The Significant Seven

by John McEvoy

  Doyle shook hands with Cecil, then hugged Shontanette. “You look good, Jack,” she said. “I hear you’re working up at Heartland Downs. Do you like it?”

  “I do. I’m working for a great guy, Ralph Tenuta.” He paused. “How are things at Monee?”

  Shontanette gave him a sharp look. “Things are fine, Jack. The video slots have saved the track. Business is great. So is Celia,” she added.

  “I’m glad to hear that, Shontanette,” he said, referring to the widowed co-owner and operator of Monee Park, perhaps the loveliest lady he’d ever known. “Very glad,” he added.

  ***

  Doyle sat down for dinner with the Tenutas at one of the numerous tables Travis had positioned around his property. The sun had dwindled and the air changed, a cool breeze now in gentle motion. “These ribs are fantastic,” Doyle said.

  “Every year,” Tenuta answered. “Travis uses his secret formula rub on them, then sauces them after they’ve cooked. The son of a gun won’t tell me what the rub recipe is.” He broke off abruptly. “Oh, Jesus,” he said, “there’s Ollie.”

  “Who?”

  Rosa scowled. “The poor man’s Hugh Hefner,” she said. “Look at those bimbos with him.”

  Doyle saw a bespectacled middle-aged man wearing a straw boater, blue seersucker sport coat, khaki shorts not quite covering his knobby white knees, walking arm in arm with two much younger women, both in skimpy shorts and tee shirts, great looking items. “He calls his girl friends his ‘nieces,’” Rosa said. “There are new ones every couple of months.”

  “Ralph,” Doyle said, “who is this guy?”

  Tenuta cleaned the meat off another rib bone before answering. “I trained for Ollie O’Keefe for almost three years. He has a lot of money. I mean, a lot of money. His old man, now dead, founded a very successful Chicago insurance company that insured, at very low rates, thousands of black people on the South Side. The old man never had anything to do with horses. But Ollie, the heir, loves racing. And I had horses for him. For awhile.”

  He took a sip of iced tea. “Ollie was a crazy man. Fun, very generous, the biggest spender I’ve ever known. Whenever we won a race, Ollie would run down the clubhouse steps from our box shouting to people in their seats, ‘C’mon, get your picture taken with the winner. Everybody’s welcome!’ And he meant it. He’d invite fans, complete strangers, to come into the winner’s circle with him. This went on for most of one summer, and we won a bunch of races. Finally, Bob Benoit, the track photographer, came to me. He said, ‘Ralph, I can’t deal with that man anymore. It’s dangerous for me and the winning horse to have all these people crowded in there. It’s a mob scene. A lot of them order copies of the photo I take with them in it, but hardly any of them pay for what they ordered.’

  “Ollie, when he heard this, offered to Benoit to make up the difference between those who paid and didn’t. He was like that. I mean, Ollie was as generous a guy as you would ever meet. But Benoit said, ‘No thanks. I can’t keep track of all these people, and I don’t want to hire a bookkeeper.’”

  Doyle said to Rosa, “What was so bad about this guy? He paid his bills. Had fun. Tried to share the fun. What was the problem?”

  “You tell him, Ralph,” Rosa said.

  Tenuta said, “Jack, he almost killed me with his life style. His fun wore me out. The man is a boozer like I’ve never seen. You remember how in some of those old movies, men wore what they called smoking jackets?”

  “You’re dating yourself, Ralph,” Doyle said. “But I think I know what you’re talking about.”

  Tenuta said, “Ollie O’Keefe didn’t have a smoking jacket, he had drinking jackets. He’s probably got one on now.”

  The trainer stood up to demonstrate and opened his sport coat. He pointed to the lining on the left side. “Here, in Ollie’s specially tailored coats, are twelve little slots, or small pockets. On the right side, another twelve. Two rows of six on each interior lining.

  “What were they for? They were for holding those little miniature bottles of booze, like they have on airplanes. Ollie kept what he called his ‘brown beauties’ on the left side, mostly bourbon, some brandies and scotch, and his ‘silver sisters’ on the right side. Vodkas, gin, always at least one sambuca. He drank out of that jacket from morning to night. Never got drunk. Kept fresh supplies in his car. Well, it wasn’t just a car, it was a Lincoln Town Car driven by his chauffeur, bodyguard, attendant, named, I am not kidding, Igor. I never knew Igor’s last name. Never wanted to. He was this big Russian hulk. Scary as hell.”

