SE Hinton owns The Outsiders.
Rabbit- A horse that is considered to have little chance of winning a race but is entered purely to ensure a fat pace and tire out the other front-runners, softening up the competition for the benefit of an entrymate. (Daily Racing Forum)
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Chapter Three-
Tim just had a bad feeling about it.
They had stopped for burgers in Crowder. They could have stopped in Macalester, but Tim had wanted to put a little distance between him and the prison, and Two-Bit understood. Still, forty miles down the road and the bad feeling lingered in Tim's gut.
He sat up on the edge of a picnic table and stared across the highway at the lake. In Tulsa, Tim sometimes found himself staring at the river, and he found that he liked the way the water moved. He'd taken to walking out onto the bridge and staring down at the Arkansas when he needed to clear his head. The lake water didn't move like the river, though, and looking at it wasn't doing anything for him.
Two-Bit was talking, but that barely registered. Now and then, when Two-Bit paused to draw breath, Hazel would get a word in.
At first it was the girl Tim thought was spooking him. He didn't know her, and she wasn't saying much sitting in the back seat, which meant she was listening. She seemed like the kind of girl who would always be listening for something she could throw back at you later.
As he was wont to do, Two-Bit shattered Tim's concentration.
"So, how's it feel, Shepard?"
Tim didn't look away from the lake. The early Labor Day partiers were beginning to gather on the shoreline. A couple of guys with fishing pools and some kids with innertubes. What looked like high schoolers were collecting wood for a bonfire.
Tim frowned and asked, "How's what feel?"
"Bein' a free man."
"It's alright."
Two-Bit howled. "Alright? Jesus, man, what do I gotta do to get myself sent to Mac? Do you miss it that much?"
Tim didn't answer. Two-Bit informed them that he was going back inside the diner to get some salt. He walked away from the car, still laughing. Tim felt Hazel's eyes on him.
"What?" He asked.
"Not quite free yet, is that it?" Hazel asked.
"Something like that."
"Those guys back at the prison, did Billy send them?"
Now we're getting somewhere, Tim thought. She's finally going to show her cards.
Instead of answering her, he asked, "You know Billy then?"
"I know he's the kind of jackass who would send someone else all the way down here to take care of you rather have to get his hands dirty on his own turf."
Tim looked down at his feet and smiled.
"And how did you come upon that piece of wisdom?"
Hazel got up from where she was sitting behind him and came to stand next to him at the end of the table. Up this close, Tim could smell the scent of shampoo coming off of her hair as it warmed up in the sun. He cast a sideways glance down at her. Her blouse was open at the top, enough that he could see her breast curving away from her collarbone. She had to know he was looking, but she didn't make a move to adjust her blouse.
"Church," she told him.
"You learned that in church?"
"His wife goes to those tent churches. The ones that pop up in the summertime. Revival meetings. My mom's into that scene since my dad took off. My mom met Eleanor at a revival. We got invited to dinner."
Tim raised his eyebrows.
"Sunday dinner with Billy and Nellie. That must've been a treat."
"It was a Tuesday," Hazel said. "But- yeah- it was...I don't know. Just something was off, I could feel it. You ever just have one of those gut feelings?"
Tim shrugged and didn't tell her that he had one right now. He still couldn't get a bead on the source, but he was feeling less and less like it was Hazel.
She continued, "At first, I thought Billy was going to make a move on my mom or me when Nellie wasn't looking, you know? He was kind of flirty with my mom, and maybe that's why Nellie never let her out of her sight. After dinner, they stayed at the table talking about Jesus and whatever. I got bored, so I told my mom that I was going to get something out of the car, but I was really going to take a hit off of this bottle of Beam I saw in the kitchen when I was helping clear the table. So, I snag this bottle and step out onto the back step, and all of the sudden there's Billy, and he says, 'Save me some of that, will ya'. And I was damned sure right then he was going to pin me up against the side of the house and put his hand up my sweater or something."
Tim nodded.
"But he didn't, huh?"
Hazel shook her head. "No. He sure stood a little too close to me for my comfort, but maybe it was just so we could talk real quiet. He started asking me all kinds of questions about horses. What did I know about horses because every girl he knows loves horses and shit. I told him horses give me the creeps, but it's like he didn't hear me. Just kept talking about horses, and then it turned into had I ever been to the track."
