Once he’d identified himself over the intercom at the huge stone gates, Doyle pointed his car up a long, winding driveway that led through Harvey Rexroth’s Willowdale Farm.
Doyle had driven the eleven miles out from Lexington on a blacktop county road that was flanked on each side by miles of rolling green pasture divided by expensive white fencing. Many of those miles had nineteenth-century stone walls still in place nearer the road.
In contrast to the boom times of the nineteen-eighties, not all of the pastures were replete with thoroughbred horses; many of the fields were empty, others contained grazing beef cattle. While the city of Lexington had experienced a tremendous growth of business in recent years, Fayette County’s most visible and famous industry, horse production, had tailed off sharply.
Still, the scenery was striking. Spring sunlight glistened on dew-laden grass, on which lay, lazed, or romped a variety of thoroughbred horses-from mares in foal, to those with foals at their sides, to the stallions isolated in the imperious splendor of their own paddocks. The white fences bordering the lush acreage of the Willowdale property extended for miles.
When Doyle’s car had curved around the white-gravel driveway and up to the columned portico of the farm’s red-brick mansion, the front door of the enormous structure opened and a small, dark-haired, dark-suited man wearing gold-rimmed glasses motioned Doyle to park in a spot beside the steps. “Good morning,” the man said after Doyle had stepped out of the car.
“I am Byron Stoner, Mr. Rexroth’s executive assistant. If you will please follow me, Mr. Rexroth is almost ready to see you.”
Doyle removed his sunglasses, placing them in a pocket of his tan sport coat. He wore a white short-sleeved shirt, khaki trousers, and Western boots. The complete assistant farm manager’s look, he hoped. He followed Stoner down a long hallway where walls of dark wood were covered with paintings of horses. The hall led to the rear of the mansion.
Glass doors, like those in airports and hotels, slid open as Doyle and Stoner approached. Then they were at the entrance to an enormous tinted-glass structure covered by a retractable dome. The building housed a huge swimming pool, its border dotted with some comfortable-looking beach furniture.
Circling the area that bordered the pool was a beige-colored, slightly banked track around which sped a gorgeous, long-legged, young redhead on inline skates. Doyle did a double take. All she was wearing was blue knee pads, blue elbow pads, and a red headband.
“Well, good morning America, how are ya?” Doyle muttered to himself as the nearly nude figure flashed past him.
He said to Stoner, “Isn’t that kind of dangerous? Without a helmet?”
“She’s a real daredevil, that one,” Stoner said. “She’s one of Mr. Rexroth’s secretaries and companions. As you may have read in the popular press, Mr. Rexroth is a bachelor who loves women.”
“Likes them active, eh?” Doyle said as the redhead zipped through the far turn of the track and headed toward them up the left straightaway. As she swung her arms from side to side, her breasts shifted sideways like cantaloupes in motion.
“Active they must be,” responded Stoner without a trace of irony on his serious face. “Their assignments are considerably more physical than clerical, but Mr. Rexroth demands devotion to duty in all his employees, no matter what those duties may be. Mr. Rexroth is over there,” Stoner said, gesturing toward the far end of the pool.
Doyle saw a thick-bodied man, five feet nine or ten and over 200 pounds, somewhere in his late thirties. He looked to Doyle to have been one of those naturally pudgy children who grew up packing on firm layers of blubber each year into adulthood, where they topped out in the portly section of their tailor’s files. Rexroth was talking on a cellular phone. His resonant baritone voice was angry and loud. The sun, shining through the open dome, bounced off Rexroth’s large, hairless head. Daddy Warbucks in the Blue Grass, Doyle thought.
Rexroth wore a dark-green velour robe. On his feet were gray Nike cross trainers. In his left hand was a baton-sized cigar that he gestured with as he talked into the phone. Asleep next to Rexroth’s right Nike lay a brown and white bulldog. Like Rexroth, the dog had a broad head, big shoulders, and a large, fleshy jaw. Doyle found himself momentarily gawking at the similarity of appearance between man and beast.
