by John McEvoy
Moe said, “Maybe it’s time you learned how to accept the fact that some things just have to be accepted. Period. Because otherwise they turn into little worms in your psyche, burrowing into you, paralyzing you mentally. I’ve seen it happen. Not a pretty sight.”
“Psyche!” Doyle snorted. “Don’t be worrying about my goddam psyche. This issue is burning in my goddam gut.”
Moe looked pityingly across the table at Doyle. He said, “When I was younger I was a lot like you, getting myself fucked up concentrating on things I had no chance of ever controlling. Chewing on questions I could never answer. Big ones, small ones. How did human life begin? Who taught Oswald how to shoot like that-if he did that shooting? Why is the underside of the pillow always cool?”
He paused, then added in a low voice, “Why did I survive the retreat from Chosen Reservoir and three-quarters of my Marines platoon didn’t?…Why did my mother die of breast cancer when she was forty-one years old?”
Moe got to his feet and buttoned his black silk sport coat, then put on his sunglasses. “It was making me nuts, so many questions. Once you start asking them, they multiply. They start to take over. So I finally wised up. I stood back. I decided to concentrate on controlling only things I had at least a chance to control. It probably saved my life, that decision. Do yourself a favor and think about that, Jack.”
Doyle followed as Kellman walked to the doorway leading to the porch. The two men silently looked down and across Sheffield Avenue at Wrigley Field, its green seats, green grass, and ivy-covered brick walls gleaming in the afternoon sun.
“To you, it looks like an old ballpark,” Moe said fondly. “I see a genuine, certified, bona fide gold mine.
“C’mon, Jack,” Moe added. “I’ll have Pete drive you to the airport.”
Chapter 35
The morning after he returned from Chicago, Doyle walked into his office at Willowdale and activated his answering machine. First thing he heard was a message from Rexroth.
“They’ll be bringing our horse Lancaster Lad down from Heartland Downs late today,” Rexroth said. “He’s not been running well. Probably needs a change of scenery. When he arrives, put him over on the Annex with Boomer until further notice. Good place for him to relax. The van from Heartland should arrive about four.”
“Relax, my ass,” Doyle said to himself. “Change of scenery! Change of identity is more like it.”
After he’d cleared the remaining messages, he sat down in his desk chair. He decided to slip away for a nap that afternoon, for he knew he was going to be on the alert each night and morning at least the rest of that week, his last at Willowdale.
Arriving two days later from Chicago via Rexroth’s private jet was jockey Willie Arroyo, who climbed aboard Boomer at 6:15 a.m. and worked him over the training track together with Lancaster Lad, who was ridden by exercise rider Gwen Goran. At least the two started out in company. However, not a quarter-mile of the six-furlong trial had elapsed before Boomer began to pull rapidly away from Lancaster Lad. Arroyo sat still as a statue on Boomer, never urging him, but the margin increased anyway. Goran frantically hustled Lancaster Lad in an attempt to keep up, to no avail. Boomer crossed the finish line more than sixteen lengths in front, going easily.
Only two grooms and Pedro Ramos, recently promoted by Rexroth to assistant foreman, watched this from the viewing stand next to the training track rail. Jack Doyle took in the action from a stand of trees located on a slight incline across from the eighth pole of the track. The emerging sun was behind him, so he didn’t worry about his binoculars glinting and giving away his presence. When he checked his stopwatch after Boomer passed the wire, he whistled softly. Then he sneaked away through the trees, smiling to himself.
As he made his way back to his office, Doyle thought hard about the principals involved in this caper. He doubted that Kenny Gutfreund, trainer of the Willowdale horses at Heartland Downs, knew what was transpiring here on the farm; Gutfreund had a strong reputation as a straight shooter.
On the other hand, Doyle had every reason to believe that jockey Willie Arroyo knew quite well what was going on, for he’d ridden both horses, Lancaster Lad in his mediocre races at Heartland, Boomer in his sensational early morning trials at Willowdale. Still, if things played out the way Doyle thought they would, it would be hard to pin anything on the jockey, who was known to feign ignorance with the best of them.
