the money.”
“Thibideau ought to handicap him a little better.”
“Mr. Thibideau, he keeps tryin‟, y‟know, hopin‟ the horse‟ll show a little more stamina. You wanna
know what I think, the pony‟s a stretch runner. He won‟t have it t run wide open them last three
furlongs. Also he was favouring his left front gam. Anyways, I got another ride.”
“When was he favouring the leg?”
“Just after the race. Probably got a pebble in his shoe. I told Smokey about it.”
“Well, good luck today,” Callahan said, and we moved outside. The fog had burned off and left
behind a beautiful day, with
a cool breeze under a cloudless sky.
Callahan said, “That was probably Greek to you.”
“I followed it pretty well. I just don‟t understand the drift of it
As we walked around the corner of the cafeteria, I got my first good look at the track and whistled
between my teeth.
“Impressive, huh?” Callahan said.
Impressive was an understatement.
It sprawled out in the morning sun, a white structure framed against a forest of trees. It was three tiers
high with cupolas on each end and a glass clubhouse that stretched from one end of the top floor to
the other. The designer had modelled the building after Saratoga and other venerable tracks. It looked
like it had been there for fifty years. There were azalea gardens to give it colour and giant oak trees
standing sentinel at its corners. Great care had obviously been taken to remove only those trees
necessary. The parking lot even had freestanding oaks and pines breaking up the blacktop. It was a
stunning sight arid, I had to admit, a tribute to Harry Raines‟ taste. The clubhouse windows sparkled
in the morning sun, and in the infield the grass was the colour of emeralds.
“Wow!” I said.
“Some nice operation,” Callahan agreed.
The Mercedes was gone.
I decided to get back to the subject at hand.
“Why are you so interested in Disaway?” I asked.
“He was two horse in the third race Sunday.”
“Is that good luck or something?”
“Remember the tape Sunday night?”
“How could anybody forget it?”
“You forgot something,” Callahan said. “Tagliani told Stinetto it was a fix for the four horse in the
third heat.”
“I still don‟t get the point.”
“The four horse was Midnight Star. He went off as place favourite, eight to one, won, paid a bundle.
The favourite was Disaway. Wasn‟t set up for Midnight Star to win, was set up for Disaway to lose.
No sense any other way. Sunday, everything was A-one for him, up against a weak field, track was
soft, he went off a five-to-two favourite. Strolled in eighth.”
“Eighth!”
“It can happen. We all have bad days.”
“So the trick was to slow Disaway down?” I said.
Callahan nodded. “Midnight Star romped first, paid $46.80. You bet Midnight Star, you got $46. 8 for
every two bucks you put down. Figure it out, bet a thousand bucks, go home with $23,400
smackers—not a bad day‟s work. My way of thinking, Disaway wasn‟t just having a bad day
Sunday.”
“Supposing Midnight Star had a bad day?”
Callahan smiled. “That‟s horse racing,” he said.
“How did they do it? Make him lose, I mean?”
“Lots of ways. Legal ways.”
“You think the jockey was in on it?‟
“Maybe, not likely. Scoot doesn‟t like Thibideau or the trainer. He‟s a straight-up kid; like to think it
wasn‟t him.”
“How about the trainer?”
“Smokey? Maybe again, but he was pissed because he thought the boy booted the horse early. Didn‟t
know Thibideau told him to.”
“So that makes it the owner?”
“Looks that way. Thing is, Tagliani knew about it. Tagliani got wasted couple of hours later. Maybe
there‟s no connection, but got to think about the possibilities.”
“So what do we do about it, go to Raines?”
“Can‟t. Illegal wiretap. Dutch can‟t afford to have anybody know about it. No tape, all we got‟s
guesswork.”
“So we forget it?”
“I don‟t forget it,” he said ominously. “Happens once, it‟ll happen again.”
165
31
INVITATION
I was tired of the track and anxious to get back to town. There
were a lot of loose ends that needed tying up and I suddenly felt
out of touch with things. It was pushing noon, so I told Callahan
I needed to make a phone call or two arid then I‟d grab a cab
back to town.
“Stick‟s on his way out,” Callahan said. “Back gate, fifteen minutes.”
“How do you know that?” I asked, wondering whether Callahan was psychic in addition to his other
talents.
“Arranged it last night,” he said, and added in his cryptic dialogue, “Due at the clubhouse. See ya.”
“Thanks for the education,” I said.
Callahan stood for a moment appraising me and then nodded. “Disaway runs again Thursday
afternoon. Ought to be here.”
“It‟s a date,” I said.
He started to leave, then turned back around and offered rue his hand. “You‟re okay,” he said. “Like a
guy who listens. Thought maybe you‟d turn out to be a know-everything.”
“What I don‟t know would fill the course.”
“You know plenty,” he said, turning and heading across the infield toward the clubhouse.
I went looking for a phone to check the hotel for messages. By daylight, I had started having second
thoughts about the night before. I knew some of the phone calls bad been from Dutch. I wondered
whether any of them had been Doe calling.
I was walking past the stables when I heard her voice.
“Jake?”
The voice came from one of the stalls. I peered inside but saw nothing, so I went in cautiously. I could
hear a horse grumbling and stomping his foot and the pungent odor of hay and manure tickled my
nose, but my eyes were slow adjusting to the dark stable after leaving the bright sunlight.
“Are you going blind in your old age?” she said from behind me. I turned around and she was
standing in the doorway, framed against the brash sunlight, like a ghost. My eyes gradually picked out
details. She was all dolled up in jodhpurs, a Victorian blouse with a black bow tie, and a little black
derby. Twenty years vanished, just like that. She looked eighteen again, standing there in that outfit,
scratching her thigh with her riding crop. My knees started bending both ways. I felt as awkward as a
schoolboy at his first dance.
“You could have called,” she chided, as if she were scolding a kid for stealing cookies.
“I got tied up,” I said.
She came over to me and ran the end of the riding crop very gently down the edge of my jaw and
down my throat, stopping at that soft depression where the pulse hides.
“I can see your heart beating,” she said.
“I don‟t doubt it for a moment.”
“Can you forgive me?”
“For what?”
“Twenty years ago?”
“There‟s nothing to forgive,” I lied. “Those things happen.”
She shook her head slowly and moved closer. “No,” she said, “there‟s a lot to forgive. A lot to forget,
if you can forget that kind of thing.”
“What kind of thing?”
“You know what I‟m talking about,” she said evasively.
“Look, Doe, I. .
She put the tip of the crop against my lips, cutting off the sentence.
“Please don‟t say anything. I‟m afraid you‟re going to say something I don‟t want to hear.”
I didn‟t know how to answer that, sc I just stood there like a fool, grinning awkwardly, wondering if