High Stakes

by John McEvoy

  The next afternoon, Doyle waited in the doorway of Tenuta’s Heartland Downs backstretch office while the trainer talked on his phone. He raised an index finger, signaling he’d just be a minute. Doyle was in no hurry. It was a gently warm July afternoon. He had eaten a leisurely late breakfast, ignoring Petros’ gibe about “Some pipple, you know, have to get to work like the early worm.”

  Petros’ frequent re-shaping of his second language reminded Doyle of his second ex-wife’s loopy Aunt Edith, who had a similar predilection. She was famous in her family for describing various clouds as being “seraphim” or “Stradivarius” or “cunnilingus,” labeling books she’d read as “faction” or “non-faction,” calling her favorite dill pickles “cashier” rather than kosher. He’d always liked Aunt Edith. She turned out to be a lot nicer to him than her divorce-seeking niece.

  As he waited, Doyle glanced around the small office. Not much had changed since his season there working as Tenuta’s stable agent. As usual, the place smelled of horses, and equipment for horses, some of which was stored in an old wooden trunk in one corner across from the corner that housed what to Doyle looked like one of the earliest manufactured small refrigerators. The desk was at least as old as its middle-aged owner. Tuxedo, the black-with-white-markings super imperious cat, lay in the middle of the scarred old leather couch, glaring at Doyle. Early in their association, Doyle had remarked to Tenuta that he was “allergic to cats. Not their fur. Their personalities.” Tenuta replied, “Tuxedo is a fixture here. Learn to live with her.”

  His summer with Tenuta had seen Doyle mastering how to prepare daily work schedules for the men and women in Tenuta’s employ as grooms and hot walkers; how to enter Tenuta’s trainees into races with the Heartland Downs racing secretary for upcoming events; how to occasionally field a call from an owner of a Tenuta trainee, assuring that person that “Ralph will call you back right after training hours.” Which was true.

  The only new item in this work space was the Toshiba laptop computer Doyle had, with tremendous effort, convinced Tenuta to purchase and learn to use. It had not been easy, but Doyle eventually got the reluctant trainer to the point where he could manage spread sheets of his roster of two dozen employees and the thirty horses they tended almost as well as Doyle.

  ***

  In the paddock, Doyle waited in front of Mr. Rhinelander’s stall as Tenuta chatted with the filly’s owners, an older married couple named Burkhardt. The man was calm. Mrs. Burkhardt was fidgeting with her track program, her purse, and her emotions. She said to Doyle, “This is what we think—hope, that is—is our best horse. His first race. I usually only get this nervous and excited before a Packers game.”

  “I completely understand,” Doyle said gently. “Best of luck this afternoon.” He followed the Burkhardts and Tenuta into the Heartland clubhouse and up to the trainer’s box overlooking the finish line. On their way, Doyle peeled off and went to the windows to bet fifty dollars across the board on Mr. Rhinelander, whose odds were twelve-to-one. When he walked out of the building back toward the box seat area, he felt a welcome, familiar, nervous ripple through his gut. He knew that many bettors in England referred to making a wager as “having a flutter.” On the few occasions Doyle made a major bet, he felt that flutter behind his belt.

  Out on the track, Mr. Rhinelander warmed up to Tenuta’s satisfaction. The trainer lowered his binoculars as the field approached the starting gate far across the Heartland Downs infield. “I see you’re riding that apprentice, Ramon Montoya,” Doyle said.

  “Yeah, he’s been doing good for me. Quiet, now. They’re all in the gate.”

  The next minute and ten seconds was packed with unwelcome thrills for the Tenuta party. Through no fault of jockey Montoya, his eager mount was boxed behind horses almost throughout the six-furlong event. First in the middle of the pack, then down toward the rail, and even when the young rider finally attempted to steer Mr. Rhinelander to the outside of the field at the head of the stretch. Every time Montoya made a move away from trouble, more developed. Mr. Rhinelander finally got racing room inside the sixteenth pole and closed powerfully to finish second, beaten just over a neck. As he was slowly ridden back to be unsaddled, Mr. Rhinelander tossed his head. With his binoculars trained on the colt, Tenuta observed, “Look at him flaring his nostrils. He’s mad as hell about that outcome. He knows he was the best horse.”

