He didn’t tire. Frown. Today’s surface favors speed. We’ll have to beat the conditions, not just the favorite. The tote board blinks the opening odds for the feature. The 8 horse, Free Town Lady, blinks “25 to 1,” proper odds for an off-the-pace long shot on a speed-favoring day.
To me and my trainer/partner, Tee-Red Bernis, Free Town Lady isn’t a long shot. She’s our thirteen-month reclamation project, a bay four-year-old filly who’s about to pay telephone numbers instead of the more accurate even money.
Our plan was to bet $3,000, a whole lot for Tee-Red and me. And a major win for the Flyers.
Loef Brummel’s existential threat straightens my back. I admit the un-admittable: the only way out of the loan shark’s threat is a full-on violation of everything Richard Blaine in Casablanca taught me were the rules of the road. I make the first of nine calls to bookies in three states, betting a total of $15,000—$12,000 more than I have.
I hang up on the last call. The acid in my stomach climbs to my throat. A win will reap what Dave owes, plus cover the Flyers’ defense fund, and $5K for Tee-Red and me. Dave’s trucks will pay the $40K vig. If Free Town Lady signs our exit visas from Dave’s disaster, I will consider my family’s debts to Dave paid in full, then choke him unconscious.
Convenient? Fated? That’s how fucking Dave would describe my horse being who she is and where she is today. But if you work three jobs to make one living—plan, and save, and scrape—then today’s bookie-loan-shark adventure is more like risking your life to rob Peter so you can pay Paul, who you don’t owe in the first fucking place.
Luckily for Dave, I can control my temper and know something about successful horse-race betting. You’ll notice I didn’t say handicapping. In current economic and purse conditions, a short-money stable stays afloat on gambling profits. First, you buy horses others think are too broken to fix (cure); nurse them back to health with all the attention, kindness, and skill they didn’t receive from their previous owners; then enter them in three or four races that don’t fit their skill set, running with equipment like shoes or bits that don’t maximize performance.
Then, you enter them in a race that fits, wearing equipment that fits, against a well-bred, expensive horse on a good streak that you think you can beat. This is the proper way to race horses if you care about your money and the animals but not the bookies.
Is that against the law? Technically, no. Do the bookies and bettors care? I think we’re a number of death threats past worrying about that.
But you still have to win. From behind, on a front-runner day, after completing a hurried prerace Ritual that some gods might see as disrespectful. Then you have to be granted what is called “racing luck,” meaning that your come-from-behind trip around two turns is unhampered by surface irregularities, other horses and their jockeys misbehaving, and karma you may have earned elsewhere.
From the rail, I watch the nine horses entered in the feature stream past toward the paddock to be saddled. Eight of them will try to secure me the suicide gamblers’ death penalty. I check the dirt that favors front-runners, then the heavy stretch breeze that favors front-runners, then . . . a svelte little guy staring at me—about fifty, shaved head, surfer shirt, linen jacket, Vans checkerboard slip-ons—staring with the confidence of a larger man. He speaks to his cell phone, pockets it, then gestures for me to wait as he approaches.
He arrives smiling. “Aren’t you Jonathan Eig? The writer?”
“Huh?” I look past him, then left, right. Then at the rail behind me. “No. Sorry.”
“Yeah, you are.” The smile fades. “Or you were, last month in the Bahamas.”
I make silent odds on which of the four people in the bar at Grand Hotel Boblo made the call to their handler at the DEA.
“Sorry, you have me confused with a world traveler. I bought this suit on eBay.”
He squares up, puts the sun behind him—a professional’s mix of caution and aggression.
“What do you want?”
“Wanted to know if I got laid when I was in Rum Cay.”
“You’re Jon Eig?”
“I got a call. In my world, calls have repercussions.”
I recheck our surroundings. “Yeah? What world is that?”
“One you don’t know much about.”
“One among several. Sorry if I caused you heartburn. Ran into your Get Capone book in the airport. It said you had the ten thousand documents; perfect cover to ask questions that might have Capone’s name in the answers.”
Jon Eig waits for more.
“Can’t, sorry. Was working for a lawyer.” I shrug. “What are you gonna do? They sue you if you break their confidentiality agreement.”
