Fatal Odds Read online

  “So, Ronny, we meet. I’ve been hearing about you from . . . you know. I don’t think we need to speak names here.”

  He just looked at me with the blank look of a dog that doesn’t know if it’s going to get a pat or a kick. That was my security blanket. He stood a good six foot five. With those enlarged horseman’s hands, he could have tossed me the width of the track on a whim. That meant that the anxiety that was tightening his grip on the rail was generated by his assumption that I was connected with someone with serious threatening power. As I hoped. Game on.

  “Ronny, you look pale. You should get out in the air more often.”

  He looked befuddled.

  “It’s a joke. Relax. I have good news for you. He’s happy. He wanted me to tell you that you pulled it off perfectly. Couldn’t be better. He used the word great. You hear that?”

  He looked at me in disbelief. Not what I was looking for, but at least it jarred him off dead center.

  “Great? Did you say ‘great’?” He was spitting out the words in a forced whisper. “That kid died. You call that great? What the hell is it with you people?”

  The only thing I heard was “you people.” That meant the hook was set. Now the trick was to ward off an explosion that could release my catch.

  “Relax, Ronny. You’re right. That was a hell of a thing. I’ll tell you this. His family’ll be taken care of.”

  He gave me a disgusted look as if I’d missed the point entirely. That, too, was more or less welcome. He had so completely bought into who he thought I was connected with that I was even beginning to dislike myself. It was time to reel in the fish.

  “The point here is twofold. He wants to see you. Same place. This morning. Eleven o’clock. You’ll be back in time to work the races this afternoon. I would imagine.”

  He backed off the rail and turned face to face.

  “Like hell! He said this was just one time. Why the hell does he want to see me?”

  “I told you there were two things. First, he wants you to do it again next week.”

  His face flushed, and a string of expletives poured out like a volcanic eruption. I let it run its course.

  When it stopped, I just shook my head and smiled. “Whoa, Ronny. I don’t think I’ll deliver that message. You know the old saying about shooting the messenger.”

  That seemed to remind him of whom he thought he was talking to. He settled into a grouchy funk.

  “I said two things. He wants to give you a bonus for the last time. Don’t say I told you, but he also mentioned a figure that’s about twice the price for the next time.”

  To his credit, that seemed to make no difference whatsoever. I was beginning to regret the wringer I was putting him through, but then I remembered the last time I saw Roberto. I decided to push it one last yard for confirmation.

  “Incidentally, Ronny, what did you use? He may ask out of curiosity. I like to have answers for him. You know how he is.”

  He answered by kicking up some of the half-inch stones on the path underfoot. Bingo. Hunch dead on. The story I remembered Rick telling me was that an old Montana horse trader he knew years ago would walk alone into the stall of a horse he was intending to buy. He’d throw some pebbles into the straw bedding under the horse. It generally caused the horse to keep lifting his feet to find a safe spot to avoid the painful pebbles. The trader could claim the horse was lame and the price would drop. I had a feeling that something like that had caused Dante’s Pride to prance around in the starting gate. That way he wouldn’t have all four feet on the ground at the start of the race. He’d get off to a slow start and probably get boxed in by other horses well off the lead. So much for his being the speed horse in the race.

  The other half of the hunch was that the most likely one to pull it off would be the assistant starter who led the horse into its post position in the gate. He could drop the pebbles or whatever on the ground inside the gate at that position just before leading the horse into the gate. Immediately after the race, the tractors would pull the drags over the track for the next race and bury the evidence.

  “Well, that’s it. Eleven o’clock this morning. I wouldn’t keep him waiting. But I guess you know that.”

  I started to walk off and leave him with his thoughts. I got a few steps when I heard the question I least wanted to hear.

  “Hey, who the hell are you, anyway? What’s your name?”

  I kept walking, but I spoke back over my shoulder. “What’s the difference, Ronny? We won’t be dating. I’ll tell him to expect you.”

