately saved him for last. The first race had started, but I had checked the scratch sheet and knew he didn’t have a horse entered until the third.

  As I approached I saw a man come out of one of the stalls. He was tall, at least six-one, and he was remarkably handsome. I recognized him from photos in the racing form and also from an interview I saw on the weekly racing television show.

  Paul Lassiter: Paul Newman eyes, early forties, every girl’s dream.

  “Make sure those damned bandages are tight,” he was saying. “I don’t want them coming loose during a race again. Cost me a bundle last time.”

  “Paul Lassiter?” I asked.

  He turned, startled. I wondered what kind of “bundle” he had lost last time, the purse or the money he might have bet on his own horse.

  He recovered from his surprise, regained his composure and gave me an easy kind of grin — the kind a rattler gives you just before it strikes.

  “That’s me,” he acknowledged. “What can I do for you?”

  I could very easily have disliked him on the spot, but I’d made one snap judgment that day and I promised myself I’d give him more of a chance than I gave to Hopkins.

  “My name is Henry Po, Mr. Lassiter. I’m working for Benjamin Hopkins.”

  That was the story I’d decided on. I thought it best to keep Biel’s name out of it. I figured it would be for the best if it didn’t get around that the president of the N.Y.R.S.C. had loaned one of his investigators, as a favor, to a trainer. People might misunderstand. I knew Howard Biel would never play favorites, but the general racing public might not look at it that way.

  “Oh? In what capacity?” he asked.

  I took out a business card, one of the leftovers from my agency.

  He scanned it and asked, “What would Benny need with a private eye?”

  “I’m afraid I wouldn’t be at liberty to discuss the exact nature of our business, Mr. Lassiter, but I would appreciate it if you would answer a few questions for me.”

  “Could you give me some idea of what it’s about?”

  “Well, it involves his daughter.”

  “Penny?”

  “How many daughters does he have?”

  “Just Penny — that I know of.” He winked and added, “Benny was pretty randy in his day, you know what I mean?”

  I knew what he meant and ignored it. “Have you seen her in the past few days?”

 
; “Penny?”

  I had the feeling he was being deliberately obtuse and the chance I was so set on giving him started to dwindle away.

  “Listen, have you got some time to talk?” I asked him. He turned around and looked at the stall, then turned back and said, “Sure. I’ve got a horse in the third, but it’s a cheap claimer. My assistant can handle it. Come over to my office, Mr. Po, maybe we can rustle up a drink.”

  I followed him past a row of stalls, some empty, some occupied. I stopped short when I recognized one of the animals in one of the stalls.

  “Bold Randy?” I asked him.

  He stopped and came back to me, smiling with obvious pride. He looked at the horse lovingly and told me, “That’s him. He’s a beauty, isn’t he?”

  He was bigger than Penny’s Penny and, frankly, as beautiful as Penny was, Randy was gorgeous. A big chestnut colt with a white blaze down his nose, his coat actually glowed. Penny was a dark bay or brown colt with a small spot of white just between his eyes. His chest was not as full as Randy’s, and you wondered how he had managed to beat this big horse the one time that he did. They had each beaten the other once, and the next race was to be the rubber match.

  “He’ll blow Penny’s Penny away,” Lassiter said confidently.

  “Penny’s got a lot of heart,” I commented.

  “He does that,” he agreed. “He’s a good little horse, but that’s just it. He’s too small to compete with Randy past seven furlongs. He beat me at six because Randy’s a big horse and it takes him time to get moving. I beat him at seven, and I’ll beat him at anything over seven. This horse is the next Triple Crown winner, Mr. Po. Mark my words. Shall we have that drink now?” he asked, and started off again.

  I took a last look at Randy and followed him to his office.

  He entered first and I shut the door behind us. It was a small room equipped with a desk, a couple of chairs and an oakwood cabinet from which he produced a bottle of scotch. I politely refused his offer of a drink and took a seat while he prepared one for himself. I had the feeling he was stalling for time.

  Why wouldn’t he want to talk about Penny Hopkins? When he turned around, a drink in his hand, he had that same wide smile on his handsome face. He seated himself behind his desk and asked, “What are these questions you’d like to ask me?”

  “When was the last time you saw Penny Hopkins, Mr. Lassiter?”

  He considered the question, looking into his drink as he did. Again, I felt, he’s stalling.

  “I don’t think I’ve seen Penny for — wait a minute,” he interrupted himself, frowning. “Come to think of it I think I did see her … let me see … day before yesterday, I guess.”

  “How friendly are you with her?”

  “An old man like me?” he asked, laughing it off. “A young chick like Penny wouldn’t be interested in me.”

  “What made you think I meant the question that way?” I asked him.

  He laughed louder. “What other way would a man be interested in little Penny?” he asked. He shook his head and added, “Besides, I’m her father’s mortal — well, professional, rival.”

  “What were you going to say?”

  He shrugged his big shoulders, sipped his drink. “I almost said ‘mortal enemy,’ but that’s a little strong. That may be the way Benny thinks of me, but it’s not the way I think of him.”

  “You still call him ‘Benny’?”

  He sipped his drink again before answering. If he intended to make that a habit, it was going to get annoying.

  “I used to work for him — ”

  “Wait a minute,” I interrupted, something clicking in my head. “Sure, you were his assistant trainer for years.”

