Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 44, No. 7 & 8, July/August 1999

Arnie was a horse trainer. Years ago I was an assistant trainer under Buddy Wayne. I kept my track license up over the years and did odd jobs for some of the trainers in the backstretch. Arnie Ritter was one of them. He was a good trainer and a longtime friend.

“Arnie asked Jimmy Cox to let me off to come over and see you. He knows me, and you know each other. That big Glitterman colt Arnie’s been prepping gave him a shot in the chest. Broke some ribs and collapsed a lung. He’s in pretty bad shape.” The accordion music started up out in the parking lot. “Jeesus, what’s that racket?” Swine asked.

I told him about Tommy and Lightning and surmised that the two idiots had got an early start on a beer-drinking accordion night.

Swine continued, informing me that Arnie didn’t want me to waste time visiting him in the hospital. “Arnie’s son Bill has twelve head at Fairgrounds in Louisiana,” Swine said. “Arnie wants you to make sure his two colts in the Calder backstretch get out before the hurricane. He wants them shipped to Bill in Louisiana. Arnie told me to tell you that he has it fixed with the horseman’s bookkeeper to cut you a check for fifteen hundred to arrange transportation.”

“I don’t know nothin’ about arranging transportation,” I readily confessed. “Where am I supposed to find transportation?”

Swine shrugged. “How tough can it be? Find somebody with a horse trailer willing to take two head to Fairgrounds for fifteen hundred. Thing is, you ain’t got much time. That hurricane is supposed to come ashore around midnight.”

From the parking lot came a barely recognizable accordion interpretation of “Easter Parade,” vocal by Lightning Rod in slurred Spanish. “You got any good news for me?” I asked.

Swine pushed his bony body up from my client chair. “Yeah, I got to get back to work. That guy out there singin’ sounds like somebody wounded him in the throat.”

Up to now I hadn’t worried much about the hurricane. I’d been through a few. When Andrew hit, I was holed up at a hurricane party in the Surfer’s Bar and Grill just around the corner. They don’t normally have much surf in Florida, and it’s doubtful that a genuine, actual surfer ever set foot in Surfer’s Bar and Grill. But it was a hell of a party. We were all rather relaxed, so we just sort of crammed into the dining room when the front half of the roof blew down the street.

Remember I told you that Tommy was the only one happy about the hurricane? I might have been mistaken. Buford was less than twelve hours away. No matter which TV station I turned to, the weathermen were positively orgasmic. They seemed to be on a hurricane high. There was much grinning and jumping about. How the weather people were able to repress the urge to break out into joyous, hysterical laughter is a mystery — and more, a real tribute to their professionalism. Documentaries and specials were presented endlessly while hurricane watches and hurricane warnings choked off scheduled broadcasting. Anywhere up and down the coast from Key West to Vero Beach you were already a victim unless you had stockpiled a two months’ supply of canned goods, flashlight batteries, bottled water, and plywood sheets, and, oh yes, portable radios and a bathtub full of water to flush the john. They neglected to mention that given all the hysterics it would require a trip to North Carolina to find a retailer with items such as candles and batteries still on the shelf; provided, that is, one were able to get onto a major thruway going north. And all I had to do was get two horses to Louisiana.

I do have a company car, a ’65 Mustang convertible. Me and the Mustang crawled north toward Calder amidst the unwashed, with-out-plywood-sheets, no-bottled-water, batteryless rabble who were trying to put Buford in their rear view mirrors.

Calder was practically abandoned. Diehard, dedicated horse-players were clearly a solid minority in Miami this day. There were just a few hundred fans sprinkled about. In the backstretch it was a different story — one titled Pandemonium. It looked like a horse push-pull-drag-get-’em-in-the-van contest.

I found Jimmy Cox at track security. He had Arnie’s check from the bookkeeper. I jammed it in my rear pocket. It was about two hours before the banks closed; after that, everything would be buttoned up awaiting Buford. I headed down the shed row to Arnie’s barn. I propositioned everybody loading a horse. There were a couple of vacancies going to Monmouth but nothing else. And nobody was heading for Fairgrounds.

Arnie had one stall converted for use as a feed room. It contained some feed and hay along with assorted training paraphernalia. Tack adorned one wall. In addition there was a small table with a single chair. I plopped down to ponder my next move. A sign to the right of the stall opening, at eye level, caught my attention:

No good deed goes unpunished.

Anonymous.