  Doyle said, “Okay. But what are you saying, Ollie affecting your marriage, that stuff? What was that all about?” He looked at Rosa. She looked away. “Let him tell.”

  “My wife is a very tolerant woman,” Tenuta said. “And I am not much of a drinker. But Ollie would insist that he and I go out after the races. Drinks, dinner. More drinks. Maybe some Rush Street action. Ollie paid for everything. He told jokes, he sang Irish songs, he knew everybody, everybody knew him at the late night piano bars, oh, Jack. I felt like I had to go along with him at the time. I was training just twenty horses, and fifteen of them were Ollie’s. I was getting home just in time to get up and go to work. Man was wearing me out.

  “One night—no, morning—Igor drops me at my house. I’d been dozing in the back of the Lincoln. Igor dropped off Ollie and his girl friends at Ollie’s house in Wilmette before that. I get to my door and Rosa yanks it open before I can even fumble with the key. She’s in her housecoat. I thought she’d be steaming. And I wouldn’t have blamed her. But all she says, in a real quiet voice, is ‘You should have been to the barn by now. Your horses are waiting.’ She turns around and slams the door. Who could blame her? I got into my car and drove to the track. I felt like crap. In a number of ways.” He stopped to put his hand on Rosa’s.

  “Next day, when Ollie and a couple of his ‘nieces’ show up about noon, I tell him, ‘Ollie, you’re a great guy, great owner, a generous man, but I can’t keep up with you. I’ll help you find a new trainer. I want all of your horses out my barn by the end of next week.’

  “The funny thing was, it was almost like Ollie saw this coming. He just smiled at me. He wasn’t mad. He reached into this jacket and took an entry from the ‘silver side’ and polished it off. He said to me, ‘Ralphie, okay. We’ve done very well together. But I respect your decision. No hard feelings.’ That’s the last I saw of him until this afternoon. But he sent me what he called a severance check—for ten thousand! Unbelievable guy.”

  Rosa said, “That was his one saving quality as far as I’m concerned. I hated the way he made fun of his ex-wives.”

  Ralph grinned until Rosa shot him a look. He said, “Ollie was mostly Irish, but he claimed he had some Cherokee in him on his mother’s side. So he’d come up with what he called his ‘Injun names’ for women he’d divorced, or who’d divorced him. There were three. He called one Princess Spreading Butt, another Princess Wampum Spender, the third Princess Flapping Jaws.”

  Doyle said, “Does he still own horses?”

  “Yeah,” Tenuta said. “When we parted ways, Ollie was out of racing for three or four years. He financed and produced two movie bombs in Hollywood. When his old man died, he inherited another pile of money.”

  “Not a pile,” Rosa interjected, “a big mound of money.”

  “To answer your question, Jack, yes, Ollie’s got a small stable at Heartland Downs. Buck Norman just started training for him. Buck’s already starting to look the worse for wear dealing with Ollie’s life style.”

  Doyle saw O’Keefe’s small entourage expand by two more young women as it moved toward the stretch limo where the stolid Igor awaited. Ollie turned and doffed his skimmer to Travis, who waved goodbye. Then he got into the back seat with all the women.

  Rosa said, “I want to go and say hello to Travis and Taliyah. I’ll be back in few minutes. Then we better go home, Ralph.”

  Tenuta was thoughtfu
l for a few moments before he said to Doyle, “You know what? The hardest thing about the training business isn’t training the horses, it’s training the people that own them. Now, I’m not talking about Ollie here. He paid his bills on time, which made him one of the exceptions, and he never questioned what races I put his horses in.

  “But over the years, I’ve had owners who would call me in the middle of the night with suggestions, or just to complain. Guys, like Slow Pay Sal, who always were late with the money. I wish I would have known some of the current economic double-talk years ago. I could have said to an owner whose beloved horse stunk, ‘You, madam, are facing a period of illiquidity because your horse is as slow to run as you are to pay.”

