The Significant Seven (17 page)

Chapter Thirty-Three

July 23, 2009

Doyle parked his car next to Tenuta’s barn shortly after seven. The area was bustling. Grooms and hot walkers were leading horses onto two large vans. There were some two dozen runners involved. The air was filled with horse sounds, conversations and orders in both English and Spanish from the men and women carrying out an apparently hurried evacuation.

Tenuta came out of his office and said good morning to Doyle, who asked, “What’s going on, Ralph? Aren’t those all Paul Barry’s horses?”

“They were. They aren’t anymore.” Tenuta shook his head in disgust. “Some of these guys never learn, damn them.”

Paul Barry, Doyle knew, currently ranked among the leading trainers at Heartland Downs. He was a veteran horseman who had escaped the ranks of professional mediocrity for the first time just this season with an explosion of winners. For the first time in Barry’s long career, horses he trained starting finishing first at a remarkable rate, not just for Barry, but for any trainer. Their improvement was so dramatic it was bound to attract scrutiny. Evidently, the scrutiny had proved disastrous for the middle-aged bachelor from Minnesota.

“Barry is out of business,” Tenuta explained. “The stewards have suspended him ‘indefinitely.’ His owners, mad as hell, decided to move their stock elsewhere. Half of those horses are going to Oklahoma, the rest to Louisiana.”

Doyle said, “I haven’t heard anything about this. What’s the story, Ralph?”

“It’ll be in tomorrow’s
Racing Daily
, I guarantee you. When Barry all of a sudden started winning races in bunches, like he never had before, a lot of guys got suspicious. Still, all his winners passed their post-race drug tests. Time after time, winner after winner. The racing commission chemists never reported a positive finding on one of them!

“Then, Ed Arenas, the state steward here, ordered a surprise search of Barry’s barn office. The security people swarmed over it yesterday afternoon. Know what they found? You won’t believe it,” Tenuta said.

“So tell me.”

Tenuta said, “They found several containers of cobra venom.”

“Cobra venom? What’s that for?” Doyle was not taking this seriously. “You use it when you’re shooting craps trying to get somebody to roll snake eyes?”

“Jack, this isn’t anything to laugh about. Cobra venom. I talked to two veterinarians this morning, asking them the same question. ‘What for?’ Both told me it was, I’m trying to remember this, ‘an unregulated neurotoxin.’ It works as a powerful pain killer. The damn stuff never shows up in the tests they’re using now. But it is very much an illegal medication under all horse racing laws in the world.”

Doyle thought about this. “I get it. It can make a sore horse run better.” He paused. “Can it mask other drugs as well?”

“I’ve got no idea about that. Could be. One way or the other, they’re going to nail Paul Barry for possession of that stuff. Cobra venom! Who could make it up?”

They walked into Tenuta’s office. The trainer turned on the coffee pot. His dejection was obvious. “This Barry thing is going to be a big story, in the papers, on TV. It’s going to hurt all of racing. Makes me sick, Jack.”

Doyle said, “Ralph, this Barry isn’t the first guy caught with illegal drugs.”

“Of course not. There will always be some smart asses looking for an edge, an angle, some drug that can’t be detected. They almost
always
get caught. But the damage they do is to the reputations of all the rest of us, the guys who’ve always played by the rules, and never tried juicing their horses, guys like me, who still get branded when the Paul Barry stories hit. The papers will say ‘horse racing scandal.’ Hell, there’s more damn larceny in the banking business than there has ever been in horse racing. But people who don’t know us don’t know that. It’s a damn shame, Jack.”

Four hours later all of the Tenuta stable’s morning work had been done. Horses worked, horses cooled out, watered, fed. Doyle and Ralph were in Tenuta’s office, working on the entry schedule for the weekend, when Travis Hawkins poked his head in.

“I’ve got two on my schedule for you tomorrow, right, men?”

Tenuta said, “Right, Travis.”

Hawkins said, “Are you both coming to my party tomorrow night?”

