Murder at the Racetrack

by Otto Penzler

  Sounded better than Baez is what it sounded.

  The fare to Long Island was a bitch but Lenny had been waiting, right on the curb, saw the cab pull up. He’s over to the driver, palms him a wad, says,

  “Take the evening off, buddy.”

  Lenny’s a small guy, comes up to maybe my shoulder, but built like the proverbial shithouse and ferocious with it. He’s from Boston but came to New York as his old lady was from the Bronx. Used to box, welterweight, till some spade stopped his clock. His nose is scrunched to the right, gives him an almost comical appearance, but you don’t get too many guys laughing about it, least not twice. He has a hair-trigger temper. Made him one ballsy cop but brought him down—that and the mob stuff. He was wearing an Armani suit, not a rip-off but the real deal; you can always tell. The way it hangs? like attitude.

  I get out of the cab and he goes,

  “Come here, you big lug.”

  I’m a tall guy, getting a little stooped but can still measure up, least where it matters. He shoots his cuff and I see the Rolex… shining against his Miami tan, “Diamonds and Rust.”

  He gives me a tight hug. I’m not real comfortable with that shit but what the hell, no one had touched me in a while.

  A hooker I had in Bed Stuy, whining,

  “Don’t touch the hair and no kissing.”

  Real affectionate broad.

  I’m banging away, trying to get it over, get off, and she asked,

  “You near done?”

  Just like my old lady, if a little better looking, and at least she took the cash up front, not the daily bleeding me useless.

  Lenny goes,

  “We gonna stay on the curb all evening? Get your sorry ass in here.” Christ, what a pad, massive and with white leather furniture, paintings on the wall. I don’t know art from shinola but they had little lights above them, so I figure they were expensive. There’s a young girl on the couch, dressed in bra and panties, a real beaut, her head nodding like the junkies on Seventh.

  Lenny said,

  “Say hello to Angie. She’s a little outta it but she bangs like a trooper.”

  Lenny always had a mouth on him. He shouts,

  “Yo, babe, get us some cold ones and bring the bottle of Grey Goose.”

  Took her a time, but eventually we got behind some serious drinks and Lenny said,

  “The fuck you standing for? Take the weight off, get your ass on that couch, chill buddy.”

  I had on a Goodwill sports jacket, and truth to tell, I was a little ashamed of it. Got it off with more than a bit of relief and Lenny asked,

  “You’re not packing?”

  A cop without his piece is like a pimp without rock. I had no answer to that, so chugged my vodka and that shit, it goes down, real smooth. Lenny fills it right up, says,

  “No prob, get you fixed up.”

  He goes out of the room and the girl looks at me, her eyes drooping, asks,

  “You a cop?”

  I take my time, she’s not going to remember in five minutes anyway, then I said,

  “Used to be.”

  She stared at me, then,

  “Lenny says you’re a compulsive gambler.”

  Lenny and his mouth. I feel regret that I no longer carry the shield. The regret is more than I expected and I swear I feel my eyes tearing up. Must have been that Grey Goose; sneaks up on you.

  Lenny comes back, hands me a Glock, says,

  “Lock ’n’ load, bro.”

  It’s like a toy in my big hand. Light as hope. Dull sheen that catches the light.

  The girl asks,

  “What’s with you guys and guns?”

  Lenny says, real quiet,

  “Shut up, bitch.”

  The steel in his voice, no fucking around with that.

  He smiles then, swallows a huge dollop of his drink, the ice clinking against his teeth, freshly capped and gleaming, like a movie star. Set you back three grand. I know; I inquired.

  He said,

  “October twenty-seventh.”

  The booze has muddled my head and I don’t know what he means, so I go,

  “Dunno what you mean.”

  He’s incredulous, then,

  “The Sox, man, we became world champions.”

  He’s fucking with me, big time. I’ve been a Yankee fan all my life—how could I not?—and I’d almost forgotten how Lenny liked to stick it to people. The Glock is still in my hand and for one glorious moment I considered shooting the fucker.

  Wish I had.

  He’s not finished.

  “You guys choked—am I right?—got your ass handed to you.”

  Like I said, I should have shot him.

