Assassin Hunter

by August Palumbo

  We stood in the open paddock stall and waited for the jockeys to make their short walk from the jock’s room to the saddling area. T-Red stood directly in front of the colt named Richter Scale and jiggled the reins near the horse’s mouth to keep him distracted. He was an average looking, penny-red chestnut with a wide white blaze that ran from just below his ears to his muzzle. Like most thoroughbreds he was high-strung, and although this was his seventh career start, he was jittery and kept lifting his feet in place. The stall was cramped, so I was careful to stand far enough away from him that he couldn’t stomp his nine hundred pounds down on my foot.

  “He’s not a true greenie, Red, so why so nervous?”

  “This is his first time running under the lights, he don’t know what to make of it.”

  A short, squat man of about sixty in a worn brown suit and oversized tie walked up and down in front of the paddock holding a clipboard. He visited each stall, and when he got to ours he walked up to the colt and studied the white markings on his coat. He flipped up the horse’s upper lip, exposing a numbered tattoo. He compared it to the number on Richter Scale’s foal papers that were clamped to his clipboard, to be sure they matched.

  “What’s the matter, you old bastard?” T-Red asked, “think we’re gonna run a ringer on you?”

  “Nope,” the man replied without looking up, “not you Red, you’re too fucking stupid to pull off something like that.” The rumpled racing official then took the few steps to stall number eight to officially identify the next horse. Pierre D’Argonne, Richter Scale’s trainer, joined us in the stall. He was a heavyset Cajun in his mid-fifties, and wore a tan Stetson hat and a disinterested look. A khaki-clad jockey’s valet strode in behind him carrying the horse’s racing tack. He threw a white saddlecloth with a large, black number seven stitched on it up onto the horse’s withers. On top of that he threw a small leather saddle, then held it in place as the trainer tightened the elastic girth and buckled it under the horse’s torso. The valet, easily identified as an ex-jockey from his height and build, double-checked the security of the saddle with a forceful tug. He said nothing during the process, and only gave a hushed “Good luck” as he walked back to the jockey’s room to prep tack for the next race.

  D’Argonne, who barely glanced at me as T-Red introduced us, said a few words in French. Then T-Red reached into the back pocket of his jeans and pulled out a thin strip of white cloth about two feet long and handed it to the trainer. T-Red remained facing the horse directly in front of him, holding the reins near the bit while D’Argonne reached into the colt’s mouth and grabbed the end of his long, rubbery tongue with one hand. With the other, he wrapped the tongue tie several times around the middle of the tongue, then drew the ends down under the muzzle and tied them together in a neat bow. He let go, and now the tongue was tied in place; it couldn’t slip over the bit or slip back to block the horse’s air passage during the exertion of the race. T-Red then retrieved a small cobalt-blue jar from his hip pocket. D’Argonne dug his index and middle fingers into the Vick’s VapoRub and smeared the glob a few inches up each of Richter Scale’s nostrils. The stall filled with a potent menthol smell from the horse’s first exhale. Then, as if for good measure, the trainer opened the horse’s mouth again and wiped the remaining jelly on his tied tongue. D’Argonne was an assembly line trainer, but used the time-tested methods that opened the air passages and allowed the horse to draw in the maximum amount of oxygen during his race. Almost no words were exchanged during the whole process, which T-Red and D’Argonne had obviously gone through together many times before.

  T-Red stepped to the side of the colt and led him to join the line of horses in the walking ring. They walked the oblong path that allowed the fans pressed against the grandstand fence, and those watching from above behind the glass walls of the clubhouse, to view the entries. They could get a close-up view to help select which horse they wanted to back with their wagers. Some would eliminate betting on any horse with racing bandages, or those running with extra equipment like blinkers or shadow rolls. The less sophisticated handicappers would undoubtedly base their picks on inconsequential things like the horse’s color, or how many involuntary craps he took in the walking ring.

  D’Argonne and I remained in the stall for only a minute when the jockey appeared. He was a journeyman rider. He gave the trainer a customary handshake, then turned to me and did the same. He tapped some mud from his shiny patent leather boots with his whip and asked D’Argonne, “What’s my instructions, boss?”

