Blind switch (jack doyle mysteries)

by John McEvoy

  As Red Marchik sank back against his pillow, he smiled to himself at Wanda’s devotion to the Sports Preacher. She’d never been particularly interested in religion during the early years of their marriage, but once she’d heard Reverend Ruland roaring through “Old Testament game summaries” and various biblical “box scores,” she had insisted that Red travel with her to hear the Sports Preacher in person.

  Red vividly remembered pulling up next to an auditorium in Clarksville, Tenn., and seeing Reverend Ruland’s semi-trailer with its huge mural depicting Christ and the Apostles. The thirteen towering figures were in an oversized, fluorescent red, white, and blue painted bass boat on a body of water identified, in bold writing, as the Sea of Galilee. Christ, as the Fisherman for Souls, was shown reeling in a human figure from the roiling blue waters. The Apostle Peter stood next to Christ, net in hand and gaff at the ready.

  And the Reverend’s service that night, complete with laser light effects and some Las Vegas magic show touches, had impressed them both. Reverend Ruland was not a handsome man, with his florid, flat-featured face and a tall, black pompadour big enough to hide a partridge in, but Lord, that man could flat out preach.

  As Red reminisced in silence, Wanda suddenly woke up. Rubbing her eyes, she said, “We’ve overslept, Red.” She looked at the clock, then turned on its radio. The Sports Preacher’s choral group, a barbershop quartet known as Jocks for Jesus, was just beginning the reverend’s theme song. The Marchiks smiled at each other and relaxed again, listening to what had become a great favorite of theirs:

  There’s a football game in heaven,

  where they fight for every yard,

  with Jesus playing fullback

  and Moses playing guard…

  Oh, rock ’em…sock ’em…

  Jeeeeezus knock ’em…

  Stick with God.

  When the last note had faded away, Wanda poked Red in the ribs. “Heaven sakes, honey, get up,” she urged. “We’ve got to get out there and talk to your cousin about killing Mr. Rexroth.”

  ***

  In the weeks following the Marchiks’ Night of the Jackal fiasco in the Willowdale broodmare pasture, the experience continued to rankle the redhead. “Who thought horses could be that big?” Red said to Wanda. She clucked and cooed sympathetic replies, assuring her husband that there are many different brands of bravery. Just because horses scared him did not mean he was a coward, or in any way lacking as a man. Red gratefully agreed with her assessment.

  But the desire for revenge continued to burn. One cool Wednesday morning, Red and Wanda drove over to Versailles to visit Red’s cousin Junior Kozol, a gas station attendant who served as a colonel in General Oscar Belliard’s Underground Militia. Red explained he was looking for guidance in how to eliminate “a true threat to this nation and,” he added, “a man who has done personal harm to yours truly.”

  “Stealth and guile, guile and stealth,” Junior told Wanda and Red as the three of them sat at the fold-down kitchen table of Junior’s small house trailer on the outskirts of town, a trailer whose jumbled interior reeked of gun oil and dirty socks. “That’s the way to do these things.

  “Now,” Junior continued, “I don’t want to know who your target is, Cousin Red. In fact, I don’t need to know. Security reasons,” Junior whispered. “Just let me ask you this, is he or she the kind of individual that goes out in crowds a lot?”

  “Sure is,” Red said. “Very prominent man, one of the leaders of business and society in this area.” He spoke almost proudly of his hated former boss.

  “Well, that’s real good,” Junior said. He looked thoughtful as he began to energetically itch inside the left armpit of his gas station coverall, meanwhile using the other hand to plow a Q-tip deep into his right ear. Wanda looked at him wide-eyed. “Let me do some research on this, Red,” Junior said. He gestured to a shelf that took up most of one of the side walls of the trailer. It was packed with products from the burgeoning How to Kill/Maim/Dismember Your Fellow Citizens branch of American publishing.

  “I’ll report back to you next week, if that’s all right with you,” Junior said, now starting to scratch his way downward from his armpit. Red said, “That’s fine, Junior. You know how to contact me.” Then he and Wanda exited as quickly as politeness permitted.

  Said Wanda as she shut her car door, “I’ll bet that boy scratches his balls more than a major league first baseman.”

