by John Birkett
“You’re not exactly forthcoming, are you, Michael?”
Forthcoming? What the hell was that? Rhineheart remembered that the Kingstons’ maid had begged his pardon. Everyone in the case, it seemed, was well spoken. Even the servants. Maybe they were all conspiring to use words that weren’t in his vocabulary.
“I come forth,” Rhineheart said, “when the occasion warrants.” He wasn’t sure what that meant, but it sounded good.
Kate laughed. “Very well said, Michael.”
“Do you know who Howard Taggert is?” Rhineheart asked.
“Yes, of course. River City Stud. Calabrate.”
“There’s a chance he’s involved in this.”
“What makes you say that?”
“It’s too complicated to explain over the phone. I’ll tell you about it when I see you.”
“Let’s get together soon,” Kate Sullivan said.
“Soon,” Rhineheart promised.
She asked Rhineheart to call her if he found out anything else. He promised her he would, and after she hung up, he called the Motor Vehicles Bureau and asked to speak to L. T. Dewhurst.
L.T. was a computer programmer. For a twenty-dollar bill, L.T. could get you the name and address of any license-plate holder in the state. Rhineheart gave L.T. the number of the red Camaro. L.T. excused himself, was gone thirty seconds, then came back on the line with the news that the Camaro’s license number was registered in the name of Executive Transport, Inc., a car-leasing agency whose offices were in the 3900 block of Shelbyville Road.
“A car-leasing agency?”
“I just push the keys, Rhineheart. I got no control over what comes out.”
“I’ll send you a check, L.T.”
Before Rhineheart left the office, he called Marvin Greene’s number.
“Yeah?”
“Marvin, this is your old buddy, Rhineheart.”
Marvin didn’t say anything for a moment, then in a fakey friendly voice, he said, “Hey, Rhineheart. How you doing? What do you need?”
“I want to talk to you, Marvin.”
“So talk.”
“In person. Private.”
“What’s this about?”
“I’ll meet you somewhere,” Rhineheart said. “You still hang around the Kitty Kat Club?”
“No,” Marvin said too quickly.
“Where then?”
“You know where the Backstretch Lounge is?”
“Yeah.” It was on Berry Boulevard. Near the track.
“I’ll be there around seven.”
“Wait for me,” Rhineheart said.
The customer relations representative for Executive Transport, Inc., thought Rhineheart resembled her favorite movie actor. “No kidding,” she kept saying. “You look just like him.”
The customer relations rep’s name was Diana Martindale. She was a good-looking woman in her mid-thirties, blonde, blue-eyed, with a sexy smile and a nice body. She had fine-looking thighs. She was sitting at her desk with her skirt hiked up. Rhineheart sat across from her, trying not to stare too deliberately at her thighs.
“Hasn’t anyone ever told you how much you look like him?” Diana Martindale asked. “You’ve got the same kind of nose and chin.”
“Bent and big?”
“Exactly.”
“You’re just saying that to get next to me, aren’t you?”
“You’re not married, are you?”
Rhineheart looked at her. “No,” he said, “I’m not married.”
“Are you going with anybody?”
“Nobody’ll have me,” he said.
She laughed.
“About these lease records . . . ” he said. Rhineheart had spent the past half hour trying to get a look at the lease invoices.
“They’re supposed to be confidential.”
Rhineheart said. “And I promise to keep them that way. You tell me who rented this license number”—he pushed a slip of paper across the desk—“and it’ll go no further.”
Diane Martindale looked around the room to make sure none of the other people in the office were watching her. She opened a steel box on her desk, flipped through the card file, and pulled out an invoice card, which she handed to Rhineheart.
The invoice was made out to the Capitol Investment Corp., with an address on East Broadway. There was a scribbled signature at the bottom, but Rhineheart couldn’t make it out.
“You look disappointed,” she said.
“I am.” He handed her the card, and glanced at his watch. It was quarter after four, too late to make it to the tax assessor’s office and check out Capitol Investment Corp. before they closed. Well, the assessor’s office would be there tomorrow.
