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 the 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 nieces, 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.
“And Uncle Merle lived in just darned good health to ninety-seven and three-quarters. Hunted right up to the end, too,” the general said proudly, before he suddenly clutched his chest and keeled over sideways onto the floor of the gondola.
Jockey Willie Arroyo, who normally chattered away to Beth Anderson, the pony girl accompanying the Willowdale horses in every post parade, was silent this afternoon. Beth usually just nodded without really listening to Willie’s rapid talk, but she found its absence now to be somewhat unsettling.
“What’s wrong, Willie?” she grinned, her blond ponytail swishing as she turned to face him from her big white pony as they proceeded toward the starting gate. “It’s only another half- million-dollar race. Those little nuts of yours aren’t shriveling up even smaller, are they?”
Arroyo barely heard her. His usually laughing and expressive countenance was grim, marked only by a frown. He patted Lancaster Lad on the right side of his neck, then stood in the stirrups to begin jogging the horse slowly forward. When the brown colt responded, Arroyo looked even more worried than he had moments earlier.
Seeing Arroyo’s concern, Beth Anderson turned serious. “Hey, babe, I was only kidding with you,” she said. There was no reply, so Beth asked: “Willie, what’s wrong here? Do you feel something? Is this horse sore, or what?”
They were almost at the gate, now, where the eight other Heartland Derby starters already waited to be loaded, some patiently, some having to be rotated in circles by members of the gate crew before their turns came. A dark bay filly named Nurse on Call balked and had to be hustled forward by assistant starters who locked arms behind her and pushed her into her slot. The others began to enter willingly, Bunny’s Al whinnying eagerly as he moved forward.
Beth reached over and unhooked the shank from Lancaster Lad. Willie Arroyo finally turned to face her. “Theez horse don’t,” he said, “theez horse don’t seem….”
Then Arroyo stopped talking. As the assistant starter took hold of Lancaster Lad’s bridle and pulled him forward, Arroyo took one last look back at Beth Anderson. He lifted his shoulders in a mighty shrug, flipped his goggles down and turned to face the racetrack that stretched before him beneath the bright October sun.
As the first of the Heartland Derby horses was being loaded into the starting gate, track announcer Calvin Gemmer momentarily interrupted his memorizing of the jockeys’ colors and lifted his binoculars skyward. He spotted a red, white, and blue hot-air balloon that was heading toward the track property in distressed fashion: zigging, zagging, yo-yoing up and down.
Gemmer switched on his in-house intercom and reached track publicity director Dan Zenner. “Have we got some kind of balloon promotion I should be mentioning?” the announcer asked. “Not that I know of,” came the reply. “Okay, just checking,” Gemmer answered.
Gemmer took one more quick, concerned glance at the balloon, which continued to weave and lose altitude as it approached. It was now about three-quarters of a mile south of the track’s main parking lot. With his high-powered glasses, Gemmer could discern uneven writing on the long, broad banner that trailed behind the balloon. What he saw was ROOT AGAINST LAN. LAD-THE TYRANTS HORSE.
A sudden wind shift revealed the message on the other side of the same banner: LITHUANIA…. 4EVER.
“What the hell is that all about?” the announcer said, startling his audience, for he had uncharacteristically forgotten that his microphone was turned on. But, old pro that he was, Gemmer quickly got back in his normal groove. “They’re all in the gate.…Aaand they’re off!” began his description of the Heartlands Derby.
“It’s a good thing geldings can’t understand that term,” Doyle grinned, speaking to the grim-faced Karen who was concentrating on the horses passing before her, “otherwise they might be too embarrassed to run.
“Oh, come on, Engel, ease up,” he added, “it’s only a horse race. In about thirty seconds or so, take a look back up there at Rexroth-I guarantee you’ll start enjoying this.”
“That’s Agile Andy going right for the early lead,” Gemmer announced, “Jean’s Tom lapped on him to the outside. Next comes Bunny’s Al, who is down on the rail and saving ground. He’s followed by Nurse on Call, Jimminy Quicket, Kaplan’s Dream, Pennoyer Park, Friar of Foxdale and Capper Rick. As they curve into the backstretch favored Lancaster Lad is the trailer, ten lengths behind the leader.”
Karen now had turned from watching the race to watching Rexroth. Above his binoculars, trained on the field as it approached the far turn, she could see the look of concern on his face. He momentarily dropped the glasses and, looking perplexed, said something to Stoner, who shrugged without answering. Rexroth’s jaw tightened as he put the binoculars back up to his eyes.
