High Stakes (25 page)
Authors: John McEvoy
Less than five days later, Esther Ness' fate had been decided. Jack had just returned to his condo from his morning run when he heard his cell phone.
“Karen. What's up?”
“Damon and I want to buy you breakfast. Can you meet us at Petros' in a half-hour?”
“I will not refuse such government largesse,” Doyle said. “I'll just wonder about it. You must have an update on Heiress Esther. See you there.”
Walking into the restaurant, Doyle saw the agents in the back booth. Darla the waitress said hello, adding that “Petros says to tell you and your friends back there that breakfast is on him today. It's, I don't know, some kind of Greek holiday.”
“Well, I'll be damned. Darla, tell Smelly I'll highlight this date on my calendar for his only known generous gesture as long as I've been coming in here.” He said good morning to the agents and sat down in the booth across from them. “You have something to report?” The looks on their faces caused him to groan. “Okay,” he said “Let's have it.”
Damon said, “Jack, this is the way these things go, like it or not. Ms. Millionaire Ness' team of expensive lawyers had several long sessions with a team of federal prosecutors. The result? She agreed to plead guilty to two counts of âvictimless' crime.”
“Victimless
?” Jack said. “
Two counts
? How about those horses besides hers she killed? I can't fucking believe this!”
Karen said, “Jack, that is just the way it worked out. What can I tell you? With Ness' plea bargain, the government avoids the expense of a trial and, in the case of this wealthy woman, probably an appeal if she were to lose the first round. So, Esther goes to federal prison for six months, pays a fifty-thousand-dollar fine, agrees to do five hundred hours of community service upon being freed.”
“Well, hell,” Doyle said. “That must be some all-star team of lawyers she's got.” He leaned back in his seat and turned to look out the window. “The fucking power of money,” he said bitterly. “There are black teenagers from Chicago's west side in Joliet Prison for
five years
for selling crack to the wrong carload of eagerly buying white kids from Winnetka and Wilmette. And here's Esther, who caused anguish and expense at all these vet schools, and she sashays into a federal country club?”
Damon said, “I don't like it either, Jack. But that's the way it goes.” He got up. Karen followed. Jack sat still for a couple of minutes.
“They say âmoney talks and bullshit walks'? Naw,” Doyle said, sliding out of his side of the booth, “bullshit and money go hand-in-fucking hand.”
It was a sunny morning, one hardly reflective of Doyle's mood as he said good-bye to the agents on the sidewalk outside Petros'. He shook Damon's hand, kissed Karen's cheek. “I know you two did your best. Nothing you could do to change this outcome. What the hell⦔
They parted, but Jack stopped walking and turned back. “Hey, Karen! Damon! One question,” Jack shouted. “What federal country club is Esther Ness headed for?”
Damon said, “What we heard, Jack, is that Ness is scheduled for that new women's prison in West Virginia.”
“Well, too bad,” Doyle said. “Too bad they don't have coed prisons. They could have sent Esther up there to Lexford in Wisconsin so she could join forces with Rexroth, that bastard. Both arrogant. Wealthy. Made for each other.”
Karen walked up and gave Jack a hug, startling both Jack and the nosey Petros who was peering out his restaurant's front window.
“The system grinds on, and we try to do better, but most often we can't, Jack.” She backed off, smiling at him now. “We do our best. Take care now.”
He watched as Damon and Karen drove south down Clark Street toward the Loop. It was starting to heat up on this typical Chicago late summer day. He nodded at the inquisitive Petros, went to his car, and drove to Fit City.
In the health club's locker room, Doyle quickly changed into his workout clothes. He put on his gloves and warmed up on the light bag for five minutes, rapping it back and forth in a rhythm he always tried to approximate with that of the jazz drummers in the bebop classics he loved.
Then he slid over to attack the heavy bag. Head down, raining left hooks followed by thumping right crosses, moving his feet left-right, then right-left around the swaying canvas target. He pounded away for nine minutes before stepping back, arms at his sides, breathing heavily, sweat drenched, feeling not a
whole
lot better. But some.
At Moe's invitation, Jack joined him in front row third-base Wrigley Field box seats on a beautiful September afternoon. “I buy these seats every year to use for clients,” Moe had said on the phone. “Most of them don't want to accept them anymore for this lousy Cubs team. Meet me on the Addison side around one. We'll catch up.”
