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Paulie, who was shyly admiring the fabric of her tank top.
    â€œCalifornia,” she decided. “The Golden State.”
    â€œI’m Dino,” Dean said. “This is Paulie.”
    When Paulie said hello he took his hat off, revealing jug ears and a spring-loaded cowlick. Misty nodded and watched out over the crowd, sipped at her Scotch.
    â€œWhat d’you boys do?”
    â€œWe’re in the thoroughbred business,” Dean said.
    Misty turned back to him. “Yeah? And what do you do in the thoroughbred business?”
    â€œWell, I don’t know about Dino, ” Paulie said. “But I shovel a lot of horse poop.”
    The three of them were sitting at a table and half pissed when Jackson Jones came in. Dean and Paulie watched as he stood just inside the door, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the darkness. Dean thought about the back door, knew at once there was no chance.
    â€œShoulda parked in the alley,” he told Paulie.
    Jackson didn’t bother to sit down. He wouldn’t, of course, not in a joint like this. He stood in his jeans and his boots and his faded blue shirt, and he looked at Dean without expression, the look that always pissed Dean off for that very reason. His voice, when he spoke, was as neutral as his look, and that pissed Dean off too.
    â€œI been trying to get you,” Jackson said. “Where’s the cell?”
    â€œIn the car,” Dean said. “We been here.”
    â€œWhat good is it if you don’t have it with you?” Jackson asked.
    â€œBattery’s dead,” Dean said. “So what good is it anyway? Say hi to Misty, Jackson.”
    â€œHello, Misty,” Jackson said. “You two better get your asses over to the house.”
    â€œAre you a genuine cowboy, Jackson?” Misty asked. “I never saw a black cowboy before.”
    â€œI’m a horseman,” Jackson said.
    *   *   *
    When Jackson got back to the farm Sonny was on the porch, a Cohiba in his mouth, feet up on the railing, cane hooked over the arm of the wicker chair where he sat. Sonny was looking vacantly at the paddock across the lane, where Silver Dawn was grazing at some tufts of grass along the fencerow. The mare’s stomach was large, even though she wouldn’t foal for nearly three months. The sun was making the odd cameo appearance from the cloud cover, and when it did it threw specks of light across the gray of her withers, like blue sparks dancing in a bonfire. Sonny watched her and puffed on the Cuban.
    Jackson parked the truck in front of the barn and sat there a moment, watching Sonny watch the pregnant mare. Sonny looked like shit, but then he usually did in the morning. He was wearing khaki pants—no matter the weather, he never wore shorts, self-conscious about the scars on his leg—and a short-sleeved shirt, which was unbuttoned to reveal his soft belly. He’d grown his dark blond hair long of late and had taken to treating it with some sort of styling gunk, which left it looking, to Jackson’s eyes, more filthy than fashionable. Jackson himself was a meticulous groomer, and he couldn’t understand why a good-looking man like Sonny would wear his hair like that or submit to the goatee that he was sporadically growing and then shaving away. It seemed to Jackson that Sonny was a man in search of an image.
    Jackson decided he wasn’t much in the mood for Sonny today, but he walked over anyway, stepped onto the porch, and leaned the palm of his hand against the post there.
    Sonny continued to look past him. Jackson glanced out over the paved lane, which ran to the highway. The grass alongside the lane was plush and manicured, with flower beds planted every fifty feet, the flowers mostly dead with the autumn weather. The beds were Jackson’s pet projects, a labor of love. There were rose gardens in front of the barns—pure white Nevadas and Snow Queens mixed with Robert le Diables