by Rick Polad
Past the stables was the practice track where a driver was trotting his horse around the oval. Halfway down the straightaway a young kid was putting a fresh coat of white paint on the rails. Next to the track was a small corral where a girl who looked to be a little younger than me stood in the center and, with a rope about twenty-foot long, guided a chestnut-colored horse around in circles. I put a foot up on the bottom rail, leaned on the top one, and watched as the horse pranced gracefully and rhythmically around just inside the fence.
Five minutes later she stopped the horse and, talking to him softly, gave him a hug around the neck. She had to stretch to do it. I had been admiring the horse but now I turned my attention to her. She had long auburn hair that was loosely pulled into a ponytail, was about five-foot-six, and looked to weigh about one-thirty. Her arms looked strong and I had no doubt she could handle the horse if he got out of hand. But the horse seemed to be reacting just fine to her soothing voice and gentle manner. Given the chance, I would too. Ignoring the sweat-stained shirt, there was a country-wholesome charm about her that made her very alluring. She was one hundred percent woman without having to try at all. I walked around the corral to where she was letting the horse munch on apples.
“He’s a beautiful horse,” I said. “How old is he?”
She smiled. “Thanks. He’s two. I was in the stall when he was born and have been with him ever since.”
“He moves very well.”
She laughed a laugh that was filled with bells and sunshine and made me decide that I wanted to come back and hear that laugh again. “He does just fine till he gets harnessed. Then he breaks stride and runs like hell. Daddy says he’s trying to run away from the sulky and I should give up.” Rubbing his nose, she said, “Maybe I will, but he hasn’t beaten me yet.”
“Good for you,” I said. I watched as she fed him another apple and asked, “I wonder if you would help me?”
“If I can.” She showed the horse she was all out of apples and rubbed his forehead.
“I’m looking for a Ronny Press. I wonder if you know where I might find him?”
Her light smile immediately turned into a scowl and her jaw set hard and firm. “You a friend of his?” she asked with a look full of all the bad things you could get into one look.
“As of this moment, I’m neither friend nor enemy—just someone with some questions.”
“Well then why don’t you try the dark corners of hell? He’ll be lurking in one of them.”
I was too shocked to know what to say. This girl certainly didn’t believe in beating around the bush. She must have noticed my stunned look because she immediately softened a little.
“I’m sorry,” she said, without sounding sorry. “He’s none of my business. He usually doesn’t get here till mid-afternoon.”
I smiled. “That’s okay, you don’t have to apologize. As a matter of fact, you’ve saved me the trouble of asking your opinion of him. Pretty much matches what I’ve heard before.”
She returned the smile.
“Spence Manning,” I said as I put out my hand.
“Kelly—Kelly Green. And no remarks about the name.” She took my hand with the firm grip I would have expected of someone who worked with horses, but there was also a gentleness that came along with being a woman.
“Nice to meet you, Kelly. I think it’s a pretty name.” Her face was flushed red from the heat so I couldn’t tell if she blushed or not. She clicked her tongue and led the horse along the fence to the gates, opened them, and walked back towards me.
When she reached me, I fell in beside her and asked, “Do you mind my asking why you’re so down on Ronny?”
“No. And I might even answer if you tell me why you’re asking.”
We turned into a long barn with a double row of stalls. I thought for a few seconds before I decided that my gut feeling for this girl told me to tell her the truth. “I’m a private investigator working on a case and my only lead seems to be Ronny Press.” We passed several stalls in silence. Most were occupied and some had stablehands either spreading hay, filling water buckets, or sleeping against the dividers. “Do I get my answer?”
She looked up at me and made a decision of her own. “Yes, but not here. There’s too many ears with tongues attached.”
She stopped in front of stall number six and I swung open the gate. The horse walked in by himself. Kelly took off the rope and hung it on a peg. Reaching into a bucket, she came up with a brush and a pick.
“This horse have a name?”
“Daddy named him City Slicker. He has a preference for the fast life—the horse, not Daddy,” she said as she cleaned his shoes. “I call him Slick.” She worked quickly and soon traded the pick for the brush and began combing his tail and mane. “He’s probably not suited for harness racing, but so far I’m just as stubborn as he is.”
I was wondering if I should ask her out when she solved the problem.
“Do detectives eat lunch?”
“Only on Thursdays and Saturdays.”
She raised her eyebrows and said, with a smile, “Well then this is your lucky day. I know a great Mexican restaurant just south of here. If you can wait till I’m done, we can talk there.”
“Sounds great.” I should have been glad to be getting some easy information about Ronny Press, but I found myself much more interested in Kelly Green. And the company would be nice for a change. I watched as she finished rubbing down Slick and got him some fresh hay and water. If I could get half the attention she gave to City Slicker, I would be a happy man.
All the while, she talked about her home in Kentucky where she had grown up on a horse farm and had developed a love for harness racing. She was twenty-seven, had a degree in Chemistry from Louisville, wasn’t interested in basketball, and had gone to work right out of college for a research lab. After two years of missing horses, she quit, went back to the bluegrass state to train “Daddy’s” horses, and hadn’t thought of doing anything else since. Her father had two horses running at Skyline. Slick was just a hobby.
