by Sam O'Brien
“The stallion business is hot right now, so I reckon it’ll be seven to ten, if he wins.”
Marco let out a satisfied whistle. “Then you’d better hope he does. Tell Claude I said that, too.”
“I’ll pass it on, but it might give him a heart attack. He’s nervous enough already. In fact, we all are.”
“What did I tell you before? Relax, you’ll get the job done. It’s gone to plan so far.”
An image of Richard flashed through his brain. “It sure has,” he said, without much enthusiasm.
Chapter 43
Derby day was bedlam. The infield of the track was a drunken, roaring mass of people; mostly students or locals who weren’t prepared to pay the high ticket prices to gain access to the grandstand enclosures. The stands themselves were packed to capacity with every kind of person. For those involved in the business, it was de rigueur to attend the Derby. Alongside the race fans, there were celebrities flown in from all over the country, most of them more interested in the free champagne in the corporate boxes than the racing.
Buried in this manic cross-section of humanity, there were horses. The runners for the Derby circled the small parade paddock. Owners, trainers and jockeys fought for space on the little patch of grass in the middle, while the rails appeared to strain under the weight of thousands of spectators, all pushing and clamouring for a view of the nation’s best three-year-old colts. It gave the paddock a fish bowl effect, which did nothing for the nerves of Concrete Boot, or his trainer.
The horse was slightly placated by earplugs, which Ricky had inserted and Pablo would remove when the horse was at the start. The trainer was eating cigarettes, which would continue until after the finish. Oliver, Rebecca and Robert flanked Claude, as usual. Oliver got a fright when he saw Agent Huntley leaning on the paddock railing, and the two men stared at each other for a second. Huntley smiled under his sunglasses and turned away. Oliver tried to remain calm, and took another cigarette from Claude.
The bell rang and the runners filed out of the paddock, through the tunnel under the grandstands, and onto the track. The outriders paired up with their assigned steeds to pony them the short distance to the start. All except for Concrete Boot. Ricky and the groom led him down the track. The trick worked, instead of feeding off the energy of another horse, Boot strolled along beside his regular handlers and stared at the crowds, though he couldn’t hear them. Oliver, high in the stands, watched intently through his binoculars, nodding in approval.
The horse circled around behind the stalls and was the last to be loaded. As the barrier snapped shut behind him, Pablo tugged the twine linking the earplugs and tossed them away. The noise invaded the animal’s brain. He would have started to sweat, but the buzzer sounded and the gates flew open to tremendous applause. Pablo was thankful for his wide draw, which gave the horses nearest the inside rail a starting advantage. Boot broke like his tail was on fire, but still found himself behind the leaders. Pablo settled him in near the rail, surrounded by horses. With no open track in front of him, Boot went at an even tempo and kept his head down.
There was a blistering early pace as the runners thundered past the stands. Pablo was eleventh of twenty and, though he was one horse off the rail, he had two outside him and was completely covered up.
“Damn, he’s a good pilot,” muttered Oliver to Claude. “I’d swear the horse is almost relaxing.”
“Pablo’s a genius on a horse, but a disaster in life,” said Claude, without moving his eyes from the big screen.
Oliver shot him a glance.
“I’ll tell you later. Watch the race.”
The horses hurtled along the back stretch, the pace unrelenting. The leader had had enough and began to drop back.
“First casualty,” mumbled Claude.
As the field veered into the final turn, another two front runners began to drop back and others took their places. This gave the impression that the pace was quickening again, but it was an optical illusion. In reality, the leaders were slowing and the others simply maintaining their speed. When they swung into the home straight, the first three were digging deep into stamina reserves as their jockeys started to knuckle down hard and push for the line.
Pablo was sitting in sixth and had yet to move. He had plenty of horse underneath him. He changed his hands on the reins, cocked a glance over his shoulder and moved Boot away from the rail to get a clear run. The horse quickened up automatically, and simply devoured the ground. This was no optical illusion; he really was quickening and using the energy he had saved. Pablo was completely focused on his mount, unaware of the roar of the crowd or the significance of the race. He changed hands again and waved his whip; he daren’t actually hit the horse.
