Billy looked at his watch. He started to get up. “I have to empanel a jury.”
Mr. Devlin caught his elbow. “The jury can wait five minutes. Why haven’t they made their move already? What’s holding them up?”
Billy sat down and looked straight at Lex.
“They’re waiting till the time is right.”
“And what would make it right?”
“Money. A lot of it. They need a war chest to buy enough of Boyle’s men to assure the transition. That’s what we’re getting from our inside men. I should say man. One of our men over there was killed last week.”
My heart froze. “It wasn’t Seamus McGuiness, was it?”
Billy looked at me. He hesitated before answering.
“No, kid. He wasn’t one of ours. Don’t ask me any more names.”
Mr. Devlin got back on track. “How do they plan to get it?”
“They have some plan that’s supposed to give them a windfall. They’re counting on it before they make their move.”
“What’s the plan?”
Billy shook his head. “I’d give one hell of a lot to know. If they pull it off, they’ll be coming in force. We’ll have more blood in the streets of Boston than any time since Prohibition.”
Billy stood up. “I have to get to court. I don’t have to tell you, gentlemen, I don’t want anything I’ve said in confidence to come back to haunt me. You have my trust.”
I stood up with him. “Before you go out that door, Mr. Coyne, I need one thing. I have to go back to Dublin. I may need to cross paths with the people you’re talking about. Can you give me one name I can trust?”
He looked me square in the eye for a few seconds. It was like giving his life’s blood.
“I’ll give you one name. So help me, if you screw this up—”
“Look at it this way, Mr. Coyne. I can do you more good than harm. I can go places you can’t.”
He took my arm and pulled me close enough to whisper it. “I’ve been working with Superintendent Phelan of the Garda. You met him last time. You can talk to him just like you talk to me. We fill each other in on everything. Maybe he’ll give you a lead. Maybe not. He’ll be just as worried about you screwing up the investigation as I am. Probably more. It’s his country. Tread lightly, kid.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
The overnight flight gave me thinking and planning time, and precious little sleep. I caught a cab from the Dublin Airport to the Gresham Hotel. As far as I knew, no one dangerous was aware that I’d be coming back to Ireland. I registered in my own name as a gesture of defiance to my creeping paranoia. The warmth of the welcome from the concierge and desk clerk on my return made it feel like a homecoming.
When I walked into my room, the little red blinking light signaled a phone message. It was brief.
“Mr. Knight, a car will pick you up at the side entrance to Toddy’s Bar. Noon.”
There was no name of the caller. To go, or not to go, that was the question. On the other hand, why the hell would I endure a night flight, crawling with every fanciful premonition my overstimulated imagination could plague me with, and then pass up the only promising lead I could scrape up? Even I knew the question was rhetorical.
Toddy’s is a bar off the lobby of the Gresham. The side door opens onto Henry Street. On the dot of noon, I was standing twenty feet down the block in a doorway across the street from the side door to Toddy’s. I wanted the first look. No need to press my luck.
Within five minutes, a Mercedes stopped at the curb where no other cars stopped. An older gentleman, whom I estimated I could outrun or outfight if need be, got out of the driver’s side and stood on the sidewalk.
When I approached the car, he immediately opened the door to the backseat. He’d already conveyed two thoughts, neither of which was comforting. First, he knew me on sight, although I didn’t recognize him. The second was that there was to be no chitchat on the drive or he would have put me in the front seat. A third thought that occurred after he closed the door behind me, was that even if I could outrun and outfight him, what if he had a gun?
All disturbing thoughts aside, the drive was uneventful. Within twenty minutes, we pulled up in front of the country estate I recognized from the first visit. Superintendent Phelan was in the doorway as before.
We shook hands, and he gestured me back toward his office. I noticed him cast an eye around the grounds as I went by. We took the same seats as previously. This time the offer was coffee. He had read and remembered my reaction to Irish tea.
Once served, he cut straight to the chase. The jovial, Irish sense of smiling hospitality seemed a thinner layer this time. A deep concern for handling extremely sensitive information was showing through more clearly.
“Mr. Knight, I’m surprised to see you back. I thought you achieved your goal and more the last time.”
It was a question. How much of an answer to give was another question. I hedged.
“I take it you’ve been in contact with Mr. Coyne.”
He took the deflection with a slight smile.
“Let me make this easier for the both us, Mr. Knight. Your Mr. Coyne and I are more than in contact. We have a common enemy. I think you know who that is.”
“If you’re saying we can speak plainly, Superintendent, then let’s. Neither of us has the time or the temperament for tap dancing.”
That brought a full smile. “Perceptive, Mr. Knight. You go first.”
Smile or not, I made a note never to play chess or tennis with this dude. I had no desire to be the first one in the pool, but he had neatly put me in that position. To scotch up now on disclosure from my side could raise a barrier of distrust between us that would stifle cooperation on his part. The trick was to disclose enough to make him a confidant, and still withhold enough to keep my word to Billy.
“My interest comes down to this. A jockey was killed in a fixed horse race in Boston. My partner and I represent another jockey who’s accused of his murder. The horse the supposedly murdered jockey was riding was bred and trained by the Dubh Crann Stables here in Ireland.”
