Blind Switch

by John McEvoy

  Junior, relying on his manual, had instructed Red to aim at the Target’s lower leg; that way, Red wouldn’t have to raise his cane more than a foot or so off the ground in what should be a relatively indiscernible motion to any bystander.

  Red quickly glanced at the target area. Then he dropped the sunglasses back down on his forehead into their original position. When he did so, there was a movement in front of him that Red, of course, did not spot.

  Red heard Wanda hiss in his ear, “Do it, Red.” He responded instantly. Red thrust forward with the lethal cane, and the needle hit dead center in the leg muscle. Red smiled as he felt the contact being made by his weapon.

  Unfortunately, Red, aiming blindly and from memory, had hit a leg muscle belonging to Winston the bulldog. The dog, feeling a tug on its leash, had moved closer to his master’s side just as Red struck. Winston dropped like a sack of cement, killed instantly.

  Rexroth, meanwhile, having impatiently displayed his paddock pass to a security guard and wanting to move forward, gave a yank on Winston’s leash. He was startled by the leaden lack of response. Then Rexroth looked down and let out a yelp.

  “What in the living hell,” Wanda heard Rexroth say as she guided Red away from the commotion that immediately erupted: Rexroth examining Winston in disbelief, his redheaded companion breaking into tears, the security men making a circle so as to shield the view of this scene from other paddock spectators.

  “We got us a dead dog here at the paddock gate,” one of the security guards barked into his portable phone. There was a crackle of incredulous reply from the main security office. “Yeah, you heard me right,” the guard said angrily into the phone.

  Wanda gripped Red’s right elbow hard as she continued to steer him across the walkway and toward the nearest exit. Her face was bright red.

  “Dammit, Red,” said Wanda as she elbowed their way through the crowd, “we gotta get out of here! Take off those damn glasses and follow me quick!”

  Chapter 20

  Friday night of that week, Doyle was desultorily watching a heavyweight boxing match on cable television, the audio off, and scanning the thoroughbred industry trade publications in an attempt to keep as current as possible in his new occupation.

  As the two over-muscled and under-skilled behemoths flailed occasionally, and for the most part unsuccessfully, at each other between their lengthy exchanges of glowering looks, Doyle sat, trying to recall if he’d made any major slip-ups in the course of his work day. None, he concluded, to match his faux pas regarding Pedro and the teaser. He took this as a sign of at least some progress.

  Doyle was relieved to hear a light tapping at his door—anything to break the monotony of another tediously uneventful night. On the other side of the screen door he saw the shyly smiling face of Caroline Cummings. A breeze was blowing lightly, carrying with it traces of soft summer rain, and her face was moist. Before he could open the door, Caroline had pulled it open and was over the threshold and into his living room.

  “Come right in.” But as she turned to face him, Doyle bit back further irony. He knew Caroline was here on some kind of mission that he would be wise to meet with other than his standard cavalier approach.

  “Have a seat,” he said, motioning toward the couch. “Can I get you anything to drink?”

  She shook her head, so Doyle closed the screen door behind her, then the oak door. He’d waved Caroline to the old leather couch, his apartment’s major piece of furniture. Doyle turned off the television and clicked on the CD player. The dark satin baritone of Johnny Hartman, John Coltrane’s tenor sax floating beneath it, started “They Say It’s Wonderful.”

  Caroline nestled into the other end of the couch, sandals discarded, tanned legs folded up beneath her. Caroline was wearing white shorts which contrasted nicely with the beige, scoop-necked T-shirt she had on. He thought, not for the first time, that this was a beautiful, intelligent, and very appealing woman. Unfortunately, Doyle thought, she appeared to have something serious in mind.

  Years before, Doyle had read with interest some rules for living laid down by the Chicago novelist Nelson Algren, who advised that a man should never play poker with a man called Doc, eat in a restaurant called Mom’s, or get involved with a woman with more troubles than his own. Doyle had adhered to the first two, but had never been much good about following the third, as his marital record attested. Attracted as he was to Caroline, he briefly considered reining in his interest. Then the thought came to him that while the woman was widowed and a single mother, she at least was not under the thumb of the FBI as race-fixer. Maybe they were at least equal in the troubles department. He felt better immediately and turned his full attention to her.

