The Trojan Colt by Mike Resnick Page A

Eli,” I said. “I’m looking for a young man who’s disappeared, and the circumstances are very similar, at least on the surface, to one you dealt with last month.”
    â€œI don’t know,” he said dubiously. “Runaway kids are a dime a dozen these days.”
    â€œYou’ll remember this one, Drew,” said Berger.
    â€œOkay,” answered MacDonald. “Who was it?”
    â€œBilly Paulson.”
    MacDonald shook his head. “Unless your kid worked for Travis Bigelow and thought someone might kill him, you’re barking up the wrong tree, Eli.”
    â€œMy kid worked for Bigelow,” I said.
    Suddenly MacDonald looked interested. “And he thought his life was in danger?”
    â€œI don’t know,” I answered. “But he was worried as all hell about something.”
    â€œAbout what?”
    â€œAgain, I don’t know,” I said. “But he told me one night that he was worried, he had to figure out what to do, and he might want my advice in the morning.”
    â€œAnd did he ask for it?”
    I shook my head. “I never saw him again.”
    â€œInteresting,” said MacDonald. “And they both worked for Bigelow?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œWere they friends?”
    â€œI don’t think they knew each other. My kid was hired when yours vanished. They both wound up caring for the same horse.”
    â€œGrooms care for more than one horse,” noted MacDonald.
    â€œNot at sales time, and not when he’s worth over three million dollars,” put in Berger.
    â€œThey both handled that Trojan colt?” asked MacDonald.
    â€œSo I’m told. I know Tony— my kid—did.”
    â€œTell you what,” said MacDonald. “It’s late for you and early for me. I have a few hours of paperwork to do, but when I finish I’ll hunt up everything we have on Billy Paulson and our search for him. Let’s meet for breakfast—well, your breakfast, my dinner—at eight tomorrow morning, and I’ll turn it over to you, and we’ll see if there’s any unifying thread.”
    â€œSounds good to me,” I said. “Where do you want to meet?”
    â€œTilly’s,” he said. “It’s a hash house just half a mile south of here. You can’t miss it.”
    â€œI feel like a fifth wheel,” said Berger. “Tell you what. I’ll come in a bit early tomorrow, before you fill your faces—and Eli, stand clear of this man when he starts pouring ketchup—and I’ll see if we have any other reports of missing persons, or anything else, connected with Bigelow or Mill Creek.”
    We all shook hands, MacDonald went back to his office, and I drove to the motel in a heavy rainstorm, where I spent an evening watching TV shows where the private eye and the cops hated each other and spent half of every episode trying to undermine each other’s work.

I put in a wake-up call for seven o’clock, shaved without cutting myself too many times (I never could stand electric razors), showered without letting too much water spill onto the floor, found I didn’t have any clean shirts or socks left—I was supposed to be back in Cincinnati two days ago—and had the desk clerk point me to a laundry, where I dropped off some shirts, underwear, and socks on my way to meet MacDonald for breakfast.
    Tilly’s looked like a garage that had fallen on hard times. It had a couple of windows, and a couple of booths, and a bunch of stools at the breakfast counter, and it had Tilly herself, who was about fifty pounds overweight, all of it muscle. I looked around, didn’t see MacDonald, though the place wasn’t hurting for business, and sat down at a booth. There was a jukebox selection on the wall, and as I read through the selections I began to feel more and more at home. There was Sinatra, and Rosy Clooney, and Crosby, and Sarah Vaughan, and the Andrews