“Midway of the far turn, Agile Andy is drifting out and beginning to tire. Moving through the hole on the inside is Jean’s Tom, who takes command by a length. Bunny’s Al is also on the move along the rail. The rest of the field remains strung out and Lancaster Lad continues to trail, although Willie Arroyo is already asking him for his best….”
“Check him out,” Karen said excitedly to Doyle. Jack stood up and turned around to look at the Rexroth box. As he did, he saw the red-faced publisher throw his binoculars to the floor of the box, then begin pounding his big fists on the railing in front of him. A man in the adjacent box said something to him, and Rexroth snarled a reply that caused the man to hurriedly turn away.
“Bunny’s Al and Jean’s Tom are head and head for the lead as they reach the eighth-pole. Friar of Foxdale has found his best stride and is putting in a big run and Pennoyer Park is also gaining ground.
“With a sixteenth to go, Bunny’s Al begins to edge clear as Jean’s Tom gives way. But here comes Friar of Foxdale with a tremendous late charge! He’s eating up ground with every stride. Jesse Black is asking Bunny’s Al for everything he has. They’re neck and neck approaching the finish line.
“Here’s the wire. Bunny’s Al hangs on by a head over Friar of Foxdale in a tremendous running of the Heartland Derby. Capper Rick closes well to take third money, another three lengths back, with Pennoyer Park in fourth….Bringing up the rear of the field is favored Lancaster Lad, who just didn’t have it today.”
Ignoring the exciting race that had gone on behind them, Doyle and Karen kept their eyes on Rexroth. Before Bunny’s Al was called the winner and Lancaster Lad the trailer, Rexroth had already begun to leave his box and head for the racetrack apron.
“Let’s go,” Karen said. “We’ll follow him down there.”
She and Jack began to move. But Damon Tirabassi still stood, transfixed, watching the video replay of the Heartlands Derby finish on the jumbotron television in the track’s infield. He was completely caught up in it.
Doyle said, “Maybe Agent Straight Arrow bet this winner. Look at him!”
Karen grabbed Damon’s arm and yanked. “For God’s sakes, Damon,” she said, “let’s go!”
“That was something!” Tirabassi said, excited by the thrilling contest he’d just witnessed. Then Damon resumed what Karen termed his Hoover mask and they all moved swiftly down the aisle to the winner’s circle.
Frantic now as the balloon continued its zig-zagging course, Red Marchik looked down at General Belliard. Then he knelt awkwardly in the cramped gondola and put an ear to the stricken man’s chest. The general’s face was fish belly white, his eyes rolled up in his head. Red said excitedly, “He is still alive. He is still alive!”
Red struggled to his feet, his big red face now the color of a hydroponic tomato. “We’re going to…We’re going to…Junior, goddammit, do you know to drive this thing? Of course you don’t. What the hell kind of a deal is this?” Red shouted.
He again looked down at their motionless leader. “You suppose he got hit by that squirrel virus?” Red asked.
Junior, ashen, remained silent. Wanda said, “Looks more like a heart attack to me.”
The balloon basket lurched sideways, then downward. Junior fumbled with the fuel controls, looking wildly about him. The general’s head lolled on the floor of the gondola.
“Jesus, Wanda,” cried her panicked husband, “give him some of that CRP.”
“That course I took was CPR, Red,” Wanda said as she gazed warily down at General Belliard. “Cardio-Pulmonary Resurrection. But I don’t know that I’m about to CPR a man with part of a squirrel hanging out of his mouth.”
Suddenly the gondola dropped several more feet. Red’s face lost its deep crimson shade, converting rapidly to a hue reminiscent of lime Gatorade. Seeing this, Wanda reluctantly bent to her task. She felt the general’s heart leap back into proper gear, but he remained unconscious.
Red and Junior, meanwhile, began battling for control of the blast valve, Junior attempting to open it up, Red struggling to close it. In the midst of this standoff, as the combatants almost trampled Wanda and the general, the balloon began descending rapidly in the direction of the Heartland Downs racing strip.
Harvey Rexroth rolled down the aisle steps toward the racetrack like a boulder down a mountain. The people who didn’t see him coming he bumped out of his way. Stoner and Kauffman struggled to keep up.
Rexroth was recognized as he descended the stairs. “Guaranteed winner? Guaranteed my ass, you big phony,” one man shouted. Others began to boo and curse. Suddenly, in the midst of this beautiful afternoon, it began to sound like a drunk and disappointed football crowd at Soldier Field in the late minutes of another Chicago Bears drubbing.
