The Significant Seven (13 page)

From the left of the stage emerged a couple of twenty-somethings. The girl was stylish in a black cocktail dress, her companion in a suit similar to Fifi Bonadio’s. She was beautiful, slim, dark-complexioned, long legged, a bountiful bust above her small waist. “She looks a lot like her late grandmother. Feef’s late wife was a dazzler,” Moe whispered to Doyle. Angela waved to the crowd. Briggs stood next to her in the spotlight, gripping her left hand like a watchful attendant. He was a sturdy lad, blond hair close-cropped, a confident look on his handsome face. Doyle was reminded of some of the college jocks he had known, wrestlers mainly.

All the people in the room were now on their feet. Bonadio stopped his loud applauding to say to Moe, “This kid Briggs, he’s a good kid. Not one of us, but a good kid. I vetted him out real good. Angela’s crazy about him. They’ll do fine. Briggs will take over that bank of ours down in Park Forest, I’ll start him there. Angela still wants to keep teaching at Parker School, so they’re going to live in the Lincoln Park condo I bought them.”

Moe raised his Negroni. “
Salud
, Feef.” They bumped glasses. Doyle sat down. He said to the solicitous waiter, Bruno, “Another Bushmills.”

Tony Molinaro asked the crowd to be seated. Into the microphone he shouted, “Let the gifts begin.”

In the next half-hour, Doyle looked on in amazement. Backstage workers began by wheeling out a fifty- inch flat screen TV, then a CD player and Bose speakers, compliments, Tony Molinaro said, “of our friend Peter Salerno, the asphalt king.”

Next came a set of expensive-looking living room furniture, “compliments of Chicago’s prince of produce, Joe Pomponi.” Cartons of crockery and china and cutlery followed, the contributor of each loudly identified and applauded. As the bedroom set was trundled forth, emcee Molinaro had in his mind a risqué cheer of his own. But when he peered through the spotlight at Bonadio, he changed his mind. A hulking refrigerator, two smaller television sets, an antique dining room table “from nearly the time of the Borgias,” Molinaro joked, were placed on the crowded stage. At the arrival of each present, Angela and Carson hugged and clapped and waved their thanks.

Midway through this parade of houseware and appliances, Doyle signaled Bruno for a refill. He tried to compose himself. He knew the look on his face must be an alcohol-driven one of mirth and amazement at this exhibition of extravagance. He ignored what he knew to be Moe’s occasional warning looks. Bonadio’s eyes remained riveted on Angela.

The band struck an attention-getting chord that ended in a flourish. The lights dimmed. It took four attendants to push into the stage spotlight the blue and white Mini Cooper convertible that, Molinaro shouted, was a “special gift to Angela from her proud grandpa, our host tonight, Mr. Fifi Bonadio.” The room erupted in applause. Angela hugged Carson before running down the stairs from the stage to embrace Bonadio. The band played on.

Doyle excused himself and went to the washroom. Rick Fasulo got up from their table and walked beside him. “Amazing stuff,” Doyle said to the big ex-Bear. “Oh, yeah,” Fasulo grunted. Andreoli walked on Fasulo’s other side, equally large and noncommital.

Dinner was served family style. On their table, Doyle watched as Bruno the head waiter supervised his helpers in the positioning of three bowls of different pasta, two large platters of chicken Vesuvio, platters of meatballs and sausages in red sauce, salad bowls, bread baskets, butter trays. Doyle dug in. “Great food,” he said to Bonadio. Moe nodded in agreement, the little man having already rapidly polished off his first full plate.

Several bottles of Chianti were disposed of in the next hour. After dinner drinks and desserts followed. Undoubtedly emboldened by the alcohol irrigating his brain cells, Doyle asked Moe if he had heard anything from Arnie Rison in the wake of the recent deaths of his three Significant Seven partners.

“No,” was the answer.

“Damn amazing,” Doyle said, “three of the lucky friends getting fatally unlucky in such a short span of time. Wouldn’t you agree, Feef?” he added, jabbing his host on the arm. Across the table, Rick Fasulo let out a low growl.