He nodded as if he was hearing nothing new.
“There was an elaborate scheme by the Irish group to mislead the betting public about the speed of the horse. I could give details.”
He waved off the details. He was clearly frying bigger fish than race fixing.
“The twist is that the Irish group had a perfect setup to win a large amount on his first race. Long odds, mediocre competition. And yet they went to the extreme of kidnapping the jockey’s daughter to make him lose the race. When the jockey appeared to be going for the win in spite of it, somehow they knocked him out of the saddle so the horse would be disqualified.”
He slightly raised his eyebrows and hands together in a gesture that said, “An interesting tale, but why does this concern me?”
I sensed he was three jumps ahead of me. So why did he need me to spell it out? My guess was that he wanted to know how much Billy Coyne trusted me with. I knew then that it was all the way or nothing. I’d come too far for “nothing.”
“You mentioned a common enemy, Superintendent. You have a criminal organization of former terrorists over here. They’re your problem. Billy Coyne has reason to believe they’re planning to import their organized criminality into Boston in spades. That’s his problem. You must be concerned that if they tap into a major source of money in America, they’ll have the resources to strengthen their grip in Ireland. Whence the ‘common enemy.’”
He leaned back and looked at the ceiling. I sensed that no barriers had gone up yet.
“And why is this your problem, Mr. Knight?”
“I live in Boston.”
He just shook his head. My mistake. No dodges.
“After two weeks, we’re no closer to learning who actually knocked the jockey out of the saddle or how. If we don’t cut that knot, a jury could convict our client of murder on circumstantial evidence. I believe we have to crack open the orga
nization behind the race fixing and kidnapping to get the answers.”
“Mmm.”
“I also believe the organization I need to crack is the same one you refer to as the ‘common enemy.’”
I let it lay there. So did he. The problem of how much to disclose was now on his side.
In about five seconds, he sprang forward as if he had reached a decision.
“Mr. Knight. I have a conundrum. Mr. Coyne and I share it. You’re a bit of a joker in the deck. He and I have spent a year infiltrating this group with the hope of dismantling it. You could easily derail our efforts with one misguided step. We can’t afford that. There’s too much at stake for both of us.”
My heart temporarily arrested while he sipped his infernal tea.
“But then, Mr. Knight, Mr. Coyne made an apt point. You can go places and do things that our positions prevent us from doing. On the strength of that, I’m going to show you a tiny crack in their wall.”
My heart restarted and leapt at the same time. I started to speak, but he cut me off.
“Don’t thank me. I’m going to give you the name of the man whom we believe to be the current head of this organization. It’s dangerous information. It could easily get you killed. If you thank me for it, you’ll double my pangs of conscience.”
He wrote something on the back of a business card and led me to the door.
“Mr. Higgins will drive you back to the Gresham Hotel.”
When we shook hands, he slipped the card into my hand.
I continued to clasp his hand for one last burning question. “What constraints go with this information? What are my limits?”
He placed his other hand on top of mine. The smile was genuine.
“Just this. Don’t get yourself killed, Mr. Knight. I’m beginning to like you.”
On the drive back, I diverted Mr. Higgins with a request to drop me at the Hertz car-rental office on South Circular Road. On the way, I checked the business card the superintendent had given me. On the back, he had written the address of a pub, McShannon’s on Fowne’s Street. No great shock. The Irish seem to have a proclivity for doing business in the back rooms of pubs.
The name written above it in clear print was, “Top Man—Martin Sweeney.” It brought back the troubled look on trainer Rick McDonough’s face when he gave me that same name as the man who was pulling the strings on Black Diamond.
I committed the information on both sides of the card to memory and burned the card at the first opportunity. A card with both names could prove an embarrassment or worse if the wrong eyes found it.
The clerk at the Hertz office was tickled beyond measure to be able to lease the Jaguar to me again. He all but offered to drive it for me.
My first stop was the Gresham to throw a few essentials from my luggage into a plain paper bag and drive west out of Dublin.
Within an hour, I arrived at the Keadeen Hotel on the Curragh Road in Newbridge. It is an exquisite gem, awash in flowers, and set in undulating green country close to places I needed to be in the next two days.
I checked in with the name Dave Robicheaux. How many people in Ireland would recognize James Lee Burke’s Louisiana detective? And if they did, the very literate Irish would be more amused than suspicious.
I used the next two hours to stop by the National Stud Farm a few miles away. I needed a cram course on Thoroughbred breeding practices in Ireland where Black Diamond was sired and born.
I was always bugged by Rick’s account of Black Diamond’s uninspired breeding. What nagged me was that world-beaters from undistinguished sires and dams pop up once in a great while, but not often. Speed is most frequently passed on from champion stock. Considering the whoopla that went into concealing Black Diamond’s speed, if it were that important to me, I’d start with proven bloodlines.
I took the public’s tour of the National Stud Farm, but I needed more particular information. I cornered Mick, the lifelong horseman who gave the tour. I told him I was writing a novel, and true to the nature of the literature-loving Irish, the floodgates of information opened.
