Close Call (24 page)
“After lunch, I went with Sandy back to her office. She showed me the payroll records. Every Monee Park security guard is being paid at least $15 an hour, some of them more. This minimum wage claim by Mortenson? It’s bogus.”
Doyle said, “Have you mentioned this to Celia?”
“No. She was away in Springfield in those hearings for a few days, and when she got back she was super busy.” Shonantette paused. “I’m embarrassed to say I then forgot about it, what with everything else that’s been going on here.”
They walked toward the elevator. Doyle said, “This has got to be looked into. Maybe Mortenson’s got some kind of scam working. I wouldn’t put it past him. There’s always been something off about that guy.”
Shontanette smiled. “You mean besides that mothball breath of his? And the alpine after shave, or whatever that shit is he uses?”
“You got it, sister,” Doyle laughed. They entered the elevator. As they rode down Shontanette said, “Jack, were you ever a smoker?”
“Naw. I tried cigarettes when I was a kid, but I didn’t like them. I guess I was lucky. I’ve got an idea of what you’re going through, how addictive nicotine is. I remember what Mark Twain had to say on the subject. ‘It’s easy to quit smoking. I’ve done it many times.’”
Doyle got to Barn D shortly before Thursday’s sunset. The lower level of the evening sky west of Monee Park was a deep purple bolster holding up a blanket of spreading pink above the tree line. “Nice night,” Tom Eckrosh said. “So far,” Doyle replied.
They stood on the dirt path outside of Barn D, looking up and then down the quiet shed row, filled with horses at their ease. Doyle saw a Monee Park security guard stationed at each end, a tall, white guy and a short, slim black man, equipped with revolvers and hand radios. The white guy Doyle recognized, Dave Dubinski, a cousin of Morty’s. Doyle gave him a wave.
Dusk began to settle on the barn area, wiping the last traces of sunlight off the old, metal barn roofs. A dozen or so children of Mexican backstretch workers kicked up clouds of dust as they engaged in a spirited soccer game on a grassless area between the buildings. It was a peaceful scene. Doyle, a brief acidic flow of apprehension coiling through his gut, hoped the scene would stay that way.
On a nearby surface road, cars were streaming toward the west parking lot. It was thirty-two minutes until race number one of the Thursday night program. A dark blue Buick sedan pulled out of the long line of traffic. It stopped in front of Doyle and Eckrosh. Karl Mortenson rolled down the driver’s side window. Ignoring Doyle, he smiled at the old trainer, saying, “Nothing to worry about, Mr. Eckrosh. We’ve got this place secured.” He waved and drove off toward his office. “Huumph,” Eckrosh said.
***
The old trainer had been a hard sell. Celia had ridden with Doyle to Barn D that afternoon. Doyle watched her out of the corner of his eye as he drove. Her face was drawn, her mouth tight. She looked exhausted.
He said, “How are you holding up?”
“I’m on my feet. That’s about it,” Celia said, not looking at him but out the car window at some backstretch workers who were lined up to buy freshly made tamales being sold by a woman out of a small stand at the side of the road. Several of the men tipped their straw hats when they saw Celia. She waved at them.
“It’s been a tough day,” she said. “Bob’s condition is worsening. I sat up most of the night with him. He slept a little. I didn’t. Now, we’ve got Tom Eckrosh to contend with. You know how stubborn he can be. He’s never tolerated anyone he doesn’t know being around his barn, especially at night. When I phoned him to say there was going to be extra security at the barn, he cut me off. ‘Ms. Celia,’ he said, ‘I’ve got my twelve-gauge with a load of buckshot in each barrel, and a long-term case of insomnia. No sumbitch’ll bother me or my horses. Pardon the expression.’ That’s his stance.”
Doyle groaned. “That old man can’t see clearly more than ten yards in front of him. Anybody who tries to attack him back there, they’d jump like a pit bull on a tethered rabbit.”
“I am well aware of that,” Celia said.
Doyle pulled the car up at the north end of Barn D just outside Eckrosh’s office. Celia said, “Let me talk to Tom first.” She got out of the car.
Doyle waited behind the wheel for a moment, watching Celia’s graceful walk toward where the old trainer stood waiting in the doorway of his office, his eyes welcoming her as he doffed his gray fedora. Then Doyle went to join them.
Eckrosh’s initial reaction to what Celia told him was disbelief. “Hurt Rosie? What the hell are you talking about, Ms. Celia? Pardon the expression. Who the hell would do that?”
Celia patiently told Eckrosh of the anonymous phone message describing the threat, why Rambling Rosie qualified as a target, why “We need to take protective measures, Tom. This might have been a crank call,” she said. “But what if it wasn’t? We can’t take any chances here.”
Maria had appeared, a feed bucket in her hand, soon after Celia began talking. Maria frowned as she listened, bringing her hand to her mouth, saying
“madre de dio
.” Eckrosh’s face hardened. “You know,” Eckrosh said, “I saw some awful things in the war I was in. That’s why I went back to the racetrack when I got out of the Army. To forget all that.”
