by John McEvoy
On the ride from Evanston to Chicago, Matt sat in the front of the Lincoln town car and chatted with Dunleavy. The ex-cop was an avid Bears fan, time-tested and not given to overt optimism about his favorite team’s prospects. “The past few years, we’ve had some of the worst draft choices since Jesus picked Judas as an apostle,” Dunleavy said, expertly wheeling into the express lanes at Hollywood and the Outer Drive. “I don’t expect a whole lot this year.”
This was a realistic outlook, Matt thought, especially in a metropolis where professional sports championships were few and far between. There had been a lengthy basketball drought until, as Rick Rothmeyer once put it, “God took pity on the city and sent Michael Jordan to the Chicago Bulls” for a glory ride in the nineties. And the previous autumn the Chicago White Sox had won their first World Series in eighty-eight years. But Chicago’s Cubs that same season had extended their history of non-championship baseball to an odds-defying, record-setting ninety-seven years.
The Bears had not won a title since 1985, but their fans’ enthusiasm was unwavering. Every seat would be filled that night in Soldier Field, the recently renovated stadium whose new look made it appear as if pieces of an enormous flying saucer had been plunked down atop the original classically columned structure. Two decades after their heroics, members of the ’85 squad, a team immortalized on Saturday Night Live as “Da Bears,” were still lionized in the city of big shoulders. So was their legendary coach, now a popular restaurateur and peddler of a remedy for erectile dysfunction.
Passing Belmont harbor, Dunleavy yawned widely. Matt said, “Big night last night?”
“Just long. Longer than usual,” Dunleavy grunted. “Mr. Kellman was entertaining some out of town clients. They’d never been to Chicago. He took them to dinner at Gibson’s, and then left them there with me in the Viagra Triangle. I didn’t get the last guy back to his hotel until almost four o’clock this morning.”
Matt said, “What’s the Viagra Triangle?”
Dunleavy laughed. “It’s what they call that part of Rush Street where there’s Gibson’s, the Hunt Club, Tavern on Rush. Top restaurants and pick-up joints. Filled every night with sharpies looking for action and trophy wife candidates trolling for sharpies. It can get pretty crazy down there, especially near closing time.”
“Does Moe hang out with these guys?”
Dunleavy frowned. “Are you kidding? Mr. Kellman has dinner for clients like that, then turns them loose and tells them to use his tab wherever they go in the Triangle. He never stays out with them. He’s home every night with his wife, ten o’clock at the latest.
“Her name’s Leah,” Dunleavy added. “Real nice lady. They’re coming up on their forty-fifth wedding anniversary.”
Even in the front seat, Matt could smell the enticing aromas emanating from the food trays in the trunk of the Lincoln. “Do you do any cooking in the parking lot?” Matt asked. No, Dunleavy told him, all his cooking had been done “at home yesterday morning, except for the Italian sausages. I’ll do those on the little grill I bring.”
Moments after Dunleavy had pulled the Lincoln into a prime spot in the Soldier Field parking lot, Moe appeared. He shook hands with Matt as Dunleavy began unloading the portable picnic table, chairs, utensils, and food trays from the trunk. The surrounding air was replete with smoke and the odor of bratwurst, hot dogs, chicken, and hamburgers cooking on grills of all shapes and sizes. Some of the grills had potatoes roasting on the coals. Two car rows over, a man wearing an apron with Bears Rule printed on it was basting a large turkey. The people standing around the grills were working on pitchers of bloody marys or margaritas, chests of iced beer, bottles of brandy.
Fans wearing Bears jerseys tossed footballs back and forth through the haze, many of the older ones wearing jerseys with No. 51 on the back, Dick Butkus’ old number, the younger ones sporting No. 54, the number of the current Bears middle linebacker, Brian Urlacher.
Matt looked on appreciatively as Dunleavy unveiled a soup tureen (“minestrone tonight,” he said), and aluminum containers of olive dressing salad, Italian beef, and canneloni in red sauce. Dunleavy had the little grill going by now, and the sausages were starting to sizzle. “A few of my clients will be joining us,” Moe said to Matt. “That’s why Pete brought so much food.”