  Red shook his head. “He’s not the brightest youngster,” he said of his thirty-two-year-old relative, “but he’s right on the cutting edge of this professional killer stuff. Oscar Belliard speaks very highly of him, very highly. And Junior’s daddy, you know, was a Navy vet-just like me.”

  Wanda turned her head and looked out the car window as she rolled her eyes.

  Junior called the next Tuesday. He told Red, “I’ve got your answer, Cuz. I’ve nailed it down. It’s called cue-rah-ray.”

  Red responded angrily. “Goddamit, Junior, I’m too old to learn one of those sneaky slant-eye marital arts things. How am I going to jump up in the air and kick anybody backwards? I got bad knees from my days in the United States Navy.

  “And,” Red added, “I just can’t take on the Target in hand-to-hand combat. He’s got people around him all the time.”

  “Well that, Cousin Red,” Junior chortled, “is exactly my point. C’mon down to the station later, I’ve got the four-to-twelve shift. I’ll fill you in, and you can fill up your tank on the house.” Junior laughed again, obviously in a fine mood.

  The Marchiks made their way slowly and carefully toward the clubhouse entrance of Heartland Downs racetrack. It was a beautiful July Fourth afternoon, and a large holiday crowd was on hand in eighty-degree weather beneath a cloudless blue sky. A slight breeze ruffled the flags in the racetrack infield. As the throngs moved through the turnstiles, they were serenaded by a six-piece Dixieland band, its members sporting straw hats. Strolling jugglers and balloon artists labored to entertain the horse players’ children who were along for the afternoon of races that was to be followed by an elaborate, and free, fireworks show come nightfall.

  Red Marchik, wearing a red sport coat, white slacks, and blue American Legion cap, was aware of the comfortable temperature. But he was not enjoying the sight of the cloudless sky, nor the looks of pre-race anticipation on the faces of his fellow Heartland patrons, for he couldn’t see them. With Wanda guiding him by the right elbow, Red was cautiously advancing, a blind person’s long red and white cane poking the path in front of him, his eyes hidden behind a coal-black sunglasses.

  “How’m I doing, Wanda?” Red asked. Wanda, looking more wary than festive in her pink polyester pants suit, kept her gaze straight ahead. Without looking at her husband, she whispered, “You’re doing just fine, Red. Just give us a coupla more taps with the cane every few yards, will you? You know, make it look as realistic as you can.”

  Red inadvertently complied when he tripped on the first step of the clubhouse stairs. Desperately seeking to regain his balance, Red swung his free arm widely, nailing the man beside him directly on the nose. As the man’s nose spurted blood, he began to curse Red. But then, noticing the glasses and cane, he stopped, and said, “Sorry, pal, I guess I got in your way. Have a good one,” he added lamely.

  The man’s white shirt was spattered with crimson as, handkerchief held to his nose, he turned to a cigar-smoking man next to him. “Lou, how much time we got to bet the double?” he asked. “They’re almost at the gate,” came Lou’s answer. Hurriedly, the man with the bleeding nose reached into his pocket. He handed a bill to the cigar smoker, a look of desperation on his face. “I ain’t had time to handicap. I just got here, and then this blind guy pops me in the nose. Run in there and get me a $20 daily double, willya?”

  The man with the cigar said, “Whadda you want in the double?”

  “Get me…well, you know…hell, get me anything! I gotta go to the john and stop this bleeding, Lou.”

  Red and Wanda
, meanwhile, had quietly removed themselves from this scene and passed through the clubhouse doors into the air-conditioned interior. They then took the elevator to the third floor of the clubhouse. Everyone in the elevator gave Red plenty of space. A woman in a broad black hat smiled sympathetically at him and said, “Mister, you can probably pick them as good as me even if you can’t see them.” Her male companion groaned and nudged her in the ribs as the elevator door opened. The other passengers pretended they hadn’t heard her.

  Once the Marchiks had been ushered to their reserved seats near the stairway leading to the paddock, Red sat down with a groan and mopped his brow. “I’m sweating bullets, Wanda,” he said. “This isn’t easy, walking around like a blind man when you’re not blind. The ones that really are blind got a cakewalk compared.” His lifelong reservoir of resentment, with its base of imagined imposition, had begun to froth in the Fourth of July sun. “I need a beer,” Red added piteously. He groped for Wanda’s hand.

