Deadly Odds

by Jean Chapman

  ‘I suppose,’ she agreed, ‘and I know John has contacts to make, but I wish you would stay at the ranch, Charlie, you’re a comfort to have around, I know what you say is … right.’

  ‘You mean I’m John Blunt,’ he said. ‘Well, perhaps when you’ve had a proper chance to catch up with your family, we’ll see.’

  The arrangements for the next day were to be a repeat, except that Cannon would be dropped at the museum. Charlie would then drive Babs to her grandfather’s ranch, calling at the museum on the way back to see if Cannon was still there, and if not, they would meet each other back at the hotel.

  In spite of everything, their dinner that night became almost cheerful, mainly due to Charlie jumping to his feet as Babs joined them, proclaiming, ‘Why, girl, you look ten years younger than when we left this morning.’

  Cannon laughed aloud. ‘And you know that’s true because he’s John Blunt and no nonsense.’

  ‘I’ve made an effort.’ She patted her hair which was sleek and shining. ‘And I do feel as if I’ve successfully crossed one huge crocinfested river, even though there’s more ahead,’ she said. ‘But sit down, the pair of you, people are looking. I’ll be blushing next.’

  The following morning, Charlie too had made a step forward. He had left off the protective gloves and all the dressings, leaving his hands looking red, but not raw as they had been.

  ‘You’ll still have to be careful,’ Babs warned him as, her luggage loaded, he climbed into the driver’s seat.

  ‘They’re all right, soon harden up,’ he said dismissively.

  From the back seat, Cannon saw how comfortable the two were with each other, there was a mutual trust and concern. He found himself wishing Liz was by his side. The Trap, Paul, Hoskins, Archie, the Grangers all felt a very, very, long way away, truly in a different time zone.

  It was nearly midday when he was dropped near the museum, which he found was even busier than on his first visit. He paid fifteen dollars, again, to make his way to the shop. The grey-haired ex-jockey saw him immediately. Cannon browsed his way along shelves and displays until his contact had time to come over to him.

  ‘Go straight to the Derby Café,’ he said, keeping his eyes down as he replaced some wallets and money clips back on a display stand, then moved back to his counter where other customers waited.

  Cannon had seen the directions to the café on his first visit, but had not realized until he walked into the eating area that the public could also walk in from the street. Had he known his destination, he could have saved himself fifteen dollars. It might well be wasted anyway, he thought, the café was a seething mass of men, women and children. He stood in the doorway and looked towards long windows; a bar incorporating a huge old barrel, and mirrored shelves stacked with an impressive display of bourbons. Could anyone seriously be meant to make a covert meeting with someone here?

  ‘Seat here,’ a voice said behind him.

  Looking round, he saw a table for two near the door and a man just removing a jacket from the second seat.

  ‘Thanks,’ he said, certainly not convinced that this offer was any more than a kindly act.

  The dark-haired, clean-shaven young man resembled the many young businessmen he had breakfasted with at the hotel the day before, though his clothes were perhaps more casual: a pleasant, day-off, young businessman then, who made no further comment as Cannon sat down.

  There was already an empty bourbon glass on the table, while the man twirled a second between his hands. Cannon wondered about the youngster’s drinking habits as he looked down at the second glass. Almost as if aware of the question, the man spread his fingers to reveal that not only was it empty, it was the sample glass Cannon had handed over in the Finish Line Gift Shop.

  ‘I recommend the Kentucky Burgoo, it’s sustaining and comes with cornbread,’ he said, handing over a menu.

  ‘Whatever you say,’ Cannon replied, beginning to feel the excitement he always thought of as a hunting dog on to a promising scent.

  ‘You have time before we move on,’ the answer came with a meaningful tap on the black lettering on the glass, ‘you OK with that?’

  The stew was advertised as having been made since the time of Daniel Boone, the folk hero from the 1730s and at $4.95, seemed a bargain. Cannon offered to pay for both.

  ‘Gee, thanks, and my name’s Geoff. Our mutual friend said you were a good egg.’

  ‘I imagine what he said was un bon oeuf.’

  Geoff grinned, the contact firmly made and confirmed.

