Close Call (5 page)
On Wednesday of his second week at Monee Park, Doyle entered the Finish Line dining room on the building’s fourth floor, hungry for lunch. He’d already put in five hours of his working day, trying to get the feel of his new job. He planned to stay around until the start of that night’s racing program, at 7:30, another six hours away. Doyle figured his first couple of weeks here, he’d better come in early and remain late until he’d managed to define his role to his own satisfaction and become comfortable with it.
He said hello to Marilyn, the dining room hostess, then heard himself being hailed by Steve Holland, a retired investment banker and current racehorse owner and breeder he had met at the track’s opening night reception. Doyle walked to Holland’s table and they shook hands. “Want to join me, Jack?” Holland said. Doyle said, “Thanks, but no. I’ve got some reading to do.” He hefted the bulky manila envelope in his right hand.
Holland had papers spread out all over his table. He looked perplexed. “What are you working on?” Doyle said.
“I’m trying to come up with names for my yearlings. I’ve got six this year. And naming horses is getting harder and harder to do each year,” Holland complained. “I came here to get away from the office and to get some peace and quiet while I work on this project. Maybe me doing it at a racetrack will make it inspire me. It’s gotten just so darned hard.”
“Why is that?”
“Look,” Holland replied, “according to The Jockey Club, which is in charge of all this, you can only use eighteen letters and spaces in a horse’s name. You can’t use the names of past champions. You can’t have two horses with the same name. You can’t use commercial products—I couldn’t name a horse after anything connected to my former bank. You can’t use infamous persons’ names. If you want to name a horse after a living person, you have to get that person’s written permission. Remember, there are thousands of other breeders and owners submitting names every year. And there are 35,000 new horses to be named every year. So, you might think you’ve come up with a terrific name, then you’re told that somebody else has already beaten you to it.”
Doyle said, “It seems to me a lot of the horse namers could use some help. There’s been a lot of nutty names given racehorses. Look at some of them running here tonight,” he said, pointing to pages in the Monee Park track program. “The Barking Shark. What the hell kind of name is that for a thoroughbred racehorse? Formal Mouse. Rats on Ice is in the same race with Formal Mouse. Maybe we should play a rodent exacta. These are terrible names.”
Holland said, “I agree. But at least those horses have names. Mine are currently incognito. And the deadline is approaching.”
“I’ll leave you to it,” Doyle said. “Good luck.”
He walked to an empty table near the window overlooking the racing strip. An aged waiter shuffled up and politely handed him a menu. Doyle ordered an iced tea before reading the menu. The waiter was one of the numerous elderly employees Doyle had noticed on his inspection of Monee Park. When he’d mentioned this to Shontanette Hunter, she said, “Oh, Mr. Joyce was very loyal to his work force. Didn’t like to fire any of them if he could avoid it. That’s how you wound up with Morty Dubinski,” she laughed, before commenting, “We’ve got some real dinosaurs positioned around here.”
Waiting for his tea to arrive, Doyle saw that, except for the presence of the frowning, head-scratching Steve Holland, and a table of jockeys’ agents drinking coffee and playing cards, he was alone in the large, table-filled, carpeted room overlooking the track’s finish line. This was where the higher level track employees took their meals during non-racing hours. As he looked out the window at the track’s green infield and blue, man-made lake glistening in the sun, Doyle couldn’t help but marvel at this latest chapter in his life. Here he was, after a string of well-paying, hype-laden account executive positions, two disappointing marriages, and one failed international love affair, churning out ad copy and publicity releases for a troubled racetrack on the edge of southern Cook County.
Doyle’s reverie was interrupted when he looked up to see Celia McCann slipping into a chair across from him. “Do you mind if I join you, Jack?” Smiling, he said, “My pleasure.” Celia was wearing a light green, short-sleeved dress, nearly the color of her eyes. The afternoon sun over her shoulder highlighted glints in her dark red hair. Doyle looked at her appreciatively.
The old waiter put a bit of a spring in his step as he approached with Doyle’s iced tea wobbling on a saucer, saying, “Good afternoon, Ms. Celia.” She smiled back. “Hello, Hugo. I’ll have my regular.”
“I’ll have the same,” Doyle said, and the waiter smiled and shuffled away. “By the way, Celia, what’s your ‘regular’?”