  * * *

  On the walk to my car, I speed-dialed the same security service that Mr. Devlin and I had used since our law firm began. Tom Burns’ agency provided confidential investigation, protective security, and other services at a level that justified a fee scale that would make any of his competitors blush. I had the number that put me in direct touch with Tom without other ears intervening.

  “Tom, I need one of your very best men.”

  “Mike, you should know by now. There’s no such thing.”

  “Meaning?”

  “That with one exception, any man who’s not the best in the business doesn’t work for me. There’s no ranking.”

  “Who’s the exception?”

  “The only one who perfectly fits your description.”

  “And that would be? Wait a minute. Spare me. That would be you.”

  “You’re a clever lad, Mike.”

  “And you’re the soul of modesty.”

  “If I were the soul of modesty, I couldn’t send those bills you never seem to object to. What do you need, Mike?”

  “There’s an assistant starter at Suffolk Downs. He’s working the training gate right now. When they finish for the morning, he’ll be keeping an appointment he thinks he has with someone who’s used him to fix a race. I need a man on his tail. I need the name of the man he tries to meet with.”

  “Consider it done. Describe the assistant starter.”

  I did.

  “I’ll call you, Mike.”

  “Let me give you a heads up, Tom. We’re probably talking about someone high up in one of the dicier Puerto Rican gangs.”

  “In race fixing? That would be unusual for them.”

  “Nevertheless, tread lightly. Those boys do not play nice.”

  EIGHT

  I WAS FEELING the first faint glow of relief since Roberto’s fall. The fact that whoever fixed that race had to depend on the pebble trick to neutralize Roberto’s chance of winning suggested that Roberto was not in on the fix. The glow faded when I realized that that did not absolve Victor. In fact, it was the swerving of Victor’s horse into the path of the stumbling favorite, Dante’s Pride, that took him out of the race entirely.

  To go one disheartening step further, the fact that Victor clearly veered into Roberto’s path practically ensured that Victor’s own horse, the second favorite in the race, would be disqualified on a foul by the stewards—as he was. That put the two favorites out of the money, leaving the win to one of the long shots. It was, in fact, Cat’s Tale in post position five outside of Victor’s horse that ultimately won the race at odds of 15 to 1.

  To complete the math, with only seven horses in the race, if you subtract the two favorites, and the winner, Cat’s Tale, you have four left. Two of those four had tired, sore legs from over-racing. I’d have had a better chance of beating Cat’s Tale on foot. That left just two horses, Mark’s Delight and High Justice that had to be eliminated from contention to make Cat’s Tale a shoo-in as the winner.

  That was depressing. It appeared on circumstantial evidence that Victor played a pivotal role in the fix. On the positive side, I’d known Victor for his entire adolescent and young adult life. My strongest intuition was that he would never deliberately place his brother in jeopardy by a move on the track that reeked of potential disaster. Again, on the negative side, my intuition and five dollars would barely buy a cup of Starbucks’ daily brew.

  I took the sh
ore route back to the city along Winthrop Parkway. It was fifty degrees in a stiff easterly wind. I had both windows down. Nothing clears the cobwebs like chilled salty air right off the ocean. By the time I reached Pearl Avenue, I was ready to surrender to Mr. Devlin’s theory that you can’t base a defense strategy on the belief that the client is innocent.

  Then it hit me—like a curtain lifting. Damn it! It wasn’t Victor’s play at all. He was just along for the ride. Why the hell didn’t I put those pieces together before?

  I whipped the Corvette in a U-turn that covered half the sidewalk and nearly put two cars into the beach wall. It was rush hour, but the rush was in the opposite direction. I could treat the speed limit as a mere suggestion all the way back to the backstretch.

  As I passed through the gate, my cell phone came to life. I cut the pleasantries to the core.

  “Tom, what have you got?”

  “Good news and bad news, Mikey.”

  “Give me both in one sentence.”