“James W. Barlow Jr. He’s your lawyer?”
“Might’ve been. But because he’d sue me, I can’t say.”
“Worse things out there than being sued.”
“Really? Gosh, who knew?”
Eig glances into the crowd, then back. “The gold’s probably urban legend. Barlow and his friends aren’t.”
“Okay . . .”
“Neither am I.”
I look at him, notice what might be a gun under the jacket. I look where he glanced. “So, Jon, you out here to bet the kids’ baby-food money?”
“Babies are dead. People you’re working with killed them.”
“Jesus.” I add karma distance. “Here’s hoping that’s a figure of speech. Good luck with . . . whatever it is you’re doing.”
Eig doesn’t move.
I do. Bullshit story or not, the Racing Gods do not reward bad karma.
The Eighth Race at Arlington
Chapter 5
Bill Owens
4:50 p.m.
My hands are sweating. I no longer smell like Old Spice. I should’ve given more to Catholic charities; should’ve done more Farm Aid stuff—
John Dooley’s baritone booms: “THEY’RE AT THE POST FOR THE EIGHTH RACE AT ARLINGTON.”
In the hurricane latitudes, the survivors say, “Hide from the wind, run from the water.” Most board up and stay home, fade the risk, and hope to ride out the consequences. Betting horses with borrowed money is similar to betting against a hurricane’s path. You make the bet early, then wait for results that will kill you if you’re wrong. Prior to today, I have never bet with borrowed money.
I string together the parts of prayers I can remember. Honest, I’ll do better. Really.
The tote board blinks the favorite as even money. She looks it, like Secretariat in a dress. Free Town Lady blinks “16 to 1,” down from “25 to 1” six minutes ago. All the horses are approaching the starting gate to load. Free Town Lady passes me at the rail, doesn’t notice, and bites at her outrider’s leg, more full of herself than usual. It’s hot. We’re going nine furlongs, a mile and an eighth; calm would be better.
“THE HORSES ARE APPROACHING THE STARTING GATE.”
Just so we’re clear, I’m going to church every Sunday, forever.
The horses load into the gate. The favorite goes in smooth with local hero Earle Fires on his back. Free Town Lady goes in smooth. We’re in the eight hole but don’t run on the front, so an outside post position doesn’t matter. We’ll run the long stretch to the first turn, then tuck in behind whoever’s in front, hope for big fractions for the first quarter and the half mile, then sit down and pull the trigger in the far turn just past the 3/8 pole.
The tote board blinks “Free Town Lady: 10 to 1.”
The gate bangs open. “AND THEY’RE AWAY . . . FREE TOWN LADY BREAKS ON TOP, FOLLOWED BY—”
Huh? I weld 6x30 binoculars to my eye sockets. The pack is tight, four wide. We run the grandstand straightaway on the lead and bend into the clubhouse turn, the quarter in .23 flat. Fast but not devastating, but we’re not a front-runner, never have run on the front. I will never speak to Tee-Red, my trainer, again.
I will feed our jockey and his grandparents to Loef Brummel. I will—
We do the half mile in .46 flat, Free Town Lady and the big-money favorite shoulder to shoulder. I repeat my new Walt Disney mantra: “Fast but not devastating.” But up ahead, when they turn for home, is where the front-runners pay for the speed they spent getting there. Speed can hold—like it has been today—if you trained for it, like the favorite did and we didn’t. I will kill our jockey, then myself. I deserve to die; I bet my life on a guy who wears a size-six hat.
John Dooley booms: “THREE-QUARTERS IN 1:10 AND TWO. IT’S FREE TOWN LADY AND PISHKA’S PILOT—”
Too fast. Too goddamn fast, but perfect had we run from behind. Like we planned. I lower my binoculars so I don’t see us spill out of the turn, hang, then fold.
Me not watching lasts a full second.