“Bet your life, Travis,” Tenuta said, “Rosa and I will both be there. Looking forward to it.”

Hawkins looked at Doyle. “Jack?”

Doyle said, “Travis, I don’t know anything about your party. This is the first I’ve heard of it. Thanks for the invite.”

Hawkins smiled. “Ralph, tell your man here what it’s all about. I’ll see you fellows there.” He waved goodbye.

“You’re in for a good feed, Jack, I’ll tell you that,” Tenuta said. “Travis makes the best barbequed ribs you’ll ever taste. His wife Taliyah produces side dishes to remember. Corn on the cob in the husk, a killer potato salad, tomatoes she grows on their property, an amazing sweet potato pie. I’m getting hungry as I think about it.”

Doyle said, “How do I get to Hawkins’ home?”

Tenuta gave him directions. “Things get going early in the evening. Are you going to bring Cindy with you?”

“Nope. We were supposed to go to a movie, but she promised Tyler she’d take him to Six Flags Great America. Her mother’s going, too. Then they’re going to hit the Gurnee Mills shopping center before heading home. I’ll happily miss that scene.”

Tenuta said, “All right. See you at Travis’.”

Chapter Thirty-Four

July 24, 2009

Doyle bought a case of Heineken before starting his long drive to Travis Hawkins’ Lake County home. He never showed up at social events new to him empty handed. He even pulled into a roadside vegetable and flower stand on Highway 12 and bought an expensive plant for Mrs. Hawkins. It was a lovely summer afternoon. He thought of Cindy, Tyler, and Wilma at the undoubtedly crowded Great America amusement park and smiled at his good luck.

The driveway was already almost filled with vehicles when Doyle turned in. He saw Doc Jensen’s truck, a bunch of cars with Heartland Downs parking stickers affixed to them. He could smell the enticing aroma of burning meat, hear a stereo system from which came Cannonball Adderly’s classic song “Mercy.”

“All
right
,” Doyle said, walking up the driveway, “I think I’m going to enjoy this scene.”

When Hawkins spotted Doyle lugging the case of beer with the potted plant on top, he grinned and hurried out from behind the two massive black cookers he was monitoring, steel half-barrels designed for barbequing. “Jack, you didn’t have to,” he said, picking up the plant.

“Enjoy it, Travis,” Doyle kidded back.

Hawkins took Doyle around the yard to meet Taliyah. She gratefully accepted the plant. “Thank you, Jack. It’s great to meet you. You probably know most of the people here.” Doyle smiled at Ralph and Rosa Tenuta, Doc Jensen, a bunch of younger men from the Heartland Downs racing office who were clustered around the two half-barrels of beer. “I know a lot of them,” he said. He waved across the yard at horse owner Steve Holland, whom he had gotten to know during his stint at Monee Park.

The next hour was spent socializing and playing. Doyle pitched horse shoes against Hawkins, and got drubbed. “I should have known you’d be good at this,” he told the farrier. The Hawkins children invited him to play bean bag. They were as good at that as their father was in tossing the elements of his trade. When Shontanette Hunter, his former colleague at Monee Park, arrived, he went to greet her and her husband, Cecil Tate, a Chicago attorney.

Doyle shook hands with Cecil, then hugged Shontanette. “You look good, Jack,” she said. “I hear you’re working up at Heartland Downs. Do you like it?”

“I do. I’m working for a great guy, Ralph Tenuta.” He paused. “How are things at Monee?”

Shontanette gave him a sharp look. “Things are fine, Jack. The video slots have saved the track. Business is great. So is Celia,” she added.

“I’m glad to hear that, Shontanette,” he said, referring to the widowed co-owner and operator of Monee Park, perhaps the loveliest lady he’d ever known. “Very glad,” he added.

***

Doyle sat down for dinner with the Tenutas at one of the numerous tables Travis had positioned around his property. The sun had dwindled and the air changed, a cool breeze now in gentle motion. “These ribs are fantastic,” Doyle said.

