Close Call (15 page)
Through a bedroom window of the apartment on the top floor of the Monee Park clubhouse, Bob Zaslow watched the racing action before him from his wheelchair, his attending nurse Fidelia Rizal reading a book while seated nearby. As Rambling Rosie pranced back toward the finish line she’d just flashed across, Zaslow’s face lit up. It was nine straight wins now for the increasingly popular Rambling Rosie. Fidelia leaned forward. She could see Bob was about to say something. Slowly, through an expression that was part smile, part grimace, the words seeped out. “Good for old Tom Eckrosh. One of the nicest guys around here.”
Fidelia nodded in agreement. Her look of concern was not evident to Bob, who was still staring out the window. Fidelia had been Bob’s nurse for the past year and a half. The decline in his condition had accelerated in the past three months, so much that it pained her deeply even though she was a veteran observer of anguish after more than two decades in the nursing profession. Fidelia had come to know Bob and Celia as intimately as an employee can. She was extremely fond of them both. The shield of indifference most caretakers have to cultivate in order to survive was weakening for her. She knew it, but could do nothing about it. They had become family to her.
She and Bob watched together as groom Maria Martinez led the lively filly into the winner’s circle. In profile, as Fidelia observed Bob’s face, there was little evidence of his illness. He had lost strength in his neck but his face, which she or Celia shaved every other day, reflected both an inner strength and a basic kindness, she thought. Fidelia, a forty-eight year old single woman, was a born care giver, one whose parents and lone sibling were long deceased, victims of a horrible social upheaval in the Phillipine village where she’d been born. The loss of her family had convinced her years ago not to make an emotional investment in one of her own. Her patients were the focal point of her life. She did the best she could for them, then moved on. Looking at Bob, she chided herself for speculating how soon her next move would come. She reached forward and straightened the collar of his robe. He didn’t seem to notice. After glancing at her watch, she sat back in her chair and resumed reading. It was still another half-hour or so before Celia would return.
The view from the apartment window was vivid on this clear night. Light stanchions rimming the racing strip were surrounded by clouds of small, flying insects. To the south, where the broad corn fields lay beyond the boundaries of the old track, the night was pitch black. Fidelia thought she’d never seen a summer moon as bright as this one.
Fidelia closed her book, leaning back in her chair. Bob was still intent on the scene before him. She marveled at his ability to look beyond his illness, to cheer up friends who struggled to repress their emotions when they visited him, at his ability to frequently laugh in the face of the physical decimation he was suffering.
Her thoughts turned back to late the previous afternoon when she and Bob and Celia had relaxed in the apartment living room before it was time for Celia to leave for a fund raising dinner in downtown Chicago. The organization involved had been one of Uncle Jim Joyce’s favorite charities. Celia and Bob had never missed one these events, until this year. This year, Bob would be absent. He had not been able to accompany Celia anywhere for the past several months. But he encouraged Celia to go.
As the three of them chatted, the women sipping tea, Bob had raised his chin, then begun talking. “You know, Celia,” he’d said, “I’ve thought of something practical. Regarding me. Regarding us.” There were long pauses between his sentences as he struggled to speak audibly.
The women leaned forward to hear him better. The hint of a grin preceded what he said next.
“When I’m gone, I want you to have me cremated,” Bob said. Celia cut him off sharply. “Bob, please I won’t listen to this. No.” Her face was flushed.
Stubbornly, her husband pressed on. Fidelia touched Celia on the wrist, indicating that she should let Bob continue. “Once I’m cremated,” he said, “I want you take that gold locket I gave you last year, the one on Valentine’s Day. I want you to put some of my ashes in it.”
He was speaking so slowly now, fighting to get the words out, that Celia had to look away, hiding the tears that had formed in her eyes. His eyes, however, were bright. When she turned to look at him, she said, “And why would I do something like that?”
Bob inhaled, accumulating the breath he needed in order to respond. “Because,” he said, “then you could finally go places and tell people, ‘Bob came out with me tonight.’”
Celia wiped at her eyes. “Oh, Bobby,” she said, “you’re cut from a strong bolt of cloth, you are.” She reached over and kissed him on the lips. To Fidelia she said, “I’ve got to go down and make the winner’s circle presentation before I leave for the city. Call me on my cell phone if this humorous man here needs me in the next two hours. I’ll try to be back earlier than that,” she added. She walked quickly to the door. Fidelia watched as Celia wiped again at new tears. It was a scene Fidelia would never forget.