About fifteen feet to Rexroth’s left, leaning forward on a white wicker couch and apparently impervious to the phone tirade taking place nearby, was a very large young man who Doyle, from the description supplied by the FBI agents, recognized as Rexroth’s bodyguard, Randy Kauffman. He looked as ominously stupid and strong as they had said. Kauffman was intently watching, on a small color television, the Jerry Springer Show.
Doyle recalled Damon Tirabassi’s description of Kauffman as being “wider than a warehouse door, and just as dumb. He pumps more iron than the Packers, and he eats steroids like popcorn.”
Damon had gone on to say that a Willowdale worker, later fired, reported Kauffman to the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. “This woman,” Damon said, “called in that she had seen Kauffman knock down a horse with one punch. Evidently Rexroth had ordered him to do it, so Kauffman cracks this old mare right between the eyes with a right hand, and down she goes. The ex-worker said Rexroth just was hopping around, laughing at this, calling Kauffman ‘Mongo.’ The point,” Damon said, “is don’t ever let him get his hands on you.”
Doyle returned his attention to Rexroth. The media mogul sat behind a large, marble-topped desk, an impressive piece of furniture completely at odds with the rest of the mini-pavilion’s casual decor. The top of the desk was piled with computer printouts, notepads, newspapers, and a computer that Rexroth impatiently pecked at as he continued to shout into the phone.
“Phillips,” he said, “the reason I made you editor of Horse Racing Journal, the reason you have a huge salary plus an expense count that you’ve padded so much it could win the Pulitzer Prize for fiction-was to boost, that’s BOOST, circulation. Goddamit, my papers don’t LOSE readers, they GAIN them-all except the one you’re editing.
“What? What was that. Bullshit! I don’t want to hear about the Racing Daily having a built-in advantage because it’s been around for five fucking centuries or whatever. It’s ready to be driven out of business, goddamnit. Are you hearing me?
“I want you and that bloated staff of yours to come up with new, different, sensational stories from the racing industry…the Dark Side of the Sport of Kings…jockeys with batteries, crooked trainers, drugged horses…I want those stories and plenty of them.
“I don’t give a shit if they don’t exist. Find them! Fake them! Then put them on page one in headlines you can read from across the street. I want people fighting with each other to buy the Horse Racing Journal every goddam morning, Phillips.
“‘Man Fucks Mare!’ ‘Horse Rapes Jockette!’ Ninety-six point type. That’s what I’m looking for-the racy stuff behind the races, the dirt, the filth, the stuff people love to read!” Rexroth roared.
Finally lowering his voice and allowing the veins in his neck to recede, Rexroth said, “Find those stories, Phillips, or find another job.” He then threw the phone into the swimming pool. Without hesitation, Kauffman got up, grabbed a long-handled fishing net, and adeptly retrieved it. Doyle recognized this as a practiced motion.
Rexroth rose to his feet, briefly shook Doyle’s hand, then motioned him to a chair in front of the desk. The nearly — nude redhead whizzed by on the track behind Rexroth’s chair, her wheels whirring. She peered straight ahead. She was working up a pretty good sweat, Doyle noted, asking himself, I wonder what the other FBI moles are looking at this morning?
Rexroth interrupted this brief reverie with a question, spoken in a voice turned somewhat raspy from the strain of his recent phone call.
“I’ve read your resume, Mr. Doyle,” he said. “Now, I want you to tell me why you want to go to work at Willowdale.”
Spotting the redhead on another revolution of the track, Doyle couldn’t help but respond, “Well, the scenery certainly is attractive.”
“Yes, she’s a winner,” Rexroth agreed. Then he called out, “Darlene, you can take a break now.”
“It’s Darla,” the redhead shouted over her shoulder, irritation obvious in her voice. “Do you need me anymore today?”
“No,” Rexroth said. “I’ll see you tonight. Please send out Deirdre.”