  He nodded, sipped his drink. “And he wanted to keep it that way. When I left him and went off on my own he took it as a betrayal. When I took some of his people with me — clients — he never forgave me for it. I think he wanted me to be his protégé forever.” He shook his head. “That wasn’t for me. He considered me a traitor then, and probably still does. I only took to calling him ‘Benny’ after I left him, but never to his face.”

  “What was Penny doing when you saw her on Thursday?” I asked him.

  “Let’s see, it was in the clubhouse, I think, in the Turf Club Lounge. Let’s see, yeah, that’s right, she was having a drink with Louis Melendez.”

  “The jockey?”

  He laughed at that. “Some people call him that.”

  Which didn’t say much for Lassiter’s opinion of Melendez’s riding abilities.

  “I guess I’ll talk to Melendez, then,” I said, half to myself. I got up and said to him, “I hope you won’t mind if I come back to you if I should think of any other questions, Mr. Lassiter.”

  He stood up, too, sipped his drink and asked, “Why all the questions about Penny, Mr. Po? Is she lost?”

  “Why do you put it that way?” I asked.

  He shrugged. “Just seems to me like you’re looking for her. You don’t usually look for someone unless they’re lost … or missing.”

  When I didn’t answer he put his drink down and said, “Please, feel free to come back anytime, Mr. Po. Penny’s a nice kid. Not too bright, but nice.”

  We shook hands and I promised myself I’d get back to Paul Lassiter very soon.

  I didn’t know at that time how soon “soon” was to be.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Melendez was listed on two mounts that day — to rank outsiders, as befitted his station, I guess — but I couldn’t locate him anywhere on the grounds. He seemed to have vanished right along with Penny Hopkins — a possibility that I did not exclude. I assumed Penny had all the normal urges that a healthy, nineteen-year-old girl has, and for all I knew she and Melendez could be enjoying themselves somewhere far away from flies and horse manure.

  I asked around quite a bit, but no one could remember seeing him at all that day. I decided to stop at the Turf Club Lounge, where Lassiter said he had seen the two of them having a drink, before checking out his apartment.

  The clubhouse had four levels, the first being the largest, the fourth the smallest. The lounge was on the third floor. It was frequented by the public and horsemen alike, and was outfitted with monitors so that you could follow the races while you drank. On one wall was a doorway with the legend, DINING ROOM, above it in gold lettering, and the food they served there was excellent — and expensive.

  “What’ll it be?” the bartender asked when I parked my elbows on the bar. He might have been an ex-jock, judging from his size.

  There was a race being run on the monitor and I would have had to speak above normal speaking tone to be heard, so I ordered a drink and watched the race. I’d ask my questions when it quieted down a little.

  There were two horses coming down the stretch together and the race caller seemed to be very excited about it. The were head to head, a black and a spotted gray, and about seventy yards from the finish line the black seemed to lose his footing, fought to regain it, but eventually went down. The rider went right over his head and the gray went on to win. Luckily, the two horses had been many lengths ahead of the rest of the field, and they were able to avoid the fallen horse and rider.

  The crowd began to filter out, some laughing, some cursing.

  “What a price that gray is gonna pay,” the little bartender said as he set down my beer. It was quiet now, with only a few die-hard drinkers left in the room.

  I took out a ten-dollar bill and told him, “I could use some information,” laying it on the bar.

  “Sorry, pal, I don’t give tips on horses,” he told me, eyeing the ten with obvious regret.

  “No tips,” I assured him. “Louis Melendez. Have you seen him?”

  “You a cop?”

  “If I was a cop I wouldn’t show you a ten, I’d show you my tin.”

  “Private?”

  “Yeah, private. You want this ten or not?”

  “Sure, sure,” he said, snatching it from my fingers. “Little
Louie, huh? Lemme think.” He made a big show of doing just that, then said, “I haven’t seen Louie since, ah, “Thursday.”

  “Was he with anyone?”

  “Sure was. That’s how I remember the last time I saw him. He was with that little fox, Penny Hopkins.” His eyes lit up when he said her name, which was the reaction I was getting used to seeing in most of the males I’d questioned.

  “Benjamin Hopkins’ daughter?” I asked. I winced, because that was the same kind of stupid remark I had been getting from Lassiter.

  “The same,” he answered. “Hey, if there were two of her, wouldn’t that be something?”

  “Why so?”

  His eyebrows went up and said hello to his hairline.

  “Ain’t you never seen her?” he asked. I shook my head and reminded myself again to get a picture from Hopkins.

  “Come with me,” he said, coming around from behind the bar. I followed him to a wall covered with framed photographs of all sizes. They showed horses and people in photos taken on the track, in the paddock and in the stable area.

  He pointed out one in particular and I zeroed in on it. It was an eight by ten group shot, taken in the paddock area. It showed a shapely young girl surrounded by a group of jockeys. She was taller than all of them and her red hair was tied back with a green ribbon. Her smile was wide, her nose slightly snubbed. The face was that of a young girl, but her body — I could see what everybody was so impressed about. Her body was definitely that of a woman. She had unbelievable breasts, not just in size, but in shape as well. Her waist was very slim and her hips rounded, extending into long, long legs. Judging from the photo she might have been as tall as my five-ten. I wished I could take the picture off the wall, turn it around and get a look at her ass. She was wearing a pink turtleneck sweater, jeans and high boots.

  “If that don’t make your blood boil … “the bartender remarked.

  “Is Melendez in that picture?” I asked.

  “He sure is. He’s the guy who’s practically drooling in her lap.” He pointed to a little guy whose hang-dog look showed a man hopelessly in love with something he knew he could never have.