by John McEvoy
Once Doyle had told Damon and Karen what to look for, Earlene had not been hard to track down. There were only a handful of horse tattooers in Kentucky. Earlene was the third one on the list to be questioned, and she cracked almost at once, motivated by fear of prison time and leaving her twins to fend for themselves in foster homes.
“Yessir,” said Earlene, “that’s the man that hired me—the short one, standing next to the fat fella. He’s the one paid me to tattoo the horse over at Willowdale with the identification numbers he gave me.”
Stoner sighed, then took off his gold-rimmed glasses and began to polish them. Earlene, cloaked in the armor of immunity granted her because of her cooperation, began to breathe more normally. “And that big lug held the horse while I worked on him,” she said righteously, pointing at Randy Kauffman.
Doyle leaned close to Rexroth’s large, sweaty face. Rexroth’s eyes darted about as sweat beads multiplied on his bald head. “Isn’t that an amazing coincidence?” Doyle said softly.
Rexroth gathered himself. “I don’t understand you people,” he barked. Pointing to Lancaster Lad, he said, “What’s going on here with this horse of mine?”
“No, no, Rexy, you’re too modest,” Doyle answered. “We’re not talking about one horse of yours—we’re talking about two. Two horses that belong to you.
“This one here”—Doyle nodded toward Lancaster Lad, who was still dripping wet and blowing from his race efforts—“was shipped to Willowdale last week. I saw him come in.
“And I saw him get his butt kicked over your training track last week by this one here,” Doyle continued, walking over to the prancing bay horse, “who has been living down at beautiful Willowdale all of his life. Who he really is, I sure as hell don’t know. But that doesn’t matter to me. What matters is who he isn’t—he isn’t Lancaster Lad, as you tried to pass him off to be.”
Rexroth started to say something, but Stoner stepped in front of him.
“Stay out of the way, Stoner,” Doyle said. “Your boss wants to ask how I know about this—how these horses got switched so that Rexroth’s guaranteed winner got beat the length of a football field.
“I’ll tell you how I switched these two horses in their stalls at Willowdale two nights ago. They both had halters that said Lancaster Lad, but the halter on the farm’s bay horse was bright and shiny new. So, I took it off him and put it on the new arrival from the racetrack, the real Lancaster Lad. And I took that horse’s halter off him and put it on your homegrown prodigy. Then I switched the horses in the stalls your man Pedro had put them in.”
Doyle poked a forefinger into the middle of Rexroth’s power tie. “When Pedro came to get your fast bay horse the next morning for shipping up here, for your so-called publicity and betting coup, what he got was the real Lancaster Lad.”
Rexroth’s mouth opened, but he couldn’t manage to convert the garbled sounds into a statement. Damon Tirabassi said, “Interestingly enough, Mr. Rexroth, the bay horse over here”—he pointed to the frisky imposter—“was discovered in a search of your property last night. Acting on a tip from a very reliable source, we served the warrant on Mr. Doyle, your acting farm manager. He cooperated by taking us to the barn this horse was in. We transferred this horse up here today.
“Matter of fact,” Damon said, almost permitting himself a grin, “his horse van had an official escort all the way from Lexington to Chicago. Very unusual for the Bureau.”
Shaking his head in mock dismay, Doyle looked at Rexroth. “You know that old saying around the racetrack, ‘That horse is so slow he couldn’t beat a fat man’? Well, fat man, here’s a slow horse that sure as hell beat you.”
Rexroth said, “I’m not listening to any more of this nonsense.” He began to move away when Damon commanded, “Grab him and hold him.” As the astonished Rexroth was handcuffed, Karen faced him. “And that’s not all,” she said calmly.
At her signal, agent Kamin came through the crowd, pushing Ronald Mortvedt ahead of him. The little man had a sizable bandage on his cheek, covering the cut that Doyle’s fist had inflicted. Mortvedt looked impassively at Rexroth. But when his gaze found Doyle, it carried a charge filled with hate.
“Rexy,” said Doyle, grinning and putting an arm around the publisher’s shoulders, “these colleagues of yours, your fellow criminals, they sold you out and sewed up the case against you. It was a beautiful thing. Dishonor among thieves gaining momentum like a tidal wave. They could hardly wait to give you up, once the picture was made clear to them.
