Close Call (20 page)
The attempted arson was the raging talk of the racetrack the next morning. When Doyle drove through the stable gate a little after eight Bernice Webb, the woman security guard on that shift, smiled at him for the first time. Usually Bernice treated his arrival, despite the official sticker on his windshield and the identification tag hanging from his rear view mirror, as if she strongly suspected him of an Al Qaeda affiliation. Stopped him every morning, visually checked his car. Not this time. “Heard you did some good here last night, preventing an arson and all,” Bernice said. “Have a great day.”
Doyle groaned. “If you only knew what else I did last night,” he said to himself as the memory of Celia’s touch swept over him, accompanied by a wave of guilt.
The staff meeting was held in Celia’s office. Security Chief Mortenson conducted it, noting Doyle’s luck in being “in the right place at the right time to prevent a potential disaster,” also praising the quick response of his men, though lamenting their inability to apprehend the fleeing culprits. He laid out plans for beefing up security throughout the plant.
Celia and Jack avoided looking at each other. Jack imagined he could feel Bob Zaslow’s eyes boring into the back of his neck. Zaslow, as always attended by Fidelia, sat in his wheelchair at the side of the conference table.
Gary Gabriel, the racing secretary, pushed his glasses up on his nose. He wore a worried look. “Will there be a guard at my office every night?”
“Every night from now until the end of the meeting,” Mortenson assured him. He looked around the table, eyes going from Celia to Jack to Gabriel to Bob to Shontanette, who was taking notes on her laptop computer. “I hope I’m wrong, but I think we’ve got to assume that whoever is doing this stuff will try again,” he said. “I only have so many personnel to work with, and they can’t cover everything. We’re all going to have to be as vigilant as possible.”
Shontanette looked up from her computer. “Okay, they’ve robbed the track, sabotaged the tote board, and tried to burn down Gary’s office. What could they do next?”
“I don’t believe whoever it is will try a repeat of any of those efforts,” Mortenson answered. “If they’re paying attention, and getting the right information, they’ll know we’ve pretty much locked down those doors.” He shrugged. “What they have in mind next is anybody’s guess.”
The meeting broke up on that disheartening note. Doyle lingered, watching Celia shuffling her papers on the table. When she glanced up at him, she blushed a vivid shade of pink. She didn’t speak until Fidelia had finished wheeling Bob out of the room. Then Celia said softly, “I meant what I said last night, Jack. Or, rather, this morning.” Flustered, she continued to shuffle the papers in front of her. He resisted the impulse to move to her, cup her sad face in his hands, hold her again. He said, “I know you did, Celia.” He walked out of the office, closing the door gently behind him.
Shontanette started to say something to Doyle as he passed her desk in the reception area. When she saw the look on his face, she kept quiet.
Doyle took the press box stairs two at a time. Morty looked up from reading
Racing
Daily
, startled, when the door banged open. Doyle went to his desk and picked up his briefcase. His face was grim. “I’m taking the rest of the day off, Morty. You’re in charge.” Then he was out the door.
***
Doyle snatched his hand back from the hot steering wheel of the Accord. He’d parked it carelessly that morning, windshield facing the unusually hot September sun. The temperature had already climbed to ninety-two. Wrapping his left palm in a handkerchief, he placed it on the wheel, starting the car with his other hand. He drove out of the Monee Park parking lot. It would be several minutes before the Accord’s air conditioner won its fight with the fierce temperature.
At Seventy-ninth Street, Jack glanced at the speedometer. It read seventy-five mph, or twenty over the posted limit. He had to get his mind off Celia. He adjusted his speed and punched Moe Kellman’s private number into his cell phone. Moe answered on the second ring, saying, “Hello, Jack.”
Doyle said, “How about I buy you lunch at Dino’s?”
“Ah, Jack, I’d like to. But I can’t.”
Doyle realized he sounded almost petulant when he heard himself say, “Why not?”
