Photo Finish: A Jack Doyle Mystery (Jack Doyle Series Book 5)

by John McEvoy

  ***

  Lenny caught a big longshot who reveled in the Belmont Park slop that afternoon and raised his arms in triumph as he looked around the room. Didn’t say anything. Large gave him a thumbs-up from his table across the room.

  Chapter Seven

  Moe Kellman reached across the table in his back booth at Dino’s Ristorante, a major dining and socializing headquarters for Chicago’s real and potential movers and shakers. He tapped Doyle on the wrist.

  “Have you lost your fucking mind? You and me buy a horse? I’d never be able to get a racing license. Those bastards at the crime commission have labeled me ‘an associate of known criminals.’ They’re talking about guys I grew up with from Taylor Street. So what? When you’re a friend of mine, you stay a friend of mine. The only law infraction I’ve had in the last thirty-five years was a parking ticket on Rush Street. But they’ve still got me in their Black Book.”

  There was a lull in their conversation as Kellman shook hands with one of the city’s police commissioners who had stopped by the booth to say hello to the little furrier.

  “Moe, take it easy.” Doyle smiled at his diminutive companion who, in his early seventies, was some three decades older than Doyle. Their friendship had its origin in the workout room of Fit City Health Club, where they both enjoyed cardiovascular challenges, talk of sports and politics. Right now Kellman’s normally calm demeanor had been replaced by agitation that flushed his face. The overhead light glinted off the little furrier’s Don King-like head of hair.

  “Have another Negroni, Moe. Let me tell you about this horse.” When Doyle finished his pitch regarding Plotkin, highlighting Ralph Tenuta’s offer to train for only a percentage of winnings and to place ownership in his wife Rosa’s name, Moe sat back. “You know, I’ve always wanted to own a racehorse. I saw how much fun my uncle Bernie Glockner, the guy called ‘The Wizard of Odds,’ had with his little stable when I was a kid.”

  Moe’s reverie was interrupted by the arrival of owner Dino and two servers. The first one carefully placed a large bowl of pasta fazoli in front of Kellman. The other delivered a plate of calamari to Doyle. Dino said, “Gentlemen, enjoy. Your entrees will be beautiful.”

  Doyle said, “Your pal Dino hasn’t changed much since I first came in here a few years ago. He looks just about exactly as he does in that big photo behind you, him and Frank.”

  Kellman smiled. “Sinatra loved this place, always came here when he played Chicago. I think,” Kellman said after a spoonful of the thick soup, “either Dino is having that picture retouched, or himself.”

  “Have I ever asked you about Dino? How he got into the restaurant business?”

  “Short version. Some of my friends started Dino, nephew of a made guy, out on a low level. He was a burgler. And he turned out to be terrible at it. But they knew he had smarts, so they finally decided to put him in the restaurant business. Lo and behold, Dino was at genius level in that field. He and his old sponsors now operate, what, four or five places in the city? All booming.” Moe smiled over his Negroni glass. “A real American success story.”

  Doyle said, “Let’s get back to this horse. I think we can do this. And do well with him. You can certainly come to the track with me and watch him train in the morning or run in the afternoon.”

  “What is this potential Pegasus’ name?”

  “Plotkin.”

  “Plotkin! Jack, spare me.”

  Doyle said, “The guy who bred and owned the horse was getting sick of having the names he suggested being rejected by the Jockey Club, which is in control of these things. They’d tell him, ‘No, that name’s been used. No, that name’s reserved.’ He got so disgusted that he decided to go with a name he knew had not been used. His own. Maurice Plotkin, a Skokie jeweler and horse owner, sent in his own last name. It was accepted.”

  Kellman was laughing now. “Jack, I don’t know how you do it, but you continue to amaze me.”

  “Moe, I’m serious. There is a good side to this name.”

  “Like what?”

  Doyle said, “A lot of people at the track, especially women, bet horses because they like their names. Beautiful Day…Girl Power…Pretty Pamela…and so on. That lowers those horse’s odds.”

  He leaned forward, grinning, as he said, “There’s no chance of that happening with a horse named Plotkin. Am I right?”

  “Sometimes you are, Jack.”

