The Significant Seven (24 page)

Chapter Forty-Nine

August 25, 2009

Once, sometimes twice a week, on a completely random basis, Doyle would get in his Accord to ostensibly depart Heartland Downs in the evening at the end of his work day. He’d then park the car behind a small grove of trees on the far side of the track kitchen and walk back to Tenuta’s barn, keeping off the roadway, trying not to be recognized. Once in the dark office, he positioned a chair so that he could observe the area between the barns without himself being seen. The first couple of times he did this, he used his CD player to listen to some jazz, sound turned down low. That was before he realized that if he were ever to discover the silent, secretive sponger, he’d best have absolutely no aural distractions. So, with the office door slightly ajar, Doyle spent boring nights listening to the snuffling nasal sounds and shuffling feet of nearby equines. Once each hour, he left the office to quietly walk up and down the shed rows of barns he chose at random. The more nights he spent in these attempts to spot the sponger, the more discouraged he became.

A week earlier Editorialist, the meanest horse in America, had been scheduled to run the next afternoon in a minor stakes race. Editorialist would be an odds-on favorite, everyone knew that. The morning before Editorialist’s race Doyle said to Tenuta, “Ralph, who’s on security tonight?”

“Tony LaVine. Used to groom for my dad, then for me. Retired now. But he’s bored and needs something to do. So, I hire him once in awhile when one of my regular guards needs to be off. Nice old guy, Tony.”

Doyle said, “Are you talking about that skinny old guy who shuffles around here some mornings, looking to read your copy of
Racing Daily
?”

“Yeah, that’s Tony.”

“You can’t be serious! That old man can hardly locate the front page of the paper. You’re relying on
him?
With Editorialist running tomorrow?”

“Jack, ease up. Tony’s done this work for me before. He’ll be fine.”

“You hope.”

Tenuta said, “I’ve got to go into Chicago to talk to some potential new owners. I’m not worried about Editorialist, or old Tony. You shouldn’t be, either. C’mon, walk with me to the car. I want to go over tomorrow’s work schedule.”

In the parking lot, Tenuta handed Doyle the clipboard with the schedule. He was smiling as he leaned back against the car, saying, “I’ve known Tony LaVine, like I said, for a long, long time. But I hadn’t seen him in years until the start of this meeting. I’m walking out of the track one day and there he was. I was shocked. He looked terrible. Skinny, in a raggedy old sport coat, crusty looking pants, it was pitiful.

“We talked for a couple of minutes. Tony told me he could use a little work. I said, ‘Come to see me next week. I’ll see what we can do for you. By the way, Tony, would you like a cigar?’ I had some great Cubans with me from my good owner Sam Murray. I’d planned to enjoy one on the way home. Rosa doesn’t like me smoking around the house. But Tony says, ‘Naw, Ralph, thanks, but I don’t smoke anymore.’

“I said, ‘Tony, how about we go across the street to the Paddock Lounge? I’ll buy you a beer.’ Tony says, ‘Thanks, Ralph, but no thanks. I don’t drink anymore.’ By this time I’m taking an even closer look at Tony. Besides his miserable wardrobe, he’s wearing these ancient shoes, and his shirt collar is so frayed it could lift off in the next slight breeze. I said, ‘Tony, how about I loan you a few bucks to bet tomorrow?’ I said this because, in the old days, Tony LaVine was a regular at the mutuel windows. Tony used to say, ‘You’ve got to make at least one bet every day. Otherwise, you could be walking around lucky, and never know it.’ Anyway, this day Tony says, ‘Ralph, thanks for the offer, but I don’t bet anymore.’”

One of the Heartland Downs security patrols slowly drove past. Tenuta waved at them before turning back to Doyle. “So I said, ‘Tony, how about coming to my house for dinner tonight?’ Well, the old guy’s face lit up. ‘Sure, Ralph, thanks.’”

Doyle said, “That was nice of you.”

“It was, but I had, what do you call it, a superior motive.”

“Ulterior?”

“Yeah, Jack, that’s right. Tony rides with me to my house. Rosa opens the door for us. She takes a long look at Tony, who she’s never seen before. I said, ‘Rosa, this is Tony LaVine. An old friend of mine and of my dad’s. He’s here for dinner.’

“Rosa slowly looks Tony up and down again, which is when I take my shot. ‘This, Rosa,’ I said, ‘is what happens to a man who doesn’t smoke, drink, or bet.’”

Doyle laughed along with Tenuta.

“Rosa didn’t think it was all that funny. But we gave Tony a good meal—this was before the Kentucky cook book disasters—and I worked it out so Tony could get a few hours of work a week as a stable guard for me. He was happy as hell about that. And that’s how I’ve kept the old guy going.”

The next afternoon, after Tony LaVine’s night of apparent vigilance, Editorialist won “like a thief in the night,” as the jubilant Tenuta put it.

