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.