Moe said, “I didn’t mention it when we talked earlier today, but I’ve got a lot of work to catch up on. Remember, Leah and I only got back from Cuba two days ago. That’s why.”
Moe’s visit to Cuba had completely slipped Doyle’s mind. With U. S. citizens prohibited from traveling from their homeland to Cuba except on humanitarian or cultural missions, Moe and his wife had months before joined a group at a Chicago synagogue that had been granted permission to bring medical and school supplies to Havana.
“So how was your trip?” Doyle said.
“Excellent. We stayed in a five star hotel owned by a Spanish chain. Went all around Havana for a week, distributing what we brought. We also visited galleries and markets and a lot of historic sites. The people there were great to us. As I think I told you before, I hadn’t been to Havana since before Castro. It was great to see it again, even in the shape it’s in today.”
Doyle said, “I don’t suppose I should ask what your business was in Havana in the fifties.”
“Correct.”
Now, caught up in the Dan Ryan Expressway construction traffic slow up, Doyle said, “What’s Havana like today?” He couldn’t believe he was asking these questions. Anything to get his mind off last night, off Celia.
“Havana today?” Moe said. “It’s impressive, like it always was, but very sad now, too.” He paused. “Like a beautiful woman you were in love with years ago. You see her today, you can still recognize the great bone structure, but the rest is in decay.
“It’s a very, very poor country,” Moe continued. “The doctors are paid about $30 a month, and they’re among the top earners. Castro’s government has no money for maintaining the Spanish colonial buildings in old Havana. It’s a shame. Jack, you should have seen Havana before Castro, when it was wide open. Casinos, nightclubs, music, women like you’ve never seen. It was a world apart, especially for young guys like me then, down from Chicago.”
“Yeah,” Doyle said, the ‘good old days.’ Widespread poverty. And illiteracy. And disease. I’ve read a lot about the good old days. United Fruit and other American enterprises, including the Outfit, cutting up the pie.”
Moe sighed. He said, “In truth, I can’t disagree with you. But I miss it. It’s a fascinating little country. It’ll be interesting to see what happens when The Goat goes.”
“Who?”
“Fidel. A lot of the Cubans we met wouldn’t mention him by name. When they wanted to talk about him, they pretended to pull at an imaginary beard. So, The Goat.”
Doyle laughed. He could feel the tension in his shoulders begin to ease as he passed Cellular Field, home of the White Sox. Moe could have that effect on him. Doyle said, “Did you go to that synagogue you said you were going to visit? The one you told me Meyer Lansky helped finance years ago?”
“You mean the one that putz Silverstein came from? Yeah, we visited there,” Moe said. “The congregation is doing fine, even without a rabbi.”
Doyle knew that this was a very sore subject with Kellman. Ten years earlier, Moe and some of his friends learned about the 1,500-member Havana synagogue that had long been without a rabbi because of a death and no ready replacement. They wrote to the leader of the congregation and eventually arranged for Raul Silverstein, a bright, promising, Havana-born young Jew, to obtain a student visa, enter the U. S., and enroll at Yeshiva University in New York City. Moe and his fellow Chicagoans agreed to pay for Raul to complete rabbinical studies before he returned to lead the Havana congregation.
Instead, Silverstein had graduated, been ordained, and immediately married the daughter of a prominent New Jersey builder, taking over a congregation in Princeton. Raul Silverstein’s Chicago sponsors remained extremely bitter about this, Moe in particular.
Doyle was approaching Hubbard’s Cave when he heard Moe say, “Don’t remind me anymore of Silverstein.”
Moe changed the subject as Doyle changed lanes passing Ohio Street. “I’ve only got a minute or two here, Jack. We’ll get together in a day or two, once I’ve caught up. But let me tell you what one native Cuban, guy about your age, told me when we there.”
“Who was this?”
“One of our tour guides, Rivelio Hernandez. Very sharp, well educated, spoke three or four languages. He showed us where Pope John Paul said Mass on his visit to Havana in 1998. The Cubans still talk about that. It was a huge deal for them.
