Close Call (26 page)
Doyle left the Cook County Sheriff’s Department just after dawn. Hours before, he had driven Eckrosh and Maria there and they’d all given their official statements to Detective Purcell. Shannon had been taken to Saint Catherine’s, the hospital closest to Monee Park and the one to which Morty had also been admitted. Shannon was treated, then placed under guard there. According to Cook Count Sheriff Jake Poole, Wilmette police had arrested and booked Art Riley.
Eckrosh called a cab to take him and Maria back to Monee Park. “The horses have to be fed and watered and exercised,” he said. “That’s a nice young fella, that deputy they left there to guard them, but he isn’t going to start doing our work for us.” Eckrosh thanked Doyle for about the fifteenth time, shook his hand, and held the taxi door for Maria. She smiled and waved as they rode away.
Doyle was so tired he could hardly see straight. He stopped at a 7-11 store for coffee on his way to Saint Catherine’s. Neither the caffeine nor the early morning air did much to rejuvenate him. The main reception desk was unmanned at this hour at the small, suburban medical facility. He went back outside and walked around a couple of corners until he came to the Emergency Room. That foyer was empty except for a female receptionist, a heavy set young woman completing a lousy shift who was reading a copy of
Vanity Fair
magazine. She didn’t look happy at being interrupted.
“Quiet night?” Doyle said pleasantly.
“All we’ve had lately is those guys from the racetrack trouble. If it were a Saturday night, you’d have to stand in line to get in here.”
“It’s a guy from the racetrack I want to see.”
“Not the one in the detention area. Nobody’s allowed in there except deputies.”
Doyle said, “No, the other one.”
The receptionist brightened. “The little man with the long head? I took all his information down when they brought him in. He could hardly talk, the shape his jaw was in, but he was very cooperative. A sweetheart. Go down that hallway to the nurse’s station,” she smiled.
The nurse on duty was a middle-aged woman who looked as tired as Doyle felt. She told him, “Mr. Dubinski is under sedation. They had to anesthetize him to work on his jaw. Fortunately, it doesn’t appear that he’ll need reconstructive surgery.”
“How long will he be out?”
“At least another couple of hours,” she said.
“When he wakes up, please tell him Jack Doyle was here, and that I’ll be back to see him this evening after the races.”
***
The small Saint Catherine’s parking lot was jammed when Doyle drove in that night shortly before eight o’clock. “That receptionist wasn’t exaggerating,” he said to himself before he was finally able to angle the Accord into a small space at the far end of the lot. He checked with the front desk and was relieved to learn that Morty had been transferred from the Intensive Care Unit to a room on the second floor.
There were three beds in the room. Nearest the window was a young black man, left arm and shoulder heavily bandaged, an IV trailing from his right arm. He was apparently asleep. The bed adjacent to the wall was shielded by a light green curtain that had been pulled around the oblong ceiling track. No sound came from that side, either.
Morty was propped up on pillows in the middle bed. A bandage covered his left eye. His cheek ballooned out beneath the bandage like a small gourd, yellow and black. With his good eye he was reading
Racing Daily
. Hearing Doyle enter the room, Morty put down the newspaper and produced the best version of a smile that he could manage. “Hey, boss,” he said, voice husky, “nice to see you.”
“I wish I could say the same,” Doyle replied. “You look terrible.” He went to the side of the bed and put his hand on Morty’s shoulder. “I should never have let you come out to the barn last night. I’m sorry I did.”
Morty said, “It was my idea, remember? Anyway, we’re all alive to tell about it. Sit down, Jack, fill me in on what’s happened. All I know is that when I came in here last night, or this morning, or whenever it was, they just told me everything was okay, including Rosie. The drugs put me under before I could get any details. How was Rosie’s Farewell Day?”
Doyle pulled a chair up, careful not to brush against the stand with the two arrangements of flowers on it. Morty saw him looking at them. “One’s from Celia and Shontanette,” he said. “They’re coming out to see me tomorrow. The other’s from Eckrosh, Maria, and Rosie. Pretty nice, huh? But tell me about today.”