  Doyle laughed. “Illiquidity, yeah. Don’t you love it? When the stock market fell down the shaft, my broker would tell me, ‘The sell-off continues.’ Hello. The sell-off? Do you mean the evaporation of my money?”

  Ralph got up from the table when he saw Rosa waving to him. “You going to stick around, Jack?”

  “Naw, I’ll thank my host and hostess and see you in the a.m., boss,” Doyle said. “This was a good time.”

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  July 24, 2009

  Returned from the Hawkins picnic, Doyle found a message on his home phone machine. He heard Damon Tirabassi’s voice. “Jack, we need to talk soon. Karen and I will meet you at that Greek joint near you at six tomorrow morning, so you won’t be too late getting to the track after that. She and I have a meeting with Special Agent Goodman at ten o’clock. We need to know where we are with the sponging case. This is important. Don’t let us down, Jack.”

  Petros’ Restaurant was bustling even at five to six in the morning. Doyle arrived first, greeting Petros’wife with his usual kiss on the cheek, signaling waitress Darla to start his breakfast regimen. Doyle had eaten here at least three times a week for a few years, but his current racetrack assignment had cut back on his patronage of Petros’. The owner noticed. Peering out from the kitchen, Petros, who considered himself a dead ringer for Telly Savalas, shouted, “People, get ready, the big shot famous Jack Doyle is here.”

  “Stay back there with the grease, El Greco,” Doyle shot back. They were both practiced in this kind of affectionately insulting exchanges.

  The FBI agents walked in a few minutes later. Karen ordered coffee, grapefruit juice, and a toasted bagel with chive cream cheese. Doyle nodded approvingly. He said to the waitress, “My usual, Darla my dear.”

  “And you, young man,” Darla said to Tirabassi.

  “An egg, basted, one slice of dry wheat toast. Just a glass of water with that. I’m watching my weight.”

  Eyebrows up, Darla murmured, “I’ve been here eighteen years and never written an order that skimpy.” She flounced toward the kitchen order window.

  Tirbassi said, “We haven’t heard anything from you, Jack. We check phone messages and e-mails twice a day. Nothing. That’s why we asked to meet you this morning. What is going on? Have you found out anything about the spongings? We’re under a lot of pressure to move this along.”

  Doyle waited as Darla returned to fill their coffee cups. “Let’s eat, then we’ll talk,” Doyle said. Their plates were soon set before them. Tirabassi looked at Doyle’s meal with a mixture of envy and amazement. It was a thick cheese and ham omelet, four pieces of crisp bacon positioned next to a two-layer stack of syrup-covered French toast. Darla set his side order of hash browns to the left of Doyle’s full plate. “Everything, okay, folks?”

  Karen spread cream cheese on her bagel. Doyle looked appreciatively at her. “You look nice and tanned, Karen.You still in that volleyball league?”

  “Yes. We’re in first place, as a matter of fact. Undefeated. I’m playing doubles with Holly Stanton. We were on the team at Wisconsin. She’s good.”

  “Folks,” Tirabassi said, “could we get down to business here?”

  “What the hell is our business?” Doyle shot back. “Me flapping around at the racetrack in futility? I haven’t gotten a sniff of the sponger.” He finished the omelet and began working on the French toast. “I’ve gotten nowhere.”

  Karen said, “Can you think of anything else we might do? I know the horsemen’s association has offered the $50,000 reward for information regarding the spongings. But that hasn’t produced any response yet. Do have any ideas, Jack?”

  “No, Karen, I don’t. I also can’t quite figure out why these Significant Seven guys keep dying. Four so far. All under weird circumstances. How can this be coincidence? Doesn’t seem possible.”

  Tirabassi said, “I know about those men dying, but none of the authorities where they died have come to us. There’s no indication of murder. We don’t have connection to those matters. The deaths all appear to be accidental or natural.”

  “Four friends gone in a few months?” Doyle said. “From the same group of famous horse owners? That doesn’t raise your suspicions?”

  Tirabassi said, “Suspicions are the lifeblood of the tabloids. Not us.”

  Darla brought the check to the table. Doyle picked it up. “Damon,” he said, “the only time I’ve seen you pick up a check was to slide it across the table to me. This time I’ll save you the trouble. You get the tip. Karen,” he added with a smile. “Why is it I take such pleasure in ribbing your partner?”