“Every year,” Tenuta answered. “Travis uses his secret formula rub on them, then sauces them after they’ve cooked. The son of a gun won’t tell me what the rub recipe is.” He broke off abruptly. “Oh, Jesus,” he said, “there’s Ollie.”

“Who?”

Rosa scowled. “The poor man’s Hugh Hefner,” she said. “Look at those bimbos with him.”

Doyle saw a bespectacled middle-aged man wearing a straw boater, blue seersucker sport coat, khaki shorts not quite covering his knobby white knees, walking arm in arm with two much younger women, both in skimpy shorts and tee shirts, great looking items. “He calls his girl friends his ‘nieces,’” Rosa said. “There are new ones every couple of months.”

“Ralph,” Doyle said, “who is this guy?”

Tenuta cleaned the meat off another rib bone before answering. “I trained for Ollie O’Keefe for almost three years. He has a lot of money. I mean, a
lot
of money. His old man, now dead, founded a very successful Chicago insurance company that insured, at very low rates, thousands of black people on the South Side. The old man never had anything to do with horses. But Ollie, the heir, loves racing. And I had horses for him. For awhile.”

He took a sip of iced tea. “Ollie was a crazy man. Fun, very generous, the biggest spender I’ve ever known. Whenever we won a race, Ollie would run down the clubhouse steps from our box shouting to people in their seats, ‘C’mon, get your picture taken with the winner. Everybody’s welcome!’ And he meant it. He’d invite fans, complete strangers, to come into the winner’s circle with him. This went on for most of one summer, and we won a bunch of races. Finally, Bob Benoit, the track photographer, came to me. He said, ‘Ralph, I can’t deal with that man anymore. It’s dangerous for me and the winning horse to have all these people crowded in there. It’s a mob scene. A lot of them order copies of the photo I take with them in it, but hardly any of them pay for what they ordered.’

“Ollie, when he heard this, offered to Benoit to make up the difference between those who paid and didn’t. He was like that. I mean, Ollie was as generous a guy as you would ever meet. But Benoit said, ‘No thanks. I can’t keep track of all these people, and I don’t want to hire a bookkeeper.’”

Doyle said to Rosa, “What was so bad about this guy? He paid his bills. Had fun. Tried to share the fun. What was the problem?”

“You tell him, Ralph,” Rosa said.

Tenuta said, “Jack, he almost killed me with his life style. His fun wore me out. The man is a boozer like I’ve never seen. You remember how in some of those old movies, men wore what they called smoking jackets?”

“You’re dating yourself, Ralph,” Doyle said. “But I think I know what you’re talking about.”

Tenuta said, “Ollie O’Keefe didn’t have a smoking jacket, he had drinking jackets. He’s probably got one on now.”

The trainer stood up to demonstrate and opened his sport coat. He pointed to the lining on the left side. “Here, in Ollie’s specially tailored coats, are twelve little slots, or small pockets. On the right side, another twelve. Two rows of six on each interior lining.

“What were they for? They were for holding those little miniature bottles of booze, like they have on airplanes. Ollie kept what he called his ‘brown beauties’ on the left side, mostly bourbon, some brandies and scotch, and his ‘silver sisters’ on the right side. Vodkas, gin, always at least one sambuca. He drank out of that jacket from morning to night. Never got drunk. Kept fresh supplies in his car. Well, it wasn’t just a car, it was a Lincoln Town Car driven by his chauffeur, bodyguard, attendant, named, I am not kidding, Igor. I never knew Igor’s last name. Never wanted to. He was this big Russian hulk. Scary as hell.”

Doyle said, “Okay. But what are you saying, Ollie affecting your marriage, that stuff? What was that all about?” He looked at Rosa. She looked away. “Let him tell.”