The closers dig in behind Free Town Lady and the favorite, Pishka’s Pilot. The favorite changes leads. Earle Fires asks for it all, too early to mean he has a bunch of horse left. They spill out of the turn. The crowd begins to roar. My throat constricts with an idiot’s hope. Free Town Lady doesn’t fold. She hits a gear she doesn’t have—Oh my GOD—runs the last quarter fully extended, lights out, in .24 flat, hits the wire first in a fucking world-champion life-saving finish! She and I will have children together. We’ll live next to the statue erected in her honor. Her jockey and trainer will be in the Bill Owens Hall of Fame. Grossfeld’s Flyers win the Stanley Cup and cure Down syndrome. Dave doesn’t die, and more importantly, neither do I. Oh my God!
Little red neon word on the tote board:
“Inquiry.”
***
I can still see it.
Cut to the chase: We should’ve won—bullshit, we did win, by nine, but the bold, brave, and beautiful Free Town Lady was taken down on a foul that only fifty-fifty happened. Earle Fires, the affected jockey, will get the Academy Award for “bumped.” Midget motherfucker should be an NFL punter or one of those cute little candy-ass soccer players whimpering for a red card. Call me insensitive; I just wanted to be alive tomorrow. Candy-ass midget motherfucker.
Jon Eig joins my exit toward the valet mosh. “Karma’s a bitch. Have much on her?”
“Last three chapters of the Bible. I now owe ten bookies and a loan shark.”
My feet accelerate. Eig extends his stride without effort. We make the pickup curb without further conversation. I trade five dollars for my keys, key the door to my Citroën, hoping it explodes.
Eig says, “Maybe I can help.”
I stop. Think about it. “You have forty thousand dollars? Another twenty thousand next week, and the week after?”
“No. But I might have a proposition. Given that you’re already dead, you don’t have much to lose.”
Sensitive little fucker. “And?”
“I have history that intersects with Barlow’s. And his friends. We’ll call the relationship ‘unrequited.’ Why I don’t spend much time in public.”
I stare at an “investigative journalist” while I consider what type of life-changing betrayal we’re talking about. “Well, Jon, you’d have to tell me why you’re interested in a really unpleasant criminal-lawyer criminal with a CIA pedigree. And your interest would have to pay well and soon, as in by tomorrow, or me as a ‘helper’ won’t do you much good.”
“The Capone gold might actually be out there.”
“I’ll tell Loef Brummel. He’ll be thrilled.”
Eig glances the valet crowd. “Does Brummel have much pull in Haiti?”
“Ever been to Haiti, Jon? Have any fucking idea what twenty-four hours in that lovely country is?”
“I have. And I’m not interested in returning. You, on the other hand, may have information, or could locate information, that would make it worthwhile to return to Haiti . . . given your current, ah, situation.”
“Me and Haiti will not meet again in this lifetime. And I sure as fuck hope not in the next.”
“What the hero always says before he goes.”
I lean in at him. “I’m not your story’s hero. Whatever your unrequited relationship is with Barlow, it’s yours.”
“Not just Barlow. He’s part of a larger cancer, and so was I. And now, so’s your partner, Dave Grossfeld.”
Jon Eig is beginning to sound like the DEA cocaine police. “Jon, the very last thing I want to do is get between Barlow, Loef Brummel, and the police, be they federal or local.” I point Mr. Eig away from my car door, get in, fire the engine, then drop the window when I’m in gear. “And I strongly recommend you don’t either.”
Eig tosses a business card in my window. “Barlow’s more dangerous to you than Brummel, you just don’t realize it yet. If you’re alive tomorrow morning, take a look at the history you and Grossfeld have with Sportsman’s racetrack. Maybe your history there won’t kill you like it did Eddie O’Hare.”
I start to drive away, but don’t. Jon Eig just used Sportsman’s racetrack as a death threat against my future. Dave’s secretary just told me Sportsman’s was the good news. I feel the hook in my mouth but swallow it anyway.
“All right, what’s the fucking Sportsman’s story I have to know?”
“Capone and his lawyer/partner, Eddie O’Hare, originally built Sportsman’s as the Hawthorne Kennel Club. While they were converting it from greyhounds to thoroughbreds, O’Hare snitched Capone into Alcatraz so he could steal the track. For seven years, O’Hare ran Sportsman’s as Chicago’s premier gambling palace. Was murdered leaving there in 1939.”