  “Good news: I’ve got a name. Your assistant starter flew direct, but not where you thought. You said he’d go to one of the Puerto Rican hotshots—as in the South End. Not so.”

  “Then where?”

  “That’s the bad news. He went direct to D’Angelo’s Restaurant on Prince Street in the North End. My man parked and went in right behind him. Your boy gave the bartender a message that went direct to the back room. In about ten seconds, one of the goons came out and escorted him in an ungentlemanly manner to the back room. My man says there was a crap-storm touched off that you could hear at Paul Revere’s house.”

  “Did he come out?”

  “Not yet. That’s the bad news. Here’s worse news. In case you don’t know it, that’s Paulie Caruso’s den. Allegedly, as they say, he’s the number two boy in the Italian mob these days. And to hell with the ‘allegedly.’ You listening, Mike?”

  That was a twist that had me reeling. Every time I thought I had this mess contained, it sprung another leak. “I’m here, Tom.”

  “Yeah, but are you listening? Some of those North End mafiosi kill for business. This one’s a certified lunatic. Not to spoil your breakfast, but you’d rather have been on Whitey Bulger’s hit list on his worst day.”

  “I’m thinking back. I never gave my name to the starter. He showed no sign of recognizing me. What could he tell Caruso?”

  “You’ve got your head in the sand, or someplace else. He could give your description. You were probably the only one at the backstretch this morning in a suit. It could take Caruso five minutes to have you identified. It’d take me about one.”

  “You make a point.”

  “Thank you. Here’s another one. Paulie Caruso now knows that you know he was the fixer in a race that caused a death. He didn’t get where he is by leaving witnesses in good health.”

  “So I’ve heard.”

  “Then hear this. The starter didn’t come out, but two goons right out of the cast of The Godfather did. My man’s on their tail. They look like they’re heading for Suffolk Downs. Where are you now?”

  “Guess.”

  “Oh, crap. Get out of there now, Mike. These are pros. Have you started carrying a gun like I’ve been telling you?”

  “Guns make me nervous. I’m a lawyer.”

  “Oh, good. Be sure to mention that when those two start shooting. Leave now.”

  “No use, Tom. They could find me at the office, at home, anyplace.”

  “Then you, my friend, have a clear problem.”

  “Maybe not. Is your man still on their tail?”

  “So far.”

  “I have an idea. What’s your man’s name?”

  “Let’s say ‘Frankie’. He’s always liked that name.”

  “Good enough. Here’s what I need.”

  * * *

  I picked up another cup of coffee for grit and walked to the rail down by the training gate. The assistant starters had gone for the day. It was just me in my blue suit and a few pigeons.

  It was my turn to feel a world of violence closing in. They say if you want to judge a matador’s courage, watch his feet. I planted my feet and got a grip on the rail to keep them there. I had ten minutes to regret everything that brought me to that moment, going back to filing an application to law school.

  In exactly ten minutes, I could sense the curtain going up. It was showtime. I sensed two massive presences approaching, one on each side. This was confirmed by the pressure of a dull object just under the ribcage. Then a baritone voice in that distinctive North End accent.

  “Mr. Caruso sends you a personal message. You got into his business. And he takes it . . . personally.”

  I knew that the worst part of that was the open use of Caruso’s name. The chances of my being left alive to repeat it on this earth were nonexistent.

  “Suppose I could assure Mr. Caruso that he has nothing to fear from me about his fixing that race two days ago.”

  “That’s not a chance Mr. Caruso chooses to take. Let’s take a walk. Over here.”

  I turned around and saw the gun I’d been feeling gesturing in the direction of an empty row of stalls. I started to move in that direction at the slowest pace I thought I could get away with. A couple of nudges in the back with the same cold steel put a limit to that ploy. I was down to my last move—a prayer that Tom Burns was not all bluff.

  We passed several empty shed rows. I got the “Stop” command in front of the next empty stall. My escort said the last thing I could expect to hear in this life. “Inside.”