Minutes later Bob struggled to lean forward in his wheelchair as he looked down at the Monee Park winner’s circle. “Let me get you closer, Bob,” Fidelia said. She eased his chair a foot or so nearer the wide window. “There,” she said. “Better?” He made a sound that she knew meant “yes.”
They watched Celia as she laughed, her head back, red hair flashing in the winner’s circle lights, as she presented the small trophy to Tom Eckrosh. He accepted it as if he’d just been handed an eviction notice, then quickly passed it off to an attendant. Eckrosh had never been much for ceremony. Fidelia heard a wheezing sort of chuckle from Bob.
With her jockey and his saddle off her back, Rambling Rosie waited calmly for Maria Martinez to lead her back to the barn. It was as if Rosie knew that night’s proud moment was over, that it was time to leave the spotlight.
Fidelia heard Bob grunt something as he activated his wheelchair. He turned it away from the window. His face was suddenly somber.
She glanced back down at the winner’s circle. Fidelia saw Celia, laughing again, one hand on the arm of Jack Doyle. He was as animated as Celia, regarding her with the kind of connective look whose strength could stretch up five stories, to this apartment, where Bob Zaslow now waited to be helped into bed.
Morty’s voice coming over the in-house phone on Doyle’s desk was hushed, urgent. “Jack, meet me at the jocks’ room kitchen right away. Bring money.”
“What, has Clarence Meaux raised his prices?” Doyle said with a laugh.
Morty said, “This is serious business, boss. Get down here.” The phone clicked off.
Doyle completed his morning tasks before heading downstairs and into the jockeys’ sanctuary. He nodded hello to several riders he’d gotten to know as he walked over to the table where Morty and Clarence Meaux appeared to be in the middle of a dispute. They were talking in low, serious tones. Doyle pulled up a chair.
Morty leaned toward Jack. He whispered, “I’ve got a steamer for us. First-time starter. Big odds, nobody knows about him. Second race today. I’m going to bet this horse good to win and back wheel him in the double. Want to go in with me?”
Doyle’s gaze shifted to Clarence, who was shaking his head from side to side. Doyle said, “Morty, where’d you get this hot horse?” Morty nodded in the direction of the lunch counter, at the end of which sat Monee Park’s current young riding star Jason LeBeau. “Jason there,” Morty said. “He’s been working the horse in the mornings for trainer Buddy Bowman. Jason says this colt can run a hole in the wind. The whole stable is betting. Horse’s name is Comet Colin. He’s Number Five. His breeding isn’t much, but Jason says don’t pay any attention to that,” Morty said earnestly.
Clarence snorted. “Hole in the wind? You’ve got to have a hole in your head to believe that, Mr. Morty.”
“Why’s that, Clarence?” Doyle said.
“Look,” Clarence replied, “I like young Jason down there. Nice boy, not a bad little rider. But,” he continued, leaning forward and tapping the table with a finger for emphasis, “you got to keep in mind that these jocks are the worst damn handicappers in the world. The whole wide world, I’m saying.”
Doyle was puzzled, and looked it. Clarence said to him, “Like I’ve been tryin’ to tell Mr. Morty, they know how to
ride
the damn horses, but not how to bet on them. Eddie Arcaro, remember him? Maybe the greatest jockey ever. Mr. Eddie said one time that if he could book bets in the jocks’ room for a year, he’d make so much money he wouldn’t have to go out there every afternoon, risking his life in races.
“These boys get enthusiastic, they want to share their hot tip with people they like so that they’ll look smart. They wind up burning up everybody’s money. Not
every
time, mind you. Once in a red moon they’ll be right.”
Doyle sat back, bemused. Was Clarence arguing that you couldn’t get a tip from these obvious sources of inside info, the people most closely involved with the horses? As if reading his mind, Clarence said, “Mr. Jack, you got to remember this whole business is crowded with dreamers, people full of more hope than sense. They get to the point they
make
themselves believe they’re going to win. A smart man shouldn’t pay any attention to them. You bet on horses, Mr. Jack?”