When Rexroth and his men arrived at trackside, Bunny’s Al was being led into the winner’s circle. Rexroth brushed past the winning owners, Maureen Hoban and E. D. Morley, and rumbled through the opening leading to the racing strip. He waved vigorously at jockey Willie Arroyo. “You, rider, bring that horse over here,” he ordered.
One of trainer Kenny Gutfreund’s grooms put a shank on Lancaster Lad’s halter and held the horse as Arroyo dismounted. There was no jubilant, high-flying leap this time; the jockey slithered off the sweaty, tired horse. He started to say something to Rexroth, but when he spotted Doyle and the agents approaching, Arroyo neatly stepped around them toward the scales and weighed in. He then scurried up the tunnel and out of sight.
The flustered Rexroth, turning and seeing Doyle, did a double take. “What’s going on here, Doyle? Who are these people with you?”
Without waiting for answers, Rexroth turned on trainer Gutfreund. “What have you got to say about what happened here?” he shouted. Gesturing toward Lancaster Lad, he said, “That can’t be my horse. Not the way he ran. There’s been some kind of foul-up here, Gutfreund. I’m holding you responsible.”
Damon Tirabassi said, “No, it’s you, Rexroth, who is going to be held responsible.”
“For what? Held responsible for what? And who the hell are you?”
As Karen stepped forward to join Damon in showing their FBI badges, Doyle said to Rexroth, “You’re going to be held responsible for a list of things as long as your upcoming prison serial number. Including running the right horse this afternoon-not the wrong one that you planned to run.”
Rexroth’s jaw dropped. He watched as Damon Tirabassi waved down the track at a groom who was waiting with a bay horse. Tirabassi motioned the young woman forward. Rexroth took a step backward as they approached.
The bay horse pranced and danced as he moved toward them, his coat glistening in the late afternoon sunlight. Muscles rippled as he stepped lightly along. Playfully, he threw his head from side to side, eyes alight. Bred for the racetrack, the son of Donna Diane was finally on one for the very first time.
Karen Engel called out, “Will the horse identifier help us here now?”
Chuck Tilton stepped forward. The longtime identifier for the state of Illinois looked almost as puzzled now as when, a half-hour earlier, Karen had phoned him in his track office and requested that he come to the winner’s circle following the Heartland Derby. “Bring Lancaster Lad’s papers with you, please,” Karen had asked. This was a first for Tilton-checking out a horse after a race.
Curious fans began to crowd up to the winner’s circle fence. Bunny’s Al had been photographed, unsaddled, and led away to the test barn, but the confrontation involving Rexroth had served to delay the presentation of the Heartland Derby trophy. Maureen, E. D., and jockey Jesse Black waited impatiently for that ceremony. They were still fizzing with the excitement of this biggest win of their lives, Doyle could see, but at the same time were as puzzled as the fans who lined the fence. When E. D. came over to Doyle, he asked quietly, “Jack, what’s going down here, man?” Doyle glanced at Morley. “Keep out of this, E. D.,” he answered in a low voice.
As he had only fifteen minutes earlier in the paddock prior to the race, the identifier opened up Lancaster Lad’s mouth. He compared the numerals on the horse’s upper lip to those on the registration papers in Karen’s hand. Then Tilton moved over to the other bay horse. Rexroth attempted to sidle rearward at this point, but Damon strengthened his grip on the publisher’s arm.
“I’ll be damned,” Tilton said after he’d examined the second horse. “This sumbitch’s got the same ID as that horse right there,” he said, motioning toward Lancaster Lad. “Except,” he added, “this one’s a helluva lot newer.”
Agent Ebner elbowed his way through the crowd with Earlene Klinder in tow. The horse tattooer from Kentucky, one elbow in Ebner’s large hand, held her other arm across her chest as if she was going to recite the Pledge of Allegiance. Fearfully, she glanced about her before her eyes settled on Byron Stoner.
Once Doyle had told Damon and Karen what to look for, Earlene had not been hard to track down. There were only a handful of horse tattooers in Kentucky. Earlene was the third one on the list to be questioned, and she cracked almost at once, motivated by fear of prison time and leaving her twins to fend for themselves in foster homes.
“Yessir,” said Earlene, “that’s the man that hired me-the short one, standing next to the fat fella. He’s the one paid me to tattoo the horse over at Willowdale with the identification numbers he gave me.”
Stoner sighed, then took off his gold-rimmed glasses and began to polish them. Earlene, cloaked in the armor of immunity granted her because of her cooperation, began to breathe more normally. “And that big lug held the horse while I worked on him,” she said righteously, pointing at Randy Kauffman.