  “Go the front, then improve your position.”

  The jock laughed and replied with a short, “Okay.”

  The grooms led the horses back to their respective stalls, and the horse identifier in the brown suit, clipboard still in hand, went to the middle of the paddock area and shouted, “Rider’s up!” D’Argonne grabbed the bottom of the jockey’s boot and legged him up onto the colt’s back. T-Red walked the chestnut, whose color was now darker from nervous sweat, and his rider in numerical order with the other horses to the opening in the rail and onto the track surface. He joined D’Argonne and me, and as we entered the grandstand area the trainer muttered something in French and walked away.

  “What’d he say, Red?”

  “He said this horse will run like he’s in quicksand.Don’t bet a nickel on him.”

  I heeded the advice, and noticed that neither T-Red nor D’Argonne made a trip to the betting windows. The race started cleanly, and true to his past performances, Richter Scale broke in the middle of the pack and stayed there for most of the race. In the turn for home, something interesting happened. Several of the front runners ran out of gas, a common occurrence in maiden races, and Richter Scale emerged from his mediocre position to finish a distant second behind a strong betting favorite. His run down the stretch created the general illusion that happens in most races. It looked as if he was gaining velocity down the stretch, when in reality he was passing tired horses. He had more left than they did when it counted, and he paid seven dollars to place for a two-dollar ticket. We were slightly surprised at the colt’s second place finish, but also aware that maiden races are the most unpredictable.

  The veteran jockey jogged Richter Scale back to the finish line where we met him on the track. The faces of the horse and jockey were both splattered with small clumps of sand thrown back at them by the front runners during most of the race. The jockey flipped his dirt-covered goggles up onto his helmet, which exposed a clean area of skin around his eyes. The rest of his face was masked in sand, as was the face, neck, and chest of Richter Scale. He dismounted with a bounce, unbuckled the saddle, and cradled it under one arm. T-Red grabbed the horse’s reins and D’Argonne waited for the jock to finish the post race weigh-in to assure that the horse carried his exact assigned weight for the duration of the race.

  A racing official clamped a black plastic disk with a large, white number two stamped on it onto the colt’s bit, identifying him as the second place finisher. He shouted to no one in particular, “Richter Scale to the spit box.” I walked alongside T-Red, who led the horse across the track to the infield. D’Argonne and the jockey walked side-by-side down Alibi Alley, the rail area leading back to the paddock, where jockeys have a minute during that walk to explain to the horse’s trainer what happened during the race. After every race, on every track, there is only one jockey - the winner - who doesn’t have to come up with an alibi. The others have an ample supply of excuses for why they didn’t win. The race was too long for the horse. The race was too short. The horse needs blinkers. He needs an outside post position. He got hemmed in. He needed this race. The list is endless, and includes stories of bad racing luck, but never includes the possibility that the horse got a bad ride from the jockey. Every conversation in Alibi Alley ends more or less the same way, when the rider tells the trainer, “Put me back on him, boss, and next time we’ll get the gravy.”

  Richter Scale’s excitement from the race overtook his exhaustion, and he pran
ced as we walked across the infield path to the backstretch. We passed horses and their handlers going in the opposite direction, toward the paddock, to saddle up for the next race. “Look at him,” T-Red cracked as we hurried our step to keep up with the horse, “he thinks he’s done something because he didn’t finish in back of the pack again.” His disdainful words couldn’t conceal his pride, and he patted the colt on the neck. “He might turn out to be a racehorse after all.”

  As we tromped across the infield in the sandy soil, several white egrets with pointed yellow beaks, inhabitants of the swamp adjacent to the track, stood motionless in the tall grass alongside us. I chuckled, pointed them out to T-Red and said, “They remind me of the pink flamingoes in the infield at Gulfstream Park in Miami.”

  “Yeah,” he answered, “they’re the Coon-ass version.”