The old ballpark was barely a third-full in this final month of one of the Cubs' all-time worst seasons. The team was right on pace to lose one hundred games. The announced crowd of some eleven thousand in a facility that often held more than thirty-five thousand was, as usual, comprised primarily of white women and men who were spending more time drinking high-priced beer, flirting, or talking on cell phones than observing the ineptitude of the home team. Most of the few African-Americans or Latinos present were in baseball or vendor uniforms.
Moe said, “My secretary told me this morning that Cub tickets for today's game were selling on e-Bay for a
buck
. These seats we're in cost $142 a pop per game. The average price this year here at Wrigley was $44 for a ticket. Talk about fleecing sheep!”
The Cubs were now owned by members of a wealthy family whose ardently tax-foe patriarch had designated millions of dollars trying to defeat Barack Obama in the presidential election. All this, while attempting to wring tax breaks from the city of Chicago for the renovation of the aged, iconic ball yard. That attempt had failed. Consequently, the new owners raised prices ten percent for the privilege of watching their sparse talent perform depressingly.
Today's Cubs lineup included two players with batting averages falling below the so-called Mendoza Line, infamously named for a major league player whose batting average never topped .200 thus creating the sorry statistical plateau that memorializes him.
Doyle bought beers. He said, “I notice they haven't lowered the concession prices to mirror the quality of the product on the field. My Uncle Owen told me this is the worst Cubs team he's ever seen during all his years as a fan. He fell into that trap as a kid in 1943. Got encouraged when they made the World Series in 1945. He's been waiting for a repeat ever since.”
The second inning ended with the Cubs down 3-0. “All we can do here this afternoon, Moesy, is catch a little sun, drink a few beers, and relax.”
“Good idea. You've had an interesting summer, Jack. Being the target of an attempt on your life financed by your old enemy Rexroth. Back and forth to Ireland helping to protect Niall Hanratty. Working to stop that rich jerk Pilling from threatening those Burkhardts, the horse owners. And helping nab Esther Ness.Wasn't there a reward offered for the horse killer? Fifty thousand? What happened with that?”
“There was a lot of back and forth about that. Then Esther Ness, who actually put up the money, maybe having tried to distance herself from any suspicion in the investigation, declared it should go to the young man who gave us the tip that led to her apprehension! The guy who helped catch her! Nice young man named Randy Meier, who is back playing football out there for Rockland College, where Esther's criminal campaign came to an end. I don't know if Esther was acting out of guilt, or a sense of responsibility. Who cares? She's got the money to spare.”
They got to their feet for the seventh inning stretch. In keeping with recent Wrigley Field tradition,
“
Take Me Out to the Ballgame” was being rousingly led from the broadcast booth by another in the succession of second- or third-rate celebrities eager to undertake this duty, most of whose voices were almost as far off-key as the Cubs were from first-place.
Two innings later Wrigley Field was alive with cheers. The Cubs had come from behind to win 6-5 with a ninth inning rally. At game's end, the players dashed from the field and dugout to join in a joyous piling-on near home plate. The now diminished crowd roared approvingly when the Cubs finally left the field, arms raised triumphantly.
Doyle said, “Can you believe this, Moe? These guys are actually
celebrating
as they approach the end of one of the worst seasons in Chicago baseball history!
They should be scurrying off to the locker room, hanging their heads, covering their faces!”
“Jack, Jack, look around you. These people here are ecstatic. Those five drunks sitting over to the left of us are still hollering âCubs win! Cubs win!' It's an amazing slice of Cub mania.”
Doyle said, “These saps are like my uncle Owen. What they're doing should be interpreted as a cry for help. Let's get our asses out of this cathedral of the delusional.”
On their way to the exit, Moe stopped, looking back at the diamond. “When I was a kid, Fifi Bonadio and I used to sneak into this ballpark. I'm talking years ago. Back then, when the game was over, fans could leave the stands and walk across the diamond to the exit on the right field side under the El tracks. I would always stop on the mound. Stand there on the rubber, wind up, pretend I was pitching for the Cubs. It was a huge thrill for a kid like me. I'll never forget it. They don't let people do that anymore.”
“The Cubs might have used your pitching talents in recent years.”
Moe said, “Ha ha.”
Out on Addison, they wended their way through the souvenir sellers of Cubs tee-shirts, hats, and caps, all doing a brisk business. Moe's driver Pete Dunleavy was standing next to the double-parked Lincoln, chatting with a Chicago Police patrolman. Moe waved at Dunleavy before saying, “Jack, have you ever considered giving up on the Cubs? Becoming a White Sox fan?”
“Not for a second,” Doyle said.
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