“Sometimes.”
“Then stick with whatever method you’re using—cold, hard facts, speed figures, Madame Fran’s predictions, whatever. Don’t let yourself get buried under this kind of ‘inside info.’”
Morty looked disgusted as he got to his feet. “I don’t care what you say, Clarence, I’m going to lay my money down on Comet Colin. See you upstairs, Jack.”
Watching Morty stalk off, Clarence sighed. He said, “You going to bet that horse, Mr. Jack?”
“Not me. I’ll take your advice on this, Clarence.”
Meaux nodded in approval. “You’re doing the right thing. Besides, Mr. Morty, he’s a Jonah. I found out that about him years back.”
Doyle said, “He’s a
what
?”
“A Jonah. Like from the Bible. Round any racetrack, you’ve got to know who’s a Jonah, and Mr. Morty, he sure qualifies.”
“Oh, I get you,” Doyle said. “Jonah and the whale. ‘He made his home in that fish’s abdomen, it ain’t necessarily so,’” he recited. “Remember that song, from ‘Porgy and Bess’?”
“I don’t know about any song. I just know the Bible story. The Lord tells Jonah, get yourself over to Nineveh, and lay into them people about their sinful ways. But Jonah, no, he doesn’t do what the Lord says. He cuts out and goes the other way on a ship, the fool, trying to get away from the Lord. Well, old Jonah, he paid for that. The Lord sends down a mighty wind that stirs up the sea. The sailors on Jonah’s ship, they’re scared to death, they start throwing cargo off to lighten the load. And then there’s Jonah, down below the deck of that tossing ship, sleeping like a baby.”
Clarence paused, leaned back in his chair and, as some portly people occasionally do, gave his belly a pat, as if to reassure himself it was still there. Apparently satisfied, he resumed talking.
“These sailors now, they figure out somebody has made the Lord mighty mad and put them in this trouble. They decide to roll some dice, trying to figure out who that man is. Turns out, it’s old Jonah. And to Jonah’s credit, he owns up, tells them, ‘Okay, fellas, toss me over the side, maybe things’ll calm down then.’ So they did. And things calmed down, for those boys on the ship.
“Down there in that sea, of course, where the Lord has put him to wait, was the great whale. He spots Jonah and swallows him right up. Jonah’s down there in that big fish’s belly, praying his heart out now, promising the Lord he’ll never turn his back on him again. Good idea. The whale spits Jonah out on the shore.
“Old Jonah gets his life going the right away from then on. But,” Clarence said, tapping Jack’s arm for emphasis, “ever since I been around the racetrack and gamblers, there’s always a guy or two who’s got trouble seeping out of him like Jonah. There was a guy at the Fair Grounds down home, Alan LaCombe, they called him the Black Cat because not only was he unlucky, he
spread
unluckiness. He’d bet on a horse that looked like a mortal lock, and the horse would fall down. A rider’d get a winning streak going, Black Cat starts betting on him, boom, the streak’s over.
“Some guys are just made that way. That’s why they’re called Jonahs. And,” Clarence concluded, “Mr. Morty, he’s the biggest Jonah I know around this here racetrack.”
***
That night, watching as the first four furlongs of the second race unfolded, Doyle began to believe that Morty, who was standing next to him on the press box balcony and rooting loudly, had been given a very bad rap by Clarence Meaux. Down on the track, Comet Colin was rolling along, seven lengths in front of his nearest pursuer, Jason LeBeau sitting chilly on him. The tote board showed the odds on Comet Colin to be 31-to-1. This fleet first-time starter, Morty’s “steamer,” was apparently going to “win laughing” as the old racetrack expression put it. Morty was pounding the porch railing with both hands, shouting, “This is the one that gets me even for the meeting. Maybe for life! C’mon, baby, c’mon home!”
Then, just inside the sixteenth pole where one of the light stanchions cast a shadow across the track beneath it, Comet Colin suddenly spooked. He jumped to avoid the broad shadow. Then he took an abrupt left turn and leaped over the infield fence. Jason LeBeau was, amazingly, able to bail out as the colt made this startling move. LeBeau landed on his back on the infield grass, bounced, and lay there, still as stone but with only the wind knocked out of him. Out of the corner of his eye Jack saw Morty fall to his knees and begin to unleash a steady stream of curses.