He stood up and smiled at Diane Martindale. “You’ve been very helpful,” he said.
She returned the smile and handed him a slip of paper. “My address and telephone number,” she said. “Call me anytime.”
“Sure,” Rhineheart said, but he didn’t really think so. She was a good-looking woman with a nice body, but so were Wanda Jean and Karen Simpson and five or six other women he knew. He had all the one-night ladies he needed. He stuck the slip of paper in his pocket, and walked out of the place, feeling old and tired and a little lonely.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Rhineheart drove out to the track and caught the last two races. He bet the winner of the feature, and in the last, he had twenty dollars on the winning exacta, a 4 and 8 combination that paid $112.00. He left the track with over a thousand in his kick. He felt better. Hitting the exacta was like an omen. Maybe it meant he was going to find Carl Walsh, solve the case, be a winner for a change.
Rhineheart ate dinner at Trattori’s, an Italian restaurant on Bardstown Road. He had Veal Parmesan and spaghetti and drank two glasses of wine. After dinner he drove over to the Backstretch.
Marvin was sitting at a table in the rear. Marvin had a receding hairline and a potbelly. He wore a Derby Fever T-shirt and Bermuda shorts. He was peeling the label on his beer bottle. He peered at Rhineheart through thick, wire-rimmed glasses.
“Hello, Rhineheart.”
“You nervous, Marvin?”
“What do you mean?”
“You seem a little nervous.”
“What’d ya want to see me about, Rhineheart?”
“I’m working on this case,” Rhineheart said. “I come across your name. I thought maybe you could help me out.”
“In what way?”
“In an information way.”
“I ain’t no snitch, Rhineheart.”
“You owe me two or three favors, Marvin.”
“Sure, of course. I’m just saying I ain’t nobody’s snitch, Rhineheart. Favor’s a different thing.”
“Who bets with you, Marvin?”
“Hey, come on now, that’s confidential stuff. Like your job. You don’t go around talking about your clients, do you?”
“Does Howard Taggert bet with you?”
Marvin shook his head. “I’m too small-time for someone like Taggert. If he bets, he bets personally with the Big Man.”
“Corrati?”
Marvin looked over his shoulder, then around the room. Finally, he nodded.
“What about Duke Kingston?”
“Out of my league also.”
“Does he bet?”
“I hear he does.” He paused. “Heavy.”
“What else do you hear about him?”
“I don’t hear nothing else. I make it a point not to hear about people like that. They carry too much weight for guys like me.”
“Tell me about Carl Walsh.”
“Who?”
“You fuck with me, Marvin,” Rhineheart said, “and I’ll throw you through the window there.”
Marvin held up a hand. “Easy, easy. Okay, Walsh bets with me. He’s into me for two dimes. I cut him off, told him to get the money up by next week. I ain’t heard from him for a couple of days.”
“Since when?”
“Last week
. I ain’t sure.”
“Think.”
“Early last week. Monday or Tuesday. He says he’ll have something for me this week.”
Rhineheart put a twenty on the table and stood up. “Thanks, Marvin.”
Marvin snatched up the bill. “No sweat.”
“I find out you been bullshitting me, I’ll be back.”
John Hughes’s address was in the two-thousand block of Brownsboro Road. A rectangular complex of squat, pale green, pseudo-Spanish-style apartments.
Rhineheart parked in the lot, climbed an outside stairway to the second floor of B Building. The sounds of a party—music, voices, laughter—drifted out from behind Hughes’s door.
Rhineheart knocked, and from inside, a slurred voice yelled, “Come in!”
He pushed the door open and walked into a large, square room filled with people. There was a buffet table on one side of the room and a well-stocked bar on the other. The furniture was heavy-looking, Mediterranean.
The wall at the far end of the room was a large glass window. The drapes were open, and through the glass, you could see row after row of squat, pale green buildings. It was a hell of a view, Rhineheart thought. If you looked out at it long enough you’d probably get brain damage.