Bonadio removed Doyle’s hand from his sleeve. He sat back in his chair, smiling. “What are you, fishing for information, Doyle?” Bonadio said. “Strange deaths occur, and you figure I might know something about them?” He leaned across the table and said to Fasulo and Andreoli, “
Questo Irisher
deve pensare
che sappiamo qualcosa di tutti le morti sospettose, l’eh?
” The three laughed uproariously.

Doyle, his face red, said, “I thought I heard my name in there in the midst of all your Italian. What a beautiful sounding language. Want to tell me what the fuck you’re saying about me?”

Fasulo started to get to his feet, but Bonadio motioned him to sit down. “All right, all right,” Bonadio said, “that was not polite on my part. I apologize. But my point, Doyle, is that if there’s money and death involved, my people are not necessarily involved every time.
Capice
? There’s been so much
merde
coming out of that TV show,
Sopranos
, it makes me sick. You know? Small timers on that show. The way they operate, they wouldn’t last two weeks around here.” The bodyguards laughed. Bonadio smiled before finishing his glass of grappa. He said, “But the horse guys you mention, their deaths? I got no idea.”

Moe attempted to wave Doyle off this line of questioning, to no avail. “Like you’d tell me if you knew something?” Doyle said.

The aura of good humor at the table had been erased. Bonadio said, “Listen, Irisher, if something happens to result from one of my distant, former, associate’s attitude toward anybody, it’s because a message is being sent. That’s how things work now. It’s a different world for us. Look at this room. It’s filled with businessmen, with wives that are mothers of college graduates, professional people.

“You want to talk hired killers? Go to some of those inner city lunatics, the moulanjans, the beaners, the gang bangers that keep killing off their own kind besides innocent bystanders. Those shit heads got no real work, and they can’t shoot straight. Guys I came up with,” Bonadio said, rising and then bending over to say into Doyle’s right ear, “at least they could shoot.” He tapped Moe on the back and walked away. Fasulo and Andreoli got up to follow.

Doyle said, “Moe, is that steam I see coming out of your old pal’s ears?”

“Back off, Jack,” Moe advised. “If Feef did know anything, he wouldn’t tell you, but he’d tell me. You’ve seriously pissed him off, bringing up stuff like that on a big night like this for him and Angela. I’m going to the bar and cool him off. You stay here. Find somebody to dance with. Try not to talk to her.”

The dance floor was jammed. There were couples of all ages, a half-dozen middle-aged women holding hands and dancing in a circle together, a few kids skidding and showing off slides on the side of the floor to the sounds of “Tarentella
.
”

Doyle said to himself, “I don’t see any terpsichorean prospects here for me.”

The waiter Bruno, passing the table, said, “
Scuzi, Signor?”

“Another Bushmills, Bruno,” Doyle said,
“per favore.”

Chapter Twenty-Five

June 22, 2009

Doyle dialed Damon Tirabassi’s cell phone number early the next morning. “Bad news, Damon. The goddam sponger got another one. I just talked to the security people, and the horse’s owner, and the state vet.”

Tirabassi said, “How about that? Only a few hours after your big night at the Bonadio bash, you’ve bounced back pretty good.”

Doyle said, “What is this bullshit? You mean your people are following me?”

“Don’t flatter yourself,” Tirabassi replied. “We’ve got an agent in place, close to the Bonadio family, all the time. Hoping for one of them to screw up. Our man saw you there at the bridal shower in Elmwood Park last night.”

“There was a sleepy looking schlub over in the far corner,” Doyle snarled. “I should have recognized him as one of your operatives.”

Tirabassi barked back, “Jack, drop it. I’ll pick up Karen and we’ll come out to Heartland. Where do you want to meet?”

“At Tenuta’s barn. The stable gate officer can give you directions. Flash your Feeb badges. You know, Damon, between another sponging and you receiving reports about my social whereabouts, I’m starting to get really ticked off.”

“Glad to hear it, Jack. That’s when you do your best work.” Doyle could hear what might have been Tirabassi chortling before the connection ended.