  He busted my chops some more, making a few comments about slow horses and slower ex-cops, then suddenly jumps up, disappears into the bedroom, returns with a suede jacket, still in its plastic, asked,

  “You go an XL, right? Try this. That piece of crap you got looks like you got it in Goodwill. No offense, buddy, this will make you look like a player. Next time you hit the ponies, you’ll at least look the part.”

  I wanted to tell him to shove it, but pride had long ago taken a walk. The jacket fits snugly and he sits down, a smirk in place, and I wondered,

  “Did I ever like this prick?”

  He puts down a line of snow, takes a deep snort, says as he lays down some more,

  “Get on the other side of this, bro.”

  What the hell, I do a few and feel the icy drip down the back of my throat and the instant clear thinking in my brain, like it’s been washed in intelligence. Everything is hunky-dory and if I’d a copy of a form sheet, I’d have picked me some sure winners, I know it.

  He smiles, says,

  “See, you got to lighten up, pal.”

  Light? I’m floating, on clouds of ease.

  I need music and hop up, ask,

  “You got any music?”

  Dumb, huh?

  He’s got Sinatra and… Sinatra. Sees me hesitate and says,

  “There’s some other crap over near the wall, the broad picked it up.”

  I flip through them, lots of names that mean nothing to me, The Killers, The Streets, Frantz Ferdinand, then at the very end, Bowie’s Greatest Hits. I grab that, like a prayer, and put it on, the opening of “Aladdin Sane” begins, Lenny snorts,

  “That English faggot?”

  The coke had mellowed me way low so I let that slide.

  Lenny sits forward, wiping at a dribble from his nose, says,

  “Time to talk business, buddy.”

  No free lunch, especially with cops.

  His voice changes. He’s got the Boston twang in place, sounding like one of the goddamn Kennedys, all fake sincerity, says,

  “You want to get behind some serious change, am I right?”

  I want to go,

  “Take a wild fucking guess.”

  But just nod, shaking hands with the devil, he shakes… a cigarette loose from a pack of Marlboro Lights, and I nearly smile. He’s shoving every substance known up his nose and smoking Lights?

  He cranks a battered Zippo, the flame making his eyes look demented. He drags deep, then,

  “We got us a sweet deal. Two lowlifes, they owe my employers a lot of green and they ain’t coming up with it. They need a lesson in manners, nothing too major, no biblical stuff, but a wake-up call, you following me?”

  Jesus, how complicated is it?

  I ask,

  “And you need me, why?”

  He emits a short laugh, more like a bark, says,

  “I need backup, you think I’m gonna trust some guinea in a suit to have my rear and if I remember, you were pretty damn good at shakedown before you got all fucked with that racing gig.”

  Not something I like to recall.

  The gig smells to high heaven but what’s my alternative? Joan Baez, and the barrel of a piece I’m not sure even works, so I agree.

  Hearing Bowie has made me want things I used to want and haven�
��t been able to get for a long time, like respect.

  Am I blaming Ziggy?… duh… yeah.

  Lenny says,

  “C’mon, buddy, I’ll drive you back to Brooklyn.”

  He’s about to finish the remnants of his drink when the girl comes out of the bathroom. She’s obviously been doing some dope, or rather more of it, and she staggers, knocks into Lenny, his drink spilling on the Armani suit and he loses it, big time, goes,

  “The fuck you doing?”

  Begins to lay into her, slapping her face with a concentration that is pure, unadulterated hate

  One

  Two

  Three

  Slap.

  And I grab his arm, say,

  “Enough.”

  Her face is already bruising, he spins, out of control, spits at me,

  “You’re telling me what to do… Loo-tenant? Memo to asshole: You don’t get to give orders anymore, you take ’em, got that?”

  I’ve got it.

  The girl is weeping and one thing I could never take is women weeping. Reminds me of my little girls, bawling as their mother dragged them out the door and out of my life. Her final words:

  “Your father is only interested in horses.”

  And my youngest, said,

  “I like Black Beauty.”

  Words to kill you. Time was I’d read that to her at bedtime but got sucked into the Racing Post instead.

