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"I wish it were Sherry Lark that did it," Susan said.

"Because you don't like her?"

"You bet," Susan said. "She's self-absorbed, stupid, dishonest with herself."

"Isn't that a little subjective?" I said.

"I'm not a shrink now, I'm your paramour and free to be as subjective as I like. Who do you wish it were?"

We had crept up very close to the rear end of a Cadillac which was creeping along at the speed limit. Susan seemed not to notice this, but love is trust and all I did was tense up a little.

"Sherry'd be nice," I said. "But I can't see what her motive would be."

"Too bad," Susan said.

She swung suddenly left and passed the Cadillac and swung back in. The Cadillac honked its horn.

"Oh fuck you," Susan said pleasantly.

"Beautifully put," I said.

"So who do you think?"

"Well, it pretty much narrows down to Pe

"Maybe he has some sort of hold on her," Susan said.

"Or she on him," I said.

"I thought you were fond of her."

"I am. She's beautiful, charming, twenty-five, and smells of good soap and sunshine," I said. "But you may recall the words of a wise and randy shrink-things are not always as they appear to be."

We passed West Stockbridge, and crossed the state line at breakneck speed. Susan smiled at me.

"I'm not so wise," she said.

FIFTY

IT WAS A near-perfect summer day, seventy-six and clear, when Susan and I found Pe

"Hello," I said.

Pe

"My God, look who's here," she said.

"This is Susan Silverman," I said. "Pe

Susan put out a hand. Pe

"What are you doing here?" Pe

"I wanted to see Hugger Mugger run in the Hopeful."

"I didn't think you knew what the Hopeful was."

"Sometimes I know more than I seem to," I said.

"Well," Pe

Behind us the crowd noise from the stands suggested that the seventh race was achieving climax.

"Hugger's going onto the track," Pe

"Next race?" I said.

"Yes."

"May we join you inside?" I said.

"Of course. Are you a racing fan, Susan?"

"A recent convert," Susan said.

In Susan's presence, Pe

Hugger went in under the stands, heading for the track, and we followed Pe

I looked over the stands. This was an old-money racing crowd, by and large. The kind of people who kept a mansion in Saratoga to use in August, for whom that month's social life was devoted to horses. The town itself had a college and race month, a bunch of hand melons, some springs someplace, and twenty-five thousand year-round residents. Up higher from the track, as befitted her status as former concubine, I saw Dolly Hartman in a white dress looking at the track through binoculars.

I have never been much of a racing fan. It is two minutes of excitement followed by twenty-five minutes of milling. A full day at the track will produce about sixteen minutes of actual racing. I understood why. People had to get their bets down. That's why the horses ran, so people could bet on them. But since I got no thrill out of betting, the twenty-five-minute mill was boring.

On the other hand, I was there with the girl of my dreams, who was wearing a hat with a wide brim, exactly right for watching a horse race. Most of the other women wore hats, but none did so with Susan's panache. At the starting gate, one of the horses balked at going into his slot, and it took several people pulling, shoving, and almost certainly swearing to get him in there. The ruckus made another one buck in the gate and the jockey had to hold him hard, calming him as he did so.

A couple of guys in blue blazers and tan pants slipped into the box and sat behind me and Susan. I glanced back at them. They were young and intrepid-looking, with short hair and close shaves, and the look of bone-deep dumbness. Security South.

"How you guys doing?" I said.

Both of them gave me a hard look. One of them said, "Fine."

I gave them both a warm smile and looked back toward the track. Hugger Mugger was walking calmly into his slot in the starting gate. Susan leaned close to me and said, "Which one is Hugger Mugger?"

"Didn't you just see him outside?" I said.

"I was looking at the people," Susan said.

"Hugger's number four. Jockey's wearing pink and green."

"The one they just put into the thingy?"

"Starting gate, yes. One to the right of the one going in now."

The last horse was in the gate. There was a moment while they waited for everyone to settle down. All the horses were still. Then the gates popped open, the track a