Charon's landing

disputes like that. But he’d only known them for a short time. “I’m sorry, but I really can’t help you. I left Homer the day we found the Jenny IV. You might want to call Jerry’s cousin at UCLA. He stayed with Jerry for a couple of days after I left.”

“I plan to wait until a little later in the day. It’s still a mite early on this coast.” MacLaughlin fell silent. It seemed he wanted to talk about this, get his feelings about his friend’s death into the open, but he held back. “I won’t keep you any longer, Dr. Mercer. Thank you for your time.”

“Not at all, Chief. I’m sorry about your loss.” Mercer broke the connection and let out a long breath. He made a mental note to call Howard Small later and offer his condolences. He stared into space for a moment, remembering Jerry and his son, their fishing trip, and the discovery of the eerie derelict. He had liked them both. They were honest men, hardworking and dedicated. Their deaths were a tragic waste.

Mercer stared at the metal fragment in his hands. He wondered if there was some sort of connection between the deaths and the steel shard, but he discounted it quickly. He’d learned a long time ago that happenstance could be a capricious thing. Knowing he wouldn’t be able to concentrate any longer, he went upstairs to change and then left the house to meet Tiny and Harry.

Tiny, whose real name was Paul Gordon, owned a seedy bar a few blocks from Mercer’s house. On Saturdays, he opened early for Mercer and Harry White, his best customers, so they could enjoy a few morning drinks and go over the Racing Form for the afternoon races at Belmont Park. Though once a promising jockey who had a few bad breaks, mainly his knees by some mob enforcers for not throwing a race, Paul still enjoyed horse racing as best he could. He ran book for about forty guys in and around Arlington.

Mercer had discovered the bar on his first day in Arlington. He’d expected a hulking gorilla behind the bar, but Tiny was, in fact, tiny. No more than four foot ten and one hundred and ten pounds, Paul had a special platform installed behind the bar so he could comfortably serve drinks. He was already hunched over the Form when Mercer pushed through the glass door.

The bar smelled of stale beer and cigarette butts, and no matter how much disinfectant Paul used, the odor never dissipated. A couple of tables were near the long bar, while the back of the establishment was taken up by vinyl booths. The peeling wallpaper was dotted with cheaply framed sports pictures. Next to the cash register were pictures of Tiny, liveried in silks, accepting handshakes from grateful horse owners, the winner he’d ridden always right beside him. Tiny was about fifty, but his small size and wrinkled face made him look like some ancient gnome.

Harry White, on the other hand, really was ancient. Pushing eighty, Harry looked as if he would die at any moment, yet he’d looked that way for all the years Mercer had known him. His face was so weathered it seemed to have collapsed in on itself. His body, though tall and erect, appeared to have withered away from something larger, giving his skin the look of a poorly fitted suit. His hands resembled bundles of sticks under sheets of liver-spotted rice paper. Despite his decrepit look, he was far from frail. He boasted of an active libido, and his eyes were bright blue windows to a sharp mind and an acid wit. His voice was a raspy snarl that crashed like a broadside of cannon fire. Maybe because of their age difference or maybe in defiance of it, he was Mercer’s best friend.

“ ’Bout time you showed up. Where in the hell is my goddamned crossword?”

“Why don’t you buy the paper yourself, you cheap bastard?” Mercer tossed the folded puzzle on the bar in front of Harry.

“Listen to him, Mr. Moneybags. He can afford to buy the newspaper every day.”

In fact, Harry had a decent pension from Potomac Electric Company. He had also recently received a sizable cash gift from the government as compensation for the loss of his right leg, an injury he’d sustained fifty years ago. While Mercer knew about the money and had been instrumental in getting the settlement, Harry made him agree never to discuss it.

Harry snatched up the crossword, unfolded it neatly, and held his pen poised. “How was Alaska?”

Mercer smiled as he regarded Harry. Underneath his crocodile hide, he was a true friend. “Good time, but the damnedest thing happened.”

He related the story of finding the Jenny IV, sparing no details. Neither Tiny nor Harry could speculate on the origin of the mysterious steel plate, and they both doubted that Jerry and John’s deaths were in any way related.

Tiny poured Bloody Marys for Mercer and himself and set a Jack Daniel’s and ginger ale in front of Harry. While Harry smoked a dozen Chesterfields and muttered through the crossword, Tiny and Mercer worked the Form, handicapping the day’s fourteen races with as much attention as surgeons trying to save a patient. They broke down the indecipherable minutia of the racing paper, discarding numbers they felt were unimportant, multiplying others through secret systems and, in the end, often just went with their guts. Tiny was much more proficient at interpreting bloodlines, trainer streaks, and Beyer’s Speed Figures, but he did bow to Mercer’s innate ability to pick winners on instinct alone.

All through the morning, Tiny received calls from his regular customers, taking bets and laying odds as he got them from a buddy who worked at the track. By eleven-thirty, Mercer and Tiny were just about finished handicapping the last race. Harry was still working on the crossword, but he seemed to be down to just a few clues.

“Shit,” he exclaimed with disgust. “I’m stumped.”

“What ya got?” Tiny invited.

“Five letters, the middle one is r, Mendelssohn’s Wedding…”

“Dirge,” Mercer offered without looking up from his Form.

“Cynic,” Tiny replied with a glance. “Mendelssohn’s Wedding March. You know, ‘Here comes the bride, da da da daa.’ ”

“Oh, right. I thought Mendel composed ‘The Wedding March,’ ” Harry replied, inking in the answer.

“No. Father Gregor Mendel was the pioneer of modern genetics. He did those experiments with peas back in the 1800s.”

“Really. All this time I was sure that Mandlebrot founded genetics.”

“Untrue. Benoit Mandelbrot was one of the creators of fractal geometry,” Tiny explained.

“Then who in the hell was the guy who developed the periodic table?”

“That would be Dmitri Mendeleev,” replied Tiny.

Mercer stared at his friends. “God, it gives me the creeps when you guys do stuff like that.”

As the morning wore into afternoon, Tiny’s Saturday crowd began shuffling in. To a man, they were all there for the races. Uniformly, they were older, late fifties and up, paunchy, and dressed in thirty-year-old suits. They were living proof that cliches were based on fact. Mercer was the youngest man in the room by fifteen years, but he felt right at home. There was a special camaraderie among bachelors that transcended age or status. It was refreshing to be involved in conversations that didn’t revolve exclusively around the other person’s problems.

The racing card at Belmont was short that day; the last race went off a little after four in the afternoon. After Tiny paid off the winners, he finally allowed himself a drink, his first since the morning Bloody Mary. Harry White had been drinking whiskey as if he’d just escaped a temperance meeting, but he seemed unaffected. Mercer had switched to club soda and was sober.

“What’s ya doin’ tonight, Mercer?” Tiny asked, running glasses through the three small cleaning sinks under the bar. The smell of liquor was removed from the glasses, but they weren’t actually clean.

“I’m throwing myself into the penguin suit tonight.”

“Formal dinner?”

“I’m blowing off the dinner, but there’s an open-bar reception afterward.”

“Open bar?” Harry breathed enviously.

“I knew that would get you.” Mercer smiled.

“What’s the occasion?” Tiny asked.

“The inauguration of a new think tank called the Johnston Group, sponsored by none other than Max Johnston, the owner of Petromax Oil. The group’s made up of scientists, economists, and environmentalists working on practical ways to implement the President’s Energy Direction Policy.”

“You going to be part of this group?” Harry asked as he unwrapped his second pack of cigarettes for the day.

“No, but I’ve known Max Johnston for a couple of years. The invitation to the party was in my box when I got home from Alaska.”