by Jon L. Breen
“Come on, three,” I muttered with faint heart.
The old man cackled gleefully as Cholee entered the stretch turn still holding four lengths in front. “You got it now, Cholee! Pour it on, Cholee!”
After the stretch turn Cholee began to take baby steps. Her lead diminished rapidly. Only one horse was now moving with any energy. And that horse was . . .
“Come on, Dainty Lady!” I screamed as the filly came six wide into the stretch and commenced to gobble up contenders.
“Keep going, Cholee,” the old punter beseeched in a whisper of desperation as the front runner strained unsuccessfully to maintain her slim lead.
As Dainty Lady sailed past the old man’s selection, I screamed: “Drop dead, Cholee!” The old bastard turned rapidly and rapped me on the shin with his cane. I grabbed my leg to stem the pain and missed the finish.
“Damned communist,” he spit at me before tottering away.
I presented my winning ticket to the old man’s lucky seller, the one I had been quizzing before I got into it with the old maniac. Dainty Lady paid $20.20 and $6.40. My ticket was worth a hundred and thirty-three bucks. As he counted the cash out, I asked again about Mona.
“I don’t want to say anything bad about the dead,” he commented.
“Why not?” I asked. “The odds are pretty good the dead can’t hear you.”
My leg hurt like hell. I could feel a large knob beginning to rise on my shinbone. Raul was the name of the lucky seller of the old lunatic who’d rapped me with the cane.
It took awhile to drag the information from him. Mona had only been on the job a little over a month. She kept to herself, Raul told me. Didn’t have any close friends except maybe Swine, who was obviously sweet on her and brought her coffee down from the second level every day. He then alluded to the fact that she was probably a thief, explaining that the track had warned her numerous times because of shortages in her cash drawer. When I asked if any thing unusual had happened in the last day or so, I hit pay dirt. He told me about the superfecta ticket.
Raul had forgotten which race, but the superfecta had paid over thirty-six thousand and there was only one ticket sold. “The guy got in Mona’s face,” Raul told me. “He was screaming at her that he’d hit the superfecta. Claimed that he forgot to take his ticket and she still had it.”
“How could the guy be so sure that he hit the super?” I asked.
“He was screaming at her: I always bet my address, one, three, two six—that’s my house number, one, three, two, six Alexander. Then he called her names and threatened her. When he tried to climb over the counter, Allen and Brody from Security dragged the guy away still screaming.”
Hobbling to the parking lot on my swelling leg, I put a call in to Ordway Crook. I needed to confirm my suspicions. It appeared obvious that the guy at 1326 Alexander had an excellent motive to stalk Mona; add to that the missing items from Swine’s apartment—a shoebox full of spent pari-mutuel tickets and Mona’s purse—and it hung together. It was even money that Mr. 1326 Alexander broke in, hammered on Mona, and was searching Swine’s hovel for his superfecta ticket when Swine showed up with beer from the corner store.
Ordway Crook was still the attorney of record in Swine’s case. He returned my call to give me the information gleaned from the D.A.’s office. And also to remind me that he was now on the clock at two hundred fifty dollars an hour. If Swine didn’t pay, it was going on my tab. He reported that there was no information from the police that Mona Phillips’ apartment had been searched when they did their investigation. And he confirmed that Mona’s purse had not been found at the scene.
Back at the office, I checked the charts in the Racing Form. It was the sixth race two days back at Calder. There was only one ticket for $36,384.60.
I called the head of Security at Calder, Jimmy Cox, a personal friend. I explained to him my suspicions concerning the death of Mona. It only took him a few minutes to find out that the ticket had not been cashed.
I’d just hung up when the cell phone in my pocket rang.
“Joe, I found Kyle,” Swine said excitedly. “I watched him go into the restaurant and followed him when he came out. He’s got a room a block from the restaurant in the Goodman Hotel.” Swine gave me the address. I told him to stay there until I picked him up.
It took a half hour to get to the Goodman and find Swine. He slid into the Mustang and had to slam the door a couple of times before it closed properly.
“I even got his room number,” Swine reported. He watched me do a U-turn and head back south. “Where the hell you goin’? Ain’t we goin’ in to get him?”