As Moe finished speaking, Matt saw three middle-aged men get out of a cab and walk toward them. They looked tired, hung over, and hungry, and Matt correctly surmised they were the previous night’s patrollers of the Viagra Triangle. Moe introduced them to Matt, saying “meet these fellows from Houston,” adding only their first names: Bruce, Glen, and Marvin. The three eagerly accepted beers proffered by Dunleavy, then began filling their plates.
With a glass of Santa Margarita pinot grigio in one hand, a juicy Italian beef sandwich in the other, Moe smiled as he surveyed the parking lot scene. “It’s a beautiful evening,” he commented, “but to tell you the truth, I like it better here in December. When the wind comes howling off the lake, snow’s blowing onto your sandwich, and you can already smell the beer breath of guys around you even before the opening kickoff. That’s what being a Bears fan is to me.”
Matt finished the last of his soup before saying, “It’s not for me, Moe.” He well remembered the few December games at Soldier Field he’d attended in the past, his fingers, face and feet nearly frozen, people bundled up in outfits Admiral Peary’s expedition could have used.
It was as if Moe hadn’t heard him. The little furrier was waxing nostalgic about the Bears, telling the men from Houston how the team’s founder, the late George Halas, “Papa Bear, would have loved this scenario. His old team gets a refurbished stadium with added sky boxes, funded mostly with borrowed money. Remember, Halas had a tremendous regard for the buck. One of his players once said that Halas ‘tosses nickels around like they’re manhole covers.’ It was Halas who pioneered making season ticket holders come up with their money months before the season started. Then, he used the ‘float’ on that money. Sure, the idea later spread to other sports. Look at the Kentucky Derby. But it was the old Bohemian who came up with the idea,” Moe said.
Walking up a Soldier Field interior ramp an hour later, Moe said apologetically, “I’m sorry, fellows, but we’re not going to use my sky box tonight. I gave it to the lieutenant governor and her family. It’s her birthday.”
The seats they did have, Matt thought, were better than any he’d ever sat in at a Bears game: west side of the stadium, forty-eight yard line, eighteen rows up from the field. Matt settled in, sitting to Moe’s right. On Moe’s left, bracketed by Dunleavy, was the Houston trio, now fed, watered, and generally revived. Marvin insisted on buying the first round of beers from an Old Style vendor. Glen offered around a silver flask, but had no takers other than himself.
At the first television time out in the first quarter, Moe said quietly to Matt, “I heard the other day from our friend Larry Van Gundy in the state’s attorney’s office. He says there’s a guy contacted them claiming to have quote killed all those jockeys unquote. Calls himself the Unknown Rifleman. He’s phoned in three times in the last week.”
Matt said, “I don’t believe it. A killer this effective, this smart, who hasn’t left a trace, would all of a sudden go into a chest-pounding mode?” He sipped his beer. “I just can’t see it, Moe.”
“You can’t, eh? Well, for good reason.” Moe smiled, holding out his plastic cup for Dunleavy to refill with pinot grigio. “Actually, Matt, this nutcake has a track record of off-the-wall confessions. Once the feds matched up his voice with what they had on record, they came up with a guy named Trevor T. Thommason of Evansville, Indiana. Turns out that over the years Trevor has claimed to have killed both Kennedys, Martin Luther King, and Jimmy Hoffa. Among others. He’s not in a loony bin, but he probably should be.”
The Bears scored on a long pass play, their first points of the exhibition season, and the crowd reacted as if they’d sewed up the Super Bowl. Moe waited
for the roar to diminish before continuing.
Seeing the look of disappointment on Matt’s face, Moe said, “There’s no reason to lose hope, you know.”
Matt shrugged. “It doesn’t look very promising at this point.”
“True,” Moe said, “but things change. If Bledsoe is the killer, like we think, he’ll make a mistake. Most of them do. No matter how smart he is, he’s eligible to make one, too.”
Matt was not encouraged by this prediction. Despite the good food and company this evening, he was not only missing Maggie but feeling increasingly disheartened by the unsolved mystery of the murdered jockeys. He still couldn’t get out of his head that dream of Randy Morrison coming off the ski jump.