Kelly gave Slick a gentle hug around the neck. He snorted and lowered his head to nuzzle her shoulder. After slapping him on the rump, she closed the stall door.
“Give me a few minutes to clean up. I’ll meet you where we came into the barn.” She turned and walked out the near end of the barn.
I shuffled, hands in my pockets, back to the other end. I got a nod from a man pitching hay. Other than that, no one paid me any attention. I found a stool, parked it in a patch of shade, leaned against the barn, and waited for Kelly. She didn’t take long. After twenty minutes, she reappeared in a flowery sundress, showing plenty of tan back despite the fan of thick hair that had been freed from the ponytail.
She offered to drive and we headed for the back lot where the employees parked. We passed all the cars but one, a red Porsche sitting all by itself about twenty feet from the nearest car. No wonder she went home to daddy. We got in, I oohed and aahed, she sluffed it off like it was just part of life in Kentucky, and, after turning the air on full blast, she pulled off the gravel and onto the blacktop drive.
Two minutes later we swung into a parking lot next to the El Pancho Restaurant. It was a dive if ever I saw one. Kelly chuckled and assured me that the food had no relation to the decor. It was going to take a lot of convincing.
Actually, it only took ten minutes and my first bite into the burrito that Kelly had insisted I order. She had ordered us the Giant Burrito Special and it certainly lived up to the name. It was the largest Burrito I’d ever seen and it was delicious.
While waiting for the food, I found out that Kelly’s daddy raised harness horses and thoroughbreds and she had been up here for almost a year racing at both Skyline and Linden. When the food came, both of us were too busy to talk.
I finished the last bite and, wondering if I’d be able to stand up, praised the lunch. I decided, reluctantly, that I had had enough pleasure and should get down to business.
“So,
what do you know about Ronny Press?”
After finishing her Modelo, dabbing her mouth with a napkin and settling back in the corner against the wall, she replied, “Not much, really. And then again, too much. He’s the kind of guy you wish you didn’t know at all. He makes my skin crawl just looking at him.”
“What does he do there?”
She shrugged. “Not much that I can tell. About the only work I’ve seen him do is handling hay bales. I can’t imagine the track pays him for just that but he’s always there. But then there are a lot of employees who don’t do much, especially in this heat. The funny thing is he must have more money than most of the men because he doesn’t live in the track housing. He’s got an apartment a few blocks away.” She fingered her glass.
“Nice place?”
She laughed. Her eyes sparkled. “It’s not the Ritz, but it’s more than the rest of them can afford.”
“What’s he done that turns you off so much?”
“Nothing really. It’s just a feeling. Sometimes you just know when you look at someone. The police have hauled him and some of the others off for fighting, but that goes on. I don’t know, maybe it’s just me.”
“Woman’s intuition?”
“Something like that. I’m not usually wrong about people. What bothers me the most is he’s got some kind of charm over one of the kids who works there. You saw him this morning. He was the kid painting the rail. Kid is the wrong word. I guess he’s over twenty-one but he acts a lot younger. Bobby’s not real smart but he’s a good worker. Sometimes I get the impression he’s a little slow. Unfortunately, he thinks the sun rises and sets in Ronny Press. And Ronny sure takes advantage of it. He orders Bobby around like he owns the track. And Bobby jumps when Ronny talks.” She raised her eyebrows. “I wonder if that jerk has Bobby doing all his work for him?”
I swished an inch of beer in the bottom of my glass and said, “Could be, but that doesn’t make him all bad. And it’s not illegal.”
She humphed. “Unfortunately. I’d love to see him behind bars.”
“Are you afraid of him?”
She laughed. “No. Well, not face to face anyway. When I can’t see him I worry. As a matter of fact, I think he’s afraid of me.”
I arched my eyebrows with unuttered surprise. “Intuition again?”
“No. Fact. A couple of weeks ago I turned a corner and came on him ordering Bobby to do some menial task he should have been doing. I was fed up and told him to leave Bobby alone and do his own dirty work. He took a step toward me and told me to mind my own business. I said it was my business and when I raised my arms to fold them across my chest he actually jerked backwards. I think he thought I was going to hit him!”
I smiled. “That sounds par for the course for a bully. You watch yourself, though. And, in the meantime, I’ll have a talk with this Bobby. What’s your feeling about him?”
“Bobby’s okay. Like I said, not too smart. He hasn’t been there too long and he’s fallen in with the wrong bunch. Easily influenced by the wrong kind of people. I’ve tried to drop some hints that he should stay away from Ronny but hinting hasn’t worked.”
“He had any law trouble?”
She sighed. “Yeah. We were talking one day and he told me about something that happened a little before he started working there. You probably read about it. He was the kid who...”
“Hey, Spence! I shoulda known I’d find you with a pretty lady.”
Officer Miguel Hernandez slapped me on the back and winked at Kelly. I introduced them and slid over so Miguel could sit down.
He waved his hand. “No thanks. I’m picking up tacos to go. Stop in and say hi sometime.”
“I was just there this morning and I’ve got to go back this afternoon. Gonna do some shooting with Rosie.”