  We walked past several barns and reached the test barn of the Louisiana Racing Commission. I sat on a long wooden bench with several owners and trainers of the first and second place finishers in previous races. T-Red checked his horse in with a small, wiry man who examined and recorded the tattoo number under his lip. Several commission employees watched impassively as T-Red walked his charge in circles behind other grooms and horses cooling out, stopping occasionally to draw water from buckets specifically designated for each horse. The wiry man watched the race results on a television in the small office and prepared paperwork for the next pair sent for drug testing. I recalled the old days when the spit box was called so because swabs of saliva were taken as test samples.

  After thirty minutes, the man emerged from the office and grabbed a long aluminum pole with a thick plastic bag attached to the end. “Okay, let’s try,” he shouted to T-Red, who was making a circle at the far end of the barn. He pointed to a stall with thick straw bedding, where T-Red deposited his horse. The man ordered T-Red out of the stall, and he entered and stood in a corner. He began a series of whistles, one high followed by one low, the method used to get horses to urinate. Within a minute, the colt positioned himself in the middle of the stall, stretched out all four legs, and began to pee. The man reached his metal pole under the horse, and collected at least a pint of the yellow liquid. He sealed the bag and filled out tags identifying the sample. He instructed T-Red to sign the labels along with him. He then walked over to a machine and lowered the sample into a frozen liquid for only a few seconds. When he lifted the sample bag back up, it was frozen solid.

  “I make piss-sicles for a living,” he said without expression. He placed the frozen bag into a freezer, to be sent to the testing laboratory at Louisiana State University. The LSU lab would screen for a myriad of drugs that can enhance a horse’s performance. A positive test would uphold the purse money to the horse’s owner and also subject the trainer, ultimately responsible for anything to do with the horse, to suspension or revocation of his racing license.

  T-Red took Richter Scale back to his home barn, and I returned to the grandstand to watch the remaining races. I was impressed with the security and chain of custody measures used by the racing commission for detecting illegal drugs in the horses. Under their procedures it would be difficult, if not impossible, to affect the outcome of a race by hopping a horse with drugs without being detected. The test barn employees were nonchalant but competent, and the system was tough to beat. Or so I thought.

  * * *

  CHAPTER 23

  The guard shack at the entrance to the backstretch of Evangeline Downs was a small metal building painted dull orange. I pulled up to the gate and a uniformed guard stuck his head out of the shack and asked, “What you want mon ami?”

  “I’m looking for T-Red LeBlanc.”

  The guard looked me over, then with the laid-back attitude I had gotten used to in this part of the country, he said, “Check in the track kitchen, on your left.” He didn’t ask my name, or for any identification, nor did he record my license plate number. He leaned over a counter and pushed a button, and a small electric motor pulled back the gate to a chain link fence blocking the entrance. He waved me through the gate.

  I drove slowly down the narrow road that ran between a long row of tin-roofed stables. I stopped often for horses that crossed the road. They were led to or from the race track by exercise boys and grooms. I pulled up in front of a large building on the left. It was a converted stable with a big sign that read Kitchen hung over the double door entrance.

  This was the unofficial nerve center of the race track. The room was large, with high ceilings. There were chunks of dry sand and tobacco spatterings all over the floor, brought in by the backstretch personnel. The room was filled with workers who sat or stood around dozens of tables. Some were young jockeys and exercise riders, their heads crowned with riding helmets. Some were horse owners, trainers, grooms, and the hot-walkers who cooled out the horses after the morning workouts. Jockey agents huddled together with their appointment books, and studied the list of horses entering races that day. They hustled the trainers to give mounts to their respective riders. Feed and hay merchants, tack salesmen, blacksmiths, and veterinarians all mingled together. Most of their chatter was in Cajun French. They came and went. None lingered for long, as they hurried to get the morning’s work done before the track closed for training at ten o’clock.

  I sat at an empty table, enjoyed a hot cup of coffee, and waited for T-Red to show up. Occasionally one of the men, or one of the few women in the room, walked by me with the smell of horse manure on their boots. From behind I felt a hand on my shoulder, then a small figure walked around me and sat at my table. It was old Comeaux. His gray hair was disheveled and his work clothes were soaked with perspiration. The mixture of sweat and dirt gave his worn denim shirt the texture of canvas. He wore rubber boots that were caked in mud and straw.