***

An hour later, the agents joined Doyle in Tenuta’s office, where Tirabassi introduced Doyle to “Special Agent in Charge of the Chicago office, David Goodman.” A tall, dark-haired, thin, bespectacled man in his late thirties, Goodman was trying to pace the floor, but the room was so small he quickly gave up. He was excited, speaking rapidly in his partly muffled cell phone conversation. “If I’m ever going to witness anybody wringing their hands, this will be the guy,” Doyle whispered to Karen Engel.

She said, “Keep it down, Jack. Goodman is heavy duty.”

“No wonder I’ve never envied you your occupation,” Doyle said.

Goodman clicked off his phone and cleared his throat. “Okay, folks, listen up. That man at the doorway”—everyone turned around and saw a heavy-set, middle-aged man holding a brief case at his side—“is Dr. Harold Brockhouse. He’s the veterinarian for Homestead Gal, the latest horse to get the sponge treatment here. I want him to tell us how this criminal act was discovered. Go ahead, doctor.”

Doyle raised his hand. “Yo, Agent Goodman, I have a question. If the good doctor is going to describe to us what we should be on the watch for, why are we keeping his knowledge in this little room. Why not have him talk to a meeting of the horsemen?”

Goodman sighed so forcefully and with such disdain he nearly ruffled the papers on Ralph Tenuta’s desk. “Do you think, Mr. Doyle, we haven’t thought of that? That’s in the future. In the very present here today is knowledge I want Dr. Brockhouse to share with those of us, I mean agents Tirabassi and Engel, even you, Doyle, most closely involved in this ongoing investigation.” Goodman perched one of his skinny haunches on the edge of the desk. “Go on, Doctor.”

Dr. Brockhouse cleared his throat. Attention was paid. “Good morning,” he said. “Some of you may remember an allowance race here at Heartland Downs a week ago. The heavy favorite was Homestead Gal. She ran well for the first half-mile. Then she stopped badly and finished eighth in the nine-horse field. I’m told there was loud booing of her jockey by fans at the rail after the race was over.”

The vet paused to glance at his notes. “The filly’s trainer, Logan Bailey, was mystified. The horse had been training very well. She’d run second in a Grade Two stakes race in her previous start at Belmont Park. On paper, she appeared to tower over her field in the Heartland race.

“Logan Bailey called me the day after the race. He said Homestead Gal had a bad nasal discharge. She was also very dull looking, but restless in her stall. I said we’d put her on antibiotics for a couple of days. We did, but it didn’t help. There were still large amounts of mucus draining from the nostril. I said bring her to my clinic.

“Bailey vanned her over the next morning. We looked in there through a scope and saw this blue-green object in the filly’s nasal passage. At first I thought it was a tumor, a nasty one. It wasn’t. It was a sponge.”

Tenuta said, “Damn! Is she going to be all right?”

“Yes,” the vet said, “physically she’ll get over it. But it is a very traumatic experience. I hope it doesn’t ruin her.”

Doyle leaned forward. “Let me ask you something, Doc. Do you know if there was any security at Bailey’s barn before that race.”

Goodman got off the desk to answer. “Yes, there was. Bailey employs a night watchman. But that doesn’t mean the watchman was standing in front of that horse’s stall all night. Bailey has twenty horses here, at the end of Barn Thirteen. Half are on one side, the other ten around the corner on the other side. Bailey says Homestead Gal is a nervous, sensitive sort that doesn’t like to be handled. So, it appears that whoever was able to insert that sponge in her was a practiced, accomplished horse person.

“This is the fourth sponging incident at Heartland Downs this summer. Bettors have been cheated out of hundreds of thousands of dollars because of these favorites being prevented from winning. It’s an embarrassment.”

Doyle said, “Agent Goodman, have you again examined the betting patterns of these fixed races? Do they tell you anything about who is benefiting? Where they might be?”

“Well, of course we have, Doyle. We’ve worked with the Racetrack Security Bureau. We’ve had computer experts on this for weeks. Whoever is doing this, making the bets knowing that the favorite will be out of the money, has left no trail. Some of the big exotic bet payoffs came here at Heartland. Others were at tracks around the country through the simulcast betting network. Other bets were made over the Internet in states where that is legal.