“It depends on the day. Wednesday and Friday, I have the Cobb salad. Thursday and Saturday, a Reuben sandwich. They’re terrific. Sunday, if I have time, I zip through the buffet line. I’ve been coming here for years. I know what I like.”
“Cobb salads, Reuben sandwiches, buffets…I’m impressed,” Doyle said.
Celia cracked a breadstick in two before saying, “Impressed with what?”
“With how well you’ve, well, managed to stay in terrific shape.”
Jesus
, Doyle thought,
you’d think I was saying something to a well-conditioned boxer instead of
this beautiful woman
. Celia sensed his unease. She sat back in her chair, giving him a mischievous look. Doyle tried to rebound. “Are you musical?” he said. This was met with a puzzled look. “What with Celia being the patron saint of music,” he quickly added, thinking,
I’m digging an even deeper hole
.
Celia tried to muffle a giggle before replying, “Oh, you know your saints then, do you Jack?”
“I know
of
them. Thanks to Sister Mary Theresa back at Saint Nicholas grade school. But, to my knowledge, I’ve never met one.” He sipped his tea, relaxing a bit now.
As they waited for their food, Celia asked how Jack was adjusting to his new job. He assured her that all was going well, that he’d even made peace with, if not a friend of, his assistant Morty. Celia nodded. “I’ve gotten the impression that you’re starting to settle in nicely here,” she said.
“Well, it’s early days, of course, but I think you’re correct. The work interests me. I’m enjoying it. And I’m enjoying the people here, too.”
Celia raised an eyebrow. “Even Morty? I know he can sometimes be difficult.”
Doyle shrugged. “First day or so, it was tough going. Morty’s got a bit of an inferiority complex, it seems to me, that makes him both resentful and kind of hostile at times. And he’s a terrible dresser. But Morty’s actually not such a bad little guy. Once in awhile, I’ll look over and see him struggling to finish some simple assignment I’ve given him, and I can’t help but think he’s often out of his league in life. But he tries hard.
“I’m a little concerned about Morty’s betting. I know what his salary is. Seems to me he’s got a good chunk of it riding every night. And not riding very well.”
Celia said, “Oh, I wouldn’t worry about that, Jack. Morty’s been a bettor all the time I’ve known hm. He’s a bachelor, living at home with his mother, so he doesn’t have much in the way of expenses. Betting horses is his major interest. He just enjoys it.”
Doyle drained his glass of iced tea. “You’d know better than me. Anyway, he and I are getting along okay. I’ve worked with far worse people than Morty Dubinski, I can guarantee you that.”
As they lunched, Doyle did one of the things that he did best: ask questions, all the while looking sincerely interested in the answers, which in this case he actually was. He learned where and when Celia had met her husband Bob, details of her long friendship with Shontanette Hunter. Working backward, he asked Celia about her college years. “I had a wonderful experience at St. Mary’s,” she said. “And after graduation, I taught third grade for three years. That still left me free to help Uncle Jim here at the track during the summers.”
“Ah,” Doyle said, “an elementary school teacher. Usually one of the gentler souls. Excellent Cobb salad, by the way,” he remarked before asking, “How did you happen to switch from blackboards to odds boards? Why a career as a racing executive?”
“It was because of Uncle Jim. His health was deteriorating rapidly. I knew that the track, and he, were in financial trouble. He’d put most of his money into it.” She turned her face away, glancing out the window. “I owe him so much,” she said. “He practically raised me, paid for all my education, doted on me, spoiled me. I couldn’t have wished for a kinder, more generous relative. When I saw that he needed my help, there was no way I was not going to give it to him. So, the racetrack became my career.”
The waiter placed the bill at Celia’s elbow. She scribbled her signature on it. “Thanks, Hugo,” she said. “Thank you, Ms. Celia,” Hugo said, eyes alight as they spotted the generous tip.
Celia turned back to Jack. “You know, it all went well for a few years. I liked the work. Uncle Jim was both appreciative of my efforts and generous with his time in teaching me the workings of the track. And Bob, well, he was extremely supportive. His insurance business was going well. We built a new house. I wasn’t home as much as during the years that I taught school, but Bob was very understanding. And we started thinking about planning a family.”