Two mornings later, the chief state veterinarian reported that, in the race prior to Editorialist’s, the heavily favored filly Mady and CeeCee, trained by Frank Lester, had been sponged. She finished eighth and last, her first loss of the year. The resultant exacta and trifecta payoffs were huge.

***

Doyle leaned back in the chair, his feet on one of the window sills in Tenuta’s office, looking out at the moistly developing evening. He’d just checked down the shed row. Tony LaVine was seated there in a camp chair under the roof, looking alert. The lingering drizzle suddenly accelerated into a hard rain. A hard rain falling. Doyle started to hum Bob Dylan’s song on that subject, remembering most of the words for a change. That led him into “Oxford Town” and “Corrina, Corrina.” Doyle loved the early Dylan music that his parents had played when he was a kid.

The rain stopped as if a faucet had been turned off. The evening was still gray and gloomy, but Doyle saw movement across the stable yard and heard voices. Two people, decibels rising as they argued. He could hear them clearly. Doyle jumped out of his chair and went to the doorway, recognizing one of the two voices, the woman’s. He opened the door all the way and saw the woman give the short man a shove that forced him back a couple of feet. She pivoted and started to quickly move away. Then she slipped in the mud, and dropped her exercise rider’s helmet, and went down on one knee as a white envelope slipped out of her other hand, disgorging dozens of bills of currency.

“Aw, Christ,” Doyle said. He dashed out the door and splashed across the muddy yard. She heard him coming. She’d quickly snatched up most of the $20 bills she’d dropped. Startled, she looked up at Doyle, mouth open, money in each muddied hand. She looked down and plucked the last sodden bills out of a puddle and stuffed the now refilled envelope into the back pocket of her jeans. She lowered her face again. Her shoulders started shaking as she sobbed, “Oh, Jack.”

Doyle reached down and jerked her to her feet. “Have you got all the money, Cindy?” he growled. He marched her into Tenuta’s office. Junior Garza, there a minute ago arguing with Cindy, had slipped away into the advancing night.

Slamming the office door closed, Doyle yanked down the window blinds before turning on the desk light.

“Why? Why in
hell?…”
He pounded the desk top with his left hand. “Answer me, woman.”

Cindy wiped her face and tried to compose herself. She took a deep breath and sat back in the chair. Tear-tracked and mud-streaked, her face was so heart-striking to Doyle that he felt even more angry, disappointed, betrayed.

She started to get up but Doyle put a hand on her shoulder and forced her back down into the chair, hating the desperate look on her tanned and earnest face.

“Let me talk, Jack. Let me talk.”

“Go.”

Cindy said, “I am truly, truly sorry. Not just that you caught me out, but that I had to start doing the sponging in the first place.”

“It was all for Tyler, wasn’t it?”

“You have to
ask
?” she said bitterly. “Everything I do is for Tyler.”

Doyle said, “That motive isn’t enough for me. It doesn’t justify your sneaky, cheating, horse-hurting actions. Don’t pretend it wasn’t for the damn money.”

Cindy slapped his hand off her shoulder and jumped up. “Yes yes yes, it was about the money, Jack. Of course it was. I’ve got this beautiful, damaged, challenged, different kid. And I want the best for him. And the only way for me to manage, or try to, was to bring in more money than I ever could through my regular work—no matter
how
hard I worked,
how
many hours.” She dropped her head downs into her hands.

“I exercise horses early in the morning. I help Doc Jensen most days. I spend three nights a week behind a cash register, selling beer and cigarettes to punks who try to pick me up. And when I finish, I’m so tired I can hardly stand up. Next day, I start over.”

She rubbed her hand over her tear-streaked face and slowly looked up at Doyle. “When that creep Garza first came to me with his sponging plan, I turned him down cold. I told him he was nuts. But he kept pressing me. He had a pretty good idea of my financial situation. And he figured out that because of where and how I worked, I could get the sponging done if I was smart. I asked the little bastard right off, ‘Why don’t you do it?’ Garza said, ‘Oh, no,
chica
, horses don’t like me the way they get along with you.’”

Doyle walked around the desk and sat in Tenuta’s chair. Cindy said, “I have to use the washroom, Jack. No, no, don’t worry, it’s just down at the end of the shed row. I’m not going to run off.”

“Like I can trust you,” Doyle muttered. He waited in the doorway until she returned, when he said, “Tell me this. Why didn’t you ask me for money. I would have helped you.”

“You came along too late. I wouldn’t have asked you anyway. I was too ashamed. I
hated
doing that to those horses. But I had no choice. Garza paid me $5,000 for each horse I got to. All of them were favorites, all of them lost. I’ve saved all that money for Tyler’s special schooling. I may be trailer trash, but I’ve never begged for money, or taken a handout, or a dollar of welfare money. Neither has my Mom.”

