Charlie liked to say that the best thing in life was to win money at the track. And the second best thing was to lose money at the track. In the three months after Mobile, he lost hundreds of thousands of dollars, not counting his bourbon tab, which wasn’t far behind.
At least the losses came at Keeneland, the historic Kentucky racecourse famous for the Blue Grass Stakes as well as for its tonic effect on horseplayers. Sitting in the august grandstand, breathing in the horses and hay and fresh-mown bluegrass, Charlie often felt as if he were drifting back in time. He sometimes turned toward the thunder of hooves half expecting to find Seabiscuit in the lead.
During the final week of Spring Race Meet, Charlie was joined in the grandstand by his father. Drummond’s heart had healed entirely in Martinique and, after nine weeks in Geneva, his mental condition had begun to show improvement. In Kentucky, he was happy just to be in his son’s company.
On their third day together, a few minutes before the final race, Charlie said, “I’m going to make a run downstairs. Need another cup of burgoo?” The robust meat stew was a Keeneland specialty, and a favorite of Drummond’s.
Drummond smiled. “That would be nice, thank you.”
Charlie headed to the aisle, then turned back to Drummond. “This is your sixth cup of burgoo, and you’ve yet to impart an interesting piece of information about it.”
Drummond lifted his shoulders. “I don’t have one.”
“With a name like burgoo, we ought to be able to find one.”
Leaving him to soak in the sunshine, Charlie went to watch the post parade, in particular Queen of the Sands, a stocky dark brown mare with a white star between intelligent eyes. Her illustrious ancestry included two Derby winners. Her owner, Prince Mohammed bin Zayed, seemed to have a golden touch of late, although rumors swirled that his gold was in fact a new detection-defying anti-inflammatory drug that could mask pain, allowing horses to run faster.
Charlie was known to bin Zayed less as a horseplayer than as the son of Drummond Clark, the retired spy who had recently purchased a chateau in Switzerland with the proceeds from the illegal sale of a Russian atomic demolition munition. Rumor was, Drummond had another ADM.
Bin Zayed, the chief benefactor of an international terrorist network, suspected that Charlie had learned the location of the second bomb from his father and might be persuaded to give it up to pay off his gambling debts.
The CIA had fed this information to bin Zayed through cutouts in Saudi Arabia.
In truth, Charlie’s betting and bourbon were just cover. Alice, waiting in Paris, understood. His real reason for being in Kentucky was to sell a washing machine.