“I read your book. So what?”
“This part wasn’t in it: Eddie O’Hare had a law partner, James W. Barlow Senior, father to your current employer. Barlow Senior didn’t die with O’Hare and he should’ve. He didn’t die because Capone’s accountant, Jake ‘Greasy Thumb’ Guzik, believed O’Hare stole the gold that Capone bought from the USS Machias.”
“Meaning you believe it? The gold’s real?”
“Capone’s accountant thought it was. Enough that he allowed Barlow Senior to stay alive to help find it.”
“And you want it.”
“I want Barlow Junior.”
Greed running second isn’t SOP. “Because . . .”
Eig checks the crowd again. “I have some bills to pay that money won’t cover. My number’s on that card. We’re on the same team. For now.” He turns into the crowd.
I leave. Shifting from first to second, I upgrade the gold to a real, albeit iffy, possibility—hell, I know the Dave-Barlow cocaine story is bullshit.
I check the mirror for whatever “bills to pay” are chasing Eig.
Other than the gold/Barlow Sr. stuff, everything he just told me about Sportsman’s I already knew. Sportsman’s was my second home; and after my parents died, my actual home. For eighty years, every Chicago celeb and gangster who mattered hung out in the clubhouse, as did I—until it closed. Dave and I worked the Sportsman’s “funeral” auction.
In 2003 and 2004, before the city of Cicero started the teardown, Grossfeld’s moved miles of the racetrack’s stadium-type stuff, left-behinds, and lots of memorabilia. At the auction, one anonymous buyer alone bought five truckloads of mementos, and I helped Dave load them. That buyer was represented by James W. Barlow Jr. He paid Grossfeld’s a $50,000 profit for the move.
Frown: Lotta history. Barlow’s father, Barlow, me, Dave, Eddie O’Hare, and Al Capone—all of us at Sportsman’s . . .
Takes up a lot of space on a suicide note.
***
My seersucker suit is rumpled, as am I. The ceiling above my bed at the Crown Motel in Calumet City is popcorn asbestos, the same view soul-singer Wayne Cochran had the night he intended to commit suicide here, but found Jesus instead. The photo on my chest isn’t Jesus or Wayne, it’s Susie Devereux, a copy I made and kept.
Why keep a copy?
I’m a guy,
how should I know?
Maybe it’s the Bond-girl history; maybe the three-country trek I undertook looking for her; maybe she’s Ian Fleming’s golden girl—
My phone rings. The sound feels like the echo in a loan shark’s basement; I let the call go to voicemail. It rings again. I call Dave instead of answering, then Barlow. Neither answer. I listen to the new voicemail, an Ireland-Irish voice, rough and cold:
“You or Grossfeld don’t make yourselves findable, the Flyers—all fucking twelve—are goin’ off the Ashland Avenue bridge. See how your little hockey fucks do in the river.”
A normal person couldn’t do that. Loef probably has five guys who can. Dave and Barlow’s bullshit “cocaine” adventure is now our only ticket out of the cemetery. I call Kayak Jim before I call Patty Prom-Night.
He answers: “Hotel Boblo; how can I help you?”
I blurt twenty questions.
“Yeah, your guy Dave was here. No, I don’t know anything about cocaine, his or anyone else’s. Yes, I heard him say ‘Anne Bonny,’ ‘James W. Barlow Jr.’ and ‘Al Capone.’ Was talking to a man-size woman, probably Haitian, who arrived and departed by single-engine seaplane. Dave and his boat were gone the next morning, stiffed us on their bill.”
“Dave mentioned Anne Bonny?”
“Saw the photo you gave me. Acted like he knew all of ’em.”
Dave knows my history in Haiti and Jamaica; helped me survive it when all I wanted to do was die. Now he’s down there using it?
“Sorry about Dave stiffing you. Don’t think he’s running on all eight. Send the bill to Grossfeld’s Moving and Storage; I’ll try to get it paid.”
Static, then: “If your asshole friend went to Haiti, it won’t be him paying it.”
Downtown Chicago
Chapter 6
Bill Owens
Saturday, 2:00 p.m.
Privateers Page 6