“Something we need to check first,” I said. When we got back to Swine’s neighborhood in Hialeah, I had him direct me to Mona’s apartment. The door had been jimmied. It took only a cursory look through a window. The place had been thoroughly tossed. Even the couch and chairs had been cut open and the stuffing strewn about. It meant only one thing: Mr. 1326 Alexander hadn’t found the ticket at Swine’s dump. He must have figured that Mona’s place was too hot last night for anything but a quick search. He just waited until the cops cleared out.
I explained my discoveries concerning the superfecta ticket to Swine. “We need to check out your place again,” I added. “Also, we need to pick up Leroy.” Leroy was Swine’s name for his handstitched blackjack. A nifty tool in hand-to-hand tussle situations.
I followed Swine into his pigsty. “How come you’re limping?” he asked.
I told him about the old man with the cane. I pulled my pants leg up to take a look. The spot on my leg was angry and swollen. It hurt like hell. “I got somethin’ that’ll help,” Swine told me. “Just a minute.” He went to a makeshift medicine cabinet that resided in a plastic container he pulled from beneath his bed.
“What is it?” I asked him.
He pulled out a can and popped the lid. “Poultice,” he said, “I got it from Oslo Corbett. He says it’ll draw out the infection and reduce the pain and swelling. I’ll just smear some on the wound and wrap it with this vet wrap he gave me.”
“That’s for a horse,” I pointed out.
“It’ll work on you the same,” said Swine. He tore the retaining band from the vet roll bandage and began to unravel it. The ticket that had been inserted in the center hole of the roll fluttered to the floor.
It was a superfecta ticket. It was the superfecta ticket. The date and the numbers were right. I was holding thirty-six thousand plus in my hand.
I allowed him to put the stuff on my leg. I didn’t figure it could hurt any worse.
“Maybe you ought to let me hold the ticket,” Swine suggested, clamping the bandage off.
“Never mind that. Get Leroy.”
Kyle worried me. With the bum leg it was going to be doubly difficult to take him . . . maybe not even possible. As for Swine’s situation, we had gleaned some circumstantial evidence. But outside of a motive for 1326 Alexander, there was nothing to tie the guy to Mona after the track incident. We needed more.
To confront Kyle head-on would be very dangerous. I needed a plan. We were on our way to the Goodman Hotel to apprehend him when an idea began to bubble around in my brain. I explained everything to Swine. I asked him if he could go inside and see if Kyle was still there without tipping him off.
“Not a problem,” he said. “The desk clerk is Eddie Sloan. I already talked to him. I told him I’d let him into any vacant owner’s box in the clubhouse free for the rest of the year.”
“You mean Odds Board Eddie?” I asked.
“Yeah.”
Odds Board Eddie, a fixture at the track for the late races, was a bettor with a particular angle. He added the weight the horse carried to the final odds on the tote-board, and whichever contestant had the lowest number was his selection—sort of an oddball, and aptly named.
Once Swine reported back that Kyle was still in his room, I told him to plant himself in the lobby and keep an eye out. I headed the Mustang farther north and about
ten blocks east to where the map on the wall at Sunbelt Realty indicated I would find Alexander Street.
It was there all right: one, three, two, six in black letters stuck on the mailbox. And the little red arm was up. I checked the return address on the mail inside. Mr. 1326 Alexander had a name: Jorge Cumal.
I put the mail back in the mailbox and limped up to the porch. I punched the doorbell and stood back. The door opened almost at once. A small, pudgy woman with two different-colored eyes and no teeth gave me the once-over. She rattled something at me in Spanish.
I bedazzled her with the tried and true: “No hablo español.” She backed out of the doorway and waved to someone inside.
Jorge was big, maybe an inch taller than Kyle’s mama, and probably a lot quicker. His mustache was meager; his English was good and direct. “What do you want?” he asked.
“You’re looking for your superfecta ticket,” I said. “I can tell you where to find it for twenty percent.”
He closed the door behind him and joined me on the small porch. “What you talkin’, man?”