Doyle said, “Rosie went out in a blaze of glory. Ramon Garcia cantered her past the stands and she got a tremendous ovation from the crowd, more than 19,000 by the way, the biggest at Monee Park in nearly thirty years. Rosie’s foot seemed to be fine. Old man Eckrosh actually smiled in public. Maria cried a little bit, but waved to the crowd as she led Rosie off the track for the last time. The National Racing Channel even had a crew there. Celia had to put people on overtime to count the receipts.”
“That’s great,” Morty said. He paused to carefully insert a plastic straw into the right side of his mouth and take a sip of water. “But what’s going on with those two guys who attacked us?”
“One of them, a guy named Shannon, is in a room in this hospital, injured and under arrest and cuffed to his bed. That’s what your nurse told me.” Doyle paused before adding, “The other’s one’s dead. His name was Lucarelli. I had to kill him.”
Morty let the water glass slip from his hand as he listened to Doyle describe the brutal happenings in Rosie’s stall. “Jesus, Jack, that’s awful. I mean, I’m sure it had to be done, but damn! Did you ever kill anyone before?”
Doyle looked out the window. “That was my debut. I can’t say I enjoyed it. But the bastard would have tried to shoot us all if I hadn’t stopped him. The cops agreed.”
“What’ll happen with the other guy, Shannon?”
“I understand he’s plea bargaining as fast as he can,” Doyle said, “coming up with all kinds of information about their efforts to damage Monee Park and its people. But he’s still going to do time in Joliet. By the way, it turns out he and Lucarelli were cousins, born and bred in Canaryville. Lovely family.”
“What does Shannon have to plea bargain with?”
“He served up their lawyer, a scumbag named Art Riley, who apparently directed them in their attacks. Shannon has confessed to all those attacks, including the robbery, swearing that Riley paid them all the way along. The new state’s attorney is really after Riley’s ass. Riley is going down bigtime.”
There was a long, surprisingly loud moan from the bed behind the green curtain. Morty grimaced. “Guy does it all the time. The nurse tells me he’s in here for a minor hernia operation. Don’t pay any attention.”
Doyle said, “It just dawned on me. You’d been knocked out when the Irishmen arrived to help save our asses.”
Morty’s visible eye narrowed. “What Irishmen?”
“Celia’s cousin Niall Hanratty and his bodyguard, a guy named Hoy.”
“Well, I’ll be damned,” Morty said after hearing Doyle describe the Irishmen’s actions.
“There was another arrest this afternoon,” Doyle said.
“Who?”
“When Shannon was confessing, he mentioned a guy they’d met near Monee Park who’d helped them. Guess who?”
“Boss, if you don’t mind, I’m lying here full of pain killers. I don’t think I’m up to guessing.”
Doyle laughed. “Sorry. You’re right.” There was an extended moan from the adjacent bed, so Doyle pulled his chair closer to Morty. “After Shannon gave up Riley,” he said, “the detective, Purcell, kept pressing him for more. Shannon said he didn’t know the guy’s name, but that he could describe the man who told them how to go about robbing the money room. Remember? The $127,000 taken?”
“Sure,” Morty said.
“Hearing Shannon’s description, Purcell makes a connection. He goes on the computer and pulls up a driver’s license photo that he shows to Shannon. He identifies the guy. Karl Mortenson.”
Morty sat forward a few inches, one eye now widely open. “
Our
Karl Mortenson? The security chief?”
“The one and only. I called Detective Purcell when I was on my way over here. He said they hauled Mortenson in this afternoon. He spilled his guts. Admitted he’d given Lucarelli and Shannon the money room routine and instructions on how to sabotage the electrical system. The car in the parking lot with the blinking lights? That was Mortenson, signaling the thugs that they had fifteen minutes until the next security patrol swung by Barn D. Mortenson confessed to supplying them with the hypodermic needle and drug they were planning to use on Rosie. Said he’d confiscated them from a crooked veterinarian he threw off the track early in the summer. Mortenson also gave the Canaryville cousins their security guard uniforms and fake IDs. And, speaking of security, Mortenson admitted he was taking kickbacks from about half of his Monee Park staff, guys that couldn’t get hired elsewhere for that kind of work. They were actually being paid $15 an hour, about a third of which they shoveled back to Mortenson under the table.”