  Lenny is right in my face, his spittle on my cheek, like acid. I bite down, tell myself,

  “Chill, buddy, you need this gig, let it burn, slow, and keep it on simmer.”

  When he sees I’m not going to muscle, he spins on the girl and screams,

  “Take that fucking whining cunt off my stereo.”

  Calling Bowie that, I add it to the shopping list.

  His ride is, of course, a Chevy and I try not to think about the amount of booze and chemicals in his blood, but the rage has cleansed him and he’s Mr. Affability. We get to Brooklyn, him extolling the Sox the whole trip and he pulls up, looks around at the hood, says,

  “Man, you’re almost in Bed Stuy.”

  Then he gives me a good-natured punch on the shoulder, asks,

  “We cool, buddy?”

  I give him the yard about letting off steam, and we both act like it’s true. He aims a feint blow at my chin, says,

  “Try and stay out of the OTB. In a little while, you can go to the track in style. A week from Friday, come to my place, we’ll go do our work and after, we’ll party hard. Sound good? We do it right, you can buy your own horse.”

  I agree it sounds great.

  In my rathole, I pour a large tumbler of the Stoli, knock a hole in the wall with my fist and throw Baez out the window.

  Something had to give, right?

  Friday evening, he’s wearing a long raincoat and packing a Mossberg in the right cutaway pocket. I ask,

  “Shotgun? You expecting up close and personal?”

  He’s also putting a Nine in his left, says,

  “For show, bro, get them focused.”

  I have the Glock. In the movies, you see them stick it in the waist of their pants, at the back.

  Fuck that.

  I have it in the new suede jacket, my finger lightly caressing the trigger.

  We drive to the East Village, up a flight of stairs and I notice Lenny has a run of sweat on his forehead. He says,

  “Follow my lead.”

  Knocks on a door and I hear a deadbolt drawn, a guy in his early thirties opens, goes,

  “Lenny, hey.”

  And we’re in, there’s a guy on the couch, watching The Wire, box of pizza on the table, Bud longnecks, riding point. He has a sweatshirt with the logo JIMMY’S GYM. And the guy sees me, a look of recognition in his eyes. Lenny has the Mossberg out, blows the first guy’s face off and pumps the second load into the guy on the couch, the logo obliterated.

  The sound is deafening and the smell of cordite is overpowering, Lenny goes,

  “Move. Let’s get the fuck out of here.”

  We don’t speak a single word on the ride back to the Island, except for Lenny asking,

  “You don’t get that rush from horses, am I right?”

  He didn’t expect a reply and I didn’t have one.

  We go into the apartment and Lenny shucks off his jacket. He’s running on pure adrenaline and me, I’m running on empty.

  I’m sitting on the couch, glass of Beam in my hand and Lenny is pacing, mania blowing off him and he stops, asks,

  “Gone a little quiet there, buddy?”

  I put my glass down, say,

  “Jimmy’s Gym.”

  He’s staring at me, his eyes wild, snaps,

  “So?”

  I take my sweet time, get it right, go,

  “Guy’s from the eighty-fifth, they practically own that place and that kid on the couch, I knew him. Ted Brennan’s eldest.”

  He’s reaching in his coat and asks,

  “You got a point or you going to sit there, swilling my hooch.”

  “Cops. Those guys were on the job.”

  His Nine is in his hand and he sighs,

  “Horse players, the bottom feeders, you’re still a fuck-up. Course they were cops. You think you get the big bucks for offing some lowlifes? Those guys, they were nosing around where it don’t concern them. I try to do a good thing here, get you out of the hole, but gamblers, you wouldn’t recognize a winning bet if it bit you on the ass.”

  The Nine is leveled at me, and the thing is, I don’t feel a thing, maybe sadness, he says,

  “Ah, you could have been a contender, know? But we handed you your ass at Fenway Park and guess what, you’re…”

  He never got to finish. The bedroom door had opened and the girl was out, swung the bottle of Grey Goose at his head. He went down like a bad song.

  After I dumped him in the East River, I muttered,

  “You choked, pal, and your horse is disqualified.”

  Back on the Island, the girl has built me another Jim Beam, is running her hand along my thigh and I ask,

  “Why?”