“First, Jud Repke saw the wisdom of telling the truth to the FBI about horse killings on your property. He thought he was a little underpaid, by the way. And Jud was real good in recalling the search for the look-alike horse. That’s what he called the horse he and Mortvedt found in New Mexico, the horse nearly identical to the one you tried to slip into the Heartland Derby today. Old Jud, he was off key at first, but then he got into the sing of things, so to speak,” Doyle said, thoroughly enjoying himself now, as if he were rhythmically drumming the light bag in the gym.
“And that poor little woman that Stoner bribed, the horse tattooer over there? She was what you’d call extremely forthright as well.
“But the star of the linking-everything-to-Rexroth show was that little monster over there,” Doyle said, pointing at Mortvedt. “When it got down to a choice between a reduced prison sentence and nailing your fat ass to the wall, Ronnie got his vocal cords and his testimony in order. Like his buddy Jud, he was kind of miffed over the level of payments you made to him—once he found out the true worth of those insurance policies you were collecting on.
“Ronnie kept a real good record of your payments to him, though—dates, names of the horses you told him to kill. Not to mention the mare you paid him to steal and then kill after she’d foaled the look-alike horse.
“You’re going down, Rexy,” Doyle said with relish, “like a cannonball tossed off the Sears Tower.”
For the first time, Rexroth’s armor of conceit began to melt. He looked at Doyle, then pleadingly at Stoner. As he started to speak, Stoner interjected quickly, “Let the attorneys deal with this.” But Rexroth ignored him. “Why you?” Rexroth said to Doyle. “I don’t understand….”
“It’s a long story,” Doyle said, “but the upshot of it is that Aldous Bolger, he’s a friend of mine.
“There’s a price to be paid for what happened to him. You’re going to be one of the people paying it.”
***
Four hundred feet above the Heartland Downs infield, General Belliard’s balloon continued its errant descent. The general remained unconscious. Red Marchik had now fought off Junior Kozol and was in charge of the controls. He had no clue as to how or where to land the hated contraption. The centuries-old Marchik paranoia genes boiled and burbled in Red as he fumbled about in the rapidly diminishing altitude.
Track announcer Calvin Gemmer gawked at the approaching balloon. He grabbed his microphone. With an urgency usually reserved for photo finishes, Gemmer shouted, “People, get out of the way down there at the winner’s circle, get out of the way. That’s a balloon coming down at you…GET OUT OF THE WAY, PEOPLE!!”
The fans bunched around the winner’s circle started to scatter. As he looked skyward, Damon Tirabassi blanched, then ordered, “Get them out of here.” With a glance over her shoulder at the oncoming balloon, which was obviously out of control and heading straight for them, Karen Engel grabbed Earlene Klinder’s arm and hustled her toward shelter. The other FBI agents moved quickly to get Rexroth, Stoner, and Kauffman into the paddock tunnel, which by now was becoming crowded with fleeing fans.
As Doyle started to follow Maureen and E. D. Morley into safe range from what appeared to be a rapidly impending disaster, he realized that the only person remaining in the winner’s circle was Ronald Mortvedt. His guard, agent Ebner, had moved to assist in the removal of Rexroth, leaving the ex-jockey behind him in what he thought was the custody of agen
t Kamin. Doyle had no idea how this mix-up had occurred, but he didn’t like what he was seeing. He felt his stomach tighten as Mortvedt glared at him.
Never looking either back or upward, Mortvedt began to move purposefully toward Doyle across the twenty feet that divided them. His progress was remarkably unhurried.
“You’re not gettin’ away with what you done to me, mister,” Mortvedt said as he advanced, fists clenched. “You got somethin’ comin’ from me.”
Doyle pivoted to run, not from Mortvedt but from the onrushing balloon he could see dropping from the sky behind the little man. It was headed directly for the winner’s circle. In a reflex action that he would later chide himself for, Doyle shouted to Mortvedt, “Look out, look out, it’s coming right at you….”
So determined was he to reach the man responsible for his capture, Ronald Mortvedt did not heed Jack Doyle’s warning, never looked up at the out-of-control, brightly colored vehicle that was plummeting directly toward him.
