A Stone's Throw

by James W. Ziskin

“How much did you win?”

  He frowned. “You’re looking at this all wrong, El. Like I told you, it’s not about the short term. I’m in this for the long haul.”

  “You’re not going to sit there and tell me that you lost.”

  “Not much. About seven hundred.”

  “Seven hundred? You were up three grand on one day.”

  “I had a run of bad luck the last week. Don’t make a big deal out of it.”

  I lectured him for a few miles, even though he’d warned me several times to spare him all judgment.

  He shook his head finally. “You don’t get it. Robbie was born unlucky,” he said, referring to his brother. “I’m not wasting my chance.”

  And I let it go. For whatever reason, Fadge loved the chase. He wanted to be in the game, and not just for pennies. He was after the big payoff. And I truly believed it wasn’t for the money alone. It was the lifestyle. The sense of purpose. And maybe even for his brother. The pursuit of winning was at least as much of a pull as the money on the other end of the ticket. And even when he lost, as he did that August, he enjoyed himself more than at any other time of the year. Despite my concerns for his financial well-being, I envied him his passion.

  As we entered the Spa City, I remarked that the glamour seemed to have faded with the exodus of the out-of-towners after the last race. He had to agree.

  “This place isn’t so different from New Holland once August ends,” he said. “A little smaller, maybe. And some nice history. But it’s only the racetrack that sets it apart these days.”

  “Still, it’s a world away from New Holland. Might as well be Paris.”

  He nodded.

  “Turn here,” I said, and Fadge took a right. “That’s the place up ahead. Robinson’s High Life Tavern.”

  He threw me one of his perplexed looks. “This is the Colored section of town,” he said. “Are you sure you’re not lost?”

  “I owe someone dance lessons at Arthur Murray’s.”

  Horace Robinson was behind the bar when we entered. The patrons regarded us with mild curiosity, but soon enough returned to their own business. To my surprise, Fadge and Horace knew each other. Quite well, in fact. Horace, it turned out, was one of Fadge’s regular clockers at the track. One of the guys who shared information and tips for a modest fee or the occasional drink.

  “You know this lady, Ronnie?” asked the proprietor, indicating me.

  “She’s in love with me. I’ve been trying to let her down easy.”

  I poked him in the ribs. Hard.

  “Why did you tell me you didn’t know anyone named Robinson?” I asked Fadge.

  “I didn’t know, I swear. I only know Horace by his first name.”

  Horace confirmed Fadge’s version of events, then turned his attention to me. “And you. I’ve been waiting on you to deliver me my dance lessons certificate.”

  “Here it is,” I said, holding out an envelope. “I can’t wait to see your moves.”

  “Young lady,” he said with a twinkle in his eye, “I do my dancing between the sheets.”

  I surely blushed.

  When I wrote the final story on the Johnny Dornan case, I did something I wasn’t too proud of. I left Lou Fleischman’s name out of the race-fixing scandal. I tried to convince myself that I had no corroborating witnesses to Johnny’s claim that Lou had been in on the scheme. But, in fact, Lou himself had confirmed his involvement. So why did I give him a break?

  “I don’t know how to thank you,” said Lou as we sat on the porch in front of Grossman’s Victoria Hotel. He was smoking a forbidden cigarette, and I was enjoying a gin and tonic.

  “You’re not going to thank me,” I said. “That would imply a quid pro quo. I did what I did for my own journalistic reasons. Not for you.”

  He gaped at me, clearly unsure of what to make of my gesture.

  “Tell me, though,” I continued. “I really took an interest in that horse of yours, Purgatorio. What’s going to become of him?”

  A great relief settled over the old man’s face, if a heaving sigh and a mushy grin meant what they used to.

  “You know,” he began, “I was thinking of selling him to a little girl. Her father owns a nice little farm not too far from here. I sometimes stable my horses there during the meet.”

  “Is that Ruby Brouwer?”

  Lou nearly swallowed his cigarette. “How do you know her name?”

  I smiled. “Come now, Lou. We’re past asking that question, aren’t we?”

  He attempted a chuckle, but seemed fairly spooked all the same.

  “But how could she possibly afford to pay you what he’s worth?” I asked.

  “Look. The poor horse is never going to pan out on the racetrack. And that little girl is so cute with her pigtails. I was thinking of selling the horse at a great loss to me personally. A couple of thousand dollars, give or take.”

  The expression on my face told him all he needed to know. He began negotiating with himself then and there as I sat silent.

  “Maybe five hundred. Or better yet . . . two fifty.”

  I sipped my drink. “How about a hundred?”

  The figure surely pained Lou, but he got over it. I had him.

  “A hundred dollars,” he said with a shrug. “Why not?”