"What'd you tell him?"
"I told him no because I don't give a shit about horses. He asked me if I thought I could pretend to give a shit if there was money in it for me. You see where this is headed?"
"He needed a rabbit," Tim teased her. "He was looking for a pretty, little girl to scope out bets at the track. Flirt with the big money guys, get them to tell you who they were betting on. That it?"
"Yeah, except it was never the big money guys. Sort of the mid-range money guys."
"Scamming the real high rollers would attract too much attention. Did you do it?"
"A couple of times until one of the guys he sent me to flirt with got a little too flirty. I told Billy I was done, and he told me to tell him who the guy was and he'd take care of it. I told him I didn't need him to beat anybody up, that it was over and done, nothing he did was going to change that that creepy drunk bastard put his hands on me. Billy said, 'I ain't going to beat him up'. Then he said he was going to send two guys- see a pattern there? Anyway, I told him- again- it didn't make a difference if they beat the guy up, and he says, 'they ain't going to beat him up either'."
Tim took a final drag on his cigarette and chucked the filter into the gravel. He looked back over his shoulder towards the diner. He didn't see Two-Bit, so he asked Hazel:
"Did you see Billy again after that?"
Hazel shook her head.
"Not on purpose anyway. Sometimes I run into him, and I get the feeling like it ain't quite a coincidence. He seems like the type who would keep tabs on somebody."
"Yeah, you ain't kidding."
Tim did not tell Hazel that Billy had been keeping tabs on him since he was in junior high. It had started with a simple errand, running numbers between bars, and one errand had turned into another until Tim had far too deep a knowledge of Billy's operations for Billy to ever cut Tim loose. He changed the subject:
"So, what's with you and Mathews?" Tim asked her.
"What's with him and anyone?"
"So you're aware of that?"
"Yeah," Hazel said. "You got an opinion on that, you can just keep it to yourself."
"Why would I have an opinion about it?"
"You know he plays around, you know that I know, you might make some assumptions about me."
Tim shook his head. He'd bought a pack of cigarettes from the machine outside the diner, but the machine had been out of matches. Twenty times now, he'd taken the pack out and shook out a cigarette only to find he had nothing to light it with. He did it again- aware that doing it was making him look like some kind of compulsive nitwit- and this time he tucked the cigarette behind his ear.
Tim told her: "I don't make assumptions. I've found it's safest not to. It keeps me from being dead."
Hazel said, "Do you want a light?"
Tim took the cigarette from behind his ear, and Hazel produced a lighter from her purse. Tim handed her the cigarette and let her light it and take the first drag. He found himself smirking just a little. She'd had that lighter all along and had been letting him act all goofy without intervening.
"Thanks," Tim said. He took the cigarette back. "What is it you're so afraid that I'm assuming?"
"Afraid is kind of a strong word, but there are some guys who- knowing that I knowingly go out with a guy who fools around- would assume that I'm the kind of girl who would do the same."
"Are you?"
"Well, it's not really playing around if we're not really a couple, is it?"
Tim blew smoke out of the side of his mouth, and said, "That would make you more the kind of girl who gets around."
"Are you calling me fast?"
"I honestly don't have a clue," he told her. "But when we get back to Tulsa, do you want to go have a drink someplace?"
"You just got out of prison, and there are people who are trying to kill you."
"You going to make assumptions about me based on that?"
"No, I'd just prefer not to be in the line of fire."
"Fair enough. How about we blow town then? Go to Catoosa or Broken Arrow or Kansas or someplace?"
Hazel laughed.
"Do you realize you sound a little desperate? I mean, I am the first woman you've talked to in six months, and you want to take me to Kansas tonight."
"Hell with you," Tim said, grinning at her. "I ain't desperate for nothing. I just figured maybe it's a sign. Maybe you're the first girl I talked to in six months for a reason. We got Billy in common. Maybe we got other stuff we could talk about too."
Tim heard Two-Bit's voice behind them. Both he and Hazel turned. Two-Bit was coming out of the diner, holding the door for two younger high school girls who looked like they'd just come from swimming in the lake. They had wet hair and were barefoot. Two-Bit was holding the door halfway ajar and directing their attention to the sign in the window that said No shirt, no shoes, no service.
Hazel rolled her eyes. She turned back to Tim.
"Kansas it is," she said.