The platform of General Oscar Belliard’s balloon landed on Ronald Mortvedt like an elevator car cut loose from its cables. The impact of one of the balloon’s two propane tanks hitting Mortvedt’s head made a horrible thunking noise. Immediately, the balloon bounced back up into the air. Beneath it Mortvedt lay face down, the back of his head crumpled. His left cheek had been nearly ripped off, and the blood from that wound spread on the ground. Nearby, grooms struggled to control the two terrified horses that were attempting to back away from the scene.
As the balloon rose, Wanda Marchik leaned out of the wicker basket, making a series of soprano whoops the content of which no one on the ground could make out. However, two of the FBI agents and a groom leaped forward to grab the line she’d dropped from the balloon. Junior Kozol unleashed another line from the other side, and that too was snatched by helpful bystanders. Tugging mightily, they combined to haul the balloon back to earth. Its wicker platform settled directly atop Ronald Mortvedt.
The only part of Mortvedt now visible was his left foot, encased in a small black boot that protruded from under the balloon wreckage. The Marchiks and Junior Kozol remained enwrapped in the ravaged envelope of the balloon as track workers rushed to extricate them.
Karen Engel ran forward from the paddock tunnel, her face pale.
“My God, Jack,” she said, “it looks just like The Wizard of Oz…with the Wicked Witch of the West’s foot sticking out from under the barn door after the tornado. There’s no way Mortvedt’s alive under there,” Karen added with a shudder. “Did you see the way that metal tank cracked into him?”
“He had all of that coming, and more.”
Chapter 37
Karen Engel’s assessment of Ronald Mortvedt’s prospects was accurate. The little ex-jockey was pronounced DOA at Western Community Hospital five miles from Heartland Downs, victim of massive head injuries.
Passengers in the killer balloon, the Right to Bear Arms, were much luckier. Examination of General Oscar Belliard established that he had, indeed, suffered a minor cardiac arrest. But the prognosis for him was good, provided he adopted some lifestyle changes.
Tough nut that she was, Wanda Marchik escaped with various minor bruises, as did Junior Kozol. Red Marchik, however, somehow managed to pull both an Achilles tendon and a groin muscle during the disastrous descent. Even as paramedics hefted him on a stretcher into the ambulance, Red was raving about lawsuits he intended to file.
“Settle down, honey,” Wanda told Red as she slid into the ambulance beside him, “let’s first get you fixed up and comfortable.” Wanda patted her husband’s hand. Then she said, “Wonder what the Sports Preacher would make out of all that happened here today?”
***
Jack Doyle sat at the end of the long mahogany bar of O’Keefe’s Ale House, watching television’s ten o’clock news. All the Chicago channels had received—courtesy of the Heartland Downs television department—excellent footage of the Derby and its memorable winner’s circle aftermath.
Doyle grinned as he watched himself sidestep and dodge, his old AAU footwork standing him in good stead again, as the balloon dealt its death blow to Ronald Mortvedt.
“Sheila, Bushmills Manhattan, please,” Doyle called to the busy barmaid, another immigrant from County Cork. Her name was Sheila Maloney, and she was bright, friendly, and considerably better looking than her predecessor, Maureen Hoban. And Doyle was determined to keep a tremendous distance between them, having decided he’d had enough dealings with women from Cork.
An hour earlier, when he arrived at O’Keefe’s, Doyle had used his government-issued cell phone to call Karen Engel at the Chicago FBI office for an update. They’d become separated in the tremendous confusion that followed the balloon crash, and Doyle had departed the track unclear about some matters, except the main one—he was off the hook with the FBI.
“You did a great job, Jack,” Damon had emphasized. Both he and Karen had hurriedly thanked Doyle before they left, looking as if they meant it.
On the phone, Karen reported that Rexroth and Stoner had both been charged that evening before a federal magistrate and would be held at least until Monday morning, when bonds could be set.
“I talked to Ronald Mortvedt’s aunt down in Louisiana,” Karen added, “Alice Cormier. She was the only relative of his we knew how to find. Alice wasn’t surprised at what had happened to Ronnie, but it hurt her anyway. I hate making those calls.”
“Why doesn’t Damon make them?”
Karen said, “He hates it worse than I do.”
Doyle shifted his cell phone from one hand to the other as he prepared to take out his wallet and pay his bar bill.
“Who the hell were those goofs in the balloon?”