His eyes got big and full of mischief. “Good luck. Nice seeing you, Spence. Pleasure, ma’am.”
“See you, Miguel.” I glanced at Kelly who was looking rather puzzled.
“I thought P.I.s didn’t get along with the police,” she said with a twinkle in her eye.
“I’m new at this. I haven’t learned all the rules yet. But thanks for letting me know.”
She smiled and raised her brows. I was pretty sure she wanted more information, but I, wanting to keep some mystery in our relationship, suggested we go.
We slid out of the booth. She insisted on paying for lunch and I let her with the stipulation that she let me return the favor. She agreed.
Walking a half step behind her on the way back to the car, I had a wonderful view of that tanned back. I also wondered what was holding up the front of the dress. I figured there had to be some kind of physics law that worked it all out. On the way back to the track she was quiet, and I was busy changing my stereotyped view of girls who drove red Porsches. Kelly was a down-to-earth girl who Mom would have liked a lot. And I always listened to Mom.
Chapter 13
I got to the station by two-thirty. I wanted to ask Stosh about Ronny Press.
The front doors were open and several large fans inside were blowing around hot air. Air conditioning is great when it works. A surly looking desk sergeant, whom I didn’t know, looked up at me for a second. After seeing I didn’t need him for anything, he wiped his neck with a handkerchief and turned his attention back to whoever was on the phone.
“Yes, ma’am. No ma’am, there is no good reason why you have to be treated like that. But we can’t do anything unless you file a complaint. We simply don’t...”
I stopped at the fountain for a drink and then headed up the stairs. Stosh wasn’t in his cubicle. As I was wondering where to look first, Rosie walked by.
“Hi Spence. We still on?”
“Sure. I want to talk to Stosh first, but it should only take a minute. You seen him?”
“He was down the hall in the evidence room ten minutes ago. Don’t be long. I’m not staying in this oven a minute more than I have to.”
“Come on, how many jobs throw in a sauna as a benefit?”
“Yeah, I keep forgetting how great I’ve got it.”
I’ve always loved surliness in a woman. But I couldn’t blame her. I wasn’t much thrilled about the heat myself. The last bank sign I saw read 102 degrees and this old building was not far behind.
When I got to the end of the long hall, Stosh came out of the evidence room on my right.
“Let me guess,” I said, “You guys figured you had it too easy so you turned off the air.”
He humphed and dripped perspiration. “Damn thing’s been off since ten. But it does put everyone on an even footing. Now my men are in just as bad a mood as the citizens we have sworn to protect.”
“Men and women,” I corrected.
I got a blank stare so I explained. “They’re not just your men. In case you haven’t noticed, there are women here also.”
I was kidding. I knew he didn’t mean anything by it. It was too hard to be sexually correct all the time. I knew Stosh well enough to know he judged his personnel only on the job they did. But I picked the wrong day to kid. It was just too damned hot. His response was to walk away.
“Hey, wait a minute, I got a question.”
“Ask it while we’re walking. I’m getting outta this hell hole.”
“You know anything about a Ronny Press?”
With the reaction I got, the building might as well have exploded. He grabbed my arm, pulled me into the nearest empty room without caring whether or not my arm was still in its socket, and kicked the door shut with a bang.
I stood still, shocked by the suddenness and the angry look on his face. Before I could open my mouth, he opened his.
“Why is that name coming out of your mouth?” he spat.
“Just looking for some information. I didn’t think...”
“And I’m waiting for an answer. And you’re not leaving till I get one. Sit down.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I sat. He didn’t.
“For chrissak
e, Stosh, I...”
“Spencer, right now. Where did that name come from?”
“He’s the only lead I have in this case I’m working on. Why? Do you know him?”
“Yeah, I know him, and I’d rather you didn’t. Tell me about it.”
I filled him in and asked what he knew.
“You know how pond scum floats to the top? Well, if you scraped off the scum and threw it in a barrel, this guy would float to the top.”
“I’ve heard that before. The guy seems to be somewhat short of a model citizen. But why the reaction? You about ripped my arm out.”
He pulled out a chair and sat on it backwards. I figured this was where he apologized for treating me so roughly. He didn’t.
“This goes no farther than you. I don’t give a shit who it is. That includes Rosie and Jesus should he pay us another visit.”
He waited until I nodded. Then he checked the hall. No one was there.
“The name Jeffrey Grey ring a bell?”
“Of course. I may not give a damn about politics but I know who the mayor of Chicago is.” Jeffrey Grey had been mayor for about seven years, well-liked by the people, and respected by his opponents. He had earned the reputation of being fair and he got the job done. His goal was to make the city a safer place to live. Stop the killing and stop the drugs, not necessarily in that order. “He has something to do with Ronny Press?”
“Unfortunately. They’re half-brothers.”
I let out an appropriate whistle and asked why that fact led to my arm being twisted like a wet towel.
“We’ve been working with the feds on a drug connection for two years. It’s led to Skyline Park. We know the end of the trail and we’re working our way back up.” A tap on the window stopped the narrative.
I looked up to see Rosie pointing at her watch. I held up five fingers.