The effect was dramatic, Boot found another gear. By the sixteenth pole, he was level with the leader – a huge grey colt, owned, trained and bred by New Yorkers, whose jockey was flailing his arms, legs and whip for all he was worth. Boot sailed into the lead and was alone in front. With nothing to obstruct his view, for the first time the horse seemed to notice the assembled masses in the infield, and his left ear flicked towards the crowds straining the barriers.
Before Pablo could react, Boot veered sharply away from the rail, towards the middle of the track. The head-on shot would later reveal that Boot appeared to be moving sideways. The horse’s action became unbalanced and he faltered. The sinewy Brazilian adjusted his hands and dragged on the left rein, but to no avail. Boot was spooked and continued to stray from his course. He passed the line closer to the outside grandstand rail, and a few yards after it, he was on that rail; now his attention turned to the people there and he bolted as if to round the track again.
Pablo eventually got him down to a trot and turned him back towards the winner’s circle. The exhausted jockey saw Claude, Ricky, the groom, and Oliver, burst through the barriers onto the track. The other runners were being greeted and consoled by their grooms and led back under the stands to the unsaddling enclosure. Only the winner remained on the dirt. The barriers were opened to let the victorious horse and its connections enter the winner’s circle, which was surrounded by the crowd in the infield.
As the groom snapped his lead rope onto Boot’s bridle, Pablo had caught his breath enough to notice the aghast expressions and deathly pallour of Claude, Ricky and Oliver. Then out of the corner of his eye, he noticed the ghostly form of the New York colt circling around to his left. The 140,000 people in the stands and infield were eerily silent.
The penny began to drop. “Did we get beat?” he blurted to Claude.
“I’m fucked if I know,” he replied, between drags. “What the fuck happened out there? I told you not to hit the front too soon.”
“Couldn’t help it . . . Just took off . . . Others dead from the pace,” he said breathlessly.
The regal beast’s breathing had nearly returned to normal, but the wild look in his eyes remained, and his ears flicked nervously forwards and back. His groom kept him walking in a circle and whispered calmly into his ear.
“Well, I . . .” The judge’s announcement stopped Oliver in his tracks, and his stomach started to churn as he absorbed the result. He could feel the bile trying to rise into his mouth.
* * *
Up in the grandstand, the crowd erupted. Robert answered his phone.
“Hi, Dad.”
Rebecca cocked her ear towards the young man.
“Yeah, they just announced it. Everyone seemed kinda stunned for a second. I dunno, he’s on the track with Claude.”
“OK, Dad, I’ll tell him.” He snapped the phone shut.
Rebecca looked at him quizzically.
“Dad seems kinda pissed. He wants Oliver back to Jersey tonight.”
“Pissed? Second in the Kentucky Derby’s a big deal. Nice purse to collect.”
Robert shrugged. “He’s not happy.”
Chapter 44
Claude and Oliver tried to conceal their despair as they walked through the tunnel with the vanqui
shed horse. An official trotted after them and informed Claude that the animal would still be required to give a urine or blood sample for analysis. The trainer motioned for Ricky to escort Boot to the examination stable.
They took the elevator to the top floor and found Rebecca and Robert looking equally stunned.
“Dad wants us to get back home ASAP,” Robert chewed on his lip. “He seems kinda pissed.”
“Pissed?” Oliver’s jaw dropped open. “Disappointment I get, but we still came second in the Kentucky Derby. That’s a big deal.”
“You guys made out we only had to turn up to win, so I guess it’s a let down,” said Rebecca.
“What happens to the stallion value now?” asked Robert.
Oliver didn’t reply.
Claude vanished to deal with a runner he had in the next race. While the prize giving was taking place and a state of general euphoria gripped Churchill Downs, Oliver, Rebecca and Robert slipped away from the track and made their way to the airport.
