Murder at the Racetrack (39 page)

So how does it work? Easy. First of all, blood and urine samples can disappear. There’s no overseer to watch everyone in the
spit barn every minute, and there are plenty of people there to do the dirty. Grooms, for instance. The people who walk the
horses in the barn, cooling them out while they’re waiting to be tested. The piss catchers themselves. The test barn vet.
The secretary in the state vet’s office. Nobody else is supposed to be in the barn, but for one reason or another, there’s
always traffic.

Then, too, lots of drugs don’t show up in tests, and they aren’t really illegal. They’re just against the rules. Simple as
that. An owner loses the purse if his horse gets a bad test, but he doesn’t go to jail. Most track vets do what they’re told,
so long as it’s not illegal and it doesn’t hurt the horse. The vet’s got nothing to lose, and certain injections make the
animals safer and more comfortable. Calcium and vitamin Bl, for instance, which tend to calm the horses. ACTH, a hormone that
depletes their stores of adrenaline. Antibiotics to treat infection. Bronchodilators to prevent bleeding in the lungs.

Narcotics
will
test, however, and so will acepromazine, a highly illegal tranquilizer. Commonly given no-nos are morphine, Dilaudid, Ritalin
and apomorphine, which Sam and I used to laugh about. When Sam first came to the track, he was so green someone said to him,
“Hey, Doc, you gonna give him apo today?” and Sam thought he meant “Alpo.”

•    •    •

Sam and I grew up together in Jersey, in a suburb of New York. We fell in love in high school, mostly, I guess, because of
our mutual affinity for animals. I loved the way he talked to his pets, and later to his patients. I’d imagine him talking
to our children that way. Maybe the same thing attracted him to me—if I may brag for a moment, back home I had a reputation
as a bit of a horse-whisperer.

We got married after college, went through vet school together and opened a small animal hospital. But Sam’s first love was
always horses. It wasn’t long before he began working for first one trainer, then another. Though we both hated the schedule,
he was hooked—and not only on the seamy romance of the track. He wanted to make a lot of money in a hurry, so we never had
to worry about things like sending our kids to college—the kids we didn’t yet have. “Just a few years,” he’d say, “and I’ll
come home to the puppies and kitties and guinea pigs. And we’ll have three beautiful children and live in style.” A track
vet can make as much as $400,000 a season.

Problem was, Sam, poor baby, was so naive he ended up involved with a small-time mobster. And didn’t even know it.

At the time, he was working for a trainer named Clancy Forest. Clancy, in turn, was employed by an owner named Claire Brent,
whose “big horse” was a dazzling colt named Satan’s Moon. Sam never met Mrs. Brent, and it wouldn’t have mattered if he had.
She didn’t own that horse, or any of the others under her name.

One day Sam reported for work, and the foreman said, “Hey, Doc, got a job for you. The horse in Stall Eighteen got a positive
on his Coggins. Clancy said take him outside and put him down.” He meant the horse had come down with swamp fever, equine
infectious anemia.

Sam did as he was told. Afterward, he covered the dead horse with a tarp and went on to his other duties. An hour later, he
heard shouting, to which he paid no attention, and then Clancy hunted him down, car keys in his hand. He rattled them like
a weapon, like he was going to go for Sam’s eyes. “Doc, you put the wrong goddam horse down. “No, I didn’t. The foreman said
Stall Eighteen. “Stall Eight, dammit. Loose Lady was in Eighteen.” The way Sam told it, sweat popped out on his brow and the
back of his neck prickled. Loose Lady had just won a stakes race. She wasn’t as fast as Moon, but she was a damned valuable
filly.

“Know who that horse’s owner is? Burt the goddam Hatch! You know who that is? And you know what they mean by Hatch? Or do
I have to spell it out for you?

Poor Sam. He said, “Claire Brent owns that horse.”

“You ever heard of a program owner, you little rube?

Burt the fuckin’
Hatch
owns the goddam horse. The same

Burt the
Hatch
who’s got so many fuckin’ felonies he couldn’t run a horse on a cheap track in fuckin’ Kansas. Know what you just cost me,
asshole? My right tibia, if he finds me. I’m outta here
now
.” He held up his keys and rattled them some more, for emphasis. “You got any sense, you get on the next plane leaves the
airport.” He whirled, marched out on the two legs he intended to keep, and Sam never saw him again.