  Her head is nodding again, she’s way into that coke and she whispers,

  “For Ziggy.”

  The riff unreeling in my head… and where were the spiders?

  I look around the apartment, wondering if I can hold off tomorrow’s runners. I’m feeling lucky, figure I’ll bet the Nine horse in the last race.

  I think Lenny would appreciate the irony. I’d stuffed the Nine in his mouth, not an easy fit. Figured it would be the last time he pulled it and he sure as hell wouldn’t be running his mouth no more.

  ZUPPA INGLESE

  Jan Burke

  Eric Halsted ran a hand over his closely cropped hair, sighed, and shifted in the big leather chair. He was being made to wait, and he didn’t like it.

  Over the past weeks, taking over all the loose ends of his late brother’s loosely led life had tried Eric’s patience nearly to the limit, and today the delaying tactics of trainer Arnie Shackel just might exceed that limit.

  Eric had spent all of yesterday afternoon and evening, as well as an hour or two this morning, rehearsing exactly what he was going to say to Shackel. He would praise the trainer, thank him for his work with Zuppa Inglese, and make it clear to him that his services were no longer required. About that time, Shackel would probably do a little arguing, claim he had a contract saying he must have a certain amount of notice, but Eric would point out that his attorneys had already provided that notice, and mention that certain features of that contract undoubtedly made it null and void in this state.

  Donna Freepoint, the new trainer, had also found the contract to be highly unusual. “Downright odd for there to be one. Weirder still for Mark to have signed it,” she had said.

  Why Mark had signed it without first letting one of Eric’s attorneys look it over—as had been Mark’s practice with other business deals—was one of a great many questions Eric would ask him if he saw
him in the Great Beyond. It would be very far down the list on such a quiz.

  Why didn’t you call me, talk to me, tell me how much you were troubled? That one would be much higher. Far above that would be, How could you bear to do this to Jimmy?

  The inevitable images, derived from Eric’s imagination and what he had been told about his brother’s death, played through his mind, his personal horror film.

  Setting: the rolling hills north of this racetrack. A rural road crests near Shackel Horse Farm.

  Action: Mark stands outside his vintage Corvette on a hill that overlooks the farm, watching the morning workouts through binoculars. Perhaps he had wanted to watch Zuppa Inglese run one last time but did not want to interact with the people who worked there. Remote, from above.

  Another horse owner is the last person to have seen him alive. {Was she? His mind never wants to let go of this question.) She drives past him, does not stop to say, “Mark, think of the people who love you,” “Mark, there is a way through this, let me help you,” or any of the things Eric would have said if he had been the one to have a last chance to talk to his brother.

  But Eric is not there, and Mark gets back into his car and drives to a vacant, wooded lot not far away. He has the courtesy, at least, to do this away from the house, in a place where Jimmy is unlikely to discover him. Mark takes the gun he has brought with him and… hesitates? Reconsiders? It does not matter. Ultimately, he lifts it to his mouth and fires it.

  No note. Detective Delmore, who investigated the suicide for the Osita County Sheriff’s Department, said that often was the case. So no note, just the body of a man who couldn’t even bring himself to communicate last thoughts to his son or brother. All that he had to say to be said by the act itself.

  This is what Eric has to be satisfied with. His questions, his initial denial of the idea that Mark has done this to himself, his insistence that Mark would never kill himself while Jimmy still needed him, Delmore patiently and inexorably, and ultimately pityingly, refutes. Delmore has investigated many deaths. Eric is no more an expert in suicide and homicide than he is in horses.

  • • •

  Eric sighed. He knew what would happen if he kept thinking about Mark’s death, and he sure as hell didn’t want to have Shackel find him in here on a crying jag, so he forced his thoughts in another direction. Rehearsed what he would say again. Tried to envision success. A former girlfriend had been big on the envisioning thing. Although her vision of Eric proposing to her was all for naught, maybe envisioning could work in situations like this one. He tried to picture Shackel taking the news like a grown-up. The horse transport van would arrive and Zuppa Inglese would be moved from Shackel’s barn at the Fox River Racetrack to Copper Hills Farms. He didn’t really know if that could make a difference in the horse’s performance, but it would make his nephew happy.