  Two waiters approached the booth. One carefully presented Kellman’s platter of rigatoni dotted by garlic slices under a vodka-laced tomato and cream sauce. Doyle looked appreciatively at his plate of ravioli stuffed with ground meat and spinach beneath a coating of marinara.

  “Aw, Jack, what the hell? Let’s give it a go. I’ll have Pete Dunleavy drive over with the twenty-five to your place early tomorrow morning.” He put down his fork and raised his glass toward Doyle’s.

  “Bumps,” Kellman said as their glasses clinked.

  “Confusion to our enemies,” Doyle said.

  “Buon appetito,” Kellman replied, picking up his fork.

  Chapter Eight

  Ralph Tenuta led Doyle to a corner table in the crowded Heartland Downs track kitchen. He said hello to the many horsemen he knew. Doyle nodded to as many as he recognized. These were trainers who, he hoped, would give his client Mickey Sheehan rides on their horses.

  Doyle stopped at one table. Horse owner Steve Holland looked up from his Racing Daily. “Morning, Jack. How are you?”

  “Very well, Steve. And I’ll be even better once you decide to use my ultra-talented young jock on one of your horses.”

  Holland said, “My trainer says take a wait-and-see attitude with your girl. I’ve heard she’s pretty promising. And she gets the five-pound apprentice allowance, which is a plus. I’ll keep my eye on her. I know you don’t chase too many empty wagons, Jack.”

  “I try not to, Steve.”

  Tenuta had polished off the first of his two toasted cream-cheese- laden bagels by the time Doyle sat down across the table from him. He looked semisatiated, but worried.

  “What’s bothering you, Ralph?”

  Tenuta took a sip of his coffee. “Earlier this morning, I let my vet go. Eric Allgauer. He took it badly.”

  “What about Ingrid, his partner, or assistant? You let her go, too?”

  “No. I’m very impressed with that young woman and the work she does. Her ‘horse communicating’ stuff? That a lot of people laugh at? It works. You know that old brown gelding Mister Sheridan? I started him three times this meeting on the main track and he wouldn’t break a sweat. Beat one horse total. Then Mister Sheridan tells Ingrid, ‘Please put me on the grass. I’m much better there.’ I do. And the son of a gun wins his last two starts!

  “Besides the communicating, Ingrid is a helluva vet . Every horse she’s worked on has gotten better. Better than they were under Allgauer. I don’t mean she has to talk to all of them. She tells me some horses just won’t do that. But I trust her to do excellent regular vet work. She’s got a gift.”

  Doyle said, “But didn’t you use Allgauer for a couple of years?”

  “Yeah. But he started to slide the last couple of months. The guy is a boozer. He started to show up late, or not at all some mornings, looking hung over. And surly, too. It took me awhile to figure out he was going bad before I decided to cut him loose. Funny thing, Jack, or maybe a sad thing, is that this is a talented young guy with a good feel for horses. But he seems to be throwing his life away. I can’t afford to watch him do so. So, I let him go. I’m going with Ingrid, the communicator.”

  Tenuta sat back in his chair. He shook his head. “I never thought I’d ever be saying anything like that.”

  Doyle laughed, and Ralph did, too. Steve Holland looked up from his perusal of Racing Daily’s past performances at his nearby table. “Ralph, you got a shot in the fourth today?”

  “Mr. Holland, I’ve always got a shot.” Holland smiled. “I guess your record bears you out, Ralph.”

>   Doyle returned from the cafeteria line with a new cup of coffee.

  “Ralph, how long did you say Allgauer worked for you?”

  “Almost two years. My old vet, Ron Jensen, moved to California. Took a big job at a university there. Eric’s first year was great. This season, he all of a sudden started not showing up when he was supposed to. Sometimes I could smell alcohol on his breath. I’m talking early in the mornings. Ingrid tried to cover up for him. I finally realized I had to get rid of him.”

  “Pretty hard-headed guy from what I saw of him. I can’t imagine he took your decision in stride.”

  Tenuta said, “No, he didn’t. If he’d have kept on taking care of business like he was supposed to, it would have been fine. But I’ve got these horses who deserve the best care to that I can provide. He wasn’t up to it anymore. You know what he said to me? Kind of in a threatening manner. He said, ‘Tenuta, you should think this over.’