He never met Burt the Hatch either, but it wasn’t ten minutes before some Mexican with a tire iron came in and applied it
to Sam—all over, but with special emphasis, as Clancy’d predicted, on his legs. Leg-breaking is still very big among the horsy
set, and it’s not confined to humans—an owner wants to get rid of a rival horse, he sends someone to break the animal’s cannon
bone.

How can he do this? Easy. Hardly any of the barns have night watchmen, and anyway, a lot of track people get blind and deaf
around guys with tire irons.

Sam’s left leg healed all right, but the right one never did. He can walk, but barely. He’s too shaky to handle large animals
anymore, which might not be so bad—he could always go back to the guinea pigs—but he got addicted to painkillers, whether
because of the pain, or because he was so goddam depressed he couldn’t face anything anymore. He’s never come out of it.

He said he wasn’t fit to be a husband anymore and moved to a cabin in Maine. Technically we’re still married; I have his address
for emergencies, and he has my cell number. We even e-mail now and then.

But he took my heart to Maine with him. When he left, I started drinking.

And planning.

Fortunately, I had the sense to sell the hospital before I started operating drunk and losing people’s golden retrievers.
It didn’t yield much, but I had enough to live on for a while, and enough to carry out the plan. I hired a P.I. to find the
Hatch, who’d disappeared soon after Sam was attacked.

For one reason or another (my P.I. never got the details) things had gotten too hot for him, and he’d moved to Louisiana,
taking his horses with him—including Satan’s Moon. It’s a state with a reputation. Guess he figured he’d feel at home there.

Luz Serrano’s happy to be there, too. The weather’s great and the folks are real friendly.

•    •    •

Big Easy isn’t doing too well this season, and I think I know why. DeLesseps is having his rider hold him, waiting for the
odds to go up. But one of the friends I make is Wally Michaels, Big Easy’s doc; I hang around Wally and watch what he gives
him. Nothing on race days, not even Lasix. Big Easy’s an honest horse, I could swear it. And why not? He’s a good little horse,
I know that from his past record. All he needs is a rider who wants him to win. I don’t think he has one.

Another of my new friends is Satan’s Moon’s trainer, Ray-ford Burke.

These are two people I need to know. It’s not hard for me—track folks are friendly, and so am I. And I look good in jeans.

When the odds are ten-to-one, I start hearing scuttlebutt, and I watch Wally pretty closely, but I still don’t see anything
funny.

Moon runs a hell of a race, but he only comes in second.

Big Easy wins.

Rayford Burke’s way the hell down in the dumps. He tells me the owner, who he doesn’t name, is gonna be furious. “He loves
that horse more than his own wife. Wants him for stud,” he says.

Right. Stud. All these coonass owners have extravagant dreams about stud. For one thing, there’s money in it; for another,
they all want to think they’ve got another Seatde Slew.

I tell him Moon’s a great horse (which is something of a lie, because Sam has told me things about Moon) but I know they’re
sending Big Easy (which is a bald-faced lie). And I offer to bet Rayf Big Easy’ll win again if he goes off against Moon. I
even say I saw Wally shoot him up.

Rayf beetles up his brow and gives me a glare. “Why the hell are you telling me this?”

“If Big Easy wins, I’ll be the one walking him,” I say. “Jimmy always wants me to walk the big horse.”

Rayf nods, getting what I’m saying. The walker in the paddock is on public view and I make a point of being better groomed
than most of the others. Realizing that seems to rouse Rayf’s suspicions. “Who are you?” he asks suddenly.

At first I panic, thinking he knows something, but then he says, “You’re no Mexican hotwalker. You talk like a debutante.”

So I give him some cock-and-bull story about being once being an M.D. and going on the skids, and losing my marriage, and
taking riding lessons as a kid and loving horses. He buys it, and I’m glad he asked—it puts us on more of an equal footing.
I go on with my story.

“Point is,” I say, “I’ve got access to Big Easy’s water.”

“You could drug his water if he wins, that what you’re saying? I don’t get it. If he’s already drugged, what’s the point?”

I shrug. “Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe they’re just holding him. Or maybe they’re giving him something that doesn’t test. I’m just
saying I can make sure.”

“You want to fix the race for some reason of your own, why the hell tell me about it?” He’s trying to sound bored and a little
outraged, but I know he’s hooked.