“Anyway, Rivelio’s story goes that Castro took the Pope for a boat tour of Havana harbor. They go out a little ways and suddenly a huge storm comes up. The boat capsizes. Both men are thrown overboard. But, somehow, they rise up and walk together on the water back to shore.
“Next morning, the headline in the Vatican newspaper says Holy Father and Castro Saved by Miracle.
“The headline in
Granma
, the Cuban government’s official newspaper, reads Fidel Saves Pope’s Life.
“In Miami, the major Cuban-American paper’s top headline is Castro Can’t Swim.”
Moe laughed and Jack did, too. He said, “Moesy, thanks, I needed that.” As he pulled into the underground parking garage of his condo building he heard Kellman say, “You take care of yourself, kid.” Then the phone went dead.
SPRINGFIELD—
A bill that its sponsor claims is needed to “save Illinois horse racing” stalled in committee after a contentious legislative hearing here Thursday. House Bill 134 would open the way for a casino to be introduced in Chicago and also place video slot machines at the state’s six racetracks, one of which, Monee Park, “is foundering financially” according to its president and CEO Celia McCann.
Ms. McCann was one of several witnesses heard by the House Gaming Committee, whose chairman, Representative Lew Langmeyer (D-Palatine), is the chief sponsor of HB134. Langmeyer had originally intended to bring the bill to the House floor for a vote this week. But, reportedly acting at the suggestion of House Majority Leader William “Willy” Wilgis (D-Kankakee), he called for another hearing on the matter.
At the end of Thursday’s five-hour session, the eight Gaming Committee members split down the middle on whether to vote the bill out of committee: four Democrats in favor, four Republicans against. The ninth member of the committee, Representative Sam DiCola (D-Glenview), was out of the country. Langmeyer said he would schedule another hearing on the bill “in the weeks ahead,” adamantly refusing to be more specific. Langmeyer was visibly upset over Thursday’s vote.
Ms. McCann testified that “competition from the state’s nine casinos has horrifically impacted the Illinois horse racing industry in general and Monee Park in particular. We are struggling to survive. We have a sixty-year-old track that has contributed significantly to the state’s economy. We need to be able to offer slot machine gambling in order to remain in business and continue to contribute.”
Opposing the bill was a series of casino owner/operators. Harrison Millard, owner of the Show Place casino group whose Illinois riverboat is one of nation’s most profitable, argued that “We entered the Illinois casino picture with high hopes, most of which have been realized. Why should we be now be forced to face competition from racetracks?”
Also speaking against HB134 was Reverend Wardell Simpkins, founder of CAB (Christians Against Gambling). In reading from a lengthy statement, Reverend Simpkins traced the “life of my late brother Roger, a gambling addict who lost everything at racetracks—his savings, followed by his wife and children, who were forced to abandon him. Allowing these iniquitous dens to expand their reach even further into the pockets of the deceived would further lower our steeply declining moral standards.”
Committee member Ray McGrath (D-Chicago) remarked after Simpkins’ testimony that he was “surprised the good reverend was unable to lead his unfortunate sibling to the path of righteousness.” This comment drew a torrent of boos from CAB members in the audience.
Chairman Langmeyer expressed sympathy “for your brother’s plight, Reverend Simpkins. But, with all due respect,” he added, “I don’t see how his fall from grace should justify you trying to prohibit gambling for the hundreds of thousands of our state’s citizens who enjoy betting on horses in a responsible, recreational manner.”
That evening at Monee Park, Celia and Shontanette sat on the balcony overlooking the racetrack. Celia had just returned from her depressing day in Springfield. She was exhausted. When her oldest friend saw her walk into the office, she said, “C’mon, girl, let’s have a drink. We can sit outside. It’s a nice night.”