  “That made me kind of laugh, which pissed Eric off. He says to me, ‘You think this is fucking funny?’

  “I tell him, ‘Nah, Eric, there’s nothing funny about this. I was just thinking of something that happened in my car a few years ago. My wife Rosa and I were giving our daughter Julia and her daughter Cecilia, our youngest grandchild, a ride home from a kid’s birthday party. Julia was steaming. She turns to CC in the back seat and tells her, ‘Cecilia, you were very rude to several of those children. Pushing in front of them to catch the balloons. Knocking that one boy down when you were running to get cake. When Grandpa gets us home, Cecilia, you are going to your room. To think about how badly you acted at the party.’”

  “I drive a mile or so,” Tenuta continued. “The car was quiet. Then comes CC’s big voice from her car seat in the back. She says, ‘I don’t have to go to my room. I thinked about it already!’”

  Tenuta finished the remnants of second bagel. “Maybe I shouldn’t have told Allgauer that story. But the guy really pissed me off. Lot of talent, no good sense in him. I wrote him a check for his last bill. I told him, ‘I thinked about it already.’ I’m all done with you.”

  “When Allgauer walked out of my office, he slammed the door so hard he knocked a couple of pictures off my walls. He can be a hot head.”

  Chapter Nine

  Ingrid had not spoken to Eric that day. But she’d heard from Ralph Tenuta about his decision to dismiss Eric while retaining her as the veterinarian for his stable. She didn’t pretend to be shocked, or even disappointed. She’d seen this coming. Eric should have seen it, too.

  She had stopped to shop at Whole Foods on her way home from Heartland Downs. Purchased two porterhouse steaks, salad fixings, a pair of the twice-baked potatoes Eric liked, and a bottle of the Australian red wine he favored.

  When she thrust her hip against the front door of their condo, heavy grocery sacks in each hand, the door was suddenly yanked open. Eric snatched one of the bags from her hand and threw it on the foyer floor. His eyes were red with fury, his cheeks flushed with alcohol.

  “Shit,” he said. “Shit shit shit.” He stumbled into the kitchen and sat down heavily in a chair and began banging his large fists on the table top. “Those bastards,” he shouted. “Those bastards.”

  Ingrid bent to retrieve the scattered groceries from the floor and place them on the counter. For a moment she leaned forward, hands on the counter, back turned to Eric, bracing herself. Then she took the chair across from him.

  “What bastards, Eric? I guess you mean Ralph Tenuta? I heard from him today. Who else?”

  Eric reached for his half-full tumbler of Stolichnaya vodka and knocked it back. “Buck Norman,” he spat. “Randy McMillan. Trainers I’ve worked for since I came to Heartland Downs. They’ve all ditched me as of today. Bastards.”

  Ingrid took a deep breath. “Eric, listen to me. You can’t tell me, or yourself, that you didn’t see this coming. Jesus!”

  She leaned forward, her tanned face tight with concern. “We’ve talked about how your drinking was getting out of hand. You’d say ‘Yes’, agreeing with me, but never changing. Eric, alcohol has taken over your life. Maybe it’s your father’s genes dominating you, I don’t know, and I don’t care. But I do care about you.”

  Ingrid got up and got a bottle of water from the fridge. Eric sat as if frozen, fists clenched, staring straight ahead. She sat back down. “Ralph Tenuta called me last night when you were out. He told me that he was going to fire you. He urged me to urge you to get some help, some counseling. He was very concerned about you, Eric.”

  She restrained herself from getting up and going around the table to put her arms around him. Instead, she said, “I was…I was going to try to talk to you about all this tonight. I’m very sorry it all happened to you this way today. I really am.”

  Eric jumped up, overturning his chair, shaking. He yanked open the freezer door of the refrigerator and reached in for the Stoly bottle. He raised the bottle to his lips, then brought it back to the table and sat down heavily, eyes slits. He looked across at Ingrid.

  “You know what kills me the most?”

  “No.”

  “Well,” he said, “it’s the fucking so-called horse communicating bullshit you have sold to these clients of ours. Used to be my clients. Then our clients. Now, they’re yours. You have managed to fucking steal most of my practice from me.” He slammed the vodka bottle down on the table. “Bitch!” He put his head down in his hands.

