Hooligans (27 page)

“He had the exercise boy break him out at the three-quarters again this morning,” Callahan said

casually over his coffee cup.

“Disaway‟s a marginal. Put him in a field with a bunch of heavyweights he might pull in third if he‟s

feeling just right, it‟s been raining, track‟s soft, like that. Give him a little mud, a slow field, he takes

the money.”

“Thibideau ought to handicap him a little better.”

“Mr. Thibideau, he keeps tryin‟, y‟know, hopin‟ the horse‟ll show a little more stamina. You wanna

know what I think, the pony‟s a stretch runner. He won‟t have it t run wide open them last three

furlongs. Also he was favouring his left front gam. Anyways, I got another ride.”

“When was he favouring the leg?”

“Just after the race. Probably got a pebble in his shoe. I told Smokey about it.”

“Well, good luck today,” Callahan said, and we moved outside. The fog had burned off and left

behind a beautiful day, with

a cool breeze under a cloudless sky.

Callahan said, “That was probably Greek to you.”

“I followed it pretty well. I just don‟t understand the drift of it

As we walked around the corner of the cafeteria, I got my first good look at the track and whistled

between my teeth.

“Impressive, huh?” Callahan said.

Impressive was an understatement.

It sprawled out in the morning sun, a white structure framed against a forest of trees. It was three tiers

high with cupolas on each end and a glass clubhouse that stretched from one end of the top floor to

the other. The designer had modelled the building after Saratoga and other venerable tracks. It looked

like it had been there for fifty years. There were azalea gardens to give it colour and giant oak trees

standing sentinel at its corners. Great care had obviously been taken to remove only those trees

necessary. The parking lot even had freestanding oaks and pines breaking up the blacktop. It was a

stunning sight arid, I had to admit, a tribute to Harry Raines‟ taste. The clubhouse windows sparkled

in the morning sun, and in the infield the grass was the colour of emeralds.

“Wow!” I said.

“Some nice operation,” Callahan agreed.

The Mercedes was gone.

I decided to get back to the subject at hand.

“Why are you so interested in Disaway?” I asked.

“He was two horse in the third race Sunday.”

“Is that good luck or something?”

“Remember the tape Sunday night?”

“How could anybody forget it?”

“You forgot something,” Callahan said. “Tagliani told Stinetto it was a fix for the four horse in the

third heat.”

“I still don‟t get the point.”

“The four horse was Midnight Star. He went off as place favourite, eight to one, won, paid a bundle.

The favourite was Disaway. Wasn‟t set up for Midnight Star to win, was set up for Disaway to lose.

No sense any other way. Sunday, everything was A-one for him, up against a weak field, track was

soft, he went off a five-to-two favourite. Strolled in eighth.”

“Eighth!”

“It can happen. We all have bad days.”

“So the trick was to slow Disaway down?” I said.

Callahan nodded. “Midnight Star romped first, paid $46.80. You bet Midnight Star, you got $46. 8 for

every two bucks you put down. Figure it out, bet a thousand bucks, go home with $23,400

smackers—not a bad day‟s work. My way of thinking, Disaway wasn‟t just having a bad day

Sunday.”

“Supposing Midnight Star had a bad day?”

Callahan smiled. “That‟s horse racing,” he said.

“How did they do it? Make him lose, I mean?”

“Lots of ways. Legal ways.”

“You think the jockey was in on it?‟

“Maybe, not likely. Scoot doesn‟t like Thibideau or the trainer. He‟s a straight-up kid; like to think it

wasn‟t him.”

“How about the trainer?”

“Smokey? Maybe again, but he was pissed because he thought the boy booted the horse early. Didn‟t

know Thibideau told him to.”

“So that makes it the owner?”

“Looks that way. Thing is, Tagliani knew about it. Tagliani got wasted couple of hours later. Maybe

there‟s no connection, but got to think about the possibilities.”

“So what do we do about it, go to Raines?”

“Can‟t. Illegal wiretap. Dutch can‟t afford to have anybody know about it. No tape, all we got‟s

guesswork.”

“So we forget it?”

“I don‟t forget it,” he said ominously. “Happens once, it‟ll happen again.”

