Billie turned back to see if his mother agreed but saw that she had grabbed another child by its wrist and was shaking it loose from one of its siblings.
“Where’s your father?” the woman asked no one.
Billie’s phone pinged. Frank’s name appeared in bold type, followed by his message: Getting anything good?
Local color, she tapped into the phone.
Just got a bribe offer, Frank wrote. Good one. To trade you for a senator.
She didn’t understand what he meant.
I call you off, kill the article, and get everything I ever wanted to know about the senator. Haven’t decided if I should take it.
Out at the end of the professional gangplank, she felt him slice through the rope behind her. It had happened before. She’d be drowning in a second.
LOL, he texted.
She typed, Very funny.
He didn’t reply.
She separated from the line of customers waiting to go inside the arena and found a quiet spot under a vast maple tree. Leaning against it, she tried to breathe, to think. How should she play this? If she let Frank know that she was terrified, he might call her off the piece. She’d lose the job. She didn’t want to revisit the chain of catastrophes that would befall her and everything she loved if she got fired. She needed the payment, in full, and soon.
But if she acted flippant, too casual, he might not realize how dangerous this assignment was. And she needed him to know, to admire her for what she was doing. The greater the danger to her, the better her chances of selling the piece that grew out of the danger. He’d said the job was hers, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t change his mind.
Her phone rang. Frank had called instead of continuing to text.
“You scared, Billie?”
Of course she was scared.
“No.”
“Good. Tell me what you’re looking at.”
“People lined up to see horses tortured.”
“Is this different from bullfighting?”
“How the fuck would I know?”
“Okay. That’s the Billie I hired. Now go get me what I need.”
She stared at the screen for a moment, wondering if she could get her fingers to let go of the phone. Keeping it in her fist, she stuffed her hand into her pocket and hung on.
Billie worked her way toward the front of the line, excusing herself, saying she was looking for someone while reporters worked the edges of the line like grass tickling a snake.
A couple of Patterdale terriers chased each other between her legs and across the lawn—small, dark, wiry dogs who were used to hunt opossum and boar. They were featured on some walking horse websites that advertised them with multiple fonts in varying sizes and colors. The dogs were displayed with their slaughtered victims on one page, their darling puppies on the next. These two barreled through the crowd, making kids shriek and adults laugh.
The line finally moved. People poured through the gates into the arena. Billie found a seat behind two overdressed women and a whip-thin man all in black. She tapped his shoulder. “Do you think we’ll have to wait much longer?”
“For what?” the man asked.
“For the show to start?” she answered.
“Naw,” he said. “Soon.”
Billie sat back and looked around. She sat in a football field ringed with bleachers. Huge screens at either end overlooked the venue, already flashing advertisements for local businesses. She realized that riding here in this arena was the dream of every walking horse owner and rider who entered their horse in shows. To get here, they had to win competitions all year then compete against each other until the final twenty or so horses and riders—polished, lacquered, groomed, sored—swept through the in-gate into the lights, slamming against a wall of cheers from the audience.
The stands filled steadily. Capacity, she guessed, would be about twenty-five thousand people, but she should check to be sure. People arrived carrying folding stadium seats because they knew the bleachers didn’t have backs. She hadn’t known and hadn’t brought anything to lean or sit on.
“What time’s the first class?” she asked her neighbor.
“Seven-thirty.”
“I thought you said it was about to start,” she said.
“Time’s relative,” he replied. “I’ve waited all year for this. An hour is nothing.”
So there was plenty of time to explore. She stood and sidestepped to the stairs then descended until she spotted an EXIT sign. She left the arena and passed a little park where a group of musicians performed country music. Their audience clapped and swayed, stamped, and at the end of each song, shouted “more!”
Billie headed over to the rows of barns. Dozens of identical buildings were tricked out in banners and decorated with flowers and fake lawns. The whole area teemed with trainers, riders, and grooms. Walking horses were being led, ridden, washed, brushed, tacked up, and untacked.
The phone in Billie’s pocket buzzed. Without looking to see who was calling, she pressed decline, opened the camera app, and snapped a shot of the scene before her. She texted it to Frank then checked her missed calls.
Richard. She was redialing when the voice mail light flashed.
“Billie, are you here at the show? Call me.”
She tapped call back. “I’m here,” she said when he answered.
“Meet me at the fried pickles.”
“The what?” but he’d hung up. For a moment she wondered if she should give up on Richard, just let him go. But he could probably guide her better than anyone, if he would.
When she found him, he handed her a Diet Coke and offered her a taste of his fried pickles. She declined, reading the menu board aloud. “Fried Snickers? Fried Oreos? Fried butter? Why did I think you were joking?”
“Best food in the South here. Did you see about Bo?”
“What about him?”
“Look up!” He pointed to the massive screen facing them at the far end of the arena displaying Bo’s name.
“He’s going to play the national anthem at the start tonight.”
“Will he sing it?”
“Nope. Fiddle it.”
“Seriously? I knew he played but I didn’t know he was that good.”
“Seriously good,” Richard said. “He loves it.”
While they talked, she