Darla did as she was told and, within seconds, much to Doyle’s amazement, another neo-naked blader appeared on the track, this one a diminutive brunette with legs muscled like those of an Olympic sprinter. How many has he got lined up back there, Doyle wondered, as Deirdre began zipping around the track with quick little strides.
“If you don’t mind me asking,” Doyle said, “how often do the shifts change?”
“As often as I want them to,” Rexroth growled. Then his expression cleared.
“I find the presence of such active beauty to be a remarkable tonic-both physical and mental. Variety…variety kick-starts creativity.
“Variety kick-starts creativity,” he suddenly shouted, startling Doyle, the dozing bulldog, and even the television-watching behemoth.
Rexroth jumped to his feet. “Stoner,” he said to his assistant, “write that down and have bumper stickers made of it for every RexCom employee. Display will be mandatory on each employee’s vehicle. Have the bumper stickers distributed along with paychecks. They’ll be taken more seriously that way.”
Rexroth shook his head, recalling past promotional and motivational schemes that had fallen short of his expectations. “It’s a shame, I sometimes think, that you have to have people working for you in order to run a business.”
Doyle remembered reading, in the background information on Rexroth that the FBI had given him, how the RexCom chairman made it a practice of once each year arriving at each of his major corporate offices to harangue the employees-his “troops.” as he referred to them-while dressed like his hero, General George S. Patton. Rexroth would strut up and down the auditorium stage in front of a huge American flag, snapping a riding crop against his polished boots, bald dome covered by a gleaming silver helmet.
Attendance was mandatory at these performances, so much so that one worried RexCom office manager, hospitalized for hemorrhoid surgery, had himself delivered by ambulance to the auditorium one year in an attempt to demonstrate his fealty. Rexroth fired him anyway once the man had returned to his job. “The troops were paying more attention to that suckass Schullman that day than they were to me,” Rexroth said, in explaining this dismissal.
After Rexroth had riffled through papers that Doyle recognized as his phonied-up resume created by the FBI agents with the cooperation of some prominent West Coast breeders who were eager to be of aid to the agency, the publisher again turned his attention to Doyle.
“I see that Aldous Bolger knows you,” Rexroth said. “He’s quite complimentary about your abilities.”
“Aldous and I go back a long way,” said Doyle, lying resolutely. He then went on to mention other aspects of his fictional career on some of California’s leading horse farms.
“Have you ever trained horses?” Rexroth asked.
“I’ve had some experience on the racetrack,” Doyle replied truthfully, “but I got tired of the traveling around. I’m engaged to be married,” he lied again, “and I thought it was time I tried to find a job with more permanence to it.” He gave Rexroth his most sincere, polished at Serafin Ltd., look. Rexroth didn’t seem either impressed or unimpressed. He looked more uninterested than anything else.
“You know the salary,” he said. “I’ll review your performance with Bolger after your first month, and we’ll see where we stand. Welcome to Willowdale,” Rexroth added, dismissing Doyle as he turned to pick up the slightly damp cellular phone.
Stoner accompanied Doyle out of the pool area and toward the front door. He must have read his boss’ body language, for he said, “Congratulations on your new job, Mr. Doyle.”
Doyle nodded. Then he said to Stoner, “Is that some sort of whirling harem Rexroth has going back there?”
“No, not necessarily. I wouldn’t describe the situation quite in those terms,” the secretary replied. “It’s true that one of the girls occasionally falls into what might be termed Rexrothian favor, and as a result takes up residence in the house. But, by and large, these women are hired for exactly what you see them doing.
“In addition to the rollerblading,” he continued, “Mr. Rexroth’s favorite of their public exercises, they also perform aerobic routines during the course of the day. He insists that the sight of them, the aesthetically pleasing counterpoint they provide to the labors required of him in operating a giant business enterprise, serve to sharpen his acumen.”