“You want a medal for that?” Doyle shot back. “What you did to those horses, helpless animals, damn it, I don’t care what your motive was. Not to mention cheating bettors all over the country by fixing races. If this story ever got out, it’d be a huge black eye for racing.” He took a deep breath. “You’re a menace to the sport that gives you a living,” he said.

Cindy didn’t answer. She stood up, back to him, arms crossed across her chest. Doyle fought down an urge to put his hand on her shoulder in an attempt to comfort her. Without turning around, she said, “What are we going to do, Jack?”

“I have a question. Who else is involved in this besides you and Junior Garza? He doesn’t strike me as a mastermind of betting strategies.”

“I have no idea,” Cindy said. “I know he calls somebody when I’ve done the sponging. Who it is, I have no idea. I never wanted to know.”

Doyle said, “You tell Junior Garza that if there’s ever another horse that gets sponged at any track he’s at, I will turn him and you over to the FBI in a minute. Understand?”

“Yes.”

Doyle sat down in the chair behind the desk. He held his head in his hands before saying softly, “I’m letting you off the hook, Cindy.”

Cindy whispered, “Thank you.” At the doorway she stopped and looked back. “And…what about us, Jack? Could you ever forgive me for what I did? For what I had to do?”

Doyle slowly shook his head. “I’m quits of you, Cindy Chesney.”

The next morning, when Junior Garza’s employer Marty Alpert arrived at the barn, he was informed by his head groom that “Junior quit, boss. We don’t know where he’s going. He didn’t say nothing. He just got all his stuff and left last night.”

Chapter Fifty

August 28, 2009

Orth heard Sanderson say, “He works late on Fridays. The track starts the races later that day and they finish later. He’s the last one to leave that barn that he’s in, except for the security guards. There’s an interval between when he’s there alone, waiting for the nighttime guard. That’s the window of opportunity, bro. It should work for you.”

“That’s the deal with him every Friday?”

“Yeah. You’re not going to trick this guy into meeting you anywhere. The way he lives his life, he’d be hard to sneak up on. You got to jump him and take him. Take his wallet, make it look like a robbery. Surprise the bastard.”

Orth said, “It’s always by surprise, ain’t it bro?” He replaced the receiver, got into his Jeep Cherokee, and pulled it up next to one of the Qwik Stop pumps. As usual, he walked inside and told Dwayne the cashier “sixty bucks worth” and paid in cash. They talked for several minutes about the currently good walleye fishing on the area’s lakes.

***

Three of the Ralph Tenuta-trained horses had competed on that Friday’s program. The best finish they managed was a third. The mood around the barn was dispirited. Ralph tried to revive the flagging spirits by shouting down the shed row, “Remember, we’ve got the Big E going tomorrow.” Editorialist was scheduled to run in the featured stakes race the next afternoon. He was usually a money earner for all concerned, including Tenuta’s stable employees because the horse’s owners, The Significant Seven, most often represented by Arnie Rison, always “staked” them with bonus payments. Doyle wondered if the ailing Rison would instruct Tenuta to carry out this practice if Editorialist won. Or Renee. Doyle considered these pretty meager stipends. But to people making $350 a week, they were much appreciated gifts.

***

Orth exited his rental car at the far end of the Heartland Downs parking lot just before eight o’clock. The last of the ten Friday races was under way. He heard track announcer Jason Dooley calling out, “And it’s Round Man in front by a length, Twags Two in second by two lengths, followed by….”

Orth wore old blue jeans, a gray cut-off sweat shirt, Chicago Cub ball cap, Western boots into one of which he’d tucked his sheathed combat knife. “
Hola,
” he said to the woman running the tamale stand on the roadway two barns down from Tenuta’s as he strode past. She smiled back at him. “
Buenas tardes, Señor.”

Doyle was locking Tenuta’s office door when he heard a deep voice say, “Hey, Doyle.” He turned around.

“Yeah?”

“Has Tenuta got any job openings here?” Doyle watched the easy, confident stride of the tall, fit-looking man as he approached.

“Sorry, buddy. There’s hardly ever a vacancy in his work force. Tenuta’s too good a boss for that. Do you groom? I could give you a couple of the names of trainers who might be looking to hire help. Why don’t you come around tomorrow morning after I ask around.”

Doyle put the door key in his pants pocket, then stopped. “How do you know my name? And what’s yours?”

The man shook his head as he closed in on Doyle. “I’m not waiting till tomorrow morning, Doyle. My business is with you, right here, right now.” He yanked his knife out of the boot in a movement so swift Doyle hardly tracked it. Doyle stepped back. Thinking, I don’t believe I can outrun this mean-looking son of a bitch, whatever his name is. Doyle’s usually effective left hook would not match up against the weapon in this man’s right hand.

Doyle kept retreating, slowly, hands up in front of him. He said, “What is this?