Doyle leaned close to Rexroth’s large, sweaty face. Rexroth’s eyes darted about as sweat beads multiplied on his bald head. “Isn’t that an amazing coincidence?” Doyle said softly.
Rexroth gathered himself. “I don’t understand you people,” he barked. Pointing to Lancaster Lad, he said, “What’s going on here with this horse of mine?”
“No, no, Rexy, you’re too modest,” Doyle answered. “We’re not talking about one horse of yours-we’re talking about two. Two horses that belong to you.
“This one here”-Doyle nodded toward Lancaster Lad, who was still dripping wet and blowing from his race efforts-“was shipped to Willowdale last week. I saw him come in.
“And I saw him get his butt kicked over your training track last week by this one here,” Doyle continued, walking over to the prancing bay horse, “who has been living down at beautiful Willowdale all of his life. Who he really is, I sure as hell don’t know. But that doesn’t matter to me. What matters is who he isn’t-he isn’t Lancaster Lad, as you tried to pass him off to be.”
Rexroth started to say something, but Stoner stepped in front of him.
“Stay out of the way, Stoner,” Doyle said. “Your boss wants to ask how I know about this-how these horses got switched so that Rexroth’s guaranteed winner got beat the length of a football field.
“I’ll tell you how I switched these two horses in their stalls at Willowdale two nights ago. They both had halters that said Lancaster Lad, but the halter on the farm’s bay horse was bright and shiny new. So, I took it off him and put it on the new arrival from the racetrack, the real Lancaster Lad. And I took that horse’s halter off him and put it on your homegrown prodigy. Then I switched the horses in the stalls your man Pedro had put them in.”
Doyle poked a forefinger into the middle of Rexroth’s power tie. “When Pedro came to get your fast bay horse the next morning for shipping up here, for your so-called publicity and betting coup, what he got was the real Lancaster Lad.”
Rexroth’s mouth opened, but he couldn’t manage to convert the garbled sounds into a statement. Damon Tirabassi said, “Interestingly enough, Mr. Rexroth, the bay horse over here”-he pointed to the frisky imposter-“was discovered in a search of your property last night. Acting on a tip from a very reliable source, we served the warrant on Mr. Doyle, your acting farm manager. He cooperated by taking us to the barn this horse was in. We transferred this horse up here today.
“Matter of fact,” Damon said, almost permitting himself a grin, “his horse van had an official escort all the way from Lexington to Chicago. Very unusual for the Bureau.”
Shaking his head in mock dismay, Doyle looked at Rexroth. “You know that old saying around the racetrack, ‘That horse is so slow he couldn’t beat a fat man’? Well, fat man, here’s a slow horse that sure as hell beat you.”
Rexroth said, “I’m not listening to any more of this nonsense.” He began to move away when Damon commanded, “Grab him and hold him.” As the astonished Rexroth was handcuffed, Karen faced him. “And that’s not all,” she said calmly.
At her signal, agent Kamin came through the crowd, pushing Ronald Mortvedt ahead of him. The little man had a sizable bandage on his cheek, covering the cut that Doyle’s fist had inflicted. Mortvedt looked impassively at Rexroth. But when his gaze found Doyle, it carried a charge filled with hate.
“Rexy,” said Doyle, grinning and putting an arm around the publisher’s shoulders, “these colleagues of yours, your fellow criminals, they sold you out and sewed up the case against you. It was a beautiful thing. Dishonor among thieves gaining momentum like a tidal wave. They could hardly wait to give you up, once the picture was made clear to them.
“First, Jud Repke saw the wisdom of telling the truth to the FBI about horse killings on your property. He thought he was a little underpaid, by the way. And Jud was real good in recalling the search for the look-alike horse. That’s what he called the horse he and Mortvedt found in New Mexico, the horse nearly identical to the one you tried to slip into the Heartland Derby today. Old Jud, he was off key at first, but then he got into the sing of things, so to speak,” Doyle said, thoroughly enjoying himself now, as if he were rhythmically drumming the light bag in the gym.
“And that poor little woman that Stoner bribed, the horse tattooer over there? She was what you’d call extremely forthright as well.
“But the star of the linking-everything-to-Rexroth show was that little monster over there,” Doyle said, pointing at Mortvedt. “When it got down to a choice between a reduced prison sentence and nailing your fat ass to the wall, Ronnie got his vocal cords and his testimony in order. Like his buddy Jud, he was kind of miffed over the level of payments you made to him-once he found out the true worth of those insurance policies you were collecting on.
“Ronnie kept a real good record of your payments to him, though-dates, names of the horses you told him to kill. Not to mention the mare you paid him to steal and then kill after she’d foaled the look-alike horse.