  She removed her hand from Red’s reach. “You’re just sweating out all that beer you guzzled last night,” Wanda said. “No beer for you right now. Remember what Junior said: we’ve got to be at our ‘lethal best to meet the test.’”

  The previous night, sitting around the poker table in their basement, the Marchiks had watched as Junior Kozol put the finishing touches on the weapon he’d obtained for use in the intended murder of Harvey Rexroth. This item, which Junior had discovered in one of his assassination textbooks, was a cane for the visually impaired, modified to contain at its end a retractable needle. Junior had mail-ordered it from a dealer in Alabama. The needle, as Junior had promised, contained curare.

  “This is full proof, Red,” Junior had insisted. “The KGB used this, the CIA, everbody. Remember when that Adelaide Stevenson was killed under mysterious circumstances, you know, when he was our ambassador to somewhere?”

  “You mean Adlai Stevenson? The guy Ike kicked the shit out of twice for president?”

  “That’s who I said. Anyway, he got bumped off, maybe by the Russians, or the Kennedys, maybe it was the Rockefellers, whatever. He was walking down the street and keeled over. They all said it was a heart attack. But the word was he was nailed by a secret needle gun. The needle had poison in it that killed him on the spot. I don’t know if it was cue-rah-ray, probably not, or it might have showed up in the autopsy. But that don’t matter. What we’re using is the method. You don’t give a shit what it is puts the Target down, do you?” Junior asked.

  Red reached for his ninth beer of this planning session. The Pabsts, coupled with a smattering of Jim Beam shots, were not having a calming effect on him. Wanda, observing her husband closely, realized he was just working himself up into the mood of fury that he believed would propel him through the next day’s planned act of revenge.

  “This here thing is full proof,” Junior repeated, proudly displaying his handiwork. “All you do to release the needle is lift the end of the cane off the ground and press this here little button right near the handle. Then, it’s two-shay and sigh-a-nara. Soon as you poke the Target with this, turn away and head out for the exit. You can drop the cane and the glasses in a trash can on your way. They might remember a blind man at the scene and start looking for him,” Junior cautioned.

  Red put on, then took off the dark sunglasses Junior had also supplied. “I can’t see a goddam thing out of these,” he complained.

  “Cuz, you ain’t supposed to,” Junior said. “Remember-you’re blind. The glasses, being so dark, give you something they call very-similly-tude. I read about it in one of the books. With these glasses you can’t hardly see through, you’ll feel and act more like the blind man you’re supposed to be. Get it?”

  As he sat in the sun-drenched box seat, Red said to Wanda, “You’ll have to keep an eye out for Rexroth.”

  “I can see him from here,” Wanda said. “He’s about twenty yards away, over in one of those terrace areas. I guess that’s where the horse owners sit. When he heads down to that paddock, we’ll just follow along and get close to him on the pathway.” Rexroth, wearing a tan suit, about the color of his bulldog Winston, who sat at his feet, was engaged in animated conversation with a group of boxholders to his right. He waved a giant black cigar as he talked, his big bald head glistening in the afternoon sunlight.

  Rexroth’s three-year-old colt Old Flossmoor was to run in that afternoon’s seventh race, the sub-feature on the card headed by the Stars and Stripes Stakes. Rexroth, the Marchiks had learned, never missed an opportunity to visit the paddock on the days his horses competed.

  Rexroth enjoyed preening among the other owners, usually with one of his attractive young bladers at his side. He frequently gave detailed instructions to the jockey who was to ride his horse. One time, Rexroth had gone so far as to hand a jockey named Frankie Sheehan a map of where he wanted him to be at every point during the course of a mile and one-quarter race. Sheehan, deeply insulted, and notorious for his fiery temper, had ripped the piece of paper to shreds and flung them down at Rexroth’s feet. That was the last horse Sheehan ever rode for Rexroth.

  The Marchiks sat tensely for most of the next three hours. Wanda made some $2 show bets on horses whose looks she liked, cashing two of them. She permitted Red to have a beer prior to the fifth race, but that was all. When the sixth race was over, she saw Rexroth rise from his seat and descend the steps leading to where the horses would be saddled for the seventh.