Rebecca dropped them off and hugged Oliver intensely, as if he was taking off on a long journey. “It’ll be OK, hon,” she whispered in his ear. “Marco’s just disappointed, that’s all. You’ll still get a stallion deal.”
“I hope you’re right.”
* * *
Oliver and Robert were sitting in Marco’s office at noon the next day, waiting. They had left Louisville on the red-eye, after drowning their sorrows in the airport bar while watching the TV post-mortem of the race. All anyone could talk about was Concrete Boot, much to the annoyance of the winning New Yorkers, who said as much in an interview.
Oliver felt awful. It wasn’t the alcohol or lack of sleep, but the uneasy feeling he had in his gut. Images of his brother flooded through his mind. Robert sat beside him, sending text messages. They heard the front door slam and heavy footsteps crossing the hall. Oliver jumped. Robert looked up at him and laughed.
“Chill, man! It’s only Dad.”
Marco strode into the room with his jaw cocked and the eyes on full beam. He glanced from Oliver to Robert. “Go see Luigi, he’s got a new phone for you,” he barked at his son.
“What, now?”
“Yeah now.”
“OK,” he muttered, slouching out of the room.
Marco sat opposite Oliver and leaned towards him. “What the fuck happened out there?”
Oliver had thought he knew Marco, but he could not fathom the look on the man’s face right now: was it rage, curiosity, pity, or all three? He cleared his mind and concentrated. “The horse spooked and bolted across the track. It was too quick and too late for the jockey to do anything about it.”
“But his job is to win the goddamn race,” he roared.
Oliver’s brain was suddenly filled with an image of Pablo’s violent death. He gritted his teeth, determined to put up a fight and not let Marco walk all over him. “Look, Marco, I know it’s disappointing, but first of all, if it wasn’t for Pablo, the horse would have taken off with the early pace and finished like a snail. Second, the whole country saw that Boot was the best horse in the race. He ate up the ground with his finishing speed. People know he’s the unluckiest loser in maybe forty years. When the media circus dies down, we’ll still get that stallion deal. We just need to bypass the Preakness – which won’t matter because he can’t win the triple crown now anyway – settle him back down and win the Belmont. Then we take the money and run. But don’t worry, the deal will happen.”
Marco took all this in, nodding with a slight grin. His eyes burnt into Oliver. Without blinking, he said, “Do you have any idea how much money I lost on the book?”
There was a pause, but Oliver felt compelled to answer. “No, haven’t a clue.” A bead of sweat was beginning to form on his forehead. Marco glanced at the droplet and smirked.
“Relax, my man. I know you don’t, but it’s like this: I gotta make that money back, and fast. So you tell Claude to get the horse ready for the Preakness in two weeks. I don’t want to hear any arguments, OK?”
“OK, but it could ruin our chances to maximize the stallion deal. You see, I reckon he’ll either lose the Preakness or the Belmont, or both, if we run him in both. He’ll just cave in under the pressure.”
“Here’s the thing. I want him to lose the Preakness. Make sure he does, OK? Make sure he finishes second or third. Then he can win the Belmont and we’ll get the deal.”
“But, Marco, it’s not as simple as that. He’s not a machine, you know. He’s talented, but if he was a human, he’d be officially insane.”
“Just get it done, OK? No more fuck-ups.” His gaze was darkening. “I won’t sit on this loss for more than two weeks. Oh, and one more thing, I gotta keep all the Derby prize money for myself. Understand?”
Oliver weighed the situation in his brain. “I’m sure the Preakness result won’t be a problem, but depending on how he pulls out of the race mentally, the Belmont could go either way.”
Marco looked at the fireplace, seemingly bored of the conversation. “There’s a lot of things go either way in this world. Profit – loss. Credit – debt. Life – death.”
Oliver was dismayed that after only one real setback, Marco was reacting badly and changing the deal to suit himself. Didn’t seem fair. It reminded him of several past events in his life. Got to win the Belmont, do the deal and get out.