  But the Wisconsites were ecstatic. “Didn’t he run just great?” Ms. Burkhardt enthused. “Once he got going, our little fella ran like, well, like Aaron Rodgers getting away from a Chicago Bears pass rush!”

  Doyle was disappointed in the race outcome. He took solace, however, in Mr. Rhinelander’s place and show prices of $13 and $5.80, respectively. His fifty-dollar across-the-board bet brought back four hundred seventy dollars, giving him a profit of three hundred twenty dollars.

  In contrast, Mr. Rhinelander’s trainer was equal parts disgusted, disappointed, and encouraged. “Jesus, Jack, what a terrible trip he had,” Tenuta said. “Mr. Rhinelander was in everybody’s pocket but mine. And he still almost got there, God bless him. He’s a hard trier. That’s what we hope for in a horse.”

  Jack remained in the box as Tenuta took the Burkhardts back to the barn to see their colt. When the trainer returned a half-hour later, he said, “I hope I can win some races with that colt for those nice people. Now, what do you want to know about Esther Ness?”

  “Did you train for her?”

  Tenuta said, “Yes. I was one of many men who were very briefly employed by Ms. Esther, the dog food heiress. Her late father, you know, was Ernest Ness. I’m told that people who didn’t like him used to refer to him, behind his back of course, as Ernest ‘Woof Woof’ Ness. Why are you asking?”

  “You know I’m trying to help find out who’s killing the horses at those vet schools, right?”

  “Right.”

  “Well, Ms. Ness’ name came up in connection with that, and I’ve been trying to get in touch with her for weeks. She’s been traveling, her mother told me. Then, yesterday, she calls the FBI and offers a big reward for the capture of the horse killer. I still haven’t talked to this woman. I’d like to hear what you know about her. Would she on the up and up with this reward thing? Or could she be blowing smoke?”

  Tenuta scratched his head before answering. “Oh, I think Esther’s word would be fairly good.”

  “Just fairly? What, is she a promise-breaker?”

  “She broke a promise to me about how long I would be training her horses. Same thing with a bunch of other trainers. She’s the most interfering client I have ever had, or heard of, for that matter. Other than that, she seemed to be honest. And very fair. Always paid her training and vet bills right on time.”

  Doyle said, “When did you have her horses?

  “A couple of years ago. I trained for Ms. Esther, as she demanded to be called, for a little under three weeks. A very trying time. That woman could give a meditating monk the twitches. She’s demanding, and there’s nothing wrong with that, but her demands were goofy. Unreasonable. I was one of eight, that’s eight mind you, trainers that Esther had just that one year!

  “Esther about drove me nuts,” Tenuta continued. “She’d come to the barn every morning to see every one of the six horses she had with me. I’d have to drop everything else and take her on her little tour. The third or fourth day of that, I said to her, ‘Ms. Ness, I don’t have time to spend all this time with you every day.’

  “She didn’t say anything, just gave me a real icy look. Then she just stomped off and got back in her chauffeur-driven limo. On Wednesday of that week, against my better judgment, which I made clear to her, she insisted I run one of her horses in a race I knew the knock-kneed son of a bitch had no business being in. He finished up the track. She was furious and stalked off, wouldn’t even look at me. Next morning, she’s back at the barn, bright and early, never mentions what ha
d happened the day before. Hey, by now, she’s got me shaking my head. What’s going on with this woman?

  “One of those mornings, she had her chauffeur, a big lug named Hugo, haul in two big bags of what she said was a new product she’d discovered. Some kind of ‘organic horse feed,’ as she put it. As if the hay and oats I was using weren’t organic! She insisted I feed her horses with this. I did. The second day, they all starting shitting in their stalls on a regular basis. Never saw anything like it. They were sicker than hell. I had what was left of her ‘new organic feed’ thrown away. When I called to tell her that, she hung up on me.

  “Next morning, here comes Esther with bottles of some kind of new ‘natural liniment.’ By now, I had just about had it with her. I told Hugo, ‘Take that junk back to your trunk. I’m going to keep using the liniment I’ve put on my horses for the last twenty-five years.’ Esther stalked off after she heard that, too.