But that realization didn’t bother Doyle for long. As he circled the base of the berm that obscured the training track from the nearby road, Doyle recalled the words of his Uncle Pete O’Connor, his mother’s older brother. An avid fisherman, Pete loved to intone, “One big fish is worth a whole bunch of little ones.”
Doyle had always considered Uncle Pete one of the most boring humans he’d ever known. But today, particularly, he saw the value of this little piece of philosophy.
Rexroth phoned Doyle in his office that afternoon, some nine hours after the so-called secret workout on the Willowdale training track.
“Change in plans, Doyle,” Rexroth said curtly. “Lancaster Lad has definitely come to life after his R amp;R here at Willowdale. Good thing, too,” Rexroth added with a phony chuckle, “or I’d have a lot of egg on my face come next Saturday night after the predictions I’ve made about him winning the Derby.
“But now,” Rexroth continued, “it’s all systems go for Saturday. The horse is doing fantastically well. They can’t run the Heartland Derby any too soon, far as I’m concerned.”
Rexroth then instructed Doyle to have Lancaster Lad ready for loading on the van by five Wednesday morning.
“I’ll have him ready,” Doyle promised. “I’ll take care of it myself.”
Rexroth responded, “That’s what I like in people working for me, Doyle-the hands-on, personal responsibility approach.” As he listened, Doyle looked out the office window. In the parking lot, he saw Pedro’s Jeep Cherokee with its bumper sticker proclaiming Variety Kick-Starts Creativity.
“Variety,” Doyle began to quote. But he realized he was about to go too far. He thought of Moe Kellman counseling him not to be such a wiseass. Doyle stopped the sentence with a cough. He heard Rexroth say, “If you’d like to fly up to Chicago with Stoner and me in the Willowdale plane Saturday morning, you’re welcome to do so.”
“Thanks for the offer,” Doyle replied, “but I’ll be driving up. I’ve got some personal business to take care of on Sunday. But I’ll sure see you at the races.”
Chapter 36
After a final look at the odds-board, which showed that Lancaster Lad was holding steady at three to one, a lukewarm favorite in the betting, Harvey Rexroth turned his binoculars to the head of the stretch where the gate was positioned for the start of the $500,000 Heartland Derby. Never removing his gaze from the track, Rexroth nudged Byron Stoner with his right elbow.
“Are we set?”
“Just as you directed,” Stoner answered. “We’ve got one hundred thousand to win on Lancaster Lad and fifty thousand in exacta keys with him on top. Randy is holding the tickets.” Kauffman, standing to Rexroth’s left, nodded importantly as he patted his sport coat’s inside breast pocket, which was bulging.
“Three to one,” Rexroth said, cigar in his teeth, “and the so-called experts had him pegged at fifty to one. Talk about the power of the press-especially mine! Is this one for the books, Stoner?”
Byron Stoner said, “You couldn’t be more right. It’s one for the books.”
It was one of those gorgeous autumn afternoons, temperature seventy-six, the maple trees in the track infield ablaze with color, that the Chicago weather gods annually provide as precedent to another long, brutal winter. But Rexroth was oblivious to anything but the impending race.
“Good work, men,” Rexroth said. He placed the binoculars before him on the shelf of the private box in which they sat, then snapped his fingers. Kauffman produced another one of Rexroth’s mondo cigars and carefully lit it.
“It’s all over but t
he counting,” said the publisher, smiling broadly between puffs on his cigar.
As Rexroth exulted in anticipation in Box Three of the Heartland Downs stands, seeds of chaos began to be sown in sky to the south of the track.
The flight of Right to Bear Arms, General Oscar Belliard’s balloon, had started in fine fashion. The general had charted a course featuring a beautifully predictable wind flow that promised to carry the balloon from its launching point five miles southwest of Heartland Downs, over the track and its crowded stands, to the spot another three and one-half miles northeast, the Ross County Fairgrounds, where it would be met by the retrieval team, comprised of two other members of the Underground Militia with their four-wheel utility drive vehicle and trailer.
A slight distraction the previous day had been quickly overcome. General Belliard’s regular assistant pilot and longtime ballooning companion, Marcia Raybelle Pratt, had called in sick on Friday afternoon.