  “This is it, Red,” she said. Wanda took a longer look at their quarry. “Rexroth has got a redhead with him, and he’s got a dog with him too, on a leash. Bulldog, I guess. Jeez, what an ugly puss on that one. The dog I mean. C’mon, baby.”

  Red growled, “Just point me at that sack of shit.” With his cane tapping and his free hand on Wanda’s shoulder, he followed her in Rexroth’s wake.

  When the procession of paddock-goers reached a roped entrance, their credentials had to be checked before they could be admitted to the area by track security. Rexroth and his companion were fourth in line to be given the go-ahead. As they waited while those in front of them showed their passes to the security men, Wanda had Red edge ahead, Red clutching her arm tightly. The more polite people, noticing the blind man, stepped aside to allow Red and Wanda to advance. “We’re right behind him now, honey,” Wanda whispered. Red hastily lifted his glasses for a quick peek. Rexroth was about three feet from the point of the lethal cane.

  Junior, relying on his manual, had instructed Red to aim at the Target’s lower leg; that way, Red wouldn’t have to raise his cane more than a foot or so off the ground in what should be a relatively indiscernible motion to any bystander.

  Red quickly glanced at the target area. Then he dropped the sunglasses back down on his forehead into their original position. When he did so, there was a movement in front of him that Red, of course, did not spot.

  Red heard Wanda hiss in his ear, “Do it, Red.” He responded instantly. Red thrust forward with the lethal cane, and the needle hit dead center in the leg muscle. Red smiled as he felt the contact being made by his weapon.

  Unfortunately, Red, aiming blindly and from memory, had hit a leg muscle belonging to Winston the bulldog. The dog, feeling a tug on its leash, had moved closer to his master’s side just as Red struck. Winston dropped like a sack of cement, killed instantly.

  Rexroth, meanwhile, having impatiently displayed his paddock pass to a security guard and wanting to move forward, gave a yank on Winston’s leash. He was startled by the leaden lack of response. Then Rexroth looked down and let out a yelp.

  “What in the living hell,” Wanda heard Rexroth say as she guided Red away from the commotion that immediately erupted: Rexroth examining Winston in disbelief, his redheaded companion breaking into tears, the security men making a circle so as to shield the view of this scene from other paddock spectators.

  “We got us a dead dog here at the paddock gate,” one of the security guards barked into his portable phone. There was a crackle of incredulou
s reply from the main security office. “Yeah, you heard me right,” the guard said angrily into the phone.

  Wanda gripped Red’s right elbow hard as she continued to steer him across the walkway and toward the nearest exit. Her face was bright red.

  “Dammit, Red,” said Wanda as she elbowed their way through the crowd, “we gotta get out of here! Take off those damn glasses and follow me quick!”

  Chapter 20

  Friday night of that week, Doyle was desultorily watching a heavyweight boxing match on cable television, the audio off, and scanning the thoroughbred industry trade publications in an attempt to keep as current as possible in his new occupation.

  As the two over-muscled and under-skilled behemoths flailed occasionally, and for the most part unsuccessfully, at each other between their lengthy exchanges of glowering looks, Doyle sat, trying to recall if he’d made any major slip-ups in the course of his work day. None, he concluded, to match his faux pas regarding Pedro and the teaser. He took this as a sign of at least some progress.

  Doyle was relieved to hear a light tapping at his door-anything to break the monotony of another tediously uneventful night. On the other side of the screen door he saw the shyly smiling face of Caroline Cummings. A breeze was blowing lightly, carrying with it traces of soft summer rain, and her face was moist. Before he could open the door, Caroline had pulled it open and was over the threshold and into his living room.

  “Come right in.” But as she turned to face him, Doyle bit back further irony. He knew Caroline was here on some kind of mission that he would be wise to meet with other than his standard cavalier approach.

  “Have a seat,” he said, motioning toward the couch. “Can I get you anything to drink?”

  She shook her head, so Doyle closed the screen door behind her, then the oak door. He’d waved Caroline to the old leather couch, his apartment’s major piece of furniture. Doyle turned off the television and clicked on the CD player. The dark satin baritone of Johnny Hartman, John Coltrane’s tenor sax floating beneath it, started “They Say It’s Wonderful.”