“Now, these things might not add up to a conviction in your case,” she conceded. “But they certainly add up to a package of damning information we could dump on the desk of any legitimate employer you might seek to find work with in the future.
“This is not the kind of background information that’ll lead you to a corner office anywhere. Think about it.”
“Well, well,” said Doyle, “and here I was under the impression that all those old J. Edgar Hoover techniques of threat and implication were things of the past. I thought I’d been hearing all about the ‘New FBI.’ You’re shaking my faith in federal law enforcement.
“I don’t get it,” Doyle continued, genuinely puzzled. “You tell me all this stuff about a fixed race, involving me, you say, but you admit you don’t have a case against me. Still, you make threats about messing me up with future employers. What’s the deal here, folks? Out of the immense citizenry of this great nation, why has your little corner of the Federal Bureau of Investigation selected Jack Doyle’s life to play with?”
Karen looked over at her partner, who nodded for her to continue.
“Actually, Jack, there’s something you could do for us. Something that would serve to wipe your slate clean with us.”
Doyle said angrily, “Whatever you’re talking about, it’s got blackmail written all over it. I know very well how personnel managers react to visits from people like you.”
“Let’s start thinking of this more as an invitation to cooperate,” Karen smiled, “an opportunity to ‘give something back,’ as the professional athletes say. You put one over in one area of the horse business. Maybe we can’t prove it, but you did it. You know it, and we know it. It was unworthy of you, Jack. This is a chance for you to make up for it.
“Just listen to what we have to say. It won’t take long. It’s not distasteful, or dangerous, but it might actually prove satisfying to a risk-taker like you. And it’s in your best interests,” Karen added.
“You’re serious about this, aren’t you?” Doyle said in amazement. “What the hell could I do for the FBI?”
Tirabassi broke his silence. “You ever hear of a man named Harvey Rexroth?”
Chapter 6
Twenty minutes later, Doyle and the two FBI agents sat in a well-worn, high-backed red booth at the rear of Petros’ Restaurant, two blocks from Doyle’s apartment.
When it appeared that his conversation with Engel and Tirabassi was going to go on for some time, Doyle told them, “Look, this is all very interesting. But I’m not exactly at the top of my game this morning. I need some breakfast.”
“I assume you mean ‘Not here,’” Karen said, grimacing in the direction of Doyle’s refrigerator.
“The only time I eat in is when I have carry out,” Doyle said. “Let’s go down the street.”
Petros’ was one of the thousands of Greek-owned restaurants in Chicago, the vast majority of them featuring reasonable prices, decent food, and moderate pretensions. Petros, Doyle informed the agents as they walked south on Clark Street, was a bald-headed import from Mikos who was convinced he looked exactly like the old television detective Kojak, portrayed by Telly Savalas, and loved to be referred to by the actor’s first name.
As they entered and walked toward the back booth, Doyle gave his usual greeting to Petros, who was seated at a table with clear sight lines to the cash register and its buxom female operator. “Hello, Smelly-no, Telly,” Doyle called out. Petros scowled. “Go sit down, Jeck, I’ll tell Gus to start up burning your eggs.”
Karen ordered a muffin, Tirabassi just coffee. “Give me the full load, Elaine,” Doyle said to the waitress. When it arrived, that proved to be scrambled eggs, hash browns, sausages, and three slices of buttered toast.
Karen shook her head. “Cholesterol concerns aren’t exactly on your front page, are they?”
Doyle grinned. “Not a factor, my dear. I come from a long line of Micks that thrived on bacon and eggs until they died in ripe old age. My cholesterol count is almost in a dead heat with my weight, one-sixty. When we’d take our annual physicals at Serafin Ltd., my doctor used to turn pale with envy every time he reported this to me. He’d throw the test results down on his desk and spit out the information.”
Tirabassi finished his first cup of coffee. “Do you think we could get back to the matter at hand, Doyle? Or are you going start bragging about your triglyceride count?”
The matter at hand, and particularly the subject of Harvey Rexroth, was not one he was “tremendously familiar with,” Doyle admitted. “I know who Rexroth is, some kind of media mogul. He’s mentioned in the papers every once in awhile, or there’ll be his photo at some fund raiser. Homely-looking sucker, as I recall. But,” Doyle asked as he finished his third piece of toast, “where does he come into this picture of yours that’s got me in it?”
Over the next hour, interrupted only by the periodic appearances of Elaine the waitress with coffee refills, the two agents combined to provide a summarized oral biography of Harvey Theodore Rexroth, age forty-four, owner of palatial homes in Kentucky, Florida, and Montana and a $12 million condo in New York City where his business was headquartered.
Harvey Rexroth descended from a family of wealthy Montana ranchers, their presence in the Treasure State tracing back to the turn of the century. Harvey’s great-grandfather, Horace, maintained two hundred thousand sheep on thousands of cheaply acquired acres. Horace for years was known in the West as the Mogul of Mutton.
His eldest grandson, Harold, was the first to branch out into business beyond the borders of the wide-open ranges. Sent east for schooling, he was graduated from Harvard, then its Business School, and soon began to diversify his family’s holdings, acquiring newspapers all over the West and Southwest. Later, following the Reagan Administration’s deregulation of the communications industry, he began adding radio and television stations to the huge media company that became known as RexCom.
Harold was recognized one of the most belligerent, avaricious, and successful figures in that sector of American commerce, “which is saying something,” as Karen pointed out. He was hated by his rivals and despised by many of his employees, which was no surprise, since Harold was as niggardly and notional as most of his fellow media barons. Rexroth’s workers were for the most part underpaid, yet expected to perform Herculean tasks at an accelerated pace. Harold Rexroth was well known in journalistic circles for his oft-repeated pronouncement that “editors are a dime a dozen, and reporters come cheaper.” He was a very popular speaker at national newspaper publisher conventions.
Harold Rexroth choked to death on a piece of lamb chop nine years earlier. This had happened when he was having dinner in a New York restaurant with four RexCom executives, none of whom, they claimed later, was familiar with the Heimlich Maneuver.
Harold’s son Harvey Rexroth inherited control of RexCom, whose other family-member minority shareholders he treated like steerage passengers on his great ship of commerce. He was as penurious, conceited, and arrogant “as his daddy,” Tirabassi said, “but there is one big difference between Harvey and Harold-Harvey is as twisted as they come. His old man may have been a tyrant and a tightwad, but he was no crookeder than his competitors. You can’t say that about Harvey.”
“Other than being rich and famous, what crime has Harvey committed?” Doyle asked.
“That’s where you come into the picture, Doyle,” Tirabassi replied. “Rexroth is involved in thoroughbred racing and breeding in a number of ways. You’ve had some exposure to the racing part of it. Exposure of a criminal nature,” the agent added accusingly. “But before we get to your role, you need to hear some additional background.” He nodded to Karen.
“RexCom for the most part is a thriving company,” she began. “Harvey, despite his numerous quirks, has been a very able businessman, following in his father’s footsteps-with one very major exception.