“My wife is a very tolerant woman,” Tenuta said. “And I am not much of a drinker. But Ollie would insist that he and I go out after the races. Drinks, dinner. More drinks. Maybe some Rush Street action. Ollie paid for everything. He told jokes, he sang Irish songs, he knew everybody, everybody knew him at the late night piano bars, oh, Jack. I felt like I had to go along with him at the time. I was training just twenty horses, and fifteen of them were Ollie’s. I was getting home just in time to get up and go to work. Man was wearing me out.

“One night—no, morning—Igor drops me at my house. I’d been dozing in the back of the Lincoln. Igor dropped off Ollie and his girl friends at Ollie’s house in Wilmette before that. I get to my door and Rosa yanks it open before I can even fumble with the key. She’s in her housecoat. I thought she’d be steaming. And I wouldn’t have blamed her. But all she says, in a real quiet voice, is ‘You should have been to the barn by now. Your horses are waiting.’ She turns around and slams the door. Who could blame her? I got into my car and drove to the track. I felt like crap. In a number of ways.” He stopped to put his hand on Rosa’s.

“Next day, when Ollie and a couple of his ‘nieces’ show up about noon, I tell him, ‘Ollie, you’re a great guy, great owner, a generous man, but I can’t keep up with you. I’ll help you find a new trainer. I want all of your horses out my barn by the end of next week.’

“The funny thing was, it was almost like Ollie saw this coming. He just smiled at me. He wasn’t mad. He reached into this jacket and took an entry from the ‘silver side’ and polished it off. He said to me, ‘Ralphie, okay. We’ve done very well together. But I respect your decision. No hard feelings.’ That’s the last I saw of him until this afternoon. But he sent me what he called a severance check—for ten thousand! Unbelievable guy.”

Rosa said, “That was his one saving quality as far as I’m concerned. I hated the way he made fun of his ex-wives.”

Ralph grinned until Rosa shot him a look. He said, “Ollie was mostly Irish, but he claimed he had some Cherokee in him on his mother’s side. So he’d come up with what he called his ‘Injun names’ for women he’d divorced, or who’d divorced him. There were three. He called one Princess Spreading Butt, another Princess Wampum Spender, the third Princess Flapping Jaws.”

Doyle said, “Does he still own horses?”

“Yeah,” Tenuta said. “When we parted ways, Ollie was out of racing for three or four years. He financed and produced two movie bombs in Hollywood. When his old man died, he inherited another pile of money.”

“Not a pile,” Rosa interjected, “a big mound of money.”

“To answer your question, Jack, yes, Ollie’s got a small stable at Heartland Downs. Buck Norman just started training for him. Buck’s already starting to look the worse for wear dealing with Ollie’s life style.”

Doyle saw O’Keefe’s small entourage expand by two more young women as it moved toward the stretch limo where the stolid Igor awaited. Ollie turned and doffed his skimmer to Travis, who waved goodbye. Then he got into the back seat with all the women.

Rosa said, “I want to go and say hello to Travis and Taliyah. I’ll be back in few minutes. Then we better go home, Ralph.”

Tenuta was thoughtful for a few moments before he said to Doyle, “You know what? The hardest thing about the training business isn’t training the horses, it’s training the people that own them. Now, I’m not talking about Ollie here. He paid his bills on time, which made him one of the exceptions, and he never questioned what races I put his horses in.

“But over the years, I’ve had owners who would call me in the middle of the night with suggestions, or just to complain. Guys, like Slow Pay Sal, who always were late with the money. I wish I would have known some of the current economic double-talk years ago. I could have said to an owner whose beloved horse stunk, ‘You, madam, are facing a period of illiquidity because your horse is as slow to run as you are to pay.”

Doyle laughed. “Illiquidity, yeah. Don’t you love it? When the stock market fell down the shaft, my broker would tell me, ‘The sell-off continues.’ Hello. The sell-off? Do you mean the evaporation of my money?”

Ralph got up from the table when he saw Rosa waving to him. “You going to stick around, Jack?”

“Naw, I’ll thank my host and hostess and see you in the a.m., boss,” Doyle said. “This was a good time.”