Morty said, “I don’t get it. Mortenson has worked at Monee Park for years. Why would he do this stuff?”
“He’s got a major gambling jones. Evidently nobody at Monee knew, but it had already cost him his wife and his house. Mortenson met Art Riley when he was a Chicago cop. Riley handled Mortenson’s divorce. When Riley decided to launch his anti-Monee Park campaign, he knew Mortenson was desperate for money to feed his habit. He convinced Mortenson to help him. Riley didn’t charge Mortenson for his legal work, even gave him cash several times, which he promptly threw away on the riverboats.”
Doyle paused, shaking his head. “I should have looked at Mortenson sooner. There had to be somebody on the inside guiding those little gorillas. I should have seen that.”
A nurse appeared in the doorway. “Mr. Dubinski should be getting some rest now,” she said.
“I was just about to leave,” Doyle said. “Morty, I’ll come by tomorrow. Hope you’re feeling better then. And looking considerably better, too,” he grinned. He was at the door when he heard Morty say in a weak but determined voice, “Little Joe Cartwright from Bonanza. His horse?”
Doyle was pretty sure he knew the answer to that one. But he said, “You’ve got me there, Morty.”
“Cochise, Jack,” Morty whispered. He couldn’t move his mouth much, but Doyle saw the smile in Morty’s eyes.
“Go to sleep,” Doyle said.
It was the tallest collection of pallbearers Doyle had ever seen, these six Northwestern University alumni carrying their former basketball teammate Bob Zaslow’s coffin through the late October sunlight and up the front steps of Saint James Church on Chicago’s near west side. The tallest, seven footer Nate Drummond, reflexively ducked his gleaming ebony head as he crossed the threshold. “He probably does that every doorway he walks through,” Doyle said to Moe Kellman, who was standing alongside him among the mourners on the church steps.
Moe did not reply as they joined the people walking in behind the coffin and took seats in a pew near the front of the cavernous church, one of the city’s oldest, built after recently arrived and subsequently empowered Catholic immigrants used structures such as these to announce that they were, indeed, here. Doyle slid over to make room in the pew as Morty Dubinski, face still slightly discolored but otherwise recovered from his beating, slipped in beside him. They shook hands. Doyle said, “You still look like you got hit by a bus, Morty, but maybe now a smaller bus.”
Doyle had arrived at Monee Park three mornings earlier, the final day of the season’s racing meeting, to find Shontanette waiting for him just inside the employees’ entrance, face drawn, eyes red. She looked exhausted. She said, “Jack, I wanted to catch you when you came in. Bob died about an hour ago. I didn’t want to tell you over the phone.”
She leaned back against the wall, drained, and Doyle hugged her, feeling her tremble, hearing her strained voice. “I was up all night with them, Celia, and Fidelia, and the hospice nurse. It was….” She stopped, took a deep breath, then said, “It was awful. But it was welcome, too. Father Cavanaugh came, he gave Bob the last rites. Celia held Bob’s hand for hours, as if she could hold the life in him.” Shontanette looked away again. “And that was that. Bob was with people who loved him dearly. Now his suffering is over.”
Shontanette wiped her eyes. “Anyway,” she said, “Celia asked if you would write an obituary and send it to the local papers and television stations. A lot of people remember Bob Zaslow.”
Doyle hugged her again. He said, “Shontanette, go home. Get some sleep. I’ll take care of it.”
That people remembered Bob Zaslow was evidenced by the huge turnout at the church. As the service was about to begin, Doyle looked at the crowded pews and the mourners still streaming in. “Full house,” he said to Moe. “That’s no upset,” Moe replied.