“None of the bets at any one place were so large as to attract attention. That’s why this ring must operate out of several different locations. They’re damn smart. There is no way,” Goodman continued, “that the trainer of every favorite in every race here can afford to pay for twenty-four hour security. But we had better urge them to try. That’s why we’ve planned a general horsemen’s meeting for tomorrow after the races. It will be in the clubhouse dining room. Hope to see you there.” Goodman collected his papers, nodded at them, and hurried out the door.

When Dr. Brockhouse and the other agents had left, Tenuta said, “How the hell can people do it, Jack? Mistreat horses like that? I’ve been around the racetrack since I was a kid. Most of the racetrackers I’ve known love horses, are proud of them. They work to protect them, not harm them. I just don’t get it.”

Doyle said, “Ralph, when I was boxing in AAU tournaments as a kid, my best friend, Lonnie Beard, was in the same weight class with me. Our trainer tried to keep us apart, entering us in different tournaments, but we met in the finals of the same tournament twice. Each time my buddy, Lonnie, an altar boy, Eagle Scout, super student, class officer, all around paragon of American youth, tried to thumb me in the eye.

“He’d come in and feint a left hook to the belly. Then he’d shoot out his right hand at me, thumb of his glove extended, trying to gouge my left eye. The first time he did it, in the second round of the first fight, I ducked and he just scraped my eyebrow. I knew it was no accident. I complained to the ref and so did my corner. What Lonnie did was intentional, Mr. Perfect, the son of a bitch. But all he got was a warning.

“The next time we fought, Lonnie comes out in the first round and tries to thumb me again. Unbelievable! My buddy. Grade school on up. Until then.”

Tenuta said, “Who won the fights?”

“I flattened the bastard in the third and final round of each one. After the second bout, Lonnie quit boxing. He never spoke to me again. I used to think about that a lot, what our friendship had been, asking myself how Lonnie could bring himself to rough me up like that. I guess he wanted to win so bad, he’d try anything. That,” Doyle said, “must be like what’s going on with whoever’s hurting these horses. They want to win bets so bad they’ll do anything.”

Doyle stood up. “Ralph, how about an early lunch? I’ll buy. We’ll go to Frankie’s for Italian beefs, okay?”

In Doyle’s car, Tenuta said, “Whatever happened to this Lonnie, your former buddy?”

Doyle reversed out of his parking place before answering. “Lonnie’s a lawyer. He’s running for State Supreme Court next year. As my old man used to say, ‘How do you like them apples?’”

***

After the ninth and final race the next afternoon, Doyle and Tenuta trooped into the Heartland Downs clubhouse along with more than one-hundred other horse people. Most were trainers, but there were some concerned horse owners and jockeys on hand. Tenuta knew all of the trainers. “Hey, Jumbo” he said to one little man who was on his way to a seat. The man smiled back over his shoulder, his Chicago White Sox ball cap snugged down on his wrinkled forehead.

“Jumbo?” Doyle said. “That little old guy?”

Tenuta said, “That’s Jim Gural. His nickname is Jumbo. Because he’s got a terrific memory, like an elephant. Been around here years. Great little guy.”

“Why Jumbo? He isn’t much bigger than the jockey sitting next to him.”

“There was an old Disney movie I think, or maybe a book, about some elephant that had a great memory. Jumbo. So does my friend Gural. Got it?”

Tenuta sat back in his chair, smiling. “When I came on the racetrack,” he said, “there were all kinds of people with nicknames. All kinds.”

“Like what?”

“Well,” Tenuta said, “there was Duckbutter, Hambone, Cadillac Jack, Daddy Rabbit, Yum Yum, Two Shoe Nick.” He paused, revving up his memory. “And Harry the Hat. Earl the Squirrel. Bundle Boy, Maestro, Place and Show Joe. Hell, there were more than that, Jack. It was a different time. Lot of real characters.”

Doyle said, “I’ve seen quite a few characters around here lately.” He patted Tenuta’s arm. “Including you.”

The room became silent when Dr. Brockhouse went to the podium, tested the microphone, and began his report.

Thirty-five minutes later, it was a glum crowd that filed out the Heartland Downs clubhouse.