Falcon killed his beer, got up, and walked out of the bar.
Raven sat focused on the label-less beer bottle left behind. Even though he owned the guy, Raven couldn’t help feeling less confident than when he had walked in.
Tonight, Falcon gets blood on his hands. A smile spread across Raven’s face as he held his cowboy hat steady, dipping his head down and back up. Then he’ll be locked in. There will be no turning back.
Chapter 3
The man slipped along the side of the shedrow, staying in the shadows. He stopped, listened, and looked up and down the darkened gravel road that separated the barns. Many barns housed stable hands in empty tack rooms, so he had to remain quiet and aware.
The barns were uniform with a dozen horse stalls on each side, back to back. The inhabitants were confined by webbing clipped to either side of the stall door. The webbing was two feet high and positioned optimally to prevent the horse from sidling under or jumping over. A contraption of psychology, as a 1,200-pound animal with determination, could barrel through the chain and plastic device in a flash, but its presence somehow kept them in place.
A large sloped roof ran down either side of the shedrow, providing a walking ring around the stalls that was covered. On one end of the barn were two rooms, one a tack room and the other the trainer’s office. The best barns had small grassy areas on one side where horses could graze and be washed down—green space in a world of dirt and gravel.
Silence and darkness were the man’s friends. At three in the morning he had plenty of both.
He crossed through the fence opening beyond the barn and walked onto the gravel road, stepping lightly to minimize the crunching sound. He took three large steps to the other side of the road and eased onto the grassy area behind the adjoining barn. The stall he wanted was the fifth one on the backside of the shedrow.
Horses murmured and shuffled around when they sensed his presence. He reached the fifth stall and looked inside. A horse whinnied quietly and stared back at him. The man clucked to the animal and quickly slipped under the webbing into the stall. The horse shifted uneasily as the man reached out and stroked the horse along the neck. He scratched along the neck and continued clucking quietly to the horse.
With his left hand he reached into his pocket and drew out a hypodermic needle. The man stroked the horse and made quiet kissing sounds to soothe the animal. When the horse was standing calmly, he jammed the needle into the horse just below the withers. The horse shivered and cried out. Horses in nearby stalls whinnied and moved about nervously. He quickly pushed the plunger to the base, withdrew the needle, and replaced it in his jacket pocket.
The man patted the horse’s neck and stroked upward behind the ears. In an instant he ducked back under the webbing and disappeared into the darkness.
Or at least the man thought he had escaped into the night. Across the road a pair of eyes had watched him enter the stall. He recognized the fright in the horse’s reaction. When the man moved to the right toward the main gate, the eyes followed.
Apparently feeling that his mission had been perfectly executed, the man didn’t move as stealthily as he had just minutes previously. He walked down the middle of the gravel road back toward Crok’s kitchen and the main gate. The eyes kept to the shadows.
When the man reached the road’s dead end at Crok’s kitchen, he tossed something into a trash can. Then, rather than moving left toward the main gate, he went right. The eyes followed.
Thick woods of Manassas State Park framed the backside area away from the racetrack. The man passed four sets of barns and continued on to the fence, which divided the backside from the U.S. Forest Service Park. Without stopping, he slid through a separation in the fence and moved out of sight through the heavy underbrush.
The eyes waited and listened—silence but for the sound emitted by his own breathing. He backtracked to the garbage can outside Crok’s kitchen. Light coming off the soda dispenser outside the front door of the diner gave him enough light to see what he needed. He used a discarded overnight sheet to lift the object. He wrapped the sheet around what he had found, put it in his pocket, and moved back toward his tack room.
He stopped briefly in front of stall five. A snort and one blinking eye greeted him. The horse moved forward, and the new visitor patted and scratched the side of the animal’s head. He turned and returned to his makeshift apartment. Eyes didn’t recognize the man. He didn’t know what the man was doing, but he knew it was not good.
The horse in the fifth stall snorted and took several bellowing breaths. He shook his head and blinked. After several seconds he leaned and stumbled to his left. The stall’s wooden planks prevented him from falling. He looked out over the webbing, and lights flickered among the darkness. No movement, no activity. He snorted again, rocking his head up and down. His head dipped slightly, then he lost his balance, crashing onto the matted straw.
The sound caused shuffling in the compartments of his neighbors, but only the equine variety. They were in no position to help.
The horse tucked his head and lunged upward, trying to get his feet under him. One leg propped him momentarily, then it slid away, and he collapsed back onto the stall floor. His chest heaved as he tried to get air into his lungs. Sweat poured off the once glistening coat. He lunged again but wasn’t able to generate as much motion as the first effort. He lifted his head and whinnied, but the sound was hardly noticeable beyond the stall door. Finally, unable to hold his head off the ground, it, too, succumbed to gravity. He nuzzled the straw as if nodding in agreement with the inevitable.
He blinked twice, then his final breath left him.
Chapter 4
Morning came early to the backside. Falcon was even earlier.
In about thirty minutes the first of the grooms and hotwalkers would start to fill the shedrows. Only “morning people” need apply to work in this world. Several would yawn and spit, trying to manage the hangovers from the night before. Others would be sharp and alert. For now, there was just silence.