“You want money, take my wallet.” He reached behind him, not for his wallet pocket. He doubted it was robbery that had sent this man here. Doyle’s left hand landed on a stall door handle. He pulled it. The door swung open and Doyle ducked into the stall, reaching back to slam shut the door.

The intruder braced one large, strong hand against the swinging door, stopped it, and pushed it back against Doyle. With his two hands on the door, Doyle could hold the man out. But only by staying within the range of the knife. Doyle jumped back toward the rear of the dark stall, brushing against the legs of a large, irritated thoroughbred.

Doyle kept his eyes on the man. Doyle’s right shoulder brushed against the agitated horse’s left side. The horse shifted his big butt and lashed out with a powerfully driven left hind foot that narrowly missed Doyle’s right shoulder, resounding when it thumped against the stall wall. Doyle dropped down in the straw and scuttled to the stall’s darkest rear corner.
Christ
, Doyle thought
, it’s Editorialist. I’m in that crazy bastard’s stall. He’s liable to kick the shit out of me before whoever the hell is over there with the knife gets his chance to slice.

Orth removed a small flashlight out of his pocket and aimed it first at Editorialist, then at Doyle. The horse threw his head up and away from the light. Doyle put his hand over his eyes. “Turn that thing off,” he said.

“Then come out of there. I just want to talk to you.”

“You always launch your conversations waving a knife around? Fuck you, pal.” He paused. “And what would we talk about?” Doyle thought if he could prolong this discouraging-looking encounter, the night security guard might arrive for duty and see what was happening. Then he remembered that the night’s assigned watchman was Tony LaVine.
Oh, Christ
.

Orth, no trace of irony in his matter-of-fact voice, said, “What will we talk about? We’ll talk about death. Yours.” He slid sideways through the stall door.

Editorialist lashed out again with a back foot. Orth, startled, aimed his light upward. Editorialist’s eyes rolled in his upraised head.
This horse is either terrified or pissed
, Doyle thought.
God help me, whichever it is.

The increasingly loud sounds emanating from Editorialist brought a wave of response from his nearby stablemates. Snorts, loud whinnies, feet scraping nervously on stall floors. None of this racket attracted any help for Doyle, who felt in his jacket pocket for his cell phone. The stranger quickly leaned forward delivered a karate kick that knocked the phone out of Doyle’s hand. He spotted it on the stall floor and kicked it out the way.

The man now in the stall said, “I wouldn’t want to slash this horse’s jugular, Doyle. But if you don’t come out of there, I sure as hell will.”

“What is this bullshit? You with PETA? Spare the horse and carve up Doyle? Go to hell.”

Orth slowly moved farther into the stall. Doyle ducked to the other rear corner of the twelve by eighteen foot box, putting Editorialist between him and his attacker. When the flashlight came on again and found Editorialist’s eyes, the horse freaked. He reared up so violently Doyle thought his head might hit the stall ceiling. Editorialist made a screaming noise and brought his front legs down, his left front hoof crashing onto Orth’s right shoulder with a
cracking
sound. Orth grunted loudly. Dropped his knife. Grabbed for his damaged shoulder with his left hand. He sank into a pile of straw near the stall door, on his back, writhing. Doyle heard him mutter, “Oh….man.”

Doyle thought about making a grab for the knife. Editorialist changed Doyle’s mind. He unleashed another vicious backward kick that scraped the air over Doyle’s lowered head. Then Editorialist was back up on his hind legs, frightened and furious. His front hooves pawed high up in the evening air. When they came down and landed again, they produced a sound Doyle would never forget. Orth’s face was smashed apart by the aluminum shoes of the enraged animal. He would never answer Doyle’s question of
Who the
hell sent you after me, mister?

Doyle crept to the front of the stall and got to his feet, keeping a wary eye on Editorialist. He picked up Orth by his ankles, swiveled the body, and dragged it out of the stall onto the dirt pathway, followed by the smell of blood and horse sweat and fear. The killer horse turned around and moved to the rear of his stall, facing out the screened back window. Editorialist’s nostrils flared as he shuffled his back feet, sending up little clods of straw.

Doyle, drained, leaned back against the stable wall and reached into his jacket for his cell phone to call track Security. His shirt was wet with sweat. Then he remembered he’d dropped his phone in the stall. He crept back in and found it in a near corner.

Back outside, Doyle glanced at the corpse’s hideously destroyed face and splintered shoulder before quickly looking away. He heard a cell phone ring. Not his. Trying to ignore the man’s gory features, Doyle bent down and patted his pockets. He found the cell phone in the left back pocket of the man’s jeans.

Flipping open the phone, Doyle saw the caller’s name. Stunned, he took a breath before hitting “Talk” and saying, softly, “Yes? What is it?”

There was a brief intake of breath on the other end of the line before the connection was abruptly ended.