I didn’t want to make it too complicated because I didn’t know how smart he was. One thing for sure, I had his attention. I told him that Frankie Swinehart, Mona’s boyfriend, had told me in confidence that Mona had given him the ticket. I told Jorge that Swine, short for Swinehart, still had the ticket. And I knew where he was staying. I told him we had to move fast before Swine cashed in when the track opened tomorrow.
Jorge didn’t even pretend that he didn’t know what I was talking about. “Why hasn’t he cashed it before now?” he wanted to know.
“He’s been in jail. Don’t you read the papers? He just got out late today.”
He nodded. “Oh yeah . . . I read about it. I—I ah—I think I know where he lives. What I need you for?”
“He’s moved,” I said quickly. “He’s in a hotel in north Miami.” Jorge was a bit sharper than I’d first surmised. But he was greedy. I knew that he had already made up his mind to screw me out of my percentage should he get the ticket back. Given that, and driven by desperation and greed, he was ready to buy into anything. I was counting on it. But he kept surprising me.
“Why didn’t you just get the ticket yourself?” he asked, catching me by surprise.
“Bum leg,” I said feebly, pointing to my leg. “Swine’s a pretty good-sized guy. It’ll probably take both of us. Besides, you got a rotten deal. It’s your ticket.”
“A big guy?” Jorge muttered, obviously puzzled. I remembered too late that he had conked Swine on the head. Evidently his impression was that Swine wasn’t a big guy. Of course he was right. Swine wouldn’t go more than a hundred sixty pounds wearing a scuba belt. But Jorge dismissed it, possibly considering me a weenie.
“Let’s go,” he said. “I’ll follow you in my car.”
Jorge drove a vintage Cadillac DeVille with its common trademark: that is, the eroded-away space between the rear fenders and the large, vertical taillights. He tail-gated my Mustang with unrelenting enthusiasm, allowing no chance that I might lose him in traffic. When we entered the Goodman Hotel in lockstep, I spotted Swine behind a newspaper in the corner of the tiny lobby. Jorge kept his eyes on me as we proceeded to the stairs. Odds Board Eddie behind the registration desk ignored us.
“Second floor,” I told Jorge.
Swine had given me Kyle’s room number. As we started up the stairs, I was getting a little apprehensive. For this to halfway work, I had to rely heavily on Jorge’s demonstrated greed and Kyle’s intrinsic savageness. I was praying that neither would let me down. It had been a long time since my Golden Glove days. Just to play it safe, I decide to send Jorge inside while I waited in the doorway.
I stood alongside the door. “Two oh five, this is it,” I told Jorge. “You think we should knock or what?”
“The hell with that,” said Jorge. “We take this little [Spanish expletive] by surprise.” With that he rammed his huge frame into the door. The door flew open with negligible resistance. The momentum of his charge carried Jorge partway into the room, where he came to an abrupt stop as the six foot five inch, two hundred seventy pound Kyle, clad only in his underwear, rose to his full imposing height from the bed.
Jorge said nothing for a brief second, he simply stared. But if faces could speak without a mouth, his face would have shouted whoa!
Kyle stood unmoving, using the interlude to marshal and focus his nastiness.
Jorge realized that something seemed to be wrong. But he made two fatal errors. The first was not running out the open door. The second was: “You’re Swine?” he said to Kyle.
When Kyle lunged, he was much, much quicker than his mom. He grabbed Jorge’s shirt with a large fist and lifted him off the floor. He cocked his other fist back as Jorge began to jabber profusely.
“Wait! Wait!” shouted Jorge. “I thought you were Swine . . .”
The blow knocked Jorge across the room. I pulled my head from the doorway to take a position against the wall in the hallway. From inside I could hear Kyle shouting.
“You little piss ant. You break into my room and call me a swine. I know you’re workin’ for that #@bail bond guy.”
I chanced a look around the door jamb. Kyle was holding Jorge upright with one hand. His other hand was full of Jorge’s black hair. He was gleefully hammering Jorge’s head against the wall.
Thud . . . thud . . . thud.