  Caroline brushed a hand through her hair. She looked first across the room, then back to Doyle. She started to say something, paused, then began again.

  “Jack, I came here tonight because I’m concerned about, well, the situation here involving you and Aldous. It’s taken me days to come on to it—I should have been more alert or aware when we met in that grand zoo in Chicago—but my mind was on other things.”

  Caroline paused and shifted slightly on the couch, her eyes never leaving Doyle’s face.

  “I’ve had a lot to be thinking of here on this visit, especially my children and how they’re faring. It never occurred to me that Aldous might be involved in something dangerous, something he could hardly bring himself to tell me about. After all, I came here at Aldous’ invitation to get away from a place that was wearing me down…the memories…the problems of a mother raising children without their father….”

  Doyle said, “What has Aldous told you—about this dangerous situation?”

  “He’s told me that you’re working with him on trying to establish whether or not horse killings are taking place here. And I know that he thinks you are up to the job, even though you two met such a short while ago.”

  She sat back on the couch and laughed softly, shaking her head. “Aldous is such a trusting soul, you’d not believe it. He’s always been that way. He’s just a great person—as a brother, as an uncle to my children. They think he’s a bloody god,” she said.

  “What I’ve come to ask, Jack, is that you be very, very sure the two of you know what you’re doing here. I don’t know what brought you into this, or what your motivation is. Aldous has told me nothing about that. If he even knows.

  “I know why he’s involved. Because he’s as honest a fellow as you’d ever meet. If he thinks bad things are happening to horses under his care, on this farm, well, he’d do anything to prevent it. And not quit, mind you. No, never that. He’s never walked away from a problem in his life.”

  Caroline got up and walked over to the window. With her back turned to him, she lowered her face into her hands. Doyle admired the sleek, tanned length of Caroline Cummings’ legs.

  Doyle said, “Whatever Aldous has told you about me and the situation here, well, that’s as much as it’s probably wise for you to know.”

  He was slightly shaken by the sight of his beautiful, concerned visitor. He was also, he realized, despite every warning bell ringing out the angelus in his psyche, about to make a move on her. He got up from his couch and walked over to where she stood near the window. As Caroline turned to him, Doyle realized that he was not going to be an unwelcome aggressor.

  “I want to know that I trust you to watch out for my brother.” Caroline’s eyes searched Jack’s face.

  “He’ll be foremost among my thoughts,” Doyle assured her.

  “No, I’m serious,” Caroline protested, her lovely face now within inches of his own.

  “I know you are. So am I.”

  Doyle put his hands on her shoulders. Before he could gently pull her forward, Caroline gave him a look both questioning and resolute. “Is this going to be all right?” He held her close for a few moments as she rested her head on his chest. Her hair smelled like lilacs in May, Doyle thought. He felt a slight
trembling at the back of his knees. She moved willingly against him.

  “You can trust me. I’ve got his best interests at heart,” Doyle murmured to Caroline, his mouth pressed to her ear.

  “What about mine?” she said, smiling up at him. Caroline looked searchingly at Doyle, shaking her head slightly. “I’ve not been with anyone since my husband…since then….”

  “Yes,” said Doyle.

  “So,” she continued, her lips on his neck, “no offense, but this isn’t exactly a matter of love that I’m feeling. At this point.”

  “At this point,” Jack said, his hand now up inside the T-shirt, fingers brushing her left nipple.

  “You might…You might,” Caroline murmured, beginning to unbutton Doyle’s shirt, “describe mine as a case of unrequited lust.”

  Doyle said, “I have a suggestion. Let’s requite it.”

  Later, as she was dressing and preparing to leave his bedroom, Caroline said with a smile, “Jack, you’re not the awful hard case you make yourself out to be.” Then, realizing the multiple meanings her remark, she let out a whoop of laughter.

