1 The Reluctant Dick - The Case of the Not-So-Fair Trader (32 page)

“My guess is,” Tiffany says, “
t
here ain’t no fury like the fury of a granny scorned.”

Heffelfinger wheels his overnight bag behind him on the way to the cab.

“Where do you think he’s going?” Tiffany asks.

“He’s going to see Doris.”

“One woman not enough for him?”

“Not in this case.”

“Maybe he took Viagra and has one of those four-hour erections
,
and he’s visiting all the women he knows,” Tiffany concludes.

The cab takes off.

“He’s getting away. You want me to give chase?”

“No, Tiffany. You’ve earned a spa treatment.”

“I agree, Mister Sherlock.”

___

Agent Romo Simpson is much more conducive to meeting with me than he was before.

“You release all the guys you captured?” I ask.

“Yesterday.”

“Your boss come down on you yet?”

“Yesterday.”

“You have no clue how Alvin did it; do you?”

Romo twirls his coffee cup around and around. “None.”

“Don’t feel bad.”

“We went over every trade made, traced money, watched every movement for a month,
and
I had every MBA in the FBI on this thing. We come up with bupkis and still millions disappeared, vanished into thin air.”

“You picked the wrong guy to cut a deal with.”

He looks up at me for the first time
.
“Now you tell me.”

Nothing worse than knowing you got sucked in, suckered, and skewered on the way out. I do feel a bit sorry for the upstart G-man, but my feeling will pass.

“You want in on this investigation or are you going to continue to be a lone wolf?”

“I can’t jeopardize the Bureau’s investigation.”

“You just admitted you know nothing.”

“All right,” Romo says, “I’m in. What do I got to do?” Romo is at least smart enough to realize that to get into the club he’s going to have to pay a few dues.

I hand over a list of serial numbers. “If any of these Ben Franklins show up in bulk, do your best to get a description of who cashed
them
in.”

“That’s next to impossible,” he says.

I continue my list. “Take whatever you pulled on Alvin’s trading habits, take
th
em over to this guy’s house and put your heads together.” I hand him Herman’s address and phone number.

He has no idea of the amount of dues he’s about to pay in order to get into our little club.

“I have to know who the guy was, leaving the condo that Friday night.”

“We’ve run the picture through every database we have and nothing comes up.”

“Keep trying.”

Romo writes it all down, making his own list.

“Breakaway” blasts out of my phone. “Hello.”

It is rude to talk on a cell phone in front of another; but it’s Romo, so it is easy to make an exception.

“How did you know Heffelfinger would be here?” Norbert asks.

“I’m smart,” I answer. “How many times do I have to tell you?”

Norbert is in his car, probably eating a donut, in front of the Augustus mansion in Kenilworth. “The little mice are starting to scurry, Sherlock.”

“I thought they would.”

There is a pause for Norbert to swallow. “Guess what?”

“They found the shooter on the grassy knoll?”

“Lizzy doesn’t exist past two years ago.”

“Ah, now that’s interesting.”

“We traced her back to Massachusetts and then she falls off the radar screen.”

“Any way you can pick up some prints on her?”

“Not without asking.”

“More on Joey?”

“No.”

“Have you tapped Doris’ phone yet?”

“It’s been tapped for weeks
. W
e got nothing.”

“Steve working Clayton?”

“As we speak.”

“If you talk to him, tell him to check our little entrepreneur’s credit line.”

“Why?”

“I believe it has run aground in a sea of red ink.”

I hang up Norbert. I look over and see Romo has written down notes on my conversation. “Want to get filled in?” I ask.

“Please.”

___

I obey the rule of the FBI receptionist and make my next call outside on the sidewalk.

“Yes, boss,” Tiffany answers.

“Before you get to the spa, I need you to do something.”

“I’m your girl.”

“Jonas needs a set of Lizzy’s fingerprints.”

“Okay.”

“I want you to get them.”

“How?”

“Find something she’s touched.”

“Christina?”

“Something a little less animated.”

“I’m on it, Mister Sherlock
,
I’m on it.”

I return home a little after seven. The only thing in the house to eat is a box of Fruit Loops. I sit on the couch, eat cold cereal, and stare at the index cards on the
Original Carlo.

___

Horse shows rank right up there with watching paint dry, standing in line at the DMV, and waiting for your turn in the emergency ward. Painful boredom at its best.

It is Saturday morning at nine
a.m.
I sit in the last row of spectators in a huge, hot, humidity-filled barn which reeks of horse manure. There are hundreds of kids, ninety-nine percent of whom are girls seven to twelve years old, all dressed in jodhpurs, black boots, white blouses, blue blazers, and black riding helmets. The three or four boys in the group are dressed in similar garb and might as well be singing show tunes and signing up for a subscription to the
Advocate
. In the middle of the arena is one hefty women, she’s the Judge Judy of the horsey set. To my left, on a slight riser, is a table with one woman announcing the different events, horse names, and corresponding riders. One woman shuffles papers, trying to keep it all straight, and one woman is filling out the winner’s name on the back of cheap red, white, and blue ribbons.

The events, which began at a little after seven
a.m.
, are strikingly similar. Sets of eight riders, weighing somewhere between forty and eighty pounds each, sit upon horses ten times their size. They line up, nose to butt (the horses, not the riders) and march in excruciatingly slow motion down one side of the arena, turn around, and march back from where they started.