Falcon picked the horse based upon the escape route. Bad luck for the horse. The end of Juan Camillo’s shedrow backed up to one of the three restrooms on the backside. He would be quick, and he would get away.
He carried the two-and-a-half-foot section of lead pipe alongside his leg. In daylight it would’ve looked suspicious, even criminal. At this time of night he was just being careful. A few horses were shuffling in their stalls, but the world was asleep. He had to move quickly.
The gelding stuck his head over the webbing, and Falcon scratched him behind the ears, keeping a furtive watch down the shedrow for any visitors. He held a slice of apple up to the animal with an open palm.
A few licks and slurps preceded the crunching bite. The apple was quickly smashed and chomped, much to the animal’s pleasure. With the expectation of a puppy, the horse nuzzled forward, knowing there was more.
Falcon stayed with the plan. He tossed the apple into the back of the stall. The gelding quickly turned around to find the prize in the straw.
So predictable.
The back legs of the horse came toward the webbing. Falcon knew this gave him a better angle, but he also liked the idea so he wouldn’t have to look the animal in the eyes.
He stepped back and gripped the pipe like a baseball bat. The horse had found the apple and was devouring it happily. Falcon spotted the cannon bone. It was the part of the horse’s lower leg that connected the fetlock to the hock, the equine equivalent of the shin bone. It was the piston of these warriors’ engines.
Falcon lifted the pipe above his right shoulder and swung fiercely toward the animal’s leg. The pipe whooshed through the air, accelerating as it descended. Falcon felt the bone snap and crumble as he followed through. The horse shrieked out, stumbled, and hopped on the good hind leg.
Falcon stood for a split second holding the pipe, then realized he needed to move. He zipped around the cor
ner of the barn, tossed the pipe toward the shedrow, and ran into the men’s room. More horses joined in the commotion.
Fear was a virus, and several barns were now infected. Over the din he recognized the animal with which he had shared the apple. The horse cried out. The sound pierced him, haunted him. Falcon covered his ears. It didn’t help.
Soon voices appeared and the sound of people running. Falcon went into one of the stalls and locked the door. He would wait out the storm. He wiped the cold sweat from his face.
What the hell am I doing?
He held his face in his hands. This was all wrong. He had no options. It was a trap, but now he had to ride it out.
Falcon took some deep breaths to steady himself. It didn’t work. He turned, leaned forward, and vomited.
Chapter 5
A racetrack backside quickly became its own community with neighborhoods, gossip, and jealousy. Each barn was a small business, and each small business lived right next door and out in the open with its competitor.
The backside had a chapel, a security force, a café with dining hall, and mock community center. There were restrooms with camp-quality showers, basketball rims, and makeshift soccer fields.
And there were laws. Don’t poach other people’s help, don’t steal other people’s equipment, and don’t brag too much when things went well. Other than that, life was fair game. And as games go, this one was wickedly cruel.
Winning was everything. Trainers got ten percent of any purse money, plus day money for each horse in their stables. For trainers, day money just kept them afloat; they needed to win races.
In this town winning was everything. If trainers don’t win, owners don’t buy new horses and don’t pay their bills on time. If trainers don’t win, they develop a reputation that they can never outrun. If trainers don’t win, they can’t pay their staff, feed bills, vet bills, or their own rent. If trainers don’t win, they’re dead.
They become victims of the unforgiving fate known as inadequate cash flow.
So, trainers thought about winning all the time. Where can I place this horse to get a check? Can I drop him down in the claiming ranks and not lose him? Can she run out her conditions at this track, or do I need to look at a softer spot? I need to win so I can approach that owner about that horse we can claim for a quarter.
The average field was nine horses. Purses paid through five spots, though third, fourth, and fifth paid diddley. So in every race nearly half the businesses walked away with nothing. They fired a shot and got bubkiss. They had to get checks, they had to get good checks, and they had to get a lot of checks.
Many things played into winning: jockeys, vets, condition books, training regimen, feed, and meds. All invested in a 1,200-pound animal with ankles like a teenage ballerina.
There are ten million ways to lose a race, and sometimes trainers couldn’t find a way to win.
As trainers liked to say, there’s a reason jockeys were known as pinheads. Trainers brought their horses up perfectly for a race, training like a monster, sitting on a huge race, on his feed, kicking down the stall, and the pinhead gets behind a wall of horses or moves too early like he’s suddenly riding Man o’ War rather than a quarter claimer.
It was so hard to win, and sometimes a trainer had to have a horse that could win despite the jockey. Fact was, he could train his horses perfectly, could make every decision perfectly, could plan and strategize perfectly, but events conspired, and he still lost.
It wasn’t a game for timid souls. Trainers had to scrap like hell to win and, if they didn’t win, have the courage and confidence to lift their heads up and truly believe they would win the next one.
If a trainer had the big horse, the dominant animal in the division, he was the alpha male. He was the mayor of this community. Everything worked. The world was easy. Owners thought he was Gandhi. His horses were first call for the top jockeys at the track. The barn took down purses for the fun of it. Life was champagne and roses. That trainer was the belle of the ball.