  “That wasn’t too ladylike, now was it?” Caroline said. “You were hard enough for me tonight, laddy.” She reached down and brushed her lips against his. She was still giggling as she exited the front door.

  Doyle remained in the rumpled bed. He lay still, hands behind his head, relishing the lingering scent of lilac and woman.

  With a grin, he began humming to himself the first bars of the jazz standard “Out of Nowhere.”

  Chapter 21

  “The air-conditioner in this tin can ain’t hardly breathing. Motherfucker’s on life support, and it’s fadin’. Gotta be a hunnert degrees in here,” Jud Repke said.

  Ronald Mortvedt, at the wheel of the white pickup truck he’d bought off a Louisville used car lot, glanced over at his complaining companion.

  “You turnin’ into some kind of pussy? Little heat ain’t gonna kill you.”

  Repke’s light blue denim shirt had sweat crescents spreading under each arm. Repke’s forehead glistened with heat-produced moisture. Mortvedt sat chilly behind the wheel, his black T-shirt dry against his muscular torso. Mortvedt never sweated.

  “Open the damn window if you have to,” Mortvedt added.

  “We got a layer of dust in here already sifted through the cracks of this piece of shit,” Repke grumbled. “I ain’t opening no damn window.”

  They drove on in silence through the late afternoon, the only sound for miles that of the pickup’s engine straining up the highway that rose toward Colorado Springs. Interstate 25 would take them south into New Mexico, their next stop on what Mortvedt called their “horse hunt.”

  Repke shifted restlessly in his seat. He rubbed out another Marlboro butt in the rapidly filling ashtray, which wobbled as he did so. “Look at this plastic crap. Don’t know why you bought something made by them hillbillies down in Tennessee.”

  “That’s no way for you to talk about your people,” Mortvedt said. “Your folks, they were from up in them Kentucky hills, where the mines were. That’s what you told me, right?”

  “They did their living up there. I don’t. I’m a former hillbilly,” Repke said, settling back in his seat, his right shoulder against the door, red NASCAR cap brim down over his eyes.

  Mortvedt shook his head. “There ain’t no such thing,” he said.

  Repke reached behind him to the ice chest on the floor behind his seat and took out a can of Coors. He said, “Why didn’t we rent one of those new Chevy pickups, the ones with all the doodads on ’em? Bet the air-conditioning works in those suckers.”

  Mortvedt’s eyes remained on the road as he answered. “Don’t make no sense to spend that kind of money until we find our horse. Why put all those miles on a rental? Clunky as this thing is,” he said, tapping the dashboard, “we can sell it when we’re done. Stoner gave us a nice chunk of ’spense money. What we don’t spend, we’ll split.

  “Once we’ve found our horse, we’ll buy a used one-horse trailer, probably get one off somebody at the racetrack. We’ll haul the horse back to Chicago in that.”

  “If we find the right horse,” Repke reminded.

  Mortvedt said, “We’ll find the son of a bitch, don’t you worry about that.”

  The sound of Repke fumbling in the cooler caused Mortvedt to turn to him for a moment. “The beer just pops out on you in this here heat. You drink too much beer.”

  “There ain’t no such thing.”

  ***

  Their mission had begun with a summons from Harvey Rexroth. Mortvedt flew into Louisville, then had been picked up by Randy Kauffman and taken to Willowdale Farm.

  Without going into detail, Rexroth told Mortvedt, “I want you to buy a horse for me.”

  Mortvedt’s stoic face did not reveal the surprise he felt. The functions he’d performed thus far involved killing horses, not purchasing them. “What kind of horse?”

  “Let’s take a little drive,” Rexroth said.

  The two men entered the waiting car and Kauffman drove to the part of Willowdale Farm known as the Annex. Kauffman pulled the car up to the fence of a paddock that contained one horse, a dark bay colt that was grazing in the middle of the damp field.

  “Take a very, very good look at him,” Rexroth instructed Mortvedt as they walked through the lush grass toward the grazing horse. “I want you to buy a horse,” Rexroth repeated, “that looks as much like this colt as possible. He’s got to be a racehorse, a three-year-old, one that can compete at least at the allowance level at a major track like Kentuckiana or Heartland Downs.