  Before obeying that last order, I turned around to face them. I knew my lines, but saying them in anything under a soprano voice was a challenge.

  “Just one thing, boys. I have a message for your boss.”

  That bought me a few seconds. I looked into the two stone-cold faces that could as easily have been ordering a pizza as ending another human’s life. I looked beyond them for a glimpse of something to ignite a hope. Nothing.

  I fell back on blind faith and said the line I’d rehearsed at full stage volume.

  “To hell with it, boys. You’d screw it up, anyway. I’ll deliver the message myself.”

  There were grins on both faces. “Not likely.”

  I yelled the punch line. “Like hell!”

  I dropped to the ground as if my legs had been kicked out from under me and clung to the earth. Two gunshots pierced the air. My body went rigid waiting for the impact. It didn’t come. The only sounds that followed the shots were two screams and a mixture of curses, grunts, and groans of pain.

  One spin rolled me into the dark of the stall. I looked back and saw two overstuffed bodies writhing on the ground. Each had dropped a gun to grab a leg just above the knee. The location of the blossoming pond of crimson on each said that Tom’s marksman had shattered the bone.

  I was on my feet with their two dropped guns in hand. It’s amazing how a change in circumstances can restore the self-confidence. In spite of their pain, I had their full attention with a gun in each hand, barrels pressing on the center of each of their temples.

  “If you ever come within half a mile of me again, my man will aim higher. Is that understood?”

  They just stared. A slight rap on the side of the head with the barrel produced a response.

  “Yeah.”

  “Good. Now take one hand, reach in your pocket, and take out your wallets.”

  I could see the pain in their faces when they moved, but this time they were the ones with no choice. I put down the guns long enough to take out their driver’s licenses and dropped the wallets beside them.

  “The man who sent you to kill me—that would be Paulie Caruso, right?”

  The code of silence kicked back in. I aimed each gun at the same point above the knee of their good legs. I started to squeeze the trigger. None of us, including me, knew how close the guns were to firing. “It’s your choice, boys.”

  One of them cracked. “Wait! Don’t do it!”

  “Say the name
.”

  “Awright. Mr. Caruso.”

  “Is that Paulie Caruso?”

  Silence. Another half squeeze.

  “Yeah. Yeah.”

  “Say it.”

  “Paulie Caruso.”

  “Thank you, boys. Arrivederci. Try to stay out of trouble.”

  * * *

  For the first time in my life, I was chomping at the bit to get away from the backstretch. There was just one last matter to attend to before the moment passed. A small curious crowd was moving in the general direction of the gunshots, which I guessed came from somewhere in the infield of the track. It wouldn’t be long before the search expanded to the boys on the ground.

  I moved double-time toward the barn of Bill McClosky, the trainer of the winner of that race, Cat’s Tale. I knew that Bobby Cataldo was the jockey for most of Bill’s entries. He was at the backstretch to exercise the horses he’d be riding in races.

  I saw Bobby just coming off the track from breezing one of Bill’s horses. I caught him as he dismounted and whispered a few quick words. He debriefed Bill on the workout, and hustled to where I was waiting alone.

  “There’s no time for niceties, Bobby. Just listen. You were part of the fix of that race that killed Roberto.”

  He pulled back. “What the hell are you talking about, Mike?”

  I took him by the arm. Since I had eighty pounds and six inches on him, it was not difficult to walk him in the direction I had in mind.

  “Like I said, no time to be nice. I’ve seen you ride a hundred times. You’re right-handed. You come out of the gate with the whip in your right hand. That day you had it in your left.”

  “So what?”

  He tried to pull away, but I had him, and we were moving at a good clip.

  “Alone, nothing. But that was the one day that the horse on your left was Victor’s horse, Summer Breeze. She had the blinkers off. Tony Lucas always had blinkers on her because she shies at anything she sees beside her. Put those two together and it’s clear why Summer Breeze veered into Roberto’s path. You just had to flick your whip beside her right eye.”