Marco clicked his fingers. “Don’t dwell on it, my man. The past is the past. Concentrate on the future. You thirsty? Let’s have a drink, then you’d better get some sleep. You’re going back to Kentucky to tell Claude the plan.”
If the past really was the past, then shouldn’t the loss on the books be taken on the chin? Surely the bigger picture was more important?
Marco got up and slapped Oliver on the knee. “Come on. I got some good wine in last week, we’ll open a bottle.”
Oliver followed him across the hall to the kitchen. Maybe, he’s not so pissed off after all.
* * *
The following afternoon, Oliver was part of the masses at Newark Airport. He fought his way to the check-in desk and offered his passport and ticket to the bubbly brunette behind the counter, who asked him all the usual questions and tapped his details into her computer. She frowned and picked up a phone.
“Hi,” she said. “Yes, that’s correct . . . OK . . . I’ll wait. Thank you.”
Oliver looked at her quizzically.
“OK, sir, nothing to be alarmed about. If you can just bear with me for a second, there’s something odd about your reservation.”
“There shouldn’t be. I mean, it’s a return flight.”
She glanced over Oliver’s shoulder, raised her eyebrows, and cocked her head back. Oliver turned and saw two policemen approaching, with fake smiles on their faces.
“What the . . .” muttered Oliver. Resignedly, he picked up his small case and moved out of the queue.
“Sir, could you follow us, please.”
He mustered a smile. “What’s this about, guys?”
“Please come with us, sir.”
The officers flanked Oliver and led him through a security door into the bowels of the airport.
As they walked down a long empty corridor, Oliver repeated the question.
There was no answer. They stopped at a door, knocked and entered. It was a small room with grey walls. A thin, greying man was sitting at a table, with a laptop computer bag on the floor by his feet and a file placed on the table. Oliver recognized him immediately.
“I was wondering when you were going to show up again,” he said with a sigh.
“Good weekend at the races?” Agent Huntley smirked and gestured to the empty chair. “This won’t take long, then we’ll have you on your flight.”
Oliver looked at his watch.
“Don’t worry, we can delay the plane for a few minutes.”
Oliver sat warily. “So what do you want this time?”
Huntley drummed his fingers on the manila file under his hand. “Right, let’s cut to the
chase. I have reason to believe that your cosy little business arrangement is getting out of control.”
Oliver stared at the file and told himself to remain composed. “It’s true, we were unlucky on Saturday. But I don’t see why this interests you. I’ve done nothing wrong,” he said in a measured voice. His heart was thumping.
“Look at me,” said Huntley. Oliver raised his eyes and looked into the agent’s pale, sunken sockets. “I don’t think you really, I mean really, understand who your buddy is, do you?”
“I know about all the rumours. But, as far as I know, he’s just another hard-nosed businessman.”
Huntley snorted in amusement. “And what do you know about Michelangelo Cassoto?”
Oliver knitted his brow. “Who?”
“Mike the Nail – your buddy, Mike.”
“I really don’t have much to do with him, but I’ve met him a few times.”
Huntley shook his head in dismay and flipped open the file. “Marco Romano and Mike Cassoto have been close since before Marco took control. They’ve been a team for nearly sixteen years. Marco has always been the brain, Mike does the dirty work. Before Marco became head of the family, he and Mike were the guys who got things done; they made more money for the family than anyone else. Marco became known as The Gent, not just because of his affectations of grandeur and a lordly lifestyle, but among other things, he has a way of putting people at ease, of getting them to lower their guard and warm to him. Any of this sounding familiar?” He didn’t wait for a reply. “Mike became known as The Nail ‘cause he had a habit of nailing people to things.” He could see that Oliver looked sceptical. “See for yourself.”
He carefully placed a line of four photographs on the table. Oliver studied the images. The first was of a man nailed to a door with about twenty large, rivet-type nails. He was covered in small cuts and his stomach had been sliced open. His intestines spilled out and hung from him. There was blood everywhere. The second photo showed dismembered arms and a penis nailed to a wall above a body in a pool of blood.