She paused, mouth slightly trembling before continuing. “Track business started to pick up. Things were looking great. Then Bob started showing signs of illness. He stopped playing pick up basketball games at our health club. He cut back on his golf, then stopped completely. I could see all these changes, how, suddenly, he’d fall into these morose periods. I’d ask him what was going on and, for the first time since I’d known him, he said ‘I don’t want to talk about it right now.’ Finally, one morning when we were having breakfast, he said, ‘Celia, there’s something seriously wrong with my body. I’ve got to find out what it is.’
“I could hardly believe my ears. This big, strong, vibrant guy who had never been sick a minute in all the years I’d known him, all of a sudden hit by one of the cruelest diseases there is. We got second and third opinions, but there was no getting around the fact that the initial diagnosis was correct. Bob has Lou Gehrig’s disease.
“That was a little more than two years ago. Our lives have never been the same since. They never will be.”
There was a long silence. Doyle hated it. He said, “Celia, I can’t imagine how hard this all must be. Dealing with your husband’s illness on top of running this racetrack.”
“Nobody ever said it was going to be easy, Jack Doyle,” she said. “Not my parents before they were taken from me. Not the nuns. Not Uncle Jim. Not anybody I knew.”
She took a sip of her coffee. “Actually, my job here has been a blessing in a way. I set my own hours, so I can spend as much time with Bob as need be. At the same time, it serves to distract me from concentrating full time on his horribly progressive decline. A double-edged blessing I guess you’d call it.” She gave a short, bitter laugh.
“Irony,” she said, “it seems my life is thick with it.”
“How so?”
Celia said, “Another woman track executive I know—there aren’t many of us—once compared the sexes when it comes to positions of power. I’ll never forget what she said. ‘If a man in the position does his job correctly and efficiently, he’s considered a strong administrator. Women handling the same assignment exactly the same way are considered bitches.’ Unfortunately, I’ve found her to be correct when it comes to a lot of people I’ve had dealings with in this business.”
For a moment she looked so dejected that Doyle almost reached across the table to take her hand. But then she shook her head, as if shrugging off a punch. “Enough of my war stories.”
“All right,” Doyle said. “But I’d like to ask you something. How have you kept on fighting to keep the track going, following your uncle’s wish, with all you have to deal with concerning your husband?”
“Oh, it’s not just a selfless act of obligation to Uncle Jim’s memory. Bob and I need the money from this place. Bob will never work again. A teacher’s salary wouldn’t begin to cover our expenses, not with his medical bills. His health insurance is not adequate. It’s like the physician who keels over, never having had a physical. Bob was in the insurance business, but was badly underinsured himself for health problems. Another sad irony.
“But,” she added confidently, “this track will eventually make a lot of money. It’ll be very, very profitable once the video slots bill passes. That’s what we’re counting on.”
“Aren’t you tempted just to sell the place?” Doyle said. “You’d come out well financially, there’s no doubt about that.”
“Sure, I’m tempted,” she said, her green eyes flashing. “And my cousin Niall, the minority shareholder, would love to have me do it. But I look at that as a giving in, a surrender. Maybe I am, as some people have said, too stubborn. But selling this property for real estate development would go against Uncle Jim’s wishes. It would disrespect his memory. And it would be an admission of defeat. I’d be seen in some quarters as being incapable of running a racetrack. I’m not going to give in to that temptation, no matter how my cousin in Ireland feels about it.”
She glanced at her watch. “I have a 2:30 appointment,” she said as she stood up, adding, “It was very nice talking to you, Jack.” She swiftly walked toward the door, his eyes on her. “Beauty and acuity,” he said to himself, “all in one choice package.”
Hugo the waiter brought Doyle out of his reverie when he came to clear away the dishes. He was at the same time also watching Celia move off, a fond look on his creased old face. When the door closed behind her, Doyle said to Hugo, “So, you’ve known Ms. McCann a long time?”
“Most of her life and a good portion of mine,” Hugo said. “A lovely, lovely woman.”
“You’ll get no argument from me on that.”
Minutes before Saturday night’s seventh race, Morty said, “Take a look at the No. 6 horse in here. Rambling Rosie.”
Doyle looked down at the track from his press box window where number six, a copper colored chestnut filly, was prancing toward the starting gate, swishing her tail, bobbing her head, obviously feeling good. Doyle opened his
Racing Daily
for a look at the filly’s credentials. Examining her pedigree, he remarked, “She’s by Nothing out of Nothing.” Her sire had won just two races in his life, her dam none, though both were themselves products of high class parents.