  Ingrid stood up. “That’s it.”

  Eric looked up at her, teary and bleary-eyed. “What the fuck do you mean?”

  “I’m getting out of here. We’re not partners in this condo, it’s all yours. And you can have it. I’ll take a suitcase tonight, be back for everything else I’ve got here tomorrow after work.”

  Eric looked at her in shock. “What? After, after all this time we’ve had together? What the hell do you think you’re doing, Ingrid?”

  “Doing? What am I doing? Trying to get back into a normal life. I can no longer put up with your drinking. You ridiculing my ideas about horse communicating. I just can’t do it anymore.”

  She started to walk out of the kitchen to their bedroom for her suitcase when she turned and said, “You’ve become a replica of the father you told me you despised. You don’t even know it. I can’t take it anymore. And I won’t.”

  Chapter Ten

  Doyle pulled his Accord up to Tenuta’s barn just as Ingrid McGuire’s truck arrived from the other direction. She parked next to him. He got out, waved, and waited for her. She walked around the front of her truck with her head down, ball hat pulled low on her forehead, sunglasses on.

  “What happened to you?” Doyle said kiddingly. “A night of serious carousing? You look a little wobbly.”

  She stopped in front of him and pulled off her glasses, revealing a large shiner under her right eye.

  Doyle said, “Jesus, I’m sorry, Ingrid. Where’d you get that?”

  Lips tight, she shook her head. “It’s not a concern of yours, Jack. But thanks.” She put her glasses back on and began to move around Doyle toward the office door. Doyle put his hand on her elbow to stop her.

  “How about I make us some coffee in Ralph’s office? He must be over at the track, watching the workouts. Okay?”

  Ingrid hesitated. “Okay, Jack.”

  The story poured out of her in the next few minutes. “Eric gave me this shiner. Yes, Eric.”

  “What went on with you two?”

  “When I got home last evening, Eric had been drinking. A lot. Again. I’d never seen him so angry, so full of rage. Out of control. He is so jealous of my success in working on horses that he just can’t stand it.’’ She put her head in her hands.

  Without looking up at Doyle, Ingrid said, “I told Eric that he’d lost track of his real self. I said, ‘Do you remember when you were on your bike in Urbana and picked me up during my morning run? How magic was that? How beautifully we started out, and how great it was for us after we’d moved up here? Until you
started drinking so much. Letting alcohol take over your life and come between us.’”

  “What do you think got him going this way. Changed him?”

  “Beyond the alcohol, or maybe even behind it, is his damn jealousy of what I’ve done with my horse communicating. I mean, is that crazy? I believe I’m doing something useful, valuable. For anyone who truly cares about animals, this would be considered a major step forward. But,” she said bitterly, “I guess Eric never really cared about animals. Or about me.”

  She sat back on Tenuta’s old office couch. Tuxedo the cat leaped off the back of the couch onto Ingrid’s lap, making her momentarily smile.

  “It’s still hard for me to believe,” Ingrid said, “but when I started to go out of the condo door Eric jumped up from his chair and rushed toward me. He was stumbling. He looked like he was, well, nuts. First he grabbed me by the arms and shook me. Hard. I tried to break away. That’s when he hit me with his fist. Then he backed off. For a moment he looked about as disbelieving over what he’d done as I did. He didn’t say anything. He just turned and ran out the door.

  “I didn’t know where he went. I was so stunned I could hardly find one of my suitcases. I packed as quick as I could and got out of there. I hope I never see Eric again. He’s not the person I thought I knew.”

  They looked up as they heard the cheerful voice of Ralph Tenuta as he returned from the track and strolled down his shed row, asking questions of some grooms, giving instructions to other grooms.

  “Jack,” Ingrid said, “I don’t want Ralph to know about Eric and me. At least not today. Okay?”

  She put her sun glasses back on, adjusted her cap, and got up from the couch and carefully positioned Tuxedo on the middle cushion.

  “Sure,” Doyle said. “I’m just very sorry this all happened. If there’s anything I can do, Ingrid, let me know.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Doyle was in the foyer of his condo building going over the past performances in Racing Daily when Moe Kellman’s maroon Lincoln Continental, with Chicago police sergeant Pete Dunleavy at the wheel as usual, pulled up at the curb.