Once he’d cleared the fence, Comet Colin kept going over the infield grass, eyes wild, tossing his head. He ran full speed into the infield lake, where he churned the water in his fear and panic. As track workers started to rush to his rescue, Comet Colin revealed himself to be no Black Stallion. Before the men could swim out to him and attach a rope to his bridle, Comet Colin drowned.
***
Doyle went back to his desk in the press box. He avoided looking at the stricken Morty, who had his head down on his desk and obviously didn’t want to be disturbed. Doyle made a mental note to order Morty never to bet on Rambling Rosie. Then he began writing a news release about the incident he’d just witnessed. “If this doesn’t make all the papers,” he muttered, “nothing from Monee Park ever will.”
Doyle’s report of this bizarre event was indeed picked up by the next day’s Chicago area papers as well as two wire services. The story lamented the loss of “this obviously talented but unfortunate young horse,” mentioned the “great good luck of his rider, Jason LeBeau, who miraculously escaped injury,” and concluded with a quote from Comet Colin’s trainer, Buddy Bowman.
“I thought I’d seen it all in this game,” said the stunned horseman, adding, “It’s bad enough when you have to call an owner and tell him his horse lost. But how in the hell do I tell Comet Colin’s owner that his horse didn’t just lose, he drowned?”
The next morning Doyle got a call from Moe Kellman. “Congratulations,” Kellman said, “Monee Park is all over the news today.”
“Yeah,” Doyle said, “but it took a disaster to do it. Poor Comet Colin. And poor Morty ‘Kiss of Death’ Dubinski.” He went on to describe his assistant’s amazing record of lousy luck. “It’s incredible,” Doyle said. “If Morty bets to win, his horse runs second. If he bets to place, his horse finishes third. His exactas almost always come back first-third. When he bets a trifecta, his picks run one-two-four. He’s also lost thirteen photo finishes in the last month. I’ve never seen anything like it. The man is cursed.”
Kellman said, “It might be time for him to try prayer.”
“I don’t know about that,” Doyle said. “I don’t think Morty is religious.”
“Well, the way he’s going, it couldn’t hurt,” Kellman said. “Did I ever tell you about two of my old friends, Al Brody and Arnie Rosen? This was years ago, when they both used to go to the track every weekend during their winters in Florida. Hialeah Park, before they closed it up for lack of business. Beautiful old place.
“Anyway, one winter, Brody gets on a tremendous hot streak. He’s betting winner after winner. Rosen, on the other hand, is colder than a Duluth December. He’s going nuts watching Brody cash while he’s tearing up losing ticket after losing ticket, race after race.
“One evening when they’re driving home after the races, Rosen says, ‘Al, I don’t get it. You and I have been playing the horses together for years. Usually, we come out about the same. But not lately. How come you’re going so great all of a sudden while I’m bombing out?’
“Brody shrugs. He says, ‘Arnie, maybe you should go to temple more often.’
“Rosen hasn’t been to services since his bar mitzvah. He is not what you call a practicing Jew. But he’s so desperate, he starts thinking this over. And, the next Saturday, he goes to temple before he meets Brody at Hialeah. However, nothing changes. It’s the same old story. Brody’s knocking them dead at the windows, Rosen is getting killed. After the last race, Rosen throws down his
Racing
Daily
on the clubhouse floor and starts stomping on it, hollering ‘I can’t take it anymore.’
“Brody does his best to try and calm down his old pal. He says, ‘Arnie, didn’t I tell you to try going to temple? Why didn’t you listen to me?’
“Rosen is in agony, all red in the face, sweating. He says, ‘Al, I went. I
went
. I went to Beth Shalom this morning and I prayed my heart out for a change in my luck at the track. And what happened?
Bupkus
.’
“Brody steps back, gives Rosen a sympathetic look. ‘Beth Shalom?’ he says. ‘No wonder it didn’t work, you shmuck. That’s for
basketball
, not racing.’”
As he laughed, Doyle pictured Kellman on the other end of the phone, eyes twinkling as he gazed out a window of his John Hancock Building office suite toward Lake Michigan. “Maybe I can cheer up poor Morty telling him that story,” Jack said.
“It’s worth a try.”