Most of the guests looked as if they were already suffering from it. Rhineheart asked one of them, a spiky-haired platinum blonde wearing oversized shades, if she knew where John Hughes was.
“What do you want him for?” she asked Rhineheart. “Why don’t you hang around and talk to me?”
“I like your hair, but this is business, babe. Show me Hughes, will you?”
She frowned and pointed to a tall thin man with a guardsman’s mustache who stood near the buffet table. Rhineheart walked over and introduced himself.
Hughes was dressed in a tan safari shirt and dark brown slacks and he was holding a glass full of whiskey in one hand. Scotch, from the smell that drifted Rhineheart’s way.
He reminded Rhineheart of the British actor, Peter O’Toole. His angular English features had a smeared look to them. He appeared to be about three-quarters smashed.
He brushed a shock of thick brown hair back from his forehead, and squinted, bleary-eyed, at Rhineheart.
“What did you say your name was?”
“Rhineheart.”
“Rhineheart? I’ve heard that name somewhere. What is it you want, old man?”
“I’d like to talk to you for a few minutes.”
“You’re not one of those bloody Sports Illustrated people, are you?”
“No.”
“No,” he said. “Of course you’re not.” He nodded in the direction of the bar. “Have a drink, old man.”
“No thanks.”
“I’m the host of this bleeding party. It’s not polite to refuse one’s host.”
“I’m not a polite person,” Rhineheart said.
Hughes took a big swallow of his drink. Over the rim of his glass, he peered nearsightedly at Rhineheart. “I say, old man, do we know each other?”
“I don’t think so, no.”
“No. Of course not. Well, Mr.—what did you say your name was?”
“Rhineheart.”
“Rhineheart, of course.” Hughes swayed to the left. “Well, Mr. Rhineheart, what can I do for you?”
“You could answer some questions.”
Hughes smiled, a loose, silly, drunken smile. “I know who you are,” he said, pointing a finger at Rhineheart. “You’re the chap who’s looking for Carl Walsh. The private”—Hughes hiccuped—“eye.”
“That’s me.”
Hughes waved a hand. “Fire away, old man. Hope I can be of some help.”
“When was the last time you saw Walsh?”
Hughes wrinkled up his forehead. “Let me think. Sometime Wednesday afternoon. I popped by the barn. Walsh was in the tack room with a couple of the other lads. I think they were playing cards.”
“He seem any different than usual?”
“Not that I can recall.”
“What can you tell me about Walsh?”
“How do you mean?”
“I’m trying,” Rhineheart said, “to get an idea of what kind of person he was.”
Hughes took another swallow of his drink. His voice took on a light slur. Walsh, he said, was a pleasant enough chap. Did what he was told. Came to work on time usually. Hughes understood that Walsh liked his drink and liked to chase the ladies, but who didn’t?
“Did he gamble?” Rhineheart asked.
“I really don’t know.”
“Walsh get along with his fellow employees?”
“I suppose so.”
“Last week,” Rhineheart said, “you and Walsh had an argument behind the barn. What was it about?”
Hughes flashed a stiff smile at Rhineheart. “To tell you the truth, old man, I don’t really remember what it concerned. I probably had to dress him down for something he did—or more likely, something he didn’t do. Walsh is not the only lad I’ve ever had to tongue lash. It’s something that comes with the head trainer’s job, I’m afraid.”
“You think of any reason why Walsh’d leave so abruptly?” Rhineheart asked.
“Obviously, you’re not very well acquainted with race-trackers, Mr. Rhineheart. They’re gypsies. They come and go as they please. At the drop of a hat.” Hughes drained his drink.
Rhineheart looked around the room. People stood around in little groups, drinks in hand. They were partying hard, as if it were a job. The music—some heavy-metal shit—had been turned up a couple of decibels and someone had laid out a line of coke on the coffee table. The spiky-haired blonde was bent over the table.
It was time to split, Rhineheart decided. He wasn’t getting anywhere with Hughes anyway. He made it a point to thank Hughes courteously, excused himself, and made his way out of the place. None of the partygoers seemed to notice his departure.