  As they ate the surprising mixture of beef, chicken, pork and vegetables, bending low over their dishes, Cannon appreciated what a perfect ploy this was. The noise of the restaurant completely drowned their low conversation, and this table for two was removed from others in a niche near the door. Geoff could see everyone who came and went and Cannon could hear all he said clearly beneath the general hubbub.

  ‘A lot’s happened, you two need to talk,’ Geoff said, nodding to the tiny glass that still stood between them. ‘He needs to have nothing else on his mind to deal with Spracks and company. You have a car?’

  ‘Not until later in the day, a friend has taken Babs Beale to her grandfather’s ranch in it.’

  ‘You mean she will already be there?’ Geoff now looked horrified, and if checking he had all the facts straight, went on. ‘So this is Babs Beale, Jonathan Beale’s mother, who’s supposed to have been dead for twenty years or so.’ When Cannon nodded, he put down his spoon and fork. ‘We must leave now,’ he said, ‘I don’t want to….’

  What he did not want to, was left unsaid, but he picked up the rest of his cornbread and his coat, and obviously did mean now.

  Cannon followed Geoff out into the street, to a spot where a black Buick of uncertain age, but high capacity, was parked.

  ‘Does anyone else know you’re here with Jonathan’s mother – and a friend?’

  ‘Just the contact I had who’s working with the Met.’

  ‘He’s trustworthy?’ Geoff asked brusquely. ‘I mean really trustworthy?’

  ‘Entirely, our mutual contact knows him well,’ Cannon said as he noted the areas they were driving through, trying to keep his bearings. A large blue sign with the name Cherokee Triangle caught his eye, the words Preservation District beneath.

  Geoff was driving slower now as if he needed to watch just where he was. Majestic old trees lined these streets and Geoff said the Triangle was pretty conservative and had not changed much for fifty years or more.

  ‘Residents here really care about their area, keep an eye on things,’ he said, adding, ‘the scum of the drug rackets are not supposed to be comfortable here.’

  Cannon was taken by surprise at the bitterness of the comment.

  ‘Lost my running mate recently, shot in the head while on observation in an area much like this. Always wondered why it was not me. I was by his side.’

  ‘Ah! The why me, why not me syndrome, none of us have a good answer to that,’ Cannon said sympathetically, and as they swung into the drive of a magnificent house that would have looked well in London’s Bloomsbury, he felt this was precisely the kind of mansion he had known drug barons acquire from their ill-gotten fortunes.

  ‘Put these on, we don’t want to risk leaving any traces of ourselves,’ Geoff said, handing him a pair of police issue gloves.

  ‘He hasn’t got forensics, has he?’ Cannon asked.

  ‘This,’ Geoff made a gesture of introduction, ‘is Kevin Spracks’s place, his headquarters while he’s in Kentucky – he’s got everything.’

  ‘But not here at the moment, I presume,’ Cannon said quietly as they walked in under the large pillared portico to the front door.

  ‘Not until later, but you need to see the man who is.’

  The front door pushed open to a touch, and as Geoff led the way, Cannon saw that it was lavishly decorated – heavy gilded framed pictures, furniture that would have done justice to any European palace. The atmosphere was quite a dif
ferent matter. It had an air of unease, like that in many places where the supervision was covert. Geoff closed the door but the sound of its lock being triggered, suggested there were more things remotely controlled than just cameras.

  ‘Come through,’ a man called, and Cannon’s heart leapt. He knew that voice and was well ahead of Geoff as he entered a book-lined room.

  Spracks’s head of security was standing mid-room, his arms wide. They came together like men meeting in a desert, their embrace going from tentative to hearty.

  ‘It feels like my birthday and Christmas rolled into one,’ Cannon said, as a mutual arm’s length inspection followed. ‘Are you OK?’

  ‘You look tired,’ Austin said.

  ‘And you look …’ He thought his friend looked almost as pale and drained as Paul had done in Austin’s London flat, but compromised with, ‘Overworked,’ then asked, ‘but can we talk?’

  ‘Not for long,’ Geoff warned. ‘I mean …’ He waved around at the possibility of cameras, recording equipment.