  “This one,” Rexroth said, gesturing toward the field, “is three years old. As you can see, he hasn’t got a distinguishing mark on him—no blaze, no white feet, nothing that stands out from the standpoint of color or markings. He’s not real big, not small either. Being a bay, he’s in the majority of the horse population as far as color.”

  Mortvedt’s eyes narrowed as he looked at the horse. “He’s plain, all right. But he’s put together right,” he said appraisingly. The little man walked around to the other side of the horse, which was casually grazing while keeping one eye cocked on him. “Damn good balance, good hindquarters. He’s got a helluva shoulder on him. Nice clean legs, too. Bet he can run a little. Am I right, boss?”

  Disregarding the question, Rexroth resumed issuing his instructions.

  “I don’t care where you look for this horse’s double—in fact I don’t want to know—but you can pay whatever it takes. Stoner will give you ample expense money when we return to the house. When you’ve found our horse, contact Stoner and he will wire the purchase price. Naturally, the sale would have to be private, and there must be absolutely no hint of any connection to me.

  “When you’ve got the horse, call me here. If I’m not at Willowdale, they’ll reach me. I’ll want you to deliver the new horse to my racing stable at Heartland Downs. Leave him there with my trainer, Kenny Gutfreund. I’ll have made the arrangements so that he’ll know you’re coming. As far as he’s concerned, you’re just bringing in a new horse that I heard about and decided to buy.”

  That night, Mortvedt drove to Louisville. After buying the white pickup truck the next morning, he met Repke, described the job, and within an hour the two men left for Des Moines, Iowa. Two days at nearby Prairie Park, a combination racetrack-casino facility featuring 1,001 slot machines, served only to diminish Repke’s bankroll as he gambled while Mortvedt checked out the horse population. He found nothing they could use. From Prairie Meadows they drove to Oklahoma City, whose Sooner Park racetrack proved similarly barren of eligible equine prospects.

  Repke was relieved to get out of Iowa. “I lost a bundle back there,” he said. “I never seen so many quiet white women in one place in my life. Just stare at those slots, stare at those slots, that’s all they did. Threw me way off my game.”

  “How do you know they was women?” Mortvedt sai
d.

  Repke said, “You got a point there, partner. They get to a certain age out here in this farm country, they sure start to look alike. From the back, there was a lot of them I couldn’t tell if it was a pointer or a setter, swear to God. Sometimes from the front, either.”

  Two more tries were similarly unproductive, one in Wyoming at a little track named Evanston Downs, the other at Pioneer Park outside Denver.

  Mortvedt had explained to Repke, “I can’t be looking to buy this horse in Louisiana or Texas, where too many racetrackers know me. And I want to be as far away from Kentucky or Chicago as I can when I go after this horse. But I never been to California or New York, don’t know shit about the tracks or the people there. So we’ll try somewhere else, where a couple of country boys like us won’t stick out like tits on a bull.”

  They’d watched a Sunday program at Evanston Downs, then two days of racing at Pioneer Park, plus attending the workouts at both places. A horse named Joyce’s World that won the feature the day they were at Evanston Downs, the $15,000 Werblin Memorial, looked “a helluva lot like what we’re after,” Mortvedt said, “but he’s five years old. Can’t use him.” Now, they were headed to New Mexico.

  “Don’t know how they can call Wyoming the Big Sky country, like they got a fuckin’ patent on it,” Repke said as he looked out his window. “How could a sky be any bigger or higher than this one?”

  They were still heading south on Interstate 25. They would pass Raton, New Mexico, just over the Colorado border, without stopping, since the racetrack there had long ago closed. This long, smooth highway would carry them to their next destination, the little track located a few miles south of Santa Fe.

  On Sunday afternoon, their second day at Santa Fe, Mortvedt sat forward in his grandstand seat and said to Repke, “I must have missed this s.o.b. if they galloped him this morning. Check out the number seven horse here.”