On the way home he stopped at O’Brien’s. The place was almost empty. It was Wanda Jean’s night off. McGraw was out on her date, having a good time, no doubt. For a moment he considered calling Kate Sullivan. Then he realized she was probably spending the night with her husband and her kids. He ordered a drink and sat on a stool at the bar.
He had a couple of doubles and Sam, the bartender, came over and leaned on the bar top and asked Rhineheart how he was doing. Sam was in his sixties and had been around the block a time or two. Rhineheart tried to get him to talk about the old days before TV, when everything, life itself, seemed to have more meaning than it did now and everyone was nicer and money wasn’t everything and the Kentucky Derby was the only horse race in the world and people from all over came to Louisville to see it.
But all Sam wanted to talk about was basketball. He asked Rhineheart who was going to have the best team. U. of K.? U. of L.? Indiana?
Rhineheart shrugged. He couldn’t get interested in roundball until December. He wanted Sam to tell him about the Brown Hotel and the celebrities who stayed there back in the forties and about all the great races, but he just sat there and listened to the old man talk about seven footers and power forwards until closing time.
Just before Rhineheart got up to leave, a dumpy woman in a print dress who had been sitting at one of the tables walked over to him. She put her hand on his arm, and in a voice full of sympathy, said, “You had a bad day at the track, didn’t you, son?”
“Actually,” Rhineheart said, “I won.”
“Don’t kid me,” the woman said. “I can always tell a loser when I see one.” She patted him on the shoulder. “Well, maybe you’ll do better tomorrow,” she said. But there was no conviction in her voice. She gave him a bleary smile and shuffled out the front door.
Rhineheart looked at himself in the mirror behind the bar. The woman was right: he had loser written all over him.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
When Rhineheart woke up the next morning the sun was coming up. He threw on some jeans and a windbreaker and drove out to the Downs. He parked the
car on Longfield Avenue, showed his pass to the gate guard, and walked over to the backstretch.
The area around the clocker’s stand was crowded with racetrackers and press people. The track was filled with horses working out. Rhineheart spotted an old friend, a small-time trainer named Murphy, sitting on the rail. Murphy made room for him.
“How are ya, Rhineheart?”
“I’m okay, Murph.”
“Come to see the workouts?”
“I come to see Royal Dancer. He on the track?”
Murphy nodded. “Somewhere.”
“Do me a favor,” Rhineheart said. “Point him out to me when he comes by.”
“Sure.”
Murphy gestured at the crowd around the gap. “You ever see anything like this? It’s a goddamn circus, ain’t it?”
Looking around, Rhineheart agreed. In the crowd he noticed a familiar figure: Howard Taggert. Taggert was talking to a short, broad-shouldered man wearing a wide-brimmed Stetson.
“Who’s the guy in the hat?” Rhineheart asked Murphy.
“Which one?”
“Talking to Taggert.”
“That’s the vet, Doc Gilmore,” Murphy said.
DR. G.
Gilmore. The name sounded familiar. “How come I know that name, Murph?”
“He’s the one the Arkansas racing commission brought up on charges a few years back. Made all the papers.”
For doping horses, Rhineheart remembered. “Whatever happened?”
Murphy shrugged. “He got acquitted.”
“He Taggert’s vet?”
Murphy nodded, then pointed to a lean chestnut rounding the clubhouse turn, a helmeted exercise rider on its back.
“Royal Dancer,” he said.
Royal Dancer’s stride was fluid and easy. He was, Rhineheart saw, a good-looking colt.
“What kind of horse is he, Murph?”
Murphy shrugged. “He’s a stakes winner. Got all kinds of speed.”
“He got any kind of chance?”
“In the Derby?” Murphy shook his head. “I doubt it. Hasn’t run enough, for one thing. He win that race back in January in Florida big, then didn’t run again until last month in Arkansas. He had a big lead and quit. Run seventh, eighth, I forget. He didn’t show me a lot. Plus, I don’t like the way Hughes trains that Cresthill stock. Works ’em too hard in the mornings, you ask me.”