Kyle’s back was to the door. While he was occupied, I drew Leroy out and took five or six big steps into the room. I smacked him a good one on the back of the head. He let Jorge collapse, unconscious, to the floor and turned slowly to face me. Then his eyes fluttered, and he sort of melted into a pile.
Of course I’d had plan B if Kyle hadn’t ignited on his own. I had thought I might get things under way by announcing to Kyle that Jorge was working for Nolan Bail Bonds. Just as well I hadn’t had to use it. It made the rest of the plan possible.
I took the superfecta ticket from my shirt pocket and put it under the corner of the lamp on the table by Kyle’s bed. I got a glass of water from the bathroom and doused Jorge. His nose looked broken, and he had a front tooth missing.
“You all right?” I asked as he came around.
“My face,” he moaned. He spit the missing tooth onto the carpet.
I handed him a wet hand towel to press on his nose.
He nodded toward Kyle, who lay unmoving nearby. “What happened to him?”
“I took care of him while he was busy with you.”
“I don’t think that’s Swine,” said Jorge. “I mean, that’s not the guy I remember . . .”
“I don’t know who you’re thinking about. That’s the only Swine I know. And look there on the table—isn’t that the ticket?”
With the mention of the ticket, the glaze evaporated from Jorge’s eyes. They fixed on the bedside table. He attempted to rise, fell back, then scrambled forward on hands and knees to grasp the ticket. He studied it carefully, smiled wickedly, and put it in his shirt pocket. About then Kyle groaned.
“We better get the hell out of here before he comes around,” I said. “You cash the ticket when the track opens tomorrow. I’ll be at your house at noon for my cut.”
Jorge got awkwardly to his feet. “Yeah, right,” he said. He shrewdly chose not to add the word stupid to his confirmation. He beat me through the doorway by two steps.
We raced down the stairs to the lobby. Jorge continued out the lobby door. I went into the street and watched him wheel away in the Caddy, then stepped back inside and motioned to Swine.
Kyle was still out when we got back to his room. Swine took a piece of clothesline from his pants pocket and bound his ankles tightly together. I used plastic handcuffs to fasten his hands behind his back. Because of my bad leg, it cost an extra thirty dollars to have Odds Board Eddie help us carry him down to the Mustang. With the top down we laid him on the trunk and rolled him into the back seat.
On the way to the main lockup downtown,
I used the cell phone to cell Donk Nolan and tell him that I had Kyle. I told him to meet me downtown. He gushed euphoria and praised my abilities. None of which could mask the fact that he was still an offensive little jerk.
Back in the office Swine plopped on my cot in protest. “You got to be an idiot boob for givin’ the superfecta ticket back to that killer—thirty-six grand—what the hell you thinkin’ of?”
“Look, try to get it straight. I got a call in to Jimmy Cox. When the track opens tomorrow and Jorge tries to cash that ticket—which he will surely do—track security is going to grab him and hold him for the police. Ordway Crook has talked to the D.A. and explained that Jorge killed Mona to get the ticket back. Raul the seller and track security will testify about the confrontation over the ticket at the track. When they catch Jorge trying to cash it, it’ll be all tied up for them—`open and shut.”
Swine shook his head. “Yeah, but thirty-six thousand, Jezz.”
“The price of freedom is high,” I reminded him.
“What about Jorge? How much time you think he’ll get?”
I opened the Form to the first race at Calder. “Hmm, that’s a tough one,” I muttered, my attention fixed on one of my key horses that had drawn the rail sin the first race. “Depends on the jury. Killing someone who stole your superfecta ticket might be considered justifiable homicide in some circles.”
Mat Coward
“Tomorrow’s Villain”
Crime fiction can embody any value of general fiction, including satire and social criticism. In the story that follows, Mat Coward—humor, gardening, or book review columnist for numerous British periodicals—has a great deal to say about publicity, prejudice, and public opinion. Coward’s first novel is Up and Down, published by Five Star in 2000.
For a short while, following the death of my daughter, I became something of a national hero.
It helped that I was an ordinary bloke—a self-employed electrician—and not what the papers call a ‘toff’. The papers hate toffs, which is odd, given that the papers are staffed almost exclusively by toffs.