  “Finally, the following morning, here comes her big Lincoln but with only Hugo the chauffeur in it. He says, ‘Ms. Ness sent this for you.’ In the envelope is a check for three months’ worth of training bills, even though only about three weeks have gone by. He says, ‘Ms. Ness said to tell you that Buck Norman will be by this morning so he can transfer her horses from your barn to his barn.’ And off goes Hugo.

  “Sure enough, an hour later, here comes my pal Buck, guy I’ve known for years. He’s real shame-faced. But he knows I know what’s going on with this demanding woman. I told him, ‘Buck, get ready to suffer. At least you’ll be well paid for it.’”

  Tenuta paused to signal the waitress who served his box seat section. “I need a drink just thinking about Ms. Esther. You want anything?” Doyle declined. “Bring me a screwdriver please, Jeannie.”

  Conversation halted as the sixth race concluded in front of them, an exciting photo finish that announcer John Toomey loudly declared “Too close to call. We’ll have to wait for the photo.”

  Jeannie returned with Tenuta’s drink. He gave her a ten-dollar bill and waved off the change. “Thank you, Mr. Tenuta,” she said.

  “Nice girl,” the trainer said. “Where was I?”

  “The amazing Ms. Ness.”

  “Oh, yeah. Anyway, after Buck Norman had come and gone, she had two or three other trainers work for her. All of them went through pretty much the same torture I did. None of them in her opinion could do right by her prized animals. Finally, she fired the last one and folded up her stable.

  “What I found out a month or so later is that she gave away all six of the racehorses she owned at that time. She sent three or four of them to a charitable program that assists handicapped people, kids and adults, gets them on horses. Very effective therapy, I’m told.

  “The other horses she donated to veterinary schools. It’s a tax write-off and a good deal for both parties.” Tenuta finished his screwdriver and looked at the tote board where the contentious race’s result now appeared. “Dead heat, Jack. Don’t see that many of those.”

  Doyle sat back in his chair, considering all this information. Ms. Ness was obviously very hands-on and caring regarding horses. Hard to imagine her as a suspected horse killer. Not with that background. But, as he knew, people change.

  He said, “Ralph, let me ask you this? If your Ms. Ness thought that retired thoroughbred horses at the vet schools weren’t being…I don’t know, treated right, would she maybe take action?”

  Tenuta laughed. “Take action? Jack, Ms. Esther Ness is a candidate to do any damn thing she thinks has to be done. That’s the way she’s always lived her life as far as I know.”

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Tony Rourke again rose early after a tossing, turning sleep. Had a hurried light breakfast, and walked the mile to the Cork City train station where he bought a round-trip ticket to Dublin. The seventy-five Euros total cost made no dent in the bankroll he was carrying. It was a large one, for he was certain he was heading for a cash-only arrangement.

  During the three-hour rail trip to the nation’s capital, Rourke spoke to no one. After arriving, he took a long taxi ride toward one of the city’s so-called estate neighborhoods, a rough patch of real estate populated by some of Dublin’s poorest citizens.

  He’d been very careful with his due diligence after the failed efforts of the first amateurish Cork City hoodlum he’d foolishly employed in his campaign to make Niall Hanratty pay—with his life.

  Through a distant cousin of his late wife, a voluble, Dublin-based barrister named Barney McGee, Rourke had heard the names mentioned and dossiers described of several career criminals who’d utilized McGee’s counsel in what were, for most of them, disappointing outcomes. McGee was an early-evening drink-infused braggart. There was one name McGee repeated several times, one that stood out. A few surreptitiously successful inquiries, made unwittingly possible by counselor McGee’s rather gullible office secretary, produced the very private contact number of this fellow.

  He’d heard a raspy, drinker and smoker’s voice when the phone was picked up. “I’m calling out of the blue, now,” Tony Rourke said nervously. “You don’t know me. But you come, well, say, highly recommended for the type of work I need having done. Recommended by a certain barrister. Pay, that is, to have done. Are you with me here now?”

  “Ah,” said the voice on the other end, “pay. You’ve hit on a key word there. What particular level of pay is under consideration here?”