I can see absolutely no difference between one rider and the next. The horses -- many of which are stable nags who repeat the same thing over and over with different riders -- obviously share the absolute monotony. At the end of each event, Judge Judy hands a note to a semi-Pony Express rider who gallops the results to the announcer’s table,
so the winners can be blared
over the tinny loudspeaker system.

In the spectator
section where I sit, very well-dressed moms (husbands must be on the golf course) sip coffee, fiddle with video cameras, scratch, fidget, or talk on their cell phones so all around them can hear their innermost thoughts. They share the traits of being wealthy, polished, Northshore folk who pride themselves in being members of a
n
exclusive, thoroughbred set of individuals
,
who can afford a hobby where the plaything eats more than the player. The aspect I find most fascinating about this group is that these neat, clean, manicured women have no problem whatsoever with a horse defecating a steaming, stream of crap, a few feet before their very eyes. They don’t gag at the smell
,
and oftentimes walk right through it without the least bit of hesitation. These are the same women who pay people to walk their purebred dogs.

My ex-wife has become, or at least is trying to become, one of the chosen few, “horse mother”
women. She wears her boots and equestrian garb proudly, straddles a fence with the best of them, and yells encouragement to the girls with comments like “Give ’em a lot of leg.” Why my ex-wife would ever want my daughters involved in such an insipid, so-called sport, as well as the vaulted social strata, is beyond my imaginat
ion. Not only is it
boring and obviously rigged, I have yet to see one kid break into a smile while on
a
horse. They are either too frightened, or having fun is prohibited in the rules of the road -- or path in this case. Worst of all, it is hardly a fair competition. Some kids ride their personal ponies while others are stuck with beat
-
up stable horses who have “been there done that” way, way too many times. The sport’s management, the people that run these shows and pick the winners and losers, are older, fat, unmarried females who obviously consider horses a much better choice of companion than the opposite sex. These women are in a constant heaping-praise mode to all the young riders, whether the kids are any good or not. They never quit patting backs, rubbing helmets, and hugging the girls as if they were the little ones they never had.

Little League, where art thou?

Before the lunch break at noon, where the barn barbeque sells five-dollar hot dogs and eight-dollar energy drinks, Kelly has ridden in two competitions and garnered one white ribbon. Care hasn’t been so lucky. She is zero for three. In her last event, one kid fell off her horse and got third place, but my Care got nothing. She is in tears as she greets me.

“I lost.”

“No, you didn’t,
you were great.”

“You’re just saying that,” she says through her tears.

“You were as good as anyone else out there -- actually better.” I try to reassure her.

“It isn’t fair.”

“Nor is life, Care.”

“I want to win.”

“So, do I.”

“What should I do, Dad?”

Not being of the horsey mind set, I’m not sure what to say. “What did your mother say?”

“I’m not giving Rascal enough crop.”

I have no clue what this means,
so I merely tell my daughter, “t
ry your best, Care, if you always do your best, you’ll always be a winner.”

Kelly comments on my comment. “That is so corny, Dad.”

We move up in the line to sample the overpriced fare, it’s funny how the kids leave their mother and come to see me when they’re hungry.

Care asks, “Dad, what do you think of our horse?”

“He looks like he’s had a lot of practice at these shows.” I try to keep the sarcasm out of my tone. “A real, seasoned professional.”

I look to my left and see the Judge Judy lady retrieving something from a horse trailer hooked up to an SUV that should be named The Terminator. I give Kelly a twenty, leave the line and approach the woman. “Hello,” I say, “I’m Officer Sherlock
. M
y girls are in the horse show.”

“How are you?” she says suspiciously.

“My daughter’s a bit disappointed. The last event she was in, the kid who got the ribbon fell off the horse and still beat her.”

“That’ll happen,” she says, trying to busy herself with a bridle or some such thing.

I place my foot on the bumper of her trailer stopping her activity. “I see your registration is not current and the brake lights don’t seem to conform to legal specifications.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“Hate to see you get pulled over, before you get a chance to fix all that. Ticket could be as expensive as the repairs.”

Judge Judy asks, “What did you say your daughter’s name was?”

The afternoon events,
which
were scheduled to stretch far into the night, were slightly different than the morning’s marches. Three, two-foot jumps were placed on the path
,
and the riders would have to maneuver over the obstacles both to and fro. At the speed the horses travelled, this could hardly be called a jump, more like a step up.

It seems a bit inconceivable to me that a fifty-pound girl would have the strength to get a twelve-hundred-pound horse to jump
. There
must be a lot of faith within show jumping.

It is the same series of eight horses in a row, with Judge Judy in charge of picking the winners and losers. Over and over and over, one flight is as slow and plodding as the last. The excitement being generated w
ould
challenge anyone with a weak heart.

Care’s first flight goes on a little after
2
pm.
She’s tentative, a bit unsure of herself
,
and barely slaps the horse with her black riding whip, sending Rascal over the jumps with the enthusiasm of a criminal returning to solitary confinement. The event, which lasts less than two minutes, takes about as much athletic ability as drinking a beer at a Cub game. I can see no difference between the riders.