“Yeah,” Morty said, “but she’s won five straight races while climbing straight up the class ladder. She’s special fast. Believe me.”
Doyle closely examined Rambling Rosie’s past performances. She had lost her only two starts as a two-year-old the previous season. This year, as Doyle commented with a smile, she’d been “a horse of a different choler.” After winning for the first time in a $10,000 maiden claiming event, Rosie had scored for $20,000, then $30,000. Moved up into allowance company, from which she could not be claimed, or bought, she had reeled off another pair of easy wins. All of her victories had come at sprint distances: five furlongs, five and a half, then six furlongs.
“Who’s this Tom Eckrosh? The guy who owns and trains her,” Doyle said.
“You never heard of old Tom? He’s been around the racetrack almost all of his life, and he’s nearly eighty now. He served in the Army during World War II, was a jockey for awhile after he got out of the service, then took up training. He’s raced mainly here at Monee during the summers, then New Orleans in the winters. Never had a real top horse, but he’s always had some useful runners. But he’ll tell you Rambling Rosie is the best he’s ever had his hands on. He claimed her for $8,000 at Devon Downs in southern Illinois late last year. She’d lost her only two races.What he saw in her, with that obscure pedigree, I do not know. But he saw something. Can she run!” Morty enthused. “I understand old Tom has turned down some big bucks for her. I mean major, major money.”
Doyle said, “But he won’t sell?”
“He will not. One day, I asked him why. He said, ‘Morty, at my age, what would I do with all that money? I waited a long, long time for a horse like Rosie. I’m going to keep her all for myself.’ And, you know, I can see his point,” Morty said.
Doyle glanced at the in-house television, which had zeroed in on Rambling Rosie as she moved toward the starting gate. “Uh oh,” he said. “She’s got four white feet.”
“So what?” Morty said.
“Don’t you know the old racetrack saying about a horse with white feet? I heard it more than once when I was working at a breeding farm down in Kentucky.”
Doyle immediately regretted mentioning that segment of his career when Morty responded, “You did? When was that?”
“A year or so ago. It’s a long story. But this is my point. The saying goes
Two white feet, try him.
Three white feet, deny him.
Four white feet and
A white nose,
Feed him to the crows.”
Morty said, “Well, Rambling Rosie doesn’t have any white on her nose. And when you see here four white feet flying over this track, you’ll forget about that old saying. Wait and see.”
“Did you bet her?”
“Naw,” Morty said. “I never bet favorites.”
They walked out onto the press box porch to watch the seventh race. A field of eight was led into the starting gate. Rambling Rosie was the even-money favorite. As soon as the bell rang and the gate opened, she shot to the lead. After a quarter mile, she was three lengths in front of her nearest pursuer. Turning into the homestretch, she had opened up by five lengths and was apparently going easily. Her jockey, Ramon Garcia, wrapped up on her during the final sixteenth of a mile. Throttling down her speed, Garcia hand rode her under the wire to a three-length victory. Her time of 1:09 3-5 was only a fifth of a second off the Monee Park record. Rambling Rosie came bouncing back to the winner’s circle amid waves of applause from happy bettors.
Doyle said, “Wow! I’m impressed. She put on quite a show.” He watched as Garcia, grinning, talked excitedly to a short, stockily built, brown-skinned woman who clipped a shank onto Rambling Rosie’s halter and was leading her into the winner’s circle. The woman wore a gray sweatshirt, blue jeans, and a broad, white smile. She turned Rambling Rosie toward the waiting track photographer just as an elderly man approached. “That’s Tom Eckrosh,” Morty said. Eckrosh was dressed in khaki pants, a blue and white checked shirt, and a threadbare navy blue sport coat. He wore a battered gray fedora which, Doyle was to learn, was his ever present head piece. Eckrosh exhibited none of the jubilation evidenced by jockey Garcia and the female groom.
“Why is Eckrosh so glum?” Doyle said. “You’d think he’d be pretty damn happy, the way his filly ran tonight.”
Morty said, “He probably is happy, but he’d never let on. That’s just his way. He’s a pretty nice fellow, once you get to know him.”
“How long does that take?”
“Oh, not more than five or ten years,” Morty said as he opened the press box door.