For trainers without the big horse, life was an endless series of back alley knife fights. The small businesses in this community came and went. Trainers that didn’t win on a consistent basis went.
And they went fast.
Two other things made up this community. A newspaper, commonly known as the overnight, which was a sheet of coming day’s entries with ads for nightclubs, steak houses, and accounting services printed on the back. The community also had a post office. Unlike the real post office, this series of 4-inch by 5-inch boxes sat outside the racing secretary’s office in the administrative office of the track.
Aside from serving as a mailbox with official business between the track and a trainer, this post office was a source of contact that ranged from messages from a stable hand to his employer, notes from track administrators to trainers, media inquiries, and occasionally notes from one trainer to another.
The post office was one place left behind in the digital world. Although trainers had migrated to email and text, the post office was still a main form of communication.
The boxes were stacked sixteen rows high and twenty rows across. The names of the trainers were marked with masking tape at the bottom of each box. At the start of the meet, they were in alphabetical order based on stall requests. By the end of the meet, new names were pasted over the old names, and for all but cryptographers there was no semblance of alphabetical order.
The post office was a high traffic area, with most trainers dropping by after morning workouts, between races or at end of day. The racing secretary’s office hummed most hours of the day with new condition books being formed, trainer complaints being registered, and an endless happy dance being done when any media types bothered to poke their heads around.
There was one time when the hallway by the racing secretary’s office was vacant. That was post time.
When horses were called to the post, the staff, secretaries, and officials all stopped what they were doing and walked to the balcony to watch the race. People only worked in this industry if they loved horses. It made no sense otherwise.
And those who loved horses wanted one thing—to watch them run. So when horses were called to the post, everyone from the racing office went to the balcony.
That’s exactly what Raven knew and exactly what he counted on. He had seen them just walk away from their desks, hang up the phones, and move to the balcony.
Raven waited until they were all gone, then he slipped in through the stairwell entrance and walked to the post office. In each mail slot he inserted the same letter. He did it quickly, like a blackjack dealer firing out cards.
A blackjack dealer wearing latex gloves, that is.
Then he disappeared.
Chapter 6
Opening day—there was nothing like it in the world.
Dan jogged from the parking lot toward the turnstiles. The deposition ran just over five hours. Dan would have stayed all night. He owed that to his clients, and his work always came first. But since he was defending the depo, he just needed the testimony to bear out and hold his case together. Mission accomplished—and now he was free to catch the last half of the opening day card.
He quickly traded bills with the program vendor and ripped open his treasure map. For a short twelve weeks, the circus was in his backyard, and he wasn’t going to miss it.
Dreams took flight on opening day—renewal, opportunity, and the chance to be a winner. Today was a fresh start. He took a deep breath as he strode toward the paddock on the backside of the grandstand. Memories of long shots hit and photo finishes won filled his senses.
Dan was seven years old when Uncle Van brought him to the track for the first time. He sat in the car while Van went inside the grandstand to bet; then, they would stand near the rail and watch the races. When he’d gotten the hang of it, Dan started making his own selections. He told Van to bet the purple one.
The silks were his singular means to tell one contestant from another. Number
s weren’t a challenge for him, but the beauty of the jockey’s silks and the majesty of the horses captured his imagination.
“Did you bet the purple one, Uncle Van? You bet the purple one?” Dan pleaded. Van was a proud handicapper. The purple one was 25-1.
“You got the purple one, Dan-o.” Of course, he didn’t bet it. It was Dan’s first lesson in “booking” bets.
Dan screamed at the top of his lungs as they came rushing through the stretch. The purple one was going to the lead and pulling away. Dan jumped up and down, pumping his fists in the air. Some other railbirds congratulated the boy on his big winner. Van gave the railbirds a sheepish smile and muttered something about beginner’s luck.
They shuffled back toward the car. Van turned, checked the tote board, and confirmed that none of his tickets could be cashed. He tussled Dan’s hair, then handed his program and losing tickets to him. “We’ll get ’em next time, Dan-o.”
Uncle Van and Dan were late getting back home for dinner. The two had gone out to pick up some mulch from the gardening center and had been gone nearly three hours.
Aunt Frannie pulled Uncle Van into the dining room and lectured him in a stern whisper. “What were you thinking? Taking the boy to the racetrack? Sakes almighty, if Jean knew you’d done that, she’d never let Danny come back.”
Dan scrambled up the back stairway to his room with the worthless pari-mutuel tickets and the day’s racing program. At that age he didn’t care about the business side of racing. He didn’t understand gambling or the economics. He didn’t know the roles of the people involved. The only thing Dan knew for sure was when those animals ran past, his heart nearly came out of his chest. It took his breath away.
Uncle Van filled a huge gap in the boy’s life. Dan had been five when his dad died. Heart attack—he just dropped on his way to the parking lot from his office in Clarendon.
Dan didn’t understand what happened at the time. He just knew he never saw him again. Dan had to wear fancy clothes a lot, and everyone was sad. The life insurance kept his mom and him in good shape for a year or so, but eventually she had to get a job.
Bullet Work Page 2