165

31

I was tired of the track and anxious to get back to town. There

were a lot of loose ends that needed tying up and I suddenly felt

out of touch with things. It was pushing noon, so I told Callahan

I needed to make a phone call or two arid then I‟d grab a cab

back to town.

“Stick‟s on his way out,” Callahan said. “Back gate, fifteen minutes.”

“How do you know that?” I asked, wondering whether Callahan was psychic in addition to his other

talents.

“Arranged it last night,” he said, and added in his cryptic dialogue, “Due at the clubhouse. See ya.”

“Thanks for the education,” I said.

Callahan stood for a moment appraising me and then nodded. “Disaway runs again Thursday

afternoon. Ought to be here.”

“It‟s a date,” I said.

He started to leave, then turned back around and offered rue his hand. “You‟re okay,” he said. “Like a

guy who listens. Thought maybe you‟d turn out to be a know-everything.”

“What I don‟t know would fill the course.”

“You know plenty,” he said, turning and heading across the infield toward the clubhouse.

I went looking for a phone to check the hotel for messages. By daylight, I had started having second

thoughts about the night before. I knew some of the phone calls bad been from Dutch. I wondered

whether any of them had been Doe calling.

I was walking past the stables when I heard her voice.

“Jake?”

The voice came from one of the stalls. I peered inside but saw nothing, so I went in cautiously. I could

hear a horse grumbling and stomping his foot and the pungent odor of hay and manure tickled my

nose, but my eyes were slow adjusting to the dark stable after leaving the bright sunlight.

“Are you going blind in your old age?” she said from behind me. I turned around and she was

standing in the doorway, framed against the brash sunlight, like a ghost. My eyes gradually picked out

details. She was all dolled up in jodhpurs, a Victorian blouse with a black bow tie, and a little black

derby. Twenty years vanished, just like that. She looked eighteen again, standing there in that outfit,

scratching her thigh with her riding crop. My knees started bending both ways. I felt as awkward as a

schoolboy at his first dance.

“You could have called,” she chided, as if she were scolding a kid for stealing cookies.

“I got tied up,” I said.

She came over to me and ran the end of the riding crop very gently down the edge of my jaw and

down my throat, stopping at that soft depression where the pulse hides.

“I can see your heart beating,” she said.

“I don‟t doubt it for a moment.”

“Can you forgive me?”

“For what?”

“Twenty years ago?”

“There‟s nothing to forgive,” I lied. “Those things happen.”

She shook her head slowly and moved closer. “No,” she said, “there‟s a lot to forgive. A lot to forget,

if you can forget that kind of thing.”

“What kind of thing?”

“You know what I‟m talking about,” she said evasively.

“Look, Doe, I. .

She put the tip of the crop against my lips, cutting off the sentence.

“Please don‟t say anything. I‟m afraid you‟re going to say something I don‟t want to hear.”

I didn‟t know how to answer that, sc I just stood there like a fool, grinning awkwardly, wondering if

we could be seen from outside the stall. If we could, it didn‟t seem to concern her. She stepped even

closer, put the riding crop behind my neck, and, holding it with both hands, drew me closer. Her

mouth opened a hair, her eyes narrowed.

“Oh, God, I‟m so sorry,” she whispered. “I never wanted to hurt you. I didn‟t know Chief had written

that letter until Teddy told me. You just stopped writing and calling, like you‟d died.”

“The phone works both ways,” I heard myself say, and I thought,

Shut up, you fool, play it out. Let her talk. You‟ve been dreaming about this moment for twenty years;

don‟t blow it now.

“Pride,” she said. “We all have our faults. That‟s one of my worst. I wanted to write, then Teddy told

me to leave you alone. He said you‟d had enough. Please forgive me for being so foolish.”

I wondered if she really thought we could puff off twenty years so easily. Say we‟re sorry and forget

it. Was she that sure of my vulnerability? „The armour started slipping around me but she moved

closer, six inches away, and shaking her head gently, she breathed, “There will never be anyone like

you for me. Never again. I‟ve known it ever since I lost you, just as I knew you wouldn‟t come last

night.”

