Young often babysat Jamal, especially Wednesday and Saturday nights when Debi and her live-in boyfriend, Eldridge, went bowling. Eldridge was a jockey, but even though he wasn’t Jamal’s father—he and Debi had only been together a year and a half—and even though Debi was eight inches taller and eighty pounds heavier, they seemed to get along. They bowled in a league of racetrack employees—trainers and grooms and jockeys and jockeys’ agents and valets and kitchen staff. They bowled year-round, and on Saturday evenings in the winter Young and Jamal would watch their favourite hockey team, the Toronto Maple Leafs. When a Leaf winger would cut from the boards across the slot, Young would shout “Shoot!” and Jamal would echo him, and if the puck found its mark they would shout “Yaaaaayyy!” and Jamal would swivel and high-five his grandfather.
One of the stories Young was most fond of telling, in his cups at McCully’s Tavern, to anyone who would listen—especially complete strangers since his friends would howl in protest when they recognized what he was launching into, having already heard it themselves innumerable times—concerned the evening when Jamal, only three years of age, was sitting on Young’s lap watching the Leafs play New Jersey, and Toronto tough guy Wendel Clark fought Devils left winger Mike Peluso. After the bout was over and the sticks and gloves had been picked up off the ice, Young listened intently as the penalties were announced. Clark was given a five-minute fighting major and a game misconduct. The TV commentator said, “That’s all for Wendel Clark,” and Jamal looked up at his grandfather and solemnly repeated, “That’s all for Wendel Clark.” Young would shake his head and laugh and then set off in search of someone else to tell the story to. People who knew him would see him coming and look for a place to hide. They knew that if he buttonholed them and started in on one of his stories, there was no escape. They would have to listen to the story all the way through. Even if they interrupted him partway into the story and said, “Stop right there, Camp, I’ve heard this one before, it’s the one where Jamal makes some cute comment about Wendel Clark, right? It’s a great story but I’ve heard it six or seven thousand times!” it wouldn’t do any good. Young would simply stand there, stone-faced and single-minded, and wait until they were done protesting and then pick up the story at the point at which he’d been interrupted and tell it right through to the end.
An hour later Young realized that Jamal, still in his lap, had not uttered a sound for at least an inning. Gently, he hefted the boy and could tell by the limpness of the small body that he was sound asleep.
Young adjusted his chair to its upright position, extricated himself as quietly as possible, and carried his grandson into the bedroom. Young laid him down on the king-sized bed, and as he constructed a rectangle of pillows around him, Jamal opened his eyes and said, “Tell me a story, Poppy?” Young lowered his weight onto the creaking bed and smoothed the curls off the boy’s forehead. “The Adventures of Bert and Ernie,” Young said. “Chapter One Hundred and Twenty-Four. Bert and Ernie Take Riding Lessons.” Young could still do Bert and Ernie’s voices convincingly, just as he could when Debi was little and he told her similar stories. He made them up as he told them, lying there in the dark beside the child, and no two were ever the same.
Partway into the story, Jamal said, “I’m just going to close my eyes for a minute, but I won’t be asleep.” Young continued with the story until the boy’s breathing changed, then he carefully raised himself off the bed and tiptoed out of the bedroom.
In the living room the telephone was ringing. Young picked up the TV remote, hit “mute,” and picked up the phone. “What?” he said.
“Young?” a voice said.
“Who’s this?”
“Percy Ball. I wanted—”
“How’d you get my number?”
“I uh ... I asked your daughter for it. Debi. I seen her at the bowling alley. She gave it to me.”
“Well, she shouldn’t be doing that. What do you want?”
“I have some information I think you might want to know about.”
“I’m listening.”
“Well, um, before I tell you what I know, I think there oughta be somethin’ in it for me.”
“Oh,” said Young, “a shakedown.”
“Man’s gotta eat.”
“I have to tell you, I’m a little disappointed. Making money off the death of your drinking buddy. Shame on you.”
“I need the money. Shorty was the only one who’d let me work their horses, and now that he’s gone—”
“I’ll give you fifty dollars.”
Percy stopped. “Make it a hundred and—”
“It’s fifty, Percy, or you can stick your priceless information up your hole.”
“Okay, okay, when can I get it?”
“I’ll give it to Debi, and you can pick it up from her on Tuesday. Barn 7. Now spill.”
Young heard the flare of a match and Percy pulling on a cigarette. “When me and Shorty were sittin’ in JJ Muggs that last time, he told me that new owner I told you about—”
“The Saturday Night Fever guy?”
“That’s right, the guy that won the lottery.”
“His name’s Buckley.”
“Fine, okay. The point is Shorty told me this Buckley guy was offered a hundred thou’ for Someday Prince.”
Young’s eyebrows lifted. “On the basis of that one win?”
“That’s right, but you have to remember he won very impressive, and it seems some Jap interests caught wind of it. But Shorty didn’t want no part of it. Just tellin’ me about it in the bar there, he got seriously agitated. He said he told Buckley the colt was gonna be a champion, he was gonna run him in the fall classics, maybe even the Breeder’s Cup. Buckley told him he was a fool to hire him in the first place, he was a drunk and a loser, and if he wasn’t part owner of the horse he’d fire him, and he’d fire him in any case if he didn’t watch out.”
“What did Shorty say to that?”
“He said, ‘That’s right, I own part of the horse, one quarter to be exact, and you can’t do nothin’ without my say-so. Even if you fire me,’ he told him, ‘I still own one quarter of the horse.’”
“Shorty told you all this?”
“That’s right,” said Percy. “At JJ Muggs. Last time I seen him alive. Then the next day he shows up dead.”
“So when I talked to you the other day, you already knew all this.”
“Yeah, that’s right.”
“I bought you a couple of beers, and you still held out on me?”
Percy dragged on his cigarette, then in a grave tone said, “Never show your cards before you have to, what I say.”
Young phoned the Airport Hilton and asked for Doug Buckley’s room. The concierge at the front desk told him that Mr. Buckley was no longer a guest at the hotel.
“When did he check out?” Young asked.
The concierge paused, checking the register. “Mr. Buckley checked out about an hour ago.”
“Did he leave a forwarding address?”
“No