The old man scuffed his boot in the dirt, scowling. “I’m too damn old for this. Don’t know why in God’s name anybody would want to hurt a horse. My horse, or anybody else’s. But if we need people coming into my barn to protect my horse, well, bring them in.”
He turned to Doyle. “Celia said you’ll be with me here tonight?”
“And the next night if need be,” Doyle said. “We can’t have anyone messing with Rosie and her big day, can we?”
Minutes later, Doyle got his first look at Eckrosh’s vaunted twelve-gauge, its finish dulled by time and its stock scarred and worn. He said to the trainer, “Which one left this on the trail? Lewis? Or Clark?”
“Don’t be making fun of this shotgun, son. When I went back to the racetrack after the war, on the old Nebraska circuit, it helped discourage a bunch of backstretch thieves. It shoots.” Eckrosh sat down in his worn, brown leather armchair, its back to the wall of the office, and laid the shotgun across his lap. Doyle said, “Where’s Maria?”
“She’s in with Rosie, in the stall right next door. Maria wouldn’t have it any other way.”
Doyle sat on a hard wooden chair next to the office door, where he could hear any movement outside in the barn. He and the old trainer chatted for the first hour or so, Eckrosh regaling Doyle with stories of his early days in racing. “I rode for a year or so. I wasn’t much good at it, but I made some money right after I got out of the service. Then I got too heavy, so I took up training. I bought an old mare named May Kay for $100 at Madison Downs in Nebraska. I paid the man $50 down, $50 on the cuff. First time I ran her, May Kay won a $300 purse. By the time I paid the $50 I owed the man I bought her from, then paid the blacksmith, and the feed man, and the vet, all I had left was my picture in the winner’s circle.”
Shortly after 10:30, the old man nodded off, shotgun on his lap. He was deeply asleep within minutes. Doyle got up and gently removed the weapon, placing it next to his own chair. He read the next day’s issue of
Racing Daily
, two daily newspapers, and a horse breeding magazine before taking a walk around the barn. He spoke to the two security guards, who said they were scheduled to be replaced at 6:00 a.m.
Dawn broke as Maria rattled Rambling Rosie’s feed bucket in the next door stall. The filly whinnied an enthusiastic response. Grooms and hot walkers began assembling at Barn D, and the smell of brewing coffee emanated from Eckrosh’s office. The old trainer stood in the doorway, smiling at Doyle. “One night down, one to go,” he said.
***
The early hours of Friday night at Barn D were a repeat of Thursday. Eckrosh, at the end of another fourteen hour work day, dozed off after chatting with Doyle about Rambling Rosie’s future as a broodmare. Shortly after ten, Doyle’s cell phone rang. He grabbed it quickly, not wanting to disturb Eckrosh, who was again sleeping soundly in his arm chair, shotgun at hand.
“Jack, it’s Morty. I can’t sleep. Too jumpy about tomorrow, and Rosie, and everything. What about me coming out there tonight, keeping you company for awhile?”
Doyle yawned. “Why not? Bring a couple of large coffees, will you? And a deck of cards. I’ll call Greg Stallings at the backstretch gate and tell him you’re on your way. He knows you, right?”
“Right. See you soon.”
Putting down the phone, Doyle had a feeling of unease as he considered Morty’s offer to join him. To Doyle’s knowledge, Morty hadn’t set foot on the backstretch in years. He was candid about feeling distinctly uncomfortable in the presence of “large, smelly, stupid animals that cost me money.” What prompted him to volunteer tonight?
***
“These pants don’t fit worth a shit. And the jacket’s too damn tight, Aiden.”
A perplexed Denny Shannon was dressing himself in one of the Monee Park security force uniforms that he and Lucarelli had been supplied. The two were in the large men’s room of the Lazy Z Truck Stop, eleven miles north of the racetrack. Lucarelli buttoned his tan shirt and brown jacket and straightened his black tie. He grinned at his image in the mirror. An exhausted trucker, shaving at a nearby sink, looked at him bleary eyed. Lucarelli snapped his cap on and turned to his cousin. “Stop your bitching. Get with the fucking program, man. We’ve got to make tracks.”
Shannon gave up trying to button the jacket, a thirty-eight regular, not the forty-two he needed to cover his heavily muscled upper body. His biceps bulged as he put his tie on a collar at least two sizes too small for him. “Fucking blind man must have picked out these threads,” he muttered.
The trucker rinsed the last of the lather off his face. “You fellas work around here?” he said.
Lucarelli said, “Once in awhile, old buddy. Over and out.” He strutted out the washroom door, Shannon at his heels. Lucarelli whispered, “We’ll put on the gun belts once we’re inside the track.”
Shannon said, “You got our ID badges?”
“Is the Pope a kraut? Do the Cubs suck? Does Pamela Anderson have a prime rack?” Lucarelli laughed. “Are we going to do some
bad
things tonight, my man?”
Oh shit
, Shannon thought,
he’s really ramped up. Hope he knows what we’re
doing
.