“They were carrying out some kind of protest against Harvey Rexroth,” Karen replied. “People named Marchik, husband and wife, they made these streamers attacking Rexroth. They’ve got a beef against Rexroth for his firing of Mr. Marchik down in Kentucky. At least I guess that was their motive. It’s kind of hard to figure what the Marchiks are about. But the crash was certainly not their fault—it happened because the pilot passed out. That’s as much as we’ve gotten out of them.
“It wasn’t their balloon,” Karen continued. “The balloon’s pilot and owner is a friend of theirs. The Marchiks know him from some off-brand, so-called militia group they all belong to in Louisville. Apparently the pilot—he calls himself ‘General’ Belliard, no less—had a slight heart attack in the course of the flight.”
Doyle said, “I’m starting to get a headache. You’re saying Merchuck or Marcik or whatever his name is gets fired from RexCom, then winds up crashing a balloon at the racetrack on the same day we’re reeling in Harvey Rexroth? I don’t think I can listen to any more of this.”
Trying to ignore Sheila Maloney, who was chattering to him from the other side of the bar in her faux Irish colleen costume, Doyle took a swallow of his drink. Sheila leaned over the mahogany, giving Doyle a cleavage show and a dimpled smile. Doyle resolved to advise Sheila and whatever Cork cuties succeeded her not to try so hard.
Doyle said to Karen, “What about Mortvedt? What are they going to do with him, bury him with a stake in his heart?”
“That’s not funny, Jack,” Karen said. “I know how we all feel about Mortvedt, you especially, but still, there’s a limit….” She broke off that thought, well aware of her unreceptive audience of one.
“Actually,” Karen said, “we’re shipping Mortvedt’s ashes down to Louisiana. Alice Cormier said she’d pay for him to be cremated. Said she couldn’t afford the cost of embalming, or a coffin.”
Doyle watched the ice cubes wobble around the half-finished drink that he started to lift, then put down on the bar. He didn’t know Alice Cormier, but he could feel sorry for her. He sure as hell had known Ronald Mortvedt, and he felt no sorrow whatsoever for him. In fact, he thought to himself, maybe they’ll scatter the little bastard’s ashes in one of those Cajun specialties f
ull of other bottom feeders. They could call it Gumbo Diablo.
***
As Doyle drove home that October Saturday night through the leaf-strewn streets north of Chicago’s Loop, he couldn’t help but contrast his present feelings to those he’d had four months earlier when, with $25,000 in cash in his pocket thanks to City Sarah’s big win, he’d scoured his neighborhood in a fruitless quest for celebration.
This night, well, this was different. For one thing, he’d made a far larger score off the Heartland Derby than he had by helping to cause City Sarah’s embarrassment, then her lucrative victory. Thirty minutes before the Heartland Derby, Doyle had taken half of what he thought of as the guilt money E. D. and Maureen had sent him—$15,000—and bet it to win on Bunny’s Al.
The size of the wager, previously unthinkable in Doyle’s experience, had seemed as natural as his next breath.
There had been long periods in his up and down life during which Doyle felt far from convinced that he ever really knew what he was doing. Yet, occasionally, moments emerged during which he felt fate’s golden hand gripping him by the elbow and, for a change, not propelling him into another of life’s traffic jams.
Rare moments they were. They sometimes dolphined out of the darkest, most depressing seas of Doyle’s life, as when Moe Kellman, sweating in the Fit City gym, invited him to lunch for the first time at Dino’s Ristorante. For Doyle they represented the “inevitability of the inevitable,” a concept he had attempted to explain to both of his wives before they became ex-, to friends both former and current, sometimes even to complete strangers.
“Situations arise, and you know before they develop what’s going to happen,” Doyle would say. “It’s like déja vu in advance. You just know. Usually what you know is going to happen is awful—but not every time. Not every time. Once in a great wonderful while you just know that a good thing’s coming, finally rolling your way. Get it?”
He had asked that question many times and rarely heard a positive reply. This night was different, he knew it just as surely as he had known his bet on Bunny’s Al was going to be a winner. Doyle’s fifteen grand had swelled to a profit of $75,000—the odds had drifted up to five to one just before the race—in the minute and fifty seconds it had taken Bunny’s Al to run a mile and an eighth that afternoon.