Moe looked at him appraisingly. Leaning back in his seat, Moe said, “Let me tell you a story. A true story. From when I was a kid on the west side. There was a guy named Sammy Rosen who had a little corner store. Sold candy, cigarettes, magazines and newspapers, stuff like that. Had a pinball machine in the back. Ran the store with his wife, a real tough broad named Tamara. The kids called her Tamara the Terrible. Behind her back, mind you. She’d kick you in the ass if she caught you trying to lift a piece of penny candy.
“But the main thing that Sammy Rosen did,” Moe continued, “was be the neighborhood bookmaker. Nobody had much money back then, so the bets Sammy handled weren’t big ones. But, like all bookmakers who have their heads screwed on straight, he made money. Not a lot, but he did.
“Well, after many years in that store, it became obvious Sammy wasn’t making enough money to satisfy Tamara. She started to complain to him that her sisters in Skokie were living the good life. Summer vacations over at South Haven in Michigan, winter weeks in Miami. Meanwhile, she and Sammy are tied to the store, seven days a week. So, Tamara comes up with a plan.
“First, Tamara makes a deal to sell the store to Arnie Klein next door, the grocer who wants to expand. That’s part one. Part two is to wait for the biggest betting day of the year in the neighborhood. That would be Kentucky Derby Day, when everybody wants to get a bet down with Sammy. Tamara convinces her husband that, instead of paying off any winners out of this bundle of money he’s going to be holding on the Derby, Sammy would pretend to have a fatal heart attack right before the race. Tamara arranges for her brother-in-law Mel the doctor to be on hand to pronounce Sammy dead on the spot. Tamara, as the bereaved widow, wouldn’t be able to pay any winners. Then she and Sammy would take the pile of money and sneak out of town early the next morning.
“This is May of 1953. The big Derby favorite is the great, undefeated Native Dancer. But hardly any of Sammy’s clients bet 7-10 shots like that. They go for ‘the Jewish horse,’ Dark Star, owned by a guy named Guggenheim. Dark Star wins the Derby by a head from Native Dancer. He pays $51.80 for $2. The neighborhood is in an uproar. People are coming out of the taverns and the tenements, dancing in the street.
“Sammy has watched the Derby on his black and white TV in the apartment above the store. He starts to panic. But Tamara takes charge and settles him down and pretty soon Sammy gets busy pretending to be dead. She flings open the apartment window and starts screaming, ‘My Sammy’s gone, he’s died up here. Oh, oh, oh,’ she’s wailing. Within minutes brother-in-law Mel steams up the stairs carrying his black bag. Then Tamara’s back at the window, wailing some more. ‘A heart attack my Sammy had. Oh, what am I going to do? I don’t know what Sammy did with all the Derby money. It’s not here. Oh, oh, oh, what will happen to me?’
“They sit shiva that night. Sammy lies stiff as a board in the wooden coffin, which Tamara has positioned in a very dark part of the living room. Sammy’s trying not to show he’s breathing. The neighbors come in to pay their respects, the horse players among them naturally disappointed as hell. Dark Star, $51.80, and they don’t have a cent to show for it. They can’t believe their bad luck, much less Sammy’s. A few of them are muttering insults as they file past the so-called corpse.
“Finally, up to the coffin strides little Mrs. Moscowitz, one of the oldest widows in the neighborhood. She’s been not quite right in the head since her husband died. She stands at the coffin, looking down at Sammy, fuming, swearing, ‘You little bum, Sammy, all the years I bet the Derby with you and never win, and now this. I got the winner, but no money. I spit on you,’ she says, and she does. People are trying to persuade her to move along, but she won’t budge.
“All of a sudden, Mrs. Moscowitz pulls out a pistol and puts the muzzle against Sammy’s right temple. She says, ‘What you did to all of us today, you bum, you should die not once but twice.’ And she cocks the pistol.
“That sound makes Sammy sit up straight in the coffin. He points a shaky finger at Mrs. Moscowitz. “‘You, I’ll pay,’ he shouts.”
Matt felt his swallow of beer back up into his nose as he started laughing. He kept laughing, the beer stinging him, for several moments. Moe signaled Dunleavy for a pinot grigio refill. Finally composing himself, Matt managed to say, “I suppose there’s a moral to this story. Like with the Great Zambini story. Am I right?”
“There’s a moral to most of them,” Moe said. “In this case, it’s that the best laid criminal plans gang aft a-gley.”
“If I use that line, I’d be quoting Moe Kellman and Robert Burns?”