Lucarelli gunned the old Taurus through the truck stop parking lot toward the highway. Suddenly, he stomped the brake pedal and pulled over. He looked at his cousin. “You all squared away on how we’re going to do this horse?” Shannon was affronted. “Damn right! We just fucking talked about it an hour ago.”
“So, run it past me.”
Shannon sighed. He said, slowly, “After we get to where this horse lives, and we know how we’re going to do that, I hold the horse by its rope, or whatever, keep it standing still. You hit the horse in the neck with the needle full of the drug, the intervenial barbee turret, whatever. The big load you give it that means ‘bye bye, horsie.’ And we’re out of there, on our way to get our money. Am I right?”
He waited for a response. Lucarelli delayed a couple of beats, keeping Denny on edge. Then he brought up his right hand. “Five me, man,” he said, giving his cousin’s palm a resounding slap.
***
Greg Stallings, the guard on duty at Monee Park’s west backstretch gate, watched the Taurus pull up to the barrier. He put down his coffee cup and walked out of his booth. Lucarelli rolled down his window. He smiled at Stallings. “Hey, buddy, we’re a little early for the 1:00 a.m. shift.”
Stallings bent down to look into the car, past Lucarelli at Shannon, who nodded at him. “Haven’t seen you men before,” Stalling said.
“We usually work the day shift,” Lucarelli said, presenting his fake ID card. “How do we get to Barn D?”
***
Lucarelli said, “Denny, I’ll take this guy.” They had quietly gotten out of the Taurus after Lucarelli parked it in a dark corner of the lot and spotted a security guard seated in a camp chair at the south end of Barn D.
But when Lucarelli approached, he was surprised to see the guard’s chair empty. He stopped, listened, heard a noise from a nearby stall. There was a splashing sound. Lucarelli peered into the dark stall. No horse there, just the security guard, Dave Dubinksi, urinating on the stall floor, his back to the door. Dubinski finished, sighed audibly, and yanked up his zipper. Lucarelli hit him in the back of the head with the butt end of his pistol. The guard fell face forward into the spreading pool. Lucarelli holstered his pistol and took a roll of duct tape from his jacket pocket. He bound the guard’s hands and feet, working rapidly, like a rodeo bulldogger tying up a downed calf. Finished, he stepped carefully to a spot from which he could tape the man’s mouth shut without getting his own feet wet. Then he hurried down the dark back side of the barn to the other end.
Shannon had come around that corner to find a guard seated in a camp chair beneath a seventy-five watt barn light, rocking gently to the music coming through his head phones. Shannon tapped him on the shoulder. The man jumped to his feet. He ripped off the head phones. “Jesus,” he said, “you startled me. What’s going on? My relief ain’t due for another couple hours.”
Shannon glanced at the man’s name tag. “You’re still on duty, Cal. I’m here because they’re doubling up the work force on this shift. That’s what the office called and told me.”
Cal Jackson looked dubious. Shannon said, “C’mon, I’ve got a copy of the work order in my car. I’ll show you.” He led Jackson around the corner of the barn. Lucarelli was waiting for them there.
***
Midnight came and went, unnoticed by Tom Eckrosh, asleep in his armchair. Its passage was marked by Doyle, who walked outside of Eckrosh’s office to stretch. It was a cool, frost-promising October night. The only sounds in the barn were of a couple of horses shifting their feet, one whiffling for a few seconds, making Doyle smile. He pictured Maria in the stall with her prized Mama, knowing the faithful groom would have positioned herself somewhere in the twelve-by-twelve foot area that would allow Rosie to lie down when she wanted.
A few minutes later he saw Morty come bustling toward him carrying four containers of coffee in a cardboard holder. Morty said, “Hi, Jack. Here’s your coffee. There’s one for Tom. I don’t know if she drinks coffee, but I brought one for Maria, too. Where is she?”
“In with Rosie, in the stall next door,” Doyle said. “Let’s put this stuff in the office. Then I’ll take Maria her coffee. Be quiet, I think Tom’s still sleeping.”
Morty said, “I see they’ve got some different guys working security tonight. I guess my cousin got his shift changed.”
“Your cousin Dave? He’s working. I talked to him before. He was bitching about having to extend his shift to six in the morning.”
“There’s a short, stocky guy there now,” Morty said, looking back to the guard post. “Or at least there was a minute ago.” They both looked to the south end of the barn. The light attached to the barn roof illuminated an empty chair. Doyle turned around to look back up the shed row at the other guard station. No one there, either.
“What the hell?” Doyle said. From the darkness of the parking lot a lone car’s headlights blinked rapidly on and off twice. Doyle heard footsteps and instinctively began to brace himself as he turned. A figure charged at him from out of the shadows. Lucarelli wore a ski mask, an incongruity above his Monee Park security uniform. He pointed his pistol at Doyle’s middle. Morty dropped the coffees and started to sidle away. “Stay the fuck where you are,” Lucarelli barked. With his free hand he signaled the car in the parking lot. It immediately drove off.