“Because I’m looking for a sure thing, Rayf. Why should I be different from anyone else? I need to make a big score in the
New Orleans Handicap, and let’s face it, it’s a two-horse race. If they start holding Big Easy again, the odds get longer
and longer. So Big Easy wins, I win big. But Moon wins, I don’t, even if I bet it both ways. Because the favorite’s not going
to pay much.”

“I’m losing you.”

“I’m offering insurance here—for you, and for me. If Moon comes in second and Big Easy tests positive, Moon takes the purse,
right? Big fat $500,000 purse.”

“Right.”

“Well, the owner’s share of that’s sixty percent. Three hundred grand’s a hell of a lot of money. Half of that ought to be
enough for anybody. I make it happen, I want the other half. Then the owner and I both know in advance who’s going to win
and we each know we’re going to walk away with a hundred and fifty grand. We’re both happy.”

“You want half the purse?” Rayf laughs in my face. “You think the owner’s just gonna fork over a hundred and fifty grand?”

“No,” I say. “But it’s a good place to start.”

“Suppose Moon wins. You think you should still get paid?”

“What does insurance mean to you?” I say, and the question isn’t exactly rhetorical. “By the way, I’m gonna need half up front.”

Rayf laughs his head off, but I don’t care. It’s not the money I’m after. I don’t honestly think Burt the Hatch is going to
make a deal with me, I just want Rayf to bring it up with him, if only for laughs. Because when it’s all over, I want the
Hatch to know he’s been scammed by a hotwalker.

Big Easy’s rider starts holding him again, and the odds shoot up, so I can see I’m right. DeLesseps is waiting for the Handicap.

Meanwhile, Moon’s winning all his races—Rayf wants him to be the favorite because Burt doesn’t care about gambling, he doesn’t
care about anything but Moon’s reputation and his future as a daddy. He’s evidently not worried about Big Easy at all—who
would be?

I put the whole thing out of my head. I have other things to think about. One of them is to open an account with the track,
so I can make phone bets whenever I want.

But a couple of days before the race, Rayf hunts me down. “You know what we were talking about that time?” He’s being circumspect
for fear of being overheard. “I think I might be able to do something for you.”

“Ah. Getting nervous, are you? Did you talk to the owner?”

Rayf bites his lip, looking like a little kid. Maybe he’s suddenly realized what I meant when I said,
“What does insurance mean to you?
” Because as long as Big Easy runs in the money, he’s going to get sent to the test barn, and I’ll be walking him. Moon’s
water’ll be there too. My poisoning opportunities will be almost unlimited.

“Look, we need Moon to win this thing the worst kind of way. But I gotta tell ya, the owner’s not all that worried about Big
Easy. How about ten? Just for insurance.”

Ten thousand dollars. I’m drunk with power. “Twenty,” I say coolly, thinking maybe I know what’s coming.

Sure enough, Rayf starts hemming and hawing. I make it easy for him. “You know as well as I do we’ve gotta have twenty—my
half up front, you keep the back end.”

He gives me a smug little nod.

Just before the race, he brings me a thousand dollars. “The owner wouldn’t give me the whole ten,” he says, “but don’t worry,
it’s coming.”

I give him a hurt look, but inwardly, I’m feeling smug myself. Burt probably figures a grand is about right for insurance
money. To him, it’s pocket change, and he probably thinks it’s the most money a hotwalker’s ever seen at one time, more than
enough to prevent a double-cross. I smile to myself, imagining the Hatch playing the big man in his box up in the clubhouse,
secure in the knowledge the bitch is so stupid she really thinks she’s going to get the rest of her money.

When the odds are as good as they’re ever going to get, I make a phone bet, wagering Burt’s entire payment, plus four grand
of my own. Satan’s Moon goes off at two-to-one and Big Easy, who’s all but forgotten by now, at thirty-five-to-one.

And Big Easy wins!
Not Moon,
although he runs his heart out, tail spinning like the devil’s chasing him.

Burt and Rayf are probably already high-fiving each other, congratulating themselves on their paltry insurance payment. No
way I’m ever gonna see the nineteen large they owe me, but that’s nickel-and-dime stuff to me now. I just won $175,000.

Because I bet on Big Easy.

The Hatch doesn’t know it, but I stopped his horse that morning. If Satan’s Moon tests positive, Burt doesn’t even get the
twenty percent of the purse the owner of the second-place winner’s entitled to. And he
will
test positive. I know because I’ve already drugged him.