Doyle said, “I think I’ll start with him tomorrow morning. His filly makes a heck of a good story for Monee Park.”
***
It was just after seven on a beautiful, late spring morning when the clatter of feed buckets, chatter of workers, and the music blaring from one of Chicago’s Spanish-speaking AM stations greeted Doyle as he walked the dusty path between Barns C and D on the Monee Park backstretch. He was on his way to meet Tom Eckrosh. Monee Park’s racing secretary Gary Gabriel had informed him that “Old Tom is stabled in Barn D,” but Gabriel hadn’t told him the Eckrosh stable stall numbers in the long wooden building that housed more than a hundred horses for various trainers. Doyle did not speak Spanish, so he passed by several Mexican grooms and hotwalkers without attempting an inquiry. He walked on until he recognized Alex Graff, a young trainer he’d met, to ask exactly where Eckrosh was located. “At the end of the barn, on the opposite side,” Graff said. “That’s where you’ll find Grouchy,” he added with a smile.
Walking past the section of Barn C where Kristina Jenkins’ horses were stabled, Jack waved to the trainer. He had met Kristina earlier in the meeting at a breakfast the track hosted for all the trainers with horses on Monee grounds. Jenkins was currently third in the trainer standings. Kristina was Monee Park’s version of Maggie Collins, the similarly young horsewoman who annually ranked high at Heartland Downs the other side of Chicago. Doyle was suddenly brought up short by something he heard. He stopped and looked back. Kristina nodded to him but continued talking on her cell phone, undoubtedly to one of the two dozen or so owners she trained for. It hadn’t been Kristina’s voice that made Jack halt in his tracks. It was what he thought was the bleating of a goat.
Sure enough, there in stall twenty-one, standing beneath the outstretched head of Jenkins’ best runner, Wicklow Brian, was a small, dirty-white, male goat, replete with horns and a bell that was tinkling rhythmically. Wicklow Brian and the goat were swaying from side to side, in unison, the big brown thoroughbred dwarfing his bearded companion poised under him. Doyle stared at them. Jenkins clicked off her phone and walked over to Doyle. “Isn’t that something?” she said ruefully.
Jack said, “What the hell’s going on with these two?”
Kristina said, “Wicklow Brian is a weaver.” Seeing the puzzled expression on Doyle’s face, she went to explain that “It’s a nervous habit some horses develop. Not very many, thank heavens, but some. Instead of standing still they move, or weave, shifting their weight from side to side. They do it hour after hour, day after day.”
“What’s the problem with that?”
Kristina said, “It’s an energy waster. Why would you want your horse to be wasting energy he could be using in a race?”
“Well, I guess you wouldn’t. But what’s the deal with shorty there, the goat?”
“Actually,” Kristina said, “his name is Sylvester. He’s a fairly friendly little creature. I bought him because usually the presence of a goat can calm down nervous horses like Wicklow Brian. Get them to stop their weaving. Horses and goats get along great, as you can see. Look how contented they look,” she said resignedly.
“The problem here,” Kristina continued, “is that Sylvester not only didn’t get Wicklow Brian to stop his darned weaving, Wicklow Brian has now got Sylvester weaving right along with him.”
They turned to look again at this synchronized odd couple.
“You trainers have to put up with some of the damndest things,” Doyle said.
“Tell me about it,” Kristina said.
Fifty yards from Kristina’s barn, Doyle saw a Mexican woman meticulously raking the dirt in front of the five stalls assigned to horses trained by Tom Eckrosh. He recognized her as Rambling Rosie’s groom, the woman he had seen in the winner’s circle the previous night. She was working her rake around some sparkling clean water buckets that had been set out to dry in the morning sun. Geranium baskets hung overhead, attached under the barn eaves. Doyle could hear the hum of an electric fan in one of the horse’s stalls. The woman wore a gray tee-shirt, jeans, white running shoes. She was humming softly to herself as she worked. The muscles in her brown forearms stood out like cords as she moved the rake.
“Excuse me,” Doyle said. “Miss?”
The woman, deep in thought, looked up, startled, the long, dark braid down her back swinging as she turned to face him. “Yes?”
“
Buenos dias
,” Doyle said. “I’m looking for Mr. Eckrosh.”