Shontanette made the drinks at the small office bar, an Absolut Citron over ice for Celia, a glass of sherry for herself, and brought them to the nearby balcony that ran the length of this part of the top floor, outside Celia’s office and Celia and Bob’s apartment. Placing the glasses on the round, glass table between their chairs, she reached over and took Celia’s cell phone out of her hand and turned it off. “You look worn out, girl. Let’s just forget business for a few minutes and relax, all right?”
Celia put her head back on the chair, stretching her long legs in front of her. A wisp of a breeze blew strands of dark red hair across her cheek. She took a long drink from her glass. “Great idea, Shontanette,” she said. “I feel like I’ve been through the ringer and back, as Uncle Jim used to say. This is nice out here tonight.” She described that day’s Springfield hearing before finally saying, “I’m far less confident than I was. Lew Langmeyer is doing everything that he can for the bill, but it may not be enough. If only Willy Wilgis would get behind it more strongly….”
The two friends sat quietly for a few minutes until Shontanette said, “God, Celia, I’d hate to think Monee Park would have to be sold and turned into some damn subdivision. Some of the best times of my life were those summers when we worked here as kids. And being able to come back and work here for you, well, that’s the greatest break I could have gotten. I love this place. And I know how you feel about it.”
Celia felt tears come to her eyes. They blurred her view of the track infield with the maple trees she and Shontanette used to eagerly climb. Of the backstretch, where they both worked one summer as hot walkers for trainer Marty Morrison, a great friend of Uncle Jim’s. She thought of the high school summers when they had jobs inside the building, and of the nights after work when they played in the Monee Park coed softball league. Celia’s first boyfriend was a young jockey. Shontanette met her future husband, Cecil, son of Monee’s Turf Club chef Horace Tate, the summer she apprenticed as the restaurant’s hostess.
“Remember when Uncle Jim gave us Smokey?” Celia said. “How nervous we were?” Shontanette smiled at the memory of when they were put in charge of a gentle, brown stable pony, which they rode every single day before and after work, gaining confidence in themselves and their ability to tack up, feed, water, and care for a thousand pound pet.
“Old Smokey,” Shontanette said. “I’ve still got pictures of both of us with him. When he got colic and died that year we started college, I was miserable for months. I still think that lazy groom we gave him to, Hector, didn’t take the right care of him,” she said bitterly.
Celia went inside to refill their drinks. When she returned, Shontanette said, “Well, the news today isn’t all bad. I had a look at last week’s business figures. They were up considerably from the same period a year ago. In fact, most of the month has been good.”
Celia said, “Rambling Rosie has had a lot to do with that. She’s a draw. And Jack has done a great job publicizing her. A great job, as a matter of fact, in publicizing the track. We’ve gotten more media coverage this year than in many years. Of course,” she said, “not all of it was what we wanted. News of the tote board sabotage couldn’t be suppressed. But Jack managed to keep the attempted arson out of the media.”
Shontanette’s eyes narrowed at Celia’s mention of Doyle. “He’s got a lot of rascal in him, that’s for sure,” Shontanette said with a short laugh. “But he sure knows his job. And I’ve got to admit, I can’t help liking the guy.”
Celia said softly, “I know what you mean.” Shontanette cast an appraising eye on her friend before glancing at her watch. “Got to go, honey,” she said. “Cecil’s picking me up downstairs in fifteen minutes.” She patted Celia’s hand before leaving.
The breeze picked up a few minutes later and Celia, still in her chair, her second drink untouched before her, shivered slightly. She knew it was nearly time for her to help Fidelia put Bob into his bed. She would then recount for him what happened today, what the track’s prospects were, trying to put the best possible spin to it that she could. For a moment she pictured her husband on their wedding day, a tall, vibrant, confident man with a face and personality that had drawn her to him like a super magnet.
Celia went inside the apartment and emptied her untouched drink into the sink. She leaned her hands on the sink rim for a moment before shaking her head and turning around. Her eyes filled briefly again as she looked at the door to Bob’s bedroom. She dried them, straightened her back and smile, and walked toward it.