Monsignor Francis Flaherty’s eulogy made clear why there was such an impressive attendance. Bob Zaslow had been not just a star athlete, but an athlete who truly “gave back to the community, as a Big Brother, as a scout leader, as a youth league basketball commissioner, as a human being,” the monsignor said. “And after Bob was stricken with the disease that would eventually take him from us, he became a tremendously effective voice in the efforts to find a cure for ALS.”
Three of the six pallbearers also spoke, awkward in their attempts to recount old locker room levity, details of years of camaraderie, the sense of loss they were experiencing. Doyle watched Celia looking on attentively, sometimes nodding her head as if to encourage these tall, earnest, mournful men, longtime friends of hers and Bob’s, who were struggling so mightily with their emotions.
The Saint James choir, bolstered by an organist who was holding nothing back, concluded the service with what Monsignor Flaherty announced was “one of Bob and Celia’s favorite songs.”
Everyone stood as the organist played the first notes of “Bridge Over Troubled Waters.” The silvery voice of the choir’s lead soprano rose and rippled beneath the old church’s tall ceiling. Two women in the row in front of Doyle wept, their shoulders shaking, their husbands reaching to console them. Doyle saw Celia briefly sit, then take Shontanette’s arm and again get to her feet. Doyle had to tear his look away.
“Son of a gun,” Doyle mumbled when the song had ended.
Moe looked up at him. “This a tough one, no doubt about it,” Moe said.
Doyle and Kellman and the rest of the assemblage stood as Celia, Bob’s parents, and four siblings, and Shontanette and Fidelia walked slowly down the aisle behind the coffin. Doyle wanted to reach out and touch Celia’s arm. He did not. Celia walked past him, eyes down. He was looking for some kind of sign that what he felt for her had relevancy, even on this sad day, even in the midst of her powerful sorrow at her husband’s passing. There was no such sign. That realization gave Doyle a hollowed out feeling that he knew he would have to live with.
Moe said, “Want to ride to the cemetery with me?”
“No, thanks. I’m not going there.”
Moe gave Doyle’s arm a squeeze as he moved past him. “Suit yourself, kid,” he said.
***
Driving to his condo, Doyle imagined the cemetery scene, crowd a respectful distance from the carefully prepared grave, the monsignor intoning final words, the bits of soil being deposited on the lowered coffin, the widow’s final gesture of farewell slicing gently through the autumn air. Then the slow walk to the many waiting cars. Some mourners would stumble over the horizontal grave markers in their haste to leave. Others would trip more lightly in anticipation of the catered luncheon they knew awaited them at Celia’s Monee Park penthouse apartment.
He decided to go home, park the car, head for O’Keefe’s Old Ale House. Nearing North Avenue, his cell phone rang. It was Morty. “Boss, I didn’t see you at the cemetery. Where are you?”
“I’m kind of tied up with something here, Morty. Besides, I’m not much for those cemetery scenes.”
“Well, are you coming to Celia’s? There’ll be a bunch of people there. Shontanette was wondering where you were.”
He couldn’t help himself. “Was Celia looking for me?”
“Not that I know. But you should come to the luncheon. Clarence Meaux put together the buffet. Tom Eckrosh, he was asking about you. Even if you’re not hungry, it’s for the family’s sake, you know?”
“Morty, I’m sorry. I just can’t make it,” Doyle said harshly.
The phone was silent as he turned onto Wells Street. Morty said quietly, “Boss, what about next year? You going to be back at Monee Park? Once we get the slots going, the place will be jumping, you know?”
“I hope they do great with the slots,” Doyle said, “but I’m not going to be around.”
Morty was silent again. Doyle felt like just putting the phone down, but he didn’t. He said, “Morty, I’ve got to get going. You take care of yourself. The job I had, I know you can take that over and do great with it, no problem.”
“I get the picture,” Morty said. “Aren’t you going to say goodbye to anybody else? Celia? Shontanette?”
“No,” Doyle said. “I’ve never been much good at goodbyes.”