  “You’re working too hard, Comeaux. Where’s your help?”

  “A poor Coon-ass like me can’t afford help . . . not and feed the horses, too.”

  “Coffee’s on me, old timer.”

  “Merci.”

  We talked about the horses, and I told him that I was looking for T-Red. After a few minutes, he downed what was left of the thick, black Cajun coffee, and got up to leave.

  “He’s in stable seven. I’ll tell him you’re here if I see him.”

  I read the Daily Racing Form and waited. I was interrupted by a shout from the tall, heavyset woman standing behind the cash register. She yelled at me from across the room and pointed to a food tray T-Red was holding. He stood in front of her and grinned. I walked over and paid for his breakfast. Before she could count out my change, T-Red signaled to a man working behind a bar next to the cafeteria line. The man reached into a cooler and lobbed a can at T-Red, which he snatched and set down on the tray. I frowned, and told the cashier to add the can to the check. We walked back to my spot and T-Red emptied the contents of his tray onto the table – bacon, eggs, toast - and beer.

  “You’re a cheap bastard, Red.”

  “Hey. . . if you didn’t want something you wouldn’t be here, so ante up.”

  “I need one last thing from you.”

  “You guys never have a last thing. What is it?” T-Red shoveled the food into his mouth between gulps of beer. I leaned over the table and told him that I needed a cool place to meet Frank Duplessis outside of St. Landry Parish.

  “Why?”

  “He’s well-heeled in his home parish, and we might not get him prosecuted there, especially because of the corruption.”

  “But you guys are fucking feds. You don’t need the locals to prosecute.”

  “All we have on him right now is murder conspiracy. That’s a state charge no matter who makes the case. I need to close the deal with him in Acadia Parish, where we’re more likely to get the case prosecuted. Any ideas?”

  He scratched his stubbled face and answered slowly. “There’s an old bar on Highway Thirteen near Rayne, called the Blue Goose. It’s a rough-and- tumble joint that doesn’t do much business, only local trade. Frank knows the
place, you can get him there.”

  I took out a fifty-dollar bill and handed it to T-Red. The payment didn’t look out of place since most of the backstretch workers were paid in cash. “I’m waiting here for another thirty minutes. If Frank doesn’t come in, I want you to give him the message that I’m back in town. Tell him to call me at The Plantation.”

  Later that afternoon Frank Duplessis called. His voice was calm over the phone, even calculated. “Been looking for you. I’ve got that stuff you wanted, all of it. Where and when? We need to meet soon.”

  “Tomorrow night at ten. Parking lot of the Blue Goose in Rayne.”

  “Why there?”

  “Away from town, from so many eyes and ears.”

  He hesitated for a moment, as if the location made him suspicious. Then he answered, “I’ll be there.”

  The following night I met Lyle and Special Agent Jerry Lofton for dinner at the Lafayette Hilton. Lofton was one of ATF’s technical experts from the dirty tricks squad, highly trained in electronic surveillance. He was a tall, mild mannered, bookish man who asked few questions about the case. I gave them the layout of the meeting to take place with Frank Duplessis. Lyle already had cased the Blue Goose. He explained that there would be a team of agents dressed in hunting gear inside the bar, as well as another surveillance team placed in a car a couple of miles away. Lyle told Lofton he needed to wire me with a transmitter instead of a recorder. He and Lofton would record the transmission in their G-car a mile away from the meeting.

  “Get your gadgets together and we’ll meet in your room at eight-thirty,” Lyle told Lofton. The agent quietly got up from the table and left.

  “I hate wires, Lyle. But without this one, we don’t have much evidence, only my word against Frank’s. I hope he’s not too hip about checking me.”

  We finished going over the game plan for the meeting. Before we left to join Lofton, Lyle leaned over the table and gave me a serious look. “I want to remind you of something, Tony.”