“You’re going down, Rexy,” Doyle said with relish, “like a cannonball tossed off the Sears Tower.”
For the first time, Rexroth’s armor of conceit began to melt. He looked at Doyle, then pleadingly at Stoner. As he started to speak, Stoner interjected quickly, “Let the attorneys deal with this.” But Rexroth ignored him. “Why you?” Rexroth said to Doyle. “I don’t understand….”
“It’s a long story,” Doyle said, “but the upshot of it is that Aldous Bolger, he’s a friend of mine.
“There’s a price to be paid for what happened to him. You’re going to be one of the people paying it.”
Four hundred feet above the Heartland Downs infield, General Belliard’s balloon continued its errant descent. The general remained unconscious. Red Marchik had now fought off Junior Kozol and was in charge of the controls. He had no clue as to how or where to land the hated contraption. The centuries-old Marchik paranoia genes boiled and burbled in Red as he fumbled about in the rapidly diminishing altitude.
Track announcer Calvin Gemmer gawked at the approaching balloon. He grabbed his microphone. With an urgency usually reserved for photo finishes, Gemmer shouted, “People, get out of the way down there at the winner’s circle, get out of the way. That’s a balloon coming down at you…GET OUT OF THE WAY, PEOPLE!!”
The fans bunched around the winner’s circle started to scatter. As he looked skyward, Damon Tirabassi blanched, then ordered, “Get them out of here.” With a glance over her shoulder at the oncoming balloon, which was obviously out of control and heading straight for them, Karen Engel grabbed Earlene Klinder’s arm and hustled her toward shelter. The other FBI agents moved quickly to get Rexroth, Stoner, and Kauffman into the paddock tunnel, which by now was becoming crowded with fleeing fans.
As Doyle started to follow Maureen and E. D. Morley into safe range from what appeared to be a rapidly impending disaster, he realized that the only person remaining in the winner’s circle was Ronald Mortvedt. His guard, agent Ebner, had moved to assist in the removal of Rexroth, leaving the ex-jockey behind him in what he thought was the custody of agent Kamin. Doyle had no idea how this mix-up had occurred, but he didn’t like what he was seeing. He felt his stomach tighten as Mortvedt glared at him.
Never looking either back or upward, Mortvedt began to move purposefully toward Doyle across the twenty feet that divided them. His progress was remarkably unhurried.
“You’re not gettin’ away with what you done to me, mister,” Mortvedt said as he advanced, fists clenched. “You got somethin’ comin’ from me.”
Doyle pivoted to run, not from Mortvedt but from the onrushing balloon he could see dropping from the sky behind the little man. It was headed directly for the winner’s circle. In a reflex action that he would later chide himself for, Doyle shouted to Mortvedt, “Look out, look out, it’s coming right at you….”
So determined was he to reach the man responsible for his capture, Ronald Mortvedt did not heed Jack Doyle’s warning, never looked up at the out-of-control, brightly colored vehicle that was plummeting directly toward him.
The platform of General Oscar Belliard’s balloon landed on Ronald Mortvedt like an elevator car cut loose from its cables. The impact of one of the balloon’s two propane tanks hitting Mortvedt’s head made a horrible thunking noise. Immediately, the balloon bounced back up into the air. Beneath it Mortvedt lay face down, the back of his head crumpled. His left cheek had been nearly ripped off, and the blood from that wound spread on the ground. Nearby, grooms struggled to control the two terrified horses that were attempting to back away from the scene.
As the balloon rose, Wanda Marchik leaned out of the wicker basket, making a series of soprano whoops the content of which no one on the ground could make out. However, two of the FBI agents and a groom leaped forward to grab the line she’d dropped from the balloon. Junior Kozol unleashed another line from the other side, and that too was snatched by helpful bystanders. Tugging mightily, they combined to haul the balloon back to earth. Its wicker platform settled directly atop Ronald Mortvedt.
The only part of Mortvedt now visible was his left foot, encased in a small black boot that protruded from under the balloon wreckage. The Marchiks and Junior Kozol remained enwrapped in the ravaged envelope of the balloon as track workers rushed to extricate them.
Karen Engel ran forward from the paddock tunnel, her face pale.
“My God, Jack,” she said, “it looks just like The Wizard of Oz…with the Wicked Witch of the West’s foot sticking out from under the barn door after the tornado. There’s no way Mortvedt’s alive under there,” Karen added with a shudder. “Did you see the way that metal tank cracked into him?”
“He had all of that coming, and more.”