This development forced General Belliard to hurriedly recruit Junior Kozol as a substitute flight assistant. Junior had flown with the general before, but always as an open-mouthed passenger, not one assigned aeronautical tasks. Nevertheless, in these comfortable weather conditions, all had gone smoothly, starting with the pre-dawn departure from Louisville and the five-hour drive that brought them to the launch site.
With General Belliard expertly manning the controls, Junior Kozol standing anxiously by, and Wanda and Red clinging uneasily to the sides of the swaying wicker gondola, the early part of the flight had proceeded without incident. Junior was responding to the general’s instructions very nicely, and the Marchiks, after their first gulps when the basket rose heavenward, were smiling, however uneasily. Red was emboldened enough to comment, “This is a lot easier than we thought it would be.” The general gave Red a stern look. “Balloons are not toys,” General Belliard intoned, adding, “They are deceptively powerful, make no mistake about that.”
As requested, Heartland Downs general manager Niles Milbare had reserved a box for the FBI team, one located seven rows below Rexroth’s. By the time Karen, Damon, and two agents they’d summoned for assistance, Tom Sheehan and Ray Rosengren, had found their way to their seats, Damon was looking decidedly uncool in his dark suit and tie. Karen, as usual, appeared as calm and confident as if she were again about to ace her opening serve in a UW volleyball match. “Save one of the front-row seats for Doyle,” Karen instructed Sheehan.
The attraction of a $500,000 race had helped lure the largest Heartland Downs crowd of the season-more than thirty-five thousand. Contributing greatly to the presence of this throng had been the publicity generated by Harvey Rexroth’s headlined promise that Lancaster Lad would “reverse his fortunes in amazing fashion” and score a “resounding victory” in this important event. Some sports media, not just in Chicago and Kentucky, had echoed his claims straight-faced, while others had poked fun at what they termed his braggadocio. Whatever the interpretation, the result was a flood tide of publicity that had helped produce the large crowd this afternoon.
Fifteen minutes earlier, Doyle had been waved past the paddock checkpoint by an old security guard, Art Schwartz, who remembered him from his days as City Sarah’s groom. Actually, Doyle had to tap the guard on his shoulder to get him to lift the chain across the entrance. As usual, Art was half asleep in his chair.
“How you doin’, son?” Art had finally asked once he’d looked up. “You been in a scrap?” he asked, pointing at Doyle’s nose, with its Band-Aid covering the bridge.
“Just a little one,” Doyle grinned. “I’m fine.” He moved to extract himself from the grip of the garrulous old-timer and walked over to the No. 1 stall, which housed Bunny’s Al.
Had Doyle not known who he was looking for, he might never have recognized the pair that confronted him. Under a broad white hat was the broadly smiling face of Maureen Hoban. The former O’Keefe’s Ale House waitress/counselor was fashionably gotten up in a bright flowered dress, white stockings, shoes, and gloves. Just a touch of makeup, this in sharp contrast to the days she used to show up at O’Keefe’s looking like she’d applied her cosmetics with a trowel.
Linda Tripp could have used Maureen’s makeover maven, Doyle thought. He grinned as Maureen leaned forward to kiss him on the cheek.
Over her shoulder, Doyle looked at the imposing figure cut by E. D. Morley. Gone were the Rastafarian dreadlocks, the wispy goatee, the eye-concealing sunglasses. When Morley doffed his Panama hat in an exaggerated motion of greeting to Doyle, his shaved head shone like an ebony bowling ball. Morley was wearing a glistening white linen suit over a black silk shirt and white silk tie.
“You look like the overseer the old Colonel up and left the plantation to,” Doyle said. E. D. reached for his hand, saying softly, “No soul shakes here, my man, just a straightforward handclasp among upstanding citizens.” Doyle’s hand disappeared inside E. D.’s big mitt.
Doyle couldn’t help but laugh softly as he looked at his two assailants. “The last time you approached me was to steal twenty-five grand and put me to sleep in a damned garage,” Doyle said. “Now look at the two of you! Talk about re-inventing yourselves-at my expense.”
“Now, now, Jack,” said Maureen, “sure and it’s bygones be bygones by now, ’tisn’t it, seeing how we sent you that tidy packet? No real harm done in the long run, am I right?” She looked quizzically up at Doyle’s damaged nose, but said nothing about it.