“Oh,” the woman replied, her brown face transformed by a bright smile. “
Buenos dias. Si
, Mr. Tom is there in his office at the end of the barn,” she said, motioning with the hand not holding the rake handle. “He may be taking a small siesta. Knock on the door,
por favor
.”
Doyle said, “
Gracias
,” and nodded at the watchful horses, heads sticking out over their stall doors, as he passed them on his way to the far end of the barn.
Eckrosh was awake when Jack poked his head in the doorway. He looked up at Doyle through thick bifocals, his battered fedora on his head. He had his feet up on the corner of the desk atop an old copy of
Racing Daily
and was busy fitting together a piece of horse equipment. He waited for Doyle to speak. “I’m Jack Doyle, Mr. Eckrosh. What’s that you’re working on?”
Eckrosh said, “It’s a bit. A special one. I use it on my old hard headed gelding Editorialist. It’s called a Springsteen bit. You don’t see them around much anymore.”
Doyle laughed. “A Springsteen bit? Not named after ‘The Boss,’ I guess.”
Eckrosh frowned. “Whose boss? This here item is for horses with real hard jaws. There’s a spoon-shaped prong that jabs the horse’s jaw when he lugs in or bears out. It works pretty good on Editorialist. He’s brought a check back every time I’ve run him this year. What did you say again about somebody’s boss?”
Doyle sidestepped having to explain his reference to rock star Bruce Springsteen, instead using the next few minutes to present his reasons for wanting to interview Eckrosh and write about his sensational filly. “Rambling Rosie could provide a pretty good publicity boost for this track, which certainly needs it,” he said. Eckrosh listened intently. Finally, he said, “Okay.” He got up from behind his desk. “How long you been working here, son?” Doyle said “a little more than three weeks.” Eckrosh nodded. He said, “You want to see Rosie?”
Eckrosh led the way to the second stall from the end of the barn. The groom had finished her raking and was sitting on an equipment trunk, cleaning a bridle. The trainer said to Jack, “This is Maria Martinez.” Doyle smiled at her, adding, “We’ve already met.” She nodded. Eckrosh said, “Maria, bring out Rosie.” Doyle thought he saw Eckrosh give her a wink. Does this old fart have something going with the senorita? He wondered. Maria, looking slightly embarrassed and struggling to hide a smile, got to her feet and entered the stall. Seconds later she led out a tall brown animal that whinnied with delight at being released from his twenty-two hour per day confinement. Doyle could feel the eyes of Eckrosh and Maria trained on him as he appraised this gawky creature.
“Nice,” Doyle said, and Eckrosh nodded expectantly, trying to keep a straight face. “Nice try, that is.” Doyle kicked at the dirt. “Jesus, Eckrosh,” he said, “I may have been born at night, but it wasn’t last night. I’m not a racetrack lifer like you, but I’ve been around enough to tell a six or seven-year-old gelding from a three-year-old filly. Why are you trying to pass off this sickle hocked old item as Rambling Rosie?”
The old man’s face flushed. Marie turned the horse around and led him back into his stall, her eyes averted. Eckrosh said, “Now, don’t get all huffy, son. I just wanted to see if you knew which end was which. I’ve had writers coming around here the last few years, bothering me, that couldn’t pick out Secretariat in a herd of buffalo. They’re annoying as hell. They read their damned statistics sheets, and past performances, and figure they know horses and horse racing. I just wanted to see if you were one of that crowd.” He paused before admitting, “You know more than I was about to give you credit for.”
With another signal to Maria, out came Rambling Rosie, nickering and nudging the groom’s shoulder. Maria led her out of the barn a few feet onto the grassy patch that bordered the building. She turned the filly around for Doyle, who looked her over from head to toe. The first impression he had was how small she was. Eckrosh must have expected that reaction, for he said, “She can’t weigh more than eight hundred and fifty pounds, a couple hundred less than your average horse. And,” he went on, “usually your top horses are the tall, big-bodied ones. But there are exceptions to every rule. And you’re looking at one of them,” Eckrosh said proudly. Doyle was making notes as the trainer continued his assessment. “When you look at her, nothing really stands out except her head and eye. She’s got a very intelligent eye. But then you look again and you see, even though she’s on the small side, everything she’s got is in balance. She’s the quickest horse I’ve ever had. That, and her will to win, is what makes her stand out.”