  “Only you can answer that, Jack.”

  Looking at the two hard-working, dedicated agents, Doyle thought again what an unusual combination they made. Pretty Karen from Kenosha, business-like but friendly, not averse to even laughing some times at Doyle’s jibes. Usually dour Damon, soccer dad and coach, driven crime buster from when he grew up in an Outfit-controlled Chicago neighborhood.

  Doyle put his wallet back in his pocket. “Seriously,” he said, “how long do you expect me to keep under cover at the racetrack, getting nowhere? What should I do?”

  The three sat silently for nearly a minute. Karen said, “Years ago, an uncle of mine told me a story about horses. He was my mother’s brother, a real Virginia gentleman, a champion equestrian rider, Randolph Bayliss. During World War Two, he enlisted in the Army. Because of his background with jumping horses and show horses, Uncle Randy was assigned to the U.S. Cavalry. Even though the Army was mechanized by then, they still had a small cavalry division based in Kansas, I think. Maybe Nebraska. It upheld the long tradition of Army cavalry, I guess.

  “Anyway, Uncle Randy was made an officer and put in charge of this little base. When he got there, he was horrified. He sent a telegram to his commanding officer, saying, ‘I’ve got one hundred wild horses here who have never seen a man. And I’ve got a hundred draftees from New York City who have never seen a horse. Please advise.’

  “The answer,” Karen continued, “came back almost at once. One word. ‘Proceed.’”

  Doyle and Tirabassi laughed along with her. “And that’s what Uncle Randy did, Jack, and that’s all we can suggest you do. Proceed.”

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  July 26, 2009

  Doyle and Tenuta stood near the Heartland Downs starting gate, watching a two-year-old filly named Lucy of Artois getting an education. It was a cool morning, dawn only an hour back. The odors of mown grass, sweaty horses, and cigar smoke from the veteran head starter, Willard Dodge, mingled in the sunny air. Besides Tenuta’s trainee, which he referred to as “Our Lucy,” finding the French word Artois too much for him to pronounce, three other young horses were there being taught how to enter the large green starting gate, referred to as “the Iron Monster,” and then wait patiently before quickly emerging from their stalls when the bell clanged and the front doors opened. Young horses, finding themselves enclosed in stalls with only two inches of space on each side of them, a rider on their backs, an assistant starter balanced on a thin ledge next to them, frequently freaked out. That’s why morning lessons were necessary. “It takes most horses about a month of preparation to get them ready to come out of there and run their races
,” Tenuta said.

  “Where do they get the guys to do this work?” Doyle asked, as he watched a half-dozen very fit-looking men working with these excitable creatures. “It’s not easy work.”

  “Not easy?” Tenuta snorted. “That’s an understatement. These men school horses every morning for a couple of hours, then come back in the afternoon to start the nine races. Most of these guys are former exercise riders, or ex-trainers. All are experienced horsemen. And they’ve got the scars to show it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Tenuta said, “I know all these guys pretty well, and if there’s even one of them that hasn’t been taken from the racetrack to the hospital emergency room at least once, I never heard of him. They get bruised and battered. Pulled muscles, dislocated hips, smashed fingers, broken collarbones, broken backs. It’s very physical, very dangerous work. I’m always amazed they can get people to do it. Wait, I think they’re getting her ready.”

  “Who owns Our Lucy?” Doyle said.

  “Nice guy named Kirk Borland. He bred her and looks forward to seeing her make her first start. He calls me about Lucy every day.”

  “Is this your Lucy’s first time in the gate?”

  “Here,” Tenuta said. “She had some pretty good gate training down on the farm in Florida where she was raised and broken. That’s real important as a beginning. Because how horses break from the gate can determine whether they win or lose. If they don’t settle in there, and react to the bell, and jump out at least when all the others do, they’ve dug themselves a big hole. Especially horses just beginning their careers.”

  Led forward by one of the assistant starters who’d grabbed her bridle, a young man referred to as Muzzy by starter Dodge, as in “Muzzy, go in with her,” Lucy of Artois calmly approached the gate and entered stall two. “She’s doing fine so far,” Tenuta enthused.