  I jutted out my chin and feigned deep thought. “And you know, Yom Kippur is coming up soon. You should do something as atonement for your past sins. Why not donate a hundred dollars to the Friends of the Library Society literacy campaign?”

  Johnny Dornan pleaded guilty to the three Tempesta murders. When asked why he’d shot Ledoux but strangled Vivian, he said one of them had to die quickly so he wouldn’t be outnumbered. That was Ledoux. And he’d wanted to murder Vivian with his bare hands because it was more personal that way. He never admitted to having killed Mack Hodges, perhaps to avoid the hassle of a second trial in Maryland. When asked to explain why he’d murdered Micheline, he shrugged, according to Frank Olney, and said that had been his one mistake. Improvised. A spur-of-the-moment decision. If only she hadn’t stuck around to chat after the sex. But she had. And when their conversation turned personal and Johnny asked if he could see her again, she shot him down in flames.

  He lost his cool. She’d only been pretending to like him. Faking her affection for him for the money Lou Fleischman had paid her. He’d known that she was a professional girl, of course, but she’d been so convincing that he was reminded of Vivian McLaglen’s perfidy. An hour before meeting his old lover and Dan Ledoux at Tempesta, he beat Micheline senseless and snapped her neck, all because she’d spurned his invitation to see him again. And because she hadn’t left. The little whore didn’t think he was good enough for her.

  With Micheline dead, Johnny had an extra body to dispose of and no time to do so before Vivian and Ledoux showed up to drive him to their rendezvous at Tempesta Farm. He stashed her under his bed at Mrs. Russell’s place for the time being. He couldn’t leave her there, of course, so after the double murder, he drove Vivian’s black Chrysler back to Ballston Spa, climbed the external stairs to his room, and carried Micheline’s body back down to the car shortly before sunrise. Then he waited till after dark Saturday night when he coolly ditched the Chrysler amid the trees where it sat for more than a week before someone discovered it.

  I asked Frank about Johnny’s car. “I thought he didn’t have one.”

  “He said he kept a car down in Yonkers. From his days at Aqueduct. He took a bus down on Sunday and was back in the Saratoga area Monday morning,” he said. “That’s when he set up housekeeping in the caretaker’s place on Tempesta Farm. He figured no one would look there again after the initial search.”

  Johnny waived all appeals, despite his lawyer’s entreaties, and sat on death row until executions were declared unconstitutional ten years later. His life, the one that had shown such promise when he was a young apprentice rider at Polo Park on the banks of the Assiniboine River, took as dark a turn as any tragic hero’s, t
hanks to a terrible error of youth. I wondered what he might have become had he never met Vivian McLaglen, had she never seduced him and pointed him down the path to ruin. Might he have found success as a rider? Or was his wickedness predestined? Stamped into his future as clearly as his fair eyes and short stature? For years after Johnny’s murders and confession, I asked myself if he’d crossed the moral line because of Vivian McLaglen. Or had he been standing on the wrong side of it his whole life, waiting for his moment to act?

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  For reasons made necessary by the plot of this book, I took the liberty of fiddling with history and created a couple of fictional races—the ninth race on August 10, 1962, at Saratoga, when a fictional Wham’s Dram ruined Fadge’s parlay, and a race from October 1, 1953, at Hagerstown, Maryland. Apart from those two concessions to plotting, “all things are as they were then, except you are there,” including the thrilling duel between Jaipur and Ridan in the 1962 Travers Stakes at Saratoga.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Thanks to Seth Merrow for generously sharing his expertise on horse racing and handicapping; to Anthony Duchessi, for advice on the Saratoga Race Course and arson (yes, arson); to my editor, Dan Mayer, who saw something in a plucky “girl reporter” named Ellie Stone and decided to give her a chance; to Jeffrey Curry, for his sharp eyes and blue pencil; and to my agent, William Reiss of John Hawkins & Associates, who’s been at my side from the very first Ellie Stone mystery. As always, I’m grateful to my beta readers Lynne Raimondo, Dr. Hilbert, and Dr. Kunda. Also, to my sisters and brothers Jennifer, Mary, Joseph, and David Ziskin, who lent support, encouragement, and invaluable feedback on the manuscript. Last and most of all, to Lakshmi for everything.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  James W. Ziskin, Jim to his friends, worked in New York as a photo-news producer and writer, and then as director of NYU’s Casa Italiana. He spent fifteen years in the Hollywood postproduction industry, running large international operations in the subtitling/localization and visual effects fields. His international experience includes two years working and studying in France, extensive time in Italy, and more than three years in India. He speaks Italian and French. Jim can be reached through his website www.jameswziskin.com or on Twitter @jameswziskin.