“Right you are, laddie,” Moe said. “The thing is, not to get discouraged. Sammy and Tamara Rosen couldn’t pull off their scam. Oily Ronnie got collared, for the second time. The prisons are packed with people convinced they could get away with it.”
Cheers and whistling broke out as the Bears walked off the field at halftime, leading 10-7. Matt couldn’t believe how pumped up these people were over an August exhibition game.
Moe said, “I think you’re right in suspecting this Professor, this Bledsoe. I have a good feeling about this, Matt. Be patient. Even masterminds fuck up.”
Chapter Thirty-Six
Below a forty-eight-point headline on the Racing Daily’s front page the following Wednesday, the byline of Matt O’Connor appeared above this news story.
CHICAGO——Authorities have launched a full-scale investigation into an alleged national race-fixing scheme involving some jockeys and a small ring of bettors working in conjunction with them, Racing Daily has learned.
The probe is being conducted by the Protective Bureau, security arm of the racing industry, in conjunction with federal officials. Lawrence Drayton, Federal Bureau of Investigation bureau chief here, confirmed that “We are looking into some very serious allegations.”
The involvement of the FBI indicates there are suspicions of interstate racketeering, prosecutable under the RICO Act.
According to sources in the industry, the investigation is aimed at a small number of nationally prominent jockeys. One of the riders reportedly volunteered to cooperate with authorities and has been placed in protective custody.
Before the rider turned himself in, racing officials had been puzzled by the results of some National Pick Four betting events. Startling upsets had occurred in some of these races, usually involving heavy favorites, ridden by leading jockeys, who failed to perform as expected.
“This was more than chance upsets coming into play,” one official said, after requesting anonymity. “When we discovered through a tip that some of the same people were cashing winning tickets on more than one of these Pick Fours, warning flags really went up and we began to heat up the inquiry.
“We have really got the whole machinery in motion on this one,” he added. “We certainly can’t afford another black eye like with the Breeders’ Cup fiasco three years ago.”
The official was referring to the 2002 Breeders’ Cup, when the payoffs from a National Pick Six were manipulated by an industry insider. The man, a computer programmer for a totalizator company, created a winning ticket after several of the races had been run. The scam was quickly discovered and the proper payoffs made, with the programmer and his cohorts collecting fines and jail t
erms instead of millions. However, it was an incident that shook the industry to its core.
The official said the real names of the individuals observed cashing the winning Pick Four bets this year were not known. “They used phony social security numbers and IDs. But an observant racetrack patron was able to provide us with information regarding a license plate on a car they used.”
Racing Daily was told by another source close to the investigation that three National Pick Fours in particular have drawn attention. They involved the Dell Park Derby, the Gorham Stakes at Elmont Park, and the Prairie Schooner Handicap at Des Moines Downs. All three races produced major upsets that led to big Pick Four payoffs.
Racing Daily’s interest in this matter was spurred several weeks ago when unusual betting patterns and riding tactics were identified by an industry expert. Subsequently, this newspaper’s inquiries helped lead to the probe which, it has been learned, is zeroing in on a resident of Madison, Wisconsin.
***
Matt’s battle to get this story into print had been a protracted one, fought first over the phone, then resumed when he drove to Racing Daily’s downtown Chicago office and stormed into Harry Cobabe’s editor’s sanctum. Cobabe had put a hold on the story Matt had filed the previous day, explaining that “our lawyers are worried about this one. They urge caution.”
“The damn lawyers,” Matt began, leaning forward, his hands on Cobabe’s desk, “sweat over the weather box you publish, for God’s sakes. If they had their way you’d be putting out papers with blank pages.”
Cobabe looked at his excited Chicago columnist. He said, “Would you mind taking a few turns around the office and cooling out, like those horses you write about? Then sit down, and we’ll talk about this. Let me hear your argument.”
Matt took a seat. He said, “Harry, it’s a tremendous story, and we’re the only ones that have it. We know some bastard out there has been murdering jockeys and probably controlling other ones because of that. A tip from a weasel named Ronnie Schrapps enabled the police to trace the license plate of a car transporting people who cashed big Pick Four tickets. The car belongs to a Claude Bledsoe of Madison, a so-called full time student who has tutored athletes at the university there.