“That redhead would have my acumen standing at attention,” Doyle remarked. Stoner ignored it. He said, “Mr. Rexroth does, however, as is quite widely known, have a mistress at his New York City residence, another one on the old family homestead in Montana.” Stoner supplied this information with a touch of pride, perhaps even the hint of a vicarious thrill of possession, Doyle thought.
“Has Rexroth ever been married?”
“No, he has not.” He paused.
“As Mr. Rexroth has commented on more than one occasion, a man of his financial stature has to be extremely cautious. At the same time, as he puts it, the thought of a prenuptial agreement, something de riguer in his level of society these days, causes his ‘cock to shrivel up like a retractable telescope.’
“Not a condition a man with Mr. Rexroth’s appetites would relish,” he added.
As Doyle took one more glance back toward the girl circling the track, he saw a portly black woman, dressed as a hospital attendant, wheeling a food cart toward Rexroth’s desk. Once she’d reached it, the woman lifted a tray off the cart and placed it before Rexroth, who was rubbing his hands in anticipation. He looked up at the black woman, said something to her that Doyle could not hear, gave her a broad smile, then dismissed her with a wave of his hand. Rexroth then began to eat, with obvious relish.
Doyle looked inquiringly at Stoner. The secretary was silent, but Doyle saw that Stoner was watching him out of the corner of his eye. Stoner was waiting for Doyle to bite on this, Doyle just knew it.
“Dare I ask?…” Doyle began, but Stoner interrupted him, perhaps eager to get this explanation over with.
“Since a childhood skiing accident that put him in the hospital for an extended period,” Stoner said, “Mr. Rexroth’s favorite food has been…hospital food. He likes the servers to be as authentic as possible as well.”
Doyle said, “You’re jerking my chain here, aren’t you, Stoner?”
“I am not making this up,” the secretary hissed, shaking his head from side to side.
Doyle said, “Hospital food? In the tradition of, well, hospital food? We’re talking mystery meat, vegetable remnants, jello parts? That’s what you’re telling me?”
Stoner nodded, shrugging his narrow shoulders. In defense of his employer, he said, “It’s obviously one of those acquired tastes that few people ever acquire.”
Stoner smiled thinly as he waited on the front door threshold for Doyle to descend the broad steps of the mansion to his car. The smile left his face as Doyle’s car disappeared down the long drive, and Stoner frowned as he re-entered the mansion and walked to his office. There was something about Jack Doyle-he couldn’t put his finger on it, but it was there-that Stoner found troubling. This, despite the fact that Doyle’s impressive resume and list of references checked out perfectly.
Byron Stoner came from a business background in Toronto where he had worked in RexCom’s Canadian division, specializing in labor relations. Later, this field changed into “human relations,” but the work remained the same: finding the most effective ways to beat down the unions and slash personnel costs.
Stoner’s successes in Toronto brought him to the attention of Harvey Rexroth, and Stoner accepted the offer to become the publisher’s executive assistant, i.e. number one trouble shooter. A lifelong bachelor, with no close family remaining, Stoner had no compunction about crossing the border and eventually becoming engaged in far more serious acts than framing union officials or bribing shop stewards.
Rexroth realized early on that Stoner could be entrusted to do anything, thus leaving his employer at a presumably safe legal remove from possible recriminations. Rexroth once remarked to the little Canadian, “I’m not sure I understand how you know the kind of people we occasionally need to hire for special jobs.”
“Oh, I don’t, Mr. Rexroth,” Stoner had replied. “But I know how to find people who do know what we’re looking for. For the money you’re willing to pay, we can find people willing to do just about anything.”
Rexroth took great pride in having secured the services of Byron Stoner. “Look at him,” Rexroth once commented, “with his thinning hair and those glasses, that expressionless face, he looks like the chief accountant in some backwater button factory. But he’s got no more morals than a musk melon.”
When Stoner entered his office, his phone message light beaconed. It was time for the various RexCom managers to deliver their midday business reports. Stoner was soon immersed in his work, thoughts of Jack Doyle dismissed.