“How did you know that?” I said, my voice sounding hoarse and uncertain.

“Because I don‟t deserve it,” she said, and her lips began to tremble. “Because I wanted you to come

so much and—”

“Hey, easy,” I said, putting a finger against that full, inviting mouth.

What‟s happening here? I thought. How about all the decisions I had silently made to myself the night

before? Is this all it takes to break old Kilmer down?

Yeah, that‟s all it takes.

Then she closed her eyes, and her lips spread apart again, and she moved in and it was like the old

days. I got lost in her mouth, felt her tentative tongue taking a chance, and responded with mine. And

then she was in my arms and it was all I could do to keep from crushing her. I felt her knee rubbing

the outside of mine, heard the riding crop fall into the sawdust, felt her hands sliding down the small

of my back, pressing me closer to her.

I forgot all the things I was going to say to her. The accusations, the questions that would clear up the

dark corners of my mind. Whatever anger lurked inside me vanished at that moment. I slid my hands

down and felt the rise of her buttocks and pressed her to me.

“Oh, Jake,” she said huskily, “I wish it was that summer again. I wish the last twenty years never

happened.”

Don‟t we all, I thought; wouldn‟t that be nice. But I didn‟t say

“Forget all that,” I mumbled without taking my lips away. “Nothing to forgive.”

“Oh, Jake, I want it to be like it used to be,” she said, with her lips still brushing mine. “Come tonight.

Please come tonight. Don‟t stay away again.”

And without thinking any more about it, I said, “Yes.” And I knew I meant yes. I knew I would go

and the hell with Dutch and the Taglianis and the bell with safety and distance and vulnerability. I

would go because I wanted to and because it was my payoff for twenty years. I said it again. And

again.

“Yes... yes. . . yes.”

32

When I left the stable, the first person 1 saw was Stick. He was leaning against the dreaded black

Pontiac and was looking right at me when I came out. She was a couple of feet behind me, standing

inside the stall but visible nevertheless. His expression never changed; he simply looked the other way

as he took out a cigarette and lit up.

“Later,” I said quietly, without turning, and walked straight to the car. Stick had traded in his slept-in

seersucker for a pair of ratty chinos, dirty tennis shoes, and a black boatneck T-shirt, but the brown

fedora was still perched on the back of his head.

“Sorry if I‟m late,” I said, staring out the windshield.

“First things first,” he said, swinging around and heading back out the gate.

We drove a couple of minutes in silence and I finally said, “That wasn‟t what it looked like.”

“I didn‟t see a thing.”

“Look, I knew her a long time ago. It‟s no big thing.”

“No big thing. Gotcha.”

“It‟s no big thing!”

“Jake, it‟s nothing to me,” he said. “See no evil, hear no evil, that‟s me.”

“What do you mean; evil!”

“It‟s a saying. Hey, there‟s no need to be touchy, man.” He drove a moment or two more and added,

“I admire the hell out of the way you gather information.” Arid he started to laugh. I started to get

burned, then he looked over at me and winked. He reminded me of Teddy. I was waiting for him to

add the “Junior” on the end of the sentence. I started laughing too.

“Shit,” I said.

“Is it that important?”

“I don‟t know,” I said with disgust. „It‟s one of the balls I‟ve been juggling.”

I was surprised at how easily it came out.

“Well, if you want an amateur‟s opinion, I sure wouldn‟t throw that one away.”

“Her husband‟s the fucking racing commissioner,” I said.

“I know who her fucking husband is, “he said with a chuckle. “Anybody who‟s been in town for

fifteen minutes knows who her husband is.”

More driving. More silence. Then he started to chuckle again. “I got to tell you, Jake, I really do

admire your style.”

“It hasn‟t got anything to do with the job,” I told him. “This is old, personal business. Something that

was never finished properly.”

“Okay,” he said, drawing out the “Oh” for about five minutes. “Well, I‟m glad you‟re doing it up right

this time.”

“Don‟t be an asshole,” I grumbled.

“Why don‟t you talk about it?”

“1 don‟t want to talk about it.”

“Okay.” A long pause. “But I know you want to.”