  ‘Oui, mon ami,’ Austin said, ‘once you were inside and I locked the door, I switched it all off. No one can enter – and we would have to break out.’ He went to a section of the book shelving and swung round a fake section of books to reveal electronic controls that would have done credit to a space launch. ‘Nothing is sadly what it seems in this house. Even my beloved best reads are fakes.’ He pointed to some of the painted volumes: Les Misérables, Candide, The Count of Monte Cristo. ‘But,’ he turned to Geoff, ‘this is not as planned. Why have you come here?’

  ‘Because you must hear what your friend has to say, and he needs to know what’s happened.’

  ‘Sounds worrying,’ Cannon said and as both men nodded, added to Austin, ‘you go first.’

  In a short space of time, he learnt that almost as soon as Spracks landed in America, one of his recruits flying in from the Middle East recognized several young women who he knew worked as “muledollies” – bringing in drugs and smuggling back laundered money for Valdes. Spracks had them followed, picked up one and … she talked. He nodded his head towards the back of the house. ‘There are “facilities”. She was persuaded to change her allegiance.’

  ‘Austin got her out alive,’ Geoff added.

  ‘But the Harvester has retaliated,’ Austin turned now to glance sympathetically at Geoff, ‘with a spate of killings, and … he’s snatched the young man Spracks has drawn attention to by having him more or less glued to his side since he arrived …’

  Cannon glanced at Geoff who pulled down the corners of his lips. ‘Not Jonathan, Jonathan Beale?’ he questioned.

  ‘His friend has taken his mother, the “dead” Beale granddaughter over to White Picket Ranch as we speak,’ Geoff said.

  ‘Charlie?’ Austin queried the identity of the friend.

  Cannon nodded and asked. ‘So where do you think Jonathan’s been taken, and is he …’ He did not go on, his brain presenting him with that swift video clip of bereaved parents he had dealt with in the past.

  ‘We think he’s being kept in one of the households on his holding.

  ‘I’m not convinced the Harvester knows what a prize he has. The one hopeful thing is that we know from the police records on both sides of the Atlantic, that while Spracks specializes in individuals – picking his targets off one by one, the Harvester is a wholesale slaughterer, who’s never been known for hiding his victims, they’re either left where they are mown down, or dumped where they most intimidate the opposition – or the police. The police have found them thrown out on their forecourts, Spracks has had one left in the stable block he’s hired. We have not found Jonathan Beale as yet.’

  Not the sort of reassurance he was going to pass on to Babs, Cannon thought.

  Austin paused, looked down, making a break between that issue and the one he was seconded to America to deal with.

  ‘The main trouble is that the two gangs are in the same markets, drugs, guns, any horse racket, but it’s not these issues that’s drawing this abscess to a head. This year they both think they have horses that can win the Kentucky Derby. It’s become like a gladiatorial contest, with the men on both sides already involved in fights and murders championing their corner.’

  ‘Most of ’em are compulsive gamblers,’ Geoff added, ‘can’t help themselves. Gamble on anything! Stop at nothing!’

  ‘Ambition can fire anyone, I suppose,’ Cannon said, his sympathy very much with this embittered young detective, but all three were aware men like this were different. These gang leaders became like snarling beasts if every little thing did not go their way – anyone who crossed them would quickly learn what the law of the jungle meant to these big-timers. It was the way they kept control, stayed at the top.

  ‘The Harvester earned his name by shooting several of his own men because they had laughed in the wrong place when he was talking,’ Geoff informed them.

  ‘Spracks is in the same mould,’ Austin confirmed.

  ‘But one thing I don’t understand, Spracks brought no horses with him this time,’ Cannon said.

  ‘His horse will be flown in from Venezuela a week before the race, it’s already qualified and registered. The Harvester’s horse was reared on his ranch here in Kentucky and sired by one of Tom Beale’s stallions.’

  ‘That’s pretty ironic,’ Cannon muttered.

  ‘And when this town is heaving with 100,000 plus visitors, police resources stretched and everyone has caught race-fever, Spracks plans to pick off the Harvester’s best men one by one. He’ll also nobble jockey, or horse, or both if he has the chance.’ Austin nodded towards a computer. ‘We‘ve built up comprehensive files on them, we know exactly where they’ll be on the day of the big race.’

  Cannon wondered if the police were also party to the files, and almost as if Austin read his mind, he nodded.