  “Substantial.” Rourke felt a film of sweat developing on his forehead and his mouth turning dry as he persisted. “Yes, substantial.”

  “The, eh, project under consideration? It’s one of shall we say great seriousness?”

  “Oh, yes.”

  On the other end of the line, he could hear muffled exchanges. Then the man at the other end said, “We’ll need a meet, now, won’t we?”

  “Oh, yes.”

  In less than a minute, the time and place was set and the other man’s phone clicked off.

  All Tony Rourke could think of at that moment of commitment was, that, yes, he wanted it done. Yes, he’d pay whatever it took. No matter what sort of people he’d need to use, he would go through with it. Yes. He owed it to Moira and himself and, he thought bitterly, Niall Hanratty.

  ***

  The train station taxi driver asked, “Are you sure, now, this is where you want to be dropped?”

  They were driving down Dublin’s Stone Street on this gray, mist-laden afternoon. Tenement buildings loomed on each side of the pothole-littered thoroughfare. Looking out the cab window at corporation flats and tenements with bent entry gates, scarred front doors, graffiti-covered sheds, balconies verging on dilapidation, Rourke shivered inside his buttoned-up raincoat at these symbols of despair. “Just drop me here, now,” he said, figuring he was quite near his destination.

  He tipped the cabbie and stood on the curb until the vehicle had turned the corner and gone out of sight. Then he walked two blocks north, one east, to the address he’d been given on Raglan Road. The mist had turned to a slight drizzle.

  Waiting in front of Moynihan’s Ould Times Pub was a short, slight man wearing a gray jacket, creased black trousers, scuffed white Nike trainers, and smoking a cigarette that he shielded from the moist air with his cupped left hand. His gray cap was pulled down over his broad forehead. Lively gray eyes appraised the visitor to this bleak setting.

  “Sure, then, you’re the man from the South?”

  Rourke nodded a nervous yes to his little inquisitor, who said, “Right, then.” He flicked the cigarette butt into the gutter. “I’m Billy Sheridan. You look just as was described on the phone. C’mon inside here. You must be thirsty after your journey. We’ll get you a pint or two.”

  The dark, dank interior of the pub was sparsely populated at this hour. Although well past his own youth, Rourke saw that he and Sheridan were easily the youngest people present. There was a corner parking ar
ea for walkers and canes. Three senior citizens sat silently, empty bar stools separating them, staring into their pints. A fourth old man at the end of the dark bar was reading a newspaper with his nose almost touching the printed page. The bartender did not look up from washing glasses as Sheridan led the way to the rear of the long room. There, at a corner table, sat a thick-bodied, red-haired, blunt-featured man who did not turn away from the television hurling game until they were seated. “Hiya, Billy.” He nodded at the visitor.

  Rourke’s due diligence had led from barrister McGee through Billy Sheridan to this large, brutish fellow. McGee had assured Rourke that the man, known as Crusher Moffett, was “just the sort you’d be needing for what you’re after.” Crusher’s credentials included a lengthy career of strong-arm persuasion on behalf of local loan sharks as well as “a few stints in the nick” for assaults performed solely on his own behalf.

  “Crusher, now,” Billy Sheridan had said outside on the curb, “is terrible strong. In many circles the very whisper of his name makes men’s cheeks pucker. I mean their ass cheeks. When you meet him, regard his huge hands. People say he’s so strong he could squeeze your skull till your brains popped out on top.” This gory assessment was followed by a chuckle and a disclaimer, “Of course that may just be exaggeration.”

  Billy Sheridan opened the discourse, introducing the two, then signaled for the visitor to declare what he’d come to Dublin for. “Including pay, now,” Sheridan emphasized.

  “I want a man killed,” Rourke said.

  Moffett’s small, green eyes concentrated on the visitor. It made for an uneasy feeling, such scrutiny from this thug. But Rourke pressed on, concluding with a sincere, “I hope you’ll help me out with this.”

  Moffett suddenly rose to his feet, his massive thighs bumping the table slightly upward. He walked to the bar.

  Rourke, startled, said, “Where’s he going?”

  “Not to worry,” Sheridan answered. “The big lad isn’t much for talking. He’s thinking about your proposal. Don’t rush his process.”