The part of his information that mattered to me came down to this. The breeding of Thoroughbred racehorses can only be done legally by putting a stallion and mare together at the proper moment in an enclosure Mick referred to as the “honeymoon suite.” Artificial insemination is banned because of the possibility of confusing or falsifying the lineage of the foals.
Three witnesses watch nature take its course—one from the owner of the mare, one from the owner of the stallion, and one from the Irish National Registry. DNA samples are taken of the mare and stallion for possible later comparison with the DNA of the foal. Then, in Ireland, a tiny electronic chip with all of the lineage information is inserted behind the ear of the foal. Before the horse runs in any race in Ireland, the chip is scanned to verify that the horse is not a ringer.
This was new to me. The chip method has never been adopted in the United States. Before every American race, a track official checks the number tattooed inside the upper lip of every horse on the way to being saddled in the paddock to verify the identity of the horse. The registry of tattoos is kept by the Jockey Club.
Before parting company with Mick, I laid the ultimate question on the line. “How could someone get around the system in Ireland? Let me put it straight. How could someone falsify the lineage of a Thoroughbred?”
Mick gave this simple Yank an indulgent grin and cut him off at the knees.
“Don’t try it, lad, even in a book. It’s impossible.”
I gave him a grin, a nod, and a handshake, but I was thinking, “Ah, Mick, nothing is impossible if you put enough money and clout behind it.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
It was a little past four in the afternoon when I drove the Jaguar, for which I was developing a guilty affection, up to the gates of the Dubh Crann Stables. I had apparently burned no bridges on my last visit. The guard swung open the gates with nothing more than a wave.
I mouthed a two-word question through the window, “Kieran Dowd?” He pointed to a paved, one-lane path that led to a large stable that was only slightly more spotless, sterile, and luxuriously appointed than the lobby of a Four Seasons Hotel.
I pulled the Jaguar up crosswise at the open door of the stable, skidding to a stop. There was a point. It’s like the answer to the question, “Where does an eight-hundred-pound gorilla sleep?” The answer, “Anywhere he wants.” Same for the Jaguar.
The disquieting rumble of the Jag engine, together with the audacity of blocking the stable entrance, brought a hopping Mr. Dowd through the door ready to have someone’s head.
“What in the bloody hell do you think you’re—?”
By the time his eyes adjusted to the sunlight and he recognized the Jaguar, I was out of the car with my arm around his shoulder leading him back into the stable with a running monologue.
“Mr. Dowd, the pleasure of seeing you again is all mine. I’m here to talk to you about just one thing. Money, Mr. Dowd. I’m here to make you a wealthy man, and not do so badly by myself as well. Are you ready to stop babbling about parking spaces and listen to me?”
He caught enough of that to clam up. He just looked at me with his mouth agape and a totally confused look on his face.
“I told you last time, Mr. Dowd. You’ve got talent. And it’s being wasted on chicken feed. I’ve got contacts that can turn your talent with horses into more euros than you can count in a week. Are you listening, Mr. Dowd? Don’t waste my time.”
I gave him a second to close his mouth and swallow before he could get his tongue in gear.
“I don’t understand a word you say, fella. You didn’t make any sense the last time, and you don’t make any sense now. Who the hell are ya?”
“Damn, you are obsessed with names, aren’t you? I’m Arnold Schwarzenegger. I’m Mickey Mouse. What the hell difference does it make? I can’t waste time with this. I want to hear just one word. Say yes or no. I have no time for anything
else. Say yes, and we’ll do business that will put you on top of the world. Say no, and I’ll drive out of here and you’ll have your damned parking space back. What’ll it be?”
He took two paces backward and looked at me. He started to laugh.
“You are the most confusing son of a bitch, whoever the hell you are. You blow in here like a damn tornado. I don’t know what you want. Yes. No. What the hell is all that?”
I smiled back at him. “That’s excitement, Mr. Dowd. You look like the big shot around here. That’s why I’m talking to you. How about giving yourself half an hour off? There’s a pub ten minutes down the road. Let me buy you a pint. Fifteen minutes later I’ll bring you back and drive off. It’ll be as if I’ve never been here. But I’m betting the price of a pint or two that we’ll be in business together. What’s to lose?”
I held open the passenger door to the Jaguar. Whether it was curiosity at the audacity of this Yankee, the offer of a windfall of money, or just a ride in a Jaguar that did it, inside of a minute we were on the road to the Horse and Hares Pub.
Within ten minutes we were at a back table behind two creamy pints of Guinness’s finest, absorbing the warmth of a peat fire in the back-wall fireplace.
“Now, Yank, for lack of the name you won’t give me, what are we doing here?”
“We’re getting to know each other. I need to know I can trust you. I’ll tell you what I know already. You’re a hell of a horseman. And at the same time you’re a hell of a scam artist.”
He stiffened. It was a gamble. I could have lost him then and there. I put a friendly hand on his shoulder to prevent any rapid retreat.
“Don’t take me wrong, Mr. Dowd. To me, it’s a term of admiration. I like to think of myself the same way.”
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