Penny laughed. "Do you even know what withers are?" she said.

"No," I said.

"You talk with Billy?" she said.

"I will."

"You'll like him."

"I never met a man I didn't like," I said.

Penny gave me an Oh please look. "He loves this horse," she said.

"Because he's going to win the Triple Crown?" I said.

"No. That's why all the rest of us love him. I think Billy just loves him."

"Even if he doesn't win the Triple Crown?"

"Even if he never wins a race."

"Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds," I said.

"Is that some kind of poem?" Penny said.

"I think so."

"You don't look like a poem kind of man," she said.

"It's a disguise," I said.

Jon Delroy came briskly toward us across the stable yard.

"I got a message you wanted to see me," he said to Penny.

"Yes, Jon," she said. "Let's the three of us go over to the office."

Delroy looked at me as if I were something he'd just stepped in. And turned to walk with Penny. I tagged along. We went into the track office and sat down. Penny sat behind the desk in a swivel chair. Delroy and I sat in straight chairs against the wall. There was a coffeemaker on a table near the desk, and a small refrigerator on the wall behind the desk. There were photographs of happy owners with happy jockeys and happy horses in various winner's circles.

"Jon, you've lodged a complaint with Three Fillies Stables," Penny said. "About Mr. Spenser."

She sat back in the swivel chair, her feet in riding boots crossed on the desk. Her voice was friendly, with the nice southern lilt.

"I've talked with your father, yes," Delroy said.

"And my father has asked me to talk with both of you," she said.

I waited. Delroy was looking hard at her, sitting bolt upright in his chair.

"As CEO of, and majority stockholder in, Three Fillies Stables, my father feels that employment decisions are his to make if he wishes to."

"Well, of course, Penny, but…"

"Don't interrupt," Penny said. No lilt. "We have hired Spenser to find out who is trying to harm Hugger Mugger. We have hired you to protect Hugger Mugger while he does so. There is no reason for either of you to get in the other's way."

I smiled cooperatively. Delroy looked as if he had just eaten a pinecone.

"Is that clear?" Penny said.

"Yes, ma'am," I said.

Delroy didn't speak.

"Is that clear, Jon?"

Delroy still didn't speak.

"Because if it is not clear, you may finish out the week and then be on your way."

"Penny, we signed a contract."

"Sue us. This is my way or the highway, Jon. And you decide right now."

"Be easier to put up with me," I said to Delroy.

Penny sat with her feet still up on the desk. Her big pretty eyes showed nothing. She wore a white shirt, with the collar open, a gold chain showing. Her pale blue jeans were tight and tucked into the top of her riding boots. Her neck was slender but strong-looking. Her thighs were firm.

"Yes or no," she said.

"Yes," Delroy said.

The words came out very thin, as if it'd had to slip between clenched teeth.

"You'll cooperate with Spenser?"

"Yes."

"You have any problems with Jon?" Penny said to me.

"Not me," I said. "Your way or the doorway."

Penny took her feet off the desktop and let the chair come forward and smiled.

"Excellent," she said. "Either of you want a Coca-Cola?"

EIGHT

MY ROOM WAS on the second floor of one wing of the motel, and opened onto a wing-length balcony with stairs at either end. It was late afternoon when SueSue Potter knocked on my door.

"Welcome Wagon," she said when I opened it.

"Oh good," I said. "I was afraid your husband had sent you ahead to soften me up."

She was wearing a big hat and carrying a bottle of champagne in an ice bucket and a big straw handbag. There was some sort of look in her eyes, but it wasn't the unpleasant glint I'd seen when Pud threatened me.

"Oh, Pud is a poop," she said.

"Alliteration," I said. "Very nice."

She put the champagne down on top of the television set and circled the room. She was as perky as a grasshopper and much better-looking in a pink linen dress with a square neck and matching shoes.

"You mean you have to live here all by yourself all the time you're here?" she said.

"Depends on how lucky I get hanging out at the bowling alley late."

"You big silly, I bet you don't even bowl."

"Wow," I said, "you see right through a guy."

"You have any glasses for this champagne?"

"Couple of nice plastic ones," I said, "in the bathroom."

"Well, get them out here, it's nearly cocktail time and I don't like to enter it sober."

I went to the bathroom and got the two little cups and peeled off the plastic-wrap sealers and brought the cups out and set them festively on top of the television beside the champagne bucket.

"I'm afraid that champagne corks are just too strong for me. Could you very kindly do the honors?"

I opened the champagne and poured some into each of the plastic cups. I handed one to her and picked up the other one. She put her glass up toward mine.

"Chink, chink," she said.

I touched her glass with mine.

"I think plastic sounds more like 'Scrape, scrape,' " I said.

"Not if you listen with a romantic ear," she said.

"Which you do," I said.

"To everything, darlin'."

I smiled. She smiled. She drank her champagne. I took another small nibble at mine. She gazed dreamily around the room. I waited. She looked at my gun, lying in its holster on the bedside table.

"Oh," she said. "A gun."

"Why, so it is."

"Can I look at it?"

"Sure."

"Can I pick it up?"

"No."

She put her glass out. I refilled it.

"Did you have that with you the other night when Pud was being dreadful?"

"Yes."

"So you could have shot him if you wanted."

"Seems a little extreme," I said.

"You handled him like he was a bad little boy," SueSue said.

She drank some more champagne, looking at me while she drank, her eyes big and blue and full of energy. It was too soon for the champagne to kick in. It was some other kind of energy.

"Just doing my job, ma'am."

She smiled widely. And what I'd seen in her eyes, I saw in her smile.

"Pud played football over at Alabama. Even had a pro tryout."

"Linebacker?" I said.

"I don't know who the pro team was. I hate football."

"What position did he play?" I said.

"Defense."

I nodded.

"He still goes to the gym all the time. But you just turned him around like he was a little bitty boy."

"Breathtaking, isn't it?" I said.

"You're a dangerous man," she said, and put her glass out. I poured.

"Especially to fried clams," I said. "You put a plate of fried clams in front of me, they're gone in a heartbeat."

"I could see that you were dangerous," she said, "minute you came into the room."