  ‘So we may have some chance of lancing the abscess and mopping up most of the mess.’ He put a hand on Geoff’s shoulder. ‘This man is my vital link, but as well as the Harvester now having Jonathan Beale instead of Spracks, where I could keep some kind of eye on him, there is now a mother desperate to have her son by her side, desperate for his safety … as I am for all.’ Austin made an expansive gesture. ‘But most of all I badly need Babs Beale and Charlie Brown kept out of the way, away from the town, until after the Derby …’ He looked speculatively at Cannon. ‘I’ve no right to ask …’

  ‘Not stopped you in the past, of course,’ he commented drily, and thinking of Tom Beale’s men and his security arrangement, added, ‘be a shame to miss the racing, but Charlie and I’ll move out to White Picket Ranch today.’

  ‘Il pleut dans ma coeur,’ Austin whispered his regret in his mother’s language, but added, ‘but I want you both out of here. Spracks has only gone to supervise the preparation of the stable he’s been allocated before his mare, Supremo, arrives. He has a habit of ringing to say he’ll be another hour or two, then walking in a few minutes later.’

  As if on cue Austin’s mobile burbled.

  The panel was reopened, Austin’s fingers flew over buttons and screens and in minutes, Geoff had the car out of the drive and was travelling quickly back towards the town, then without warning he swept the car to the right into a side street. Seconds later, a lengthy black limousine passed on the main road.

  ‘Close thing. It’s all a close thing – every bloody day. If we all survive, it’ll be a miracle,’ Geoff muttered, then before he restarted the car he said, ‘If you need to contact me, use this phone – no other.’

  Cannon took the small, slim, black piece of plastic.

  ‘It’s just to contact me,’ Geoff emphasized. ‘Just press the central button.’

  CHAPTER 18

  ‘Not sure how they are going to function,’ Charlie said lightheartedly as he picked Cannon up from the museum forecourt only minutes after Geoff had dropped him there. ‘The two sisters can’t seem to let go of each other’s hands, and the old boy just sits and beams. There are moments
when they just gaze into each other’s eyes, then they can’t stop talking!’

  ‘Find somewhere to stop the car,’ Cannon said solemnly, ‘I need to talk to you.’

  Charlie gave him a quick questioning glance. They were passing the wide entrance to a park. He drove in and stopped next to a drinks and doughnut stand.

  ‘You look like you could do with a coffee.’ Charlie got out without waiting for an answer.

  ‘Thanks, I could,’ Cannon said to the empty car, and when Charlie returned with coffee just for him, sipped it gratefully, and as they sat told him everything.

  Charlie listened intently, then summoned up what he had heard.

  ‘So, Spracks no longer has his son – the opposition have snatched him – the police think he’s still alive. They don’t think the Harvester knows he’s Spracks’s son.’

  ‘But they would know his name’s Beale,’ Cannon said, ‘he’s bound to have had something in his wallet that told them that. Tom Beale’s horse sired the horse the Harvester – this Zachariah Valdes – hopes to win the Derby with. The question in his mind will be what’s Spracks doing with a Beale in his back pocket.’

  ‘Valdes will have ways of finding out,’ Charlie said as if to himself, then asked, ‘so where does he hang out?’

  ‘He has a big spread, never heard it named, but it has a main ranch house and several smaller ones where he’s installed his brother and his family, his “financial advisor” and a third which houses his men.’

  ‘There’s one way to find out,’ Charlie said and before Cannon could ask or protest, Charlie was on his way back to the doughnut stand. He watched as Charlie talked, laughed, handed over money and came back with two more drinks and a bag of doughnuts.

  ‘Zack Valdes lives at Palm Spring Ranch, sixty miles further on than the Beale Ranch,’ he said, ‘same direction. Some of the best countryside in Kentucky, the man said. So…’

  ‘So?’ Cannon was wary, thinking of the precarious situation of Austin, and Geoff, who already knew how lucky he was to still be alive.

  ‘So,’ Charlie repeated, ‘this friend of yours,’ he said, ‘this man posing as security manager, has traced Valdes men so his boss can bump them off, but at the same time has also told the police so they can be there and snaffle the lot.’