Maureen took Jack’s elbow and began to walk with him over the grass closer to stall No. 1. “I hope you’ll not be like what some of them are at home,” she said. “You know the saying over there? ‘What’s Irish Alzheimer’s disease?’ The answer is, ‘They forget everyt’ing but the grudge.’” Maureen laughed merrily, peering up at Doyle.
Morley caught up to them, walking on Jack’s other side.
“We’re both damned glad to see you, Jack,” E. D. said. “Now come take a look at what you helped us to get our hands on.”
Bunny’s Al, a medium-sized chestnut, was pawing the ground and tossing his head about restlessly as he was held by a groom. A well-muscled horse, his gleaming coat evidenced his terrific condition. He was jumping out of his skin, as the racetrack expression has it.
But Bunny’s Al settled down as soon as Morley approached him. The big man handed his Panama hat and white suit coat to the groom, then expertly put the saddle on the now calm horse and cinched it securely. They had brought their own jockey with them from Florida, a youngster named Jesse Black, who had ridden Bunny’s Al ever since E. D. and Maureen bought him.
“Do it again, Jesse,” E. D. told him as he boosted him aboard Bunny’s Al. Those were Morley’s only instructions to the jockey.
The crowd of owners, trainers, hangers-on, and racing officials began to leave the paddock in the wake of the horses who headed through the tunnel toward the track. “Will you watch the race with us, Jack?” Maureen asked.
“Can’t,” Doyle said. “I’ve got another little matter to settle.” He glanced at the paddock odds board. Bunny’s Al was four to one. Doyle looked at the horse’s beaming co-owners. “In spite of everything,” Doyle said, “good luck to you.”
“I think he means it,” E. D. said to Maureen.
“Acourse he does,” Maureen said. “That’s a heart a gold beatin’ away in there behind that cobbly front the man puts on.”
“Watch where you’re stepping, Maureen,” Jack said as he left them. “The horseshit can get high around here, especially with you contributing to it.”
As the Right to Bear Arms smoothly advanced, Wanda shifted her gaze from the ground far below to the man at the controls. General Oscar Belliard was a short, squat, gray-haired and gray-bearded man of fifty-five. Tufts of gray hair protruded from his large nostrils, his large ears, and the backs of his little hands. Looking at him as they soared over Chicago’s western suburbs, Wanda thought the general reminded her of some character, she couldn’t quite pin down which one, in a book she used to read to her niece
s, The Wind in the Willows.
General Belliard made his living managing one of Louisville’s discount club grocery stores. His only direct exposure to things officially military had been as an ROTC cadet during his brief stint in college. A congenital heart murmur, he said, had prevented him from enlisting in any branch of the service. But his interest in everything military-including his vast collection of war textbooks, games, weapons, and films-along with his ballooning hobby, consumed most of his non-working hours. His role as founder and leader of the Underground Militia was the most important thing in the life of this lifelong bachelor.
Confidently, General Belliard gave Red and Junior the go-ahead to attach their banner to the stainless steel cables at the rear of the gondola. The banner contained the messages their flight was designed to deliver. “Target in sight,” cried the general as he looked through his binoculars toward Heartland Downs. “Prepare to unfurl!”
Having issued that order, General Belliard relaxed and reached into his knapsack for his lunch. He removed a ziplock baggy from the supply he issued to Underground Militia members when they went on backcountry maneuvers. It contained a handful of gherkins and a bulging sandwich of fried squirrel in white bread.
“Love eating these little critters-and hunting them, too,” the general said as he munched enthusiastically. Between bites he asked, “You folks hear about the scare those pointy heads over at the university are talking about? Some nonsense about a virus connected with eating squirrel brains? Can you believe that? What a load of manure, pardon the expression, Wanda.
“My Uncle Merle,” continued General Belliard, “probably ate a thousand or twelve hundred squirrels in his life, brains and all. No exaggeration. I can’t begin to estimate how many pounds of squirrel that’d come to.
“Late in his life, when he found his gums could not tolerate dentures, Uncle Merle used to skin his squirrels after he’d shot or trapped them, take the bones out, cut the meat up in little pieces, and put it all in this big blender he had. Said it made for the most refreshing drink in the world.