I stayed to watch Penny work out, and because I still had some questions to ask Hopkins. If it weren’t for Biel, if I were on my own again, I don’t know that I would have taken his case. Having been out of that sort of thing for some time now, I wasn’t sure I could operate with full confidence, but it was a favor for a friend and I couldn’t let my feelings about Hopkins, or the case in general, get in the way of that.
I decided to just have coffee and watch a few of the other horses work out until Penny put in an appearance. I’d have breakfast at Sally’s, a little place on the stable grounds where most of the track people ate. I’d had some of the best breakfasts of my life there, and I deserved something to make up for this morning.
I was standing at the condiments table, shoveling sugar into my coffee, when I spotted a familiar face. “Hey, Roger,” I called out.
Roger Lucien saw me and waved, indicating he’d get a cup of coffee and then join me. The girl with the microphone was telling people that Penny’s Penny would be on the track shortly.
“How’s the horse-eye?” Roger asked after he’d joined me.
“Fine, Roger, great.”
Roger Lucien was a young trainer who had started to hit it big a couple of years ago with a nice three-year-old filly named Diamonds & Pearls who had turned into one of the top older females of last year and this. Along the way he had picked up three or ten other nice horses and now he usually finished in the top ten trainers at the end of every meet. His father had been a top trainer for many years and had handled many greats, including a Triple Crown winner. For some reason his son, Roger, seemed to have more success with fillies than with colts.
Diamonds & Pearls had already won the filly triple crown this year and had one last race before being retired. She had earned better than three hundred thousand dollars this year, and over eight hundred thousand for her career.
Roger was headed for the top of his field, and he was nowhere near forty yet.
“What are you doing at the workouts?” he asked. “I didn’t know you got up this early.”
“Only on rare occasions. I was out with an early riser last night.”
He smiled knowingly and said, “So you figured while you were up you’d come out and watch the ponies work, right?”
“Not exactly, Roger. I’m out here in a kind of semiofficial, official, unofficial capacity.”
He stared at me, puzzled, and asked, “What?”
“I’m doing a favor for a friend.”
“Oh.”
“Tell me about Penny Hopkins,” I asked him.
His eyes lit up. “A fox.”
“Do you know her well?”
He shook his head. As he did his eyes caught a filly on tile track and he followed her progress down the stretch.
“Nice stride,” he observed. “No, I don’t know her that well, I let her walk horses for me once in a while. Besides, she’s too young for me.”
I shook my head. “Must be tough getting old. Your what, about thirty-four?”
“Every year of it,” he answered.
“Old before your time,” I lamented. “Have you seen her around lately?”
“Not for a few days,” he answered, thinking, “but that’s not unusual. She’s all over the grounds, here and there. Why, has something happened?”
“Not that I know of,” I told him. Just then the gal with the mike announced the appearance of Penny’s Penny on the track.
“Thanks, Roger,” I told him, getting up from my seat. I didn’t want him asking me any more questions. “Good luck with Pearl.”
“Yeah, thanks,” he said, frowning at me.
I walked away and approached the rail. I wanted to see Penny up close, but I also wanted to locate Hopkins. He had walked Penny down the runway from the paddock area — where they saddle the horses before every race — and had stopped at the rail. There was another rail between us, separating the runway from the spectator area. I walked over by him and leaned on that rail.
“He looks good,” I told him.
“He looks great,” he corrected, “and that’s just the way he runs.”
“His next race is in two weeks, isn’t it?” I asked.
He nodded. “That’ll clinch him as the two year old of the year,” he said, confidently.
“Unless Bold Randy wins,” I observed. Okay, I admit it, I was trying to get a rise out of him, but he surprised me. He did flash me a sharp look, but he held his temper very well.
“He won’t,” was all he said.
It was only when he clicked his watch that I realized that Penny had started his run. Sometimes a trainer will run another horse with the horse he’s working, just to push him a little, but Penny was running all alone and he looked great. There was complete silence as everyone watched the potential champion do his thing. His regular jockey, Eddie Mapes, was in the irons.
As he entered the stretch Mapes had him hugging the rail. You could hear his hooves pounding out a beat on the ground, and the air escaping from his lungs through his nostrils. He was an incredible sight streaking through the stretch and as he crossed the finish line the cheering began. I even found myself applauding.
“Nice,” I told Hopkins.
“It’ll do,” he muttered. He put his watch way without letting me see it.
“What about her?” I asked him, indicating the girl with the mike.
“I arranged for her to have orders not to reveal the time of Penny’s work,” he explained.
Mapes was letting Penny run down before turning and heading back with him.
“I’ve got a couple of questions, Mr. Hopkins.”
“Huh?” He had a wary eye on Penny and hadn’t fully heard me.
“Questions,” I reiterated, and added, “about your daughter.”
“Oh, of course. Go ahead.”
“I need to know where she hung out, and who with.” He scowled, still not taking his eyes from Penny. “What do I know? She was nineteen, she came and went.”
“Who were her friends?”
“Everybody,” he told me. “She liked everybody, everybody liked her. Talk to anybody on the grounds, Po, they’ll know more than I do about where she hung out, and who with.”
“Yeah, sure. I’ll be in touch.”
I was forgotten in the very next second. Penny was approaching and Hopkins went out to meet him.
His daughter was his daughter, but Penny’s Penny? That horse was his whole world.